Unable to see her son living in Mujahedin-e Khalq camp in Tirana, Albania called Camp Ashraf 3, the ailing, aged mother of Aliakbar Andalibi suffers a lot.
It is now for decades that Aliakbar is living at MEK camps and the cult leaders do not let him have any contact with his family.
Mohammad-Reza Kolahi was a member of the People’s Mujahedin of Iran (MEK) that was responsible for planting a bomb at the headquarters of the Islamic Republican Party (IRP) Party in Tehran in which 72 high-ranking politicians and party members were killed in 1981.
In 2015, in the Netherlands, Mohamad Reza Kolahi was killed by a criminal gang on the order of MEK. Two Amsterdam criminals have been jailed for the 2015 murder of Kolahi Samadi, who lived in the Netherlands hiding behind the false name of Ali Motamed.
Massoud Khodabande writes his experience with Kolahi as:” I knew Kolahi personally. I received him in Kurdistan when he ran away from Iran. (I had transferred a 10 KW radio transmitter and other American made transceivers from Munich to MEK bases just outside Sardasht city and was there to undertake the assembly and commissioning). He worked with me for the next two years (he was an undergraduate Electronics Engineering student) and was then moved to maintenance work at Rajavi’s Camp Ashraf (Saddam’s private army) near Baghdad.
I knew then that he was not a member of MEK or even remotely connected to their ideology when he came to me, and I knew later in Iraq that he could never accept the cultish teachings of Rajavi thereafter (the Ideological Revolution, divorces …), and would remain an outcast with nowhere to go. And this is what happened. Whether he was fooled by MEK to carry out this terrorist act, or whether he was pushed directly by other intelligence agencies which pulled MEK wires in Tehran at that time is a mystery to me. But what is clear is that although he was not a person close to MEK, the task of taking him out of Iran and saving him (and at the same time confining him) was the job assigned to the MEK.
It is inconceivable that Kolahi, with the information that he had, and the danger he could pose to the MEK and their variety of masters if brought in front of a camera, would go to the Netherlands, get married, get a job and start a new life without the help and the blessing of the MEK (Maryam Rajavi). It is also inconceivable that the MEK (or their masters) would have not have a 24/7 control of every aspect of his life (including every telephone conversation) and simply let him go unmonitored.”
Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), also called Hashd al-Shaabi, held a parade in Camp Ashraf, the longtime headquarters of the Mujahedin Khalq Organization (MKO/ MEK/ PMOI/ Cult of Rajvi) in Iraq.
Camp Ashraf in northwest of Baghdad was donated to MEK by Saddam Hussein the group’s major financial and military sponsor. It was the group’s main base in the eight years of the war Saddam Hussein imposed on Iran. And, it was there that Massoud Rajavi built his cult of personality, practiced cut-like activities, trained terrorist forces, launched attacks against Iranian country fellowmen and punished his own dissident members.
After the collapse of the Iraqi dictator in 2003, the US army surrounded the camp and disarmed MEK forces. The camp was officially closed after the last 280 residents were flown to Albania, in 2016.
Hashd al-Shaabi parade in Camp Ashraf
The parade that was held by Hashd al-Shaabi on Saturday morning to celebrate the seventh anniversary of the founding of PMF was in the presence of Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi, who is also commander-in-chief of the armed forces.
Numerous PMF brigades marched in the parade, including Shiite, Christian, and Yazidi, according to images and video shared by the PMF-linked media sources. An image of Abu Madhi al-Muhandis, the PMF commander killed alongside Iran’s General Qasem Soleimani in a US drone strike in Baghdad in January 2020, was carried in the parade.
Camp Ashraf was a symbolic container for the ideology of MEK. The group leaders still glorify the name so as they named their headquarters in Albania as Camp Ashraf Three.
Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei speaks at a meeting with the chief and officials of Iran’s Judiciary in Tehran on June 28, 2021.
Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei has censured certain Western countries for turning into safe havens for terrorists while continuing their claim of championing human rights.
Members of the Mojahedin Khalq Organization (MKO) terrorist group are walking free in France and other European countries, Ayatollah Khamenei said on Monday, addressing a meeting with the chief and officials of Iran’s Judiciary.
“The French government and others shamelessly preach human rights despite hosting these killers, supporting them, and even giving them the podium in their national parliaments,” the Leader said. “That is to say, the brazenness of these Westerners is really an extraordinary and strange thing.”
to download the video file click here
The Leader also commemorated Ayatollah Mohammad Beheshti, the head of Supreme Judicial Council of the time, who was assassinated in a bombing carried out by the MKO in Tehran on June 28, 1981.
He said the MKO committed a great crime against the Iranian nation by assassinating “this prominent figure” along with 70 other Iranian figures on this day forty years ago.
Ayatollah Khamenei also thanked Judiciary Chief Ebrahim Raeisi for bringing about a great change to the Judiciary since he assumed office more than two years ago.
“In these two years and a few months that he was in charge of the Judiciary, he really worked hard, he strove, and good things were achieved in the Judiciary,” the Leader said.
Elsewhere in his remarks, Ayatollah Khamenei hailed the June 18 presidential election as “truly an epic”, saying no one can take the magnificence of the election away from the country.
“Where in the world is it common to see that all members of the opposition propaganda apparatus get actively involved to scare people away from voting in the election,” the Leader said.
“Attempts are still made – they (the opposition) write letters and speak via the cyberspace – to deny the greatness of this election, but to no avail,” Ayatollah Khamenei said.
“This effort is in vain. Analysts who had their eyes fixed on this election understand what has happened.”
Anti-Iran groups led a campaign of intimidation and bullying to force potential voters not to participate in the election. Nonetheless, nearly 49% of the eligible voters turned out to cast their ballots in an election that Raeisi won with over 18 million or 72% of the votes.
Drawing a comparison between Iran’s election and the 2020 presidential election in the US, Ayatollah Khamenei said the Americans are not a role model to follow when it comes to political issues.
“One must speak with courtesy and observance of ethical and religious dimensions, without insulting and slandering, rather than using the cursing and insulting methods of the Americans and [former US President Donald] Trump,” he said.
The Leader noted that the US presidential election became a scandal in the eyes of the world people, adding American rulers have ironically begun to criticize Iran’s election only a few months after having a scandalous election themselves.
Ayatollah Khamenei praised the Iranian candidates who lost in the election for their decorum and warm congratulatory messages to the president-elect.
The real winners of the election, the Leader said, are the Iranian people and all those who helped bring excitement to the polls.
“Therefore, the candidates who didn’t secure votes are among the winners as well, and on the contrary, the losers of the election are those who put all their efforts to drive the people away from the ballot box, but the people, with their presence, rejected them and dashed their hopes.”
Shahram Nasiri is allegedly a former member of the Mujahedin Khalq Organization (MEK/ MKO/ PMOI/ Cult of Rajavi) who has always been caught between being a loyal MEK’s former member who spies for the group and a defector who is a mercenary of the Iranian intelligence ministry!
Shahram was jailed in the prisons of Camp Ashraf, Iraq, in 1994, when the MEK leaders decided to punish one forth of the group members under the allegations of working for the Iranian Intelligence! The jailed members were interrogated, tortured and even killed by MEK torturers in the absence of true facts on their relationship with the Iranian government.
Shahram continued to stay in MEK until it was relocated in Albania. He allegedly left the group after the relocation in Albania. “I have twice noticed him filming me in the streets,” Siamak Naderi, a defector of MEK writes about Shahram asserting that he spies on former members in Albania, on behalf of MEK.
“Shahram Nasiri is one of the spies of MEK leaders in Tirana,” Mohammad Karami, another defector writes. “His mission is to gather information on what is going in the UNHCR’s office in charge of former members in order to sell to MEK.”
However, in December 2020, MEK websites published a letter allegedly signed by Shahram in which he had promised to be loyal to the MEK cause denouncing other defectors who give testimonies against the group. It seemed curious that he, as a former member, had to confirm his loyalty to the MEK leaders while a lot of former members live freely in the outside world.
The case of Shahram Nasiri became more complicated when, a few weeks ago, MEK published a statement signed by Hassan Nayebagha, as the representative of the inhabitants of Camp Ashraf three. The statement says that MEK has cut off financial aids to Shahram Nasiri because he did not fulfill his commitments to the group. According to the statement, Shahram is accused of socializing with other defectors of MEK —called as agents of the Islamic Republic by MEK!
It is worth to know that the alleged financial aid claimed by MEK, is actually the monthly payment that the UNHCR was supposed to donate each MEK member as a refugee after their relocation in Albania. Regrettably, the money is not paid to them individually but it is paid in sum to the group leaders so they can simply confiscate it.
Mostfa Foroughi left Iran for England to continue his studies in London, in 1980. He was in contact with his family during the first year that he was going to university there.
“The phone calls stopped after a year”, his brother Mohammadreza Foroughi says. “I was in Germany at the time. I tried to call his friends to get some news about him. A friend of his told me that Mostafa was not going to university anymore because he had been recruited by a group called Mujahedin Khalq.”
Mohammadreza was shocked when he realized that his brother was taken to Iraq by MEK. His mother had awfully missed Mostafa. “I could manage to pursue the case of my brother via international bodies but we just made sure that he was in Camp Ashraf, Iraq. We were not allowed to contact him,” Mohammadreza says.
Mohammadreza Foroughi
During the past years, the Foroughis have written several letters to human rights bodies and to Albanian authorities. They also write open letters and send videos for Mostafa to persuade him to leave the Cult of Rajavi. However, they have not been able to contact him for thirty years now. The bad news is that their mother died in 2015 while she was awaiting the release of her beloved son.
Today, Mohammadreza is still hopeful to see his brother someday. “Please liberate yourself! Live like a free man!” he writes in his recent letter to Mostafa.
Iran-Interlink: The following report from Albania marks a significant step in the lives of the MEK members brought to that country after being expelled from Iraq. On arrival in Albania, the MEK members were not issued ID documents and remain stateless, undocumented individuals. This state of affairs can be ignored as long as they remain the slaves of Maryam Rajavi, isolated and totally dependent on the MEK organisation for their accommodation, food and all other needs. But those hundreds of members who rejected the MEK’s control and freed themselves from the cult, have had to struggle to gain work and residence permits that allow them to integrate into ordinary society in Albania. This new legislation will make this path much easier. Moreover, this new unique permit will enable MEK members still trapped in the clutches of the camp, an escape route. They should be assured that life outside the cult will be the positive option:
Albania Minister of Interior, Blendi Çuçi
Minister Çuçi: Foreigners who want to work in Albania will be provided with a unique permit with only one application procedure
TIRANA – The Minister of Interior, Blendi Çuçi, has shown how the procedures will be simplified for foreign citizens who want to stay and work in our country.
During his speech in the Assembly, Minister Çuçi revealed the innovations of the new draft law and said that foreigners will be provided with a unique permit and there will be a single application procedure.
“With the new legislation for foreigners, we are creating easier procedures for residence permits, avoiding the bureaucracy that in many cases had become an obstacle, especially for special investors and the workforce. This draft law addresses one of the shortcomings, integrating the provision of work permits and residence permits into a single document. It will be called a unique permit. Thus we guarantee a single application procedure for foreigners who intend to stay and work in the territory of the Republic of Albania. This is a very important step, which guarantees foreigners a single application procedure, saving time and money. Foreign citizens who apply for residence for employment reasons through this law, will be directed to only one immigration counter, and will submit only a single file”, said Çuçi.
Dosja AL, Tirana, Albania – Translated by Iran Interlink
Although supporters of Ayatollah Khomeini had never sympathized with MEK elements, MEK’s enmity with the newly established government in Iran became acute when the head of this group was banned from running for presidential elections, which was followed by a heavy MEK loss at parliamentary elections in 1981. It was then that MEK started its terrorist activities in Iran; they bombed the headquarters of the Islamic Republic Party, which had won both the presidency and the parliament in landslide victories. The bomb killed Mohammad Beheshti, Head of Iran’s Judicial System who was also the party leader, as well as four cabinet ministers, plus 24 members of Parliament along with 43 other government officials and party members.
the MEK bombed the headquarters of the Islamic Republic Party in 1981
The MKO – listed as a terrorist organization by much of the international community – fled Iran in 1986 for Iraq and was given a camp by former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.
They fought on the side of Saddam during the Iraqi imposed war on Iran (1980-88). They were also involved in the bloody repression of Shiite Muslims in southern Iraq in 1991 and the massacre of Iraqi Kurds.
The notorious group is also responsible for killing thousands of Iranian civilians and officials after the victory of the Islamic revolution in 1979.
More than 17,000 Iranians, many of them civilians, have been killed at the hands of the MKO in different acts of terrorism including bombings in public places, and targeted killings.
The MKO also had a hand in the massacre of Kurds following the crushing of a 1991 uprising by Shiites in Iraq’s south and Kurds in the north, which was one of the most brutal acts of repression under Saddam Hussein.
last week, another propaganda show was launched by the Mujahedin Khalq (MKO/ MEK/ PMOI/ Cult of Rajavi) in their headquarters called Camp Ashraf 3 in Albania. It is considered a propaganda show because it was organized under the cultic system that Massoud Rajavi has built around his own personality. The show was magnified by huge screens before the dazed faces of uniformed MEK members who automatically clapped their hands or raised their fists to chant slogans to adore their smiling guru, Maryam Rajavi.
Based on numerous records, MEK is considered a cult-like group. “The MEK’s cultic system means that decisions are imposed from the top down,” assert Masoud and Ann Khodabandeh, former members of the group. “This means that those decisions are only as intelligent as the leadership.” [1]
In July 2018, Saeed Kamali Dehghan of the Guardian published an article to discuss the support of US warmongers such as John Bolton for MEK, “the extreme Iranian opposition group who was the target of a foiled bombing attack in France and was once a sworn enemy of the United States”. Reviewing the history of MEK, Kamali Dehghan states, “Today, it functions as a fringe exiled group with characteristics of a cult that works for regime change in Iran, though it has little visible support inside the country. It portrays itself as a democratic political institution although its own internal structure is anything but.” [2]
In 2019 when some photos were leaked from inside Camp Ashraf 3 showing members sitting in front of monitors in the group’s troll farm, the Khodabandehs wrote, “What Rajavi doesn’t understand is that these photos show beyond any words that the MEK doesn’t share our values. The leader is selling unthinking, unquestioning, obedient slaves, people who won’t act or speak unless ordered to do so. And that would only be ordered if it were productive for the MEK, regardless of the needs or desires of the worker.” [3]
Leaked photos showing MEK members at work
“What these images portray are conditions of modern slavery,” they continued. “These are elderly people who are unable to escape this cult and are coerced into performing work for which they receive no recompense. They exist on cruelly basic accommodation and sustenance, whereby even asking for new underwear puts the petitioner under question about their loyalty to the leader and the cause. They cannot leave because in Albania they have nowhere to go, no identity documents or work permits, no money, and they do not speak the local language.” [4]
To Download the video file click here
In March 2020, Murtaza Hussein and Mathew Cole of the Intercept, also suggested, “the MEK is a highly secretive organization”. They had interviewed five defectors of the group to support their assertion. “Five of them agreed to speak on the record about their experiences, which were broadly consistent and often confirmed aspects of other former members’ accounts,” they wrote. “Secret Iranian intelligence documents obtained by The Intercept also confirm several of their claims, including information that is not publicly known. Their testimonies reveal a brutal organization that, for decades, has held thousands in a state of physical and psychological slavery as it degenerated from a popular political movement to a freakish cult of personality under the absolute control of one all-powerful leader.” [5]
Thus, the so-called celebration that was recently hold in Camp Ashraf and other similar ones, are actually a demonstration of the modern slavery that is practiced inside the Cult of Rajavi every day.
By Mazda Parsi
References:
[1] Khodabandeh, Ann & Massoud, Nobody Can Be “Comfortable” with Regime Change Involving MEK, The lobelog, August 22, 2019.
[2] Kamali Dehghan, Saeed, Who is the Iranian group targeted by bombers and beloved of Trump allies?, The Gurdian, July 2nd, 2018.
[3] Khodabandeh, Ann & Massoud, Nobody Can Be “Comfortable” with Regime Change Involving MEK, The lobelog, August 22, 2019.
[4] ibid
[5] Hussein, Murtaza & Cole, Mathew, Defectors Tell of Torture and Forced Sterilization in Militant Iranian Cult, The Intercept, March 22nd, 2020.
Rudi Giuliani is the latest in a long list of people who have advocated for Rajavi and the MEK, and who have fallen from grace. Giuliani is, of course, the architect of his own downfall. His support for the MEK played only a small part in his long, often unsavoury career. (Sacha Baron Cohen’s 2020 Borat film played successfully on Giuliani’s dodgy reputation.) But Giuliani is in good company when we examine the roll call of individuals who have advocated for the MEK and subsequently lost their careers and their reputations – again often in only small part due to their association with the MEK.
The common theme behind this phenomenon – which should be called the ‘Rajavi Curse’ – is corruption. Recently, the US Secretary of State sanctioned the former Albanian leader Sali Berisha over corruption. Berisha presided over the transfer of MEK from Iraq to Albania after 2013. Once they arrived in Albania, Berisha found a lucrative role in advocating for Maryam Rajavi and the MEK. His downfall reminds us of this ‘Rajavi Curse’.
The Rajavi Curse
Let’s be clear, all political persons and groups make alliances; some work out well, some work out badly. It should be well known by now that linking themselves to the Rajavis will always work out badly for everyone. From Robin Corbett (UK MP) who had to write denying he took money from the MEK shortly before his death. To Struan Stevenson, Paulo Casaca and Alejo Vidal-Quadras who abandoned their roles as MEPs after the taint of Maryam Rajavi touched them. Of course, John Bolton, Rudi Giuliani, John McCain and others in the US will be forever known as shills for the terrorist MEK. In Albania, former deputy anti-trafficking coordinator Elona Gjebrea, who fawned upon supreme slave owner Maryam Rajavi, was later linked to a mafia family. Now Sali Berisha is added to the long list of unfortunates touched by the Rajavi Curse. In June, Edi Rama’s government which is notoriously corrupt itself, impeached President Ilir Meta, citing corruption.
The roll call of the MEK’s backers is a who’s who of people in power who have tried over the years to inflict fatal damage on the Islamic Republic. They found, in the MEK, a group which offered a package of military, ideological and propaganda thrust which matched with their own anti-Iranian agendas. It mattered not a bit that the MEK members themselves are subjected to calamitous human rights abuses and extreme exploitation as modern slaves.
Several have been embroiled in scandals which are linked to their poor judgement like Sir David Amess, who as an MP advocated for Maryam Rajavi in parliament. Or Bob Torricelli and Bob Menendez who have peddled misinformation for, but not exclusively, the MEK. Others, like Dennis Hastert, are just bad characters and their willingness to shill for the MEK (Hastert appeared in MEK rallies in Paris), can be seen in that context.
Whatever their motivation for supporting and advocating for the MEK, these individuals have backed the losing side. A side which has lost because it is itself corrupt to the core. Maryam Rajavi is currently languishing in Albania, as far from Iran and its politics as could be imagined. Expelled from Europe in 2018, Rajavi has suffered nothing but diminishing forces and power. What we are witnessing as we see her advocates fail and fall along the way is not Rajavi’s power to corrupt people. Rather it is simply that it takes a level of corruption, greed and/or confidence trickery to allow a person to support such an unsavoury group. Whether that support is rooted in money, ideology, stupidity or brainwashing, the result is the same: the Rajavi Curse is toxic to all who come close.
