Never accept Iranian Ben Ladan in the European parliament to batter the popular legitimacy of the European nation’s House. Undoubtedly, Maryam Rajavi
(Iranian Ben Ladan) the leader of the People Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI) is more dangerous and vicious than Afghan Ben Lad an. The west should be on a high alert not to be decoyed by her new sham guise as an advertisement released via her recently under the title of “the ten- point platform for future Iran” in US daily news paper, the Washington Times in January 14 issue. Mr. President, please pay attention to my reasons as a live witness and her victim during last twenty years who has been under her authority and cage in Ashraf garrison situated in Iraq. Meanwhile, I have been separated from Mojahedin cult a year ago and came to France.
In her advertisement, she tries to express her dreams and illusions for “future Iran” with the ill-usage of the international norms and conventions. But, fortunately, she has even no place in her former Ashraf garrison, so, how she intends to make the history of Iran!?!
Let me explain an Iranian maxim which is appropriate for her conditions to make everybody snicker for a while. “A villager person was not allowed to enter the village, but she asked the address of the village bailiff home”. No doubt, Maryam Rajavi has the same story of the villager with her perpetrated crimes and deceits. So that, she has no permission to settle down in any state either USA or Europe, however, she has been indicted by international and local tribunals as such France and Iraq.
To know and understand her serial fobs and illusions, let’s focus on her contradictions in practical fields and her ten- point platform. To save time, let me compare only two of these articles of her platform with her present and past activities and thoughts. In the article 7 of her platform, she claims, ‘we are committed to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and…’, but, the question arises how she interprets and replies the articles 12 and 16 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in comparison with her inhuman activities e.g. forceful ideological divorces of thousands impeccable men and women as well as wrecking and shattering the family foundation and….
Article 12: “no one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, or to attacks upon his honor and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.”
Article 16: “(1) men and women of full age, without any limitation due to race, nationality or religion, have the right to marry and to found a family. They are entitled to equal rights as to marriage, during marriage and at its dissolution.” “(2) Marriage shall be entered into only with the free and full consent of the intending spouses.” “(3) The family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the state.”
Mr. Mirek topolank, please ask Maryam Rajavi to answer the human conscience and the public opinion of the West regarding forceful and dictated divorces and illegal marriages in her cult by her husband Masood Rajavi who is the lifetime leader of the PMOI. I think a particle of her above mentioned crimes regarding dictated divorces and marriage is enough to prove high contradictions between her false platform and her practical activities.
Mr. President, please let’s check the article 9 of her platform to discern her mock intentions and goals regarding international problems and disasters, “our foreign policy will be based on peaceful coexistence…” as a matter of fact, as a live witness, I got shock of observing such a scene at the time of the occurring of “the September 11 disaster” when Masood rajavi made such speeches, “this is reactionary Islam did such an action, thus, we, the revolutionary Islam can do much better than them. And worse than such a sentence which exposes the nature of the Mojahedin cult’s ideology and thought, was that Maryam Rajavi confirmed his speeches with nodding and smiling.
Now, the question is that is it fair and justice and a just decision to stain the scene of parliament via her presence in the nation’s house?
Yours truly
Hamid Siah Mansouri, Paris, January 25, 2009
Europe: Safe Haven For Terrorists
The European Union routinely accuses Iran of sponsoring terrorism for their
support of the military wings of Hezbollah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad, forgetting to mention that these are the armed wings of legitimate and democratically elected political parties, who have a legal right to resist Israeli occupation under internationalal law, and are only designated as terrorists organisation by the EU for political reasons – i.e. the EU supports Israel. But what is rarely reported is the extent to which the EU supports terrorist groups. It has reportedly been agreed by EU states to remove the anti-Iranian Mujahedin Khalq Organisation (MKO) from the designated terrorist organisation list in the near future, which makes an absolute mockery of the EU supposed objection to terrorism.
The MKO cult is notorious for committing countless atrocities in Iran and Iraq. In Iran alone, their terrorist attacks have claimed over 12,000 deaths and in Iraq, as well as committing war crimes against the Kurds under the Saddam Hussein regime, they are accused by the current Iraqi government of carrying out terrorist attacks and destabilising the country, despite supposedly being in US custody. The Cult also stands accused of assassinating and torturing dissidence and human trafficking. They have also used self-immolation (suicide bombing!) as a tactic to protest against their designation as terrorist organisation in Europe.
This is why America, Canada and the EU have previously refused to remove the MKO from their terror lists, and as recently as the 12 of this month, Condoleezza Rice announced that the MKO group would remain on the US terror list. So why the change in the EU position now?
Since 2003, Camp Ashraf, the MKO HQ, which is located in Iraq’s Diyala province, along with its 3,400 inhabitants have been under American military control – the Bush regime wanted to protect the 3,400 known anti-Iranian terrorists from being taken into Iraqi custody, so granted them protected status – but since beginning of January control of the base and its inhabitants legally passed to the Iraq government, who have ordered the base closed and all MKO cult members to either return to Iran or select a third country to be deported to.
Obviously it would be politically difficult, if not impossible, for any EU state to open up its borders and welcome 3,400 designated terrorists cult members with open arms, and Obama defintely isn’t going to do it. So quietly the EU has been dropping its resistance to MKO under the pretense that the cult has been disarmed. And the group has one a series of barely contested legal cases. Now that they no longer have a presence in Iraq, it will be easy to argue that they pose no threat to Iraq or Iran, and that might well be true, but this terror cult will be a much bigger threat to Europe than al-Qaeda ever was.
The MKO is committed to the violent overthrow of the Iranian government and enforcing their own brand of fascism, despite the fact that Iranian government was democratically elected (a point often forgotten) and the MKO is universally loathed in Iran and has a long history of anti-western violence as well.
stephiblog.wordpress.com/2009/01/23/europe-safe-haven-for-terrorists
Mojahedin-e Khalq rewarded for cooperation against Iran?
The State Department has again decided to keep the Mojahedin-e Khalq (MKO) with all its aliases on the US terrorism list. There are a growing number of people who are calling for the US to have done with the group once and for all. Commentators on several blogs and articles suggest the leaders be ‘tried in internationally approved courts and let the membership go home.’ But this ignores the heavy price that has been paid for the group both politically (Iran has constantly accused the US and Europe of double standards on terrorism for their palpable support for the MKO) and financially (one of the key indicators of the actual irrelevance of adding the MKO to western terrorism lists is the tens of millions of dollars, euros and pounds the group has been able to spend on legal challenges and propaganda to keep itself alive – money which must come from somewhere).
With MKO personnel permanently camped-out in most of Europe’s parliaments for the past two years it should come as no surprise that the group will be removed from Europe’s terrorism list when it is announced on January 15. In July 2008, the EU announced that there were “no grounds” to amend the list of terrorist organisations, which includes 48 groups, and EU officials insisted that the decision to keep the MEK on the list of the terrorist groups is not related to the Western efforts to persuade Iran to halt its nuclear enrichment program.
What is behind this peculiar change which will redefine the group as non-terrorist in Europe?
As with removal from the UK terrorism list in June 2008, no material difference will accrue to the MKO. In his book on the Mojahedin Dr. Ronen A. Cohen says the MKO “does not have the characteristics of a classic terror organization as it does not initiate terror against innocents” – although the indiscriminate nature of many of its attacks mean 12,000 civilians have been killed in MKO operations inside Iran over two decades.
The most pertinent explanation for why removal from the lists is irrelevant is because the MKO even at the height of its military prowess in 1988 and with the full backing of Saddam Hussein and the west was unable to fulfil its aim of replacing the Islamic Republic with its own rule. Massoud Raajvi’s long term premise that such change would come about as a result of a popular uprising has been pragmatically replaced in the past five years with the conviction that regime change would be imposed on Iran from external powers – the USA, Israel – and that the MKO could reap the benefit of being there as a viable alternative when that happened.
Of these two, perhaps the latter version is currently more possible and perhaps probable even with a new US Administration in place.
So, what use do the MKO’s backers envisage for the group?
The protection of a uniformed anti-Iran mercenary group in Camp Ashraf in Diyali province for five years has been intentional. The price paid has been too great to allow jettisoning the group now, both politically and financially. However, it is important to note that even if it is removed from the UK, EU and perhaps US terrorism lists, the MKO does not enjoy governmental recognition or legitimacy anywhere in the world. Nor does any country need to give the group legitimacy in order to make use of it.
Essentially the use of the MKO is, as Rajavi himself has used them, as perpetrators and victims of violence. The MKO’s talent is that they are trained to kill and be killed according to Rajavi’s order. That they will do this to fulfil a western agenda without needing western approval is the group’s unique selling point and is enough to justify not continuing to label them as terrorists.
There is no doubt that for many observers the removal of the MKO from the European list will clarify the European position toward terrorism. Public opinion in the Middle East has never regarded western terrorism lists as about terrorism per se but as lists of enemies of western interests.
Inclusion of the violently anti-Iranian MKO along with groups which are genuinely anti-western has been a major discrepancy of all the western terrorism lists, a glaring error of political judgement. The MKO may have begun life as an anti-imperialist group with armed struggle its core value, and continued this path under the patronage of Saddam Hussein. But, since its forced disarmament at the hands of the US army, the group has been able to beguile western powers, including Israel, into believing it shares common cause against Iran and is a friend and ally of at least some in the west.
After spending hundreds of millions of dollars on propaganda and legal fees to keep the MKO alive, these backers are now obliged to use this blunted tool in any way they can, perhaps to justify the expenditure, perhaps because they really believe the MKO can be an effective tool against Iran.
Anne Singleton, an expert on the MKO and author of ‘Saddam’s Private Army’ explains, “With a new Administration in the White House a pre-emptive strike on Iran looks unlikely. Instead the MKO’s backers have put together a coalition of small irritant groups, the known minority and separatist groups, along with the MKO. These groups will be garrisoned around the border with Iran and their task is to launch terrorist attacks into Iran over the next few years to keep the fire hot.
“The role of the MKO is to train and manage these groups using the expertise they acquired from Saddam’s Republican Guard. The price the MKO has had to pay is to accept their removal from their main base Camp Ashraf and relocate to other bases not their own. The inducement will be to remove the group from the terrorism list in Europe.”
Once the MKO has been declared in Europe as ‘no longer terrorists’, the group’s overt backers, Lord Corbett, Struan Stevenson MEP, Paulo Casaca MEP, and others who see the world, and in particular Iran, through neoconservative/Zionist tinted glasses will move to promote this coalition in their various circles.
Although it is tempting to cast this move into the sphere of betting both ways on the new Obama Administration’s Iran policy, the key trigger for this move has been the Iraqi government’s insistence on the removal of the MKO from Iraq and the handover of Camp Ashraf to Iraqi sovereignty. This has not been an unreasonable request of US forces over a five year period. However, it is only since the agreed handover of control of Camp Ashraf on January 1 that this became an inevitable outcome. For over a year, MKO backers in western parliaments have lobbied for the MKO to remain in Camp Ashraf on the grounds that the group would be massacred by vengeful Iraqis or forced back to Iran to face certain torture and execution. The falsity of this position has become exposed as the Iraqi government has continued to protect the group and has given repeated assurances that no one will be forced home against their will. Beyond this, the Iranian government’s own position on prosecuting leading members has made it impossible to send anyone back that Iran does not want.
The reason for the insistence on maintaining the MKO in Camp Ashraf – and now in new border based garrisons alongside other armed groups – has been because the only use for the group is to act as an irritant against Iran. If a full scale military attack could not be manufactured which would involve them, then small scale terrorist attacks are the next best alternative.
What all this overlooks, of course, is the human aspect of this group. For years former members of the MKO have warned of severe human rights violations perpetrated against the members. Human Rights Watch conducted its own investigation into the group’s recent history in 2005 and published a damning report titled No Exit. But more recently, those who escaped the camp since its capture by American forces in 2003 and who have managed to reach Europe, are alleging continued cruelties including unnecessary hysterectomies imposed on women to rob them of any hope of having children.
For five years the American army has effectively prevented any independent investigation into these allegations. The primary task of the Iraqi military now in charge of the camp must be to allow humanitarian agencies to access the camp’s residents and individually assess their mental, physical and emotional status. Anything less than this is to condemn 3,250 people to being part of an illegal paramilitary group without their active consent.
This still leaves the fundamental question of what the west will get from its investment in the MKO. It is looking likely that the US will cherry-pick whoever it wants from the MKO to perform in its new coalition strategy. The old, sick, disabled and disturbed will be left for the Iraqi government to deal with.
In view of western patronage of this group, albeit largely covert in nature since it does not acknowledge that it is the group’s willingness to die that is its main use, then it is western countries which ultimately have a responsibility, if not an outright duty, to rescue the group from Iraq. If the group’s membership is indeed moved to other bases in Iraq to continue involvement in acts of violence, then any blood shed will be on western hands not those who are defending their country’s security.
The non-Iranian Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO), since the overthrow of the regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq, is seeking another alternative in the west. The MKO strove under the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein to become the Iraqi MKO and now is striving to become the Israeli MKO.
Since 1985 when the Internal Ideological Revolution and the Divine Leadership of the Rajavis were introduced within the MKO, and the cultic characteristics reached their full development, and since 1986 when the leadership of the MKO moved to Iraq under the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein and participated in the war against Iran and as well as suppressing the people of Iraq as Saddam’s private army, the organization not only had no presence inside Iran but it was also much hated as far as the Iranian people were concerned.
Since then until the fall of Saddam Hussein, the activities of the MKO against the Iranian regime included border assaults and sabotage activities and sending terror teams from Iraq inside Iran with the aid of the security forces of Saddam Hussein as well as political propaganda in the west. The assaults and terrorist activities were of course ceased when the dictator was toppled in Iraq and the organization was disarmed by the American forces in 2003, and therefore the activities of the MKO were limited to political propaganda in the west; the sort of propaganda of course which would pave the way for terrorism in the future.
Hence since that point up to now the MKO and its leadership have relied not on the Iranian people but on foreign powers to gain rule in Iran and at the present time they are seeking an alternative for Saddam Hussein (this time in the west of course) and have based their strategy on gaining support from potential enemies such as the US, Israel and the UK in place of the previous toppled enemy.
Therefore the presence of the MKO now is merely in the form of the Ashraf garrison (the MKO base in Iraq) and the Maryam garrison (the European base of the MKO in France) which initially is the problem of the newly formed government of Iraq and then the western countries, and is by no means the concern of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
As far as the Iraqi government is concerned, this government knows the MKO as a terrorist group and one of the many miseries left from the era of Saddam Hussein for the people of Iraq and a threat for Iraq’s internal security; and therefore the Iraqi government is demanding that the Ashraf garrison be closed forever, and righteously expects the western governments who have had their use of the organization against Iran to accept them in their countries for their retirement stage.
The political process to de-proscribe the MKO in the EU was begun some time ago. As the UK initiated the proscription of the organization (for any reasons), now the UK is again stepping forward to remove their name from the EU list of terrorist groups, and most likely this will be done in the very near future.
What consequences will arise if the MKO is kept in or removed from the EU list of terrorist groups?
As far as Iran is concerned, the MKO is a matter for the past and whether they are designated as a terrorist group or not would not have the smallest effect. Neither when they moved into the list were any facilities created for the Iranians and nor when they move out will any problem arise in their way. The opposite of course applies for the MKO.
As far as the European countries are concerned they know best how to deal with a terrorist cult in their own territory regarding their national security. If the EU is convinced that the organization is no longer a terrorist group so be it, and we do hope that their judgment is right and the MKO and its leader have truly put aside terrorism; although we do not have any indications for such assumptions.
From the Iraqis’ point of view, who demands that the MKO (who have cooperated with Saddam Hussein in killing innocent people) leave Iraq, de-proscribing the MKO in Europe is good news since the west has no excuses for not accepting them in their countries any more. In the last meeting we had with the Iraqi ministry of foreign affairs they explained that the ministry had invited all European ambassadors in Baghdad to a meeting and urged them to accept the members of the MKO in their countries as political refugees, but they all rejected the request and their excuse was that the group has been designated as a terrorist organization by the EU. But now the Iraqis can of course put their demands forward again.
But the only side who would really suffer from de-proscribing the MKO in Europe is of course the prime victims of such a destructive cult, meaning the members who will be more mentally manipulated when this is shown to them as a victory of the cult and will ensue their continued mental captivity; and therefore their families must pay the price by being away from them and have no news from their beloved ones.
On the issue of closing the Ashraf garrison in Iraq, the MKO is trying hard to make it an entirely Iranian concern. The west is also following the same pattern and demanding an increase in the price of the MKO supposedly for a deal with the Islamic Republic, and perhaps the policy of de-proscribing them in Europe which has started sometime ago is in this line. The MKO is pretending in its propaganda that it is a major issue for Iran and they claim to the world that Iran is striving to get hold of the inhabitants of the Ashraf garrison to take them to Iran and put them on trial and torture them and eventually kill them. Anyone who has the least of knowledge of the MKO surely knows that the claim made by the MKO is somehow ‘escaping forward’ [farar be jelow]. The MKO is merely trying to create such an atmosphere in order to falsify the main issue. Certainly the Islamic Republic is not seeking to get back dead bodies which the owners don’t want anymore. On the contrary Iran logically is trying to smartly use the dissidents of the MKO against it (refer to the quotations made from a western diplomat in Iran in an article written by Geroges Malbrunot in Le Figaro dated December 23) and it is obvious that the Iranian regime is more eager that they are moved to Europe in order to send back the products of a terrorist cult in the shape of human robots to their original place. It is also worth mentioning that in the time of Saddam Hussein’s rule in Iraq, Massoud Rajavi the leader of the MKO did not send the group’s defectors to Europe and instead handed them over to the Iranian regime. He said clearly on many occasions that the Iranian regime would not do anything to the members of the MKO who have no arms in their hands.
The leaders of the MKO claim that if the US forces move from the Ashraf garrison and leave the posts for the Iraqis, they would not have security in Iraq. This could be true since many Kurdish and Shiites groups in Iraq know this organization as their ruthless enemy who cooperated with Saddam Hussein to suppress them and would wish to take revenge. The solution of course is not for the US to keep their forces there for their security forever. The answer to this problem is that the western governments take them back to their own countries in order to preserve their security. It is worth pointing out that most of these people were political refugees in the west and have been recruited and sent to Iraq from there to join in the National Liberation Army.
Whether the MKO is designated as a terrorist entity or not and whether the US forces stay outside the Ashraf garrison or not makes no big difference to anyone and we are not much concerned about it. As far as the Sahar Family Foundation in Iraq is concerned and we have focused our attention on it, the inhabitants of the Ashraf garrison must enjoy free meetings with their families in some place outside the garrison and without the presence of the MKO authorities and they must have the benefit of having contacts with the outside world and also to have the mental pressures and thought controls lifted from them; and we will stay firm in Iraq and continue our activities until we reach this very important humanitarian goal.
Open Letter to Mr. Mirek Topolánek, President of the Council of Europe
Honorable President of the European Council, Mr. Mirek Topolánek,
We have the honor to inform you that we, the separated members of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI) who have taken shelter in the European states, have been informed by authentic sources that the European Council will consider and verify the terrorist groups’ list very soon. As far as we know, the European Council intends to remove the name of the PMOI from the present terrorist list as indexed. Whereas, we, the former members of this organization are the direct and ipso facto victims of this cult’s terrorist and cultic activities, so that we have witnessed the crimes of this cult. Therefore, we feel responsibility and it is our human duty to express our humane views in the framework of the democratic regulations of the European Council regarding accurate and effective decision-making with the intention of serving and helping the states of Europe and human beings, in particular, the victims and the caged captives of the Ashraf Garrison in Iraq.
1- We, the emancipated victims of the Mojahedin cult will be pleased and appreciative as we admire Europe’s honest representatives, if the elimination of this sect from the terrorist groups’ list will result in the emancipation and freedom of the incarcerated victims of this cult in the Ashraf Garrison in Iraq. As a result, the locked gate of Ashraf Garrison can be breached and opened for the locked up victims so that the innocent victims can have the right and opportunity to leave Ashraf Garrison and settle down in the European states. Undoubtedly, such an effective step via the European Council can accelerate the rising trend of the eradication of this cult. Subsequently, we, the separated members and the public opinion of the West will welcome the European Council’s decision.
2- We, the liberated victims of this cult declare our opposition versus any political deal and action, which means that this cult shouldn’t be used as a political tool by Europe in the regional balance of power. As a result of such policy, the leaders and key officials of this cult are allowed to have opportunities and facilities such as free trips with the intention of achieving their cultic and terrorist purposes in European countries. Without any doubt, we, the emancipated victims of this cult are the prime victims of such political deals whose lives are at the direct and short range targets of terrorists via this cult in the European states. Meanwhile, the Mojahedin’s cult leadership takes advantage of such conditions to prolong the present impasse situation in Ashraf Garrison in Iraq to confine over three thousand innocent victims in custody in Ashraf Garrison.
Yours truly
The accessible signatories:
NADER NADERI
MOHAMMAD RAZAGHI
MOHAMMAD BAZIARPOUR
HAMMED SARRAFPOUR
MANSOOR NAZARI
HASSAN PIRANSAR
HAMID SIAH MANSOURI
Pers et Avenir association, Paris, January 14, 2009
MKO is an exiled cult-like organization that resorts to armed attacks to destabilize the government in Tehran.
The US State Department has declared that the official designation of Mujahedin Khalq Organization as a terrorist group is appropriate.
In a notice published Monday in the Federal Register, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice announced that the MKO group should remain in its list of terrorist organizations.
The US announcement comes amid Iraqi government efforts to expel members of the terrorist group. Baghdad assumed control of the security of Camp Ashraf, the main MKO military base in Iraq’s Diyala province, on January 1, 2009.
The Mujahedin Khalq Organization is blacklisted by many countries, including EU member states and the United States as a terrorist organization. It relocated to Camp Ashraf from Iran after the Islamic Revolution.
Prior to the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, the MKO enjoyed the support of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussain, who provided the group with arms and military equipment to launch attacks against the Islamic Republic during the Iraqi war against Iran (1980-88).
The Iraqi government says the MKO has played a significant role in destabilizing the war-torn country, blaming the group for terrorist attacks within Iraq.
The recent move provoked the group to file a petition in order to take the case to the court.”We will take the case to the court and we will win,” a Paris-based spokesman for the group, Shahin Gobadi, proclaimed.
The MKO has sought to have the group removed from the list of terrorist organizations, lobbying the European parliament and officials.
Baghdad urges the expulsion or relocation of the terrorist group, saying the MKO presence at Camp Ashraf may strain its diplomatic relations with Tehran.
In addition to terrorist attacks within Iran, which claimed the lives of 12,000 civilians, the MKO helped Saddam in suppressing Iraqi Kurds.
The U.S. State Department reaffirmed its designation of the anti-Iran Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization as a terrorist organization.
The presence in Iraq of the MKO has long been a source of friction between Washington and Baghdad, which intends to expel the terrorist group.
The MKO had filed a petition for revocation of its designation as a terrorist organization. But U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice wrote in a notice published Monday in the Federal Register that after reviewing the case she determined that the designation is still valid and appropriate.
Iraq’s government has long sought to get rid of the MKO, but the issue took on new urgency when Iraq assumed greater sovereignty Jan. 1 under a new security agreement that gave the Iraqis responsibility for Camp Ashraf.
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, said on Jan. 1 that the Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization can ""no longer operate in Iraq"".
The MKO, whose main stronghold is in Iraq, is blacklisted by much of the international community, including the United States.
The MKO is on the European Union’s list of terrorist organizations subject to an EU-wide assets freeze, and has been designated by the U.S. government as a foreign terrorist organization. Yet, the MKO puppet leader, Maryam Rajavi, who has residency in France, regularly visits Brussels and despite the ban enjoys full freedom in Europe.
The MKO is behind a slew of assassinations and bombings inside Iran, a number of EU parliamentarians said in a recent letter in which they slammed a British court decision to remove the MKO from the British terror list. The EU officials also added that the group has no public support within Iran because of their role in helping Saddam Hussein in the Iraqi imposed war on Iran (1980-1988).
In recent months, high-ranking MKO members have been lobbying governments around the world in the hope of acknowledgement as a legitimate opposition group.
Mojahedin Khalq Organisation still designated a FTO in USA
In the Matter of the Review of the Designation of Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MEK), and All Designated Aliases, as a Foreign Terrorist Organization Upon Petition Filed Pursuant to Section 219 of the Immigration and Nationality Act, as Amended
The MEK filed a petition for revocation of its designation as a foreign terrorist organization (the “Petition”). Based upon a review of the Administrative Record assembled in this matter, including the Petition and associated filings by the MEK, pursuant to Section 219(a)(4)(B) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, as amended (8 U.S.C. 1189(a)(4)(B)) (“INA”), and in consultation with the Attorney General and the Secretary of the Treasury, I conclude that the circumstances that were the basis for the 2003 re-designation of the aforementioned organization as a foreign terrorist organization have not changed in such a manner as to warrant revocation of the designation and that the national security of the United States does not warrant a revocation.
Therefore, I hereby determine that the designation of the aforementioned organization as a foreign terrorist organization, pursuant to Section 219 of the INA (8 U.S.C. 1189), shall be maintained.
This determination shall be published in the Federal Register.
Dated: January 7, 2009.
Condoleezza Rice,
Secretary of State, Department of State.
Reported by AFP, a number of sympathizers of the terrorist MKO demonstrated in Paris on 6 January asking for the removal of the group from the European Union’s terror list. The report evidently states that MKO is “the main Iranian armed opposition group, took part in the 1979 Islamic revolution but then took up arms against the Islamic republic”. Interestingly, the report is widely covered by MKO-run sites but none of them denounced the group’s renunciation of terrorism when it was referred to as “the main Iranian armed opposition group”.
Although never announced publically, the group claims that it has denounced terrorism since 2003. Neither the US nor the EU are convinced that it is sincere in its claims since the group is still running with its military platform in Camp Ashraf in Iraq where nearly 3500 members are held against their will. Furthermore, the demonstrators are reported to have been carrying a banner reading: “France has to apply the four verdicts of the European justice court and remove the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran from the European Union’s list of terrorism”.
In its latest judgment on 4 December 2008, the European Court of First Instance ruled that it:
1. Annuls Council Decision 2008/583/EC of 15 July 2008 implementing Article 2(3) of Regulation No 2580/2001 on specific restrictive measures directed against certain persons and entities with a view to combating terrorism and repealing Decision 2007/868/EC, in so far as it concerns the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran.
2. Orders the Council to bear, in addition to its own costs, the costs of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran.
3. Orders the French Republic and the Commission to pay their own costs.
Thus the court has never ruled removal of the group from the terror list as MKO claims. Besides, how can a terrorist group be removed from the proscribed list while is enjoys being called an armed opposition group and glorifies terrorism?
For or against the regime of Tehran:Iran divides French Parliamentarians
Iran divides French parliamentarians, in their political disagreement, to right as well as left. More than 290 of French deputies have recently singed a call for the support for Mujahedin Khalq Organization of which the leader, Maryam Rajavi is exiled in France Auvers-Sur-Oise. A group called “coordination Parliamentary”, solicited by Jean-Philippe Maurer the deputy of UMP, and Jean-Pierre Brard, the communist representative are working for the removal of the name of the movement from the list of terrorist organizations of the European Union.
These activities that are relied of the recent decision made by a British court in favor of the Mujahedin, count on finding a positive opinion by Nicolas Sarkozy during the French presidency in EU. “We support this Iranian opposition group because it’s the only democratic foundation that struggles against the regime of Iran,” estimated Jean-Philippe Maurer. The deputy of Strasbourg refuses the critics that have been presented against the organization of Maryam Rajavi since 2003. Following a police raid, many militants set themselves on fire. The leaders of National Council of Resistance of Iran, the political cover of these dissidents, are still under investigations. ” Since 2003, this organization has moderated its excessive behavior.” revealed Jean-Philippe Maurer.
Lobbying Activities in Elysée
Among the same ranks of the French Assembly, other deputies of UMP totally disagree.” The parliamentarians who singed this call for support do not know the situation in Iran well.” Says Didier Julia, vice-president of the France-Iran group, “Iran is not such a simple state. It is led by Experts Council and the execution of the laws is performed by three different sources. In my opinion, People’s Mujahedin enjoys a very small support. They are very weak inside Iran. Instead, France should reinforce its relations with Iranian civil society and the Iranian government in order to achieve the public liberty. It’s not the regime change that we should look for. Iran can evolve gradually, like Syria.”
Whose lobby is more effective towards the French Parliament members; The Iranian dissidents or the representatives of the Iranian State? Didier Julia declares that the diplomatic advisor of Nicolas Sarkozy has the same opinion as he has.
Jean – Philippe Maurer thinks that the debates on Iran have not reached a clear position, in Elysée.
VSD.fr by Nathalie Gillot