Page 202 – Nejat Society

US government no longer excludes MEK as leadership option for Iran

US administration talking points no longer exclude the Mujaheddin-e Khalq (MEK) as a potential replacement for the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Al-Monitor has learned.

Removed from a State Department list of terrorist organizations in 2012 after an expensive lobbying campaign, the MEK is understood to be widely reviled inside Iran as a leftist Islamist cult that sided with Saddam Hussein during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war. The group advocates the overthrow of the Iranian government and the elevation of Maryam Rajavi, the wife of MEK founder Massoud Rajavi, as the new leader. She lives in exile outside Paris.

Top officials close to the Donald Trump administration — including national security adviser John Bolton and Rudolph Giuliani, the president’s personal lawyer — have taken tens of thousands of dollars in fees from the MEK and its front organizations over the years to speak before rallies that promote Maryam Rajavi’s leadership ambitions. Just last month, Giuliani told a pro-MEK rally in Warsaw, Poland, on the sidelines of a US-organized Middle East conference that Iran’s leaders are “assassins” and “murderers” who should be overthrown and then replaced by Rajavi.

In the past, State Department talking points have said that the United States believes that the MEK is not a viable political alternative for Iran. But that line was changed just before the Warsaw conference last month.

“We have said in the past, and say it now, that the Mujahideen Organization has no place among the people of Iran,” State Department spokeswoman Elizabeth Stickney told Deutsche Welle’s Persian-language channel as recently as September.

Asked this week if the MEK is now on a list of acceptable alternatives to the current government in Iran, a State Department spokesperson would not rule it out.

“We support the Iranian people. We have had many opportunities to engage the large and vibrant Iranian diaspora to hear many diverse views about the future of Iran,” the spokesperson told Al-Monitor. “As President Trump has clearly stated, the United States wants to see a free and prosperous future for the people of Iran. We do not back any specific Iranian opposition group; rather we back the Iranian people as they struggle to secure the freedoms and dignity they deserve.”

Officially, the Trump administration insists that its policy on Iran — quitting the nuclear deal last year and reinstating harsh sanctions — is meant to compel the Iranian government to change its policies, particularly on regional intervention. But the hawkish views of individuals such as Bolton and the rhetoric used by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo indicate that the real goal for many in the US administration is regime change.

On the 40th anniversary of the Iranian revolution, Bolton tweeted a harsh video message to the Supreme Leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, telling him, “I don’t think you’ll have many more anniversaries to enjoy.” Pompeo has chastised European governments for seeking to salvage the 2015 nuclear deal despite continued Iranian compliance, as has Vice President Mike Pence.

Newt Gingrich, a veteran Republican politician who is close to the Trump administration, sought guidance from the Justice Department last year about whether he needed to register as a lobbyist for a “foreign political party” that appears to be the France-based National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), the name for the MEK’s political front. In January, the NCRI hired Robert Joseph, a former undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, to lobby for it for $15,000 a month. Joseph replaced Bolton at the State Department under the George W. Bush administration.

The MEK, whose name in Farsi means People’s Holy Warriors, came into existence as a guerrilla group that sought the overthrow of the US-backed shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. It was responsible for numerous acts of violence, including the assassination of six Americans in the 1970s, and supported the 1979 revolution. The group broke with the Iranian government after the revolution when it lost out in a struggle for power to supporters of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Massoud Rajavi fled first to Paris and then to Iraq, where Saddam Hussein gave the group refuge. The MEK fought against Iran during the Iran-Iraq war, earning the enduring enmity of most Iranians. The government executed thousands of jailed followers of the MEK in 1988 after members of the group in Iraq entered the country following Iran’s acceptance of a UN cease-fire.

Over the years, the MEK has paid tens of thousands of dollars in speaking fees to former US officials from both the Republican and Democratic parties. Its sources of funding are a mystery. In the current environment, the group clearly sees an opportunity to find favor among those hoping that sanctions will weaken and destabilize the government in Tehran.

Some backers of regime change, particularly in the Iranian diaspora, have looked toward the son of the late Shah as a more plausible substitute for the Iran’s theocratic government. However, Reza Pahlavi made clear at an appearance late last year at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy that he doesn’t see himself as a replacement for the current Iranian leadership but simply someone who could play a “guiding” role after that regime’s fall. He spoke today at the conservative American Enterprise Institute.

At the Washington Institute, Pahlavi also appeared to reject any role in a post-Islamic Republic Iran for the MEK. “The continuing problem we have, or you can see with the MEK, is that they have yet to agree to work with democratic forces,” he said. “Maybe it’s because by doing so they’ll lose the integrity and control of their structure.”
Barbara Slavin, Al-Montor,
Barbara Slavin is a columnist for Al-Monitor and director of the Future of Iran Initiative at the Atlantic Council. On Twitter: @BarbaraSlavin1

March 10, 2019 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq as an Opposition Group

Are the MEK and Regime Change Finally Running Out of Road?

The “regime change in Iran” bandwagon—driven by warmongers, fueled by false prophesy, and hurtling pell-mell down the road to Iran—contains various characters, some new and some old.
The bandwagon itself is an ideological construct created 40 years ago in response to the Iranian Revolution. It has taken on various incarnations over the years, but its central purpose has always been to destroy the Islamic Republic of Iran and replace it with a compliant pro-American government. What that is hardly matters of course, as was the case with Iraq in 2003.
The drivers of this bandwagon are paid large sums to pursue this agenda at any cost. Others are mere passengers, hoping for a role after the vehicle reaches the destination. Among these passengers is the Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK), formerly a terrorist group and currently “democratic opposition.” The MEK has been a passenger for all 40 years of the journey, hanging on by paying the drivers. These drivers are public persons such as National Security Advisor John Bolton and Trump lawyer Rudi Giuliani, along with a host of other “influential” persons who steer the bandwagon inexorably toward conflict.
But just as the bandwagon appears to be gathering speed and momentum—enough to scare the Trump administration’s opponents—the MEK appears to be running out of road. And that could signal a halt to the whole enterprise.
The first sign of this came in a piece by Eli Clifton, which discussed the provenance of a large payment ($165,000) received by John Bolton in relation to a tweet to “defend a non-governmental anti-Iran pressure group, United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI)…”. Clifton’s own tweet was met by a couple of feeble MEK slave troll posts on his thread spouting the usual “no appeasement” and “terrorist Iran” themes. This indicates that the MEK has been outbid by a new bandwagon passenger UANI, since the MEK only managed $40,000 for one of Bolton’s speeches. Also, the MEK trolls are running out of steam back in their closed camp in Albania.
Even while Bolton and the Trump administration, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman are pushing for a war with Iran, they are beginning to realize that the MEK is not the stick needed to strike fear into the enemy. Indeed, a look at the recent behaviour of the MEK in Albania reveals a failing group beset by internal crisis.
After a series of critical investigative articles by reporters from Al Jazeera, The Guardian, The Independent, Channel 4 News, NBC, and others, the recent report in Der Spiegel by Luisa Hommerich was apparently the last straw. The MEK issued a Farsi language statement (written and published in Europe) threatening to assassinate her—for just doing her job.
Hommerich reported that inside the camp in Albania, MEK militants were still practicing the deadly techniques for combat taught them by Saddam Hussein’s Republican Guard—“cutting throats with a knife,” “breaking hands,” “removing eyes with fingers,” and “tearing the mouth open.” In 2017, the Trump administration reversed a 2013 plan by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to establish a De-Radicalisation Institute to disband and rehabilitate the MEK, allowing the dangerous cult to regroup behind closed doors in a de facto extra-territorial enclave and continue its violent practices.

In spite of this boost, the MEK, beset by exposures and defections, is trying to prevent the total collapse of the group. Around a thousand members have left the group since it relocated to Albania. The front line over which the MEK peers at its enemy, the Islamic Republic, is no longer Iraq but is now represented by a group of 40 former members protesting in Tirana. The MEK claim that these are all “agents of the Iranian regime” who want to kill the remaining cult members. So, instead of orchestrating regime change in Iran, the MEK can’t even deal with 40 destitute former members.
The MEK is engaged in a form of modern slavery by not paying thousands of activists for 30 years or more. Members who leave the group are left destitute because they have nothing but the clothes on their back even after decades of loyal service. The MEK claims that members offer their services as “volunteers.” But the preamble to the UN Declaration of Human Rights states in its opening sentence that human rights are inalienable—that is, they cannot be disowned by anyone for any reason. MEK leader Maryam Rajavi is responsible for such decisions and treatment.
Not only are the defectors that Hommerich profiles impoverished because they have not had financial recompense for their years of devotion, they are also deliberately left stateless. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees brought the MEK to Albania from Iraq on “humanitarian grounds.” But on arrival they were not granted UN refugee status, nor have they been issued Albanian identity documents that would allow them to work or travel. Lack of residency rights also means that they cannot register for a bank account. They have no identity papers whatsoever, except the flimsy piece of paper used to fly them through international airspace from Baghdad to Tirana.
In her pursuit of fame and glory, Maryam Rajavi treats her members as, essentially, cannon fodder. In the idealized future she paints for the members, they will one day march on Tehran, the vanguard of a spontaneous uprising of the Iranian people against their Islamic oppressors, the mullahs. Why would they need money or identity papers?
In the meantime, it suits Rajavi to have her “followers” incarcerated in a closed camp unable to live independent lives, subject to the whims and demands of the struggle that she purports to lead. But that struggle has almost evaporated. Sure, the MEK is still performing propaganda tasks for various Saudis, Israelis, and Americans to advance the anti-Iran push. But even that is becoming more and more irrelevant as the MEK itself begins to fail.
Massoud Khodabandeh is the director of Middle East Strategy Consultants and has worked long-term with the authorities in Iraq to bring about a peaceful solution to the impasse at Camp Liberty and help rescue other victims of the Mojahedin-e Khalq cult. Among other publications, he co-authored the book “The Life of Camp Ashraf: Victims of Many Masters” with his wife Anne Singleton. They also published an academic paper on the MEK’s use of the Internet. Anne Khodabandeh is a UK expert in anti-terrorist activities and a long-standing activist in the field of deradicalization of extremists. She has written several articles and books on this subject, along with her husband, who is of Iranian origin.

by Anne and Massoud Khodabandeh

March 9, 2019 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq as an Opposition Group

MEK, an expired opposition?

Founded in the early 1960s, the Mujahedin Khalq Organization (the MKO/ MEK/ PMOI/ the Cult of Rajavi) was the first opposition group to fight against the Shah of Iran. Today, more than half a century after the foundation of the group it is not considered an opposition group anymore. However, it is mostly regarded as a cult-like establishment that opposes the Islamic Republic and is used as a tool to pressure the Iranian government.

In other words, as Mohammad Sahimi asserts, the MEK should be called a “fake opposition”. Muhammad Sahimi, a professor at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, has been analyzing Iran’s political developments and its nuclear program for 25 years. He labels the entire Iranian opposition groups as “true” and “fake”. He correctly clarifies that a fake opposition is the one that does not enjoy the support of the Iranian public opinion and does supports any position against its nation including sanctions, military attack and so on.

“Two main groups have emerged among the opposition to Iran’s hardliners, both within Iran and in the diaspora,” Sahimi suggests. “One group, the true opposition that includes the reformists, religious-nationalists, secular leftists, various labor groups, human rights activists, and others, believes that it is up to the Iranian people living in Iran how to change the political system in their country. This group is opposed to foreign intervention, particularly by the United States and its allies, the illegal economic sanctions imposed by the United States on Iran, and the constant threats of military confrontation espoused by John Bolton, President Trump’s national security advisor, and other Iran hawks.” [1]

He puts the MEK in the list of the second group: fake oppositions. “Many Iranians refer to the second group as the “fake” opposition,” he writes. “It consists mostly of the monarchists, some ethnic groups, and the Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK), the exiled group that is universally despised in Iran and was on the State Department’s list of “Foreign Terrorist Organizations” from 1997 until 2011. It is called the “fake” opposition because it supports the economic sanctions and the threat of military attacks, and has completely aligned itself not only with the Trump administration, but also with Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Israel, and endorses their propaganda against Iran. This group, whose followers are based mostly in the diaspora, acts more like a lobby for convincing the Iranian people to support the Trump-Mohammed bin Salman(MbS)-Benjamin Netanyahu triangle in their confrontation with Iran, rather than as a group supporting the true opposition within Iran for lasting, irreversible, and positive changes in the political system.” [2]

Ann Khodabandeh, former member of the MEK confirms that the group is never a normal opposition, not only because of its anti-national stances but also because of its potential threat as a terrorist entity. Referring to several cases of assassination and death attempts committed by the MEK, she proves that the group is a cult that is engaged in violence and is never responsive to journalists and critics despite all its efforts to take the gesture of a democratic alternative for the Iranian government. “It is a mistake to approach the MEK as a normal opposition,” she writes. [3]

Nonetheless, every now and then we see the American high profiles like John Bolton, Trump’s national security advisor who shout their ardent support for the MEK as their desired Iranian future government. Are they really such naïve to ignore the MEK’s fake face?

Ebrahim Khodabandeh, former member of the MEK and the general director of Nejat Society believes that current leader of the MEK Maryam Rajavi has also an expiration date just like her predecessor Massoud. “The MEK under Maryam Rajavi’s leadership has not met any of her new sponsors’ needs and requirements,” Khodabandeh asserts. “It is time, therefore, for a new face if the MEK is going to be of any value against the Islamic Republic of Iran. We are waiting for her disappearance after that of her husband.” [4]

Mazda Parsi

Sources:

[1] Sahimi, Mohammad, Pompeo, Bolton, and Iran’s “Fake Opposition”, Lobelog, February 6^th, 2019.

[2] ibid

[3] Khodabandeh, Ann, It’s a mistake to treat the MEK as a normal opposition group, Iran Interlink, February 27th, 2019.

[4] Khodabandeh, Ebrahim, When would Maryam Rajavi disappear?, Iran Interlink , Feb 28, 2019

March 6, 2019 0 comments

Human Rights Abuse in the MEK

We celebrated your birthday

Ali Gholizade was a prisoner of war when the MKO cult tricked him into joining the cult. He is now 54. His family celebrated his birthday:

Hello my dear Ali, we are all good . My dear brother the cruel hands of Rajavis cult have parted us away from each other now for many years.
When would these bitter days come to an end and we hug each other?!
Do you know how old you are?!

Ali gholizade celebrated his birthday

This years , the same as every year we gathered together and celebrated your birthday . all our brothers and sisters participated the celebration except you, yourself. I hope you the best. We hope you be able to free yourself from the mental and physical barriers of the Rajavis Cult.
Dear Ali, we all missed you a lot. Come back soon .

March 5, 2019 0 comments

The cult of Rajavi

MKO bomb makers are free in Europe

The revelations recently made on the Mujahedin Khalq Organization (the MKO/ MEK/ PMOI) by Der Spiegel, resulted in two kinds of reactions. As usual the first was made by the group’s propaganda media that tried to accuse the Spiegel correspondent Luisa Hommerich of being the mercenary of the IRI assuming her report as an attempt to launch misinformation about the group.

Eventually, the second group that included former members of the group came to the scene to endorse the testimonies of other former members that were interviewed by Hommerich for its investigative report.

Among the many articles written by former members of the MKO such as Musa Damrudi, Hanif Heidarnezhad, Ann Khodabandeh and Ali Shirzad that integrated Hommerich’s article, that of Mohammad Razaghi is worth to consider seriously because of the detailed and completing endorsement that he provides for the original report.
The German correspondent cites from defectors of the group that members of the MKO are subjected to physical and mental tortures. The most horrific part of the report cites the interviewees as saying that the residents of the MKO camps regularly practice “cutting throats with knife”, “breaking hand”, “removing eyes with finger” and “tearing down mouth”. Mohammad Razaghi confirms the testimony and explains that such kind of trainings had been originally instructed by Iraqi officers to the MKO operatives when the group was located in Iraq.

“As a person who was a member of the MKO for 20 years, I have enough information on the terrorist nature and the mafia structure of the group,” he writes in his open letter to Luisa Hommerich. “Ms. Hommerich, I would like to say that your report is correct but incomplete.”

Razaghi asserts that the trainings of “cutting throats with knife”, “breaking hand”, “removing eyes with finger” and “tearing down mouth” that are accomplished in the MKO camp in Tirana are actually the practice of killing people without an arm. “Officers of Saddam’s special guard used to teach these technics to the MKO’s high ranking members.”

Razaghi writes of further trainings that the MKO members received in Iraq. “In addition to the trainings you stated in your report, Iraqi officers used to instruct them to make firing bombs, destructive bombs and sound bombs with the very accessible items that they can by in their local markets,” he avows.

Razaghi warns about the potential of the MKO members who have received such horrific trainings.

“Once the creators of such destructive bombs were gathered in the notorious Camp Ashraf but today they are in most European countries living in the group’s safe houses,” he writes.

Razaghi ends his testimony promising Hommerich to reveal more information on the dangerous nature of the MKO in case he would be able to visit her.

March 4, 2019 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

US openly supports MEK, a designated terrorist organisation

The United States’ much ballyhooed conference in Warsaw, the purpose of which was to gather support for more pressure on Iran, is now over. This exercise in futility did not gain the so-called ‘benefits’ that President Donald Trump and his racist, jingoistic cohorts had hoped. Rather, it exposed disagreements between the U.S. and many of its allies, and worsened some of them.

Some U.S. allies sent low-level representatives, a direct slap in the face to the U.S; some went even further and skipped the event. Many of those invited, whether or not they attended, have criticized the U.S. for its withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) and are still seeking ways to circumvent U.S.-threatened sanctions if they continue to comply with the agreement. Iran, whose nuclear development program is regulated by the agreement, continues to be in compliance, as certified by international inspectors, although it is clearly under no legal obligation to do so. When one party to an agreement violates it, that agreement is null and void.

Prior to the Warsaw conference, Twitter saw considerable activity in support of it. This could have been due to U.S. propaganda success in portraying Iran as the monster of the world (note: this writer visited Iran in the summer of 2017, and he can assure the reader that Iran is not what the U.S. wants everyone to believe). One wonders how U.S. government officials can possible accuse Iran of being the ‘foremost sponsor of terror in the world’, when the U.S. is currently bombing at least six (6) countries, is working to overthrow the democratically-elected governments of Syria and Venezuela, has invaded, bombed or otherwise destabilized at least 30 countries in the last 50 years, and has caused the deaths of at least 20,000,000 people. Iran, on the other hand, hasn’t invaded another country since 1798: yes, that is 221 years.

But perhaps the U.S. hasn’t been all that successful, and the increase in ‘Tweets’ was due to some other cause. Trita Paris, an award-winning activist, reports on his Twitter page that a huge number of those anti-Iran ‘Tweets’ were placed by ‘bots.’ For the uninitiated, a ‘bot’ is short for ‘robot,’ defined as “a program that operates as an agent for a user or another program or simulates a human activity.” It is an electronic method for doing all kinds of things on computers, including recognizing words on ‘Tweets’ and resending them. Any individual with a rudimentary knowledge of programming can create a ‘bot,’ get it to identify key words such as ‘Iran,’ ‘Warsaw’ and ‘Increasing Sanctions,’ to name just a few possibilities, and then have it ‘re-Tweet’ those entries to thousands, or potentially millions, of other Twitter accounts.

Why might someone do this? For people who seek Iran’s destruction, but recognize that this is not what the people of Iran want, it is one way of skewing the perception.

And who would want this? The ugly alliance of the United States and Israel constitute the greatest threat to Iran. The apartheid Zionist entity wants complete hegemony in the Middle East, which would allow it to kill all the Palestinians and take their land. They use pro-Israel lobbies in the U.S. to purchase members of Congress, which then grant Israel unprecedented amounts of foreign aid, and impunity from its crimes in the United Nations.

It is a very poorly-kept secret that the government of Israel spends millions upon millions of dollars to combat the Boycott, Divest and Sanction (BDS) movement. Additionally, the Zionist entity pays university students to write positive things about it on social media. It forbids any investigation of its accusations of war crimes, proclaiming that its own investigations are sufficient; those ‘investigations’ exonerate it every time.

Does Israel commit war crimes, and crimes against humanity? In the 2014 slaughter of the Gaza Strip, Israel bombed residences, mosques, press buildings, hospitals, schools and United Nations refugee centers. That’s six war crimes right there. IDF terrorists shoot unarmed, incapacitated Palestinians. War crime number seven. Those same terrorists guard illegal settler-terrorists as they commit crimes against innocent Palestinians.

And what about general violations of international law? The blockade of the Gaza Strip, the occupation of the West Bank, the housing of over half-a-million illegal settlers on Palestinian land are just three examples.

The United States supports the MEK, once designated as a terrorist organization, but now welcomed into the U.S. family of violence. The MEK has as its goal the overthrow of the Iranian government and has killed thousands of innocent people.

How would U.S. spokespeople respond, one wonders, if Iran, Russia and other nations actively supported an organization whose goal was the overthrow of the U.S. government? No doubt any such nation would be quickly introduced to U.S. bombs.

The United States and Israel are determined to isolate Iran and overthrow its government, and replace it with one more to their liking, as was done in the 1953, when the U.S., through its own terrorist cell known as the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) overthrew the democratically-elected government of Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh, and installed the brutal Shah of Iran as monarch. For the next twenty-six years he oppressed the people of Iran, until he was overthrown in 1979, against the wishes of the United States. That revolution established the Islamic Republic of Iran, which the U.S. has opposed since its inception.

The Shah did as his U.S. masters directed; they cared not at all about his oppressive brutality. And when the Iranian people finally were able to rid themselves of the U.S. puppet, and installed a government of their own choosing, their new leaders were not quite so amenable to acceding to U.S. demands. Thus, the U.S. has chosen to sanction Iran for decades, support its enemies, and spread lies about the nation.

The Warsaw Conference didn’t quite accomplish U.S. goals, since most of the world is highly suspicious of the erratic and bellicose U.S. president, not wanting to anger him (U.S. violence has already been mentioned), but not particularly interested in following him over the cliff, either. And the other signatories to the JCPOA continue to seek ways to trade with Iran, thus providing Iran with the benefits that that agreement promised.

What the U.S. will do next is anyone’s guess. Bombing Iran, or supporting Israel in doing so, would not bode well for the Middle East, or the rest of the world. Iran is a large and powerful country, allied with Russia, which would not look favorably upon any such attack. It is hoped that Europe will continue to trade with Iran, enabling its people to live in peace and prosperity. U.S. efforts to the contrary will not turn out well, least of all for the U.S.

Robert Fantina, Mondoweiss,

About Robert Fantina
Robert Fantina is an author and activist for peace and international human rights. A U.S. citizen, he moved to Canada following the 2004 presidential election. His writing appears regularly on Counterpunch.org, Warisacrime.org, and other sites. Mr. Fantina resides near Toronto, Ontario.

March 3, 2019 0 comments

Iran Interlink Weekly Digest

Iran Interlink Weekly Digest – 253

++ Nejat Association announced the launch of campaign group “Mothers of the Forgotten Victims” led by mothers of the MEK’s hostages. The group pledges to bring to public attention the “crimes of the backers of hostage takers and terrorists”, who misuse their power to the point that for decades they have denied families the straightforward human right of meeting one another.

++ Former MEK members in Albania, left destitute by the UNHCR and Albanian government, planned a protest picket in Tirana. This was cancelled several times as the MEK exerted its influence over Albania’s Interior Ministry (facilitated by the CIA and MOSSAD). Eventually, they succeeded in holding their protest and due to the presence of a reporter, MEK were forced to back off. Some Farsi commentators have written that this is a breakthrough and the beginning of the MEK physically disintegrating as more and more people are running away and the MEK and its backers can’t control them any longer.

++ Maryam Rajavi was on overdrive last week to insist that Luisa Hommerich’s Der Spiegel report is completely wrong and nothing untoward is happening inside the Manez camp. At one point the MEK insisted that the ‘allegations of sessions of forced confessions are ridiculous’. Former members have demanded that Rajavi dare to publish some of the letters and reports they were made to write while in the MEK. Some have pointed to the letters that MEK has already published from ex-members ‘admitting’ they are agents of Iran and that they have got money from Iran, as well as letters denouncing their parents, siblings and children. These former members say these “forced confessions” were written under coercion. Other commentators simply ask, ‘if nothing is happening inside your camp, why did you send armed guards to deter the journalist and why don’t you let anyone to talk to the inmates (even to allow a father to talk to his daughter). Why don’t you allow even the national police or authorities into the camp? More importantly, why are there no records of the people in the camp? Why do they have no legal status, no identity papers or bank accounts? Why have the CIA and Mossad taken this camp under their protection away from the Albanian authorities, as they did in Saddam’s Iraq?’

++ The MEK published photographs of Maryam Rajavi in a room inside the French Senate pretending that she had been invited there by someone or other. Other pictures showed a session of the Parliament without anyone from the MEK in it. Maryam Rajavi has been banned from the EUP but Lobbyist Struan Stevenson wrote about Rajavi alongside the picture pretending that she is still allowed there. She isn’t.

++ Approaching the Iranian New Year (Nouruz) several people have summarized the last year and the failures and downfall of the MEK. Some have predicted that in spite of this Maryam Rajavi will make a speech declaring ‘we won, we won’!

In English:

++ As the fortieth anniversary of the Iranian revolution came and went, Mazda Parsi of Nejat Bloggers assessed the ‘Achievements Of Maryam Rajavi In 40 Years Of Fighting The IRI’. From its failed efforts to exploit the failed Warsaw Summit, to the continued exposure of MEK scandals about treatment of its members, to the beginnings of its disintegration following the collapse of Saddam Hussein’s regime in 2003, Parsi says there has not been a single step forward in the group’s claimed cause of overthrowing the Islamic Republic of Iran. The MEK’s only gain has been paid supporters. This is far outweighed by the loss of once loyal members.

++ In a longer piece criticising Facebook for having a foreign policy, Jefferson Morley in Salon wrote that “it seems to skew toward Israel and Iranian crackpots”. The crackpots are, of course, the MEK. Facebook removed an anti-MEK page while the MEK, which Facebook/DFRLab describes as “the largest and most active political opposition group against the Islamic Republic of Iran leadership”, still has a page. Morley says this “statement is so factually false as to be ludicrous”, adding “Facebook, wittingly or unwittingly, has succumbed to a crackpot propaganda campaign”. This is in spite of the fact that “Most non-governmental observers, who have not received money from the MEK, regard the group as a political cult”. Perhaps, says Morley, “Facebook … want[s] to promote a crackpot group for reasons of their own, perhaps related to the current U.S.-Saudi policy of hostility to Iran?”

++ Massoud Khodabandeh blogged around two intelligent articles about Iran saying “the complex issue of ‘dealing’ with Iran cannot be solved by the Trump administration or the European Union using the defunct Mojahedin Khalq (MEK) to shake a stick at the country. Iran’s government and ruling system is proving far too sophisticated for this stupid ‘regime change’ narrative. Iranians – inside and outside – don’t want that. Time for a new policy maybe; one that acknowledges facts on the ground rather than the delusion of empire.”

++ Following MEK death threats against Louisa Hommerich the Der Spiegel reporter, Anne Khodabandeh blogged that “it’s a mistake to approach the MEK as a normal opposition. Indeed, quoting MEK members is like giving a platform to Flat Earthers or Creationists. It is not balanced reporting. The MEK is a unique entity. Not an opposition, not a ‘group’ or ‘organization’, descriptions which imply a certain kind of accountable system and order… For the record, the MEK is a cult. Maryam Rajavi keeps slaves. It is that simple.”

++ With a touch of enthusiastic optimism shared by many, Ebrahim Khodabandeh wonders in a blog ‘When will Maryam Rajavi disappear?’ Based on the case of her husband Massoud Rajavi, who ‘disappeared’ in March 2003, and was pronounced dead by the MEK’s Saudi backers in 2017, Khodabandeh predicts that the failure of Maryam Rajavi to produce anything of any value for her promoters and paymasters, means she will soon also need to be replaced as the leader of the MEK.

++ The most important news over the past week has been the public protest by around forty former MEK members in Tirana, Albania. This is significant because the MEK intervened several times with the Albanian Interior Ministry to try to prevent the protest. The fact it went ahead showed two things. One is that the former slaves of Maryam Rajavi have been left destitute by the UNHCR which supposedly brought them from Iraq on ‘humanitarian grounds’ – apparently humanitarian assistance can only be given to members of a terrorist cult, not those who escape it. The other is that the CIA, MOSSAD and MEK are losing control over the people in Albania.
2019/03/01

March 3, 2019 0 comments

Mothers, forgetten victims of the MKO Cult

Human Rights Abuse in the MEK

Nejat Society declare the Establishment of “Mothers, Forgotten Victims”

Nejat Society declares the establishment of “Mothers, Forgotten Victims” on February 26, 2019.
Commemorating the Iranian Women’s Day, Nejat Society central office declares the establishment of an association to support mothers of the victims of the Mujahedin Khalq Organization (MKO/ MEK/ PMOI). The mothers whose children have been imprisoned behind the bars of the cult-like MKO group, are deprived from their basic right which is a free visit with their loved ones.
Nejat Society aims to be the voice of the mothers whose rights are ignored by the international community.
Further information on the activities of “Mothers, Forgotten Victims” association will be published eventually.
Nejat Society

March 2, 2019 0 comments

Maryam Rajavi

When would Maryam Rajavi disappear?

Massoud Rajavi was the sole leader of the Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK, MKO, NCR) terrorist cult for two decades. He disappeared just before the fall of Saddam Hussein in Iraq in March 2003. Since then no-one knows his whereabouts; his wife Maryam now leads the organization.

In the last sixteen years, a lot has been said and written about the reason for his disappearance and why he does not show his face even to his own followers. There were even rumours about his death that the MEK did not express any clear and firm reaction to, leading to even more speculation.

The undeniable fact is that the MEK has a dark history of terror, crimes and betrayals and therefore is hated by all Iranians, even those opposing the Islamic Republic. Massoud Rajavi, who had lost his popularity inside Iran, gambled his destiny and tied it up with that of Saddam Hussein who was a loser in the end.

After the fall of the Baghdad dictator – the cult’s sole state sponsor – the MEK tried to find an alternative for him, this time in the west. But the US and its regional allies were only happy to use the MEK without Massoud Rajavi. They wanted to bypass the cult leader and leave the cult’s unpopularity behind with him.

However, the MEK’s top officials knew that the cult would not remain intact without the charismatic leadership of Massoud Rajavi, and this left the organization in a deadly paradox. The new sponsors such as the Saudis wanted Massoud Rajavi out of the picture, yet the MEK could not survive without him.

Two years ago, former Saudi intelligence chief Prince Turki bin Faisal announced the death of Massoud Rajavi. At the same time Maryam Rajavi keeps talking as though he is leading the organization even though there is no trace of him.

But the MEK under Maryam Rajavi’s leadership has not met any of her new sponsors’ needs and requirements. It is time, therefore, for a new face if the MEK is going to be of any value against the Islamic Republic of Iran. We are waiting for her disappearance after that of her husband.

February 28, 2019 0 comments

The cult of Rajavi

It’s a mistake to treat the MEK as a normal opposition group

When reporter Luisa Hommerich wrote her investigative piece in Der Spiegel titled ‘Prisoners of Their Own Rebellion – The Cult-like Group Fighting Iran’, which exposes the grim situation for MEK members, I doubt she was expecting death threats to follow. After all, she was just doing her job. But that is exactly what the MEK reaction was. A Farsi language statement (written and published in Europe) promised her assassination. Nice.

Of course, for those who already know the MEK, this is not surprising. A timely reminder that the MEK cannot disown its past and cannot stop repeating its past, came in an interview with Nabi Ahamadi, who escaped the cult in Albania recently. Ahmadi was a close friend of Malik Sharai who was killed by MEK in June last year. He confirmed that Sharai was one of the few remaining witnesses to the mysterious death of 53 MEK members in Camp Ashraf, Iraq. He also confirmed that Sharai had asked to leave the group but was then held in solitary isolation before being physically eliminated by the MEK leaders. As a trained swimmer, Ahamdi says it is implausible that he drowned as MEK claim.

Another example is the suspicious assassination of Mohammad Reza Kolahi – the bomber of the Jomhouri Party headquarters in 1981 who was killed in the Netherlands in 2015. After he left the MEK Kolahi was always going to be a liability. He knew too much. So, why is nobody asking Maryam Rajavi about this convenient death?

One reason of course is that the MEK leader Maryam Rajavi refuses to engage with journalists, investigators, researchers. Anyone in fact who might get to the truth about her organization. Indeed, Hommerich did her job thoroughly, as did the journalists of Aljazeera, The Guardian, Independent, Channel 4 News, NBC and other down the years (there is a very long list). They all asked the MEK to give their side, to comment on their findings and to have a voice. The MEK called them all agents of the Iranian intelligence services and refused to talk.

Former MEK members Gholamreza Shekari and Hassan Heyrani from Albania, who were interviewed for the Der Spiegel article, revealed that not only did the MEK refuse Hommerich’s request for interviews, they sent armed guards to prevent her getting near to Camp Ashraf 3 in Manez. This is not the response of a normal political opposition. Issuing death threats to journalists is not the response of a normal political opposition. But then, there’s nothing normal at all about an opposition universally hated by their own people, inside and outside Iran.

It is a mistake to approach the MEK as a normal opposition. Indeed, quoting MEK members is like giving a platform to Flat Earthers or Creationists. It is not balanced reporting. The MEK is a unique entity. Not an opposition, not a ‘group’ or ‘organization’, descriptions which imply a certain kind of accountable system and order.

Hommerich asked to speak with someone from the MEK (NCRI) but they did not reply. Instead, she spoke with some of the many defectors who have escaped. Their stories do not differ much from the testimony of other former members over thirty years: the MEK is a cult that routinely and systematically abuses the human rights of its whole membership. According to 50-year-old Gholamreza Shekari, this is achieved through ‘lies, manipulation and fear’; a methodology known as Cultic Abuse.

For the record, the MEK is a cult. Maryam Rajavi keeps slaves. It is that simple.

February 28, 2019 0 comments

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