Her Full Speech

As delivered in Milan, Italy

Ladies and Gentlemen, dear Human Rights defenders, political leaders and women’s rights advocates, I am really proud and honoured today to speak in front of this huge gathering in parallel with Milan Fashion Week in this beautiful and symbolic city. Milan is historically and culturally tied to the idea of freedom due to its role as the “capital of the Italian Resistance” during World War II and its liberation on April 25, 1945. It is the beacon of democracy, freedom and peace, and we are gathering today to show solidarity with our Jewish and Israeli sisters as well as Iranian and Afghan women, but also Sudanese, Yemeni, Pakistani, and all women victims of the ideology of Islamism and the Iranian propaganda.

I would like to thank the Milton Friedman Institute for the invitation and congratulate all the organisers for this initiative.

The need to act: For us Belgian Muslims, it is very important to fight against extremism and radical Islam and show our solidarity with minorities, mainly the Jewish minority in Europe, victim of anti-Semitism and targeted by pro-Islamists so many times in different European countries and, unfortunately, here in Belgium. The Jewish Community has been the victim of violence, hate and constant threats before and after October 7th because of Islamist propaganda on media.

Secular Muslims and women who are advocating for peace between Muslim and non-Muslim communities are targeted as well. Today it is important to remind that women and minorities in the MENA region are victims of persecution, violence and hate for decades. After the Arab Spring came the Islamist winter, which transformed the lives of women into a real nightmare from Tunisia to Egypt, Yemen, Syria, Sudan and Iran. It is always the same alliance between the Muslim Brotherhood and the Iranian regime, which targeted women and minorities in Yemen, Syria, Iraq, Sudan and Lebanon.

Muslim Brotherhood and IRGC are two sides of the same coin. The Brotherhood’s partnership with Iran is not motivated by religious similarity or true commitment to resistance. Instead, it is a pragmatic alliance founded on a mutual opposition to Israel, the West and Arab governments supported by the West. In the near term, this partnership provides the Brotherhood with a new sense of importance and visibility. However, in the long run, it exposes the group’s persistent readiness to take advantage of regional crises to reshape its identity, irrespective of the repercussions for regional stability or unity among Muslims. We have seen close ties between these two movements in Yemen, for instance.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Yemeni women have been targeted by the Houthi militia for more than ten years now. Since 2014, the Houthi militia has kidnapped and maltreated numerous women, subjecting them to isolation through indoctrination with foreign beliefs. The infringement on women’s rights and global standards must stop now.

Yemeni women, similar to other citizens of Yemen, have faced immense pressure and endured harsh living conditions as a result of Houthi actions, including killings, kidnappings, torture, displacement, and policies that cause poverty and starvation. Their existence has transformed into an intolerable nightmare due to the intensification of oppressive measures that curtail their freedom and involvement in public life, as well as limit their mobility in streets, public areas, and workplaces. This situation poses a significant threat to the achievements Yemen has made over the past sixty years, positioning women as vital contributors to the nation’s development and construction efforts.

The situation of women in Yemen is a reminder of that of their neighbors in Syria, Sudan, Lebanon, Iraq and Iran. It is also a reminder of October 7th attacks on Israeli women and the use of sexual violence as a war weapon. We should all stand by our Israeli and Jewish sisters and say never again, and remind the world that Hamas is not resistance — it is a terrorist movement which targets civilians and innocent women, men and children.

The EU intelligence report on Muslim Brotherhood and IRGC: The French, Belgian, Dutch and Italian intelligence reports indicate that the Muslim Brotherhood focuses on four aspects of European society: religious infrastructure, education, digital media, and community organizations. It identifies various groups in the EU that it claims have connections to the Brotherhood, including high schools in France, and two European Institutes of Human Sciences that emphasize the teaching of Arabic and the Quran. According to the report, “the Brotherhood’s strategy” involves establishing a kind of ideological dominance by penetrating civil society while pretending to engage in religious and educational pursuits. It further emphasizes a wider “ecosystem” present in multiple European cities, featuring Brotherhood-affiliated organizations in education, charitable efforts, and religion that work collaboratively.

Intelligence assessments, especially from late 2024 and 2025, also identify the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a significant threat to security in Europe, implicated in schemes against Iranian dissidents and Jewish communities, utilizing criminal networks, and connected to a larger framework of state-sponsored terrorism by Iran. This has led to heightened alerts and inquiries from intelligence agencies in France, the US, and the UK, along with demands for the IRGC to be classified as a terrorist organization. In May 2024, French officials indicted individuals associated with IRGC-related schemes in France and Germany, which fits into a wider European pattern of exposing Iranian plots for assassination, kidnapping, and surveillance directed at adversaries.

For all these reasons, the EU and the international community must put the Muslim Brotherhood and the IRGC on the EU terrorist list. Let me remind you that the Houthis were put on the terrorist list by the EU and the UN in 2023 after several terrorist attacks which threatened European and international trade in the Red Sea, and it had major impacts such as freezing their assets, restricting travel, criminalizing support, and cutting off funding, which significantly hindered their military and financial capabilities.

Last but not least, I would like to highlight the policy adopted by the Italian government, which is efficient and sustainable. Italian authorities are actively targeting structures suspected of links to the movement or of financing radical groups. Police operations have notably led to the arrest of figures associated with charitable networks accused of diverting millions of euros to Hamas under the guise of humanitarian aid.

I would like also to welcome the initiative of Giorgia Meloni’s party (Brothers of Italy), which has introduced a bill aiming to ban the wearing of the niqab and burqa in all public spaces — schools, universities, shops — a measure presented as a bulwark against radicalization and cultural separatism. We need more initiatives like these in Europe to support our Iranian sisters and show that secularism is a sacred principle of our democracy.

Thank you.