NCRI Staff
NCRI – On Tuesday 17 October 2017, the Belgian Committee of Parliamentarians and Mayors for a Democratic Iran, held a meeting in the Belgian Federal Parliament on the situation of human rights in Iran.
Several members of parliament and senators from different political parties spoke in this meeting which was chaired by Els Van Hoof, member of the Foreign Affairs Committee of Belgian Parliament from the Christian Democratic Party.
The following is the full text of the speech, delivered by Dirk Claes- Mayor, President of the Belgian Committee of Parliamentarians and Mayors for a Democratic Iran.
Dear Friends,
I would like to thank my good colleague Els van Hoof for organizing this important today meeting in the Belgian parliament.
In 2007, exactly 10 years ago, we formed the Belgian Committee of Parliamentarians and Mayors for a Democratic Iran. Our aim was to focus on democratic change in Iran. Because we believe the people of Iran deserve much better than being ruled by a bunch of fundamentalist mullahs.
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The Iranian democratic opposition under the leadership of Maryam Rajavi has gone forward. I have met Mrs Rajavi several times and I have found her to be a democratic leader who believes in a free, secular Iran. Her campaign to seek justice for the 1988 massacre of 30 thousand political prisoners in 1988, has now become world-wide.
She also began a campaign to black list the Islamic Revolutionary Guards or the IRGC which is the main tool of repression inside Iran and the main force for supporting Bashar Assad in Syria. I am happy that the IRGC is now in the terrorist list of the US government and it should also be in the EU list.
For many years we worked to save the lives of 3000 members of Iranian opposition PMOI who were in camps Ashraf and Liberty in Iraq. I am very happy that all of them have left Iraq and are now in Albania and in other safe countries. This transfer was also a big victory for the Iranian resistance.
With my experience of working closely with Iranian opposition, the NCRI and PMOI, for the last decade, I have found them to be a serious force who only want freedom for their people and nothing for themselves. They have made a lot of sacrifices in their lives. They have been victims of not only the repression by the mullahs in Iran but have also been victims to the appeasement policy of European governments, who are often more interested about trade and doing business with Iranian regime. That is very disappointing.
We should urge our governments to put pressure on the Iranian regime to stop the executions and at the same time our government should be open to listen to the Iranian opposition, the NCRI. I am sure that this regime will not last long and so we should be on the side of the people of Iran who are every day suffering under the rule of the mullahs.
Thank you.