Delist MEK: Thousands protests in support of Camp Ashraf

By Alice Fordham, Saturday, August 27, 3:15 AM

Politicians, former national security officials and thousands of others gathered outside the State Department on Friday to call for the removal of the Mujahedin-e Khalk, an Iranian opposition group, from the list of foreign terrorist organizations.
Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” blasted from large speakers and doves and clouds of confetti flew into the air as former congressman Patrick J. Kennedy (D-R.I.) introduced the group’s leader, Maryam Rajavi, to speak by video link from Paris.

“I salute your protest and gathering, which symbolizes an uprising for the freedom of the Iranian people,” said Rajavi, speaking in Farsi.

The controversial group, usually called by the acronym MEK, is made up of exiled Iranian dissidents who organized in the 1960s and now are mounting a political and legal campaign to end their designation as terrorists.

The group violently opposed the rule of the shah and initially supported the Islamist regime that came to power in 1979, but they became disillusioned with the theocracy and eventually fled amid growing hostility.

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