Threatening a hostage with lashes, 40 years in prison, mullahs’ dirty, inhumane blackmail to force Belgium to release regime’s terrorist diplomat

• The Belgian government must neutralize mullahs’ ploy and secure the well-being and safety of Olivier Vandecasteele by announcing that it will try Khamenei in absentia if the hostage is lashed

• Mrs. Maryam Rajavi once again expressed her sympathy to the Vandecasteele family and noted that firmness is the only language understood by the bloodthirsty rulers of Iran who have killed more than 750 people in the recent uprising, 77 of them are children and teenagers

To blackmail the Belgian government into releasing the imprisoned terrorist-diplomat Assadollah Assadi and help him escape his punishment, the regime’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei, ordered the Judiciary to sentence the Belgian hostage, Olivier Vandecastel, to 40 years in prison, 74 lashes and a million dollar fine on bogus charges.

Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, the President-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), who was the primary target of the plot to blow the Free Iran World Summit in Paris in June 2018, strongly condemned this dirty and inhuman blackmail.

Mrs. Rajavi once again expressed her sympathy with the Vandecasteele’s family and noted that firmness is the only language understood by the bloodthirsty rulers of Iran who have killed more than 750 people in the recent uprising, 77 of whom children and teenagers. Therefore, to neutralize the mullahs’ ploy and secure the well-being and safety of Vandecasteele, the Belgian government must immediately announce that it will prosecute Khamenei in absentia if the hostage is subjected to lashes.

Mrs. Rajavi reiterated: I wish the religious fascism ruling Iran would stop taking hostages, but in the past 43 years, for every hostage that has been freed by exchanges or incentives, the regime has taken or killed at least two other hostages. If this is not the case, the regime ruling Iran must immediately provide a written commitment to the United Nations that it will release Vandecasteele and all other hostages and will no longer take any more hostages.

Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI)
January 10, 2023