MeK Wins UK Terror List Ruling

Posted By Cernig

The Mujahedeen e-Kalq's political wing has won a landmark ruling in Britain as it tries to shake off its terrorist group designation.

An Iranian opposition group won a seven-year legal battle on Wednesday when three top judges upheld a ruling that the government was wrong to ban it as a terrorist organisation.

The judges at the Court of Appeal threw out a government challenge to a ruling last November that its refusal to remove the People's Mujahideen Organisation of Iran (PMOI) from its list of proscribed terrorist organisations was perverse.

The Lord Chief Justice, Lord Nicholas Phillips, said the appeal bid by Home Secretary Jacqui Smith had "no reasonable prospect of success", and added: "The appropriate course is to dismiss her application."

Maryam Rajavi, head of the PMOI's political wing, the National Council of Resistance of Iran, told Reuters: "The ruling proves the terror label against the PMOI was unjust."

But not so fast - the Appeals Court decided that the terror label was only unjust now, not in the past:

The Home Office expressed disappointment with the ruling but a spokesman conceded that the legal case had reached "the end of the line".

"We will not hesitate to re-proscribe the PMOI if circumstances change and evidence emerges that they are concerned in terrorism," the spokesman said.

...A European diplomat said removing the PMOI from the EU's sanctions list would require either a ruling from the European Court of Justice or an initiative by Britain within the EU Council of 27 member states.

He said he was "very sceptical" whether the PMOI was fully committed to renouncing terrorism, although Rajavi said it had fully disarmed in 2003.

In the court case, the government took a similar line, but the judges said there was no reliable evidence to suggest the PMOI intended to resort to terrorism in the future.

Of course, there's little reason for the MeK to resort to terror tactics now that it has allied with those in the U.S. crying "faster please" for Iranian regime change and thus successfully made the U.S. military and media its proxies. Reuters reports that "Alireza Jafarzadeh, former U.S. spokesman for the National Council of Resistance of Iran, told Reuters in Washington he was heartened by the London court ruling and hoped it would serve as a precedent for the United States." Jafarzadeh is also FOX News' Iran analyst and has a column on their website in which he constantly regurgitates the PMOI line as their de facto spokesman still. The MeK had a lot of influential backing from prominent neoconservative voices in the UK, something that's bount to be repeated when the US ban on the group comes up for review in October. I'd be very surprised if the U.S., with it's even more influential neocons and with the way the military has been using MeK people as translators and interrogators in Iraq, kept it's own ban in place.

Posted By Cernig

The Mujahedeen e-Kalq's political wing has won a landmark ruling in Britain as it tries to shake off its terrorist group designation.

An Iranian opposition group won a seven-year legal battle on Wednesday when three top judges upheld a ruling that the government was wrong to ban it as a terrorist organisation.

The judges at the Court of Appeal threw out a government challenge to a ruling last November that its refusal to remove the People's Mujahideen Organisation of Iran (PMOI) from its list of proscribed terrorist organisations was perverse.

The Lord Chief Justice, Lord Nicholas Phillips, said the appeal bid by Home Secretary Jacqui Smith had "no reasonable prospect of success", and added: "The appropriate course is to dismiss her application."

Maryam Rajavi, head of the PMOI's political wing, the National Council of Resistance of Iran, told Reuters: "The ruling proves the terror label against the PMOI was unjust."

But not so fast - the Appeals Court decided that the terror label was only unjust now, not in the past:

The Home Office expressed disappointment with the ruling but a spokesman conceded that the legal case had reached "the end of the line".

"We will not hesitate to re-proscribe the PMOI if circumstances change and evidence emerges that they are concerned in terrorism," the spokesman said.

...A European diplomat said removing the PMOI from the EU's sanctions list would require either a ruling from the European Court of Justice or an initiative by Britain within the EU Council of 27 member states.

He said he was "very sceptical" whether the PMOI was fully committed to renouncing terrorism, although Rajavi said it had fully disarmed in 2003.

In the court case, the government took a similar line, but the judges said there was no reliable evidence to suggest the PMOI intended to resort to terrorism in the future.

Of course, there's little reason for the MeK to resort to terror tactics now that it has allied with those in the U.S. crying "faster please" for Iranian regime change and thus successfully made the U.S. military and media its proxies. Reuters reports that "Alireza Jafarzadeh, former U.S. spokesman for the National Council of Resistance of Iran, told Reuters in Washington he was heartened by the London court ruling and hoped it would serve as a precedent for the United States." Jafarzadeh is also FOX News' Iran analyst and has a column on their website in which he constantly regurgitates the PMOI line as their de facto spokesman still. The MeK had a lot of influential backing from prominent neoconservative voices in the UK, something that's bount to be repeated when the US ban on the group comes up for review in October. I'd be very surprised if the U.S., with it's even more influential neocons and with the way the military has been using MeK people as translators and interrogators in Iraq, kept it's own ban in place.