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Remove Iran main opposition from terror list - Australian dignitaries |
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Friday, 23 December 2005 |
 NCRI - Australian Parliamentarians, human rights activists, and jurists
expressed support for the People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran and
the National Council of Resistance of Iran in a conference in
Queensland on December 15.
The gathering was organized by the Center for Iranian Refugees,
Queensland, and the Australian Association in Defense of Freedom and
Human Rights in Iran. The conference was chaired by Senator Andrew
Bartlett, the first Vice-president of the Australian Democratic Party.
The speakers offered their support to the PMOI members residing in Camp
Ashraf, Iraq, and called for an end to the Iranian regime's meddling in
Iraq.
As the first speaker, Dr. Jocelyn Scutt, barrister and a prolific
Australian author criticized the prevailing silence over human rights
violations in Iran and raised her concern over the plight PMOI members
in Camp Ashraf. She revealed the Iranian regime’s conspiracies against
the camp’s residents and called on the coalition forces of their
responsibilities under the Fourth Geneva Convention. She condemned the
abduction of two PMOI members in Iraq by agents of the clerical regime
last August and stressed that this was yet another clear violation of
human rights by terrorist dictatorship in Iran. She ended her remarks
by a famous word from Mahatma Gandhi that love and truth will always
prevail and dictators are eventual losers although they may appear
invincible.
Concerned with the unjust terror label against the PMOI, Peter Murphy,
founding member of the Search Foundation and the organizer of the
Movement for Peace and Justice in Sydney, stressed that there was no
justification to maintain the main Iranian opposition movement in the
list of terrorist organizations. He denounced the religious
dictatorship in Iran for its meddling in Iraq and conspiracies against
Camp Ashraf. He reminded the participants that 16 months of
investigations by various U.S. bodies into the status of PMOI members
in the camp proved that not a single one of them had been involved in
any terror activities and therefore they were recognized as protected
persons under the Fourth Geneva Convention.
Ms. Fredricka Steen, chair of the Romero Center, the biggest refugee
organization in Queensland with experience of helping refugees from
Iran, described Australian policy on Iranian refugees as shameful. She
said it was outrageous that the victims of repression who had fled the
mullahs’ tyranny had to face yet more pressures by the government in
Australia.
Rejecting the terror label against the PMOI as being unlawful, Terry
Fischer, a distinguished lawyer from Queensland expressed doubts as to
how an organization could be labeled as terrorist while 120,000 of its
members and supporters been executed for their struggle for freedom and
democracy. He described resistance against the tyranny in Iran as a
legitimate right and called for immediate removal of the PMOI from the
terror lists.
Islamic fundamentalism, its threats and its anti-thesis was discussed
by Lesly Hunt, another distinguished Lawyer and human rights activist
as the next speaker. She spoke about Mrs. Maryam Rajavi’s
anti-fundamentalist views which is needed to be supported in contrast
to repressive ideas spread by the religious dictatorship in Iran.
Representatives of the Iranian communities in Queensland also addressed
the event and condemned mullahs’ meddling in Iraq. In a declaration
which was read out in the conference they expressed their support to
the PMOI.
The event ended with a piece of traditional Persian music played by artists from Queensland.
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