Appeal to European Parliament: A Moment of Silence for Iran

Supporters of the 1min4iran campaign launched a Twitter storm on Sunday night, urging members of the European Parliament to observe a moment of silence during one of this week’s parliamentary sessions in Strasbourg to honor those killed in Iran’s November protests.

The idea originated from an Iranian citizen residing in Sweden; Kourosh Ghaisari shared the idea of a one-minute silence by Iranians living in Europe to honor the victims of November’s protests with Damon Galjarz. This researcher then transforms the idea into a moment of silence in the European Parliament.

Damon Galjarz tells this Swedish resident that it would be better to raise the idea with Sweden’s representative in the European Parliament. As a result of Mr. Ghaisari’s contact with Sweden’s European Parliament representative, a letter was drafted and signed by 17 members of the European Parliament from 12 different countries and submitted to the president of the European Parliament.

At the European Parliament sessions this week in Strasbourg, running from today, December 15 to Thursday, December 18, the parliamentary president will decide whether to hold a moment of silence to honor those killed in Iran.

To draw special attention to this issue, a Twitter storm with the hashtag #1min4iran was launched at 9 p.m. on Sunday, December 14.

Damon Galjarz emphasizes in an interview with Deutsche Welle that this campaign does not belong to any group, faction, or political party and is solely an idea of Iranian citizens living in Europe. He says that most diverse Iranian users with different perspectives have supported this campaign, and the hashtag has received good response and has, so to speak, “gone viral.”

Several European Parliament members have also retweeted this hashtag and effectively shown their support for it.

Given the currently relatively good relations between the European Union and Iran, and the fact that six other European countries have recently joined INSTEX, the financial mechanism for European-Iranian trade, how likely is it that European Parliament members will respond positively to this campaign?

Damon Galjarz explains that the function and nature of the European Parliament differs from the Foreign Affairs Committee and the EU’s commercial relations department to which INSTEX belongs, saying that issues such as democracy, human rights, and open society are more important to European Parliament members than political and commercial relations, and these are the same values that, according to him, “the Iranian people have been fighting for over 150 years.”

For this reason, this lecturer at The Hague University of Applied Sciences believes that “focusing on European Parliament members to stand in solidarity with the Iranian people yields the most political effect rather than executive results like INSTEX.”

If European Parliament members accept this request and observe a moment of silence to honor those killed in Iran’s protests, what impact would this have?

Damon Galjarz says: “From a political and media perspective, it shows that the voice of the Iranian people has been heard, and even if this doesn’t happen, this pressure itself will intensify for European representatives so that you and I can ask them why they didn’t take this action.”

In this researcher’s view, the result of such action could manifest in various areas, including greater European alignment with the United States on sanctions against Islamic Republic officials, or allocating more budget to Persian-language media to focus more on the events of November 2019.

According to Damon Galjarz, the next step for those who launched this campaign is to present the same request to members of European parliaments, whereby Iranian citizens living in Europe would ask representatives of their countries of residence to observe a moment of silence in their country’s parliament to honor those killed in November’s protests.

In Damon Galjarz’s view, the one-minute silence gesture is a very low-cost action that is also difficult to oppose, meaning no one can simply oppose expressing silence in protest against the killing of hundreds of people in a country.

Monday afternoon, Charlie Weimers, Sweden’s representative in the European Parliament, announced that his party has succeeded in getting a resolution condemning the killing of Iranians put to a vote in parliament. The result of this vote will be announced Wednesday afternoon, December 17.

Source: DW