A training manual, which has already been used to train teachers in the country, will also be used in schools to educate children. The manual, published by the Center Against Violent Extremism, warns against the threat to society posed by Mojahedin Khalq organization.
AlbanianTema TV, Albania
The resettlement of members of the mujahedin Khalq Organization (the MKO/ MEK/ PMOI/ the Cult of Rajavi) in Albania was accomplished in 2016 following an agreement between the US administration and the Albanian government in 2013. The relocation operation was managed by the UNHCR. [1] Therefore, members of the MKO should have been considered as the refugees under the international laws.
The U.S. assistance to the deal also included a donation of $20 million to the U.N. refugee agency to help resettle the MEK. The U.S. has also provided Albania with security and economic development assistance, to help the country build up its physical capacity to house the refugees. [2]
Based on the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees published on the UNHCR website, “Protecting refugees is the core mandate of UNHCR”. To protect refugees the UNHCR should work closely with the state that receives the refugees in its territory. [3]
“UNHCR’s main role in pursuing international protection is to ensure that states are aware of, and act on, their obligations to protect refugees and persons seeking asylum, ”according to the UNHCR website. “However, it is not a supranational organization and cannot be considered as a substitute for government responsibility.” [4]
Thus, in case of the MKO members, the Albanian government is supposed to have certain duties and the UNHCR is expected to ensure that the government is aware of its responsibility and acts properly to fulfill the rights of the MKO’s rank and file while they are required to respect the laws and regulations of the Albanian government in return. [5]
Under the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, Countries should ensure that refugees benefit from economic and social rights, at least to the same degree as other foreign residents of the country of asylum. The bottom line is that members of the Cult of Rajavi (the MKO) do not benefit from economic and social rights in Albanian territory because they do not enjoy a normal life on their own free will. MKO members are taken as hostages in the headquarters of the group.
“A refugee has the right to safe asylum,” reads the Convention. ”However, international protection comprises more than physical safety. Refugees should receive at least the same rights and basic help as any other foreigner who is a legal resident, including freedom of thought, of movement, and freedom from torture and degrading treatment.” [6]
“Freedom” is a precious gift which allows men to believe and live any way he chooses but it is unheard of in destructive cults such as the MKO. Meanwhile the UNHCR’s assistance “may include financial grants, food, tools and shelter and basic infrastructure such as schools and clinics. With projects such as income-generating activities and skill training programs, UNHCR makes every effort to ensure that refugees become self-sufficient as quickly as possible.”
Based on testimonies of defectors of the MKO in Tirana, the above mentioned facilities are limited to very basic needs such as food and shelter. The MKO’s rank and file have no access to the income-generating activities and skill training programs because they have to be dependent to the cult.
Once a person is stuck in a cult, he or she has to be totally dependent on the leader of the cult. Self-sufficiency is pointless to a cult member. In order to impose more isolation on their rank and file the MKO leaders took their recent action to relocate them to a remote headquarters in north of Tirana. The new base is surrounded by high walls and barbed wire to prevent the members from escaping.
The UNHCR and the Albanian government are highly responsible about the threat of 2500 radicalized cult members who are trained as robots in the Cult of Rajavi. They are potential ISIS-like forces that may turn back to trouble their housing society unless the MKO members are not considered as refugees under international laws. A Huffington Post article by Massoud Khodabandeh clarifies the vague status of the MKO hostages in Albania:
“A report by an Albanian lawyer (acting for MEK members who managed to separate from the group) after meeting with the UNHCR in Tirana reveals that under a secret agreement struck between the Americans, the government of Albania and the MEK leader, the UNHCR supervised the transfer of approximately 3,000 MEK from Iraq to Albania not as refugees but on a ‘humanitarian basis’. In other words, they have no official status in the country.
“According to this agreement, all the expenses for the MEK members are to be doled out by the MEK itself. This means that members are totally dependent on the MEK leadership for their subsistence. Those who have expressed their desire to separate from the group, for whatever reason, must continue to obey MEK rules and restrictions, they must accept MEK imposed conditions so that they are given accommodation and food.” [7]
This unfounded status of some thousand members of a fringe cult may give Albania a slap in the face. This is what Ebi Spahiu of Balkanalysis is concerned about. “Given Albania’s continued struggles with endemic corruption and organized crime, and the slow emergence of religious radicalization as a regional security threat, sectarian rifts may add to the list of challenges facing Albania’s political standing,” he writes. “One point of controversy that has already occurred domestically is that the agreement itself is very vague; there has thus been plenty of criticism domestically over a perceived lack of transparency on the terms agreed between Albania and the US.” [8]
Mazda Parsi
Sources:
[1] Dockins, Pamela, US Praises Albania for MEK Resettlement, VOA, February 14th, 2016
[2 ] ibid
[3] UNHCR website, Protecting Refugees: questions and answers, February 1st, 2002
[3] ibid
[5] ibid
[6] ibid
[7] Khodabendeh, Massoud, Albania’s Modern Slavery Problem Alienates Europe, Huffington Post, November 20th, 2017
[8] Spahiu, Ebi, The Iranian MEK in Albania: Implications and Possible Future Sectarian Divisions, Balkanalysis, January 29, 2017
Mr. Jaafar Mansouri whose sister is taken hostage by the Cult of Mujahedin –e Khalq pens a letter to the human rights bodies appealing to meet his beloved sister.
Some part of the letter reads:
“I am Jaafar Mansouri. . . my sister- Marziyeh, is enslaved within the Rajavis’ cult for long years. The cult has not allowed her to contact us. I ask the human right bodies prevent the cult to move members to a remote area near Tirana and don’t allow the cult leaders to continue their brainwashing practices on members … “
It was after midnight on December 31 and I was checking the latest news about protests in Iran on twitter when one post attracted my attention. It claimed the “Iranian regime lost control of the central city of Kashan” –my hometown– and that “people have taken control of police stations and military installations in the city”. The writer of that post, who is the political editor of a very popular tabloid in Germany, further speculated in another post that this could be the beginning of “syrification of the conflict” in Iran!
By the time that gentleman decided to do some fact checking and deleted the fake news from his page, it was already retweeted nearly 600 times, allowing falsehood to proliferate in public discussion.
This was just one small example of distortion of reality regarding the unrest in Iran. But now that the dust of the protests has settled, it is time for some serious reflection on what happened.
The demonstrations began on December 28 in Iran’s second largest city, Mashhad, over alleged corruption, economic hardships and high unemployment and swept to other cities and towns. The number of people that were arrested in days of protests remains disputed. Iran’s judiciary spokesperson said “a total of 400 people were detained and 25 killed”. Other less official sources have given a higher number.
Post truth, information, and emotion
The news about the protests quickly spread on social media and in turn was picked up by foreign-based satellite channels. On the same outlets exiled journalists and activists living in their own bubble, urged people inside Iran to engage in civil disobedience with absurd actions which drew ridicule from many inside Iran.
In the midst of turmoil, the striking point was the coverage of major foreign media outlets from the U.S. to France and Germany seeking to hype the situation by disseminating sensational information, and assertions under the guise of news reporting. Their coverage was for most part one-sided comprising reports and interviews with foreign observers, exiled journalists and activists who were repeating the same old, emotional and gibberish narrative against the Iranian government.
This setting is a central part of the “post-truth” world which Oxford Dictionary defined as “circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief”.
The “post-truth” concept is not a new phenomenon and has been around for a while. But its usage spiked in 2016 both with the populist Brexit movement, resulting in the UK’s vote to quit the European Union, and Trump’s rise to the presidency.
Author Ralph Keyes in his book, The Post-Truth Era: Dishonesty and Deception in Contemporary Life, defines post-truth era as a time when “borders blur between truth and lies, honesty and dishonesty, fiction and nonfiction. Deceiving others becomes a challenge, a game, and ultimately a habit.”
Of course trying to mislead the public is nothing new but in the case of Iran one can hardly think of any other country where the outbreak of protests leads observers to reach for their revolutionary theory and hyperbole and “the fall of regime”.
What was different this time?
The latest demonstrations in Iran were different from most protests that have previously roiled the country since the 1979 Islamic revolution.
Firstly, despite the geographical scale, the number of demonstrators was small and limited. While mostly ordinary working class people with contradictory slogans were taking part in the protests, middle class in large population centers stayed at home because they were not sure about the outcome. Moreover, this was not an authentic civic movement for change because it lacked clear goals and leadership that naturally turned chaotic in several provinces and towns when thugs and mobs set fire to state-owned buildings and damaged public properties.
Secondly, let’s not forget, just seven months ago more than 41 million people turned out in the presidential election with over 57 percent of them voted to continue Hassan Rouhan’s government of “hope and prudence”. That’s why it was highly unlikely that such overwhelming show of support and hope suddenly disappear.
What comes after is important
The unrest was a convenient pretext for anti-Iran opposition warmongers in the U.S. and elsewhere to exploit it for their own purpose of promoting regime change and substitute Iranian exiles as representatives of people who were protesting in the streets. Foreign media outlets gave some coverage to the remnants of the old monarchist Pahlavi regime but it was the notorious Mojahedin-e Khalq terrorist Organization (MKO) that received the most coverage on Fox News, Voice of America and other outlets.
Just as a side note, during a week of turmoil, the Voice of America Persian service “set an all-time traffic record with their coverage of the Iran protests with 5.5 million Facebook video views & nearly 3 million site visits,” Amanda Bennett, the head of VOA, wrote in a tweet on January 2.
Other major outlets misleadingly used propaganda pictures of rallies organized by MKO in the United States and Europe to distort perception of protests in Iran. MKO fought alongside the Iraqi army in Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s. The group also carried out numerous bombings and assassinations after the Islamic revolution in 1979. The group was until 2012 on the U.S. terrorism list and now is pushing for sanctions against Iran. That’s why the group has no support among Iranians.
It is important to note that people of Iran are political savvy and while many may want a more liberal and Western like society, they hate U.S. antagonism and have reasons to distrust the United States. They have also seen the outcome of U.S. regime change policies in places such as Syria and Libya. Therefore, no sensible and intellectually honest Iranian takes MKO, monarchists, or other opposition groups and activists outside Iran as viable alternative to the current government.
Blindness to evidence
Gradual changes are taking place from Iran’s political development, social freedoms, human and minority rights, government accountability and transparency to even people’s style of living. One might argue for those changes in the merits but the truth is that foreign meddling in Iran has always adversely affected these developments.
Some people may not like history but they should be reminded that in 1953, the democratically-elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh was overthrown in a coup orchestrated by the CIA and British intelligence service. The U.S. and Britain backed Saddam Hussein in the war against Iran and over the past decades, Washington has imposed punishing economic sanctions on Iran, threatened it with war and funded anti-government opposition groups.
When Iran signed a landmark nuclear deal with six world powers in 2015, many Iranians had expectations that their economic situation would improve. Even part of Rouhani’s electoral appeal stemmed from expectations that the accord would bring foreign investment and jobs. Iran’s economy has recovered since, but because of U.S. sanctions such recovery was not enough to match the expectations or alleviate growing inequality.
Under President Donald Trump, the U.S. has stepped up efforts to isolate Iran — adding the country’s handling of protests to its list of reasons. The Trump administration’s support for unrest, regime change and encouraging social unrest including political statements of condemnation and biased media coverage to undermine the legitimacy of the government is definitely an obstacle to Iran’s democratic progress.
Post-truth era is characterized by “willful blindness to evidence and appeal to emotionally based argument,” and when it comes to covering Iran, misrepresentation of facts can really be harmful.
Mohammad Hashemi,
There are a few key differences between the events we’re seeing unfold in today’s Iran and the “green movement” of 2009: firstly, the peoples anger stems not from rigged elections but from a much more worldly issue, economic disparity; students end up jobless, the price of food has almost tripled, and nepotism is rife ..
Secondly, this time it appears that the protests are leaderless. Now, in many ways this kind of anarchism could end up being a good thing; history has continuously taught us that figureheads become tyrannical a lot more easily than we’d care to admit, but I can’t help but feel a Mousavi would not go amiss right now.
Allow me to introduce you to Maryam Rajavi, leader of the “MEK” or the “People’s Mujahedin of Iran” — not that there’s anything communal about the organisation itself. A self proclaimed “Islamist Marxist” group, they vehemently supported the rise of Ayatollah Khomeini in 1979, going as far as running bombing campaigns against The Shah and who ever they claimed to be “zionists” throughout the 1970s. Then, when they couldn’t get their way with the Mullah’s, they went on to support Saddam Hussein in the Iraq-Iran war, massacring thousands of innocent Iranian citizens in the process. It was all the way up until 2012, the United States had considered them to be an active terrorist organisation.
So, what changed? Nothing. Despite claiming to have renounced violence back in 2001, numerous reports have come out continuing to dispute this; the most recent of which was the 2017 Tehran parliament bombings. But as the United States are [most or less] at war with the current regime, the definition of terrorism has been warped to fit their own narrative. Of course, this isn’t to say the Iranian people support them. The vast majority have made it clear that ever since the 80s, the Mujahedin have no place in Iranian politics — even going as far as to label them as the “Khmer Rouge” of Iran; after the Cambodian terror group headed by Pol Pot.
I guess the question is now, why are we talking about them? Well, the problem with this being a leaderless revolution is that leadership is still currently up for grabs. And even though they’d never be accepted as legitimate in Iran, they’re a pretty loud voice when it comes to the rest of the world.
For the past few years, Maryam Rajavi has been running propaganda campaigns throughout Europe, Israel, and the United States under the name of an MEK subset group called the “National Council of Resistance of Iran”. Her attempts have been to try and legitimise herself as the only true opposition to the Islamist regime, the irony, of course, is that she herself is also a part of a budding extremist Islamist regime.
After glancing through their Twitter pages, it has become apparent that in the past few days she’s been using her new found influence as a way to attempt to commandeer this uprising from the protestors themselves.
More worrying is the number of politicians starting to accept this as fact.
Plus with the immediate response from Republican’s, including President Trump, on the protests, a growing worry appears to be that International support will end up falling into the wrong hands.
Not to be too pessimistic but the reality is, support for the MEK seems eerily similar to the consensus determined by politicians in 2011 toward the FSA and ISIS. Two groups that, in many ways, shared nothing in common with the original protestors yet single handedly created chaos within Syria in a matter of months — leading to problems and divisions now stretching decades ahead, and destroying the lives of millions.
It should be noted that support for Maryam Rajavi would be disastrous for not only a #FreeIran but the world in general. We’re still in the middle of refugee crisis’s in Libya and Syria; both of which were triggered by irresponsible, rash political decisions that now have had dire consequences.
If you’re going to support a known terrorist organisation in the hope that it’ll inflict change in a fragile nation, perhaps you should just be quiet instead.
medium.com, Johnny ,British Iranian • https://twitter.com/vanityduluoz
++ In Albania, ex-members claimed victory after Rajavi refused to pay them their living allowances. Now the government and the UNHCR have accepted that this situation cannot go on and they will pay money to them individually. The ex-members have been told to open a bank account with the documents they have and in the near future they will have money paid directly to them so that they are no longer dependent on Rajavi. The amount to be paid is less than the minimum needed to live on, but considering there are no jobs for them it is better than nothing. Many outlets published writing saying ‘we resisted and won, and Rajavi lost again. Get Lost Rajavi! You have no hold on us and we can say what we want’.
++ In Albania the MEK announced the death of three members – two men and one woman. According to the MEK they died from heart attack and cancer. Former MEK members wrote their memories of them. One in particular is said to have worked as a torturer inside the MEK. Some remember the woman. They say she was on the fringe of the organisation for years and didn’t want to work with them. But, because of her advanced age she was afraid of leaving as there was nowhere for her to go. She lived out her time in the MEK under severe pressure.
++ Many Iranian oppositionists living outside Iran have written angry pieces against Maryam Rajavi for destroying the potential uprising in Iran. They lay blame on Rajavi and the media for using false pictures and fake reports. They conclude, that if the MEK hadn’t been involved, a real protest movement might have developed.
In English:
++ The Albanian Center Against Terrorism lists the Mojahedin Khalq as a violent extremist organisation. The listing is reflected in a training manual for teachers which lists Daesh, Al Qaida and the MEK.
++ Zahra Moeini, a former MEK member, wrote an open letter published in Iran Zanan to two MEPs warning them against supporting the MEK. She gives an overview of MEK behaviour and activities which reveal the MEK’s hypocrisy and cruelty. The letter concludes “… if you are not able to help Iranian people in their uprising, at least stop supporting the enemies of Iranian people, and your excellencies should know that standing beside the leadership of this cult and the enemy of the Iranian people is like stabbing the Iranian people in the back”.
++ Several other articles in English focused on what is known about foreign interference in the recent protests in Iran. They name America, Israel and Saudi Arabia along with their proxy the MEK. These articles demonstrate that the only winners from involvement of the MEK – whether real or alleged – have been the hardliners in Iran. The protesters lost and the regime change pundits lost.
January 19, 2018
When protests broke out in Iran at the end of 2017, most countries maintained a hands-off approach. After all, these countries maintain diplomatic and trade relations with the Iranian government. Even some influential U.S. observers recommended caution. Former Secretary of State John Kerry, for instance, tweeted: “With humility about how little we know about what’s happening inside Iran, this much is clear: it’s an Iranian moment and not anyone else’s. But the rights of people to protest peacefully and voice their aspirations are universal and governments everywhere should respect that.”
But other American observers, eager to exploit the protests for their own purposes of promoting regime change in Iran, quickly rushed in where the more cautious feared to tread. The first push came from the media. Lacking any organizations or opposition leaders to interview inside Iran, some American media substituted Iranian exiles as representatives of the people. Mohammad Reza Pahlavi’s Monarchists got some coverage.
But it was Maryam Rajavi, leader of the notorious Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK), who received the most coverage, appearing by video link on Fox News and Voice of America.
The MEK is a fringe, cult-like group that was once on the U.S. terrorism list. Rajavi’s appearances, in which she talks as though she represented the Iranian people, provided Iran’s leaders with a gift. Among other angry Farsi commentary, she provoked a hashtag storm on Twitter, with Iranians of every political stripe telling Rajavi in English and Farsi to #shutuprajavi. It is hard to overstate how much Iranians both inside and outside the country hate the MEK.
Indeed, the Iranian media immediately translated Maryam Rajavi and the MEK’s social media output and video speeches into Farsi to inform all Iran’s citizens how the US was hoping to impose the MEK on the country through regime change. Some Iranians might want regime change but what comes after is just as important. No Iranian wants the MEK to substitute for the mullahs.
Later, what had begun as working-class protests against economic hardship and government corruption were quickly politicized by agitators who instigated violence. Iran’s Spiritual Leader Ayatollah Khamenei attributed these incidents of violence to “foreign interference,” naming America, Israel, Saudi Arabia, and their proxy, the MEK. Major General Mohammad Ali Jafari, commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC), announced that the MEK trained a number of people involved in the violence. Iran’s intelligence service in the western Iranian province of Lorestan also said it had disbanded and arrested four members of a terrorist cell linked to the MEK in Boroujerd. Iran also claimed to have uncovered a network of agitators organized from Afghanistan and Iraqi Kurdistan that planned to launch violent actions later in 2018. The spontaneous and widespread working-class protests had apparently triggered the network into action ahead of schedule.
If the plan had been to provoke Iran’s security services into a harsh crackdown on the protesters, which the Western media could then present as human rights violations, it largely didn’t work. Instead, the establishment brought out its supporters in big counter-demonstrations. Above all, when the protests turned violent, ordinary people went home. They wanted no part in manufactured regime change. Iran’s hardliners know that the most effective way to denounce the protests without resorting to bans or violence is to blame the MEK. This allows them to spin their suppressive activities to the populace as counter-terrorism.
Iranians are not surprised by the involvement of the MEK in violence. They know the group and its history. A visitor to any war museum in Iran will find a section dedicated to the MEK’s military collaboration with Saddam Hussein. New Iranian films and TV docudramas educate a new generation about the MEK terrorism, which caused thousands of civilian deaths.
Nevertheless, the MEK’s backers have worked for years to whitewash the group’s past crimes for a Western audience. For anti-Iran elements in the United States, the MEK has been a useful tool by leaking faked information during the nuclear negotiations and posing as human rights advocates. This carefully constructed narrative of victimhood and supposedly democratic values has allowed the MEK to operate in political circles where they could push the regime change agenda.
Meanwhile, in Albania, the MEK was busy secretly reconstructing the terrorist training camp it had lost in Iraq. When former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton negotiated an agreement to transfer 3,000 MEK fighters from Iraq to Albania, funding was earmarked to establish an Institute for De-Radicalisation so that the MEK could be successfully rehabilitated back into society. That didn’t happen. In this past year, Senator John McCain (R-AZ) and former UN ambassador John Bolton both visited Albania to promote the MEK and its regime-change agenda.
These and other MEK activities have driven a wedge between Europe and the Trump administration. Even before the protests, European parliamentarians had demanded a ban on the MEK, particularly after an incident of MEK violence on parliamentary premises. Relations between France and Iran now make it possible for Iranian President Hassan Rouhani to directly demand that France curtail the MEK’s activities there.
In an attempt to maneuver her way out of this isolation and irrelevance, Maryam Rajavi recently published an article in the Wall Street Journal as though none of this had happened. It is just one more attempt by the MEK to portray itself as an influential representative of the Iranian people. But if the MEK had even one iota of influence inside Iran, the protests would have become much more violent. Instead, all the MEK seems to have accomplished is to provide Iran’s hardliners with a convenient rationale for suppressing an authentic civic movement for change.
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. Photo: Maryam Rajavi (jalal4liberty via Flickr)
by Anne and Massoud Khodabandeh
Open letter to Exellencies , Mr. Richard CHARNESKI the vice chairman of European Union and Mr. Khozo RODASH the member of foreign committee of parliament
I, Zahra MOEINI, am the German citizen who had been a member of Rajavi cult or better to say a captive of this cult in Iraq for many years.
The reason that i say i had been a captive in that notorious cult in Iraq because we as members of this cult did not have any right whatsoever to communicate with the outside world and our families and all the married members in that cult had to get divorced from their spouses by the direct order of the leaders of this cult, Massoud and Maryam RAJAVI. These divorces were not just for married members of this cult but the single members had to divorce their imaginary spouses in their minds as well
After those compulsory divorces , the married members of this cult who had child or children had to send them away to foreign countries or to Iran and some of those children who were separated from their parents forcibly were sent away to European countries and United States to the associations which were founded by this notorious cult in those countries and those associations under the pretext of supporting those children began collecting money from the government and people but all those money were transferred to rajavi accounts for purchasing weapons and military equipment . In 1992 , when i was a member of Maryam RAJAVI security guard left Iraq to France with Maryam RAJAVI and 450 members of this cult . The operatives of this notorious cult in France told me to go to Germany. In Germany the operatives of this cult forced me to go on streets to ask people for money and because i was wounded in Iraq the operatives of this cult wanted to take advantage of my wounded body to collect money for Rajavi account and they were saying that European people are dumb and my wounds attract them to pay more money
The operatives of this cult were informing us all the time that we should not talk about those secrets to anyone .While i was in Germany , i saw some of those children who were separated from their parents in Iraq forcibly , were stranded in subways and i heard that in United States , California , some of rajavi cult supporters raped some of those children and they got arrested but while they came out for the leave they could escape from that state by the cooperation of rajavi cult . while i was in Germany , i found out about their hypocrisy , fraud , and deception , i found out they did not care about the life and the well being of those stranded and stuck members in Iraq , I found out that this cult is the worst enemy of the families, so i escaped from this cult while i was in Germany, and i informed the German government about all my experiences and information that i had seen and witnessed about this cult during my membership in this cult , as a result of that i have been sentenced to death since then by the direct order of Massoud and Maryam RAJAVI . EXCELLENCIES In 11 of Jan 2018, you were invited by National Council of Resistance (PMOI, MKO) and you had a meeting with Mrs. Maryam RAJAVI in Ouver Sur Oise and she informed you about the recent political unrest and events in Iran
It is true that there were many unrest and demonstrations in Iran and some people had been killed in those unrest and around 3700 people are in jail right now. The iranian people began their demonstrations and their dissent of the government for poverty and financial problems , if you saw the demonstrations of iranian people on the streets of Iran , you could have found out that no one mentioned the name of this cult or the names of its leadership in their slogans . If Iranian people are suffering it is all because of rajavi cult wrong doings and terrorist policies during these thirty years which helped stabilizing the iranian government for many years and by interfering, patronising and encouraging the people for demolishing and destruction and shouting violent slogans to spread violence, resulted in suppression , failure and defeat of those who came on streets in Iran for their rights . Mrs. RAJAVI has not adhered to Democracy , Human rights and freedom whatsoever
She has captivated around 2000 people in Albania and she has taken away their right to live freely and independently . Those stranded people in Albania have been deprived of their fundamental rights and they are not allowed to have access to the internet and personal cell phone
How can she bring democracy and freedom for Iranian people in Iran while she has taken away the fundamental rights of her own members and followers for decades ? Mrs. RAJAVI always takes advantage of the dignity of you excellencies and other honorable members of parliament for her own inhumane objectives and suppression of her own members . I would like to mention one of Mrs . RAJAVI’s hypocrisy in this letter; There was a PMOI gathering in Villepinte in Paris In 2016 and in this gathering Prince Turki Al FAISAL one of the princes of Saudi Arabia , mentioned twice the name of Massoud RAJAVI the husband of Mrs. Maryam RAJAVI and the main leader of this cult as deceased person and it created un ambiguity among all those people participated in that gathering and the cult members that if Massoud RAJAVI is dead why his wife MRS. Maryam RAJAVI herself who is the top leader of this cult , does not declare his death ? many iranians who are living outside of Iran asked this question from the leadership of this cult but there has not been any answer up to now!!!! Since then the leadership of this cult has kept silent about the death of Massoud RAJAVI and as a result of that nobody knows exactly that he is alive or dead !! but in recent weeks that there was many unrest and demonstrations in cities of Iran for poverty and financial problems and ……etc, suddenly
Mr. Massoud RAJAVI sent 5 written statements that he encouraged people to destroy and demolish and violent actions in those statements . I requested many times that Mrs . Maryam RAJAVI and i have an debate on television but up to now she has not responded yet because she is afraid of us ( the separated members ) she knows perfectly that if she accepts to have a debate with us she will not be able to answer the questions which we are going to ask and she can not lie to us because we know everything and we were living in that cult for many years
you excellencies if you are not able to help iranian people in their uprising , at least stop supporting the enemies of iranian people and you excellencies should know that standing beside the leadership of this cult and the enemy of the iranian people is like stabbing the iranian people from the back . you excellencies owe iranian people an apology.
Zahra Moeini, Iran Zanan,Germany
A comment by Jens Bernert.
Most of the pictures in the German media about the protests and demonstrations in Iran come from the extremist group MEK, as can already be seen from many sources of photos and videos. The MEK is officially seeking the violent overthrow of Iran’s current government. It has been run as a terrorist group by the US and the EU for many years, but that has changed for a long time and the official dealings of the West with the terrorists have changed into the opposite.
According to Israeli daily Haaretz of February 2012, the MEK , also known as the People’s Mojahedin, People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran or Mojahedin-e Khalq, is said to have collaborated with the Israeli intelligence service on the murder of Iranian scientists specializing in nuclear research. Another April 2012 Haaretz report speaks of US and Israeli training of the People’s Mojahedin against the Iranian government.
During the entire year 2017, the MEK was repeatedly visited by US officials. For example, US Senator John McCain, Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, met with the MEK leadership in exile in Albania in April 2017, as the English-language Albanian newspaper”exit”reports:”Senator McCain Meets MEK in Albania”. In addition, in August 2017, US Senators John Cornyn (R-TX), Roy Blunt (R-MO), Thom Tillis (R-NC) and MEK leader Maryam Rajavi met:”US Senators Meet MEK Leader in Tirana”.
For the protests in Iran around the turn of the year 2017/2018, there were essentially three categories of pictures in the media: false pictures, pictures with reference to the source”MEK”and pictures of unknown origin. The latter, including the pictures”angry man”and”half-mummed woman in tear gas”, were usually provided with the source”AP / unknown”. The false pictures and misinformation existed, for example, at ARD and ZDF , but also at FAZ, Spiegel, BILD head of politics Julian Reichelt, Human Rights Watch boss Kenneth Roth and the Iranian archipelago Saudi Arabia financed Gulf Institute from Washington, USA ,
Let’s keep the matter with the MEK images in mind and look at the following thoughts on the riots in Peds views , starting with a quote from a news bulletin on the Iran issue:
“‘The protests in Iran have claimed more lives: last night, violent national riots killed another nine people, state television reported. Six demonstrators were killed when they attacked a police station in the province of Isfahan, about 350 kilometers from Tehran.
That’s a lot of information!”Protests”at the very beginning is propaganda because the protests have just claimed NO fatalities. And it certainly was not turmoil, by which, in a sense, in the general uproar, people were accidentally killed. The violent clashes took place at night, a very good cover for the perpetrators. Six of the dead attacked a police station before they died. The riots were also reported nationwide. Spontaneous nationwide night violence in Iran; If I hear that, I’m startled.”
In fact, parallels to, for example, the events in Syria in the spring of 2011, as the Swedish archeology professor Eva Myrdal, who was on site, described :
“So who is it that shoots cops and soldiers? People from Baniyas say over the phone about what’s happening on the coast in the small industrial town: ‘We do not know who they are. They come here on motorcycles and are black masked ”.
With the MEK there is also in Iran – the MEK has indeed delivered the images from Iran, as the German media unobtrusively tell us in the sources – such fighters who are allegedly responsible for attacks on security agencies, possibly also taking advantage of demonstrations to economic situation. As far as Syria is concerned, it has long since become clear that the extremist fighters there are from the USA, Saudis and Cco. were used. The MEK-USA connection can not be denied.
It is also interesting to compare the reaction of politics and media coverage to the events in Iran with the simultaneous simultaneous demonstrations in the Congo. The taz writes about the protests in Congo :
“On Wednesday, the EU condoled the families of the victims of violence against peaceful demonstrators in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. An explicit condemnation or threat of new sanctions does not include the statement – and as EU diplomats in Brussels confirm, they almost did not do it. France and Spain prevented a more critical draft on January 2, after at least eleven people were killed in Kinshasa and Kananga on December 31 in the suppression of protests by the Catholic Church against Congo President Joseph Kabila.”
The US called on the UN Security Council to support the protests in Iran and called for action in the name of Iranian human rights against Iran. It is ironic that a few weeks ago a memo from the US government leaked and was published by the US magazine Politico , which described how the US Secretary of State should use human rights. Namely on the one hand not at all, on the other hand as a weapon:
The allies (such as Saudi Arabia or Congo) are spared, the opponents shot with the help of human rights propaganda stormy. Unsurprisingly, Iran was also called an opponent.
This article first appeared in the”Rubicon – Magazine for the Critical Mass”.
+++
Thanks to the author for the right to publish the article.
https://kenfm.de/tagesdosis-12-1-2018-us-gesteuerte-proteste-im-iran/
Defectors of the Mujahedin Khalq Organization (the MKO/MEK/the Cult of Rajavi) could manage to receive their monthly payment from the UN High Commissioner of Refugees, reported Sahar Family Foundation.
The UNHCR had stopped monthly payment and housing benefits for political refugees after they dissociated themselves from the MKO.
Once they rejected membership in the MKO, the group leaders had confiscated the monthly payment and the facilities that the UNHCR normally allocates to each refugee. Defectors could finally achieve their legal rights after their extensive protests to the UNHCR and the Albanian government.
According to SFF, the UNHCR has promised the defectors to resolve the problems they are faced with including their legal identity and work permits.
The UNHCR will also negotiate with the Albanian government about the defectors’ traveling permissions in Albania, reported SFF.
