Referring to the sentence against Iranian twin sisters Taraneh and Romina Rahimi, the President of the European Parliament Roberta Metsola said that the European Parliament will keep amplifying the voice of the people of Iran demanding freedom.
Colleagues, Over the past months and weeks the crackdown by the Regime in Iran continues unabated. The situation remains horrific for so many – particularly young people – whose only crime was to demand the liberty that we take for granted. More and more protestors are being sentenced to death in a desperate attempt by the regime to instil a culture of fear among the people of Iran. Nothing better illustrates the horror more than the case of twin sisters Taraneh and Romina Rahimi; who were just teenagers when they were dragged from their beds by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps last January. Since then they have endured cruelty beyond what many are capable of bearing. It took four months for their mother Marzieh to learn what had happened to them. By the time she could visit, her daughters were unrecognisable under bruises, limping with hair ripped out of its roots. There have been reports of torture, threats of rape and sexual violence unless one of them confessed to imagined crimes. Taraneh has been sentenced to death and Romina to a 25-year prison term. Their family has not seen them since the sentence. Theirs is not an isolated case. There are many, many more stories of the horror inflicted by a regime trying to beat their people into a futile last-gasp attempt at submission and silence. I know that this is an issue close to hearts of many Members here and in your name, today we tell the 92 million people of Iran that they are not alone. That light will crack through the darkness. That a regime that uses violence, murder and repression as tools of self-preservation is a regime that is desperate. That understands that it has no legitimacy. We will continue to demand the immediate release of Taraneh, Romina and all those unjustly imprisoned. We will not be silent. That is why we took the step that we did, of banning representatives of the regime from our Parliament. That is why we insisted to designate the IRGC as the terrorist organisation we know it to be. And that is why we will keep playing our part to amplify the voice of those demanding freedom.