Letters

Protests in Iran – Mick Wallace is wrong

Iranian people have every right to defend themselves against a violent regime

Fri Dec 02 2022 - 00:16

Sir, – I’m writing on behalf of the Irish-Iranian Community regarding the article “Mick Wallace criticises protests in Iran and ‘propaganda’ against regime” (World, November 24th).

We feel compelled to directly address the points by Mr Wallace on the floor of the European Parliament and to discuss why it is reckless and damaging for Mr Wallace to refer to the movement of Iranians as a “campaign of propaganda and destabilisation”.

Mr Wallace stated that the report that the Islamic Republic of Iran has imposed the death penalty on 15,00 protesters was disinformation. This directly downplays and whitewashes what has recently been taking place in Iran and it also disregards our history. The Islamic republic has committed mass executions and has done so under the supervision of the current president Ebrahim Raeesi. We invite Mr Wallace to read about the mass executions of 1988 and the history of Iran. In Ireland, we have people whose family members were amongst those people executed. To dismiss the Iranian experience on the floor of the European Parliament as a result of an inaccurate headline is unfair if not dangerous.

Mr Wallace stated that there has been “violence and murders by some protesters, untold damage and destruction”.

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The brutalities of the Islamic republic against the protesters are very well documented. They were also attested to in the recent UN special session on Iran where member states voted to investigate the crimes committed by the Islamic republic. We invite Mr Wallace, once again, to look up the Green Movement in 2009 of 2009 and Also Bloody November of 2019 where protesters demanding their rights were met with state violence.

It is within the Iranian people’s constitutional right to defend themselves in response to these attacks.

Mr Wallace claims that “the opposition is now being armed with weapons from Iraqi Kurdistan”. There is no evidence of protesters in Iran having been armed. What Mr Wallace would have found, had he conducted some independent research, is the videos of people in Kurdistan and Baluchistan fighting the regime’s forces with stones. Repeating these false narratives and baselessly portraying innocent civilians asking for freedom as armed fighters, on the world stage, puts the lives of the protesters at serious risk and is highly irresponsible.

Mr Wallace makes references to the Syrian civil war. It is interesting that Mr Wallace would make this comparison, when in fact the Islamic Republic contributed to Syria’s current destabilisation by funding and supporting militias and further militarising Syria. This is exactly what the regime is doing to its own people. Any legitimate criticism of the government is met with deadly military response. It is precisely in response to the violence that the Islamic republic has been spreading in Iran and in the region that the people of Iran are taking back power from the regime.

We, the Irish-Iranian community, strongly oppose the claims made by Mr Wallace in the European Union parliament and would like to be the voice of our people by challenging these claims. It is a great source of sorrow that an Irish MEP would repeat the tired propaganda of the Islamic republic while other member state countries, such as Germany, France and Sweden, are standing with Iranian women and men on the right side of history. – Yours, etc,

MOHA BARIKBIN,

ZAHRA GHOLAMVAND,

Support Equality

and Freedom for Iran:

Ireland Working Group,

Dublin 2.