Monday, 28th September 2009
Iran’s brave opposition deserves west’s support
Dear Sir,
I was amazed to hear Gordon Brown attacking Iran and accusing them of a "serial deception of many years" over the latest revelations on their nuclear programme. It was his colleague Jack Straw as Foreign Secretary, who indulged in serial appeasement of Iran over many years, ignoring the appalling abuse of human rights and bending to every demand from the mullahs.
He even listed the People's Mojahedin of Iran (PMOI) as terrorists in the UK and then pressed successfully for their blacklisting in the EU, at the direct request of the oppressive regime in Tehran. It took five separate court rulings in England and Europe to reverse this grave injustice.
It was the PMOI who first informed the West about Iran's nuclear programme. Daily they risk their lives inside Iran to bring intelligence about the mullah's nuclear intentions to the West.
Many of us have warned for years that the policy of appeasement was doomed to fail and was only buying time for Ahmadinejad’s nuclear ambitions. We have also warned that military intervention in Iran would simply pour fuel on the fire of rising tension in the Middle East.
There is a third way. The West must stop making empty threats against the mullahs and instead give their outright backing to the civilian population who bravely face the brutality of the Basij militia and the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps, to voice their demands for freedom and democracy in Iran.
Gordon Brown should back the Iranian people and their biggest opposition movement - the PMOI - instead of uttering meaningless threats of sanctions.
Yours faithfully,
STRUAN STEVENSON, MEP
Conservative Euro MP for Scotland
The European Parliament
Rue Wiertz
B-1047, Brussels
