Hundreds of EU parliamentarians condemn Iran’s human rights abuses

Hundreds of members of the European Parliament have strongly condemned human rights violations by the Iranian government and also called for the blacklisting of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) involved in multiple regional conflicts.

According to Amnesty International, “Iran alone accounted for 55% of all recorded executions” in the world in 2016.

Evidence by a senior cleric inside Iran confirmed that the current Iranian Justice Minister was a key member of the so called “Death Committee” that approved the mass executions of over 30,000 political prisoners, including several thousand women, in Iran in 1988 – a massacre which Amnesty International has described as a crime against humanity. Most of the victims were affiliated with the opposition PMOI.

“We therefore call on the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and the UN Human Rights Council, to set up a commission of inquiry on the 1988 massacre of political prisoners in Iran,” a statement from the European Parliament read.

“We urge the EU and the European Member States, the US and the UN to condemn human rights violations in Iran, blacklist the Islamic Revolutionary Guards and call for those who were involved in crimes against humanity to be brought to international tribunals. Any further expansion of relations with Iran must be conditioned to a clear progress on human rights, women’s rights and a halt to executions,” the statement added.