Stop Fundamentalism, 16 May 2011 – In a press conference Friday, Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, President-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran called on the French President Sarkozy to step in to protect the unarmed residents of Camp Ashraf.
“I make a specific request today to President Sarkozy who has taken a brave initiative in Libya, to take up an international initiative within the humanitarian and human rights framework, to protect the defenseless residents of Ashraf,” said Rajavi speaking to a press conference in Paris. She asked Sarkozy, “To present this case at the United Nations Security Council.”
The press conference was held after the French investigative magistrates dropped all charges of terrorism against 24 members of the Iranian Resistance it held since June 2003. A number of prominent French lawyers and former head of the French counter-intelligence service (DST), discussed Wednesday’s ruling by French magistrates dismissing terrorism charges against members and supporters of the Iranian Resistance In June 2003, French police staged a massive crackdown on the Iranian Resistance in France arresting 168 members and supports including Mrs. Rajavi on charges of terrorism. All those arrested were released shortly after the attack.
About the arrests Mrs. Rajavi said, “From its outset the investigation was opened to destroy the Iranian Resistance at the behest of the Iranian regime.” She added that, “those who had pledged in Tehran to attack the Iranian Resistance must be held accountable.”
“I accuse them of collaborating with the Iranian regime in suppressing the Iranian Resistance, a legitimate resistance that seeks freedom of speech and free elections and whose only crime is saying no to dictatorship,” Said President Rajavi.
Rajavi added that the Iranian regime executes members of Ashraf residents’ families in Tehran with this same terrorist stigma and designation and al-Maliki in Iraq used the same excuse to attack Ashraf on 8 April during which 22 residents were crushed by armored vehicles, 35 killed, 225 shot by direct fire from snipers.
“Crimes against humanity and massacre continue in Ashraf,” Maryam Rajavi Warned.
Calling to put the past behind, Rajavi told the conference that, “We do not want to linger in the past and we are looking to build the future.” She stressed, “I only seek to prevent the slaughter and further bloodshed of the Ashraf residents, who have suffered enormously due to the terror tag from these cases.”
William Burdon, a prominent French lawyer, stated during the conference that, “The investigative magistrates have now confirmed what we repeated during the past eight years by admitting that the Iranian opposition acted within the framework of the legitimate right to resist against dictatorship, because international law acknowledges the right of every individual to resist for freedom.” Burdon added, “It would have been a great dishonor for France to prosecute the Iranian resistance instead of state terrorism that is the Iranian regime’s terrorism. Therefore, the decision of the investigative magistrates only restores France’s honor.
