Brussels, 08/07/2009 (Agence Europe) - On Wednesday 8 July, the outgoing members of the committee on foreign affairs of the EP and the delegation for relations with Iran held an extraordinary meeting to debate the "deeply disturbing" post-election situation in the country. At its constituent meeting next week, the newly EP will hold a debate on Iran, which will be attended by Carl Bildt; it will also adopt a resolution. On Wednesday, the MEPs heard from the Iranian film director Mohsen Makhmalbaf (who supported the candidate Hussein Moussavi during the presidential elections), who launched an urgent appeal to the Europeans: “do not recognise the coup d'état of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and support the Iranian people, who have been taken hostage by this illegitimate president”. If the international community has today, quite rightly, refused to recognise the military coup d'état in Honduras, why should it recognize the one in Iran, he wondered, before going on to call the EU to take sanctions against the Iranian authorities. Angelika Beer, the German Green who chaired the delegation for relations with Iran (she was not re-elected to the EP), is not in favour of sanctions, because she is concerned that these would punish the Iranian population rather than weaken the regime. "We need new support measures" directly to help the population and civil society, she said. Her fellow German Michael Gahler (EPP) also believes that the EU should be "creative" in its support of the democratic forces of the country, possibly by funding specific projects without going through the Iranian government. The Spanish member José Ignacio Salafranca (EPP) protested against the EU's reluctance to act due to fears of being accused of "interference". Human rights are universal and must be defended universally, he said. This view was shared by Hélène Flautre (the outgoing president of the sub-committee on human rights). "We must urge the Council to think about sanctions against those responsible for this electoral fraud", she said. There can be no question of interference "because we do not support candidate Moussavi against candidate Ahmadinejad, but we are defending the liberty of civil society against the repression brought to bear by an illegitimate government". (H.B./trans.fl)