Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2009-07-15-Speech-3-139"
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"en.20090715.10.3-139"2
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"Mr President, a crucial change has taken place in Iran. Our first conclusions, therefore, should be that Iran is not and will not be the same again. It is because millions of Iranians have refused to be hostages of their clerical rulers. They have demonstrated an amazing courage in challenging the dictatorship.
The issue, therefore, is not about rigging so-called elections more than usual. This time, blatantly rigged votes provided an outlet for a popular protest the experts outside Iran could not or were not willing to expect.
This reminds me of the situation 20 years ago in Eastern Europe: while the Western governments were prepared for a long-term accommodation and pragmatic coexistence with the Soviet totalitarian system, suddenly millions of hostages of the Communist regime became active: they challenged the system, which was brought to a sudden end.
Therefore, it is important to realise that the European approach to Iran cannot remain the same – just turning a blind eye to routinely rigged elections and systematic repression. It is estimated that during 30 years of dictatorship more than five million people have been imprisoned, more than 200 000 tortured to death and recently more than 200 killed.
The EU governments have been too hesitant in condemning these atrocious crimes and to make the regime bear responsibility for its behaviour. If we are serious about protecting the rights of Iranian citizens, we need to be prepared to cause the dictators real pain. What does this mean? We should, for example, ban any of the leaders of the regime from travelling to the EU; we should recall our ambassadors from Iran as a gesture of our indignation; and free elections can take place in Iran only under UN supervision."@en1
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