But in May this year he was controversially released in a prisoner swap between Belgium and Iran involving a jailed Belgian aid worker, Olivier Vandecasteele. The plot to bomb the 2018 NCRI rally in Paris led in 2021 to an Antwerp court jailing an Iranian diplomat Assadollah Assadi for 20 years. The MEK has, at times, been placed on European terrorist lists and faced security clampdowns. They received a worthy response from the Paris court.” The mullahs ruling Iran tried to involve foreign powers in suppressing the resistance. The NCRI said: “Security being a ridiculous excuse, the reality was surrendering to blackmail by a regime that is the record-holder in executions and the godfather of international terrorism.

France is one of a group of western powers investigating whether it can improve relations with Iran and revive a version of the 2015 nuclear deal. It had previously claimed the ban had been imposed following a phone conversation between the French president, Emmanuel Macron, and his Iranian counterpart, Ebrahim Raisi. The NCRI claimed the court ruling was a “heavy blow to the clerical regime and the policy of appeasement”. Its designation as a terrorist group was lifted in the UK by 2008. Some critics describe the MEK, which has a camp in Albania, as akin to a cult. Iran regards the MEK as a terrorist group and has waged a relentless war against the organisation, including assassinations and mass executions against the organisation inside and outside Iran. The court said it had made the decision after the organisers agreed it would be a static rally as opposed to a march and to increase the stewarding.įrench police feared the NCRI event, due to be attended by some US Republicans and British Conservatives, could be targeted by the Iranian regime.Ī previous rally in 2018 was targeted by an Iranian security services hit squad, but the sophisticated bomb plot was foiled, leading to one Iranian diplomat being jailed for 30 years by an Antwerp court. The court also ordered the prefecture to pay the organising committee of the demonstration a fine of €1,500 (£1,286).

There are fears of street clashes between Iranian factions. The National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), essentially the political wing of the Mojahedin-e-Khalq (MEK), said the court had lifted a ban imposed by the Paris Prefectural Office, and that its rally would now go ahead. The hard-pressed Parisian police were presented with a new security headache when a court in the city lifted a ban on a controversial Iranian opposition rally on Saturday that the police wanted stopped due to security risks.

Attended state survived