quarter-century of human rights violations in Iran, sponsored
by over 30 European human rights organizations, began with
a conference in Paris on Friday and is drawing large crowds
of French and Iranian visitors. Iran Focus
The events sponsors, which include Human Rights League, the anti-racist movement MRAP, World Organization Against Torture, International Human Rights League, and Jubilee Campaign, timed the opening day to coincide with the International Human Rights Day. On December 10, 1949, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
The exhibition contains thousands of pictures of people who were executed by the Iranian regime for their opposition to Irans clerical regime. It is estimated that at least 120,000 political opponents of the Iranian regime, mainly members and supporters of the Peoples Mojahedin Organisation of Iran, have been executed since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
The conference began with a speech by Daniel Jacoby, secretary general of Fondation France Libertés and honorary president of the International Human Rights Federation (FIDH). The Iranian Resistances President-elect Maryam Rajavi, former French Foreign Minister Claude Cheysson, and MRAP secretary general Mouloud Aounit were among the speakers.
Maryam Rajavi, accompanied by several prominent personalities such as Alain Vivien, a former French minister of state for foreign affairs and chairperson of the interministerial committee to combat cults, and Elizabeth Sidney, chairperson of Womens International Federation Against Fundamentalism and For Equality, toured the exhibition.
Hundreds of Iranian exiles, human rights activists and members of the public visited the exhibition on its opening day.
Many of those present brought along photos of relatives who were the victims of torture and execution by the clerical regime.
