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

My Lords, I am delighted that this order is before the House this evening. I first became interested in the PMOI some time ago when I was interested particularly in its campaign for women. I became a member of a group of parliamentarians in both Houses and we have together campaigned to try to get the organisation deproscribed. I never believed it was a terrorist organisation—on the contrary. I could see that it was led by a charismatic woman in the shape of Madame Rajavi and its agenda calls for gender equality for all women. It has the same sort of agenda as a political organisation and I emphasise that it is a political organisation that seeks change by political means and not by terrorism. It has an agenda which we should all be willing and happy to support and I hope that now the organisation is being deproscribed that will be the stance that we take in the future. The people we have worked with—the Iranian colleagues in this country who have supplied us with briefings and so on—have been very courageous in their fight for deproscription. They should be congratulated, and we should also congratulate ourselves on having succeeded in this campaign. I hope that the Government will now not pursue proscription via the EU. I support everything that the noble Lord, Lord Waddington, has said. It really is disgraceful that the Government were able to persuade the EU to adopt the line it did—they should not have done so. We can now go forward and I hope that we can work in future with this group of people to ensure that eventually the people of Iran achieve the democratic state that they deserve.