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{mosimage}PRESS RELEASE: PMOI off UK terror list | EU told: now do the same
MPs and Peers today approved an order by the Home Secretary to lift the ban on the PMOI, a member of the coalition National Council of Resistance of Iran.

PRESS RELEASE

PMOI off UK terror list
EU told: now do the same


{mosimage}MPs and Peers today (23 June) approved an order by the Home Secretary to lift the ban on the PMOI, a member of the coalition National Council of Resistance of Iran.

The Court of Appeal last month 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”.

Following debates in both Houses, the removal of the ban comes into effect from 00.01 a.m. on Tuesday (24 June).

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”.

Today’s result ends a seven-year legal battle to have the PMOI lifted from the UK blacklist. It is now expected that the EU will do the same.

Lord Corbett added: "Our own government and others in the EU governments and the US 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 programme to make a lethal mix which threatens the world's security."

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Note to editors:

The British Parliamentary Committee for Iran Freedom comprises over 100 Members of Parliament and Peers from across the political spectrum.
 
The PMOI – the People's Mojahedin Organisation of Iran – is a member of the main opposition coalition National Council of Resistance of Iran. Some 120,000 of its members and sympathisers have been executed by the mullahs. The NCRI was the first to alert the world to Iran's regime's secret nuclear projects in August 2002. Earlier this year it revealed that Iran had re-started its nuclear programme on 12 sites across the country.
 
Iran's Resistance seeks a secular, democratic Iran which respects human rights and liberates women. It wants UN-supervised elections and has agreed to abide by the results.