Iran Focus
London, 19 Oct – The President-her of the Iranian Resistance Forces has made a statement for the Italian Senate arguing that support for the Resistance is key in the fight for global peace and security.
Maryam Rajavi, who leads the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) which serves as a government-in-exile, expressed her gratitude that the Italian government had underscored the need to confront the Iranian Regime.
She said: “You have pinpointed an issue on which the world’s peace and security, the Middle East’s liberation from war, terrorism and instability, and the Iranian people’s freedom, all depend.”
Decades of the international community turning a blind eye to the oppression of the Iranian people has led to the Regime spreading its fundamentalism far beyond its own borders and posing a threat to the world at large; contributing to the rise of Sunni terrorist cells like ISIS and helping to extend the Syrian Civil War far beyond its natural end by propping up the Bashar Assad dictatorship.
Rajavi said: “The West must open its eyes and realize that the Iranian people’s yearning for freedom and their Resistance for regime change, are their essential ally for freedom and peace in the Middle East and the world.”
The Iranian people were the first victims of the Iranian Regime and by far they are the biggest victims.
There is an ever-growing protest movement in Iran (some 11,000 demonstrations in 2016 alone) whereby disenfranchised people will gather to protest unsafe working conditions, breaches of employment contracts, the imprisonment of people for political or religious beliefs, and the treatment of marginalised groups.
The Iranian Regime cannot deal with this; they can neither crush the movement nor meet their demands so they settle for attempting to eliminate opposition voices through imprisonment and executions.
In “moderate” President Hassan Rouhani’s first term, over 3,200 people were executed including political prisoners and minors. Of course that doesn’t account for the number of extrajudicial killings and secret executions in Iran.
Rajavi said: “In fact, they are at war with the people of Iran, a war that is carried out by the Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as the theocratic regime’s main instrument. This is the same force that cracks down on every freedom in Iran, and is engaged in war and slaughter in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Lebanon, Afghanistan and other parts of the region. The West’s silence and inaction vis-à-vis this destructive and ruthless force, has paved the way for its aggressions and invasions.”
This is why the Iranian Regime and the IRGC should be recognised as a legitimate threat to world peace in need of immediate confrontation. The IRGC, which controls the majority of the Iranian economy, is benefitting greatly from trade deals with the international community, while the ordinary people suffer.
Rajavi said: “Italy and other countries’ commercial trade with the Iranian regime does not create jobs for Iran’s ten million unemployed. These deals do not improve the lives of ten million people who are living under the poverty line in Iran. But the deals will benefit the IRGC in confronting the freedom movement in Iran and in escalating war and terror in the Middle East. The IRGC is the prime instrument of slaughter, suppression and terror and it must be blacklisted and face comprehensive sanctions.”
That is why Rajavi called on the Italian government and human rights supporters to support the Iranian Resistance and their call on the UN for an international investigation into Iran’s crimes against humanity (like the 1988 massacre of 30,000 political prisoners).
She also urged the Italian government to condition its relations with Iran on improvements to human rights within the country.
