Thank you everyone. Okay. I’m a journalist. So, I’m going to give you a latest of what is happening.

I put a note on my Twitter and I said that I will be speaking at the human rights committee of the European Parliament. So, what do you want me to say?

I had a reply which brought tears in my eyes. Someone from Sanandaj wrote that please do mention us.

Sanandaj is a city North West of Iran. There has been massive gun shots during last night all night until the morning. Internet has been shut down. There is no clear number of the injured or people who have been killed. In yesterday’s protest four people were confirmed dead, but the number of the injured it was reported 50. Still we don’t know the extent. People were so worried the whole night about the massacre that was going on there.

I am starting this speech with this, because any moment for Iran for people who they put themselves in front of the bullets matters.

The sooner the International Community comes to the understanding that they have to do something to stop this nonsense the more lives will be saved, and I know, life of people matters to you guys here; to everyone here. You are all human. So you understand. When people are losing someone on the street just because they’re fighting for freedom.

 

The word that we were hearing in Iran was women life freedom since the beginning. No one was saying anything else. This is a fight for human dignity.

Everyone in the street is fighting, because they have been feeling that they haven’t been represented during the last forty-three years. Islamic Republic, they believe they don’t, it doesn’t, represent them. They want peace. They want freedom. They want to live an ordinary life. This is what people want.

What did they get in response to these demands? Bullets. This is what they got in Sanandaj yesterday. Marivan was busy. Mahabad had the same problem. Yesterday, all over Iran, I mean from on Saturday we had nationwide protests going on. Still the answer was bullets in most cases.

We had a video coming from Shiraz. They were beating a child. We had the video from Tehran. A woman. A pregnant woman was beaten by a baton and the guy beside her, like he was shouting that she’s pregnant don’t beat her, and still she was getting baton-ed on her stomach.

So I’m just giving you a hint of the pain that we are going through. This is the 23rd day that I and many journalists, who they’re focusing on Iran, have been saying all these things happening.

The difference this time is that we see all the fractions of the society getting involved. Students, High school students, are in the street. University students are on the street. Teachers, ordinary People, very young population. We have lost, like actually the victims…

It started with Mahsa who was 22 years old. Then we came to Hadis Najafi. Hadis was 22 years old. Then it came to Nika. She was 16 years old. She had her birthday 10 days after she was killed. We had Sarina Esmailzadeh a brilliant mind, she was 16.

So the average age of protesters has come to the teenagers. This is their cry for freedom. This is what they want to choose for their life.

I need to mention a brilliant journalist, Niloofar Hamedi, who is in prison now. She was the one who went to Kasra Hospital and brought the news of the Mahsa family into the society. She was the one who brought it into the public opinion. And she is in prison now.

The family of Mahsa. The very brave family who they have been extremely under pressure. But still they speak. Still, they are answering my questions.

 

Anything. Anything that the officials are saying about them, if it is a lie, which rarely they have said anything right, they come up, they answer, they mention what was the exact facts that was going on. And this family are under extreme pressure.

I was asking one of the member of the family, the whole, like he asked for a piece of the interview that they had done before and I was wondering what happened and he was just like no nothing happened I mean the ecurities are putting still pressure on us but everyone is okay, like life-wise. They’re still alive…

What people are expecting from the international society.

They expect international society to understand their situation and come up with a resolution. Come up with the measures. Come up with an answer.

Human rights has to be put on the agenda. It has to be placed on top of the priority in any negotiation any political relationship with the west. With any country.

So far, it has not been included as much as people were suffering inside Iran. A government is representing them that necessarily doesn’t care about their well-being.

 

Targeted sanctions could be really really helpful in order to bring the government into the understanding that they have to take it seriously. They cannot kill people on the street and yet expect the international society to treat them as a rational state.

Last Friday in Zahedan there was a massacre. So far, Tara Sepehri can correct me I mean she’s an expert on human rights, but as far as I know there has been 185 deaths in the government crackdown. 19 are under 18 years old. 90 of these 185 where killed in Zahedan after Friday prayers in a matter of hours. In few hours. And no one heard about it, or if they heard it, it was very briefly not to the extent of the scare that people experienced there.

A doctor put a picture on the Instagram. I’m so sorry for taking your time. I hope that I still have a little bit of time, like one minute and finish it up. But there was a doctor. A surgeon put up a picture of a bullet taken out of the back of a 13 years old. and he was saying that “you shot him in the back. Are you human?” and then the next day no one heard about that doctor. He’s disappeared. We don’t know where he is. As simple as that!

I want EU to come into an understanding that arresting citizens of EU is not arresting. It is hostage-taking. Why don’t you recognize it as the right point or with right name for it? It is hostage-taking!

As France, like 2 days ago, announced that finally after all these years. they arrest EU citizens and at the end of the day, it has to be acted on accordingly. There is a term for it in international law. So address it properly: It is hostage-taking by a government. A state is acting irrational. The answer has to be strong, otherwise, it’s not going to stop.

Iran and Russia are backing each other. If EU did something which was right for Russia, you can do it for Iran. At the end, what we want, what all humans want, is a simple thing. We want the rights for women. We want the right to live. We want the right to have freedom. Thank you.