The Iranian group won refuge in Iraq decades ago under Saddam Hussein's regime and set up home at Camp Ashraf in eastern Diyala province. But after the 2003 US-led invasion, they became an irritant to Iraq's new Shiite-led government, which is trying to bolster ties with Iran.
Iraq is to close Camp Ashraf at the end of December. UN efforts to extend this date have failed.
Friday's demonstrators in Baghdad demanded the Iranians be evicted because their group — the People's Mujahedeen Organization of Iran, which seeks to overthrow Tehran's rulers — is considered by some to be a terrorist organization.
The United States, Canada, Iraq and Iran have designated the PMOI a terrorist organization.On Jan. 26, 2009, following what the group called a “seven-year-long legal and political battle,” the Council of the European Union removed the PMOI from the EU list of organisations it designates as terrorist.
The PMOI and the National Council of Resistance in Iran claim to have provided the United States with intelligence on Iran's nuclear program in 2002 and 2008. On Sept. 6, 2011, the PMOI elected Zohreh Akhyani as its new secretary-general for a two-year term.
Founded in 1965 by a group of leftist Iranian college students as an Islamic and Marxist political mass movement, the PMOI was originally devoted to armed struggle against the Shah of Iran, capitalism, and "Western imperialism."
