{mosimage}Iranian-backed moves to expel the PMOI, its main democratic opposition, from Iraq are condemned by the British Parliamentary Committee for Iran Freedom.

Iranian-backed moves to expel the PMOI, its main democratic opposition, from Iraq are condemned by the British Parliamentary Committee for Iran Freedom.  

Iran's "Supreme Leader" Ali Khamenei ordered his proxies in the Iraqi parliament to table an emergency bill to expel the PMOI from its base at Ashraf City. Those tasked with achieving this are Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim, who leads the Iranian-funded Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), and his deputy Adel Abdul Mehdi.

In January, the Iranian Resistance revealed the names and particulars of 32,000 agents on the Iranian regime's payroll in Iraq. Among them were senior members of the current Iraqi government and SCIRI chiefs many of whom have had strong ties with the Iranian regime's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps' elite Qods Force.

The "New York Times" reported on 7 January '07 that following a revelation by the PMOI it was discovered that a member of Iraq's Parliament had masterminded the bombing of the U.S. and French embassies in Kuwait in 1983. That MP, Jamal Jafaar Mohammed Ali Ebrahimi, who also goes by the name of Abu Mohandes, fled to Iran last week.

Ali al-Dabbagh, spokesperson of Iraq's Shiite-dominated government, reacted to the PMOI's naming of 32,000 Iranian-funded agents in Iraq. "By making such accusations, this organisation has broken the law... and interfered in internal Iraqi affairs." he said. (Agence France Presse, 1 February)

"The presence of this organisation is illegal and the cabinet has decided to put an end to it," he added.

The mullahs view the PMOI as a strategic bulwark to the expansion of their fundamentalism and terrorism in Iraq and the wider Middle East.

PMOI members, who had lived as refugees in Iraq for the past two decades, enjoy "Protected Persons" status under the UN's Fourth Geneva Convention which prevents them from being expelled.

The PMOI was supported by 5.2 million Iraqis who signed a statement in June 2006 describing the group as the antithesis of the mullahs' fundamentalism.

At a press conference in Brussels last week, several Iraqi parliamentarians who represent patriotic and democratic Iraqi parties, declared their opposition to the mullahs' bid to have the PMOI expelled.

The British Parliamentary Committee for Iran Freedom urges the Speaker of Iraq's Parliament and democratic MPs to prevent the expulsion of the PMOI and calls on the Multi-National Force – Iraq (MNFI) and the U.S. government to reaffirm PMOI members' refugee status.


Lord Corbett of Castle Vale
Chairman,
British Parliamentary Committee for Iran Freedom