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Iran’s main opposition movement, the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), said on Saturday that Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) had planned the recent capture of 15 British marines and naval personnel and are holding the group in an effort to gain concessions from the West.A unit of the IRGC Navy’s 3rd regional command based in Khorramshahr Garrison executed the premeditated operation to capture the Britons on March 23, said Hossein Abedini, a member of the NCRI’s Foreign Affairs Committee, at a press conference in London. He said that the garrison was on a full state of alert.“Rear Admiral Rashid Hosseini, the commander of the IRGC Navy’s third regional command, personally had command of the operation to arrest the British sailors”, he told reporters. “A number of IRGC Navy commanders had previously been stationed in Khorramshahr. Colonel Badin was the operational commander based in Khorramshahr at the time of the arrests”. He gave the names of three IRGC officers - Colonel Majidi, Colonel Abbas-Zadeh, and Colonel Isavi – who were involved in the seizure.Abedini said that the information he had showed that Rear Admiral Morteza Safari, commander of the IRGC Navy, was in contact with Rear Admiral Hosseini as the operation was taking place. Rear Admiral Safari is one of a number of IRGC commanders who were brought under sanctions under United Nations Security Council Resolution 1747 earlier this month.A command force comprised of representatives of the ministries of intelligence and foreign affairs in coordination with the IRGC Joint Chiefs of Staff under the direct supervision of the Iran’s Supreme National Security Council is presently following up the case of the sailors, he said.Abedini said that the NCRI’s information had been smuggled out of Iran by the People’s Mojahedin Organisation of Iran (PMOI), one of the Council’s leading member organisations.“The clerical regime had in a premeditated act arrested British sailors in order to win concessions from the international community and divert attention from its nuclear projects. Claims that the sailors were arrested in Iranian territorial waters are baseless.“Taking British sailors as hostages is part of the religious fascism’s policy of exporting terrorism and fundamentalism”. He said that a “correct policy” regarding Tehran must be comprised of two elements: “On the one hand, all diplomatic and commercial ties with this regime must be cut off and instead comprehensive sanctions must be imposed against it and on the other hand all the obstacles and restrictions on the Iranian opposition must be lifted; in particular the unlawful terror tag must be lifted from the People’s Mojahedin Organisation of Iran”.“The British government’s refusal over the past three months to implement the verdict of the Court of First Instance of the European Communities insofar as removing the terrorist label from the PMOI has convinced Tehran’s rulers that its breeches of Security Council resolutions and its meddling in Iraq will face no serious response”, he added.Abedini told reporters that the NCRI had passed on its information to Number 10 Downing Street.The 15 British sailors and marines were seized at gunpoint earlier this month after they finished a routine search of a merchant ship which London says was in Iraqi waters.Tehran claims the 14 men and one woman had moved 500 metres into Iranian territorial waters, a claim London denies. The British Ministry of Defence has released global positioning system data as evidence that the group had been more than 2 km outside Iranian waters.

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Reuters reported on Thursday that the Iranian embassy in London released a second letter on Thursday it said was from British woman captive Faye Turney in which she called on Britain to start withdrawing its troops from Iraq."Isn't it time for us to start withdrawing our forces from Iraq and let them determine their own future?" said the letter, addressed to the British parliament and faxed to Reuters from the Iranian embassy.Turney is the only woman among 15 British sailors and marines seized last week by Iranian regime’s forces. Britain insists they were in Iraqi waters in the Gulf but Tehran says they were trespassing in Iranian waters.Iran had indicated it was prepared to release Turney, but this was put on hold on Thursday.Iran's Mehr state run news agency quoted military commander Alireza Afshar saying Britain must apologize for entering Iran's waters and promise it would not happen again."The release of a female British soldier has been suspended," he was quoted as saying. "The wrong behaviour of those who live in London caused the suspension."Reuters added that in the letter, whose authenticity could not immediately be confirmed, Turney said her group was in Iranian waters.The somewhat stilted language of the letter led some linguistic experts to suggest the text may have been written originally in Farsi and then translated into English. Turney was shown on Iranian television on Wednesday, saying in an interview that her group had trespassed in Iraqi waters. A letter apparently from her, released on Wednesday, also said the Britons had gone into Iraqi waters.
Prime Minister Tony Blair said Thursday that Britain would not negotiate over British sailors and marines held hostage by Iran. In an interview with ITV News, Blair again called for the unconditional return of the 15 Royal Navy personnel who were seized by Iranian authorities last week. Britain took its case to free its 15 sailors and marines held by Iran to the United Nations on Thursday, asking the Security Council to support a statement that would "deplore" Tehran's action and demand their immediate release.

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Iranian regime has officially informed the United Nations nuclear watchdog that it has partly suspended its cooperation with the agency, state media reported on Thursday.The announcement came less than a week after the United Nations Security Council imposed greater sanctions against Tehran over its failure to suspend uranium enrichment activities as had been demanded of it by the International Atomic Energy Agency.“Today a letter was given to Iran’s permanent representation in the IAEA regarding the government’s recent ratification to withdraw some of Iran’s cooperation with the IAEA in reaction to [Security Council] Resolution 1747. The letter will be handed over to the IAEA’s secretariat in the coming hours”, the state-run news agency ISNA quoted an unnamed official as saying.The official said that the letter contained the text of the government ratification on the suspension of cooperation along with a statement of reasons.Iran’s official news agency IRNA reported soon after that the cabinet ratification on its withdrawal from the IAEA Safeguards Agreement was officially communicated to IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei on Thursday.Tehran had approved the Safeguards Agreement on February 25, 2003.

NEWS)))))


Reuters reported: the head of oil group Total SA, France's biggest listed company, is being questioned by police in a probe into alleged corruption in Iran, a spokesman for the company said on Wednesday.Christophe de Margerie, who became chief executive at Total last month, has been under investigation for several months by French judges probing corruption allegations linked to the Iraqi oil-for-food program and a gas project in Iran.The Total spokesman said questioning of de Margerie -- and two other employees which the group declined to name -- related to a probe opened in December 2006 into the South Pars natural gas project in Iran.The Paris prosecutors' office opened an investigation into the contract, signed in 1997, following the discovery of 95 million Swiss francs ($78.32 million) in the Swiss bank accounts of an intermediary, a judicial source said in December. The probe comes just as Total is mulling taking part in a project worth nearly $10 billion to build Iran's first liquefied natural gas export terminal.De Margerie said last week Total's decision depended on technical and geopolitical issues. Washington is urging its allies not to invest in Iran as part of a campaign to force Tehran to abandon its nuclear program.

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The Guardina reported on Sat. that the authorities in Iran have arrested up to 1,000 teachers in a brutal crackdown that signals their determination to break a pay revolt.Riot police beat demonstrators with batons as they tried to gather outside Iran's parliament and education ministry and herded them into police vans and buses before transporting them to detention centres across Tehran.Around 150 of those arrested in Wednesday's protest are still in custody, with the ringleaders believed to be in the capital's notorious Evin prison. Others were released after signing a commitment not to participate in "illegal" demonstrations.The clampdown follows recent rallies outside parliament, which drew up to 10,000 demonstrators, many of whom displayed banners criticising President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's government as part of their campaign for higher pay. An average university-educated secondary-school teacher earns £160-180 a month, below the poverty line and much less than workers in other government sectors.Last week, police arrested six teachers' union leaders in an unsuccessful attempt to stop a gathering that coincided with a planned women's rights demonstration.


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A prominent international media rights watchdog on Wednesday called on the Iranian government to release four journalists who were arrested in Iran’s north-western Kurdish region.“The situation of journalists in the Kurdish part of Iran has become even worse”, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said in a statement.“With increasing frequency, they are being arrested arbitrarily and held incommunicado without the authorities feeling it necessary to inform their families or provide them with a lawyer. We call for their immediate release as no evidence of any guilt has been produced”, the press freedom organization said. “The Islamic Republic of Iran continues to be the Middle East’s biggest prison for journalists, with a total of seven detained”, RSF said.

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The European Union called for the release of 15 British sailors and Marines seized by Iranian regime yesterday in Iraqi waters, according to German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier. "In the name of the EU, we want to make clear that we expect Iran to release them without delay," Steinmeier said today before an EU summit meeting in Berlin. Germany currently holds the EU's rotating presidency. Tensions have been rising between Western nations and Iran over its nuclear program, and the Islamic Republic has also been accused by the administrations of U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair and U.S. President George W. Bush of meddling in Iraq. After the Britons were seized, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called off a planned visit to the United Nations in New York. The UN Security Council is poised to vote on a draft resolution that would freeze the assets of a state-owned Iranian bank and bar some exports from the country in an effort to persuade Iran to suspend its nuclear program. "I'm confident that we will succeed over the weekend and we will have a resolution in a few days," Steinmeier said today. "It was necessary to convince three non-permanent members (of the Security Council) to agree on the text. Those talks are still going on." A vote had been expected as soon as today. Iran's foreign ministry said the British sailors and Marines were taken "for investigation and questioning" because they illegally entered Iranian territorial waters "a number of times," Agence France-Presse reported yesterday, citing Iranian State television. EU leaders are meeting in Berlin today and tomorrow to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Rome, the first international agreement that gave birth to the union that now includes 27 nations. Greater unity on foreign policy matters is one of the issues that will be discussed at the two-day summit. Britain demanded the immediate return of the military personnel and equipment in a meeting yesterday between Peter Ricketts, the permanent under-secretary at the U.K. Foreign Office, and Rasoul Movahedian, the Iranian ambassador in London, the Foreign Office said. It's not the first time U.K. naval forces have been involved in a dispute with Iran in the region. In June 2004, Iran held eight British servicemen for three days after capturing them and their three vessels in the Shatt al-Arab waterway, which runs along the border between Iran and Iraq.

NOROOZ OR PERSIAN NEW YEAR

In harmony with the rebirth of nature, the Iranian New Year Celebration, or NorooZ, always begins on the first day of spring. Norooz ceremonies are symbolic representations of two ancient concepts - the End and the Rebirth; or Good and Evil. A few weeks before the New Year, Iranians clean and rearrange their homes. They make new clothes, bake pastries and germinate seeds as sign of renewal. The ceremonial cloth is set up in each household. Troubadours, referred to as Haji Firuz, disguise themselves with makeup and wear brightly colored outfits of satin. These Haji Firuz, singing and dancing, parade as a carnival through the streets with tambourines, kettle drums, and trumpets to spread good cheer and the news of the coming new year.

A few days prior to the New Year, a special cover is spread on the Persian carpet or on a table in every Persian household in and outside Iran. This ceremonial table is called cloth of seven dishes, or Haft seen (each one beginning with the Persian letter Sinn or S in English). The number seven has been sacred in Iran since the ancient times, and the seven dishes stand for the seven angelic heralds of life-rebirth, health, happiness, prosperity, joy, patience, and beauty.
The symbolic dishes consist of:
-Sabzeh or sprouts, usually wheat or lentil representing rebirth.
-Samanu is a pudding in which common wheat sprouts are transformed and given new life as a sweet, creamy pudding and represents the ultimate sophistication of Persian cooking.
-Seeb or apple and represents health and beauty.
-Senjed the sweet dry fruit of the Lotus tree, represents love. It has been said that when lotus tree is in full bloom, its fragrance and its fruit make people fall in love and become oblivious to all else.
-Seer which is garlic in Farsi, represents medicine.
-Somaq sumac berries, represent the color of sunrise; with the appearance of the sun Good conquers Evil.
-Serkeh or vinegar, represents age and patience.

To reconfirm all hopes and wishes expressed by the traditional foods, other elements and symbols are also on the sofreh):
. a few coins placed on the Sofreh represent prosperity and wealth;
. a basket of painted eggs represents fertility.
. a Seville orange floating in a bowl of water represents the earth floating in space.
. a goldfish in a bowl represents life and the end of astral year-picas.

. a flask of rose water known for its magical cleansing power, is also included on the tablecloth.
Nearby is a brazier for burning wild rue, a sacred herb whose smoldering fumes ward off evil spirits.
A pot of flowering hyacinth or narcissus is also set on the sofreh.
A mirror which represents the images and reflections of Creation.
A book that represents knowledge. For some a Persian poetry and for others Koran, Bible etc inside the book is a few paper money crisp and new to give to children as gifts.
On either side of the mirror are two candlesticks holding a flickering candle for each child in the family. The candles represent enlightenment and happiness.
This year the Persian New Year falls on Tuesday March 20, 2007 at exactly 7:07:26 pm(Ottawa time)
HAPPY NOROOZ

NEWS)))))


TEHRAN, March 8 (Reuters) - Iranian police clashed on Thursday with scores of rights activists who gathered in front of parliament to celebrate International Women's Day, one of the activists said."Police attacked a gathering of some 700 women's rights activists and hit them with batons," the activist, who asked not to be named, told Reuters.Police cars and ranks of police blocked the roads to prevent the demonstrators from marching, the activist said. Security forces arrested 33 women's rights activists on Sunday outside a Tehran court, where five other women detained in June had gone on trialSunday's protesters were demanding a fair trial for the five women, charged for "acting against national security" after taking part in an "unauthorized" rally to demand equal legal rights for women in the Islamic Republic. "Despite the pressure on the activists to abandon the protest, many of them took part in today's gathering," said the activist involved in Thursday's gathering. Also on Thursday, a protest of some 4,000 teachers against poor working conditions and low pay in front of parliament ended peacefully, a Reuters witness said.Analysts say demonstrations are likely to be a source of embarrassment for President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's government, which vowed to improve living standards and to share out Iran's oil wealth more fairly.Instead, critics say the government's economic policies have fuelled inflation, which mostly hurts the worst off in society.

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The Guardian reported on Sat. that police in Iran arrested trade unionists in an unsuccessful attempt to stop thousands of teachers protesting against President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's economic policies outside Iran's parliament, the Guardian has learned.Officers swooped on the homes of six union leaders on Wednesday. The detention of key figures in teachers' organizations failed to stop the following day's rally, which drew an estimated 7,000 demonstrators. The leaders were later released after interrogation. Their arrests appeared to betray official anxiety that the protest - for teachers' pay to be brought into line with other state workers - could provoke discontent against Mr Ahmadinejad's government, which is being blamed for rising inflation and high unemployment.

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Tehran, Iran, Mar. 07 - Authorities hanged five men in a prison in the Iranian capital on Wednesday, the government-run news agency Fars reported.The men were hanged at dawn inside Tehran’s notorious Evin Prison.They were accused of murder, the report said.Evin Prison was built by the Shah’s regime as a maximum security prison to house political dissidents, but it became the Islamic Republic’s most dreaded gulag and the site of thousands of political executions.

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Brussels, Mar. 10 - Thousands of Iranians on Thursday converged on the European capital Brussels to protest the European Union’s “flagrant disregard” for a December ruling by the European Court of Justice (ECJ) which annulled the terrorist listing of the main Iranian opposition group, the People’s Mojahedin Organisation of Iran (PMOI).According to organisers, some 30,000 Iranians from Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Norway and several other European countries took part in the rally outside the EU headquarters, as a summit of the 27-nation block’s leaders was underway.More than a dozen parliamentarians from various EU states as well as the former Prime Minister of Algeria addressed the rally.The highlight of the event, however, was a speech given in person by Iranian opposition leader Mrs. Maryam Rajavi. “We have gathered to protest against the [EU’s] defiance of the Court ruling by refusing to remove the PMOI from the terrorist list”, Rajavi told cheering supporters. “This makes a mockery of the rule of law”.“I call up on EU heads of state to respect the Court’s ruling and remove the PMOI from the terrorist list”, she said.“We offer the world an Iran free of nuclear weapons, seeking peace and security in the region, respecting human rights and democracy, and advocating friendship and cooperation. This is our vision for the future of Iran”. She urged EU leaders to adopt a “firm” policy against Tehran’s clerical establishment and “side with the Iranian people in their quest for freedom and democracy”.On December 12, the European Court of First Instance announced that the EU’s decision to place the PMOI in its terrorist list and impose a freeze on its financial assets was “unlawful”. The EU said in January, however, that it would maintain the group on the list, in a move which was promptly denounced by numerous European Parliamentarians.“Those who are hand in hand with the mullahs are also accountable for the mullahs’ crimes”, chanted protesters, referring to EU states that continue to give precedence to their financial ties with Tehran over Iran’s violation of human rights. The demonstrators called on EU leaders to comply with the court ruling. At a conference before the rally began, the Vice-President of the European Parliament Alejo Vidal-Quadras Roca presented a list of signatures of over 1,000 lawmakers from 23 European countries who had condemned the EU’s “defiance” of the ECJ verdict.When the rally ended, a delegation of lawmakers entered the EU building and held talks with officials there on the matter.The rally was swiftly condemned by officials in Tehran.Iranian state television reported that the Foreign Ministry had summoned the envoys of Belgium and Germany, which currently holds the EU’s rotating presidency, to protest the permission given to the group to hold its rally in Brussels. Belgian consul Paul de Vos and German ambassador to Tehran Herbert Honsowitz got an earful from the Foreign Ministry’s Director General for Western European Affairs Ebrahim Rahimpour who issued a stark warning that such events could “adversely affect the much-needed confidence-building measures in Iran-EU ties”.On a trip to Malaysia, Iran’s Judiciary Chief Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi-Shahroudi blasted the EU for allowing the protest to take place.The PMOI was listed as a terrorist organisation by the European Union in mid-2002, in what the EU’s then-Spanish leadership called “a goodwill gesture to Tehran”.

Iranian women’s struggle for freedom and democracy
a century old struggle

2007 marks the 30th anniversary of International Women's Day. Established in 1977 by the United Nations, this important day provides an opportunity to celebrate the progress made to advance women's rights and to assess the challenges that remain.
But in many countries including Iran the women are still struggling for their basic rights such as choice of clothing, traveling without a male chaperon and political oppression.
Iranian women have always been at war with fundamentalists ideologies. For the last 28 years the Iranian women who want to live in a democratic society have rose against the mullahs. In my country it is a crime to appear in public without a Hijab, it is a crime to have boyfriend, it is a crime to stand up to fundamentalist mullahs and say NO and simply it is a crime to be a woman. If women don’t obey these mullah- made laws they’ll be punished severely, punishments such as lashing in public, stoning to death, forcing to sign letters stating that they are prostitutes. The ruling theocracy has created a huge prison for all Iranians, especially for women. Iranians are living in the darkest times in their history. They are enduring economic hardship, unemployment and political oppression. Women on the other hand are having a harder time. Gender apartheid is the most visible cruelty they endure. For women who populate more than half Iran’s populations, opportunities are very low. Although more than 60 percent of university students are girls they only see a dark future ahead. As the poverty line grows the rate of prostitution and drug addiction among them rise up. Those women who are the main providers for their families are facing a choice every minute of their lives. In order to put food on the table or send their kids to school they have no choice but to sale their bodies to rich men who work for the government and if these women protest their fate will be like Attefe’s. She was hung when she was only 16 years old. The Iranian regime has took the control of sex industry in Iran and experts girls as young as 14 years old to neighboring countries and some European countries such as Germany. Some older girls are rejected and sent back to Iran because 18 considers too old.

Women in Iran though have not quitted. They continue their struggle for freedom and democracy. They organize peaceful rallies and they write and publish articles for the outside world to see. An action that is very risky for the writers for they could loose their lives or spend the rest of their lives in jail.
Women use every opportunity to show their hatred for the regime. The way they dress is a very good example. The mullah’s regime created a dress code for women to cover them up head to toe. They have to wear hijab or head scarf and cover their hair but young girls do not obey this ridiculous law. Their dress must be loose enough so that the shape of their bodies is not visible but their Monto becomes shorter and tighter.
Last year on International Women’s Day women gathered at Daneshju Park across from Tehran University in the Capital, to commemorate this day peacefully. They were singing and holding banners which some read: “discrimination against women is violation of human rights”. The police and the agents of regime’s intelligence services in police clothing and in civilian clothing attacked women’s peaceful rally beating and arresting tens of those brave women.
Last Saturday 15000 teachers gathered in front of regime’s parliament in Tehran demanding job security and their past due wages. They were back onto the streets yesterday with the same demands.

The Iranian people rely on the resistance movement. 4000 Iranians in Ashraf city in Iraq, one thousand of them women have been a source of hope for millions of Iranians. They
have been fighting with the fundamentalist regime in Iran for the past 28 years. Their goal is to overthrow the most vicious being on this earth. The Ashraf residents have been recognized as “persons protected under the 4th Geneva Convention”. Beside the fact that the Iranian regime is meddling in Iraqi affairs heavily by sending weapons and money to that country it’s also very active in influencing the Iraqi government in order to extradite the residence of Ashraf to Iran.
The Ashraf residents do not want to leave Iraq. They know and the mullahs know that Ashraf is the only barrier to halt the Iranian regime’s expert of terrorism and fundamentalism to Iraq.

The involvement of the Iranian regime in Iraqi affairs is so clear and obvious that there is no need to explain. Their goal is to sallow Iraq for breakfast and expert their so called “Islamic revolution” to that country as well. In the past 3 years the Ashraf residents’ mission has been to overcome all the unjust hardships they’ve endured, not only with the Iranian regime but the supporters of the appeasement policy as well. President elect of the NCRI, Mrs. Maryam Rajavi has said many times that the rise of violation of human rights in Iran is a direct result of the appeasement policy.
Today we are saying No to human rights abuses in Iran. We say no to war. we say no to nuclear weapon and strongly as ever we say no to the fundamental regime in Iran.
Long live Freedom, long live Iranian people’s struggle for freedom and democracy and Down with the terrorist mullahs in Iran

Narges Ghaffari

NEWS))))))

Thousands of teachers took to the streets outside the Iranian Majlis, (Parliament) on Saturday in an anti-government protest despite preventative measures by state security forces.The protestors complained of rampant corruption and mismanagement in the Education Ministry and demanded their overdue salaries.The demonstrators, some of whom held Farsi and English banners, chanted slogans including, “Oh teachers rise to end discrimination”, “If our troubles are not resolved, schools will be shut down”, and “We will not stay calm until we get our rights”.They also called for the resignation of Iran’s Education Minister, chanting, “Incompetent minister, resign, resign”.At one point the teachers began to chant “Come out Haddad, come out”, referring to Majlis Speaker Gholam-Hossein Haddad-Adel who has been accused of turning a blind eye to economic mismanagement by the hard-line government of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.Minutes after the protest demonstration, a large number of agents of the state security forces swarmed around the Majlis building and prevented people in the vicinity from joining the protestors.

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A man in his twenties was hanged in public in the holy Iranian city of Qom, a semi-official daily reported on Tuesday.The man, identified as 26-year-old Mohammad Sadeghi, was hanged in a public square on Monday, the hard-line daily Jomhouri Islami wrote.Sadeghi was accused of kidnapping and rape.

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Iranian authorities have amputated the fingers of a man in his forties in public for stealing money, the official news agency IRNA said on Monday.The 46-year-old man, identified only as F. Hosseini, had four of the fingers on his right hand amputated in public in the western city of Kermanshah, according to Daniel Hoderji, an official in the judiciary.Hosseini was accused of mainly robbing safes.Iran’s Islamic penal system regularly practices centuries-old sentences for petty crimes, such as amputation of limbs, eye gouging, stoning to death, and throwing prisoners off a cliff in a sac.

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The Guardian reported on Friday that the Iranian students involved in an angry protest against the president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, have been expelled and earmarked for compulsory military service in an apparent act of official retribution.Authorities at Tehran's Amir Kabir University, a traditional hotbed of student protest, have ended the studies of 54 students, ostensibly for repeatedly failing their exams. However, most of the students singled out are political activists who took part in December's demonstration at the university at which President Ahmadinejad was greeted with chants of "death to the dictator". Many students with equally poor academic records have been allowed to continue, activists said.The demonstration, which sparked violent clashes between protesters and Basij volunteers loyal to the president, was triggered by student anger over a campus clampdown by the government. One activist displayed a banner reading: "Fascist president, the polytechnic is not for you." Others held portraits of Mr Ahmadinejad upside down and set them alight. One student had his nose broken by a cabinet minister's aide and a member of Ahmadinejad's security team fired a stun grenade to disperse demonstrators.Several protesters later went into hiding fearing for their lives after being threatened by the president's supporters.The protest against Ahmadinejad was also related to moves to segregate female and male students, the closure of campus magazines and the demolition of buildings belonging to the students committee. Campus guards were also ordered to refuse admission to women wearing make-up and "too short" coats.

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The Associated Press reported Lawyers for an exiled Iranian resistance movement appealed to the European Union on Thursday, demanding the 27-nation bloc remove the Paris-based group from its blacklist of terror organizations.The People's Mujahadeen of Iran had won a legal battle in the EU's Court of Justice last year when the court annulled a 2002 decision to freeze all European assets of the group, known by the acronyms PMOI and MEK.It was the first time an appeal to the EU's terror list was successful at the EU court.However, the EU's Council of Ministers, which represents all 27 EU governments, has refused so far to remove the group from its list.EU governments had asked the group to submit a legal reply to the ruling to state why it should not be on the list. The ruling had said EU governments failed to give the group a fair hearing.A Jan. 30 meeting of EU finance ministers gave the group until March 1 "to present its views, together with any supporting documentation," to prove why it should be removed."There can be no question of the Council being able to maintain the PMOI on the list," said Mohammad Mohaddessin, a member of the National Council of Resistance of Iran — an umbrella group that includes the PMOI. Several European Parliament lawmakers and national lawmakers have backed the group's cause.The letter submitted to EU legal experts and seen by The Associated Press said that keeping the group on the list was "unlawful" following the EU court's decision. It argued that the decision to place the PMOI on the list was based "only on material available in March 2001, and not thereafter and cannot possibly be sufficient now to constitute a relevant decision" to keep the group listed and its assets frozen.The EU's legal team of experts at the Council has said it would study the reply before any final decision on the list, which includes groups and people like Osama bin Laden, Hamas and al-Qaida.The list is regularly reviewed, usually every six months.The legal counsel to the 27 EU governments, Jean-Claude Piris said in December that the judgment did not call into question the original decision that the Mujahadeen is a terrorist organization, but that the EU court annulled the decision because of procedure.The U.S. also lists the group as a terrorist organization.However, the PMOI, founded by students at Tehran University in the 1960s, insists it advocates the overthrow of Iran's hard-line clerical regime in Tehran by peaceful means.The list, set up after the terror attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, is done in secret by a special committee of security representatives from each member state.
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Canada imposed sanctions on Iranian regime on Tuesday in line with a United Nations Security Council resolution in December which ordered a blockade of the country’s suspected nuclear weapons program.“The Government of Canada has satisfied its obligations and is fully implementing Resolution 1737, which is intended to bring about the verifiable suspension of Iran’s uranium enrichment program”, Canadian Foreign Minister Peter MacKay said in a statement.The Security Council voted unanimously in December in favour of Resolution 1737, imposing mild sanctions against Tehran for its nuclear defiance. It gave Tehran two months to suspend uranium enrichment and return to the negotiating table. The International Atomic Energy Agency announced last week that Tehran had failed to meet the deadline.“Canada believes that if Iran wishes to regain the confidence of the international community, as represented by the Security Council, it must earnestly submit to the requirements of Resolution 1737”, MacKay said.On February 22, the Governor-in-Council made new regulations under the United Nations Act: the Regulations Implementing the United Nations Resolution on Iran. Together with existing relevant provisions of the Canada Shipping Act, the Export and Import Permits Act and the Nuclear Safety and Control Act, these regulations will enable Canada to fully implement in Canadian law the sanctions mandated by Resolution 1737 of the Security Council, the statement said. The regulations impose an embargo on certain goods and services that could contribute to Iran’s activities linked to enrichment, reprocessing, heavy water or the development of nuclear weapons delivery systems. They also address an assets freeze and a travel notification requirement.