REPORT REVEALS THE NETWORK OF INFLUENCE WOVEN BY THE IRANIAN REGIME AND ITS ATTEMPTS TO INTERFERE IN EUROPEAN POLITICS

On January 23rd, in an event organized and chaired by MEP Zarzalejos, the report entitled “Tracing Iran’s network of influence in European politics”, prepared by the group Friends of a Free Iran, was presented at the European Parliament.

The event was attended by several experts, including Struan Stevenson, member of the International Committee for the Search for Justice and president of its Committee for the Protection of Political Freedoms in Iran. Stevenson, who was a member of the European Parliament from 1999 to 2014, insisted that, in the face of this web of influence networks woven by the Iranian regime, the European Union must abandon the policy of appeasement followed to date towards the regime of the ayatollahs. He urged the Council of the European Union to designate the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organization, as the European Parliament has demanded in several resolutions.

Javier Zarzalejos, for his part, agreed that the serious attempts at interference revealed by this report constitute a call to action. In his opinion, the policy of appeasement leads to impunity and this, in turn, contributes to the degradation of the Iranian regime. Iran poses a threat to Iran’s own citizens who are subjected to appalling repression and brutality, with Iran leading the world in death sentences and executions. But Iran also poses a threat to global security. The European Union and the international community as a whole remain anchored in a response to the Iranian regime that has been clearly insufficient and the revelations of this report are only the tip of the iceberg of the network of interference and disinformation spread by the theocratic Iranian regime.