All eyes on diplomat-terrorist trial

OPINION:

Mrs. Rajavi, conferees at this extraordinary record-setting conference, and residents of Ashraf 3, it’s true that we are meeting and conferring in a virtual way, but make no mistake about it—the challenge and the threat that NCRI represents to the mullahs in Tehran isn’t just virtual. It is actual.

We’ve seen evidence that an Iranian diplomat was arraigned in a Belgian court, along with three of his co-defendants, and charged with plotting to bomb NCRI’s annual gathering near Paris in June of 2018. This is the first time that a diplomat has been charged in Europe with participating in a terrorist act. The motive for this foiled plot was fear. Fear of Mrs. Rajavi, fear of the NCRI and the threat that they represent to the regime. In November 2019, and January 2020, the people of Iran demonstrated their contempt for the regime and its terrorist activities, and their determination to break free of the restrictions on their freedom. The slogans that they chanted made it entirely clear that the reported difference between hardliners and purported moderates in the regime is a sham and a fraud, and the belief of the people that the regime entirely is rotten to the core. We should continue to press our own governments to continue their embargo on Iran, their arms embargo, and to see to it that the most restrictive sanctions are snapped back in place. The regime’s continued maintenance of a ballistic missile program whose only purpose would be the delivery of a nuclear weapon shows that its ongoing efforts to develop a nuclear weapon have not abated Its continued support for terrorism in the Middle East and around the world shows that this regime is not willing to behave like a normal government.

The only way to end the regime’s behavior is to end the regime. There is already an available democratic alternative to the corrupt and terrorist regime of the ayatollahs, and it is the NCRI with its 10-point program for a democratic, secular, non-nuclear republic that guarantees equal rights for all men and women. We are here to rally support for that alternative, and for the efforts of Mrs. Rajavi and others, to end the nightmare that Iranians have been living since 1979.