BRUSSELS: A prominent Iranian opposition group won an appeal
on Thursday against a European Union decision to freeze its funds.
But the group, the People's Mujahedeen, will remain on a European terror list
because the decision concerned a blacklist compiled last year, not the most
recent list that was compiled this year.
The decision by the European Court of First Instance in Luxembourg follows a
ruling in May by the British Court of Appeal that the British government was
wrong to include the group on its list of banned terrorist groups. The decision
Thursday could increase pressure on the EU to relax its ban on the group.
The EU first placed the group on a terror blacklist in 2002. But the court
said Thursday the evidence presented was "manifestly insufficient to provide
legal justification for continuing to freeze" the group's funds.
Maryam Rajavi, the president-elect of the National Council of Resistance of
Iran, the group's political wing, said in a statement on Thursday that the
ruling "puts an end to the unjust label of terrorism."
She accused some European governments of seeking to maintain the ban to
nurture good relations with the current leadership of Iran.
The group is regarded as potentially the most important force in the Iranian
resistance. Legalization could enable the group to raise money and organize
resistance to the ruling ayatollahs in Iran.
According to the EU court, the Iranian group was founded in 1965 with the
goal of replacing the government of the Shah of Iran and subsequently its
successors with a democracy.
The court said that in the past the group had an armed branch operating in
Iran, but noted that the group had renounced all military activity in
2001.