AP: Court turns down Iran opposition group (terror indictment appeal)

[Eugene]

Monday, January 8, 2007 · Last updated 7:07 a.m. PT

Court turns down Iran opposition group

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

WASHINGTON -- Supporters of an Iranian opposition group lost a Supreme Court
appeal Monday that was intended to let them challenge the United States'
designation of the group as a foreign terrorist organization.

Justices declined to review the case of seven people who were indicted in 2001
on charges they raised money for the People's Mujahedeen, also known as the MEK.
The State Department first said in 1997 that the group engaged in terrorist
activities.

In 2002, 150 members of Congress called on the State Department to withdraw the
designation.

The seven people have sought to dismiss the charges against them by demonstrating
that the Iranian group has no terrorism ties. The 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals
said the indictment could proceed.

-snip-

Full article: http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1154AP_Scotus_Iranian_Opposition.html

[doublethink]

1. Good.

Here's a snip from the case on-going case ..... No. 06-241 note: FTO = "foreign terrorist organization"

"In 1999, the Secretary redesignated the MEK as an FTO. At that time, the Secretary added a new alias designation for the MEK, finding that the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) had been acting as the MEK's alter ego. The MEK and the NCRI challenged their 1999 designations. See National Council of Resistance of Iran v. Department of State, 251 F.3d 192 (D.C. Cir. 2001) (NCRI I). The District of Columbia Circuit rejected the MEK's statutory challenges to the Secretary's action. Id. at 199-200. The court held, how ever, that the NCRI had a sufficient presence in the United States to trigger the protections of the United States Constitution, id. at 201-203, and that the organization had not been provided with adequate procedural safeguards in connection with the 1999 designation, id. at 208-209." -snip-

http://www.usdoj.gov/osg/briefs/2006/0responses/2006-0241.resp.html

I add this here because if you type in NCRI into google 'news' ... you will find a very busy propaganda campaign active here in the U.S. by these people in trying to bring on an all out war with Iran. How this organization can be given 'constitutional protection' as a front for MEK ... is beyond me? ..... Twisted thinking somewhere in there. Anyway NCRI, MEK, MKO and a guy named Alireza Jafarzadeh (spokesman for this conglomeration of orgs) ..... will be saying a lot in the next few weeks, months etc... remember Chalabi in the run-up to the Iraqi mess? Well kinda the same program going on here as it relates to Iran. Peace.

[slipslidingaway]

2. Thanks, what a tangled web of players.