{mosimage}PRESS RELEASE - Statement by the British Parliamentary Committee for Iran Freedom on the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee’s 2007-08 annual report on Iran released 2 March 2008:
PRESS RELEASE
{mosimage}Statement on House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee’s report “Global Security: Iran - Fifth Report of Session 2007–08”
Statement by the British Parliamentary Committee for Iran Freedom on the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee’s 2007-08 annual report on Iran released 2 March 2008:
The FAC reflected on the treatment of Iran’s main democratic opposition movement, the PMOI, by the United Kingdom government.
The FAC said: “We recommend that the Government in its Response to this Report sets out fully why it has resisted the decisions of both the High Court in the UK and the European Court of Justice that the People's Mujahideen of Iran (PMOI), also known as the Mujahedin-e-Khalq (MeK), should no longer be listed as a terrorist organisation.”
Lord Corbett of Castle Vale, Chairman of the British Parliamentary Committee for Iran Freedom, said: “Parliament is now rightly demanding that the government comes clean about its disregard for the rule of law. Two unequivocal court orders in Europe and in the UK have called for the de-proscription of the Iran’s main democratic opposition, the PMOI.
“The government is making a mockery of the rule of law by keeping the ban on the PMOI despite being unable to produce any evidence to convince either the UK’s Proscribed Organisations Appeal Commission or the European Court of Justice that the group is concerned in terrorism.”
Lord Corbett added: “The FAC report follows on from two separate resolutions in January at the 47-nation Council of Europe and the European Parliament, which called on the UK government and EU to implement the court orders.”
The British Parliamentary Committee for Iran Freedom
2 March 2008
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Note to editors:
The British Parliamentary Committee for Iran Freedom is comprised of over 50 Members of Parliament and Peers from across the political spectrum. It has the backing of the majority of MPs and more than 200 Peers in its endeavours for human rights and democracy in Iran.
The People’s Mojahedin Organisation of Iran (PMOI) – Iran’s principal opposition force – is a member organisation in the main opposition coalition National Council of Resistance of Iran. Some 120,000 of its members and sympathisers have been executed by the mullahs’ regime on political grounds. The NCRI was the first to alert the international community to the regime’s secret nuclear projects in August 2002.
The PMOI were proscribed in the UK by then-Home Secretary Jack Straw MP in 2001. The same proscription was used as the basis of the group’s inclusion in the EU’s terrorist list. On 12 December 2006, however, the Court of First Instance of the European Court of Justice in a landmark verdict “annulled” the EU’s decision to place the group in the terrorist list. At the UK Government’s bidding, the EU announced in June 2007 that it would maintain the PMOI in the list.
In a landmark verdict on 30 November 2007, the Proscribed Organisations Appeal Commission (POAC) ordered the Home Secretary to remove the PMOI from the list of proscribed organisations. In its judgement, POAC further found that the decision of the Home Secretary to refuse an application made by 35 MPs and Peers calling for de-proscription of the PMOI was "flawed", "perverse" and "must be set aside".
On 14 December, POAC rejected the Home Secretary’s leave for appeal against its 30 Nov. judgment.
On 23 January 2008, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe adopted Resolution 1597 describing POAC's verdict on the PMOI case as a "slap in the face" for the UK government and called on the EU/UK to "implement immediately the decisions of competent European and national judicial institutions affecting the status of the listed persons or entities."
Condemning the EU Council of Ministers’ decision to ignore the ECJ ruling, the resolution said, “By these actions, the Council is no longer following the rule of law...The Council has not only breached its obligations under the EC Treaty, but defied the Court of First Instance as well. OMPI’s fundamental rights continue to be violated.”
On 31 January, the European Parliament adopted a similar resolution taking note of the “decision of the British Proscribed Organisations Appeal Commission of 30 November 2007 calling on the UK Home Secretary to remove the People´s Mojahedin Organisation of Iran (PMOI) from the list of proscribed organisations immediately” and the “judgment of the Court of First Instance of the European Communities of 12 December 2006”.