{mosimage}PRESS RELEASE - At a press conference in Parliament on Wednesday 7 February, an all-party group of MPs and Peers, including former Ministers, will announce their unprecedented legal challenge to the proscription of Iran’s main opposition, the People’s Mojahedin Organisation of Iran (PMOI).

PRESS RELEASE

5 February 2007

 
 
At a press conference in Parliament on Wednesday 7 February, an all-party group of MPs and Peers, including former Ministers, will announce their unprecedented legal challenge to the proscription of Iran’s main opposition, the People’s Mojahedin Organisation of Iran (PMOI).
 
The PMOI has been the principal source of information on the Iranian regime’s human rights abuses, terrorism, interference in Iraq and nuclear weapons programmes. It was the first to reveal the regime’s nuclear facilities in August 2002. The organisation has also provided information on arms, including IEDs, provided by the Iranian regime to Shiite militias for attacks against Coalition forces, as well as recently revealing the details of 32,000 Iraqis on the payroll of the Iranian regime.
 
This move by the British Parliamentarians follows the landmark judgment of the European Court of Justice on 12 December 2006, which annulled a December 2005 Decision by the Council of Ministers of the European Union to maintain a freeze on PMOI assets. Declaring the actions of the Council unlawful, the Court stressed that the Council and the British government had failed to produce any evidence justifying the inclusion of the PMOI in the EU terror list, so infringing the organisation’s right to a fair hearing and effective judicial protection.
 
The MPs and Peers will stress the urgent need for deproscription of the PMOI and a review of the British government’s policy of appeasing Tehran.