1. Nejat Society Letter to The President of Higher Judicial Council
2. Britain still considers MKO terrorist
3. Four Mojahedin-e Khalq combatants arrested in Iraq
4. Iraq FM: 200 former MKO members exit Iraq
5. Open Letter to Bryan Wilfert MP from Mohammad Mohammady in Canada
6. Symposium on Terrorism in Iraq
7. Iran sees less threat in exiled MKO militants
Download Pars Brief – Issue No.39
Download Pars Brief – Issue No.39
Mr Teymur Khattar and Mrs Khattar Appeal to the Iraqi legal authorities to deal with the case of the suspicious death of their son Soheyl Kattar in the base of the MKO in Iraq called Camp Ashraf
Mr Teymur Khattar (father of Soheyl)
Honourable Judicial Authority of the Republic of Iraq,
My name is Teymur Kattar. I was born in 1948 in the city of Hamadan in Iran and at the moment I live in the city of Karaj in the province of Tehran. My wife and I wish to appeal to the Iraqi security and judicial authorities to deal with the case of the suspicious death of our son Soheyl Kattar in the base of the Mojahedin-e Khalq Organisation (MKO) in Iraq called Camp Ashraf.
It is worth mentioning that Sohey Khattar left Iran legally with his Iranian passport along with my nephew Mehran Rastegar to go to Turkey to eventually go to Europe for employment. One week or ten days after their departure, my brother Manuchehr Kattar who lives in Holland contacted them and offered them a chance to go to some place to learn the language first and then move to Holland to join their uncle. But contrary to his promises they ended up in Camp Ashraf the base of the MKO in Iraq, a place which is quite hard to leave.
I was unaware of their situation for about four months until they called and told me that they are well and are busy training. We were relieved to learn that. They did not mention anything about going to Iraq and Camp Ashraf. Then they sent some letters and photographs which were posted from Europe. As I learned later my son had quarrels with the MKO officials and had asked them that he was supposed to go to Europe but now he remains in Iraq. He had even told them that he would escape from Camp Ashraf any time he finds the chance. I learned about all these through those who parted from the MKO and came back to Iran. He was even once put in solitary confinement for 48 hours just for opposing the MKO.
We had no further news from them until my brother Manuchehr called me from Holland and informed me that Soheyl was killed in a border clash four months earlier. I was quite suspicious about the reason of his death.
My wife and I along with one of our relatives went to Iraq and Camp Ashraf on the beginning of 2004. They told us a different story. While they had published my son’s picture in their publication and claimed that he was killed during the bombings of Iraq, they told us that he was killed when cleaning his gun by an undesired shot under his chin.
We had gone to Iraq and Champ Ashraf to claim for the body and belongings of our son which they never let us have them and eventually we left there with frustrations. They did not even show us a picture of his body or a picture of his funeral. Someone there who I prefer not to reveal his name for security reasons (if I am assured that the person would be taken out of the MKO control I would give the name to the relevant authorities) informed me covertly that our son Soheyl was killed by the MKO since he was discontented and restless and he wanted to part from the them. This person told me that the story of undesired shot is false. Apparently our son Soheyl was eliminated because he was opposing the organisation.
My nephew Mehran Rastegar, who had left Iran along with my son and escaped later from Camp Ashraf and returned to Iran, told me the whole story from the beginning and said that they were taken to Dubai for a few days first and then to Iraq. When he returned to Iran he was suffering from psychological disorders and was completely depressed. He told us that he was continuously under mental and physical pressure in Camp Ashraf. He died two years later at the age of 25 due to heart stroke caused by all he had gone through in the MKO. Soheyl was 20 when he left Iran and was killed when he was 22.
While in Iraq, once a well build commander called Asad approached us and told us that apparently Soheyl had committed suicide. Then he said that Soheyl enjoyed high moral and was very cheerful. I asked him how a cheerful person with a high moral commits suicide. Later I found out that a girl called Alan Mohammadi was also killed exactly the same way. She was shot under her chin and they claimed that it was an undesired shot or perhaps committing suicide.
Hessam Shakeri and Bizhan Rezavandi from Karaj are amongst those who had escaped from Camp Ashraf and returned to Iran and they know about our son Soheyl Kattar. They say that Soheyl was killed by the MKO.
Now which story is true? Was he killed in a border clash by the Iranian guards as my brother told me? Was he killed under the US and its allies’ bombings as published in Mojahed weekly publication? Was he killed because of an undesired shot as we were told by the officials in Camp Ashraf? Or did he commit suicide as a commander mentioned? I would say none of these stories are right and they fabricate these lies to cover the truth which is my son was killed in Iraq by the MKO.
At this moment the wish of my wife and I is to know the real cause to our son’s death and we urge the judicial authorities in Iraq to investigate the reason. Our son Soheyl Khattar was killed in Iraq and it is up to the Iraqi security and judiciary officials to take up with the detection of the cause.
I must also add I was a firm supporter of the MKO in the past and I even went to Turkey and made contacts with this organisation and introduced them a few individuals. But now I hate them so much that I do not wish my son’s body or any of his belongings remain with them.
Therefore I summarise my demands as follows once again and I appeal all legal authorities in Iraq to help me.
1. I appeal that the case of murdering my son Soheyl Khattar be investigated by the relevant judicial authorities in Iraq and the persons responsible be prosecuted.
2. I wish to visit one individual in Camp Ashraf that I personally encouraged him to join the MKO without the presence of the MKO officials in Baghdad or somewhere ells.
3. I would like to go to the grave of my son in Camp Ashraf and also seek his body and belongings with the aid of Iraqi officials.
Sahar (Dawn) Family Foundation, Baghdad, February 29, 2008-http://www.saharngo.com/en-articles.html
Link to the original letter (Arabic)
Iraqi Ambassador to Tehran Mohammad Majeed Al-Sheikh said here on Tuesday that the presence of members of the terrorist Mujahideen Khalq Organization ”MKO” in Iraq is not permanent.
“The MKO members have been staying in Iraq before the Saddam Hussein regime was toppled,”he said, adding the necessary measures have been taken to expel them.
Al-Sheikh noted that the Iraqi government is not satisfied with their presence and said they would stay in Iraq until they find another country to accept them.
The envoy assured that the Iraqi government does not permit any action against the Islamic Republic.
He put the volume of Tehran-Baghdad trade at dlrs 2.4 billion, calling for expansion of mutual cooperation in all fields.
Referring to the exporting electricity to Iraq, he underlined that the Islamic Republic has launched some electricity projects in the cities of Shalamcheh and Basra which are in final stages.
He also termed the Tehran-Baghdad cultural and medical cooperation as proper, adding the bilateral cooperation in this regard is very good and effective.
With the aim of boosting the cultural and medical cooperation, al-Sheikh stated that a medical conference is going to held in Naseriyeh in near future.
He also called for holding talks between Iran and US, adding the Iraq issue is a good opportunity for them to set aside their differences.
“We want to prove to the world that negotiations is the only solution to any problem,”he observed.
The envoy also voiced his country readiness to release some of the Iranian prisoners, adding currently a few Iranian prisoners are behind bars in Badreh Prison and negotiations are underway to release them.
Referring to boosting bilateral cultural cooperation, the ambassador concluded that currently the issuance of visas for Iranian pilgrims have increased.
IRNA -2008/02/27
Iran’s UN Envoy Khazaei has accused the terrorist MKO group of fabricating evidence that Iran has been trying to make nuclear weapons.
The United States is getting unreliable intelligence from the terrorist Mujahedin Khalq Organization which assisted Saddam Hussein during the imposed Iran-Iraq war, said Mohammad Khazaei in an interview with the Associated Press.
Khazaei reiterated that Iran has resolved all six outstanding issues about its nuclear program, insisting that Tehran should not face any new UN sanctions. He also warned that new sanctions would harm the credibility of the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Khazaei told reporters that when the IAEA raised the US allegations and showed Iran several documents on February 15, Iran recognized the papers were fabricated because individuals were named that do not exist, and others named who have not been involved in Iran’s nuclear program.
"I’m afraid to say that, according to my information, some of these allegations were produced or fabricated by a terrorist entity – listed as a terrorist group in the United States and elsewhere in Europe," Khazaei concluded.
Presstv-February 26, 2008
WASHINGTON, Feb 29 (IPS) – The George W. Bush administration has long pushed the "laptop documents" — 1,000 pages of technical documents supposedly from a stolen Iranian laptop — as hard evidence of Iranian intentions to build a nuclear weapon. Now charges based on those documents pose the only remaining obstacles to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) declaring that Iran has resolved all unanswered questions about its nuclear programme.
But those documents have long been regarded with great suspicion by U.S. and foreign analysts. German officials have identified the source of the laptop documents in November 2004 as the Mujahideen e Khalq (MEK), which along with its political arm, the National Council of Resistance in Iran (NCRI), is listed by the U.S. State Department as a terrorist organisation.
There are some indications, moreover, that the MEK obtained the documents not from an Iranian source but from Israel’s Mossad.
In its latest report on Iran, circulated Feb. 22, the IAEA, under strong pressure from the Bush administration, included descriptions of plans for a facility to produce "green salt", technical specifications for high explosives testing and the schematic layout of a missile reentry vehicle that appears capable of holding a nuclear weapon. Iran has been asked to provide full explanations for these alleged activities.
Tehran has denounced the documents on which the charges are based as fabrications provided by the MEK, and has demanded copies of the documents to analyse, but the United States had refused to do so.
The Iranian assertion is supported by statements by German officials. A few days after then Secretary of State Colin Powell announced the laptop documents, Karsten Voight, the coordinator for German-American relations in the German Foreign Ministry, was reported by the Wall Street Journal Nov. 22, 2004 as saying that the information had been provided by "an Iranian dissident group".
A German official familiar with the issue confirmed to this writer that the NCRI had been the source of the laptop documents. "I can assure you that the documents came from the Iranian resistance organisation," the source said.
The Germans have been deeply involved in intelligence collection and analysis regarding the Iranian nuclear programme. According to a story by Washington Post reporter Dafna Linzer soon after the laptop documents were first mentioned publicly by Powell in late 2004, U.S. officials said they had been stolen from an Iranian whom German intelligence had been trying to recruit, and had been given to intelligence officials of an unnamed country in Turkey.
The German account of the origins of the laptop documents contradicts the insistence by unnamed U.S. intelligence officials who insisted to journalists William J. Broad and David Sanger in November 2005 that the laptop documents did not come from any Iranian resistance groups.
Despite the fact that it was listed as a terrorist organisation, the MEK was a favourite of neoconservatives in the Pentagon, who were proposing in 2003-2004 to use it as part of a policy to destabilise Iran. The United States is known to have used intelligence from the MEK on Iranian military questions for years. It was considered a credible source of intelligence on the Iranian nuclear programme after 2002, mainly because of its identification of the facility in Natanz as a nuclear site.
The German source said he did not know whether the documents were authentic or not. However, CIA analysts, and European and IAEA officials who were given access to the laptop documents in 2005 were very sceptical about their authenticity.
The Guardian’s Julian Borger last February quoted an IAEA official as saying there is "doubt over the provenance of the computer".
A senior European diplomat who had examined the documents was quoted by the New York Times in November 2005 as saying, "I can fabricate that data. It looks beautiful, but is open to doubt."
Scott Ritter, the former U.S. military intelligence officer who was chief United Nations weapons inspector in Iraq from 1991 to 1998, noted in an interview that the CIA has the capability test the authenticity of laptop documents through forensic tests that would reveal when different versions of different documents were created.
The fact that the agency could not rule out the possibility of fabrication, according to Ritter, indicates that it had either chosen not to do such tests or that the tests had revealed fraud.
Despite its having been credited with the Natanz intelligence coup in 2002, the overall record of the MEK on the Iranian nuclear programme has been very poor. The CIA continued to submit intelligence from the Iranian group about alleged Iranian nuclear weapons-related work to the IAEA over the next five years, without identifying the source.
But that intelligence turned out to be unreliable. A senior IAEA official told the Los Angeles Times in February 2007 that, since 2002, "pretty much all the intelligence that has come to us has proved to be wrong."
Former State Department deputy intelligence director for the Near East and South Asia Wayne White doubts that the MEK has actually had the contacts within the Iranian bureaucracy and scientific community necessary to come up with intelligence such as Natanz and the laptop documents. "I find it very hard to believe that supporters of the MEK haven’t been thoroughly rooted out of the Iranian bureaucracy," says White. "I think they are without key sources in the Iranian government."
In her February 2006 report on the laptop documents, the Post’s Linzer said CIA analysts had originally speculated that a "third country, such as Israel, had fabricated the evidence". They eventually "discounted that theory", she wrote, without explaining why.
Since 2002, new information has emerged indicating that the MEK did not obtain the 2002 data on Natanz itself but received it from the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad. Yossi Melman and Meier Javadanfar, who co-authored a book on the Iranian nuclear programme last year, write that they were told by "very senior Israeli Intelligence officials" in late 2006 that Israeli intelligence had known about Natanz for a full year before the Iranian group’s press conference. They explained that they had chosen not to reveal it to the public "because of safety concerns for the sources that provided the information".
Shahriar Ahy, an adviser to monarchist leader Reza Pahlavi, told journalist Connie Bruck that the detailed information on Natanz had not come from MEK but from "a friendly government, and it had come to more than one opposition group, not only the mujahideen."
Bruck wrote in the New Yorker on Mar, 16, 2006 that when he was asked if the "friendly government" was Israel, Ahy smiled and said, "The friendly government did not want to be the source of it, publicly. If the friendly government gives it to the U.S. publicly, then it would be received differently. Better to come from an opposition group."
srael has maintained a relationship with the MEK since the late 1990s, according to Bruck, including assistance to the organisation in beaming broadcasts by the NCRI from Paris into Iran. An Israeli diplomat confirmed that Israel had found the MEK "useful", Bruck reported, but the official declined to elaborate.
*Gareth Porter is an historian and national security policy analyst. The paperback edition of his latest book, "Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in Vietnam", was published in 2006.
By Gareth Porter-IPS-Feb 29
A member of Iraqi parliament criticizes the Turkish incursion against PKK rebels in northern Iraq, stressing that Iraq’s territories should not be used to attack neighboring countries.
“Before attacking northern Iraq, Turkey was supposed to attempt resolving the crisis by exercising the bilateral cooperation and diplomatic measures to prevent PKK from threatening Turkey’s security, a crucial measure that has regrettably not adopted,”said Abdul Aziz Al- Enzi, an Iraqi MP on Sunday evening to Alalam TV.
He said that Iran has also expressed concerns over ‘Mujahedin Khalgh’ an Iranian opposition terrorist group (MKO) to employ Iraq’s territories to target some ends in Iran.
“Iraqi government should adopt swift measures to resolve this crisis,”he said. Al- Enzi stressed that any delay in resolving the MKO terrorists and PKK rebels’ crisis would have negative affect on Iraq- Turkey and Iraq- Iran ties.
“Iraq’s Foreign Ministry should try to find a way out of this crisis to avoid such accidents with the adjacent countries,”he added.
Al- Enzi rejected any rumors, saying,”Iraqi President Jalal Talabani has demanded Turkish government to suppress the PKK in northern Iraq,”stressing that the president strongly respects Iraq’s sovereignty.
He pointed out that the US has double standard policy towards Iraqi armed insurgents and US troops protect some armed militants such as the PKK rebels and MKO terrorists.
“Iraqi government is not able to resolve the crisis of the armed groups, because it has not power to control the whole country,”he concluded.
alalam-February 25, 2008
The relation of MKO and other opposition groups is one of the main challenges Mojahedin have been faced with from the beginning of their formation. Despite all the efforts made during the last three decades, not only such a problem has not been solved but also the existing crises have been intensified. The main elements leading to the friction can be viewed from different angles. However, it has to be pointed out that the main factor is mental and political structure and ideology of Mojahedin. A brief look at the charter of the National Council of Resistance (NCR) and the borderlines drawn between Mojahedin and other opposition groups may easily get to the bottom of frictions.
The fact is that disregarding all political disagreements and strategic deviations, the ideological orientation of Mojahedin is the major barrier in the way of their interaction, sympathy and cooperation with other oppositions. The hegemonic nature of the organization is another reason that prevents other political allies to have any active cooperation and engage in any criticism of the decision-makings and tactics adopted by the organization. Mojahedin’s intrinsic totalitarian spirit has already resulted in the separation of early allies of NCR. It has to be pointed out that the given reasons by all ex-members of NCR for their separation are the already mentioned totalitarianism and monopolistic feature of Mojahedin in general and Masoud Rajavi in particular rather than political disparities which are known to be a common phenomenon in collective political activities. As such, NCR has suffered a great qualitative and quantitative loss in recent years.
The book The ups and downs of the National Council of Resistance contains numerous statements and testimonies made by former MKO members all clarifying the causes of the failure of council and its splinter. Although Mojahedin continuously try to recruit new members, the prerequisites for joining are so strict that hardly anybody is interested in joining. Such a disinterest was augmented due to anti-nationalistic actions of Mojahedin to the point that opposition groups began to criticize MKO as traitors who have betrayed Iranian people and the national interests.
Beside ideological dogmatism and hegemonic idealism, Mojahedin in two phases acted reprehensibly to the point that led to the withdrawal of NCR’s main alliances. Mojahedin’s collaboration with Saddam, a corrupt invader who attacked Iran dreaming to annex the main Iranian Khuzestan Province, resulted in pushing the organization to isolation with none of other opposition groups daring to play the role of co-conspirator. But even the fall of Saddam failed to convince MKO to take a different strategy and follow a logical way. Being deprived of using the Iraqi soil and its logistics, Mojahedin have resolved to rely on a new version of dependence on foreign levers all around the world. Now the globally proscribed terrorists began to feel worry about the global peace by alleging that Iran’s nuclear projects proliferated nuclear weapons for military causes. The least objective was to intensify the already existing tension between Iran and the West and the U.S. in particular to ignite the fire of a new war in the region. The position taken by other opposition parties concerning the nuclear activities of Iran was a hint to the fact that they were in full disagreement with Mojahedin who once more proved to have made a conspicuous folly acting as mercenaries for the aliens rather than taking the nation’s side.
Mehdi Khanbaba Tehrani, the most radical and left activist and one of the early members of NCR, not only blamed Mojahedin and accused them of being traitors but also stated that in case of any U.S. invasion, he considered it a patriotic duty to defend the integrity of Iranian soil regardless of political differences. Mojahedin’s political campaign mainly rides on escalating tensions between the US and Iran in a hope to encourage military conflict. Nominating itself as the sole resistance force, MKO supposes that its violent policy-making has to be submitted by all other opposition groups. Therefore, it is evident that any opposition group reluctant to surrender to the hegemony of Mojahedin has to acknowledge its political defeat and withdraw from the preferably recommended armed struggle long led by MKO to topple Iranian regime.
When all approaches prove to be unproductive, the last option is armed struggle and none of the detached alliances from MKO can ever find another alternative the same as MKO to join. The fact is that opposition groups cannot adapt themselves to the ideological teachings of Mojahedin. Beside Mojahedin’s anti-nationalist nature, even their pretentious leftist inclination to attract leftist allies is an issue of great hypocrisy. The contradictions are due to deep political and ideological gaps between Mojahedin and other opposition groups and also result from the orientation of Mojahedin toward anti-democratic and cultist relations. Fada’ian-e Khalq guerillas dismiss Mojahedin as a cult that utilizes whatever suppressive measures against opponents:
Regarding democratic freedom, the cult recognizes no other identity and ideology but that of itself. In the narrow world of the cult and its international relations, everything is ready to punish dissidents. It uses prison, torture, hidden executions, and other aggressive actions against its ideological dissenters. Now the twentieth century nearing its end, it is a blemish on humanity.
Mojahedin cannot tolerate Monarchists and republicans as well as leftist opposition that repel them. But they keep at a borderline not to look hostile so they will keep their controlling hegemony if other oppositions succeeded in overthrowing the Iranian regime. In the past two years, the least possibility of forming alliance with other oppositions has sank to zero as Mojahedin’s hostile siding with the US against Iran has soared to a critical point.
Mojajedin’s efforts in making an instrumental use of the U.S. resulted in the separation of all their allies and now they have to undergo an all-out and shameful isolation. The lack of social support on the one hand and their passivity amongst oppositions on the other hand followed by prudence on the part of the U.S. to reconsider invasion to Iran has confronted Mojahedin with ever-increasingly crises. Regarding their present conditions, it is clear that such challenges are to be continued. Now MKO’s claim of being the sole democratic alternative is nothing beyond pointless advertisements listened to only by a trivial number of misled sympathizers.
Researchers and the scientists of humanities have identified similar features in all contemporary cults one of which is application of mental and psychological control techniques mainly aimed at persuading cult members, and making them
more and more obedient and passive. Considering the significance of the matter, finding out the nature and extent of members’ obedience in cults is one of the major issues in internal cultist relations. The reasons why a person submits to be subjected to mental, physical , psychological, and financial misuse to the extent that he/she gives up job, family, and the individual freedom are very important issues for those interested in investigating cultist mechanisms and levers. In simple words, those outside cults, out of curiosity, strive for public awareness and preventing people’s deviation as well as discovering how in an age of scientific development and communication there people who easily fall in the cults’ trap and are are hoodwinked by their tricks. In order to understand such an issue we must look at the social and psychological techniques used by cults and cultic groups. This process of planned, convert coordinated influence-popularly called brainwashing or mind control or, more technically, thought reform-is the means by which the cult leader subjugates the followers.
The fact is that at first such mechanisms are raw materials based on psychological theories and assumptions and are to be put into action. Our discussion is around the brief study of such mechanisms by which people undergo full obedience and control and also comparing the programs exercised in cults like that of Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO) initially blacklisted as a terrorist organization. Mojahedin stand opposed to the allegations of being a cultist group abusing sophisticated scientific procedures to expand its hegemonic domination over the members. However, such a position taken by them does not affect theoretical and academic challenges put against them. What is of importance is the extent to which their relations and techniques are adaptable to that of other cults. First we’d better develop an understanding of through what mechanisms cults manage to survive.
Cults aim at creating drastic mental and psychological changes in all aspects of members’ life. They insist on saying that cultist values are significantly above those admired in the society and the first step to enter a cult is cutting all those values repelled by the cult. That is the prerequisite to prepare members to easily consent to cultist teachings that implant a completely different life-style. As Margaret Singer explains:
Cults tend to require members to undergo a major disruption or change in lifestyle. Many cults put great pressure on new members to leave their families, mends, and jobs to become immersed in the group’s major purpose. This isolation tactic is one of the cults’ most common mechanisms of control and enforced dependency. (1)
For the techniques to be accomplished in internal relation of Mojahedin, three stages has to be met; cleansing the mind of any non-organizational mental drifts, taking the individual mental, behavioral, and psychological functions under the control, and finally impose it on the individuals to be in a constant conflict of facing permanent contradiction between his/her personal values and the organization’s ideal world. The finally process results in full metamorphosis of members and molded as desired by the cult. They are under a never-ceasing watch to be found with the flaws they had hardly noticed in themselves for which they will be reproached in the presence of other members whom will have no escape from the strict criticism. They all try to adapt themselves to the new conditions to find a new identity and gain organizational legitimacy. Such procedures opted for as the mechanism of overcoming non-revolutionary features result in a total dependence of the individuals to cult. The main theme of all cults is mind control and gradual self-alteration, a factor that is explicitly observable in internal relations of Mojahedin under different pretexts as organizational discipline. Cults are known to dictate what members have to wear and eat and when and where they work, sleep, and bathe as well as what they should believe in, think, and say and even dream. Although such factors comprise the primary cultist instructions, they may set the ground for further destructive direction.
Most former MKO members as well as Mojahedin themselves acknowledge the implementation of these mind-control techniques. The main difference between Mojahedin and other cults is that the techniques are phased that are vehemently glorified and celebrated as unmatched turning points. Mojahedin’s internal ideological revolution is the best example. It is most likely that Mojahedin, because of feeling close strategic and ideological affinities, have been influenced by Mao’s Cultural Revolution in China. However, according to Singer, Mao resorted to thought-reform programs under the influence of cultist relations:
Then in the late 1940s and early 1950s, the world witnessed personnel at Chinese revolutionary universities implement a thought-reform program that changed the beliefs and behaviors of the citizens of the largest nation in the world. This program, which Mao Tse-tung wrote about as early as the 1920s, was put into place when the Communist regime took power in China on October 1, 1949. Chairman Mao had long planned how to change people’s political selves-to achieve”ideological remolding,”as he called it-through the use of a coordinated program of psychological, social, and political coercion. As a result, millions of Chinese citizens were induced to espouse new philosophies and exhibit new conduct (2).
Mao’s”Red Book”refers openly to the significance of such procedures for achieving what he calls revolution. Mehdi Abrishamchi defines it as adaptation and mental and conceptual balance. the mechanisms aim at reforming the basic values of a person distancing him from individual identity, persuasion and also absolute submission to organizational commands. In this regard, Eric Hofer writes:
To ripen a person for self-sacrifice he must be stripped of his individual identity and distinctness. He must cease to be George, Hans, van, or Tadao- a human atom with an existence bounded by birth and death. The most drastic way to achieve this end is by the complete assimilation of the individual into a collective body. The fully assimilated individual does not see himself and others as human beings. When asked who he is, his automatic response is that he is a German, a Russian, a Japanese, a Christian, a Moslem, a member of a certain tribe or family, He has no purpose, worth and destiny apart from his collective body; and as long as that body lives he cannot really die. (3)
Mojahedin identify the individual identity to sealed boxes and believe that the main theme of the ideological revolution is to unlock these boxes:
To unlock the boxes (minds of members) is the main theme and the first stage of ideological revolution. (4)
By opening these boxes the first step is taken to change members’ attitudes and standpoints to adapt them to organizationally adopted values and principles that are in contradiction with the outside world. References: 1. Singer, M. Cults in our midst. Coordinated programs of persuasion. 2. ibid. 3. Hofer, E. The True believer. 4. Niyabati, B; A different look at the internal ideological revolution within MKO, p.36
Research Bureau-Mojahedin.ws-February 22, 2008
Researchers and the scientists of humanities have identified similar features in all contemporary cults one of which is application of mental and psychological control techniques mainly aimed at persuading cult members, and making them more and more obedient and passive. Considering the significance of the matter, finding out the nature and extent of members’ obedience in cults is one
of the major issues in internal cultist relations. The reasons why a person submits to be subjected to mental, physical , psychological, and financial misuse to the extent that he/she gives up job, family, and the individual freedom are very important issues for those interested in investigating cultist mechanisms and levers. In simple words, those outside cults, out of curiosity, strive for public awareness and preventing people’s deviation as well as discovering how in an age of scientific development and communication there people who easily fall in the cults’ trap and are are hoodwinked by their tricks. In order to understand such an issue we must look at the social and psychological techniques used by cults and cultic groups. This process of planned, convert coordinated influence-popularly called brainwashing or mind control or, more technically, thought reform-is the means by which the cult leader subjugates the followers.
The fact is that at first such mechanisms are raw materials based on psychological theories and assumptions and are to be put into action. Our discussion is around the brief study of such mechanisms by which people undergo full obedience and control and also comparing the programs exercised in cults like that of Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO) initially blacklisted as a terrorist organization. Mojahedin stand opposed to the allegations of being a cultist group abusing sophisticated scientific procedures to expand its hegemonic domination over the members. However, such a position taken by them does not affect theoretical and academic challenges put against them. What is of importance is the extent to which their relations and techniques are adaptable to that of other cults. First we’d better develop an understanding of through what mechanisms cults manage to survive.
Cults aim at creating drastic mental and psychological changes in all aspects of members’ life. They insist on saying that cultist values are significantly above those admired in the society and the first step to enter a cult is cutting all those values repelled by the cult. That is the prerequisite to prepare members to easily consent to cultist teachings that implant a completely different life-style. As Margaret Singer explains:
Cults tend to require members to undergo a major disruption or change in lifestyle. Many cults put great pressure on new members to leave their families, mends, and jobs to become immersed in the group’s major purpose. This isolation tactic is one of the cults’ most common mechanisms of control and enforced dependency. (1)
For the techniques to be accomplished in internal relation of Mojahedin, three stages has to be met; cleansing the mind of any non-organizational mental drifts, taking the individual mental, behavioral, and psychological functions under the control, and finally impose it on the individuals to be in a constant conflict of facing permanent contradiction between his/her personal values and the organization’s ideal world. The finally process results in full metamorphosis of members and molded as desired by the cult. They are under a never-ceasing watch to be found with the flaws they had hardly noticed in themselves for which they will be reproached in the presence of other members whom will have no escape from the strict criticism. They all try to adapt themselves to the new conditions to find a new identity and gain organizational legitimacy. Such procedures opted for as the mechanism of overcoming non-revolutionary features result in a total dependence of the individuals to cult. The main theme of all cults is mind control and gradual self-alteration, a factor that is explicitly observable in internal relations of Mojahedin under different pretexts as organizational discipline. Cults are known to dictate what members have to wear and eat and when and where they work, sleep, and bathe as well as what they should believe in, think, and say and even dream. Although such factors comprise the primary cultist instructions, they may set the ground for further destructive direction.
Most former MKO members as well as Mojahedin themselves acknowledge the implementation of these mind-control techniques. The main difference between Mojahedin and other cults is that the techniques are phased that are vehemently glorified and celebrated as unmatched turning points. Mojahedin’s internal ideological revolution is the best example. It is most likely that Mojahedin, because of feeling close strategic and ideological affinities, have been influenced by Mao’s Cultural Revolution in China. However, according to Singer, Mao resorted to thought-reform programs under the influence of cultist relations:
Then in the late 1940s and early 1950s, the world witnessed personnel at Chinese revolutionary universities implement a thought-reform program that changed the beliefs and behaviors of the citizens of the largest nation in the world. This program, which Mao Tse-tung wrote about as early as the 1920s, was put into place when the Communist regime took power in China on October 1, 1949. Chairman Mao had long planned how to change people’s political selves-to achieve "ideological remolding," as he called it-through the use of a coordinated program of psychological, social, and political coercion. As a result, millions of Chinese citizens were induced to espouse new philosophies and exhibit new conduct (2).
Mao’s "Red Book" refers openly to the significance of such procedures for achieving what he calls revolution. Mehdi Abrishamchi defines it as adaptation and mental and conceptual balance. the mechanisms aim at reforming the basic values of a person distancing him from individual identity, persuasion and also absolute submission to organizational commands. In this regard, Eric Hofer writes:
To ripen a person for self-sacrifice he must be stripped of his individual identity and distinctness. He must cease to be George, Hans, van, or Tadao- a human atom with an existence bounded by birth and death. The most drastic way to achieve this end is by the complete assimilation of the individual into a collective body. The fully assimilated individual does not see himself and others as human beings. When asked who he is, his automatic response is that he is a German, a Russian, a Japanese, a Christian, a Moslem, a member of a certain tribe or family, He has no purpose, worth and destiny apart from his collective body; and as long as that body lives he cannot really die. (3)
Mojahedin identify the individual identity to sealed boxes and believe that the main theme of the ideological revolution is to unlock these boxes:
To unlock the boxes (minds of members) is the main theme and the first stage of ideological revolution. (4)
By opening these boxes the first step is taken to change members’ attitudes and standpoints to adapt them to organizationally adopted values and principles that are in contradiction with the outside world.
References:
1. Singer, M. Cults in our midst. Coordinated programs of persuasion.
2. ibid.
3. Hofer, E. The True believer.
4. Niyabati, B; A different look at the internal ideological revolution within MKO, p.36
Research Bureau-Mojahedin.ws-February 22, 2008
Abetting Terrorism and Treason, Promoting Aggression on Iran
There is no irony in appeasement, according to major media who, on February 20 and 21, reported on a press conference held in Brussels by the National Council of Resistance of Iran. From an Associated Press account:
in exiled Iranian opposition group claimed Wednesday that Tehran was speeding up a program to develop nuclear weapons.”The Iran regime entered a new phase in its nuclear project,”said Mohammad Mohaddessin of the Paris-based National Council of Resistance of Iran.
The NCRI is the political wing of the People’s Mujahedeen of Iran, which advocates the overthrow of government in Tehran. The Mujahedeen has been designated a terrorist group by the United States and the European Union as well as Iran. [1]
The PMOI”a.k.a., the Mujahedeen e-Khalq (MeK)”made the same claim in December 2002. The allegation then”that the Iranian regime was enriching uranium at weapons-grade level within secret facilities”turned out to be only partially (and irrelevantly) true: the facilities existed (not a violation in itself), but contrary to the group’s claims, were not weapons-production sites. Still, the information from the MeK”contrived in conjunction with Israeli entities”was used by U.S. hawks to pass sanctions against Iran. But their case has been so weak; the neocons have had to use blatant coercion to persuade UNSC nations to vote in favor.
The most notable and dangerous in all this is that the unproven MeK-Israeli, nuclear weapons claim is the basis for the main finding of the most recent National Intelligence Estimate: that Iran had”halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003.”Iran never had a weapons program”at least not one that has been confirmed by U.S. intelligence, the IAEA, or anyone else but Iranian”dissidents”and Israelis and neocons, i.e., the ones who have been wrong all along.
Further deconstruction of the Iranian nukes fraud and the neocons’ nuclear shakedown of Iran:
Iran was late in reporting which is a Safeguard issue. . . . Tehran voluntarily stopped the process of enriched uranium; it also allowed the IAEA to carry out intrusive, spot inspections. No country has allowed as many inspection hours as Iran. [Tehran] proposed to operate Iran’s enrichment program as joint ventures with private and public sector firms from other countries; this would ensure that the program remained transparent and could not be secretly diverted for military purposes, at the same time it would maintain Iran’s sovereignty by having an indigenously enriched uranium cycle . . . Although this was rejected, Iran continued to cooperate.
Iran suspended its enrichment activities for two and half years, but each time under pressure from the U.S., the burden of proof was transferred to Iran knowing the negative could not be proved. [2]
‘Coverage’
All this occurs, when in fact no evidence has ever been verified that supports the weapons charge, as AP surprisingly points out (albeit in the last two sentences of the story and about a year late on the timeline). What media always fail to mention, however, is that the lack of damning proof of an Iranian weapons program, then and now, undercuts the misleading NIE conclusion and the nuclear leg of the neocons’ aggressive campaign.
by omitting such vital facts, major media are perpetuating the prevailing U.S.-Israeli-NCRI conjecture, asserting that Tehran had a viable nuclear weapons program at one time, has resumed it, and is now accelerating the manufacturing process.
In that regard, news media are lying and abetting terrorism and treason. Terrorism, because all individuals who harbor, fund, arm, train, feed, or employ terrorists are terrorists (George Bush’s words not mine). Treason, because the Mek and their handlers in and around the U.S. government are violating U.S. and international law and constantly lying to the people of the United States and the world in an effort to drum up support for further violent insurrection and aggressive war in the Middle East.
Nothing dubious here
Major news media conceal the U.S. government’s dubious relations with the MeK. It is of no consequence that the United States has been harboring, funding, training, and employing U.S.-designated terrorist groups in Iran and elsewhere in the Middle East. [3] [4] [5]
Some news media provide extra”coverage”by inserting a misleading historical context in an effort to soften the image of the Iranian”opposition group.”From the EU Observer’s report on the NCRI press conference:
[T]he PMOI was persecuted by the Iranian government, with thousands of their members killed. They were subsequently sheltered by Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. [6]
The insinuation that the”persecut[ion]”was unprovoked is absurd. Prosecuted is more like it, according to the U.S. State Department:
According to a 2003 report by the State Department,”During the 1970s, the MEK killed US military personnel and US civilians working on defense projects in Tehran.¦ The MEK detonated bombs in the head office of the Islamic Republic Party and the Premier’s office, killing some 70 high-ranking Iranian officials.¦ In 1991, it assisted the Government of Iraq in suppressing the Shia and Kurdish uprisings in southern Iraq and the Kurdish uprisings in the north.”In other words, the MEK was a terrorist group”one that took its orders from Saddam Hussein. [7]
But to”mainstream”news media, it doesn’t matter that the same Iranian opposition group with a history of committing terrorism on U.S. and Iranian civilians is relied upon as the means to justify and accomplish the neocons and the Mek’s mutual ends of regime-change and resource procurement in Iran.
Alireza Jafarzadeh, spokesman for the MeK, has appeared intermittently over the past few years as a”Middle East Expert,”or”Terror Expert,”on CNN and Fox. Of course there’s never a hint as to his affiliation with the MeK, much less its terrorist designation. But hey, how can he be a terrorist when he heads his own D.C.-based think-tank!
Nothing illicit here
The most thoroughly unreported facts about U.S.-Iranian affairs are the most incriminating ones.
The Algiers Accords, signed by Iran and the United States on January 19, 1981, clearly states,”The United States pledges that it is and from now on will be the policy of the United States not to intervene, directly or indirectly, politically or militarily, in Iran’s internal affairs.”[8 (.pdf)]
Yet, from the Iraq-Iran War, during which the United States funded Saddam Hussein and supplied him with WMDs which he then used against Iran—to the current war build-up against Iran, whereby groups like the MeK and Jundallah are being harbored, funded, and employed”the laundry list of Algiers Accords violations by the United States is long and ugly. And every violation is a violation of the U.S. Constitution, which states that such contracts are to be treated as law of the land.
Move along, folks
One of the most irony-deficient (and shamelessly self-effacing) examples of U.S.-Iran media coverage came in the Observer’s uncritical account of the NCRI’s use of fallacious war propaganda to emotionally blackmail and upbraid the EU into taking a more aggressive stance toward Iran:
Referring to the”huge trade”between Europe and Iran, Mr Mohaddessin said:”The EU is trying to achieve security through appeasing the Iranian regime. The EU is appeasing the Iranian regime and it is a disaster for the Iranian people. You remember what happened in the 1930s? They carried out exactly the same policy with Hitler that the EU is doing now with the Iranian regime.”[9]
This reality-inversion of a comparison is trumpeted almost exclusively by fringe pro-war elements within and around U.S. and Israeli governments and in”pro-western”think-tanks; the other 99.7% of the world laughs it off, knowing that the only Middle Eastern regime with a modern history of aggressive war and secret nuclear weapons production is the one in Israel.
In 1986, former Israeli nuclear facility worker, Mordechai Vanunu, revealed to a foreign news news reporter that Israel was developing nuclear weapons in secret facilities—a confirmation of what the rest of the world had already hypothesized. He was kidnapped by Mossad agents in Italy, charged with treason, and sentenced to 18 years in prison. Unlike the MeK and others, he didn’t confide in or collaborate with a foreign government, and wasn’t revealing information that wasn’t already known outside of Israel. Nevertheless, he has been a political prisoner for the last 21 years. Even his 2004 release gave him little freedom: he is not allowed to leave the country and is under, among other restrictions, curfew and gag order, not allowed to talk to foreigners. [10]
Although Vanunu’s claims about Israel’s illicit nuclear weapons program were true and were made on moral and legal grounds”and the treatment he has received is unlawful and at times barbaric his story is still ignored by mainstream media.
the other hand, the NCRI-MeK is a U.S.-designated terror organization with a verified history of terrorism against Iranian and U.S. targets and treason against their people; yet they are treated by the U.S. government and major news media as trustworthy allies, and their flawed, Israeli-assisted intelligence is considered more credible than that of any U.S. intelligence agency.
And to top it all: By not giving in to U.S.-Israel-MeK demands for aggression toward Iran”the demands of U.S. and EU-branded terrorists”the EU is”appeasing the Iranian regime.”Such is the criminal hypocrisy of deceptive and aggressive war, and the irony of appeasement.
[1] Raf Casert (AP):”Group Claims Iran Speeding Up Nuke Plans”: Associated Press: February 20, 2008 http://apnews.myway.com//article/20080221/D8UUE8RG0.html
[2] Soraya Sepaphour-Ulrich:”Iran Intelligence Report: Another Psychological Warfare?”: CounterCurrents: December 5, 2007 http://www.countercurrents.org/ulrich051207.htm
[3] Rostam Pourzal:”Who Among Iranians Fears the NIE?”: ZNet: December 19, 2007
http://www.zmag.org/content/print_article.cfm?itemID=14540§i..15
[4] Ardeshir Ommani:”U.S. Support for Terror in Iran”: CASMII: April 10, 2007
www.campaigniran.org
[5] Larisa Alexandrovna:”On Cheney, Rumsfeld order, US outsourcing special ops, intelligence to Iraq terror group, intelligence officials say”: The Raw Story: April 13, 2006
http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/US_outsourcing_special_operations_
intelligence_gathering_0413.html
[6] Leigh Phillips (euobserver.com):”Iran opposition group accuses EU of ‘appeasement'”: EU Observer: February 20, 2008 http://euobserver.com/9/25698
[7] Craig Unger:”From the Wonderful Folks Who Brought You Iraq”: Vanity Fair: March 2007 http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2007/03/whitehouse200703?printable=true¤tPage=all
[8] Algiera, the United States & Iran:”The Algiers Accords”: Pars Times: Accessed on February 22, 2008 http://www.parstimes.com/history/algiers_accords.pdf
More on the 1981 Algiers Accords and the neocons:”US Wants to Have It Both Ways on Iranian Nonintervention Pact,”by Reese Erlich http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/11/29/5503/
[9] Phillips/EU Observer
[10] Eileen Fleming:”The Vanunu Saga: 2008″: We Are Wide Awake: February 2008
by Dan Alba, wearewideawake.org
