Address to the Human Rights Commission of the Italian Senate

On Thursday, July 16, 2026, Maryam Rajavi attended an official session of the Human Rights Commission of the Italian Senate at the invitation of the commission. During the session, she outlined the latest developments regarding pervasive human rights violations in Iran and fielded questions from the attending senators.
The session was chaired by Senator Stefania Pucciarelli, President of the Senate Human Rights Commission, and attended by commission members alongside several senior senators, including Senator Gisella Naturale, Vice President of the European Affairs Committee, and Senator Marco Lombardo, member of the Senate Human Rights Commission, as well as other members of the Senate.
Senator Stefania Pucciarelli emphasized that the presentation of the Iranian people’s suffering compels us to hope that the long-standing demands they have pursued for so long will soon be realized.
Senator Terzi, who attended the session, stated that the Iranian Resistance movement, represented by Mrs. Rajavi, possesses the deepest connection and alignment with the fundamental concepts of the rule of law and the defense of human rights that we consistently support; this movement reflects the historical depth of a struggle built upon democratic principles and human values.
This session was broadcast live via the Italian Senate’s dedicated WebTV platform (webtv.senato.it) under the title, “Extraordinary Commission for the Protection and Promotion of Human Rights: Meeting with Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, President-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran.”

1.What were the key points of Maryam Rajavi’s speech during the hearing before the Italian Human Rights Commission?
2.What did Maryam Rajavi say in the Italian Senate regarding political executions and human rights violations in Iran?
3.Why has the National Council of Resistance of Iran called for international community action against executions and human rights violations in Iran?

The following is the full text of Maryam Rajavi’s speech:

Maryam Rajavi: The Iranian Regime’s Brutal Assault on the Fundamental Rights of the Iranian People

Madam Chair, Honorable Members of the Human Rights Commission of the Italian Senate,

Distinguished Senators,

I am deeply grateful for your steadfast attention to the human rights crisis in Iran. When I stood before this very commission last July, I detailed the staggering scale of repression and the systematic dismantling of liberties by Iran’s ruling religious dictatorship.

Tragically, over the past year, the regime’s brutal assault on the fundamental rights of the Iranian people has only intensified. Since my last address, approximately 2,400 individuals have been executed. Exploiting the fog of war and regional conflict in recent months, the regime has launched a sweeping campaign of mass arrests against dissidents and aggressively escalated its political executions.

Dozens of political prisoners, including ten members of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) alongside numerous other young activists, have been hanged simply for participating in the January uprising. In a cruel display of ongoing torment, the regime refuses to return the bodies of these executed dissidents to their families, leaving their loved ones entirely in the dark regarding their final resting places.

Meanwhile, the issuance of death sentences persists unabated, with thousands of prisoners currently on death row. Most recently, 1,500 death-row inmates at Ghezel Hesar Prison in Karaj went on a hunger strike, demanding an immediate halt to these executions. The most recent and egregious case involves Arghavan Fallahi, a 25-year-old woman who has endured months of solitary confinement and severe torture, and whose father also remains unjustly imprisoned.

These executions are entirely politically motivated, designed to breed a climate of fear and terror to prevent the resurgence of popular uprisings. Consequently, the regime systematically denies the right to due process, carrying out these atrocities through a pattern of abuse that stands in flagrant violation of international law.

Indeed, a detailed legal analysis published last December by the International Bar Association illustrates how restrictive laws, political prosecutions, the interference of security apparatuses, and the state takeover of bar associations in Iran have systematically stripped citizens of their right to a defense, effectively hollowing out any semblance of a fair trial for the Iranian people. [1]

Over this same period, the regime has launched targeted missile and drone strikes against the bases of Iranian Kurdish parties, killing several of their members. Furthermore, from the very onset of the January uprising, the authorities instituted a sweeping internet blackout that persisted for weeks even after the recent ceasefire. This total, nationwide shutdown—lasting four months and eighteen days—has become one of the regime’s primary weapons for enforcing absolute censorship.

During the uprising, Ali Khamenei publicly and explicitly ordered the slaughter of protestors. Acting on his directives, the Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and other security apparatuses murdered thousands of citizens in the streets and arbitrarily detained at least 50,000 others. In a display of utter depravity, the regime even broadcast the bodies of a group of martyrs on state television to terrorize the public. Yet, far from being intimidated, mourning families and our fellow compatriots transformed the funerals and memorial services of their loved ones into powerful acts of defiance against the regime.

The Silence of the International Community on Political Executions in Iran

Distinguished Guests,

While the political executions of recent months have deeply shocked and outraged the global public, world governments have remained silent. Regrettably, for decades, the international community has shielded the Iranian regime and its leaders from accountability, granting them systematic impunity for their crimes.

Among the most egregious of these unpunished atrocities is the 1988 massacre of 30,000 political prisoners, a dark chapter of history whose 38th anniversary we are now approaching.

Indeed, in his landmark 2024 report, the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Iran, Javaid Rehman, explicitly concluded that these atrocities represent:

“…the worst and the most egregious human rights abuses of our living memory, whereby high-ranking state officials connived, conspired, and actively engaged to plan, order, and commit crimes against humanity and genocide against the nationals of their own state.”

The Iranian Resistance’s Revelations of the Regime’s Crimes

To this day, the ruling mullahs have refused to provide an official list of those slaughtered in the massacre, nor have they disclosed the locations of their burial sites. Instead, they have systematically attempted to erase every physical trace of this genocide.

In response, the Iranian Resistance has meticulously documented these atrocities, thus far publishing the names of more than 5,000 executed PMOI members, compiled in the volume Crimes Against Humanity.

Furthermore, the Resistance has published a series of comprehensive documentary books to expose the sheer geography of this massacre. These include The Genocide of the PMOI: The 1988 Massacre in Provincial Towns, which details the nationwide scope of the killings; The Massacre of PMOI Women in Evin Prison; and The Cell Was Empty, which chronicles the execution of PMOI women in Isfahan Prison. Together, these vital records shed a new light on the monumental crime of 1988.

In Pursuit of Liberty and Human Dignity

Since my last appearance before this commission, ten members of the PMOI have been executed. The criminal charges leveled against them by the regime’s judiciary can be distilled into a single truth: they refused to bow to a religious tyranny, choosing instead to rise in defense of liberty and human dignity.

Among them was Pouya Ghobadi, who alongside Vahid Bani-Amerian, was a proud son of the people of Sonqor in western Iran. Pouya Ghobadi, an electrical engineer, was just 33 years old at the time of his execution; he was first arrested at the age of 26 and repeatedly subjected to torture. In one of his final messages from prison, Pouya wrote, “If the freedom of these people requires the blood of someone like me, I offer my life with all my heart for the liberation of my nation.”

Similarly, Vahid Bani-Amerian had declared, “I found the true meaning of life in rebelling against oppression, and in sacrificing myself for the cause of freedom and justice.”

Vahid and Pouya were among six prisoners who, in their final moments before execution, bravely sang a song of resistance and defiance. As one Italian publication poignantly noted, this song reflected their very existence—entirely dedicated to the struggle for freedom.

Indeed, relentless slaughters have utterly failed to extinguish the flames of a resistance movement that has burned uninterrupted in Iran for the past forty-five years—a movement that today, anchored by the Resistance Units across Iranian cities, stands as the decisive force for change.

Conditioning Diplomatic and Trade Relations on Ending Executions

The National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), which enters its forty-sixth year on July 21st, has always fought for peace and freedom.

For the free Iran of tomorrow, we advocate for a complete ban on torture and the total abolition of the death penalty. For over four decades, standing in direct opposition to Khomeini, we have declared the mullahs’ Sharia laws and their retributive penal code (Qesas) to be profoundly inhumane and entirely incompatible with the true teachings of Islam.

In tomorrow’s Iran, the separation of religion and state, complete gender equality, and all individual and social rights and liberties will be fully guaranteed in accordance with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. All apparatuses of repression, censorship, and inquisitorial control will be dismantled.

Furthermore, the judiciary of a free Iran will be entirely independent, built upon the fundamental principle of the presumption of innocence, and dedicated to guaranteeing regional autonomy while eliminating all forms of systemic discrimination against Iran’s diverse ethnic nationalities.

The Iranian people and their Resistance look to Italy—historically a global pioneer in the movement to abolish the death penalty—to lead the way within the European Union in spearheading decisive measures against the ongoing executions and massacres in Iran.

Foremost among these actions are:

– Conditioning all diplomatic and trade relations with the regime on a halt to executions.
– Prosecuting the ruling perpetrators of these atrocities under the internationally recognized principle of universal jurisdiction.
– Referring Iran’s human rights violations to the UN Security Council, ensuring that any future agreements are strictly     contingent upon a halt to executions, and compelling the regime to grant UN fact-finding missions and special rapporteurs     unrestricted access to Iranian prisons and prisoners, especially the political detainees.

[1] Dr. Mark Ellis, Executive Director of International Bar Association, European Parliament, December 10, 2025