ISJ PRESS CONFERENCE
10.30-12.00 hrs. Tuesday 24 September 2024
NEW HOTEL CHARLEMAGNE, BOULEVARD CHARLEMAGNE, BRUSSELS

ISJ WHITE PAPER ON IRAN

Welcome to our press conference. In Search of Justice (ISJ), is a non-profit NGO registered in Brussels. Our members include many elected parliamentarians from around the world, together with former officials and other dignitaries, with an interest to promote human rights, freedom, democracy, peace, and stability in Iran. Let me introduce the presidency of the ISJ who are here today. Our President is my great friend and colleague Alejo Vidal Quadras, who is a Spanish professor of atomic and nuclear physics. Alejo was Senior Vice-president of the European Parliament from 1999-2014.

I am Struan Stevenson and I chair the ISJ Committee on the Protection of Political Freedoms in Iran. I represented Scotland in the European Parliament from 1999-2014, when I was also President of the European Parliament’s Delegation for Relations with Iraq (2009-14) and chairman of the Friends of a Free Iran Intergroup (FoFI) (2004-14). Also here is our great friend and colleague Paulo Casaca who was a member of the European Parliament from 1999-2009 representing Portugal and chaired the parliament’s delegation for relations with the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, as well as co-chairing the Friends of a Free Iran Intergroup (FoFI) with me.

Can I tell you that the unique attribute that embraces all three of us is that we all support the Iranian people and their right to overthrow the evil dictatorship that has oppressed and tyrannized them and spread conflict and terror throughout the Middle East and worldwide for the past 45 years. As a result, we have been informed by the mullahs’ regime in Iran that we are all named on their sanctions blacklist, which indeed is a badge of honour we each share. It is, however, also a stark reminder of how dangerous this terrorist regime is. As you will all know, last November the regime attempted to assassinate Alejo Vidal Quadras outside his home in Madrid. Miraculously, although shot in the face, Alejo survived, and this morning he will tell you more about how that event backfired spectacularly on the mullahs.

All three of us have experienced the regimes threats, attacks and demonisation for decades, almost always traceable to the Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) in Tehran.
Since it hi-jacked the revolution in Iran in 1979, the mullahs’ regime has done everything in its power to eliminate the main democratic opposition movement the People’s Mojahedin of Iran (PMOI) and, by extension, the culture of resistance and the Iranian people’s dream and struggle for a free, democratic, secular republic. They have killed over 100,000 supporters and members of the PMOI, as well as the horrific massacre of 30,000 political prisoners in the summer of 1988; the terror assassinations of National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) members in several European countries; rocket and missile attacks against PMOI members in Camps Ashraf and Liberty in Iraq; and terror bombings targeting NCRI and PMOI gatherings in Albania and Paris. They are even conducting a sham trial in absentia of 104 PMOI members, right now, in Tehran. Last week the judge at that bogus trial said it would be a crime for anyone, anywhere in the world, to attend a PMOI or NCRI meeting!!

The mullahs’ efforts to eliminate the PMOI also relied on a massive campaign of demonisation and propaganda, both at home and abroad, to tarnish the organised Iranian opposition. The regime has spent millions, if not billions, of dollars on this propaganda campaign, publishing hundreds of books, magazines, and articles, as well as producing documentaries, movies, and TV shows to demonise and traduce the PMOI. These attacks against the PMOI are always based on manufactured lies and groundless accusations from the regime, intended to discourage people and parliamentarians from recognising, supporting and engaging with the Iranian opposition. Sadly, all too often some of the western media fall for this propaganda and publish articles and even documentaries based on garbage that has come straight from the mullahs in Tehran.

The theocratic regime has also spent tens of millions building international ties with influential academics and researchers, penetrating governments, think tanks and advisory groups at the highest level, spreading the regime’s propaganda. Their teams of so-called experts, answerable directly to Tehran, can be found in the European Parliament, in Washington DC and in democratic parliaments throughout the west, working to sustain the failed policy of appeasement, which our White Paper seeks to highlight and expose today.

I will invite each of our speakers to make a brief intervention, then we will have time for a few questions. Let us start the proceedings with our ISJ President – Professor Alejo Vidal Quadras.