British Lawmakers Honor Iran’s 2022 Uprising and Support Resistance

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Written by
Shamsi Saadati

On September 12, within the UK Parliament, members of both the House of Commons and the House of Lords convened with representatives from the Iranian Resistance. They gathered to commemorate the first anniversary of the 2022 uprising and reaffirm their dedication to backing the Iranian people’s quest for freedom and democracy. Additionally, they urged the UK government to designate the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organization.

Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, President-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran was a keynote speaker of the event. Expressing her gratitude for the statement of 525 members of both Houses of the UK Parliament in supporting the Iranian Resistance, Mrs. Rajavi announced, “Some 1,000 prominent women from around the world who are well recognized in leadership, science, art, and social affairs have issued a statement supporting the vanguard role of women in the Iranian Resistance, on the eve of the anniversary of the Iran uprising. The declaration is a sign of international solidarity with the brave women and girls in Iran.”

She also stated, “The regime and its supporters claim that the uprisings have been fully suppressed and that the regime is stronger. But, what is the reality? The reality is that the regime is more vulnerable and more fragile because the deep economic, social, and political crises that led to the uprising continue to persist.

The situation has worsened in every respect, and the crises have deepened. The escalation of executions, mass arrests, and intensified suppression indicate the regime’s weakness and fear of another uprising. In addition, regime officials constantly express concern about the PMOI’s growing support among the younger generation, who join the Resistance.”

Rejecting the Western appeasement policy toward the clerical dictatorship in Iran, Mrs. Rajavi added, “All governments must remember that in 1978, world powers considered Iran under the Shah to be an island of stability. However, the Shah’s dictatorship was toppled in less than a year by the people’s uprising and the will of the majority of the Iranian people. The mullahs’ regime is far more fragile, today.

The policy of appeasement must be set aside. It will only embolden the mullahs’ terrorist regime to commit more crimes violate human rights in Iran, and engage in more terrorism, and hostage-taking. The appeasement policy has prolonged the regime’s rule. A new policy is long overdue, one that relies on the Iranian people and their desires rather than on oppressive rulers.”

“On behalf of the Iranian Resistance, I would like to thank you for choosing the right side. Time is working against the regime and in favor of the Iranian people. Now is the time to take all necessary measures to bring the criminals, namely Khamenei, Raisi, and other oppressors of the Iranian people to justice. The Iranian people’s revolution will win. As the late Lord Corbett has said, “Iran will be free. Yes, this regime will be overthrown, and a democratic republic will be established,” she concluded.

MP Theresa Villiers, UK Secretary of State for Environment and Northern Ireland (2020) said, “This is just the latest chapter of bloodshed and oppression in the four decades-long rule of the mullahs. The theocratic regime there is one of the worst human rights offenders in the world, and my long-stated view is that the IRGC is responsible for many of these atrocities. And whilst I speak in a personal capacity, I continue to believe, as I have done for several years that the IRGC should be prescribed as the terrorist organization that it most clearly is.

We should take the further step of proscribing the IRGC. We should reflect on the horror of what the IRGC is responsible for in Iran and also across the regions where its proxies are involved in conflict across the Middle East.

I want to see democratic change and reform so that the protestors are listened to, that children’s rights are respected, and that women can enjoy equal concern and respect. And I truly hope that one day soon we will see the establishment of the democratic, secular Republic, based on the Ten-Point Plan, which multiple opposition groups have coalesced around.”

Baroness Sandip Verma, former minister of Energy, Climate Change, and International Development, stated, “So many people have lost their lives and so many people, including children, who have been taken away and brutalized by a regime who has zero respect for human rights. So, I think it is a good reminder to all of us when we join together that we look at how we are coalescing around a subject matter that isn’t going to go away until the world recognizes it for what it is.

Everybody is joining in on this cause and I think as Madam Rajavi always highlights. It is actually led by a person who has got a plan. The Ten-Point Plan is a democratic process that will enable the people of Iran to live freely and be respected for their human rights. And I really, really cannot understand why we are still discussing the proscription of the IRGC.

I don’t understand when there are other terrorist groups that have not had to go through such a strenuous process while we are still discussing this, and I would advocate all parliamentarians to really urge their governments to push harder on this agenda until we see that happen. We actually don’t make as much progress as we would because a message isn’t as clear as it should be.

British Lawmakers Honor Iran’s 2022 Uprising and Support Resistance

We cannot keep silent. We mustn’t keep silent. And if leaders across the world were seriously contemplating the appeasement policy, does not work. History will tell you over and over again that appeasement does not work.

I do hope that the message is loud and clear from all of us as parliamentarians across the globe that we do have to see change, and it starts by action and not just gentle words.”

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Baroness Nuala O’Loan also said, “I have some experience of violent scenes because I come from Northern Ireland. I have been bombed, I have experienced the kinds of things that we’ve watched here, but nothing, nothing on the scale of what is happening in Iran today. And I know how frightening it is to go onto the streets when you know that something is happening when you know that these protests are underway.

And for these young people who do go out knowing that they may be arrested, killed, against all those things. I think we must have huge respect for the courage that they have. I watch it when all these young people come out against their oppression, against the atrocities, against the terror, against the disappearances. There will be those who just disappear, whose loved ones will search for them for decades and we’ll never know what happened to them.

This is happening in Iran to the total lack of recognition and protection of human rights. It’s absolutely terrible and that includes the so-called judicial executions which have taken place on such a regular basis. Young people were pushed off buildings. Young people who just die because their voice is not acceptable to the regime.

So, I think it’s important today to acknowledge and pay tribute to the courage of both men and women who go onto the streets and onto social media to get the message out, to protest, to tell about the savagery in the current Iranian regime.

There are calls for the United Kingdom to take action to help end the crisis of systemic impunity in Iran, to support calls for the UN Human Rights Council to urgently establish an international investigative and accountability mechanism to collect, consolidate, preserve, and analyze evidence of the most serious crimes under international law.

And we should, as a country, commit to exercising our universal jurisdiction to investigate and prosecute Iranian officials suspected of criminal responsibility for crimes under international law. We must do more. The IRGC must be proscribed.

Iran deserves freedom. Her people must have that democratic secular Republic of which Madam Rajavi spoke, which will enable Iran to take its place in the modern world and her people to flourish in freedom.”

MP Toby Perkins, Shadow Minister for Rural Affairs stated, “There is no question that one of the major global headlines of the last 12 months has been the nationwide uprising in Iran.

This uprising, the bravery of those people taking to the streets, despite the tremendous danger caused by the oppression of the IRGC and the theocratic regime has been truly inspirational to all of us.

We know that a free Iran is the ultimate destiny for the people of Iran. We know that it is in the interest of Iran, but we also know that it is in the interests of a more peaceful world, a more peaceful Middle East, and that it is something that we need to push for international pressure in order to see the IRGC proscribed as a terrorist organization, for the legitimacy of negotiations that take place to be stripped away and for them to be placed in their proper context in terms of the human rights abuses and in terms of their entire approach towards their own country and the malicious contribution that they make to Middle East politics.

The regime has no legitimacy and no right to run the country of Iran, and so the regime must be held to account because it is a serial mass murder. The UK government must stand up and say that it will not negotiate with this terrorist regime.”

Lord Indarjit Singh stated, “The conduct of the Iranian regime, after 44 years of cruel, inhumane, and degrading treatment of the 88 million people of Iran who’ve never recognized the legitimacy of the regime, is unbelievable. We’ve seen again and again Iranian people standing up to this regime and demanding its overthrow.

To date, conservative estimates are that more than 120,000 people have been executed by the regime. And we can never forget the summer of 1988 when over 30,000 political prisoners were sent to the gallows and perished in mass graves and in unmarked locations across Iran.

I join with my fellow Sikhs and many members of the Lords and Commons in our solidarity with the brave people of Iran, a country with a rich heritage and culture. I join with them in their aspirations for a free, democratic and secular Iran. An important step in this direction is to proscribe, as we’ve heard, and it’s become an urgent necessity to proscribe Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organization, both for its involvement in domestic repression, but also for repression abroad.

The Iranian people have an organized, capable, and popular resistance movement led by Madam Maryam Rajavi. Her Ten-Point-Plan is something not only as an ideal for Iran, it is an ideal for many countries around the world where human rights are being abused.”

Naghmeh Rajabi, a business graduate and member of the Anglo-Iranian community said, “The success of this revolution is guaranteed by the lives that have been given so bravely in the streets of Iran. And we know that the revolution will succeed because the lives of those killed on the path to a free Iran are not in vain.

We can witness this in every corner of the country with the activities of the brave Resistance Units and the brave display of resistance by the political prisoners inside the prisons of Iran.

We know that the turmoil inside the country is only getting worse each day, and the regime is both unwilling and incapable of bringing about any real change.

And improvements for the people of Iran in the face of such desperate times, the Iranian regime does what the reigning regime does best, which is the increased of suppression, the mass arrests of anyone that opposes it, and the silencing of political prisoners through executions.

The Iranian regime particularly targets anyone who is a member of the main opposition group, the PMOI, or who is merely a supporter or affiliated with the group because it knows that the PMOI is led by a charismatic woman, Mrs. Maryam Rajavi.

The revolution was not and is not only about women’s freedom to wear the hijab or not, although undoubtedly that is a real issue for the women of my country. To reduce a country’s revolution to a matter of women’s hijab is doing injustice to the hundreds and thousands of Iranians who have been a victim of the regime either for their political beliefs, for their religious beliefs, or for the belief that they too have the right to live freely.

I’m personally a victim of the Iranian regime’s brutalities and I’ve lost members of my family including two aunts.

The people of Iran have spoken through the slogans that they shout, which is “Down to the oppressor, be it the Shah or the Supreme Leader,” meaning they do not want to go back to the dark days of having a corrupt monarchy system for which many people died in 1979 to overthrow.

Just because we can all agree that we don’t want the current regime does not mean we want to go back to 50 years ago. We want true freedom and democracy and I think we need to hear and support the Iranian people when they ask for a democratic Republic.”

Baroness Liz Redfern said, “The NCRI’s Ten-Point Plan provides a respectable, reliable alternative. Among other things, it calls for a non-nuclear, secular, and democratic Republic that respects the rights of women and minorities.

Western governments must also proscribe the IRGC, which is the regime’s main arm for suppressing dissidents at home and exporting terrorism around the world. The truth must be told and Iran will be free.”

MP Martyn Day, SNP Spokesperson for Health in the House of Commons said, “As a democratic politician, I’m always very wary of calling for regime change in other nations because I think they have to solve their own issues. But I can make an exception with regard to Iran for several obvious reasons for that totally oppressive, undemocratic nature that it operates against its own people, but also the main and undemocratic nature they act across on the international stage and its threat to world democracy. So, I think we have to see regime change coming fast. I believe there’s a lot more that our country should do.

I don’t think we can negotiate with the regime. We need to proscribe the IRGC as many others have called for, and we need to be bringing in sanctions against those connected with it and we need to act to support the people on the ground.”

MP Liam Fox, former UK Defense Secretary:

For me, the importance of a year on from Massa Amini is not to remember the brutal treatment of an innocent young woman. Its importance lies In the wider, particularly the international reminder of the brutality and inhumanity of the regime.

I’ve often described Iran as not the usual thugocracy. Iran is worse than that. It is a thugocracy with a malignant theocracy sitting on top of it. It is more dangerous than other regimes. It is run by the IRGC. They are the instrument of the thugocracy. They control the means of production in Iran. The drones used by Russia against the Ukrainian people were supplied by the IRGC. Therefore, they are implicated in war crimes. They are the export bureau for terrorism. These are some of the reasons why the British government must proscribe them.

There are some people around the world who believe they are the heir to rule Iran. No one has the right to lead the Iranian people other than those chosen by the free Iranian people themselves.

MP Anna Firth stated, “It’s my great pleasure to read a statement which has been signed by 1000 prominent women as we approach the eve of the people’s uprising.

It speaks volumes that over 1000 prominent women from five continents and 67 countries have issued a joint statement expressing their support and emphasizing the courageous women of Iran and their pivotal role in this uprising and other countries.

Here we have 50 current and former Presidents, Vice Presidents, Prime Ministers, and ministers as well as 175 parliamentarians, Nobel Prize Laureates, artists, and athletes.

In this historic statement, these figures declare their endorsement for the Ten-Point Plan outlined by Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, President-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, for freedom, equality, and a democratic Republic; the only program that champions the complete equality of women.

With the 3600 parliamentarians, and 125 former presidents supported the National Council of Resistance’s Ten-Point Plan that affirms their commitment to ensuring full gender equality.

We are all united against this atrocious regime. We all have one word, common goal, and that is to see a democratic regime and to see equality for women in what is the great country of Iran.”

MP Bob Blackman:

We should praise NCRI, the PMOI, and in particular, the NCRI President-elect Maryam Rajavi, leading this resistance. Now, not everyone in Iran supports NCRI or PMOI, but it is quite clearly the most representative organization that is a democratic alternative to the current regime of the mullahs.

The regime has focused on attacking our friends in Ashraf 3 in Albania, but it’s not limited to Albania or Iran. The regime is taking hostages and trying to blackmail Western governments.

The IRGC is a direct threat to our democracy and Western interests in general. The regime always wants more money. They are using secret trade networks and front companies to sell oil to fund their crackdown and terrorism. Our government should condemn these actions.

If people try to pursue a diplomatic approach, it will only embolden the regime. It is clear that the Iranian people will rise up. There is evidence that the regime is unable and unwilling to solve the social problems.

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