EUOBSERVER / Brussels, FEb. 14 – Some 250 supporters of Iran opposition group PMOI waved flags with a red fist and rifle logo in front of the EU headquarters in Brussels on Wednesday (14 February) calling for PMOI to be taken off the EU terrorist list, as the EU and US explore new ways to pressure nuclear-hopeful Tehran.
"We don’t need European money but we want to have our hands free so we can raise money ourselves," a spokesman for the protestors, Mehdi Nobare, told EUobserver on the spot. "We are still alive in Iran despite the government’s repression. We want to hold real elections so the Iranian people can choose."
EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS – Some 250 supporters of Iran opposition group PMOI waved flags with a red fist and rifle logo in front of the EU headquarters in Brussels on Wednesday (14 February) calling for PMOI to be taken off the EU terrorist list, as the EU and US explore new ways to pressure nuclear-hopeful Tehran.
"We don’t need European money but we want to have our hands free so we can raise money ourselves," a spokesman for the protestors, Mehdi Nobare, told EUobserver on the spot. "We are still alive in Iran despite the government’s repression. We want to hold real elections so the Iranian people can choose
PMOI – the People’s Mujahidin Organisation of Iran – started out as a Marxist-Islamist anti-corruption group in 1965 but later orchestrated military action against Tehran in the 1990s. It renounced violence in 2001 and has strong ties with the Iran opposition-in-exile group, the NRCI, based in France.
The Wednesday protest was attended mostly by ordinary Iranian expats from across Belgium with children present, as well as a handful of NRCI activists. "This [the red rifle logo] is not a violent symbol, it is a historic symbol," Mr Nobare said, while four van-fulls of Belgian police looked on calmly from a few yards away.
EU states have kept PMOI on their list despite the court ruling so far, in a situation dubbed "illegal" by PMOI lawyers and political allies. The court ruling led the EU to send PMOI a letter last week explaining the charges against it however, citing PMOI calls for military action against Iran and protests outside Iran embassies in the 1990s as evidence.
"Once we have received their reply, we will consider if they should still be on the list or not. We don’t know if this will be one page or 200 pages. I don’t know how long this will take," an EU official explained. "With this, we consider that we are in compliance with the court ruling."
The court decision – which complained that EU states decide who goes on the list in secret with no way to appeal – has also caused wider changes in EU security work. When EU states review the whole list of 104 individuals and groups in March, everybody will be sent "statements of reasoning," the EU official confirmed.
"The [EU states] are making a mockery of the EU institutions and of democracy. You have to go back to the Inquisition, which also made its accusations in secret, to see processes like this," Portuguese socialist MEP Paulo Casaca – who co-chairs a 12-strong cross-party MEP caucus called "Friends of Free Iran" – said.
EU’s Iran policy in flux
The same week, the US published intelligence photographs to show that high-tech bombs which have killed American and British soldiers in Iraq originated in Iran. The move was read by defence analysts as the US preparing a case for military strikes against Iran nuclear sites.
The PMOI case in Brussels fits in to the bigger picture, with Mr Casaca saying PMOI camps in Iraq have also supplied western forces with reports that "stooges of the Iranian regime are massacring people" in Iraq. "Iran does not want people to know this. I accuse the council [EU states] of aiding the massacres in Iraq" he said, referring to the EU’s clampdown on PMOI.
The MEP is not alone in calling for Brussels and Washington to help PMOI and NRCI exert extra pressure on Tehran. This month, a 35-strong group of British MPs and eminent legal figures led by Labour Party peer Lord Corbett launched a legal complaint against the UK’s home office to delist PMOI.
PMOI could have ‘tactical use’
In the US, a group of retired US generals calling themselves the "Iran Policy Committee" and Republican party congressman Tom Tancredo have been urging Washington for over a year to make "tactical use" of PMOI by taking it off its list.
But France and the UK – which led the push for EU states to put PMOI on the terrorist register back in 2002 – have reacted with a poker face so far. "We are aware of the voices in the UK and US," a British diplomat said. "But we have no contact with PMOI or NRCI and I am not aware of any moves by the home office to delist them."
A French diplomat said PMOI should stay on the list because the court ruling was based on technical issues of right of appeal, not "substantial" issues of security risks. "We know this scenario [of the tactical use of PMOI]. But we are not on the same line of thinking," the contact said.