Albania just for Albanians not for Rajavi Terrorists
According to the parents, the Mojahedin command is afraid to let the girl go free as she knows ‘many secrets of rape and crimes that the former MEK terrorist organization has committed against its members’.
Editorial
TIRANA – Following the interview with Somayeh Mohammadi, a member of the Iranian resistance MEK in Albania, with the head of the Albanian-Mojahedin Friendship Association, Namik Kopliku, which was broadcast by Report TV, the girl’s parents reacted again asking the latter help to intervene to release the girl. They say in a letter that MEK keeps its members as slaves, and that their daughter has given the interview under pressure and threats. According to them, the Mojahedin command is afraid to let the girl go free as she knows ‘many secrets of rape and crimes that the former MEK terrorist organization has committed against its members’.
‘Please ask the Mujahideen leaders to let our free girl. We want to get our daughter out of the Manzas jihad camp where the Mojahedin live as modern slaves or prisoners who are waiting for the moment when Maryam Rajavi orders them to march and do jihad against Iran. For this reason, we are publicly asking you to use the access you have to the Mojahedin terrorist organization and to help us meet our daughter”, says the letter among other things.
In an interview published by Report TV, the 38-year-old explains her 15-year history and says that she is willing to stay with MEK and would not hesitate to leave if she decided to one day. The 38-year-old’s father appealed to Albanian institutions, denouncing her kidnapping by MEK, while his daughter says her father is lying.
FULL LETTER
Mr. Namik Kopliku, release our daughter from the MEK organization
- Mr. Namik Kopliku, as Somayeh’s parents, we saw your interview in the Albanian newspaper where you uploaded the video of August 3 you made with our daughter at the Mojahedin’s Manzas camp. The video broadcast in Albania gives some excerpts of the interview that you and your wife, in the presence of 3 Mojahedin commanders, have made with our daughter. The interview with our daughter came after a few days of intimidation and coercion that the Mojahedin command made against daughter, who then asked her to come before you and say she will not meet her parents, as the Mojahedin command tells her that her family are enemies and agents of Iran.
In your TV Report interview you protect the totalitarian Mojahedin group which you treat as Democrats. As a former Mojahedin member, I declare that the Mojahedin are a totalitarian Stalinist cult that does not accept democracy, does not allow democratic elections, keeps its members isolated, radicalizes them with the crazy idea that Maryam Rajavi is a holy saint who will one day liberate Iran, killing the mullahs, destroying mosques, and building a utopian Stalinist regime with Maryam Rajavi as Supreme Leader. This group, which has been in Albania for three years, is still in a state of war. It does not accept any de-radicalization program from the Albanian government or other organs, and these refugees refuse to integrate into Albanian society and obey Albanian laws.
Many deserters who have abandoned the Mojahedin organization and live in Tirana talk and tell how in the MEK camp the military command keeps its members as slaves. They seized their ID documents, passports, and did not provide them with travel documents, a fact that classifies this organization as an organization practicing modern slavery. MEK does not allow its members to watch TV, have phones, use the Internet, talk to their families, marry, have sex, have a baby, talk to friends, and live a free and civil life. The Mojahedin, a term in the Arabic-language, is jihadist, indoctrinated to fight and die in the war against Iran, to place Massoud and Maryam Rajavi as Iran’s supreme dictators. MEK is a terrorist organization which has killed many citizens in Iran and Iraq. MEK does not believe in democracy but in establishing a totalitarian order similar to that of Pol Pot or the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia.
Even you accept in your interview that the MEK in the Manzes paramilitary camp indoctrinates its soldiers with the idea of jihad against Iran. These facts, which go against Albanian law, and articles 231 and 265 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Albania, are classified as acts, invitations and incitement to terrorism, which are punishable in Albania. The whole activity of this organization with its military laws and totalitarian rules in contradiction with Albanian laws, makes this an anti-constitutional and reprehensible organization under Albanian laws and the international conventions that Albania is party to. But as you acknowledge in your interview, the MEK today, like Al-Qaida and the Taliban, is backed by US officials and therefore they are not persecuted under the law.
- Mr Koplik,
Mojahedin witnesses inside the Manza camp have informed me that my daughter’s interview with you was made under pressure from the Mojahedin commanders, who do not allow my daughter to leave the camp in any way and meet with us, her parents. The Mojahedin command is afraid that if our daughter meets with us and is allowed to leave the camp where she is held hostage, she will abandon jihad and join her family in Canada. Somayeh’s friends who have left MEK and have now reached Germany, Greece and the US tell us that Somayeh is desperate and would join her family. But the Mojahedin commanders frighten her, they tell her that if she leaves the camp Iranian agents will kill her, and that her father is an agent of the Iranian Intelligence Ministry and that I’ll take her as a slave for Tehran’s mullahs.
The MEK, without any facts, slanders and publicly accuses me and my family and my supporters, but even if their accusations were true, these do not deprive us of the right to parent [our daughter]. MEK has launched a demonizing campaign against me, Albanian and foreign journalists, various advocates and analysts who support me. I believe you have also seen how Mojahed Humayun Deyim and seven other Mojahedin beat me up in Tirana on July 27, 2018 and then how 50 Mojahedin under the leadership of the commanders Behzad Saffari, Jila Deyhim and Ahmad Taba surrounded police station no. 4 in Tirana, putting pressure on our police and attorneys to free the jihadi fighters.
You can see from their actions that the Mojahedin do not understand and disagrees with freedom of the media, freedom of the individual, democracy, free speech, and the rule of democracy and law. They say you are with us or with Iran. They say you must do jihad with us, or you are with the mullahs of Tehran. They do not accept a world free and without war.
However, we are the parents of Somayeh who are in Tirana, and in these weeks we have faced slander as Iranian agents, beatings by Mojahedin and threats of all sorts, we ask you to honor us. Please ask for the Mojahedin leaders to let our daughter leave freely. We want to get our daughter out of the Manzas jihad camp where the Mojahedin live as modern slaves or prisoners who are waiting for the moment when Maryam Rajavi orders them to march and do jihad in Iran.
We do not want our daughter to go to jihad in Iran and be sacrificed for Maryam Rajavi, who wants to forcibly overthrow the Iranian government, because we believe in democracy, peace, and we do not accept war, violence, and jihad. Participating in jihadist conflicts is a crime in both Albania and Canada. We do not want our daughter to be involved in a terrorist organization, we want her to be a law-abiding citizen. We want our daughter to be released from prison where she is held by the Mojahedin. Initially, we want her to come to Tirana and meet with us without the presence and threats of the Mojahedin commanders. Then, if she wants, we want her to live freely in Albania, to marry, have a family, to work, to abandon jihadi activities, and live as a free citizen. But if she wants to join our family in Canada, we will take her with pleasure to our country. We want to encourage our daughter to leave as soon as possible the Mojahedin terrorist organization and the military camp where she has been held hostage for 21 years.
We will not stop our daughter at any time from doing political activity. If she thinks with her own free will that she supports the MEK, we will not stop her. But what we want is for you to communicate to the Mojahedin command to allow us to meet our daughter. Just as you would never accept that MEK kidnap your daughter and rape your boy, you should understand that this is our view too.
For this reason, we ask you publicly to use the access you have to the Mojahedin terrorist organization and help us meet our daughter. Our daughter does not need humanitarian accommodation in Albania as her family homeland Canada is a safe country. So, she has no reason to stay locked inside the Mojahedin’s Manzas jail to await the day when Maryam Rajavi dispatches her to do jihad against Iran.
Please help us.
Somayeh’s parents,
Mostafa Mohammadi and Mahbube Hamza
d.ba./b.ha.
Shqiptarja.com, Tirana, Albania, Translated by Iran Interlink
From Mr. Muhammad Veliu’s writing in Gazeta Shqiptarja.com we learned that representatives of the group, organization, cult of Madam Rajavi, with its headquarters (camp, barracks) in Manza, are coming more and more under the spotlight of the most prestigious international media (TV, newspapers, news agencies etc.), and have decided to fight back. In their counter attack they dealt with me personally. In this writing they will have the preface of my answer.
Elderly folk, MEK, former terrorists, currently stateless (refugees) who are sheltered in Albania as persons protected for humanitarian reasons, I remind you with humility that attacking me with all kinds of slanders, tales and idiocies just reminded me of Communist Albania before 1990. You old men and women, presently stateless former criminals, I can say that by scratching at me in a false and fabricated way they have confused toilet paper with sandpaper!
To the public, I am explaining one of their idiosyncratic allegations, not only to reject it, but also to bring to life the paranoia of these criminalized “fossils”, still in circulation from a bygone era.
MEK! Do not be so stupid as to lie about the incident of March 22, 2018, when collaborators in the Albanian police ordered by you (and you have left traces, as ignorant as you are), detained two Iranian journalists. Within 3-4 hours they were released and received an apology (documented with audio recording in Albanian, English and with a phrase in Farsi). How is it possible that the Albanian police release terrorists and apologize?!?!? Are you living in a cave, oh you elderly stateless former criminals?!?!?!? These two Iranian “terrorists” came to Albania at the invitation of the Bektashi World Chief of Bektashis, Baba Mondi. Do you believe, you wretched people, that Baba Mondi is a collaborator with Iranian terrorists?!?!?! The two “terrorists” were detained during the celebrations of the Bektashi Celebration, Sultan Novruz, in the premises of the Headquarters in Tirana, some 30 km from the camp barracks, your residence in Manza. Did these terrorists, with their presence at this ceremony, want to commit terrorist acts against their host Baba Mondi or even the President of the Republic of Albania, who was a participant in this ceremony?!??!?! Two Iranian “terrorists” entered Albania with a regular visa issued by the Albanian Consulate General in Istanbul for free (gratis). It is a miserable day when our diplomats in Istanbul have become a conduit for Iranian terrorists?!?!?!?! Ask your unintelligent collaborators in the Albanian intelligence service, to read, for further information, my article at the link:
https://www.cna.al/2018/03/26/dy-terroristet-iraniane-aprofesionalizem-ulerites-apo-thjesht-false-flag-operation/
The MEK states that journalist and British citizen Arron Reza Merat is an infamous Iranian agent of the Iranian regime. I appeal to British diplomats in Tirana to urgently report to MI5 and MI6 that the MEK have discovered this dangerous Iranian spy in our Tirana. While we are here, the British diplomats in Tirana should urgently inform the British intelligence service that MEK of Manza have also discovered a dangerous Iranian spy (British citizen) named Anne Singleton, with whom I was a participant last November (not December as they have incorrectly and unintelligently informed our readers) in a public activity, a seminar, a workshop in Tirana, an activity featured in the electronic media, written media and with videos on You tube, and photos on my personal Facebook. Albanian readers are offered this link to the most recent article by Arron Merat (with associates), the Iranian “spy” for the most serious British newspaper “The Guardian”. link:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/jun/30/rudy-giuliani-mek-iran-paris-rally
Elderly, stateless ex-terrorists, (without a homeland), I explained that I went to Manzas as a translator for the British journalist, not as co-author of his article. I remind the miserable MEK that their Albanian collaborators went to the Faculty of Philology in Tirana to verify that I really did graduate in English in 1988, inter alia to perform the role of a professional oral translator and in writing (interpreter & translator). I did not hide my identity because I presented to MEK a legal identification document, an international passport. I also had an identity card, a driving license, a journalist’s card and a permit to enter Durres Port. I gave my passport, the document contains more info and I had the suspicion that the training which they which they had 30 years ago from Saddam Hussein’s 9th Mukhabarat Directorate was shallow, deficient and very rudimentary. The MEK, in a very professional way, photographed and documented by my side, not just the passport page with my personal details on it, but also every passport page, where there were the exit and entry stamps for whenever I had travelled abroad since December 2010! I remind the MEK that neither they nor the Argon security employees and security guards, have the jurisdiction to check ID documents of Albanian or foreign nationals outside the fence of the camp, barracks, MEK refuge in Manza. I gave my documents and those of the person driving the car owned by my wife to test the professionalism of these former terrorists for the sake of the “Argon” company employees who are ordinary people who support their families with that job!
I did not come to your camp as a reporter but as a translator, however, since, according to your “spokesperson”: “He is part of the Albanian network working with the Iranian Embassy”, I will publicly expose your extreme paranoia. While I still have a very good, almost photographic memory, of being outdoors outside your camp, outside the gate, often in the public road asphalt, I am informing you publicly that I noticed, among other things, these things:
Works in your camp are being carried out by the “Victoria Invets” company owned by Mr. Fatmir Kuqin “. I have almost photographed in my mind, the types, brands and vehicle plates of this company, which entered and left the camp.
Among the subcontractors I noted three different firms. So you don’t think I’m bluffing I’ll mention one of them, company “Beton 5”.
I noted the types and Trademarks used by the “Argon” company’s employees, as well as the type and brand of their handsets (walkie talkies).
I noted the brand of hand radios used by two of the MEK, who were a bunch of commanders, one of whom, in 1991, as a tank driver with “Assad Babylon” [Saddam Hussein] stained the tracks of his tank with the blood of women, children, babies and Shiite tribal elders in the villages in the wetlands near Basra and up to the outskirts of the Iraqi Port Um-Qasser!
I promise you that I will carefully investigate and make public in detail the procedure for obtaining permission from the Albanian authorities for the installation of antennas for such radio transmitters!
I have photographed in my mind the types, brands and license plates of the transport which conveys Albanian employees into and out of the camp. Such details are important to understanding MEK-Albanian relations.
I also fixed in my memory such details as the type and brand of telescopic mirror, which was used to check the underneath of the car chassis entering and leaving the MEK residence. Congratulations, yours are better quality than the ones used by the Vehicle Inspection Guard at the entrance of the Prime Ministry (SIC!).
While on the subject of the Prime Minister, my brother Edwin, the famous leader: Wait, wait, you haven’t seen anything yet. I assure you, oh you wretched MEK, that in the second part of my answer you will be treated to such topics as: 1) Ashraf Camp 3 or George Orwell’s Animal Farm. 2) Edwin ‘the Believer’ hopes to use MEK as a master key to open the Oval Office door. 3) Details of how I will accompany other foreign journalists to the gate of Madam Rajavi’s “Animal Farm”. 4) The public outcry against the MEK and the rule of hearing two bells in journalism. 5) Albanians generally do not endure foreign boils and do not allow them to command in Albania. 6) From Ruskik Haza! Fuck off MEK, this is dialectical!
Oh you MEK, all this story about you started from my writing in this link here:
https://www.cna.al/2017/11/24/kryeministri-edvin-do-strehoje-ne-shqiperi-familjaret-e-terroristeve-te-isis-it/
MEK tomorrow! And tomorrow! / IMPACT GAZETTE
Gjergji Thanasi, Gazeta Impact, Translated by Iran Interlink
British journalist Lindsey Hilsum was hit by members of the Iranian opposition group known as Mujahedin e Khalq (MEK) living in a “fortified camp” nearby-Durres’ Manez village, on which she’d come to report on for Britain’s Channel 4, local media reported on Sunday.
According to Shqiptarja.com, Albanian authorities attempted to keep the Aug. 10 incident a secret from the public, although Prime Minister Edi Rama, Minister of Interior Fatmir Xhafaj, high police authorities and the British Embassy to Tirana were notified.
Hilsum and her producer Darius Bazargan were investigating and filming the 3,000 Mujahedin, whom Iran considers a terrorist group and whom Albania has been controversially hosting as refugees after the US removed MEK from its terrorist groups’ list in 2012, accompanied by an Albanian translator.
According to the testimony of an eye-witness, private police guarding the fortified camp where the MEK members are hiding attempted to take hold of the camera used to film, while some of the members hit Hilsum, who began to scream, until state police patrolling the area stopped them and took the foreigners at the police station, where they testified.
“They tried to take her camera and break it. The journalist panicked and began to scream, while they grabbed the man that was accompanying them by the neck,” the eye witness told Shqiptarja.com.
It is also reported Channel 4 will run the recordings of the MEK members in Albania in the following days, where the incident with Hilsum and her team will also be depicted.
After a request made by the Albanian media, a spokesperson for MEK said they have reason to doubt the British journalists are, in fact, in contact with the Iranian secret service, which they fear will attack the Mujahedin in their camp here in Albania, which was the only country that accepted to host them.
The MEK announcement said that no one had notified them of the journalists’ arrival and plans to film them and added that Albanian secret service had also requested them to stop filming and had been ignored.
According to the announcement, the violence reported is misinformation spread by Iranian secret agent Massoud Khodabandeh, who is allegedly in touch with the journalists.
It is unclear what further steps have been taken by the Albanian authorities after Hilsum’s testimony, but local media reports violence between MEK members and international journalists who have come to Albania to investigate on their lives here has occurred before.
Relations between Albania and Iran date back to the 19th and 20th century, when several Albanian Renaissance poets were inspired by Persian culture and Bektashism, an ultra-liberal mystical Muslim sect with roots in Sufism and Shia Islam that is also present in Albania, to promote Albanian independence.
However, relations between Albania and Iran in the past few years have been strained by Albania’s willingness to accept providing shelter to MEK, which had been on the list of terrorist organizations for several years by the United States.
Meanwhile, independent experts have raised serious question marks on MEK members presence in Albania, even more than the concerns already raised by their presence here as an ex-terrorist group that is still considered terrorist in many parts of the world.
According to earlier statements by MEK members, their stay in Albania will stretch until the end of Iran’s dictatorship, however experts have not excluded the possibility that MEK members may be building a base against Iran, during their stay in Albania.
Tirana Times
After Interior Minister Fatmir Xhafaj, Iranian Mostafa Mohammadi has also written to Prime Minister Rama, saying he wants his daughter released. According to him, she is held hostage by Mojahedin at the Manza camp in Durrës
shqiptarja.com and Report TV ‘s editorial board have secured another exclusive letter sent by the Iranian father of 38-year-old Somayeh Mohammadi, Mostafa Mohammadi, to the highest state office. After Interior Minister Fatmir Xhafaj, Mohammadi has also written to Prime Minister Rama, saying he wants his daughter released. The letter is addressed Mr. Agron Soyat, the prime minister’s adviser on anti-terrorism.
Mostafa says he is a Canadian citizen and that the MEK organization in Manzas of Durres has held his daughter hostage for 21 years. He even says he was assaulted by members of this organization on July 27, 2018. According to him, about 50 mujahideen that same day surrounded the police station no. 4, as well as terrorizing lawyers and police in the region and calling him and his wife terrorists.
“I believe you have seen in the media how the Mojahedin beat me on July 27, 2018 near the madrasa in Tirana. Mojahed Humayun Deyhim, a person who has committed crimes in Iraq, stopped me on the street and together with 7 other Mojahedin, pushed me, struck me and then called me a terrorist, and as a result of this assault I ended up in the hospital. Then when we went to police station No. 4, the Mojahedin commanders, consisting Behzad Saffari, Jila Deyhim and Ahmad Taba (persons who committed crimes in Iraq) with around 50 Mojahedin surrounded police station No. 4 and terrorized lawyers and police in the region and called us terrorists”, he says.
The Iranian also mentions the case of British Channel 4 journalists headed by Mrs Lindsey Hilsum who says she has interviewed him about this issue.
“In a few days they labelled as Iranian agents two journalists, one from the British newspaper The Guardian, who were not given access inside their camp to see Somayeh. The violent behavior of the Mojahedin against journalists and the parents of the persons they hold hostage in their organization not new. They firebombed the Mansur hotel in Baghdad, Iraq, in 2006, when I wanted to meet my daughter and have sent a killer to kill me. I am alive thanks to US Marines who rescued me in Iraq. These facts are shown in the documentary I produced for my daughter which is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hjYLhpB9Xyg, “he explains in the letter
To download the video file click here
The Girl’s Denunciation
On the other hand, a short time ago his daughter Ms. Sommyeh Mohammadi, personally went to Manza police station to file a lawsuit against him. Earlier, Somayeh wrote a letter to the Interior Minister of Albania, in which she explains that her father is in this country with a mission on behalf of the Iranian Intelligence Ministry.
Shqiptarja.com and Fxmedia.al, Tirana, Albania, Translated by Iran Interlink
International Affairs Editor on Channel 4, Lindsey Hilsum mistreated, authorities are silent about the event. Minister Fatmir Xhafaj, the highest police authorities, and the British Embassy in Tirana have become aware of this incident.
An attempt was made to keep secret an incident at the Iranian Mojahedin camp in Manzas, Durrës, in which a well-known British journalist and her film crew were beaten. But Shqiptarja.com has discovered all the details of this incident.
Sources from the State Intelligence and Anti-terrorism Services, speaking on terms of anonymity, indicate that the incident occurred on August 10. The whole event was not reported in the daily communiques of criminal events by the police, although it is a scandal, and not a small one.
The Event
At the beginning of August, a British television crew for Channel 4 arrived in Albania, along with the well-known Middle East affairs journalist Lindsey Hilsum. The purpose of their visit was to investigate the lives of the Iranian Mojahedin, who have been given refuge for some years in our country, and the mystery of the newly-built, giant and fortified camp, hosting 3,000 dissidents of the Iranian regime.
Shqiptarja.com learned that on the morning of August 10, Lindsey Hilsum, accompanied by her producer Darius Bazargan, travelled in the direction of Manza, in the Durrës Region, to film the camp. They were accompanied by an Albanian translator.
As Lindsey Hilsum was standing outside the camp’s fence, at the back, trying to look inside the camp, she was pushed, and she was subjected to force by the private security guards, as well as by some Iranians.
An eyewitness told Shqiptarja.com that the attack was immediate and that the journalist was frightened. “They tried to take the camera and break it. The journalist panicked and started screaming, while young man of short stature who accompanied her was grabbed by the throat”, he said.
After a few minutes, an emergency police patrol arrived, which protected the journalist and her crew. They were escorted to the police station where they reported the incident and explained that they were doing their job [as journalists]. After giving their statements, they were released.
The Incident
The entire incident has been filmed by the British film crew and will be broadcast in the next few days on Channel 4. A source aware of the content of the investigation told Shqiptarja.com that the film material provided by British television and the interviews taken show what happens inside the camp which is guarded fanatically so that nothing escapes outside the massive walls of this camp, lying on 26 hectares.
Minister Fatmir Xhafaj, the highest police authorities, and the British Embassy in Tirana have become aware of this incident.
Meanwhile, SHISH has sent Prime Minister Rama a detailed memo about the event. Shqiptarja.com sent an email to producer Darius Bazargan asking him to comment on the event to which he replied to contact his executive producers who would make a public statement later.
Albanianja.com requested a statement about this incident from the Mojahedin spokesman in the Manza camp, who claimed to believe that the TV crew was serving the interests of Iran’s regime’s secret police.
Full Reaction of MEK:
“On Friday, August 10, 2018, a television crew of three, secretly and without prior notice, filmed and photographed within the residence of members of the Mojahedin People’s Organization of Iran (PMOI-MEK), refugees in Albania, from an adjacent place. Local Albanian security agents, who pointed out this suspicious and unlawful act, asked not to film and surrender the footage. But team members, who were introduced as Britons working for British TV Channel 4 TV, disregarded this request and continued their work until the Albanian police came and escorted them to the police district.
“The next day, the news of their visit to the PMOI residence and photos taken there was featured on Facebook’s site by Massoud Khodabandeh, a notorious agent of the Iranian Intelligence Ministry (MOIS), as well as on Iran’s website -Interlink that is run by MOIS. Thus, it became clear that this audio-visual team from Channel 4 is in active communication with this Iranian intelligence agent and has taken the task of preparing a program to denigrate PMOI. But when MOIS realized that the publication of the news and photos had tarnished her conspiracy against Mojahedin, she ordered that they be removed on August 12th.
“On August 10, shortly after the release of the Channel 4 filming team, a PMOI press spokesman wrote an urgent letter to the television channel editor, telling the story and threats facing Mojahedin in Albania: “We are very worried that the filmed videos will fall into the hands of the Iranian Intelligence Ministry, “but he did not receive any response. He sent another letter to the editor on August 13 about the release of photographs describing the story of MOIS agent Khodabandeh, and attached two reports from a parliamentary group of the United Kingdom and the Federal Library of Congress’s Library Division about his dependence on MOIS, as well as an explanation from the editor. The letter remains unanswered.
“The claims that the reporter is beaten are completely lied. For your information, the first person claiming the reporter was beaten was Massoud Khodabandeh, the Iranian intelligence agent. So the origin of this claim is the Iranian intelligence ministry. Moreover, if the security personnel who, based on the advice of the Albanian government, are there for protection, would have done something wrong, the police would have banned them, not the reporters. Lies and gathering information about the compound of the MeK are part of preparing the ground for terrorist attacks against Iranian refugees. Similarly, in March a terror plot against their residential complex was prevented and two Iranian “reporters” were arrested.”
It is not yet known whether the Durrës police and prosecutor’s office have investigated this serious incident after receiving the testimony of the British journalist and her crew, or questioned the security guards at the camp, the protagonists in beating the English media people.
This is not an isolated incident between the Mojahedin refugee camps and international media interested in reporting on their lives. Shqiptarja.com learned that some days ago there has been another clash with an English-speaking journalist, The Guardian reporter named Arron Merat.
Profile / Lindsey Hilsum, Channel 4 journalist
Lindsey Hilsum is an international news editor on the prestigious British Channel 4 channel. During her career as a journalist, she has covered the world’s main conflicts over the last two decades, including the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Kosovo, as well as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In 2011, she reported on the ground the riots and unrest in Egypt, Bahrain and Libya. She has made numerous reports from Iran and Zimbabwe and was the Channel 4 Correspondent in China from 2006 to 2008. During the 2004 American attack on Fallujah, Iraq, she was on the front line of the attack alongside American Marines. She was the only foreign-language journalist who spoke English in Rwanda when the genocide began. Before engaging in journalism, she worked with relief missions in Latin America and Africa.
Her first book “Sand Storm: Libya at the Time of the Revolution” was published in Britain in April 2012 and May of that year in the US.
Hilsum was honored with an honorary doctorate from the English Essay University in 2004 and received awards such as television journalist of the year and was awarded medals by the Royal Geographic Society.
Dissidents
Three thousand opponents of the Tehran regime settled in Albania.
Since 1986, dissenters against the Iranian regime were sheltered in Ashraf camp, built by the United States on Iraqi land, on the border between Iraq and Iran. Their transfer to Albania began when the government of Berisha agreed to accommodate the first 210 Mojahedin who arrived in Tirana in May 2013. All of the Camp Ashraf residents came to Albania following an agreement between Prime Minister Rama and former Secretary of State John Kerry in 2016. The Iranian People’s Mojahedin Organization (MEK) is a movement that acts to overthrow the current regime in Iran.
The 3,000 Iranian Mojahedin who came to Albania previously lived in rented flats, but are now accommodated in the Manzas area, some kilometers from the city of Durres. It is understood that money for the land purchase and construction of new housing within the camp is funded by the community of Iranian dissidents living mainly in Europe. The new housing is surrounded by a security perimeter to avoid any potential risk. The protection of Iranian dissidents coming to Albania is guaranteed by intelligence agents. Meanwhile, the camp is guarded by private guards.
“We will stay in Manza until the end of the dictatorial regime in Iran. Our dream is to go back to our families in a free Iran”, one of them said off-camera for Report TV.
By Muhammad Veliu, Arsen Rusta,Shqiptarja.com, Translated by Iran Interlink
At the height of the tourist season, one of the most frequented beaches in Durres, Lalzi Bay, is not supplied with drinking water.
The news was announced by the journalist Andi Bejtja, who in a post on his social network, writes that the reason for this is because a special pipe has been added to the network which prioritises water for the Mojahedin camp at Maminas.
“Come on, come on, there is no water at all in Lalzi at the height of the tourist season, that a special pipe is inserted into the network and as a priority water goes to the Mojahedin camp in Maminas. It’s better to be a Mojahed than a tourist in the summer.”
CNA, by G.T., Albania, Translated by Iran Interlink,
An Iranian father and daughter have traded accusations against each other over Iranian opposition group Mujahedin-e-Khalq, MEK, whom Albania has offered accommodation under a deal with the United States but whose members official Iran has banned as terrorist group.
Mostafa Mohammedi, a Canada-based Iranian citizen, claims his 38-year-old daughter is being held hostage by MEK, the “Peoples’ Mujahedin of Iran,” but his daughter denies claims and has filed a lawsuit against him.
Somayeh Mohammadi is one of the 3,000 mujahedeen who have been accommodated in a camp outside Durres, Albania’s second largest city, as part of United States efforts to find them new homes outside of Iraq where they were stationed at a U.S-backed camp until late 2016.
While in Albania seeking to meet his daughter whom he hasn’t seen in more than a decade, Mostafa Mohammedi is asking Albanian authorities to free his 38-year old daughter from MEK, which he says is holding her hostage.
His daughter has responded undertaking legal action against him over alleged persecution, accusing her father as an undercover agent of the Iranian regime and says that she joined and is staying with MEK of her own free will for two decades now.
Mostafa, who holds Canadian citizenship, says he moved to Canada in 1994 to seek political asylum. The Iranian father claims MEK ‘kidnapped’ his daughter from Canada in 1997 when she was only 17, convincing him to allow her for a two-week trip to Iraq, but never came back. He says he hasn’t met her since 2005.
“We believe and we have testimony from former mujahedeen who have left the extremist organization and live in Tirana that our daughter lives under conditions of torture and inhuman treatment by the MEK jihadists,” says the Iranian-Canadian in his letter to Albanian Interior Minister Fatmir Xhafaj.
His appeal to the Albanian authorities is “think with your heart and understand the pain that a mother and father suffer when they see their daughter being held hostage by a violent and extremist group.”
The Iranian father says he has filed a lawsuit with Albanian authorities over alleged MEK kidnapping but his daughter has responded by initiating legal action over alleged persecution.
‘Father is undercover agent,’ daughter claims
In a letter published on Albanian media, Somayeh Mohammadi claims her father is a undercover agent of the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence and Security and that the real reason he is in Albania is to undertake undercover operations against MEK, which the Iranian government considers a terrorist organization for about four decades now.
Somayeh says she voluntarily left Canada in 1998 like many Iranians to join MEK seeking freedom and democracy for Iran.
She claims her father surprisingly told Canadian media she was being held hostage by MEK after meeting her at the Ashraf camp in Iraq in 2002, 2003 and 2004. “He created online propaganda blogs allegedly belonging to me and put other pressure to force me to surrender and collaborate with the Iranian authorities,” she says in her letter to Albanian authorities.
Somayeh says she has published her whole story in a book available in Persian and English unveiling efforts by Mostafa Mohammedi to abuse her, and claims that her father had a role as an undercover Iranian agent in the Ashraf and Liberty camp killings in Iraq.
“The presence of Mostafa Mohammad in Albania is very troubling for me. I am not concerned about myself, but the security of my friends in Albania. His presence shows that the Iranian regime is seeking to engage in other heinous plotting against us in Albania,” she says in her letter to the Albanian Interior Minister, asking him to ban her father from staying in Albania.
In another interview with local Albanian media, the Iranian-Canadian father claims that the letter signed by his daughter and published on Albanian media was written by Mujahedeen leaders who don’t want her to joint her family.
“I am not an Iranian agent. I am a Canadian citizen and parent who wants to free his daughter from the kidnapping of the Iranian jihadist group,” he says.
MEK in Albania
Albania’s decision to accommodate 3,000 MEK members in the past few years has angered official Tehran who has banned them from Iran since 1981.
Mujahedin e Khalq members are opponents of Iran’s regime. Following the Islamic revolution of 1979, MEK supported Saddam Hussein in the 1980s war between Iraq and Iran.
MEK had been on the list of terrorist organizations for several years by the United States until it was finally removed from the list in 2012 after the dissident group supported the U.S in military operations in the Middle East and in its fight against terrorism.
Relations between Albania and Iran date back to the 19th and 20th century when several Albanian Renaissance poets where inspired by Persian culture and Bektashism, an ultra-liberal mystical Muslim sect with roots in Sufism and Shia Islam that is also present in Albania, to promote Albanian independence.
Iran is represented in Albania with its own embassy while the Saadi Shirazi cultural foundation has been present in Albania since the early 1990s promoting ties between Albania and Iran.
Tirana Times,
DURRES / A couple of Canadian citizens, who are Iranian nationals, are asking the Albanian state to allow them, after 21 years, to meet with their daughter who, according to them, is in the Manza camp where the Mojahedin (MEK) are resident.
The couple arrived in Albania at the beginning of July, but after 20 days of trying, are still unable to meet with her. They say that she left the family, aged 17, without their knowledge and went to Iraq to join the MEK organisation. The daughter, called Somayeh Mohammadi, was born on September 8, 1980. She joined the Iranian Mojahedin MEK in 1997. They learned that their 38-year-old daughter is in Camp Ashraf 3 in Manza, where the Mojahedin are hosted in Albania. Her parents, Mostafa and Mahboubeh Mohammadi, claim that the girl is held in this camp against her will and want to meet her and take her home to Canada.
Mr Mostafa, why are you in Albania?
We are in Albania to find our daughter who left the family 21 years ago. We are a couple with Canadian citizenship, but with Iranian ethnicity. 21 years ago, aged 17, our daughter left Canada to join activists in Iraq to overthrow the regime [in Iran].
How did she leave Canada, with or without your knowledge?
Of course without our knowledge. We didn’t know anything about her leaving. When she arrived in the Middle East, she contacted us and told us that she was there for this purpose, to join the activists. We were very worried because we knew what was happening in Iraq in 1997, the country was at war.
When she left, who was waiting for her?
I don’t know what to say. After she arrived in the Middle East, we only spoke with her a little. She just told us she had left for this reason without any details, not about to whom she had departed, nor who was waiting for her. She was only 17 years old. She could be manipulated easily. Probably through online contacts.
Was that the last contact you had with your daughter after she arrived in the Middle East?
After she arrived in Iraq, she no longer contacted us. We had no opportunity to find her anymore. As I said, we were worried that the country was at war and as time passed, the days, months, years passed, we didn’t know what had happened to our daughter.
How long have you been in touch with your daughter?
About six years after the US took control of the camp [in 2003]. The US armed forces and authorities identified the people in the camp. We had lost hope that she was alive. Then, at one point we were informed by the Canadian authorities that our daughter was in this camp, which was under US supervision.
Do you think your daughter is in the Mojahedin camp in Manza?
Yes, yes, we are sure. We are confident because all the members of the camp, which was under the control of the US authorities, were transferred here to Albania and are now in Camp Ashraf 3 in Manza, where the Iranian Mojahedin refugees arrived in Albania from Iraq after they were originally taken to Iraq.
What is your daughter called and how old is she?
Her name is Somayeh Mohammadi, she was born on September 8, 1980. She joined the Iranian Mojahedin in 1997. The girl is being held at Camp Ashraf 3 in Manza against her will by these Mojahedin.
You said you were not in contact with your daughter for years, how do you know she is being held against her will?
She is being held against her will because the mission is accomplished. The regime has changed and this was her aim. Already she prefers to join her family in Canada, where her parents and two brothers are waiting.
You came to get your daughter and return to Canada?
Yes, that’s why I came, along with my wife. But not only can we not take her home, we can’t even meet with her. We came specifically from Canada to find our daughter because we discovered that she is in the Mojahedin camp in Durres (Manza). We have joined with Albanian and international institutions and we have not finished our task. We seek nothing but to meet with our daughter who we have not seen for 21 years. This meeting will only be possible if it takes place in the presence of the police or other authorities.
Canadian citizen Mostafa Mohammadi, who wants to take his daughter out of the Mojahedin camp in Manza, claims he was attacked by some members of this community. He says his daughter is unjustly held in the camp.
He is in Albania to rescue his daughter from Manza camp, alleging that she is being unfairly held there. Mostafa Mohammadi, an Iranian with a Canadian passport, was attacked by Mojahedin members at Medresea. He says he and his wife were hit by representatives of MEK.
This couple have been in Albania for several days because they want to rescue their daughter, Somayeh Mohammadi, who, according to the couple, is in this camp. They were not allowed to contact their daughter and therefore there was conflict, resulting in claims to have been hit by some Mojahedin during the prayers at Medresea in Tirana.
The Canadian couple are in the QSUT under the care of doctors after the physical assault by the Mojahedin representatives. After the incident, the police escorted several Mojahedin members to the premises of police station number four in the capital.
The Iranian man says he was physically abused, but after medical examinations at University Hospital, no fracture was found or symptoms of shock. Some days ago, Shqiptarja.com published a letter that her father, Iranian Mostafa Mohammadi, had sent to Interior Minister Fatmir Xhafaj, alleging that MEK is holding his 38-year-old daughter hostage. Earlier though, his daughter, Somayeh Mohammadi, in a letter wrote that her father Mostafa is an agent of the Iranian Interior ministry and is in Tirana to plot against her.