Hedayat Mostowfi, a member of the National Council...

Hedayat Mostowfi, a member of the National Council of Resistance of Iran's Foreign Affairs Committee, said that the EU's open attitude to Iran only encouraged the human rights violations. "The EU is allowing economic interests to take precedence and giving Kharrazi (Iran's Foreign Minister) and the Iranian regime a forum to whitewash their crimes. But the violations are simply continuing and have even increased dramatically since the beginning of the European dialogue with Iran. Last year, 474 people were executed in Iran - a 50 per cent increase as compared with 2001. This year, too, 40 Iranians have already been executed or sentenced to death. And that is just the executions which the government makes known through the state-controlled media."