Page 614 – Nejat Society

Mujahedin Khalq Organization as a terrorist group

Western citizens have to pay for MKO’s expenses

On the occasion of Christian’s New Year, charity organizations all over the world become more active to collect donations for the poor. The act of benefactors who are concerned about human’s needs is really praiseworthy but there is also a dark side for such activities. There are some fraudulent organizations that misuse the opportunity to raise their own funds by soliciting people. Mujahedin Khalq Organization has a long record of such deceitful activities. MKO agents are more active in Scandinavian countries, their propaganda and fund raising champagnes have a network of front organizations in those countries

The first time MKO and its front organization were investigated for fraudulent fund raising activities, was in 1996 in Britain. UK Charity Commission which is a governmental body to supervise charity institutes began investigation on Iran Aid Charity that was then proved to be a front group of MKO Cult. In 1997, UK Charity Commission closed Iran Aid Charity after it was proved to be linked to Mujahedin Khalq Organization.[1]

In September 2000, Simon Gillespie, director of operation at UK Charity commission told news media," after two years’ investigation, Iran Aid has failed to give us verifiable evidence that money donated by British public was actually spent on charitable work in Iran."[2]

About a year after UK’s probe against MKO, in March 2001,"five Iranian nationals and two Iranian Americans appeared in federal court in Los Angeles on charges of raising more than $1 million to fund terrorist activities abroad," reported Los Angeles Times. The report clarifies that most of the money was solicited from unsuspecting travelers at LA International Airport and sent to bank accounts in Turkey controlled by MKO. James V. De Sarno Jr. an authority of FBI Los Angeles office said that the "suspected money has been used to buy arms.” The travelers were shown photos of starving children and victims of alleged Iranian government atrocities and told the money was used to support refugees, according to LA Times.[3]

In 2009 Federal Bureau of Investigation of Los Angeles reported the seven arrested MKO members were pleaded guilty by US District Court, Judge David O.Carter. The seven defendants admitted that they knowingly raised funds to support the activities of the MEK by collecting money from MEK supporters and soliciting money from unwilling donors at public locations such as Los Angeles International airport, according to Department of Justice Press Release.[4]

MKO’s deceptive fund raising activities did not end in US District Court. The opportunists of Rajavi’s Cult also use human disasters as an appropriate channel to funnel money in to the cult’s pocket. In January 2004, after the catastrophic earthquake in Bam, Iran, Mujahedin Khalq held their so called "night of solidarity with Bam Survivors."FBI agents attended the event because they doubted legitimacy of the event, and the next day the Treasury Department froze the assets of the event’s prime organizer, the Iranian – American Community of Northern Virginia.[5]Jackie Flowers who was asked about the events relation with bam earthquake is a spokesman for the Red Cross. She told Glenn Kessler of Washington Post that “the relief agency had been contacted by the sponsors about receiving funds raised at the event several weeks before it took place. But the Red Cross decided to reject the proceeds once it became aware that the event was ‘political in nature’, specifically the promotion of regime change.” [6]

The money laundry projects in MKO have always been active. In January 2010, a disastrous earthquake struck Haiti that paved a new way for MKO to raise their funds . Since MKO agents are more active in Scandinavian countries, their propaganda and fund raising champagnes have a network of front organizations in those countries to lead the group’s tactics. Following the earthquake in Haiti Swedish people were among the top donators to contribute Haiti earthquake victims but the fraudulent groups like MKO were ready to manipulate people’s emotional feelings. Thus, the Swedish government body, Council of funds raised by volunteer charity organization of Sweden (FRII) ( Frivilligorganisationernas Insamlingsråd ) published a list in the country’s media to prevent such organizations misuse people’s donations. MKO was among those untrustworthy-considered organizations: Mojahedin’s Sympathizers Society (MSF),the Promotion of Iranian Culture (FIK) and Association for Democracy and Human Rights in Iran (FDMRI) are the three front groups affiliated to MKO that are listed by Sweden.

On the eve of Christmas Sweden government once more published that warning list to prevent financial abuse committed by those deceitful groups. In the updated list you may find again the name of Mujahedin front groups.[7]

Erik Zachrison from that Swedish Council told about the list:" I don’t know their nationality and they have not managed to present a registered number for their organization. I just know they are active all over Sweden and they do not own the account "ninety" and they have never asked to register for one. They stop people in the streets, showing brochures or pictures and for example ask them if they know Amnesty Intentional and then ask for financial help. A lot of people think they are helping that mentioned international body." [8][Account ninety is a bank account allocated to charity organizations that are lawful in Sweden].

MKO’s nonstop deception campaign was also recognized in Germany. DZI, German General Institute for social issues, warned German nationals in a press release to watch their donations to these three institutes:

Association for people and Freedom (VMF), Association for the hope of future (VHZ), Human Rights Association for migrants that according to DZI are associated with Mujahedin Khalq terrorist organization advertize with street collection campaign, with letters and even home visits for donations by often highly moving and gruesome images of tortured and killed people. DZI declared that it had received a lot of letters of complaint from parties which were visited for personal interviews in their houses and offices. They were requested to donate high, four-digit sums of money to their alleged human right organization. [9] On December 9th, 2010, DZI updates its monitoring report maintaining the name of the three above-mentioned front groups.[10]

Deceptive charity actively is a way to launder money which is often used by terrorists and criminals. Their illegal activity can also include, smuggling trafficking, extortion and corruption. MKO terrorists have to launder the proceeds from their fund raising activities in order to be able to use them to run their propaganda machine and terror campagne. Fighting against corruptive financial activities should be a mission for all governments, especially western countries who are mostly at risk of being manipulated by MKO agents since their true face is known to Iranians but not for them. Western citizens must be informed about peril of transacting with front organizations actually linked to a destructive terrorist cult because the group’s consequent terrorist acts constitute threats to their safety and security.

References:

[1] Iran-interlink, Mojahedin (Rajavi cult) Time Line
http://www.iran-interlink.org/files/child%20pages/Timeline.htm
[2] The Free Library, Charity closed after probe, September2000
http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Charity+closed+after+probe.-a065265054
[3| McDERMOTT, TERRY and SARHADDI NELSON, SORAYA, Los Angeles Times, 7 Accused of Raising Funds for Terrorists, March 01, 2001
http://articles.latimes.com/2001/mar/01/news/mn-31811
[4]Los Angeles FBI Office, United States Attorney’s Office, Department of Justice Press Release, Seven Plead Guilty to Providing Material Support to Designated Foreign Terrorist Organization, April 28, 2009
http://losangeles.fbi.gov/dojpressrel/pressrel09/la042809a.htm
[5] Kessler, Glenn, Washington Post ,Charity Event May Have Terrorist Link, January 29, 2004
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A58296-2004Jan28?language=printer
[6]ibid
[7] Link to Swedish webpage:
http://www.frii.se/7_varning.shtml
[8] New View Website, Translated by Nejat Society
https://www.nejatngo.org/en/posts/3406
[9] Link to DZI 2009 warning (in German):
http://www.dzi.de/pressemitteilungen/DZI-PM_16Dez2009.pdf
[10] Link to DZI 2010 warning (in German):
http://www.dzi.de/pressemitteilungen/DZI-PM_9Dez2010.pdf

By Mazda Parsi

January 4, 2011 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

New York Republicans Providing Material Support to MEK Terrorists

Speaking of material support for terrorism, David Cole uses the recent trip by Rudy Giuliani and others to suck up to the Mujaheddin-e Khalq (MEK) as an opportunity to explain the idiocy of the Holder versus Humanitarian Law Project SCOTUS verdict.

DID former Attorney General Michael Mukasey, former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, Tom Ridge, a former homeland security secretary, and Frances Townsend, a former national security adviser, all commit a federal crime last month in Paris when they spoke in support of the Mujahedeen Khalq at a conference organized by the Iranian opposition group’s advocates? Free speech, right? Not necessarily.

The problem is that the United States government has labeled the Mujahedeen Khalq a “foreign terrorist organization,” making it a crime to provide it, directly or indirectly, with any material support. And, according to the Justice Department under Mr. Mukasey himself, as well as under the current attorney general, Eric Holder, material support includes not only cash and other tangible aid, but also speech coordinated with a “foreign terrorist organization” for its benefit. It is therefore a felony, the government has argued, to file an amicus brief on behalf of a “terrorist” group, to engage in public advocacy to challenge a group’s “terrorist” designation or even to encourage peaceful avenues for redress of grievances.

But in June, the Supreme Court ruled against us, stating that all such speech could be prohibited, because it might indirectly support the group’s terrorist activity. Chief Justice John Roberts reasoned that a terrorist group might use human rights advocacy training to file harassing claims, that it might use peacemaking assistance as a cover while re-arming itself, and that such speech could contribute to the group’s “legitimacy,” and thus increase its ability to obtain support elsewhere that could be turned to terrorist ends.

Cole goes on to note the hypocrisy of the government, which has given exceptions for humanitarian purposes to corporations seeking to sell cigarettes, even while arguing NGOs cannot provide food and water.

Mind you, I’m actually with Cole: Rudy and Mukasey and Fran Fragos Townsend and Tom Ridge ought to be able to go make speeches sucking up to Iran’s version of Ahmad Chalabi (oops! I forgot that Chalabi was Iran’s!), a bunch of liars who have invented intelligence to try to justify war with Iran. That’s what Republicans do, after all: promote hucksters who can justify the next war.

But it’s really time for either some consistency in the way the government pursues its war on terror violent extremism, or an admission that the war on terror has disintegrated into a war on those who oppose US empire. The government is still investigating a bunch of peace activists for material support. And yet four prominent Republicans can offer the same kind of material support as the peace activists–but this time in service of war or US hegemony or oil–with no similar consequences?

South Capitol Street

January 4, 2011 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization members' families

Ashraf residents’ families now worried much more than before

Recently a number of families from Nejat Society Mazandaran branch went to Camp Ashraf, Iraq to visit their beloved ones. Although they couldn’t manage to convince MKO cult leaders to allow them meet their relatives, the travel had several enlightening consequences.

The families understood more than ever about the ruthlessness, brutality and fraudulency of the MKO Cult leaders. They shocked as they witnessed the situation and realized the facts they didn’t know before.

The Families oath not to stop their activities and no to leave the gates of Ashraf until they release all the hostages from the MKO's garrison

Now families are worried much more than before about the condition, health and security as well as future of their relatives. They are trying to make their voice heard to the UNAMI, Iraqi Government and Humanitarian Organizations.

The Ashraf residents’ family members urge the international community to take effective measures to stop the violations of human rights by the Rajavi Cult.

In this regard a number of families gathered together and shared their experiences and views on the issue and discussed ways how to liberate their beloved ones being held captive by MKO leaders.

The Families oath not to stop their activities and not to leave the gates of Ashraf until they release all the hostages from the MKO’s garrison.

January 3, 2011 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

How GOP Leaders Allow Iran To Shape Their Policy

Most Republicans would do anything to take down Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his Iranian regime. And for Rudy Giuliani and Sarah Palin, that means embracing a “terrorist group” and Wikileaks, respectively. The enemy of my enemy is my friend, yes, but the only winner here remains Iran.

Giuliani and other Republican officials like former homeland security advisor Tom Ridge traveled to Paris this week to speak on the behalf of Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK), a militant exile group Bill Clinton dubbed a terror organization in 1997.

“For your organization to be described as a terrorist organization is just really a disgrace,” said former New York City mayor Giuliani during his trip, which was organized by MEK’s political arm, French Committee for a Democratic Iran. “The United States should not just be on your side. It should be enthusiastically on your side. You want the same things we want.” While MEK’s surely a better friend than Tehran, and we have a common goal, that doesn’t mean the group’s entirely harmless.

Founded in 1965 to oppose the pro-U.S. Shah, MEK, which killed U.S. officials in the process, presumed it would enjoy a new life in post-Revolution Iran. They were wrong, because the Ayatollah didn’t want any ideological competition and routed them out, sending MEK around the world, mostly to Europe, from which they continued to launch attacks against Iran.

Their militant activities, however, alienated MEK from their European hosts, which led them to another long-time nemesis of Iran, Saddam Hussein, who began housing and aiding MEK in 1986. The group, which bases their ideology on an amalgamation of Islam, Marxism and feminism, has mellowed since then and many governments, including the European Union, have lifted the group’s terrorist label.

MEK’s terror background remains open for debate. Though their past attacks could qualify as terrorism, President Clinton reportedly added them to the terrorist list as an ultimately impotent way to bring the Iranian regime to the negotiation table. George W. Bush maintained the practice and former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice signed off on a renewal in January of 2009, right before she was replaced by Hillary Clinton.

“It is pretty openly acknowledged that the reason MEK was placed on the list by the Clinton administration was to curry favor with Iran,” Michael Mukasey, Bush’s attorney general who joined Giuliani’s Paris trip, said in a statement put out by a group called ExecutiveAction, which happens to be the same term the CIA uses for its assassination missions.

“I am sorry to say that even during the administration that I served in, it is reported that the MEK continued to remain on the list for the same misguided reason — that if we kept MEK on the list of terrorist organizations … then somehow the Iranians would be more willing to engage in constructive negotiations to end their nuclear program.”

Secretary of State Clinton’s team now has to figure out what to do with MEK: a federal appeals court this year ordered the State Department to review MEK’s terrifying label, and 112 U.S. Representatives from both parties, though mostly Republicans, are calling for the MEK’s collective name to be cleared.

Those who support MEK simply want the group to launch a proxy war against Iran, yet haven’t considered the potentially dangerous consequences. For example, none of the legislators bother to mention that MEK continues to clash with the U.S.-backed Iraqi Security Force, nor does anyone seem to recall other situations in which we teamed up with militants to destroy a common enemy.

Remember the Taliban? If you recall, we enlisted them to defeat the Soviets in Afghanistan, and that decision ended up backfiring, to say the least.

While some Republicans were championing MEK in their fight against Iran, Sarah Palin, another ardent advocate of toppling the Iranian regime, has been building a case against Iran’s nuclear program.

“Iran continues to defy the international community in its drive to acquire nuclear weapons,” she wrote in an op-ed for ‘USA Today.’

“We suspected this before, but now we know for sure because of leaked diplomatic cables. King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia ‘frequently exhorted the U.S. to attack Iran to put an end to its nuclear weapons program,’ according to these communications.”

Those “leaked cables,” journalist Nick Wing points out, came from Wikileaks, a site Palin called “treasonous” and whose editor she likened to Osama bin Laden. But since she needs to target Iran, Palin’s willing to look past her past animosity.

Giuliani, Palin and other leaders, mostly Republican, are so intent on destroying the Islamic regime in Iran that they’re willing to strike short-sighted deals or compromise their own beliefs in the process. They’re taking up positions and alliances that they would have previously vilified. Giuliani, who was NYC’s mayor on 9/11, rallying for a group that has killed American officials in the past? That’s unheard of; yet so deep is his and others’ determination to see Tehran dismantled. Unfortunately for them, the only winner in this situation is Iran.

The regime’s defiance proves so tenacious and irksome, Western leaders end up grasping at straws, leaving Ahmadinejad to laugh as his enemies squabble among themselves, aware that he has them backed into a corner, clearly so desperate that they’re willing to erode their own positions simply to destroy him.

by Andrew Belonsky

January 3, 2011 0 comments

The cult of Rajavi

Rajavi incites brainwashed Mojahedin to burn themselves

Rajavi plans to incites brainwashed Mojahedin Khalq to burn themselves and self-harm after failure of his strategy to escape the crisis engulfing Camp Ashraf

Alnakhel news – confirmed the news from inside Camp Ashraf that after the failure of Massoud Rajavi’s strategy to save the terrorist camp, he has incited the brainwashed Mojahedin to burn Rajavi plans to incites brainwashed Mojahedin Khalq to burn themselves and self-harm after failure of his strategy to escape the crisis engulfing Camp Ashraf themselves to get out of the impasse that surrounds the camp. Alnakhel news agency reported the possibility of the elimination of members with cancer or other diseases in the MKO terrorist group by forcing them to commit suicide by burning themselves individually or collectively.

The aim of the leaders of this criminal group by forcing members to commit suicide or self-immolation is to point the finger of blame at the Iraqi government so that it shoulder more burdens and face more problems at this time.

In addition to the torture of the MKO members, cult leader Rajavi initiated the anti-humanitarian act …to deny families who have gathered at the camp gates from seeing their children, and on the other hand to prevent the families from checking the health of their loved ones.

Iraqi police intervened last week through inspection of the [MKO] hospital, which is part of the sovereignty of Iraq, to provide medicine and doctors. But the MKO leaders took the initiative to send members to injure themselves to prevent the entry of Iraqi police to the hospital.

In this way, the MKO aims to accuse the Iraqi forces of beating its members so as to create a grievance in order to prevent them from deciding in the affairs of the hospital and the need for medicines and doctors to treat patients. This criminal act comes at the time when Rajavi on one hand sends patients to the best hospitals in the Iraqi capital who are treated by the best doctors and specialists, and on the other hand claims he was facing problems in the treatment of patients due to restrictions imposed by the Iraqi government.

It is worth mentioning that the MKO had initiated the liquidation of a number of its members before and after the occupation of Iraq and claimed then that they were killed in U.S. air raids. A number of witnesses dismissed these false allegations out of hand and said they were killed by members of the MKO group.
Nakhel news, Baghdad – translated by Iran Interlink

January 3, 2011 0 comments

The cult of Rajavi

MKO Starts Brainwashing Members to Stop Defection

Reports from inside the main training camp of the anti-Iran terrorist Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization said MKO ringleaders have started brainwashing members to persuade them to commit suicide in a bid to prevent their possible defection in quest for better living conditions.
MKO ringleaders allege that their brainwashing plans are aimed at increasing the costs of the camp's sealing and incarceration by the Iraqi security forces
Earlier reports had revealed that a large number of MKO members are struggling against killing diseases like cancer, while the group’s leaders have blocked their access to the outside world in a bid to prevent their possible defection.

According to a new report by the Habilian Association, an Iran-based human rights group, the MKO ringleaders allege that their brainwashing plans are aimed at increasing the costs of the camp’s sealing and incarceration by the Iraqi security forces for the Baghdad government.

After intense and repeated requests by the Iraqi people, groups, parties and parliament members, the country’s security forces took control of the training base of the MKO at Camp Ashraf – about 60km (37 miles) north of Baghdad – last year 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 report said that the new measure came after protests remarkably increased inside the group. Right groups are gravely concerned that a large number of MKO members may lose their lives soon if UN, human rights and Iraqi officials do not force the group leaders to end their tortures and pressures against the dissident members.

Leaders of the Rajavi cult (MKO) have cut contacts between the group members and their relatives and family members even in the Camp hospital in a bid to prevent possible defection of the members, which has been on the increase in recent months.

Earlier reports had revealed that under the direct order of MKO’s Ringleader Maryam Rajavi, leaders of the terrorist group allow their members to receive medical aids, healthcare and other services only in return for given levels of cooperation.

Based on the order, dissident members are deprived of medicine and other medical services or, at least, face much hardship and difficulty in procuring their necessary medicines, a report by the Habilian Association said in November.

According to a report by Iraqi daily Motamar, also published by Edalat (Justice) Society web site – an organ of the families of the Iranian victims of terrorism – Iraq’s right groups have sent serious warnings to civil society and human rights bodies as well as the Iraqi government about the ongoing humanitarian disaster in the MKO’s main training camp in Northern Iraq.

Also, Sahar Family Foundation reported that the MKO’s ringleaders are forcing the dissident members of the group to commit suicide, and if they refuse to do so, the leaders massacre defectors themselves.
The right group called on the Iraqi judiciary system, international court of justice and all international human rights bodies as well as the Iraqi and international media to take urgent action to stop the human catastrophe in the camp which, they said, now looks more like a slaughterhouse.
The MKO ringleaders have long been reported to be using torture and pressure on their own dissident members, barring the dissident members from leaving the organization and joining their families.

Earlier this month, an Iraq-based right group unveiled that ringleaders of the MKO have resorted to various forms of mass killing in a bid to bring the group out of the current impasse in Iraq.

In relevant development, a report revealed in November that Ahmad Razzani, a veteran member of the MKO, had been killed inside the Camp.
Reports also said that all exit and entry doors have been locked and none of the members, even those suffering from acute diseases and illnesses, are allowed to leave the camp.
MKO ringleaders have ordered the camp guards to stage snap inspections of the group’s members and their personal belongings under the pretext of finding the lost weapons.

Such behaviors have sparked discontent among a number of MKO members and made them escape the camp and return to their anguished families.
A large number of Iranian and Iraqi families staged a massive protest outside the camp in December, and called for the freedom of their relatives and children who are under various types of torture and pressure by their ringleaders inside the camp.

The protestors demanded the Iraqi government and all human rights groups and organizations to provide the ground for the freedom of their children from the notorious Camp Ashraf, and urged closure of the terrorist hub.

Among the demonstrators were families of the MKO members, who say their loved ones are being held inside the camp against their will.
The MKO, whose main stronghold has been in Iraq’s Diyala province since the 1980s, 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, the report by the EU parliamentarians added.

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.

January 2, 2011 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization members' families

Nejat Families of Fars Province to Camp Ashraf

A forty-people of family members of Ashraf residents who are representatives of Nejat NGO Office in Shiraz, Fars, traveled to Camp Ashraf Iraq to join other families awaiting there. They are hopeful to visit their loved ones who are captives of MKO terrorist Cult.

So far large groups of families from various Iranian provinces including Golestan, Azarbayjan, Markazi, and Khuzestan have gone to Iraq to urge the Cult leaders to allow them visit their beloved children in a free atmosphere. They have been bearing the worst condition for almost a year.

January 2, 2011 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

U.S. Politicians Provide Material Support for Terrorism – So Where’s the FBI?

Given that New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani ran a whole failed presidential campaign on his supposed war on terror-fighting credentials – he was in office when 9/11 happened, or so I’ve heard — one might reasonably wonder: why is the former GOP candidate flying to Paris and publicly praising the Mujahhideen-e Khalq (MEK), an Iranian exile group that worked side-by-side with Saddam Hussein and killed civilians and U.S. military personnel alike?

The question isn’t actually all that hard to answer. While, sure, the MEK might be designated a terrorist group by the State Department, it is rabidly opposed to the current Iranian government – so much so that the group fled Iran in the 1980s and sought refuge in Iraq, where it worked on behalf of the Iraqi dictator to stage suicide attacks against their own countrymen. So while terrorists, they’re useful terrorists when it comes to furthering U.S. policy goals for the Middle East, or at least that’s the thinking.

Led by Maryam Rajavi, the self-appointed “President Elect” of Iran (you think the 2009 Iranian election was rigged…), the group combines a strange personality cult with a mishmash of Marxist doctrine. And like the Afghan mujahadeen before it – those lovely folks who later formed the Taliban and al-Qaeda – there are plenty of high-profile U.S. politicians, Republican and Democrat alike, willing to lend the group their support.

As The Washington Post reported last week, Giuliani this month traveled to Paris and lavished praise on the MEK leadership. "The United States should not just be on your side," Giuliani proclaimed. "It should be enthusiastically on your side. You want the same things we want" (i.e. dead Iranians).

Joining Giuliani were several top Bush administration officials, including former Homeland Security chief Tom Ridge and Attorney General Michael Mukasey, all of whom decried the fact that the group is listed as a terrorist organization, when all its really want to do is commit acts of terrorism against Persians.

But while the support these top GOP officials offered a bunch of well-financed terrorists was widely reported, there have strangely been no ensuing indictments, no FBI raids, no grand jury subpoenas – nothing.

According to U.S. law, though, that shouldn’t be the case. In June, the Supreme Court upheld a statute that defines “material support” for terrorism so broadly as to include providing any form of “advice” or “assistance” to a group designated by the U.S. government as a terrorist organization – even if that advice consists only of encouraging a terrorist group to stop committing acts of terrorism.

But prosecutions under the “material support” doctrine aren’t meant for the powerful, for people like Giuliani & Friends — they’re intended for those who challenge the powerful. So while top U.S. politicians are free to speak at international conferences sponsored by terrorist groups, pacifists and anti-war activists are subjected to FBI raids for speaking out against their own government’s foreign policy.

Since September, two dozen prominent peace activists based mostly in Chicago and Minneapolis have been served grand jury subpoenas by the FBI, ostensibly as part of an investigation into whether they and their organizations provided material support for terrorist groups in Colombia and Palestine. Federal agents have also raided the offices and homes of around a half-dozen activists, confiscating computer equipment, books and mailing lists.

While American politicians openly flaunt their support for terror, so long as the victims of said terror are poor brown foreigners, activists targeted in the raids have forcefully declared their innocence, charging that they’re being subjected to a witch hunt intended more to intimidate those who dare dissent than uncover actual criminal wrongdoing. Notably, no one has been arrested or charged with a crime.

Activists are far from intimidated, though, with Code Pink co-founder Medea Benjamin telling Change.org that the raids and subpoenas are actually proving to be a rallying cry for the peace movement in the U.S., which had been waning in the wake of President Obama’s election.

In a statement issued Thursday, dozens of pro-Palestine activist groups at colleges across the country denounced the raids as un-American.

“As students at over fifty American universities, we unequivocally condemn the abuse of grand jury subpoenas to chill the exercise of First Amendment rights by university students and anti-war activists speaking and organizing against Israel’s continued oppression of the Palestinian people,” says the statement, signed by chapters of Students for Justice in Palestine. “The abuse of laws criminalizing ‘material support for terrorism’ is unprecedented and, had they been implemented at the time of South African apartheid, would have effectively criminalized broad American support for the anti-apartheid movement.” (Nelson Mandela’s political party, the African National Congress, was listed by the State Department as a terrorist group during the 1980s.)

The folks who brought us color-coded terror alerts and aren’t likely to be indicted anytime soon — again, they support terrorists, but the right kind of terrorists — grassroots activism has the potential to force Attorney General Eric Holder and his accomplice, U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, to back off their campaign of intimidation. If politicians are allowed to promote endless war without consequence, it’s not too much to ask that people of conscience be permitted to publicly oppose them.

Criminal Justice

January 1, 2011 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization as a terrorist group

Mojahedin Khalq, terrorist lists, terrorist crimes and terrorist behavior

Subsequent to the ruling of the U.S. Court of Appeals demanding the State Department to review designation of Mojahedin Khalq Organization (MKO, MEK, PMOI, NCR, NLA) and the move by a variety of its advocates to provide material support to the terrorist group, some have speculated about the possibility of the removal of MKO from the State Department’s terrorist list. But the seriousness of the subject requires focusing on the terrorism as a general concern rather than a certain case in the context. Thus, before any further speculation, one should have at least a basic understanding of what necessitated the approbation and introduction of the terrorist lists with an emphasis to have a basic analysis of the terms ‘terrorist crimes’ and ‘terrorist behavior’.

Designation of groups on terrorist lists plays a critical role in the global fight against terrorism and is an effective means of curtailing support for terrorist activities and pressuring groups to change their violent attitude and abandon terrorism. However, the terrorist lists have to be inevitably challenged, because there are entities that for some reason are removed or not designated at all. Regardless of many states that have prepared and keep a record of terrorist groups that believe have threatened the security of their territories, two top all others and are of greater importance, the State Department and the EU’s. There are groups that, because of their globally threatening violence, some states reach a consensus to designate while in some cases there is a difference of opinion. These lists are every few years or sometimes annually reviewed and revised and published for the public. But what facts and reason contribute to remove a name from some list is a matter of idealized ends that fit the policy of that state and government.

As a case at hand to be pointed out, MKO is one of those proscribed groups on the EU and the UK’s list that has been removed, although there are unfulfilled expectations to be removed from the State Department’s list as well. The fact is that this act of proscription and de-proscription of an active terrorist group in itself, regardless of the contradictions about ways to combat terrorism, fails to be grounded on objective and rational effectiveness with regard to global sensitivity. In the case of MKO, while the initial consensus was to designate it as a terrorist group that met defined criteria of terrorism, the subsequent decisions of the EU and the UK to de-proscribe it contains some contradictions and paradoxes for which they must provide convincing answers.

MKO has recurrently claimed that its inclusion in the terrorist lists has been the result a political bargain with the Islamic Republic regime. The claim proves groundless since we see that the State Department condemns the Islamic Republic of sponsoring terrorism alongside putting its opposition on its list. As there are many other countries that despite their semi-adversarial position against the Islamic Republic and dispute over Iran’s nuclear issue, continue to recognize MKO a terrorist group. However, the arbitrary use of terrorist lists and using them as a political lever for imposing political demands against a country contradicts the effectiveness of war against terrorism while the terrorist nature of a group like MKO is generally agreed on. Looking at it from this perspective, perhaps the legitimacy of all terrorist lists of the Western countries can be openly questioned, for any tottering policy in fight against terrorism will embolden terrorists to impose double costs.

There are also groups that are engaged in extreme apolitical crimes but are not designated terrorist groups mainly because they fail to be recognized a threat against the states. Their unlawful use of force and violence against persons or property in order to coerce or intimidate the civilian population in furtherance of social objectives categorizes them as criminals but never as terrorists. Mafia and trafficking networks that are specifically active in some South American countries can be the best example of these undesignated terrorist groups. Apparently, what is important for the governments to designate major terrorist groups is grounded on political ends and interests rather than the atrocities perpetrated against the civilians who are the real and direct targets of terrorists. However, the organizers of the terrorist lists do not feel any responsibility to recognize these criminals whose nightmare shadows a whole society. When the EU removed MKO from its terrorist list, it chiefly evidenced that the group had stopped its terrorist operation since 2001, as pronounced and defended by the group itself. It means that the Europe Union acquitted MKO of all its terrorist crimes and atrocities committed before the claimed date and ordered its name to be removed from the list. From this perspective, the EU’s ruling is devoid of due legitimacy as it has thoroughly disregarded the rights of all those victims of the group’s terrorist atrocities whose legal cases are open and in process before a variety of courts of laws. This ruling can also mean that the EU has granted the terrorist MKO a political legitimacy.

The third keyword that regardless of any political expediency prove or deny inborn terrorism is terrorist behavior. Terrorist behavior can be interpreted as resorting to a willful use of violence for strategic and political reasons and a group preferably selects terrorism as a course of action from among a range of perceived alternatives. It is a choice both for the some states or certain groups when they find terrorism useful. That is, a state or certain group/s in opposition to a government resort to terrorist deeds as reasonable choices.

Among instances of states about whom there was a global consensus was the ousted Iraqi Saddam. Now, if the international community for certain considerations voted that Saddam’s government was not a terrorist in row, did it really make any difference to the nature of his government? Saddam’s administration was recognized a terrorist state because of its countless internal and external terrorist assassinations and discovered mass graves. Or it was terrorist operations of September 11 and many of other terrorist behaviors of Al-Qaeda rather than inflicting financial loses and human casualties on the US administration that led it on the top of the terrorist lists. As it is also the case with MKO; it has accepted responsibility of twelve thousand lives and victims of terror, tens of recorded blasts and blind suicide and mortar attacks as well as numerous other acts of intimidation and instigation of public disturbances that led it to be recognized a terrorist organization not its inclusion in the EU or the UK lists of terror. It occupied a terrorist position not purely for political concerns but because it met all patterns of a violent, terrorist group with undeniable and available evidences before the eyes of the world.

What led to designation of MKO as a terrorists group are the existing several hundred handicapped and disabled citizens who are forced on the shoulders of their families or those whose loved ones, without any distinct political reason and as the direct targets of the terrorists’ blind operations, political lost their lives. Interestingly, despite all made claims that MKO has already abandoned armed and violent methods, a ploy that caused to be brought off the EU list, still it insists on the accuracy of its adopted armed strategy and waging terrorism and violence in the public to triumph. The focal point here is that it is not the status of a terrorist group like MKO on a terrorist list that calls for its recognition but the amount of its perpetrated atrocities including the actual acts, the perpetrators of acts of terror themselves and their motives in the past, present and future. Though there are states that consider MKO a terrorist group and are decisive in their decision, but the existing problem is lack of a general consensus on the definition of terrorist behavior first and in the next step, arriving at a universal consensus that may boost the legitimacy and importance of all terrorist lists and defend them against any challenge.

December 30, 2010 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization's Propaganda System

MKO members hurt themselves to prevent investigation

Mojahedin Khalq leaders claimed that Iraqi forces attacked their hospital inside Camp Ashraf (now Camp New Iraq) on December 25 and injured several MKO members during the operation. A source in Iraq’s Interior Ministry who is familiar with the MKO’s standoff at the camp told Iran-Interlink privately, “Mojahedin Khalq and their backers can claim whatever they like. They can use their propaganda machine in the US and EU as they wish but it is clear to everyone that the Iraqi police neither attack hospitals nor steal equipment from hospitals. I know that during the time of Saddam, the Mojahedin did all sorts of things including many horrifying criminal acts, but we no longer live under the dictatorship of Saddam, we are now open to the world and everything is clear to those who choose to see”.

According to Iran-Interlink’s reports from this camp, the Iraqi police had been informed that criminal activities were taking place inside the camp and had been dispatched to investigate. Unfortunately upon their arrival, the Mojahedin Khalq refused to allow them access and started fighting with them. At the same time some MKO were seen to be deliberately injuring themselves only later to accuse the Iraqi police of using heavy handed tactics.

Three people have died during the past two months as a result of not receiving early medical attention because the MKO has refused them access to proper medical care. One more person has been killed by hanging (the MKO explains this as a suicide in protest at the families coming to visit them!). This situation is unacceptable. There is a right and an obligation to investigate these deaths.

Iran-Interlink is in receipt of reports that the leaders of the cult are preparing to kill or force the terminally sick people to commit suicide only to put the blame on Iraq so that they can continue their criminal activities backed by some in the western capitals.

Iraq is a sovereign country. Iraqi will not allow the Mojahedin Khalq to remain in the country to carry out the dirty work of their backers in the US, EU or Israel.

According to the Interior Ministry source, while the Government of Iraq is committed to the human rights of every individual, including the MKO members in this camp, it is also committed to putting an end to this ridiculous situation of a camp where there is no school, no marriage, no work, no registry, no children, no visiting rights, and so on. This may have been accepted during the time of Saddam or during the Americans being in charge of the camp, but it is no longer acceptable in this new Iraq.

December 30, 2010 0 comments

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