Brussels ( Brussels Morning) – Protesters led by the NCRI denounce EU’s Iran policy at Brussels EU Summit, urging sanctions and labelling the IRGC as terrorists.
On the second day of the EU Summit, demonstrators led by the National Council of Resistance Iran (NCRI) are asking the institutions to inflict sanctions on Iran. The NCRI is requesting that the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) be labelled a terrorist organisation and stress the regime’s role in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, as well as in different regional conflicts. The protest also calls for a prohibition of Iranian airlines in Western airspace and the enactment of a policy that prioritises regime change in Iran.
The recent national boycott of Iranian elections this month forms “clear validation of their widespread approval for regime change,” according to the NRCI. The organisation accuses the EU’s continued “appeasement” approach toward the government. Inside the institutions, EU leaders have assembled to discuss ongoing instability in the Middle East.
Moreover, last month Supporters of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) also staged a protest in Brussels’ Luxembourg Square to draw a lookout to Iran’s increasing number of executions. Approximately one hundred people observed the rally, intending to raise awareness among European authorities about the “astronomical wave in executions” happening in the Middle Eastern country.
Protestors depicted portraits of victims fallen under the regime’s rule and called for a “free, democratic, secular, and non-nuclear Iran”. The demonstrators appealed to the European Union and European governments to “revive the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), or the Vienna Nuclear Deal”, to exercise pressure to place the Iranian regime under Chapter 7 of the UN Charter, which claims that Iran currently poses a danger to international peace, and to acknowledge the Iranian people’s right to oppose and overthrow the regime. Belgian Senator Mark Demesmaeker were present at the demonstration alongside Member of the Brussels Parliament Marc-Jean Ghyssels.
Demesmaeker also condemned Iran’s support of Russia in its war of aggression against Ukraine by providing drones and praised the NCRI’s significant steps towards achieving freedom and democracy in Iran. Ghyssels paid accolades to Iranians who had been violently suppressed in 2022 while demonstrating on the roads for more freedom following Mahsa Amini’s death, a young woman who was whipped to death by the morality police for “wearing inappropriate clothing”.
The EU is constantly opposing the use of the death penalty in Iran. The Commissioner for Equality, Helena Dalli, stated in a speech on 7 February on behalf of High Representative Josep Borrell that the EU “has a strong, absolute and longstanding opposition to the death penalty at all times, and in all cases.” “The death penalty is an ultimate rejection of human dignity, which fails to act as a barrier to crime and makes miscarriage of justice irreversible.”
“This belated execution is part of an alarming trend in Iran, with more than 750 executions in 2023, meaning a sharp increase from previous years and including, in particular, individuals from ethnic minorities,” she said. “The use of the death penalty as a mechanism of repression against protestors is yet another reminder of the degeneration of human rights in Iran.”
