Mr. Tunne Kelam, from Estonia and a member of the bureau from the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats group at the European Parliament, chaired the meeting and several other MEPs from different groups spoke about human rights violations in Iran.
In his opening remarks, Mr. Kelam noted that the violations of human rights and the rights of women in Iran have been institutionalized and since Ahmadinejad’s appointment as mullahs’ president earlier in the Summer, at least 110 execution sentences were either carried out or issued. He added that the regime’s atrocities were not limited to Iran alone and mentioned Ahmadinejad’s recent remarks on Israel and meddling in Iraq. He was particularly concerned about the regime’s plan to interfere in Iraqi elections and said that the mullahs’ ultimate goal was to establish a fundamentalist state in that country. He praised the role of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran in Camp Ashraf as an effective anti-fundamentalist force in Iraq and stressed that this has turned the group into the main terrorist target for the regime.
Mr. Kelam condemned restrictions imposed on the PMOI in Iraq and called for its immediate removal from the terror lists in Europe and the United States.
Ms. Piia Noora Kauppi, also a Member of the bureau from the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats group at the European Parliament from Finland, followed remarks by Mr. Kelam and expressed her concern over the plight of Iranian women and young people. She said that among victims of growing number of executions in Iran were many women and restriction imposed on them are institutionalized. In a recent move the mullahs’ police banned women becoming restaurant managers and according to Reuters, October 11, women employees in government departments should be back home before 6:00 pm. Ansar fundamentalist group supporting Ahmadinejad had called on him to wipe out the phenomenon of improper veiling in Iran as a “virus.”
Ms. Kauppi reminded of Mrs. Maryam Rajavi’s visit to the European Parliament last year in December and her proposed third option for democratic change in Iran through Iranian people and their resistance and called for removal of the PMOI from the terror list to this effect.
Next speaker was Mr. Mogens Camre from Denmark and Vice-chair of the Union for Europe of the Nations Group joined other speakers to call for de-listing of the PMOI and emphasized that the group was a democratic and a serious movement with no record of any terrorist involvement which had been proven by the United States in its detailed investigations on every single member of the organization.
The Danish MEP reiterated that democratic change in Iran would only be possible through the struggle of the PMOI as the main opposition to the fundamentalist regime in Iran and to this end all restrictions on them should be removed.
Mr. Firouz Mahvi, member of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the National Council of Resistance of Iran thanked the organizers of the meeting and all the participants for their concern over the human rights situation in Iran and their ongoing support for the PMOI. He also appreciated their opposition to the disgraced policy of appeasement which led to Ahmadinejad’s appointment by the mullahs’ as their president. This underlined the appropriate policy adopted by the Resistance.
Mahvi said: “Designation of the PMOI as a terrorist organization was the result of the appeasement policy and as its failure been proven there is now no justification to maintain the label and it should be removed with no delay.” He also told the meeting of the support given to this demand by 1,300 British jurists and 405 British parliamentarians in the past week.
The Spanish MEP, Bernat Joan I Mari from the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance in the European Parliament unveiled the clerical regime’s ploys to keep the PMOI in the terror list and said that the regime needed to discredit its main opposition as it is a serious threat to its unjust and undemocratic rule.
Euro MP from Czech Republic and a member of the Group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats, Jaroslav Zverina, condemned human rights violations in Iran and said the EU’s policy on Iran should change and it was time to de-list the PMOI.