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The EU’s double standard approach to the issue of MKO

EU ‘will never follow US policies’

The European Union will never follow Washington’s militaristic approach to the world’s issues, a senior European legislator has said.  

MEP Angelika Beer, who is visiting Iran, also called for the promotion of cooperation between Iran’s and EU’s Parliaments.  

She made the remarks during a meeting with Iran’s Parliament Speaker Gholam-Ali Haddad-Adel on Sunday.  

Haddad Adel, for his part, termed the recent US intelligence report on Iran’s nuclear issue as ‘relatively positive’ adding that the report indicates Iran’s truthfulness.  

He said the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) exposed the US lies about Iran.  

Haddad Adel also criticized the EU’s double standard approach to the issue of terrorism. The Iranian official said while the EU claims that it is fighting terrorism, the bloc is citing the misinformation provided by terrorist groups like the Mojahedin Khalq Organization (MKO).  

He said the Islamic Republic is honestly cooperating with the EU to tackle the problem of drug trafficking. The Iranian official added Tehran does it best to confront drug smuggling whose victims are the youth particularly the European.  

Beer, in response, reiterated that the European Union considers the MKO an illegal organization and denounces it.  

pressTV,Dec. 10, 2007  

 

 

 

 

   

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European Union

Re-listing MEK (PMOI) important, but not enough!

The EU has re-listed the Iranian opposition group (MEK, MKO, PMOI, OPMI, Rajavi Cult, etc.) in the terror blacklist. EU has maintained the group in the list for the past few years. But a single question remains lingering on my mind about the effectiveness of such designations while the EU officials seem to be uninformed about the group’s illusory tactics. The recent (June 17) bludgeoning by the group’s high-rank members and supporters in Paris against some of its former members has raised the concern for many.

The MEK continues to operate in Europe with its headquarter in Auver-sur-oise Village in Paris. The MEK refer to its former members as the agents of the Iranian Information Ministry in order to justify its violent attacks. The truth is that the MEK has used this tactic to smear its critics, a well-known practice by almost all violent cults. The group operates on a philosophy of demagoguery, deception, and misleading of the public.

What is astonishing is that the EU politicians have failed to recognize the group’s main trickery that had fooled US politicians for a few years. MEK has a decoy publicly known as NCRI (National Council of Resistance of Iran) with its headquarter listed in the same location of the MEK. While MEK remains in the list, the NCRI has not been listed due mainly to EU’s failure of recognizing that MEK and NCRI are indeed the same with unitary leadership and financing system. The MEK wants us to view the NCRI as an umbrella organization of which the MEK is a member. The truth is the opposite; it is the NCRI which is a part of the MEK.

On July 9, 2004 US Court of Appeal for the District of Columbia Circuit issued its verdict about the very same subject. At issue was the NCRI’s claim that it was different from the MEK. In response the NCRI’s petition, the Court noted that “…after extensive investigation of MEK and NCRI, the FBI reported to the State Department that ‘it is the unanimous view of the FBI personnel who are involved in and familiar with the FBI’s investigation of the [MEK] that NCRI is not a separate organization, but is instead, and has been, an integral part of the MEK at all relevant times.’ Contrary to NCRI’s portrayal of itself as an umbrella organization, of which the MEK was just one member, the FBI concluded that it is NCRI that is ‘the political branch of the MEK.’” The Court finally rejected the NCRI’s petition. This led to enlisting of the NCRI as an alias for the MEK and the closing of its office in Washington DC.

Re-listing of the MEK in the terror blacklist by the EU was important. What is even more critical for EU is to get serious about combating terrorism by recognizing the MEK’s deceptive tactics, and by including the NCRI as an alias for the group- something the US did in 2004. After all, EU is responsible for the safety and protection of its people against terrorist activities of the MEK disguised as NCRI.

ABaaraan@yahoo.fr

 

By Ahmad Baaraan, Paris

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European Union

EU keeps Mojahedin Khalq Organisation on terror list after review

BRUSSELS, Belgium (AP) – European Union governments decided Thursday to keep an Iranian opposition group on its terror blacklist, European diplomats said.

The 27-nation bloc was asked to review whether the Paris-based People’s Mujahadeen Organization of Iran should be taken off the list after an EU court ruling.

The diplomats, speaking on condition of anonymity because the decision had not been formally announced, said EU governments rejected the group’s arguments that it should be removed from the list.

Maryam Rajavi, head of The National Council of Resistance — the Paris-based political wing of the PMOI — condemned the decision.

In a statement, her group described the move as "a political, legal and ethical scandal which makes a mockery of the (EU) court’s judgment and the rule of law."

The group added it had gotten the support of "more than 1,000" lawmakers across Europe, adding that parliaments in Italy, Denmark, the Netherlands and Finland have all urged the EU to remove the PMOI from the blacklist.

Shahin Gobadi, a spokesman for the group, said the PMOI would organize a mass rally and march in Paris on Saturday to protest the EU decision. He said the group aimed to draw "tens of thousands" of Iranian exiles from across Europe to the demonstration.

The PMOI, which advocates the overthrow of the Iranian regime, is also on the U.S. State Department’s list of terrorist organizations. Former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein allowed the group to operate camps in Iraq from which it launched attacks inside Iran, although the group now says it has renounced military action and its militants in Iraq have handed weapons over to U.S.-led forces there.

The People’s Mujahadeen is also seeking euro1 million (US$1.35 million) in damages, claiming the EU has refused to apply an order last year from the European Court of Justice that annulled a 2002 decision to place the organization on its terrorist blacklist and order its assets frozen.

EU legal experts have said, however, that the court’s ruling focused on procedural problems and did not imply that a group had to be removed from the list.

The experts claim the EU has complied with the judgment by supplying documents explaining its decision and allowing the People’s Mujahadeen to present counter arguments as part of a review it undertook.

The People’s Mujahadeen have said documents provided by the EU were inadequate, based on outdated material and that they failed to recognize that the organization has declared a halt to military action against the Iranian government.

The group claims Brussels and Washington are keeping it on their terror lists to avoid further harming relations with Tehran.

The People’s Mujahadeen Organization, which is also known as the Mujahedeen Khalq, or MEK, has been on the U.S. State Department’s list of terrorist organizations since 1997, which bars anyone in the United States from providing material support.

The State Department says the Mujahedeen Khalq groups were funded by Saddam Hussein, supported the seizure of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran in 1979 and are responsible for the deaths of Americans in the 1970s.

By CONSTANT BRAND ,Associated Press Writer, 28 June 2007

Associated Press Newswires

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European Union

The European Union released Friday its updated list of terrorist entities removing three groups and adding one.

The European Union released Friday its updated list of terrorist entities removing three groups and adding one.

The EU removed three Italian groups, Nuclei Territoriali Antimperialisti (Anti-Imperialist Territorial Units); Nuclei di Iniziativa Proletaria Rivoluzionaria (Unit for Revolutinonary Proletarian Initiative); Nuclei di Iniziativa Proletaria (Units for Proletarian Initiative) and added the Greek group Epanastatikos Agonas (Revolutionary Struggle).

58 persons and 48 groups are included in the new EU blacklist.

The Iranian terror group MKO remains on the updated list.

The European Court of Justice last December annulled the decision by the EU to put the MKO on the terror register in 2002.

Since then the group was trying to propagate that it will be removed from the EU terror list.

The court ruling, however, was related to procedural matters rather than the decision itself.

An EU statement said improvements have been agreed regarding the listing and de-listing procedures concerning those on the EU terrorist list, in the light of the court ruling in the MKO case.

"In particular, a statement of reasons is now provided for each person or entity subject to an asset freeze and the persons and entities concerned are informed of the possibility to submit a request , together with supporting documentation, that the decision to include them on the list should be reconsidered."

"New procedures have also been agreed concerning notification, the handling of proposals for listing and of requests for de-listing, and the review of the list," it noted.

"A new working party will be charged with examining proposals for listings and de-listings and with preparing the regular review of the list by the Council."

The EU first adopted restrictive measures against persons and entities involved in terrorism in December 2001, in the wake of the terrorist attacks on 11 September that year.

Since then the lists of those subject to the restrictive measures have been reviewed on a regular basis.

The parties concerned will be informed via a "letter of notification" of the specific information that forms the basis for the EU decision.

The parties concerned may challenge the Council’s decision before the EU Court of Justice, said the EU statement.

June 29, IRNA

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European Union

MKO stays on EU terrorist list

The Iranian MKO group remains on the new list of European Union terrorist groups.

According to EU sources, the new list which remains unchanged from last December will be published Friday in the EU’s Official Journal.

The European Court of Justice last December annulled the decision by the EU to put the MKO on the terror register in 2002.

Since then the group was trying to propagate that it will be removed from the EU terror list.

The court ruling, however, was related to procedural matters rather than the decision itself, noted EU officials.

June 29, IRNA

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European Union

The EU Determined to Keep MKO in the List

Reported by Le Soir newspaper, the EU Council is planning to keep MEK in the terrorist list again. It seems that the Council is not paying attention to the verdict of EU Court of Justice issued on December 12th which ruled in favor of Mojahedin. (The Council did not even appeal this verdict.)

The Council has made up its mind a few months ago. A letter written by Christoph Heusgen, advisor to the German Chancellor Angela Merkel to Vice President of European Parliament Vidal-Quatras, states that there has been an unanimous agreement on this issue since last February. In February 2007, the Council reached an agreement that the reasons for the inclusion of Mojahedin in the list still apply.

The organization is currently engaged in a propaganda blitz to condemn its re- proscription in the terrorist list. In spite of the group’s claims that it has abandoned terrorist activities since 2001, the EU Council has enough evidences to keep MKO on the list. The Council has also informed the group of the reasons for its proscription.

mojahedin.ws –  10/06/2007

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Exaggerated Numbers of Supporters Come up

The EU Council is determined to keep MKO on its terrorist list regardless of Mojahedin-run media advertising exaggerated numbers of European supporters calling its removal from the list. In one instance, Mojahedin claimed that in a petition, 30,000 Canadians demanded from their government to give up the misguided policy of appeasing the Iranian regime and remove the terror label from MKO.

The petition is reported to have been addressed to Mr. Stockwell Day Minister of Public Safety wherein the signatories stress that the only way to prevent another catastrophe such as foreign war, export of fundamentalism, terrorism or competition for nuclear proliferation in the region is an indigenous solution by Iranian people. It also states that Mojahedin-e-Khalq reflect a modern and democratic alternative to the present regime ruling Iran and it is essential to remove their name from terrorist list. How the Canadian citizens have come to such a unanimous agreement and to use Mojahedin’s literature is another question.

In another case, Mojahed, MKO’s official organ, in its issue 855 reported that 20,000 Danish citizens have signed a petition demanding the same as Canadians. No official source has so far approved the authenticity of Mojahedin’s claims. It is not so hard a task for MKO to forge documents as they are masters of counterfeiting as they did in Iraq and released a fraud of Millions Iraqi signatures.

mojahedin.ws –  10/06/2007

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EU’s Secret Documents Against Mojahedin Khalq Organisation (Rajavi cult)

BRUSSELS – the state which provided the documents does not consent to their disclosure," EU officials told PMOI lawyers in a letter on 14 May.

"Otherwise the position of the EU in international cooperation in the fight against terrorism would be compromised," the letter goes on.

The letter is the latest in a series of documents exchanged between the EU and PMOI since December, when EU courts annulled an EU decision of 2005 to keep the People’s Mujahidin Organisation of Iran on its list.

Officially-named terrorist organisations have their financial assets frozen and are forbidden from fund-raising in Europe.

EU officials say the court ruling does not cover a post-2005 decision to keep PMOI on the register, but all the evidence that Brussels has supplied to the group so far deals with pre-2001 activity, with PMOI claiming it has become a non-violent movement in the meantime.

The PMOI says its inclusion on the terror register, initiated by the UK five years ago, is a political move to give the west a negotiating chip in its efforts to get Tehran to back down on nuclear technology.

Some EU diplomats and Iranian expats believe the opposition group still has a sinister, fanatical fringe however. At least one of its high-profile supporters in the west has conceded the PMOI leadership is not a model of liberal democracy.

Euobserver, May 31, 2007

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MKO on the EU’s Terror List Next Week

Reported by MKO-run website, NCR, the EU’s Council of Ministers intends to maintain MKO on the terrorist list. It is planning to announce its decision next week.

Calling it a continuation of appeasement of Iranian regime, MKO condemned the decision taken by the EU and said: “In defiance of EU Court ruling, the EU Council intends to maintain the PMOI on the terror list”.

The Council intends to designate MKO because the group has failed to provide any convincing document that would justify its deproscription. Although MKO claims it has forsworn terrorism since June 2001, there are countless evidences that the group was actively plotting and carrying out terrorist operations until 2003 when it was disarmed by the coalition forces in Iraq. A remarkable document on the group’s activities is recently released report by the State Department after the group was redesignated as a terrorist group. On the description of MKO and its terrorist activities after 2001 the report reveals:

In 2003, French authorities arrested 160 MEK members at operational bases they believed the MEK was using to coordinate financing and planning for terrorist attacks. Upon the arrest of MEK leader Maryam Rajavi, MEK members took to Paris’ streets and engaged in self-immolation. French authorities eventually released Rajavi. Although currently in hiding, Rajavi has made appearances via video-satellite to "motivate" MEK-sponsored conferences across the globe.

According to evidence which became available after the fall of Saddam Hussein, the MEK received millions of dollars in Oil-for-Food program subsidies from Saddam Hussein from 1999 through 2003, which supported planning and executing future terrorist attacks. In addition to discovering 13 lists of recipients of such vouchers on which the MEK appeared, evidence linking the MEK to the former Iraqi regime includes lists, as well as video footage of Saddam Hussein handing over suitcases of money to known MEK leaders, and video of MEK operatives receiving training from the Iraqi military.

The Mojahedin cult’s she-guru, Maryam Rajavi, in reaction to the decision states that “If the Council decides to maintain the PMOI on the list, the organization will again refer the matter to the European Court of Justice”.

Mojahedin.ws – 27/5/2007

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The Mojahedin Khalq, Rajavi Cult to Challenge EU Terror List

Iran terrorist group PMOI [and its other phony names like MKO, MEK, NRCI] is suing the EU for 1 million euro in damages and to clear its name of being stuck on Brussels’ terrorist register, with the EU’s attitude to the Iraqi-based terrorist group also causing a stink in the Danish parliament.

Lawyers for the MKO on Wednesday (9 May) filed the law suit at the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg, saying the EU is breaking its own laws by not following a verdict by the Court of First Instance last December, which annulled the EU’s earlier decision to list the group.

Any officially-designated "terrorist" organisations have their financial assets frozen and are forbidden from fundraising in Europe, with a MKO spokesman telling EU observer "the true [loss] is much higher…the MKO has suffered serious financial and moral damage."

EU experts are using legal technicalities to argue they are in compliance with the December verdict, which based its annulment on the fact the EU had given MKO no evidence as to why it was put on the register, violating its basic right of appeal.

In the past few weeks, Brussels has sent so-called "statements of reasoning" to all 104 people and groups on its list, including the MKO, and is waiting to see which of the parties appeal before reviewing who should stay on the register in July.

"The only people that can say a word on the legality of this situation is the court of justice itself," an EU official said, adding that the latest MKO legal action is "premature" before the comprehensive July review.

The MKO started out in 1965 as a Marxist-Islamist cult in Iran but fled after suffering purges that saw over 150,000 members slaughtered by the post-cultural revolution Islamic regime.

The Mujahidin organised cross-border raids against Iran from bases in Iraq in the 1990s but says it renounced the use of arms in 2001, with a 2003 US army report saying the Iraq MKO wing no longer has any guns.

In the past few years MKO and its sister group, the NRCI, has positioned itself as the democratic opposition in Iran and attracted backers including retired US generals, members of the UK House of Lords, former EU judges and MEPs.

The movement accuses the UK and France of putting it on the EU terrorist register in order to have cards to play in the Iran nuclear diplomacy game.

French diplomats and some Iranian expats in Europe believe it still has a sinister, fanatical fringe, however.

links:

State Department Report on Mojahedin Khalq Orgainsation. Rajavi clut headed by Massoud Rajavi and Maryam Rajavi (May 02, 2007)

World wide condemnation of Mojahedin Khalq – Rajavi cult headed by Massoud Rajavi and Maryam Rajavi (Jan, 2007)

Evidences Dismissing MKO Mojahedin Khalq Organisation, Rajavi cult headed by Massoud Rajavi and Maryam Rjavi) Disclaim of Terrorism (Feb 2007)

Zebari says Iraq government has decided to expel MKO (Rajavi cult) from Iraq (April 2007)

Anne Singleton interview with BBC Radio about Rajavi cult headed by Massoud Rajavi and Maryam Rajavi (2007)

Anne Singleton interview with SUN newspaper (March 2007)

Scott Ritter on Target Iran: The Truth About the White House Plans for Regime Change (April 2007)

 EUobserver, May 12, 2007

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