Speech by Mayor Rudy Giuliani at Free Iran The Alternative Gathering 2018 Villepinte , Paris
GIULIANI: Thank you very much. It is wonderful to return here at a time of great significance and a lot more hope for all of us than many of the other times that we’ve been here. We are now, I believe, very realistic in being able to see an end of the regime in Iran. [applause] We can see it. [applause] We’ve lived through this before in other oppressed countries, when the people take to the streets and they protest day after day like they’ve done in over 142 cities in Iran, like they did the other day in Tehran. When they do that and no matter how much they’re oppressed, no matter how much they’re beaten, no matter how much they’re arrested, or no matter how many of them are killed, they continue to grow and grow with numbers that now threaten to topple the regime. When that happens, then freedom is right around the corner! [applause]
It could have happened eight or nine years ago with the uprising in 2009. The upraising that disgracefully my government turned its back on. Shame on that administration. However, this time when it started back in December, in January, just a few months ago, the President of the United States, about whom there’s a lot of controversy whether he should tweet or not, took out his little phone and he tweeted and he supported the protestors [applause] like Ronald Reagan did for the protestors in Poland when solidarity marched again communism. And what happened there? Communism fell, Poland is free, the Iron Curtain evaporated, and the Berlin Wall was chopped down. That will happen now. [applause]
I say to those countries—to those countries that continue to support Iran, to those countries that do business with Iran, “You are paying for a regime that deprives women of their rights, that deprives children of their rights, and that murders people because they practice a different religion. How can you do that? How much better are you than the terrorists when you are giving them money and propping up this regime?” [applause]
Women’s groups, in particular, all over the world should demand that those business that continue to do business with this regime should be boycotted. And we should stop doing business with them. [applause]
We all know that the economy of Iran is in freefall. It’s evaporating. That’s terrible for the people of Iran, for your brothers and sisters, and your relatives and friends. But I believe it’s a price that they’re more than willing to pay, like our martyrs were willing to pay with their blood. It’s a price they’re willing to pay, because freedom from oppression always comes through economic want, through human want. That’s what happened to the French Revolution. That’s what happened in the Russian Revolution—the original one and the second. And that’s what’s happening right now in your homeland.
We saw a picture of a man that held up a sign and said he was willing to give his liver—his kidney, rather. He was willing to sell his kidney for $500. That’s a government on the verge of toppling. And what we need to do now is not to lose our determination. We’ve got to be more determined. This is the time to put on the real pressure.
Thank god my president, who I can now be proud of, my president turned his back on that very dangerous nuclear agreement with Iran. [applause] He said, “No, we’re not going to do business with the biggest state sponsor of terrorism. We’re going to reimpose the sanctions.” Everybody said it wouldn’t be enough. Gee, just America stops doing business with you when all of Europe is doing business with Iran and they should be ashamed of themselves. [applause]
Well, maybe when the greatest economic power in the history of the world stops doing business with you, you have the kind of economic collapse that you now see in Iran and that is going to get worse, because I guarantee you the sanctions will become greater and greater and greater. This president does not intend to turn his back on freedom fighters. [applause]
We’ve seen this happen in other countries. Many times a very bad government is replaced by another bad government and maybe it’s even worse. We’ve seen some of that in the Middle East with Egypt. However, here, we’re not replacing one government with a government we don’t know. You have an alternative. You’ve got an alternative that’s built on a solid foundation of 12 principles. [applause] Democracy, human rights, a non-nuclear Iran, separation of church and state, and the rights of women and of all minorities to be protected. My goodness, that sounds like a full-fledged democracy. [applause] That’s what the NCRI stands for. That’s what Madame Rajavi stands for, and that’s what your martyrs died for. [applause]
The era of appeasement is over. Those who practice appeasement are going to find themselves shamed in world history. The time has come to stand up to these bullies and these murderers and these thieves. Never forget that government of mullahs is not about religion. That government is about stealing. The reason Iran is in economic freefall when it’s been given a huge amount of money, is because that money is stolen. It’s not spent on the people. The people of Iran should say to the mullahs and the ayatollah, “Give us the billions you stole!” [applause]
What have you accomplished? What have you accomplished with a tremendous pressure put on you? Since I’ve been working with you and all of my colleagues from the United States, we fought a worldwide battle to shed the unfair label of terrorism in the United States, the United Kingdom, the European Union. That label is now gone and you’re seen as defenders of human rights, because that’s what you are. And we won that battle. [applause]
Our people that were stranded in Iraq, yes, we lost hundreds of them, but we finally delivered them to freedom in Albania, and I thank the government of Albania. I was there this year. It’s a wonderful place to see. It’s a great hope for the future of Iran. And believe me, those people are doing great work for us every single day. God bless them. [applause]
You’ve been able to form resistance units all over Iran. Those protests are not happening accidentally. Those protests are happening because they’re being coordinated now, unlike in 2009. They’re being coordinated by many of our people in Albania and many of our people here and all throughout the world. And what it says is we have an alternative. [applause] How much better would an Iran be instead of the dictatorial, murderous ayatollah as the face of Iran? Suppose the face of Iran was a brave woman in a country that recently has had a history, and a region of the world of treating women inhumanly. And this brave woman will be the face of the new modern liberated Iran. [applause]
Will it happen? Yes! When will it happen? Now! And I want next year at this time I want us to have this convention in Tehran! [applause]
