Canadian Press – Several hundred chanting, flag-waving demonstrators paraded on Parliament Hill on Thursday, urging the government to drop an Iranian opposition group from the formal list of banned, terrorist organizations.
The protesters, many of them Iranian emigres, said the PMOI, the People’s Mujahedeen Organization of Iran, offers secular opponents of the theocratic Iranian regime a political option for change.
The group is banned by the government as part of a larger terrorist organization called Mujahedeen-e-Khalq or MEK.
Raymonde Folco, a Liberal MP from north of Montreal who spoke to the group, said she believes the group was originally placed on the blacklist because of its use of the word mujahedeen.
"I think that, quite frankly, the appellation, the title that they have given themselves, the mujahedeen, which means the fighters, has an extremely bad reputation in North America and, I think, all over the world," she said.
"They are not terrorists."
Paul Forseth, a former Reform and Conservative MP who also addressed the demonstration, said he believes the group was first labelled terrorist by Washington in an ill-fated attempt to appease Tehran. Canada then followed suit, he added.
Folco said Iran needs a political opposition to stand up to the present regime and the world should show its support for the group.
"I have talked to these people extensively," she said. "It is very clear that they’re not out there to put up bombs and that sort of thing. They’re out there to bring democratic change in the country."
MEK was placed on the list of banned groups in May 2005 and its status was reviewed last November.
The Public Safety Department describes the group as "an Iranian terrorist organization that was based in Iraq until recently. It subscribes to an eclectic ideology that combines its own interpretation of Shiite Islamism with Marxist principles. The group aspires to overthrow the current regime in Iran and to establish a democratic, socialist, Islamic republic."
The department also says MEK is believed to have had ties to Saddam Hussein, as well as a number of Palestinian factions and is suspected of working with the former Taliban regime in Afghanistan.
