By Baroness Gould of

Potternewton Middle East Times

June 10, 2008

From April 24 to May 12 Iran has officially executed 14 individuals. This current spate of executions in Iran is the latest in a long line of human rights abuses carried out by the current Iranian regime. Although the Iranian regime hits the headlines across the media for its destructive influence in Iraq, Lebanon and Palestine, as well as Iran’s controversial nuclear program, not much is made of the continuing hardship felt by the people of Iran.
Unfortunately, it has been this lack of recognition of the Iranian people that has left the international community so inept in dealing with the Iranian problem. Iran’s leaders have through the use of human rights abuses and brutal crackdowns attempted to destroy all that Iran’s people have been renowned for. Throughout history Iran has been a nation built on the foundations of education and democracy. It is these values that the current Iranian regime has so attempted to crush.
In fact, were the international community to look towards the people of Iran for a solution to these crises they may find a positive solution could well be found in what is becoming a deepening crisis. Clearly, evidence indicates that the Iranian regime is supporting terrorism and developing its controversial nuclear program. However, the international community has so far adopted what has been an extremely limited carrot and stick policy to solve such issues.
On the one hand the EU lead by the UK has adopted a policy of dialogue in its attempts to solve the crisis while across the Atlantic the U.S. administration has centered its policy on isolating the Iranian regime. However, both policies lack one main ingredient and that is the Iranian people. The EU lead policy bypasses the Iranian people in its belief that this Iranian regime is capable of change while U.S. policy isolates Tehran without the foundations of a positive solution.
A simple look at a number of significant events in recent months gives us the clearest indication that the Iranian population is ready for change and is willing to bring it about.
Firstly, the wholesale boycott of Iran’s parliamentary elections on March 14 indicated the Iranian people’s outright dissatisfaction toward their rulers. However, this dissatisfaction runs much deeper than a simple boycott, because in the last 12 months alone there have been over 5,000 anti-government demonstrations.
Interestingly, women and students who have always borne the brunt of the Iranian regime’s violence have in recent years headed Iran’s internal resistance movement. However, as has always been the case with this Iranian regime, as resistance grows, so they increase their human rights abuses. It is this historic link between the two that now indicates to us that resistance in Iran is clearly on the rise.
It is this powerful resistance movement that now offers the international community an Iranian solution to this Iranian crisis. However, rather than supporting this brave movement, the international community has hindered the work of Iran’s democratic movement. The greatest obstacle placed in front of democratic change in Iran was the listing of Iran’s largest opposition group, the People’s Mojahedin Organisation of Iran (PMOI) as terrorist.
Earlier this month the Court of Appeal ruled this terror tag on Iran’s opposition illegal and unjust, ordering the British government to immediately remove the group from its list of banned groups. The Home Secretary must now implement this ruling as soon as possible while also making the EU aware that after this court decision the group’s banned status in the EU is no longer legally justifiable.
Such action is not simply what is legally necessary, but greater than this, a positive step at this stage will send a signal to the people of Iran that we support their democratic ambitions. It is this policy of support for the Iranian people and their resistance movement which will be the greatest way to end this crisis in a peaceful manner with the Iranian people bringing about the democratic change they desire.
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Baroness Gould of Potternewton is a Labour Member of Parliament.