++ An outpouring of detestation followed a declaration by the notorious MEK stooge Mansour Ghadarkhah of his intention make a film titled ‘The Birth of Terror’ to “put Maliki in his place”. Several years ago, Ghadarkhah moved from Germany to the US under MEK patronage as his reputation had become so dirty in Europe that his activities for them were severely constrained. Ghadarkhah’s proposed film was soon denounced as a propaganda exercise against former members of the MEK. He had previously worked with the MEK in Germany to clandestinely film Ali Akbar Rastgou, a vocal critic of the MEK, and label him as an agent of the IRI in Germany to put this out on Youtube. Rastgou began legal proceedings and Ghadarkhah immediately retracted the film. This is just one example from his many years of creating websites and spreading disinformation against MEK critics in Germany. Accordingly, Ghadarkhah’s request for finance along with his bank details was seen as nothing more than money laundry for the MEK.

Facing this overwhelming reaction by Iranians outside of Iran, with tens of articles exposing his past activities, this week Ghadarkhah wrote an ignominious article, published on MEK websites, swearing directly at anyone who has criticised his actions. He goes to the extent that he calls them all the ‘worms from the guts of the mullahs’. Over thirty people who knew him better than most have commented about him and Rajavi. Iran Fanous says how disgusting are he and the MEK that they use such contemptible language. Amir Movasaghi from Aawa Association asks ‘are those wriggling in the shit of Massoud Rajavi the worms, or us who said no to Saddam even in Abu Ghraib prison?’ A more lengthy article was written by one of the recently escaped survivors who is currently in Europe and writes regularly for Iran Interlink under the pseudonym Ahmad M K. In a direct, open letter to Ghadarkhah, he challenges every point made with a series of searing fact based criticisms and demands that Ghadarkhah explain himself. Nader Naderi submitted a short note on his weblog to expose the fact that part of Mansour Ghadarkhah’s writing is an exact copy of a piece by NCRI member Manuchehr Hezarkhani, written in 2011 swearing against Dr Hedayat Matin Daftary who had previously left NCRI. Naderi points out, “It is plain to see that you haven’t even written this yourself, and whoever did has simply plagiarised an old text.”

++ Among Iraqi newspaper articles translated by Sahar into Farsi, Araq al Qanun has an article which quotes Ghorban Ali Hossien Nejad, Massoud Rajavi’s main Arabic translator now living in Paris, describing Zafer al Ani (a former MP) as the go-between for corruption between the MEK and whoever they can find to work with.

++ Website Al Haghaegh has translated the November 2004 Los Angeles police report concerning the MEK. Along with references to the MEK in US State Department reports and comments by US officials about the MEK, the article simply states, “This is what we are dealing with and what some Americans are supporting and lobbying for”.

++ In an interview with Ashraf News agency, Bushra Nawaf al-Rimahi, who is Iraq’s Parliamentary candidate for the Sadeqoun faction, described the MEK as “the Israeli base in Iraq” and claimed, ”Saudi Arabia and Israel use the Mojahedin Khalq Organization to threaten Iraq’s security and to destabilize the country”. Describing their presence in Iraq as illegal and not conducive to the national interest he said, “The Mojahedin Khalq are actively crisis mongering and making sedition among different political parties in collusion with Mossad officers”, adding that the MEK enjoys the support of some Iraqi politicians from the Iraqia List and the Islamic Party.

++ The Eastern Azerbaijan branch of Nejat Association published its letter to Nouri al Maliki supporting the message of a previous open letter signed by 52 former MEK members and families in Europe and America, which urges Maliki to intervene to push aside Massoud Rajavi and his wife as the main problem to solving the crisis of Camp Liberty and asks for the gates of the camp to be opened. Many individual families have written similarly asking for help.

++ The MEK advertised on its websites that an unknown group called the Association of Believers in God have chosen Maryam Rajavi as their Woman of the Year for 2013. This has become a joke for many people who have pointed out the most ridiculous aspect of this is the list of losing candidates which included Sonya Ghandi and Michelle Obama, and their like. Paid adverts are one thing, they say, but Rajavi’s ego has apparently become so inflated that she now needs to position herself above all others.

++ This week an MEK lobbyist held a fundraising (money laundry) event in California. Paid speaker Patrick Kennedy is quoted saying, “If you want to see the bright future of Iran under the rule of the Mojahedin Khalq just look at Ashraf camp now”. Bahar Irani has ridiculed Rajavi’s lobbyists saying, “No matter how much money they get, they don’t even spend ten minutes reading the news. If they had they would have seen that the sham city of Ashraf has since collapsed and nothing remains but wild dogs and concrete. Having said that, how little they think of their listeners’ intelligence to compare a collapsed camp with a country. No wonder the MEK’s own supporters never listen to their TV or read their sites.”

++ Reza Akhlaghi from Foreign Policy Association held a discussion with Gareth Porter following publication of his book, Manufactured Crisis: The Untold History of the Iranian Nuclear Scare. Asked why he wrote the book Porter explained, “Because I had come to realize that the news media account of the issue had been terribly misleading… The real trigger for my beginning to think along those lines was the discovery of evidence that the crucial evidence in the official and media account had been falsified.” The source of this falsified account was the MEK and behind them Israel. Porter continued, “Karsten Voigt provided the most crucial revelation in my book – that the documents that had been described in the news media as having come from the purloined computer of a scientist participating on a covert Iranian nuclear weapons research program, were in fact given to the BND, the German intelligence agency, by the MEK, and that the BND had concluded that the MEK source was “doubtful”.” These documents were given to the MEK by Mossad and Porter concludes “The complete story of those documents in the book, however, includes the evidence I found in my investigation that they were fabricated by Israel in order to advance a strategy of provoking a military confrontation between the United States and Iran”.”

++ Iran’s Justice Minister Mostafa Pour-Mohammadi said that individual terrorist MEK members should be handed over to Iran to be put on trial for their crimes against the Iranian nation, which include “killing thousands of our citizens, damage to Iranian public property and helping our enemies… In order to restore the rights of the Iranian nation and enforce justice, these traitors must be punished”, Pour-Mohammadi said. Criticising lack of progress by UNAMI in removing the MEK from his country, Iraqi Minister of Justice Hassan al-Shammari had said on March 3rd that Iraq would be sympathetic to a request by Tehran to extradite named MEK members. Pour-Mohammadi said, “The handover of the criminal traitors (MEK agents) to Iran does not need a request, but if the Iraqi justice minister has made such a suggestion, we will again lodge an official request to turn them over to our tribunals”.

++ Nejat Association reports that the MEK have joined with a Sunni terrorist group that seeks to kill Shiites. A Sunni group named Talaye Jaish Muhammad (Vanguards Army of Muhammad) confirmed the MEK’s membership in its establishment. The group issued a statement on March 3rd to declare that it is seeking to kill Shiites. Talaye Jaish Muhammad called on all Sunni organizations in Arab and Islamic countries in Asia, North Africa and Syria to form a large army and to support armed Sunni insurgents in Iraq and Lebanon. According to reliable sources Talaye Jaish Muhammad have recruited members in different regions in the world including Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Syria, Lebanon and the Mojahedin Khalq Organization.

++ Mazda Parsi from Nejat Bloggers writes about “Women’s rights according to Maryam Rajavi”. After detailing the gender specific oppression and sexual abuses endured by women in the MEK, and praising those who have spoken out after their escape, Parsi concludes that as long as the cult member is “mentally and physically imprisoned by the leaders, every order by the cult leader may sound normal and sometimes necessary, but as soon as they find the least opportunity to break through into light and a normal life, they find out the agonies and abuses they have suffered.”

++ Ramin Mazaheri reporting from Press TV said that a French group, which warns against violent cults, “recently faced the dangers of the Mojahedin Khalq an anti-Iranian terrorist group whose leadership is based just outside of Paris. Association PEACE bravely held a demonstration in the MEK’s hometown, and was quickly confronted by the routine violence of their members”. According to Mazaheri, Association PEACE studies cults and warns people so as to prevent further indoctrination and more ruined lives. Although many are painfully aware of the MEK’s violent history says Association PEACE, many French people are kept in the dark. Despite the mass graves recently uncovered at the MEK’s Camp Ashraf in Iraq, their massacre of Iraqi Kurds for Saddam Hussein and the assassination of Iranian citizens and leaders, the MEK still has friends in high places. Those friends do not include any Iranian citizens, but they do include France’s political elite.

++ Reporting on a hearing of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Christina Wilkie writes in Huffington Post, “All dressed in their trademark yellow shirts… MEK members attended Thursday’s hearing to advance a bold proposition: that the thousands of their adherents still living in Iraq should be granted asylum and moved to the United States… Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.) emerged Thursday as the most vocal proponent of this plan, which was also championed at the hearing by Reps. Ted Poe (R-Texas) and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.). Rohrabacher aimed his questions at the only witness testifying that day, Secretary of State John Kerry.” Sidestepping the question whether the survivors of Camp Ashraf would be given refuge in America, “Kerry went on to describe a new position he had created within the State Department, that of senior advisor for Mujahedin-e Khalq resettlement. In October of last year, he appointed Jonathan Winer, a longtime Kerry adviser and an expert in international law, to the position.

14 March 2014