Written evidence submitted by Link for Freedom Foundation (UKI0017) We are a diverse group of ordinary citizens, brought together by our support for Iranian citizens who seek democratic and non-sectarian freedom in their homeland. We formed the Link for Freedom Foundation (LFF) to safeguard our own democratic values and perform what we see as our civic duty: to mobilise and co-ordinate other ordinary citizens to help us challenge our government, international agencies such as the UN, and the media about their policy decisions. LFF Answer to Question 1 - Relations between the UK and Iran, and vice versa: history, evolution, and aims In February 1979, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini hijacked the popular revolution which saw off the Shah. Driven by a number of factors, not least the enduring need to secure energy supply, Western powers including the US and Britain supported him. They didn’t want to see oil nationalised as it had been by Mosaddegh in 1952. Khomeini offered the people a referendum to establish Iran as an Islamic Republic, and this was almost unanimously voted for. However, the people’s vision of a republic, in which the majlis (parliament) would play a prominent role, swiftly led to disillusion and worse when Khomeini betrayed the democratic parliamentary process by overlaying it with his concept of velayat e-faqih (absolute rule of the clergy), honed in his 13 years of exile in Iraq. Hard- wired into a new constitution was the principle of Sharia Law, an Islamic justice system which gave absolute authority to the religious leaders, with Khomeini and, since his death in 1989, Khamenei as Supreme Leader. Sharia also constitutionalised misogyny, defining the status of women as less than that of men in every respect. Rights for women in marriage were cancelled, Islamic dress codes introduced and reinforced with impromptu, often violent 'justice'. Western cultural influence was banned and music and performance stopped. The documented suppression of religious and other minorities has continued, with new inhuman innovations further oppressing Iranian women. Who can forget the acid attacks by the regime's Basij thugs on motorcycles? All of this has continued, with a number of the original regime members remaining in high office today. The parliament was reduced to an ineffectual sham where, to ensure the purity of the Islamic system and using a false bifurcation to limit candidate choices whilst claiming to support democracy, the Guardian Council allowed to stand for election only those candidates who passed a rigid filtering process. Enforcement of the principles of this theocratic dictatorship was handed to thugs and bullies, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, the Basij (militia) and the like. Although clearly not what the people of Iran had envisaged or wanted, the general need for oil to power modern economies has had unpleasant effects in Iran, as it has in all the oil-rich countries, with most world governments turning a blind eye to wholesale repression and abuse of human rights in order to maintain the regime as a lucrative trading partner. The absolutist structure and consequent baleful simplicity of the parliamentary system become impossible to influence or change, and have set the tone of the theocratic regime ever since. Long prison terms await any would-be reformist. The specious claims of Iran’s supporters that hardliners be opposed and supposed ‘reformists’ be supported are a long- running tactic laid bare when all are seen to be siphoning off the Iran National Development Fund wealth. As by definition dictators normally don’t willingly give up power, the structure stays in place until others remove the regime, replacing it with something hopefully better. It’s time for the UK Government’s policy of appeasement and collusion with the regime to change. The 2020 election process reached new lows, evidencing the inherent weakness of a system that can brook no opposition; over 90 sitting parliamentarians were barred from seeking re-election. There can be no real reformists in this system. It is a brutal theocratic dictatorship and it’s time for the people in Iran to be empowered to change it. From day one, from Khomeini to Khamenei, this regime has murdered, imprisoned, tortured, assassinated, kidnapped, and stolen from marginalised or otherwise oppressed Iranian citizens, including women and children. It has on multiple occasions broken every single one of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR)’s 30 articles; many of these breaches are documented and witnessed. Whilst external intolerance of the regime’s unacceptable practices has increased, the regime’s inner circle at home has sought to protect itself through a strategy of creating war abroad, fomenting unrest throughout the Middle East. It has assisted Syria’s President Assad to kill hundreds of thousands of Syrian civilians, including countless women and children, kidnapped Western foreigners and dual nationals in a very successful formal 40- year-long economic warfare programme, fomented unrest in Iraq, Lebanon, Yemen, Nigeria and elsewhere, and murdered dissidents in other countries. It has imprisoned, tortured and murdered thousands of prisoners of conscience. We highlight the imprisonment of 56 water conservationists, and 50 or so dual nationals taken from Canada, USA, France, Britain and elsewhere over the years. One may recall the 1988 massacre of 30,000 prisoners (see Justice for the Victims of 1988 Massacre in Iran (JVMI) iran1988.org). In 1989 Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued a fatwa ordering Muslims to kill Salman Rushdie (see UDHR Articles 5, 19, 28, 30). The fatwa still stands 31 years later, with money continuing to flow in to find and pay an assassin. The Iranian people want none of this. In spite of brutal oppression, with 1,500 dead after the November 2019 petrol price hike protests and thousands of citizens newly incarcerated, the pace of uprisings continues to rise, despite the on-going coronavirus crisis. At an unnamed parties’ meeting at Chatham House in August 2016 regarding Iran’s Politics and Foreign Policy, one speaker said: ‘Building on these frustrations and suspicions, another speaker stated that ‘Saudi Arabia excels in the region when there is order while Iran excels in the region when there is chaos.’ The speaker noted that from the Gulf Cooperation Council’s perspective, it does not appear that Tehran is interested in regional peace and stability.’ Human Rights Watch has reported continuing foreign human rights abuses, stating that ‘Shamefully, many of those unlawfully detained were often working hard to connect Iran to the global community in order to benefit Iranians.’ High profile detentions include those of Ghoncheh Ghavami (sentenced for two years and now disappeared without trace), Aras Amiri, and the conservationists. There are others held. Should there be any doubt about the Iranian regime’s intentions towards seizing dual nationals, we suggest that the Select Committee Google the following keywords: Iran dual national detention Many take the side of the Iranian regime, some of them with apparent oil and gas industry connections. These include the presently-disbanded All Party Parliamentary Group on Iran, of which the Rt Hon Jeremy Corbyn was a member for several years, including whilst Leader of the Opposition. He resigned when newspapers reported on this. (Mr Corbyn himself has an uncomfortably deep connection with the Iranian regime, leading to around 15 documented incidents well beyond the Press TV appearances.) See: https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm/cmallparty/171108/iran.htm

In this list, Mr Corbyn’s APPG co-member Lord Lamont is supportive of the oil industry. See:

https://www.qmul.ac.uk/ccls/media/ccls/docs/events/Iran-and-the-West-Final-Thought- Leadership-Piece.pdf and deeply connected with the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps through his longstanding association with the British Iranian Chamber of Commerce. See: http://www.bicc.org.uk/ab-bicc-board.html (Since the shooting down of Ukrainian Airlines flight 752 by the Iranian regime on 8 January, the APPG has apparently not reconstituted itself.) Then there is the INSTEX 3E membership, working to avoid US sanctions and expand trade with the Iranian regime, where oil and gas sales were a declared, if presently frustrated aim. Whilst acknowledging the heinous nature of the Iranian regime, newspaper coverage of COVID-19 around 29 April 2020 strongly condemned US sanctions as threatening the Iranian people. It also ignored the fact that the regime will intercept all help; the people will not see any it, as they saw none of the $50Bn freed up after the signing of the JCPoA, where infrastructure improvement was part of the deal. Several Foreign Affairs Select Committee members will recall first-hand the Iranian regime’s iron-hard response towards Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe following the consequences of Boris Johnson’s appearance in front of yourselves, when he wrongly stated: “When I look at what Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe was doing, she was simply teaching people journalism as I understand it”, see BBC 6 November 2017 - ‘Fears for Nazanin Zaghari- Ratcliffe after Boris Johnson remark’ https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-41890885 This remains the Iranian regime’s official line. We show here two examples; there are many others (note dates): ‘The 39-year-old mother-of-one was arrested after it became clear that she had run an illegal course to recruit and train people for the BBC Persian Television, a channel Iran deems is an extension of Britain’s anti-Iran propaganda machine.’ 12 March 2019 - PressTV: Who really is Nazanin Zaghari? https://www.presstv.com/detail/2019/03/12/590839/uk-iran-nazanin-zaghari

‘The Zaghari-Ratcliffe case is viewed as Johnson’s greatest weakness, not least because the British media has consistently misrepresented her as an “innocent mother” who is being held “hostage” by Iran.’ 30 June 2019 - Press TV: Johnson comes under fire again for his honesty on the Zaghari- Ratcliffe case https://www.presstv.com/Detail/2019/06/30/599796/UK,-Politics

(Note: Press TV is edited from Tehran, following the loss of its UK licence over editorial control by Tehran.) We now wish to point to the Iranian regime’s institutionalised economic theft, a process so well defined and anchored, and so rigid that they might have built it from steel. The Iranian Parliament itself has identified 250 highly-ranked individuals in the regime whom it has accused of appropriating a share of $4.8Bn missing from the National Development Fund. It suggested a further 16 ‘untouchables’. When the International Monetary Fund declined to vote on the Iranian $5Bn loan application, and cold-shouldered the EU request made in support, it was aware of not only the continuing financial thefts, but also Latin American reports that just under 2,000 Venezuelan top-drawer 2nd passports had been acquired by high-up Iranian regime officials. This led to the firing of Colonel Vladimir Medrano Rengifo, former director of Venezuela’s Office of Identification and Migration by Interior Minister Vice President Tareck El Aissami, who had protested. The Committee will know that the issuing of 2nd passports to wealthy Iranian, Syrian, and Russian nationals is a lucrative industry. The Committee will know of both the Challenger Tank £400m plus interest problem, and the Iranian long-term kidnap and detention programme. The two are deeply intertwined with all the UK/Iran dual nationals (except the disappeared Ghoncheh Ghavami) at the centre of the current pressure being exerted on Mr Johnson by the Iranian regime (both the UK and Iranian foreign ministries deny this). We have written to the Prime Minister arguing strongly (and reluctantly because of Nazanin) that this money should go nowhere near the Iranian regime. Perhaps more to the point for this submission, to whom in Iran should any money be paid; and, given the endemic hostage-taking, who within the Select Committee would wish to go to Iran to police its safe delivery and dispersal? OPEC and its hold over Western energy, hence security policy are now broken and won’t return. Whilst US and Latin American alternatives may be disabled due to Covid-19, any attempt by OPEC to restrict supplies and raise prices will simply see them side-lined in a rush of reducing cost per megawatt renewable energy generators, and the return of US oil fracking capacity. Iran’s most powerful weapon in the absence of a likely near-future nuclear weapon is now forever disarmed. As the world moves away from oil, with a crossover point to renewables forecast for 2040- 2050 (source: cepconsult), and oil revenue declines, the regime has sought to shore up its military capabilities to guarantee its long-term survival. North Korea's success informed the regime to start its nuclear journey, which gave it the power of nuclear weaponry to make the country virtually unchallengeable when the oil-financed revenues reduce. This journey was only partly offset by the JCPoA. This aimed to delay the first nuclear weapon by an optimistic fifteen years, to be followed by a 12-month delay to building the first successful weapon. We suggest that, if not stopped, the regime will probably succeed in the early 2030s. From the Iranian perspective, it is hard to interpret the UK/Iran relationship as anything other than at best transactional win/lose, and active provocation at all other times. In a nutshell, by constitutional design we have a wealthy, oppressive, rigid, unchangingly militaristic, aggressive, expansionist and dangerous regime striving to ensure its long-term survival and maintain its ability to inflict human, economic and military harm on all around. It has not once in 41 years deviated from this course. Western nations’ need to preserve unfettered access to oil supplies has led to a 41-year policy of appeasement. Western energy security policies have sustained the Iranian regime as they did OPEC; and with UK policy assisted in some measure by BP, Shell and Total, the regime has been free to conduct its ever more harmful affairs unchallenged. This is the reality of the relationship between the UK and the Iranian regime. LFF Answer to Q2 – Challenges of, and alternatives to, current methods of addressing bilateral disputes (past and present) It appears to us that to consider challenges of current methods of addressing past and present bilateral disputes is as unprofitable a pursuit today as it has been for the last 41 years. Change does not come about by repeating the appeasement policy of the past. Now with the likelihood of having to deal with an unbending pariah state aiming to transfer its reduced oil threat to a North Korean-grade nuclear threat as soon as the 2030s, time should be called on the Iranian regime’s ability to hold the civilised world to ransom. LFF Answer to Q3 and Q4 - The FCO’s role in supporting broader ties (commercial or otherwise) and UK’s policies towards Iran’s role in the region and the UK’s broader regional alliances In the short-term, given the failure of any form of accommodation with this morally bankrupt regime, we would call on the FCO to switch from regime sustenance to sanctions re-imposition, thereby letting the Iranian regime financially implode. Britain has backed the wrong people for 41 years and is now faced with the threat of a pariah nuclear-armed state. It’s time for Britain determinedly to side with the Iranian people who want nothing more than this regime gone, and the freedom to choose their next government. We propose that the FCO should instead look to hold exploratory talks with the principal Iranian Opposition group headed by Mrs Maryam Rajavi, and discuss the Opposition’s soundly thought-through Ten-Point Plan for Future Iran. The plan is here: https://www.ncr-iran.org/en/news/maryam-rajavi/maryam-rajavi-s-ten-point-plan-for- future-iran/ Whilst providing fair governance and promising in-country and international norms of behaviour and stability, the Opposition are committed to peaceful coexistence, international and regional peace and cooperation, respect for the United Nations Charter, and a non-nuclear Iran, free of weapons of mass destruction. The FCO may have long guilty memories of the ousting of the short-lived Mosaddegh Government with Operation Ajax after it had nationalised the Anglo-Persian Oil Company (now BP). Such a re-occurrence would now be not only unlikely, but counterproductive for a democratised Iran, given the availability of free-flowing late stage oil and gas supplies elsewhere in the world and the collapse of OPEC. Under a new democratically-elected Iranian government, the UK could expect continuance of late stage oil and gas supplies as renewables dominate, and have reciprocal access to a legendarily talented population of engineers, health professionals, musicians and artists with excellent education, learning, and work ethic, with good prospects of stability in the region, and tourism and non-oil regional trades taking their rightful place in a modernised Iranian diaspora. The FCO’s role in multilateral diplomacy regarding Iran, and the UK’s priorities therein We call on the FCO to work with the Iranian Opposition and listen to their ideas and priorities. They are deeply involved with regional relationships and have shown a pragmatism and willingness to accommodate. LFF Answer to Q5 - The future of the JCPoA We believe that even if the JCPoA had not been disrupted by the US administration, it is now in its sunset years, with the Iranian regime on an unchanging course towards replacing the oil supply threat with that of a nuclear rogue nation. We wonder whether the clearly-failed appeasement programme of the last 41 years has been dominated by a ‘Not-on-my-watch’ way of thinking? If so, endeavouring to sustain this line via the JCPoA and the INSTEX agreement may mean that whilst present parties may have left office when the agreement expires, many will live to see the likely nightmare of a new nuclear-armed state arise sometime in the 2030s, or possibly sooner. The UK would be far better served by letting the Iranian Opposition and people follow their course to a democratic, nuclear-free Iran. We call for talks between the UK and main Iranian Opposition group to start as soon as possible.

References:

25 March 2020 - Encyclopedia Britannica: Iranian Revolution [1978–1979] https://www.britannica.com/event/Iranian-Revolution

31 January 2020 Link for Freedom: Are you a British-Iranian dual national considering visiting Iran? Shareable shortlink: bit.ly/IranDualNationalsNoVisit 20 March 2019 - Kasra Aarabi: What Is Velayat-e Faqih? Tony Blair Institute for Global Change https://institute.global/policy/what-velayat-e-faqih August 2016 - CHATHAM HOUSE: Iran’s Politics and Foreign Policy, in partnership with the Gulf Studies Center, Qatar University 20 January 2012 - BBC: Iran’s Press TV loses UK licence https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-16652356 https://www.chathamhouse.org/sites/default/files/events/2016-03-13-irans-politics- foreign-policy-workshop-summary.pdf UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights https://www.un.org/en/udhrbook/pdf/udhr_booklet_en_web.pdf

April 2020