NCRI: British MPs concerned over Iranian regime’s crackdown on teachers and activists/Receiving Iranian regime’s foreign minister amid wave of executions emboldens mullahs in slaughter of Iranian people

British MPs concerned over Iranian regime’s crackdown on teachers and activists
Saturday, 28 May 2016/National Council of Resistance of Iran/

NCRI – Members of both Houses of Parliament of the United Kingdom have spoken out against the crackdown against teachers and union activists by the mullahs’ regime in Iran.

The all- party British Parliamentary Committee for Iran Freedom (BPCIF) in a May 26 statement said it is “extremely concerned” over the recent arrest and detention, under fraudulent national security charges, of teacher activists in Iran for their peaceful political activism to fight for their improved livelihood.

The British lawmakers in particular condemned the harsh sentences against Jafar Azimzadeh, Mahmoud Beheshti Langaroudi, and Ismail Abdi who have been sentenced to long prison terms, merely for their peaceful activities to secure better wages and living-conditions for Iranian teachers and workers.

“We warn that these prisoners of conscience are in a serious health condition due to their hunger strike in protest to their unjust sentences along with the Iranian authorities’ ill-treatment and harassment of their families, fellow teachers, workers, and union members,” the BPCIF said in its statement.

“The notion that advocacy and peaceful activities meant to improve the livelihood of Iranian teachers and workers constitute acts against national security is not only ridiculous but appalling. Such a claim by the Iranian authorities can only be interpreted as silencing legitimate demands and social dissents under the pretext of national security.”

These repressive measures coincide with a recent warning by a group of United Nations Human Rights experts “that over a dozen political prisoners in Iran, including some prominent human rights defenders are at risk of death in detention due to their worsening health conditions and the continued refusal by the Iranian authorities to provide them with medical treatment.” The Iranian authorities’ rationale for withholding treatment to these prisoners is unacceptable especially since these prisoners “allegedly have been arrested, detained and convicted purely for their peaceful exercise of their fundamental freedoms and rights.”

The UK Parliamentarians joined the UN experts in reiterating the situation of political prisoners and activists.

The British Parliamentary Committee for Iran Freedom BPCIF called for the immediate release of political prisoners in Iran.

It urged the UK government and the relevant UN bodies to condemn the Iranian regime’s extensive use of national security charges to silence legitimate opposition and popular dissent. “This in turn will pressure the Iranian authorities to release all political prisoners and respect the Iranian people’s right to freedom of expression, assembly, and peaceful protests.”

Receiving Iranian regime’s foreign minister amid wave of executions emboldens mullahs in slaughter of Iranian people
Saturday, 28 May 2016/National Council of Resistance of Iran

The planned trip by the Iranian regime’s foreign minister Javad Zarif to Poland, Sweden, Finland and Lithuania is taking place amid an unparalleled wave of executions in Iran. Last week, in just two days, 21 prisoners were hanged in various cities of Iran. The Iranian Resistance urges all defenders of peace and human rights to take immediate action to cancel these visits.

During the period that Zarif has been the foreign minister of the religious fascism ruling Iran at least 2400 have been hanged. The UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Iran, in his latest report, expressed concern about the high number of executions, torture, extracting confessions under torture, depriving prisoners of lawyers, discrimination against women, execution of juveniles, pressures on religious minorities, increasing suppression of free speech, and prohibition on any political activity in Iran. He wrote that around one thousand people have been executed in Iran in 2015 which is the highest number in the past 10 years. According to this report, “At least 73 juvenile offenders were reportedly executed between 2005 and 2015, and the number of juvenile offenders reportedly executed in 2014-15 was actually higher than at any time during the past five years.”

Zarif is the representative of a regime that has immersed the region in war and crisis through warmongering, export of terrorism, and extremism. In a letter to Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah on May 13, he described Mostafa Badreddin, a senior commander of this group, as “a great and tireless man” and “full of love and emotion and epic in defense of the just ideals of Islam” although Badreddin had been indicted by the U.N.-backed Special Tribunal for Lebanon for his participation in the assassination of Rafiq Hariri, former Prime Minister of Lebanon. In January 2014, Zarif paid his respects to Imad Mughniyah, former commander of Hezbollah, by placing a wreath on his grave.

Zarif needs to face justice for crimes against humanity and war crimes as a senior representative of the most brutal dictatorship after the Second World War for three decades. Empty propaganda about moderation of factions within this regime is solely meant to justify trade with this regime. The only outcome of establishing relations and conducting trade with this regime and receiving its leaders is to embolden it to intensify its suppression and export of terrorism. Relations with the Iranian regime should be made contingent on a halt to executions and an end to export of terrorism and warmongering. This is the demand of the Iranian people and an imperative for peace and to fight terrorism in the region and the world.
Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran/May 28, 2016