AFP, Brussels - Thousands of supporters of an exiled Iranian opposition group demonstrated near the venue of a European summit meeting in Brussels on Thursday, calling for their name to be taken of an EU terror blacklist.

Belgian police stood and watched behind barbed wire near the summit venue as the crowd snaked its way towards a mid-afternoon rally addressed by speakers including international supporters and Maryam Rajavi, head of the umbrella opposition group the National Council of Resistance of Iran

Police estimated the crowd at 3,500 while organisers said that a total of 30,000 people participated in the rally throughout the day.

The demonstrators want the main Iranian opposition group, the People's Mujahedeen of Iran (PMOI) to be taken off the EU blacklist.

Last December the European Court of First Instance annulled an EU decision in 2002 to freeze the group's assets, a move that forces the bloc to rethink the way it compiles its terror blacklist.

The group claims that the court ruling, and the fact that it renounced violence in 2001, means it should be taken off the list and have its assets unfrozen.

"Violation of the court ruling is an astonishing breach of law and suppression of justice," said Rajavi.