Page 212 – Nejat Society

How the US Uses the “Leftist” MEK Group for Soft Aggression Against Iran

Tehran (GPA) – Washington’s pulling out of the Iran nuclear deal and subsequently renewed sanctions come as US National Security Advisor appointee John Bolton’s existential objective to destroy Iran by any means necessary even if it means leveraging the soft power of a cultish death squad.

US President Donald Trump ramped up the threat with a Game of Thrones meme warning Iran, with a November 5 deadline, that “Sanctions are Coming.” Qasem Soleimani, a Major General in Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, responded with a meme of his own that Friday with the message “I will stand against you.”

More than just rhetoric, the exchange signified the high pomp the mention of sanctions posted to the Islamic Republic following an extensive international campaign by the US and Iranian expat and separatist allies to maximize their impacts.

The United States has slapped around a dozen sanctions on Iran since 1984 including two rounds on its shipping, oil, banking, and ship-building sectors since Trump’s removal from JCPOA earlier this year. These include five UN Security Council resolutions between July 2006 and 2008.

Despite the language of nuclear non-proliferation, one aim of the sanctions is to facilitate an atmosphere of intense economic frustration in hopes of inciting regime change — or what the State Department insists is just a change in “regime behavior.” This strategy includes supporting separatist groups like the MEK to accomplish this goal — without pulling the United States into another armed conflict.

The MEK originally began as a leftist student group, joining a coalition of forces against the Shah at the onset of the 1979 revolution. Relations with Iranian revolutionary leader Ruhollah Khomeini quickly soured after the Islamic Republic took power. The group carried out sophisticated bombings against the state, including a 1981 bombing that killed 74 government officials and another two months later that detonated in the Prime Minister’s office, killing President Mohammad Ali Rajaei, Prime Minister Mohammad Javad Bahonar, and three others. Before the revolution, the MEK was responsible for attacks against American civilians and was later housed, supported, and trained by Saddam Hussein during the Iraqi-led, US-backed 1980-1988 war. A history of waging terror attacks inside Iran and abroad in support of destabilizing the current government has rendered them natural allies with the US.

It was also in exile that the organization rebranded from an “Islamo-Marxist” to a pro-free market, Western-allied one to win the support of Europe, the West, and other reactionary powers in the Middle East. A history of waging terror attacks inside Iran and abroad in support of destabilizing the current government have rendered them natural allies with the US.

In addition, various NATO powers have hosted and given the separatist groups coverage in attempts of strengthening support and ties with the United States. They Include France, where the MEK and its umbrella organization NCRI is based, Denmark and the Netherlands, housing Arab Struggle Movement for the Liberation of Ahvaz (ASMLA), and Albania, where a MEK camp, housing a training ground and even Twitter troll-farm, pumping out anti-government tweets and pro-Rajavi propaganda, is based.

Anti-government and “Persian” or “Aryan” nationalist Twitter accounts, exclusively Tweeting anti-regime information, hashtag #IranStrike #FreeIran, and #IranRegimeChange, and circulate pro-Rajavi propaganda photos. Many openly express their support of their right-wing, US spokesperson, retweeting former US ambassador and MEK lobbyist John Bolton.

We congratulate the government of #Denmark on its arrest of an Iranian regime assassin. For nearly 40 years, Europe has been the target of #Iran-sponsored terrorist attacks. We call on our allies and partners to confront the full range of Iran’s threats to peace and security.

— Secretary Pompeo (@SecPompeo) October 30, 2018

News of sporadic labor strikes, such as those in the steel industry in Ahvaz, conveniently coincided with each round of sanctions: both in early November and in August. As Iran’s industries, including steel, sugar cane, and automotive, become amongst many taking significant hits following US sanctions, coverage of the protests, with sources almost exclusively by pro-NCRI and pro-Gulf media outlets, frame this as evidence of government corruption and mismanagement rather than an effect of sanctions co-opted for regime change narrative purposes.

While the US doesn’t have all that much faith in the MEK as a credible and reliable proxy alternative, the group seems to be their best bet in helping open up Iran’s free markets, allying with NATO powers, and neutralizing Iran’s support for resistance movements in Gaza, Lebanon, and Yemen against US-backed allies Israel and Saudi Arabia.

In October, terrorist attacks in Paris and Denmark led the NCRI/MEK’s propaganda outlets to point to the Islamic Republic to blame. Secretary Mike Pompeo, addressing an audience of Iranian-American expats at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Library in July in support of escalating tensions with Iran and solidifying support amongst Iranian separatists with the US and Israel, issued a Tweet immediately after the attack attempt framing the Iranian government and calling for “allies and partners” to “confront” Iran.

The attacks came at a time where the Iranian government was attempting to curtail the effect of US sanctions by strengthening economic ties with the European Union. In response to the pressure, France placed a freeze on Iranian intelligence assets in October. Despite the lack of evidence pointing to the Islamic Republic as the perpetrators of the Europe attacks, those European Union nations are considering following suit in a shift in policy towards sanctions.

The attacks were pushed by MEK and al-Ahwaz, the latter of which waged a deadly terrorist attack against a southwest Iran military parade that killed 25 civilians a month prior. Denmark, the Netherlands, and France’s coverage to groups like the MEK in Paris and Arab Struggle Movement for the Liberation of Ahvaz (ASMLA) in Denmark, accomplished its objectives of garnering support for EU sanctions against Iran. The Zionist intelligence body Mossad assisted in the effort, tipping Danish intelligence off to blaming Iran.

The MEK’s lack of any real support in their country of exile has prompted it to refocus its efforts on it’s “international audience,” winning the sympathies of the West and the US. After 2006, the Bush administration ramped up financial support for Iranian expat civil society organizations, through its newly instated ‘Iran Democracy Fund’. That year, an additional $75 million went to promoting a change in “regime behavior.”

Outside funds have supported a number of expat radio stations and media outlets, including London-based and Saudi-backed Iranian International, hosting Denmark-based ASMLA spokesperson to report that the attacks on the Ahvaz military parade terrorist attack in Iran were against military targets, France-based Iranian News Update, and Iranian News Wire in California. Of these include Radio Farda, established in 2002 as the Iranian branch of US-funded Radio Free Europe, having met with the Israeli Defense Minister in September and interviewed Shimon Peres in 2014. With the support of Israel and the United States, the station’s objectives of advancing the goal of the conglomerate in advancing the goals of US and NATO foreign policy, regularly providing positive press and favorable coverage for the US (having used sources directly from the CIA) and Israel, using falsified information. Though the station is banned in Iran, enjoying the support of anti-government expats, Israel claims it is the most widely listened to source in Iran, signaling a media relationship just as prolific as its political and intelligence based ones.

In January, MintPress News found that the United States spent over $1 million dollars since 2016 towards pro-regime change funding. Many of these funds also came from Saudi Arabia whom the MEK has always kept the relationship secret. These funds help bankroll media, lobby American elected officials, buy up land in Albania to use for training and propaganda camps and to support a headquarters in France. They even included John Bolton’s personal $180,000 stipend.

The proliferation of the unrest in the 2017-2018 protests received immediate support from US far-right, such as Trump, Paul Ryan, and John Bolton. Many top figures from the US far-right right-wing political pundits, who have aggressively fought civil liberties and support for workers rights in the US, were the first to issue their lip service support of the demonstrations. Just a month before the 2017 protests, CIA analyst Kenneth Katzmann concluded that “domestic factors” that would incite “an uprising” would, towards the potential favor of US war hawks, “precipitate policy changes that either favor or are adverse to US interests.”

In late September, the Trump administration outlined in a report entitled “Outlaw Regime: A Chronicle of Iran’s Destructive Activities” identified as the government’s top “destructive activities,” highlighting its support of what the Trump administration considers “support of terrorist militias and proxies.”

The report devoted two sections to Iran’s “human rights” and “environmental” abuses, with the proposed solutions to not only continue US funding to these groups — many of whom echo accusations the US waged in its justification of anti-Iran hostilities.

Congress had previously allocated over $20 million for “democracy promotion” in Iran, following accusations that Iran possessed nuclear weapons. It was the MEK that had given false and misleading information to US intelligence on Iran’s alleged possession of nuclear weapons in 2002, a year before the US destabilized Iraq over accusations of “weapons of mass destruction.” This polemic, inspiring an odd part of then-president George W Bush’s “Axis of Evil” speech, is also solidified in MEK leader Maryam Rajavi 10-point plan. The last point demands a “non-nuclear Iran,” calls for the Islamic Republic be “free of weapons of mass destruction.”

Despite its early leftist leanings, the group today galvanizers “private property” and “the free market” as another core component of its 10 point manifesto. The aggressively neoliberal rhetoric of the MEK, winning over the sentiments of Western so-called human rights values and ideals in many of these Western-backed and Saudi-sponsored “human rights” NGOs, provides the material and strategic support for economic and foreign policies that are the motivator for the regime-change inclinations against Iran. But they also solidify their support amongst many wealthy Iranian expats, angered by the government’s policies of aggressive wealth and asset redistribution and level of economic centralization comparable to socialist Cuba.

The 30 other countries that are on the US’s regime change shit list also work through similar propaganda tactics. Top foundations employ the same tactics of objectives of regime change through “diplomatic” networks, such as the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), set up in 1980. As of now, the activities of the NED include photo ops in Washington DC to support Nicaragua regime change and financing.

The NED continues its policy and these activities in Iran through the “Foundation for Democracy,” whose board and work consists of a cohort of fellows and officials with right-wing think tanks, various U.S. intelligence agencies, defense companies, and contractors, and, like co-chair William Norjay, have accrued experience in other regime change propaganda apparatuses against countries like Cambodia, Afghanistan, and Ukraine.

Shortly after the U.S. announces its abandonment of its regime change policies in Syria, it is shifting its energy more towards direct confrontation with Iran. In the aftermath of failed proxy wars, the rehashing of old soft-power strategies might just be the “lessons for Washington” on how to overthrow a regime Bolton has contemplated in a 2013 op-ed in what he considered an otherwise “accomplished” ouster of Saddam Hussein in 2003.

Julia”Samar”Kassem , Geopoliticsalert.com

November 28, 2018 0 comments

Missions of Nejat Society

Meet MEK: the Terrorist Cult Supported by Trump Administration

Back in 2016 I wrote a piece on this weblog entitled US Politicians Should Stop Embracing the Authoritarian Terrorist Group, MEK, in which I attempted to warn US politicians of being close to People’s Mujahedin of Iran, an extremist Islamist-Marxist group. Since then, two developments have moved to revisit this subject: (1) The US government has gotten much closer to this group and (2) I’ve read a book which has made me realize that they were far worse than what I imagined in my worst nightmares.

In my 2016 piece, I first briefly introduced the group:

What do Americans hate the most? It seems to be Islamic terror group and armed Marxists. The Islamists are the focus of the war on terror now and generally considered the greatest threat to US’s interests, and communists were the big enemy during the Cold War. Also, Saddam Hussein seems to be a great enemy of the US, considering how they went to two wars against him. Then why, one really needs to ask, US politicians who frequently warn against the dangers of Islamic and leftist extremism, endorse an authoritarian terrorist group that are Islamist and leftist militants at the same time, and fought loyally for Saddam Hussein? […] I’m talking about MEK of course. Their name means People’s Mujahedin of Iran. This group has an ideology which mixes radical Islamism and radical leftism. […] This group is worse than the Islamic Republic. It’s worse than radical extremist and conservative elements of the regime, let alone reformists and moderates. They’re much more authoritarian, theocratic, and repressive than any regime in our entire history.

I stand by the assessment that they are worse even than the worse elements of the Islamic Republic. Now, I think they are as bad North Korea’s regime or Pol Pot’s, as bad as Taliban and IS. The reason that my assessment of them has soured this much is a book called Masoud’s Organization, written by Mohsen Zaal, a liberal belonging to the moderate Muslim movement, revealing the repugnant nature of this group. This book is only available in Persian, and it’s entirely based on memos and observations by the former members who have fled it.

In my previous blogpost about the books, I mentioned the things that are bad about this group:

They torture and kidnap their own members to force them to remain and not leave the group. They work in absolute secrecy and have zero transparency. They engage in a Stalinist-level cult of personality for their leaders. They have engaged in many political assassinations and terrorist bombings, one of which killed a group of American citizens. Their media is complete lies, propaganda which rivals the Nazi’s. Not only it’s cult of the personality, it spreads completely fabricated lies. […] When Iran-Iraq War was happening, they defected Iran, joined forces with Saddam Hussein, and even helped him oppress the Kurdish people.

All of this is true, but what I missed was the terrifying proportion of how actually evil this group was. Let us take a look at things mentioned by Zaal in his book about the atrocities committed by them:All individuality is killed among members.

All value is given to following the leader, and not anything else. You should be completely and thoroughly committed to the leader. Your value is not determined based on your rank in the previous iterations of the group or your history of revolutionary struggles, but merely based on how loyal and close to the leaders you are.

No criticism or disagreement with the leadership is allowed, only absolute obedience. If you criticize the leadership, other members will curse at you or beat you up. As you have no individuality outside the leadership, no personal attribute is tolerated. One member, for examples, disfigures his face with a utility knife because his handsomeness is considered an obstacle to true devotion to the leader. Children receive no education except being indoctrinated to the cult’s ideology. Members were completely cut off from the outside world with no phones, internet, or TV, and even reading books is frowned upon.

The members have absolutely no privacy. They’re constantly monitored, even in showers and toilets, and their lockers have no locks. If you don’t have a picture of the leader in your locker, the cult will be suspicious of you. Everything one writes is monitored. Upon joining the cult, all your personal documents (e.g. passport) are confiscated. Members avoid talking to each other, because every word can be used against you later.

Martyrdom is encouraged, and all martyrs are valued because they gave up their lives for the leaders (not the cause). All members are encouraged to commit suicide, whether if they are arrested by the police (Iranian, Iraqi, or European police), or as a part of protests (self-immolation to protest the arrest of Maryam Rajavi). All of these show that they don’t consider human life valuable in the slightest.

All sexuality is oppressed. Uniforms are mandatory, and women’s uniforms include hijab. All cosmetics and accessories are banned. Actions such as combing your hair, removing facial hair for women, wearing loose shoes, rolling your sleeves for women, and having a hand in the pockets of one’s pants are considered “indecent” and “immodest” and punished. Even when it comes to uniforms, wearing new uniforms instead of old tattered ones is considered “bourgeois” and is frowned upon.

Men and women are not allowed to shake hands. They are also not allowed to have eye contact when speaking to each other. Men are not allowed to ever sit next to a woman, especially in a car. MEK’s paranoia regarding sexuality goes to ridiculous extremes: If a woman is sitting on a chair, no man is allowed to sit on the same chair after her unless some time passes and her body’s warmth leaves the chair.

Of course, these limits are not enforced upon Masoud Rajavi, the leader. All MEK women are “his wives”, and he has sex with many of them. These acts are called “salvation dance” and they are defined not as sexual but spiritual and religious acts.

One way to enforce this culture is “confession”, sessions where people gather and lament their own lack of commitment to the leadership and the idea of revolution. In these sessions people humiliate themselves and others, crying and stating that they deserve to be executed. If you don’t come up with an adequate thing to confess, you will be verbally and at times physically attacked by others, who think you are hiding your sins.

Being a religious cult, prayers and fasting are mandatory, and men are required to have mustaches. More importantly, gradually the leaders are elevated to the level of holy figures in the Shia religion. It seems that in recent years he has gone a step further and has called himself the 12th imam, the Islamic messiah, and that is why he has disappeared from the public since 2003 (if the real is not that he’s dead, at least).

Not even the slightest of infractions are tolerated. Even an anti-Rajavi graffiti on the toilet wall is investigated by comparing it to the handwriting of people and imprisonment and torture.

This culture results in an event where all married couples are forced to divorce, because the love of a spouse lessens from the love of their leader and they should have only one love, the leader, no other. The next logical step is also taken: all children are taken away from their parents because parental love dilutes the love pf the leader. When a woman cries as her infant child is being taken away, she is punished for her lack of obedience and exhibiting sadness at the order of the leader.

Likewise, having friends is frowned upon and people are discouraged from befriending each other. People are used to spy on one another and this leads to an atmosphere where everyone is suspicious of every body else. Even having pictures of loved ones is considered bad, and members are encouraged to trade in the pictures of their family for pictures of the Rajavis.

Disobedient members are punished in the most gruesome ways. Imprisonment and torture is rampant, members are tortured by being beaten down or whipped. Some people are kicked on the head with boots. Sleep deprivation, mock executions, and rape threats are also another torture method. One woman was forced, under torture, to confess in public that she was raped by the Iranian police, and then to confess that she wants to have sex with men. When Masoud Rajavi was consolidating his leadership position, he tortured one of the other leaders by cutting off one of his fingers, and then killed him.

If you are accused of a crime, denying it is fruitless because you are just assumed to be guilty, and you will be tortured and put under solitary confinement under metal shelter buildings. You will not be freed unless you confess. Some people were kept there for eight years. There are information of about three people who were killed under torture. Some prisoners were handed to Saddam’s regime. Sometimes people were taken to the border with Iran and were told they can return to Iran, but once they began leaving they were shot in the back and killed.

I hope that you can now understand why the idea of MEK being propped up by the US regime to destabilize Iran is so scary to me as an Iranian, and I hope you can see why I’d never even consider supporting them, because they are worse than even the worst elements of the Islamic Republic, let alone its moderates and reformists.

MEK has always been supported by the US, but it has never been so close to an administration as it is now close to the Trump’s regime. Among people who were very close to the MEK, one, John Bolton, is now Trump’s National Security Advisor, one, Mike Pompeo, is Secretary of State, and one, Rudy Giuliani, is the president’s personal lawyer. These officials have not been shy about flaunting their alliance with the MEK, as Pompeo addressed them, and Giuliani spat on a copy of the Iran Deal in their conference.

Trita Parsi summarizes the closeness of the MEK and US administrations:

Given the MEK’s long record of terrorism, human rights abuses, and murder of US citizens, one would think that senior American officials like Giuliani, Pompeo, and Bolton wouldn’t go near the MEK, let alone fraternize with its members or take its fees. But when it comes to Iran, the usual rules don’t apply.

Even when the MEK was on the terrorist list, the group operated freely in Washington. Its office was in the National Press Club building, its Norooz receptions on Capitol Hill were well attended by lawmakers and Hill staff alike, and plenty of congressmen and women from both parties spoke up regularly in the MEK’s favor. In the early 2000s, in a move that defied both logic and irony, Fox News even hired a senior MEK lobbyist as an on-air terrorism commentator.

Al-Qaeda may treat its members better, but rest assured, neither al-Qaeda nor ISIS has ever rented office space in Washington, held fundraisers with lawmakers, or offered US officials speaking fees to appear at their gatherings. […] At the heart of this improbable-seeming affinity lies a sense of common interest between these anti-Iran fundamentalist, pro-war elements in Washington and Rajavi’s terrorist militia. The US hawks have no problem with the MEK’s terrorist capacities because the group’s utility is beyond dispute—after all, NBC reported that Israel’s spy agency, the Mossad, relied on MEK operatives to assassinate Iranian nuclear scientists during Iran and Israel’s secret dirty war between 2010 and 2012.

It’s time for US liberals, progressives, and anyone who supports the idea of human rights to demand action against this terrorist group. The real reason that the Trump regime has been able to freely paternalize with MEK is the fact that there is radio silence in western media regarding them. It’s time to protest and demand the US to stop sponsoring this dangerous cult.

by Kaveh Mousavi, Patheos.com

November 24, 2018 0 comments

The cult of Rajavi

This death cult is Uncle Sam’s choice of ‘good guys’ to replace Iran’s clerics

Everybody knows Washington wants to get rid of people currently in power in Iran. But who is the better alternative to mullahs? Some top US officials say it’s this death cult hated by pretty much everyone in Iran.

Meet People’s Mujahedin of Iran, also known as the MEK, whose recent gatherings were graced by the likes of Donald Trump’s National Security Advisor John Bolton and the US president’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani. Quite a guest list for an organization that started as an Iranian Marxist-Leninist armed group trying to oust the US-backed shah along with the Ayatollah.

After falling out with the new government in Iran, the MEK started a campaign of bombing and assassinations of loyalist officials. Then they got kicked out of the country and found refuge in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. During the war between the two countries, they fought against their own countrymen. More recently, MEK members were helping Israeli intelligence assassinate Iranian nuclear scientists. So, you may guess how big of a supporter base they have in Iran now.

As the MEK’s supply of fresh recruits dwindled, it transformed into a bona fide cult centered around its charismatic leader Massoud Rajavi and his wife Maryam. Members were forced to observe celibacy, divorce spouses and cut all contacts with family. Would-be troublemakers or potential escapees were subjected to beatings, outright torture and disappearances.

Enter US troops – and the MEK gets revitalized with new combat training, protection and the privilege of not being on the US’ terrorists list, thank to Hillary Clinton’s State Department. Their past sins against Americans whitewashed, they are now treated by Washington as a legitimate group and pretty much the only viable replacement for the Iranian government.

Across the political aisle, US politicians put more money in their coffers – which conveniently allows MEK fake popularity by hiring crowds of bored spectators to attend their events.

Watch the FULL REPORT by Rania Khalek on MEK and how it fits Washington’s plan to squeeze and strangle Tehran no matter the costs for Iranians.

November 22, 2018 0 comments

Former members of the MEK

Recently defected Sadollah Seifi at Nejat Society office

Saadollah Seifi visited families of MKO hostages at Nejat Society office in Kermanshah.

Following the return of Sadollah Seifi from Albania to his hometown Kermanshah, Iran, a number of families whose beloveds are still taken as hostages in the MKO’s base in Albania contacted Nejat Society and asked for visiting Saadollah. They were eager to get to know about the conditions of their loved ones in the MKO.

Eventually the visit took place in the office of Nejat Society in Kermanshah. Some of the attendees were children of the MKO members who have not seen their mother or father for more than two decades.

Seifi spoke of the brainwashing system ruling the MKO that has been demonizing family as the corruption center for years now. “This way, the hostages are coerced to dedicate their whole life to the group,” he said.

Based on Seifi’s testimony, the ruling atmosphere in the group’s base in Albania has deteriorated. The group leaders force members to sign engagement deals every month in order to keep them inside the camp.

However, members are more courageous now and defection from the group is on the rise. We will witness more defection from the group in near future, according to Seifi.

During the meeting, another defector living in Albania also talked to families via video call. He told them about possible tactics for helping their loved ones release from the MKO.

November 22, 2018 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

US Making Big Mistake by Relying on MKO Info

Iran’s First Vice-President Es’haq Jahangiri says the Americans’ biggest mistake is that they have relied on the information and analyses provided by members of the MKO terrorist group to make their decisions about Iran.

Jahangiri made the comment at a ceremony to inaugurate a sewage refinery in the southern Iranian city of Ahvaz on Monday.

“Since last year, the Americans had pinned their hopes on the assumption that Iran would not be able to mark the 40th anniversary of the victory of the Islamic Revolution,” he said.

“One of the reasons they mentioned was that current Iranian officials would not be willing to celebrate the occasion. Maybe one of the reasons that caused the Americans to make a mistake in this regard was that the news source of the White House was basically the MKO,” he said.

Jahangiri said the Americans’ impression that people have taken to the streets in cities across Iran and that the Islamic Revolution is in disarray is due to the reports they receive from MKO members.

The vice-president underlined that the decisions made by the US government on Iran are based on the false and fabricated news it receives.

“US authorities make decisions that always deal a serious blow to the credibility of this country and their status on the international stage,” he added.

The top official further touched upon Washington’s unilateral withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal, saying the move is a loss for the Americans.

“The Americans thought they could disrupt Iran’s economy by withdrawing from the Iran nuclear deal and beginning [to impose] the sanctions and, hence, spoil the country’s political and social situation, but we saw the opposite happened,” he noted.

“They wanted to stop Iran’s oil exports, but failed as well, and we exported petroleum as much as we needed to,” he said.

By IFP Editorial Staff ,Iran Front Page,

November 19, 2018 0 comments

Human Rights Abuse in the MEK

Western Journalists disclose severe human rights abuses in the MEK

Just by searching the word”MEK”you can find unbiased articles and videos from independent journalists who investigated the Mujahedin Khalq Organization (the MKO/ MEK/ PMOI/ the Cult of Rajavi) and revealed its true nature. The most recent one was published by former CIA agent Paul Pillar on the National Interest. [1]

Paul Pillar wrote this one following the publication of a 6,600-word article titled “Terrorists, cultists – or champions of Iranian democracy? The wild wild story of the MEK” in the Guardian by Arron Merat, on November 9th. Merat is a former Iran correspondent of the Economist and as Pillar describes him “an experienced Iran-watcher”. [2]

Among a lot of different details that Merat presents about the MKO, aspects of human rights abuses that is committed by the group leaders are prevalent and undeniable. He begins with the story of a girl imprisoned in the MKO, Somayeh Mohammadi whose parents Mostafa and Mahboubeh have been striving to visit her without the supervision of the MKO authorities, for over 20 years.

However, human rights violation against the MKO members is not restricted to those who are taken as hostages inside the group’s base in Tirana. Defectors of the group are not enjoying the basic human rights of refugees.

Arron Merat states that after the relocation of the group in Albania the group bought up land in Albania and built a new base. “But the move from Iraq to the relative safety of Albania has precipitated a wave of defections,” He writes. “Those with means have fled the country to the EU and the US, but around 120 recent MEK escapees remain in Tirana with no right to work or emigrate. I spoke to about a dozen defectors, half of whom are still in Albania, who said that MEK commanders systematically abused members to silence dissent and prevent defections – using torture, solitary confinement, the confiscation of assets and the segregation of families to maintain control over members. In response to these allegations, an MEK spokesperson said: “The individuals who are described as ‘former members’ were being used as part of a demonisation campaign against the MEK.” [3]

Merat suggests that the MKO’s allegations about defectors are false because “the testimony of these recent defectors follows earlier reports from groups such as Human Rights Watch, which reported former members witnessed “beatings, verbal and psychological abuse, coerced confessions, threats of execution and torture that in two cases led to death”.” [4]

The guardian correspondent lists cases of human rights abuses that have been committed by the MKO leaders naming individuals who personally had the authentic experience of being abused by the leaders. The detailed accounts of numerous aspects of human rights violations inside the MKO included self-confession sessions, physical and mental torture, sexual abuse of female members by Massoud Rajavi, Forced divoce, forced hysterectomy surgeries that made women barren and solitary confinement. Manouchehr Abdi, Batoul Soltani, Zahra Moini and Fereshteh Hedayati are some of former members that Arron Merat quotes their testimonies in his article.

After bringing enough evidence on the abusive system of the cult-like MKO, Merat gets back to Somayeh and her grieving parents. He cites that the Mohammadis‘ lawyer has revealed the fact that the Albanian police are influenced by the misinformation campaign of the MKO. “Politics is interfering in the judicial system,” the lawyer told Merat. “When I went to the police station to register their complaint the police officers actually ran away. They are scared of losing their jobs.” [5]

He then recounts the violent behavior of the MKO agents against Mostafa and Mahboubeh. “The MEK has not taken kindly to the presence of the Mohammadis in Albania,” he states. “They accuse Mostafa – and any former member who has spoken out against the MEK – of being a paid agent of the “mullah regime”. On 27 July, Mostafa was hospitalised following an assault by four senior members of the MEK, which was captured on video by his wife. The attackers, who shouted “Terrorist!” at Mohammadi, were briefly detained by Albanian police. But, after a phalanx of MEK members arrived at the police station, the men were promptly released.” [6]

And about the so-called TV interview with Somayeh in which she accused her father of being an Iranian intelligence agent, Merat writes, “A nervous-looking Somayeh recently gave a video interview inside the MEK base saying that she wishes to remain a member of the group.” [7]

Paul Pillar completes Merat’s article by comparing the cult leaders Massoud and Maryam Rajavi to notorious cult leaders like Jim Jones and Shoko Asahara. “Families have been broken up, married couples told to divorce, and women threatened with punishment if they did not “marry” Massoud and endure his sexual abuse,” Pillar asserts. “Stomach-turning details continue to emerge from the MEK’s current location in Albania, including stories of forced hysterectomies and would-be escapees subjected to solitary confinement. The former head of Albanian military intelligence says that MEK members live in the group’s current compound as “hostages” amid “extraordinary psychological violence and threats of murder.” [8]

As we observer, accounts on suppression and violence inside the MKO camps are not few but conscientious people should take serious action to stop these horrible violence.

Mazda Parsi

References:

[1] Pillar, Paul, The MEK and the Bankrupt U.S. Policy on Iran, the National Interest, November 13th, 2018.

[2] Merat, Arron, Terrorists, cultists – or champions of Iranian democracy? The wild wild story of the MEK, The Guardian, November 9^th, 2018.

[3] ibid

[4] ibid

[5] ibid

[6] ibid

[7] ibid

[8] Pillar, Paul, The MEK and the Bankrupt U.S. Policy on Iran, the National Interest, November 13th, 2018.

November 19, 2018 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Memories of Middle East misadventures

‘Trump’s use of presidential powers to dictate to other countries with whom they can and can’t do business has entrenched resentment among U.S. allies that will come back to haunt him.’

In this season of remembrance, it’s worth recalling it was only 15 years ago that snorting ideologues in the White House, an incompetent president, and a Middle Eastern confidence trickster took the United States to war in Iraq.

About 400,000 people died as a direct result of that invasion by the U.S., which was justified by the totally fabricated claim that Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein was producing weapons of mass destruction.

Now, the death stars are aligning again after Washington’s imposition of rigorous sanctions on Iran following the Donald Trump regime’s decision in May to pull the U.S. out of the United Nations’ agreement to halt Tehran’s nuclear development program.

What the White House wants to happen next is confused.

Trump has talked vaguely of forcing Iran to negotiate a new deal that would: curb Tehran’s power politics in the Middle East; halt its support for groups like Hezbollah; and squash its nuclear and missile development programs.

But Trump has not set out a road map for Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, nor the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, to follow. This is hardly surprising. Trump is a flim-flam artist for whom the performance is all that counts.

However, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and the National Security Advisor John Bolton are clear about what they want. They want regime change in Tehran.

They are under the same delusion that drove the ideologues around President George W. Bush to press for the invasion of Iraq. Bolton and Pompeo think it will take only a little encouragement and pressure for the Iranian people to overthrow the Islamic state and move seamlessly to establish a democracy.

The Bush White House was captivated by a convicted confidence trickster named Ahmed Chalabi. He created an exile group called the Iraqi National Congress, and even managed to get the Bush administration to finance his faux resistance.

Chalabi fed the Bush menagerie false information about Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction that was used to justify the invasion.

The Central Intelligence Agency warned that Chalabi was unreliable, but the Bush leaguers were so besotted, they called him “The George Washington of Iraq.” Only after the invasion and Chalabi’s installation in government did his lying and fakery quickly become apparent, and he was dumped.

Bolton, Pompeo and others in the Trump regime seem to be going down the same quagmire path with a strange Iranian exiled dissident group called the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq, or MEK.

MEK has a turbulent history. It was founded in the 1960s in opposition to the shah of Iran and was part of the Islamic Revolution that overthrew him in 1979. MEK quickly fell out with the new regime, led by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, and the group went into exile in Iraq.

MEK members fought with Saddam Hussein’s forces in the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq War. Most Iranians, even those who oppose the current regime, find that traitorous, and MEK has very little following in Iran.

When American forces came upon MEK after the Iraq invasion, their first move was to join other countries in labelling it a terrorist group. After all, MEK members had killed six Americans in terrorist attacks in Iran in the 1970s.

However, MEK members and surrogates mounted a well-financed lobby in Washington. In 2012, the terrorist designation was removed, largely because of lobbying by Bolton. This was a necessary legal preliminary for the U.S. to be able to move the group to sanctuary in Albania. This is one of the few countries willing to accept what has become a cult that treats its members, believed to number around 10,000, more like prisoners than followers.

The leaders of MEK are the married couple Massoud and Maryam Rajavi, though nothing has been heard of Massoud since the 2003 invasion of Iraq and he is presumed dead. Maryam Rajavi is the effective leader of MEK from her exile in France.

And it’s in France that some of the most lavish courting of Washington potentates takes place.

In 2016, a political extravaganza in Paris arranged by MEK drew Bolton, and the man who is now Trump’s personal lawyer on the Russian-collusion file, former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, among an array of Washington A-listers.

There are widespread reports that each was paid around US$25,000, and perhaps as high as US$50,000 for their presentations. These were arranged through a speakers’ bureau to give the money a light laundering. Bolton has disclosed he was paid US$40,000 to speak at a MEK rally in 2017.

Where MEK’s money comes from is unclear. But another Paris gala was held in July this year, after Bolton had been appointed Trump’s national security adviser.

Bolton told the crowd of 4,000, many bussed in from their Albanian sanctuary, “There is a viable alternative to the rule of the ayatollahs, and that opposition is centred in this room today. The behaviour and objectives of the regime are not going to change, and therefore the only solution is to change the regime itself.”

Bolton’s support for regime change was echoed by Giuliani, who was also making a repeat appearance at the function.

Bolton was at it again on Tuesday at a conference in Singapore, when he said it is Washington’s intention to “squeeze” Iran “until the pips squeak.”

Yet despite the influence of the Bolton-Pompeo-Giuliani axis, it’s unlikely either Trump or Tehran will follow their script.

Trump is a bully, and, like all bullies, he is a coward at heart.

Iran presents little direct threat to the U.S. at the moment, and the ayatollahs show every intention of keeping it that way. UN inspections show Tehran continues to follow the requirements of the 2015 agreement limiting its nuclear program well short of any potential for making weapons.

But Iran is a threat to American allies Saudi Arabia and Israel. However, the recent behaviour of both those governments makes it difficult for even an amoral regime like Trump’s to pursue outrage against Tehran on their behalf.

The murder in Istanbul of journalist Jamal Khashoggi has the fingerprints of Saudi ruler Prince Mohammed bin Salman all over it. And the prince’s war in Yemen is a humanitarian disaster with millions of people facing starvation.

Meanwhile in Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu lives in an evil-smelling haze of corruption charges, and his top military and intelligence officials don’t believe Iran is a nuclear threat.

Trump’s withdrawal from the 2015 agreement with Tehran is one of the many reasons for the growing division between the current Oval Office regime, and Europe and the democratic world in general, including Canada. This gulf was on display at the ceremonies in France marking the 100th anniversary of the end of the First World War, where Trump was ostracized both by the group and himself.

That chasm will grow if Trump attempts to go beyond sanctions in his attack on Iran.

Europe is attempting to protect its companies against revenge from Washington if they continue to do business with Iran. So are two other major signatories of the 2015 nuclear deal, Russia and China.

Trump’s use of presidential powers to dictate to other countries with whom they can and can’t do business has entrenched resentment among U.S. allies that will come back to haunt him.

Iran and Iranians, for their part, will suffer greatly from the Trump sanctions that are intended to batter them into submission. There is already some public disquiet about inflation and the shrinking value of the currency.

But they are a resourceful people, well used to living in a tough neighbourhood, and surviving and thriving in the face of adversity.

Tehran is concerned that Iranians’ resourcefulness will get out of control, and it has introduced draconian penalties for financial crimes, which it calls “spreading corruption on earth.” Two men were executed on Wednesday under the financial-crime laws, one for having a hoard of two tons of gold coins.

Yet the history of sanctions and embargoes is that they create wonderfully inventive economies. Iranians will find ways around Trump’s sanctions.

There is substantial opposition to Iran’s Islamic state, especially in the cities, but all that Trump’s cack-handed approach is likely to achieve is greater national unity against a common enemy.

Jonathan Manthorpe, i politics

November 18, 2018 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

The MEK and the Bankrupt U.S. Policy on Iran

The fact that a group as dubious as the Mujahedin-e Khalq figures so prominently in the Trump administration’s policy on Iran demonstrates the bankruptcy of that policy.

Among the many indicators of misdirection in the Trump administration’s policy toward Iran, one of the clearest is the fondness for the cult-cum-terrorist group known as the Mujahedin-e Khalq, or MEK. The national security advisor, John Bolton, and Donald Trump’s attorney, Rudy Giuliani, are among the group’s most prominent cheerleaders, having been featured speakers at its rallies. They and other shills for the MEK refer to the group as if it represented what it decidedly is not: a democratic alternative to the current Iranian political system.

Journalist Arron Merat, an experienced Iran-watcher who formerly was the Economist’s Tehran correspondent, has just published a 6,600-word article about the MEK in the Guardian. The piece is well worth reading as it forms a richly informed and up-to-date portrait that leaves no doubt about the nature of the group and the ghastly inappropriateness of using the MEK in any way as a vehicle for U.S. policy in the region.

The MEK originated as a student movement that opposed the Shah of Iran and spouted an ideology that weirdly combined Islamism and Marxism. The group was virulently anti-American from the beginning. Its terrorist operations targeted American-owned businesses, and it killed six American citizens in addition to its far more numerous Iranian victims. The MEK was a major player in toppling the shah in the 1979 revolution but soon had a falling out with the new [Ayatollah] Khomeini regime—among other things, the group opposed the regime’s release of the American hostages held at the U.S. embassy. The group continued its terrorism, with the only difference being that the Islamic Republic had replaced the shah’s regime as a principal target.

With the eight-year Iran-Iraq War already underway, the MEK threw in its lot with Saddam Hussein. The Iraqi dictator gave the group weapons, cash, and a compound called Camp Ashraf in return for its continuing attacks inside Iran as well as helping Saddam suppress his own domestic opponents. Iranians understandably viewed this phase in the MEK’s history as an unforgivable act of treason, and whatever support the group previously had in Iran was erased.

Merat’s article provides details of the cult-like aspects of how the MEK has functioned, earlier at Camp Ashraf and more recently, after the group had to leave Iraq, at a compound in Albania. As cult leaders, the husband-and-wife duo of Massoud and Maryam Rajavi have resembled the likes of Jim Jones and Shoko Asahara. Families have been broken up, married couples told to divorce, and women threatened with punishment if they did not “marry” Massoud and endure his sexual abuse. (Massoud dropped out of sight after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, and it is not known whether he is dead or alive. Maryam continues as the public face of the group.) Stomach-turning details continue to emerge from the MEK’s current location in Albania, including stories of forced hysterectomies and would-be escapees subjected to solitary confinement. The former head of Albanian military intelligence says that MEK members live in the group’s current compound as “hostages” amid “extraordinary psychological violence and threats of murder.”

The MEK’s efforts over the past two decades to convey a benign public image completely at odds with this internal reality, and to pose as a force for democracy in Iran, have depended on buying the public endorsements of well-known public figures. This has required money—lots of it. Five-figure speaking fees have flowed freely. Public disclosure forms indicate Bolton received $40,000 for a single appearance at an MEK event in Paris last year, and Merat gives an estimate of $180,000 as the total that Bolton has received for his multiple appearances on behalf of the group.

In addition to the generous big-name fees, lobbying for the MEK has apparently included other well-financed techniques. The crowd at the Paris event, for example, was supplemented by bussing in young people from Eastern Europe who enjoyed a free weekend in Paris. The group used the same rent-a-crowd technique for a demonstration outside the State Department when the MEK was ramping up its lobbying a few years ago to be delisted as a foreign terrorist organization. Some of the participants in that event were recruited at a homeless shelter in New York; they admitted knowing very little about the MEK but appreciated the free meals they were given for attending.

Where the money is coming from is still somewhat of a mystery. But some clues point to governments that are regional rivals of Iran as the most likely source.

Two further observations flow from this surprisingly successful but wholly unjustified remaking of the MEK’s image. One concerns how some famous—and perhaps otherwise respectable people—evidently have been willing to prostitute themselves to get in on those fat speaking fees. A wide range of political figures have played the game, from Howard Dean on the left to Bolton and many others on the right. Some of the players may have had little more understanding of the MEK when they got involved then did the guys from the homeless shelter in New York. Ed Rendell, a former Democratic governor of Pennsylvania, freely admitted that he knew little about the group when he accepted an invitation to speak at an event the MEK staged at a downtown Washington hotel. He then told his audience—in a demonstration of the self-sustaining nature of big-name endorsements—that the reputations of the other speakers at the same event persuaded him that it must be for a worthwhile cause.

Not everyone has succumbed to the monetary temptations. Tip your hat, for example, to Elliott Abrams, a card-carrying neoconservative who has had more than his share of misdirection in Middle East policy, for declining an invitation to speak at an MEK event. Abrams cited the fact that the group was still on the foreign terrorist organization list at the time, but the politically and morally inexcusable nature of advocating for such a group does not depend on such a formal list.

Disruption, Not Democracy

The other observation is that, while the shills have taken their fees to the bank, the fact that a group as dubious as the MEK figures so prominently in the administration’s policy on Iran demonstrates the bankruptcy of that policy. If the MEK is in the game, then we know the game is not about democracy, human rights, or doing right by ordinary Iranians. Bolton and at least some of the others who have touted the group are surely smart enough to realize that and to understand the true nature of the group. They appear to be less interested in democracy in Iran than in the capability for sabotage, destruction, and assassination in Iran—a capability that the MEK still has despite its claims to have forsaken violence.

Fostering that capability may serve the objectives of regional rivals who do their own sabotage, destruction, and assassination aimed against Iran and welcome the augmentation of their capabilities for mayhem that the MEK offers. It certainly does not serve the interests of the United States. It instead increases instability in—and thus around—Iran, strengthens the market for hardline views in Iran, and besmirches the reputation of the United States through associating itself with the MEK.

by Paul R. Pillar, National Interest

Paul R. Pillar is a contributing editor at the National Interest and the author of Why America Misunderstands the World.

November 14, 2018 0 comments

The cult of Rajavi

Bolton’s Favorite Deranged Cult

The Guardian has published a lengthy article by Arron Merat on the Mujahideen-e Khalq (MEK), and it details the group’s ongoing abuses and crimes at its new base in Albania. This is what John Bolton’s favorite “opposition” group does to its own members:

I spoke to about a dozen defectors, half of whom are still in Albania, who said that MEK commanders systematically abused members to silence dissent and prevent defections – using torture, solitary confinement, the confiscation of assets and the segregation of families to maintain control over members. In response to these allegations, an MEK spokesperson said: “The individuals who are described as ‘former members’ were being used as part of a demonisation campaign against the MEK.”

The testimony of these recent defectors follows earlier reports from groups such as Human Rights Watch, which reported former members witnessed “beatings, verbal and psychological abuse, coerced confessions, threats of execution and torture that in two cases led to death”.

It should be obvious that a group that abuses its own members so cruelly is unfit to hold political power over anyone. It is a disgrace that so many prominent American and European officials and politicians have aligned themselves with such a despicable organization, and it shows how willing many Iran hawks are to overlook the group’s horrific record because it gives them a convenient ally in their pursuit of regime change.

The MEK was removed from the U.S. list of foreign terrorist organizations six years ago, but that wasn’t because the government believed they had given up on using violence to achieve their goals:

Daniel Benjamin, who was then the head of counter-terrorism at the state department, told me that the US decided to remove the MEK from the list of foreign terrorist organisations not because it believed it had abandoned violence, but to “avoid them all getting killed” if it remained in Iraq [bold mine-DL]. After the MEK was no longer designated a terrorist group, the US was able to convince Albania to accept the 2,700 remaining members – who were brought to Tirana on a series of charter flights between 2014 and 2016.

The Obama administration’s concerns about the safety of the members were understandable, but the de-listing decision was clearly a mistake as many of us said at the time. Unfortunately, that decision has made it easier for a truly awful group to operate and buy more American support.

The cult was heavily dependent on Saddam Hussein during the first decades of their exile, but in recent years they have found a new patron that shares their hostility to Iran:

“The money definitely comes from Saudis,” says Ervand Abrahamian, a professor at the City University of New York and author of the definitive academic work on the group’s history, The Iranian Mojahedin. “There is no one else who could be subsidising them with this level of finance.”

It is not surprising that the MEK would have to rely on money from Iran’s regional rivals. The group has no support inside Iran and virtually none among Iranians in the diaspora, and so it makes sense that they would have to turn once again to a government that would presumably like to use them to harm Iran. Iranians understandably regard them as traitors for their role in the Iran-Iraq war and in their subsequent attacks on their former country. It is remarkable that a group that served as Saddam Hussein’s henchmen for decades could be so quickly and easily rehabilitated. The article recounts the MEK’s role as internal enforcers for Saddam Hussein’s regime, which used them to suppress the uprisings following the Gulf War:

Karwan Jamal Tahir, the Kurdistan regional government’s high representative in London, was a fighter for the Kurdish peshmerga in 1991. He told me that he remembers how the MEK arrived in the town of Kalar, about 93 miles (150km) south-east of Kirkuk, just after Saddam had lost control of the north of Iraq after the first Gulf war. “They came in Saddam’s tanks,” he said. “We thought they were returning peshmerga because the tanks were covered with portraits of Kurdish leaders … but they opened fire on the town … It was a big atrocity.”

An organization with a record of committing atrocities is clearly not one that should ever be entrusted with power in the future, but this hasn’t stopped Bolton, Giuliani, and many others from cheering for them and treating them as if they were Iran’s government-in-waiting. Whatever else it may claim to be, the Mujahideen-e Khalq (MEK) is still a deranged totalitarian cult steeped in the blood of many innocent people. The Western politicians and officials that lend legitimacy to this group have discredited themselves on all matters relating to Iran.

By Daniel Larison

November 12, 2018 0 comments

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