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<article>
  <category>press-releases</category>
  <content>&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: medium; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"&gt;BRUSSELS DECLARATION&lt;/span&gt; &lt;strong&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"&gt;Conference in the European Parliament&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"&gt;On the issue of Human Rights and the Question of&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"&gt;Democratization and Federalism in Iran&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"&gt;2 April 2009 - Brussels, Belgium&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"&gt;Delegates welcome the support that the conference, and by extension the campaign for democracy in Iran, has received from Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) and international civil society.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"&gt;Delegates stresses that despite extensive lobbying efforts by the Iranian regime to exert pressure to prevent MEPs from attending, the conference was a great success toward engaging in a free exchange of viewpoints in an open forum.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"&gt;Delegates publically reaffirm their desire to the unity of Iran and impress upon the international community their desire for peaceful, inclusive, and domestically driven democratization, and decisively reject any accusation of separatism.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"&gt;Delegates call on Iranian authorities to respect, in accordance with state's international obligations, cultural, economics, linguistics, and religious rights of all nationalities living within the boarders of Iran today.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"&gt;Delegates urge the international community to support, as an important means of aiding Iranian civil society, existing and prospective efforts to establish independent mass media broadcasting in the different languages of Iran's constituent nationalities, and facilitates access to existing international media in support of inclusion, secularism and respect for human rights.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"&gt;Delegates call on the European Union to not only continues its assistance to Iranian civil society and promotion of human rights but to ensure such assistance is extended to all ethnic and religious communities.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"&gt;Delegates call on the international community to support and promote gender equality and collective rights as the principles of Universal Declaration of Human rights.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"&gt;Delegates wish to stress their belief that promotion of democracy within Iran can not be meaningfully achieved without considering a multinational, secular federal solution that facilitates adequate representation and protection of all Iran's nationalities through autonomy and federalism as an expression of internal self-determination.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"&gt;Congress of Nationalities for Federal Iran (CNFI) www.iranfederal.org&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"&gt;Unrepresented Nationalities and Peoples Organizations (UNPO) www.unpo.org&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;</content>
  <created-at type="datetime">2009-04-06T11:35:14-06:00</created-at>
  <description>Delegates welcome the support that the conference, and by extension the campaign for democracy in Iran, has received from Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) and international civil society.</description>
  <id type="integer">151</id>
  <published type="boolean">true</published>
  <published-at type="datetime">2009-04-06T11:35:14-06:00</published-at>
  <publisher></publisher>
  <source>BPP</source>
  <title>BRUSSELS DECLARATION Conference in the European Parliament </title>
  <updated-at type="datetime">2010-03-05T08:19:14-07:00</updated-at>
  <viewcount type="integer">295</viewcount>
  <writer></writer>
</article>
