Source: euobserver.com
A group of 150 cross-party parliamentarians in Germany has signed a petition calling for Iranian opposition group, the People's Mujahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI), to be taken off the EU's terrorist register in line with European court rulings.
Source: euobserver.com
A group of 150 cross-party parliamentarians in Germany has signed a petition calling for Iranian opposition group, the People's Mujahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI), to be taken off the EU's terrorist register in line with European court rulings.
"We demand that the German government with the co-operation of the French EU presidency removes this unjust label. The removal will serve the rule of law, show respect for the elected representatives of the people of Europe and address an urgent imperative for international peace," the petition said.
The text was handed to the leader of PMOI's political wing, the National Resistance Council of Iran (NRCI), Miriam Rajavi, at a ceremony in Berlin on Monday (24 November).
"If the international community doesn't want to see an aggressive and nuclear-armed Iran and wants to avoid war, the sole solution is a democratic change by the people of Iran," Ms Rajavi said.
The German petition was put together by the Committee of German Solidarity for a Free Iran and joins similar lists organized by the PMOI's powerful lobby in the UK, France, Italy, Denmark, Belgium and the European Parliament.
It also comes amid a fresh PMOI legal appeal in European Courts against a July decision by EU member states to keep the group on its terrorist register.
European courts have twice in the past overturned EU decisions to put PMOI on the blacklist, while a landmark UK court ruling earlier this year annulled the original British evidence that first landed PMOI on the register in 2002.
Spokespeople for the organization say the EU is keen to hold back PMOI as a bargaining chip in ongoing talks with the Iranian government over the country's nuclear enrichment program
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But a committee of EU member state intelligence agencies – the so-called CP 931 working group – claims that the organization remains a threat to European security.
The Iranian group – which was responsible for bombings and attacks against the Islamic leadership of Iran in the 1980s and 1990s – renounced violence in 2001 and gave up arms in 2003.