Iranian opposition leader addresses EU, days after group removed from US terror list

(3 Oct 2012)
1. Wide Maryam Rajavi, founder of People's Mujahedeen of Iran (MEK), walking along with officials at the European Parliament
2. Wide of Rajavi at podium
3. SOUNDBITE (French) Maryam Rajavi, founder of People's Mujahedeen of Iran (MEK):
(referring to MEK's removal from US terror blacklist)
"The removal from the blacklist has freed the potential of our movement to develop resistance in Iran. Now a new era has started for the resistance, in Iran and in the world."
4. Cutaway of cameraman
5. SOUNDBITE (French) Maryam Rajavi, founder of People's Mujahedeen of Iran (MEK):
"We are asking the European Union to stop all complacency towards the Mullah regime (she is referring to Iran), to act for the protection and the security of opposition members in Iraq, and especially to support refugee status for these camps (referring to Liberty and Ashraf refugee camps in Iraq), to help them (Iranian refugees) to settle in other countries, and finally for official recognition of the Iranian resistance."
6. Wide of Rajavi talking
7. SOUNDBITE (French) Maryam Rajavi, founder of the People's Mujahedeen of Iran (MEK):
"The regime took advantage of all these years of negotiation to improve its atomic weapon programme, and they are much closer to the atomic bomb today."
8. Mid of Rajavi giving an interview
9. Mid Rajavi sitting down
9. Cutaway audience applauding
10. Wide of conference room
11. Close-up of people listening
12. Mid of conference room
STORYLINE:
Maryam Rajavi, the Paris-based founder of the dissident opposition group, People's Mujahedeen of Iran (MEK), was in Brussels on Wednesday to address the European Parliament.
It was her first public appearance since the MEK was removed from the US terror blacklist on Friday.
Commenting on the MEK's removal from the blacklist, Rajavi told an assembled audience of MEPs (members of the European Parliament) that "the removal from the blacklist has freed the potential of our movement to develop resistance in Iran."
"Now a new era has started for the resistance, in Iran and in the world," she added.
She was invited to the European Parliament at the initiative of a MEP intergroup called "Friends of a Free Iran", created in 2004 and chaired by MEP Struan Stevenson.
Before addressing MEPs, Rajavi said she will call on the EU to do more to help Iranian resistance.
She also warned that she still believed the nuclear threat was an issue in Iran.
Iran has condemned the Obama administration for taking the MEK, which was formerly allied with Saddam Hussein, off the US terror list - saying it showed Washington's 'double standards.'
State radio said the move highlighted President Barack Obama's anti-Iranian sentiments.
MEK began as a guerrilla movement fighting Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, helped overthrow the monarch in 1979, then quickly fell out with the Islamic Republic's first leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
It fought in the 1980s alongside Saddam's forces in the eight-year Iran-Iraq war, but disarmed after the US invasion of Iraq in 2003.
Now it has been removed from the list by the US, any assets the MEK has in the United States are unblocked and Americans can do business with the organisation.


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