UN

Letter of Mr. Ali Hussien-Nezhad to Mr. Martin Kobler

Mr. Ali Hussein-Nezhad, the former veteran member of the MKO who has recently managed to escape form Camp Liberty and gain his freedom, has written a letter to Mr. Martin Kobler. Letter of Mr. Ali Hussien-Nezhad to Mr. Martin Kobler

The full text of the letter comes below:

Mr. Martin Kobler

Special Representative of the UN General Secretary for Iraq and
Head of the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI),

Around three months ago, immediately after walking out of Camp Liberty, I met you and Mr. Nicola, head of the UNAMI human rights delegation in Baghdad. Two months ago I wrote my first letter to you.

In our meeting I described the suppression and repression and the cultic behavior and relationships inside Ashraf and Liberty, and how the members are kept unaware about the outside world and about their families. I defined how the followers of the Rajavi cult are forced to divorce their spouses and abandon their children and suppress all feelings but those towards the leadership.

I emphasized that all means of contact and communication with the outside world including internet, mobile phone, telephone, radio, television, newspaper, and etc. are forbidden. Even reading books is considered out of the question by the leaders of the MKO. Both in our meeting and in my first letter I declared that the cult has killed all normal human feelings inside the mind and soul of the members. Any kind of contact with the outside world, particularly with family and friends is forbidden. One must not even think about family relations inside the cult and any such thoughts must be reported as ‘mal thinking’.

I informed you that even inside Camp Ashraf they prevented me from visiting my daughter who is also a member of the organization and residing in the same camp. In previous years we were able to meet once a year on the Persian New Year for about one or two hours, a meeting which was under the total supervision of the superiors. But this year they announced there would be no family visits inside the camp. It is almost one and a half years that I have not seen my daughter Zeinab.

When I was being transferred to Camp Liberty in the fourth group, I was told that my daughter would be sent soon after me. But I learned from the Iraqi officials that she is still in Camp Ashraf. In fact they have kept my daughter as a hostage to make me keep quiet. They also do not wish my daughter to learn that I have left the organization.

My daughter is registered on the list of UNHCR asylum seekers, the number is 350 and my registration number is 920. We were both granted French travel documents in 1988 following our arrival in France in 1986. My daughter called her younger sister in Iran at the request of the organization around 6 years ago and never called again.

I am worried about her since no one, even in a prison, would reject family contacts. These people are deprived of any sort of outside communication. I am sure that there is a lot of pressure on my daughter and that they will not let her go to Camp Liberty and I should say that her life is really in danger.

Therefore I urge you to put pressure on the officials of the MKO in Camp Ashraf and persuade them to allow me and my younger daughter to meet with my 34 year old daughter Zeinab.

Dear Sir,

The leader of the MKO has turned the organization into a destructive mind control cult and has no aim but saving himself by sacrificing the innocent people who are his captives in Ashraf and in Liberty. He intends to provoke clashes with the Iraqi government and forces and this is the reason behind creating obstacles in the process of transition and creating unreasonable conditions. He aims to buy time and is waiting for some delusional political conditions in his favor which will enable him to stay in Iraq. This is why he does not wish to leave Ashraf and give it away. He knows full well that by leaving Ashraf the pressure on his cult will be enormous and this could result in his cult being dissolved.

Rajavi has even rejected Iraq’s humane proposal of moving the residents of Ashraf into hotels, a proposal which you backed. This exposed the real aim of the leaders of the cult; that all they are intending is to keep the cultic relationship and save the cult intact. The MKO in its statement called Iraq’s proposal gruesome and a plot against the organization and your dirty souvenir from Tehran. The MKO leaders have insulted you on many occasions in its propaganda since you did not accept all their unjust demands. Everyone knows about your humanitarian efforts to solve the problem and praise your exertions but Rajavi is not happy with the problem being solved peacefully and has asked for a UN representative appointed for Ashraf. They are playing the same game they played against Mr. Butler, the former representative of the USA in the negotiations with the MKO to move the residents of Ashraf elsewhere. When Mr. Butler finally announced that the leaders of the MKO do not intend to solve the problem peacefully they denounced him, but finally they had to accept leaving Ashraf.

All conditions announced by the MKO would be achieved by transferring the residents to hotels except conditions such as creating a green environment and manual work which are intended only to create conditions to remain in Iraq and not be transferred to a third country. They became so angered by this proposal from the Iraqi government that they wanted to leave the meeting. This clearly shows that moving into a hotel means that the hostages and the victims would have a chance to free themselves from this inhuman cult. This rejection shows how the leaders of the cult are afraid of their Stalinist organization being dismantled. The reason is that in a hotel they would not be able to force the members to perform hard labor and they would not be able to keep the members inside the boundaries of control and systematically brainwash them. In this case they would not be able to use the members as human shields to protect the leaders.

The two conditions that the MKO have put forward are having permission to sell their belongings and freedom of movement. Firstly I should say that the leader of the MKO has no rights over these so-called belongings since they are the property of the people and the government of Iraq. When I was the senior interpreter for Rajavi in the Foreign Relations Department since the year 2000 (the part which deals with the affairs with Iraq both before and after the fall of Saddam Hussein), I witnessed that at least 3 million barrels of oil a day was received from the Iraqi ministry of oil (equivalent to 90 million dollars according to the price of oil in those days), in line with the UN policy of oil for food and medicine. They used to sell this oil on the international market and have money for their necessities. In this way they were able to buy cars and other goods.

Secondly I must emphasize that they want freedom of movement only for their top officials. The ordinary members have always been deprived of free movement, even inside the camps, since they are afraid they might escape. In the past both in Ashraf and in Liberty the leaders of the cult have prevented the members from moving freely even within the camps, let alone letting them leave the camps. All sorts of posts and checkpoints have been established to limit the movement of ordinary members. They did not even allow those sick and injured people about whom they had doubts about their loyalty to go outside the camp for further medical treatment. Only recently they allowed some of those with severe illness out of the camp, but only after it were too late and they only dismissed them in order to let them die outside the camp and evade the consequences. It is hypocrisy for the leaders to complain about the conditions of Camp Liberty and compare it with a prison when they have kept the members captive for more than 30 years. The one who has turned Ashraf, and now Liberty, into a prison is Massoud Rajavi. A unique prison with no rights of access to their families, no letters, no telephone, no email, and of course no meetings. In any prison in any place in the world, even in the harshest dictatorships, prisoners have the right to contact their families and even have the right to go on leave to visit them. Recently the UN has issued a statement and declared that the residents of Camp Liberty have no access to the outside world and called for freedom of contact with their families.

To clarify this matter further and in order to reveal Rajavi’s aim behind such demands, I propose that the government of Iraq declares its readiness to allow MKO members to go for pilgrimage to the holy cities of Kerbela and Najaf in groups. In this case the leaders of the MKO would certainly reject the offer and as in previous cases would call it a conspiracy to destroy the “Iranian Resistance!” which means their only concern is the freedom of the captive residents and that they might escape. It would be a nightmare for Rajavi if the families would also go with them on this pilgrimage. According to the atmosphere I was witnessed inside the organization, the vast majority of the members, particularly the veterans, would leave the cult provided they find a suitable moment. I can give you the names and details of many of my colleagues inside both Ashraf and Liberty who are under severe pressure and they really wish to leave and I have informed Mr. Nicola the head of the UN human rights monitoring group about them.

The leaders of the MKO prevent the members from even thinking about going to a third country and force them to give reports if they have such so-called evil thoughts and to be ready to be denounced and humiliated and be accused of betraying the struggle. Maryam Rajavi declared in her last statement in March before the move to Liberty that we must turn Liberty the most beautiful city in the world and make it just like Ashraf. Abbas Davari in a meeting inside the Americans’ church in Liberty said that ‘they say this is a transit and interim camp, I say the whole world is temporary and it is seventy years that I am in transit. We will stay here to the end of our lives’. Massoumeh Malek-Mohammadi also said in another meeting that this is not a transit camp, but another Ashraf for us. Massoud Rajavi in a call-conference for our group (the forth one) before leaving Ashraf said that ‘we wish to have two Ashraf garrisons and you will see how the Iranian regime will condemn Maleki because he was meant to get rid of us and now we have two bases’. This was followed by the crowd cheering.

If you see the MKO propaganda in Europe and in America and follow their lobbying activities you will notice that their aim is to remain in Iraq and they have no intention of leaving Iraq for another country. You rightly asked everyone to be active toward the MKO to force the leaders to cooperate with the UN to move the residents of Liberty to another country.
As far as I have been in touch with the ex-members, all are eager for a peaceful solution for the MKO in order to be moved to a safer place. They must have the right to be informed about the outside world and choose their own destiny. The excuses Rajavi invents to keep them inside Iraq for his evil purposes should be condemned.

Dear Mr. Kobler

I fully back your efforts for a peaceful solution to the dilemma of the MKO in Iraq and I urge you not to be influenced by the MKO lobby which is active in the western countries and be firm in demanding the MKO leaders to allow the captives to be free. The best thing to do is to permit the families to stay nearby Camp Liberty and provide facilities for them to meet their beloved ones and negate the negative atmosphere created against the families by the MKO and stop the brainwashing of members and creating phobia inside their minds against the outside world and ensure they have full and free access to telephone and internet and radio and television and publications.

I sincerely thank you and wish you every success in your good work.

Ali Hussien-Nezhad ,Baghdad

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Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Dividing the World into Terrorists and the Rest

The common American tendency to view the outside world in starkly divided Manichean terms between friends, allies and good guys on one side and adversaries and evil-doers on the other side arises in many circumstances but seems especially marked in discussions of terrorism. The tendency is most visible in how the lists that have become mainstays of counterterrorist policy are widely perceived. The U.S. list of foreign terrorist organizations had an almost mundane purpose when it was established by the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996. One of the principal features of that legislation was to criminalize the provision of material support to any foreign terrorist organization. This made necessary clear definitions not only of material support but also of foreign terrorist organizations. Hence the creation of the list, entries on which are determined by the secretary of state with the participation of other executive departments and according to criteria specified in the statute.

Notwithstanding this purpose—support to the enforcement of a criminal law—the list of foreign terrorist organizations gets regarded as if it were a more general act of condemnation that embodies what overall U.S. policy toward a given group is or ought to be. It is taken as a declaration of who is in the bad guys’ camp and who is not. Listing or delisting of a particular group gets promoted by those with an agenda that has nothing to do with enforcement of a criminal statute. This has been seen most obviously with the well-financed campaign to delist the Iranian cult-cum-terrorist group the Mujahedin-e Khalq. Or pushing for a particular group’s listing is a way of making a statement, as has most recently been the case with the question of whether to list the Haqqani group of Afghanistan and Pakistan.

This way of looking at the list has several disadvantages. It constitutes pressure to politicize what is supposed to be an administrative and legal decision. It increases the potential negative consequences of listing a group because non-Americans follow the American lead in looking at listing as a general act of condemnation. Listing of the Haqqani group, however much it may be legally warranted under the terms of the relevant statute, might complicate not only U.S. relations with Pakistan but also any future efforts to negotiate an Afghan peace with the Taliban.

Sharply dividing groups into ones that get the terrorist label and thus are to be condemned and those that are not so labeled and condemned does not correspond to the messy reality of what groups do and don’t do. Lebanese Hezbollah is perhaps the foremost example of a group that is known (and listed) in the United States as a terrorist group but is also much more than that. Instead of exploring different options in intelligently dealing with this multifaceted group, more attention gets devoted in a simplistic way to U.S.-European differences on whether Hezbollah “is” a terrorist group—i.e., is officially listed and branded as such.

A related problem is how putting a group on the bad side of the good guys/bad guys divide reduces one’s policy flexibility because this one act of branding tends to preclude any engagement with the group, no matter how much such engagement would make sense. Probably the premier example is Hamas. The International Crisis Group recently observed that the ostracism of Hamas may entail yet another costly missed opportunity in the Middle East.

The rigid perceptual division of friends and enemies and the tendency to associate bad behavior such as terrorism only with the enemies does not correspond to actual behavioral patterns. It means, for example, overlooking in the Middle East Jewish terrorism until it occurs frequently enough to make it impossible to overlook entirely. In the United States it means a tendency to consider all terrorism worth worrying about to be Islamist and to discourage attention to other varieties that, based on what has been happening inside the United States, are worth worrying about at least as much.

We would be better advised to remember that terrorism is a tactic, not a fixed set of protagonists who are the only ones ever to use it. We should also remember that good and evil are pretty widely distributed in the world and not just confined to different parts of it.

Paul R. Pillar ,National Interest.org

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The MEK to launch Armed Struggle

Terror In The Name Of Democracy

Terror In The Name Of Democracy: The Outset of a Phase of Violence

As the bankrupts of democracy, MKO began casting shadows of terrorism over Iran

“Patriots always talk of dying for their country but never of killing for their country.” (Bertrand Russell)

The number of the word’s presidents and prime ministers assassinated since the mid-twentieth century reaches just about 50. Out of them, those assassinated by the use of the most violent and horrific methods, suicide or bomb blast, hardly outnumber a hand’s fingers. But the concurrent assassination of a president and his prime minister in a terrorist strike has a single record in its kind. And the untold about the event that may never repeat in the history is the key role of an ousted president as an accomplice to erase his successor. And the bare but shocking truth about the event is that almost all people being a high authority to investigate the complicated case or initiate prosecution for the terrorist offense turned to become the target and the victims of terrorism themselves. And it was just one of many shadows of terror that terrorists cast over Iran.

 

On August 30, 1981, a bomb explosion at a meeting of the National Security Council held at the Prime Minister’s office led to three immediate deaths: Mohammad Ali Rajai, the Iranian President, Mohammad Javad Bahonar, the Prime Minister, and Abdolhussein Daftarian, the prime ministry’s authority. Hushang Dastjerdi, the head of the national police, the fourth victim, passed away 6 days later as a result of the injuries. The terrorist plot, although incomparable with the preceding June 28 explosion quantitatively, the explosion in the Islamic Republic Party IRP killing at least 74 high-profile personalities, has its record as a bloody chapter in Iranian post-revolution history, a mysterious and complicated plot with many aspects still remaining ambiguous and many questions unanswered.

No doubt, the perpetrators of such ruthless, violent plots fail to provide the slightest justification for proven terrorist acts that are tantamount to a declaration of war against a nation. The responsible group, Mojahedin Khalq Organization (MKO/MEK/PMOI/NCR), after tolerating ultimate failures in winning public trust in two preceding presidential and parliament elections, had already started inventing pretexts to declare its war. In its military communiqué that implied a blatant declaration of a violent warfare against the Islamic Republic and was documented as a clear vindication of the group’s perpetrated terrorist crimes, MKO complained of misbehavior and “illegal and unlawful” undertaking against the still in office president, Abolhassan Bani-Sadr, whose conspiratorial collaboration with some opposition groups made the Iranian parliament to hold a debate on his presidency competence that finally led to his impeachment.

Sparks of Animosity

The president Bani-Sadr’s close connection and sympathy with a wide range of opposition groups, particularly his direct and strong support of MKO and giving the group a free hand in social and political affairs, as well as his incompetent function as the commander of the armed forces to confront the invaliding Saddam’s army made Ayatollah Khomeini to reclaim the power of Commander-in-Chief on 10 June 1981. Just 10 days later, Ali-Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the Parliament Speaker at the time, apprised Ayatollah Khomeini of deputies’ decision about stripping Bani-Sadr of his presidential power. The response was clear; as the leader with the constitutional authority, Ayatollah Khomeini signed dismissal of Bani-Sadr.

In its first political-military issued communique No. 25 dated 17 June 1981, just three days prior to the first violent moves, MKO made references to events that motivated the organization to make a blatant decision to wage an armed warfare against the Islamic Republic:

“… At the same time, we are witnessing illegal arrests of the members of the presidential office whose names and the news of their arrests are not announced in some instances. Of course, they [the regime] are preparing a comprehensive plan of arresting progressive-seeking characters and antagonists of monopoly in the country. Mojahedin Khalq Organization, while protesting such unlawful and counterrevolutionary actions, thereby obtains permission from the hero Iranian people, and by the help of God, to adopt the most decisive revolutionary resistance through any possible means for the preservation of its members, especially those central cadres of the organization that are in fact considered a pivotal part of the people and revolution.”

On the evening of 20 June 1981, when the Parliament resumed its impeachment debate, MKO orchestrated a series of mass demonstrations that shook Tehran and some other Iranian provincial towns. Rioters had orders to carry small arms and cold weapons and soon the demonstrations turned into street battles that lasted more than three hours. The battles reportedly left heavy casualties and MKO rioters overturned buses and set the parked cars and motorcycles on fire. Although MKO’s plot to cause a widespread civil disturbance to lead the country into a serious civil war faced a total failure, the group adopted a different violent tactic since the day after.

To be continued

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Mujahedin Khalq Organization members' families

Families from Kermanshah and Lorestan enter camp Ashraf, Iraq

Twenty people of MKO members’ families who are from Kermanshah and Lorestan provinces joined other families picketing at Camp Ashraf chanting the slogan:

“Our message hope, Our promise, freedom”.

They entered Iraq to visit their loved ones, imprisoned in the Cult of Rajavi.“Our message hope, Our promise, freedom”.

All those MKO members who recently defected the Cult notified that families’ presence at Camp Ashraf and hearing their voice via loudspeakers have been a very motivating and hope-giving to members.

The families suffer the hardships of traveling to Iraq in order to give the hope of salvation to their loved ones held as hostages in hands of the cult-monsters.

Such a determination will definitely win and thank to the God, the promised day of the salvation of hostages of Rajavi’s Cult is not far away.

Translated by Nejat Society

TO VIEW MORE PHOTOS OF NEWLY ARRVIED FAMILIES CLICK HERE

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Mujahedin Khalq Organization as a terrorist group

Night vision goggles and military equipment inside MKO deportee’s bags

 A security source closely related to the terrorist MEK camp said, that the security forces, which oversaw the deportation of the first group of the remaining residents of Camp Ashraf, have foundNight vision goggles and military equipment inside MKO deportee's bags materials used for military purposes inside MEK women’s bags and clothes.

The source said that many shields, shoes and uniforms have been found in these bags, and added that 3 night vision goggles hidden in women’s clothing have been found.

The source said that the number of deportees today [August 29, 2012] is 400 people out of 1,200 people, and the inspection process so far is still ongoing since nine o’clock in the morning.

The terrorist organization had participated in the majority of the repression of the 1991 uprising. It also has a very close hand in hundreds of terrorist operations that took place in many areas .

Ashraf News

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Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

John Bolton Shockingly Denies Being a ‘Terrorist Supporter’

The American Conservative’s Jordon Bloom ran into a befuddled John Bolton at the Republican National Convention yesterday and had a timely question for him:
John Bolton Shockingly Denies Being a ‘Terrorist Supporter’
He was on his way in to observe the speeches, and I knew he wouldn’t have much time to answer more than a question or two in passing. So I asked the most important one: given the definition laid out in Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project, was he at all concerned that his advocacy on behalf of the Iranian dissident group the MEK could be defined as material support for terrorism under the PATRIOT Act?

Bolton, visibly flustered at the suggestion that he is a terrorist supporter, disputed the premise before cutting me off:

“I don’t know what you’re up to, but you’re flatly wrong, and I’m busy, so if you’ll excuse me.”

He is indeed a busy man, but if he ever cares to take some time out of his day to explain why I’m wrong, my email is jbloom[at]theamericanconservative.com. Or he could take it up with Glenn Greenwald or Larison.

Oh, how I’d love such an inquiry from Bolton. Perhaps Jordan could also ask why Bolton’s former employer, George W. Bush, included Saddam Hussein’s support for terrorists like MEK in his propaganda justifying the invasion of Iraq in 2003. “Iraq shelters terrorist groups including the Mujahedin-e-Khalq Organization,” reads a document in the archives of the White House’s website, “which has used terrorist violence against Iran and in the 1970s was responsible for killing several U.S. military personnel and U.S. civilians.” Is Bolton proud of this point of commonality between him and Saddam?

John Glaser

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Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Why do the western media whitewash MEK terrorists?

Once again, western newspapers are carrying water for recalcitrant Mujahedin-e Khalq terrorists by whitewashing their disobedience towards the Iraqi government.Why do the western media whitewash MEK terrorists?

These days the government of Iraq is involved with the transfer of the sixth convoy of terrorist anti-Iran MEK from their long-hold base in Diyala province to a former U.S. military base in Baghdad which has been stalled for more than three months over the group’s complaints regarding the conditions of their new temporary home.

According to the reports, some of the Ashraf residents attacked Iraqi police in a bid to prevent them from inspecting their belongings.

But the story does not end here! The terrorist group issued a statement condemning Iraq for beating and injuring its members. The story reverberated around the western news media that “a statement by the People’s Mujahedeen Organization of Iran said its members were beaten with sticks, metal bars, stones and other objects, leaving 20 people wounded.”

Ironically, the U.S. Department of State made no reference to such horrible (!) events in its press statement released Wednesday August 29, 2012. Instead, the Department’s spokesperson appreciated the government of Iraq since it “has made considerable efforts to achieve a peaceful and secure resolution for the residents of Camp Ashraf.”

On another occasion on Tuesday August 28, 2012, Victoria Nuland who leads the Daily Press Briefing at the State Department reiterated, “We commend the fact that the Iraqis are working well to help move these individuals.”

The question is here that why the mainstream media give cold shoulder to these statements as well as the remarks of an Iraqi official when he says “we found military equipment in the group’s stuff.”

You can see the statement of a terrorist group published in many news agencies, but you will not see the remarks of Diyala province police commander when he says that a number of body armors, combat boots and night vision cameras have been discovered inside the suitcases of some female members of the group.

Jamil al-Shamri added that the attack was due to the inspection of their stuff.

The United Nations has said frequently that it “monitors the relocation process,” but the terrorist group also accused UN special representative for Iraq of lying and misrepresenting conditions at Camp Liberty.

Is the true nature of this group hidden to them? Didn’t they notice the frequent insubordinations of the terrorist group towards the government of Iraq and United Nations? How about the late-July U.S. State Department’s statement in which Victoria Nuland praised positive measures of the Iraqi Government, such as “transporting the cargo convoy of 300 additional air conditioners, several large water tanks, additional generators, and three specially-equipped vehicles for residents with disabilities” from Camp Ashraf to Camp Liberty and its commitment to a “peaceful resolution” of the stalemate?

She added that the time is now for the leadership of the Ashraf residents to “take a similarly constructive step and immediately resume the relocation of residents” from Camp Ashraf to Camp Liberty.

Is there anyone out there who is not familiar with the bloody history of MEK and its cooperation with Saddam Hussein?

The terrorist group was founded in 1965 to oppose the U.S. backed Pahlavi regime and adopted Marxism as its ideology.

After the victory of Islamic Revolution in 1979, the group supported the take-over of the U.S. embassy but soon turned against the Islamic Republic and waged an armed conflict against the Islamic government and ordinary people.

During the Iraqi imposed war on Iran, MEK members took sides with the Iraqi dictator and betrayed their own motherland.

Iraqi executed dictator, Saddam Hussein provided MEK with military support and financial assistance. From then on, MEK members have been housed in a paramilitary camp in Diyala Province, Camp Ashraf.

Iraq considers MEK a threat to its national security, and urges the closure of their long-hold paramilitary base in this country and removal of its members from Iraqi soil. They have pledged to close down the Camp by December 31, 2011; however, in early December, United Nations urged the government of Iraq to extend the year-end deadline for shutting down the camp.

Finally in December 25, 2011, an agreement signed between Iraq and the United Nations to relocate residents of Camp Ashraf to a temporary transit location where the UN High Commissioner for Refugees will start a process of refugee status determination, “a necessary first step for their resettlement outside Iraq.”

Iraq started relocating members of the terrorist anti-Iran group, and the group’s ringleaders started voicing complaints about the conditions at Camp Liberty, which was once house of hundreds of thousands of American soldiers, and furthermore its “humanitarian standards” have been approved by the U.S. and the U.N. officials who have visited it.

MEK has always shown that its true nature is always there and never changes.

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Terrorist groups and the MEK

More MEK money fallout: Journalist paid $12,000 for speech

The Mujahadin-e Khalq – an Iranian exile group opposed to the current regime there and backed by Democratic congressman and San Diego mayoral candidate Bob Filner – has returned to theMore MEK money fallout: Journalist paid $12,000 for speech news, this time with a report that ex-Washington Post reporter Carl Bernstein was paid $12,000 to give a speech at an event held on behalf of the MEK’s ongoing battle to be taken off the U.S. State Department’s list of terrorist organizations.

As previously reported here, Filner, long an outspoken advocate for the MEK, has taken two first class, all-expense-paid trips to MEK-related events in Paris, both paid for a shadowy group calling itself “Colorado’s Iranian American Community.”

We have repeatedly made requests to Filner’s office and campaign to provide more details about his Mujahadin-e Khalq-related travel, but neither he nor his aides have responded to our questions.

The online journalism site ProPublica.org reports today that Bernstein’s February address before 1500 people at New York’s Waldorf Astoria made him “one of the few journalists who has appeared at events in a years-long campaign by MEK supporters to free the group from the official terrorist label and the legal sanctions that come with it.

"He told ProPublica that he was paid $12,000 for the appearance but that, ‘I was not there as an advocate.’"

ProPublica goes on to note that the Mujahadin-e Khalq, “sometimes described as cult-like by critics, is blamed by the State Department for killing Americans in several attacks in Iran in the 1970s and in attacking Iranian targets through the early 2000s.

“The MEK now says it has renounced violence and has sued to be removed from the terrorist list. (Bernstein’s speech also referred to the “murderous bureaucracy” that runs Iran, “against whom the MEK has courageously fought.”)

"The public push in the U.S. is notable both because it has brought together a large bipartisan group of former top military officials and veteran politicians from both parties and also because of the large sums of money paid for those appearances."

In today’s ProPublica account, Bernstein is quoted as saying that "the pro-MEK events are ‘obviously … part of a lobbying campaign’ but [that] his speech was ‘largely about using the designation of terrorist and subversive organizations as a smokescreen for other things.’

"He said that stories focusing on speakers at pro-MEK events rather than on ‘the substance of what the controversy is’ amounted to ‘journalistic McCarthyism.’"

By Matt Potter, Sandiego Reader

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MEK Camp Ashraf

Camp Ashraf will be completely emptied by end of September

PARIS — An Iranian opposition organisation said that a final convoy of 680 of its members will leave Camp Ashraf on September 12 for the new Hurriya transit centre near Baghdad.Camp Ashraf will be completely emptied by end of September

"Around 680 Ashraf residents will be ready to move from Ashraf to Camp Liberty (Hurriya) on September 12 and they could start loading their belongings from tomorrow (Saturday)," Maryam Rajavi, president of the Paris-based National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), which includes the People’s Mujahedeen Organisation of Iran, said in a statement.

Earlier this week the United States welcomed renewed efforts to relocate the residents of Camp Ashraf which has housed members of an exiled Iranian opposition group for years.

State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland noted the "safe arrival" last week of a sixth convoy of about 400 residents of Camp Ashraf to Camp Hurriya, a former US military base once known as Camp Liberty.

A US official who asked not to be named said the camp could be completely empty "before the end of September."

Iraq has been locked in a dispute with the People’s Mujahedeen of Iran over plans to relocate them to Camp Hurriya.

Camp Ashraf is located 50 miles (80 kilometers) northeast of Baghdad. Hurriya is just outside the Iraqi capital.

Under a December 2011 agreement between the United Nations and the Iraqi government, Baghdad was due to transfer the refugees from Ashraf to Hurriya.

About 2,000 of the refugees have been transferred but the relocation of 1,200 others stalled in early May.

In early August, the NCRI said evacuations had resumed.

Rajavi said that the Special Representative of the UN Secretary General (SRSG) had assured that the September 12 convoy "has to be prioritized and Iraqi officials should not obstruct the transfer."

She also stressed US State Department assurances that Washington "will take the appropriate measures" to ensure the safety and essential humanitarian needs of the transferees "of the last convoy which will move to Liberty on September 12."

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Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

NAM attendees visit exhibitions on assassinated Iran nuclear scientists

The ministers and delegates of foreign countries paid a visit to two exhibitions organized to commemorate the assassinated Iranian nuclear scientists on Monday 27 August night on the sidelines of the NAM Summit in Tehran, state radio reported. NAM attendees visit exhibitions on assassinated Iran nuclear scientists

The exhibitions consisted of books and pictures, which showed that assassinations and creating insecurity are the two main agendas of Western spy agencies in Iran, the report added.

The report further said that the remains of the three exploded vehicles in which the martyred scientists were travelling were placed at the entrance of the exhibitions.

Other information on the Mojahedin-e Khalq Group’s (MKO) "crimes" was also presented at the exhibitions.

Today at the NAM foreign ministers’ meeting, Alireza, son of martyred nuclear scientist Motafa Ahmadi-Rowshan, and Armita, daughter of martyred nuclear scientist Daryush Reza’inezhad, will present flowers to the participants and guests as peace ambassadors, the report added.

Source: Voice of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Tehran, in Persian 0330gmt 28 Aug 12

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