{"id":12780,"date":"2021-05-31T10:20:43","date_gmt":"2021-05-31T05:50:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/?p=12780"},"modified":"2021-05-31T10:20:43","modified_gmt":"2021-05-31T05:50:43","slug":"jennifer-carroll-macneill-wasnt-aware-event-was-linked-to-mek","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/posts\/12780","title":{"rendered":"Jennifer Carroll MacNeill wasn\u2019t aware event was linked to MEK"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jennifer Carroll MacNeill apologises for address to \u2018cult-like\u2019 Iranian group Mujahedin-e Khalq<\/strong><\/p>\n

Fine Gael TD Jennifer Carroll MacNeill has apologised for delivering an address to a \u201ccult-like\u201d Iranian dissident organisation that has been linked to terrorism.<\/p>\n

Ms Carroll MacNeill addressed an online event hosted by the People\u2019s Mujahedin of Iran on March 8 to mark International Women\u2019s Day (IWD).<\/p>\n

The People\u2019s Mujahedin of Iran, or MEK (Mujahedin-e Khalq), which is committed to overthrowing Iran\u2019s Islamic Republic, has been described as a cult by disaffected former members and was once designated as a terrorist organisation by the US and UK.<\/p>\n

The UN\u2019s Committee Against Torture has previously said the MEK has been \u201cinvolved in terrorist activities and is therefore a less legitimate replacement for the current regime\u201d. Ms Carroll MacNeill spoke at the event on the issue of human rights and expressed solidarity with \u201cbrave, brave Iranian women who have been actively taking part in and standing at the forefront of the anti-regime protests\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"Jennifer

Jennifer Carroll MacNeill apologises for address to \u2018cult-like\u2019 Iranian group Mujahedin-e Khalq<\/p><\/div>\n

Speaking to the Sunday Independent, Ms Carroll MacNeill said she had been asked by a constituent to speak at an online parliamentary conference to celebrate IWD.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe event was attended by many other European parliamentarians and was in recognition of Iranian women\u2019s fight for gender equality,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe invitation and correspondence I received in relation to the event did not make any reference to the [MEK], nor was I ever aware or made aware of any link between the event and this organisation.<\/p>\n

\u201cI apologise for any link, no matter how remote, unwitting or inadvertent, to any such organisation. The invitation made no such reference and my motivation was entirely about the advancement of women\u2019s rights on International Women\u2019s Day in a country where women\u2019s rights are very considerably behind where we would hope they would be<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n

In her address to the conference, the D\u00fan Laoghaire TD also referenced Foreign Affairs Minister Simon Coveney\u2019s engagement with the Iranian government in recent months as part of Ireland\u2019s membership of the UN Security Council. She said Mr Coveney had asked her to inform the conference that in a meeting with his Iranian counterpart Javad Zarif in Tehran in March he raised \u201ca whole range of human rights issues, issues [that are] anathema to our foreign minister and to our Irish parliament, that there is, for example, no law on domestic violence and that the age of maturity of criminal responsibility for girls in Iran is nine, whereas it\u2019s 15 for boys<\/em>\u201d.<\/p>\n

Mr Coveney was last week criticised by one of his own colleagues, backbencher John Paul Phelan, for \u201ccosying up\u201d up to the Iranian regime having twice met with the foreign minister in recent months. Mr Phelan said Mr Coveney appeared to be \u201cfawning\u201d over Mr Zarif when he visited Dublin earlier this month and questioned how his Fine Gael colleague could \u201cjustify soft-soaping the Iranians in the midst of what\u2019s going on in Palestine and Israel\u201d and given Hamas\u2019s stated goal of destroying the state of Israel.<\/p>\n

By Hugh O’Connell, independent<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jennifer Carroll MacNeill apologises for address to \u2018cult-like\u2019 Iranian group Mujahedin-e Khalq Fine Gael TD Jennifer Carroll MacNeill has apologised for delivering an address to a \u201ccult-like\u201d Iranian dissident organisation…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":12781,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[24518,52,79,85],"module":[67],"ctype":[17],"blog":[299],"class_list":["post-12780","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mujahedin-khalq-organization-as-a-terror-group","tag-jennifer-carroll-macneill","tag-mujahedin-khalq-destructive-cult","tag-mujahedin-khalq-declining","tag-mujahedin-khalq-terrorism","module-news","ctype-story","blog-independentreport"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12780","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12780"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12780\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12781"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12780"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12780"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12780"},{"taxonomy":"module","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/module?post=12780"},{"taxonomy":"ctype","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ctype?post=12780"},{"taxonomy":"blog","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/blog?post=12780"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}