Vice President of European Parliament: This Act is a Legal Embarrassment and a Political Immaturity
By: Knut Pries
Source: Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung
Brussels, Friday June 15, 2007 – It does not make sense to say the enemy of my enemy is still my enemy. EU is trying so hard to undermine its own laws and pressure an Iranian opposition group financially. The EU Parliamentarians are increasingly turning against this decision. But the governments want to repeat the choice that has caused so much opposition. Nobody knows what the secret services of these countries know about MEK because they basically work undisclosed.
Vice President of European Parliament: This Act is a Legal Embarrassment and a Political Immaturity
By: Knut Pries
Source: Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung
Brussels, Friday June 15, 2007 – It does not make sense to say the enemy of my enemy is still my enemy. EU is trying so hard to undermine its own laws and pressure an Iranian opposition group financially. The EU Parliamentarians are increasingly turning against this decision. But the governments want to repeat the choice that has caused so much opposition. Nobody knows what the secret services of these countries know about MEK because they basically work undisclosed.
Two things are clear though: This group, who stood beside Ayatollah Khomeini during the revolution against the Shah, has been fighting against the Mullah’s regime since early 80’s and carried out armed struggle at the time.
“We must persist on serious and undeniable evidence”
One thing has changed though: MEK’s army has been called off and the organization has handed over their weapons and renounced violence. They are protected by Coalition forces in Iraq. They are not even accused of terrorist activities any where let alone proven to have done it. Despite all this, PMOI is included in the terrorist list of European terrorist list that was created to fight terrorism after September 11th. The 50 organizations and 50 individuals in the list have had their funds and financial transactions blocked.
Inclusion in the list depends on the unanimous decision by EU Council of Ministers. This takes place after the secret service of one of these countries investigates the individual or group and comes up with “serious and undeniable evidence”. Every 6 months this decision is reviewed to find out if the reasons for “remaining in the list still applies”.
Since the inception of the list in May 2002, PMOI has been included and approved to remain in it every time. To counter it, PMOI filed a complaint with the EU Court in Luxemburg and last December the court ruled that their rights have been violated and they must be de-listed.
The Council of Ministers did not oppose this ruling. The Council says that the court only ruled against the procedure for inclusion since the opponents of the Mullahs were not given a chance to defend themselves and this problem has been taken care of since that time. They also say that the ruling applies to the inclusion in December 2005 list and not to the May 2006 list. Because of lack of evidence, the judges did not rule if the inclusion of the exiled Iranians in the list was logical.
In the letter of the Council of Ministers sent end of January to the exiled dissidents, there is not even one clear reason for this decision. They reiterated in this letter that they will still keep PMOI’s bank accounts blocked. The attached documents did not even mention one terrorist act in recent years.
“The seriousness in renouncing violence”
The reasons brought up by the EU diplomats who deal with these issues are not any better. They say since the organization is still active under the old name then they can’t be serious about renouncing violence. Or they say there must a reason for unanimous decision by all these countries. Or Britain has added PMOI to its terrorist list because of a request from Iranian regime. They even say that the reason National Council of Resistance of Iran which consists of a number of organizations in exile is not in the terrorist list shows that inclusion of PMOI was not done to appease the Mullahs and encourage them to continue dialogue on the nuclear program.
The absurdness of these arguments has caused a movement to form in support of PMOI. Currently about 1000 EU Parliamentarians and a great number of well-known lawyers have joined this movement.
The Spanish MP and deputy President of European Parliament, Alejo Vida Quadras, says angrily that keeping PMOI in the list is “a legal embarrassment and a political immaturity.” He has also written a letter to the current EU President, Chancellor Angela Merkel. Merkel’s foreign relations advisor, Cristoph Heusgen informed him that the reasons of the EU Council of Ministers for keeping the organizations and individuals in the EU list still apply.
If the list is reviewed in the near future, the issue will not change. PMOI believes that EU has violated its rights. It has sued for damages.
Goal: Regime Change
PMOI was established in 1965 with the goal of overthrowing Shah’s regime. Shortly after the revolution in 1979 this organization broke up with the Mullahs and started fighting them, especially from inside Iraq. In 2001 PMOI officially rejected violence. They oppose foreign military intervention against Iranian rulers. PMOI is one of the members of NCRI coalition in Paris which seeks regime change.
