An Iranian exile organization and anti-war activists both made a colorful appearance today at an otherwise subdued Senate confirmation hearing today for Defense Secretary-nominee Leon Panetta.
Supporters of the People’s Mujahedeen Organization of Iran, a controversial Iranian resistance movement that was once allied with Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, took up a couple of rows in the Dirksen Senate office building hearing room. They were wearing matching day-glow yellow T-shirts and vests that read, “Protect Camp Ashraf” and “Delist MEK.”
The latter slogan refers to the campaign to have the group removed from the State Department’s terrorist list, an effort that has enlisted some high-profile names in Washington. Camp Ashraf is the name of the group’s compound north of Baghdad, which was the scene of a deadly crackdown by Iraqi security forces in April.
Also in the audience was a smaller contingent from Code Pink, the antiwar group. Code Pink members, wearing their signature pink shirts, silently held up signs in the aisle opposite the MEK. Their signs read, “End war – rebuild America”; “Bring our war $ home”’; and “Diplomacy not war!!”
Nathan Hodge