Paulo Casaca (Portugal) co-chair of the EP Group, Friends of a Free Iran, and chair of the Delegation for relations with the NATO Parliamentary Assembly spoke out against current EU negotiations with the clerical state and demanded the terror label against the PMOI be removed.
Struan Stevenson (UK) who also co-chairs Friends of a Free Iran said, “We should courageously say no to the demands of the Iranian regime to keep the name of the People’s Mojahedin in the EU’s terror list”.
Ryszard Czaranecki (Poland) said in this regard, “The most serious message that we could give to Tehran is to remove the name of the Iranian Mojahedin from the EU terror list. In reality (it is) the criminal mullahs who are the real terrorists and are constantly hanging their own people, including children and are also sending terrorists to the neighboring Iraq”.
First vice-President of the European Parliament, Alejo Vidal-Quadras Roca, chaired the parliamentary session.
A number of other Euro-MPs also addressed the parliament criticizing in particular Iran’s systematic violations of human rights and called for an end to dialogue with the Iranian regime.
The final resolution stated that the EP “asks its Committees on Foreign Affairs and Civil Liberties to examine the way in which Parliament may become involved in the process of regular updating of the Council’s common position on the implementation of specific measures for the fight against terrorism, taking into account developments from 2001 onwards”.
The EP resolution, coming in the wake of a November 2004 international conference of jurists in Paris, where over 500 prominent legal experts said blacklisting the PMOI as a terrorist organization violated international and European laws, raises the pressure on the EU to redress what is widely seen as a “goodwill gesture” to Iran’s clerical rulers.
Ten eminent experts in international law, including Rt. Hon. Lord Slynn of Hadley (former judge at the European Court of Justice), Prof. Eric David, President of the Centre for International Law from Brussels, Prof. Henri Labayle, professor of European Law at the University of Pau, Prof. Bill Bowring, director of Human Rights and Social Justice Research Institute from London, and Prof. Jean-Yves de Cara (President of International Law Institute of University of Paris V ) presented their legal opinions to the conference.
