The blind assassination of Iranian professors and scientists can never hinder Iran’s progress and development, family members and relatives of Iran’s assassinated martyrs underlined in a statement on Saturday.
In their statement, the relatives and family members of the Iranian victims of terrorism condemned the assassination of two Iranian university professors, namely Fereydoon Abbasi Davani and Majid Shahriari, in Tehran on Monday, and urged the country’s officials to arrest and punish all those in charge of the recent terrorist attacks.
"Despite all barriers and inefficient sanctions and failed resolutions, the path of progress paved by the honorable Iranian nation towards its exalted goals and scientific triumphs is witnessing growing success everyday.
"After all enemies’ plans and plots against the Iranian nation failed, the world arrogant powers started assassinating Iran’s nuclear scientists as a new objective and tactic to harm the Iranian nation’s success, but they ignored the fact that it is now several years that these worn-out and extinct methods failed to push back the will of the Iranian nation," the statement added.
Elsewhere, the statement stressed that Iran has been a flag-bearer in the campaign against terrorism as it has been the target of numerous terrorist attacks since the onset of the Islamic Revolution, reminding that 16,000 Iranian people and officials have been assassinated in the post-revolution Iran.
"Only 12,000 of these martyrs have been assassinated by the terrorist Hypocrites (the Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization)," the statement said, reminding the terrorist nature of the MKO.
It further lambasted the western countries for supporting the terrorist group, but meantime stated that all political figures and researchers are informed that the MKO is not a self-centered organization with an independent will, and it rather is supported by the western countries.
The statement reminded the role of the MKO in the recent assassinations, and urged the Iraqi government to immediately expel the group from its soil.
The MKO has been in Iraq’s Diyala province since the 1980s.
Iraqi security forces took control of the main training base of the MKO at Camp Ashraf – about 60km (37 miles) North of Baghdad – last year and detained dozens of the members of the terrorist group.
The Iraqi authority also changed the name of the military center from Camp Ashraf to the Camp of New Iraq.
The MKO, whose main stronghold is in Iraq, is blacklisted by much of the international community, including the United States.
Before an overture by the EU, the MKO was on the European Union’s list of terrorist organizations subject to an EU-wide assets freeze. Yet, the MKO puppet leader, Maryam Rajavi, who has residency in France, regularly visited Brussels and despite the ban enjoyed full freedom in Europe.
The MKO is behind a slew of assassinations and bombings inside Iran, a number of EU parliamentarians said in a recent letter in which they slammed a British court decision to remove the MKO from the British terror list. The EU officials also added that the group has no public support within Iran because of their role in helping Saddam Hussein in the Iraqi imposed war on Iran (1980-1988).
The group, founded in the 1960s, blended elements of Islamism and Stalinism and participated in the overthrow of the US-backed Shah of Iran in 1979. Ahead of the revolution, the MKO conducted attacks and assassinations against both Iranian and western targets.
Leaders of the group have been fighting to shed its terrorist tag after a series of bloody anti-western attacks in the 1970s, and nearly 30 years of violent struggle against the Islamic Republic of Iran.
In recent months, high-ranking MKO members have been lobbying governments around the world in the hope of acknowledgement as a legitimate opposition group.
The UK initiative, however, prompted the European Union to establish relations with the exiled organization now based in Paris. The European Court of First Instance threw its weight behind the MKO last December and annulled its previous decision to freeze its funds.
The group started assassination of the citizens and officials after the revolution in a bid to take control of the newly established Islamic Republic. It killed several of Iran’s new leaders in the early years after the revolution, including the then President, Mohammad Ali Rajayee, Prime Minister, Mohammad Javad Bahonar and the Judiciary Chief, Mohammad Hossein Beheshti who were killed in bomb attacks by MKO members in 1981.
The group fled to Iraq in 1986, where it was protected by Saddam Hussein and where it helped the Iraqi dictator suppress Shiite and Kurd uprisings in the country.
The terrorist group joined Saddam’s army during the Iraqi imposed war on Iran (1980-1988) and helped Saddam and killed thousands of Iranian civilians and soldiers during the US-backed Iraqi imposed war on Iran.
Since the 2003 US invasion of Iraq, the group, which now adheres to a pro-free-market philosophy, has been strongly backed by neo-conservatives in the United States, who also argue for the MKO to be taken off the US terror list.