Following is a translation from French:
PARIS, 20 January 2009 (AFP) – On Tuesday the French League of Human Rights (LDH) called on the French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner to waiver an appeal on the ruling of European Court of Justice that has annulled the freezing of funds of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI), classified as "terrorist organization" by the European Union.
On 4 December 2008 the Court of First Instance of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) has annulled the freeze agreed by the EU. According to PMOI, this ruling should have lead to its removal from the European list of terrorist organizations.
The Danish Foreign Minister Per-stig Moeller on January 7 announced that Denmark will request the removal of PMOI from the list stressing that "the court said that unless an appeal before February 5 is filed, the decision of the ECJ should result in the withdrawal of this group from the list."
In a public letter to Mr. Kouchner, the chairman of the LDH Jean-Pierre Dubois said that "the same court had overturned a similar decision of the Council on December 12, 2006 and since then the British justices had made two successive decisions… saying that including the PMOI on the British list of terrorist organizations has been unlawful. The British listing was then the only basis for the EU’s list. Thus, the United Kingdom removed PMOI from its list on June 24 2008."
It accuses the minister to have produced before the court findings "bases designed to justify the decision to replace the British [government] for the listing of PMOI on a new foundation based on the investigation launched by France against PMOI in 2003 under the emergency law known as French anti-terrorist act".
LDH said that it "is unacceptable that France contributes actively and knowingly in maintaining more than questionable decisions of the European Union.”
Accordingly, the LDH President asked Mr. Kouchner "to intervene so that the Council of Ministers of the European Union does not file an appeal to the decision of the European judges since that could also be regarded as a delaying tactic and manifestly unfair. Instead, the respect for the rule of law should be applied as soon as possible to put an end to the unfair treatment of the PMOI which is our country’s fault".
