Mr. Block, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands
You recently traveled to Iran and met with the heads of IRI assuring them that if the Islamic Republic changes its behavior, the Netherlands and Iran could have trades again to gain more prosperity. This is an insult to people who have been killed by security forces of the IRI simply because they demonstrated to defend their basic rights.
You indicated that you were going to talk about human rights on your trip, but it seems like you are only concerned about the “influx of Iranian refugees” who risk their lives for their safety.
Mr. Block, in your trip to Iran, you have visited authorities that have committed crimes against not only citizens in Iran but also other citizens around the world.
It is now a well-known fact that immediately after the 1979 Revolution, forces of the Islamic Republic slaughtered many people who were fighting for their liberty and equality in Turkmanshahra and Kurdistan. It is also well known fact that under the banner of “Cultural Revolution”, with the help of professors like Abdolkarim Soroush, they purged, imprisoned and killed many professors, teachers and students in universities.
IRI is a regime that has done everything to stay in power: assassination of labor activists Shahrokh Zamani and Mohammad Jarrahi, Sattar Beheshti and Iranian Canadian photo journalist Ziba Kazemi are just a few examples.
In your trip to Iran, you have met authorities of a regime that has massacred thousands of political prisoners in sixties. It was a crime that has been condemned internationally as crime against humanity.
IRI is a regime that has systematically used repression, imprisonment, execution and killing to stay in power.
• Athena Daemi, a street children’s rights activist, faces a new sentences every once a while for baseless reason just to be kept in prison.
• Student activists Arash Sadeghi, Swedish citizens Alireza Glipour and Ahmed Reza Jalali, are slowly dying in prison with no access to medical treatment.
• Saeed Shirzad, a children’s rights activist, Mohammed Habibi, a teacher’s trade unionist, and atheist blogger Sohail Arab are suffering from serious illnesses in prison.
• Women’s rights activist Golrokh Ebrahimi is still in prison for the “crime” of writing a piece against stoning that was never published. Saba Kordafshari, a women’s rights activist, faces up to 24 years in prison and several other women’s rights activists face up to fifty years in prison.
• Activists for “Nedaye Zanan” also face up to 16 years in prison.
• Parvin Mohammadi, Neda Naji, and Jafar Azimzadeh, labor activists were jailed on May first simply for participating in demonstration.
• Eight environmental activists were sentenced to nearly six years in prison, and one of the activists, Niloufar Bayani, has been severely tortured for 2,000 hours.
• IRI shut down the entire Internet connection during the November protests of current year and killed 1500 person and arrested 7,000 in three days.
• IRI shut down a Ukrainian passenger flight and killed one hundred and seventy six passengers, and after lying for three days finally admitted under international pressure that the plane was shut down by two missiles attacks calling it “human error”. This regime is still trying to escape the lawsuits of the survivors against Islamic Revolutionary Guard and “Supreme leader” Khamenei, the commander-in-chief.
• With the death sentences of Houshmand Alipour and eight political activists and people involved in November protest, IRI is trying to intimidate people who are struggling for their basic rights.
Soheila, [03.03.20 03:53]
As a political activist whose relatives have been executed by IRI, as a citizen of the Netherlands where two members of Iranian opposition members were assassinated in 2015 and 2017, I am asking you what did you talk about during your trip to Iran?
Did you talk about poverty and misery of the people who are crushed by economic pressure, children of the street, child prostitution, 40 years of gender discrimination, flogging of workers, lack of the slightest freedom of expression, forty years of repression, imprisonment, torture and execution, and mass killing of prisoners during the forty years rule of the Islamic Republic?
Mr. Block, your visit to Iran and so called dialogue with Islamic Republic resembles a visit to Germany under Hitler and Fascism at the time of the mass killing of millions of European citizens. With this trip you did handshake with Islamic regime’s authorities who are responsible for the killing of thousands in Iran, the Middle East and Europe.
You are well aware of the Islamic Republic’s record of cruel repression of the Iranian people. Do you really have any doubt about the Islamic Republic’s terrorist behavior after forty years? The terrorist operations of IRI in the Netherlands is not enough reason to make you stay away from this regime and condemn it?
People in Iran and the international community are carefully observing your government’s policies, approach and actions toward Islamic Republic of Iran.
The smallest expectation is that anyone who claims to respect human rights will never compromise with the Islamic Republic of Iran and respect the Iranian people’s efforts to achieve a free, equal and humane society.
Parisa Pouyandeh
Coordinator of the Campaign to Free Political Prisoners in Iran
Feb 25, 2020