Some time ago, earlier this year, I had the privilege and the pleasure of going over to Paris to meet with Mrs. Rajavi and if anyone here has not met her, I entirely agree with the assessment of her, that she is one of the most charismatic leaders in the world and if you haven’t met her, it is time people took the opportunity to try and see her.
But anyway, once I got back, I got a letter from some creeps who I think are on the pay of the clerics in Tehran from Cologne, telling me they had been following me, telling me who I had seen in Paris, telling me what I had written in favour of what the PMOI were doing, all these things. And so I wrote back to them, as I think I reported last time and just said to them go to hell, I will talk who I want when I am invited and I will write what I think. I am not going to be told by you what to do. The interesting thing was, they had given me a false address, because I got the letter back from the German post office saying no-one known at this address.
So I just think it’s a small, its not anything like the privations that people have suffered in Iran and in Tehran in particular, but it does give me an indication of what they are prepared to do, if they are prepared to use false addresses and all these sorts of things and try and intimidate me. Well, forget it, I am not going to buy into that. That is why I support this movement and that’s why I have been at most of the meetings that have been held to attempt to secure the de-proscription of the PMOI.
What I really take exception too is that when any of us say that we are opposed to what the regime is doing in Tehran at the present time, we are characterized as being anti-Islamic. And I simply just will not rise to that argument and it is simply unfair and untrue, what we are opposed to and what Brian Binley has just been saying and I absolutely agree with him. What we are opposed to is the idea of the export of fundamentalism, that so far as people’s own religious beliefs are concerned, seem to be a matter entirely for them. I believe that in this country we are all trying to be as tolerant as we can, but we are not going to put up with the export of fundamentalism and I take great exception to that sort of idea.
This is a very opportune moment for us to be discussing this, particularly in view of the report that was given to President Bush yesterday. I don’t suppose that everyone always agreed with everything that President Bush said, not a surprise that apart from Tony Blair no-one seems to agree with him entirely. However, my understanding is that one of the proposals in that report is that the US and the UK should engage constructively with Iran and I am told President Bush’s immediate reaction to that is, no. Well, dare I say it, for once he has got it right. On that matter he is absolutely correct.
I am somewhat baffled and I never ever thought that I would say this, but it seems to me that the European Parliament is showing greater wisdom than the British government at the present time, in arguing vehemently for the de-proscription of the PMOI.
Mr. Chairman as you well you know I am strongly supportive of all the endeavours of this group to achieve its aims and the first thing we must do is the de-proscription of the PMOI. I never thought that the French courts would be better and wiser than the British government, but they appear to be.