Tuesday, December 09, 2008

The Canadian Friends of a Democratic Iran, in a statement, called the verdict of the European Court of First Instance ordering to remove the PMOI from the terrorist list a decisive and unprecedented verdict and “a victory for the rule of law generally and against an appeasement policy”.

This statement reads:

European Court rules in favour of PMOI

The European Court of First Instance rendered its judgment on December 4, 2008, ordering the removal of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI) from the EU Terror List.

It was the court’s third judgment in the case of PMOI, annulling the EU Council of Ministers’ decision to freeze the funds of PMOI. This decision was unprecedented in a number of respects, including the fact that the judgment was rendered less than 24 hours after the hearing was completed.

The Canadian Friends of a Democratic Iran urges the EU Council of Ministers to follow the rule of law and immediately remove the PMOI from its terrorists list.
The court’s media release highlighted that the decision was issued only one day after hearing arguments from both sides.

This is a victory for the rule of law generally and against an appeasement policy. By blacklisting the PMOI, the European Council of Ministers reduced the capacity of voices of dissent from both inside and outside Iran to be heard effectively.

We call upon our own government in Canada, whose description of the PMOI’s inclusion in its own proscribed list is a mirror copy of the UK/EU one, to remove immediately the PMOI from its list of terrorist organizations.

We agree with the Iranian resistance President-elect Maryam Rajavi that the solution to the Iranian dilemma is to support democratic change within Iran. The first step would be to lift the current restrictions from the main Iranian opposition to the mullahs regime.

Hon. David Kilgour, JD Co-Chair, Ottawa
Raymonde Folco, MP, Montreal (Laval-les-Iles)
Paul Forseth, Co-Chair, Vancouver
Dr. Bernard Patry, MP, Montreal (Pierrefond)