Speech by Adrianus Melkert, former leader of the Dutch Labor Party and Special Representative of UN Secretary General to Iraq (2009 to 2011);

                 
                                                           Ad Melkert 2

Ambassador Melkert said: 'Dear friends, it is truly a special moment to be here with you today and I am grateful for the opportunity to express at this truly impressive meeting, my feeling of deep sympathy with the cause of freedom, the need reconciliation and the promise of peace, democracy and social progress in Iran and the wider region of the Middle East that is in such trouble and turmoil today. And to express my strong hope that the humanitarian imperative and the cause of human rights should prevail over political considerations and calculations to which no individual should be held hostage. Sadly, as we know, this continues to be the case for those that were uprooted in Ashraf before discovering themselves impeded to settle down in peace and safety despite promises made. I remember during my term of office as Special Representative of the UN Secretary General that we encountered no spirit of compromise or dialogue that seems to provide the minimum of guarantees necessary to recognize the humanitarian primacy that was and is the future of the Ashraf residents. Countless efforts we invested in bringing your families, friends and colleagues and our fellow human beings into the spotlight and onto a better place to live in a world that was inclined to look the other way. That is why I urged time and again Prime Minister Maliki to relieve the unacceptable pressure and to help look for peaceful and genuine solutions. And that is why on so many occasions I urged the diplomatic community in Baghdad to assume their global humanitarian responsibility and to open their hearts and minds to create heavens that would be safer outside Iraq. I am proud that we stood our grounds in that humanitarian endeavor without bending for forces that wanted to have it their way. Including through intimidation and bloodshed that have made so many victims, of whom I want to respectfully commemorate today. Now, some three years later I’m very concerned that Camp Liberty has turned into a place unworthy of its name’s promise. That there is no end in peace in sight, that the international community prefers silence over outcry. On top of that, matters are now worsening all the time in the wake of the bitter confrontation and destructive polarization that are undermining stability, trust and development in Iraq and Syria and indeed between the powers and forces that play their games, disregarding the damage done and victims made among the innocent. With so many concerns mounting, who is still going to care for what was not right from the outsets. With so many gross violations of human rights multiplying who will still bear to knock at the door of justice and provide safe shelter for the Liberty residents. Yet, such is our duty and this is my appeal today. More than ever it is now necessary not to look the other way or to be overwhelmed by everything that it harming the future of countless men and women, secular or faithful, of all sects and ethnicities of that wonderful part of the world that provided us with the heritage of millennial of culture and civilization. More than ever let all those who believe in the force of human power and humanitarian conviction join hands in helping to stem the violence and turning the tide in the region and for a cause of human rights and to obey the humanitarian imperative, let us double our efforts to find solutions and set free in safety the Liberty people that should not be left alone.

Governor Howard Dean, governor of Vermont and also the chairman of the Democratic National Committee spoke at the Paris Convention

                 
                                              Governor Howard Dean

Governor Howard Dean said: 'Most of you know that I ran the Democratic Party and Democratic National Convention in 2008. There are more people in this hall than there were at the Democratic National Convention in 2004 and the Republican National Convention in 2004.
 So, all those State Department say, when they are busy trying to keep American from keeping its promises, they say, Oh! The MEK does not have any support, Oh Ya! Come on over here State Department and see all this support!! So, there have been great speeches today, but I am not going to give that kind of speech. Everybody who has a pencil or a pen should take it out now.
Last year when I came here, I said to Madam Rajavi and the leadership that you need a better presence in the social media. They went to work. You see these tweets. Let me tell you how successful you are. You have already done 200,000 and not only you are at the top 6, but every hour since this is  begun in 15 minutes you are the biggest tweeters in the entire world.  Number One
The first thing we are going to do is more twitting. I want you to use, Iran, why? Because the mullahs use Iran, and now you have made so many that we have taken Iran  away from mullahs,  we are going to use Iran, because first we take their  and then we take the country back.
Next, they have also started a campaign through sending petitions through Change.org, about the 1988 massacre of the 30 thousand people by the Ayatollahs before, and two, they have a campaign about Camp Liberty. It is important that you on to website NCR-Iran.org. Go on that website there are two petitions. We need you to sing those petitions.
Those creations for young activists both in Europe and in the United States to begin to require the white house to keep the word the White House and our troops have given for so many years. This is the way we built support, this is the way we use the social media.
Finally, now that we have done those two things... the third thing I want you to do is go to WhiteHouse.gov. I want everyone in this hall to send a note to president Obama asking him to keep American’s word and bring the people out of Liberty. It is time that is not just a group of Americans and parliamentarians and people from around the world that are asking the United States to keep its word, it is time that a very large international group of both American and Iranian expats from all over the world to insist that America keep its word. It is no longer enough that put pressure on the State Department and on the National Security Council. Now we are going to make this President Obama’s responsibility and he will answer for what he does.'

Governor Bill Richardson, governor of New Mexico, 2003-2011,was one of the hunreds speakers at the Paris Convention

                 
                                            Governor Bill Richardson

Bill Richardson, served as the governor of New Mexico, 2003-2011, he also served as the US Ambassador to the UN and as the US Secretary of Energy

Gov. Richardson said: 'I have two questions for you. One of them requires a YES, and the other one requires a NO. So it is going to be very easy. My first question:  
Has there been any change since Rouhani came to office? (NO)
The second question, is there hope for change for Iran? (YES)
It’s a great honor for me to participate with governor Dean and so many bipartisan leaders from the United States and from around the world. But you are the stars here today. The first question، has there been a change?
The answer is NO. There has been more executions under Rouhani, there has been more repression. They said they were going to release political prisoners, it did not happen.
Did they change their behavior?  The answer is NO, they continue to repress, the genocide the people of Syria, They continue fight against human rights in the entire Middle East. They refuse to say to Maliki that you should have an enclosed government of Shiite and Sunni and Kurds to save Iraq.
But there has not been any change with Rouhani. There has not been any serious change in nuclear negotiation with the West and the United States. But the most important question for us! is there change for Iran?
The answer is YES, because it is you, it is the MEK, it is Maryam Rajavi , it is the freedom loving people of Iran that are in this room, that want democracy, that want human rights.
I have been coming here for many years. I never have seen such a big crowd.'

Senator Joseph Lieberman addressed the grand gathering in Paris

             
                                        Senator Joseph Lieberman

Senator Lieberman served honorably and well in the US Senate for many years and with the Democratic Party he was a vice-presidential nominee in 2000.Sen. Lieberman:  I am honored to join you today in a great cause which is the cause of freedom and human rights and independence for the people of Iran. I am honored to stand at this podium after President-elect Rajavi. But, it’s not so easy to follow such a great speech. It was brilliant, it was honorable, it was visionary. Madam Rajavi, what a great leader, she set out a path to victory and gave us all a reasonable hope that we will succeed in liberating the people of Iran.
I am honored to be here and as we used to say in the United States Senate as a point of personal privilege, I am honored to be here with my wife, Pedesta Ester Lieberman. 
My friends, I want first to thank each of you in this massive crowd for the effort you have made to come here from all over the world to be part of this resistance. In doing so, I hope you know that you are not just attending another meeting. You have chosen to be part of history. Part of changing history and it is a long history of patriotic and courageous people who have fought for and achieved their freedom. It is a history that goes back if I my say so to the emancipation of the Jewish people from slavery in ancient Egypt. It’s the same fight that was waged by the brave Americans who won our independence through revolution in 18th century; to all the French patriots who fought for and won their freedom and their revolution in the 19th century; to the brave soldiers who defeated Nazism and fascism in the Second World War; to the heroic people whose revolutionary uprisings collapsed the Soviet Union in the 20th century; to the people in the Arab world who have risen up for their freedom and opportunity in our time.
By choosing to be here today, you join that history and advance it because you and we are engaged in a historic struggle to liberate the people of Iran, a great nation with a proud history, from the evil regime that is holding them hostage, and we will do it.
Madam Rajavi referred to the religious fundamentalists who are temporarily at the head of the Iranian government. They are religious but in the American view, they are leading a government that is profoundly sacrilegious. And they are doing that because they are denying the people of Iran the human rights to life, liberty and happiness that the American Declaration of Independence makes clear is the endowment of every individual on earth, not from the government, but from the God Almighty.
That is why the American revolutionaries in the 18th century, men like Jefferson and Franklin declared that resistance to tyrants is obedience to God. And so, I say today to the people of Iran, the people to the resistance, and I say it also to the tyrants who today rule over Iran: never forget resistance to tyrants is obedience to God.
In resisting the current regime in Iran, we must be realistic, we must not close our eyes to what they do, or our ears to what they say. It is a year now since the soft smile of Rouhani has replaced the threatening grimace of Ahmadinejad. But I ask you my friends, has anything else about the policies of Iran changed in the 1st year? (Crowd: NO) I couldn’t agree with you more. Iran under Rouhani continues to directly support mass murder of the innocent people of Syria. Iran under Rouhani continues to fund and train violent, murdering terrorists in the Middle East and beyond. Iran under Rouhani continues to insist on maintaining its nuclear capability, and the systems and weapons to deliver it.  Rouhani continues to punish, imprison Iranians who simply want to speak their minds, and it does more than that, as Madam Rajavi said so powerfully, in increasing numbers it kills the dissidents by hanging.
Iran under Rouhani continues to leave the people of Iran suffering economically from poverty and unemployment. And yet in spite of all that and as I say we can see it with our eyes, we can hear from our ears, there are those outside of Iran, including people in high places, who want to see Iran as they wish it would be, not as it is today, and I am afraid some of those are in the United States. Those who meet with the regime, who trust its representatives, who consider working with Iran in Iraq, deceive themselves; but more than that, they endanger the rest of us. Their hopes blind their eyes to the truth. Nothing has changed in Iran under Rouhani and Khamenei. They are the enemies of freedom, the enemies of American and the enemies of the people of Iran.
There is only one sure way to secure the world from the threat that this regime and Tehran represent: it is for the Iranian people to overthrow these tyrants, and for freedom loving people throughout the world to support this next great revolution.
You of the National Council of Resistance of Iran know all this and have fought valiantly and effectively to wake up the world’s leaders from their sleep and illusions before it is too late. I thank you for that, and I want to thank you as an American, for all you have done to enable America to have the intelligence necessary to protect our people and our allies from Iranian backed terrorism and Iranian backed nuclear weapons. We could not do it without your help.
So it is time for America to come to our values; America which we proudly called the land of the free and the home of the brave. It is time for us to give full support to the brave Iranians of the resistance, who are today fighting to be free. Remember the warning from Dante that the hottest places in hell are reserved for those who in time of moral crises preserved their neutrality. There is a moral crisis in Iran today. There is a moral crisis at Camp Liberty in Iraq today, and for anyone, including particularly America, to remain neutral in the face of these moral crises is just plain wrong.
I want to say to you that the program of the National Council of Resistance of Iran is totally  consistent with American values. You are not just the enemy of our enemies. You are our friends, our allies, our brothers and sisters, our partners in the pursuit of freedom, human rights and the rule of law. The spread of freedom is our shared goal and it is our destiny, and I will tell you, as you can see by the extraordinary group of American leaders who are here today that support for the resistance is growing in America. As a matter of fact I said to one of my friends from America today that in Washington these days you don’t see this kind of partisan delegation that you see here in France in support of the resistance.
Now let me say finally, really to echo the moving words of Madam Rajavi. We know that the battle ahead will not be easy, but we will not surrender and I hope you will take comfort and encouragement from the words of the original freedom fighters in America, Thomas Payne, who said, “Tyranny is not easily conquered. Yet we have this consolation, the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.”
So, let us go forward from this extraordinary event, prepared to pay any price and bear any burden to assure the glorious triumph of liberty for the people of Iran that will make the world a better and safer place for us and our children.
Thank you and God bless you.

Report denied of Reyhane Jabbari being granted amnesty

                 
                                                  Reihane Jabbari

Following reports ofReihane Jabbari being granted amnesty from her death sentences, the son of an Iranian regime official issued a statement denying any such amnesty. The text of the rebuttal is as follows:
Following a report issued by the (state-run) ISNA news agency in which Jedari Forughi, the lawyer of the Reihane family, provided information on advances made about gaining the consent of the victim’s family to announce amnesty, ‘Jalal Sarbandi’, the son of Dr. Morteza Sarbandi, provided the following text and requested its publication:
“He is lying. I say officially that neither me, as the son of Morteza Sarbandi, nor any other family member of my family has had no contacts with Mr. Jedari Forughi, Reihanie Jabari’s lawyer, and under no conditions do we have any intention to negotiate with him, and news and text posted by him on this case is not confirmed by the Sarbandi family.”

Iran: mother of four commits suicide in city of Ravansar

                        
                                     Suicide on the rise in Iran
                                         
On Monday, June 23rd, a middle-aged woman by the name of Farahnaz Sattaie, committed suicide and ended her life. She had four children and was a resident of ‘Rutvand’ near the city of Ravansar, and she tragically ended her life by hanging herself.
According to statistics published by Kordpa news agency, in the spring of this year alone, 20 Kurdish women and girls in Iran’s Kuridstan have committed suicide for various reasons. Social experts have cited “poverty, unemployment, social problems and family disputes” as amongst the main reasons behind suicides in Iran, especially in the Kurdish regions. (Kordpa - June 25, 2014)

Le comité chargé de la répression des Achrafiens continue le pillage des biens d’Achraf

             

Vol de plus de 400 jeeps Land Cruisers d’Achraf pour lancer la 9e division Badr

CNRI - Dans la poursuite du pillage à grande échelle et systématique des biens d’Achraf ces derniers jours par le comité chargé de la répression des Achrafiens au cabinet du Premier ministre irakien, Hadi Ameri, commandant de la 9e division Badr a ordonné à ses troupes de s’emparer de la totalité des Jeeps Land Cruisers de l’Ompi à Achraf, soit plus de 400 véhicules. Hadi Ameri a dit que les véhicules serviraient à relancer la 9e division Bad. De son côté, le comité de répression continue son pillage à Achraf.

Hadi Ameri a « intention de réorganiser ce qui reste de ces forces et de les utiliser dans la guerre et les tueries confessionnelles dans la province de Diyala. Pour mettre ces véhicules en état de marche, depuis le 21 juin, il a amené des hommes à lui du ministère des Transports à Achraf.

Actuellement, quotidiennement, des véhicules sont transférés dans les bureaux de Badr. Pour masquer l’ampleur de ce vol à grande échelle, ils sont sortis par les portes Est et Ouest d’Achraf.

Il y a d’autres forces déployées dans Achraf, comme les miliciens d’Assaeb Al-Hagh, et qui se livrent au pillage des biens des Achrafiens. Mais Hadi Ameri leur a fait dire qu’il s’appropriait l’ensemble des véhicules.

Secrétariat du Conseil national de la Résistance iranienne
Le 27 juin 2014