Good afternoon to my dear Iranian friends, dear brothers, Madam President Maryam Rajavi!
We have all assembled here to commemorate a black day for French democracy as well as the Iranian Resistance.
Three years ago, a police raid without precedent since the Algerian war in this country was led against the Iranian Resistance in an operation aimed at finding reasons to label the Iranian Resistance as a “terrorist” organisation.
Everybody knows that the authorities in charge of finding evidence had an empty, completely empty case. Last week, we had a good news, the French justice removed all the restrictions which had unfairly and ignominiously been imposed on the whole Iranian community living in France.
I welcome this decision. I cannot welcome this decision without sending a particularly warm greeting to the citizens of this nation of human rights, first to those in Auvers-sur-Oise, then in all other regions of France! I salute these citizens as I salute all the citizens of Europe, Sweden, England, Norway, Spain, Italy, Canada and USA; ordinary citizens, jurists, parliamentarians representing the people and lawyers who all have something in common – attachment to individual liberty.
When we speak about the Iranian Resistance, in fact we must know that it implies two sorts of challenges closely linked to each other. There is first the challenge which is the Iranian national stake. It is a people, which after having stood against the shah’s dictatorship, has come under the yoke of the mullahs’ dictatorship, struggling to regain its freedom. But this stake goes well beyond the borders of Iran.
The second stake is the challenge Iran’s neighbouring countries are taking up, especially Iraq. You all know that throughout history, there is an accurate parallelism between the Iraqi people’s history and the Iranian people’s history. Nowadays in Iraq which burns everyday, a declaration signed by hundreds and thousands of lawyers, engineers and politicians has been intitiated. It has been signed by 5.2 million Iraqis.