PRESS RELEASE
Brussels, October 16, 2026
It is with shock and deep concern that we learned that Mr. Georges-Louis Bouchez, president of the MR, is considering inviting Reza Pahlavi, son of the Shah overthrown in 1979, to the Belgian Federal Parliament. This initiative, reported by the Belga agency on October 14, arouses our strongest indignation.
The presence of Mr. Pahlavi at the Federal Parliament would be experienced as an insult by many Iranian men and women whose families suffered under the Shah’s dictatorship and the oppression exerted, under his authority, by the regime’s infamous secret police, the SAVAK. Political repression, torture, imprisonment, and persecution marked this period. The memory of these victims cannot be ignored in the name of opposition to the current religious dictatorship.
Iranians want neither the dictatorship of the Shah nor that of the mullahs.
Mr. Pahlavi has systematically refused to distance himself from the crimes committed under his father’s dictatorship. Furthermore, he has stated on several occasions that he is proud of his family’s legacy and everything it accomplished.
The prospect of concentrating executive, legislative, and judicial powers in the hands of a single person raises serious questions and is completely contrary to democratic values. Only free and transparent elections will guarantee institutions in the service of the Iranian people. For Iranians who have not forgotten history, Mr. Pahlavi’s project represents a risk of returning to the Shah’s dictatorship, rather than a genuine democratic transition based on free and transparent elections.
Added to these concerns are threats and acts of intimidation reported against Iranian opponents from other political currents, in the context of rivalries with certain monarchist circles supporting Mr. Pahlavi. In June 2026, French security services reported serious threats emanating from Mr. Pahlavi’s supporters targeting participants in a rally of various currents of the republican opposition. We are prepared to share this document with media outlets upon request.
The safety of Iranian activists in Europe and their freedom of expression must be taken seriously.
We are also deeply concerned by Mr. Pahlavi’s support for US and Israeli military intervention, which he has publicly and repeatedly supported, going so far as to describe it as a “humanitarian intervention.” The Iranian population suffers a double burden: the atrocities committed by the regime and the consequences of military intervention.
Will the Belgian Federal Parliament discredit itself by offering a privileged platform to a personality who embodies a project so contrary to democratic values and who carries the legacy of a regime marked by bloody repression and grave human rights violations?
We call on the President of the Federal Parliament, democratic political parties, and Belgian authorities to fully measure the symbolic and political impact of such an invitation and not to grant institutional legitimacy to a project that raises serious democratic concerns.
The Iranian people deserve Belgium’s support in their struggle for freedom, human rights, and the establishment of a democratic republic based on popular sovereignty and free elections, not the promotion of the heir to a dictatorship overthrown by those very same people.
Signatories:
Mehdi Nobari
President of the International Association for Culture and Human Rights (ASBL/VZW), founded in 2004
Dr. Masoud Kashefi
International Alliance of Healthcare Professionals for a Free Iran
Sourosh Aboutalebi
President of Iranian Youth and Democratic Student Association
Dr. Afsaneh Najib
President of the Association of Iranian Democratic Women
Dr. Ali Bagheri
President of the International Alliance for Freedom of Speech
Mohsen Aboutalebi
Former political prisoner, President of the Association for the Defense of Political Prisoners in Iran
Contact for more info and interviews:
Mehdi Nobari +32 475 24 39 86