Thomas Lutze, a former Member of the German Bundestag, addressed the second day of the 2025 Free Iran Conference in Paris on May 31, joining lawmakers and dignitaries from around the globe to support the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI). In his remarks, Lutze welcomed the rare bipartisan unity in Germany regarding the Iranian regime’s human rights abuses, nuclear ambitions, and terror sponsorship. Yet, he criticized Germany’s broader public discourse and media for focusing solely on Tehran’s nuclear and regional threats while overlooking domestic repression.
Lutze cited mass executions, workers’ strikes, and cultural achievements by Iranians as critical stories that go largely unreported in Germany. “These realities are absent from our news. We, as former and current members of parliament, must change that,” he urged.
He condemned the policy of appeasement and demanded a firm stance against what he called a “criminal regime.” Lutze concluded with a personal hope: to one day visit a free Iran, where he could experience its culture without fear. “That will only be possible in a free Iran—and for that, we must all fight together.”
The following is a translated version of the speech.
.@thlutze: Our MPs must speak out and bring public attention to the regime’s crimes. No more compromises. I hope to visit Iran—but only when it’s a#FreeIran2025.
https://t.co/AE0z8my6Oq— NCRI-FAC (@iran_policy) May 31, 2025
Madam President Rajavi, dear friends, thank you very much for the invitation. It’s also a given that, as a former Member of Parliament, one has the opportunity to speak to the audience here, so thank you very much. And that is also an advantage when one is on relatively late: one doesn’t need to repeat everything that has already been said.
I would like to fully agree with my former parliamentary colleagues Carsten Müller and Serdar Yüksel, who have actually already said everything from a German perspective in terms of political content. And I am also very glad that in German politics, in the German Bundestag, there is great unanimity on the subject of Iran, and that differences, unlike on other topics, do not arise. From a German perspective, or the perspective of a former German Member of Parliament who is still politically active, I would nevertheless like to mention two or three critical, self-critical points here today. Mind you, self-critical points.
On the one hand, as I said, we are very much in agreement regarding the assessment of the Iranian system, the government, the regime. But in the German public sphere, in the media, in politics, Iran almost only comes up when it’s about nuclear energy, when it’s about nuclear weapons, or when it’s about the support of terrorism.
Unfortunately, everything else is not covered, or covered far too little, in Germany. Let me give you an example. A few days ago, here in France, in Cannes, a film from Iran was awarded first prize. The reporting on it, I’ll say this a bit bluntly, was rather homeopathic in Germany. You really had to make an effort to find this news anywhere. As I said, Cannes, the film festival, is, I believe, among the top three film festivals worldwide. So, this news basically didn’t get reported. We saw earlier in the film about the truck drivers, about their strike; this news also doesn’t appear in the German media public. So, you actually have to know that it’s happening to find anything about it via Google. It doesn’t feature in the main news broadcasts, nor in background reports.
The mass executions—I learned this here last time—that take place in Iran, and also the numbers, which have been mentioned several times today, that more people are executed in Iran alone than in all other countries combined: reporting on this does not happen in Germany.
And it is our task, both as current Members of Parliament and as former Members of Parliament, to bring this more into the public eye again, because it highlights the problems, the crimes, that take place in the country.
There must finally be an end to the policy of appeasement. We need a firm stance against this criminal regime, no more compromises, and no hesitation.
During my last visit and my last speech here, I expressed the wish that—I am now 56 years old or will be 56, still a bit of time until retirement, but it’s not that much anymore—I would like to visit Iran once during this time. As a Member of the Bundestag, who was an MP for 16 years, one actually gets around all over the world through committees, through certain parliamentary connections. Of course, I have never been to Iran, and indeed, the vast majority of MPs naturally haven’t either.
And it is time that we can finally visit Iran too, that I too can go to Tehran, drink a coffee there, and get to know Iranian cuisine. But that is only possible in a free Iran, and for that, we must all fight together.
Thank you very much, and heartfelt thanks.