Association for Defending Victims of Terrorism (ADVT) in Middle East has condemned Canada’s decision to remove the Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO) from its blacklist of terrorist
"The MKO cult has a long record in terrorist activities, including the assassination of 12,000 Iranian citizens, seven American citizens, and tens of thousands of Iraqi nationals," the association wrote in a letter to the Canadian government on Saturday.
The letter stressed that the MKO continues to use sabotage and terrorism to achieve its objectives.
Planning attacks on Iranian embassies in 13 European countries in 2003, self-immolation of ten MKO members in protest to the arrest of their cult leader Maryam Rajavi by French police on money laundering charges, and plotting terrorist attacks also in 2003, all attest to the terrorist nature of the MKO, the letter continued.
“This cult, considering its communist and extremist approach, can pose a serious threat to Western citizens, particularly Canadians.”
The Canadian government removed MKO from its official list of terrorist organizations on Thursday. Ottawa’s move to delist the MKO terrorist group followed similar moves by the United States and the European Union.
The MKO fled to Iraq in 1986, where it enjoyed the support of Iraq’s executed dictator Saddam Hussein, and set up its camp near the Iranian border.
The group is known to have cooperated with Saddam in suppressing the 1991 uprisings in southern Iraq and carrying out the massacre of Iraqi Kurds.
The MKO has carried out numerous acts of violence against Iranian civilians and government officials.