By Michele Sinner
Reuters – Europe’s second-highest court on Tuesday annulled an EU decision freezing the funds of an exiled Iranian opposition group that argues it was wrongly placed on the European Union’s list of terrorist organizations.
The decision is likely to infuriate Tehran and may have wider implications for the EU’s policy of banning alleged terrorist groups and freezing their assets.
EU member states ordered the freezing of funds of the People’s Mujahideen (OMPI) in 2002. The armed wing of the France-based National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) has stated that it has renounced military activity since 2001.
The NCRI called the court decision "a great victory".
In a ruling on a case brought by the Iranian opposition, the European Court of First Instance said: "The court finds that the decision ordering the freezing of the OMPI’s funds does not contain a sufficient statement of reason and that it was adopted in the course of a procedure during which the right of the party concerned to a fair hearing was not observed.
"Accordingly that decision must be annulled in so far as it concerns the OMPI," it said in a ruling open to appeal before the higher European Court of Justice.
ECJ decisions are binding on member states, but would not preclude decisions by individual governments to keep the group on their own terror lists.
"REMOVE TERROR TAG"
NCRI leader Maryam Rajavi called the ruling "proof of the resistance’s legitimacy over religious fascism in Iran".
"All restrictions resulting from the terror tag should be removed from the Iranian resistance immediately, and unfair treatment that culminates from it should stop at once," she said during a visit to the European Parliament in Strasbourg.
An EU spokesman declined immediate comment, saying legal experts were studying the judgment.
The NCRI said the Iranian government had used the EU decision to justify repression of OMPI sympathizers in Iran and to try to restrict its activities abroad.
Despite being labeled a terrorist group in the EU and the United States, the OMPI has devoted followers on both continents and was the first body to expose Iran’s covert nuclear program.
But diplomats and Iran analysts say it has little support within Iran, where few can forgive it for siding with Saddam Hussein in the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war.
The NCRI complained that the group was added to the EU terrorist list under pressure from Tehran at a time when Western countries were trying to improve relations with Iran.
The movement argued that the EU decision had breached its right to defend itself and failed to take into account the right to revolt against tyranny and oppression.
(Additional reporting by David Brunnstrom in Brussels)
