People's Mujahidin Organization of Iran v. United States Department of State - Essay Example

The organization was known to conduct various terrorist activities during the regime of Khomeini as well as the Shah, which made the unpopularity of MeK inevitable. However, the organization claims to have ceased all of its terrorist activities since 2001 and has been aiming to improve its international ever since. This brings us to February 11th 2009, when the MeK filed a petition in the U.S court of Appeals to challenge its designation into FTO (Foreign Terrorist Organization) by the U.S. Department of State.

The MeK claims that it has halted all of its terrorist activities since 2001, with valid proof, and the decision of the Department of State to keep the organization listed in the FTO in 2008 and 2003 is unfair. This created a point of confrontation between the two organizations. One needs to take for account both sides of the cases in order to understand the condition properly (Alexander, 2003). In 1996 according to the AEDPA, the Department of State to create a list of global terrorist organizations called the FTO.

It was done to cease their working inside the United States. The FTO was to be reviewed by the Department of State once every two years and later every five years to keep the list updated. MeK has been a part of the list since 2003 and has filed a petition to the department of state in 2008 to delist the organization from the list. The MeK has also provided various evidences for this petition to become a reality. The MeK has presented the following changes in its activities and prospects: Ceased every ongoing military campaign in the territory of Iran since 2001.

Has shared valuable intelligence information with the U.S. government regarding Iran’s nuclear program and alleged terrorist activities. Has surrendered all of its arms and military equipment to the U.S. military forces of Iraq and cooperated with the U.S. military forces at Camp Ashraf in Iraq. Has obtained a delisting from terrorist organizations from various countries, such as the United Kingdom and the European Union. Has rejected violence and terrorist activities on record in 2004. Even after these substantial evidences, the U.S. Department State ruled out the petition of MeK and maintained its listing in the FTO as a terrorist organization.

A listing in the FTO means that all assets an organization has in the United States will be overtaken by the government and the organization will not be allowed to hold any activity, even peaceful, inside the U.S. territory. For the U.S. Department of State to justify its decision, they released a 20-page document to support their decision. In such documents, the Department was expected to give a detailed description of each of every difference stated by the MeK. This wasn’t the case here (McCormack and McDonald, 2006).

The document, when analyzed by various analysts was found to be filled with one-sided reviews of past activities, dating back in the 1980’s and the 1990’s by the MeK. The department did not give any pro and cons of the activities mentioned by the MeK in their petition to the department and were all pointing towards the activities conducted by the organization way before 2001, after which the organization claims to have changed. Some descriptions given in the document was even contradictory to the activities of the MeK such as, “On October 12, 2006, I received information that questioned activities were going on at the University compound, [C]amp