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When Right Prevails in US, It Will Prevail in Iran

When Right Prevails in US, It Will Prevail in Iran

State Department Foot-dragging to Delist MEK Is Unlawful

By Mahin Saremi
April 4, 2012

Charles Montesquieu once said: “There is no crueler tyranny than that which is perpetrated under the shield of law and in the name of justice.

In the case of the US State department and Obama Administration, this extraordinary simple quotation has become an inverted ideology.

“Rights” founded by Americas forefathers are deliberately neglected because of delusional overestimation of the Iranian cleric’s threat prompted by pro-Iranian pundits.

The first “Right” in the American Revolution was the right to fight for Independence and democracy. No one was tagged as terrorist and no group was enchained, demonised or terrorized for fighting for “democracy." On the contrary, it was an eternal obligation towards humanitarian rights not to refuse help, if given the chance to fight alongside those who strived for these Rights.

Resistance movements have shared a major concept throughout history; the need to be free and chose a Democracy. This becomes an existential need, when there is a blood-stained theocracy unbridled and in a clash with humanity.

The story of the Iranian resistance is the anatomy for “righteousness versus wickedness."

This confrontation has existed throughout the history of mankind in all its forms. From Noah to Abraham and to Christ; the echo for freedom has been handed generation to generation. Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther king, Gandhi, Che Guevara, President Allende of Chile and many more followed the same righteous footsteps for “Freedom."

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Righteousness has a legal sense; while the guilty are judged, the guiltless are deemed righteous.

The concept of “Rights” structure the form of governments, the content of laws, and the shape of morality as it is currently perceived. Rights are legal, social, or ethical principles of freedom and compose pillars of society and culture, of a civilization.

Universal Rights which apply to all people irrespective of their society or background can never be superseded by legal rights because they are inhere and cannot be taken away.

The right to life which a “resistance movement” strives to protect is the bridge between integrity and corruption for every individual regardless of background.

“In law a man is guilty when he violates the rights of others. In ethics he is guilty if he only thinks of doing so”
Immanuel Kant

The concept of “innocent before proven guilty” has long been buried in the grounds of immorality that prevail in current smear campaigns waged by Washington against Tehran’s main opposition; MEK.

MEK serves as the litmus test for all. It is the “bridge” and a passageway through which one can swiftly transcend from integrity to corruption.

Regime change is the core argument against the MEK. The bashing and hideous fouling campaigns all aim to pacify this resistance movement.

The landmark for all those claiming for “rights” and “peace” is: Are you with the MEK or the with the Mullahs?

The processions of political decisions taken to keep the main pro-democracy movement of Iran (MEK) prove it to be highly politicised than legal;

-Secretary Rice made the decision at the end of the Bush administration to keep the PMOI on the list, in the hope that the incoming administration would be able to have negotiations with the ayatollahs. This policy has failed up to date.

- Secretary Clinton said just a few weeks ago that the MEK’s handling of the transfer of the residents of Camp Ashraf to Camp Liberty would affect the State Department’s decision on the listing on the foreign terrorist organization list.

- For years, MEK families and affiliates have been persecuted, tortures and killed by the pretext provided for the mullahs in Iran through the US black list.

- The fatal slip in policy by the US administration has resulted in providing the ayatollahs ample time to build their terrorist networks; enhance the nuclear arsenal; engage in repugnant human right violations in Syria and the Middle East; kill and massacre the Iranian people while crushing uprisings. Enchaining the main opposition to the mullahs has emboldened a vile and irrational theocratic fascism in the region and the world.

- There is no legal, moral or ethical basis for keeping the MEK in the list and withholding the Iranian people from the chance of acquiring freedom and democracy.

As Louis Freeh recently said:

“In Washington if people wanted to leak information about the justification, such as it is, for keeping the PMOI on the list, they would do it. The information would be out in the public record. But there have been no such leaks. There’s no factual basis for this designation. It should be lifted.”

Ambassador Bolton recently in a Paris conference said:

“I believe that the declared policy of the United States government should be overthrowing the present government in Iran which is a threat to international peace and security through its role as the world’s central banker of international terrorism, and through its two decade long pursuit of nuclear weapons. Perhaps the most important way in which the United States can encourage regime change is to get out of the way of legitimate Iranian opposition.”

With regards to the FTO listing of the MEK, Ambassador Bolton said: “those of us who have had the opportunity when in government to see information about the MEK have seen nothing that justifies its continued presence on the list of foreign terrorist organizations.”

As Judge Mukasey said in the same conference, the original listing in the late 1990s was in hopes of getting negotiations going with the regime in Tehran. That was a decision not based on facts, but on a political determination as to what could be accomplished.

Judge Mukasey clarified the reason for the smear campaign wheeled by Washington:

“Look at the timing. The MEK tells the State Department and the Justice Department, “You know, you’ve been dragging your feet long enough with this designation. We’re going to go into court.” They gave them not only advanced notice that they’re going to do it, they gave them an advanced copy of the papers they were going to file. And they disclosed the names of the people, telling them on the basis of our experience and our knowledge that there is no basis for that designation. And behold a couple days later subpoenas get served on the speaker agencies that send those people out to express their views. I stopped believing in coincidences like that when I stopped believing in the Tooth Fairy, and that was a long time ago.”

The FTO listing of the MEK, is a mere rejection of the “Right to be” not only as a people but as a set of values, found deep in the hearts of every individual American; the need to be “FREE”. It devours the essential right to life for many and is anti-human.

“Freedom” has been at the centre of all movement where tyrants rule. It is irrefutably immoral to join the song of the “tyrants” in Tehran in the gradual strangulation of the movement for “freedom”.

In the case of the MEK, the State department has taken precedence over all preserved “rights” and is acting above the law.

Its foot-dragging and failure to timely comply with the DC Court’s mandate is itself powerful evidence that the continued designation of PMOI as a foreign terrorist organization cannot be justified.

*************

Mahin Saremi : former political prisoner who escaped from Iran last year, one of the active organizers of the 2009 protests in Iran and activist has recently entered the realm of freelance writers. Her articles have been published since she escaped from Iran.

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