Iranian opposition group wins round in battle for removal from U.S. terror list

Iranian opposition group wins round in battle for removal from U.S. terror list

The Iranian exiled opposition group that disclosed the existence of Iran's nuclear program in 2002 scored a victory today in a long legal fight to be taken off the Department of State's list of foreign terrorist organizations.

A U.S. appeals court in Washington, DC, ruled that the department failed to give the Peoples Mujahideen Organization of Iran a chance to rebut charges that it engages in terrorist activities or at least "retains a limited capacity and the intent to use violence to achieve its political goals" of toppling the hard-line Islamic regime in Tehran. The group is also known as the Mujahideen-e-Khalq.

The three-judge panel ruled that the secretary of state "failed to accord the PMOI . . . due process protections" and order the department to reconsider a 2003 decision that kept the group on the list of foreign terrorist organizations, which it was first placed on in 1997. An organization on the list can have its U.S. assets frozen, its members barred from entering the United States and those who provide it funds or other support can be criminally prosecuted.

The PMOI, whose members have been languishing in a camp in Iraq since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, argues that it should be removed from the list because it has ceased its military activities, renounced violence, disarmed and cooperated with U.S. officials in Iraq, who found that it has broken no U.S. laws, and provided intelligence on Iran's nuclear program.

The British government removed the group, led by the Paris-based Maryam Rajavi, from its list of terrorist organizations in 2008 and the European Union did the same the following year.

The group, which was started by students and fought for the 1979 overthrow of the late Shah Reza Pahlavi, allegedly was involved in anti-American violence in the 1970s and supported the takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran. It is widely disliked in Iran for supporting the late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.

Posted by Jonathan Landay


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