Page 148 – Nejat Society

Mujahedin Khalq Organization members' families

Prevent humanitarian catastrophe in the MEK Manëz Camp

Mr. Esmail Taherkhani, the brother of Issa Taherkhani, who was detained in the MEK camp in Albania, wrote a letter to the World Health Organization requesting immediate action on his brother’s health.

Issa Taherkhani brother

The text of the letter is as follows:

Representative of the World Health Organization in Albania
Greetings and best regards

I am Esmail Taherkhani, the brother of Issa Taherkhani, who is apparently at this time in the Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK) camp in Albania.

My brother was captured by Iraqi forces during the Iran-Iraq war and was deceitfully transferred to the MEK camp in Iraq during Saddam Hussein’s rule. I have not heard from my brother since then and the family has not been allowed to contact him.

Due to the outbreak of the coronavirus disease and its epidemic all over the world, especially in Albania, according to the latest media reports, several dozen members of this group have died of the Covid-19 virus in recent weeks. They were buried in the local Manëz (Manzë) cemetery in Durrës, Albania.

The MEK, which operates a camp on the outskirts of Tirana, does not allow journalists and doctors to enter the area and works with patients with coronavirus disease and deaths outside the protocols of the World Health Organization and the Albanian government.

This has raised our concerns about the health of a large number of members, most of whom are elderly and over 60 years old. We have to wait for a humanitarian catastrophe in the Manëz area of Tirana and endanger the health of hundreds of thousands of people in this area and its neighboring areas, because the camp where the MEK members are based is completely closed and people have group life and are not allowed to have communication with their families. Also, the Albanian government does not grant visas to Iranians at the request of the MEK leaders to travel to that country and follow the issue closely.

I desperately urge you not to neglect any action that is imagined in order to alleviate the worries of me and my expectant family, so that news of my brother will reach us and we will be able to communicate. Please do not hesitate to take any action and follow up in this regard.

Thanks a lot
Esmail Taherkhani
Qazvin – Iran

February 22, 2021 0 comments

The cult of Rajavi

MEK not be allowed to smuggle people / weapons into Europe

The Honorable António Guterres,

United Nations Secretary-General
The United Nations
New York, NY 10017
Your Excellency, Mr. Guterres

On February 14, 2021 the ex-terrorist organization of the Iranian Mojahedeen (also known as the National Council of Resistance of Iran, The Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization, MEK, MKO, Rajavi Cult etc) published a letter on its website signed by Hadi Sani-Khani an Iranian mujahedeen who in the past days has been smuggled into France by the mojaheden command. The letter was distributed and published by a section of MEK in Albania known as the Security and Counterterrorism Committee (SCC), chaired by the infamous ex-terrorist commander Mehdi Ambrishamchi. The original letter dated on February 17, 2021 mentioned the name of Mr. Mehdi Ambrishamchi as the chairman of SCC. However on February 18, 2021 the name of Mehdi Ambrishamchi was removed from the mujahedeen website, probably after a pan-European investigation has been launched by a group of European journalists and security experts who want to discover how did MEK manage to smuggle from Albania into France an ex-terrorist and foreign fighter like Hadi Sani-Khani.

France has bad experience with smugglers from Albania. The Nice terror attack of July 14th, 2016 was made possible thanks to three Albanian citizens: Artan Henaj, Myslym Cenaj and Enkelejda Zace. They smuggled weapons and ammunition through the Albanian port of Durres to the Italian port of Bari and then through the Ventimiglie crossing border point into France. The Tunisian terrorist Mohamed Bouhlei used such weapons and ammunition in his terror attack in Nice.

Your Excellency,

We, Olsi Jazexhiu and Gjergji Thanasi investigate the illegal activities of MEK in Albania since many years. This organization which depicts itself as an exiled Iranian opposition group runs a paramilitary camp in the town of Manza in Durres, something illegal and criminal according to Albanian Penal Code. MEK makes illegal and terrorist calls for war and regime change against foreign countries which are members of the United Nations. They use our country as a base for their illegal and criminal activities which are condemned by your organization and the international law. The spread fake news and aim to terrorize the Western public opinion with fears in order to push Western governments into war with Iran. In the past years we have exposed MEK lies and fake news. Their claims for Iran’s alleged terror attacks in Albania have been exposed as fake news by us in a number of occasions:

Dy “terroristët” iranianë aprofesionalizëm ulëritës apo thjesht “False flag operation”

Hadi Sani Khani

According to data from Albanian Institute of Statistics (INSTAT) MEK hosts around 7000 ex-foreign fighters in our country. They are kept in isolation by their command in the camp of Manza. MEK’s soldiers live in isolation and are not allowed to have contact with the outside world including their families who want to meet them. They have no free access to the internet, television and people of the opposite sex. They are not allowed to fall in love, have sex, marry, have families or children. They are forced to live like radicalized soldiers, trained and waiting to wage a terrorist war against Iran. Their families have written many letters to the Albanian government, the United Nations etc and have demanded access to their relatives who are kept in isolation and radicalized with the jihadi ideology of war and regime change that their cult leaders indoctrinate them.

However, the mujahedeen command headed by Maryam Rajavi, Mehdi Ambrishamchi etc have so far been successful to stop their families and human rights organizations to have access to the camp and liberate many Iranian citizens who are kept in isolation from the outside world since more than two decades.

The Albanian government has also not helped to solve the crisis that exists within the MEK camp. The Mojahedeen who were brought to Albania via UNHCR as protected refugees are now being persecuted by their jihadi command which keeps them in isolation and refuses them basic human rights like the right to marry, have a job, free movement, freedom of belief, thought etc. The Mojahedeen camp of Manza resembles China’s Uyghurs Concentration camps of Xinjiang.

The Albanian government which has responsibility to defend the rights of mojaheden refugees has so far abandoned them at the hand of MEK command. There are hundreds of MEK soldiers who want to live in freedom and abandon the Mojaheden Cult but are denied the freedom to do so. If they manage to run away from the camp they face prison, death or starvation. The Albanian government does not give them work permits, travel documents and they face slow death by poverty. Inside the camp many MEK members are suffering infections from Covid-19 and many are dying since the Mojaheden command has not vaccinated and given proper social distancing measures to its jihadi soldiers. MEK members who have managed to liberate themselves from the cult live in poverty in the outskirts of Tirana, the capital of Albania.

This was the case of Mr. Hadi Sani Khani who was working 14 hours per day as a waiter in order to survive outside MEK camp.

However the MEK command which attacks and intimidates the defectors has condemned and blackmailed Hadi in the past accusing him as being an agent of Iran.

Iranian Regime Uses Mois Agents Posing as Journalists in Attempts to Discredit Opposition

In Tirana the capital of Albania a large group of MEK defectors exist. These people have managed to escape the nightmare of the Mojaheden camp and decided to continue a civilian life. However they are viciously attacked by the Mojaheden command who accuses them as agents of Iran, terrorists etc. Through corruption, bribes and pressure MEK has managed to use Albanian state structures to intimidate and even jail many mojahedens who have abandoned jihad and do not want to take part in foreign wars for the sake of Maryam Rajavi and the Mojaheden command. People like Ehsan Bidi have been jailed and even forced by the Albanian police to smuggle himself into Greece. MEK is doing all it can to destroy its democratic and anti-cult opposition in Albania. It uses economic pressure, threats, jails, bribes and slander to scare and terrorize any of its members who wants to break free and abandon the jihadi cult of Maryam Rajavi.

Many Albanian media and journalists who know their desperate situation have tried to help the defectors in their quest for freedom. Journalists like us have exposed to the local and international media the vicious war that Maryam Rajavi and Mujahedin-e Khalq command is waging against the deradicalized defectors. We have brought to Albanian TV stations many MEK defectors who protest the insults, attacks and blackmails that MEK command does against them. They ask from Maryam Rajavi, Mehdi Ambrishamchi and other MEK commanders to live them alone. They do not want to engage in jihad against foreign countries since this is considered a terrorist crime according to Albanian and international law:

MEK has been very ruthless on attacking the media and journalists who expose MEK’s dirty war against its defectors. They have attacked journalists from Channel 4, BBC, Al-Jazeera, the Guardian and many Albanian media and journalists. Part of their latest attack with lies and slander is even the letter that Hadi Sani Khani signed on February 14, 2021. Hadi who was suffering from drug addiction, shortage of money and desperate situation – where he could not legally work in Albania agreed to betray his defecting friends and sign a letter full of lies dictated to him by the Mojahedeen command. He wrote this letter after MEK agreed to smuggle him into France. In this moment we have information that Hadi is hiding in Paris. MEK has organized a criminal trafficking operation and has sent him to France, probably via Greece using forged documents. We suspect that the smuggling operation was directed by the notorious ex-terrorist commander Mehdi Ambrishamchi who heads MEK’s “Security and Counterterrorism Committee of the National Council of Resistance of Iran”.

As journalists mentioned in the letter that MEK command directed to you we want to state that “we strongly reject all the lies and accusations that MEK command has issued against us. We challenge Maryam Rajavi, Mehdi Ambrishamchi and all the Mojaheden command to face us in the media and courts and prove their lies and not wage jihad of disinformation and terrorism against journalists.”

Your Excellency!

Through this letter we want to ensure you and all the listed individuals and organizations that we are not intimidated by the attacks, lies and terrorist blackmails of Mehdi Ambrishamchi and the Mojaheden command against us. We do not accept to sell our journalistic and humanitarian duty to defend the weak and expose ex-terrorist organizations like MEK who threaten people around the world.

We want appeal to you and your organization to do the best that you can to guarantee the safe movement and freedom of all Iranian mojahedeens in Albania, including those who renounce war and terrorism and do not want to break the international law and wage terrorist war against other countries. Your organization and other relevant agencies must ask the Albanian government:

To dismantle and deradicalize the Mojaheden organization in Albania. Based on UN charter and international laws Albania should close the paramilitary camp of MEK and force the international and Albanian law to be implemented within and without the camp.
Albania must give the right to work and travel to its Iranian refugees and must protect them from human rights abuse at the hand of the Mojaheden command.
MEK commanders who abuse with their soldiers and have committed war crimes in Iran, Iraq, Albania and the world should face justice.
MEK should release the prisoners of Iran – Iraq war which it keeps as slave soldiers in its camp since the time of Saddam Hussein.
MEK should not be allowed to attack democracy in Albania and infringe the right of journalists like us to do our job.
UNHCR and the Albanian government must support MEK defectors in Albania. They should have the right to free choice, abandoning of jihad and the Mojaheden camp, marrying, working, contacting their families and deradicalize themselves.
UN and international organizations must demand from the Albanian state to start a process of mass deradicalization of MEK and stop MEK from threatening the security of Albania and the European Union. MEK should not be allowed to smuggle people / weapons and conflict into Europe or other countries of the world.
The Mojaheden command and their leaders like Mehdi Ambrishamchi must be investigated for their involvement in the illegal smuggling of mojaheden ex-terrorist fighters into Europe. They must face justice for their smuggling operations in Europe.
MEK should not be allowed to terrorize the European public opinion with fake news and lies against Iran, and it should not be allowed to challenge, scare and terrorize European policy makers about their relations with other countries.

For all the above we appeal to your Excellency, UNHCR, UNHCHR, Interior Ministry of Albania and the General Director of State Police of Albania to do all you can to stop human rights abuses and intimidation that MEK command does against its members and journalists in Albania and the world.

We appeal to Albanian and French authorities to start an urgent investigation into the case of Hadi Sani Khani. They must investigate how was Hadi illegally smuggled outside of Albania. What was the role of Mehdi Ambrishamchi in his illegal cross border escape from Albania? What money was paid to Hadi to sign a fake letter against his friends and journalists like us and what promises did the Mojaheden command made to him for this letter? Did the Mojaheden command smuggle weapons into France together with Hadi Sani Khani? Is the Mojaheden command planning a false flag operation in France through Hadi Sani Khani in order to sabotage The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (Iran Nuclear Deal)?

We also appeal to French authorities to take all the necessary measures to defend Hadi from further Mojaheden blackmail and misuse. Mr. Hadi Sani Khani is addicted to a controlled substance called Tramadol. Such an addiction makes him suitable to be used in false flag terror attacks. He can be used by the Mojaheden command to endanger the security of a NATO member country like France where we believe he is hiding at present. Based on the past record and present MEK condemnation of The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (Iran Nuclear Deal) we fear that the Mojaheden command might use him or other mojahedens for staging false flag terrorist operations in Europe.

For these reasons we appeal to you and other institutions listed in this letter to do all that you can to stop the Mojaheden mafia from provoking a terrorist scandal in Europe.

Sincerely,

Olsi Jazexhi and Gjergji Thanasi

cc:

The Honorable Michelle Bachelet, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights;

The Honorable Gérald Darmanin, Minister of the Interior of France

The Honorable Filippo Grandi, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees;

The Honorable Bledar Çuçi, Minister of Interior of the Republic Albania

Ms. Julie Verhaar, Acting General Secretary General of the Amnesty International;

Ms. Alice Mogwe, International Federation of Human Rights;

Mr. Ardi Veliu, the General Director of State Police;

The Honorable Milan Zver, MEP and Co-Chair of the Friends of Free Iran Intergroup in the European Parliament;

The Honorable Ylva Johansson, European Commissioner for Home Affairs

Mr. Mehdi Ambrishamchi, Chairman, Security and Counterterrorism Committee of the National Council of Resistance of Iran

olsijazexhi.wordpress.com

February 20, 2021 0 comments

Former members of the MEK

Letter from the CEO of Nejat Society to the European Commissioner for Home Affairs

Ebrahim Khodabandeh, CEO of Nejat Society, Iran, wrote a letter to the European Commissioner for Home Affairs, Ylva Johansson, calling on her to raise with the Albanian authorities the issue of abuse of the most basic human rights of members and former members of the Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization (MEK, MKO) in Albania.

Khodabande and Ylva Johansson

The text of the letter is as follows:
Ms Ylva Johansson
European Commissioner for Home Affairs
Rue de la Loi / Wetstraat 200
1049 Brussels
Belgium
cab-johansson-contact@ec.europa.eu
Friday 19 February 2021

Greetings and kind regards,
I was informed that you are going to Albania today for a two-day visit and that you are meeting with high-ranking Albanian officials about the country’s entry into the European Union. Visiting the Greek border with Albania is also included in your schedule.

On behalf of the suffering families of members of the Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization (MEK, MKO) in Albania, I would like to inform you that this organization, which is run as a destructive mind control cult led by Massoud and Maryam Rajavi, was transferred to Albania in 2016 and the members are held in a remote and isolated camp in Manzë, in Durrës county, western Albania.

Members of the Rajavi cult do not have the right to communicate with their families due to the cultic internal relations, and some of their elderly mothers and fathers have been kept unaware of the situation of their loved ones in the MEK for decades. Not only have they not been allowed any meetings and have not heard their children’s voices, but they have not even received any message from them.

Last year, a petition to the Albanian government was organized by these families at Change.org – which was signed in a matter of weeks by more than 11,250 relatives, friends and acquaintances of the residents in the MEK camp in Albania – calling for the possibility of getting in touch with them and learning about their health and welfare.

Urging Albanian government to let the families to contact their loved ones in MEK camp

Hundreds of separate letters have been sent by families to various Albanian government officials, including Prime Minister Edi Rama, but no response has been received. At the request of the MEK leaders, the Albanian government does not grant visas to Iranian nationals to visit the country, so they cannot pursue their demands on the spot through the judiciary there.

Some MEK members have now left the cult but are under severe financial pressure because they are not supported by the Albanian government or the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, and do not have identity documents, work permits or refugee status. The Rajavi Cult’s goal, in cooperation with the Albanian government, is to force them to follow the MEK’s demands. The leaders of the organization also threatened to kill these individuals and the Albanian citizens and journalists who helped them, and have waged psychological warfare against them, and in some cases created legal problems for them.

With the outbreak of the Covid-19 virus pandemic, families have become increasingly concerned about their children’s welfare. Dozens of members of the organization have reportedly died from the disease in recent weeks. Communal living and the lack of access by health officials to the camp have created dangerous conditions for the members.

Albanian public opinion, especially among the residents of Manzë and Durrës, is very concerned about the presence of a terrorist organization in their territory; a group which has been expelled from Iraq for activities that contravened national security there, and which now has an open hand to operate in their country. Many media outlets and human rights activists in Albania have warned of the presence of this terrorist cult, which violates even the most basic rights of its own members.

During this period, suspicious killings took place inside the MEK camp, including the death of Malek Shara’i, but unfortunately the local police were kept from pursuing their investigations. There is also information that the MEK is involved in organized crime in Albania, including money laundering and human trafficking, as well as weapons and drugs smuggling.

Two years ago, Mostafa Mohammadi and his wife, Canadian citizens, went to Tirana to visit their daughter, Somayeh Mohammadi, who is in the MEK camp. They were beaten by elements of the Rajavi cult, and unfortunately not only were their complaints not dealt with, but they were expelled from the country and could not return and pursue the matter through the judiciary.

When visiting the Greek border with Albania, please keep in mind that Ehsan Bidi, a former member of the MEK, was taken to the Greek border without any charges after a year of illegal detention for refusing to cooperate with the organization. He was rescued with the help of other former members, human rights activists and lawyers. He is being held in illegal detention again.

The cases of Ehsan Bidi and Mostafa Mohammadi and Malek Shara’i and dozens of other cases and the suspicious murders that were left uninvestigated show, above all, the corruption of the police, the judiciary and even the media, that Albania is now a safe haven for criminals. And now terrorists have arrived on European soil.

I urge you, as a European Union official, to ask the Albanian government and authorities in your meetings what their response is to the families of the members of the MEK in Albania. Why should the MEK be able to cut off its members from the outside world, especially their families? Why do they not have the right to leave the camp, the right to marry and start a family, and the right to a personal and individual life?

I am eagerly awaiting your response.
Ebrahim Khodabandeh
Nejat Society CEO
Tehran, Iran

February 20, 2021 0 comments

European Union

Please raise the issue of the MEK presence in Albania with them

On Saturday, 20 February, you are scheduled to meet the President of the Republic of Albania, Ilir Meta; Prime Minister, Edi Rama; Minister of Interior, Bledi Cuçi; and the leader of the opposition, Luzlim Basha.

Please raise the issue of the Mojahedin- Khalq (MEK) presence in Albania with them.

In 2016, 2,901 individual MEK members were transferred to Albania from Iraq by the UNHCR. Although classified as “refugees”, they were not granted legal documentation in Albania – they do not have ID cards, work permits, travel permits, etc. This has left them dependent on the MEK leader Maryam Rajavi for their subsistence. In Albania, as in Iraq, they are held in a closed camp in conditions of modern slavery. The systematic application of coercive control means they are not able to make independent, informed decisions about their health and welfare or their economic and social activity. Even if they were, the barriers to escaping the MEK are great.
When the MEK’s irresponsible response to the COVID-19 pandemic threatened the lives of the members, their families appealed to the UN Commission on Enforced Disappearances to make contact with individual members so they could ascertain the health and welfare of their loved ones. This has not yielded results. Families are still denied contact with the MEK camp residents by the leader Maryam Rajavi. Albania’s health officials are still denied access to the camp to check on conditions there.

The MEK presence in Albania has caused controversy. The MEK modus operandi means top level politicians of all parties, as well as media leaders and police and security have been co-opted into supporting the MEK’s anti-Iran agenda as policy. The politicisation of the MEK presence in Albania has come at a high cost to the individual members, to Albanian security, to the democratic and judicial processes of the country, and to foreign policy decisions which have resulted in Albania unnecessarily becoming the front line of the conflict between the EU and Iran.

Local residents near the MEK camp have protested several times about the impunity and preferential treatment of the camp against their own interests. Electricity and water suppliers prioritise the MEK camp leaving them with intermittent supplies, human sewage from the camp has been pumped onto agricultural land, and land earmarked for the expansion of the local cemetery has been appropriated so that MEK dead are buried in preference to the residents’ relatives. The situation in untenable whereby the natural rights and interests of local Albanian citizens are subordinated to the activities and demands of a foreign political cult.

Political leaders in Albania must be held to account for this anomaly. They must answer for MEK impunity and MEK interference in the running of the country.

When you go to the Kakavia border crossing with Greece, where you will visit the Frontex-Albania joint border control operation, please be aware of the attempted illegal deportation of an Iranian refugee across that border last year at the behest of the MEK leader Maryam Rajavi.

Ehsan Bidi, who came to Albania as a refugee (not with the MEK) and has been granted the right to residency, is currently being held in detention. Ehsan Bidi is – among many other former MEK members – an outspoken critic of Maryam Rajavi. In response, she demanded his deportation. Bidi was held in detention without charge or recourse to legal representation for a year. After which the national police tried illegally dumping him at the Greek border. After the intervention of friends and lawyers, Bidi was brought back to Tirana. Only for him to be detained again ‘pending deportation’. Since there is no possibility of this ever happening, the treatment of Bidi (who, as I remind you has been granted the right to residency), can only be classed as cruel and unusual treatment under the articles of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The only possible reason for this treatment is to suit the demand of Maryam Rajavi to eliminate critics.

Political leaders in Albania should explain why and how this foreign political cult has gained such influence over Albania’s political, judicial, security and media bodies that it threatens the national interests of that country and its people. Maryam Rajavi has been expelled from France and is not able to visit any EU country. The reasons for this are based on security and political considerations. It is inconceivable that with the MEK established in Albania and infecting every element of government, the EU will accept Albania’s accession to the EU of which you are a representative.

In 2013, when Joe Biden was Vice President in the Obama administration, a deal was struck by then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to de-radicalise the MEK once they arrived in Albania. Under the Trump administration this plan was shelved, allowing the MEK to regroup and continue its nefarious practices. It may be possible that your report could contain the recommendation that this programme be resumed. This would relieve Albania of the onus to act unilaterally against the MEK. It would allow Albania’s accession to move forward. It would alleviate relations between the US, EU and Iran. More than anything it would restore basic human rights to the MEK members trapped in this cult with no hope and no future.

Anne Khodabandeh (Singleton)

February 20, 2021 0 comments

European Union

Iranian diplomat was set up using a demented woman and her small cult

The European Union is a peculiar construct. The idea behind its establishment was to — by jam-packing different political and economic units into one giant entity — create a powerhouse that is politically and economically uniform and competitive. But the result has been an unwieldy structure that struggles to impose unity on its components on matters of internal and external policy and that is submissive to traditional power players, including those inside the Union itself.

Germany and France, among the world’s top 10 economies, seem to lay an outsized claim to authority as political and economic decision-makers in the EU, even though the bloc has appointed senior representatives for policymaking. All the while, poorer, outlying members differ on policy and budget assignment.

That disequilibrium has been on display in the EU’s approach toward Iran, too. While the Union’s high representative for foreign policy seems to be in favor of sound diplomacy with Iran, individual member states, mostly the more powerful ones, have been singing their own tune.

The latest instance is the case of an Iranian diplomat who has been accused of involvement in an alleged bomb plot in Europe. Diplomat Assadollah Assadi, posted originally to EU member Austria, was arrested in EU member Germany in 2018 and was moved to EU member Belgium, where authorities claimed they had intercepted him communicating with alleged suspects planning to bomb a gathering of anti-Iran cultists in France, also an EU member.

Those countries are using their membership in the Union to easily have Mr. Assadi arrested in one member state and move and try him in another, but are conveniently refusing to acknowledge his diplomatic immunity on the grounds that it applies only to one member state, namely Austria. Essentially, they are being EU members when prosecuting Mr. Assadi but unconnected individual units when it comes to acknowledging his immunity.

That duplicitous behavior is confounded when juxtaposed with the position of the Union’s top representative for foreign and security policy, Josep Borrell, who has said he seeks “maximum diplomacy” with Iran.

I asked Belgian Ambassador to Tehran Véronique Petit to comment on the apparent confliction of positions for this article. She declined via the Belgian Embassy on the grounds that it is a “judicial case,” even though the matter is political and she represents all branches of the Kingdom of Belgium in Iran.

Iran’s Foreign Ministry says the unlawful jail term issued in Belgium against an Iranian diplomat is a clear violation of the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations.

It is worth noting that the accusation against Mr. Assadi is that he was involved in a bomb plot against an anti-Iran group known as the MKO, or more commonly the MEK, a small cult of deranged individuals who have spent most of their lives confined to camps wishing to topple the Iranian government. Their leader, a demented woman who teaches celibacy and armed opposition to Iran, views herself as Iran’s president-in-waiting. The Israeli regime is known to have tapped healthier MKO members to conduct terror attacks inside Iran.

Of course Iran has rejected the accusation against Mr. Assadi and demanded his swift release. (The international convention protecting his diplomatic immunity is, ironically, named after the capital of the European country where he was posted to.) His prosecution comes at a time when there are hopes the parties to the Iran deal could move to revive the agreement in light of the change of administration in the United States. When Mr. Borrell advocated “maxim diplomacy” with Iran, he said it should replace the former Trump administration’s “maximum pressure” campaign against the country.

That is a long way from happening. But Mr. Borrell has seemed eager to work to that end. He has already traveled to Russia and China, the two parties to the deal that are not Western-aligned. Crucially though, the simple question is: who is he speaking for when he speaks of “maximum diplomacy” with Iran while Union members are holding an Iranian diplomat?

The Union may justify by saying it cannot impose policy on individual members, which would take us back to the inherent absurdity at the heart of the EU. If Union members can do something that is contrary to stated Union policy, how can they exist as a union?! The EU can either want to pursue “maximum diplomacy” with Iran or hold an Iranian diplomat hostage. It cannot do both at the same time.

By Hossein Jelveh

(Hossein Jelveh is an independent Iranian journalist based in Tehran. He has graduated with a master’s degree from the Faculty of World Studies at the University of Tehran. You can follow him on Twitter @hossein_jelveh.)

(The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of Press TV.)

February 20, 2021 0 comments

The cult of Rajavi

How can the MEK grow so many agents for the Islamic Republic?

In the language of espionage, agent is a person who is unofficially employed by an intelligence service, often as a source of information. However, in the language of the Mujahedin Khalq Organization (the MKO/ MEK/ PMOI/ Cult of Rajavi), agent is a person who defects the group, criticizes the group and gives testimony against it.

Since the MEK’s relocation in Albania the number of defectors from the group has been on the rise and eventually the number of people who have been accused by the MEK of being the agents of the Iranian government have been on the rise too.

View of some members of the Iranian opposition resistance Mujahedeen-e- Khalq group, who have resettled in Albania from Iraq, in a street, in Tirana, Albania, Friday, May 17, 2013.

A look at the group’s media in different languages, particularly their Persian and English websites provides us with a long list of individuals who are called by the MEK, or its political vitrine the NCRI (National Council of Resistance of Iran), as”Tehran operatives”or”agents of Iranian regime”. How come that there are allegedly so many Iranian agents in Albanian territory?

The so-called list contains a range of people who have one thing in common: they all have been interviewed or quoted in the mainstream media, from Massoud Khodabandeh and his wife Ann Singleton who left the group in the 1990s when it was located in Iraq to Hassan Heyrani and Gholam Mirzaiee who left the group after its relocation to Albania, , a few years ago. Normally, those who defected the MEK in Albania are more likely to be contacted by the Western main stream media compared with those who left the group in Iraq or those who returned to Iran after defection.

What do these people tell the media that once they leave the group? they turn from”The unique holy fighter”–what the MEK calls its members—to”Agents of the Mullahs”–what it calls its defectors?

Hasan Heyrani, MKO former member in Tirana

Hassan Heyrani was quoted by the Guardian in November 2018:
“According to one recent MEK defector, Hassan Heyrani, the group’s main work in Albania involves fighting online in an escalating information war between Iran and its rivals. Heyrani, who left the MEK last summer, says that he worked in a”troll farm”of 1,000 people inside the Albanian camp, posting pro-Rajavi and anti-Iran propaganda in English, Farsi and Arabic on Facebook, Twitter, Telegram and newspaper comment sections.”

He was also quoted in the famous revealing article of the Intercept by Murteza Hussain on the MEK’s fake persona”Heshmat Alavi”:
“There’s a problem, though: Heshmat Alavi appears not to exist. Alavi’s persona is a propaganda operation run by the Iranian opposition group Mojahedin-e-Khalq, which is known by the initials MEK, two sources told The Intercept…”Heshmat Alavi is a persona run by a team of people from the political wing of the MEK,”Hassan Heyrani told the Intercept.”They write whatever they are directed by their commanders and use this name to place articles in the press. This is not and has never been a real person.”
The Intercept article adds:

“Heyrani said the fake persona has been managed by a team of MEK operatives in Albania, where the group has one of its bases, and is used to spread its message online. Heyrani’s account is echoed by Sara Zahiri, a Farsi-language researcher who focuses on the MEK. Zahiri, who has sources among Iranian government cybersecurity officials, said that Alavi is known inside Iran to be a”group account”run by a team of MEK members and that Alavi himself does not exist.”

to download the video file click here

Hassan Heyrani was interviewed by a lot of other journalists including Linda Pressly and Albana Kasapi of the BBC. In their radio report, titled”Albanian’s Iranian guests”, Kasapi and Pressly interview the citizens of Albania neighboring the MEK camp, the Albanian politicians and the defectors of the group. They were not allowed to interview the members inside the camp.

The MEK media called the report”BBC’s propaganda against the resistance”and called Hassan Heyrani and Gholam Mirzaiee, the two defectors interviewed in the report as”agents of the Mullahs’ embassy”.

Gholamreza Shekari is another former member of the MEK who, according to the group, turned into a”spy”as soon as he left the group. The MEK website claims that they are not real defectors but they just play the role of former members!”The MOIS is organizing its mercenaries through two defectors, Hassan Heyrani and Gholamreza Shekari, who are posing as ‘former members’ or ‘separated members’ of the MEK”, the so-called National Council of Resistance asserts.

Gholamreza Shekari; Tirana; Der Spiegel

Shekari was interviewed by Luisa Hommerich of Der Spiegel in February 2019.”Gholamreza Shekari, a slender 50-year-old man with bony cheeks, says he spent 27 years as a member of the People’s Mujahedin,”Hommerich writes.
How did Shekari spend 27 years of his youth days in the MEK just to defect the group in order to pose as former member and separated member?

“The organization’s public face is liberal”, Shekari told Hommerich.”Internally, though, it works by way of lies, manipulation and fear.”This statement seems to be the main reason that he is labeled as a Tehran operative.
What goes inside the MEK camp is the main idea of all testimonies made by former members. Indeed, the controversies between what former members say and what the MEK leaders show off are stimulating for all journalists to follow their curiosity in order to discover true facts.

The number of reports and articles based on testimonies of former members are increasingly going up and therefore the number of the alleged Iranian agents who work against the MEK are getting higher. Each former member of the group who officially declares its defection from the group is added to list of the agents.

The MEK leaders have to explain their leadership methods that are so ineffective that not only would make members leave the group but also make them agents of the enemy’s agenda!

By Mazda Parsi

February 18, 2021 0 comments

NYT photo of the Ashraf3 CAmp of MEK in Tirana

Mujahedin Khalq Organization members' families

Everywhere prisoners are allowed family visit, why not in the MEK?

Ms. Zahra Shahbaz Mansouri, daughter of Reza Shahbaz Mansouri, based in the Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK) Camp in Albania, wrote a letter to the World Health Organization (WHO) in Albania expressing concern about her father’s health and calling for an investigation.

The text of the letter is as follows:

Representative of the WHO in Albania

Greetings and best regards,

I am Zahra Shahbaz Mansouri, daughter of Reza Shahbaz Mansouri.
My father is currently in the MEK camp in Albania. He left Iran years ago to find a job and more income. We later found out that he was deceived by the elements of the MEK and transferred to Iraq.

In all these years, we have not met him or even heard his voice, and it is the ultimate wish of every child to be able to communicate with his father and be informed of his condition.

You know that even in the most dreadful prisons in the world, and in the case of the most dangerous prisoners, families are allowed to contact the prisoner. But we are also deprived of this minimum possibility of meeting.
Who can help us deprived families? To which international body should we take our grievances to support us? Does anyone in the world pay attention to our rights?

Most importantly, my father has the infection of Covid-19 virus at the MEK camp in Albania and he is in critical condition. The sanitary facilities inside the camp are not so good due to the closed group life and many deaths have been reported so far.

I desperately ask you not to neglect any action that can be taken to alleviate my family’s worries.please help us get news of my father conditions and be allowed to contact him.

Surely you know a child’s worries about his father when he is sick. Please understand how we must be feeling and do not hesitate to pursue this issue.

Thanks and best regards,
Zahra Shahbaz Mansouri
Mashhad, Iran

Copy to:
Office of the Prime Minister of Albania
Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights

February 17, 2021 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization members' families

On my brother’s abduction or disappearance

Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances (WGEID)
Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights

Greetings and best regards,
Regarding my brother Mustafa Nourishad, son of Morteza, I Mojtaba Nourishad lodged a complaint against the Albanian government with the UN Committee on Enforced Disappearances under the UN International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance, of which the Albanian government is a signatory.

After a long time, I was given forms that I filled out and sent along with the required additional documents.
I then received a reply that the subject of my complaint had been referred to the UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances (WGEID) for further investigation, and they concluded that there was insufficient reason for the Albanian government to be responsible for my brother’s abduction or disappearance.
According to the following information:

The identity of the person forcibly disappeared: Mustafa Nourishad, son of Morteza

Mostafa Nurishad

When he disappeared: About 15 years ago, when he was 19 and a university student, he left home and there was no news of him. An advertisement was published in the newspaper at the time for his disappearance. After years of ignorance, it became known through some former members that he was in Camp Ashraf in Iraq in the Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization (MEK, MKO), with whom it was not possible to have any contact.

After the fall of Saddam Hussein, we were able to travel to Iraq and approach Camp Ashraf, but the officials of the organization did not cooperate. In Iraq, we also went to the UN office, which did not help and they did not help either. We were then informed that the organization, along with all its members, had been transferred to Albania and had been stationed in a remote and isolated camp with no contact with its members.

Where he disappeared: He first disappeared in Iran, but we later learned that he had been tricked into Iraq and joined the MEK, and then transferred to Albania with this organization.

Country responsible for his disappearance: Certainly, based on the evidence obtained, the MEK is responsible for his disappearance, which is now fully supported by the Albanian government. It should be noted that according to the UN Convention, governments supporting organizations responsible for a person’s disappearance should be questioned.

Complainant’s identity and relationship: Mojtaba Nourishad, brother of the missing person

It is necessary to emphasize a few points:
Since we received information that Mustafa Nourishad is in the MEK camp in Albania, we and hundreds of other families have sent numerous letters to various officials in the country, including Prime Minister Edi Rama, who is also the acting Minister of Foreign Affairs, but did not receive any response.

The families of the MEK members prepared a 550-page petition addressed to the Albanian authorities with more than 11,000 signatures and submitted it to the Albanian embassy in Paris, requesting an opportunity to find out about their missing loved ones, to which no response has been received so far from the Albanian government.

We and other families tried to obtain Albanian visas to travel to Albania and seek information from our missing loved ones through local authorities, but unfortunately we learned that the Albanian government has gone so far to support the MEK that at the request of this organization, it refuses to issue visas to Iranian citizens.

Therefore, as a last resort and reference, we complained to the UN Committee on Enforced Disappearances. It should be noted that our complaint is not against the MEK, but against the Albanian government, which supports this organization and leaves them openhanded to forcibly keep our loved ones in captivity.

Hundreds of families in Iran and in other countries are in a similar situation to us, and the United Nations should step in and ask the Albanian government, which is currently in charge of the MEK, to allow us to communicate with our missing loved ones in Albania. Therefore, I request that our complaint be re-examined and the information provided be taken into account.

Thanks in advance and I look forward to your response.
Mojtaba Nourishad
Karaj – Alborz Province – Iran

February 15, 2021 0 comments

The cult of Rajavi

MEK and Children – Mahtab Nayeb Agha

She was born in Saint Diego, the US, in 1980. Her father Hassan Nayeb Agha and her mother Mitra Yusefi were sympathizers of the Mujahedin Khalq Organization (the MKO, MEK, PMOI, Cult of Rajavi). Then, the parents took Mahtab and her brother Shahab to Camp Ashraf, Iraq to join the MEK.

It was difficult or almost impossible to live a family life in Camp Ashraf. Members of the families lived in separated bases and they were just allowed to meet each other in the weekends. In one of these family visits, the eight-year-old Mahtab was asked by her mother if she is happy with that life style. “Soon her shiny eyes became teary and she wanted to hide it,” her mother Mitra writes in her book.

Mahtab Nayebagha

Mitra recalls the day that Mahtab was hospitalized in the camp’s clinic because of an illness. “The girl asks mommy will you stay with me or you go?” Mitra writes. “I replied: Oh, honey! of course I stay. Trying to make her understand our relationship, I said: I am you mother.”

However, the life in the organization distresses Mahtab with sadness and grieves of other children; she has friends who have lost their parents in the group’s operations. Now, they have “fake mothers” whom they do not love, as Mahtab tells her mother who replaces the term with “ideological mother” in the book.

In 1990, Mahtab and her brother were separated from their parents and were sent to Europe together with hundreds of other MEK children. Mahtab and Shahab were adopted by a couple, Soheila and farhad, who were friends of their parents, in Sweden.

Mitra Yusefi

After the MEK leaders forced members to divorce Mitra started conflicting the leaders and asked to leave the group. It took her a year to leave Iraq and join her children in Sweden, in 1991. She began to write the book of her life experience of which a large part is about the complications and the troubles the MEK imposed on her and her family.

In page 314 of the dairy book, Mitra Yusefi writes about the nightmares that Mahtab suffered from as the consequence of the years of separation from parents and loneliness. “Mahtab sometimes get angry and cries about the stress she suffered during those years,” she writes.

In Mahtab’s nightmares, everyone has left Iraq except her who has been left there alone. Besides, somewhere in the book Mitra cites Mahtab as saying “I dreamed that you had to leave us to get back to Iraq”.

The mother, Mitra, tried her best to convince her husband, Mahtab’s father, Hassan, to leave the MEK and join his family in Sweden but she failed. The only result of her efforts was that the MEK media call her the agent of the Islamic Republic. Hassan is still a commander of the MEK and is not allowed to contact his family.

“I wish she was wise enough to choose another life, an accessible life,” Mitra writes about Hassan and grieves of Mahtab and Shahab in the absence of their father. “I wish he preferred a normal life that would not impose that much suffering and pain on his children.”

February 14, 2021 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

MEK terrorists against diplomacy

Tehran has summoned the Belgian ambassador to protest the 20-year jail term handed down by an Antwerp court against an Iranian diplomat on baseless charge, stressing that the Islamic Republic does not recognize the ruling, which violates international law.

The Belgian envoy was called in to the Iranian Foreign Ministry on Tuesday to file Tehran’s “strong representations” with Brussels over the unlawful verdict issued in the case of Assadollah Assadi.

At the meeting, the Foreign Ministry’s director-general for Western Europe slammed the ruling as a violation of international law, which disregards Belgium’s commitments to the Islamic Republic.

Earlier this month, a court in the Belgian city of Antwerp handed down the 20-year jail sentence to Assadi, claiming that he had plotted a supposed attack against a gathering of the Mujahedin-e-Khalq (MKO) anti-Iran terrorist cult in Paris in 2018.

Tehran has rejected the verdict and said it was a result of Belgium’s falling under the influence of the anti-Iran MKO terror group, which is freely active on Europe’s soil.

Assadi’s arrest, trial and sentencing is a breach of the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations and thus lacks legitimacy, the official added.

The detention and the ensuing judicial process was in line with the plots hatched the Mujahedin-e-Khalq Organization (MKO) terrorist group with the goal of harming Iran-Europe relations.

He said even statements by certain Belgian authorities and the judicial process were clearly reflective of the terror outfit’s rhetoric.

To download the video file click here

The Iranian official further asked the Brussels government to respect humanitarian rules in dealing with Assadi and swiftly free the diplomat.

In turn, the Belgian ambassador said he would submit Tehran’s note of protest to the government in Brussels.

Iran’s Foreign Ministry has slammed the “unlawful” jail term issued in Belgium against an Iranian diplomat as a “clear violation” of the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, saying Tehran is making all-out efforts to clear him of the charges and secure his release as soon as possible.

“Iran regards the arrest, the legal procedures and the verdict issued against Assadollah Assadi as unlawful and a blatant violation of international law, specifically the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations,” the ministry’s Public Relations Department said in a statement on Tuesday.

The ministry said it had pursued all political, intelligence and legal channels to secure the freedom of the Iranian diplomat and has protested to the governments of Germany, Austria and Belgium over the illegal detention and holds them accountable for the repercussions of the arrest.

“The Foreign Ministry reserves its right to follow up on the issue through legal and diplomatic channels and, on this basis, [necessary] measures are being taken,” the statement said.

In June 2018, Belgian authorities said that the Belgian police had intercepted a car carrying homemade explosives and a detonation device, claiming that Assadi had handed the materials to two people in Belgium earlier.

Assadi, himself, was apprehended in Germany the next day and told he could not apply his diplomatic immunity.

Dimitri de Beco, the Iranian diplomat’s defense lawyer, said back then that the plaintiffs were turning the case into a political trial on behalf of the MKO, the most hated terror group in Iran.

The MKO has conducted many assassinations and bombings against Iranian officials and civilians since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. It notoriously sided with former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein during the 1980-88 war that he had imposed on Iran.

February 13, 2021 0 comments

Newer Posts

Older Posts