++ Several Iraqi news agencies published news that Maryam Rajavi met with the Saudi ambassador to France. According to sources at the Saudi embassy Rajavi has asked for the MEK to be used in Yemen to fight the Houthis on behalf of the Saudis and has presented the MEK’s CV from the time of Saddam to advertise her cult. [Editor’s note: The average age of MEK members is over 55.]

++ The MEK will hold its annual celebration of armed struggle on 13 June at Villepinte near Paris. Evidence is emerging as before that the MEK is compiling hired speakers and a paid audience. Each year the MEK pays hundreds of students and needy people to travel to Paris where they can enjoy a cheap weekend break on condition they spend two or three hours at the rally clapping and waving flags. The Villepinte show will also act to launch the book by long term MEK lobbyist Struan Stevenson. The book is an attempt to whitewash his support for the MEK by spinning it as a humanitarian gesture. While the MEK prepares in Villepinte to pretend it is a peaceful, democratic opposition, the MEK’s Farsi websites and media are on overdrive in support of ISIS in Syria, Iraq and Yemen, referring to these vicious, lawless killers as “tribal leaders”. In its papers, the MEK viciously attacks the government of Iraq for re-taking Ramadi.

++ After MEK operative Mehran Kakavand attacked Mansour Nazari in Paris last week, many commentators said they recognised him from photographs and knew him personally inside the MEK. Such witnesses explained that Kakavand had undergone specialist training with Saddam Hussein’s Republican Guard to learn to kill people with his bare hands. In this respect they point out that he failed in his mission this time because of public scrutiny (French police were at the picket). Complaints were addressed to the French government asking why Saddam-trained killers are operating there.

++ The Investigative judge in the case of the MEK and Mehdi Abrishamchi added a new claim of violent activity, defamation and intimidation of witnesses to the charges. This new case was brought by Mohammad Karami who presented his evidence to the judge. In the previous week a similar, evidenced case brought by Ghorban Ali Hossein Nejad was added when he showed defamatory leaflets to the judge and described MEK threats to kill him if he gave evidence.

++ This week marks the anniversary of 4th Khordad – when the founders of the MEK were executed by the Shah. Farsi sites published articles with two distinct views. One view is that the current MEK and Rajavi have no connection to the original aims and ideals of the MEK. Another view is that because it was founded with the belief of pursuing political aims through violence, it has ended up exactly where it always would have regardless, with MOSSAD and ISIS and etc.

++ On the nuclear issue – some commentators ask why the National Council of Resistance of Iran has a website with six or seven languages but nothing in Farsi. What relevance does the NCRI have to Iranians in that case?

In English:

++ Anne Khodabandeh of Iran Interlink attended the FECRIS Conference in Marseille as a representative of a UK charity, The Family Survival Trust. She reported a highly successful Conference to which she contributed by briefing Serge Blisko, head of Miviludes, on the possibility of analysing and confronting terrorism without falling into the false debate about religion.

(FECRIS is the Europe wide Federation of Centres of Research and Information on Cults and Sects. FECRIS operates at an international level with representation at the UN.)

++ Mazda Parsi of Nejat Bloggers says ‘Mrs Rajavi, Your Propaganda Just Doesn’t Work Well’. The article uses an article by Eldar Mamedov of the European Parliament to pick apart the MEK’s failed attempt to interfere with parliamentary business through undue influence.

++ Iran Interlink gave an analysis of what might be behind the publication of a book by long term MEK lobbyist Struan Stevenson. From the pre-sales blurb, the book, titled ‘Self-Sacrifice’ appears to be Stevenson’s attempt to re-frame his support for the MEK as a humanitarian gesture in spite of being, by his own admission, being warned off by the UK government and MI5. Iran Interlink suggested the MEK’s motive behind publication of this book is that it provides (perhaps unbeknown to Stevenson) fabricated ‘ammunition’ for its regime change agenda which it can use to attack Iran.

++The MEK have maintained absolute silence about Mehdi Abrishamchi’s appearance in the Court of First Instance at the Palais de Justice in Paris. Instead the sites are full of news about Syria, Iraq and everywhere else under the sun. The Commentariat points out that usually if somebody sneezes the MEK will take advantage of it for publicity purposes, but they haven’t even acknowledged that the court case exists. So, they are doubly angry about the picket by former MEK members outside the court in support of the prosecution. MEK defamation and intimidation attacks against ex members have specifically targeted those offering testimony to the investigative judge. One of these is Mansour Nazari who was physically attacked and injured in his neck. His attackers were commanded by notorious lumpen Mehran Kakavand whose role is to perform such jobs for the MEK. The Police are now involved and the Investigative judge has added the case of distribution of defamatory leaflets around the homes of ex members to the file against Mehdi Abrishamchi. So the MEK have stupidly made it worse for him. Several articles state that Iranian people are lucky the MEK has no power. But they also question the role of the French government, asking is it a victim of the cult or a perpetrator of the problem.

++ Iraj Mesdaghi, an internal critic of the MEK held interviews with Said Bahbahani of Mihan TV. Asked for his views of Rajavi’s shows and publicity stunts, Mesdaghi provides an in depth history of this phenomenon. He explains that as the MEK has lost in real terms – their leader is a fugitive, Maryam Rajavi’s so-called Presidency has not changed for years, they lost their army and more – the MEK has consequently increased the focus on its presentation. Mesdaghi points to the MEK wearing suits and ties, the men dying their hair and posing as important people. This, he says, is simply a sign of their defeat.

In English

++ Retired Colonel Patrick Lang of the US Army writes about ‘The MeK – Washington’s Favourite Communist Terrorist Cult’ in the blog Sic Semper Tyrannis. Lang describes the cult nature of the MEK, calling on the RAND report which he urges everyone to read in full in order to really understand the MEK, and the Human Rights Watch report ‘No Exit’, which also gives a clear understanding of the cult nature of the group. He concludes humorously saying “Given the choice between joining the MeK or the North Korean Army, to me it’d really be a toss up.”

++ Mazda Parsi writing for Nejat Bloggers says ““Human Rights” a tool for Mojahedin Khalq (Rajavi cult) to trap EP members”. “Obsessed with the idea of regime change in Iran, the Mujahedin Khalq Organization (the MKO/ Rajavi’s Cult) have always resorted to any tool. Today, as the final nuclear deal between Iran and the West is highly expected, the MKO cult is trying to sell its regime change agenda in the European Parliament running propaganda about the alleged human rights abuses committed by the Iranian government. The MKO propaganda arm spends huge amounts of money and energy to organize hearing sessions in the US Congress or EU parliament. One of the recent events was the controversial hearing at the US Congress in which the so-called president of the MKO testified about the threat of ISIS in Iraq!”

++ Eldar Mamedov published in Lobelog notes the MEK’s failed attempts to coerce members of the European Parliament into taking a position which would derail the nuclear negotiations. “In 2010, when Iran´s then-minister of foreign affairs Manouchehr Mottaki visited the European Parliament in Brussels, he was greeted by protests from MPs. Some of them, known for their close links with the exiled Iranian dissident group Mojaheddeen-e Khalk (MEK), carried the picture of Neda Soltan, a young Iranian woman killed during the protests following the fraudulent presidential elections of 2009. They also tried to block the minister from entering the meeting room and even briefly scuffled with security guards.

The contrast with a visit of a delegation from the Iranian Majles to Brussels on May 6-7 could not be greater. Sure enough, the MEK tried to derail the visit by lobbying the MPs to adopt a resolution on capital punishment in Iran, which would have almost certainly led to the cancellation of the visit. When that plan failed, they called on Euro MPs to boycott the delegation.

In the end, however, the five member-strong delegation led by the leader of the “principa list” faction of the Majles Kazem Jalali did make it to Brussels, in the first such parliamentary visit in seven years. Apart from holding sessions with their counterparts from the EP delegation for relations with Iran, Majles members were received by the President of the EP Martin Schultz (a German Social Democrat) and the Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee Elmar Brok (a German Christian Democrat).”

++ Nejat Bloggers also reports on the repatriation of one former MEK member from Albania: “Mansour Shaabani returned his hometown after 27 years of imprisonment in the camps of the Mujahedin Khalq Organization. Shaabani was relocated in Albania two years ago. Finally he succeeded to get back to Iran by the help Iranian officials on May 10th, 2015. Mansour’s brother had several times gone to Camp Ashraf, Iraq, to visit him but he was never allowed by the cult leaders. Nejat Society, Gilan office aided Shaabani family to receive their beloved Mansour.”

 May 22, 2015