NCRI – Belgian politician and staunch Iranian Resistance supporter Patrick Moriau has died from cancer at the age of 62.
Mr Moriau was a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee in Belgian Parliament and also the head of the Belgian Group at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.
He became involved with the Iranian Resistance in Belgium many years ago and strongly supported the movement in the country’s parliament until his final days.
He was also among those sponsoring the resolution in the Parliament calling for the removal the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran from the European blacklist in 2006, which was among the very first resolutions in European parliaments calling for delisting.
In 2012, he sponsored another resolution supporting the residents of Camp Ashraf and Camp Liberty.
Mr Moriau resigned as mayor of Chapelle-lez-Herlaimont, where he was mayor for 17 years, after being diagnosed with cancer since two years ago, although he continued
to support the residents of Ashraf and Liberty.
Despite his illness, he attended a meeting in the Belgian parliament on March 27 in which President-elect of Iranian Resistance Maryam Rajavi was a guest speaker.
He said at a Socialist Party meeting on May 1: “When I received all those letters of support when I was hospitalized, I understood that so many would want to attend my funeral service so I decided not to go.”
In a long career in politics, he was deputy head of the Social Affairs ministry in the state of Wallonia from 1988 to 1992. He was deputy Secretary General of the Socialist Party in Belgium from 1992 to 1995, mayor of Chapelle-lez-Herlaimont from 1995 to 2012, and a Belgian socialist MP from 1995 to 2013. He leaves his wife Milena.
The Foreign Affairs Committee of the National Council of Resistance of Iran offers its condolences to the on the passing of Mr Patrick Moriau to the Belgian people, Belgium Parliament and especially his wife.
