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Robert Torricelli - United Nations, Keep Your Word, We Kept Ours
Thursday, 28 June 2012 20:20

Paris, June 23 2012 - Thank you, thank you, thank you.  Can you hear me in the back?  [applause]  Can you hear me in the front?  [applause] Are you prepared to be heard in Tehran? [applause]  Good.  Now, let me first correct my friend, Patrick.  It is true that my home is in America.  My name is Italian.  I love all things French.  But like you, my heart is in Ashraf.  [applause]

Now, I have seen dictators from Castro to Kaddafi.  And every time a free people meet there is always one among them who takes notes, writes down the names.  And tonight we'll send that message to Tehran.  Write down my words well.  Here's a pen.  [applause] We will live to survive you.  You have tortured our children.  You have killed our parents and our friends.  You have robbed a great Persian culture of its dignity and its place in the world.  But hear me well, mullahs.  We will live to march you to the gates of hell.  You will answer to God himself for your crimes, and you will have eternal damnation.  That is our promise. 

And now together let us speak to the young, to those in Iran following us as we speak on the Internet, listening in fear on the radio, grasping for some message of hope.  They wonder why, as India and China gets prosperity, they live in poverty.  They wonder why when freedom comes to Eastern Europe and North Africa, they live oppressed.  Here is our message to you.  The time is now.  This is your moment.  It is time to rise up, take back your future.  [applause]

We know, we know that the power of the mullahs is great.  As we want life they are prepared to kill.  As we want to heal they are prepared to hurt.  Their power is great.  But in the long history of man, there is nothing more powerful than the individual.  One prisoner on Robin Island, Mandela, destroyed apartheid.  One minister, Martin Luther King, destroyed segregation in America.  One woman united all of France.  One shipyard worker, Lech Walesa, decided he would live as a slave no more and brought down the Iron Curtain.  Iran, students, soldiers, simple people in villages and in cities throughout Iran, one of you is the future.  One of you, the power of the individual, is greater than all the mullahs, all their jails, all their torture.  Bring down this regime.  Bring down this regime.  [applause]

So how will it happen?  When does it end?  When will you know that the end is here?  To those of you listening to us in Iran as we speak, if you are a student, you do not have to be taught lies anymore.  Leave your classroom.  [applause]  If you are a soldier, you do not have to point guns at your own people.  Put down your weapons.  Stand with the Iranian people.  [applause] Workers and students, soldiers and people of Iran, You are no less than Lech Walesa.  You are no less than Mandela.  You are no less than Martin Luther King.  Your future is in your hands.  Seize it.  Bring down the regime, now.  [applause]

To the American government, to our friends in the European community, to free people everywhere.  Remember who you are.  Remember what you have done.  You buried Nazism.  You buried Communism.  You will bury Iranian religious fascism.  Have confidence in yourselves.  [applause] Stand with us.  Stand with us.  When America stands with those who have no power, when Europe stands with the poor, the oppressed, the jailed, the tortured, they stand right and will never be in better company.  These mullahs offer us nothing.  Their oil, their wealth, their nuclear weapons.  Me, I made my choice.  I stand with the poor, the students, the oppressed, the jailed.  I stand against the mullahs.  [applause]

Finally, finally we speak to those on the front lines itself.  Those in Ashraf and Camp Liberty.  There was a time when the road to Tehran and a free Iran led through Ashraf to Tehran.  History has changed.  The road to a free Iran now leads from Ashraf to Liberty to the freedom of the West where we will gather, we will organize, we will speak, we will fight, and we will liberate the people of Iran.  I know that life in Camp liberty cannot be easy.  I know the challenges of life must be overwhelming.  You are our heroes.  You are taking the sacrifices for our ambitions.  To all of you in Camp Liberty.  To those of you who hear us now in Ashraf.  We will never forget you.  History will never forget you.  The Iranian people will remember your sacrifices for a thousand years.  [applause]

We made a fateful choice.  We made an agreement with the United Nations to send people to Camp Liberty.  And on its honor, with its sacred honor, the United Nations pledged that people's lives would be safe, their needs for water and electricity and medical care would get met.  We are honorable people, and we agreed.  Where are they now?  To the people of the United Nations, when the sun shines on Camp Liberty, do people not thirst?  When the sun sets, do they not need power?  When they are sick, do they not need care?  In the name of God, are they not human beings?  We ask this, we are prepared for every last person to leave Ashraf.  We do not stall.  We do not wait.  We want people in Camp Liberty because from there the fight goes on when we relocate people to Europe.  We kept our promise in moving people to Camp Liberty.  You keep your promise in keeping people safe and secure with basic humanitarian needs.  This is the least the United Nations can do.  Keep your word.  We kept ours.  [applause]

And now I leave you with this final thought.  The years will pass.  Others may forget.  But as a generations go by your children and their children's children will sit on their grandparents' knees and it will be said that when Iran was enslaved, when others cowered, when others had fear, your family stood tall.  You remembered what Persia had been.  You know what Iran could be. Your family had courage and strength.  You stood with Madame Rajavi.  You stood tall.  You fought for a free Iran.  Never give up.  Never give up.  Never give in.  Never give up.  Thank you.

[end of audio]



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