Authorities at Odds over Rally of Exiled Iranians

A regional administrative court in Berlin has overruled a decision by local police in Berlin to ban a rally of exiled Iranian resistance fighters. The decisive question of the row is: how closely linked are the demonstration's organisers to the People's Mujahideen? Hardy Graupner reports

Thousands of Iranians who travelled to Berlin for the demonstration against the theocratic regime in Tehran were first prevented from leaving their hotels or disembarking from Berlin-bound flights. The last-minute decision to let the rally get under way came despite an earlier ban imposed by authorities in Paris where the rally was originally scheduled to take off on February 10th.

With over 10,000 Iranians already in Berlin for the planned demonstration, local police units spent the morning preventing many of them from leaving their hotels and the city's airports. Last night, preparations for the rally were still continuing unabated with everything already set up at the Brandenburg Gate.

European parliamentarians and exiled Iranians

According to the organisers, the demonstration was meant as a large-scale protest action by exiled Iranians and European parliamentarians against Tehran's ambiguous policy over its nuclear programme. French authorities had banned the rally, citing the organisers close links with Iran's resistance movement called People's Mujahideen, an opposition force accused by the European Union of terrorist activities.

Talking to the press in Berlin on Thursday, a prominent figure of Iran's National Council of Resistance, Ali Safavi, claimed that the French government had put massive pressure on Berlin to ban the rally in order to avoid a diplomatic affront. Despite the ban, large groups of Iranian demonstrators gathered early in other parts of the town, including the city district of Wilmersdorf.

The protesters chanted slogans demanding the overthrow of Iran's ruling Mullahs and listened to speeches by parliamentarians from a number of European nations, including Britain and Germany. Dietrich Thiede, a Christian democrat MP in the western German federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia, said he was shocked when he heard about the banning of the rally on Thursday morning:

A terrorist before the European parliament?

"Well, I personally have had only positive impressions when dealing with Iranian resistance leaders, he says. The president-elect of the Iranian resistance movement, Maryam Rajavi is here, and she was recently invited to speak before the European parliament. You cannot at the same time claim that she's part of a terrorist organisation. That doesn't make much sense to me. I really don't understand the decision of the Berlin authorities."

Ali Safavi told Deutsche Welle that he thought little of neither the US policy of threats towards the current regime in Iran, nor the European policy of appeasement, saying that political change had to come from within the country.

Political observers were convinced that Thursday's attempt to ban the rally was in order to not disrupt current negotiations between the EU and Tehran in Geneva. Officials in Germany, France and Britain are still confident that the leadership in Iran can be brought to scrap its nuclear arms programme by diplomatic means.

With the demonstration finally allowed to proceed, organisers said they were glad that Germany stood by the fundamental right of freedom of expression.

Hardy Graupner