But both of them had a marginal role in the Shah’s overthrow during the Islamic Revolution which was mainly fought by the supporters of Ayatollah Khomeini. MEK leaders were mostly imprisoned by the Shah’s security apparatus and couldn’t play a direct role in the 1979 Revolution.

Due to their intense anti-American approach, MEK killed many US officials, including three officers who had been military advisors under the Shah and three civilian contractors working in Iran. They also kidnapped the US Ambassador to Iran. They were the main elements for occupying the US embassy in Tehran, and when the embassy staff were released they called it a”surrender”.

MEK 33 year of Crimes

The MKO has also made numerous terrorist attacks against Iranian civilians and government officials since the victory of the Islamic Revolution in Iran in 1979. Out of the nearly 17,000 Iranians killed in terrorist attacks over the past four decades, about 12,000 have fallen victim to the terrorist group’s acts of terror.

Based on these facts, US State Department put the MEK on their list of international terrorist organizations on October 8, 1997. Since 2010, this terrorist group’s henchmen have assassinated four senior nuclear scientists in Iran.

Later, it was revealed by a 2012 NBC News report that MEK’s brutal assassination of Iranian nuclear scientists has been committed via”training and arming by Israel’s secret service”. The report also conveyed that what was being said by US officials confirmed the same”charges leveled by Iran’s leaders” about the Israeli involvement in the killings in Iran.

Later it was revealed that the US was also behind these terrorist assassinations by provided intelligence to the MEK. Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh revealed in an interview with Democracy Now that the Bush administration secretly trained the Mujahedin-e Khalq terrorist group when it was still included on the State Department’s list of foreign terrorists. Writing for The New Yorker magazine, Hersh reported that:

“The US Joint Special Operations Command trained operatives from Mujahideen-e-Khalq, or MEK, at a secret site in Nevada beginning in 2005.”

Later it was revealed that this training was held at Department of Energy’s Nevada National Security Site, located about 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

Human rights abuses in MEK camps also included physical abuse, lack of exit options, forced celibacy, emotional isolation, extremely degrading peer pressure, forced labor, sleep deprivation, intense ideological exploitation and isolation.

to view the full report on the MEK in International documents click here

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Extract:

Opposition Group: People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (MEK, PMOI)

The best-known exiled opposition group is the Mojahedin-e-Khalq Organization (MEK), also known as the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI). Secular and left-leaning, it was formed in the 1960s to try to overthrow the Shah of Iran and has been characterized by U.S. reports as attempting to blend several ideologies, including Marxism, feminism, and Islam, although the organization denies that it ever advocated Marxism. It allied with pro-Khomeini forces during the Islamic revolution and, according to State Department reports, supported the November 1979 takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran. The group was driven into exile after it unsuccessfully rose up against the Khomeini regime in September 1981. It has been led for decades by spouses Maryam and Massoud Rajavi but in 2011 Ms. Zohreh Akhyani was elected as MEK Secretary-General. Maryam Rajavi is based in France but the whereabouts of Massoud Rajavi are unknown.

The State Department designated the PMOI as an FTO in October 1997—during the presidency of the relatively moderate Mohammad Khatemi. The NCR was named as an alias of the PMOI in October 1999, and in August 2003, the Department of the Treasury ordered the groups’ offices in the United States closed. State Department reports on international terrorism for the years until 2011 asserted that the members of the organization were responsible for: the alleged killing of seven American military personnel and contract advisers to the former Shah during 1973-1976; bombings at U.S. government facilities in Tehran in 1972 as a protest of the visit to Iran of then-President Richard Nixon; and bombings of U.S. corporate offices in Iran to protest the visit of then Secretary of State Kissinger.

The reports also listed as terrorism several attacks by the group against regime targets (including 1981 bombings that killed high ranking officials), attacks on Iranian government facilities, and attacks on Iranian security officials. However, the reports did not assert that any of these attacks purposely targeted civilians. The group’s alliance with Saddam Hussein’s regime in contributed to the designation, even though Saddam was a U.S. ally during 1980-90.

The PMOI challenged the FTO listing in the U.S. court system and, in June 2012, the Appeals Court gave the State Department until October 1, 2012, to decide on the FTO designation, without prescribing an outcome. On September 28, 2012, maintaining there had not been confirmed acts of PMOI terrorism for more than a decade and that it had cooperated on the Camp Ashraf issue (below), the group was removed from the FTO list as well as from the designation as a terrorism supporter under Executive Order 13224. However, State Department officials, in a background briefing that day, said “We do not see the [PMOI] as a viable or democratic opposition movement…. “

The NCR-I reopened its offices in Washington, DC, in April 2013. The State Department has been meeting with the MEK since its removal from the FTO list, including in Iraq.

Camp Ashraf Issue

The de-listing of the group has not resolved the situation of PMOI members in Iraq. U.S. forces attacked PMOI military installations in Iraq during Operation Iraqi Freedom (March 2003) and negotiated a ceasefire with PMOI elements in Iraq, according to which the approximately 3,400 PMOI members consolidated at Camp Ashraf, near the border with Iran. Its weaponry was placed in storage, guarded first by U.S. and now by Iraqi personnel. In July 2004, the United States granted the Ashraf detainees “protected persons” status under the 4th Geneva Convention, although that designation lapsed when Iraq resumed full sovereignty in June 2004. The Iraqi government’s pledges to adhere to all international obligations with respect to the PMOI in Iraq has come into question on several occasions: on July 28, 2009, Iraq used force to overcome resident resistance to setting up a police post in the camp, killing 13 n residents of the camp. On April 8, 2011, Iraq Security Forces killed 36 Ashraf residents; the State Department issued a statement attributing the deaths to the actions of Iraq and its military.

In December 2011, the Iraqi government and the United Nations agreed to relocate Ashraf residents to the former U.S. military base Camp Liberty, near Baghdad’s main airport. The relocation was completed by September 17, 2012, leaving a residual group of 101 PMOI persons at Ashraf. The group asserted that conditions at Liberty are poor and the facility is unsafe. On February 9, 2013, the camp was attacked by rockets, killing eight PMOI members; the Shiite militia group Kata’ib Hezbollah (KAH) claimed responsibility. A rocket attack on the camp took place on June 15, 2013. On September 1, 2013, 52 of the residual Ashraf residents were killed by gunmen that appeared to have assistance from Iraqi forces. Seven went missing. All survivors of the attack were moved to Camp Liberty, and Ashraf has been taken over by Iran-backed Shiite militias. An October 29, 2015, rocket attack on the Camp killed 24 residents and a rocket attack on July 4, 2016, did not kill any residents, but wounded some. The FY2016 National Defense Authorization Act (P.L. 114-92) calls for “prompt and appropriate steps” to promote the protection of Camp residents.

Since 2011, the U.N. High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) has sought to resettle PMOI members outside Iraq. About 600 have been resettled so far: 450 to Albania; 95 to Germany; 95 to Italy; 15 to Norway; and 2 to Finland. The United States reportedly might resettle 100 or more, but the U.S. requirement that those resettled disavow the group has apparently held up implementation of that program. About 200 have returned to Iran; a few of them reportedly have been imprisoned and/or mistreated.

[…]

Kenneth Katzman
Specialist in Middle Eastern Affairs
August 19, 2016
Congressional Research Service
7-5700
www.crs.gov
RL32048

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Muajhedin-e-Khalq Organization’s history is replete with treasonous acts.

Regarding various reports on the MKO’s relationship with Western intelligence bodies including CIA and Mossad, it is not surprising to figure out about the group’s deals with KGB almost at the same time it was harbored in Iraq where Saddam Hussein granted it logistical and financial support.

According to the archives of the Soviet State microfilm collection, the MKO leader hadn’t found Saddam Hussein’s support sufficient so he sought support from Russian Committee for State Security (KGB):

Reel 1.993, File 24

Resolution of the TsK KPSS Secretariat approving a response to a letter from M. Rajavi, leader of the Mujahedin [Holy Warriors] Organization of the Iranian People, to M. Gorbachev, and to a request submitted by the organization; two copies of instructions to the Soviet Embassy in Bulgaria to be delivered in ciphered form by the Committee for State Security (KGB); extract from the minutes of the TsK KPSS Secretariat; memorandum to the TsK KPSS from R. Ulianovskii, Deputy Chief of the International Department; letter to Gorbachev from Rajavi (translated into Russian) and the original letter in Persian; statement with information about the collection of documents attached to the letter from Rajavi; memorandum (translated into Russian) to the TsK KPSS from F. Olfat, member of the Politburo of the Mujahedin Organization, and the original letter in Persian requesting that the TsK KPSS lend any amount of money (up to US$300,000,000) to the Mujahedin Organization; memorandum to the TsK KPSS from Olfat, (translated into Russian) and the original letter in Persian requesting that the supporters of the Mujahedin Organization be allowed to cross the Soviet-Iranian border and be granted a temporary asylum in the Soviet Union 1985 December – 1986 February

Source : oac.cdlib.org

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MEK has a network of sympathizers in Europe, the United States, and Canada. The group’s political arm, the National Council of Resistance of Iran, maintains offices in several capitals, including Washington, DC. MEK’s membership has dwindled since about 2001, and the organization is currently believed to have some 10,000 members in its ranks; one-third to one-half of these are fighters.

MEK, whose name means “People’s Combatants,” was established in 1965 after a split in a Marxist-Leninist movement that had waged a guerrilla action in northern Iran. Its founders were college-educated Iranian leftists opposed to the country’s pro-Western ruler, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. Its ideology emerged as a mix of Islam and Marxism, with influence as well from the Iranian religious sociologist Ali Shariati, who advocated an “Islam without a clergy.” With KGB help, MEK engaged in a campaign against the Shah and sent cadres to Cuba, East Germany, South Yemen, and Palestinian camps in Lebanon to train as guerrillas.

Vladimir Kuzishkin, a former KGB head in Tehran, reveals in his memoirs that MEK became a major source of information on Iran for Moscow. It also helped Moscow in its efforts to thwart U.S. influence in Iran. In 1970 and 1971, MEK murdered five American military technicians working with the Iranian army. An MEK team tried to kidnap U.S. Ambassador Douglas MacArthur III in Tehran. The attempt failed and the MEK leader, Massoud Rajavi, was given a death sentence, later commuted thanks to a plea to the Shah from Soviet President Nikolai Podgorny.

During Iran’s 1978-79 turmoil, MEK played an active role in helping Ayatollah Khomeini come to power. Its squads burned cinemas, restaurants, hotels and bookshops, and they murdered policemen. After Ayatollah Khomeini took control of the government, MEK worked to radicalize the regime, supporting the seizure of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran. Yet within a year, MEK — now led by Massoud Rajavi, who had been released from prison during the revolution — decided that the Ayatollah Khomeini regime was not revolutionary enough and had to be toppled; there ensued a terrorist operation against the regime, and it continues to this day. In 1981, MEK was driven from its bases on the Iran-Iraq border and resettled in Paris, where it began supporting Iraq in its eight-year war against Ayatollah Khomeini’s Iran. In 1986, MEK moved its headquarters to camps in Iraq near the Iran border.

By 1988, MEK had created in Iraq a 10,000-strong fighting force that helped Saddam Hussein in his genocidal campaign against the Kurds, and would also help him crush the Iraqi Shiites in the south in 1991. MEK maintained a reciprocal relationship with Saddam, whose regime was the main source of MEK’s financial support. (Saddam also provided MEK with bases, weapons, and protection.) To raise additional funds, MEK used front organizations such as the Muslim Iranian Student’s Society to collect money from expatriate Iranians and others. MEK also organized an asylum seekers’ campaign – sending 40,000 Iranians to Europe in exchange for their “voluntary contributions” of up to $10,000 apiece.

New MEK recruits.. traditionally have been indoctrinated and prevented from developing normal relationships outside the organization. Their children are not permitted to attend school, but must be educated at home.

During the Iraq War in 2003, U.S. forces cracked down on MEK’s bases in Iraq, and in June of that year French authorities raided an MEK compound outside Paris and arrested 160 people, including Maryam Rajavi. These authorities accused MEK of conspiring to finance and carry out acts of terrorism from the organization’s French base. All the suspects, including Rajavi, were subsequently released.

Acts of violence linked to MEK over the years include:

• The series of mortar attacks and hit-and-run raids during 2000 and 2001 against Iranian government buildings; one of these killed Iran’s chief of staff.

• The 2000 mortar attack on President Mohammad Khatami’s palace in Tehran

• The February 2000 “Operation Great Bahman,” during which MEK launched 12 attacks against Iran

• The 1999 assassination of the deputy chief of Iran’s armed forces general staff, Ali Sayyad Shirazi

• The 1998 assassination of the director of Iran’s prison system, Asadollah Lajevardi

• The 1992 near-simultaneous attacks on Iranian embassies and institutions in 13 countries

• Assistance to Saddam Hussein’s suppression of the 1991 Iraqi Shiite and Kurdish uprisings

• The 1981 bombing of the offices of the Islamic Republic Party and of Premier Mohammad-Javad Bahonar, which killed some 70 high-ranking Iranian officials, including President Mohammad-Ali Rajaei and Bahonar

• Support for the 1979 takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran by Iranian revolutionaries

• The 1970s killings of U.S. military personnel and civilians working on defense projects in Tehran

DiscoverTheNetwork.org

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Foreign Terrorist Organizations
Bureau of Counterterrorism
January 27, 2012

Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs) are foreign organizations that are designated by the Secretary of State in accordance with section 219 of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), as amended. FTO designations play a critical role in our fight against terrorism and are an effective means of curtailing support for terrorist activities and pressuring groups to get out of the terrorism business.

Current List of Designated Foreign Terrorist Organizations

Identification
The Bureau of Counterterrorism in the State Department (S/CT) continually monitors the activities of terrorist groups active around the world to identify potential targets for designation. When reviewing potential targets, S/CT looks not only at the actual terrorist attacks that a group has carried out, but also at whether the group has engaged in planning and preparations for possible future acts of terrorism or retains the capability and intent to carry out such acts.

Designation
Once a target is identified, S/CT prepares a detailed”administrative record,”which is a compilation of information, typically including both classified and open sources information, demonstrating that the statutory criteria for designation have been satisfied. If the Secretary of State, in consultation with the Attorney General and the Secretary of the Treasury, decides to make the designation, Congress is notified of the Secretary’s intent to designate the organization and given seven days to review the designation, as the INA requires. Upon the expiration of the seven-day waiting period and in the absence of Congressional action to block the designation, notice of the designation is published in the Federal Register, at which point the designation takes effect. By law an organization designated as an FTO may seek judicial review of the designation in the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit not later than 30 days after the designation is published in the Federal Register.

Until recently the INA provided that FTOs must be redesignated every 2 years or the designation would lapse. Under the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 (IRTPA), however, the redesignation requirement was replaced by certain review and revocation procedures. IRTPA provides that an FTO may file a petition for revocation 2 years after its designation date (or in the case of redesignated FTOs, its most recent redesignation date) or 2 years after the determination date on its most recent petition for revocation. In order to provide a basis for revocation, the petitioning FTO must provide evidence that the circumstances forming the basis for the designation are sufficiently different as to warrant revocation. If no such review has been conducted during a 5 year period with respect to a designation, then the Secretary of State is required to review the designation to determine whether revocation would be appropriate. In addition, the Secretary of State may at any time revoke a designation upon a finding that the circumstances forming the basis for the designation have changed in such a manner as to warrant revocation, or that the national security of the United States warrants a revocation. The same procedural requirements apply to revocations made by the Secretary of State as apply to designations. A designation may be revoked by an Act of Congress, or set aside by a Court order.

Legal Criteria for Designation under Section 219 of the INA as amended

1. It must be a foreign organization.
2. The organization must engage in terrorist activity, as defined in section 212 (a)(3)(B) of the INA (8 U.S.C. § 1182(a)(3)(B)),* or terrorism, as defined in section 140(d)(2) of the Foreign Relations Authorization Act, Fiscal Years 1988 and 1989 (22 U.S.C. § 2656f(d)(2)),** or retain the capability and intent to engage in terrorist activity or terrorism.
3. The organization’s terrorist activity or terrorism must threaten the security of U.S. nationals or the national security (national defense, foreign relations, or the economic interests) of the United States.

Legal Ramifications of Designation

1. It is unlawful for a person in the United States or subject to the jurisdiction of the United States to knowingly provide”material support or resources”to a designated FTO. (The term”material support or resources”is defined in 18 U.S.C. § 2339A(b)(1) as”any property, tangible or intangible, or service, including currency or monetary instruments or financial securities, financial services, lodging, training, expert advice or assistance, safehouses, false documentation or identification, communications equipment, facilities, weapons, lethal substances, explosives, personnel (1 or more individuals who maybe or include oneself), and transportation, except medicine or religious materials.” 18 U.S.C. § 2339A(b)(2) provides that for these purposes “the term ‘training’ means instruction or teaching designed to impart a specific skill, as opposed to general knowledge.” 18 U.S.C. § 2339A(b)(3) further provides that for these purposes the term ‘expert advice or assistance’ means advice or assistance derived from scientific, technical or other specialized knowledge.’’
2. Representatives and members of a designated FTO, if they are aliens, are inadmissible to and, in certain circumstances, removable from the United States (see 8 U.S.C. §§ 1182 (a)(3)(B)(i)(IV)-(V), 1227 (a)(1)(A)).
3. Any U.S. financial institution that becomes aware that it has possession of or control over funds in which a designated FTO or its agent has an interest must retain possession of or control over the funds and report the funds to the Office of Foreign Assets Control of the U.S. Department of the Treasury.

Other Effects of Designation

1. Supports our efforts to curb terrorism financing and to encourage other nations to do the same.
2. Stigmatizes and isolates designated terrorist organizations internationally.
3. Deters donations or contributions to and economic transactions with named organizations.
4. Heightens public awareness and knowledge of terrorist organizations.
5. Signals to other governments our concern about named organizations.

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Peoples Mujahedin of Iran (MEK)

The People’s Muhajedin of Iran (Mojahedin-e Khalq-e Iran, or MEK) is an Islamic and Marxist-inspired militant organization that advocates the overthrow of the Islamic Republic of Iran. The group was founded in 1963 as an armed guerrilla group after the Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi violently suppressed opposition to his regime. Although as of early 2012 it remained on the U.S. State Department’s list of foreign terrorist organizations, its delisting is the focus of an aggressive and well-funded lobbying campaign supported by a host of high-profile former public officials from across the U.S. political spectrum, including a crop of prominent neoconservatives.

According to the U.S. State Department:“The group participated in the 1979 Islamic Revolution that replaced the Shah with a Shiite Islamist regime led by Ayatollah Khomeini. However, the MEK’s ideology—a blend of Marxism, feminism, and Islamism—was at odds with the post-revolutionary government, and its original leadership was soon executed. In 1981, the group was driven from its bases on the Iran-Iraq border and resettled in Paris, where it began supporting Iraq in its eight-year war against Ayatollah Khomeini’s Iran. In 1986, after France recognized the Iranian regime, the MEK moved its headquarters to Iraq, which facilitated its terrorist activities in Iran. Since 2003, roughly 3,400 MEK members have been encamped at Camp Ashraf in Iraq.”[1]

Due to the group’s cult-like organization under leader Maryam Rajavi, its support for Iraq in the Iran-Iraq war, and its participation in Saddam Hussein’s crackdowns on Iraqi Shiites and Kurds, the group has been described by the New York Times as “a repressive cult despised by most Iranians and Iraqis.”[2]

Nonetheless, by dint of a well-funded lobbying campaign organized by its supporters, MEK has presented itself to western backers as a popular and democratic Iranian opposition group that could lead the Islamic Republic to democracy—often even referring to Rajavi, who lives in exile in Paris and has never run for office in Iran, as the country’s “president-elect.”[3]

Organizations sympathetic to MEK have garnered an impressive array of establishment supporters inside Washington to speak in favor of delisting the group. The effort, according to the New York Times, “has won the support of two former C.I.A. directors, R. James Woolsey and Porter J. Goss; a former F.B.I. director, Louis J. Freeh; a former attorney general, Michael B. Mukasey; President George W. Bush’s first homeland security chief, Tom Ridge; President Obama’s first national security adviser, Gen. James L. Jones; big-name Republicans like the former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani and Democrats like the former Vermont governor Howard Dean; and even the former top counterterrorism official of the State Department, Dell L. Dailey, who argued unsuccessfully for ending the terrorist label while in office.”[4]

Front groups for MEK have become notorious for offering large speaking fees to recently retired officials and politicians who may or may not be familiar with the group’s history. “Your speech agent calls, and says you get $20,000 to speak for 20 minutes,” said a State Department official quoted by the Christian Science Monitor. “They will send a private jet, you get $25,000 more when you are done, and they will send a team to brief you on what to say.”[5]

Underlying MEK’s more mainstream backing is bedrock of support from neoconservatives who view the group as a useful tool for challenging the Iranian regime. In addition to Woolsey and other former Bush administration officials, the group has enjoyed the avid backing of Iran hawks like former ambassador John Bolton and Clare Lopez of the Iran Policy Committee (IPC), a hawkish U.S.-based outfit whose putative goal is “empowering Iranians for regime change.”

In a 2005 Iran policy paper, IPC placed the delisting of MEK at the forefront of its proposals for U.S. policy toward Iran. The”continued designation since 1997 of the main Iranian opposition group, Mujahedeen e-Khalq (MEK), as a foreign terrorist organization by the State Department assures Tehran that regime change is off the table,” wrote the report’s authors. “Removing the MEK’s terrorist designation would be a tangible signal to Tehran and to the Iranian people that a new option is implicitly on the table—regime change.”[6]

Mitchell Reiss, a top foreign policy advisor to Mitt Romney, has also spoken on behalf of the group.[7]

MEK’s critics have likened the organization’s advocacy campaign to that of the Iraqi National Congress (INC), an Iraqi exile group led by Ahmed Chalabi that worked to drum up U.S. support for an invasion of Iraq in the 1990s and early 2000s. By presenting itself to Western supporters as an Iraqi government-in-waiting, INC enabled Iraq hawks in the United States to claim that there was Iraqi support for the U.S. action. For Iran hawks, write Ali Fatemi and Karim Pakravan of the National Iranian American Council, “Maryam Rajavi, the MEK leader and self-proclaimed president of Iran, is their new Chalabi.”[8]

IPC in particular has embodied the link between pro-MEK groups and pro-INC groups. A 2010 investigation by the U.S. foreign policy blog LobeLog found that “through 2006, IPC shared an address, accountants, and some staff with multiple organizations that either fronted for or had direct ties to the INC, even sharing staff members with those groups. Some of those ties have continued through today.”[9]

History

Founded in 1963, MEK was one of the many Iranian factions that supported the overthrow of the shah in 1979.[10] However, according to a report by the Christian Science Monitor, it was the only one that used violence against Americans in the run-up to the revolution, launching a string of assassinations and attacks against American military and diplomatic officers in Iran in the 1970s.

The group was expelled from Iran in 1981 when it fell out of favor with Ayatollah Khomeini in a post-revolutionary power struggle.[11] Since then, it has launched thousands of attacks against Iranians it has deemed “agents of the regime,” peaking at a rate of three assassinations per day in the 1980s, and staged high-profile raids on Iranian diplomatic offices all over the world—including an orchestrated set of attacks on 12 diplomatic facilities in 10 countries on a single day in 1992.[12]

In the mid-1980s, MEK settled in Iraq as a guest of Saddam Hussein, who offered the group use of Camp Ashraf, an encampment and army base north of Baghdad. There, not only did MEK fight on the Iraqi side of the Iran-Iraq war, but it also helped Saddam crush the CIA-instigated Iraqi Kurdish and Shiite uprisings that came on the tail of the 1991 Gulf War, leading to the precipitous erosion of its support in Iran and Iraq alike.[13]

MEK’s fighters at Ashraf were disarmed by the United States following the fall of Saddam’s government in 2003. In the ensuing years, the camp was subject to occasionally violent raids by the new Iraqi government, which sparked concerns about further violence or a humanitarian crisis when it ordered the camp closed by the end of 2011. Although the Ashraf issue is separate from the issue of MEK’s status as a terrorist organization, MEK’s backers in the West have often used the conditions at the camp to garner sympathy for the group’s broader agenda in Washington and to argue that its continued listing as a terrorist group is the cause of its mistreatment.[14]

In late 2011, the United Nations and the Iraqi government agreed on a plan to relocate the Ashraf encampment to a new location in northeastern Iraq—possibly Camp Liberty near the Baghdad international airport—but as of January 2012 the relocation had yet to take place.[15]

MEK’s current lobbying efforts were foreshadowed in a 1994 report by the U.S. State Department, which concluded that the group was unlikely to be serious about its democratic overtures. According to the Christian Science Monitor:

“Noting the MEK’s ‘dedication to armed struggle’; the ‘fact that they deny or distort sections of their history, such as the use of violence’; the ‘dictatorial methods’ of their leadership; and the ‘cult-like behavior of its members,’ the State Dept. concluded that the MEK’s ‘29-year record of behavior does not substantiate its capability or intention to be democratic.’

“That report describes tactics that foreshadow the MEK’s lobbying campaign today, 16 years later. It notes a ‘formidable Mojahidin outreach program,’ which ‘solicits the support of prominent public figures,’ and the ‘common practice … to collect statements issued by prominent individuals.’”[16]

The group formally renounced the use of violence in 2001, but an FBI investigation found MEK members to be “actively involved in planning and executing acts of terrorism” as recently as 2004.

Institute for Policy Studies/Right Web
[Please note: IPS Right Web neither represents nor endorses any of the individuals or groups profiled on this site.]

Sources
[1] U.S. State Department, “Country Reports on Terrorsm 2010: Chapter Six: Foreign Terrorist Organizations,” August 2011,
[2] Scott Shane, “For Obscure Iranian Exile Group, Broad Support in U.S.,” New York Times, November 26, 2011,
[3] See Matt Duss, “The MEK Are Not Iran’s ‘Democratic Opposition,” Middle East Progress, July 19, 2011,
[4] Scott Shane, “For Obscure Iranian Exile Group, Broad Support in U.S.,” New York Times, November 26, 2011,
[5] Scott Peterson, “Iranian group’s big-money push to get off US terrorist list,” Christian Science Monitor, August 8, 2011, p. 3,
[6] Iran Policy Committee, “U.S. Policy Options for Iran,” February 10, 2005,
[7] Eli Clifton, “Romney Adviser Advocating For Controversial Iranian Terrorist Group,” ThinkProgress, August 23, 2011,
[8] Fatemi and Karim Pakravan, “War With Iran? US Neocons Aim to Repeat Chalabi-Style Swindle Ali,” Truthout, July 15, 2011.
[9] Ali Gharib and Eli Clifton, “Neocon Iran Policy Committee tied to disgraced Iraqi National Congress,” LobeLog, September 10, 2010,
[10] U.S. State Department, “Country Reports on Terrorism 2010: Chapter Six: Foreign Terrorist Organizations,” August 2011,
[11] U.S. State Department, “Country Reports on Terrorism 2010: Chapter Six: Foreign Terrorist Organizations,” August 2011,
[12] Scott Peterson, “Iranian group’s big-money push to get off US terrorist list,” Christian Science Monitor, August 8, 2011, p. 7,
[13] Scott Peterson, “Iranian group’s big-money push to get off US terrorist list,” Christian Science Monitor, August 8, 2011, p. 8,
[14] See, for example, Eli Clifton, “Defending MEK, Mukasey, Ridge & Freeh Attack Obama For Hastily Exiting Iraq, While Admitting He’s Trying To Stay,” ThinkProgress, August 15, 2011,
[15] AP, “UN, Iraq agree on Camp Ashraf resettlement plan,” December 26, 2011,
[16] Scott Peterson, “Iranian group’s big-money push to get off US terrorist list,” Christian Science Monitor, August 8, 2011, p. 8,

The post Controversial west advocacy for Camp Ashraf appeared first on Nejat Society.

•MEK threatens mass suicide as bargaining chip: “The group’s leadership at Camp Ashraf is prepared to order residents to kill themselves to protest any arrests of Ashraf residents…”
•Evidence of paramilitary activities: “They continue to practice small unit military tactics and maneuvers under cover of darkness.”
•Cases of forced detention at Ashraf: “The MEK was also violating human rights by holding residents at Ashraf against their will.”
•Examples of human rights abuses:”MEK defectors told stories of regular self-denunciations, intimidation, forced hysterectomies, brainwashing, and isolation from family members.”
•False public claims by MEK: “While publicly touting itself as a democratic alternative to the current regime in Tehran, the MEK’s cult-like pattern of psychological and physical abuse of its members suggests otherwise.”
•Repeated instances of cult-like practices: MEK is a”cult-like organization that thrives on maintaining control of its members and those lured to Ashraf under false pretenses.”
•Analsysis of policmakers being fooled by MEK disinformation: U.S. on MEK: “The most powerful myth the MEK has been able to lodge in the minds of most supporters is that they are the democratic alternative to the current regime in Tehran…The majority of Iranians do not regard the MEK as a legitimate force for democratic change in Iran.”
Below, are the relevant excerpts, including details of the 2009 reaffirmation of the MEK’s designation as a Foreign Terrorist Organization. All excerpts are direct quotes (emphases added):

MEK UPDATE: DEFECTOR CLAIMS MEK HAS CONTINGENCY PLAN FOR MASS SUICIDE (1/15/2009)

“A defector from Camp Ashraf, home to the Mujahedin e-Khalq (MeK) in Iraq, says the group’s leadership at Camp Ashraf is prepared to order residents to kill themselves to protest any arrests of Ashraf residents”

“They claim to have turned over all their arms to U.S. forces in 2003, and their camp 60 miles from Baghdad looks more like a relatively affluent Iraqi village than a military garrison. However, until the end of 2008, residents wore military-style uniforms and flew pre-revolution Iranian flags, and U.S. forces stationed at Forward Operating Base (FOB) Grizzly on the periphery of the camp report that they continue to practice small unit military tactics and maneuvers under cover of darkness.”

ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF NEA FELTMAN DISCUSSES MEK (12/15/2010)

“In a meeting on December 14 with NEA A/S Feltman, the Minister of Human Rights, Wijdan Selim…expressed frustration that she was caught in the middle of the GOI-MEK struggle because many in the GOI wanted to resettle the MEK regardless of the merits, but that the MEK was also violating human rights by holding residents at Ashraf against their will.” Ashraf residents “revealed psychological and physical harm experienced at the hands of MEK”, MEK is a“cult-like organization that thrives on maintaining control of its members and those lured to Ashraf under false pretenses”, they continue to practice small unit military tactics and maneuvers under cover of darkness”,

MEK DEFECTORS ON LIFE IN ASHRAF AND RESETTLEMENT (9/18/2009)

“Many revealed psychological and physical harm experienced at the hands of the MEK and reaffirmed existing perceptions of the MEK as a cult-like organization that thrives on maintaining control of its members and those lured to Ashraf under false pretenses.”

“In explaining their motivations for leaving Ashraf, nearly all the defectors felt betrayed by the MEK and dismayed by their psychological and physical degradation at the hands of the organization. One man asked for help in retrieving his confiscated papers and other personal documents, including passport and Iranian identification documents, including passport and Iranian identification cards, from Ashraf.”

“Many of the defectors alleged psychological and physical harm at the hands of the MEK, including solitary confinement in MEK jails in Ashraf. One man in a wheelchair spoke passionately about how the MEK”crushed our personalities”and threatened to turn them over to the Saddam regime if they refused to join the organization.”

“Twenty-year resident [of Ashraf]; self-declared freedom fighter opposed to Iran; left MEK after”their lies were revealed”; considers MEK”the most disgusting and devious organization in the world.”

MEK FOREIGN TERRORIST ORGANIZATION (FTO) DESIGNATION MAINTAINED (1/8/2008)

“The Secretary [Rice] found that the MEK remains (1) a foreign organization, (2) that engages in terrorist activity or terrorism, or retains the capability and intent to engage in terrorist activity or terrorism, as those terms are defined under relevant statutes, and (3) the terrorist activity or terrorism of the group threatens U.S. national security or the security of U.S. nationals. Further, the Secretary concluded that U.S. national security does not on its own warrant revocation. She therefore determined that the MEK’s FTO designation will be maintained. The determination was effective upon signature on January 7, 2009.”

“We do not view the MEK as a credible advocate for either democracy or human rights in Iran, given its record of terrorism and the abuse suffered by many of its the MEK,s own members. While we have serious concerns about the policies of the Iranian government, we do not condone acts of terrorism under any circumstances.

It is important to keep in mind, however, that the MEK’s advocacy, and our view that such advocacy is not credible, is not germane to the Secretary’s determination”

“(C) While publicly touting itself as a democratic alternative to the current regime in Tehran, the MEK’s cult-like pattern of psychological and physical abuse of its members suggests otherwise. Under the leadership of the husband-wife team of Maryam and Masud Rajavi, the MEK is a largely female-driven organization that promotes equal rights for women but fails to respect the basic human rights of its members, female or male. While Maryam and Massoud are married, MEK rank and file are forced to divorce and are forbidden from having normal male-female relationships or personal friendships of any kind. No children reside at Camp Ashraf. MEK defectors tell stories of regular self-denunciations, intimidation, forced hysterectomies, brainwashing, and isolation from family members.”

“The most powerful myth the MEK has been able to lodge in the minds of most supporters is that they are the democratic alternative to the current regime in Tehran. While we have serious concerns about the policies of the Iranian government, the MEK’s four-decade-long record of terrorism and cult-like repression of its members demonstrates that the MEK is not a credible advocate for democracy or human rights. Furthermore, the majority of Iranians do not regard the MEK as a legitimate force for democratic change in Iran. The Secretary’s decision to maintain the MEK’s FTO designation sends a clear signal that the U.S. Government does not condone the organization’s terrorist activity.”

PM MALIKI, CODEL LEVIN DISCUSS FOREIGN INTERFERENCE IN IRAQ, AUGUST 19 BOMBINGS (12/9/2010)

“Responding to Sen. Reed’s question about how the GOI would deal with the Mujahideen-e-Khalq (MEK), Maliki said

“We wish they would go in peace to any other state to eliminate the excuse for intervention that their presence here affords Iran.”He stressed that the GOI does not want to force MEK members to return to Iran; however, he emphasized the threat the group posed and claimed an individual involved in the August 19 bombing of the Ministry of Finance was a MEK member.”

EU LIFTS MEK SANCTIONS; SECRETARIAT REQUESTS USG ASSISTANCE (1/27/2009)

“France has an active request for the EU to re-list on a strengthened domestic investigation basis and is appealing the December 4 EU court ruling. Belgium, normally an outspoken human rights advocate in these decision-making circles, has raised security concerns in support of re-listing; thus France will not stand alone despite misgivings of UK or other countries.”

“[EU Council Secretariat Director General Robert] Cooper then asserted that EU Member States actually do consider the MEK a terrorist group, but the EU still must refer to a decision by a”competent authority”to ground an EU designation of the MEK. Cooper proposed to USEU Charge that the USG request the EU to designate the MEK and relist it as a terrorist organization”

IRAN: MEK SUPPORTERS IN PLAN TO PRESS HMG, USG, ICJ ON BEHALF OF CAMP ASHRAF RESIDENTS (3/2/2009)

“As always, the positions of the MEK and its supporters are characterized by hyperbole and distortion. London Iran Watcher has not attempted to engage with MEK supporters (and still less with members), but has kept FCO briefed on current USG public guidance on Camp Ashraf. The MEK, however, remains an issue on which HMG senior levels are fatigued and jumpy, and only too glad to shelter behind the tough line the USG has maintained on the MEK (ref).”

GOI TO ASSUME REPONSIBILITY FOR CAMP ASHRAF JANUARY 1; SECURITY TRANSITION BEGINS (12/22/2008)

U.S. Baghdad embassy says:

“No Delisting of MEK

While Washington considers whether to keep the MEK organization on the U.S. FTO list, as the Embassy deals with the MEK at Camp Ashraf it is our view that for our dealings it is important that the organization remain listed. Delisting the MEK could hinder our cooperation with the GOI (which considers the MEK to be a terrorist organization) and would encourage the [Camp Ashraf residents] to continue to stall the determination of their legal status in Iraq.”

IRAN: UK GOVERNMENT APPEALS MEK DE-LISTING ORDER (12/4/2007)

“The suit had been brought by several of the MEK,s fervent sympathizers in Parliament seeking POAC’s review of the MEK listing. HMG: Leopard Has Not Changed Spots”

Delisting MEK “weakens UK counter terrorism efforts”

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August 18, 2011

Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs) are designated by the Secretary of State in accordance with section 219 of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA). FTO designations play a critical role in the fight against terrorism and are an effective means of curtailing support for terrorist activities.

Legal Criteria for Designation under Section 219 of the INA as amended:

1. It must be a foreign organization.
2. The organization must engage in terrorist activity, as defined in section 212 (a)(3)(B) of the INA (8 U.S.C. § 1182(a)(3)(B)), or terrorism, as defined in section 140(d)(2) of the Foreign Relations Authorization Act, Fiscal Years 1988 and 1989 (22 U.S.C. § 2656f(d)(2)), or retain the capability and intent to engage in terrorist activity or terrorism.
3. The organization’s terrorist activity or terrorism must threaten the security of U.S. nationals or the national security (national defense, foreign relations, or the economic interests) of the United States.

U.S. Government Designated Foreign Terrorist Organizations

Abu Nidal Organization (ANO)
Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG)
Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade (AAMB)
Al-Qa’ida (AQ)
Al-Qa’ida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP)
Al-Qa’ida in Iraq (AQI)
Al-Qa’ida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM)
Al-Shabaab (AS)
Ansar al-Islam
Asbat al-Ansar
Aum Shinrikyo (AUM)
Basque Fatherland and Liberty (ETA)
Communist Party of Philippines/New People’s Army (CPP/NPA)
Continuity Irish Republican Army (CIRA)
Gama’a al-Islamiyya (IG)
Hamas
Harakat ul-Jihad-i-Islami (HUJI)
Harakat ul-Jihad-i-Islami/Bangladesh (HUJI-B)
Harakat ul-Mujahideen (HUM)
Hizballah
Islamic Jihad Union (IJU)
Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU)
Jaish-e-Mohammed (JEM)
Jemaah Islamiya (JI)
Jundallah
Kahane Chai
Kata’ib Hizballah (KH)
Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK)
Lashkar e-Tayyiba (LT)
Lashkar i Jhangvi (LJ)
Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE)
Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG)
Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group (GICM)
Mujahadin-e Khalq Organization (MEK)
National Liberation Army (ELN)
Palestine Liberation Front – Abu Abbas Faction (PLF)
Palestine Islamic Jihad – Shaqaqi Faction (PIJ)
Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP)
Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (PFLP-GC)
Real IRA (RIRA)
Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC)
Revolutionary Organization 17 November (17N)
Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party/Front (DHKP/C)
Revolutionary Struggle (RS)
Shining Path (SL)
Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP)
United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC)

ABU NIDAL ORGANIZATION

aka ANO; Arab Revolutionary Brigades; Arab Revolutionary Council; Black September; Fatah Revolutionary Council; Revolutionary Organization of Socialist Muslims

Description: …

(…)

MUJAHADIN-E KHALQ ORGANIZATION

aka MEK; MKO; Mujahadin-e Khalq; Muslim Iranian Students’ Society; National Council of Resistance; NCR; Organization of the People’s Holy Warriors of Iran; the National Liberation Army of Iran; NLA; People’s Mujahadin Organization of Iran; PMOI; National Council of Resistance of Iran; NCRI; Sazeman-e Mujahadin-e Khalq-e Iran

Description: The Mujahadin-E Khalq Organization (MEK) was originally designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization on October 8, 1997. The MEK is a Marxist-Islamic Organization that seeks the overthrow of the Iranian regime through its military wing, the National Liberation Army (NLA), and its political front, the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI).

The MEK was founded in 1963 by a group of college-educated Iranian Marxists who opposed the country’s pro-western ruler, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. The group participated in the 1979 Islamic Revolution that replaced the Shah with a Shiite Islamist regime led by Ayatollah Khomeini. However, the MEK’s ideology – a blend of Marxism, feminism, and Islamism – was at odds with the post-revolutionary government, and its original leadership was soon executed by the Khomeini regime. In 1981, the group was driven from its bases on the Iran-Iraq border and resettled in Paris, where it began supporting Iraq in its eight-year war against Khomeini’s Iran. In 1986, after France recognized the Iranian regime, the MEK moved its headquarters to Iraq, which facilitated its terrorist activities in Iran. Since 2003, roughly 3,400 MEK members have been encamped at Camp Ashraf in Iraq.

Activities: The group’s worldwide campaign against the Iranian government uses propaganda and terrorism to achieve its objectives. During the 1970s, the MEK staged terrorist attacks inside Iran and killed several U.S. military personnel and civilians working on defense projects in Tehran. In 1972, the MEK set off bombs in Tehran at the U.S. Information Service office (part of the U.S. Embassy), the Iran-American Society, and the offices of several U.S. companies to protest the visit of President Nixon to Iran. In 1973, the MEK assassinated the deputy chief of the U.S. Military Mission in Tehran and bombed several businesses, including Shell Oil. In 1974, the MEK set off bombs in Tehran at the offices of U.S. companies to protest the visit of then U.S. Secretary of State Kissinger. In 1975, the MEK assassinated two U.S. military officers who were members of the U.S. Military Assistance Advisory Group in Tehran. In 1976, the MEK assassinated two U.S. citizens who were employees of Rockwell International in Tehran. In 1979, the group claimed responsibility for the murder of an American Texaco executive. Though denied by the MEK, analysis based on eyewitness accounts and MEK documents demonstrates that MEK members participated in and supported the 1979 takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and that the MEK later argued against the early release the American hostages. The MEK also provided personnel to guard and defend the site of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, following the takeover of the Embassy.

In 1981, MEK leadership attempted to overthrow the newly installed Islamic regime; Iranian security forces subsequently initiated a crackdown on the group. The MEK instigated a bombing campaign, including an attack against the head office of the Islamic Republic Party and the Prime Minister’s office, which killed some 70 high-ranking Iranian officials, including Chief Justice Ayatollah Mohammad Beheshti, President Mohammad-Ali Rajaei, and Prime Minister Mohammad-Javad Bahonar. These attacks resulted in an expanded Iranian government crackdown that forced MEK leaders to flee to France. For five years, the MEK continued to wage its terrorist campaign from its Paris headquarters. Expelled by France in 1986, MEK leaders turned to Saddam Hussein’s regime for basing, financial support, and training. Near the end of the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq War, Baghdad armed the MEK with heavy military equipment and deployed thousands of MEK fighters in suicidal, mass wave attacks against Iranian forces.

The MEK’s relationship with the former Iraqi regime continued through the 1990s. In 1991, the group reportedly assisted the Iraqi Republican Guard’s bloody crackdown on Iraqi Shia and Kurds who rose up against Saddam Hussein’s regime. In April 1992, the MEK conducted near-simultaneous attacks on Iranian embassies and consular missions in 13 countries, including against the Iranian mission to the United Nations in New York, demonstrating the group’s ability to mount large-scale operations overseas. In June 1998, the MEK was implicated in a series of bombing and mortar attacks in Iran that killed at least 15 and injured several others. The MEK also assassinated the former Iranian Minister of Prisons in 1998. In April 1999, the MEK targeted key Iranian military officers and assassinated the deputy chief of the Iranian Armed Forces General Staff, Brigadier General Ali Sayyaad Shirazi.

In April 2000, the MEK attempted to assassinate the commander of the Nasr Headquarters, Tehran’s interagency board responsible for coordinating policies on Iraq. The pace of anti-Iranian operations increased during “Operation Great Bahman” in February 2000, when the group launched a dozen attacks against Iran. One attack included a mortar attack against a major Iranian leadership complex in Tehran that housed the offices of the Supreme Leader and the President. The attack killed one person and injured six other individuals. In March 2000, the MEK launched mortars into a residential district in Tehran, injuring four people and damaging property. In 2000 and 2001, the MEK was involved in regular mortar attacks and hit-and-run raids against Iranian military and law enforcement personnel, as well as government buildings near the Iran-Iraq border. Following an initial Coalition bombardment of the MEK’s facilities in Iraq at the outset of Operation Iraqi Freedom, MEK leadership negotiated a cease-fire with Coalition Forces and surrendered their heavy-arms to Coalition control. Since 2003, roughly 3,400 MEK members have been encamped at Ashraf in Iraq.

In 2003, French authorities arrested 160 MEK members at operational bases they believed the MEK was using to coordinate financing and planning for terrorist attacks. Upon the arrest of MEK leader Maryam Rajavi, MEK members took to Paris’ streets and engaged in self-immolation. French authorities eventually released Rajavi.

Strength: Estimates place MEK’s worldwide membership at between 5,000 and 10,000 members, with large pockets in Paris and other major European capitals. In Iraq, roughly 3,400 MEK members are gathered at Camp Ashraf, the MEK’s main compound north of Baghdad. As a condition of the 2003 cease-fire agreement, the MEK relinquished more than 2,000 tanks, armored personnel carriers, and heavy artillery.

Location/Area of Operation: The MEK’s global support structure remains in place, with associates and supporters scattered throughout Europe and North America. Operations have targeted Iranian government elements across the globe, including in Europe and Iran. The MEK’s political arm, the National Council of Resistance of Iran, has a global support network with active lobbying and propaganda efforts in major Western capitals. NCRI also has a well-developed media communications strategy.

External Aid: Before Operation Iraqi Freedom began in 2003, the MEK received all of its military assistance and most of its financial support from Saddam Hussein. The fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime has led the MEK increasingly to rely on front organizations to solicit contributions from expatriate Iranian communities.

(…)
U.S. State Department, August2011

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Kucinich Asks Tough Questions About FBI Investigation of Anti-War Groups
“Is it Good Judgment to Direct the Overwhelming Resources of the Federal Government onto Small, Local Groups and Individuals whose Primary Interest is Peace
Washington, Jul 25 – Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) today wrote to Attorney General Eric Holder asking tough questions about the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s large commitment of resources to investigate small, local groups of individuals whose primary concern is peace. Congressman Kucinich also asked for an explanation for the apparent differential use of vague and broad criminal statutes.

“A federal prosecutor has tremendous power and resources,” wrote Kucinich. “Because of that, he has a concomitant obligation to exercise that power with judgment and discretion. Is it good judgment to direct the overwhelming resources of the federal government onto small, local groups and individuals whose primary interest is peace? Is it good judgment to investigate them under a vague and broad statute whose text and interpretations have changed numerous times over the past decade? Is this really the best use of Department of Justice personnel?”

See a signed copy of the letter here.

part of the Document:… The Washington Post and other news sources have reported that fromer Attorny General Michael Mukasy, former Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge, former Whaite House security adviser Frances Townsend, and former New York Mayor Tudy Giuliani have publicly expressed their support for the Mujaheddin-e Khalq (MEK), and organization that has been on the foreign terrorist list of the State Department since 1997… It has been reported that the MEK has spent millions of dollars on lobbyists, PR agents an communications firms to build up pressure on Secretary Hillary Clinton to take the group off the terrorist list. In Horder, the Department of Justice, under both your direction and that of Attorny General Mukasey, argued that it was felony to file an amicus brief on behalf of a foreign terrorist organization, or to engage in public advocacy on behalf of such an organization, unless that advocacy was totally”independent”of the organization. How do you reconcile those arguments with the total absence of attention paid to lobbying activities in support of the MEK? how do you reconcile that inaction with the apparent overkill that has been directed at the anti-war activists in Mineapolis and Chicago? …

Link to the full document:

Congressman Dennis J. Kucinich/   kucinich.house.gov

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France v People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran
Advocate General Sharpston suggests that the Court reject France’s appeal against the General Court’s judgment removing PMOI from the EU terrorist list

In so doing she suggests a number of improvements that could be made to procedures so as to ensure an appropriate balance between the need to combat terrorism and the respect of fundamental rights

In December 2008, the Court of First Instance (now called the General Court), annulled a Council Decision including the People’s Mojahedin Organisation of Iran on the European list of terrorist organisations whose funds and other financial assets were to be frozen1. This was the third occasion on which that Court had annulled a decision of this kind.
The previous decisions that had been annulled by the General Court2 had been based on the existence of a UK decision proscribing PMOI, the existence of such a decision by a competent authority at national level being a prerequisite for including an organisation on the EU list. However, PMOI was removed from the list of proscribed organisations in the UK on 24 June 2008, following a ruling of a national court in November 2007 which described that listing as “perverse” and “unreasonable”.

When, on 15 July 2008, the Council adopted a new decision3 updating the EU list, it nevertheless maintained PMOI on the list. The inclusion of PMOI was based on information provided by the French Government as to (i) the opening of a judicial inquiry by the anti-terrorist prosecutor’s office of the Tribunal de grande instance de Paris (Regional Court, Paris) in 2001 and (ii) two supplementary charges brought in 2007 against persons presumed to be members of PMOI. Information to this effect was communicated by the Council to PMOI on the day the decision was adopted.

Annulling this decision, the General Court found that the Council had violated the rights of defence of PMOI by not communicating this new information before adopting the decision.
Whilst this in itself was sufficient to annul the decision, the General Court, for the sake of completeness, also examined the other arguments put forward by PMOI. In particular it found that the opening of a judicial inquiry and the two supplementary charges did not constitute a decision by a competent authority, in respect of PMOI itself, noting that no reasons were advanced as to why the acts ascribed to the alleged members of PMOI should be attributed to that organisation itself. Furthermore, the Court found that by failing to communicate to the Court certain information about the case which the French authorities refused to declassify, the Council had equally infringed the fundamental right of PMOI to effective judicial protection.

France appealed against this judgment to the Court of Justice.
1 Case T-284/08 People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran II (see also Press Release 84/08)
2 Case T-228/02 Organisation des Modjahedines du peuple d’Iran (see also Press Release 97/06) and Case T-256/07 People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (see also Press Release 79/08)
3 Council Decision 2008/583/EC of 15 July 2008 implementing Article 2(3) of Regulation (EC) 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 (OJ 2008 L 188, p. 21).

www.curia.europa.eu

In her Opinion issued today, Advocate General Eleanor Sharpston suggests that the Court dismiss France’s appeal.

As regards the failure by the Council to communicate, prior to the adoption of its decision, the new information to PMOI which resulted in that organisation being maintained on the list, Advocate General Sharpston disagrees with the General Court that the Council had ample time between receiving the information from the French Government on 9 June and adopting its decision on 15 July to communicate that information to PMOI, taking into account the internal procedures of the Council.

However, in her view, this should not have prevented the Council from providing the information to PMOI before adopting a decision maintaining it on the list, as required by the Court’s case law. Whether or not issues of urgency arise, it is simply not open to the Council to ride roughshod over a party’s rights of defence.
So as to balance the interests of the Council, PMOI and the other persons on the list who have a right to have that list reviewed every six months, Miss Sharpston suggests that the Council should have adopted a decision as regards the other persons on the list within the timescale required but deferred adopting a decision in relation to PMOI until such time as it had had the opportunity to notify PMOI and consider that organisation’s response. The error made by the Council was in assuming that it had to adopt a single decision dealing simultaneously with all the persons and organisations on the list. This was not the case.

Consequently, Advocate General Sharpston concurs with the conclusion of the General Court that the Council’s decision had been adopted in violation of PMOI’s rights of defence. As this was the sole reason for the annulment of the decision by the General Court, the Advocate General suggests that the Court dismiss the appeal.
Mindful of the fact that the remaining arguments ought to have no bearing on the outcome of the case, Advocate General Sharpston nevertheless considers it important that they be addressed. Failing to do so would, in her opinion, leave France faced with precisely the same uncertainty that led it to appeal in the first place, an uncertainty which may well be shared by other Member States.

As to whether the opening of a judicial inquiry in 2001 and the supplementary charges brought against individuals suspected of being members of PMOI in 2007 constituted a decision by a competent authority, Miss Sharpston first considers that, given that terrorists are unlikely to assist the authorities by establishing themselves in an easily identifiable manner, the requirement that a national decision be taken “in respect of the persons, groups or entities concerned” must be interpreted broadly. As such it is, in her view, not necessary that the national decision name precisely the same persons or organisations as the EU decision. It is sufficient that there exist serious and credible evidence and clues that the persons named are essentially the same.

As to the nature of the national decision, the Advocate General takes the view that a simple decision to initiate investigations is not, of its own, enough. On the other hand, requiring the national decision to be taken by a court would be too strict a requirement. In her opinion there needs to be serious and credible evidence or clues which are strongly suggestive of a terrorist act and significantly more than mere suspicion or hypothesis.

Taking this into account, Advocate General Sharpston considers that the opening of a judicial inquiry in 2001, which led to further proceedings in 2003 (under French law known as a mise en examen) would meet this test but that the supplementary charges brought in 2007, which were not subject to a mise en examen, would not. As the two were taken together as a whole by the Council, this leads to the conclusion that the French decisions could not form the basis of the Council’s decision.
Furthermore, the Advocate General agrees with the General Court that no proof was provided that the investigations launched in 2007 against alleged members of PMOI could be said to be directed against PMOI itself.

Finally, as regards the withholding of confidential information from the General Court, Advocate General Sharpston takes no issue with that Court’s finding that the Council’s refusal to communicate the information in question resulted in the General Court being unable to review the lawfulness of the decision. However, given the absence of any specific provisions in that Court’s Rules of Procedure for dealing with information that needs to be communicated to the Court but not to the other party to the case, the Advocate General, nevertheless, does not find France’s position unreasonable. In strict accordance with the General Court’s Rules of Procedure it was not possible for that Court to offer the Council any assurance that the confidential information would not, at some point, have to be communicated to PMOI. As a result Advocate General Sharpston suggests that changes be made to the Rules of Procedure and principles be outlined so as to allow the use of such confidential information where necessary to combat terrorism whilst simultaneously ensuring respect of the rights of defence and the right to effective judicial protection.

NOTE: The Advocate General’s Opinion is not binding on the Court of Justice. It is the role of the Advocates General to propose to the Court, in complete independence, a legal solution to the cases for which they are responsible. The Judges of the Court are now beginning their deliberations in this case. Judgment will be given at a later date.
NOTE: An action for annulment seeks the annulment of acts of the institutions of the European Union that are contrary to European Union law. The Member States, the European institutions and individuals may, under certain conditions, bring an action for annulment before the Court of Justice or the General Court. If the action is well founded, the act is annulled. The institution concerned must fill any legal vacuum created by the annulment of the act.

Court of Justice of the European Union

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