++ Over the past two weeks MEK has played out its fear of the recent media reports by NBC, Al Jazeera, The Independent, The Guardian and others through Google Wars. Last week alone, MEK created ten new sites, with specific tags that will dominate Google News. The people inside MEK say the goal is to push down the recent damning media reports. The whole organisation has become one big click farm, not just Albania, including supporters. The informers say it’s all lies. MEK is trying to say we didn’t kill Americans, we weren’t with Saddam etc.
++ Again, though its media, MEK has launched a fundraising campaign asking for donations. Every time they do this it is obvious they have received a tranche of new money and this is how they launder it. Some ex members who were involved in MEK’s finance department have written about how MEK used to do this. Among the families, Saber from Tabriz has written a note saying Maryam Rajavi must allow families to visit and have contact with their children who have been taken hostage. Claiming that families pay money to you in these campaigns doesn’t hold water if they can’t see their kids. People are not mad to pay money to a gang who have taken their children hostage.
++ The other use of the sites created this week is to simply copy and paste what Pompeo, Bolton and Saudis say: Iran should not have missiles, the EU should not negotiate with Iran, the US should arrest all Iranian diplomats. The first page of MEK sites is just this. In reaction to this, one Farsi commentator says, we thought that after Massoud Rajavi, MEK’s ideological leader is Maryam Rajavi. It’s not, it’s Mike Pompeo. His pronouncements dominate MEK’s sites.
++ This week was the Day of Students, the anniversary to remember the students who were killed by the Shah because of their activities against American Imperialism. Ironically MEK celebrate this day as well, but don’t mention that they were against Americans at that time. Comments point out that this pretended ignorance is immature and doesn’t fool anyone.
In English:
++ Aawa Association broadcast a panel address to the Press Club in Brussels. Anne Khodabandeh participated by making the case that MEK is being actively enabled by the Trump Administration to prevent further development of relations between the EU and Iran. This is done through propaganda in which MEK dominate the narrative on Iran by calling for violent regime change. MEK is also used to demonise Iran though false flag ops. As the previous actions failed to break EU/Iran relations, Khodabandeh warned of an escalation of this false flag activity, probably in Albania, in which some MEK members are killed, and possibly some Albanians. This would be blamed on Iran.
++ IRNA reported a meeting of Iran’s High Council for Human Rights in Kerman. Referring to the West’s double standards on human rights, Mohammad Javad Larijani said, “They spread terrorism in the region in the name of human rights. Today, Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO) is no different from Daesh (ISIS); human rights cannot grow with bombing exploding mosques and religious centers”.
++ Sarah Lazare, In These Times, slates Nancy Pelosi for turning her back on advocates for peace and negotiation and backing a hawkish foreign policy toward Yemen. Lazare points out that Pelosi “has also repeatedly vocalized her support for the Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK), alongside John Bolton, Rudy Giuliani and Newt Gingrich. With virtually no legitimacy within Iran, the MEK is a favorite among neocons because it aggressively lobbies for U.S. military confrontation with Iran, and arguing that its head, Maryam Rajavi, is the rightful leader of Iran. The organization, which supports the U.S.-Saudi war in Yemen, has been described as a cult. According to a Human Rights Watch investigation from 2005, members reported ‘abuses ranging from detention and persecution of ordinary members wishing to leave the organization, to lengthy solitary confinements, severe beatings and torture of dissident members’. As recently as July, when the MEK held a conference in Paris, Pelosi sent a video message conveying her ‘warm regards’.”
++ Tasnim news agency reported that Iran’s deputy ambassador to the UN denounced the US government’s ‘addiction’ to sanctions and warmongering. Eshaq Al-e-Habib said the US withdrawal from the JCPOA was a clear violation of the resolution that calls upon “all States without exception”, which include the United States, not only to “take actions as may be appropriate to support the implementation of the JCPOA” but also to “refrain from actions that undermine implementation of commitments under the JCPOA”. Therefore, the Council should consider the US illegal acts as a flagrant violation of the resolution and hold it accountable for such violations. The diplomat also condemned the US’s policy of spreading war and chaos in order to sell more weapons. Also, its support for terrorist groups. “Who can also forget the US role — as openly confessed by its President during his campaign — in creating the ugliest face of terrorism, the monstrous ISIS. If it was not for Iran’s support and help, the black flag of ISIS was still flying around the Middle East. In reaction to Iran’s prominent role in fighting terrorist groups in Syria and Iraq, such groups have conducted a few terrorist attacks in Iran in 2017 and 2018.
“Today, in addition to transferring ISIS elements to Afghanistan and Central Asian countries, the US has extended its sponsorship of terrorism to a vicious terrorist cult, the MKO, that has murdered more than 17,000 Iranians and many Iraqis and who currently cozy up to the highest political figures in Washington to destabilize Iran through terrorist activities.”
++ David William Pear, The Greenville Post, ‘US politicians get money from Mojahedin Khalq (MEK) who killed US citizens’. This piece briefly covers recent decades of Iranian history under the Shah before saying that “Now that the Shah is gone, the US propaganda machine and the mainstream media put out a flood of stories about how wonderful life was under the Shah. The propagandists use economic indicators of inflation, employment, gross domestic product, oil exports and the upper-class standard of living. Anybody who puts out those kinds of comparative economics deserves to flunk Economics 101.
“Iran has been under sever US-imposed economic sanctions for 40 years. The US has been threatening Iran with war and “all options are on the table” for decades. The US has also instigated instability inside Iran and supported external attacks by terrorist groups such as Mujahideen-e-Khalq, or MEK.
“MEK was on the US State Department’s list of terrorist organization until it was removed by former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton in 2012. The fact that MEK has killed US citizens in terrorist attacks did not hinder some US politicians from accepting large speaking fees at their conventions, even when MEK was still on the US terrorist list.”
++ Iran Interlink republished a piece from the archive. An interview with Iraq’s National Security Advisor Dr. Mowaffak al Rubaie from 2009. The item starts with an explanation of the situation of the MEK in Camp Ashraf before interviewing al Raubaie who headed Iraq’s efforts to expel the MEK as remnants of Saddam Hussein’s repressive apparatus. Dr. al Rubaie’s plan for the difficult task of dismantling an extremist cult has revealed an enlightened, humanitarian approach which could become a blueprint for tackling similar organisations worldwide. In part of the interview he discusses the cultic nature of MEK.
“AS: You have spoken of ‘detoxifying’ the people in Camp Ashraf. Could you explain what this means and why you feel it is necessary? What do you hope to achieve?
MR: As you know from observing the behavior of the MEK and from their history, this is an indoctrinated and tightly disciplined organization of extremist zealots who have employed terrorism and at times even self-immolation to secure their aims. In normal everyday language we can say that they have been “brainwashed”. As is common in organizations of this type, the indoctrination and discipline rely on the continuous pressure of their leaders and the total control by them of their environment. Therefore, individuals have little ability to exercise their free will because they exist in this closed environment and fear for personal reprisals if they are discovered to have deviated from the approved line of responses. As we strive to determine from each individual where they wish to go since they cannot remain in Iraq, we are conducting individual surveys and a census which are open to oversight by the ICRC and the UN. We believe that if we can separate individuals from the all-encompassing domination by their leaders, we can allow them to begin to exercise their rights as individuals and make appropriate choices. That is, we hope to remove them from the toxic effects of their indoctrination and leaders.”
December 14, 2018