Two days after Human Rights Day, the historic city of Ypres—scarred by World War I and defined by its nightly Last Post—became the stage for a clear political message: Iran’s crisis is not only a domestic tragedy; it is a test of whether Europe will stand with a people resisting dictatorship. In City Hall, leaders and guests framed Ypres’ culture of remembrance as a duty to confront today’s mass repression—especially the regime’s executions, persecution of dissidents, and systematic assault on women and youth.
At the center of the visit was Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, President-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), advancing a democratic alternative anchored in the Ten-Point Plan: a secular republic, separation of religion and state, gender equality, abolition of the death penalty, and a non-nuclear Iran living in peace.
Speakers repeatedly underscored that the Iranian people reject every form of autocracy—no return to the Shah’s monarchial dictatorship and no submission to clerical tyranny—and emphasized that change is driven from within by an organized resistance, including the expanding network of PMOI Resistance Units confronting repression on the ground.
Speech at the City Hall of the historic city of Ypres in Belgium
In the European Parliament, and now here, I repeat: The freedom of Iran is a need for the whole world.
In this City of peace, we call on everyone to recognize the Iranian people’s struggle to end the regime and the… pic.twitter.com/vRoJvb5gzu— Maryam Rajavi (@Maryam_Rajavi) December 12, 2025
In her remarks, Mrs. Maryam Rajavi fused Ypres’ war memory with Iran’s struggle for liberation, making the case that remembrance must lead to accountability and action. She called Ypres “a city whose history still speaks to the world,” describing its nightly ceremony as “a moral reminder of the cost of war and the value of peace” and declaring: “The world will never forget the sacrifices Ypres made.” From that platform, she pivoted to Iran’s unresolved crimes—especially the 1988 massacre, when “30,000 political prisoners were massacred,” “hanged across Iran,” and buried in “mass graves,” while families seeking truth are still “persecuted.”
Mrs. Rajavi then anchored the Resistance’s identity in principle and program. She said “human dignity… lies at the heart of our historic Resistance” and emphasized decades of sacrifice against a regime “deeply against humanity and peace.” Her political red lines were explicit: “No to compulsory Hijab, no to compulsory religion, and no to compulsory governance.” She described the alternative as a republic based on “the separation of religion and state, gender equality, and the abolition of the death penalty,” and insisted on “a non-nuclear Iran” living in peace—core components of the Ten-Point Plan. By urging recognition of Iran’s youth confronting repression, she implicitly highlighted the Resistance’s organized capacity inside the country, including the network of Resistance Units driving defiance from within and rejecting both the mullahs and any return to monarchial autocracy.
Exiled Iranian dissident Maryam Rajavi visited "city of peace" Ypres on Friday. She made a speech at city hall, visited the In Flanders Fields Museum and attended the Last Post ceremony at the Menin Gate https://t.co/rqXnBpdxy4#Belga #FlandersNewsService #Iran #Democracy
— Belga News Agency_English (@Belga_English) December 13, 2025
Ypres Mayor Katrien Desomer set a principled frame: Ypres’ identity as a “city of peace” is not ceremonial, but civic discipline—proof that societies must actively defend rights after catastrophe. Speaking “the day after International Human Rights Day,” she argued that “peace can never be taken for granted” and that democratic communities must “actively safeguard the values” that enable human coexistence.
Mayor Desomer elevated the Menin Gate tradition as a civic obligation, calling the Last Post “a living symbol,” “a ritual” that “every evening emphasizes the responsibility to continue striving for dialogue, justice, and respect between peoples.” She welcomed Mrs. Rajavi as someone who “plays an important role for the Iranian future and internationally in the fight for human rights, democratic values and social dignity,” and said Ypres aims to be a place where “voices that stand up for human dignity continue to be heard.”
My visit to the In Flanders Fields Museum was not only a simple visit for me. In every step, every picture, and every sound, I felt the pain and the hope of the people who fought and died here a hundred years ago. In its halls, there is silence heavier than any word and a message… pic.twitter.com/g9132eCrmD
— Maryam Rajavi (@Maryam_Rajavi) December 12, 2025
Former Belgian Prime Minister Yves Leterme framed Ypres’ City Hall as a symbol of legitimate governance, recalling he spent “hours and hours to exercise democracy, to legitimate decision-making for this city,” calling it “only a small example of the practice of democracy.”
Leterme described his meeting with Mrs. Rajavi near Paris and said he was struck by her “authentic, moving, description” of conditions in Iran and by “the courage that you kind of symbolize.” He underscored the Resistance’s social depth, noting that despite “extreme atrocity of the current regime,” it is “not one, not two, but thousands, hundred thousands” who “want to fight back” and “want to conquer the right to exist, the right to express themselves, to live in freedom.”
He warned that delay is measured in lives: “every hour, every day, every week we have to wait for a change in Iran is too much, too much of suffering,” citing “executions” and people “persecuted because they stand on your side.” He closed by linking Ypres’ peace pledge to Iran: “no more war, no more war,” insisting “we have to continue to fight for peace… not the least in your nation in Iran.”
A warm welcome in Ypres, the City of Peace, for Iranian opposition leader Maryam Rajavi
The President-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran was welcomed last night to @StadIeper by Mayor Katrien Desomer & former 🇧🇪 Prime Minister @YLeterme@FocusWTV’s coverage: 👇 pic.twitter.com/duVIHCa81r
— M. Hanif Jazayeri (@HanifJazayeri) December 12, 2025
Former UK MEP Struan Stevenson used his remarks to argue that Iran’s future should not be reduced to a choice between the current clerical regime and a restored monarchy. Citing his new book, Countdown to Collapse: Iran’s Regime on the Brink, he said the volume details both Iran’s present crisis and the long history of resistance to dictatorship. He sharply criticized Shah-era rule, describing it as “the evil regime of the Shah,” and dismissed Reza Pahlavi’s stated ambitions as “ludicrous,” saying he “wishes to take control of the Peacock Throne and become the king, the emperor of Iran once more.” Stevenson cited Shah-era corruption and repression—“the billions that his father stole” and the “murder and mayhem” of “SAVAK”—to warn against what he portrayed as a return to autocracy under a different banner.
Drawing on Ypres’ World War I legacy, Stevenson linked the city’s history of sacrifice to Iran’s victims of repression, citing “120,000 men, women, and children,” including “children as young as the 13-year-old Fatemeh Mesbah,” who, he said, were killed for supporting the democratic opposition. “Their crime was not violence or treason. Their crime was hope,” he told the audience. He also pointed to ongoing defiance inside Iran, praising “the bravery of the Resistance Units” who “challenge the forces of darkness and repression in Iran every night and every day,” and argued that atrocities persist when the world “looks away.”