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The People’s Mujahedin Organisation of Iran is set to be taken off the UK terrorism blacklist. It’s a mistake - this is a violent, criminal group

We are now used to seeing British newspapers and commentators look to the US in amazement and at times with more than a bit of smugness. Perhaps it’s difficult not to be smug when the leader of the so-called free world carries out torture at Abu Ghraib, Guantánamo Bay, and secret CIA prisons.

The phrase "land of the free and home of the brave" rings hollow when set alongside extraordinary rendition as well as the curtailing of civil rights in the US after the atrocities on September 11 2001. America has lost its moral compass, they say, rather self-righteously at times, implying that these things just do not happen in the UK.

Well, many unfortunate things have happened in the UK during the past few years, but one of the most disgraceful of them all was yesterday’s court of appeal ruling that the people’s Mujahedin Organisation of Iran (PMOI - also known as a the Mujahedin-e Khalq organisation, MeK or MKO) should be removed from the government’s blacklist of terrorist organisations.

The Home Office has argued that the temporary cessation of terrorist acts by this organisation was quite possibly for pragmatic reasons and that these attacks might be resumed in the future. Of course, one could ask the government why it has allowed this terrorist organisation and its affiliated bodies to carry their activities - including organising, propaganda, and fundraising - with impunity in this country over the last two and a half decades.

The British government said that it is opposed to the removal of the PMOI from the blacklist, in order to protect the public. Its stance, in other words, has nothing to do with protecting the people of Iran or Iraq from this ruthless organisation.

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Government ordered to end ‘perverse’ terror listing of Iran opposition

Clare Dyer, legal editor
Saturday December 1, 2007
The Guardian

The government has been ordered to remove the main Iranian opposition organisation from a list of banned terrorist groups by a panel that called the decision to list the group "perverse".

The Proscribed Organisations Appeal Commission (POAC) ruled yesterday that the home secretary, Jacqui Smith, acted illegally in refusing to take the People’s Mojahedin Organisation of Iran (PMOI) off the proscribed terrorist blacklist drawn up under the 2000 Terrorist Act.

Courts rarely call government decisions perverse, and the panel, chaired by former high court judge Sir Harry Ognall and cleared to see secret material, said: "We recognise that a finding of perversity is uncommon." It added: "We believe, however, that this commission is in the (perhaps unusual) position of having before it all of the material that is relevant to this decision."

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Link to original article

Guardian unlimited

May 22, 2007

The content and timing of the briefing given by “a senior US official” in Baghdad to the Guardian’s Simon Tisdall, regarding Iran’s secret plans to force American troops out of Iraq by August, are driven by a political agenda.

Significantly, the briefing has occurred a week before Ryan Crocker, the US ambassador in Iraq, meets Iran’s envoy Hassan Kazemi Qomi in Baghdad to discuss Iraqi security.

Washington’s ill-disguised intent is to declare: “Aha, you Iranians, we know your clandestine plans to get the American-led soldiers out of Iraq, and more specifically your decision to raise the temperature in Iraq in the run-up to the re-assembling of the Democrat-majority US Congress in September, all ready to pressure President George Bush to start pulling out troops from Iraq.”

The briefing also serves the purpose of justifying the first publicly acknowledged diplomatic contact between Washington and Tehran - particularly to US hardliners, who include Vice President Dick Cheney - and reassuring the sceptics that Ambassador Crocker will do straight talking to Kazemi Qomi.

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Link to original article

Western governments classify the People’s Mojahedin as a terrorist group, but it can still boast allies in the US and UK. Dan De Luce charts its history

Tuesday July 15, 2003
Guardian Unlimited

Western governments describe the People’s Mojahedin as a terrorist organisation, yet the group has allies in the House of Commons and the US Congress.

When one of its leaders was arrested by French police last month, her followers went on hunger strike. Several set themselves alight in front of television cameras, with two later dying.

French security officials claim that the People’s Mojahedin was planning to stage terrorist attacks throughout Europe, but the group says that it advocates secular democracy and women’s rights in Iran.

So who are the People’s Mojahedin, and where did the group come from?

Its origins lie in the 60s, when opponents of the Shah’s regime in Iran looked to socialist ideals and new readings of Islamic texts for inspiration in their campaign against the US-backed monarchy.

Outraged by the Shah’s brutal suppression of dissent, the People’s Mojahedin, or Mojahedin Khalq Organisation (MKO), chose to take up arms.

Bombings and assassinations, including several attacks that claimed the lives of US military officers and contractors, took a serious toll and provoked further repression by the regime.

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Guardian and Human Rights Watch find evidence of abuse by Iranian revolutionaries under US protection

David Leigh in Nijmegen, Netherlands
Tuesday May 31, 2005
The Guardian

A bizarre revolutionary army supported by British politicians who want more “regime change” in the Middle East, has been accused of torture and brainwashing.

Evidence obtained by the Guardian backs a report by Human Rights Watch. This makes detailed accusations of abuse, including deaths under interrogation, against the “People’s Mujahideen” of Iran (MKO).

The Mujahideen are a 4000-strong anti-Iranian dissident army, currently under US protection in a camp in Iraq. They have a vociferous public relations campaign in Britain and the backing of some Washington neo-conservatives.

The group, known as the “tank girls” because of the preponderance of women in its ranks, has also won the support of the Daily Telegraph, which wants it to help overthrow the mullahs in Tehran. It says in a leader: “We should back the main resistance group, the People’s Mujahideen … Give them the tools and they will finish the job”.

There is a growing right-wing campaign in parts of Washington and London for regime change, citing Iran’s nuclear ambitions. But leftwing UK figures have also joined the campaign to legitimise the Mujahideen, whom they see as freedom fighters.

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