By: Stefan Simons
Source: Spiegel online, February 17, 2008
Translated from German by NCR-Iran.org
UK’s Home Secretary against the country’s Parliamentarians: In the respected British Court of Appeal a group of MPs are in defense of alleged terrorists. Their goal: Removing the Iranian Mojahedin-e-khalq from the black list of the government.
Paris – The case before the Court of Appeal, the second highest legal authority of Great Britain, gets to the unusual confrontation stage: The Home Secretary is moving to an appellate proceeding against 35 MPs from different parties including a former Home Secretary, a former Attorney General and several Lords.
The prominent representatives of the people want to reach the goal that the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI) is removed from the black list of terrorist organizations. The parliamentarians consider the opposition group that among exiled Iranians is controversial, as a spearhead of resistance against the regime in Tehran and carries hope for a future pluralistic Iran.
In 2001 then Home Secretary, Jack Straw banned the PMOI – once a militant group and now the dominant force in the Paris-based National Resistance Council of Iran (NCRI) that leads the fight against the dictatorship headed by the mullahs from Paris- "at the behest of the regime in Tehran ", as he later acknowledged.
Following the blacklisting in Europe limitations were imposed on the PMOI that already had officially distanced from armed activities, its accounts were frozen and travels limited.
"We not only got all sorts of practical restrictions imposed," said Maryam Rajavi, the NCRI president. "Worse than that the EU listing was used by the mullahs’ regime for our members and activists to be sought after"
PMOI went on the offensive legally against the EU decision: The Court of First Instance, a branch of the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg, gave them their legal rights on 12 December 2006. The Council of Ministers stood by its evaluation and always relied on the blacklisting in London. British MPs in London took the case against this terror-listing and again succeeded.
After a meticulous process, for the first time, the POAC court reviewed all evidence including classified documents and in last November in a 144-page ruling declared that the Home Office has "misunderstood the law ", important facts have been ignored, and therefore has made a "perverse" decision, also appeal to the this ruling was rejected.
Despite the legal slap in the face, the government of Prime Minister Gordon Brown stood firmly in its position and took the case before the High Court. Nevertheless the legal experts believe in PMOI ‘s success. "The government has so far refused to take note of the facts. We are very confident that the judge will confirm the verdict and the PMOI is removed from the terror list," says Lord Robin Corbett, a prominent fellow of the parliamentary group.
What far-reaching consequences would it have: The People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran would no longer be banned as a terrorist organization in the UK, the Council of Ministers in Brussels hardly has anything to keep the Iranian opposition alliance on the black list of the EU.
