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Terrorism Act 2000 (Proscribed Organisations) (Amendment) Order 2008

rose to move, that the draft Order laid before the House on 21 May be approved. 21st Report from the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments. The noble Lord said: My Lords, the People’s Mujaheddin Organisation of Iran—the PMOI, as it is more generally known—is opposed to the Iranian Government. Its stated aim is to replace that regime with a secular democracy. Most of its members are based at Camp Ashraf, which is located in Iraq, and under Saddam’s regime it operated as a de facto wing of the Iraqi military. Although it currently describes itself as a non-violent democratic movement, there can be no doubt that the PMOI was responsible for acts of terrorism over a long period, stretching back some two decades prior to 2001. These acts were not attributed to it by the Iranian authorities: the PMOI expressly admitted responsibility for a number of horrendous crimes carried out against the Iranian people, both civilian and military targets. The PMOI is not widely supported in Iran because of those attacks and because it fought alongside Iraqi forces against Iran in the war between those countries. The PMOI says that it decided at an internal meeting in 2001 to renounce violence and that it now seeks instead to pursue its objectives by peaceful means. It has not conducted any attacks since then, although it has not made any public statement renouncing violence. Until 2003, it maintained an extensive arsenal at Camp Ashraf, at which point it found itself surrounded by US forces and surrendered its arms. The PMOI was added to the list of proscribed terrorist organisations in 2001. Proscription is a tough but necessary power, and its effect is that the proscribed organisation is outlawed and is unable to operate in the United Kingdom. The consequence of proscription is that specific criminal offences apply in relation to a proscribed organisation. They include membership of the organisation and the provision of various forms of support, including organising or addressing a meeting and wearing or displaying an article indicating membership of the organisation. Further criminal offences exist in relation to fund raising and various uses of money and property for the purposes of terrorism. A group of 35 interested parties, comprising noble Lords and honourable Members of another place, disagreed with the PMOI’s proscription. A statutory procedure exists for any proscribed organisation or anyone affected by the proscription of an organisation to apply to the Home Secretary for that organisation to be deproscribed. Members of this group correctly followed this procedure and wrote to the Home Secretary to request that the PMOI be deproscribed. They argued that the PMOI was no longer concerned in terrorism, having renounced violence and disarmed itself, and that their desire to express their legitimate support for the PMOI and its objectives was unlawfully curtailed by its continuing proscription. The then Home Secretary carefully considered this application but continued to believe that the PMOI was concerned in terrorism, which is the statutory test for proscription. He formed that view in the light of the PMOI’s lengthy history of violence, in the absence of any public renunciation of violence and taking into account the fact that it only disarmed two years after the decision to renounce violence, when it had no choice in the face of the overwhelming force of the US military. While accepting that there had been no attacks since 2001, the then Home Secretary took a cautious approach and was not satisfied that the renunciation of violence was more than a temporary cessation for pragmatic reasons or that the 2003 disarmament would have taken place were it not for the war in Iraq and the artificially restrictive circumstances arising from that. He was concerned that the PMOI might return to terrorism in future as a means of achieving its objectives, if the situation in Iraq were to make it possible and if it became strategically advantageous for it to do so. Let me make it clear that this decision was not taken lightly. The Government share the desire of those 35 honourable Members and noble Lords to see the advance of democracy and the promotion of human rights around the world. Given the wide-ranging impact of proscription, we are committed to ensuring that proscription decisions are lawful and proportionate. However, the Terrorism Act 2000 sets out the definition of terrorism and the criteria for considering whether an organisation is concerned in terrorism. The Act does not refer to the motivation or political agenda of those who perpetrate acts of terrorism and, as POAC accepted, the Secretary of State is entitled to conclude that there is no right to resort to terrorism, whatever the motivation. We do not condone terrorism anywhere, whatever its justification or its target. The Home Secretary’s refusal to deproscribe was appealed to POAC, the Proscribed Organisations Appeal Commission, which upheld the appeal and found that the PMOI was no longer an organisation concerned in terrorism. POAC directed that the Government lay an order before the House deproscribing the PMOI. Although POAC considered that the Government were wrong to refuse to deproscribe the PMOI in 2006, it agreed that the original proscription in 2001 was justified and that the PMOI was responsible for many terrorist attacks over an extended period. It also stated that the Government were entitled to give little credibility to public statements made by the PMOI, as their public statements contained spin and the evidence submitted in the course of the hearing was ““contradictory and potentially misleading”” and demonstrated ““a shifting approach””. Our subsequent application for permission to appeal POAC’s ruling to the Court of Appeal was refused. Naturally, although disappointed by the decision, we have complied with the judgment and have moved quickly to lay the order that the House is debating today. It will give effect to POAC’s order and will remove the PMOI from the list of proscribed organisations. An article in today’s Times has been drawn to my attention. It comes under the heading, ““Labour stands up to judges by backing Tehran on dissidents”” and makes certain suggestions about the intentions of the Prime Minister and those of the Home Secretary with regard to an organisation described as the National Resistance Army of Iran. Simply, there is no basis in fact for the conclusions that the article draws or for the headline, and we refute any of the suggestions in the article. There is no intention on the part of the Government to circumvent in any way the effect of the order to deproscribe as the article suggests. I beg to move. Moved, That the draft order laid before the House on 21 May be approved. 21st Report from the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments.—(Lord Bassam of Brighton.)