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 PARIS, July 17, 2008 (AFP) - French deputies presented exiled Iranian opposition leader Maryam Rajavi with a declaration calling for democratic change in Iran in a ceremony at France's National Assembly Wednesday.
And they called for the main Iranian armed opposition group, the People's Mojehedin Organisation of Iran (PMOI), to be removed from the European Union's list of terrorist organisations. The declaration, drafted by parties from all sides of the house and signed by 290 French deputies, condemned the "terrible human rights violations in Iran." British Members of Parliament and deputies from the European Parliament, in Paris to attend a conference, also attended the ceremony. Communist deputy Jean-Pierre Brard said they would be pushing for the PMOI to be reclassified during France's six-month presidency of the European Union, which started this month. "A great number of deputies consider that the policy of complacency (towards Iran) has not led to anything and that the governments' positions smell too much of oil," he added. The PMOI is the armed wing of Rajavi's National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) and is currently listed as a terrorist group by the European Union and the United States. British Conservative MP Brian Binley called for the EU to follow the example of Britain and lift the terrorist label on the PMOI, which Britain did last month, a decision bitterly attacked by Tehran. |
