Brussels, November 2nd, 2026 – An Iranian woman resident in an EU member state will be one of the keynote speakers at the European Parliament in Brussels on Thursday 5 November, at the launch of a new Brussels Declaration to protect religious freedom and human values for people of all faiths and none around the world.
Among the first signatories of the declaration are the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Carey of Clifton, and the President of the Conference of European Rabbis, Chief Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt.
But while Lord Carey and Chief Rabbi Goldschmidt are openly endorsing the initiative, one of the keynote speakers has chosen to conceal her identity to protect herself and her family from reprisals by the Islamic Republic of Iran and its criminal proxies in Europe.
This extraordinary measure, inside the European Parliament at the heart of the European Union, was deemed necessary after the Iranian regime recently enacted stricter laws targeting communication with foreign media and entities, with charges that can carry severe penalties, including the death sentence. While such threats may be commonplace in totalitarian regimes such as the Islamic Republic, extraterritorial killings and harassment, carried out by its own agents or through criminal networks, are a new phenomenon in Europe, forcing the organisers to take these measures.
In a statement on Monday 2 November, conference co-host Tomas Sandell expressed concern over the state of freedom of expression in Europe, where those residing in the European Union no longer feel safe to express their views openly, even inside the European Parliament.
He applauded the decision of the President of the European Parliament, Roberta Metsola, who, following the brutal crackdown by the Islamic Republic on 7–8 January which left more than 40,000 Iranians dead, banned Iranian diplomats from the premises of the European Parliament. Meanwhile, individual Members of the European Parliament remain in contact with the Iranian regime and its diplomats in Brussels, as does the EU High Representative, Kaja Kallas, who met the Foreign Minister of the Islamic Republic, Abbas Araghchi, at the UN General Assembly in New York in September. Ms Kallas has so far refused to meet the main Iranian opposition leader, Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi, who will visit Brussels on Tuesday and later in the week will receive the Freedom Prize of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation in Frankfurt.
“If we cannot protect our fundamental rights and values even at the heart of the European Union in Brussels, while remaining in contact with the butchers in Tehran responsible for the deadliest crackdown in the Middle East in the last hundred years, we have failed not only the Iranian people but the very values and principles that should be the foundation of the European project,” Sandell concluded.
