Iran 274

Iran Focus

Tehran, Iran, Jun. 15 – Up to a million people took part in anti-government rallies in Tehran and other major cities on Monday, protesting the re-appointment of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad following a presidential election contest which they believe was rigged.

Venting their anger at the clerical establishment, many young protestors in Tehran chanted “death to the dictator” and some held up banners calling for ‘democracy’. Iran does not allow UN-supervised elections.

The opposition group People’s Mujahedin says that at least 10 people have been killed by security forces in Iran since the election which it denounced as a “sham”.

Let u vooral op welke bron hier wordt opgevoerd: de People Mujahedin. Wie zijn dat? Wikipedia:

The People's Mujahedin of Iran (PMOI, also MEK, MKO) (Persian: سازمان مجاهدين خلق ايران sāzmān-e mojāhedin-e khalq-e irān) is a militant Islamic Socialist organization that advocates the overthrow of the Islamic Republic government of Iran.
Founded in 1965, the PMOI was originally devoted to armed struggle against the Shah of Iran, capitalism, and Western imperialism.[1] The group officially renounced violence in 2001[2] and today it is the main organization in the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), an "umbrella coalition" parliament-in-exile that claims to be dedicated to a democratic, secular and coalition government in Iran. The group has had thousands of its members for many years in bases in Iraq, but "they were disarmed in the wake" of the 2003 US-led invasion and "are said to have adhered to a ceasefire."[3]
Considerable controversy surrounds the issues of whether the NCRI is merely a front group for the PMOI[4][5]; whether the NCRI is involved in terrorism, or if it is "a legitimate dissident organization fighting for democracy in Iran"[6] whose Western accusers are attempting to use as a bargaining chip in negotiation with its enemy the Islamic Republic of Iran.
The PMOI's armed wing is, or was, called the National Liberation Army of Iran (NLA). The Iranian government officially refers to the organization as the Monafeqin (literally, "Hypocrites"), maintaining that PMOI is not truly Islamic.[7]
United States, Canada, Iraq and Iran have designated the PMOI a terrorist organization.[8][9] On Monday January 26, 2009, EU Council of Ministers agreed to remove the PMOI from the EU terror list. The group said it was the outcome of a “seven-year-long legal and political battle”.[10][11][12][13]
The PMOI and the NCRI claim to have provided the United States intelligence on Iran's nuclear program in 2002, and 2008.[14] [15]

On 28 June 1981, bombs were detonated at the headquarters of the since-dissolved Islamic Republic Party. Around 70 high-ranking officials, including Chief Justice Mohammad Beheshti (who was the second most powerful figure in the revolution after Ayatollah Khomeini at the time), cabinet members, and elected members of parliament, were killed. The Mujahedin never publicly confirmed or denied any responsibility for the deed, but stated the attack was `a natural and necessary reaction to the regime's atrocities.` The bomber was identified as a Mujahedin operative by the name of Mohammad Reza Kolahi, who had secured a job in the building disguised as a sound engineer [29]. Khomeini accused them of responsibility and, according to BBC journalist Baqer Moin, the Mujahedin were "generally perceived as the culprits" for it in Iran.[30] Two months later on August 30, another bomb was detonated killing the popularly elected President Rajai and Premier Mohammad Javad Bahonar. An active member of the Mujahedin, Massoud Kashmiri, was identified as the perpetrator, and according to reports came close to killing the entire government including Khomeini.[31] The reaction following both bombings was intense with many arrests and executions of Mujahedin and other leftist groups, but "assassinations of leading officials and active supporters of the regime by the Mujahedin were to continue for the next year or two."[32] This occurred following Saddam's invasion when the public was focused on defending the motherland much more than pressing grevances against the government.
Eventually, the much of the PMOI leadership and members fled to France, where it operated until 1986, when tension arose between Paris and Tehran over the Eurodif nuclear stake and the French citizens kidnapped in the Lebanon hostage crisis. After Rajavi flew to Baghdad, French hostages were released. The PMOI disclosed a tape of conversation by some Iranian official in the Iranian embassy in Paris showing the plot of repatriation of Massoud Rajavi to Iran[citation needed].

[edit]
Relations with Iraq under Saddam Hussein
The PMOI transferred its headquarters to Iraq in 1986, during the Iran–Iraq War. According to the US State Department, the PMOI received all of its military support and most of its financial assistance from Saddam's government until the 2003 Invasion of Iraq. The PMOI also has used front organizations to solicit contributions from expatriate Iranian communities.
The PMOI's decision to move its headquarters to Iraq in the middle of the war — which was started by an invasion by the Iraqi army and cost many tens of thousands of Iranians lives — caused the PMOI to lose most of its supporters in Iran, regardless of their views towards the Iranian government.[33] A report by the Foreign Affairs group of the Australian Parliament states the PMOI "is believed to have lost much of its popular support within Iran since siding with Iraq".[16] However the PMOI claims it has always maintained its independence from its Iraqi host and denies "siding with Iraq" during the Iran–Iraq War.[citation needed] The PMOI also declared its impartiality in Persian Gulf wars in 1991 and 2003.[citation needed]


After the 2003 invasion of Iraq
After the 2003 invasion of Iraq, PMOI camps were bombed by coalition forces because of its alliance with Saddam Hussein. On April 15, U.S. Special Forces brokered a ceasefire agreement with the leaders of the PMOI and entered into a ceasefire agreement with the coalition after the attack. Each compound surrendered without hostilities.[42][43][44] In the operation, the US reportedly captured 6,000 PMOI fighters and over 2,000 pieces of military equipment.[45][46] This was a controversial agreement both in the public sphere and privately among the Bush administration due to the MEK's designation as a terrorist organization by the U.S. State Department.[47]
In the operation, the US reportedly captured 6000 MEK soldiers and over 2000 pieces of military equipment, including 19 British-made Chieftain tanks.[46][48] The MEK compound outside Fallujah became known as Camp Fallujah and sits adjacent to the other major base in Fallujah, Forward Operating Base Dreamland. Captured MEK members were kept at Camp Ashraf, about 100 kilometers west of the Iranian border and 60 kilometers north of Baghdad.[49]
After a four-month investigation by several U.S. agencies, including the State Department, only a handful of charges under U.S. criminal law were brought against PMOI members, all American citizens. The PMOI remains listed as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) by the Department of State.[50] Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld declared PMOI personnel in Ashraf protected persons under the Fourth Geneva Convention. They are currently under the guard of US Military. Defectors from this group are housed separately in a refugee camp within Camp Ashraf, and protected by U.S. Army military police (2003-current), U.S. Marines (2005-2007), and the Bulgarian Army(2006-current).[51][52]
On January 1, 2009 the U.S. military transferred control of Camp Ashraf to the Iraqi government. On the same day, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki announced that the militant group would not be allowed to base its operations from Iraqi soil.[53]
On January the 23rd 2009, and while on a visit to the Iranian Capital Tehran, the Iraqi National Security Advisor, Mowaffak al-Rubaie re-iterated the Iraqi Prime Minister’s earlier announcement that the MEK organisation will no longer be able to base itself on Iraqi soil and stated that the members of the Organisation will have to make a choice, either to go back to Iran or to go to a third country, adding that these measures will be implemented over the next two months.[54]

[edit]
2003 French raid
Further information: Irano-French relations
In June 2003 French police raided the PMOI's properties, including its base in Auvers-sur-Oise, under the orders of anti-terrorist magistrate Jean-Louis Bruguière, after suspicions that it was trying to shift its base of operations there. 160 suspected PMOI members were then arrested. In response, 40 supporters began hunger strikes to protest the arrests, and ten immolated themselves in various European capitals. French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy (Union for a Popular Movement) declared that the PMOI "recently wanted to make France its support base, notably after the intervention in Iraq", while Pierre de Bousquet de Florian, head of France's domestic intelligence service, claimed that the group was "transforming its Val d'Oise centre [near Paris]... into an international terrorist base".[55]
U.S. Senator Sam Brownback, Republican of Kansas and chairman of the Foreign Relations subcommittee on South Asia, then accused the French of doing "the Iranian government's dirty work". Along with other members of Congress, he wrote a letter of protest to President Jacques Chirac, while longtime PMOI supporters such as Sheila Jackson-Lee, Democrat of Texas, criticized Maryam Radjavi's arrest.[18] However, the PMOI members were quickly released.

[edit]
A "bargaining chip" between Tehran and Washington?
The same year that the French police raided the PMOI's properties in France, Tehran attempted to negotiate with Washington DC, proposing to withdraw military backing for Hamas and Hezbollah as well as give open access to their nuclear facilities in return for Western action in disbanding the PMOI, which was revealed by Newsnight, a BBC current affairs program, in 2007. The BBC uncovered a letter written after the invasion of Iraq in 2003 where Tehran made this offer[56] The proposition was done in a secret letter given to Washington through Switzerland's help. According to the BBC and to what had been understood by the US State Department, the letter had received authorization from the highest levels of the Iranian government. According to Lawrence Wilkerson, former chief of staff of State secretary Colin Powell, interviewed by the BBC, the State Dept would first have positively considered the offer. But it would ultimately have been rejected by the office of Vice-President Dick Cheney.[57]

[edit]
Nuclear issue
The PMOI and the NCRI claim to be the first entities that revealed Iran's nuclear activities in 2002, which has turned to be a major concern for the US and some of its allies today.[14] Recently on Feb 20, 08, the NCRI claimed to have revealed another nuclear site of Islamic Republic. This claim has never been independently verified.[15]

[edit]
Designation as a terrorist organization
The PMOI was designated as a terrorist organization by the United States (since 1997), Canada, and Iran.[8][9] The PMOI was legalized in the United Kingdom on 24 June 2008, six months after winning a court battle over its legality.[3]According to Wall Street Journal[58] "senior diplomats in the Clinton administration say the PMOI figured prominently as a bargaining chip in a bridge-building effort with Tehran." On Monday January 26, 2009, EU Council of Ministers agreed to remove the PMOI from the EU terror list. The group said it was the outcome of a “seven-year-long legal and political battle”. [1][2][3][4]
According to a 2003 article by the New York Times, the US 1997 proscription of the group on the terrorist blacklist was done as "a goodwill gesture toward Iran's newly elected reform-minded president, Mohammad Khatami" (succeeded in 2005 by more conservative Mahmoud Ahmadinejad).[18] In 2002, 150 members of the United States Congress signed a letter calling for the lifting of this designation.[59] The PMOI have also tried to have the designation removed through several court cases in the U.S. The PMOI has now lost three appeals (1999, 2001 and 2003) to the US government to be removed from the list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations, and its terrorist status was reaffirmed each time. The PMOI has continued to protest worldwide against its listing, with the overt support of some US political figures.[16][60]
Past supporters have included Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-CO), Rep. Bob Filner, (D-CA), and Sen. Kit Bond (R-MO), and former Attorney General John Ashcroft, "who became involved with the [PMOI] while a Republican senator from Missouri."[61][62] In 2000, 200 U.S. Congress members signed a statement endorsing the organization's cause.[63]
PMOI is legally - or at least well tolerated – active in Germany, Denmark and many other countries of the European Union. The NCRI maintained an Information Office in Washington DC, USA until August 2002, when US Secretary of State Colin Powell issued an order to shut down the offices.[64] Recently, Dick Marty, Swiss investigator working for the human rights body the Council of Europe, called this designation a violation of human rights.[65]
In April 2007, CNN reported that the US military and the International Committee of the Red Cross was continuing to protect the group, with the US army regularly escorting PMOI supply runs between Baghdad and its base, Camp Ashraf.[66]
On Nov 30, 2007 the British Court, The Proscribed Organisations Appeal Commission (POAC) ruled to the annulment of the terrorist designation and ordered the British government to remove PMOI off the terrorist list.[67][68] The judgment was implemented in the United Kingdom six months later.[69]
A number of British Lords and MPs have campaigned for PMOI to be taken off the terrorist list.[70][71][72]
In January 2009, the European Union removed the group from its list of terrorist organizations. The EU had considered PMOI a terrorist organization starting in 2002, and the group had been lobbying for its removal from the list since that time. The move by the European courts unfroze the organization's assets, of which it said about $9 million was in France and tens of millions of dollars were elsewhere throughout the rest of the union.[73].

[edit]
Human rights abuses
In May 2005, Human Rights Watch revealed that the PMOI were running prison camps within Iraq and were committing severe human rights violations.[74] The report described the PMOI as a cult held under the tight control of Maryam Rajavi. The report prompted a response by the PMOI and a few friendly MEPs (European MPs), who published a counter-report in September 2005.[75] They noted that HRW had "relied only on 12 hours interviews with 12 suspicious individuals", and stated that "a delegation of MEPs visited Camp Ashraf in Iraq" and "conducted impromptu inspections of the sites of alleged abuses." Alejo Vidal-Quadras Roca (PP), one of the Vice-Presidents of the European Parliament, alleged that Iran's Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) was the source of the evidence against the PMOI.[75]
Prompted by the FOFI document, Human Rights Watch re-interviewed all 12 of the original witnesses, conducting private and personal interviews lasting several hours with each of them in Germany and the Netherlands, where the witnesses now live. All of the witnesses restated their claims about the PMOI camps from the 1991-2003 period, saying PMOI officials subjected them to various forms of physical and psychological abuses once they made known their wishes to leave the organization.[76]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People's_Mujahedin_of_Iran