Wednesday, 28 March 2007

NCRI – Pursuing their policy of appeasement, some European Union states have told the mullahs they will do their best to maintain the PMOI on the terror list, ignoring the fact that the European Court of Justice stated this to be illegal. They hope this measure will lead to Tehran stopping its nuclear activities. These revelations were made by an MEP and representatives of the Iranian Resistance at a press conference in Berlin on 23 March. The German capital welcomed the EU heads of state to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the creation of the European Community… Read More

Sunday Telegraph
March 17, 2007
By Christopher Booker

The ruthlessness with which our Government enforces EU law against its citizens strikingly contrasts with its eagerness on occasion to flout EU law itself. One of the murkier chapters in our foreign policy in recent years has been the Foreign Office’s readiness to appease the dictatorial regime in Iran, for reasons not unconnected to a series of huge trade deals.

In March 2001 Jack Straw, then Home Secretary, placed on the list of terrorist organisations, under the Anti-Terrorism Act, the leading Iranian dissident organisation, the People’s Muhajedeen of Iran (PMOI), even though the PMOI claims to be opposed to terrorism in any way and wishes only to carry on its campaign for freedom and democracy in Iran in a peaceful fashion. Mr Straw last year admitted to the BBC that he had done this at the behest of the Teheran regime… Read More

The Daily Telegraph
Thursday, 15 February 2007
By Joshua Rozenberg, Legal Editor

(Excerpts)
Diplomatic pressure should be targeted at isolating the president of Iran before further, fateful steps are contemplated, we argued in our leader columns this week. Quite right. But what prospect is there of using the courts to undermine Mahmoud Ahmadinejad? …

Irwin Cotler, a former law professor who served as Canada’s attorney general and minister of justice until last year, outlined four ways in which legal action could be taken against Mr Ahmadinejad.

The first would involve the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide, an international treaty that came into force in 1951. Its 138 parties, which include Iran, agree that genocide is a crime under international law which they undertake to prevent and punish. But the treaty is not confined to genocide itself, nor to conspiracy, complicity and attempts.

Among the other acts punishable under the convention is “direct and public incitement to commit genocide”. Offenders “shall be punished whether they are constitutionally responsible rulers, public officials or private individuals”…

Signatories to the convention can ask the International Court of Justice to deal with a dispute over a state’s responsibility for incitement to genocide. In other words, Britain, America or pretty well any other country could request a ruling from the UN court over whether Iran was responsible for its president’s remarks and what amends the country should make. That would take years, however, and might have limited practical effect.

So Mr Cotler’s third option would involve an entirely different court in The Hague, the International Criminal Court. This was established in 1998 to try the most serious crimes of concern to the international community, including genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes…

However, the case against Mr Ahmadinejad could still be referred by the UN Security Council, under its powers to deal with threats to peace and acts of aggression. Again – more’s the pity – practical politics makes it unlikely that the UN will take the necessary action against Iran.

So we come to Mr Cotler’s fourth option, which is for an individual country to take action against Mr Ahmadinejad under its own national laws. This may prove difficult, as states do not usually claim jurisdiction over crimes committed abroad by nationals of another state…

Again, though, there are problems. Incitement to genocide is not an offence over which states have yet asserted universal jurisdiction and Mr Ahmadinejad cannot be forced to leave Iran and stand trial.

However, even issuing an indictment against him would have a significant public impact. And it would make it harder for him to travel abroad.

There is one thing, though, that our courts can do – even though it does not directly affect Mr Ahmadinejad. Iran’s main opposition group, the People’s Mojahedin Organisation of Iran, was banned in Britain as a terrorist organisation in 2001. But that was the year in which the group says it renounced military action, transforming itself into a legitimate political resistance movement.

As I reported last week, an application will be made this year to the Proscribed Organisations Appeal Commission, an independent tribunal created by the Terrorism Act 2000 to hear appeals against the Home Secretary’s refusal to remove an organisation from the banned list. The commission, chaired by the retired appeal judge Sir Charles Mantell, must allow an appeal if it thinks a court would have granted an application for judicial review.

What is interesting about the Act is that it allows an application to be made to the commission “by any person affected by the organisation’s proscription”. No doubt Parliament was thinking that this would cover potential members. But the application is being made by the former Conservative Home Secretary Lord Waddington, the former Labour solicitor general Lord Archer of Sandwell, and more than 30 other MPs and peers.

The commission is unlikely to feel pressured by the eminence of these applicants.

In the meantime, though, the Government should think carefully about whether it wants to support a man who has incited his people to mass murder while continuing to ban those who oppose him.

Thursday, 18 January 2007
Agence France Presse

LONDON – Iran offered to cut off aid and support for the Lebanese Shiite militia Hezbollah and the Palestinian group Hamas, and promised full transparency on its nuclear program in a secret letter to the United States soon after the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the British media reported.

According to the BBC, the letter, which it obtained, was unsigned, but the US State Department understood that it came with the approval of the highest Iranian authorities.

The Islamic republic also offered to use its influence to support stabilisation in Iraq, and in return asked for a halt in hostile American behaviour, an abolition of all sanctions, and the pursuit and repatriation of members of the Mujahedeen Khalq (People’s MOjahedIn of Iran, PMOI).

The PMOI is an exiled Iranian opposition group which fought alongside former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein’s army in the eight-year Iran-Iraq war, and is currently based in Iraq.

Initially, the State Department was positive on the offer, according to Lawrence Wilkerson, former US secretary of state Colin Powell’s chief of staff, who spoke to the BBC.

“As soon as it got to the White House, and as soon as it got to the Vice-President’s (Dick Cheney) office, the old mantra of ‘we don’t talk to evil’ … reasserted itself,” Wilkerson told the broadcaster.

“To our embarrassment at State … the cable that I saw go back to the Swiss actually upbraided the Swiss for being so bold and audacious as to present such a proposal to us on behalf of the Iranians.”

According to Wilkerson, the State Department was also offered a deal by the Iranians after it led the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 which involved Iran giving up senior Al-Qaeda terror network figures in return for help pursuing the PMOI.

Powell and Wilkerson were unsure how high in the Iranian government the approach came from, however, and did not pursue the offer, the BBC said.

Associated Press
December 20, 2006

BRUSSELS (AP)–Some European Union lawmakers and an exiled Iranian resistance movement Wednesday urged the E.U. and the U.S. to remove the Paris-based group quickly from their lists of terrorist organizations.

“Something must be done immediately to remove the People’s Mujahadeen of Iran from all terror lists,” said Struan Stevenson, a Conservative member of the European Parliament.

Last week, the European Court of Justice overturned an E.U. decision in 2002 to freeze the assets of the People’s Mujahadeen of Iran, or PMOI.

Despite the ruling, the E.U. has not removed the organization from its list of terrorist organizations or freed its assets. The E.U. said the court ruling didn’t call into question its blacklist, which includes groups and people like Osama bin Laden, Hamas and al-Qaida.

But Spanish E.U. lawmaker Alejo Vidal-Quadras Roca hailed the ruling, saying it obliged the authorities to end sanctions against PMOI. He described the decision to ban the group in 2002 as a “politically motivated goodwill gesture toward the Iranian government.”

He said that instead of encouraging moderates in Iran, the gesture had resulted in greater intransigence by Tehran on issues such as its nuclear program.

The mujahedeen were originally set up in the mid-1960s to oppose the U.S.-backed dictatorship of the late Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.

At the time, a Marxist splinter group within the PMOI carried out several attacks on Iranian security forces in which six U.S. advisers died. This was cited by the U.S. State Department as justification for placing the mujahedeen on its terror list in the mid-1990s.

After the 1979 Islamic revolution toppled the shah, the group was exiled to Iraq, from where they carried out cross-border raids during the 1980-88 war between the two countries. Several thousand of its members were disarmed by U.S. forces after Saddam’s overthrow in 2003 and restricted to an army camp near Baghdad.

Mohammad Mohaddessin, a member of the National Council of Resistance of Iran -an umbrella group that includes the PMOI – called on the U.S. State Department to take note of the court decision and remove the group from its own blacklist.

THe New York Times
December 13, 2006
By CRAIG S. SMITH

PARIS, Dec. 12 — Europe’s second highest court on Tuesday annulled a European Union decision that had frozen the funds of an exiled Iranian opposition group and called into question the group’s label as a terrorist organization.

The ruling by the European Court of First Instance was more than a financial victory for the group, the Mujahedeen Khalq, or People’s Holy Warriors, which has long argued that its terrorist label is unfair.

The European court ruled that the European Union had not provided adequate reasons or a fair hearing in deciding to freeze the organization’s assets in 2002, and that the decision “must be annulled.”

The European Union issued a statement in response to the ruling saying that the organization remained on the terrorist list and that it would consider appealing to the higher European Court of Justice.

“All restrictions resulting from the terror tag should be removed from the Iranian resistance immediately,” the group’s leader, Maryam Rajavi, said during a visit to the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France. She said that the ruling proved that her organization was a legitimate resistance movement rather than a terrorist group.

The Mujahedeen Khalq was formed by leftist students in Iran in 1965 and quickly became one of the most active groups opposing Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. But the Islamic government of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini turned against the group after the shah’s overthrow in 1979.

The group moved its headquarters to France and then to Iraq in 1986, when it set up a well-financed military base under the protection of Saddam Hussein. The American military disarmed the militia in May 2003 and has since kept its members confined to the camp near Baghdad.

Ms. Rajavi remained in Paris, in charge of the group’s political activities as head of the National Council of Resistance of Iran. She has been lobbying to be taken seriously as a viable opposition movement to topple the theocracy in Iran.

She argues that the organization has been unfairly labeled a terrorist organization out of the West’s misguided efforts to engage the Iranian government, and that the only real hope to effect change in Iran, short of war, is to support her organization and give it free rein.

Those hopes are not without some foundation: the fact that the group’s Iraqi military base is, in effect, under United States protection suggests that Washington may yet envision a role for the group if relations with Iran deteriorate further.

Wall Street Journal
December 13, 2006

BRUSSELS — The European Court of Justice overturned a European Union decision to freeze the assets of Mujahedin-e Khalq, an exiled Iranian resistance movement that is on the bloc’s terrorism blacklist.

The court’s ruling annuls a 2002 decision to freeze all European assets of the Paris-based group, also known by the acronym MEK. It was the first time an appeal to the EU’s terrorism list was successful at the Luxembourg-based court.

EU legal officials stressed that EU governments wouldn’t immediately remove the exile group from their terrorism list, arguing they had to study the full ruling of the court before any decisions will be made.

“For the time being they are on the list,” said Jean-Claude Piris, legal counsel to the 25 EU governments. “But we have to examine it as soon as possible.”

EU governments said in a statement that the court’s ruling didn’t call into question the EU’s antiterrorism list, which includes top terrorist groups and suspects like Osama bin Laden, Palestinian group Hamas, and al Qaeda. It added that the judgment also didn’t call into question a decision by EU governments that MEK is a terrorist organization.

The U.S. also lists the group as a terrorist organization. The group, founded by students at Tehran University in the 1960s, insists it advocates the overthrow of Iran’s hard-line clerical regime in Tehran by peaceful means.

International Herald Tribune
By Craig S. Smith
December 13, 2006

PARIS – Europe’s second-highest court on Tuesday annulled a European Union decision that had frozen the funds of an Iranian exile group and called into question the group’s label as a terrorist organization.

The ruling by the European Court of First Instance was more than a financial victory for the group, the Mujahedeen Khalq, which has long argued that its terrorist label was unfair.

“All restrictions resulting from the terror tag should be removed from the Iranian resistance immediately,” the group’s leader, Maryam Rajavi, said at the European Parliament in Strasbourg. She said that the ruling proved that her organization was a legitimate resistance movement rather than a terrorist group.

The Mujahedeen Khalq was formed by leftist students in Iran in 1965 and quickly became one of the most active groups opposing Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. But the Islamic government of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini turned against the group after the shah’s overthrow in 1979. It moved its headquarters to France and then to Iraq in 1986, where it set up a well-financed military based under the protection of Saddam Hussein. The U.S. military disarmed the militia in May 2003 and has since kept its members confined to a camp north of Baghdad since then.

Rajavi remained in Paris, in charge of the group’s political activities as head of the National Council of Resistance of Iran. She has been lobbying for the group to be taken seriously as a viable opposition movement to topple the Islamic theocracy in Iran.

She says the organization has been unfairly labeled a terrorist organization out of the West’s misguided efforts to engage the Iranian government, and that the only real hope to effect change in Iran short of war is to support her organization and give it free rein.

Those hopes are not without some foundation: The fact that the group’s Iraqi military base is, in effect, under U.S. protection, suggests that Washington may yet envision a role for the group if relations with Iran deteriorate further.

The European court ruled Tuesday that the EU had not provided adequate reasons or a fair hearing in deciding to freeze the organization’s assets in 2002 and that the decision “must be annulled.” The EU issued a statement in response to the ruling saying that the organization would remain on the terrorist list and that it would consider appealing to the higher European Court of Justice.

Wall Street Journal
December 12, 2006

The article “Iranian Imbroglio Gives New Boost to Odd Exile Group” (page one, Nov. 29) asserted that most American officials dispute claims of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran, the main Iranian resistance movement, of “having a mass following in Iran, stressing that many Iranians despise the organization.” Believing this would lead one to wonder why a “terrorist” labeling of such an “isolated” organization should be such a big deal for the clerical regime, as has been underscored by Martin Indyk, the assistant secretary of state for Near East Affairs at the time, who stated in the article that the Khatami government “considered it a pretty big deal.”

The Washington-based Iran Policy Committee, in a study of the regime’s official media, established in 2006 that Tehran paid five times more attention to the PMOI than to all other internal and external opposition groups combined. The Associated Press reported from Tehran on Dec. 5 that the Iranian regime has blocked access to YouTube.com mainly because videos from the PMOI have been posted on this site.

In reference to the assertion that the organization received help from the former Iraqi government, the article leaves unanswered one simple question: Four years into the downfall of the former Iraqi government, who finances the expenses of this elaborate resistance that operates inside and outside of Iran so extensively? Answer: The very same Iranian people who have been the sole source of support for the past 27 years.

Shahin Gobadi
Press Spokesman
National Council of Resistance of Iran
London