Iran Focus: Vienna, Nov. 24 Several thousand Iranian exiles braved the winter snow and rallied on Thursday outside the headquarters of the United Nations nuclear watchdog in Vienna to call for the immediate referral of Tehrans suspected atomic weapons file to the Security Council to face economic sanctions and a comprehensive oil embargo. Iran Focus
Vienna, Nov. 24 Several thousand Iranian exiles braved the winter snow and rallied on Thursday outside the headquarters of the United Nations nuclear watchdog in Vienna to call for the immediate referral of Tehrans suspected atomic weapons file to the Security Council to face economic sanctions and a comprehensive oil embargo.
Organisers estimated the banner-waving crowd at more than 2,500, as representatives of member states of the International Atomic Energy Agencys (IAEA) board of governors met in a behind-closed-doors session to discuss how to tackle the Islamic Republics nuclear threat.
Several speakers addressed the rally including Austrian Member of the European Parliament Karin Resetarits.
Two former Iranian nuclear scientists who defected from Tehran several years ago, Alireza Assar and Manouchehr Fakhimi, warned the international community in their addresses during the rally that the world faced a serious threat of being confronted with a nuclear-armed Iran.
Demonstrators holding up banners reading, Refer mullahs nuclear file to UN Security Council and No deals with the mullahs, no nukes for the mullahs, chanted slogans against Irans hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Ahmadinejad is a terrorist, they chanted.
A statement was also read out to applause on behalf of Maryam Rajavi, whose National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) was the first to blew the whistle on Irans clandestine nuclear program in August 2002, in which she urged the IAEA board of governors to refer the clerical establishment nuclear dossier to the Security Council and expel it from international bodies before it was too late.
A giant replica missile with the logo of the Islamic Republic was paraded on the back of a truck at the demonstration.
Haleh Farahani, a 36-year-old mother of two, said that she had travelled from Germany to register her voice against the reported decision by the European Union to refrain from its demand that Tehran be hauled before the UN for recommencing uranium enrichment activities at one of its sites. Iranian people are against nuclear weapons but the regime wants to make them to ensure that it stays in power and to threaten the whole world.
