Following re-designation of MKO by the State Department on its list of terrorists, the EU Council also intends to keep the group on its terror list despite MKO’s propaganda blitz aimed at condemning the move. The group claims that the EU has refused to apply a court order last year that annulled a 2002 decision to place the organization on its terrorist blacklist and order its assets frozen.
The EU has argued that the court’s ruling focused on procedural problems and did not imply that the group had to be removed from the list and that it has complied with the judgment by supplying documents explaining its decision. The EU even granted MKO an opportunity to present counter arguments. MKO has so far failed to adequately explain why it should be taken off the EU list of terrorist organizations. Rather, it has followed a tactical procedure of blasphemy and condemnation, being its typical, to trouble the water.
Mohammad Mohaddessin, a spokesman for the MKO’s political wing, in his recent reaction against the EU decision states that “the EU and the United States were maintaining the group on their terror lists to avoid further harming relations with the Iranian government”. It seems that Mr. Mohaddessin has totally forgotten that the US and Iran have been at loggerhead with Iran since the regime change in Iran. When all diplomatic ties have been ceased, how can one side concede to avoid further harming relations!
A look at the State Department’s recent report describing the group indicates that the US has developed a further understanding of MKO threats, a formerly political group that has completely transformed into a destructive cult. The world in general and the Europeans in particular can never forget MKO’s cult move in European cities when the members set themselves on fire following the detention of the group’s leader in June 2003. What other evidences does the EU need to re-proscribe MKO as a terrorist group?
Besides, none of the countries that have proscribed MKO ever consent to sacrifice the well-being of their nations for political causes regardless of baseless claims of some advocates of the group, like Alejo Vidal-Quadras, that call the EU’s refusal to remove MKO from the list”a political and ethical disgrace”. The group’s terrorist atrocities and cult-like moves are broader than the daylight to deny and no democratic government tries political appeasement at the expense of people who have trusted the government in preservation of the national security.
More interestingly, the EU’s patience in treating with MKO has emboldened the group to be under the illusion that it can possibly take bigger steps to challenge those who initiated blacklisting it. Mohaddessin has said that “his group would write to U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice formally requesting that the group and its affiliates be taken off the blacklist”. He further forewarned that “if she refuses, the organization’s lawyers would lodge a complaint at a Washington appeals court”.
Regardless of the terrorists’ propaganda blitz in an attempt to influence the unanimous decision to confront terrorism, neither MKO nor its few advocates and lawyers are of any weight to impede the accelerated global move to uproot terrorism.