Grounds for Immediate Delisting of the MEK
- There is an absence of any evidence – classified or otherwise – to satisfy the statutory requirements and to justify maintaining the MEK on the FTO list, a fact attested to by the rulings of
Eight European courts reviewed thousands of pages of classified and unclassified materials and ruled that the MEK was not concerned in terrorism.
Congressman Ted Poe (R-TX) stated on the record during a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing that “I have seen the classified evidence and it is unconvincing. The State Department has not made its case that the MEK should stay on the FTO list.”
Ambassador Dell Dailey, former State Department Counterterrorism Coordinator and responsible for the MEK case, had urged the then-Secretary of State to de-list the MEK based on absence of any evidence to satisfy the legal criteria.
- The July 2010 U.S. Federal Court of Appeals’ ruling described the decision by then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, to maintain the MEK in the list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTO), as lacking sufficient evidence, violating the due process and unlawful.
Remarkably, in an oblique reference to the State Department’s unconvincing case to justify designation, the Court said in its opinion that “[w]e recognize that a strict and immediate application of the principles of law which we have set forth herein could be taken to require a revocation of the designation [] before us.”
The Secretary of State has so far failed to present the Congress with credible evidence showing that the MEK engages in terrorism or terrorist activity, or has the capability and intent to do so.
- Two Congressional resolutions, H. RES 60 and H. RES 1431, co-sponsored by some 130 members of Congress from both parties, have urged the MEK delisting.
- A bi-partisan roster of former senior U.S. government officials has called for the MEK delisting. A multitude of US subject matter experts on terrorism have also urged the delisting.
- The demand for the MEK delisting, as a prelude to adopting the policy of support for democratic change in Iran, is the Iranians’ national call.
Many members of the MEK have been arrested, tortured, and executed in Iran under the pretext of, citing the designation by the State Department, cracking down on “terrorists.”
The Iraqi government has justified its inhumane treatment of 3,400 MEK members residing in Camp Ashraf by invoking the group’s placement on the FTO list, claiming that the residents have no rights because they are terrorists.
The designation has acted as the main obstacle for relocation of the residents of Ashraf to third countries, including EU member states, according to the UN Refugee Agency.
The MEK’s designation has sharply curtailed Iranian-Americans’ pro-democracy activities since support for, or association with, an FTO carries a risk of criminal prosecution.