Reporting by PMOI/MEK
Iran, February 24, 2021—More than 200 Iranian associations around the globe urged the EU to take a firm policy toward Iran in a letter to the European Commission President Charles Michel and EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrel.
Dr. Sina Dashti, President of the Alliance for Public Awareness Iranian Community in Europe, wrote “any policy or approach towards the medieval regime ruling our nation must take into account on, the one hand, the mullahs’ complete disregard for the fundamental rights and freedoms of the Iranian people, its terrorism directed against dissidents on European soil, and its destabilizing activities in the Middle East.”
On February 4, 2021, a court in Belgium sentenced Assadollah Assadi, a terrorist diplomat of the Iranian regime, to 20 years of imprisonment. His three accomplices also received prison sentences ranging from 15 to 18 years. They were all convicted for plotting to bomb a massive rally in support of the Iranian Resistance in Paris back in June 2018. The court confiscated 450,000 Euros that Assadi’s three accomplices had received from the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) and revoked their Belgian citizenship.
According to the verdict, this major terrorist plot was coordinated in Iran, the explosives were made and tested in Tehran, and Assadi had transported it abroad via a commercial flight in an official diplomatic pouch. The terrorist plot’s main target was Madam Maryam Rajavi, President-elect of the Iranian opposition National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI). Had the plot not been foiled at the last minute by European authorities, the bombing would have left a large number of victims among the tens of thousands of participants, including hundreds of high-profile international dignitaries.
The statement of the Iranian community emphasizes that “such bold acts of terrorism on European soil are the flip side of gross and systematic human rights violations inside Iran.”
In December 2020, the United Nations General Assembly condemned for the 67th time the regime’s horrific human rights violations against the Iranian people. During the November 2019 uprising in nearly 200 cities, more than 1,500 protesters were killed, and thousands were imprisoned and tortured. Executions continue unabated in Iran, and since the beginning of 2021, the regime has executed some 60 individuals.
The Iranian community also emphasized that the inexcusable silence and inaction of Western countries for the sake of obtaining a parochial agreement on the nuclear issue, despite the regime’s human rights violations and terrorism, has emboldened the theocracy to carry out crimes against the Iranian people and the opposition at home and abroad, and increase its meddling in regional countries.
Tehran continues these initiatives with impunity while continuing to deceive the international community about its nuclear activities. The recent discovery of traces of uranium in the regime’s undeclared facilities by the International Atomic Energy Agency provides further evidence that the regime never abandoned its efforts to manufacture a nuclear weapon.
The statement calls on the EU to close Iran’s embassies, condition any economic and trade relations with the Iranian regime on the cessation of executions and torture, and improving the human rights situation, designating the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) and the MOIS as terrorist entities, referring the regime’s human rights violations and terrorism dossiers to the UN Security Council, recognizing the Iranian people’s legitimate struggle to overthrow a tyrannical and abusive regime and instead supporting the people’s drive to establish democracy and popular sovereignty, and stripping the illegitimate and cruel regime of its seats in the United Nations and other civil international forums. Instead, the statement states, these seats must be afforded to the representatives of the NCRI as the democratic alternative to the regime.
Also, in another statement, the parliamentary British Committee for Iran Freedom called on the EU to end its silence on the regime’s terrorism. British MPs are urging London to downgrade diplomatic relations with Tehran until the mullahs end their state-sponsored terrorism. The British Committee for Iran Freedom also regrets the Government’s silence on the serious threat to British citizens and Europe’s overall security.
“We call on you and the Foreign, Commonwealth, and Development Office (FCDO) to downgrade
diplomatic relations with Iran until such time that Tehran provides verifiable proof that it has stopped its
state terrorism and terrorist activities. If Tehran refuses to end its unacceptable behavior than a firmer response such as expelling Iranian diplomats and closing the Iranian Embassy must be considered and implemented,” the British MPs underscored.
