Iran Decries Western Support for MKO Terrorists
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – An Iranian human rights official lashed out at Western governments for giving immunity to members of the Mujahedin Khalq Organization (MKO) terrorist group, which has a long history of bloodshed and atrocity against the people of Iran.
Kazem Gharibabadi, secretary of Iran’s High Council for Human Rights, made the remarks in a letter addressed to the United Nations secretary general, the UN high commissioner for human rights, and the UN Human Rights Council as well as the heads of the European Council, Commission, and Parliament.
The terrorist group, he wrote, is responsible for carrying out most of the assassinations that have targeted the Iranian people since the 1979 victory of Iran’s Islamic Revolution.
“In order to introduce the MKO, it suffices to say that their top priority and the main basis of performance (relies on) assassination and murdering the individuals, who do not adhere to the same ideas as they (themselves),” the letter read.
The MKO has a dark history of assassinations and bombings against the Iranian government and nation. It notoriously sided with Saddam Hussein in the former Iraqi dictator’s 1980-88 war against the Islamic Republic.
Out of the nearly 17,000 Iranians killed in terrorist assaults since the Revolution’s victory, about 12,000 have fallen victim to the MKO’s acts of terror.
Western countries, topped by the United States, have, however, taken the group out of their terror blacklists.
Gharibabadi reprimanded some European countries for providing “safe havens” for the group, allowing it to set up its offices there, and even letting its members to address their government and parliament sessions, Press TV reported.
The support, he regretted, had emboldened “the murderous and dangerous organization’s ringleaders to (even) introduce themselves as human rights supporters.”
“This dual perspective of the issue of human rights” and support for a group, which has the blood of thousands of Iranians on its hands “is not acceptable under any circumstances,” the letter said.
It urged the United Nations and the European Union to prevent the free movement of the MKO’s members across the European countries and elsewhere and hold them accountable for their atrocities.
