02 February 2016
Mr Chairman,
Madam President Rajavi,
Last week we witnessed elections in Iran. It was not like any elections which we are used to see in the free world. Because there was no opposition candidates. And those candidates who stood and have been loyal supporters of this theocratic state, had to be confirmed by a special body, called the Council of Guardians.
Now what is this Council of Guardians?
They are a group of 12 mullahs: 6 of them are directly chosen by the Supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, and the other 6 are chosen by head of the Judiciary who himself is chosen by the Supreme leader!
So in fact the twelve members of the Council are appointed by Khamenei.
Every candidate must have a full heartfelt and practical commitment to the regime and to the Supreme Leader. However, half of those who registered to stand in these elections and were indeed loyal to the regime were disqualified by the Council of Guardians. Because they had expressed some slight differences of opinion that Khamenei did not like.
Having a look at the members of the new Majlis or Parliament, we see that it is an insult to our accepted western values to call different factions of this religious theocracy as conservatives, or reformists or moderates. These words have a special meaning for us in Europe, but in Iran those people are mostly a bunch of murderers, human rights violators or terrorists.
The list of so called moderates under the leadership of Rafsanjani and Rouhani includes the current Minister of Intelligence and three former Intelligence Ministers, all of them with a sinister record of crimes and torture of opponents.
One of them in the list the so called moderates is Ali Falahian who was a former Minister of Intelligence and Secret Service, who has been indicted in international courts for his role in masterminding several assassinations of the opposition who were living in Germany and Switzerland and for his role in several bomb terrorist attacks in Argentina.
On the other hand, in the list of their opposite faction we see the name of the current head of the judiciary and two former heads of the judiciary who are responsible for issuing thousands of death sentences.
The Iranian regime has claimed that majority of the people, 60 to 70 percent, took part. This is a big lie. Taking the foreign journalists to some selected voting stations which have been well prepared is not difficult. If it was a real election, the mullahs would have accepted international observers which is quite routine in many countries.
In dictatorships like Iran, it is not difficult to claim 80 or 90 percent turn out. In the absence of independent international observers, rigging the elections is quite easy. In Iran, whatever the outcome, the officials of the regime at the end multiply the number of votes 3 to 4 times.
If our European Governments are looking for moderate Iranians, they should cooperate with the movement under the leadership of Mrs Rajavi who has introduced a 10 point platform, which has been supported by thousands of elected politicians in Europe and North America and advocates a secular and non-nuclear Iran, equality between men and women, separation of religion and State and the abolishment of death penalty. They are a truly democratic movement who deserve our support.
So to conclude: As far as we are concerned in Europe, we should not make ourselves happy by these false elections. The regime has used these elections to make deals with the West while it hardens its suppression of the opposition. The Western countries have fallen into this trap before and they should not repeat these mistakes. If we do that the Iranian people will be the first losers.
Thank you very much