UK parliament takes PMOI off the terror list

By MIDDLE EAST TIMES
IRANIANS WIN BATTLE IN BRITAIN: Supporters of the People's Mojahedin Organisation of Iran celebrate outside Parliament in London June 23 after both Houses of Parliament voted in favor of removing a ban on the resistance group ending a seven-year legal battle to have the organization lifted from the UK blacklist.

Members of the British Parliament approved Monday an order by the home secretary to lift the ban on the People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran, the PMOI, a member of the coalition National Council of Resistance of Iran. In the United States the group is known as the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq, or the MeK.

Although the MeK had initially sided with the mullahs during the 1979 Iranian Revolution to overthrow the shah, no sooner was the monarchy deposed that the newly created Islamic Republic turned on their one-time ally.


The NCRI was the first to alert the world to Iran's secret nuclear projects in August 2002. Earlier this year it revealed that Iran had re-started its nuclear program at 12 sites across the country. According to sources within the Iranian resistance, some 120,000 of its members and sympathizers have been executed by the mullahs.


Last month Britain's Court of Appeal ordered the government to de-proscribe the PMOI. The court upheld a ruling in November by the Proscribed Organisations Appeal Commission that the government's decision to maintain the ban on the PMOI was "flawed" and "perverse."


After long debates in both Houses of Parliament the removal of the ban came into effect from 00.01 a.m. (GMT) on Tuesday June 24. This is a great moral victory for the Iranian resistance movement and comes at a time when the United States and the West are pushing for greater sanctions and pressures to be applied on the Islamic republic in efforts to convince the mullahs in Tehran to renege on their efforts to acquire nuclear capability.


Lord Corbett of Castle Vale, chairman of the British Parliamentary Committee for Iran Freedom, said: "The real terrorists are in Tehran. They make the roadside bombs, and pay and train those who use them to kill British and coalition troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.


"This decision will give new hope to those in Iran who cry freedom and want their country to be part of the world community rather than a pariah.


"Our own government and others in the EU governments and the U.S. must now understand that the PMOI are our allies and not our enemies in beating back the menace that Iran's theocratic regime represents. It is trying to add violent abuse of human rights to its nuclear weapons development program to make a lethal mix which threatens the world's security," said Lord Corbett.


Monday's parliamentary vote puts an end to a seven-year legal battle to have the PMOI lifted from the UK blacklist. The next step will be to try and convince the European Union -- and eventually the United States -- to follow the British example.
Category: News & Politics

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