AFP-Denmark calls on EU to strike Iranian group from terror list

07 January 2009, 17:38 CET

(COPENHAGEN) - Denmark called Wednesday on the European Union to remove an Iranian opposition group from its list of terrorist organisations following a European Court of Justice ruling in its favour. 

The ECJ overturned last month an EU order freezing funds for the People's Mujahedeen Organization of Iran (PMOI).

"Unless an appeal is filed before February 5, the ECJ's ruling should lead the EU to strike this group from its list," Danish Foreign Minister Per Stig Moeller told reporters.

Stig Moeller spoke following a meeting of the Danish parliament's European Affairs Commission, where he said a majority of opposition politicians had come out in favour of removing the PMOI from the list.

Their stance had forced Denmark's centre-right government to change its position on the issue, he said.

Around 100 demonstrators had turned out in front of the Danish parliament building Wednesday to demand that the Iranian opposition group be stricken from the EU terror list.

The PMOI, which was created in 1965 with the aim of overturning the regime of the Shah and which also advocates the overthrow of Iran's current government, has for years been fighting a legal battle to be removed from the EU "blacklist," which was created in 2002.

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SHAHIN GOBADI
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