Page 180 – Nejat Society

MEK Hinders Coronavirus Detection In Albania

International anger has greeted news that a South Korean cult has been responsible for the rapid spread of Coronavirus in the country. The 12 executives of the Shincheonji Church of Jesus must be held accountable for the rapid spread of COVID-19 among the members and for the decision to send thousands of adherents out into public which contributed to the rapid spread of the virus. Investigators are seeking to establish whether this was through neglect or a deliberate act.

Over a million people have signed an online petition calling for the church to be disbanded. But taking such action would not be easy. The church has many members in many countries, and many keep their membership secret. Indeed, the secrecy of cults is one of the major problems associated with their activities. Although prosecution of their leaders is the most effective way to deal with the criminality and human rights violations which inevitably play a role in any cult.

The leaders of the Shincheonji Church of Jesus frequently visited China and the members subsequently socialised with the Korean community without revealing the fact that many of their members are fatally ill.

In a similar way, leading members of the Iranian Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization (MEK, MKO, Rajavi Cult) which is based in Albania, make frequent visits to Italy, which has the largest cluster of infections after China, South Korea and Iran. Although the members live in a secretive closed camp named Camp Ashraf 3, some socialise with the Albanian community around them while shopping or visiting officials. The cult’s leaders occupy an entire floor of the International hotel in the middle of the capital Tirana.

There are now rumors from inside the cult’s closed camp in Manez, that some members have vanished, and some are showing signs of flu-like viral sickness. The MEK will certainly not reveal any illnesses inside the cult. They have always kept the cause of deaths inside their camp secret.

The problems surrounding the South Korean cult exist in just the same way with MEK. Unaccountable leadership, isolated and secretive membership. The members are mostly elderly, and many are sick and weak and therefore vulnerable to death following infection. The MEK have no testing kits or medical capability to deal with an outbreak. It is uncertain whether they would even accept any help offered.

Curiously, investigators are looking into why Albania has not announced a single case of Coronavirus even though there are multiple ferry crossings between Albania and Italy every day. The answer appears to be along the lines of ‘if you don’t look for it, you won’t find it’ and ‘if you don’t want to find it, you won’t look for it’.

The MEK is considered to be a national security threat for Europe in general and for Albania in particular. Now with this secrecy they should be considered as a health and hygiene threat too. Unlike the South Korean cult, the MEK consists fewer than 2,000 members. Most of these are contained in a closed camp to which Albanian authorities have no access. The authorities must hold the MEK leaders accountable. Leader Maryam Rajavi must allow full access and investigation into what is happening inside Camp Ashraf 3 and submit the members to Coronavirus to testing. The WHO has a vital role to play in this situation.

The problem is that the MEK is supported by the U.S. and that means it may not be possible for even the government of Albania to contradict or challenge the cult’s behaviour even in the face of the deadly Coronavirus threat. The question now is to what extent are the Albanians ready to suffer a heavy price to appease the Americans?

MEK Hinders Coronavirus Detection In Albania

March 9, 2020 0 comments

Iran Interlink Weekly Digest

Iran Interlink Weekly Digest – 268

++ Coronavirus is, of course, a hot topic and the MEK has been on overdrive to keep itself relevant by falsifying films, audios, and reports so as to denounce Iran for its response to the virus. This has resulted in a backlash among Iranians, including the external opposition. People writing against the MEK in Farsi say simply that it’s a nasty thing to do. A few people go on to say that Rajavi has lost the plot. First, thinking Saddam would help topple the regime. Then thinking Giuliani and Bolton would do it and now Rajavi is left expecting Coronavirus to perform regime change. The MEK’s misinformation campaign has spawned the hashtag #MEKtrolls on Twitter.

++ While doing this, there are reports in Farsi about what is happening inside the camp in Albania. Some members have reported suspicious events – people vanishing and others showing cold like symptoms. The inference is that the virus is spreading in the camp but there are no testing kits or access to medical professionals. Families of MEK members are worried about their loved ones. They say the rumours are disturbing.

++ For the last two weeks the MEK has been working hard on damage limitation over the New York Times article. Those answering back against the MEK point out that all the MEK’s attacks are against the reporter. The only thing MEK says is that ‘because the NYT published this, the regime will come and kill us all’. There is no evidence of how that could be achieved since Albania is a NATO country. In addition, what does any of that have to do with this article and why do you never answer anything in the article itself – which bit is correct or which bit is wrong in your opinion. You just rant and hope the troll farm will sort you out. It doesn’t, it won’t.

++ 20th February was the anniversary of the murder of Zaha Rajabi in Turkey in 1996. Rajabi was a member of the leadership cadre, in charge of the MEK’s trafficking activity; mostly arranging for recruits to transfer to Iraq rather than Europe which they would have been promised. Suddenly, this year, Maryam Rajavi wants to call her the MEK’s human rights martyr. Some older people who remember those days have said no, Rajabi was killed in a room with her boyfriend and she was pregnant at the time. This was when the internal Ideological Revolution [forced divorces and celibacy] was in full swing and Rajavi imposed a harsh crackdown on all members. For this reason, nobody but the MEK would have killed her. Her role was trafficking people, but unfortunately for her she fell in love.

In English:

++ Robert Fantina in Global Research writes about continued U.S. support for the MEK terrorists. “So with fading support, and funding probably coming from Israel, and thus, at least indirectly, from the U.S., what is the MEK to do? Hapless Albania must continue to house them, against the wishes of Albanians, but their leaders are in a U.S. chokehold, so they don’t have much choice. The U.S. wants the MEK nearby in case it needs their terrorism for some reason; the U.S. is not averse to having some other country do its dirty work: witness the U.S.-financed Saudi slaughter of Yemenis, as just one example. And should the Albanian government decide to act as its people want, rather than as the U.S. demands, would the MEK then turn its terrorism on them? Albania has certainly been put between a rock and a hard place by the U.S., which doesn’t care in the least about it or the Albanian people; the whole nation is just a pawn in an international chess game that the U.S. is playing, that no one else is interested in.”

++ Alireza Niknam writing for Geopolitica examines definitions of terrorism – for example, in Europe operations that cause financial loss without risking lives are considered to be terrorist operations. Niknam covers the assassination of General Soleimani and the Ahwaz parade attack. The writer highlights the U.S. hypocrisy of killing a general who had contributed to the defeat of ISIS in Iraq and Syria, while supporting the terrorist MEK which has killed thousands of their own people.

++ Anne Khodabandeh wrote for The Iranian that U.S. Iran policy has been backed into a corner by misguided support for the MEK. “…continued engagement with the MEK indicates that the Trump administration still clings to the delusion that the MEK has leverage or influence or power in relation to events in Iran. It does not. The enduring support of MEK by anti-Iran pundits defies logic. Nothing has been gained throughout the past four decades. Much has been lost that can be linked to this support. The MEK promises regime change but cannot even come close to delivering.” This support, argues the writer, enabled the MEK to coerce Albania’s leaders into taking actions contrary to the country’s interests. This has not only enraged Albanian citizens and alienated the European Union, it will not further American policy toward Iran.

++ Ebrahim Khodabandeh, CEO of Nejat Society in Iran, has written an open letter addressed to those with awakened human consciences. The estranged families of MEK members have tried for decades to have human rights officials all over the world listen to their pleas for help. It appears they have no consciences. Let’s see if this letter finally reaches the eyes and ears of those who can and should help.

++ Award winning Albanian journalist Gjergji Thanasi wrote a response to the Nejat Society’s appeal. “As an Albanian who has extensive information about the MEK and their paramilitary facility near Manez town (Ashraf 3 Camp), I pity the rank and file MEK members who are little more than serfs to their lady owner, the old stateless harpy Maryam Rajavi!
“As an Albanian I consider Rajavi’s activity in Albania to be a threat to the national security of my homeland and a blatant violation of human rights of the poor cult members!

“Tell the families to wait and hope. Their loved ones momentarily are simply doomed. It is easier to break out from a low security jail than to leave Camp Ashraf 3. The quisling segments in the Albanian government and opposition behave shamefully like lap dogs to that evil woman Rajavi.
“Momentarily there is very little you can do. It is virtually impossible to receive an Albanian visa as a holder of an Iranian passport. Only those Iranians who are holders of EU, British, American, Canadian, Australian and New Zeeland passports can enter Albania. Even they will suffer a low-level harassment from our police.
“Nothing special that cannot be handled by your Albanian lawyer. They will face a vigorous slander campaign on the part of MEK. The usual stuff: spies of the Mullahs’ regime, terrorists of the Quds force, even in case of senior citizens 70 years old or more.”

++ Mazda Parsi writing for Nejat Bloggers examines the MEK’s love affair with other extremists. The MEK is an extremist movement because “studying the group’s substance and function, one can find out that the MEK has some traits in common with every extremist ideology”. Referencing Robert Fantina’s article in Global Research, Parsi lists other extremist allies, Israel, Saudi Arabia and the far-right Vox in Spain. As an extremist group MEK can align with other extremists regardless their stated ideological beliefs because they all “squeeze through the rifts they make in societies”.

++ Iran’s ambassador to the UK, Hamid Baeidinejad, denounced the MEK’s anti-Iran messaging over the Coronavirus outbreak in Iran. He accuses the MEK of trying to force public opinion into a “mental deadlock” through a duplicitous media and news campaign. “In the early stages of the virus’ emergence in Iran, when the country had not yet sensed the urgency to seek foreign aid, the media campaign tried to imply that the Tehran government would resist Western assistance even at the expense of its people’s lives, he said.

“At the time, they were trying to create the impression that Iran was facing international isolation, and that no country was willing to provide it with emergency aid, Baeidinejad noted.

“In the second phase, the propaganda drive alleged that the foreign medical supplies that had entered the country, including testing kits, were contaminated, he said.
“The official gave assurances that Iran procures the foreign items required through trusted suppliers, and that all the relevant sanitary standards are observed in the process.”

Mar 06, 2020

March 9, 2020 0 comments

Human Rights Abuse in the MEK

For Milad

To the international Human Rights Bodies

My name is Narges Beheshti. My brother Mostafa Beheshti is a member of the Mojahedin-E Khalq Organization (MEK, MKO, NCR, NLA . . .) who is trapped in a remote isolated camp of the group in Albania.

MEK is a terrorist cult supported by the Albanian government. The cult brainwashes the members and forces them into terrorism and crimes.

My other brother Morteza Beheshti was also a member of the MEK living in the cult’s camp Ashraf in Iraq who was killed through a conflict. Both brothers left Iran for more income and a better life, but were deceived into joining the group. Morteza was married and had a son.

My mother passed away recently. After Morteza was killed, her only wish was to talk to Mostafa. Unfortunately, this never happened until she died. The leaders of the MEK, just like other destructive cults, prevent the members to have access to the outside world, in particular to their friends and family.

What should I do if I want to contact my brother in Albania and learn about his situation? The Albanian government, in order to appease the MEK, does not let the families to travel to Albania. Even if the families be able to enter the country, they have no chance to see their loved ones and they would be harassed by the Police and authorities.

I firmly urge you to show me a way to persuade the MEK leaders as well as the Albanian authorities to let the members contact their relatives. I am eagerly waiting for your response and thank you in advance for your efforts.

Narges Beheshti, Tehran, Iran

***

The Beheshtis speak to their beloved Milad taken as a hostage in the MEK camp in Albania:

March 7, 2020 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization's Propaganda System

Mujahedin-e Khalq to mislead Iranians on coronavirus outbreak

Tehran’s ambassador to the UK says the notorious Mujahedin-e-Khalq Organization (MKO) terror group and other foreign-based anti-Iran movements have launched a propaganda campaign over a coronavirus outbreak in the country with the goal of misleading the Iranian public opinion.

Hamid Baeidinejad said the MKO terrorist cult and its fellow movements have been trying to exploit the epidemic to force the public opinion in Iran into a “mental deadlock.”

The campaign features a “very duplicitous” media and news policy, the envoy said.

In the early stages of the virus’ emergence in Iran, when the country had not yet sensed the urgency to seek foreign aid, the media campaign tried to imply that the Tehran government would resist Western assistance even at the expense of its people’s lives, he said.

At the time, they were trying to create the impression that Iran was facing international isolation, and that no country was willing to provide it with emergency aid, Baeidinejad noted.

In the second phase, the propaganda drive alleged that the foreign medical supplies that had entered the country, including testing kits, were contaminated, he said.

The official gave assurances that Iran procures the foreign items required through trusted suppliers, and that all the relevant sanitary standards are observed in the process.

The Iranian administration outlines the country’s most recent efforts to battle the new coronavirus outbreak.

“The main goal pursued by this propaganda is to create distrust between the people and the authorities,” he noted, dismissing the “delusions” of those who think such campaigns would yield result.

The MKO has conducted many assassinations and bombings against Iranian officials and civilians since the 1979 victory of Iran’s Islamic Revolution. It notoriously sided with former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein during his 1980-88 war on Iran.

Out of the nearly 17,000 Iranians killed in terrorist assaults since the Revolution, about 12,000 died in MKO’s acts of terror.

The terrorist outfit was on the US list of terrorist organizations until 2012. Major European countries, including France, have also removed it from their blacklists.

The new virus emerged in the central Chinese city of Wuhan late last year, and has claimed more than 3,000 lives worldwide so far.

In Iran, it first showed up in the north-central city of Qom. By Tuesday, the country reported 77 fatalities, and 2,336 cases of infection. 435 patients have recovered their health.

The country has mobilized all its resources to tackle the issue, including by ramping up the production of sanitary items, increasing imports of preventive items and enforcing diagnostic measures across the nation.

Most recently, Minister of Industry, Mine, and Trade Reza Rahmani said the production of disinfectants and hygiene products had at least doubled over the past two weeks.

March 5, 2020 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq as an Opposition Group

US Hostility towards Iran is Counterproductive

Nearly a thousand of us were gathered in Chicago beneath the alarming edifice of Chicago’s “Trump Tower.” Iran’s General Qassem Soleimani had been brutally murdered the day before in Iraq, with several of his associates; and the welcome surprise of Iran’s relatively measured response was yet a few days off.

A region-wide conflagration seemed just on the verge of engulfing perhaps millions of lives, and consuming, as well, much of the species’ remaining time and attention needed to face our direst threats: with the new war we could fear continued paralysis in the face of an unfolding climate collapse, a terrifying new Cold War (now with hypersonic missiles), and a global far-right resurgence driven by shocking inequality and violence.

I’d been to Iran a year before with Voices’ Sarah Ball on a CODEPINK delegation and, addressing the crowd, I thought of how little attention Trump’s worst crimes, his war crimes, now receive from his critics in both parties. I wondered aloud if the right-wing trend that had made Trump commander-in-chief was not, as is often argued, a backlash by the poorest Americans against the same kind of contemptuous disregard that American power also shows for the dignity and safety of the people of Iran.

Tragically, in its “forever wars” the United States consistently denounces authoritarianism and religiosity among the world’s poorest, but only as an excuse to violently drive the people of those countries even further from security, democracy, and peace.

The US condemns the global poor it claims so ardently to wish to protect, too frequently as a shallow pretext for military and economic subjugation. Americans, correct to denounce Iran’s theocratic regime, ignore what Iranians are quick to recognize, that Iran’s worst enemy remains not its own government, but that of the United States.

On our first day in Tehran, reformist foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif met with us and quipped that Iran veers rightwards whenever the war-hawk John Bolton is anywhere near the levers of US power. Today the White House would seem to have moved to the right of its stance under Bolton, while Trump’s enemies in both parties alarmingly hail Bolton as an ally in their quest to encircle Russia – Iran’s largest ally.

Predictably, if tragically, this past Friday, religious hardliners swept Iran’s parliamentary elections, with help from a Tehran regime secure as never before in the knowledge that, with US hardliners rampant, Iranians have nowhere else to turn. Iran’s brave dissidents generally rush to reject all expressions of support from US leaders, hastening to agree on one point only with the many Iranians who support the theocracy: that the United States (along with its Saudi and Israeli catspaws) remains the worst threat which Iranians must face.

There is no reason for US voters to suppose that their government’s hostility towards Iran is aimed at realizing anyone’s human rights. Staunch US support for the brutal Saudi dictatorship puts the lie to any such claim. Iran’s military support for its regional allies is massively dwarfed in destructive impact by the Saudi role, directly and through proxies, in bloodily destabilizing the region.

The US’ own 2003 invasion of Iraq remains the century’s worst human rights violation (if the Saudis’ US-backed, famine-assisted war in Yemen doesn’t catch it up). An untold number of Iranians facing dire economic hardship were recently gunned down protesting the greed (perhaps more than the strict religion) of Iran’s clerical oligarchs; but the US had, through its crushing sanctions, imposed this hardship deliberately and with the stated intent of callously forcing Iranians to topple the regime for them.

The idea that a US-driven regime change, either through sanctions or through war, might somehow democratize Iran is popular in the US, but it’s a prospect for which few Iranians would ever want to vote. Social scientists place Iran among Earth’s most nationalistic countries, with many in Iran acutely aware of the US-driven coup which crushed Iran’s stubborn bid for secular democracy in 1953.

The Islamism which revolutionary Iran adopted in 1979 was widely considered an anti-colonialist necessity, a “return to ourselves” required to resist further US cooptation and violence. Today, Iranians well note that US leaders’ regime-change plans tend to involve installing, as Iran’s ‘democratic’ rulers, Iran’s most feared terror group, the “Mojahedin-e Khalq”.

In 1988, during the Iran-Iraq war, the cultlike “MEK” actually invaded Iran, on Iraq’s behalf, from Iraqi soil, and with air cover from Iraq’s Saddam Hussein. Outside Tehran I visited the chief graveyard of that war, resting place for hundreds of thousands. It’s an odd definition of “democracy” under which we hope to impose, through war, the would-be leaders Iranians fear most.

We gathered at a terrible moment this winter beneath the unsightly bulk of Chicago’s Trump Tower, but far more ominous threats loom on our horizon, whether a US war on Iran can be averted or not. Our forever wars, nightmarish enough in themselves, should terrify us for the truly existential crises they prevent us from addressing.

Trump’s worst crimes are his war crimes, and both of the US’ political parties seem focused on urging Trump towards more war, not less. No mere election but a grassroots movement of never-before-witnessed scope would seem needed to turn our government, in this late hour, away from empire and towards the goal of human survival. But to succeed, that movement will need to involve and empower the bases of both parties, including many of Trump’s voters who it would seem easier to simply dismiss and denounce.

When the US settles for condemning Iran, it drives Iran and the world even further towards dictatorship. The most urgent threats facing our species aren’t enemies, like a country or a political party, that we can simply defeat, at however unacceptable a cost, but existential deadlines implicit in our nation’s own wealth and frightened arrogance, deadlines we can’t meet without our “enemies’” freely offered assistance.

The path we must follow within the US seems also to be the sole survivable path the US has left that it can follow abroad – to somehow redress those of our neighbors’ real grievances to which their undeniable failings should never have blinded us; to build a movement for species survival which no-one will join if we won’t share our wealth and our power; and to empower those who, like Iran, we’re most inclined to condemn – in the desperate hope of forging a difficult peace.

– Sean Reynolds (joveismad@juno.com) is a co-coordinator of Voices for Creative Nonviolence (www.vcnv.org) and, in February 2019, traveled to Iran’s Tehran and Isfahan with CODEPINK. He contributed this article to The Palestine Chronicle

By Sean Reynolds, Palestinechronicle

March 4, 2020 0 comments

Mr. Gjergji Thanasi, Albanian author and human rights activist

Human Rights Abuse in the MEK

Response to Nejat Society’s appeal

Mr. Gjergji Thanasi, Albanian author and human rights activist, responded to the appeal by the Iranian Nejat Society’s CEO:

Mr. Gjergji Thanasi, Albanian author and human rights activist

He wrote:
As an Albanian who has extensive information about the MEK and their paramilitary facility near Manez town (Ashraf 3 Camp), I pity the rank and file MEK members who are little more than serfs to their lady owner, the old stateless harpy Maryam Rajavi!
As an Albanian I consider Rajavi’s activity in Albania to be a threat to the national security of my homeland and a blatant violation of human rights of the poor cult members!
Tell the families to wait and hope. Their loved ones momentarily are simply doomed. It is easier to break out from a low security jail than to leave Camp Ashraf 3. The quisling segments in the Albanian government and opposition behave shamefully like lap dogs to that evil woman Rajavi.
Momentarily there is very little you can do. It is virtually impossible to receive an Albanian visa as a holder of an Iranian passport. Only those Iranians who are holders of EU, British, American, Canadian, Australian and New Zeeland passports can enter Albania. Even they will suffer a low level harassment from our police.
Nothing special that cannot be handled by your Albanian lawyer. They will face a vigorous slander campaign on the part of MEK. The usual stuff: spies of the Mullahs’ regime, terrorists of the Quds force, even in case of senior citizens 70 years old or more.

March 3, 2020 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq as an Opposition Group

MEK love affairs with other Extremists

Extremism means the advocacy of extreme measures or views. In the world of politics, extremist parties include far-left politics or far-right politics as well as radicalism, reactionism, fundamentalism and fanaticism. The Mujahein Khalq Organization (the MKO/ MEK/ PMOI/ the Cult of Rajavi, NCRI) can belong to all of the extremist agendas in the political spectrum.

The MEK can be considered far left because their ideology is basically founded on the classless society of Marxism. They are reactionary and radicalistic because they believe in the most old-fashioned version of Islam that separates males and females, forces women to cover up, permits the leader of the group to practice polygamy. They exercise cult-like practices so they are fanatics who worship their disappeared leader Massoud Rajavi.

There is no need to mention that, fundamentalism includes traits of all of the above-mentioned political agendas. Thus, the MEK is definitely an extremist movement.

Studying the group’s substance and function, one can find out that the MEK has some traits in common with every extremist ideology. Reviewing its history one can realize that the group`s beliefs and actions have been quite similar to an extremist group to a large extent. The most recent report on the MEK that was published in the Global Research a few weeks ago shows that violent extremism is inherent in this group.

Robert Fantina is an author and activist for peace and international human rights who writes on the MEK’s alliance with the far left American figures like Rudy Giuliani.”Another famous and infamous U.S. citizen, former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani, personal attorney to U.S. President Donald Trump, calls the MEK a ‘government in exile’.,”Fantina writes.”Apparently, Giuliani has lost the ability to discern truth from falsehood, fantasy from reality; this is not surprising, considering who employs him. [1]

As Fantina accurately clarifies the MEK extremist group”is responsible for the deaths of at least 12,000 Iranians”. He keeps on asking,”So is Giuliani saying that he would be ‘comfortable’ with a nation of 81,000,000 people run by terrorists? Perhaps so, since he himself works for the head of the largest terrorist organization in the world.”[2]

Fantina lists another radical ally of the MEK extremists. The first is normally Israel, a hostile state to Iranian government. Referring to the famous report of the NBC News on the group’s financial sources, he concludes that the US and Israel cooperate in their sponsorship for MEK.”That would make sense, since Israel, like the U.S., is a brutal, repressive regime, in violation of countless international laws, and forever violating the rights of the Palestinians in the most unspeakable ways,”he suggests. And since the U.S. supports Israel with $4 billion annually, one can be confident that some of that money is finding its way to the MEK.”He also asserts that Albania is a tool in the hands of the US to maintain the MEK for the rainy day. [3]

Nevertheless, there are also other extremist allies for the MEK out there.”Yet for a group that advocates gender equality and says it is the main pro-democracy Iranian faction, the MEK does little to hide its ties to the ultraconservative, autocratic government of Saudi Arabia”, according to the Middle East Eye.”MEK rallies often feature pro-Saudi speakers and sometimes even Saudi officials.”[4] In an interview with Jordan-based news outlet Albawaba News, former MEK head of security Massoud Khodabandeh detailed the covert means through which the Saudis helped fund the group, including regional smuggling networks and black market transactions. [5]

And finally the most recent revelations about the MEK’s connections with the other extremist groups was made by the Spanish newspaper El Pais. On January this year, the news outlet reported that two lawmakers for Spain’s far-right Vox, Santiago Abascal and Iván Espinosa de los Monteros, received party salaries for eight months that drew on funds from donations by the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI). The two lawmakers belong to a far right Spanish party, VOX.”Both leaders received around €65,000 in total.”[6]
Kathrine Shakdam of the citizen truth tries to answer how come that a far left Islamic extremist group (MEK) gets in bed with a far right anti-Islamic extremist party (VOX) – both ends of the political and social spectrum. She brings the arguments of Julia Ebner, a research fellow at the London-based Institute for Strategic Dialogue. Speaking in an interview Ebner notes:”Both the far right and Islamist extremists benefit when their professed enemies engage in a terror attack or do anything that confirms their narratives. They want to see more rifts and more chaos in society. When communities are scared, when they’re driven apart, they’re vulnerable to the extremist narratives.”[7]

Seemingly, there is no difference for the MEK that its allies range from anti Muslim Zionist parties to Saudi Wahhabis and far away to far right Spanish or American parties. They seek to squeeze through the rifts they make in societies.

Mazda Parsi

References:
[1] Fantina, Robert, The United States Supports the Mujahedeen-e Khalk (MEK) Terrorist Organization, Global Research, February 18th, 2020.
[2] ibid
[3] ibid
[4] The Middle East Eye, Described by critics as ‘a cult’, Iranian opposition group is now lauded by top US officials as alternative to Iran’s government, July 17th, 2019.
[5] Webb, Whitney, Former MEK Official Exposes Saudi Arabia’s Covert Funding of Iranian Terror Group, Talking Point Memo, September 20th, 2020.
[6] Irujo, José María, Gil, Joaquín, Donations from the National Council of Resistance of Iran also funded other party expenses such as rent and computer equipment in 2013 and 2014, El Pais, January 28th, 2020.
[7] Shakdam, Catherine, Convenient Bedfellows: Why The MEK Backs Spanish Far-Right In Tactical Relationship, Citizen Truth, February 12, 2020.

March 3, 2020 0 comments

Mr. JOSEP BORREL, The Esteemed High Representative of EU for Foreign Affairs

Mujahedin Khalq Organization members' families

Families of MEK members pen letter to Mr. Josep Borrell

Dear Josep Borrell
High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy
Respectfully، we _ as families of Mojahedeen Khalq’s members (known as MKO or MEK) from Ardabil Province of Iran_ find it necessary to inform you some matters over that group and members trapped in.
For long years، we’re awaiting and praying for coming back our dears to home، with the hearts full of hope and grief.

As you know، Mko، with the history indicating violence and terrorism، has been resided in Iraq for years. and now، this group has gradually moved to Albania according to multilateral arrangements.
The families was banned from any forms of contacts with own dears on the basis of orders the Mko’s leaders and threathening members during past years. So، any contacts with Mko’s members has became impossible specially after moving to Albania. this caused to concerns and distresses for awaiting families.

Dear Sir
Writers of letter would appreciate if you would meet following demands.
_The members present in Mko camps trapped in a real political Cult with a terrorist background in which members are controlled and ruled by Mko’s leaders using psychologic methods over brainwashing and mind/mental control. thus، members do not have any right to freely determanation for own lives. consequently، those are forced to absolute subbordination while being deprived from any fundamenal rights and liberties of mankind.

Unfortunately، European Eunion (EU) removed the MKO from its 7 list of terrorist organizations in 2009 during an unclear and disputable process!! in spite of being the various evidences and records indicating continual resorting to violence by Mko.

Sadly، Albanian officials recently (as the host state) started unusual and disputable cooperation with Mko’s leaders in particular suppressing members wishing to leave group or members opposed to its activities، while obvious turning in foreign policy positions toward Iran. so far as it leads to severe critics by Albanian non_state/independent organs and even some scholars.

As matters said above، our demand from High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy _given that some considerations over physical and mental situation of members_ is providing circumstanses _to any possible methods_ for visiting or freely making contact between members with families under control EU or UN bodies.

We will appreciate your reply

Best regards,

The list of members involved _trapped_ in mko from Ardabil Province of Iran:
Naser Gholipour
Hossein Samadi
Azim Ershadi
Reza Azizadeh
Salman Dolatpanah
Hasan Basharati
Barat Abdoli
Galil Arasi
Ali Yousefi Sadat
Rahmat Alizadeh
Fereydoon Parvaresh
Saleh Nasiri
Zaman MehdiZadeh
Matlab Nazari
Kiomars Sohbatzadeh
Mahbob Sabahati
Youssef Shabani
Samie Nazeri
Haj Mohammadi
Amir Aslan Hassanzadeh
Hamdaleh Mastaneh
Javed SuleimanJah
Hafez Nosrati
Asad Asadzadeh
Barat Rabiei

transcriptions
– international Red Cross
-Josep Borrell, EU foreign policy representative
-European Union Representation Office in the Republic of Albania
-Mr. Luigi Soreca Head of EU Delegation to Albania
-Elizabeth Tichie Fiesberger, President of the United Nations Human Rights Council
-Representation of the European Parliament in stabilizing EU-Albania relations

March 3, 2020 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

MEK In Albania Hijacks America’s Iran Policy

Since well before President Trump pulled out of the Iran nuclear deal in 2018, the U.S. and Iran have been in a de facto state of non-military warfare with sanctions, economic sabotage, cyber-attacks, disinformation campaigns and social media attacks the weapons of choice. Both countries have exploited conflict in the region, especially after the rise of ISIS, to extend their military presence and reach.
While some in the U.S. have pressed for war with Iran at all costs, the U.S.’s lack of response to Iran’s attack on its bases in Iraq following the assassination of General Qassem Soleimani exposed a real problem. It is an open secret among military and security analysts that war with Iran is not an option; neither the U.S. nor Israel can pursue war with Iran without facing mutual destruction.

It is an open secret among military and security analysts that war with Iran is not an option

Others on the anti-Iran front have pushed for regime change. But this long-term push to manufacture or engineer the collapse of the ruling system and replace it with a conformist government has also failed to bring about any result.

Since 2018, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has straddled these agendas but has failed to make progress on either. Rather than act as the diplomatic face of the American government, Pompeo leaned on his CIA skillset in the belief that covert and insidious activities by proxy activists can be used to influence, manipulate, manufacture and divert the course of action around Iran. Now, as a result of these policy failures and errors of judgement, the U.S. is losing ground and influence in the Middle East and beyond so that America’s front line with Iran has retreated trench by trench from military containment to a petty propaganda war fought in Albania.

Why Albania?
Albania, of course, is now home to the Iranian Mojahedin Khalq (MEK). For 40 years, since its exile from Iran — first to Iraq then to Albania — the MEK has promised to be the agent of regime change, either through war or insurgency. And, in spite of having no evidence of its efficacy, for 40 years anti-Iran elements in the west, particularly neoconservatives, have supported the group and its agenda to the almost total exclusion of other genuine opposition groups and movements.
This exaggerated role of the MEK in U.S. Iran policy again came to attention when Pompeo rescinded a directive to U.S. embassies barring “direct U.S. government engagement” with Iranian militant and opposition groups. It soon emerged that an MEK lobbyist Robert G. Joseph had met with Brian Hook, the U.S.’s special representative for Iran and senior adviser to Pompeo, before the assassination of Soleimani and again just afterwards. Statements by Pompeo over the past few months have echoed MEK propaganda showing his susceptibility to this influence.
…the Trump administration still clings to the delusion that the MEK has leverage or influence or power in relation to events in Iran.

This continued engagement with the MEK indicates that the Trump administration still clings to the delusion that the MEK has leverage or influence or power in relation to events in Iran. It does not. The enduring support of MEK by anti-Iran pundits defies logic. Nothing has been gained throughout the past four decades. Much has been lost that can be linked to this support. The MEK promises regime change but cannot even come close to delivering.

MEK Capabilities

One reason for this failure — that those who exploit the group are unwilling to acknowledge — is the total absence of support for the MEK among Iranians inside and outside the country. So unpopular are the MEK in Iran that protestors in the November fuel protests, who were warned falsely by Iran’s hardline security services that the MEK were behind the violence, went home and demanded the government create safe and suitable conditions for public protest. Similarly, the students who in January this year protested their government’s response to shooting down Ukrainian Flight 752, issued a strong statement denouncing interference from outside Iran. This was clearly meant to distance their protest from the hated MEK.
The main reason the MEK has failed to perform, however, is its own structural defect. It is a cult not an opposition group. The MEK is subject only to its own internal dynamics and obeys only its own laws. It has no respect for or need to abide by or adopt external norms and values, whether legal or moral. The MEK’s aim is to stay relevant, so it pays advocates and lobbyists to have its name broadcast and published as widely as possible. But its PR image does not reflect either the real capabilities or the effectiveness of the group.
The MEK’s infamous troll farm exposed by The Intercept comes close to explaining why some in the Trump administration and beyond still cling to the hope that the MEK’s propaganda activities might finally triumph by imposing their false narrative on events. But as much as they want to utilize the MEK, they should know by now that this group cannot deliver what it promises. Nor will the MEK ever come under the purview of U.S. control.
From its first arrival in Albania in 2013, the MEK continued its antagonistic anti-Iran political activities. In 2017, the Trump administration overturned plans to de-radicalize the MEK members. Instead, the MEK built an extra-territorial garrison to house the enslaved members so they wouldn’t escape. Emboldened, the MEK was able to coerce the Albanian government into pushing back against Iran through its embassy in Tirana. Following the Soleimani assassination two more Iranian diplomats were expelled from Albania and rapid response police were deployed to protect the MEK camp as though it were a diplomatic facility and not a refugee camp. Prime Minister Edi Rama was forced to admit that although Albania had accepted to host the MEK as a humanitarian gesture, the group now poses a national security issue for his country.

European Perspective

Europe has a different view of the MEK. Since arriving in Albania, the group came under increasing scrutiny by European security and intelligence services, including the formidable services of Albania itself. Experts on the MEK had warned that the group’s maverick behavior would result in the U.S.’s front line with Iran being redrawn in Albania. European tolerance for the MEK has been stretched by events from self-immolations in 2003 to the alleged bomb plot at Villepinte in 2018, violence in the European Parliament in 2018 and interference in Spain’s elections. Last year, the MEK’s activities began to be curtailed as permission was denied for demonstrations and the annual rally at Villepinte. The MEK leader Maryam Rajavi and her acolytes have now moved their headquarters to Albania where they occupy an entire floor of the International Hotel in Skanderbeg Square in Tirana. Meanwhile, Albania’s accession to the E.U. is doomed as long as the MEK remains active in that country and the E.U. now regards the U.S. with suspicion on this issue, not amity.
In Albania the people are angry. They see their government bending to U.S. and MEK demands to the detriment of their country. Support for the MEK is symptomatic of everything that is wrong with U.S. Iran policy. Instead of striving for effective diplomacy, Pompeo oversees an actively antagonistic Iran policy that shows contempt for and alienates the very people who are needed to effect change: the ordinary citizens of friendly countries and foes alike.
By Massoud and Anne Khodabandeh

March 2, 2020 0 comments

Missions of Nejat Society

Appeal of the Iranian Nejat Society CEO to awakened human consciences

A letter written by the CEO of the Iranian Nejat Society addressed to awakened human consciences has been sent to international and humanitarian organizations, such as different bodies of the UN, ICRC, AI, and HRW, as well as different institutes of the EU and EP, and also to international media. The text of the letter is as follows:

Ebrahim Khodabande

To awakened human consciences
I address you on behalf of thousands of suffering families of members of the Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization (MEK, MKO, better known as the Rajavi cult) residing in a remote isolated camp in Albania, about the severe abuses of basic human rights there.

The MEK finished the process of transferring from Iraq to Albania in 2016. This relocation was done in the manner of a group movement under an agreement made in Geneva between the USA, the Albanian government, the UNHCR and the MEK. It was agreed that the UNHCR be responsible for the transfer and the USA pay the expenses.

Later it was discovered that this relocation was not carried out under the UN refugee regulations which specify that people should seek asylum individually, but rather as the transfer of an organization belonging to the leaders of the MEK. The consequence was that the individual members have no legal status and are therefore considered “stateless”.

The MEK operates as a destructive, mind control cult. The organization forbids love, familial relationships, voluntary exit, and contact with the outside world in particular with friends and families, having privacy of thoughts and lifestyle, criticism of the leader, and denies many other basic human rights to its members.
I have thousands of letters from the families of the members. They just want to have a simple contact with their loved ones trapped inside the cult. The cult leaders have denied them this right and the Albanian government and other related bodies do not show any cooperation. How should I answer these families, what should I say in response to them?

A considerable number of MEK members have left the cult and since they have no clear legal status and do not hold official ID documentation, they are left in a very tight situation in Albania. The UNHCR and the interior ministry of the Albanian government will not do anything for them since they do not recognize their presence in Albania as individuals and have accepted them as part of a group.

These individuals are forced to depend on the MEK for their subsistence, and of course the cult only pays their monthly aid provided they do not reveal the abuse of human rights inside the organization and the cult’s crimes and corruption. They take the freedom of these former members away and make any support conditional on them performing tasks, such as spying on others.

Is there anybody within the vast number of international and humanitarian organizations who will pay a little attention to these extreme violations of human rights? Is there anyone who will have something to say to these aged mothers and fathers to relieve their pain? Is there anything humane beyond the international policies and mutual interests or conflict of interests of different parties raised?

I am anxiously looking forward to your response and thank you in advance.

Ebrahim Khodabandeh
Nejat Society CEO
Tehran, Iran

March 1, 2020 0 comments

Newer Posts

Older Posts