During a great rally held in New York on September 19, 2023, US Senator Joseph Lieberman delivered a speech. The rally was held outside the UN in support of uprisings for a democratic republic in Iran and in condemnation of the Iranian regime and its president, Ebrahim Raisi, during the session of the United Nations General Assembly.
The text of Senator Joseph Lieberman’s speech follows:
Thank you. Good morning everybody. I think you’re as excited and happy to be here as I am, right?
Yeah, it’s a beautiful day in New York. The sun is shining on us, and I want to tell you the sun is shining on the movement for a free Iran. And I’ll tell you something else: The sun is setting on Raisi and the regime in Tehran.
It has been of course a year since the last time we gathered alongside the UN General Assembly, and there too we protest as we must the appearance here of Raisi. Bob Torricelli said so eloquently as a murderer. He has the blood of thousands of people on his hands, and yet he gets the right to speak from the podium of the United Nations. I know you agree with me, he ought to be in the defendant’s docket in the International Court of Criminal Justice in The Hague because of the crimes against humanity that he has carried out.
Ladies and gentlemen, I just want to say, because I don’t want to talk a lot about Raisi today. I want to talk about where the sun is shining on the Free Iran movement. But I want to say to our friends in the United Nations: You’ve got some repentance to do for the fact that Raisi is given a podium here, and I want to give you a few ideas.
It’s time to snap back and reinstate the sanctions that were imposed by the United Nations Security Council based on facts of what Iran has done.
Second, it’s time to expel Iran from every international agency and organization because this regime is a criminal state and it doesn’t deserve to be in international organizations finally as I arrived today, I heard one of the women here quoting the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which is a document adopted by the United Nations, and I want to read you one of the clauses in it, it says that people and nations have recourse to rebellion against tyranny and oppression.
They say it’s a last recourse but pursuant to a United Nations universal declaration of rights, we and the people of Iran have the right to rebel, and I remind you which I’ve done before: At the outset of America, a committee, pretty high-level committee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and John Adams were asked to design the seal of the United States and a motto. And the first motto they chose was “Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God.”
So the mullahs in Iran say they are doing the work of God. Would God want them or anyone to torture people, to kill people, to kill children to arrest people? Of course not.
No, and that’s why I go back to what I said at the beginning. This Movement for a free Iran is stronger today than it’s ever been. And it’s an amazing thing to say that it’s about a year ago as you all know that the morality police, the police of the Iranian regime arrested and ultimately murdered Mahsa Amini. The rebellion that had been simmering and brewing against the tyrants in Tehran broke open into the most serious threat to the regime and the regime knew that.
And so they acted brutally 750 people were killed at least, 30,000 arrested, and 3,600 members of the MEK resistance fighters disappeared. But what happened in response? The resistance didn’t weaken, it got stronger. For every person who was taken by the regime, two, three, four, five joined the battle.
The forces of freedom will not be stopped. And I know you agree with me, that’s why we will not stop until liberation is achieved In Iran.
[The crowd chants “Regime change in Iran, by the people of Iran”]
I love it. I love that chant. We should do it every day, many times a day, and do it now so that the people who are fighting the regime in Iran will hear us.
They are suffering brutally. The economy is terrible. The mullahs and the IRGC take the wealth of the country for themselves. In the last five years, there have been three times as many people in Iran living in poverty than before. The currency has dropped in value 34 times.
This government is not only evil, it is corrupt and incompetent. But let me tell you this my friends, this kind of evil regime that feeds off of its positions in power will not go willingly from power. They have to be brought down.
Remember the famous phrase of Dr. Martin Luther King: “The moral arc of the universe bends slowly, but it always bends toward justice and freedom.” But then, when Dr. King was asked later, he said, “We here on earth have an obligation to bend the arc ourselves, by our action, so that we will achieve justice and freedom sooner.”
And I want to say here, that there is no more effective force for bending the arc toward freedom for the Iranian people than the National Council of Resistance in Iran under Mrs. Mariam Rajavi and the MEK inside the country.
So, we know that the great addition to the uprising of the rebellion in Iran this year in response to the murder of Mahsa Amini has been the women of Iran and my wife was not surprised by that incident as you can imagine. But look at this movement way ahead of its time led by a brilliant, strong, principled, patriotic woman whose leadership has made every difference for the people of Iran Mrs. Mariam Rajavi. I’m proud to stand with her.
So inside Iran, the MEK resistance fighters are at the fighting heart of this movement and that’s why the mullahs attacked the MEK so viciously. Last week, as you know, soon in Alireza released documents that were seized from the government, describing meetings held at the highest level in Tehran with one focus. How do we stop the MEK? Allocating hundreds of millions of dollars to that purpose.
But I have news for the regime, for Raisi, for Khamenei and all the rest: You will never stop the MEK. You will never stop the MEK or the NCRI. Because they are seized with a fight for freedom. They are seized with a determination to retake their homeland, their blessed country, from these thieves and tyrants and bring it back to its greatness over history.
Now, let me say something briefly about the NCRI: Not only has the regime not been able to stop the Resistance, but the Resistance has grown stronger. But internationally, this has been a turning point year. I think that the countries of the world, the leaders of the world have finally gotten over this fantasy that they had that you could deal with the regime in Iran. How can you deal with killers? How can you deal with cheats and liars? How can you deal with extremists?
Here again, the NCRI, you might say that the NCRI and the MEK together, if it were a government or like the ministry of defense on the ground and Iran and the NCRI, internationally, is the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
But listen to this, in the last year 3600 lawmakers, and parliamentarians in 61 parliaments in 40 countries in the world, including, of course, a majority in the US Congress have endorsed that Ten-Point Plan of NCRI and Mrs. Rajavi.
You add to that 124 former world leaders, that is heads of state, and 75 winners of the Nobel Prize Laureates… I just want to stress this, there was a time when in a way, the regime was successful in portraying their opposition as extremists or terrorists. But the truth has come out as time has gone by. Because we have never given up.
The terrorists are running the regime in Tehran the freedom fighters are fighting in the NCRI, in the MEK, and to me, I say we’re going to look back on this last year and say it was a turning point in world support for the people of the freedom of Iran.
So, dear friends, I’m always honored to be here because to me this is a cause that is at the heart of what America is about. And I know this is a crowd of Iranian Americans, proud of your heritage, history, and connection to Iran but patriotic and loyal Americans.
I was thinking as we were waiting to talk to Senator Brownback, that when I come to these meetings, I feel I’m speaking for myself. But I’m also speaking for my dear friend and your dear friend, who left us five years ago and I’m talking about Senator John McCain of Arizona.
He would be here… and I know McCain. He’s up in heaven, moving things around, to try to make it harder for the regime and easier for the people of Iran.
Dear friends, I say this to you: We’re stronger than we were a year ago and hopefully this is when this regime falls because we will not give in.
You know, the United States Coast Guard has an expression in Latin that there is their motto “Semper Paratus,” always prepared, always ready. But I’ve learned a different way to express that in Farsi.
So, I will ask you: Are we ready and willing to stand by the free fires in Iran until the regime falls and freedom returns to this great country of Iran? Hazer, hazer, hazer, hazer [Persian for ready]
Thank you very much. God bless you.
