Page 296 – Nejat Society

MKO ex- members at the EU Press Club Conference

A delegation of MKO ex- members participated a conference held by the Press Club of the European Union in Brussels on the role of civil society in Europe and also Justice and human rights on 29 and 30 November 2016, Peyvand-e Rahayee Website reported.

Mr. Isa Azadeh , Mr. Ghorbanali Hossein-Nejad and Reza Sadeghi Jebelli participated the Conference.

During the conference the MKO-ex members met and talked to journalists, reporters and media staff of different European states such as Albania.

MKO defectors explained the situation of the MKO Cult hostages, esp. after their relocation in Albania. They also elaborated different aspects of the Cult manipulative techniques such as suppression, violation of human rights, complete mental and physical control over members, incarceration and torture and even assassination of dissidents, cutting members off the outside world esp. their family members, celibacy, cutting off any access to the outside media,… . Former members of the MKO Cult shared their experiences as eyewitnesses of the Cult practices with the audiences.

Mr. Hossein-Nejad’s case as a father whose daughter is held hostage in Albania by the MKO Cult deeply affected the audiences.

European Journalists and reporters, esp. those from Albania made reports of the defectors’ delegation remarks. They got surprised hearing of the situation of more than 2000 Iranian individuals being held hostages by a cult in the European soil.

Balkan Free journalists interviewed Mr. Hosseinnejad , Azadeh and Sadeghi. The reporters hardly could imagine that the MKO members have no access to the outside world, media and phone. They took such a harsh censorship within the cult as a severe violation of citizenship and civil rights and condemned it.

By the end of this two-day conference, the MKO Cult defectors delegation participated the meeting of without-border journalists and explained how the Cult leaders deprive members of citizenship rights.

December 4, 2016 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Will America’s War with Iran Continue?

The United States has been at war with Iran for over thirty five years. Sometimes the war has been hot, sometimes cold, sometimes overt, and sometimes covert. Throughout this time period relations between the two countries have been hostile with very little diplomatic contact between officials of the two governments. In 2008, Barack Obama ran against Hillary Clinton on a platform of diplomatic engagement with Iran in opposition to her statements of being able to “totally obliterate Iran”.

Upon entering office, Obama, continuing America’s penchant for coercive diplomacy, doubled down on sanctions against Iran hoping that by causing economic hardship for ordinary Iranians he could pressure Iran to change its policies, particularly with respect to the development of nuclear capabilities. The strategy failed as Iran not only continued its peaceful nuclear development, but in many ways accelerated it. By his second term Obama, prioritizing addressing the nuclear proliferation issue, began negotiations with Iran on the nuclear issue in conjunction Germany, France, United Kingdom, Russia and China. (EU3 + 3) The negotiations resulted in the signing in July 2015 of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) which limited Iran’s nuclear program in return for removal of economic sanctions. The agreement was endorsed by the UN Security Council in an action that requires member states to carry out the agreement.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has affirmed on numerous occasions that Iran has largely lived up to its obligations under the JCPOA. Obama has taken some executive action to live up the JCPOA by loosening the impact of the sanctions. The administration has approved the sale of aircraft and aircraft parts to Iran by Boeing and this week the US approved a license for Airbus to sell over 100 aircraft to Iran. However, the basic legal structure of sanctions remains in place. Obama has not moved as aggressively as he did in Cuba to increase U.S. business involvement in Iran, a step which would make the nuclear deal more difficult to reverse by engaging the business lobby in the issue.

Obama has not moved as aggressively as he did in Cuba to increase U.S. business involvement in Iran.

With the current sanctions authorization legislation set to expire on December 31, 2016, House of Representatives and the Senate passed the Iran Sanctions Extension Act by an overwhelming majorities (419 -1 and 99-0). Opponents of the JCPOA in the U.S. have argued in justifying this action, which is a clear violation of the JCPOA, that Iran has engaged in other “nefarious” activities, such as supporting the Assad in Syria, supplying arms to Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthi tribe in Yemen, developing ballistic missiles and in general resisting U.S. influence in the Middle East. The Senate has said that it will take up this bill in the rump session of Congress in December. Although Obama has indicated that he will veto the bill, the bipartisan support in Congress for sanctions extension means that a veto override is likely. Obama’s best option for preserving the nuclear deal is to fight a delaying action to “kick the can” down the road to the next administration where a Republican controlled Congress may be reluctant to create a big foreign policy problem for President Trump so early in his administration.

As on many issues, it is unclear what President Trump’s position will be on the JCPOA. During the campaign he condemned the JCPOA as a “horrible contract”, but acknowledging that it was a contract, vowed to renegotiate it. Renegotiating the agreement is probably not possible. The JCPOA is the result of complicated, intertwined negotiations over a long period of time. Reopening talks in an atmosphere of mistrust and recriminations likely means that the whole agreement would collapse. A number of senior Congressmen and potential officials in a Trump led government, having received large speaking fees, are closely tied with the Mujahidin-e-Khalq (MEK), an exiled Iranian opposition group with an odd Islamist/Marxist ideology. The MEK, having allied with Saddam Hussein during Iran-Iraq war, has the distinction of being more unpopular in Iran than the U.S. They will push a hard line approach under a Trump administration.

Passing Iran Sanctions Extension Act is a clear violation of the JCPOA.

The agreement, however, is not totally dependent on the U.S. Even if the U.S. withdraws from the agreement, Iran, under the administration of President Hassan Rouhani, and Russia, China and the EU have indicated that they will continue to abide by it. As it has in the past, the U.S. will likely use secondary sanctions on European companies to deter them from conducting business with Iran. This strategy will probably not be effective with Russia, India and China who have taken steps to disconnect their economy from the U.S. dominated and dollar denominated neo-liberal economic system. It remains to be seen how U.S. allies in Europe will react to being pressured to act against their own national interest.

The political situation in Iran will also have an influence on how U.S./Iran relations play out. Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has said that if sanctions are extended Iran will “respond”. What the response will look like depends, in large measure, on the outcome of the May 2017 presidential elections. Incumbent President Rouhani has maintained a position that engagement with the West will benefit Iran diplomatically and economically. Because sanctions have, in large measure, remained in place and because Iran has been slow to reform its economic system, the benefits have not met public expectations. Opposions have attacked the policy of engagement with the West. Faced with these political threats, Rouhani may be forced to tack to the right and abandon the JCPOA, kick out the IAEA inspectors and expand the nuclear program. In that case the undeclared war with Iran will continue with all of the uncertainties and potential for disastrous consequences.

BY Donald Liebich, A Herald Tribune,

December 3, 2016 0 comments

Iran Interlink Weekly Digest

Iran Interlink Weekly Digest – 170

++ Maryam Rajavi’s event on November 26th was her most feeble ever. Even the MEK couldn’t make anything of it in terms of media (or anyone else’s) interest and resorted to incorporating old videos into their report simply to make it look decent. All the MEK’s usual speakers have abandoned them and the group was left with third rate speakers and their paid lawyer. The MEK introduced Shabnam Madadzadeh and Arash Rezai as ‘victims’. Madadzadeh had been imprisoned in Iran and as soon as she was released came to Europe where she aligned herself with the MEK. This created a backlash against human rights advocates outside Iran because they had claimed false imprisonment. Now it appears that Iran was right and she really was involved with an anti-Iran terror group. Fars News published sensational titles such as ‘Failed Coalition of Human Rights activists and MEK terrorists’ to smear the rights groups’ reputations. In this respect, an individual known to Iran Interlink who is from Jolfar where Madadzadeh originates, has written a piece revealing that Madadzadeh and her family are known in Jolfar as notorious charlatans and con artists. She and her brother have corrupted and cheated many people in their small city. “This in itself is not shocking” the author writes, “what is shocking however is that the MEK have stooped so low as to encompass her and welcome her as one of their own”. Others have written that human rights organisations shouldn’t have to suffer because of people like her. Human rights in Iran is a serious issue. The MEK haven’t conned Iran, they have conned human rights groups instead.

++ There has been further reaction to Rajavi’s Day of Students message. Commentators dismiss Rajavi as unrelated to the student organisation which was involved and unrelated to any students at all – no student supports Giuliani and Bolton. In the end, they say, you are doing this to benefit the hardliners in Iran. Writers ask ‘can Maryam replace Massoud?’. The answer: “No way!” Even if he was alive today he couldn’t do it, but her copying him, trying to do what he did twenty years ago, jumping on the bandwagon of anything to do with Iran, no way can she lead anyone or anything.

In English:

++ The questions relating to the past of some of Donald Trump’s potential cabinet members rumble on with a variety of articles devoted to either supporting or damning Rudy Giuliani in particular over his support for the MEK. Those rooted in truth and reality point to Giuliani’s own admission that he gave support to the MEK while they were listed as a terrorist entity in the USA; a criminal and moral offence. This particular aspect was pounced upon by Press TV which gleefully reported the anomaly. Jacob Sullum in Newsweek also pursued this issue arguing that if Hillary Clinton belongs in prison over the email scandal, so much more so does Rudy Giuliani belong in prison for supporting terrorists. Other articles variously try to whitewash the MEK’s past [not published by Iran Interlink] or to expose it. Daniel Larson writing in The American Conservative says “One of the more troubling things about American MEK supporters is their willingness to whitewash the group’s past as well as its present-day behavior. They aren’t content to work with an avowedly bad group against a common enemy, but feel compelled to pretend that the group is upstanding and noble.” In The Unz Review, Philip Giraldi writes about the ‘Iranophobes on Parade’ as Donald Trump seems to be filling his foreign policy and national security roles with ‘Iran haters’, notably those with links to the MEK. Referring to the MEK role in helping Israel to assassinate Iranian nuclear scientists, Giraldi argues – as many others do – that building on the diplomacy involved in creating JCPA is America’s best option, not war.

++ Mazda Parsi in Nejat Society uses the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women on November 25, as an occasion to expose Maryam Rajavi’s false and deceptive pretence to be the voice of Iranian women. Parsi argues that what happens to women inside the MEK is probably the most significant example of hidden violence against women. He quotes the RAND report to explain that the group leaders are “skilled manipulators of public opinion”, but that evidence of MEK violence against women is countless. The article provides several helpful links to information in English about this situation.

December 02, 2016

December 3, 2016 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Giuliani admitted ties to Mojahedin Khalq, MEK, Rajavi cult Terrorists

Rudy Giuliani belongs in prison

IF CLINTON BELONGS IN PRISON, SO DOES GIULIANI

Rudy Giuliani speaks before Republican U.S. presidential nominee Donald Trump at a rally in Cincinnati on October 13. Jacob Sullum writes that there is a strong case to be made that the former New York City mayor, who reportedly is in the running for secretary of state in the Trump administration, committed multiple federal felonies by assisting Mujahedeen-e-Khalq (MEK), an Iranian opposition group that the State Department listed as a terrorist organization until September 2012.

MIKE SEGAR/REUTERS

During the presidential campaign, Rudy Giuliani argued (correctly) that Hillary Clinton could be charged with a federal felony for mishandling classified information through her sloppy email practices as secretary of state even if she did not intend to break the law.

But there is also a strong case to be made that the former New York City mayor, who reportedly is in the running for secretary of state in the Trump administration, committed multiple federal felonies by assisting Mujahedeen-e-Khalq (MEK), an Iranian opposition group that the State Department listed as a terrorist organization until September 2012.

“My ties to them are very open,” Giuliani, a former U.S. attorney, recently told The New York Times. “We worked very hard to get them delisted.” But under the broad understanding of the federal ban on “material assistance” to terrorist groups that the Supreme Court upheld in 2010, that work was pretty clearly a crime punishable by up to 15 years in prison.

The “material support” statute, 18 USC 2339B, prohibits the provision of “training,” defined as “instruction or teaching designed to impart a specific skill”; “expert advice or assistance,” defined as “advice or assistance derived from scientific, technical or other specialized knowledge”; “personnel,” which means any person, including oneself, who works under the organization’s “direction or control”; or any other “service,” which is not defined at all. In Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project, the Supreme Court said the law covers volunteer work aimed at helping listed organizations resolve their grievances through nonviolent means.

While such advice and advocacy would ordinarily be protected by the First Amendment, the court said, “the government’s interest in combating terrorism” justifies the speech restrictions imposed by the ban on material support.

Notably, the Supreme Court refused to read the law as requiring an intent to further a terrorist organization’s illegal activities. As long as someone knows he is assisting a “foreign terrorist organization” (FTO), it is no defense to say he only meant to promote its lawful activities. Giuliani, who “worked very hard to get [the MEK] delisted,” obviously knew the group was considered an FTO.

Nor is it necessary that someone providing material support to an FTO receive compensation in return, although Giuliani apparently was paid handsomely for his speeches on behalf of the MEK. According to the court, the difference between protected and prohibited advocacy is not whether money changes hands; it’s whether the advocacy is “performed in coordination with, or at the direction of, a foreign terrorist organization.” By announcing that “my ties to [the MEK] are very open,” then, Giuliani is effectively confessing to a crime.

I am not saying Giuliani should go to prison for his efforts to rehabilitate the MEK. The State Department’s list is arbitrary and shaped by political considerations, the MEK had a strong argument that it should no longer be considered an FTO, and in any case peaceful advocacy of lawful activities should never be treated as a crime. Knowingly providing material assistance to an FTO (which Giuliani did) is not necessarily the same as knowingly providing material assistance to terrorism. For the sake of fairness and freedom of speech, the law’s mens rea requirement should be stronger.

The same goes for 18 USC 793, which Clinton arguably broke by allowing classified information to be removed “from its proper place of custody” through “gross negligence,” a felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison. A conviction under that law should require more than negligence, because it should not be possible to accidentally commit a crime. That is the main reason James Comey gave for declining to recommend charges against Clinton: Although the law does not require criminal intent, justice does.

But Giuliani was not willing to cut Clinton any such slack. As far as he was concerned, she violated the letter of the law, so she should have been prosecuted. It did not matter whether she realized she was breaking the law.

By that same reasoning, Giuliani should be prosecuted for providing material support to a foreign terrorist organization. It does that matter that he did not view the MEK as a terrorist group; it’s enough that the State Department did. Nor does it matter that he did not intend to promote terrorism, since the law does not include any such mens rea requirement.

If Hillary Clinton belongs in prison, so does Rudy Giuliani.

Jacob Sullum, Newsweek,

Jacob Sullum is a senior editor at Reason magazine and a nationally syndicated columnist.

December 1, 2016 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Iranophobes on Parade

Will Iran be the target of the Trump regime?

One of the most discouraging aspects of the filling out of the Donald Trump cabinet is the array of Iran haters that seem to be lining up in the foreign policy and national security areas. Trump has been personally advocating sensible policies relating to Russia and Syria but he appears to have gone off the rails regarding Iran, which just might be attributed to those who are giving him advice. A reversion to the relationship that prevailed prior to last year’s signing of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPA) between Iran and the so-called P5+1 consisting of the United States, Russia, China, France, Britain, and the European Union would be undesirable, to say the least, but that appears to be what is likely to develop. Or it could be even worse, finding bilateral support for “action” as a number of policy advisors in the presidential campaign from both parties were endorsing something like war against the Persians.

The irony is that the argument made then and now for attacking Iran were based on the threat of Tehran deciding to build its own atomic bomb. With the JCPA agreement, however, most would agree that any remaining concerns that Tehran might even be considering the development of a nuclear weapons program were greatly diminished. Iran has since that time been in compliance with the agreement, possible nuclear proliferation has been avoided, and, apart from the fulminations of the inevitable anti-Iranian politicians in the United States, the signatories to the agreement have expressed their satisfaction with the outcome. It has been Washington that has failed to live up to its part of the agreement by easing remaining restrictions that are being imposed against Iranian financial institutions and regarding the purchase of some commercially available dual use technologies.

Candidate Donald Trump did not need much prompting to pick up on the prevailing anti-Iran sentiment. In a number of campaign speeches he denounced the JCPA as a bad deal and vowed to tear it up upon taking office. Some of that sentiment might well have been derived from his desire to distance himself from foreign policy positions promoted by President Barack Obama that were subsequently endorsed by Hillary Clinton so it is no surprise that since being elected he has somewhat modified his stance. He is now veering towards trying to renegotiate the agreement, which would likely be impossible given that it has multiple signatories. He could nevertheless disrupt it by continuing or increasing sanctions on Iran.

The thought of reverting to a state of unrelenting hostility towards Iran is disconcerting. One recalls joint CIA-Mossad operations between 2010 and 2012 that assassinated four civilian scientists connected to the country’s nuclear program as well as the creation of the Stuxnet virus that threatened to spread to other computers worldwide. It is generally accepted that Israel’s Mossad planned and prepared the killing of the scientists with a little help from the U.S., attacks which were almost certainly carried out by associates of the radical Marxist group Mujaheddin e Khalq (MEK), which is now being seen favorably by several Trump advisors even though the group is Marxist, cult-like and has killed Americans.

The assassinations were based on the false premise that Iran had a nuclear weapons program that could be disrupted by killing the scientists and technicians involved. Two comprehensive studies by the American government’s Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) conducted in 2007 and 2011 determined that no such program existed and that Iran had never taken any serious steps to initiate such research. Israel was also aware that there was no program. Nevertheless, the Israeli and American governments took steps to interfere with Iran’s existing and completely legal and open to inspection atomic energy program by identifying then killing its scientists and also introducing viruses into its computer systems. This was in spite of the fact that Iran was fully compliant with international norms on nuclear research and it was a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which Israel, possessing its own nuclear arsenal, had refused to sign.

The history of the Iran-U.S. relationship is significant because several Trump advisors appear to be locked into a time warp regarding the Mullahs and the threat to Americans that they allegedly constitute. Former Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) head Michael Flynn, who will be the Trump National Security Advisor, is the most prominent Iran hater and also the most outspoken.

Flynn, also an unapologetic Islamophobe, has said that Iran represents a danger to U.S. national security and that our friend and ally Israel “lives under the threat of total annihilation from Iran…something the United States must never allow.” He believes that Iran intends to build nuclear weapons as well as the ballistic missiles needed to deliver them on target and thinks that “regime change” is the only solution to the threat posed by the current government. And for Flynn, Iran is not alone, it is part of a “global alliance” that includes China and Russia which seeks to threaten the U.S. and its allies.

Flynn concludes that Iran is unmitigated evil and that Washington should have nothing to do with it, apart from recognizing the reality that it and its government must be destroyed. I personally attended a conference in Moscow last December at which Flynn asserted that Iran is solely responsible for nearly all the instability in the Middle East and is behind at least five wars in the region, an assertion that is just as ridiculous as it sounds.

One might suggest that Flynn is terribly uninformed about a subject regarding which he claims expertise. His comments would suggest that the capabilities of the DIA that he once headed were dangerously overrated, but reports from his former colleagues indicate that he was always guilty of serious overreach in his pronouncements, something they referred to as “Flynn facts”.

If Flynn were just one loud voice braying in the wilderness he would be bad enough since his job is important, particularly with a president who has no foreign policy experience, but the sad fact is that he is not alone. Congressman, West Point grad and former Army officer Mike Pompeo, who will head the CIA, is more-or-less on the same page when it comes to Iran. Her supports new sanctions on the country and, regarding his appointment as Director, he had only one comment to make and it related to the JCPA, “I look forward to rolling back this disastrous deal with the world’s largest state sponsor of terrorism.” As in the case with Flynn and DIA one has to wonder what kind of “objective” intelligence CIA will be producing under Pompeo.

Finally, there is retired Marine General James Mattis, who is being considered for a senior position in national security, possibly as Secretary of Defense. He is yet another Iranophobe who opposed the JCPA and calls Iran a rogue state that constitutes the “greatest threat” in the Middle East. As part of the evidence for that assessment he cites Iran’s alliance with Syria, which is at least in part directed against America’s enemy number one ISIS, demonstrating once again how Establishment Washington has difficulty in understanding what constitutes actual national interests. Mattis, in fact, denies that Iran is actually fighting ISIS.

The neoconservative kingpin Bill Kristol is gloating, headlining in his Weekly Standard publication that the “Iran Deal Is Doomed!” He should be pleased. Team Trump’s attitude towards an alleged Iranian threat is delusional, more in sync with Kristol and some Israeli thinking than with any actual American interests. Just as neoconservatives always believe that it is 1938 and we are in Munich, Flynn, Pompeo and Mattis likewise seem to think that it is 1979 and the United States Embassy in Tehran is still occupied.

The three Trumpsmen are not stupid, far from it, but the problem appears to be that they cannot comfortably assess two or more conflicting concepts at the same time, which might be due to the linear thinking derived from their military backgrounds. The Middle East is awash with players, all of whom have separate agendas, few of which coincide with actual American interests. If one is fixated on or obsessed with Iran as the sole disruptive force in the region it becomes difficult to see how Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Israel are also problems. It is decidedly neoconnish to look at a complex foreign policy issue and only see black and white, but that is what the Trump national security team seems to be prone to do.

Hopefully someone will convince Donald Trump that the real answer to eliminating the “Iranian threat” is not war. It requires building on the relationship established by JCPA to bind Iran more closely to the international community, both economically and culturally. By all accounts, young Iranians, a majority of the population, are dismissive of the rigidity of their own government and are very open to Western ideas and lifestyle. Change will come to Iran if the United States and its European allies encourage more rather than less non-threatening contact. It will not come at the point of a bayonet as Flynn, Pompeo and Mattis appear to be promoting.

Philip Giraldi, The Unz Review,

December 1, 2016 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

6 Years ago Today: CIA, Mossad and MEK Assassinated Iran’s Top Nuclear Scientist Majid Shahriari

This November 28th is the sixth anniversary of the assassination of leading Iranian nuclear scientist Majid Shahriari, whose death represented a particularly disgraceful episode in the attempts made by Israel’s Mossad intelligence service to interfere with and damage Iran’s peaceful nuclear research program. Shahriari, who reportedly had no connection to any possible military applications in his research, was the most prominent of the four Iranian nuclear scientists and technicians who were killed by terrorists between 2010 and 2012. He was a leader in the development of Iran’s atomic power research and development program and was internationally respected for his expertise in quantum physics and neutron transport.

Within the international intelligence community, it has been generally understood that Mossad planned and prepared the killing of Shahriari and the others, attacks which were almost certainly carried out by associates of the radical Marxist group Mujaheddin e Khalq (MEK).

The assassinations were based on the false premise that Iran had a nuclear weapons program that could be disrupted by killing the scientists and technicians involved. Two comprehensive studies by the American government’s Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) conducted in 2007 and 2012 determined that no such program existed and that Iran had never taken any serious steps to initiate such research. Israel was also aware that there was no program. Nevertheless, the Israeli government, sometimes working in collusion with the American CIA, took steps to interfere with Iran’s existing and completely legal and open to inspection atomic energy program by identifying then killing its scientists and introducing viruses into its computer systems. This was in spite of the fact that Iran was fully compliant with international norms on nuclear research and it was a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which Israel, possessing its own nuclear arsenal, had refused to sign.

As a result of last year’s signing of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) between Iran and the so-called P5+1 consisting of the United States, Russia, China, France, Britain, and the European Union, any remaining concerns that Tehran might even be considering the development of a nuclear weapons program were greatly diminished. Iran has since that time been in compliance with the agreement, possible nuclear proliferation has been avoided, and, apart from the fulminations of certain anti-Iranian politicians in the United States, the signatories to the agreement have expressed their complete satisfaction with the outcome. It is now up to Washington to live up to its part of the agreement by easing remaining restrictions that are being imposed against Iranian financial institutions and regarding the purchase of some commercially available dual use technologies.

But in spite of the relative stability provided by the JCPOA, the meticulously planned and executed death of Shahriari must not be forgotten, if only to remind the world of the ruthlessness which Mossad and other intelligence agencies often pursue their targets even when those they victimize do not really constitute actual threats. Majid Shahriari was killed one morning as he was driving into work in Tehran. He was in a Peugeot that was making its way slowly through the heavy rush hour traffic when a motorcycle pulled up next to him as it weaved its way among the cars. The motorcyclist attached a bomb to the Peugeot’s window before he drove off and detonated the device by remote control from a distance. Shahriari died in the blast and two other occupants of the vehicle were injured. At the same time, another car in another part of Tehran was attacked in the same fashion, though the couple inside realized what was happening and managed to get out. They too were injured.

Majid Shahriari left behind a scientist wife and two young children. It should be observed that even though MEK was the likely perpetrator of the attacks, the technical aspects of the operation were far beyond its limited capabilities. First of all, it was necessary to identify the scientists who were to be targeted, no simple task as the Iranian government and atomic energy agency would have taken steps to restrict such information. Only a major foreign intelligence service would have had the capability to penetrate secure government communications to learn who the scientists were and where they lived, to permit an attack to be planned and executed. Both CIA and Mossad would have had such capability and both are also known to have contact with MEK, a relationship that was and still is particularly close in the case of the Israelis.

After identifying the targets and working out a plan for connecting with them it would have been necessary to engage in extensive surveillance to make sure that the approach and timing would work flawlessly. That would require time, training, and money to support the activity, exactly the sort of thing that a state sponsored intelligence agency would be good at. Then it was necessary to devise the bombs to be used to kill the targets. This was no simple matter in practice because the bombs that were put together were highly sophisticated and designed to kill all the occupants of the vehicle. They were shaped charges that directed the blast into the car and they also incorporated small metal projectiles that would fill the target vehicle with a lethal spray.

Among intelligence agencies Israel has the best deserved reputation for being an organization that favors the use of assassinations, so the suggestion that it was behind the killing of Shahriari and several of his colleagues as well as the attempted assassinations of others fits neatly into the Mossad modus operandi. The United States, also no friend of Iran, almost certainly provided support to other programs like the creation of the Stuxnet virus that crippled Iran’s scientific computers, but would likely balk at the assassination of civilian scientists. Israel would have no such misgivings and has, in fact, killed civilians in all the countries that surround it.

Majid Shahriari certainly should be remembered for his exemplary work as a scientist, but his assassination should also be a reminder that Israel makes up its own rules and its ruthlessness in dealing with its neighbors should be clearly and candidly recognized for what it is.

–

Philip Giraldi is a former CIA Case Officer and Army Intelligence Officer who spent twenty years overseas in Europe and the Middle East working terrorism cases. He holds a BA with honors from the University of Chicago and an MA and PhD in Modern History from the University of London. In addition to TAC, where he has been a contributing editor for nine years, he writes regularly for Antiwar.com. He is currently Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest.

By Philip Giraldi, IRI Center,

December 1, 2016 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

The MEK and Its American Fans

Dan Benjamin reviews the history of the Mujahideen-e Khalq (MEK) and its support from many American former officials and politicians:

Even more unsettling was the sheer creepiness of the group. While Maryam Rajavi was presiding over enormous conferences with American political celebrities and seas of smiling, waving people in Paris, at Camp Ashraf, the MeK leadership treated its people appallingly. Visitors, including from the U.N., painted a picture of relentless intimidation, shaming and coercion of the inhabitants by camp leaders [bold mine-DL]. The MeK, which is often described as a cult, had a long history of requiring that its members divorce and remain celibate. Now, it leaders were resolved that the group would remain together and none of the members would be relocated individually or in small groups—the Ashraf group was a bargaining chip that the leadership was cynically using for future leverage.

One of the more troubling things about American MEK supporters is their willingness to whitewash the group’s past as well as its present-day behavior. They aren’t content to work with an avowedly bad group against a common enemy, but feel compelled to pretend that the group is upstanding and noble. At an appearance in Paris last year, Giuliani called the cult leader Maryam Rajavi a “hero,” which either suggests that his understanding of heroism is extremely poor or that he will say anything to get paid.

It is hardly the first time that supporters of regime change in another country have aligned themselves with a disreputable group to pursue their goal, but the sheer dishonesty or credulity required to present a totalitarian cult as a group dedicated to freedom and democracy is nonetheless remarkable. This is perhaps the most insidious part of the MEK boosterism we have seen over the last few years: endorsing their makeover as a “secular, democratic” group and pretending that a group that has virtually no support inside Iran is the country’s “real” opposition. This is not only false, but it also does a real disservice to the Iranian opposition in Iran that wants reform rather than regime change. It also demonstrates contempt for and hostility to the people of Iran, since this same group is responsible for killing so many Iranians when it was serving Saddam Hussein. Above all, it attempts to promote the lie that a policy of regime change is supported by Iranians in order to lend that dangerous and destructive goal the appearance of some legitimacy.

By Daniel Larison,

November 29, 2016 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Trump’s top picks for key posts back anti-Iran terror group

A number US President-elect Donald Trump’s top nominees for sensitive national security posts have accepted money from notorious anti-Iran terrorist group known as Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO) and lobbied for the group’s removal from the US list of terrorist groups.

Describing MKO as “bizarre and brutal” with “plenty of American blood on its hands, as well as that of thousands of Iranians killed while the group was a strike force serving [former Iraqi dictator] Saddam Hussein” during his war on Iran in the 1980s, US-based magazine Politicorevealed in a Saturday report that former New York City’s Mayor Rudy Giuliani and former US ambassador to the UN John Bolton, who are on Trump’s shortlist of nominees for Secretary of State and director of national intelligence, were on MKO’s payroll and lobbied to erase the group from the State Department’s list of terrorist groups during Hillary Clinton’s tenure as the top US diplomat.

According to the report, the MKO paid Giuliani “handsomely for years” giving him “$20,000 or more and possibly a lot more for brief appearance before the [Paris-based] group” and for lobbying to delist them from Foreign Terrorist Groups (FTO) in 2012.

Earlier this month, The New York Times quoted Giuliani as admitting that he was “one of dozens of prominent Americans who worked for” MKO, receiving “payments at the same time it was on a State Department list designating it a terrorist organization” while persuading the Obama administration to revoke its terrorist listing.

“My ties to them are very open,” Giuliani said. “We worked very hard to get them delisted — by Hillary Clinton, by the way.”

This is while a US Treasury Department probe in 2012 examined whether speaking fees paid by several MKO front groups to a long list of American politicians, including Giuliani and lawmakers, violated laws barring US citizens from receiving money from designated terrorist organizations.

The magazine further identifies other high-profile nominees for high administration positions that have supported or lobbied on behalf of the terrorist group, including former Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich, ex-labor Secretary Elaine Chao (also the wife of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell) as well as former Bush security aide Fran Townsend, whose name has been mentioned as a possible Secretary of Homeland Security or director of national intelligence in the future administration.

The report also underlined that in addition to “longtime regime-change advocates” in the US such as Bolton, “who recently boasted before a MKO crowd in Paris that he had been engaged with them for a decade,” the terror group signed up Republican and Democratic politicians en masse.

It further identified other pro-MKO politicians such as former Attorney General Michael Mukasey, former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge, former FBI Director Louis Freeh, former DNC chair Howard Dean, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Hugh Shelton, former Obama National Security Adviser General Jim Jones, former Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell, adding that the list “went on and on.”

The US State Department added the MKO to its list of foreign terrorist organizations in 1997 for the group’s involvement in the killing of Americans in Iran in the 1970s and an attack on US soil in 1992.

November 29, 2016 0 comments

Human Rights Abuse in the MEK

On the occasion of the Int. Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women

November 25 marks the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women designated by the United Nations General Assembly. The premise of the day is to raise awareness of the fact that women around the world are subject to rape, domestic violence and other forms of violence; furthermore, one of the aims of the day is to highlight that the scale and true nature of the issue is often hidden.

Yes! It is often hidden and sometimes covered under the most glamorous slogans of feminism and democracy. The Mujahedin Khalq Organization (the MKO/ the Cult of Rajavi) may be the most significant example of hidden violence against women.

Hundreds of women taken as hostages by leaders of the cult of Rajavi are subject to a range of different forms of violence such as forced hijab, forced labor, forced celibacy and forced marriage. The latest can be considered as rape because those women who were subject to rape have been actually brainwashed to marry the polygamous cult leader, Massoud Rajavi.

Besides, women in the Cult of Rajavi are deprived from having children. A large number of the group female members were subject to forced hysterectomy surgery.

The propaganda of the MKO cult claims to be the voice of Iranian women; it works so professional to hide the true condition of the women inside its camps. Definitely, the group leaders are “skilled manipulators of public opinion” — as said in the RAND report.

The evidences on cases of violation against women are countless. Some of them have been translated to English and some are originally in English reported by western journalists and human rights bodies.

The following links may raise awareness on the disastrous situation of female hostages of the Rajavis:

Comrades in Arms

Modern Slavery in the Cult under Rajavi’s Program for Women

Solidarity with women residing in the MKO camps

True Facts on Women’s Rights within the MKO Cult

Collapse of Morality in the MKO

PMOI Leadership Council’s women SALVATION DANCE

Series of Batool Soltani interviews on MKO self-immolations

November 27, 2016 0 comments

Iran Interlink Weekly Digest

Iran Interlink Weekly Digest – 169

++ A characteristic of internal American politics this past week has been for individuals notorious for being paid by the terrorist MEK, to aim a few vicious kicks at the outgoing POTUS in an effort to take the heat of scrutiny off their own past. In Farsi, commentators are describing Maryam Rajavi as confused, not knowing how to respond to this murky political environment. On one side, the MEK has material which can be used for leverage over these paid individuals if they do get appointed in any capacity in Donald Trump’s cabal. [See last week’s article in English by Iran Interlink]. But on the other side, such people, if in a position of power, would seriously distance themselves from the MEK. So, Rajavi has splurged buckets of money on these lobbyists only to find that once in power they will serve different interests and will be against the MEK. Now that Rajavi has announced another of her carnival gatherings on Saturday 26th November, it will be interesting to see which no-hopers turn up; people who will take the money because their political careers are already over and they have nothing to lose.

++ Neda-ye Haghighat website has published the last of a series of articles – ‘Three decades of cultish behaviour in Iraq’. The articles examine what the MEK leadership did to the membership in Camp Ashraf and Camp Liberty in terms of destroying themselves from the inside.

++ Iran’s ‘Day of the Student’ marks a pre-Revolution event in which three students were killed while protesting the Shah’s regime. Each year Rajavi tries to hijack it and every year the Farsi response is ‘you, who are with Mossad, the Saudis, Giulinani, etc, want to pretend to be anti-Imperialist? Nobody is listening to you!’

++ Last week was the 40th of Ashura – Arbain – in Karbala. The MEK self-identify as Shia, but everything they publish or say echoes Saudi Arabian anti-Shia rhetoric. Whatever is broadcast by Alarabiya TV and published by Asharq al-Awsat is uncritically re-posted by the MEK. Farsi commentators say this reminds them of what the MEK did for Saddam Hussein. This fawning support has reached the point that the MEK has now almost celebrated yesterday’s bombing in which eighty Iranians were killed. Like Saudi, the MEK blames Iran for the act, even though Daesh claimed responsibility, adding that the Iranians were deliberately followed and specifically chosen as targets.

++ In Albania, former MEK members report that the number of people escaping the cult is increasing daily, and one complains that Hotel Almira in Tirana doesn’t have any spare capacity for more. Families still do not have access to their loved ones. Some, particularly mothers, have given interviews to Mardom TV in Washington. They complain that the Americans struck a deal with the MEK leaders which granted them privileges in Albania if they agreed to leave Iraq, including promising the MEK they would not allow families to contact the members. But the families refuse to give up and remind us that this is a human rights issue and the MEK’s American backers will have to give way on this issue.

In English:

++ Open letters from two formers urge Axel Fischer (Vice-President of the Parliament Assembly and the Council of Europe and Chairman of the EPP Group) to attend an MEK rally in Paris on November 26th to which he has been invited.

++ Axel Fischer does not have far to go for reasons not to get embroiled with the MEK as many media outlets in America and Europe have exposed the background of several individuals in the US political class who have taken money from the MEK in the past – some for over a decade, including when the group was listed as a terrorist entity – and who now want to disavow the group in order to get valuable and influential appointments in Donald Trump’s cabinet and wider cabal. The three most prominent (among many Republicans and Democrats) are John Bolton, Newt Gingrich and Rudi Giuliani. All three have been cited in an informative and thoughtful article by Professor Michael Axworthy in The Guardian ‘Why Donald Trump needs the Iran nuclear deal’.

++ Mohammad-Javad Larijani, Secretary General of Iran’s High Council for Human rights, has written to Federica Mogherini, High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, to respectfully point out that European support for the MEK is not in line with the EU’s claim to respect human rights. Highlighting the current refugee crisis which has arisen from Middle East terrorism, the letter concludes: “Adopting double standards towards human rights and instrumental view regarding it, supporting a group that for many years have killed thousands of Iranian people and their hatred is ingrained in the hearts of the people of Iran, is not at all acceptable. Therefore, I would ask your Excellency and other European authorities to take into account the extensive crimes committed by this terrorist group, and take serious measures to prevent the members and supporters of this group from freely operating in Europe and bring the leaders and criminal members of the group to justice and hold them accountable.”

++ Former Ambassador Daniel Benjamin in Politico Magazine writes ‘I was at State when we took the MeK off the terrorist list. But team Trump’s ties to the group still worry me’. Benjamin’s excellent article is informative, erudite and offers a wry in-depth look at the MEK and the Americans who support them.

“Even more unsettling was the sheer creepiness of the group. While Maryam Rajavi was presiding over enormous conferences with American political celebrities and seas of smiling, waving people in Paris, at Camp Ashraf, the MeK leadership treated its people appallingly. Visitors, including from the U.N., painted a picture of relentless intimidation, shaming and coercion of the inhabitants by camp leaders. The MeK, which is often described as a cult, had a long history of requiring that its members divorce and remain celibate. Now, it leaders were resolved that the group would remain together and none of the members would be relocated individually or in small groups—the Ashraf group was a bargaining chip that the leadership was cynically using for future leverage.”

November 25, 2016

November 26, 2016 0 comments

Newer Posts

Older Posts