Cut off the mullahs

Jun 19 2009 Agenda by Lord Corbett

Lord Corbett of Castle Vale explains why the West must support Iranian democrats.

The world now knows about the repressive nature of Iran’s mullahs.

Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has a ferocious disdain for UN-supervised elections. Instead he picks his regime’s president and orders his Revolutionary Guards to stifle any opposition. At least ten people have been fatally shot or savagely beaten to death since the election farce ended and street protests began.

But through the often disturbing images of the mullahs’ savage repression we also witnessed an oppressed nation standing for its rights. Through their courageous resistance, millions showed that they oppose the regime in its entirety and want the freedoms that we in the West take for granted.

The battle on the streets of Tehran was not solely a dispute over election-rigging; it took aim at the very essence of the theocratic dictatorship. The people’s heroism has its precedents. A decade ago, students launched a nationwide uprising demanding freedom. And Saturday will mark the 28th anniversary of rally by a half a million strong crowd that poured into the streets of Tehran calling on Khomeini to respect human rights. Since then, the regime has executed over 120,000 of its opponents, most of whom were members of the main democratic opposition group People’s Mojahedin Organisation of Iran (PMOI).

But the Resistance against the mullahs’ dictatorship has continued. The hundreds of thousands who rallied earlier this week against Ahmadinejad are inspired by the PMOI, which also has the backing of the majority of British MPs and more than half the active members of the House of Lords.

Unfortunately, the PMOI is facing problems of its own. Its 3,400 members living in Ashraf City in next door Iraq are being suppressed by the Baghdad government at the demand of Tehran, which claims to have a ‘bilateral agreement’ for the group’s members to be expelled to certain torture and death in Iran.

Iraqi security forces have since March besieged Ashraf City and earlier this month cut off all supplies. An attempted raid on Ashraf was stalled when the residents created a human shield in the blistering heat outside the front entrance. Images of their continued resistance have been beamed into Iran and have encouraged brave young people to cry freedom.

The European Parliament in April adopted an emergency resolution urging Baghdad to recognise the status of the residents of Ashraf as “protected persons” under the Geneva Conventions and refrain from threats to forcibly displace them. Colleagues from both Houses of Parliament and I will on Saturday attend a major rally in Paris in solidarity with Ashraf and support for democratic change in Iran. I attended a similar one last year which was attended by 70,000 Iranians from across Europe denouncing the European Union’s appeasement policy toward Tehran. The message this year will be for Europe to reach out to Iran’s brave patriots both on the streets of Tehran and in Ashraf.

Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, who leads the Iranian Resistance coalition that includes the PMOI, has toured Europe for the past five years, urging governments here to cut off economic ties with the mullahs for the Iranian people’s sake and ours. As President-elect of the Parliament-in-exile, the National Council of Resistance of Iran, she argues, the West should support the Iranian people and their organised Resistance bring about democratic change. Iranians have shown that they have the capability of bringing about democracy so long as the West stops filling up the pockets of Iran’s ruthless rulers with petrodollars.

After the crackdown in Iran, there can be no moral justification for maintaining ties with the mullahs. Smart sanctions must be imposed at the UN Security Council, blocking the regime’s ability to sell over a million barrels of oil a day. EU leaders must also urge the Iraqi government to respect the European Parliament resolution on the humanitarian situation in Ashraf.

It is time to show the Iranian people that democratic Europe does not abandon its true allies.

Labour Peer, Lord Corbett of Castle Vale chairs the British Parliamentary Committee for Iran Freedom.