Word: mek
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...Ahmedinejad, warned that Israel will wind up like the Soviet Union in the scrap heap of history, a European Union Court ruled that a fiercely dedicated armed group that opposes his regime had been unfairly placed on the E.U.'s official list of terrorist organizations. The Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK) is also on the U.S. State Department list of terrorist organizations, although much to Tehran's chagrin, the U.S. did not hand over the group's fighters when it took control of their main base in Iraq after the fall of Saddam...
...European court ruling a sign that the E.U. is about to unleash the MEK on the mullahs? Hardly. The ruling of the Court of the First Instance, the second-highest court overseeing the laws of the European Union, was largely procedural. It found that when the E.U. put the MEK on its list of terrorist organizations in 2002, it should have informed the organization about the basis for that action. The court acknowledged that the European Union is not obliged to inform a possible terrorist organization before its assets are frozen - "It must be able to benefit from a surprise...
...Maryam Rajavi, the president of the MEK, the judgment was the culmination of a long and bloody battle. "This verdict proves the legitimacy of the resistance of the Iranian people against religious fascism, and the victory of justice over secret deals," she said at the European Parliament in Strasbourg. Rajavi has been talking in that epic tone for a long time, notwithstanding the MEK's checkered history. The group was founded in 1965 as a leftist-religious faction opposing the Shah's regime. But it was no less opposed to the Islamist regime that arrived with Ayatollah Khomeini...
...Clinton Administration declared the MEK a terrorist organization in 1997, partly as a carrot to the "reformist" administration of Iran's then-President Mohammad Khatami. The E.U. followed suit after 9/11, but as the drums of war began sounding against Iraq, Rajavi and her husband, Massoud, left Camp Ashraf. Massoud's whereabouts are unknown, but Maryam repaired to a bridgehead in Auvers-sur-Oise, a small town northwest of Paris. French anti-terrorist police raided the place in 2003, securing millions of euros and taking Rajavi and some of her collaborators into custody. Several of Rajavi's followers set themselves...
...while the French were investigating Rajavi's group in France, the more than 3,000 MEK adherents at Camp Ashraf have been under the benevolent protection of the U.S. military since early 2003. With this ruling, Rajavi hopes, they and what she claims are their far more numerous supporters in Iran will be freed to answer a call from the homeland. "I say to the mullahs that they're finished," said Rajavi in Strasbourg. "A new era will open with the installation of liberty and democracy in Iran...