Iranians rally in Europe
to support armed opposition
A beheaded
statue of zztoppled Iraqi President Saddam Hussein stands in Baghdad.
Life is slowly returning to normal after the toppling of Saddam
Hussein's regime by US-led coalition forces. AFP PHOTO/Sabah ARRAR
ROME (AFP) Hundreds of Iranian exiles demonstrated last Saturday in several European cities including Rome and The Hague in protest at reported Iranian attacks on bases of an armed Iranian opposition movement based in Iraq.
In Rome, Hussein Abedini
of the National Council of the Iranian Resistance (NCIR), told
some 200 protesters: "Thirty-eight (People's) Mujahedeen
have been killed, 50 injured and seven taken prisoner in attacks
on 9 and 10 April against the bases of the Iranian resistance
in Iraq."
Some 1,200 demonstrated in the German city of Cologne, according
to police estimates, while organisers put the figure at near 10,000.
Several hundred also protested in The Hague, including Iranian asylum-seekers, and a smaller demonstration took place in London.
The People's Mujahedeen claimed on Friday that some 3,000 Iranian troops had entered Iraq and were preparing to attack its bases in northern Iraq.
US-led forces in Iraq have targeted several Mujahedeen camps and are trying to negotiate the group's surrender.
"The Iranian opposition asks the United Nations Secretary General, the Security Council and other international organisations to take immediate action to end the Iranian regime's aggressions in Iraq," Iranian NCIR exile leader Abedini said in Rome.
The People's Mujahedeen has been labelled a terrorist organisation by Iran, the United States and the European Union, although it says it targets only the military and other elements of the clerical regime.
The group was given sanctuary by now deposed Iraqi president Saddam Hussein in 1986, when he was in the thick of a bloody war with his neighbour, after it was driven out of Iran.
"We protest firmly against the attacks by the religious terrorists running Iran against Mujahedeen forces in Iraq," protest leader Sahon Gobadi told AFP in The Hague.
The Mujahedeen was the only force "capable of overthrowing the inhuman clerical power in Tehran," organisers said.
In Germany, the Iranian Society and the National Resistance Council of Iran appealed to Iranian exiles wherever they were in Germany to demonstrate against "the violation of human rights by the Mullahs regime," accusing Tehran of exploiting the Iraq war to attack opposition movements across the frontier. "We say again that the despots ruling in Iran are nothing but a corrupt regime which is condemned to fall," an opposition statement said.
The People's Mujahedeen took part in overthrowing the Shah of Iran during the 1979 Islamic revolution, but were in turn forced out of Iran after bloody clashes with the new Islamic regime.