Source: The Associated Press
PARIS (AP) — Thousands of supporters of an Iranian opposition group called on the European Union and the United States to remove the organization from terror blacklists at a massive rally Saturday outside Paris.
The Paris-based National Council Resistance of Iran [NCRI] — an umbrella group that includes the blacklisted People's Mujahedeen of Iran, or PMOI [MEK] — held the rally at an exhibition center in the northern Villepinte suburb just days after Britain removed PMOI [MEK]from its list of banned terror groups.
Source: The Associated Press
PARIS (AP) — Thousands of supporters of an Iranian opposition group called on the European Union and the United States to remove the organization from terror blacklists at a massive rally Saturday outside Paris.
The Paris-based National Council Resistance of Iran [NCRI] — an umbrella group that includes the blacklisted People's Mujahedeen of Iran, or PMOI [MEK] — held the rally at an exhibition center in the northern Villepinte suburb just days after Britain removed PMOI [MEK]from its list of banned terror groups.
But National Council leader Maryam Rajavi said the group's status in the U.S. and EU was hindering its ability to fight for regime change in Iran.
In a speech at the Paris rally, she called the terrorist labels "unjust."
"Do not deprive the world from the most effective means to combat the religious fascism and terrorism," Rajavi, dressed in a blue suit and headscarf, told the boisterous crowd. "Instead, side with those who can bring the Iranian people freedom."
Although the PMOI participated in Iran's Islamic Revolution, it later became opposed to the clerical government. Members of the group moved to Iraq in the early 1980s and fought Iran's Islamic rulers from there until the United States invaded in 2003.
American troops have since disarmed thousands of PMOI members, and the group said it renounced violence several years ago.
The National Council [NCRI] said more than 70,000 people attended Saturday's rally, including many people bused in from neighboring countries in Europe. Some participants arrived from the U.S., Canada and countries in the Middle East and northern Africa, it said. There was no independent confirmation of the organization's crowd estimate.
British lawmakers removed the People's Mujahedeen of Iran from the country's terror list on Monday, after a seven-year campaign by the group. The move gives the group more freedom to organize and raise money in Britain.
Fifteen British lawmakers were in Paris for Saturday's rally, including former Home Secretary David Waddington, organizers said.
Waddington said in a speech to the rally that the British decision was "an important step," and that he had attended the Paris gathering to "celebrate."
"Now the PMOI [MEK] can get on with its work," he said later in a telephone interview.
Photo: Maryam Rajavi, the leader of the Iranian resistance, delivers a speech at a rally against the Iranian government, organised by the opposition National Council of Resistance of Iran, in Villepinte, a northern suburb of Paris, Saturday, June 28, 2008. Rajavi called on the West to take a tougher stand on Iran and urged the European Union and the U.S. to follow the United Kingdom decision to remove their opposition group, the People's Mujahedeen Organisation of Iran (PMOI) from the list of banned terror groups. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus)