Paris conference: Oct. 10, World Day Against the Death Penalty

In an international conference in Paris on the occasion of October 10th, the World Day Against the Death Penalty, the Iranian Resistance’s President-elect Maryam Rajavi declared: Our plan is an Iran without the death penalty and obliterating the mullahs’ religious decrees.

She emphasized: Torture and executions must be stopped; this is the demand of all of Iran’s people. To the governments of the West we say: Set aside your silence and inaction over the executions and atrocities of the mullahs’ religious fascism and instead, respect the Iranian people’s resistance for freedom. If Western governments had stood up to the abuse of human rights in Iran, the mullahs could never expand their barbarity to Syria and Iraq.

The conference sponsored by the Committee Defending Human Rights in Iran, was entitled, “Iran, Human Rights, Stop Executions”. A number of European and international personalities, elected representatives of the people of France, as well as human rights and women’s rights advocates attended the meeting. From France, Gilbert Mitterrand, former member of the French National Assembly and President of France Libertés (Danielle Mitterrand) Foundation; prominent jurists and lawyers including Henry Leclerc, François Colcombet and Patrick Baudouin; Rama Yade, former Minister of Human Rights; and a number of elected representatives of the people of France including Jean-François Legaret, mayor of 1st district of Paris; Jean-Pierre Béquet, former mayor of Auvers-sur-Oise; and Jean-Pierre Brard, former member of the National Assembly; Pierre Bercis, former president of the New Human Rights Organization; and Bishop Jacques Gaillot; Phumla Makaziwe Mandela, women’s rights advocate and daughter of Nelson Mandela, the late leader of South Africa; from Albania, Ermonela Felaj, government’s liaison minister with the parliament; Edmond Spaho, Vice President of the Parliament; and a number of parliamentary deputies including Mmes. Evis Kushi and Blerina Gjylameti and Messrs. Tahir Muhedini, Arben Cuko, Musa Ulqini and Bedri Hoxha who addressed the conference on behalf of a large political delegation. Also Zhani Viktor Ciko, leader of Albania’s Symphonic Orchestra, along with a delegation of musicians from that country had a beautiful performance. From Britain, David Jones and Mark Williams, members of the British House of Commons; and Hanan Al-Balkhi, representative of the Syrian Coalition in Oslo; and Taher Boumedra, former human rights chief of the United Nations Assistance Mission in Iraq – UNAMI; were among the speakers at the Paris meeting.

Elaborating on the Iranian Resistance’s plan for tomorrow’s free Iran, Mrs. Rajavi declared: Our plan for future is an Iran without the death penalty, obliterating the mullahs’ religious decrees and establishing an independent judiciary, defending democratic values, freedom, equality and sanctity of every citizen’s private life; no one will be arrested arbitrarily and torture is banned.

Mr. Farzad Madadzadeh, 29-year-old, a political prisoner who has been recently released after five years of imprisonment in the clerical regime’s torture chambers, and Pariya Kohandel, whose father is a political prisoner in the Gohardasht Prison of Karaj, both supporters of the PMOI in Iran who have recently left the country, spoke on the abysmal state of the Iranian people’s lives and the horrible prison conditions.

Madadzadeh, was arrested for political activities in February 2009 under the regime’s former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. He said that after Rouhani came to power in 2013, more political prisoners had been jailed, conditions in prison worsened and the number of executions rose dramatically as the new regime sought to stave off the risk of a popular uprising fueled by increased access to outside information.

The conference featured an exhibition in memory of 120,000 political prisoners executed on the orders of the religious dictatorship’s leaders in Iran, including the 30,000 political prisoners massacred in 1988. Also on display were sculptures and symbolic statues made by the Iranian Resistance’s sculptors.