NEW YORK — Former Democratic vice presidential candidate Joseph Lieberman said the United Nations should treat Iranian President Hassan Rouhani the same way it treats North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un and suggested that “Tehran has more blood on its hands than even the regime in Pyongyang.”
Speaking at a rally at the United Nation’s Dag Hammarskjold Plaza, where members of the Mujahedin-e-Khalq (MEK) — also known as the People’s Mujahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI) — protested Rouhani’s presence at the UN, Lieberman said, “Don’t treat Rouhani as if he deserved the respect of a recognized leader of a civilized country, like President Obama.”
Lieberman, who was against the now-infamous nuclear Iran deal, continued his remarks by examining the North Korean and Iranian regimes side-by-side. He noted that they are “both brutal totalitarian regimes. Both spending much too much money to threaten other neighbors. The fact is that the regime in Tehran has more blood on its hands than even the regime in Pyongyang.”
More than 2,500 people have been executed by the Iranian regime since Rouhani took office in 2013. Tuesday’s rally also included a choreographed mock execution of approximately 30,000 political prisoners whom the Iranian regime hung or shot in 1988.
At least 50 Iranian officials who are actively serving in Rouhani’s administration were directly involved in overseeing those mass executions.
“So, we say to the United Nations, don’t be fooled by Rouhani’s smile,” Lieberman said. “And anyway, he’s simply a puppet for Khamenei and the IRGC. It’s time, my friends, for a change.”
He added, “We’re here in the cause of freedom, which is America’s cause. But honestly, it is God’s cause. Every person deserves freedom because every person was created by God.” He rejected the Iranian Regime’s claims that it is acting in the name of God, suggesting that a government that suggests it is doing so would not “take God’s children and put them in Evin Prison and torture them and murder them.” Lieberman added, “No my friends, that is not a religious regime.”
Quoting two of America’s founding fathers, Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson, Lieberman said, “Resistance to tyrants is obedience to God. Remember that.”
That quote was a motto suggested for use on the Seal of the United States. Although it was not ultimately used for that purpose, Jefferson took it for use as his personal seal. Scholars believe Franklin wrote it.
Lieberman added that everyone gathered at the rally was there to “celebrate freedom,” including the relocation of the remaining MEK members from Camp Liberty (Hurriya) in Iraq to Albania earlier this month. The camp, which has been a place of refuge for dissidents against the Iranian regime since the 1980s, was officially closed with the exit of the Iranian resistance movement’s remaining 280 members from Iraq.
Shouts of “Democracy! Freedom! Regime change in Iran!” filled the air following Lieberman’s statement. “It’s never easy to take on power that suppresses. But we’re on the right side. And we’re on the right side of history,” he said. “And we have reason, today, to be optimistic.”
Follow Adelle Nazarian on Twitter and Periscope @AdelleNaz.
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