June 30, 1997
Statement on Iran
Following a three-and-half year trial in Berlin, finally Germany's Judiciary issued a verdict on the basis of irrefutable evidence, affirming the role of the most senior leaders of the Iranian regime in terrorism. It identified the "political leadership" of the regime, including the religious leader, the President, and ministers of foreign affairs and intelligence, as the masterminds behind the assassination of Iranian dissidents in Berlin.
This unprecedented ruling drew immediate reaction worldwide against the Tehran regime's terrorist policies. Member states of the European Union withdrew their ambassadors from Tehran.
For years, state-sponsored terrorism has been one of the Iranian regime's main foreign policy instruments by way of support for terrorist groups and incitement to murder foreign nationals such as Salman Rushdie.
In 1996, 32 Iranian dissidents were assassinated abroad, an unprecedented 300% increase compared with the previous year. Judicial investigations into the assassination in Turkey of Mrs. Zahra Rajabi, a senior member of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, confirmed that a deputy consul in the Iranian consulate in Istanbul commanded the hit-squad.
1996 was also one of the worst years as far as human rights abuses in Iran were concerned. The adoption of new laws gave suppression legal justification. The United Nations Special Representative's February 1997 report noted that public executions had doubled relative to the previous year. Most political executions have been carried out in secret and many dissidents were arrested and executed under the pretext of non-political offenses or "disloyalty to Islam and the state." The Interior Minister acknowledged that in the last three months of the Iranian year (December 1996 through February 1997) 730 people were arrested on drug trafficking charges everyday. Many of these detainees were political activists. Women are denied their most rudimentary rights and religious minorities are suppressed. Several Sunni and Christians minorities have reportedly been murdered in the past year.
In backing the declaration by 1,750 parliamentarians in Europe and North America in 1995, we believe that the adoption of a decisive policy, including an economic and diplomatic boycott of the Iranian regime, is imperative. Moreover, support for Maryam Rajavi, the President-elect of the National Council of Resistance, who as a symbol of unity is backed by the majority of the Iranian people, will contribute to the establishment of democracy in Iran and peace and stability in the region. This Resistance and its 580-member parliament, which has committed itself to holding free elections and the creation of a secular and pluralist government, is the best answer to the ominous specter of fundamentalism as the new global threat.
The recent developments and the removal of Rafsanjani from power, in whom some had naively invested, again confirms the falsity of the regime's ability to reform. Iran's rulers are continuing their active opposition to the Middle East peace process and the export of fundamentalism abroad. Their endeavors to obtain nuclear weapons is a source of deep concern by the international community.
Today, even the previous advocates of critical dialogue acknowledge that the policy has been a failure and unacceptable. To continue the policy is tantamount to inviting the mullahs to persist in further suppression and export of terrorism. It must therefore be abandoned. Today, more than ever before, the time has come for the international community to adopt a decisive and coordinated policy to expel the Tehran regime from the international community.
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