Agence France Presse, TEHRAN – Iran said it would fire off an official complaint to France over its decision to lift restrictions on members of the Islamic Republic’s main armed opposition group.
"This decision is unacceptable. It is a violation of Paris’s responsibility to fight against terrorism," Hamid Reza Asefi told reporters.
"It is a green light to terrorism and violence. We are going to complain to the French," he fumed.
A French court on Friday lifted restrictions on 17 members of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) or People’s Mujahedeen, imposed following a raid on its headquarters outside Paris three years ago.
The appeal court said the 17, including the group’s leader Maryam Rajavi, can now communicate between each other, move freely about France and travel abroad.
But they remain forbidden to contact the 122 contributors to Iran Aide, a fundraising operation with ties to the People’s Mujahedeen, regarded as a terrorist body by the United States and the European Union, to raise money from the public or to own weapons.
The NCRI members were placed under judicial investigation on terrorist-related charges following the July 2003 raid at Auvers-sur-Oise, which critics of the French government said was designed to curry favour in Tehran.
