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British court orders MeK off terror list
A British court ordered one of Irans most powerful opposition groups removed from the governments list of terrorist organizations Friday. The Peoples Mujahedeen of Iran and its affiliates had appealed to authorities to be taken off the list, which includes the likes of Al Qaeda and the Kurdish PKK. Britains Home Office had fought to keep them on the list. The decision by the Proscribed Organizations Appeal Commission was an important victory for the group, which is still considered a terrorist organization in the United States and the European Union, and has been engaged in long-running legal battles in both places to clear its name of the terrorist tag. Lawyers for Britains Home Office said it would appeal. Last year, the group successfully challenged an European Union decision to freeze its assets, although it was unsuccessful in removing its name from the EU list of terrorist groups. While officially banned in most Western countries, the groups standing is complicated by the looming confrontation between the United States, Germany, France and Britain and Iran over Tehrans disputed nuclear programme. The groups ambition of overthrowing Irans theocratic regime has won the praise of US lawmakers worried by allegations that the country is attempting to build a nuclear weapon. Originally Marxist-Islamist, the group was set up in the mid-1960s to oppose the US-backed dictatorship of the late Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. It participated in the countrys Islamic Revolution but soon fell out with the clerical government and launched a campaign of assassinations and bombings in an attempt to topple it. Posted by: Fred 2007-12-01 |
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