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Massoud Rajavi

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Massoud Rajavi (Persian: مسعود رجوی) is the president of National Council of Resistance of Iran and the leader of People's Mujahedin of Iran (PMOI, also known as the MEK), a militant opposition organization active outside of Iran. After leaving Iran in 1981, he resided in France and Iraq. Since the 2003 invasion of Iraq he has not made any public appearances and is presumed to be either dead or in hiding.

File:Rajavi1994.png
Massoud Rajavi, Leader of Iranian Resistance

Biography

Massoud Rajavi is a graduate of political law from Tehran University. His brothers completed their higher education in France, Switzerland, Britain and Belgium. He joined the PMOI when he was 19 and a law student at Tehran University. Later on he was arrested by SAVAK (the Shah's secret police) and was sentenced to death. Due to efforts by his brother Prof. Kazem Rajavi, he was not executed and remained in prison until released by the people during the revolution in 1979. In addition to his brother’s efforts, Amnesty International, the International Committee of the Red Cross, as well as distinguished European personalities such as François Mitterrand, intervened to save his life. Prof. Kazem Rajavi was assassinated in Aril 1990 in Geneva. Massoud Rajavi was released from prison three weeks before the revolution in February 1979. Rajavi and the MEK actively opposed the Shah of Iran and participated in the 1979 Iranian Revolution However, the group's ideology, which was quite different from the Ayatollahs’ interpretation of Islam, clashed with Ayatollah Khomeini's government. In 1980 he was one of the candidates for Iran's presidential elections; however before the final result of the election was announced, Ayatollah Khomeini ordered to omit Rajavi's name from the list of candidates. In a speech in June 1980 at Tehran’s Amjadieh Stadium, Mr. Rajavi criticized the regime’s leaders, especially Ayattollah Khoimeini, about the suppression of liberties. In 1981, when Ayatollah Khomeini dismissed President Bani Sadr and a new wave of arrests and executions started in the country, Rajavi and Bani Sadr flew to Paris by a jet from Tehran's airbase. Rajavi and the MEK first moved to France, and in 1986 moved to Iraq and set up a base on the Iranian border. Rajavi and the MEK assisted Saddam Hussein during the Iran-Iraq War; as a result, they remain unpopular within Iran. In addition, MEK forces assisted Hussein in his 1991 campaign against the Kurds

The US State Department as well as the European Union classify the MEK and its related entities as as terrorist organizations. Although the European Court of Justice has overturned this designation in December 2006, the Council of the EU declared on 30 January 2007 that it would maintain the organization on the blacklist. (See: Designation as a terrorist organization)

On Nov 30, 2007 the British Court,The Proscribed Organisations Appeal Commission(POAC) ruled to the annulment of the terrorist designation and ordered the British government to remove PMOI off the terrorist list On Jan. 23, 2008, the European Council's Parliamentary Assembly, meeting in Strasbourg, backed a report attacking the methods used by the UN Security Council and the EU to blacklist individuals and groups suspected of having terrorist connections abuse basic rights and are "completely arbitrary". This issue covers the case of the PMOI too.

Following the American invasion of Iraq, Massoud Rajavi disappeared and is presumed to be either dead or in hiding. In his absence, his wife Maryam Rajavi has assumed his responsibilities as leader of the MEK. As of 2005, over 300 members of the group had returned to Iran voluntarily and claimed asylum.

Video of Rajavi's meeting with Saddam Hussein

File:Massoud Rajavi.jpg
Video still.

A tape discovered after the 2003 American invasion of Iraq appears to show Saddam Hussein meeting with Massoud Rajavi. This tape was used as evidence that Saddam had links to terrorist groups.

References

  1. Council on Foreign Relations, "Backgrounder: Mujahadeen-e-Khalq (Iranian Rebels)."
  2. Rubin, Elizabeth. "The Cult of Rajavi." The New York Times, July 13, 2003.
  3. "Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs)". US Department of State. 2005. Retrieved 2006-09-22.
  4. "COUNCIL COMMON POSITION 2005/847/CFSP" (PDF). Official Journal of the European Union. L 314: 44. 2005.
  5. Terrorisme: la justice européenne appelle l'UE à justifier sa liste noire, Radio France International, December 12, 2006 Template:Fr icon
  6. EU’s Ministers of Economic and Financial Affairs’ Council violates the verdict by the European Court, NCRI website, February 1, 2007.
  7. European Council is not above the law, NCRI website, February 2, 2007
  8. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/12/02/nbook102.xml
  10. Angela Woodall (2005). "Group on U.S. terror list lobbies hard". United Press International. Retrieved 2007-07-19.

External links

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