Linda Chavez, former White House Director of Public Liaison and U.S. expert to the UN Sub-Commission on Human Rights addressed an online global conference on the conviction of Iran’s diplomat-terrorist Assadollah Assadi by a Belgian court for attempting to bomb the 2018 Free Iran gathering in Paris.
On February 4, 2021, simultaneous with the court ruling against the Iranian regime’s diplomat-terrorist, Assadollah Assadi, and his accomplices in Antwerp, Belgium, a global online conference was held, where Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, the President-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), and dozens of prominent figures from various European countries, the United States and Canada, joined thousands of Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK/PMOI) members based in Ashraf-3 (Albania) as well as the supporters of the Iranian Resistance worldwide.
The Belgian court rejected Assadollah Assadi’s claim of diplomatic immunity and sentenced him to 20 years in prison. The three intelligence agents, Nasimeh Naami, Mehrdad Arefani, and Amir Saadouni, were sentenced to 18, 17, and 15 years in prison, respectively. Their Belgian citizenships was also revoked.
Linda Chavez, former White House Director of Public Liaison and U.S. expert to the UN Sub-Commission on Human Rights
Hello, I’m Linda Chavez. I am sorry, I can’t be with you in person. But I am happy to join you via video conference and to talk about what occurred in June of 2018.
In the suburbs of Paris, where I along with dozens of other high-profile Americans, many of whom had served prominently in roles in both Democratic and Republican administrations were gathered in support of Madame Maryam Rajavi, and the National Council of resistance of Iran.
We were there to hear Madame Rajavi talk about her 10 point plan to talk about the freedoms that she is seeking for the people of Iran. And we learned shortly after we left Villepinte that in fact, we were very lucky to have escaped Villepinte with our lives.
There was an effort on the part of the Iranian regime, not just to quash dissent by offering words of criticism, but by sending bombs, and using their diplomats in Europe, to in fact, involve themselves in the plot, and to hire those who would take those weapons and bring them to the gathering outside Paris in order to seek maximum damage.
Their goal obviously was to assassinate Madame Rajavi who the Iranian regime views as the major threat to the regime. But they also would have inflicted mass casualties with scores of people possibly having been killed, or at the very least injured.
So, I am here to ask the European Union to recognize danger of the Iranian regime to recognize the diplomats who are stationed throughout Europe, often are simply the security arm of the Iranian regime.
They are not true diplomats, they are not coming in seeking peace or seeking dialogue, they are coming to spread terror. And in fact, that is exactly what happened.
And that is the case before the courts. And I would hope that as a result of this case, as a result of the evidence that was overwhelming, that showed the Iranian regime was interested in assassinating people within Europe, without the European Union’s countries will seek not to have normal relations with the Iranian regime, as long as their purpose is to engage in this kind of state sponsored terrorism.
So I come to you as an individual and as someone who has served at a high level in the Reagan administration, to urge the countries of the Europe, European Union, to take seriously this threat, where dissent is squashed not only within Iran, for Iranian people, but that state terrorism is brought on to European soil.
And I urge that in order to stop more terrorism from spreading in Europe, that the European Union will act decisively to dissolve the network of agents that hide under the cover of diplomacy within Europe. Thank you very much.
