People's Mujahedin of Iran

People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran سازمان مجاهدين خلق ايران Sāzmān-e Mojāhedin-e Khalq-e Irān
Leader	Maryam Rajavi (President-elect)
Founded	1965
Headquarters	Paris, France
Ideology	Religious socialism
Website
Official Website of the PMOI
Politics of Iran Political parties Elections

The People's Mujahedin of Iran (PMOI, also MEK, MKO) (Persian: سازمان مجاهدين خلق ايران sāzmān-e mojāhedin-e khalq-e irān) is a religious leftist organization that advocates the overthrow of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

In 1965, MEK was formed by a group of Iranian college students as an Islamic political movement. Grounded in the democratic tradition of Iran’s Constitutional Revolution, the ideals of Premier Mohammed Mossadeq, and the pro-democracy protests of the 1960s, the organization held a liberal interpretation of Islam.[2]

The PMOI was originally devoted to armed struggle against the Shah of Iran, capitalism, and Western imperialism.^[1] The group claims to have renounced violence in 2001^[2] and today it is the main organization in the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), an "umbrella coalition" claiming the role of a parliament-in-exile dedicated to a democratic and secular coalition government in Iran. The group has had thousands of its members for many years in bases in Iraq, but according to the British Broadcasting Corporation "they were disarmed in the wake of the US-led invasion and are said to have adhered to a ceasefire."^[3] On July 28, Iraqi security forces made an assault on the residents that left 11killed, 340 maimed, 1000 battered and 36 others arrested and released after 72 days of hunger strike. Considerable controversy surrounds the issues of whether the NCRI is merely a front group for the PMOI^[4][5]; whether the NCRI is involved in terrorism, or if it is "a legitimate dissident organization fighting for democracy in Iran"^[6] whose Western accusers are attempting to use it as a bargaining chip in negotiations with its enemy the Islamic Republic of Iran.

The PMOI's armed wing is, or was, called the National Liberation Army of Iran (NLA). The Iranian government officially refers to the organization as the Monafeqin (literally, "Hypocrites"), maintaining that PMOI is not truly Islamic.^[7]

On July 16, a federal appeals court in the United States ordered the State Department to re-examine a controversial decision to maintain the PMOI on its list of Foreign Terrorist Organisations. The ruling was a major victory for the PMOI in its 13-year legal battle to get off the FTO list.Appeals court sides with Iranian dissident groupUS erred in counting Iran dissidents as terrorists: court

The United States designated the PMOI a terrorist organization.^[8][9] On January 26, 2009, the Council of the European Union removed the PMOI from the EU list of organisations it designates as terrorist. The group said it was the outcome of a “seven-year-long legal and political battle”.^{[10][11][12][13]}

The PMOI and the NCRI claim to have provided the United States with intelligence on Iran's nuclear program in 2002 and 2008.^[14][15]

Contents 1 Other entities tied with PMOI 2 Membership 3 History 3.1 Before the Islamic Revolution 3.1.1 Foundation 3.1.2 Schism 3.1.3 Anti-American Campaign 3.2 Ideology 3.2.1 Before 1979 Iranian Revolution 3.2.2 After the revolution 3.3 Armed conflict with the Islamic government 3.3.1 Relations with Iraq under Saddam Hussein 3.3.2 National Liberation Army of Iran 3.3.3 1988 executions of Iranian political prisoners 3.4 Relations with France in the mid-1980s 3.4.1 Post-war 3.5 In Iraq after the 2003 invasion 3.5.1 Crackdown 3.6 2003 French raid 3.7 A "bargaining chip" between Tehran and Washington? 3.8 Nuclear issue 4 Designation as a terrorist organization 5 Alleged human rights abuses 6 Crackdown on PMOI's main headquarters 7 See also 8 References 9 External links 9.1 Official 9.2 Other

Other entities tied with PMOI

The People's Mujahedin of Iran is known by a variety of names including:

• Mojahedin-e-Khalq Organization (MEK)
• The National Liberation Army of Iran (the group's armed wing)
• (Disputed) National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) - the PMOI is the founding member of a coalition of organizations called the NCRI, while others including the U.S. FBI claims that the NCRI is either an "alias" for or a front group for the PMOI. Both organizations share the same leader and offices. The PMOI itself described the NCRI as its "Political Branch" in documents found by the FBI in December 2001.^[4][5]
• Monafiqeen-e-Khalq (MKO) - the Iranian government consistently refers to the People's Mujahedin with this name, meaning "hypocrites of the people."^[7]

Note: The acronyms MEK and PMOI are used interchangeably throughout this article as the abbreviation MEK is commonly used by the media and national governments around the world to refer to the People's Mujahedin.

Membership

The PMOI was believed to have a 5,000 – 7,000 strong armed guerrilla force, based in Iraq before the 2003 war, but a membership of between 3,000 – 5,000 is considered more likely.^[16] In 2005 the US think-tank, Council on Foreign Relations, believed that the PMOI had 10,000 members, one-third to one-half of whom were fighters. The think-tank claims PMOI membership has dwindled, the organization has had little success attracting new recruits.^[17] According to a 2003 article by the New York Times, the PMOI would be composed of 5,000 — many of them female — fighters based in Iraq.^[18] A recent census of Ashraf shows little more than 3500 members with fewer than 900 women there.

History

Before the Islamic Revolution

Foundation

The People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran was founded in 1965 by six former members of the Liberation or Freedom Movement of Iran, middle-class students at Tehran University, including Mohammad Hanifnejad, Saied Mohsen and Ali-Asghar Badizadegan. The PMOI opposed the rule of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, considering him corrupt and oppressive and considered the Liberation Movement moderate and ineffective.^[19] In its first five years, the group primarily engaged in ideological work, combining their interpretation of Islam and the experiences of Marxist philosophy.

Its first military activities, a bombing of the Tehran electrical works and unsuccessful airplane hijacking, were conducted in August 1971 in protest against the Pahlavi's extravagant 2,500 year celebration of Iran's monarchy. Nine Mujahedin were arrested and under torture one member gave out information leading to the arrests of another 66 members. Within a few months SAVAK had eliminated "the whole of its original leadership through executions or street battles." Other members remained incarcerated for many years, with the last group, including Massoud Rajavi, being released just before Khomeini arrived in Tehran in January 1979. However, in the mean time, the group survived and continued to carry out violent attacks on the regime.^[20]

Schism

In October 1975 the PMOI underwent an ideological split. While the remaining primary members of MEK were imprisoned, some of the original low-level members of MEK formed a new organization that followed Marxist, not Islamic, ideals; these members appropriated the MEK name to establish and enhance their own legitimacy. ^[21] This was expressed in a book entitled Manifesto on Ideological Issues, in which the central leadership declared "that after ten years of secret existence, four years of armed struggle, and two years of intense ideological rethinking, they had reached the conclusion that Marxism, not Islam, was the true revolutionary philosophy." Mujtaba Taleqani, son of Ayatallah Taleqani, was one of these converts to Marxism. Thus after May 1975 there were two rival Mujahedin, each with its own publication, its own organization, and its own activities.^[22] A few months before the Iranian Revolution the majority of the Marxist Mujahedin renamed themselves "Peykar", on December 7, 1978 (16 Azar, 1357), the full name is: Organization of Struggle for the Emancipation of the Working Class.This name was after the "St. Petersburg League of Struggle for the Emancipation of the Working Class", which was a left wing group in St. Petersburg, Russia. It was founded by Lenin in the autumn of 1895.^[23]

Anti-American Campaign

It has been alleged that MEK killed six Americans in 1973, 1975, and 1976.^[24]Despite MEK’s public support for the removal of the Shah, the leaders and members of MEK today have never advocated violence against civilians, an action that runs counter to its fundamental beliefs, and MEK continues to deny these accusations.^[25] The Shah imprisoned or killed the main body of the MEK – the Islamic MEK headed by Massoud Rajavi. While the MEK was at the point of virtual extinction, a small cabal composed of some of the MEK remnants commandeered the organization. This takeover of the MEK by a Marxist faction set the stage for the tragic series of events which have been wrongfully and inaccurately attributed by some observers to the main MEK, the Islamic MEK under Rajavi’s leadership. The Marxist faction operated in ways totally antithetical to the pro-democratic doctrine, philosophy, and principles of the MEK led by Massoud Rajavi.All evidence points to this faction and not the mainstream MEK, as the perpetrators of the tragic killing of Americans in the mid¬1970s. The confusion of names and the blur of rapidly moving events have led some to conflate the two groups into one – a distinction that does not withstand critical analysis. Followings are some examples:

• The PMOI failed in an attempt to kidnap the U.S. Ambassador to Iran, Douglas MacArthur II, on 1971-11-30.^[26]
• USAF Brig. Gen. Harold Price was wounded in a May 1972 assassination attempt.^[27][28]
• The first success in the assassination campaign was the murder of Lt. Col. Louis Lee Hawkins, a U.S. Army comptroller. He was shot to death in front of his home in Tehran by two terrorists on a motorcycle on 1973-06-02.^{[27][29][30][31][32][33]}
• A car carrying U.S. Air Force officers Col. Paul Shaffer and Lt. Col. Jack Turner was trapped between two cars carrying terrorists. They told the Iranian driver to lie down and then shot and killed the Americans. Six hours later a woman called reporters to claim the PMOI carried out the attack as retaliation for the recent death of prisoners at the hands of Iranian authorities.^{[27][29][31][32][34]}
• A car carrying three American employees of Rockwell International was attacked in May 1976. William Cottrell, Donald Smith, and Robert Krongard were killed. They had been working on the Ibex system for gathering intelligence on the neighboring USSR.^[29][32][35]

Leading up to the Islamic Revolution the Marxist wing of the PMOI conducted attacks and assassinations against both Iranian and Western targets.^[9] According to the U.S. Department of State and the presentation of the PMOI by the Foreign Affairs group of the Australian Parliament, the group conducted several assassinations of U.S. military personnel and civilians working in Iran during the 1970s.

Ideology

Before 1979 Iranian Revolution

The PMOI's ideology of revolutionary Shiaism is based on an interpretation of Islam so similar to that of Ali Shariati that "many concluded" they were inspired by him. According to historian Ervand Abrahamian, it's clear that "in later years" that Shariati and "his prolific works" had "indirectly helped the Mujahedin."^[36] According to the U.S. Department of State' presentation of the PMOI, the philosophy of the PMOI is a combination of Marxism, Nationalism and Islam.^[9]

In the group's "first major ideological work," Nahzat-i Husseini or Hussein's Movement, authored by one of the groups founders, Ahmad Reza'i, it was argued that Nezam-i Towhid (monotheistic order) sought by the prophet Muhammad, was a commonwealth fully united not only in its worship of one God but in a classless society that strives for the common good. "Shiism, particularly Hussein's historic act of martyrdom and resistance, has both a revolutionary message and a special place in our popular culture."^[20]

After the revolution

In more recent years under the guidance of Maryam Rajavi the organization has adopted strong principles in favor of women. Women have now assumed some senior positions of responsibility within the ranks of the PMOI and although women make up only a third of fighters, two-thirds of its commanders are women. Rajavi ultimately believes that women should enjoy equal rights with men.^[37]

In 1981, the PMOI formed the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) with the stated goal of uniting the opposition to the Iranian government under one umbrella organization. The PMOI claims that in the past 25 years, the NCRI has evolved into a 540-member parliament-in-exile, with a specific platform that emphasizes free elections, gender equality and equal rights for ethnic and religious minorities. The PMOI claims that it also advocates a free-market economy and supports peace in the Middle East. However, the FBI claims that the NCRI "is not a separate organization, but is instead, and has been, an integral part of the [PMOI] at all relevant times" and that the NCRI is "the political branch" of the PMOI, rather than vice versa. Although the PMOI is today the main organization of the NCRI, the latter previously hosted other organizations, such as the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran.^[4]

According to the publicly stated ideology of the PMI, elections and public suffrage are the sole indicators of political legitimacy. According to their publications, the Word of God and Islam are meaningless without freedom and respect for individual volition and choice. Their interpretation of Islam the Quran says that the most important characteristic distinguishing man from animals is his free will. It is on this basis that human beings are held accountable. Without freedom, no society can develop or progress. Although its leaders presents themselves as Muslims, the PMOI describes itself as a secular organization: "The National Council of Resistance believes in the separation of Church and State."^[38]

Armed conflict with the Islamic government

Following the Iranian revolution, the newly established theocratic government of Ayatollah Khomeini in Iran launched a fierce campaign to crush the PMOI. Khomeini attacked the MEK as elteqati (eclectic), contaminated with Gharbzadegi ("the Western plague"), and as monafeqin (hypocrites) and kafer (unbelievers).^[39] In February 1980 concentrated attacks by hezbollahi toughs began on the meeting places, bookstores, newsstands of Mujahideen and other leftists^[40] driving the left underground in Iran. Hundreds of PMOI supporters and members were killed from 1979 to 1981, and some 3,000 were arrested.^[41] Ultimately, the organization called for a massive demonstration under the banner of Islam on June 20, 1981 to protest Iran's new leadership. PMOI called this event a turning point in Iran’s contemporary history. Revolutionary guards (IRGC) opened fire at the crowd upon the order of Ayatollah Khomeini. Hundreds were killed and thousands arrested.[3]

On 28 June 1981, bombs were detonated at the headquarters of the since-dissolved Islamic Republic Party. Around 70 high-ranking officials, including Chief Justice Mohammad Beheshti (who was the second most powerful figure in the revolution after Ayatollah Khomeini at the time), cabinet members, and elected members of parliament, were killed. The Mujahedin never publicly confirmed or denied any responsibility for the deed, but stated the attack was `a natural and necessary reaction to the regime's atrocities.` The bomber was identified as a Mujahedin operative by the name of Mohammad Reza Kolahi, who had secured a job in the building disguised as a sound engineer ^[42]. Khomeini accused them of responsibility and, according to BBC journalist Baqer Moin, the Mujahedin were "generally perceived as the culprits" for it in Iran.^[43] Two months later on August 30, another bomb was detonated killing the popularly elected President Rajai and Premier Mohammad Javad Bahonar. An active member of the Mujahedin, Massoud Kashmiri, was identified as the perpetrator, and according to reports came close to killing the entire government including Khomeini.^[44] The reaction following both bombings was intense with many arrests and executions of Mujahedin and other leftist groups, but "assassinations of leading officials and active supporters of the regime by the Mujahedin were to continue for the next year or two."^[45] This occurred following Saddam's invasion when the public was focused on defending the motherland much more than pressing grevances against the government.

Eventually, the majority of the PMOI leadership and members fled to France, where it operated until 1986, when tension arose between Paris and Tehran over the Eurodif nuclear stake and the French citizens kidnapped in the Lebanon hostage crisis. After Rajavi flew to Baghdad, French hostages were released.

Relations with Iraq under Saddam Hussein

The PMOI transferred its headquarters to Iraq in 1986, during the Iran–Iraq War. According to the US State Department, the PMOI received all of its military support and most of its financial assistance from Saddam's government until the 2003 Invasion of Iraq. The PMOI also has used front organizations to solicit contributions from expatriate Iranian communities. PMOI's main economic development is based on tributes and endowments from its supporters all over the world.

The PMOI's decision to move its headquarters to Iraq in the middle of the war — which was started by an invasion by the Iraqi army and cost many tens of thousands of Iranians lives — caused the PMOI to lose most of its supporters in Iran, regardless of their views towards the Iranian government.^[46] A report by the Foreign Affairs group of the Australian Parliament states the PMOI "is believed to have lost much of its popular support within Iran since siding with Iraq".^[16]

National Liberation Army of Iran

Near the end of the 1980-1988 war with Iran, a military force of 7000 members of the PMOI, armed and equipped by Saddam's Iraq and calling itself the National Liberation Army of Iran (NLA), went into action. On July 26, 1988, six days after the Ayatollah Khomeini had announced his acceptance of the UN brokered ceasefire resolution, the NLA advanced under heavy Iraqi air cover, crossing the Iranian border from Iraq. It seized and razed to the ground the Iranian town of Islamabad-e Gharb. As it advanced further into Iran, Iraq ceased its air support and Iranian forces cut off NLA supply lines and counterattacked under cover of fighter planes and helicopter gunships. On July 29 the NLA announced a voluntary withdrawal back to Iraq. The PMOI claims it lost 1400 dead or missing and the Islamic Republic sustained 55,000 casualties (either IRGC, Basij forces, or the army). The Islamic Republic claims to have killed 4500 NLA and Iraqi troops during the operation.^[47] The operation was called Foroughe Javidan (Eternal Light) by the PMOI and the counterattack Operation Mersad by the Iranian forces.

1988 executions of Iranian political prisoners

A large number of prisoners from the PMOI, and a lesser number from other leftist opposition groups (somewhere between 1,400 and 30,000),^[48] were executed in 1988, following Operation Eternal Light.^{[49][50][51][52][53]} Dissident Ayatollah Montazeri has written in his memoirs that this massacre, deemed a crime against humanity, was ordered by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and carried out by several high-ranking members of Iran's current government.

Relations with France in the mid-1980s

In 1986, after French Prime Minister Jacques Chirac struck a deal with Tehran for the release of French hostages held prisoners by the Hezbollah in Lebanon, the PMOI was forced to leave France and relocated in Iraq. Investigative journalist Dominique Lorentz has related the 1986 capture of French hostages to an alleged blackmail of France by Tehran concerning the nuclear program.^[54]

Post-war

According to presentations of the PMOI by the U.S. Department of State and the Foreign Affairs group of the Australian Parliament, the PMOI are also accused of having assisted the Iraqi Republican Guard in suppressing the Kurdish and Shiite uprisings in Iraq after the 1991 Persian Gulf War.^[16] Maryam Rajavi, who assumed the leadership role of the PMOI after a series of years as co-leader alongside her husband Massoud Rajavi, has been reported by former members of the PMOI as having said: "Take the Kurds under your tanks, and save your bullets for the Iranian Revolutionary Guards."^[18]

In the following years the PMOI conducted several assassinations of political and military figures of the Islamic Republic, including Asadollah Lajevardi, who was known as the "butcher of Evin," in 1998 and deputy chief of the Iranian Armed Forces General Staff, Brigadier General Ali Sayyad Shirazi, who was assassinated on the doorsteps of his house on April 10, 1999.

In Iraq after the 2003 invasion

After the 2003 invasion of Iraq, PMOI camps were bombed by coalition forces because of its alliance with Saddam Hussein. On April 15, U.S. Special Forces brokered a ceasefire agreement with the leaders of the PMOI and entered into a ceasefire agreement with the coalition after the attack. Each compound surrendered without hostilities.^[55][56][57] In the operation, the US reportedly captured 6,000 PMOI fighters and over 2,000 pieces of military equipment.^[58][59] This was a controversial agreement both in the public sphere and privately among the Bush administration due to the MEK's designation as a terrorist organization by the U.S. State Department.^[60]

In the operation, the US reportedly captured 6000 MEK soldiers and over 2000 pieces of military equipment, including 19 British-made Chieftain tanks.^[59][61] The MEK compound outside Fallujah became known as Camp Fallujah and sits adjacent to the other major base in Fallujah, Forward Operating Base Dreamland. Captured MEK members were kept at Camp Ashraf, about 100 kilometers west of the Iranian border and 60 kilometers north of Baghdad.^[62]

After a four-month investigation by several U.S. agencies, including the State Department, only a handful of charges under U.S. criminal law were brought against PMOI members, all American citizens. The PMOI remains listed as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) by the Department of State.^[63] Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld declared PMOI personnel in Ashraf protected persons under the Fourth Geneva Convention. They are currently under the guard of US Military. Defectors from this group are housed separately in a refugee camp within Camp Ashraf, and protected by U.S. Army military police (2003-current), U.S. Marines (2005–2007), and the Bulgarian Army(2006-current).^[64]

On January 1, 2009 the U.S. military transferred control of Camp Ashraf to the Iraqi government. On the same day, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki announced that the militant group would not be allowed to base its operations from Iraqi soil.^[65]

Crackdown

On January 23, 2009, and while on a visit to Tehran, Iraqi National Security Advisor Mowaffak al-Rubaie re-iterated the Iraqi Prime Minister’s earlier announcement that the MEK organisation will no longer be able to base itself on Iraqi soil and stated that the members of the Organisation will have to make a choice, either to go back to Iran or to go to a third country, adding that these measures will be implemented over the next two months.^[66]

Eleven Iranians were killed and 500 injured in a July 29, 2009 raid by Iraqi security on the MEK Camp Ashraf in Diyala province of Iraq. U.S. officials had long opposed a violent takeover of the camp northeast of Baghdad, and the raid is thought to symbolize the declining American influence in Iraq.^[67] In the course of attack, 36 Iranian dissidents were arrested and removed from the camp to a prison in a town named Khalis where the arrestees went on hunger strike for 72 days, 7 of which was dry hunger strike. Finally, the dissidents were released when they were in an extremely critical condition and on the verge of death. [4][5][6]

The Iraqi government had earlier denied anyone died when they took control of the camp, which has been home to the People's Mujahideen for two decades. Other accounts list said a dozen had been killed. According to Simaye Azadi, there main channel, many attacks got filmed and uploaded on websites like youtube. ^[68] On July 28, clashes erupted at Ashraf in Diyala Province when the ISF attempted to establish a police presence inside the more than 3,400-person compound of the terrorist Iranian dissident group Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK). The clashes resulted in the deaths of 11 MEK members and injuries to 30 ISF officers. The government credibly claimed the MEK provoked the clashes by staging a violent demonstration to block the ISF from entering the compound.US state Departement website ,"2009 Human Rights Report: Iraq" </ref>

2003 French raid

In June 2003 French police raided the PMOI's properties, including its base in Auvers-sur-Oise, under the orders of anti-terrorist magistrate Jean-Louis Bruguière, after suspicions that it was trying to shift its base of operations there. 160 suspected PMOI members were then arrested. In response, 40 supporters began hunger strikes to protest the arrests, and ten immolated themselves in various European capitals. French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy (Union for a Popular Movement) declared that the PMOI "recently wanted to make France its support base, notably after the intervention in Iraq", while Pierre de Bousquet de Florian, head of France's domestic intelligence service, claimed that the group was "transforming its Val d'Oise centre [near Paris]... into an international terrorist base".^[69]

U.S. Senator Sam Brownback, Republican of Kansas and chairman of the Foreign Relations subcommittee on South Asia, then accused the French of doing "the Iranian government's dirty work". Along with other members of Congress, he wrote a letter of protest to President Jacques Chirac, while longtime PMOI supporters such as Sheila Jackson-Lee, Democrat of Texas, criticized Maryam Radjavi's arrest.^[18] However, the PMOI members were quickly released.

A "bargaining chip" between Tehran and Washington?

During the Iraq war, U.S. troops disarmed the PMOI and posted guards at its bases,^[70] but also protected and gave logistical support to the group because the it believed the group to be a high value source of intelligence on Iran.^[71] The PMOI are credited with revealing Iran's nuclear program in 2003 and alerted Americans to Iranian advancements in nuclear technology.^[72]

The same year that the French police raided the PMOI's properties in France, Tehran attempted to negotiate with Washington DC, proposing to withdraw military backing for Hamas and Hezbollah as well as give open access to their nuclear facilities in return for Western action in disbanding the PMOI, which was revealed by Newsnight, a BBC current affairs program, in 2007. The BBC uncovered a letter written after the invasion of Iraq in 2003 where Tehran made this offer^[73] The proposition was done in a secret letter given to Washington through Switzerland's help. According to the BBC and to what had been understood by the US State Department, the letter had received authorization from the highest levels of the Iranian government. According to Lawrence Wilkerson, former chief of staff of State secretary Colin Powell, interviewed by the BBC, the State Dept would first have positively considered the offer. But it would ultimately have been rejected by the office of Vice-President Dick Cheney.^[74]

Nuclear issue

The PMOI and the NCRI claim to be the first entities that revealed Iran's nuclear activities in 2002, which has turned to be a major concern for the US and some of its allies today.^[14] Recently on Feb 20, 2008, the NCRI claimed to have revealed another nuclear site of Islamic Republic. This claim has never been independently verified.^[15]

Designation as a terrorist organization

On July 16, a federal appeals court in the United States ordered the State Department to re-examine a controversial decision to maintain the PMOI on its list of Foreign Terrorist Organisations. The ruling was a major victory for the PMOI in its 13-year legal battle to get off the FTO list.Appeals court sides with Iranian dissident groupUS erred in counting Iran dissidents as terrorists: court

The PMOI was designated as a terrorist organization by the United States (since 1997), Canada, and Iran.^[8][9] The PMOI was legalized in the United Kingdom on 24 June 2008, six months after winning a court battle over its legality.^[3] According to Wall Street Journal^[75] "senior diplomats in the Clinton administration say the PMOI figured prominently as a bargaining chip in a bridge-building effort with Tehran." On Monday January 26, 2009, EU Council of Ministers agreed to remove the PMOI from the EU terror list. The group said it was the outcome of a “seven-year-long legal and political battle”. [7][8][9][10] A British court, the Proscribed Organisations Appeal Commission (POAC), also ruled in favour of the PMOI on 30 November 2007.[11]

According to a 2003 article by the New York Times, the US 1997 proscription of the group on the terrorist blacklist was done as "a goodwill gesture toward Iran's newly elected reform-minded president, Mohammad Khatami" (succeeded in 2005 by more conservative Mahmoud Ahmadinejad).^[18] In 2002, 150 members of the United States Congress signed a letter calling for the lifting of this designation.^[76] The PMOI have also tried to have the designation removed through several court cases in the U.S. The PMOI has now lost three appeals (1999, 2001 and 2003) to the US government to be removed from the list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations, and its terrorist status was reaffirmed each time. The PMOI has continued to protest worldwide against its listing, with the overt support of some US political figures.^[16][77]

Past supporters have included Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-CO), Rep. Bob Filner, (D-CA), and Sen. Kit Bond (R-MO), and former Attorney General John Ashcroft, "who became involved with the [PMOI] while a Republican senator from Missouri."^[78][79] In 2000, 200 U.S. Congress members signed a statement endorsing the organization's cause.^[80]

PMOI is legally active in Germany, Denmark and many other countries of the European Union. The NCRI maintained an Information Office in Washington DC, USA until August 2002, when US Secretary of State Colin Powell issued an order to shut down the offices.^[81] Recently, Dick Marty, Swiss investigator working for the human rights body the Council of Europe, called this designation a violation of human rights.^[82]

In April 2007, CNN reported that the US military and the International Committee of the Red Cross was continuing to protect the group, with the US army regularly escorting PMOI supply runs between Baghdad and its base, Camp Ashraf.^[83]

A number of British Lords and MPs have campaigned for PMOI to be taken off the terrorist list.^[84][85][86] On Nov 30, 2007 the British Court, The Proscribed Organisations Appeal Commission (POAC) ruled to the annulment of the terrorist designation and ordered the British government to remove PMOI off the terrorist list.^[87][88] The judgment was implemented in the United Kingdom six months later.^[3]

In January 2009, the European Union removed the group from its list of terrorist organizations. The EU had considered PMOI a terrorist organization starting in 2002, and the group had been lobbying for its removal from the list since that time. The move by the European courts unfroze the organization's assets, of which it said about $9 million was in France and tens of millions of dollars were elsewhere throughout the rest of the union.^[89].

Alleged human rights abuses

In May 2005, Human Rights Watch claimed that the PMOI were running prison camps within Iraq and were committing severe human rights violations against former PMOI members.^[90] The report described how the PMOI was held under tight control of the husband and wife team of Masoud and Maryam Rajavi. The report prompted a response by the PMOI and a few friendly MEPs (European MPs), who published a counter-report in September 2005.^[91] They noted that HRW had "relied only on 12 hours interviews with 12 suspicious individuals", and stated that "a delegation of MEPs visited Camp Ashraf in Iraq" and "conducted impromptu inspections of the sites of alleged abuses." Alejo Vidal-Quadras Roca (PP), one of the Vice-Presidents of the European Parliament, alleged that Iran's Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) was the source of the evidence against the PMOI.^[91]

Prompted by the FOFI document, Human Rights Watch re-interviewed all 12 of the original witnesses, conducting private and personal interviews lasting several hours with each of them in Germany and the Netherlands, where the witnesses now live. All of the witnesses restated their claims about the PMOI camps from the 1991-2003 period, saying PMOI officials subjected them to various forms of physical and psychological abuses once they made known their wishes to leave the organization.^[92]

The allegations by the Human Rights Watch were not confirmed by any other organization such as the International Red Cross, Amnesty International, or the US forces controlling the camp. Iran has an extensive misinformation campaign against its main opposition group PMOI. Mr. Gary Sick the Emeritus board member of the Huamn Rights Watch, was also a board member on a pro-Iran lobby group AIC (American Iranian Council)^[93][94].

Crackdown on PMOI's main headquarters

The Ashraf City, home to 3400 members of the PMOI was attacked by Iraqi government at the behest of Iran's regime leaving 11 killed, 370 maimed, over 1000 battered and 36 taken hostage who were released after 72 days of hunger strike and a worldwide campaign.^[95]

See also

• Baluchi Autonomist Movement
• 1988 Massacre of Iranian Prisoners
• Arms sales to Iraq 1973-1990
• Ali Sayad Shirazi
• Guerrilla groups of Iran
• Iran–Iraq War
• Massoud Rajavi
• Maryam Rajavi
• Camp Ashraf
• Masoud Banisadr
• MEK Compound (Fallujah, Iraq)
• Richard Perle
• Saddam's Trial and Iran-Iraq War
• 1991 uprisings in Iraq

References

External links

Official

• Official Website of the PMOI
• Website of the National Council for Resistance (NCR)
• National Council of Resistance of Iran - Foreign Affairs Committee
• U.S. Department of State: MEK Profile

Other

• Global Security on MEK
• (Persian) News and Information on Mujahedin-e Khalgh (MEK/MKO/NCR)
• MKO Watch
• Brian Binley (British MP) argues for removing the PMOI from terror lists
• Washington Times Article
• Economist article
• Book: The United States and Iran