According to cnews.canoe, Canadian Liberals accused Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s parliamentary secretary of hypocrisy after reports released that he had attended a rally organized by Iranian supporters of a banned terrorist group.
Jason Kenney’s picture appeared on the website of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, the political wing of the PMOI, or People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran. Kenney is shown addressing an April 6 rally in front of the Canadian Parliament and is quoted as welcoming participants "on his own behalf as well as the prime minister." In an interview, Kenney said he was "completely unaware of the context as it is presented here, even though we had done our due dilligence."
He said he did not know the rally, a small crowd of about 30 people, was in support of PMOI prisoners.
"I told them I would pass by if I could. And I was running up to the Hill, I just literally grabbed a megaphone and said that the Canadian people would stand in solidarity with the Iranian people in their wish for respect for human dignity and human rights and democracy, and these were universal aspirations that all people in every country deserve to have respected, and you know, our government will stand for those universal values.
Liberal MP Denis Coderre called on Kenney to apologize for the event and to denounce the terrorist group saying; "A terrorist group is a terrorist group so I’m expecting Jason Kenney, who likes to play politics and who’s as subtle as Barney Rubble in politics, he should do better than that."
The report also states that PMOI is one of the names used by the MEK, or Mujaheedin-e-Khalq, an armed Iranian rebel group formally designated as a terrorist organization by the governments of Canada, the United States and the European Union. The Canadian government put the group on its official terror list in May 2005.
Source CNEWS.canoe, August 25, 2006
