BERLIN – The notorious MKO terror group will continue to be monitored by Germany’s domestic Verfassungsschutz intelligence agency despite the decision by the European Union to delist the MKO , a German government source told IRNA in Berlin Tuesday. 
Just because the EU has lifted the ban, it does not mean that we don’t have our own national security considerations, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
For instance, parts of the German Left party are being subjected to surveillance by the Verfassungsschutz although they are not blacklisted by the EU, he added.
The official made clear that Germany’s federal secret service and its state branches will continue their observation of the MKO.
Each German state has also its own separate Verfassungsschutz intelligence apparatus.
The MKO has been involved in the mass killings of thousands of innocent Iranians over the past 30 years.
Furthermore, the Israeli-backed MKO terror grouplet has also collaborated with the former Saddam regime, in brutally massacring tens of thousands of Iraq Kurds and Shiites.
Iraqi government has asserted any decision against its policy to expel the terrorist Mojahedin Khalq Organization (MKO) has no impact on Baghdad decision, Iran’s ambassador to Baghdad told ISNA.
The moves and activates in Iraq show the government is serious about its decision for expulsion of the MKO, Hassan Kazemi Qomi said on Tuesday.
Since the Iraqi government believes the nature and activities of MKO are based on terrorism, it has informed the members that they must leave the country and it pursues the case, he added.
Iraq’s National Security Adviser Mowaffaq al-Rubaie on Tuesday held a meeting with ambassadors of 9 European countries, the US, Canada, Australia and Iran to ask them to accept the MKO members in their countries.
"We want to close all the files with our neighbors, and our eastern neighbor Iran sees this as a threat to their national security," Reuters cited al-Rubaie.
Qomi said in this regard that in the meeting with presence of Iraqi Human Rights Minister, Wijdan Michael, Baghdad officials insisted on their policy towards the MKO and called for other countries to aid Iraq implement this policy.
Iraq’s government asserted not only the MKO but also all terrorists must leave Iraq’s territory and Tehran is primed to aid Baghdad fulfill the task, he added.
European foreign ministers on Monday dropped the MKO from the EU terrorist blacklist but said the group may be put in the list in the future.
Head of MKO terrorist group Maryam Rajavi is expected to remain excluded from the UK despite the EU dropping the previously outlawed group from its proscribed list.
British Foreign Office said that although it does not discuss individual cases of exclusion, the government continues to believe that the MKO or MeK, as it prefers to call it, was ‘responsible for vile acts of terrorism over a long period’.
"If an individual has made public statements in the past supporting or condoning terrorism, and has not publicly and unambiguously apologized and refuted such statements, then this would constitute grounds for not admitting an individual into the UK," Foreign Office spokesman Barry Marston said.
"We are not satisfied that the MeK has done enough to distance itself from its past. There is no dispute about its previous terrorist activity: it claimed responsibility for a large number of violent attacks inside Iran for a number of years," Marston told IRNA.
Rajavi was subject to an exclusion order back in October 1997, which banned her entry to the UK on the grounds that the organization contained a large faction of terrorists. The Foreign Office at the time said her presence was ‘not conducive to the public good’.
The British government insists that the deproscription of the MKO was ‘a judicial and not a political decision’ both in the EU as it was earlier in the UK and that it opposed its removal.
"We have made it clear that we were disappointed by the verdict of the Proscribed Organizations Appeal Commission and of the Court of Appeal, but we had to comply with their decisions," Marston said about the British decision last July.
"Equally, given the clear judgement of the Court of First Instance on December 4, 2008, annulling the MeK’s listing in the EU, the EU had no choice but to observe and respect the court’s judgement," he added.
Asked whether the UK government still considered the MKO as a terrorist organization, he said that there were still ‘serious reservations about the MeK’s assertion that it represents a democratic opposition in exile’.
"We see no evidence of popular support for the MeK in Iran, because of its responsibility for terrorist attacks which resulted in the deaths of many Iranian citizens, and because it fought alongside Iraqi forces against Iran during the Iran-Iraq war," Marston said.
Regarding the potential that the controversial decision could have an adverse effect on Iran’s relations with the UK and the EU as a whole, he stressed that it should ‘not be seen as a political decision’.
"We would not hesitate to re-proscribe the MeK if circumstances changed and evidence emerged that it was concerned in terrorism," the spokesman said.
He also quoted Home Office Minister Tony McNulty insisting last June during the debate on the deproscription of the MKO that the UK government have ‘no plans to meet its representatives’.
PARIS ” The Canadian government rejected Monday a call to follow Europe’s lead and remove an Iranian resistance group from its list of banned international terrorist organizations.
The European Union, saying it was forced to comply with a series of court decisions by the European Court of Justice, announced on Monday it would end the ban imposed on the People’s Mujahedeen Organization of Iran (PMOI).
But a spokeswoman for Public Safety Canada said there will be no change considered until the next two-year statutory review of banned groups such as PMOI, also known as Mujahedeen-e Khalq (MEK).
"The Government of Canada is determined to take decisive steps to ensure the safety of Canadians against terrorism," Jacinthe Perras said in an e-mailed statement.
"The MEK is a listed entity pursuant to the Criminal Code. It is a criminal offence to knowingly deal with the assets of a listed entity or knowingly participate in any activity that would enhance its ability to carry out a terrorist act. "
The latest December court ruling by the European court said the EU had breached the PMOI’s right to self-defence by failing to inform the group of new information used to keep blacklisting it.
"What we are doing today is abiding by the resolution of the European court," Javier Solana, foreign policy chief for the 27-nation EU, told reporters in Brussels.
The group was banned by the U.S. in 1997, by the EU in 2002, and by Canada in 2005.
Iranian state radio has condemned the EU’s move as "irresponsible," while the group’s affiliated political arm praised the decision that it said will free millions of dollars in assets frozen in western bank accounts.
"Removing the terror tag is a crushing defeat to Europe’s policy of appeasement" and a blow against the "mullahs’ medieval regime" in Iran, according to a statement from Maryam Rajavi, who is described as the "president-elect" of the Paris-based resistance movement.
Fears have been expressed that the delisting could impair international efforts, now being led by U.S. President Barack Obama, to convince Iran to suspend its nuclear program.
David Kilgour, a human rights advocate and former junior foreign affairs minister in Jean Chretien’s Liberal government, said Canada should follow Europe’s lead.
"Canada’s long-term political and economic relations (with Iran) are best-served by standing with its people, not the regime," Kilgour said in a statement.
"The time for appeasing the ayatollahs and suppressing the Iranian opposition must end."
The Canadian government included the PMOI when it extended late last year the list of banned groups that have "knowingly carried out, attempted to carry out, participated in or facilitated a terrorist activity or is knowingly acting on behalf of, at the direction of or in association with such an entity."
Among those on the list are al-Qaida, Hamas, Hezbollah, Peru’s Shining Path, the Sikh terror organizations Babbar Khalsa and the International Sikh Youth Federation, and the Tamil Tigers of Sri Lanka.
The PMOI was formed as a leftist organization in the 1960s opposed to the U.S.-backed regime of Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi. It was allied with the Islamist forces of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in the Shah’s 1979 overthrow, and engaged in assassinations of American targets before the revolution.
It also took part in the hostage-taking incident at the U.S. embassy shortly after the Shah fled the country that year.
But the group broke with Khomeini and then allied with the late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein during the Iran-Iraq War of 1980-88. They established bases in Iraq and took part in a number of bombings and assassination attempts against Iranian government targets as late as 2001, according to a 2008 analysis by the Council on Foreign Relations, a Washington-based think-tank.
"While the group says it does not intentionally target civilians, it has often risked civilian casualties. It routinely aims its attacks at government buildings in crowded cities," the analysis noted.
However, the group’s terrorist activities declined after 2001, and its fighters were disarmed by U.S. forces after the American invasion of Iraq in 2003. There are currently about 3,500 members at a camp there, including 60 Iranians with Canadian citizenship, according to Winnipeg human rights lawyer David Matas, who was in Brussels with Kilgour Monday.
The U.S. State Department regularly refers to PMOI as a "cultlike terrorist group" because of the control wielded by the two leaders, Massoud Rajavi and his wife Maryam, who have followers worldwide.
"In addition to its Paris-based members (PMOI) has a network of sympathizers in Europe, the United States, and Canada," according to the Council on Foreign Relations analysis.
The PMOI has won considerable political support in western countries, from politicians and activists like Kilgour, as it calls for a fully democratic Iran that endorses the free enterprise system with full rights for women and ethnic and religious minorities.
By Peter O’Neil, Europe Correspondent, Canwest News
Baghdad is determined over expulsion of the terrorist Mojahedin Khalq Organization (MKO) from Iraq despite the EU decision to remove the group from its blacklist, the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council (SIIC)
political adviser told ISNA on Monday.
The European Union decision over removal of the MKO from its terrorist blacklist has no impact on Iraqi government’s determination to expel the group, Mohsen Hakim said.
The MKO is a terrorist organization under the UN and Security Council resolutions before and after the 11 September attacks and according to Iraq’s constitutions support for terrorism is prohibited and illegal, he added.
The members of MKO are neither war captives nor refugees thus have no legal position in Iraq, he explained.
According to Hakim 500 of MKO members have returned to Iran and 914 have European countries’ residence permit and Iraq is negotiating to get them out of the country.
Iraqi National Security Adviser Mowaffaq al-Rubaie in his recent visit to Tehran emphasized Camp Ashraf, the MKO residential place, will be closed forever in two months and the members will leave to leave the country.
The EU countries have reached a preliminary agreement to remove (MKO) off an EU list of banned terrorist groups, their foreign ministers, however, meet on January 26 for a final approval on the issue.
The name of the guerilla has remained in the US and Canada blacklists.
The MKO founded in 1960s has carried out assassinations and terrorist attacks against Iranian high-ranking officials including Judiciary Chief Mohammad Hossein Beheshti, President Mohammad Ali Rajayee and Prime Minister Mohammad Javad Bahonar and also civilians. The terrorist efforts have killed 3000 in Iran in 1980s. It has also betrayed the nation by helping Saddam against Iran during 1980-88 Iraq’s imposed war.
EU removes Iranian group from terrorism list
The new status of the Mujahedin Khalq organization, which seeks to overthrow the Iranian government, is likely to complicate international diplomacy with
Tehran.
Reporting from Paris and Beirut — The European Union on Monday announced the removal of a high-profile Iranian opposition group from its list of terrorists, a victory for a movement that European governments have described as a dangerous sect and prosecuted on terrorism charges.
The change in the status of the Mujahedin Khalq organization, or MKO, which seeks to overthrow the Iranian government, is likely to complicate attempts by the international community to reach a diplomatic settlement with Tehran over a range of issues.
The decision, announced at a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels, results from recent legal and diplomatic developments combined with intense lobbying by the group, whose leader, Maryam Rajavi, lives in France.
Iran’s Foreign Ministry issued a statement decrying the ruling as a violation of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1373, which requires governments to freeze the funds and halt the activities of those involved in acts of terrorism.
"The MKO’s hands are stained with the blood of thousands of innocent Iranians and non-Iranians," said the statement, according to the Iranian Students News Agency. "The delisting is invalid and condemned."
Analysts said European leaders probably acted out of diplomatic expediency because of the impending expulsion from Iraq of nearly 3,000 members of the opposition group’s military wing, who once fought against their homeland on behalf of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. Europe may find itself providing refuge for some of those fighters, and could not do so if the terrorist label persisted.
Iran quickly signaled that the move could complicate deliberations with the West, which wants Tehran to curtail sensitive aspects of its nuclear program and rein in support for militant groups opposed to Israel.
"The EU plans to use the MKO as leverage against Iran in the nuclear talks," said an editorial Monday in the conservative daily Politics of the Day. "The EU should tell the world why it blacklists Lebanese and Palestinian resistance groups fighting Israeli aggression but clears the MKO, which has committed countless crimes in Iran and Iraq."
Protesters in Tehran gathered around the French and German embassies to denounce the decision, according to the official Islamic Republic News Agency, demanding the "extradition" of MKO members "who have killed many of our children and families."
Opposition leader Rajavi in turn described the decision as a "stinging defeat for the European policy of complacency" toward the Iranian regime. "The inscription of the Iranian resistance on the blacklist has helped prolong the regime of religious fascism in Iran," she said, according to a report by Agence France-Presse.
The MKO remains on the U.S. list of terrorist organizations, a designation it acquired in 1997. European leaders made it clear Monday that they do not view the organization as fully rehabilitated. French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner and several colleagues warned that the MKO could be again designated as a terrorist group depending on its activities and on a French appeal of a Dec. 4 decision by an EU court to unfreeze nearly $9 million of the group’s assets.
The MKO was founded in the 1960s as a radical and often violent guerrilla group opposed to the U.S.-backed monarchy of Mohammed Reza Shah Pahlavi. It took part in the 1979 revolution that ousted him.
But the group quickly fell out with Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and the rest of the country’s clerical leadership. Many of its supporters were jailed, and the MKO launched a campaign of bombings against leaders of the revolutionary government.
During the 1980s Iran-Iraq war, the group fought alongside Hussein’s troops against the Islamic Republic, a move that earned it the anger of many Iranians. Iraqi Kurds allege that the MKO helped crush an uprising against Hussein after the 1991 Persian Gulf War.
Several thousand members live in Camp Ashraf, a desolate patch of desert and tumbleweed near Baqubah, Iraq. A 2005 report by Human Rights Watch said the camp was rife with abuse, citing evidence of "prolonged incommunicado and solitary confinement" as well as "beatings, verbal and psychological abuse, coerced confessions, threats of execution, and torture" against members who don’t conform to the group’s sometimes bizarre rules and rituals.
Its blend of Islamist and Marxist ideologies alienates both supporters and opponents of the Islamic Republic. Iran watchers in Europe and the U.S. say the organization has little public appeal. But it mounted an all-out lobbying campaign that won over legislators, especially in Britain, according to Farhad Khosrokhavar, an Iranian French expert on Islamic extremism.
"They have been very successful at giving a positive picture of themselves in Europe," Khosrokhavar said in a telephone interview. "I think many people have been duped by them, especially in the British Parliament."
Khosrokhavar predicted that the EU decision would only increase Iran’s animosity toward the West.
"The Islamic Republic will be stronger in its suspicion of the West and European Union," he said. "My guess is they will be angry, and the one issue where they will be even more inflexible is the nuclear issue."
Rajavi and other leaders were arrested in 2003, when more than 1,000 police officers raided their compound outside Paris. France’s top anti-terrorism judge charged that they were involved in terrorism in Iran and plotting violence in Europe as well.
The investigation, which was assisted by the FBI in the United States, did not turn up powerful proof. A lawyer for the group said Monday that prosecutors should throw out the still-pending case.
"One finds oneself confronting a judicial dossier that is empty of substance after the removal from the list," said the lawyer, Patrick Badouin, according to French reports.
daragahi@latimes.com
Times staff writer Sebastian Rotella in Madrid contributed to this report.
By Achrene Sicakyuz and Borzou Daragahi
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-iran-opposition27-2009jan27,0,1790285.story
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
Iran devising plan to try Mojahedin Khalq members as EU ministers endorse the terrorist group
Iran is mulling over a plan to take terrorist MKO members to court following the European Union’s decision to lift a ban on the group.
Iranian lawmakers are devising a plan to try the Mujahedin Khalq Organization (MKO) members who have taken an active part in terrorist activities against the country.
“The plan was conceived after the European Union decided to remove the MKO from its blacklist, prompting the Islamic Republic to take the required steps on the issue,”Member of the Iranian Majlis (Parliament) Heshmatollah told Mehr news agency on Monday.
According to the lawmaker, the trials would be held either in the Islamic Republic or outside the country. The MKO members who have not participated in the organization’s terrorist activities are allowed to return home, he added.
Earlier on Monday the EU removed the group from its blacklist, although the organization is recognized as a terrorist group by much of the international community, including the US.
The MKO is responsible for numerous acts of violence against Iranian civilians and government officials. Iran has repeatedly called for the expulsion of the MKO members from Iraq, which has been housing them since 1986.
The Iraqi government, in response, has ordered the members to leave their headquarters, Camp Ashraf, and return to Iran or take refuge in a third country. Iraq blames the group for conducting a significant role in destabilizing the Baghdad government.
Several members of the group have now defected from the organization and returned to Iran. According to a May 2005 Human Rights Watch report, the outlawed group imprisons defectors and even tortures them.
Defectors accuse the group of resorting to mind control in an effort to brainwash supporters and to establish a cult mindset among members.
The European Union has agreed to remove the notorious Mujahedin Khalq Organization (MKO) from its list of banned terrorist groups.
EU foreign ministers approved a decision to remove the outlawed terrorist group from a list that includes Palestinian Hamas and Sri Lanka’s Tamil Tigers, an unnamed European official was quoted by Reuters as saying.
The group also known as the”Rajavi cult”named after its leader Maryam Rajavi stepped up efforts to be excluded from the list in 2008.
In November Rajavi met with members of the German Parliament in a bid to rally support for the removal of the group from the European Union’s list of terrorist organizations.
The European Court in Luxembourg ruled in December that the EU was wrong to keep the group’s assets frozen.
“What we are doing today is abiding by the resolution of the European court,”EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana told reporters just before the ministers finalize the decision in a meeting in Brussels.
The MKO, which has been listed as a terrorist organization in Iran and the United States, has a long and bloody history of targeting Iranian civilians and government officials.
Incidents linked with the group include the June 1981 bombing of the offices of the Islamic Republic Party in which 72 high-ranking Iranian officials including judiciary chief, Ayatollah Mohmmad Beheshti, and tens of Majlis deputies were killed.
In the following August the group assassinated President Mohmmad Ali Rajae’i, Prime Minister Javad Bahonar and National Police Chief Ali Dastgerdi at the Prime Ministry building.
The MKO also assisted Iraqi dictator, Saddam Hussein, in the massacre of thousands of innocent Iraqis and is responsible for several acts of terror in Iran including the 1994 bombing of a revered Shia shrine in Mashhad, eastern Iran.
In 2003, French anti-terrorist police arrested 165 members in Paris, including Maryam Rajavi, for ‘associating with wrongdoers in relation with a terrorist undertaking.’
More recently, around 10 members of the notorious organization were arrested in France and Switzerland on charges of money laundering on September 29, 2008.
Protests in Tehran against EU removing PMOI group from terror list
Hundreds of Iranian students, pupils and families of veterans of the Iran-Iraq war (1980-1988) staged a protest gathering in Tehran Sunday against the decision by European Union foreign ministers to remove the People’s Mujahedin of Iran (PMOI) from their list of terrorist organizations.
The crowd first gathered in front of the French embassy in Tehran and shouted slogans against France and the EU for their intention to approve the decision in favour of the PMOI at a meeting Monday in Brussels.
The official news agency IRNA reported that a similar protest gathering was to be held later Sunday in front of the German embassy in Tehran but according to the demonstrators themselves, the next protest gathering would be on Monday in front of the British embassy.
The EU move followed a ruling by the European Court in Luxembourg, which in December said the EU was wrong to keep the PMOI’s assets frozen after it was taken off a British list of terrorist organizations.
Iran regards PMOI as a terror group due to its involvement in the assassinations of several high-ranking Iranian officials, including the president and prime minister in 1980.
After the group was expelled from France in the 1980s, former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein allocated a military base to the PMOI near the border with Iran.
Before the ouster of Saddam, the PMOI frequently infiltrated Iranian territory, leading to clashes with Iranian forces and casualties on both sides.
Middle East