Commenting on this issue, Ms. Beheshteh Shadrou, the Secretary General of the Mojahedin Organization, said: "At a time when last July's uprisings showed everyone that the Iranian people were determined to overthrow the mullahs' regime, sending such mollifying signals to the moribund dictatorship in Iran will yield no result. To label the freedom-fighters of Iran as terrorists is an unforgettable affront to the Iranian people."
Ms. Shadrou pointed out that the majority of members of the House of Representatives expressed their opposition to the inclusion of the Mojahedin in the list of "foreign terrorist organizations." She also emphasized that the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia had clearly stated in its opinion that the State Department's "record" against the Mojahedin "consists entirely of hearsay."
The Mojahedin's Secretary General said: "The pursuit of this policy is in open defiance of the views and opinions of the American people and their elected representatives and a deliberate snub of the spirit of the law and that of the appellate court's opinion. The People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran will therefore take its case to the United States Supreme Court."
Ms. Shadrou said: "Experience of the past two years has shown clearly that Khatami is no different from his peers in the mullahs' regime. Sending 'goodwill gestures' to the religious fascism ruling Iran is bound to fail and would only embolden the mullahs to further pursue their policy of suppression and export of terrorism. Many American officials have acknowledged the truth of this statement."
The Mojahedin's Secretary General emphasized that the unjustifiable enmity of the US State Department against the Iranian people's Resistance for democracy and popular rule should be seen as a continuation of a half-century of shameful policy on Iran, from the 1953 coup against the legal and democratically-elected government of Dr. Mohammad Mossaddeq to fully-fledged support for the Shah's dictatorship and his crimes and the Irangate affair and offer of gifts such as a colt, a cake and a Bible to the mullahs. These mistakes have invariably placed the US government on the side of dictators, butchers and executioners of the Iranian people and those who have usurped the Iranian people's right to democratic rule.
Ms. Shadrou called on all fair-minded women and men in the United States and especially the representatives of the American people in House of Representatives and the Senate to take sides with the Iranian people, freedom and resistance and protest against this outrageous injustice that emboldens the mullahs to commit more atrocious crimes against the Iranian people.
In a statement in September 1998, 220 members of the House of Representatives - a majority - expressed their profound dismay at inclusion of the Mojahedin in the list. Referring to the anti-terrorism act ratified by Congress, they wrote: "It was not Congress' intent that a legitimate opposition to the Iranian regime be included within that particular list of terrorist groups. This has essentially had the effect of opening up the main opposition group in Iran to further attacks by the Iranian regime's state-sponsored terrorism machine....This designation is indeed a wrong-headed approach, and appears to directly contradict at least the spirit of the anti-terrorism law."
The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia stated in an opinion in June 1999 that "for all we know, the designation may be improper because the Secretary's judgment that the organization threatens our national security is completely irrational, and devoid of any support."
In May 1999, 134 members of Congress called for a review in US State Department's policy on the Mojahedin and wrote: "We believe that now is not the time to associate ourselves with the Iranian people's murderers, but rather more closely with the people themselves and their deeply-held aspirations for democracy and human rights."
Outside the United States, shortly after the announcement of the State Department's list in October 1997, an international seminar in London unveiled the support of 2,000 members of parliament from 16 countries around the world for the Mojahedin and the Iranian Resistance. They strongly condemned any attempt to label the Mojahedin as a terrorist organization.
In the past year, a majority of members of the parliaments of Britain, Italy, Belgium, Luxembourg, 143 members of the French parliament and many parliamentarians from different European countries have deplored the label of terrorism against the legitimate resistance being waged by the Mojahedin.
During the same period, events inside Iran have proven that contrary to the calculations of the US State Department, Khatami is no genuine reformer, nor is the velayat-e faqih regime in any way prone to reform. The fact that it was Khatami who issued direct orders for the suppression of the student uprisings and popular upheaval in Tehran and other cities removes any doubt in this regard.
More than 500 publicly-announced executions, ten of them by stoning the victims to death, assassination of 36 Iranian dissidents abroad, 28 terrorist attacks on the Iranian Resistance in the Iran-Iraq border region, firing of proscribed Scud missiles against a Resistance camp, politically-motivated serial murders, double oppression of women and members of religious and ethnic minorities, continuing efforts to acquire and stockpile weapons of mass destruction, opposition to the Middle East peace process form part of the mullahs' record during Khatami's tenure as president.
Khatami may be calling for "a dialogue between civilizations" today, but it was he who, as the mullahs' Minister of Islamic Guidance, once said: "The American people have the shallowest culture in the entire world. They are a bunch of bullies and knife-toting adventurers...The scum of Europe gathered together and went there to find money. Now the Americans, a nation without the least culture, possess most of the world's resources." (Ettela'at newspaper, July 7, 1991)
If the US State Department insists on describing as a "moderate" this mullah, who has been one of the leading figures in all the crimes, warmongering policies and terrorism waged by the Khomeini regime, that has nothing to do with the Iranian people. The Iranian people are yearning for freedom and democratic rule and will be content with nothing short of the overthrow of the mullahs' regime in its entirety.
The heroic uprisings of the Iranian people in different cities with chants of "Down with the mullahs' regime" have tolled the death knells of the regime. The violent clashes that have been breaking out between the people and the mullahs' agencies of suppression and terror have shown clearly that the slogans and strategy of the Mojahedin and the Iranian Resistance are backed and supported by the overwhelming majority of the Iranian people.
Unimpressed by efforts aimed at preserving the clerical regime in Iran, the freedom-fighters of Iran will continue their struggle in the future as they have done in the past in order to establish democracy and popular rule in their fettered homeland. 120,000 sons and daughters of Iran have sacrificed their lives for this goal. Along this path, the Mojahedin welcome the friendship of all nations, governments, groups and personalities who respect the legitimate rights of the Iranian people for democracy and independence.
Press Office of the People's Mojahedin of Iran - Washington, DC
October 8, 1999
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