Addressing the Free Iran 2026 World Summit in Paris on June 21, 2026, Belgian parliamentarian Kathleen Depoorter delivered a forceful condemnation of the Iranian regime, urging European leaders to abandon policies of appeasement in favor of moral and political clarity.
Depoorter asserted that the events of the past six months have proven the regime is beyond reform and must be replaced. She emphasized that the future of Iran will not be dictated by foreign intervention, but by the Iranian people themselves, specifically through the organized efforts of the PMOI Resistance Units. Highlighting the courage of dissidents who have faced systemic torture and execution, she noted that the regime’s repression of women is fundamental to its ideology, yet fear has increasingly shifted to the side of the oppressors.
Central to her address was her unwavering support for the Ten-Point Plan presented by Mrs. Maryam Rajavi. Depoorter described the platform as a comprehensive democratic alternative that guarantees secular governance, gender equality, and an independent judiciary, free from the influence of clerics, monarchs, or the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
The full script of Kathleen Depoorter‘s speech follow:
Mrs. Rajavi, I’m delighted to be here again. Hello everyone, dear friends.
It is always a pleasure to be here in Paris. This conference is always important, but I think the time in which we are makes it even more important because, in the last six months, we learned two very important things.
First of all, this regime cannot be reformed; it has to be replaced.
Secondly, Iran’s future will not be decided by foreign intervention. It will be decided by you. It will be decided by the Iranian Resistance—the Iranian Resistance that is organized inside Iran and by the PMOI Resistance Units.
This is the path that you have been pleading for, for decades. This is also the path that I will keep on supporting as long as it takes.
The Iranian people have spoken with courage and with clarity. They do not want a dictatorship of the mullahs, and they don’t want a dictatorship of the shah.
They just want a democratic republic. They want freedom, equality, justice, and the right to determine their own future.
This is as simple as water, but we have to keep on saying it. This is the right of the Iranian people.
You’ve paid a terrible price. Women, students, workers, families of political prisoners, and dissidents have faced bullets, prisons, torture, and executions.
Yet, they didn’t surrender. They won’t surrender. They will never surrender.
They have shown the world that fear can change sides.
As a woman, as a parliamentarian, as a Belgian, I say clearly: we cannot look away. Europe shouldn’t ever look away.
The regime’s repression of women is not accidental. It is central to its ideology.
Executions, force-feeding, torture, and persecution are all part of the system of fear. And this system is being called to change from inside Iran.
I pay tribute to all the brave women and men in the PMOI Iranian Resistance, and the people in Ashraf [3] are there as well.
I really hope that some of the units inside Iran can connect to the internet and are with us today or hear the message that we bring them.
Because the people there have taken great risks just to keep alive the call for freedom, the call for regime change from within the country itself.
Op terugweg van Parijs waar ik het #FreeIran congres toesprak.
De oorlog bracht geen vrijheid voor de Iraanse bevolking. Elk volk heeft recht op democratie, mensenrechten en democratisch verkozen leiders. Straks spelen onze Rode Duivels tegen het team van de ayatollahs. Laat… pic.twitter.com/Zz7VAaJ97d
— kathleen depoorter (@KDepoorterMP) June 21, 2026
I’m here, of course, to reaffirm my support to Mrs. Rajavi. What a leader you have, what a woman she is.
And, of course, what’s even more important is the Ten-Point Plan—the plan she has for Iran, for democracy, for freedom.
It offers a clear democratic alternative: a republic based on elections; the separation of religion and state; equality between men and women; an independent justice; autonomy for Iran’s nationalities; and a non-nuclear Iran in peace with the world, in peace with us, in peace with Europe.
This is a program for a democratic, secular, and peaceful Iran where women are leaders. I can only support that.
Where no one is imprisoned, no one is executed just for their beliefs, and where power belongs to the people—not to clerics, not to kings, not to the Revolutionary Guard, just to the people.
Europe must choose the side of the people; it must now choose clarity over appeasement.
Political executions must stop. The death penalty must not be treated as just an internal matter. It is universal.
The IRGC must be kept accountable for what it’s doing, and human rights must just be a condition for any relation with Tehran.
Too many illusions, too much silence, and too many chances have been given to a regime that executes citizens and spreads instability around the region.
To the brave people in Iran, and especially to all the young women who are leading this struggle: Keep on going strong. We’ll get there. Just keep on going strong.
You are the ones who frighten the regime. You are the ones who will help to determine the future.
As a Belgian parliamentarian, one of my greatest hopes has been to see a free and democratic Iran in the near future. And I’m here to stand with you.
But I have to add one more thing. I won’t be able to stay here until the end of the conference because I have to go back to Belgium where my people say that the most important side issue besides politics is going on: football.
Do you know who we are facing tonight? Oh yeah, my team, my national team, the Red Devils, will be facing the mullahs’ team of Iran.
And we won’t let them win.
I hope for a 4 to 0, and every goal I will dedicate to you, to your Iranian Resistance, and to a free Iran.
Thank you very much.