Self-Sacrifice by Struan Stevenson Read Free Book Online Page A

advertisements naming the PMOI as a terrorist organisation appeared in parliamentary magazines and news journals in an attempt to smear us. They sometimes provided a website address, but any attempt to make contact was always met with silence. There was never an answer; the web addresses were bogus as these ads were all placed and funded by Iranian Intelligence (MOIS). They are afraid of the PMOI. They know it is the only threat to their stranglehold on Iran. That is why they became hysterical when they heard that meetings with Mrs Rajavi were taking place within the European Parliament.
    The Mullahs also threw endless resources into backing bogus NGOs in Europe such as the Nejat (Saviour) Association and the Edalat (Justice) Society. Their task was to spread lies and false news about Camp Ashraf residents and the leadership of the resistance, and to traduce parliamentarians like me, Paulo Casaca, Alejo Vidal-Quadras and other opinion-leaders who backed the PMOI. The lengths the regime was prepared to go to and the resources it was prepared to invest in demonising us demonstrated the PMOI’s effectiveness and status in Iran.
    The FoFI meeting on 15 December 2004 was held in the European Parliament in Strasbourg, because Mrs Rajavi was still under strict travel restrictions following her arrest by Chirac. We deemed it safer for her to travel internally by car in France from the PMOI headquarters outside Paris, to Strasbourg. (Some months later, in June 2006, a French court cancelled the ludicrous travel restrictions imposed by the Chirac government.) The meeting was attended by more than 150 MEPs and Mrs Rajavi for the first time proposed her Third Option, a clear prospect to resolve the Iranian crisis, which had caused anxiety on a global scale. She said:
    In response to the Iranian crisis, two options are regularly proposed: either compromise with the Mullahs’ regime, in a bid to contain or gradually change the regime. Western countries have pursued this policy in the past two decades. Or overthrowing the Mullahs by way of a foreign war, similar to what occurred in Iraq. No one is interested in a repeat of the Iraqi experience in Iran. But, I have come here today to say that there is a third option: change by the Iranian people and the Iranian Resistance. With the removal of foreign obstacles, the Iranian people and Resistance would have the ability and the preparedness to bring about such change. This presents the only way to avert a foreign war. Offering concessions to the Mullahs is not the alternative to a foreign conflict and will not dissuade them from pursuing their ominous intentions.
    Encouraged by the success of this visit, in the autumn of 2005 we decided to arrange a meeting for Mrs Rajavi with the majorityEuropean People’s Party-European Democrats (EPP-ED) Group in the European Parliament. I had been elected 2nd Vice President of the EPP-ED Group following the 2004 European parliamentary elections, and I sent a formal written request to our leader Hans-Gert Poettering. Hans-Gert agreed to place my request on the agenda for a future meeting of the Bureau or Cabinet of the Group, which consisted of all eight Vice Presidents, together with the Group’s Treasurer Othmar Karas and President Hans-Gert himself.
    At the Bureau meeting in June 2006, controversy raged. I made a strong case for inviting Mrs Rajavi, based on the fact that she was leading a democratic opposition movement who could replace tyranny and the threat of nuclear war with respect for human rights, the rights of women, an end to torture and the death penalty and the eradication of nuclear weapons; my initiative was fiercely opposed by Othmar Karas from Austria. Indeed while I was addressing the meeting, Othmar’s mobile phone began to ring and he rather noisily took the call. The blood seemed to drain from his face. ‘That was my Chancellor – Wolfgang Schüssel. He has just received a call from Javier Solana [the EU’s High Representative