January 08, 2007
Supreme Court Gives Iran's Theocrats a Helping Hand?
"Supporters of an Iranian opposition group lost a Supreme Court appeal Monday that was intended to let them challenge the United States' designation of the group as a foreign terrorist organization," the AP reports.
Justices declined to review the case of seven people who were indicted in 2001 on charges they raised money for the People's Mujahedeen, also known as the MEK. The State Department first said in 1997 that the group engaged in terrorist activities.
In 2002, 150 members of Congress called on the State Department to withdraw the designation.
The seven people have sought to dismiss the charges against them by demonstrating that the Iranian group has no terrorism ties. The 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals said the indictment could proceed.
Europe's second highest court, meantime, overturned a freeze of funds on the group last month.
As we wrote then:
America, under President Clinton, only blacklisted the group in 1997. Hardly a move in response to killings of Americans almost two decades beforehand. The LA Times quoted a Clinton administration as saying that the "inclusion of the People's Mujahedeen was intended as a goodwill gesture to Tehran and its newly elected moderate president." We've seen how the mullahs responded to that goodwill gesture.
The People's Mujahedeen don't appear to be, at least at the moment, a pro-democracy force that we would like to see in power in Tehran. Marxism is something to stay well clear of. At the same time, they are dedicated to the overthrow of the theocrats and are highly successful in exposing the nuclear secrets of the mullahs. Especially useful given the incompetence of the U.N.'s nuclear inspectors. (It's through the People's Mujahedeen that we learned that the mullahs had been lying for almost two decades about their nuclear program.) The mullahs want this group shutdown, is it in our interest to help the mullahs? Funding them might be out of the question, but should we actively prevent them from operating?
Posted by Daniel Freedman at 01:36 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
More:
http://www.shinesforall.com/archives/2007/01/supreme_court_g.htmlSee also:
9/25/2003
Standard Operating Procedure: 'Terrorist' Group Under U.S. Protection :.
Do you get it yet? No? Well then think back on the CIA's treatment of Al Qaeda during the 1980s and that should refresh your memory. But it's not just Al Qaeda. This is how the U.S. operates EVERYWHERE:
Soldiers from Fort Bragg's 82nd Airborne Division are providing security for several members of an Iranian paramilitary group that the U.S. State Department lists as a terrorist organization.
The paratroopers are guarding a compound at Nasir Al Wa Salam that U.S. officers said is the home of a handful of members of the Mujahedin-E Khalq or MEK -- also known as the People's Mujahedeen. Members are free to come and go.
The MEK is dedicated to overthrowing the Iranian government and conducted attacks on Iran during the 1980s and 1990s. The group was nurtured by Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, whose country fought a war with Iran in the 1980s. Now, with Saddam gone, the MEK's 4,000 to 5,000 fighters are in a strange limbo.
They are stuck in Iraq without support and cannot return to Iran. Many were educated in the United States and Britain, but if America took them in, the country probably would face charges of hypocrisy, given its war on terrorism.
posted by Kevin at 9:46 AM
http://cryptogon.com/2003_09_21_blogarchive.html#106450836843766589See also:
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Update II: Dave Meyer sends a fascinating article about a recent US decision not to prosecute members of 'the People's Mujaheden,' and to give the 3,800 MEK members in Camp Ashraf in Iraq formal protected status under the Geneva Conventions. This from the NYT:
A 16-month review by the United States has found no basis to charge members of an Iranian opposition group in Iraq with violations of American law, though the group is listed as a terrorist organization by the United States government, according to senior American officials.
The case of the group, the People's Mujahedeen of Iran, or Mujahedeen Khalq, whose camp was bombed by the United States military in April 2003, has been watched closely as an important test of the Bush administration's policy toward terrorism and toward Iran.
About 3,800 members of the group are being held in de facto American custody in Camp Ashraf, about 60 miles northeast of Baghdad. The group remains on the United States terrorist list, though it is not known to have directed any terrorist acts toward the United States for 25 years. But it does stage attacks against Iran, which has demanded that the Iraqi government either prosecute its members or deport them to Iran.
But senior American officials said extensive interviews by officials of the State Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation had not come up with any basis to bring charges against any members of the group. In a July 21 memorandum, Maj. Gen. Geoffrey D. Miller, the deputy commanding general in Iraq, said its members had been designated "protected persons" by the United States military, providing them new rights.
In the case of the People's Mujahedeen, the United States does not appear to have evidence to charge individual members of the group with acts of terrorism, but it also appears unwilling to surrender its members to their enemy, Iran.
More:
http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/001078.html
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