Iran:Former EU Commissioners Warn Against Deals with Iran

Iran:Former EU Commissioners Warn Against Deals with Iran

Brussels, 20 Jul - EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini announced the lifting of “multilateral and national” sanctions on Iran on 16 January this year, saying the nuclear deal showed that intense diplomacy could resolve even “the most difficult issues”. However, this new position came despite the EU sanctions still imposed on Tehran due to its poor human right record and links with terrorist organizations.

As the European Union now moves towards more business dealings with Iran, former Commissioners Karel de Gucht and Louis Michel have urged EU institutions and member states to make any dealings conditional upon Tehran improving its human rights record.

Michel, father of Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel, was European Commissioner for Development and Humanitarian Aid between 2004 and 2009. De Gucht was in charge of the trade portfolio between 2010 and 2014. Both men played an important role in forging the EU’s business relationships with other countries over the last decade.

Syrians show their resentment for Iran regime’s support for Assad

Syrians show their resentment for Iran regime’s support for Assad

NCRI - Residents of the Syrian towns of Kafr Zita and al-Lataminah, north-west of Hama, have contributed to an online campaign over the weekend exposing and condemning the Iranian regime's support for Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad in the massacre of the people of Syria.

Syrians of all ages have held placards in particular pointing out that the Iranian regime’s meddling in Syria has increased since Hassan Rouhani took office as President in 2013. Many of the placards had messages directed at the European Union’s foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini who visited Iran over the weekend to hold trade discussions with the mullahs’ regime. Some also criticized Italy’s Prime Minister Matteo Renzi for meeting with the Iranian regime’s officials in Tehran last week.

Mogherini’s trip was condemned by Mohammad Mohaddessin, chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI).

Some of the banners from Hama, Kafr Zita and al-Lataminah read:

#No2Rouhani Dear Federica Mogherini: These diplomatic visits mean that you do agree on Iran interferences in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen. Do you??! - Syria – Keferzaita

Since Rouhani came to office their interferences in Syria have increased. #No2Rouhani - Kefer Zaita - Syria

He [Rouhani] is responsible for all the crimes committed by the Iranian regime in Syria during past 2 years. Kefer Zaita - Syria

British MPs urge EU’s Mogherini to cancel Iran visit amid execution spree

British MPs urge EU’s Mogherini to cancel Iran visit amid execution spree

NCRI - The following is the text of a press release by the British Parliamentary Committee for Iran Freedom calling on European Union foreign policy chief, Ms. Federica Mogherini, to cancel her upcoming visit to Tehran in light of the appalling human rights record of the mullahs' regime:

Press Release: British MPs urge EU Foreign policy chief to cancel Iran visit amid execution spree

The British Parliamentary Committee for Iran Freedom (BPCIF) regrets the decision by EU Foreign policy chief, Ms Federica Mogherini, to visit Iran on April 16, 2016.

The planned visit to Iran by Europe’s most senior official on foreign affairs and similar travel by other European state officials is highly inappropriate considering the regime's domestic repression and destructive policies abroad.

During the “moderate” administration of Hassan Rouhani, nearly 1000 people were executed in Iran last year alone, including juveniles in violation of international law. At least 47 journalists and social media activists were reportedly detained in the country as of January 2016, according to reports by the UN Special rapporteur for Iran and Amnesty international.

This is in addition to Tehran's destabilising actions and support for terrorist groups in the region as well as pressing ahead with its missile programme in clear defiance of the international community and regional concerns.

The EU should not allow itself to be deceived by Rouhani's charm offensive and his unfulfilled promises of “moderation” and instead pay close attention to the bellicose rhetoric coming out of Tehran. The Iranian Supreme Leader, who holds the ultimate power in the country, declared recently that “missiles, not talks, are key to the regime's future” emphasising that “Those who say the future is in negotiations, not in missiles, are either ignorant or traitors.”

Brussels Attacks: Iranian State Television claims Europeans ‘only have themselves to blame’ for terror attacks

Iran State TV - 22 March 2016 “ The boomerang return of Daesh”

A Brussels-based NGO has condemned Iran’s regime for broadcasting “sarcastic” reports on its state television about the deadly terrorist attacks in the Belgian capital on 22 March.

The Alliance to Renew Cooperation among Humankind (ARCHumankind) said in statement that it remains “outraged that Iranian State television would make a mockery of the High Representative Vice President Federica Mogherini on the basis of her human reaction to those who had lost their lives and were targeted by ISIL acclaimed terrorists.”

“The channel continued their ridicule by insinuating that Europe ‘only had themselves to blame’ and that perhaps now Europe might ‘feel close-up the fear and horror that the Syrian people have endured over the past 5 years, created by the interferences of their (European) politicians’,” the March 30 statement by ARCHumankind added.

 “These acts committed by Jihadist militants are acts of heinous violence and the Iranian State television implying that ‘European decision-makers are supporting terrorist acts’ can only be seen as an incitement for the continuation of the Jihadi aggression against Europe.”

فروردین  -تلویزیون رژیم 

“Whereas the European institutions have unduly decided to forget the well-documented co-operation of the Iranian authorities with the creation of an Al-Qaeda branch in Iraq in 2001 and the Syrian regime logistical support to this organisation from 2003 up to 2011 – in the vain hope this memory erasing exercise would make the theocracy to behave better – the insulting attitude of the Iranian authorities vindicates the point of view of all those who warned against this kind of appeasement attitude.”

Iran - EU Foreign Policy Chief Mogherini should not forgo human rights in Iran trip

European Union High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Federica Mogherini and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif

Ferderica Mogherini and Iranian foreian foreign

 Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif

By: Dr. Alejo Vidal-Quadras   

UPI – July 28, 2015 - The EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs, Ms Federica Mogherini, is due to travel to Tehran on Tuesday to open a new dialogue on 'bilateral issues' with Iranian officials a fortnight after the nuclear deal between Iran and the world powers. Yet her trip puts in peril Europe’s democratic values. 
It is an illusion to imagine that the nuclear agreement will lead to an improvement in the human rights situation in Iran. All the signs indicate that the agreement will embolden the mullahs to further abuse their citizens and to prevent an opening of the political atmosphere which could lead to a repeat of the upsurge of anti-government sentiments that took place in the 2009 uprisings. 
Hours before Ms. Mogherini announced her planned trip, the regime hanged 10 prisoners collectively in its Gohardasht Prison. On the same day Amnesty International announced that the Iranian authorities had executed an astonishing 694 people between January 1 and July 15, 2015, in an unprecedented spike in executions in the country. 
'This is equivalent to executing more than three people per day,' Amnesty International said. 'Iran’s staggering execution toll for the first half of this year paints a sinister picture of the machinery of the state carrying out premeditated, judicially-sanctioned killings on a mass scale.' 
Last December, the United Nations General Assembly slammed Iran’s flagrant violations of human rights, criticizing its use of inhuman punishments, including flogging and amputations. 
There are no signs that human rights situation has improved during Hassan Rouhani ’s presidency. On the contrary the facts paint a grim picture: 
Since Rouhani took office almost two years ago there have been more than 1,800 executions in Iran, more than in any similar period in the past 25 years. Iran holds the record of the most number of executions in the world per capita and is the biggest executioner of juvenile offenders. Executions of citizens of ethnic and religious minorities have increased dramatically. A number of Christian priests are incarcerated for advocating their beliefs. Iran is the largest prison for journalists in the Middle East; dozens of journalists are today in detention. Iran is also one of the largest customers of internet filtering equipment, and it blocks around five million websites dedicated to arts, social issues and news, and it filters the contents of blogs and social media. 
Misogyny is at the heart of the regime’s theocratic rule. Last October, organized gangs affiliated with the regime carried out acid attacks on Iranian women for supposedly improper ’veiling’. In the same month, in defiance of international appeals, Iran executed Ms. Rayhaneh Jabbari, 26, whose crime was defending herself against an intelligence agent who had attempted to rape her. 
Ms. Atena Farghadani, a 28-year-old artist, was sentenced to a 12 year jail sentence in May for drawing a cartoon mocking senior Iranian officials. It is hard to imagine that a young woman be jailed for such lengths simply for drawing a cartoon, but this is the reality of the theocracy ruling Iran. 
In total this regime has executed more than 120,000 political prisoners, the vast majority members of the main Iranian opposition group People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran, PMOI (also known as the Mujahedin-e Khalq, MEK). 
Next Saturday will mark the 27th anniversary of the 1988 massacre of 30,000 political prisoners, primarily members and activists of the PMOI. One of the members of the three-man ’death commission’ that sent the political prisoners to the gallows is Rouhani’s Minister of Justice. 
Ms. Mogherini’s meetings with the regime’s leaders will encourage them to continue torture and executions as well as their export of terror and fundamentalism in the region, and it will undermine the Iranian people’s determination to achieve democratic regime change. 
Though in 2012 the EU adopted an ambitious strategic framework to put human rights and democracy at the center stage of its policies, in the nine months that Ms. Mogherini has been EU foreign policy chief, despite 1,000 executions in Iran, she has refused to utter even a single verbal condemnation of the daily atrocities. 
The nuclear agreement should not be an excuse for the EU to be silent in the face of the Iranian regime’s appalling human rights conduct. Ms Mogherini should make the key theme of her trip to Iran a public pronouncement to the Iranian authorities to halt executions and free political prisoners. Otherwise the regime will use her visit as a propaganda tool to discourage calls for democracy among the Iranian people. It is time for Europe to choose side between a theocratic regime and an oppressed people. Europe should not be shy to stand with the freedom-loving people of Iran and support their cry for freedom, democracy and human rights.

Alejo Vidal-Quadras

Alejo Vidal-Quadras was Vice-President of the European Parliament from 1999-2014, he currently chairs Brussels-based NGO, International Committee in Search of Justice (ISJ)