European MP ties to Islamic Republic of Iran Friday, 2 March 2018, 3:29 pm Article:  David N Neumann European MP ties to Islamic Republic of Iran By David N. Neumann After lashing out against opponents of the Islamic Republic of Iran in several parliamentary debates, a member of the European Parliament has admitted to doing the bidding of Tehran. In a meeting in Brussels, Portuguese socialist MEP Ana Gomes acknowledged that she had been instructed in Tehran to bash the Iranian opposition. “I met with relatives of the victims of a terrorist organisation called MEK,”  she said on her visit to Tehran in a meeting of the European Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee on 22 February 2018. After making a number of allegations about the Iranian opposition movement PMOI or MEK, she added:  “We cannot continue to allow some members of this parliament, possibly out of naiveté, to continue to abet some of the members of this organization.” Her claims are particularly s...

Heidarian: Aligning the global response to Iran’s human rights violations (Photo: Atta Kenare, AFP/Getty Images) The administration of President Donald Trump has begun pushing for a dramatic shift in U.S. policy toward the Islamic Republic of Iran. Even before taking office, the president was clear about his antipathy for his predecessor’s nuclear deal, representative of a conciliatory strategy unfortunately embraced by other Western powers. The role of the Trump administration has been not just to enforce an assertive shift in American policy; it has been to convince the international community to make a similar shift, as well. Trump’s speech to the United Nations was illustrative. In it, he pulled no punches, describing the theocratic regime as hiding behind a guise of democracy while acting contrary to the interests of its own people. In injecting reality into a flailing approach, there are aspects of Iran policy on which both the United States and the broader intern...