Global Conference Concurrent with the Conviction of the Clerical Regime’s Terrorist Diplomat by a European Court

Maryam Rajavi: Conviction of the regime’s terrorist diplomat in the Belgian Court of Antwerp represents the conviction of the entire clerical regime

The Belgian Court of Antwerp announced its ruling on Assadollah Assadi, the terrorist diplomat of the clerical regime, and three agents of the regime’s Ministry of Intelligence on Thursday, February 4, 2021. The court’s verdict followed 2.5 years of investigations into the regime’s foiled terrorist plot to bomb the Free Iran Grand Gathering in Villepinte, Paris in June 2018.

Simultaneous with the announcement of this verdict, a virtual global conference connected PMOI members at Ashraf 3 with international dignitaries, private plaintiffs in the case, and supporters of the Iranian Resistance gathering outside the Court of Antwerp and in other countries around the world.
In her remarks to the conference, Maryam Rajavi said the conviction of the clerical regime’s terrorist diplomat by a European country’s judiciary confirms the regime’s state-sponsored terrorism.
Following is the text of the speech by Maryam Rajavi to the global conference:

Fellow compatriots!
The conviction of the regime’s diplomat and his three intelligence agents in a Belgian Court is indeed the conviction of the clerical regime in its entirety.
This is a momentous triumph for the Iranian people and Resistance.
The mullahs’ terrorist diplomat was sentenced to 20 years in prison. And the three mercenaries who were his accomplices were sentenced to 18, 17, and 15 years in prison and their Belgian nationalities annulled.
This is a heavy political and diplomatic blow to the clerical regime in Iran.
It marks an end to deceptions by both factions of the regime to cover up their roles in terrorist crimes. It revealed the scandalous bankrolling of their agents to sustain the demonization campaign against the PMOI and the Iranian Resistance.
It is an irreparable blow to the clerical regime’s strategy of exporting and spreading terrorism.

The court just read out its ruling. I saw the burst of joy in each of your gatherings around the world. And I am sure that the people of Iran are also celebrating along with you.
And this is only the beginning.
These victories will continue. The regime will be condemned consecutively in international bodies, and will ultimately be overthrown at the hands of the Iranian people and Resistance, and by the Resistance Units and the Army of Freedom.
Yes, the overthrow of the mullahs’ regime will be the definite result of the Iranian people’s determination and desire.

Khamenei and his regime are entangled in a web of defeats and deadlocks.
The terrorist plot to launch a mass slaughter in the Resistance’s grand gathering in Paris failed miserably. The regime’s terrorist-diplomat and other mercenaries were arrested, jailed and put on trial. The regime’s 2.5-year attempts to score deals or to blackmail governments to swap their terrorist-diplomat all failed.
Yes, indeed, the regime will continue to receive more setbacks and face more deadlocks until it is entirely overthrown and the people of Iran are free.

Who is the real terrorist?

Fellow compatriots,
The Iranian Resistance has successfully won a major legal and political battle.
Two decades ago, the mullahs sought to enchain the PMOI and the organized Resistance of the Iranian people by pursuing cases filled with false allegations and through terror listings in the U.S., U.K., Germany and France. But by relying on your sacrifices, the Iranian Resistance shattered all those chains and obstacles.
Today, February 4, actually marks the sixth anniversary of the final ruling of the French Judiciary, which struck down the allegation of terrorism against the Iranian Resistance. It thus closed the June 17, 2003 dossier which had been kept alive by the regime’s appeals and of course by its spending of exorbitant sums of money.
The appeal had been filed on behalf of a deceased agent of the Ministry of Intelligence and it ultimately turned into a disgraceful defeat.
Those days, the regime’s dead and carcasses emerged out of every corner to crush the Iranian Resistance, but they failed.

Those days, the Iranian Resistance challenged the mullahs’ hirelings to file legal complaints and pursue their claims in court about the allegations of “suspicious deaths,” “forced divorces,” and “financial fraud.” But they failed to do so.
On that day, justice in Europe exonerated the Iranian Resistance from the trumped up charge of terrorism and other similar allegations arising from the June 17 dossier, which included some 100,000 pages.
But today, justice in Europe condemned real terrorism and terrorists operating under the banner of Islam and Shiism, namely the clerical regime’s religious dictatorship.
It is befitting today to congratulate the people of Iran on this ruling, because they are the main victims of the regime’s terrorism and suppression.

This is the result of the ultimate sacrifices made by martyrs, from Prof. Kazem Rajavi, the great martyr for human rights, to other opponents of the regime who lost their lives as a result of terrorist operations carried out by the regime outside Iran over the past four decades.

Dear compatriots and friends,
During the trial of the regime’s terrorist diplomat, his lawyer said: “My client feels that it is not himself but his government that is on trial.”
Yes, the main party tried by the Court of Antwerp in Belgium was indeed the mullahs’ regime. This development revealed significant facts:
The fact that the clerical regime has organized an extensive network for its state-sponsored terrorism.
The fact that the regime feels threatened and desperate to counter its democratic alternative, and thus is prepared to take enormous risks.
And the fact that all the regime’s factions are united and collaborate with each other in carrying out terrorist crimes. In other words, when it comes to savagery and pure evil, “moderates” and “hardliners” constantly try to upstage one another.

Zarif, a smiling Ribbentrop (Hitler’s Foreign Minister)

For years, in order to justify the policy of appeasement, the regime’s apologists promoted the illusion that it is only a rogue internal faction that carries out the regime’s terrorist plots. But 2.5 years of investigations into this issue has now confirmed that the entire clerical regime has been involved in terrorism, including this specific terrorist plot.
The head of Belgium’s State Security Service said that intelligence officials had determined the planned bombing was a state-sanctioned operation, approved in Tehran.
Yes, this is not a rogue faction at work. It is the entire regime that is engaged in rogue and hostile behavior against humanity.

It is the entirety of this regime that has established an organized infrastructure of state-sponsored terrorism to evade its own downfall.
The mullahs advance their foreign policy on the basis of terrorism. And they advance terrorism under the cover of foreign policy.

Besides, there is absolutely no daylight between the regime’s institutions when it comes to committing crimes and terrorism. The terrorist Qods Force is practically integrated with the regime’s Foreign Ministry in many areas. And, in most cases, the Foreign Minister himself acts as a servant and lackey of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). As Zarif himself has pointed out, he used to meet with the terror master and eliminated Qods Force commander Qassem Soleimani every week in order to coordinate the activities of the Foreign Ministry.

Two years ago, Javad Zarif openly told the regime’s parliament: “We [the Foreign Ministry] do not have a system that acts on its own volition. … Can we really do something in this country without reporting it?” He emphasized: “We have never sought to do anything contrary to the commands of His Excellency, the Leader [Khamenei].”
Indeed, Mr. Radoslaw Sikorski, MEP and former Polish Foreign Minister, was right to say that “Zarif is a smiling Ribbentrop,” referring to the Nazis’ Foreign Minister.

Iranian regime’s terrorism is not distinct from its repression

Dear friends,
A decade ago, the Leader of the Iranian Resistance, Massoud Rajavi, said: The policy of appeasement “grants the murderous mullahs the opportunity to brutally suppress the people of Iran and carry out daily execution, to continue their export of terrorism to Iraq, Afghanistan, and other countries in the Middle East, to prolong their nuclear weapons program, and to extend the range of their missiles and explosives to Europe.”

Although they achieved some of their objectives under the auspices of the policy of appeasement, the endurance of the National Council of Resistance of Iran as the only viable democratic alternative to the regime, the Iranian people’s persistent uprisings over the years, as well as the ultimate price paid in blood by our people and Resistance, put an end to the era of appeasement of the mullahs. No one can ever revive this lifeless and buried policy.
The historic ruling by the Court of Antwerp confirmed this fact.

The court and its long investigations in Belgium and Germany also revealed a series of the regime’s political and intelligence schemes and tricks.
The regime’s terrorist diplomat had been crisscrossing at least 11 European countries to hand out money to the regime’s operatives, spies, and informants.
The cash was paid to agents involved in the regime’s demonization campaign that paves the way for terrorist plots against the PMOI and the Iranian Resistance.
But the most important tactic revealed and foiled along with this terrorist plot was blaming the conspiracy on the PMOI itself.

On the very day the regime’s terrorist diplomat was arrested, the mullahs’ Foreign Minister, who was personally involved in the plot, tried to suggest that the PMOI itself was the culprit.
Therefore, this issue goes beyond the conviction of an individual diplomat of the regime. It is a political defeat for the mullahs, a judicial conviction for the regime, and the neutralization of many of its policies and tactics.
I would like to extend my gratitude to all the honorable dignitaries who participated in this trial as private plaintiffs. I would like to thank 240 members of European parliaments, 22 former European ministers and statesmen, and members of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe who have called for a change in policy vis-à-vis the Iranian regime in all aspects.

I would like to remind all governments and the international institutions that the clerical regime’s terrorism is not distinct from its domestic suppression or from its nuclear weapons program. Neither is it distinct from its warmongering and crimes in the Middle East or from its missiles program.
Efforts to contain and control the regime’s nuclear program will not succeed unless they are coupled and linked with a firm stance against violations of the human rights of the people of Iran, and with the eviction of the mullahs from the Middle East as well as the dismantling of the regime’s missiles program.

Antwerp Court Ruling, obligations for Europe and the international community

The day after the conclusion of the nuclear deal between the regime and the P5+1, I reiterated on behalf of the Iranian Resistance that “if the P5+1 had been firm, the Iranian regime would have had no other option but to fully retreat and permanently abandon its efforts to acquire a nuclear weapon, and specifically it would have abandoned uranium enrichment and completely shut down its bomb-making projects.”

We also pointed out that “one must decisively insist that the regime must stop meddling in, and withdraw its forces from, the entire Middle East.”
On the same day, we emphasized that “any agreement that overlooks the Iranian people’s human rights only encourages suppression and ceaseless executions by the regime, and tramples upon the rights of the people of Iran, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the United Nations Charter.”

Over the past six years, each of these facts and assertions has been proven one by one.
Today, what we say is this: The conviction of the clerical regime in the Court of Antwerp is a very significant step, but it must be continued until the regime’s entire terrorism apparatus is dismantled.
Western governments must prevent the Iranian regime from exploiting their legal, diplomatic, banking, and technological resources, as well as their democratic conditions, to advance its terrorist objectives.
They must prevent the regime from deceiving western intelligence services and from taking advantage of such contacts to protect its own terrorists.
They must prevent the regime from painting its agents as political opponents while disguising its espionage and terrorist activities under the cover of opposition to the PMOI.

Yes, beyond its legal repercussions, the ruling by the Court of Belgium bears certain obligations for Europe and the international community.
Therefore, as prominent European parliamentarians and dignitaries have declared, the Iranian Resistance once again calls on governments of Europe to change their approaches and policies:
• Shut down the regime’s embassies and other centers in Europe, all of which are hubs for terrorism.
• Hold the regime’s Foreign Minister accountable. It was proven that his ministry, and the embassy and diplomat under his control, were involved in planning and preparing for the potential mass slaughter.
• Designate the entire Ministry of Intelligence and the IRGC as terrorist entities.
• Prosecute the regime’s leaders who are in charge and are the masterminds of its terrorism infrastructure. They must face justice.
• The mullahs’ intelligence agents and mercenaries under any cover must be prosecuted and expelled. Granting them refugee status or citizenship must be considered a red line.
• Any form of renormalization of diplomatic relations with the regime must be made contingent on dismantling its terrorism infrastructure and on the observance of the human rights of the people of Iran.

Compatriots, sisters and brothers,
The mullahs’ regime relies on terrorism and suppression to survive. The momentous legal and judicial blow to its strategy of exporting terrorism is, therefore, an achievement for all those oppressed by this regime and all the courageous souls who stand up to it.

They include the families of young Baluchis who are savagely executed by Khamenei, women and youths who suffer under maximum repression, the impoverished people whose shelters are razed by the mullahs, and the tens of millions of people who are suffering from the COVID-19 pandemic and yet the mullahs have refused to purchase vaccines, thereby leaving people without any defenses against the disease.
Yes, this is an achievement for all the people of Iran against the vicious regime of the mullahs.

Clerical regime’s leaders must face justice

Dear friends,
The Iranian Resistance’s momentous legal and political campaign against the clerical regime triumphed.
Our objective was neither to receive reparations, nor to retaliate or take revenge. Rather, we want the machinery of terrorism and suppression of our people dismantled and replaced by our people’s sovereignty and universal suffrage.

I salute my dear sister, Ingrid Betancourt, who once said: “Our voice is the voice of faith, and a voice of conviction in justice. We are convinced that justice is our answer to suppression and terrorism.”

My dear compatriots, sisters and brothers,
In just three days, we mark the anniversary of the epic martyrdom of Ashraf Rajavi and Moussa Khiabani. Six days from today is the anniversary of the 1979 Revolution whose leadership was usurped by Khomeini, engulfing it in a quagmire of reactionary ideology and repression.

From the day after that great Revolution in February, to the martyrdom of leading PMOI members and the massacre of political prisoners, to the Eternal Light operation and the 14-year steadfast perseverance in Ashraf, our blood-drenched struggle and resistance with its 120,000 martyrs against the ogre of fundamentalism has been about our people’s freedom and sovereignty.
True great epics, Massoud Rajavi once said, are created through such struggles, and of course, with great suffering and sacrifices. But they leave behind the greatest and most fateful legacies.

Now, by all indications, we are moving towards the end of this struggle, towards our great destination, and towards eventual freedom for the people of Iran.
The victory in the Court of Belgium follows the Iranian Resistance’s victories in more than 20 other courts in Europe and the United States, all of which were important steps in this path.

This struggle will carry on until all the leaders of the clerical regime face justice, until the overthrow of the mullahs’ religious dictatorship, and until final victory and freedom.
Hail to Iran’s courageous youths and to the brave members of Resistance Units
Long live freedom, hail to the people of Iran.