Maryam Rajavi’s speech at a Berlin conference on Iran

This is part of her speech:

For years, the Iranian regime has fed the policy of appeasement with two major deceptions.

Firstly – to make others believe that the religious dictatorship will become moderate, thus holding European and American policies hostage for years.

Second – to make others believe that there is no reliable alternative to the Iranian regime.

Today, European countries have begun to see the reality that the regime will not moderate. However, by ignoring the role of the people and the deep-rooted organised resistance, they are accepting this regime as a reality. Verbal condemnation of the regime, while ignoring or dismissing the resistance, has no result.

Since the regime’s new president took office, more than 180 prisoners have been executed. Several political prisoners, including three PMOI (MEK) supporters, have been sentenced to death in recent days.

In July, the UN Special Rapporteur announced in a 66-page report that mass executions in the 1980s, including the 1988 massacre – the majority of whose victims were from the PMOI – were clear examples of genocide and crimes against humanity. The report adds that crimes against humanity continue to this day.

The regime’s response to this report has been demonization and threats against the UN Special Rapporteur.

Actions against the people and the Iranian resistance

In recent years, the Iranian people have called for the overthrow of the regime in several uprisings.

In 2019, more than 1,500 people were killed and in 2022, more than 750 people lost their lives. In the last two years, the regime has increased inhuman pressure on Iranian Kurdish groups in Iraqi Kurdistan. It has also carried out massacres against our Baloch compatriots.

After the 2022 uprising, the regime held a show trial against the PMOI and 104 members of the resistance in their absence. This trial is still going on. Along with this trial, the regime resorted to terrorist attacks against the National Council of Resistance abroad.

The clerical regime has launched a massive demonisation campaign against the resistance, using its agents under various pretexts. Their aim is to prevent young people from supporting the resistance inside Iran and to justify the policy of appeasement. The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution in Germany has revealed that the Iranian regime’s intelligence services in Germany and Europe have been focusing on the PMOI and the NCRI for the past 25 years. Their aim is to gather information and demonise them.

Under these circumstances, appeasers sometimes condemn human rights violations in Iran. However, they are careful to distance themselves from the democratic alternative of the National Council of Resistance in order not to anger the regime.

Regime officials have revealed that their first demand in negotiations with various governments is to put pressure on the resistance. This approach has emboldened the regime to expand its destructive dominance in the region, advance its nuclear bomb project and even spread fundamentalism and terrorism to Europe.

The regime’s continued destructive behaviour in the region is the flip side of appeasement and the removal of the opposition from the equation in Iran. This is the missing link in Western policy.

The people of Iran are demanding freedom and democracy, a republic based on the separation of religion and state, gender equality, autonomy for nationalities and an Iran without executions and torture. I have no doubt that they will succeed.

Let me conclude by highlighting four actions that are urgently needed. These actions reflect both the wishes of the Iranian people and the requirements of peace and tranquillity in Europe.

-Designating the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) and the Ministry of Intelligence as terrorist organisations.

-Shut down the regime’s official and unofficial centres and expel its mercenaries.

-Holding regime officials accountable for committing genocide.

-Activating the snapback mechanism of the UN Security Council Resolution 2231 and activating previous Council resolutions against the regime’s nuclear projects.

-Recognise the struggle of the Iranian youth and resistance units against the IRGC to overthrow the clerical regime.

Thank you.

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