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US Rajavi lobby
USA

Investigate the case of lobbyists for MEK terror group in Washington

Congressman Kucinich to Attorney General Eric Hoder:
Investigate the case of lobbyists for MEK terror group in Washington

Kucinich Asks Tough Questions About FBI Investigation of Anti-War Groups
“Is it Good Judgment to Direct the Overwhelming Resources of the Federal Government onto Small, Local Groups and Individuals whose Primary Interest is Peace
Washington, Jul 25 – Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) today wrote to Attorney General Eric Holder asking tough questions about the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s large commitment of resources to investigate small, local groups of individuals whose primary concern is peace. Congressman Kucinich also asked for an explanation for the apparent differential use of vague and broad criminal statutes.

“A federal prosecutor has tremendous power and resources,” wrote Kucinich. “Because of that, he has a concomitant obligation to exercise that power with judgment and discretion. Is it good judgment to direct the overwhelming resources of the federal government onto small, local groups and individuals whose primary interest is peace? Is it good judgment to investigate them under a vague and broad statute whose text and interpretations have changed numerous times over the past decade? Is this really the best use of Department of Justice personnel?”

See a signed copy of the letter here.

part of the Document:… The Washington Post and other news sources have reported that fromer Attorny General Michael Mukasy, former Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge, former Whaite House security adviser Frances Townsend, and former New York Mayor Tudy Giuliani have publicly expressed their support for the Mujaheddin-e Khalq (MEK), and organization that has been on the foreign terrorist list of the State Department since 1997… It has been reported that the MEK has spent millions of dollars on lobbyists, PR agents an communications firms to build up pressure on Secretary Hillary Clinton to take the group off the terrorist list. In Horder, the Department of Justice, under both your direction and that of Attorny General Mukasey, argued that it was felony to file an amicus brief on behalf of a foreign terrorist organization, or to engage in public advocacy on behalf of such an organization, unless that advocacy was totally”independent”of the organization. How do you reconcile those arguments with the total absence of attention paid to lobbying activities in support of the MEK? how do you reconcile that inaction with the apparent overkill that has been directed at the anti-war activists in Mineapolis and Chicago? …

Link to the full document:

Congressman Dennis J. Kucinich/   kucinich.house.gov

July 27, 2011 0 comments
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Iran

A remarkable number of the MKO members return to Iran

The Iranian ambassador to Baghdad has said that the Iraqi officials are serious in dealing with the terrorist group PJAK (the Party for a Free Life in Kurdistan), emphasizing they regard Iran’s action against terrorists as justified.

Iraq regards this group as a terrorist one and believes that Iran has the right to take action against the group, Ambassador Hassan Danaiifar told reporters on Sunday.

Asked about Mojahedin Khalq Organization (MKO), he said that the Iraqi government is determined to expel the members of the terrorist group from the country by the end of this year.
He also said that most of the members of this group that have escaped from Camp Ashraf are trying to return to Iran.

“After escape, they usually seek refuge in Iraq, and most of them demand to be granted permission to enter Iran as they have requested in their interviews with the International Committee of the Red Cross,” he said referring to those members of the group that have not been involved in any criminal action.

“We will also facilitate the process of their return to Iran,” he added.

He went on to say that a remarkable number of the group members have been returned to Iran and a special committee has been set up for this purpose in Iran’s consulate in Iraq .

July 26, 2011 0 comments
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Mujahedin Khalq Organization as a terrorist group

MEK to push US for another war

It is a bizarre, exiled Iranian opposition group that has existed mostly on the fringes of history. But the cultish Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK), or "people’s holy warriors", will seize the international spotlight if the US State Department decides in coming weeks to remove the group from its list of foreign terrorist organisations.

The well-funded organisation, once allied to Saddam Hussein, has friends in high places in Washington.

Removing the MEK from the US’s terrorism blacklist would make already frosty relations between Tehran and Washington even icier.
It also "would allow the Mujahedin to receive US funding and become a powerful force in support of war with Iran, just like the Iraqi exiles who deceived us into war with Iraq did," Trita Parsi, president of the National Iranian American Council (NIAC), warned last week.

Iran’s domestic opposition meanwhile insists that lifting the MEK’s terrorist designation would spell disaster for the Green Movement. [..]
The MEK, dedicated to overthrowing Iran’s Islamic regime and considered a terrorist group by Iran as well as the US, is despised by ordinary Iranians because it fought alongside Saddam’s forces in the 1980-88 Iraq-Iran war.
In response to an MEK lawsuit, a US federal court last year ordered the State Department to review the group’s terrorist designation.

Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, is due to announce her decision next month. The MEK was blacklisted as a terrorist organisation in 1997 by her husband’s administration.
The group, however, has been taken off similar terrorism lists by the European Union after court decisions found no evidence of terrorist activity in recent years.

The MEK is led by the husband-and-wife team of Massoud and Maryam Rajavi. The latter, touted by the MEK as Iran’s "president-in-waiting", lives in suburban Paris.

Her spouse is a spectral figure who has not appeared in public for years. His whereabouts are unknown, although informed speculation suggests that he spends most of his time at Camp Ashraf, the MEK’s main base, a sprawling, mini-state within a state 65 kilometres north of Baghdad.

The MEK was founded in 1965 as an urban guerilla movement opposed to the US-backed Shah and played a key role in the 1979 Islamic revolution. Its ideology was a blend of revolutionary Islam and Marxism.

The MEK vehemently opposed US involvement in Iran and the State Department links the organisation to the deaths of at least six Americans in Iran during the 1970s.
The MEK also backed the takeover of the US embassy in Tehran in November 1979. When the hostages were freed 444 days later, the MEK berated the regime for "capitulating to imperialism".

But the MEK soon broke with the late Ayatollah Khomeini in a violent power struggle and was forced underground in 1981 when thousands of MEK members were arrested and many hanged. Most of its senior leaders fled to France. Another wave of executions followed in 1988.

But the MEK also got in punishing blows, assassinating scores of regime officials. The right arm of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, remains partially paralysed from an MEK bomb attack in 1981.

In 1986, under pressure from France, the MEK relocated to Iraq, where Saddam armed and funded it. Its main base there was Camp Ashraf, conveniently located 50 miles from the Iranian border for attacks against the Islamic republic.

But in 2003 the MEK suffered a devastating blow when Saddam was toppled by the US-led invasion. American forces stripped the group of its tanks and heavy weaponry but accorded its members "protected person" status.

About 3,400 Iranian former rebel fighters, many of them women, have since lived a limbo-like and precarious existence at Camp Ashraf.
Their plight made headlines in early April when Iraqi troops raided the camp, leaving at least 34 residents dead, according to a UN investigation. The MEK is strongly disliked by Iraq’s Shiite-led government, which is on good terms with Iran.

Many rights activists describe the MEK as a cult whose leaders have brainwashed members and dictate every aspect of their lives.

Former members paint a grim picture of life in Camp Ashraf, most of whose inhabitants are said to be middle-aged.

Massoud Khodabandeh, a former senior high-ranking MEK member, said: "People aren’t allowed to get married. Some there haven’t heard or seen a child for 25 years. There are no phones, no internet, no postal services, nothing.."

Mr Khodabandeh runs an organisation helping those trying to quit the MEK, and believes many at Camp Ashraf want to leave but are effectively held hostage by the Rajavis.
"Those caught trying to run away get severely punished," he said in a telephone interview from Leeds, England, on Sunday.

One of the most detailed studies of the MEK was conducted in 2005 by Human Rights Watch (HRW), the US-based watchdog.

Outlandish practices ordered by the Rajavis included "divorce by decree of married couples, regular writings of self-criticism reports, renunciation of sexuality, and absolute mental and physical dedication to the leadership," HRW said.

Its report focused on cases of would-be defectors being tortured at Camp Ashraf, including two who died under interrogation.

Yet the MEK has powerful supporters in Washington and European capitals.

Among the MEK’s heavyweight cheerleaders in the US are Jim Jones, President Barack Obama’s former national security adviser, Dennis Blair, the former director of national intelligence, and James Woolsey, who headed the Central Intelligence Agency.

Iran specialists are baffled by the vocal backing the MEK enjoys among some heavy-hitters in Washington. Gary Sick, an Iran expert at Columbia University in New York, said: "Their [the MEK’s] support inside Iran is very, very limited.

"The fact that they’re against the government in Iran doesn’t make them good," he added in a recent telephone interview. "The only thing that I can think of that would be worse than the present government of Iran is a government of the MEK."

Michael Theodoulou (Foreign Correspondent)

July 26, 2011 0 comments
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Former members of the MEK

Memoirs of Ms. Zahra Mirbaqeri; MKO ex-member

I am Zahra Sadat Mirbaqeri. I was supposed to be a member of MKO leadership Council [she was a member of Experimental Leadership Council] before my I left the MKO’s Camp Ashraf. I am Zahra Sadat Mirbaqeri. I was supposed to be a member of MKO leadership CouncilDuring the few past years, I had been practicing to leave the organization and finally my last plan worked. I could manage to hide in the new Iraqi hospital on the western gate of the Camp Ashraf and then I succeeded to release myself.

I can’t include my whole story in this interview because I am not able to sit down or stand up for a long time due to long-term, terrible physical torture I endured in Camp Ashraf. My medical documents confirmed by Iraqi specialists and doctors, based on my poor health condition are available.

I briefly notice a few issues:

1. Firstly I’d like to notify an important issue to public opinion. Camp Ashraf leaders have taken my brother Alireza and my two sisters as hostages. They don’t allow them to leave the camp and come to see me and my mother who is suffering heart disease and waiting to see her children. I seriously ask all human right bodies, UN, ICRC, European Parliament and particularly Iraqi government for help.

Naturally, after the release of my testimony, Ashraf leaders will force my siblings to make TV interviews against me by threatening and torturing them. So I already warn about it.

2. The second issue is about torture of patients in Camp Ashraf. I personally received my death sentence that was handed over to me by Zohreh Qaemi (because they were informed of my decision to leave the group) I am one of those tortured patients in the organization. I shortly describe the medieval tortures I suffered personally.

It’s not possible to describe or even number the tortures I bore in here. It requires me to write a book in the future in order to tell the story of my grieves:

After three meetings that were held as my trials _ in which a hundred people attended_ they took me to my forth trial while I was sick in bed. They pulled me all the way on the floor beating me off to the meeting where other members were ready to insult me, impose peer pressure on me under the command of Faeze Mohabatkar. They verbally and physically abused me for seven hours.

They pulled my hands towards floor, forcing me to sit down while I could hardly ever sit down because of my painful waist and neck. They took off my neck pain necklace so that I suffered a worse condition. I exclude an other maltreatment they practiced to recall because it even caused e other women participating the meeting to complaint against their act.
They violently shouted in my left ear that was badly infectious due to previous tortures. They said: “what sort of patient are you who can resist so much?”

…in another occasion they attacked me while I was in bed in Ashraf’s internal hospital. They beat my neck, right shoulder and arm. The pain lasted for months but they didn’t take me to doctors [outside the Camp] because it was a scandal for them.

3. They refused to give me urgent medications so that I would die soon.

4. They refused to inject medications for infections like anti-biotic for my ear. They refused to give me medications to stop my dizziness.

5. Despite I felt terribly dizzy due to my infectious ear; they forced me to attend their long organizational meetings in order to make me die sooner.

6. They refused to let me have x-ray test that was prescribed for me by a doctor. My knees were painful because of long-time standing on feet during ideological meetings.
At the end, once more I appeal public opinion and human right activists to help hostages held in Camp Ashraf release and aid them to take refuge in European countries.
I myself have to travel to European country to get treatment and surgery. I appreciate all friends who help me with my problems, in advance.

Thank you
Translated by Nejat Society

July 25, 2011 0 comments
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Iran

Iran: Despite hues and cries about campaigns, west is supporter of terrorism

IRGC Official Terms Iran Biggest Victim of Terrorism
A senior Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) official blasted the world arrogant powers for their assistance and support for anti-Iran terrorist groups, and described Iran as the biggest victim of terrorist acts in the world.

"The Iranian nation with more than 17,000 martyrs is the biggest victim of terrorism in the world," Supreme Leader’s Vice Representative to the IRGC said in the Central city of Qom on Saturday night.

He lambasted the western countries for their support for terrorist groups despite their hues and cries about campaign against terrorism, and said the world arrogant powers equipped terrorist groups against the Islamic Republic on the early days after the Islamic Revolution in Iran, and they are now also striving to save the anti-Iran terrorist Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO).

The MKO has been in Iraq’s Diyala province since the 1980s. The Baghdad government has assured Iranian officials and people that it is determined to expel the MKO from Iraq by the end of 2011.

Iraqi security forces took control of the training base of the MKO at Camp Ashraf – about 60km (37 miles) north of Baghdad – in 2009 and detained dozens of the members of the terrorist group.

The Iraqi authority also changed the name of the military center from Camp Ashraf to the Camp of New Iraq.

The MKO, whose main stronghold is in Iraq, is blacklisted by much of the international community, including the United States.
Before an overture by the EU, the MKO was on the European Union’s list of terrorist organizations subject to an EU-wide assets freeze. Yet, the MKO puppet leader, Maryam Rajavi, who has residency in France, regularly visited Brussels and despite the ban enjoyed full freedom in Europe.

The MKO is behind a slew of assassinations and bombings inside Iran, a number of EU parliamentarians said in a recent letter in which they slammed a British court decision to remove the MKO from the British terror list. The EU officials also added that the group has no public support within Iran because of their role in helping Saddam Hussein in the Iraqi imposed war on Iran (1980-1988).

Many of the MKO members abandoned the terrorist organization while most of those still remaining in the camp are said to be willing to quit but are under pressure and torture not to do so.

A May 2005 Human Rights Watch report accused the MKO of running prison camps in Iraq and committing human rights violations.

According to the Human Rights Watch report, the outlawed group puts defectors under torture and jail terms.
The group, founded in the 1960s, blended elements of Islamism and Stalinism and participated in the overthrow of the US-backed Shah of Iran in 1979. Ahead of the revolution, the MKO conducted attacks and assassinations against both Iranian and Western targets.

The group started assassination of the citizens and officials after the revolution in a bid to take control of the newly established Islamic Republic. It killed several of Iran’s new leaders in the early years after the revolution, including the then President, Mohammad Ali Rajayee, Prime Minister, Mohammad Javad Bahonar and the Judiciary Chief, Mohammad Hossein Beheshti who were killed in bomb attacks by MKO members in 1981.

The group fled to Iraq in 1986, where it was protected by Saddam Hussein and where it helped the Iraqi dictator suppress Shiite and Kurd uprisings in the country.
The terrorist group joined Saddam’s army during the Iraqi imposed war on Iran (1980-1988) and helped Saddam and killed thousands of Iranian civilians and soldiers during the US-backed Iraqi imposed war on Iran.

Since the 2003 US invasion of Iraq, the group, which now adheres to a pro-free-market philosophy, has been strongly backed by neo-conservatives in the United States, who also argue for the MKO to be taken off the US terror list.

July 25, 2011 0 comments
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Auver-sur-Oise

MKO Buying Lands to Set up Terrorist Camp in France

Ringleaders of the anti-Iran terrorist Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO) who have been sheltered in France for the last few years have reportedly started buying lands and houses adjacent to their camp in France to transfer their members from Camp Ashraf in Iraq to the European country.

According to a report published by the website of the Habilian association – a human rights group formed of the family members and relatives of the Iranian victims of terrorism – the MKO ringleaders have offer to buy the real states adjacent to the Camp Maryam in France much more than their real price.

"They said they are ready to buy my house several times more than the real price, and I, thus, sold them my residence," one of the neighbors of the terrorist camp in France said.
Yet, he acknowledged that he has long been aware of the terrorist nature of the MKO, saying, "MKO members claim that they are fighting for human rights and the Iranian people, but because they have been our neighbor for a long time I was encouraged to have vast studies about them, the result of which showed the opposite. That is, I have realized that they are a terrorist group which has massacred many innocent people."

An earlier report by the Habilian indicated that those members of the MKO who are residing in France are suffering drastic psychological disorders and debauchery due to the different pressures exerted on them by the ringleaders of the terrorist group.

The members of the terrorist group residing in the camp are under full control of Maryam Rajavi, one of the main ringleaders of the MKO, and are deprived of many rights like leaving the camp individually, access to the mass media, marriage and contacting their families.

The report also noted that since the members of the MKO in the camp are deprived of marriage they are involved in unusual sexual affairs with their inmates.
The MKO members are suffering acute psychological disorders and are in dire need of rapid medical and psychological care. The situation of the MKO members in Camp Ashraf in Iraq is no better than their fellows in France.

The MKO has been in Iraq’s Diyala province since the 1980s. The Baghdad government has assured Iranian officials and people that it is determined to expel the MKO from Iraq by the end of 2011.

Iraqi security forces took control of the training base of the MKO at Camp Ashraf – about 60km (37 miles) north of Baghdad – in 2009 and detained dozens of the members of the terrorist group. The Iraqi authority also changed the name of the military center from Camp Ashraf to the Camp of New Iraq.

The MKO, whose main stronghold is in Iraq, is blacklisted by much of the international community, including the United States.

Before an overture by the EU, the MKO was on the European Union’s list of terrorist organizations subject to an EU-wide assets freeze. Yet, the MKO puppet leader, Maryam Rajavi, who has residency in France, regularly visited Brussels and despite the ban enjoyed full freedom in Europe.

The MKO is behind a slew of assassinations and bombings inside Iran, a number of EU parliamentarians said in a recent letter in which they slammed a British court decision to remove the MKO from the British terror list. The EU officials also added that the group has no public support within Iran because of their role in helping Saddam Hussein in the Iraqi imposed war on Iran (1980-1988).

Many of the MKO members abandoned the terrorist organization while most of those still remaining in the camp are said to be willing to quit but are under pressure and torture not to do so.

A May 2005 Human Rights Watch report accused the MKO of running prison camps in Iraq and committing human rights violations. According to the Human Rights Watch report, the outlawed group puts defectors under torture and jail terms.

The group, founded in the 1960s, blended elements of Islamism and Stalinism and participated in the overthrow of the US-backed Shah of Iran in 1979. Ahead of the revolution, the MKO conducted attacks and assassinations against both Iranian and Western targets.

The group started assassination of the citizens and officials after the revolution in a bid to take control of the newly established Islamic Republic. It killed several of Iran’s new leaders in the early years after the revolution, including the then President, Mohammad Ali Rajayee, Prime Minister, Mohammad Javad Bahonar and the Judiciary Chief, Mohammad Hossein Beheshti who were killed in bomb attacks by MKO members in 1981.

The group fled to Iraq in 1986, where it was protected by Saddam Hussein and where it helped the Iraqi dictator suppress Shiite and Kurd uprisings in the country. The terrorist group joined Saddam’s army during the Iraqi imposed war on Iran (1980-1988) and helped Saddam and killed thousands of Iranian civilians and soldiers during the US-backed Iraqi imposed war on Iran.

Since the 2003 US invasion of Iraq, the group, which now adheres to a pro-free-market philosophy, has been strongly backed by neo-conservatives in the United States, who also argue for the MKO to be taken off the US terror list.

July 25, 2011 0 comments
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Nejat Publications

Pars Brief – Issue No.60

1.    Jalal Talibani: Committee formed to shut MKO Ashraf camp

2.    Iran Snapshot: Are US Politicians Giving Support to "Terrorist" Mujahedin-e-Khalq?

3.    Cables: U.S. saw leftist Iran opposition group Mujahadeen Khalq as a ‘cult’

4.    US State Department claims no popular support for MKO among Iranians

5.    Banned Terror Group Seeks U.S. Rebirth

6.    Iranian Exile Group Poses Vexing Issue for U.S. in Iraq

Download Pars Brief – Issue No.60
Download Pars Brief – Issue No.60

July 25, 2011 0 comments
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USA

Iranian Exile Group Poses Vexing Issue for U.S. in Iraq

CAMP ASHRAF, Iraq — The more than 3,000 people living here once represented a powerful paramilitary organization bent on overthrowing the government in Iran. In the 1970s, the group killed Americans in Tehran, and after being given refuge by Saddam Hussein its members were suspected of serving as a mercenary unit that took part in his violent suppression of the Kurds in the north of Iraq and the Shiites in the south.

Now they are unwelcome in Iraq but believe they should be given protection in the United States — even though their group, known as the People’s Mujahedeen of Iran, remains on the State Department’s list of terrorist organizations.

“You probably have in mind Hawaii,” said Ambassador Lawrence E. Butler, the American diplomat who has been negotiating with the group in recent sessions here.
“I suspect you don’t want to go to Guantánamo,” he added.

For the last three months, Mr. Butler, who is the foreign policy adviser to Gen. Lloyd J. Austin III, the top American military commander in Iraq, has been shuttling back and forth almost every week on the American embassy’s behalf between Baghdad and Camp Ashraf, an outpost in Diyala Province near the Iranian border. Offering humor and bluntness, he has sought to cajole the exiles to leave their camp and avert what will almost certainly be another violent confrontation with the Iraqi security forces if they stay.

As the American military begins its final withdrawal from Iraq, the situation at Camp Ashraf is among the most vexing of the unfinished chapters of the American war here.

The group adheres to an ideology that is a mix of devout Shiism and Marxism, and in the initial phase of the war the Americans bombed the camp and killed several of its members before disarming the group, which had more than 2,000 tanks and armored personnel carriers. But the Americans later provided security for the camp as the Iraqi government, which is friendly with Iran, turned hostile to the group. A raid on the camp in April by the Iraqi Army left dozens dead and hundreds wounded.

Mr. Butler’s mission has been to seek a solution that will save residents’ lives by first moving them to another camp away from the Iranian border, and then to other countries for resettlement. His goal is humanitarian, he said. He betrayed no sympathies for the group’s politics or forgiveness for its misdeeds. He wants them to move, he said, because he fears a slaughter at the hands of the Iraqi Army if they stay.

That solution has proved tricky, however, because the residents are refusing to leave, and no countries have come forward to welcome them. But the clock is ticking, and several times Mr. Butler has reminded members of the group that American forces will be leaving.

For Mr. Butler, the former ambassador to Macedonia whose diplomatic career has placed him across the negotiating table from members of the Irish Republican Army and war criminals in the Balkans, the current dealings have proved just as tough.

“If I don’t get assurances that you will move to a new location in Iraq, the next round of negotiations could be very short,” he admonished the group near the end of the recent session.
After a half-dozen such sessions, he has made little progress in getting the group to agree to leave the camp before Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki’s government follows through on its promise to shut it down by the end of the year.

Adding to his difficulties, the group has a formidable and well-financed communications machine. It has attracted political figures like Howard Dean and Wesley K. Clark, the retired Army general, by paying them to make speeches in support of the group, fueling its resistance to a move and angering officials trying to bargain with it, like Mr. Butler.

Referring to General Clark, Mr. Butler asked the group, “How much was he paid?” He added, “He doesn’t get out of bed for less than $25,000.”

To this, one member replied that none of the group’s famous advocates were “doing it for the money.”

“I’m guessing about a million dollars was spent on this over the last six months,” Mr. Butler said, referring to the overall advocacy campaign. “If I was on your board of directors, I wouldn’t be pleased with the results.”

In an interview, General Clark acknowledged having been paid by the group, but he said he gives speeches around the world and always offers his “own personal opinion” based on his many years of government service. (Mr. Dean has previously said publicly that he took speaking fees from the group.)

In a written statement, a representative for the group said it had not paid anyone for speeches.

That the group has access to money from the Iranian dissident diaspora is evident in the modern, well-appointed conference room full of flat-screen monitors. Men in suits served beverages and snacks on silver platters during the recent talks.

Mr. Butler is keen to puncture what he believes is the false narrative that has sprouted around the group since the American invasion, which has helped it secure such prominent support. Contrary to widespread belief, he says, the group never provided any valuable intelligence to the Americans about Mr. Hussein’s government. Nor, he says, has it provided any useful information about the Iranian government or its nuclear program.

He said that for six years the group provided unreliable information about Iran to the Defense Intelligence Agency, which he criticized as having taken years to discern that it was being fed what amounted to a slew of lies.

“They are very good at telling stories,” he said of the group.

Through legal actions, the group has managed to get its name removed from terrorist watch lists in Britain and the European Union; a federal lawsuit in the United States resulted in a judge ordering the State Department to review its classification of the group. The group has not carried out an attack in years, and says it renounced violence in 2001.

The State Department’s public documents show a litany of violent crimes against Americans in the 1970s, including the assassination of military officers and executives in Tehran.
“These people slaughtered Americans,” Mr. Butler said out of earshot of the group’s representatives during the recent negotiating session. “They have blood on their hands.”

The Americans have offered a plan in which the group’s members would vacate this camp, which during Mr. Hussein’s tenure served as a military base, and relocate to another site in Iraq, where they would disband, an essential step before the United Nations would recognize the members as refugees.

“To the outside world, you look like a paramilitary organization,” he told them, before adding, “As a group you are dangerous.”

For now, Mr. Butler is not optimistic about the prospects of getting the group to move, or disband. After a helicopter flight back to the American Embassy in Baghdad after the session, he shared his worry of a lack of political will back home.

“My prediction is Washington is not going to give me any backup,” he said. “It’s just poison. It’s terrorism. It’s Iran. It’s Iraq.”

By TIM ARANGO

July 24, 2011 0 comments
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Mujahedin Khalq Organization as a terrorist group

Washington’s favorite Terrorists

Since early January 2011, the MEK has spent millions of dollars on lobbyists, PR agents and communications firms to build up pressure on Secretary Hillary Clinton to take the group off of the terrorist list. Their argument is that the MEK rejected violence and terrorism in 2001 and as a result should be de-listed.

Sometime in August, Secretary Clinton will decide whether to keep the Mujahedin-e Khalq on the US’s terrorist list.

Former senior U.S. officials have called Mujahedin “Iran’s hope.” They have said Mujahedin leader Maryam Rajavi “should be recognized as the President of Iran.” Some have already acknowledged received cash to support the organization.

In Congress, massive lobbying efforts have convinced many that Mujahedin is the “main opposition in Iran” and that the Mujahedin speaks for the Iranian people and the Iranian-American community.

Of course, it isn’t true that the MEK has really abandoned its old ways. Ray Takeyh testified before Congress on the subject of the MEK earlier this month, and he addressed the idea that the MEK has changed:

The core of MEK’s ideology has always been anti-imperialism which it has historically defined as opposition to U.S. interests. The MEK opposed the Shah partly because of his close associations with the United States. MEK’s anti-American compulsions propelled it toward embracing an entire spectrum of radical forces ranging from the Vietcong to the PLO. Given its mission of liberating the working class and expunging the influence of predatory capitalism, the United States has traditionally been identified as a source of exploitation and injustice in MEK literature. As the organization has lost its Iraqi patron and finds itself without any reliable allies, it has somehow modulated its language and sought to moderate its anti-American tone.

A recently disclosed FBI report from 2004 reveals Mojahedin Khalq (MKO, MEK, Rajavi cult) continued to plan terrorist acts years after they claimed to renounce terrorism. The State Department has documented the MEK’s disturbing record: killing Americans and Iranians in terrorist attacks; fighting for Saddam Hussein against Iran and assisting Saddam’s brutal campaign against Iraq’s Kurds and Shia; its”cult-like”behavior; the abuses and even torture it commits against its own members; and its support for the U.S. embassy takeover and calls for executing the hostages …

In 1991, Iraqi exiles set up the Iraq National Congress (INC) with funding from the CIA. Under the leadership of Ahmad Chalabi, and flush with tens of millions dollars in US government funding, the INC allied itself with the neoconservatives in Washington and unceasingly beat the drums of war, presenting itself as the popular democratic alternative to Saddam Hussein and feeding faulty intelligence to an eager media and Bush administration. Eventually, they succeeded in dragging the United States into disastrous war that cost Americans and Iraqis their lives and caused incalculable damage to American prestige and power.

Now, history may be repeating itself.
A segment of our political establishment that is chafing at the bit for a military attack on Iran has found their INC, in the form of the Mujahedin-e-Khalq Organization (also known as the MEK, or MKO),Download Washington Favorite Terrorists

July 23, 2011 0 comments
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Mujahedin Khalq Organization as a terrorist group

Mujahedin-e Khalq Factsheet

In a matter of weeks, a terrorist group known as the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK) may succeed in getting removed from the U.S. list of foreign terrorist organizations — not as a result of any change of heart — but as a result of an unprecedented and possibly illegal multi-million dollar media and lobbying blitz.

Iranian Americans know the truth about the MEK, but high-priced public relations and lobbying firms are hard at work trying to whitewash the MEK’s violent and disturbing record. And while they’ve been remarkably successful, they can’t completely escape the truth. So, for the record, here are the facts about the MEK (you can find this and more at www.mekterror.com):
o The State Department reports the MEK is a terrorist group that has murdered innocent Americans and maintains “the will and capacity” to commit terrorist attacks within the U.S. and beyond. [1]
o The MEK claims to have renounced terrorism in 2001, but a 2004 FBI report states “the MEK is currently actively involved in planning and executing acts of terrorism.” [2]
o RAND and Human Rights Watch have reported that the MEK is a cult that abuses its own members. [3] [4]
o MEK has no popular support in Iran [5]

Iraqi National Congress Redux?
o The MEK claims it is “the main opposition in Iran,” yet similar to Ahmad Chalabi’s Iraqi National Congress that helped bring the United States into war with Iraq, the MEK is an exiled organization that has no popular support within Iran. [8]
o RAND reports that the MEK are “skilled manipulators of public opinion.” The MEK has a global support network with active lobbying and propaganda efforts in major Western capitals. [9]
o Members of Congress have been deceived and misinformed into supporting this terrorist organization:
o In 2002, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen led efforts for the U.S. to support the group, prompting then-Chairman and the Ranking Member of the House International Affairs Committee, Henry Hyde and Tom Lantos, to send a Dear Colleague warning against supporting the MEK. They cautioned that many Members had been “embarrassed when confronted with accurate information about the MEK.” [10]
o In the current Congress, Rep. Ted Poe (R-TX) and Rep. Bob Filner (D-CA) have each introduced resolutions calling for MEK to be removed from the Foreign Terrorist Organization list.

A Capacity and Will to Commit Terrorist Acts in the U.S. & Beyond
o The Bush administration determined in 2007 that “MEK leadership and members across the world maintain the capacity and will to commit terrorist acts in Europe, the Middle East, the United States, Canada, and beyond.” [11]
o The Canadian and Australian governments have also designated the MEK as a terrorist organization. The Canadian government just reaffirmed its designation in December. [12] [13]
o An EU court removed the MEK from its list of terrorist organizations, but only due to procedural reasons. According to a spokesperson for the Council of the European Union, the EU court “did not enter into the question of defining or not the PMOI [MEK] as a terrorist organization.” [14]

Saddam Hussein’s Terrorist Militia
o The MEK received all of its military assistance and most of its financial support from Saddam Hussein, including funds illegally siphoned from the UN Oil-for-Food Program, until 2003. [15]
o The MEK helped execute Saddam’s bloody crackdown on Iraqi Shia and Kurds. Maryam Rajavi, the MEK’s permanent leader, instructed her followers to “take the Kurds under your tanks.” [16]

A Cult That Abuses Its Own Members
o Human Rights Watch reports that MEK commits extensive human rights abuses against its own members at Camp Ashraf, including “torture that in two cases led to death.” [17]
o A RAND report commissioned by DOD found that the MEK is a cult that utilizes practices such as mandatory divorce, celibacy, authoritarian control, forced labor, sleep deprivation, physical abuse, confiscation of assets, emotional isolation, and the imprisonment of dissident members. [18]
o RAND concluded that up to 70% of the MEK members at their Camp Ashraf headquarters were likely recruited through deception and are kept there against their will. [19]
o The FBI reports that the MEK’s “NLA [National Liberation Army] fighters are separated from their children who are sent to Europe and brought up by the MEK’s Support Network. […] These children are then returned to the NLA to be used as fighters upon coming of age. Interviews also revealed that some of these children were told that their parents would be harmed if the children did not cooperate with the MEK. ”[20]

A History of Anti-Americanism

o One of the founding ideologies of the MEK is anti-Americanism—the MEK is responsible for murdering American businessmen, military personnel, and even a senior American diplomat. [21]
o The MEK strongly supported the takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran in 1979, vigorously opposed their eventual release, and chastised the government for not executing the hostages. [22]

The MEK was Not “Added” to the FTO List as a Goodwill Gesture to Iran
o The MEK has been a designated terrorist group since the State Department established the FTO list October 8, 1997. [23] MEK was also listed in the Patterns on Global Terrorism report prior to 1997. [24]
[..]

Full citations below the fold:

[1] U.S. Department of State, Country Reports on Terrorism 2006,
available at: http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/crt/2006/82738.htm

[2] Federal Bureau of Investigation, Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK) Criminal Investigation, November 29, 2004,
available at: http://www.niacouncil.org/site/DocServer/FBI_Report.pdf?docID=921

[3] RAND Corporation, The Mujahedin-e Khalq in Iraq: A Policy Conundrum,
available at: http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/
pubs/monographs/2009/RAND_MG871.pdf

[4] Human Rights Watch, No Exit: Human Rights Abuses Inside the Mojahedin Khalq Camps, May 18, 2005,
available at: http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/docid/45d085002.html

[5] Mohsen Kadivar and Ahmad Sadri, Salon.com, “Hillary Clinton’s Crucial Choice on Iran,” March 26, 2011,
available at: http://www.salon.com/news/politics/war_room/2011/03/26/
iran_green_movement/index.html

[6] Tony Karon, Time, “Why Are Some U.S. Politicians Trying to Remove an Iranian ‘Cult’ From the Terror List?” March 4, 2011,
available at: http://globalspin.blogs.time.com/
2011/03/04/why-are-some-u-s-politicians-
trying-to-remove-an-iranian-cult-from-the-terror-list/.
Original quote in Farsi available at: http://www.peykeiran.com/Content.aspx?ID=11802

[7] Patrick Disney, Foreign Policy Magazine: Middle East Channel, “Congressional backers look to exiled Iranian group for regime change,” September 22, 2010, http://mideast.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/09/22/
congressional_backers_look_to_exiled_iranian_group_for_regime_change

[8] Jason Rezaian, Foreign Policy Magazine: Middle East Channel, “Washington’s dangerous (and deluded) support for the MEK,” March 1, 2011,
available at: http://mideast.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2011/02/24/
washingtons_dangerous_and_deluded_support_for_the_mek

[9] RAND Corporation, The Mujahedin-e Khalq in Iraq: A Policy Conundrum, Pages 39-40,
available at: http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/
monographs/2009/RAND_MG871.pdf

[10] Sam Dealey, The Hill, “Rep. Ros-Lehtinen defends Iranian group labeled terrorist front for Saddam Hussein,” April 8, 2003,
available at: http://replay.web.archive.org/20040619065636/
http://www.thehill.com/news/040803/roslehtinen.aspx

[11] U.S. Department of State, Country Reports on Terrorism 2006,
available at: http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/crt/2006/82738.htm

[12] Canadian Department of Public Safety, “Currently Listed Entities,” December 22, 2010,
available at: http://www.publicsafety.gc.ca/prg/ns/le/cle-eng.aspx#MEK

[13] Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.
http://www.dfat.gov.au/globalissues/terrorism.html.
See Australia’s sanctioned terrorist list at http://www.dfat.gov.au/icat/regulation8_consolidated.xls

[14] CNN, “Iran condemns EU for delisting terror group,” January 27, 2009,
available at: http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/meast/01/27/iran.eu.terror.group/

[15] U.S. Department of State, Country Reports on Terrorism 2009,
available at: http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/crt/2009/140900.htm

[16] Elizabeth Rubin, New York Times Magazine, “The Cult of Rajavi,” July 13, 2003,
available at: http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/13/
magazine/the-cult-of-rajavi.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm

[17] Human Rights Watch, No Exit: Human Rights Abuses Inside the Mojahedin Khalq Camps, May 18, 2005,
available at: http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/docid/45d085002.html

[18] RAND Corporation, The Mujahedin-e Khalq in Iraq: A Policy Conundrum, Page 3,
available at: http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/
pubs/monographs/2009/RAND_MG871.pdf

[19] RAND Corporation, The Mujahedin-e Khalq in Iraq: A Policy Conundrum, Page 74,
available at: http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/
monographs/2009/RAND_MG871.pdf

[20] Federal Bureau of Investigation, Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK) Criminal Investigation, November 29, 2004,
available at: http://www.niacouncil.org/site/DocServer/FBI_Report.pdf?docID=921

[21] U.S. Department of State, Country Reports on Terrorism 2009,
available at: http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/crt/2009/140900.htm

[22] Letter from the Assistant Secretary for Legislative Affairs to Congressman Lee Hamilton,
Congressional Record Page E2263 in the 103rd Congress,
available at http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/1993_cr/h930929-terror-pmoi.htm

[23] U.S. Department of State, Country Reports on Terrorism 1997,
available at: http://www.state.gov/www/global/terrorism/1997Report/backg.html

[24] U.S. Department of State, Patterns on Global Terrorism. See, for instance, the 1994 report,
available at http://www.fas.org/irp/threat/terror_94/append.html

July 23, 2011 0 comments
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