On Thursday, March 30, British MP and former Defense Minister Dr. Liam Fox addressed members of Iran’s principal opposition group, Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK), at Ashraf 3 in Albania, expressing his strong support for the Iranian people’s Resistance and uprising. He condemned the regime in Iran as one of the most toxic and economically devastating in the world and called for its complete abandonment. Dr. Fox also highlighted the regime’s disregard for human dignity and safety, willingness to use hostage-taking as a tool of foreign policy, and complicity in human rights abuses and crimes against humanity. He expressed admiration for the bravery of the women of Iran in the struggle for freedom. He urged Western countries to stand in solidarity with the people of Iran and support their fight for democracy, freedom, and the rule of law. In his speech, Dr. Fox stated, “The entire concept of the Velayat-e faqih is not a noble religious quest but a viable instrument for intellectual, religious, and political oppression. And only its complete abandonment can ever allow the people of Iran to have the freedom of expression and self-determination that they require.”
Below is the full text of Dr. Fox’s speech, revised and edited for clarity:
I believe that the regime in Iran is one of the most toxic in the world. I believe it is rotten to the core by almost any measure that a civilized world would bring.
I often talk about what I call the world’s thugocracies, criminal regimes that simply have no regard for either the rule of law or the basic rules of humanity. Iran is worse than a thugocracy. The thugs of the IRGC run it, but the obscene theocracy of the mullahs oversees it. It makes it a more dangerous nation in terms of its regime than most. Economically, it has brought nothing but hardship to the people of Iran, poverty at levels never known before, unemployment, inflation, under-standard of living the people in Iran today do not deserve.
The entire concept of the Velayat-e faqih is not a noble religious quest but a viable instrument for intellectual, religious, and political oppression. And only its complete abandonment can ever allow the people of Iran to have the freedom of expression and self-determination that they require. Nothing else will do.
There is no respect for human dignity and no respect for human safety for the tens of thousands who have been murdered by the regime, imprisoned by the regime, and tortured by the regime. This is a regime that is willing to use human hostage-taking of foreign nationals as a tool of its foreign policy. I think it is to be hugely regretted that some countries, most notably Belgium, recently have effectively been willing to sign agreements that will be no more than a road map to future hostage-taking, whether for their own citizens or others.
And I think that all of us in Western politics need to stand up to this abhorrent practice and make it very clear that we cannot be blackmailed by a regime with no moral authority.
Having seen widespread human rights abuses at home, Iran is complicit in the human rights abuses, the crimes against humanity, and the war crimes being committed by Russia in Ukraine by supplying Russia with the deadly means of continuing their illegal war.
Today, I want to express a very special, very heartfelt thank you to the women of Iran.
On this, Iran’s national day, we should remember the tens of thousands, including children, who have been arrested, tortured or executed by one of the world’s most vicious and inhuman regimes. Their courage will ultimately win their freedom. pic.twitter.com/f0uciELMG2
— Dr Liam Fox MP (@LiamFox) April 1, 2023
At the heart of the battle for freedom in Iran are the women of Iran. We have watched enormous admiration in recent months for how that struggle continues today and the bravery of young and older women in Iran. To take on the might of the regime, knowing what the cost would be, is a real beacon to the rest of the world and tells us what the real battle is today in terms of women’s rights in our globe.
I have long been an opponent of the JCPOA, the international agreement with Iran, because, frankly, I don’t believe it’s worth the paper that it’s written on. It doesn’t deal with Iran’s ambition to become a nuclear weapon state merely to delay it. And delaying a problem like that is no real advantage. It does not deal with Iran’s ballistic weapons issue. It does not deal with the regime’s determination to destabilize its neighbors in the region, and it does nothing to stop its support for terrorism in other parts of the world, including mine.
In the Arab Spring, Western countries were seemingly willing to support the Arab uprising. But in 2009, the people of Iran, at the very least, needed moral support from the West. They did not receive it. And I think that was a terrible black mark on the history of the free world because I don’t believe that the people of Iran, those who seek freedom, want our sympathy. They want our support. They want to know that we will be with them in the battle for the values that we already have, for the freedoms we already have in our own nations. We should not rest until the people of Iran have the same freedom and liberty, democracy, and the ability to live under a rule of law that is secular and non-arbitrary.
