Kuwait News Agency — Legal action is being taken by British MPs and peers to try to force the UK Government to remove an Iranian opposition group from a list of organisations banned under anti-terror law, it was announced here Wednesday.
The 35, from across all political parties, have lodged an appeal against the proscription of the People’s Mujahedin of Iran (PMOI), claiming it is non-violent and poses no threat to security.
It will force British Home Secretary John Reid to produce justification for the continued banning of the group, a decision first taken by predecessor Jack Straw in 2001, political observers said.
Labour peer Lord Corbett, who is spearheading the campaign, accused ministers of "appeasement" of the Iranian regime by refusing to lift the restrictions.
And he attacked the Government for leading EU moves to continue a freeze on the PMOI’s assets despite a European Court of Justice ruling that it was unjustified.
Lord Corbett, chairman of the Parliamentary Committee for Iran Freedom, said in a statement "The PMOI was only placed on the list because the mullahs demanded this as the price of opening talks with the EU about its nuclear development".
"It is to the United Kingdom’s shame that it sided with those who use terror at home and export it abroad rather than with the victims of that terror".
"It is even more shameful that this Government now has defied a ruling of the European Court to unfreeze the PMOI assets on the grounds that it remains a terrorist group".
"This makes a mockery of the European Court and sends another signal to the mullahs to keep developing nuclear weapons, keep killing British troops in Iraq, keep arming Hezbollah to try to unseat the elected government in Lebanon and keep arming and training Hamas to try and block any possible Palestine-Israel peace agreement", the statement added.
The PMOI claims to have entirely renounced violence in 2003 to act as a purely political force for reform in Iran.
The appeal lodged with the UK Proscribed Organisations Appeals Commission was expected to be heard later this year. (end) he.bz.
