Saturday, December 13, 2008

In a press conference held in the first district of Paris with the presence of Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, President-elect of the Iranian Resistance, the declaration signed by 1,160 mayors from all over France in support of the Iranian Resistance and their call on the French government to remove the PMOI from the terrorist list was announced.

The mayors were from 97 provinces and included 135 representatives of French National Council, 31 members of the French Senate, and 40 presidents or deputies of France’s district councils.

In their declaration, the mayors called on the French government to immediately put into effect the verdict issued by the European Court of First Instance removing the PMOI from the terrorist list of European Union.

Jean-Pierre Béquet, the mayor of Auvers-sur-Oise and former member of the French Parliament who chaired the press conference, presented to Mrs. Rajavi the documents regarding the support of 1,160 French mayors.

In her speech Mrs. Rajavi said: “Two decades of appeasement, negotiation and concession for Iranian regime’s change of behavior has brought up reverse upshot and has emboldened the regime in suppression, export of terrorism and attempt for acquiring nuclear bomb. To avoid a new war in the region, Europe must replace its appeasement policy with regard to Tehran with a firm policy and hence make a democratic change in Iran plausible”.

Referring to Ashraf city, Mrs. Rajavi said, “I would like to draw your attention to a sensitive human rights case which is the status of residents of Ashraf city in Iraq. There are 3,500 members of opposition there under the threat of a human disaster plotted by the mullahs.
Amnesty International, International Federation of Human Rights, Parliamentarian Assembly of European Council and many international assemblies have expressed their concern in this regard”.

The PMOI members in Ashraf are political refugees covered by the Fourth Geneva Convention and enjoy the support of International Humanitarian Law (IHL). Respecting human rights makes it necessary that their protection be continued by the coalition forces.

Other participants in the press conference were:

· Maurice Boscavert , Mayor of Taverny -France

· Sid Ahmed Ghozali, former prime minister of Algeria

· François Colcombet, president of Judges Syndicate, and former MP

· Pierre Bercis, Chair of New Human Rights Society