The Iranian Resistance has called on Austrian political parties, parliamentarians and defenders of human rights to cancel the upcoming visit by the Iranian regime’s President Hassan Rouhani.
The National Council of Resistance of Iran said in a statement that it “considers the planned trip of Rouhani, President of the religious, terrorist dictatorship ruling Iran, to Austria against the highest interests of the Iranian people and the countries in the region.”
The National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) reported on its website ( www.ncr-iran.org ) that at least 20 members of Iran’s Kurdish minority were arrested or kidnapped over the Nowrouz (Iranian New Year) holiday period.
Twenty people have been transferred to detention and interrogation centres or prisons in western Iran (Sanandaj and Bukan). Four siblings of Farhad Vakili, the Kurdish political prisoner who was executed in 2010, were some of those held in Sanandaj.
On the occasion of Nowrouz, the Iranian New Year, several prominent Members of the European Parliament have pledged their support for the Iranian Resistance.
José Inácio Faria, a member of the European Parliament from Portugal, said that all democrats have a duty to support the Iranian Resistance if they truly believe in democracy. Mr. Faria also highlighted the clear message of Nowrouz: “the prevailing forces of good – represented by the spring – over the darkness – that is represented by the winter”.
Former U.S. envoy to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, urged the Obama administration to work towards countering the negative influence of Tehran. Writing in the Wall Street Journal (Friday 25th March), he said that it appears that many in Washington DC believe that “Iraq is hopelessly lost to Iran”. He believes the general consensus in Washington DC is to “destroy Islamic State there and develop a special relationship with an independent or semi-independent Iraqi Kurdistan”.
The United Nations Human Rights Council voted on Wednesday to extend the mandate of its Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in Iran.
Political prisoners in Iran, including supporters of the main opposition People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI or MEK) had written to Council Members earlier this month urging them to support the extension of Dr. Ahmed Shaheed’s mandate in this Council session.
Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, the President-elect of the Iranian Resistance, released a statement on March 22 condemning the political violence in Brussels that killed at least 31 people on Tuesday as a “crime against humanity”. Mrs Rajavi expressed her most sincere sympathies and wished for the recovery of the 270 who were injured.
“The Iranian people, who for the past 37 years have been suffering under the menacing rule of the religious and terrorist fascism of the mullahs or the “Godfathers of Daesh” (ISIS or ISIL), are too familiar with these atrocities and feel the pain of the peoples of Belgium and Europe in these difficult moments.”
United States President Barack Obama said in Buenos Aires Wednesday that the United States has offered whatever help it can give to hold accountable those responsible for the deadly 1994 bombing of a Jewish community center in the city, CNSNews.com reported.
Argentinian investigators have blamed senior figures in the Iranian regime for the attack, the worst in the country’s history.
The Obama administration has spent three years engaged in secret talks with Iran’s regime that resulted in the payment of nearly $2 billion in U.S. taxpayer funds to Tehran, with more payouts likely to come in the future, according to a recent letter issued by the U.S. State Department and obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.
A consultant to the Iranian regime’s mission to the United Nations in New York has been criminally charged with violating a U.S. law against dealing with that country, according to an indictment made public on Wednesday.
Ahmad Sheikhzadeh, 60, faces seven charges including conspiracy to evade U.S. sanctions against Iran, money laundering, and helping arrange false tax returns, the May 18 indictment said.
Former United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is pressing the Obama administration to impose new sanctions on Iran’s “extremist regime” over its sponsorship of terrorism, illegal arms transfers and human rights violations.
Clinton pointed to the “existential danger” that would be posed by the Iranian regime if it ever obtained a nuclear weapon.
Clinton told a Washington meeting on Monday it is “not good enough to trust and verify” that Iran’s regime is respecting the terms of its nuclear deal with the world powers. “Our approach must be distrust and verify.”
