Terrorism Act 2000 (Proscribed Organisations) (Amendment) Order 2006

My Lords, I follow briefly the noble Baroness, Lady Harris of Richmond, who referred to the PMOI, which was proscribed in 2001 and is one of the bodies listed in Schedule 2 to the Terrorism Act 2000, the list to which four bodies are to be added today. I do not expect the Minister to be forthcoming tonight, not least because an application for the deproscription of the PMOI is currently before the Home Secretary. But I like to think that even if a formal application had not been made, the Government would have hastened to carry out a review of the case, not least because of the very careful words of the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, in his recent report on the terrorism legislation. He expressed the hope that the Government’s working group responsible for scrutinising proscription would give serious examination to whether the PMOI really should remain proscribed. The PMOI always looked very different from the other bodies listed in the schedule. For a start, the Government accepted that it had undertaken no military action outside Iran and had never attacked UK or Western interests. Plainly, its activities were of concern to no country other than Iran, and proscription was at Iran’s behest and borne of an understandable wish that we should be seen to be playing a full part in the international community’s fight against terrorism. How things have changed since 2001. There have been changes in the PMOI's activities and in its international status. In 2001 it ceased all military operations, which were even then aimed exclusively at military targets of the Iranian regime. With the outbreak of hostilities in Iraq, its personnel in Ashraf City, Iraq, handed over all their weaponry to the multinational force and, following an investigation which, "““found no basis to charge PMOI members with violations of the law””," they were granted ““protected persons”” status under the Geneva Conventions. It is an odd circumstance in itself that we are proscribing such an organisation as a terrorist organisation. The activities of others since 2001 are even more significant than those of the PMOI. Ironically, the Iranian regime at whose behest the PMOI was proscribed is now recognised as one of the world's greatest sponsors of terrorism—the terrorism which we were supposed to be helping it to fight. Our Prime Minister himself says so. Only the other day he laid the blame for the crisis in the Middle East at the door of Syria and Iran, saying that the Iranian regime supported terrorist activity across the region and Hezbollah in particular. He also added bleakly that if diplomacy failed to stop its nuclear programme it would face stark choices. I do not wish to see Iran in possession of nuclear weapons, and I do not wish to see military intervention by the West to prevent it becoming a nuclear military power. I am on the side of the leader of the NCRI, Maryam Rajavi, who calls for the people of Iran to take control of their own destiny and themselves get rid of this vicious and barbaric regime. By attaching the terrorist tag to the only organisation capable of opposing the mullahs, we have been legitimising their rule. We have enabled them to argue that, faced with what the West apparently recognises is a terrorist threat, they have been entitled to take brutal measures within their country. On top of that, proscription has certainly weakened gravely the ability of the PMOI to present its case in America and Europe. It has stopped it engaging in political activity to gather support and build up opposition to the regime. It has made it more difficult to bring to public attention the crimes of the regime. It cannot possibly be for our benefit or that of the international community to hamper the activities of a body which represents a broad alliance of democratic forces in Iran and is the opponent of this terrible regime. If the terror label is removed from the PMOI, and all restrictions placed by the West on the Iranian resistance are removed, there is just a hope—one cannot put it higher than that—of democracy and freedom coming to Iran and this bleak period in Iran's history coming to an end. I repeat that I do not expect a reply to the points I have made tonight but I beg the noble Baroness, in her deliberations, to bear in mind what I have said.