NCRI – The former United States Secretary of Homeland Security has given an interview to the ‘Alliance for Public Awareness – Iranian Communities in Europe’, explaining why he supports a Free Iran.
Tom Ridge, also a former governor of Pennsylvania, attended the Free Iran rally in Paris earlier this month to show his support for the Iranian Resistance forces including the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) and the People’s Mojahedin of Iran (PMOI/MEK) led by Maryam Rajavi.
Gov. Ridge said: “Iranian leaders have ignored UN sanctions, ignored the conditions of the nuclear agreement, they support Hamas and Hezbollah and they are supporting Assad in the genocide of 300,000 Syrians and displacing millions of refugees. They’re responsible for the instability in Iraq. Everywhere you look, you see the tentacles of Iran.”
He described the opening of trade between Iran’s regime and the West as “putting $100 billion into the central bank of terrorism.”
Gov. Ridge dismissed the idea that the regime’s President, Hassan Rouhani, was a moderate, a notion that has spread in some circles around the West in the past three years.
He said: “This man is not a moderate: executions are up, they still flog women, they still flog minors, they still hang people in the public squares for political opposition, they still imprison people for political opposition. There’s no moderation there.”
He said that a moderate regime would not enforce censorship of the press or the internet, instead focusing on guaranteeing universal voting rights, civil rights, and human rights. Moderates abide by the rule of law, reject nuclear weapons and have a peaceful coexistence with their neighbours, he said.
He praised the NCRI and Maryam Rajavi for their ten-point plan for a free Iran which focuses on those moderate values.