TEHRAN/PARIS, 19 June 2003 — President Mohammad Khatami urged France yesterday to extradite to Iran detained members of the armed People’s Mujahedeen opposition group and told Washington to take the lead from Paris by arresting Mujahedeen members still in Iraq.
“Given that the Islamic republic has been a victim of the actions of these people, its natural demand is that they should be tried where they committed their crimes, or at least where they committed most of their crimes,” Khatami told a press conference.
By launching a major crackdown on the group, France “has respected its responsibilities as a member of the European Union which declared this group terrorist. This is what we have been expecting,” Khatami said. “We have the same expectations from the United States, which has also declared this group terrorist.”
Referring to anti-government protests, Khatami defended the right to demonstrate but condemned violence, whether caused by demonstrators or hard-line groups.
Meanwhile, one of the two Iranian women who set herself on fire in Paris yesterday in protest at a French crackdown on the People’s Mujahedeen, is in serious condition, police said.
Marzieh Babakhani, a political refugee living in Paris, has suffered severe burns to her face and chest after spraying herself with petrol and igniting it.
The woman was one of four people who have set fire to themselves — two women and a man in Paris and a man in London — since French police on Tuesday swooped in on 13 sites in the Paris region linked to the exiled Iranian group.
The self-immolation protests in Paris were carried out near the offices of the French counter-intelligence services (DST), where more than two dozen suspects were being questioned after being detained during Tuesday’s raids. Police said the second woman, identified as Sedighieh Mohageri, was taken to hospital with slight burns.
The third Paris protester, a man in his mid-40s identified by fellow protesters as Mohammad Vakilifar, was quickly covered with a blanket by Paris firefighters following his attempt. Shahin Gobadi, a member of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) — the Iranian political opposition umbrella group dominated by the People’s Mujahedeen — told AFP the man had been “seriously burned.”
In another development Iran rejected yesterday charges by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that it had failed to honor international agreements on reporting nuclear material, amid growing international pressure for Tehran to allow wider inspections of suspected nuclear sites.
—Additional input from Agencies
