Associated Press, BRUSSELS, November 7 _ Several thousand protesters on Monday took part in an Iranian opposition group’s demonstration in Brussels, demanding the European Union takes a tough stance against Tehran because of its human rights record and its nuclear program.
The Paris-based National Council of Resistance of Iran mobilized demonstrators outside EU headquarters where foreign ministers were holding talks on Iran’s nuclear program.
Irish rock star Sir Bob Geldof, who organized the Live Aid concerts and other campaigns against poverty, made a stopover in Brussels to meet with members of the opposition group and addressed the demonstration.
"I don’t like the nuclear proliferation. I don’t like the way women are treated and I don’t like the daily executions in Iran," Geldof told the Associated Press.
"It strikes me as odd," Geldof added, that "a country with so much oil needs to build nuclear reactors."
Iran says its nuclear program is aimed at generating electricity and insists it has no ambition to build nuclear weapons.
The NCRI also urged the European Union to remove its primary member organization, the People’s Mujahedeen, from the EU’s blacklist of terrorist organizations.
The EU foreign ministers were expected to welcome an Iranian offer to resume talks about its nuclear program but also urge it to take action on terrorism, human rights and the Mideast peace process.
Iran-EU nuclear talks collapsed in August after Tehran rejected an incentives package in return for permanently ending uranium enrichment, which the Islamic republic had suspended in 2004 under a deal with the Europeans.
Relations between EU and the Iranians further deteriorated after recent comments by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in which he called for Israel to be "wiped off the map."
