In an online conference held on the 43rd anniversary of Iran’s 1979 Revolution, members of Friends of a Free Iran (FOFI) Committees in different European countries discussed the conditions of Iran and the threats posed by the mullahs’ regime to the region and the world. The conference was attended by Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, the president-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), and lawmakers and politicians representing different political views from the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Switzerland, Finland, Norway, Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Portugal, Ireland, Romania, Malta, Lithuania, Slovenia, Poland, and San Marino.
In her speech to the conference, Mrs. Rajavi described the situation of the regime, the crises it is dealing with, and the realities of Iran’s society, which have become evident in continuous waves of widespread protests.
Mrs. Rajavi said, “The regime feels powerless in the face of this situation, primarily because it is facing a hostile society… The Iranian people’s deep-seated animosity toward the clerical regime is the main cause of its instability.”
Mrs. Rajavi stressed that the regime has tried every way to avoid this dangerous instability, including its dangerous atomic bomb-making program and its bullying of the international community during the nuclear talks and the signing of the 2015 nuclear deal (JCPOA).
After failing to break out of his deadlock, Khamenei was left with only one option in Iran’s political chess game that was the appointment of a hated mullah & an executioner of the #1988Massacre who learned nothing but to hang #Iran’s youths. pic.twitter.com/Ir4xCs7dgf
— Maryam Rajavi (@Maryam_Rajavi) February 9, 2022
“The JCPOA met the mullahs’ political and financial needs with unjustified concessions. However, the regime never gave up the project of acquiring an atomic bomb because it needs one to maintain its rotten survival. Giving up the bomb will violate all the requirements for its security,” Mrs. Rajavi said.
Mrs. Rajavi also stressed that the presidency of Ebrahim Raisi, known for the execution and murder of dissidents, is a further sign of the regime’s desperation toward the outraged population. “Raisi is the most conspicuous indicator of the phase of the regime’s overthrow. The special character of this era is that no matter if the regime abandons or keeps its nuclear program, it will face an outbreak of uprisings where the PMOI/MEK and its Resistance Units will play their role,” she said, adding that Raisi has proven to be the most helpless government in four decades of the mullahs’ rule.
Regarding the policy toward Iran’s regime, Mrs. Rajavi expressed her gratitude for the help extended by members of the FOFI committees and called on governments to take concrete actions to contain the threats posed by the regime and to support the aspirations of the Iranian people.
Now the question is whether the new political arrangement can restore the mullahs’ battered power, and bring it future of stability &strength. Or conversely, has this new arrangement exacerbated the regime’s weakness and instability? #EUTime4FirmIranPolicyhttps://t.co/NdixqMziUE pic.twitter.com/Thz8hs2tYr
— Maryam Rajavi (@Maryam_Rajavi) February 10, 2022
“The Iranian regime is the first state-sponsor of terrorism and fundamentalism, which carries out the largest number of executions. So it must be held accountable for its crimes. The deafening silence and extreme inaction of Western governments in the face of all these crimes must end,” she said. “The IRGC and the Ministry of Intelligence must be included in the list of terrorist groups, and their mercenaries and agents expelled from Europe. The world parliaments and governments must register and condemn the 1988 massacre as ‘genocide and a crime against humanity.’ And they should recognize the Iranian people’s struggle to overthrow the mullahs’ regime and establish democracy and national sovereignty.”
Former Italian Foreign Minister Giulio Terzi described Iran’s regime as “the number one state terror in the world.”
“It’s not only qualified as number one terrorist state only because of the last three or four years or five years it has been a terrorist state since the beginning. Terrorist activity has been always a fundamental part of its foreign, security, defense policy, terrorist activities across the board all over in the region against the opposition and all over the world in Latin America, North America, and Europe,” he said.
“As you know, the stance of governments in relation to the Iranian regime is very different from the stance of Parliaments. The proof is that in many parliaments we have parliamentary committees for freedom,” said Mr. Alejo Vidal Quadras, the former Vice President of the European Parliament. “We have many members that support a free Iran and reject absolutely this religious theocratic, tyrant dictatorship. But governments, Unfortunately, act very differently. They want appeasement, they want dialogue, they want negotiation, and they waste their time because they have been doing this with the Iranian regime for decades, and the result has been what we know, proxy wars, violations of human rights inside Iran, executions, terrorism. So it is clear that the way of appeasement and negotiation does not work.”
Mr. Vidal Quadras said that the goal of the FOFI committees is to push for a change of policy toward Iran’s regime.
Ms. Elisabetta Zamparutti, the former member of the Italian Parliament, said, “The fact that now the Iranian President is Raisi, the most active member of the Death Commission, which executed more than 30,000 political prisoners, it’s the expression of the completion of the theocratic system in its worst expression. And it is, I may say, natural that now this theocratic regime collapses.”
Leo Dautzenberg, the chair of the German Parliamentary Committee for a Free Iran, said, “A realistic assessment of the Iranian situation shows that the answer lies in the overthrow of the religious dictatorship.”
Dautzenberg also reiterated the committee’s support for the Iranian Resistance, which has been the “target of attacks by the Iranian regime,” referring to the various attempts that the regime has made against the opposition, including terror attacks and a vast propaganda campaign to discredit the MEK and the NCRI.
“Our experience is that this crisis-riddled regime sees its way out of the crisis attacking its principle opposition to imply that the regime has no alternative,” he said. “The mullahs’ allegations against the resistance affirms that this alternative has made very effective progress, which is quite painful for the regime that causes it to react in this way.”
Former British Minister and Member of Parliament Theresa Villiers, also emphasized the support of the British Committee for Iran Freedom for the Iranian Resistance, highlighting the Committee’s efforts in the past year to promote freedom in Iran and hold the regime accountable for its human rights violations and terrorism. “All that your friends in the United Kingdom Parliament will continue to support the Iranian people in their quest for freedom, human rights, democracy, and justice,” Villiers said.
In their statement, the FOFI representatives commemorated “the anniversary of the overthrow of the Shah’s dictatorship in Iran” and expressed their support for “the struggle of the Iranian people and Resistance to overthrow the ruling religious dictatorship and for the establishment of a democratic and pluralistic republic based on the separation of religion and state, which we consider would serve regional and global peace and stability.”
The signatories of the statement called on European national governments and the European Union to adopt a firm and decisive policy toward the Iranian regime, to condemn four decades of crimes against humanity and genocide perpetrated by this regime, and to take the lead on the referral of the dossier of the regime’s crimes to the UN Security Council.
They also called for an end to the regime’s uranium enrichment program and the dismantling of its nuclear program, and for further sanctions to be imposed on regime leaders and officials for their acts of terrorism and human rights violations. “Expel the Iranian regime’s intelligence agents and terrorist operatives from European territory in order to prevent human or financial loss and to thwart threats to European security,” the statement reads in part.
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