Home >> Middle East >> Iran  Email  Print French court overrules restrictions on Iran opposition leader Iran Focus - 6/18/2006 Three years after a spectacular raid by more than 1,300 anti-terrorism officers on the offices of the Iranian opposition movement, the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), the Paris Court of Appeals overturned all restrictions on the movement and its leader Maryam Rajavi.
In separate rulings the Paris Court of Appeals revoked all judicial restrictions placed on Rajavi and all those arrested on June 17, 2003 even as the investigative magistrates insisted that the status quo remain in place.
Among the restrictions imposed on several members of the group was denial of the rights to travel and have contact with each other.
In a gathering at the NCRI headquarters in Auvers-sur-Oise on Friday, Rajavi told several hundred supporters, “The shameful June 17, 2003 raid was a futile attempt to destroy Iran's democratic opposition and aid the Iranian regime. If resistance against religious despotism for freedom is considered a crime, then I and all members and supporters of the Resistance proudly accept this crime. We are determined to establish democracy in Iran.
"Nothing can save the clerical regime from its inevitable fall and nothing can stop the Iranian nation from attaining freedom and democracy. In Iran today the cry is freedom," she said.
Rajavi also condemned what she said was a policy of "appeasement" by Western states towards Tehran's theocratic rulers. "Continuation of this policy is morally wrong and politically a fatal blunder. The time has come for the European Union to reconsider its policies."
|
