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Source: Al-Arabiya TV
The British government lost a bid to keep an Iranian opposition group on its list of proscribed terrorist organizations, as leaders of the European Union reiterated their support for possible additional U.N. sanctions against Iran if it fails to give up nuclear enrichment work.
The Proscribed Organizations Appeal Commission (POAC) rejected an application by Home Secretary Jacqui Smith against its November 30 ruling that the People’s Mojahadeen Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) should no longer be blacklisted.
Home Office minister Tony McNulty said Friday he was disappointed at the decision and would now seek to take the case to the Court of Appeal.
"The government adopted a cautious approach in relation to the de-proscription of the People’s Mojahadeen Organization of Iran," he said in a statement.
"I remain convinced that where terrorism is concerned, the rights of the law abiding majority and the overriding need to protect the public, both in the UK and abroad, must lead us to take such a cautious approach.”
The PMOI was the armed wing of the France-based National Council of Resistance of Iran but renounced violence in June 2001.
Maryam Rajavi, president-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, said in a statement the tribunal’s ruling was "another affirmation that the terrorist label against the PMOI was ‘perverse’".
The group has last week accused Tehran of pursuing efforts to develop nuclear weapons, dismissing as incomplete a U.S. intelligence report that Iran’s nuclear arms program was frozen in 2003.
