European Union

The EU-wide asset freeze against MeK is therefore still in force

Lord Avebury (Liberal Democrat) | Hansard source
asked Her Majesty’s Government:

What action they have taken to comply with the ruling of the European Court of First Instance in the case Organisation des Modjahedines du Peuple d’Iran v Council of the European Union, annulling Council Decision 2005/930/EC of 21 December 2005 freezing the funds of the organisation; and in what manner they will now provide for the full hearing of the case against the organisation.


Lord Triesman (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Foreign & Commonwealth Office) | Hansard source

On 12 December 2006, the Court of First Instance (CFI) of the European Community annulled the Council of the European Union’s decision to add the Mujahedinn e Khalq (MeK, also known as OMPI or PMOI) to its list of terrorist organisations subject to an EU-wide asset freeze. The CFI judgment focused on issues of EU procedure; the Court did not rule on the substantive question as to whether the MeK is a terrorist group.


The specific Council decision of December 2005 annulled by the Court has been replaced by a subsequent Council decision of May 2006. The EU-wide asset freeze against MeK is therefore still in force. The EU keeps its terrorist asset freezing decisions under regular review.

Following the CFI decision on the MeK case in December, the EU has reviewed the listing, using improved procedures, and on 30 January reaffirmed its decision to include the MeK on its list of terrorist organisations. In line with the Court’s requirements, it has written to the group setting out the reasons for the decision, and explaining how the group can exercise its right to provide further information relevant to the case and/or petition for delisting.

 

House of Lords

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Mujahedin Khalq 's Function

Mojahedin Cult Displaying Tip of an Iceberg

The terrorists’ potentiality in utilization of violence for whatever political and social demands is a horrible nightmare that disturbs societies and especially those in the West. The possible disaster would be even worse if the terrorists are the breeds of a destructive cult. You can hardly tell a cult insider from those you work and live with, nice people that might turn their face when passing a butcher’s.

Maryam Rajavi’s arrest and its aftermath gave the states and the public opinion the opportunity to see behind the pseudo-democratic face of Mojahedin. On 17 June 2003 when the police raided MKO-run offices in Paris districts and arrested 164 suspected Mojahedin cadres as well as Maryam Rajavi on charges of terrorist activities, they hardly knew that they were piercing through a cult’s stronghold. Unknowingly, they were arresting the husband appointed she-guru of a destructive cult living among their society for the long. They did something they shouldn’t have and they had to pay for it soon.

Nobody could believe that these seemingly amiable people setting up a community of modest women and smart gentlemen smiling and shaking hands with the elites of a modern society and who carried a veracious look had a ferocious persona underneath.

It was long ago that these Iranians, believed to be exiled from their home country for the cause of campaign for freedom and democracy, had come to live in the Western countries that advocated the cause they claimed to be fighting for. Rarely the public knew about their malign past when their bullets and bombs perished many innocent Iranians and personalities in power struggle attempts. And the guardians of the Western societies, well aware of the group’s past but kipping silent for political causes, were certain they could leash the terrorists to keep them calm and under the surveillance in their country. But a fact had remained unnoticed; besides its terrorist structure, the group since long had developed into a cult.

In June 2003, people in some Western cities were shocked to encounter appalling cult potentialities of MKO. Following the arrest of Maryam Rajavi, a number of the group’s insiders immolated themselves in public in a series of premeditated missions as leverages of pressure to buy Maryam Rajavi’s freedom. According to reports issued by the group itself, “16 people attempted to set themselves alight in three days in Paris, Berne, Rome, London, Ottawa, Athens and Nicosia ”. The human tragedy ended with two deaths; two women, Sediqeh Mojaveri, 44-year-old, and Neda Hassani, 19-year-old, died because of the self-immolation injuries.

These acts of self-destruction reveal the covert violent mien of the group’s ideology which is brought to surface and fully practiced whenever the circumstances deem it just. It is not wrong to say that the acts of self-immolations imposed Mojahedin’s demands on the French judges and courts to take a moderate position to stop further agitation of the public opinion.

The cult is again facing a new crisis at the present. Just at the time when they were celebrating their assumed won battle in the EU’s Court of Justice last year, when the court annulled a 2002 decision to freeze all European assets of the group, the legal counsel to the 27 EU governments, Jean-Claude Piris said that the judgment did not call into question the original decision that MKO was a terrorist organization, but that the EU court annulled the decision because of procedure.

Nearly a month ago, the EU gave the group 30 days to put forward its case for being removed from the list, which the group failed to present. Instead, the she-guru took a change of posture, unlike her usual courteous wear, and stepped forth to publicize once more the cult potentialities, already demonstrated, of her group. There is no need to read between the lines when we here her saying "We are speaking about the lives of individuals… I warn that two decades of appeasing the mullahs is now resulting in a new catastrophe".

What are the 27 EU member states waiting for? Are they waiting to see a new, horrible cult-protest performance in their streets before the eyes of their people? What they have already seen of the Mojahedin cult is only a tip of an iceberg. To wait to see more of it, results "in a new catastrophe".

Mojahedin WS, March 11, 2007

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Mujahedin Khalq Organization as a terrorist group

What Does MKO Want from EU?

Part of the editorial on Mojahed Weekly No.840 was as follows:

"Free Iranians will gather in Brussels on March 8 to protest to EU’s refusal to accept the ruling of European Court. They want to ask EU officials why are they refusing to accept the ruling that orders them to quit accusing the MKO of terrorism. Hundreds of Parliamentarians have ordered their governments that this way of refusing the law wouldn’t be tolerated and that they would force the EU to obey the ruling of the Court."

UN General Assembly asks the states in its resolution (passed in 1989) to avoid organizing, provoking, assisting or taking part in terrorist activities. It also passed the international convention of terrorism prevention in order to ban financial support for terrorist activities. According to this convention, all activities aimed at forcing a state or international organization to do or not to do something is considered a terrorist act. This is exactly what would happen on March 8 in Brussels by the MKO.

The UN Security Council has also set up some duties for governments for fighting terrorism:

1. In resolution 1368 of UN Security Council, passed on Sept. 12, terrorism was defined as an aggression or military invasion and that the victim state is authorized to resort to military might according to article 51 of UN charter.

2. Resolution 1373, undoubtedly the most important resolution on terrorism, stresses the right of legal defense against terrorism and asks the states to fight terrorism in a serious manner.

It is clear that MKO wants European countries to ignore all international laws and regulations.

MKO relies on a weak ruling by a European court, which is not bounding for the states and its least effect can be limited to bureaucratic relations inside the EU.

More importantly, the ruling stressed that MKO had not committed terrorist acts since 2000, while after the ruling was issued, Maryam Rajavi said that group should be rearmed!

This means that the MKO has never stopped terrorism and not committing terrorist activities was due to being disarmed by US forces and it doesn’t necessarily mean that the MKO has changed its policies.

This one message is enough for the EU to keep the MKO on terror list and impose more limitations on it.

In order to survive, the MKO wants the warmongers to employ it in their possible plans against Iran and also asks European states to treat the group as a political one, something that requires the change of policies and practices by the group. Thus, resolving this paradox is vital for the survival of the group and has nothing to do with European countries. This is up to the group to decide whether to serve Pentagon or Western intelligence services for its survival.

The current situation of Rajavi’s remnants reminds us of the status of terrorist Taliban; while in power in Afghanistan, this rebel group refused to accept international regulations and meanwhile expected to be treated according to international conventions!!

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Ann SingletonFormer members of the MEK

I am a trained Islamic terrorist

In her neat home nestling in a quiet suburban street, mum Anne Singleton peers out from her cottage-style windows.

Her Audi sits in the driveway and beyond it she sees a neat row of cedar trees leading to a church in an open field.

It is a typical English scene . . . and a lifetime away from the hostile deserts of Iraq and the military training camps of the People’s Mujahidin of Iran. Though Anne also once called these home.

She was in the clutches of the terrorist organisation and ready to give her life ” and sacrifice the lives of the innocent ” in the name of a bloodthirsty war

Little more than a decade ago, Anne was learning how to fire rifles and gearing up to fight for the group backed by Saddam Hussein.

Then, she believed her comrades were fighting for freedom in Iran ” and that the deaths of innocent people were a justifiable means to an end.

But now the 48-year-old recognises the group for what it is ” a deadly, extremist terrorist organisation.

With growing numbers of British youngsters being recruited into terror cells, Anne hopes her story will act as a warning.

At her home in Leeds, she tells The Sun: “What happened to me could happen to anyone.

“These groups entice concerned activists then persuade them to commit terrorist atrocities.

“They convinced me to give up my life to follow them. Now I see their methods were identical to the ones cults use to brainwash people.”

Anne became involved with the extremists while studying English at Manchester University in 1979.

Her boyfriend at the time, an Iranian called Ali, was interested in the Mujahidin” a group formed in 1965 to free Iran from “capitalism, imperialism, reactionary Islamic forces and despotism”.

Anne says:” I went along to Mujahidin meetings held in Manchester. In truth, I could not understand what the leader was saying in the videos we saw but I was transfixed.

“It all seemed so exciting. I thought, “I want to help them and do some good” so I decided to convert to being Muslim.”

Anne did not realise she was being psychologically manipulated.

She says now: “They flatter you in a way that you don’t even realise they are doing it.

“They really put themselves on a pedestal so that when they want you to join them, you feel special.

“I thought I was a saviour of the world and would have done anything for the Mujahidin.”

In 1989 Anne moved to London to become more involved in Mujahidin activities, working in computing and PR for them.

The computer programmer says: “They told me I should dedicate myself totally to them and that they needed me.

“The following year, during a hunger strike, I succumbed fully.

“I took two weeks off work and by day three of not eating I felt like I was on a complete high.

“We were given tea and sugar to keep us going and I had entered a completely different state of mind.

“I was adamant that this was what I should do for the rest of my life.”

Anne has since discovered that hunger and sleep deprivation are classic cult recruiting techniques.

 

She says: “I didn’t question anything. I was shown a film of a female suicide bomber blowing up an ayatollah in Iran. It was horrific and very shocking at first.

“But they showed me the film so many times that I got less and less distressed. Eventually I didn’t bat an eyelid. Of course, I heard politicians and journalists describing the group as extreme but I dismissed it and assumed they didn’t understand.

“There were 30 or 40 of us living in a safe house and I was the only white person. I never left unless it was for fund-raising or a demo.

“We had no possessions and any money we earned or benefits we received had to be handed straight over to the group.

“We were discouraged from keeping in contact with any family or friends.”

Anne’s parents, an office administrator and a painter and decorator, insisted she gave them her address and they wrote to her regularly, but letters were often confiscated.

In 1992 Anne was asked to go to the Iraqi desert for military training.

She says: “I loved the camp. It felt liberating to obey orders because then you lose all responsibility for yourself. I had a uniform, did assault courses, learned how to drive trucks and did firearms training.

“When I signed up to the Mujahidin I never imagined I would do that, but once I was there it seemed totally normal.”

After three months Anne was sent to Sweden to carry on with the PR work. But she became depressed after the group introduced a new rule banning marriages and families.

Anne says: “That rule seemed too final. I knew a family was the one other thing I wanted from life.

“To try to make me pull myself together they demoted me, sent me back to London and gave me less responsibility.

“It was reverse psychology, but I was so depressed that even that didn’t work.

“I’d lost all motivation. They tried to make me feel guilty, saying I was letting them and God down.

“By 1993 I knew I wanted to distance myself from the group so I began to work part-time again as a college administrator.”

Anne was finally ready to leave ” but the Mujahidin wouldn’t let her go easily. She says: “They tried to make me frightened of the outside world, saying it was dangerous. They said I’d end up living an immoral life or get sucked into drugs or crime if I abandoned the values of the Mujahidin.”

Around this time Anne met Massoud Khodabandeh, a senior and disillusioned member of the group who had also decided to leave.

They went their separate ways but met again and married in 1997. Three years later they had a son.

Anne says: “We are both Muslim but after we left the Mujahidin we would go out and get drunk just to be “normal”. Being able to think for yourself was amazing.

“We were like little kids doing things like going to the supermarket and choosing our own food. We discussed what we’d been through and I had no doubt we were psychologically manipulated. We’re fortunate we have each other to lean on.”

Anne feels it is only since the birth of son Babak, now six, that she truly feels like her old self.

“His birth made me pull myself together and we moved to Leeds shortly afterwards,” she says. “My family live there and after years apart it was great to be close again.”

The couple are now in a group called Iran Interlink, which campaigns AGAINST terrorist cells.

Anne says: “When I joined the Mujahidin I never had any intention of fighting. But by the end I thought it was OK to kill and assassinate.

“I thought it was right that people would die on suicide missions. I’m appalled at that now.

“France and Germany have ministers for cults and I think we need the same here.

“People are free to do what they like virtually until they reach the point of blowing someone up.

“The Government needs to look at terrorism from the angle of recruitment. People have a civilian mind where they know it is wrong to fire a gun and hurt someone. You have to be trained to kill and that is what’s happening in these groups.

“Psychological manipulation can happen to anyone at any time.

“If you’re lucky, you end up with a timeshare. If you’re unlucky you end up blowing yourself and innocent people up on the Tube.”

 

The Sun

By SAMANTHA WOSTEAR

March 02, 2007

http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,11000-2007100090,00.html

 

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Mujahedin Khalq 's Function

MOSSAD: MKO’s Intelligence Source!

A source reported that Mossad, Israel’s intelligence service, provides most of MKO’s intelligence on Iranian activities in Iraq.

This source added that the list of 30000 Iraqis, claimed to be cooperating with Iran, was part of such intelligence which was transferred to the MKO and then published.

Iraqi government has asked the MKO to leave Iraqi soil as soon as possible.

A few weeks ago, MKO leaders invited Iraqi Sunni leaders to take part in a conference in Brussels. Dr. Saleh Motlaq, Khalf Al-Ayan and Adnan Al-Dulaimi accepted this invitation.

Some of the members of this delegation asked for the removal of MKO’s name from the international list of terrorist organizations.

Al-Malaf 

araahurra.com/arabic/index.asp?id=6860&katagori=1&s=detay

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Maryam Rajavi

Maryam Rajavi treatening Council of European Union

Claiming that the letter by the Council of European Union which keeps the PMOI in the list is a breach of law, the terrorist MKO and a number of its advocates organized a conference in Brussels to protest the move. The EU had given the group 30 days, till Thursday, to put forward its case for being removed from the list. The People’s Mujahedeen of Iran (PMOI) duly handed over the letter in Brussels in which its lawyers accused the EU of "flagrant disregard" of an earlier European court ruling, as reported by Agence France.

The 27 EU member states wrote to the group a month ago explaining its motives for putting them on its terror list, recalling that group’s past activities, "notably the attacks for which it was responsible". Failing to present justifiable evidences, MKO, however, makes it attempts to proceed on detouring paths avoiding the conventional.

Furthermore, the cult leader, Maryam Rajavi, in her video message speech addressed to the conference made clear threats that only those familiar with the group and its cult structure can get the hint. Calling the legally adopted decision an act of appeasing Iranian regime, she promulgates a glimpse of her cult’s potentiality saying:

I remind those who insist on keeping the PMOI in the list that appeasement will have dire consequences. We are speaking about the lives of individuals. At the moment, the mullahs, through their proxies in the Iraqi government, are using the terrorist list as a pretext to try to expel and massacre PMOI members in Ashraf City . I warn that two decades of appeasing the mullahs is now resulting in a new catastrophe.

Mojahedin WS, March 03, 2007

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Lord Corbett

Open letter to Lord Corbett of Castle Vale

Dear Lord Corbett,

With the greatest respect, I refer to your interview with the BBC Persian Service on February 23, 2007 (Link to the interview) which was published on the BBC’s website. May I first express my pleasure that you have entered into a free discussion about the Mojahedin Khalq Organisation (MKO). As you know, there are many questions about the Mojahedin Khalq Organisation which remain unanswered.

You have mentioned in your interview that the reason behind the proscription of the Mojahedin Khalq Organisation in Britain and other places is purely political and was made in relation to the interests of the Iranian Regime. This might be true, but what I would like to know is why the Mojahedin Khalq Organisation is still being kept on the lists of terrorist entities in almost every western country when these countries are engaged in a serious confrontation with the Islamic Republic of Iran? As you are well aware, Britain represents the toughest stance against Iran in Europe. At the same time Britain has been and is still leading the European Union against the Mojahedin Khalq Organisation. Doesn’t this reality disprove your claim that this matter is no more than politically motivated bargaining? I would like to know, if the Mojahedin was proscribed on the basis of a political decision, then why is it not de-proscribed now on the same basis? What could possibly be the political interest for the British government in insisting on keeping the Mojahedin Khalq Organisation on the list of proscribed terrorist organisations?

I think the reason for proscription of the Mojahedin Khalq as a terrorist organisation has never been a political decision. I think the decision has been purely security related. All the security services in the west categorise the MKO as a destructive cult in which violence has become part its infrastructure. Indeed, if anything, the point that the Mojahedin’s activities in western countries have not been confronted to the full could be interpreted as a politically motivated act due to the grievances between Iran and western countries. But no responsible security official would leave a cult like the MKO, which has theorised the use of violence, unchecked and unmonitored. The only way for the security services to be able to monitor and control the organisation is to keep it on the list of proscribed terrorist organisations. You are well aware yourself that the Mojahedin after the fall of the late dictator of Iraq, Saddam Hussein, is no longer considered to pose a threat to Iran. But could the people responsible for the security of European countries confidently announce the same? Could they really announce that the Mojahedin is not a threat to European countries?

In your interview, you have mentioned that the history of the Mojahedin Khalq Organisation’s armed operations goes back to before 2001, and you have emphasised that they have preformed no terrorist or similar activities after this date. What I really want to know is whether the organisation has in fact ruled out armed struggle – once the core of its ideology, strategy and tactics. Or is it simply because the organisation is incapable of carrying out terror acts at this moment of time?

You have also endorsed the Mojahedin’s assassination of the former head of Evin Prison. It has become a mystery for me. If the killing of all the people whom the Mojahedin have assassinated inside Iran is justified, then what about the thousands of similar people in Iran right now who have not been assassinated? Why is it that the Mojahedin Khalq Organisation (with your endorsement) does not attempt to deal with them? Why has the organisation refrained from its prior activities and is not working towards assassinating these subjects and instead has put a stop to its armed struggle from 2001? And if they have really come to the conclusion that they should stop this armed struggle, then why do not announce it publicly and criticise their past activities and above all why do you still try to legitimise their violent history?

I do not know if you have any answers for my questions. But I would be most grateful if you could offer some explanations concerning the questions I have posed. From my heart I wish that the Mojahedin Khalq Organisation would return to logic and one day be among the important players in the Iranian political scene. I would like to propose that the best course of action that the MKO could take is to start reviewing its past and clearly denounce violence against anyone and at anytime. I am sure that in doing so the organisation would be acting in its own best interests.

With many thanks.

Yours faithfully,

Ebrahim Khodabandeh

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