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EU Policy on Iran — a Legacy of Failure

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  By Struan Stevenson When Assadollah Assadi, the Iranian ‘diplomat’ jailed for 20 years in Belgium for a terrorist bomb plot, was released in a farcical deal with the Iranian regime and returned to a hero’s welcome in Tehran, many thought the EU’s appeasement policy had reached rock bottom. Warnings were sounded that the release of Assadi would embolden the mullahs to attempt a further bomb attack or assassination attempt on European soil. The warnings were ignored and sure enough, in November 2023, a hitman financed by the Iranian regime attempted to assassinate Alejo Vidal Qudras, a former senior vice president of the European Parliament. Mr Vidal Qudras was shot in the face, in broad daylight, outside his home in Madrid. He miraculously survived. Following Assadi’s arrest for attempting to bomb an Iranian opposition rally in Paris in 2018, Spanish socialist Josep Borrell, the EU’s high Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security said nothing. When Assadi was sentenced to a maxi

Alejo Vidal Quadras, a champion of freedom in Iran

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  By Matin Karim The failed assassination attempt against Dr. Alejo Vidal-Quadras, a prominent Spanish politician and a great supporter of the Iranian people and their resistance movement, on Friday, November 9, in the center of Madrid, shocked and bewildered everyone and quickly gained global attention. Following this assassination attempt, fingers of blame pointed towards the mullah’s regime ruling Iran, as their hysterical enmity toward him is well-known. In their reports, news outlets mentioned that he had been in contact with and supported the Iranian resistance over the decades. Following the terrorist attack, the Associated Press reported that a police source close to the investigation confirmed that Vidal-Quadras himself had raised that suspicion that Iran’s regime was involved and that “investigators were looking into it as one of several possible motives.” The AP added, “As part of his political career, Vidal-Quadras has been aligned for decades with the Iranian opposition in

Paris Conference Demands Justice for Victims of Iran’s 1988 Massacre and Accountability for Regime Officials

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  Written by Shamsi Saadati A conference held in Paris on August 21, 2023, commemorated the 35th anniversary of the 1988 massacre of 30,000 political prisoners in Iran. Titled “Four Decades of Crime against Humanity and Impunity from Punishment,” the event gathered esteemed international judges and jurists from all around the world. In her  opening remarks ,  Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, President-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran , stressed the need to end impunity for the Iranian regime’s leaders, emphasizing accountability for their involvement in genocide and crimes against humanity. Mrs. Maryam Rajavi said, “For the past four decades, the regime’s central slogan has been “Death to the Hypocrites.” This chant is echoed without fail at every official ceremony. The term “hypocrite” is the regime’s derogatory reference to the PMOI. In its relations with any country in the world, the regime has declared its most significant red line to be any association with the PMOI. What pr

California Legislature Majority Declares Support for Iranian Uprising and Maryam Rajavi’s Ten-Point Plan

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  Written by Shamsi Saadati Forty-two members of the  California Legislature  have signed letters expressing their support for the recent uprising of the Iranian people and endorsing Mrs. Maryam Rajavi’s Ten-Point Plan for the future of Iran. Among these signatories are 28 Democratic representatives and 14 Republican representatives from California’s 80-member legislature. These representatives highlight that the Iranian people reject both monarchical dictatorship and religious despotism. The majority of California representatives underscore that the American people stand behind the Iranian people’s aspirations for a democratic, non-nuclear republic in Iran, characterized by the separation of religion and state, as well as a foreign policy based on peaceful coexistence. They further state that the steadfast solidarity of the American people with their Iranian counterparts is evident through the overwhelming endorsement by the majority in the United States House of Representatives in th

Iran’s Presidential Meltdown

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  By Struan Stevenson Thirty-five years ago this month, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran, issued a fatwa, ordering the massacre of more than 30,000 political prisoners in prisons all across Iran. It was a crime against humanity and one of the worst acts of malicious butchery since the end of WWII. The majority of those executed, in August 1988, were members or supporters of the main democratic opposition movement, the Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK). They were mostly young, well-educated, Iranian men and women. Some had been imprisoned for supporting the MEK and had been released after serving their sentences. They were re-arrested in their thousands and subjected to arbitrary 3-minute trials in which they were asked a single question: “Do you still support the MEK?” If they answered “Yes” they were immediately sent for execution. Batches of six at a time, including even pregnant women, were hanged in prison gymnasiums. Their bodies were then buried s

Iran: The Failure Of Raisi’s Two-Year Presidency – OpEd

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  By Shamsi Saadati Two years ago, around this time, Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader of Iran’s regime, appointed Ebrahim Raisi as his regime’s president and called it a “completely meaningful move.” “New people are entering into a field with new initiatives,” he said. The goal was to unify the government to deal with resistance and uprising. But after last year’s nationwide uprising, the regime’s dream turned into nightmare, to the extent that many regime loyalists and the members of the Majlis (parliament) denounced the “failure of unified governance” and officially requested Raisi to resign. On May 3, the state-run Jahan-e Sanat newspaper wrote, ” The current government is the weakest after the [1979] revolution. With such a degrading record, no room is left any more to defend or support it, and we see no one defending this government.” The regime’s media is filled with fear from the inefficiency of the government and the prospect of the regime’s downfall. On August 1, the state-run