The Iranian regime executed European resident Ruhollah Zam on Saturday, sparking condemnation from France, Germany, and several other countries, and resulting in the government summoning their Ambassadors in Tehran, but why would Iran summon the ambassadors?
Simply, the appeasement policy of the European Union has led Tehran to fear no consequences for their actions.
Therefore, Iranian authorities feel emboldened to react in an extreme matter when they receive even the slightest pushback to their barbarism.
After all, even though EU foreign ministers adopted the “global human rights sanctions regime” earlier this month to target the perpetrators of serious human rights violations.
Foreign Policy Chief Josep Borrell was set to deliver a joint keynote address with Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif this week at a business forum—It was postponed last minute because of Zam’s execution.
However, Iran’s human rights abuses are not limited to this one execution, so the EU should not be engaging with Iran full stop because it allows the ayatollahs to sweep their crimes under the rug and displays the EU as prioritizing business over human rights.
What point is there to condemn an execution after the fact if you do not act any differently after?
Tehran massacred 30,000 political prisoners in 1988 and the international community ignored it, leading the government to kill 1,500 protesters in the streets in November 2019.
Nonetheless, Iranian authorities even stepped further and executed protesters this year despite international campaigns to spare their lives.
Engaging with Tehran helps to minimize their crimes and Zarif barely even pretends to be the moderate face of the Iranian government abroad.
Last year, he told protesting Iranian expatriates in Europe that they would be “eaten alive” by his government’s thugs.
Europe must change tact and prioritize human rights over monetary gains because Iran’s human rights violations do not stop at their borders. Case in point, the attempted bombing of an Opposition rally in France in 2018, for which diplomat Assadollah Assadi and three accomplices are on trial.
“The time has come for the European Union to take concrete actions against the Iranian regime. The EU should sanction all the regime’s leaders, particularly their chief apologist, Zarif, for human rights violations,” the Iranian opposition said.
“The EU should lead an international investigation into the 1988 massacre and the mass killing of 1500 protests in 2019 in Iran and hold the regime’s authorities to account for their crimes. Any economic relation with the regime should be contingent on the end of human rights violations in Iran,” Iranian dissidents added.
