NCRI – British Parliamentarians who attended a meeting of the all-party British Parliamentary Committee for Iran Freedom on Tuesday in the House of Commons have endorsed a set of recommendations to the United Kingdom government on its policy towards Iran.
The following is the text of the policy recommendations:
Recommendations, Persian Reception
Major Concerns Regarding Iran
The Basis of a Firm UK Policy Towards That Country
Tuesday, 15 September 2015, 11am-1pm
Jubilee Room, Westminster Hall, House of Commons
Recommendations
The human rights situation in Iran is more dire than before and the country has the highest per capita execution rate in the world. At the same time, the current crisis in the region, including the clearly growing influence of Iran in Iraq and Syria, and the growing threat of Islamic extremism, requires the UK government to make a policy review on Iran a priority. The following recommendations should form the basis of a firm UK policy towards Iran:
– the UK government, along with its allies the U.S. and the EU, must make human rights a focal point of their Iran policy and act urgently to press the Iranian regime to stop all executions, end its human rights violations and free all political prisoners in Iran.
– As a permanent member of the UN Security Council and a respected member of the UN Human Rights Council, the UK must publicly and categorically condemn the ongoing human rights abuses in Iran on the international level and make any future economic relations with Iran contingent upon substantive and tangible improvements in the human rights situation in that country.
– It would be a strategic mistake to partner or cooperate with the regime in Tehran in the fight against Daesh in Syria or Iraq. The UK government should instead support its allies in the region to stand up against Iran’s growing meddling because the theocratic regime ruling Iran has been and remains the source of instability in the region.
– The UK government needs to engage with Iran’s democratic opposition, the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), supporting the ten-point platform of the NCRI President-elect, Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, which calls for a democratic and non-nuclear Iran with separation of religion and state, gender equality and elimination of all religious and ethnic discrimination.
Furthermore, the recent nuclear deal has emboldened the Iranian regime to move more quickly and decisively to annihilate its opponents both inside Iran and also exiled in neighbouring Iraq. The U.S. has a special moral and legal obligation to the residents of Camp Liberty to protect their lives. The U.S., the UN, the UK and the EU should intervene to:
– press the Iraqi government to ensure that the Liberty residents are properly protected and that they are not subjected to medical blockade and other repressive restrictions in the future;
– declare Camp Liberty as a refugee camp under the auspices of the UN and the UN Refugee Agency (the UNHCR) and make sure that the residents, who are recognised Protected Persons under the 4th Geneva Convention and Asylum Seekers and Persons of Concern by the UNHCR, are delivered refugee ID cards without any delay because this will prevent another humanitarian catastrophe and further bloodshed at Camp Liberty.
– calls on the Government of Iraq and Prime Minister al-Abadi, to bar Iranian agents from approaching the camp and to insist on the removal of Faleh Fayyad from his position as a key oppressor of the Camp Liberty refugees.
Otherwise, Tehran’s regime and its suppressive paramilitary force Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) will stand to benefit from the lifting of sanctions, they will use to move more quickly and decisively to export terrorism abroad, advance their deadly plots against the members of Iranian democratic opposition in Camp Liberty, Iraq, and increase the domestic repression in order to silence the growing popular dissent at home, thus guaranteeing its own survival.
