“It is arrogance of power to use political power to overrule a court’s decisions” (Lars Rise)

NCRI – “Of course we believe in dialogue with everybody, with all sides, but I’m sure that we all know someone with whom it leads nowhere to have a dialogue, and I think the present regime in Iran is in that category. So the solution must be to support a very impressive and strong resistance and I hope that Europe will stand with the Iranian people in this way,” said the former Norwegian MP Lars Rise, who heads the Scandinavian Committee of “Friends of a Free Iran”. He was speaking in an international conference in Paris on February, 5. Here is the text of his speech:

NCRI – “Of course we believe in dialogue with everybody, with all sides, but I’m sure that we all know someone with whom it leads nowhere to have a dialogue, and I think the present regime in Iran is in that category. So the solution must be to support a very impressive and strong resistance and I hope that Europe will stand with the Iranian people in this way,” said the former Norwegian MP Lars Rise, who heads the Scandinavian Committee of “Friends of a Free Iran”. He was speaking in an international conference in Paris on February, 5. Here is the text of his speech:

All members of the European Union are obliged to defend the principles of the rule of law. Actually they signed six years ago the European Declaration of Human Rights. And it is very worrying now to see that some countries seem to be bad losers after the big victory in Luxembourg. They want to use political power to overrule the court and its verdict of December 12th. Let us hope that this is not the end conclusion.

But of course it was a great victory. It was stated that PMOI has never been involved in terrorism. And of course we knew this all the time. We knew that FBI had investigated all the 4000 people in Camp Ashraf and none of them were terrorists.

To be present in the courtroom about one year ago, it was February 7th  I think last year, was quite entertaining. To see the fear and insecurity on the faces of the lawyers of the United Kingdom and France as they were totally incapable of presenting anything at all when the judges asked for documentation or evidence of terror. It was a great experience and it was a fantastic victory. Also according to what is written, neither EU nor UK were able to provide any evidence to the court supporting their allegations of terror against the PMOI.

They also failed to clarify who had made the decision and how it was made. It is actually illegal to overrule a court’s decision and I hope it is possible to bring this to a court again, about what they have done; if a private corporation or company had done it, they would have been brought to court immediately. And this is in some way the arrogance of power to use political power to overrule a court’s decisions. In fact those same ministers who are in the Council of the European Union are sometimes very worried about the situation of the rule of law in Belarus, where they think the courts are not independent enough or in Azerbaijan. And therefore it is absolutely not logical what we see now. This is really a serious violation of the basic principles of Europe.

We know that xxx wants more democracy and respect for the rule of law in the Middle East and Jacques Chirac is very sad that it’s going so slowly in some African countries to have progress on the rule of law, but both of them are big violators of the rule of law as they have shown in this case.

So what should the European Union do? The Council should immediately abandon its current unjustified behaviour and give effect to the court’s ruling by removing the PMOI from its list and put an end to the freezing of the PMOI’s assets. It has been very damaging and I wonder if it is possible to calculate how much should the compensation be for what has been going on since this took place in 2001. And I think, this is something that should be done. Of course it is possible to understand how this policy goes together with the Security Council policy where UK and France are prominent members and where they are threatening with sanctions.

So I can only say that I agree very much with what has been described as the solution. Of course we believe in dialogue with everybody, with all sides, but I’m sure that we all know someone with whom it leads nowhere to have a dialogue, and I think the present regime in Iran is in that category. So the solution must be to support a very impressive and strong resistance and I hope that Europe will stand with the Iranian people in this way.

I would like to remind all of us again what Maryam Rajavi and all her friends have gone through. On June 17th 2003, six o’clock in the morning, 1300 heavily armed and masked police attacked the office of the NCRI and 12 other homes of Iranian refugees in several districts and arrested 165 people and all of them had been set free after a short while because they had absolutely no evidence; and to see that this happened at the same time as the trade between France and Iran came to a peak when they signed trade agreements can be no coincidence.

But to go through this and then be so perseverant is I think very impressive and Maryam Rajavi is courageous, perseverant and she has a strong conviction together with all her friends and actually I think that she can make Nelson Mandela’s words to her own.

When Nelson Mandela spoke in the courtroom in 1964 right before he went into prison for 27 years, his last words before he went to prison were (and I think that Madame Rajavi can make these words to her own, together with all her friends): “These are the principles I have lived for. These are the principles I am prepared to die for.”

And I thank you all for this conclusion.