In the international conference held in Paris on Friday, December 6 2012 in defense of Ashraf former Member of US House of Representatives until 2011, Patrick Kennedy made the following remarks:

Thank you.  Thank you very much.  Thank you.  Thank you.  I salute you.  I want to salute you.  And I want to salute your family members in Camp Ashraf because they’re putting their lives on the line for another set of hostages, for another people that are prisoners and that’s their compatriots in Iran who are prisoners to the Mullah’s theocracy and brutal dictatorship in Tehran.  [applause]

Let there be no mistake about it that the fight for Camp Ashraf is a fight to free Iran from this tyrannical regime.  We need to have relocation, not only of the residents of Camp Ashraf, but relocation of the Mullahs in Tehran.  [applause]

Let’s be honest and now I want to speak to my friends in the United States.  Let’s understand what this terrorist listing means.  For all of you, you know what it means.  It’s an execution order for your family members.  But it is also a mortal threat to the national security of the United States of America.  After 9/11, no American can stand by while we honor false and hypocritical and political lists like this.  We cannot afford, as the United States, to play games, to play political games with national security.  So I say to the State Department, [applause] I say to my colleagues in Congress, former colleagues in Congress, understand this:  if you care about the security of the United States, which you’re sworn to uphold, then take this sham of a list and tear it up.  [applause]

And I want to have actions because I agree with my colleagues on the stage that words are not enough.  Do you realize right now that there are 13 billion dollars in American military sales that are going to Iraq?  Do you want to get the attention of the American public?  Do you want to get the attention of the Congress and the President of the United States?  Then introduce a resolution in Congress that says that the moment there is a violation of international law and a crime against humanity by using the training and weapons provided by the United States of America, we are going to suspend any future military sales to the people of Iraq.  You want to get the attention of the American public?  That’s what you do.  [applause]

Finally, let me just say, as Madame Rajavi so eloquently said, everyone here is part of the answer.  Each of you has a responsibility.  All people of goodwill have a responsibility to do the right thing.  And when my uncle Robert Kennedy spoke in Cape Town, South Africa in 1966 when no one ever thought they’d see the end of apartheid because it took another generation before apartheid ended, he said, “Each time a person stands up against injustice or acts to improve the life of others, they send forth a tiny ripple of hope.”  And coming from the million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples can create a current that can knock down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.  Each of us, each one of us has an opportunity to make a difference and in the totality of all these acts will be written the history of this cause when we are able to see the peaceful relocation of your friends and family members and of human beings who are disarmed and all that they want is freedom and all they want is to be with their families.  And if you stick to this, I’m confident that we’ll ultimately see the day where they will truly be free.  Thank you very much.  [applause]

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