On July 13, 2019, dignitaries from dozens of countries across the world attended the main event of the Free Iran 2019 international conference. The conference was part of the five-day Free Iran 2019 series of conferences at the main headquarters of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) in Ashraf 3, Albania. Several dignitaries, political and human rights activists delivered speeches, issuing remarks about the struggles of the Iranian people and their resistance movement for freedom in their country.
Following are key remarks by former French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner at the Ashraf 3 conference.
Bernard Kouchner:
Madame [Maryam] Rajavi, this is a fantastic masterpiece of art and friendship. This room built in some few weeks as glorious as it is, you deserve really my good friends [PMOI/MEK members in Albania] who build up a real country, Iran. It is very well done. Coming to Ashraf 3 was really a reward for the people supporting you and for you supporting your people.
Now we are facing this new step, the new benchmark, the new era. The era of freedom in Iran. Because I was listening to the Prime Minister of Canada and he was just reminding us about the program, Maryam Rajavi’s program.
Just listen to the [ten-point plan], very quickly. Election based on the principle of universal suffrage, who is against that? Second, a pluralistic political system with free assembly, who is against that? Third, the abolition of death penalty. Who is against that? Fourth, the separation of mosque and state. This is the key point. This is certainly this particular theocracy which the huge rest of the world is refusing. Seven, Iranian justice system. Adherence to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Then safeguard of private property. Nine, a foreign policy based on peaceful coexistence. Ten, a rejection of nuclear development. Who is against that among the people of Iran? Who is against that inside Europe and the rest of the world? I think that nobody’s against this list of evidence. Evidence-based politics.
But and I was in agreement with Mr. Giuliani, the fact is that we don’t believe that the people of Iran, and this is not true, are supporting the Ayatollah, the mullahs. They are not supporting and the list you offer us of murders, he calls (that people murdered), he was right. There are murders. They are fueling the fire of the Middle East. They are in the middle of all and at the origin of all the terrorist attacks.
We are not against religion but we are against using religion to kill the people. We are absolutely against that sort of false democracy in and to kill and to support and to torture and to all they did that in the name of religion. Religion is something completely different. Religion is certainly also the liberation of the people.
I’m very sorry not to express my deep admiration enough to Madame Maryam Rajavi. You are obstinate, you are persistent, you are a fantastic model for the women of the world. Please go up, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. [applause]
Only to talk and to deliver, to talk and say that (there) inequality in the Iranian women and the Iranian men is a fantastic revolutionary word, so thank you very much and we are completely with you to support such a fantastic program. Thank you very much.
