Prince Reza Pahlavi's Belgian parliament invitation: 39 groups protest

The Coordinated Front of Iranian Fighters, which describes itself as a coalition of 39 political organisations and groups opposed to the Islamic Republic, has written to Maxime Prévot, Belgium's deputy prime minister and foreign minister, protesting the cancellation of an official invitation to Prince Reza Pahlavi to speak in the Belgian Chamber of Representatives and asking for the decision to be reconsidered. The letter is dated Friday 23 October 2026.

According to the signatories, the Conference of Presidents of the Belgian Chamber dropped the invitation to Prince Reza Pahlavi for 5 November after a letter from the foreign minister. Maxime Prévot had earlier rejected calls to recognise the Prince and said the decision on Iran's leadership rests with the Iranian people alone.

The letter's arguments about the opposition

The authors accept that Iran's opposition is diverse, but say Prince Reza Pahlavi has become a unifying figure among opponents of the Islamic Republic and that his plan is a secular, democratic transition whose outcome will be decided by a popular referendum.

They described the groups that opposed the invitation, including six Iranian-Belgian associations and a group led by Pierre Galand, as a small, ideological far-left current. The letter called these groups' claim that Iranians have rejected a return to the past false and an insult to those killed in the uprisings. Earlier, a campaign by the Rajavi movement against inviting Prince Reza Pahlavi to Belgium had also been launched.

Security concerns and an inconsistency

The signatories say the security risks of such a speech are manageable and that refusing to hear the opposition in effect gives the Islamic Republic a veto over Belgian democracy. According to them, while parliament cancelled the 5 November invitation, Belgium's defence ministry has invited Prince Reza Pahlavi to the Royal Military Academy on 6 November, an inconsistency that, the authors say, calls the Belgian government's position into question.

The Coordinated Front of Iranian Fighters ended by asking the Belgian foreign minister to let the country's parliament hear "the voice of the people of Iran". Prince Reza Pahlavi has had a prominent presence in Europe in recent days, including an article in Le Figaro in which he asked France's presidential candidates to make four commitments.

39 groups opposed to the Islamic Republic say shutting the Belgian parliament's door to Prince Reza Pahlavi means giving Tehran a veto.