Wednesday, 23 January 2008

Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly describes the ruling by POAC to de-proscribe the PMOI a slap in the face for HM Government and calls on member states to abide by orders handed down by the judicial institutions

Maryam Rajavi said that the EU Council is defying the judicial and legislative institutions and called on member states not to allow the continuation of such a scandal and lawlessness

NCRI – In its session today, Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly adopted the draft report and resolution on the terrorist lists prepared by its Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights (CLAHR). Citing the report, the resolution reiterated that “The Council of the European Union and the EU Member States must implement immediately the decisions of competent European and national judicial institutions affecting the status of the listed persons or entities.”

The report criticized the EU Council for not implementing the verdict by Court of First Instance of the European Communities (CFIEC) in removing the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI) from the EU terror list. The report added, “PMOI’s fundamental rights continue to be violated.” The report also noted that the ruling by the Proscribed Organizations Appeal Commission (POAC) ordering the British government to deproscribe the PMOI was “a real slap in the face for HM Government.”

“This decision does not simply identify procedural defects, but gives a ruling on the merits, having reviewed in detail the arguments and evidence presented by both sides,” the report said. The report described “the government’s decision to blacklist the PMOI as ‘perverse’.”

The report added that the case was brought before POAC by 35 British parliamentarians including a former Home Secretary, Lord Waddington, the former Solicitor-General, Lord Archer, and retired judge in the House of Lords, Lord Slynn.

The report said that there were questions in the British press as to why the British Government, which also appeared to be behind the blacklisting of the PMOI at European level, was so antagonistic to this group. “The group which was campaigning for replacement of the Mullahs’ regime by a secular democracy, and had drawn the world’s attention to Iran’s nuclear program in 2002,” the report noted.

Referring to damages inflected on the PMOI as a result of the proscription, including the revocation of the asylum standing of a number of PMOI members and affiliates, the report further added, “Several PMOI members have told me [Dick Marty, CLAHR Chairman] of criminal proceedings in Iran, in which the fact of its being recognize as a ‘terrorist’ organization by the EU has been used as an argument in demanding the death penalty.”

President-elect of the Iranian Resistance, Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, welcomed the resolution and described it an indication of the awakened conscience of European people against such great injustice imposed on the Iranian people and their Resistance over the years in order to appease the religious fascism ruling Iran.

She added that by deciding to maintain the PMOI on its terror list, the EU Council is absolutely isolated and is defying two pillars of the European democracy, namely Europe’s judicial and legislative institutions. Insisting on the same policy, the Council is not only in breach of the law, but also has defied the will of representatives of millions of Europeans who are represented in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.

Mrs. Rajavi called on the EU member states to remove the PMOI from the terrorist list and not allow such lawlessness and scandal, originally imposed on the Council by the British government, continue.

Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran
January 23, 2008

Press Association
Wednesday, 23 January 2008
By Geoff Meade, PA Europe editor

Brussels – United Nations and European Union blacklists of terrorist suspects were condemned this afternoon as a violation of human rights and a threat to the credibility of the international fight against terrorism.

The damning verdict from Europe’s human rights watchdog, the Council of Europe, was coupled with demands for a review of UN and EU blacklisting procedures.

The Council’s Parliamentary Assembly, meeting in Strasbourg, backed a report attacking the methods used by the UN Security Council and the EU to blacklist individuals and groups suspected of having terrorist connections abuse basic rights and are “completely arbitrary”.

The report’s author, Swiss MP Dick Marty declared: “Injustice is terrorism’s best ally – and we must fight it too.”

His report, endorsed by MPs from the Council’s 46 member countries, including all 27 EU member states:
“Let us say it clearly: the current blacklisting practice is scandalous and blemishes the honour of the institutions making use of it in such a way. Blacklisting without respecting the most elementary rights puts into the question the credibility of the fight against terrorism and thus reduces its effectiveness.”

Mr Marty’s report says 370 people world-wide currently have their assets frozen and their international travel blocked because the UN has put them on a blacklist. And about 60 groups and bodies are on another blacklist kept by the EU.

Grounds for sanctions against them all amount to “mere suspicion” says the report, describing the measures as “deplorable and a violation of human rights and fundamental freedoms”.

It goes on: “”Even the members of the committee which decides on blacklisting are not given all the reasons for blacklisting particular persons or groups.

“Usually, those persons or groups are not told that blacklisting has been requested, given a hearing or even, in some cases, informed of the decision – until they try to cross a frontier or use a bank account. There is no provision for independent review of these decisions”.

Such procedures are “unworthy” of international institutions such as the UN and EU and undermines the legitimacy of using “targeted sanctions” against terrorists, says the report.

And it warns that Council of Europe member states which are required to enforce such sanctions “may well violate their obligations under the European Convention on Human Rights”

Today’s overwhelming vote backing the report includes a demand that the UN and EU review their blacklist procedures “to preserve the credibility of the international fight against terrorism”.

International bodies such as the UN and EU, with their “lofty goals”, ought to set an example by respecting minimum standards and legal certainty under the rule of law, said the report.

Therefore blacklisted groups or individuals should have the right:
– “to be notified and adequately informed of the charges held against oneself, and of the decision taken;
– “to enjoy the fundamental right to be heard and to be able to adequately defend oneself against these charges;
– “to be able to have the decision affecting one’s rights speedily reviewed by an independent, impartial body with a view to modifying or annulling it.”

The report was welcomed this afternoon by the main Iranian opposition group, the People’s Mojahedin Organisations of Iran (PMOI) which is still on the EU’s blacklist despite a court ruling ordering the UK government – which put the PMOI on the list in the first place – to remove it.

Dick Marty’s report says cases such as the PMOI controversy are an example of the “disastrous” effects of the blacklists.

The PMOI successfully challenged its place on the blacklist in the EU’s highest court, and also won a case last November before the UK’s independent judicial authority, the Proscribed Organisations Appeal Commission, which described the British Government’s blacklisting of the PMOI as unlawful.

POAC chairman Sir Harry Ognall, a former judge, said the Government’s decision to blacklist the PMOI was “perverse”.

It was, says Mr Marty’s report, a “sensational” result and “a real slap in the face” for the UK Government.

And yet the PMOI is still on the blacklist, points out the report – just one of a number of similar cases around Europe which “illustrate the drastic consequences which the flawed procedures still current in the UN Security Council and the EU can have for innocent parties, who face almost insurmountable difficulties in securing the most basic of their rights.”

The report’s resolution calling for minimum procedural standards of fundamental rights to be applied to blacklisting methods was approved by 101-3. UK delegates on the Council of Europe’s Parliamentary Assembly who approved the resolution included Labour MPs Rudi Vis, Lord Tomlinson, Edward O’Hara and Bill Etherington and Conservative Humfrey Malins.

Another Labour MP, John Austin, abstained, and fellow Labour MP Denis McShane, voted against,, alongside two Romanian socialist MP.

Middle East Times
Friday, 11 January 2008
By Ali Safavi

In 2007, the turmoil in Pakistan culminated in the gruesome assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto on Dec. 27. Although the epicenter of this political tremor shook Pakistan, its ripple effect was quickly felt throughout the world.

The incident was especially worrying because it demonstrated that, as the second most populous Muslim nation, Pakistan is seeing a sharp rise in Islamic fundamentalism. This trend has marred the country’s political process in recent months with more bloodshed as a consequence. Aside from mounting concerns over the safety of Islamabad’s nuclear stockpiles, the resulting violence has also tended to spill over into neighboring countries like Afghanistan.

These worries, along with Pakistan’s strategic significance, have led to questions about who benefited most from Bhutto’s assassination and what can be done to prevent the further rise of Islamic fundamentalism in that region?

Pakistan’s western neighbor, Iran, is perhaps the only major country in the world where Islamic fundamentalists are at the helm of political power. Access to multi-billion dollar oil revenues coupled with Iran’s unique geographical location have endowed the ruling theocracy with opportunities other fundamentalists could only dream of. The regime has both the formal intent as well as the practical tools for exporting its extremist ideology to neighboring countries.

Bhutto’s rise in Pakistan had the potential of obstructing the mullahs’ attempts to darken the political horizon of that region, and especially Afghanistan. This explains why Tehran stood to benefit the most from her assassination.

Preventing the rise of fundamentalism, then, starts with an understanding of the essence and influence of the Iranian regime in this regard. More notably, unable to conform to the economic and political imperatives of the 21st century, the regime’s senior leaders have for years emphasized the need to utilize unconventional tools in order to maintain a balance of power with other states, including the use of terrorism, which they described as “a new leverage of power.” The theory was put into practice, for example, with the creation of the extraterritorial Qods (Jerusalem) Force, recently designated as a terrorist organization by the United States.

Not surprisingly, today every major hot-spots in the Middle East bear the vile stench of the Iranian regime. Iraq was a major target even before the March 2003 U.S.-led invasion. Despite recent tactical setbacks, the mullahs have not abandoned their strategic plan to create a sister Islamic republic there.

Indeed, there are now additional reasons for the mullahs to foment violence in Iraq. In May 2006, a deputy at the foreign affairs commission of the regime’s Majlis (parliament) told the official news agency, ISNA, “A single car exploding in Iraq would equal a month-long setback for America’s plots [against the Iranian regime].”

But, Iraq is only a stepping stone. Implying the importance of obtaining regional hegemony (or an “Islamic empire”), the daily Kayhan, the mouthpiece of the mullahs’ Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei wrote in August, “The fate of Iran’s nuclear dossier will be determined not at the negotiating table, but in the streets of Baghdad and Beirut.” Undoubtedly, the streets of Islamabad have rapidly moved up on the list.

Therefore, as long as a lively heart beats in Tehran, attempts to rid the Middle East from Islamic fundamentalism will go in vain. To stop the poison from spreading throughout the region we need an antidote.

There is currently widespread opposition to the mullahs inside Iran. As the largest and most organized opposition, the People’s Mujahideen Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) is the tip of that spear. The PMOI espouses a tolerant and democratic interpretation of Islam, which has placed it in the unique position of being the most effective antithesis to the mullahs’ medieval ideology.

Regrettably, however, keen to appease Tehran, Western countries have shackled the PMOI by labeling it as a “terrorist” group. In a landmark ruling in November 2007, a specialist court in Britain, the Proscribed Organizations Appeal Commission, having examined in detail all open and classified material before it, ruled that the British Home Secretary’s decision to refuse to de-proscribe the PMOI was “perverse” and “must be set aside.” Earlier, in December 2006, the European Court of Justice had determined that the EU was wrong to place a “terrorist” label on the PMOI.

Despite these definitive verdicts, both the EU and the British government have refused to implement the judgments, effectively making a mockery of the rule of law in Europe. Obviously, such blatant defiance is meant to mollify the turbaned terrorists in Tehran with the ultimate expectation that it would compel them to modify their behavior at home and abroad and also avert another military confrontation in the turbulent Middle East region.

Ironically, this misguided approach, which is reminiscent of the disastrous policy toward Nazi Germany in the 1930s, has only resulted in blocking the path to democratic change in Iran and emboldening the mullahs to dramatically step up domestic repression. Needless to say, Tehran’s training of terrorists and the dispatch of lethal weapons and munitions to Iraq and Afghanistan as well as its pursuit of nuclear weapons have also continued unabatedly.

For their part, the Iranian people and their organized resistance movement have demonstrated remarkable resilience in the face of adversity. Despite the regime’s attempts to spawn unprecedented terror among the population by hanging at least 297 people in 2007, including dozens of minors, Iranian cities were rocked with some 4,500 anti-government demonstrations and protests, in which the enraged citizenry were chanting, among other things, “death to the dictator.”

Today, the specter of fundamentalist ghoul spans from the Horn of Africa to South Asia. Tomorrow, it will cover the Western hemisphere. So, it is certainly naive to feed it through appeasement now and hope that it would eat us last. The real solution is to target Islamic fundamentalism’s heart in Tehran by standing with the Iranian people and their resistance movement. The first and most effective step in this endeavor would be to de-list the mullahs’ greatest nemesis, the PMOI.

Ali Safavi is a member of the opposition National Council of Resistance, Iran’s parliament-in-exile. (www.neareastpolicy.com)

VRT Television
Sunday, 10 June 2007

Belgium – A man is arrested in Tehran streets and is brutally tortured by masked men in public. The pictures are recorded using mobile phones and are smuggled out secretly by the supporters of the Iranian Resistance.The people who are exposing these violent acts of the Iranian regime are themselves listed as a terror organization. The Mojahedin-e-Khalq is the main opposition group active in Iran and has been listed in the terror list since 2002… Read More

Le Soir (Belgian Daily)
Saturday, 09 June 2007

Belgium – The EU Council is planning to keep MEK in the terrorist list again. It seems that the Council is not paying attention to the verdict of EU Court of Justice issued on December 12th which ruled in favor of Mojahedin. (The Council did not even appeal this verdict.)The Council has made up its mind a few months ago. A letter written by Christoph Heusgen, advisor to the German Chancellor Angela Merkel to Vice President of European Parliament Vidal-Quatras, states that there has been an unanimous agreement on this issue since last February. In February 2007, the Council reached an agreement that the reasons for the inclusion of Mojahedin in the list still apply… Read More

Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
Monday June 4, 2007

Danish Parliament has an EU Committee which investigated the EU Council of Minister’s decision on June 2nd. According to members of this committee ignoring the ruling of EU Court to remove People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI) from the terrorist list is a disaster. Read More

Canadian Press
Thursday, 19 April 2007

OTTAWA – Several hundred chanting, flag-waving demonstrators paraded on Parliament Hill on Thursday, urging the government to drop an Iranian opposition group from the formal list of banned, terrorist organizations. The protesters, many of them Iranian emigres, said the PMOI, the People’s Mujahedeen Organization of Iran, offers secular opponents of the theocratic Iranian regime a political option for change. The group is banned by the government as part of a larger terrorist organization called Mujahedeen-e-Khalq or MEK. Raymonde Folco, a Liberal MP from north of Montreal who spoke to the group, said she believes the group was originally placed on the blacklist because of its use of the word mujahedeen… Read More

Voice of America
10 May 2007

An Iranian resistance group has gone to court to force the European Union to remove the organization from a terror blacklist and pay it $1.4 million in damages. At a news conference Thursday in Brussels, lawyers representing the People’s Mujahadeen Organization of Iran complained that the EU continued to list the group as a terrorist organization, despite a court ruling annulling that designation. Read More

Thursday, 05 April 2007

NCRI – The Swedish newspaper Dagen, published on 29 March an article calling the Swedish government and the European Union to abide by the ruling of the European Court of Justice and remove the name of the People’s Mojahedin Organisation of Iran (PMOI) from the terror list.Erik Wahlberg, a jurist and human rights advocate, along with Gösta Grönroos, a researcher and philosopher at Stockholm University, state in their article that “no one can understand the odd logic of the European Union of which Sweden is a member, in its relations with the fundamentalist dictatorship in Iran, nor in its relations with the democratic Iranian movement in exile. Instead of supporting the democratic movement, the European Union has chosen the policy to put the main democratic Iranian organisation on the terror list.” … Read More