https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21850/support-the-iranian-people
How can the West, particularly European states, which never hesitate to lecture others on democracy and human rights, stay silent when one of the most oppressed peoples in the world was risking everything for those very ideals?
It is high time for an approach that does not cower behind diplomatic fears or economic loss.
To the European Union: stop delivering lectures on human rights while turning your back on those who fight and die for them.
The shift from empowering a regime to empowering its people would mark the first time in more than four decades that Western policy truly aligned with democratic values.
It is also worth asking why is it considered acceptable for Iran’s rulers to openly call for the assassination of a U.S. president and attempt to assassinate Western officials, yet somehow unacceptable for Western leaders to plainly say, “we support the Iranian people’s right to freedom”?
The choice facing the West, particularly European governments and the Trump administration, is simple. Continue down the path of quiet complicity, driven by fear and greed, or choose to be remembered as champions of freedom.
History does not remember as heroes those who stayed silent in the face of tyranny…. This is the moment to choose which side you will be on.
For more than 40 years, the people of Iran have lived under a suffocating dictatorship that has stripped them of their freedoms, denied them basic human rights, and crushed any glimmer of hope for a better future. Yet despite the unrelenting repression, the Iranian people have never stopped dreaming of liberty. They have taken to the streets again and again, often at unimaginable personal risk, demanding the right to live in dignity and determine their own future. Each time, they have been met with the full force of a ruthless regime that treats dissent as treason and humanity as an afterthought. This struggle for freedom is not a fleeting political cause — it is the very heartbeat of a nation that refuses to surrender its spirit.
Iran’s brave uprisings have united students, workers, women and ordinary citizens, demanding change. They rose up in 1999, 2009, 2017, 2019, 2022 and beyond — each time with breathtaking courage. Sadly, every one of these movements was crushed brutally. Security forces flooded the streets, firing on unarmed crowds, arresting thousands and torturing detainees. Families have been left with no answers, their loved ones disappearing into the nightmare of the regime’s prisons. Many who are arrested never return. Some who do return are permanently scarred, physically and emotionally. The message from Iran’s rulers has been consistent: dissent will be extinguished by any means necessary.