Iranians’ Letter to The Secretary-General of the United Nations on Britain’s recent decision
Your Excellency, Mr. Ban Ki Moon, Secretary-General of the United Nations
Since with certainty terrorism deprives individual right to life, freedom and security of people, and because of this it can be said that terrorism is the violation of human rights.
Since acts of terrorism are clear violations of United Nations principles and objectives, and a serious threat against international peace and security, and to-date over 10 conventions have been ratified for the prevention and fight against terrorism, and also there is a collective of international documents according to which commits states to fight terrorism.
In a political move, the British High Court’s decision, the terrorist label was wiped from the Mujahedin Kalgh Organization (MKO). The same organization that shed the blood of many Iranians, and began a form of new genocide in Iran and Iraq, and as a paramilitary group, committed the worst types of terror attacks in the form of bombing public places and political party headquarters, killing of women and children, assassination of the intelligencia of the civil society, all of which have been embedded in our memories as equal crimes committed by the Khmer Rouge. The decision of this Court has taken the name of a group from the list of terror groups, which the international community recognizes as a terror group.
The thing that exists in this Court’s reasoning and which amazes experts is that all the information that the Court had based on its decision, only dated back to four years at the most, to a time when under pressure from the US-led Coalition the group were disarmed in Iraq. The question that arises is, can a terrorist group who was disarmed and quarantined by the United States following the fall of Saddam Hussein, still conduct armed terror attacks?
Can the reasoning that because the group has not committed any terror acts in this period of four years, have a legal and contextual aspect?
Can the past record and history of terror campaigns of this group be ignored just because the group was forced to disarm? And this is while no clear changes have been made in the MKO’s original manifesto, and in their training and in the media the group still stresses on the correct strategy being armed campaigns.
As the citizens of a country that for years has been suffering the inhuman and barbaric campaigns of the MKO, we call upon the international community and the UN System as the flag-bearer of human and humanitarian rights to within your capacities to review the situation of this terror group, and the new and dangerous decisions that have been made.
We also call upon the British government to carefully consider the recognized dark past of MKO and the dangerous consequences of the High Court’s decision regarding the activities of this group in Britain, and to review the hasty decision of the High Court and prevent the certain consequences form occurring. Because from this moment on whatever acts of terror this group commit, the responsibility will be that of the British government.
Since your Excellency have executive responsibility for the UN Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the UN is a place for the investigation of the aggression and oppression committed by states and powers against humans, and also the UN supports asylum-seekers and victims of violence, we ask you to set up a group to study and review the reason behind the British government’s decision to support a group that has a long history of terrorist activities?
Undoubtedly, your investigation and the British government’s answer will remain in the historic memory of our nation.
CC: Right Honourable Gordon Brown, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Labour Party