Ann Singleton

Mujahedin Khalq Organization's Propaganda System

MEK Constrained in Albania Goes Berserk

Last week, four former MEK members flew to Albania from their homes in Europe to attend the wedding of their friend. When they were denied entry at the airport, two of them boarded return flights to Britain and Austria. However, the couple from Germany remained at the airport demanding to know why they were being refused entry. Ms Batoul Soltani told journalists “We saw MEK commanders sitting in KFC in the transit hall and assumed the Albanian border officials had allowed them in to make sure no Iranians could enter the country”. Soltani went on to explain, “We asked for consular support from the German embassy. And after spending an uncomfortable night sleeping in transit, an official visited us the next day. What they told us was really surprising.”

Batoul Soltani

The German diplomat explained that the Albanian border officials had refused them entry in order to protect them from being hurt or even killed by the MEK. The Albanian police admitted that they are cracking down on the MEK’s activities and this has made them extremely angry. The MEK is now facing an existential crisis and their rage has made them vicious and dangerous. Their soft targets are the former members who have spoken out against them, revealing gross human rights abuses. After being reassured that they could visit Albania again in the future, Soltani and her partner returned home to Germany.

Evidence of how severely the MEK has been restrained emerged after the Albanian police banned the MEK from holding its annual rally scheduled for 23-4 July. The MEK angrily “postponed” their rally and set about concocting a false threat to offer as an excuse. Using false information, the MEK coerced Albania’s Special Structure for Combatting Corruption and Organized Crime (SPAK) into detaining a handful of former MEK members and their Albanian supporters on the charge of being “agents in the service of the Iranian regime”. These former members of the MEK, survivors of modern slavery, have struggled to live in Albania under constant harassment by both the MEK and Albanian authorities. The MEK accused them of plotting to kill the MEK members at the rally. SPAK searched their properties and interrogated the detainees but could not find any reason to hold them. In spite of the MEK insisting they be kept overnight in order to keep the appearance that they were a terrorist threat, they were released the same day.

When this ploy to hide the awful truth didn’t work, the US embassy in Albania posted a Tweet warning “The U.S. government is aware of a potential threat targeting the Free Iran World Summit to be held near Durres, Albania on July 23-24, 2022.” The post went on to advise: “U.S. Citizens are urged to avoid this event; Monitor local media; Be aware of your surroundings; Keep a low profile”.

Whether the “potential threat” targeted Americans specifically or not, this served the dual purpose of giving the MEK an excuse to cancel their rally, and also demonised Iran as a potential terrorist threat. (Though implicit in this is the message that neither the Albanian police and security services nor the Americans – in a NATO country – had the power to detect and neutralise a potential threat to a closed camp in the middle of Albania.)
Ironically, the cancellation of the MEK rally attracted much greater publicity for the cult than the actual rally would have done. For this reason, the MEK leadership was initially delighted by this turn of events. The US benefitted as this fed into the narrative confected around the trials in Belgium and Sweden of Iranian government officials operating in Europe who are alleged to have committed crimes against MEK members. Demonising Iran in any way adds fuel to the efforts by the anti-Iran cohort in the US, Israel and Saudi Arabia to stop the US coming back to the JCPOA and to get the weak president Biden to pursue the same maximum pressure policy as Trump with even more sanctions on Iran.

MEK leader Maryam Rajavi has a popularity problem both at home and in exile.

It also gave the Iranians an opportunity to have a laugh as Fars News Agency made the patently ludicrous suggestion of “targeting an opposition group in Europe with ballistic missiles and drones”. This was gleefully picked up and reported by the Saudi owned, MEK propaganda channel Iran International TV as credible evidence of Iranian aggression. However, only days later the Telegram account for Iran’s IRGC announced that the real reason why the MEK rally was cancelled is that Maryam Rajavi is seriously ill, and doctors have been brought from Europe to save her. A claim that neither the MEK nor its supporters, paymasters or protectors could confirm or deny.

Neither scenario was viable, but this left the MEK fatally exposed as victims of other people’s propaganda. The MEK have now woken up to the fact that they have been played by both the US and Iran and, worse, for the first time in forty years have not been able to hold their annual rally. From mass demonstrations in every major western capital in the 1980s to the rallies contained in the Villepinte Exposition Parc in Paris, to small rallies inside the camp in Albania, the MEK have now been prevented from holding a rally at all.

This should not come as a surprise however. Several events in the past year and more indicated that Maryam Rajavi is no longer fully in control of the MEK. Last year we revealed that Maryam Rajavi was in the process of offloading responsibility for running the MEK onto her daughter and niece and some other loyal women, perhaps in an effort to take control of the MEK’s vast financial assets. Alongside this, there have also been activities which she would not have been able to instigate or monitor – from mafia collaboration to cyberwarfare. Her only role has been as a figurehead to front the MEK and market it as an anti-Iran opposition group. This was fine as long as it was needed. It no longer is. The annual rally is no longer to be tolerated.

But beyond this, the MEK has always been a maverick group, obeying no laws except its own cultic dynamics; brainwashing the members as modern slaves and living and acting outside the laws and norms of every country they have been based in, indulging in criminal and corrupting behaviours to serve their ends. For a candidate country for joining the EU, this has surely become a liability, and this is, presumably, why the group’s activities are being curtailed.

In Iraq, when the UNHCR puzzled over what to do with the MEK which refused to leave the country, a rumour circulated that ‘Plan B’ was to leave the MEK to die in their camp. It appears that this plan might be coming to fruition. Fewer than 1500 MEK members exist in the closed camp in Albania. Most of these are over 60 years old, many much older and many ailing. Every week reports of deaths and defections continue to haunt the cult. It is only a matter of time before the system collapses.

The hope now must be that the Albanian authorities take the lead in supporting the members directly. It would be nice if the Albanian authorities found a way to stage a humanitarian rescue of these redundant old folk. Even if they remain in the camp for the remainder of their lives, it would be a kindness to bring them some relief from their suffering and mistreatment – medical and dental care, nutritious food and retirement from forced work – and to allow them contact with their estranged families who have campaigned for over two decades to rescue their loved ones. Now they have outlived their usefulness they should be helped to live the remainder of their lives in freedom and ease.

By Anne Khodabandeh (Singleton)

August 6, 2022 0 comment

Mujahedin Khalq as an Opposition Group

MEK – From Fanatical Terrorists to Fanatical Followers

Experts and informed observers will be aware that over the past few months the MEK has been absent in public discourse regarding Iran. For a group which touts itself as the main opposition, this is nothing short of disaster. After being expelled from France three years ago and setting up her headquarters in Albania, Maryam Rajavi has worked hard to keep the MEK relevant. This meant continuing with the annual rallies in which paid speakers speak to rent-a-crowd audiences. Even though due to the COVID-19 crisis, even these events have been severely curtailed and forced online. It also meant accepting a new role for the MEK members in Albania. But, aside from the MEK slave members tapping and clicking into cyberspace, the MEK has been unable to make any breakthrough in the new political landscape concerning Iran.

The new president in America, Joe Biden, himself dithered and eventually failed to re-join the JCPOA and lift sanctions, in the process losing a key policy win. However, Iran also has a new president, Ebrahim Raisi, whose first foreign policy announcements defined Iran as looking toward its neighbours and beyond that, looking East. Usually, the MEK would slip itself between the two enemies. This time, Iran has turned its back and the MEK have simply fallen into the gulf and into obscurity. Much to the dismay of anti-Iran pundits, Iran’s newly appointed foreign minister, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, met with many countries during the UN General Assembly – including the UK’s Liz Truss. The MEK were not able to stage any protest at the event.

In the past weeks, Maryam Rajavi has also failed to take any position about Iran, which for various reasons, political, social and economic has been in the news: Iran became a full member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization; the US agreed to withdraw combat troops from Iraq (something Iran’s leaders vowed to make happen after the illegal killing of general Soleimani, deputy commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis and eight others); Iran’s naval commander highlighted the navy’s various successes; Iranian fuel successfully arrived in Lebanon to ease shortages there; Ali Landi, a 15-year-old boy who heroically rescued two women from a fire, died of severe burns; Iran’s women’s football team qualified for the AFC Women’s Asian Cup; Iran’s volleyball team beat Japan to win the 21st Asian Volleyball Championship. Maryam Rajavi and the MEK maintained complete silence over all this news, pretending none of it happened at all. Not even a word of criticism or scorn. Nothing. Just sliding rapidly into irrelevance.

Instead, the MEK personnel are being utilised behind the scenes. MEK members are being lined up to give witness testimony in a politicised court case in Sweden. The unstated aim of the trial is to dredge up events that took place three decades previously at the end of the Iran Iraq war in which political prisoners in Iran were executed. The defendant is accused of involvement in unlawful killings while Ebrahim Raisi was a judge in the trials. In this way, Raisi will be tarred with the same brush. But although this activity is straight out of the MEK playbook, this time the organisation is not being promoted. Indeed, it appears that efforts are being made to keep the toxic MEK/NCRI brand out of the reporting. Former MEK stooge, Struan Stevenson’s demand that Raisi be arrested does not mention the MEK, referring to one of its members in the UK only by his name. Even the Saudi backed Iran International TV fails to mention the MEK brand.

Clearly, the MEK are no longer needed as a brand either for funding or fronting anti-Iran efforts. To make matters worse, in Albania, Maryam Rajavi is beset by internal dissatisfaction among the members. Whether as a reaction to losing political and monetary support or as a distraction to divert the attention of the member from her failures, she has resorted to one of her husband’s old tricks – shake up the leadership line up.

Rajavi has introduced a profound change to the organisation of the MEK by appointing her own daughter and her niece to leadership roles. According to MEK expert, Massoud Khodabandeh, this effectively spells the end of the Rajavi Dynasty started by her husband Massoud Rajavi in the 1980s and replaces it with the beginnings of the Qajar Dynasty as members of her own family – Qajar-Azodanlu and her former husband, Mehdi Abrishamchi – are positioned to take control of the cult.

Significantly, several of the family and loyal aides recently promoted to lead the MEK, are French citizens. Unlike Rajavi herself, they will be able to move to Paris and restore the headquarters there. While there is no indication that the MEK will be able to resurrect its role as provocateur and mercenary force against Iran from Auvers-sur-Oise, it would surely be easier to take control of the vast personal wealth Rajavi has inherited from her husband through this change in personnel and location.

As the MEK appears destined to slide further into irrelevance and obscurity, we must ask what will become of the rank and file members languishing in Albania without hope or help. It cannot be that they continue to be exploited as modern slaves, without recourse to health or family. Hopefully, as the MEK’s role diminishes they will become more burdensome. In time, hopefully a short time, they may be dropped entirely and pushed out into the wider community. As for the leadership cadre, there is precedent for violent, destructive cults to fade into social cults. The Ismailis, who began with the Al Sabbah cult of assassins and are currently led by the Aga Khan, are a case in point. In time, the MEK will evolve from fanatical terrorists to fanatical followers. Followers without a struggle.

October 16, 2021 0 comment

Mujahedin Khalq Organization

MEK celebrates its 57th anniversary as what?

On 5th September the People’s Mojahedin e Khalq celebrated its 57th anniversary. But here’s a serious question: ‘As what?’ Is the MEK a terrorist group; a propaganda merchant; a mercenary militia group; a resistance movement; a liberation force; a democratic, feminist opposition group; a government in waiting?

These are some of the descriptions attached to it by observers and by itself over its five-decade history. Sometimes it’s hard to pin down this chameleon like group. Just what, specifically, is the MEK?

Until recently, the MEK kept company with extreme Neocons, Israeli Zionists and Saudis; John McCain, John Bolton, Rudi Giuliani, even Mike Pompeo headlined the MEK’s act. Basically, anybody who took an extreme anti-Iran stance and was prepared to embrace the MEK was welcomed as an ally. Money, of course, changed hands. With a new Democratic president in the US and a new Israeli prime minister, it remains to be seen which version of itself the MEK needs to publicly promote. Whatever that may be, its current attachments, loyalties and pay masters place the MEK at the very heart of what used to be described as American Imperialism.

So, the irony cannot be lost on us that the MEK of today purports to celebrate its 57th anniversary as an armed anti-Imperialist group. The MEK was created in response to the deadly oppression of the Shah and US Imperialism in Iran. The MEK’s founders believed that peaceful protest would not bring about the profound change needed to oust the Shah and his western backers and declared armed struggle. As part of this armed struggle, the MEK assassinated six American personnel in Iran and targeted western interests such as airline offices in Tehran with violent attacks.

After the 1979 revolution led by Ayatollah Khomeini, the MEK declared victory over US Imperialism. Its newspaper declared its extremist stance: ‘Let’s Create Another Vietnam for America!’ In its first two decades, the MEK attracted militant youth, prepared to kill and die for this cause. Those who have survived from those days make up the majority of the current MEK membership. After the mid-1980s, MEK leader Massoud Rajavi converted the group into a personality cult, using sophisticated psychological manipulation techniques to brainwash current and new members into obeying his whims. At this point, the terms of struggle became irrelevant, as every member’s real struggle was to stay loyal to an increasingly autocratic and unhinged set of terms: divorce your spouse and send your children away in order to focus solely on my leadership. Avoiding punishment and shunning became the fundamental preoccupation of every member.

Today, five decades on, it is unclear now whether these radicalised (brainwashed) members are able to think and gain the perspective needed to assess their predicament. Which is, the organisation they joined and devoted their whole lives to is built on the shifting sands of political and financial expediency and the base cowardice of Massoud Rajavi. The MEK of today is almost the opposite of the one they joined. Its ideology has evaporated and been replaced by mercenary expediency in the service of American Imperialism. So, by all means, let them celebrate 57 years of the MEK’s existence. But defining what that existence means has become an impossible dissociative conundrum for each and every member.

September 7, 2021 0 comment

Maryam Rajavi

What is the point of Maryam Rajavi

Three decades ago in 1993, Maryam Rajavi was appointed ‘president elect’ of a free Iran as envisioned by her husband Massoud Rajavi. In a once only election, in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, with Maryam as the only candidate, the electorate – members of the Council of the National Council of Resistance (a pseudonym for the Mojahedin e Khalq) – voted for her unanimously. Turnout was 100%. She has ruled over the members ever since without even a whiff of democratic due process.

The point of Maryam Rajavi back then was to create a feminist brand that would win political support in the west among Iran’s enemies. Massoud Rajavi sent her to France to perform this specific task. Of course, putting aside their diverse politics, we have many examples of strong female leadership. In opposition, Marine Le Pen is a tough, capable woman, able to command attention and attract a substantial following, while withstanding harsh criticism. (Maryam Rajavi treats all criticism as an existential threat.) Jacinda Adern has demonstrated that it is possible to have a baby and lead a country. (Maryam Rajavi presided over forced hysterectomies among the female leadership cadre due to her husband’s whim to have sex with them.)

Over three decades Maryam Rajavi has proven incapable of commanding attention or support. The MEK as an entity has certainly been a useful tool for the anti-Iran crowd. But this was not Rajavi’s doing, rather the MEK simply amplified the agenda, narrative and messaging which already existed. The MEK added to the cacophony of noise rather than create or conduct it.

For three decades the MEK has had to pay for audiences and speakers alike to attend ever more lavish carnival-like rallies to showcase Maryam Rajavi’s ‘leadership’. Year on year under her rule, the MEK has become more and more toxic and indefensible. To the point that now Maryam Rajavi has become persona non grata in exactly those countries she tried to woo. The USA has never allowed her into the country. The UK, allowed her one short visit in 1996. France, under the pressure of a CIA brokered deal (certainly there will be traces of Donald Rumsfeld in this murky deal), was forced to host her and her cult until, in 2018, Rajavi was forced out of the EU and exiled to Albania.
This year, from her headquarters in Albania, Maryam Rajavi will again front this annual event. This time a virtual event due to coronavirus restrictions. One development, however, is that MEK have hired lobbying firm BGR Group in Washington with a $40,000 contract to put on the event. There are several takeaways from this.

The MEK is so reduced and depleted of supporters that it does not have the capacity to organise this itself.

The MEK still has lots of money. Foreign money. (Although the MEK is perennially coy about the source of its funding, the words ‘Saudi Arabia’ and ‘finance’ and ‘MEK’ are frequently used in the same sentence.) BGR Group is promoting a foreign group using foreign money to influence American foreign policy. Well, at least it’s registered.

The bipartisan speaker list may give the appearance of US support, but these are paid speakers, not affiliates. Not one Iranian will be allowed on the stage with Maryam Rajavi. This is not only due to the fact that no Iranian would be willing to be associated with the blood soaked Rajavi brand. The exclusion of Iranian speakers is down to the impossibility of Rajavi presenting as the head of a political group when she is actually the sole leader of a cult, every one of which’s members exists in a state of modern slavery.

As the theme for her rally, Maryam Rajavi has instructed BGR Group to focus on Iran’s newly elected president Ebrahim Raisi. Not, as the leader of an opposition group, to challenge his present-day policies, but to question his role in events which took place in 1988 at the end of the Iran-Iraq war. Rajavi had three decades to pursue this line of enquiry in her role as ‘president elect’. She didn’t. Perhaps it’s only now that Raisi is the real president of Iran that reality has hit home. That reality is that there is not much point to Maryam Rajavi. She does not lead anyone except her own enslaved followers in Albania. She cannot command respect and attention among even the most virulent of Iran’s enemies and has to pay people to attend and speak at her self-promoting events. We cannot fault BGR Group. It’s what they do. But everyone else who is not being paid by Rajavi is entitled to ask: Really, what’s the point of Maryam Rajavi?

July 7, 2021 0 comment

The cult of Rajavi

The Rajavi Curse

Rudi Giuliani is the latest in a long list of people who have advocated for Rajavi and the MEK, and who have fallen from grace. Giuliani is, of course, the architect of his own downfall. His support for the MEK played only a small part in his long, often unsavoury career. (Sacha Baron Cohen’s 2020 Borat film played successfully on Giuliani’s dodgy reputation.) But Giuliani is in good company when we examine the roll call of individuals who have advocated for the MEK and subsequently lost their careers and their reputations – again often in only small part due to their association with the MEK.

The common theme behind this phenomenon – which should be called the ‘Rajavi Curse’ – is corruption. Recently, the US Secretary of State sanctioned the former Albanian leader Sali Berisha over corruption. Berisha presided over the transfer of MEK from Iraq to Albania after 2013. Once they arrived in Albania, Berisha found a lucrative role in advocating for Maryam Rajavi and the MEK. His downfall reminds us of this ‘Rajavi Curse’.

The Rajavi Curse

Let’s be clear, all political persons and groups make alliances; some work out well, some work out badly. It should be well known by now that linking themselves to the Rajavis will always work out badly for everyone. From Robin Corbett (UK MP) who had to write denying he took money from the MEK shortly before his death. To Struan Stevenson, Paulo Casaca and Alejo Vidal-Quadras who abandoned their roles as MEPs after the taint of Maryam Rajavi touched them. Of course, John Bolton, Rudi Giuliani, John McCain and others in the US will be forever known as shills for the terrorist MEK. In Albania, former deputy anti-trafficking coordinator Elona Gjebrea, who fawned upon supreme slave owner Maryam Rajavi, was later linked to a mafia family. Now Sali Berisha is added to the long list of unfortunates touched by the Rajavi Curse. In June, Edi Rama’s government which is notoriously corrupt itself, impeached President Ilir Meta, citing corruption.

The roll call of the MEK’s backers is a who’s who of people in power who have tried over the years to inflict fatal damage on the Islamic Republic. They found, in the MEK, a group which offered a package of military, ideological and propaganda thrust which matched with their own anti-Iranian agendas. It mattered not a bit that the MEK members themselves are subjected to calamitous human rights abuses and extreme exploitation as modern slaves.

Several have been embroiled in scandals which are linked to their poor judgement like Sir David Amess, who as an MP advocated for Maryam Rajavi in parliament. Or Bob Torricelli and Bob Menendez who have peddled misinformation for, but not exclusively, the MEK. Others, like Dennis Hastert, are just bad characters and their willingness to shill for the MEK (Hastert appeared in MEK rallies in Paris), can be seen in that context.

Whatever their motivation for supporting and advocating for the MEK, these individuals have backed the losing side. A side which has lost because it is itself corrupt to the core. Maryam Rajavi is currently languishing in Albania, as far from Iran and its politics as could be imagined. Expelled from Europe in 2018, Rajavi has suffered nothing but diminishing forces and power. What we are witnessing as we see her advocates fail and fall along the way is not Rajavi’s power to corrupt people. Rather it is simply that it takes a level of corruption, greed and/or confidence trickery to allow a person to support such an unsavoury group. Whether that support is rooted in money, ideology, stupidity or brainwashing, the result is the same: the Rajavi Curse is toxic to all who come close.

June 26, 2021 0 comment

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

MEK Israel Derailing Failed – Democrats Try New Tactic

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has alleged that negotiators don’t yet know if Tehran is serious about making a deal in Vienna. The US negotiators are talking with Iran’s negotiators on the sidelines of the meetings of the remaining JCPOA signatories. But perhaps the opposite is true. In spite of severe provocation, Iran did not abandon the talks and has kept its baseline proposition – if the US wants to re-join the JCPOA it must credibly lift sanctions and Iran will scale back its nuclear enrichment to agreed levels. Maybe, by focusing heavily on Iran’s compliance without offering a clear commitment to lifting the sanctions, it is the US that is not serious about the talks.

Of course, from the start, opponents of the JCPOA agreement tried to derail the talks in Vienna which involved the US on the sidelines. Israel, Saudi Arabia and US neocons have all objected to the nuclear deal in the past. They have been active during the talks to prevent progress. The US has not reacted to this interference.

On its arrival in Vienna at the start of April, Iran’s delegation was confronted with a small picket of MEK supporters who heckled and threatened violence against them. The MEK demand is to end all negotiations with Iran, scrap the JCPOA and declare war instead. Although the MEK leadership has been expelled from the EU to Albania, it still receives tacit support from within the US embassy there. While the MEK remains a minor irritant to Iran due to its history of treachery and terrorism, US tolerance of what it regards as a terrorist cult signals a lack of sincerity on America’s behalf.

On a more serious level, Israel embarked on a course of action which could have provoked Iran into retaliation and withdrawal from the talks. However, despite an attack on Iran’s nuclear plant and its naval presence in the Persian Gulf and beyond, Iran did not abandon the talks as anticipated. The aim of Israel, as with the MEK, has been to drive a wedge between Iran and the US and EU so as to end the talks. This has not worked. The US continues talking with Iran.

However, the US has not condemned the Israeli nuclear attack, nor taken steps to curtail the unwanted activities of the MEK. In this context, it is not clear whether the Americans have had to come up with a different tactic. Rather than relying on external sources of disruption and hindrance to control the terms of talks with Iran, the US is now playing the blame game: Iran is not serious.

The US accusation looks hollow. Allowing the MEK to continue with its false narratives disseminated from the click farm in Albania can only be read by Iran as acting in bad faith. The US cannot control the Israeli reaction. But it can act to stop the MEK activity. A return to the de-radicalisation program instigated by the Obama administration in 2016 would be a good place to start.

May 10, 2021 0 comment

Mujahedin Khalq as an Opposition Group

Mujahedin-e-Khalq MEK In Vienna

As the Vienna talks about compliance with the JCPOA continue, participating countries need, of course, to report to their domestic audience via the media what has transpired, what their negotiating position has been and what they got for their efforts.

For President Biden, of course, there is the added burden of laying out the achievements of his first 100 days – failure to re-join the JCPOA as promised being a thorny issue. Iran however has found the perfect go to distraction. Iran – which is heading for presidential elections in June – can easily boost the righteousness of Ayatollah Khamenei’s negotiating red lines by framing the American approach to the talks as grounded in bad faith and bad intent. All it took was to mention that five supporters of the MEK have been in Vienna there to protest.

Iranian papers reported that a small gathering of Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK) supporters took up position outside the Grand Hotel which hosts the talks, where they cursed and swore to try to intimidate the Iran delegation. Their demand: an end to diplomacy and for the US to declare war against Iran. Iran’s interpretation to its domestic audience in the run up to the presidential election in June, is that the West is simply playing games using anti-Iranian terrorists, and that this shows that neither America nor Europe is serious about the talks or establishing normal relations with Iran.

In Iran, MEK has become shorthand for ‘the threat to national security from the west’. The negotiators do not need to defend their work. It is enough to denounce the MEK’s unchecked presence in Vienna to demonstrate that the blame lies on the west’s side. It would be foolish to underestimate just how despised the MEK are among Iranians. Every school child on a trip to their local war museum will pass through a section graphically describing the MEK’s deadly collaboration with Saddam Hussein during the eight-year war. The MEK waged a two-decade long terrorist campaign against Iranian civilians that, by its own admission, killed up to 17,000 people. Worse, the MEK continues to act as mercenaries to foreign powers which seek to damage Iranian national interests, including assassination of nuclear scientists, and generals Shirazi and Soleimani. With this history, it is unsurprising that Iran’s leaders find fertile soil to plant anti-west opinion in the population.

To be fair, Europe has tried to curtail MEK activity in recent years, finding it counter to its stated goals of diplomacy with Iran. In 2018 the MEK leader Maryam Rajavi was expelled from Europe on security grounds and set up her new headquarters in Albania. But in Albania support from within the Trump administration allowed the MEK to continue to conduct itself as it has for the past forty years – using intimidation, corruption and propaganda under the protection of the CIA to pursue its anti-Iranian agenda. Not only does this play a major factor in why Albania will not be able to join the EU, the presence of MEK supporters now in Vienna fatally undermines the EU’s position vis-à-vis Iran.

We wrote back in January and again in April that President Biden could score a quick and effective Iran policy win by dismantling the MEK in Albania where the CIA has a free hand. Among the benefits for his administration would be to help stem the flow of foreign funds and false propaganda narratives that continue to hinder and could even destroy America’s opportunity to re-join the JCPOA and position itself to influence future demands on Iran. It would also remove the MEK as a stick with which Iran can beat its opponents – as it has done in this case. Failure to grasp this simple equation is surely based in America’s blindness to its own growing weaknesses and to Iran’s growing military and diplomatic capabilities.

May 1, 2021 0 comment

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Saddam’s Private Army

Ms. Ann Singleton wrote the book Saddam’s Private Army in 2003 on “How Rajavi changed Iran’s Mojahedin from armed revolutionaries to an armed cult”

To read the book click here

Part One – From prison to Ideological Revolution

Chapter 1 – Historical context
Chapter 2 – Rajavi’s first bid for power
Chapter 3 – National Council of Resistance
Chapter 4 – Foreign Relations
Chapter 5 – Armed Struggle
Chapter 6 – Internal Relations
Chapter 7 – Ideological Revolution

Part Two – From Ideological Revolution to Cult Status

Chapter 8 – Internal Relations
Chapter 9 – Armed Struggle
Chapter 10 – Foreign Relations
Chapter 11 – Rajavi’s second bid for power
Chapter 12 – Internal Relations
Chapter 13 – National Council of Resistance

Part Three – The Mojahedin in the Present

Chapter 14 – Dissent within the Mojahedin
Chapter 15 – Political Scene

To read the book click here

April 15, 2021 0 comment

Albania

Illir Nezaj of Albania Reveals MEK a Problem in International Forum

A true indication of the dire state of Albania’s politics, and a red line for the EU was on display in the UN Human Rights Council this week; an international forum in which Albania’s small voice would not normally be expected to cause controversy. Yet as Iran criticised Javaid Rehman UN Special Rapporteur’s comments on human rights in Iran, Dr Illir Nezaj from the Albanian embassy in Geneva found himself reading a prepared statement defending the MEK presence in his country.

In this speech, Nezaj claims ‘MEK is not a terrorist organization’. That will be news to the many thousands of victims of MEK terrorism in Iran, Iraq and beyond. Delighted that their man has done his job, the MEK lost no time in spreading this around social media, using the fake Heshmat Alavi account to disseminate the news. (Apparently, the MEK have misplaced their English-speaking team since the translation is full of spelling and grammar errors.)

Albania accession to EU

However, critics of the MEK have welcomed the speech as it acknowledges once and for all in an international arena, that the MEK are a problem for Albania. Historian and activist Olsi Jazexhi Tweeted:

“If MEK is not a terrorist organization why does it run a paramilitary camp in #Albania? Why its members are kept in isolation? Why #MEK is fighting its defectors in Tirana? Why #MEK is smuggling people like #HadiSaniKhani into Europe? Why MEK is attacking foreign and local media?”

If MEK is not a terrorist organization why does it run a paramilitary camp in #Albania? Why its members are kept in isolation? Why #MEK is fighting its defectors in Tirana? Why #MEK is smuggling people like #HadiSaniKhani into Europe? Why MEK is attacking foreign and local media?

— Olsi Jazexhi (@OlsiJ) March 9, 2021

Contrary to what Nezai claims, the MEK was expelled by Iraq’s government as a terrorist entity which belonged to Saddam Hussein’s regime. They arrived in Albania as a foreign terrorist entity. They remain a terrorist entity – the MEK was not disbanded or deradicalized as had been the plan. MEK leader Maryam Rajavi was expelled from the EU in 2018 due to security concerns after a failed false flag bomb plot was found to have involved MEK sympathisers in Belgium.

MEK Terrorists

Rajavi is now in Tirana heading the nefarious, criminal activities of the MEK, including people trafficking. Anne Khodabandeh, long time MEK critic, Tweeted:

“Why are European security agencies investigating the troubling disappearance of former MEK member Hadi Sani Khani from Albania? He was trafficked by MEK into France and disappeared. What have MEK done with him? We expect full cooperation from Albanian authorities in this case.”

Why are European security agencies investigating the troubling disappearance of former MEK member Hadi Sani Khani from Albania? He was trafficked by MEK into France and disappeared. What have MEK done with him?
We expect full cooperation from Albanian authorities in this case.

— Anne Khodabandeh (@AnneKhodabandeh) March 12, 2021

Khodabandeh also questioned MEK impunity in Albania, Tweeting:

“Understand that threatening violent regime change against another country is illegal under Albanian law. What do you think the MEK have been doing since they arrived in your country? https://exit.al/en/2017/04/17/senator-mccain-meets-mek-in-albania/”

Understand that threatening violent regime change against another country is illegal under Albanian law.
What do you think the MEK have been doing since they arrived in your country?https://t.co/A89pySwLkz

— Anne Khodabandeh (@AnneKhodabandeh) March 12, 2021

The MEK presence in Albania is controversial. It will certainly prevent Albania’s accession to the EU; nobody throws rubbish out only to open the back door and take it back in again! There are plenty of solutions to this conundrum. But none of them will be found without courage and honesty. Let’s see where Albania’s path takes it in the next weeks.

March 14, 2021 0 comment

Mujahedin Khalq Organization

EU security question MEK in Albania over disappearance in Paris

Since former MEK member Hadi Sani Khani went missing from Albania, his friends and family have been extremely concerned about his welfare. It appears that Khani had been persuaded by the MEK to sign letters and statements saying that all his previous criticisms of MEK were lies and that he and other former members had been Iranian spies, in exchange for being taken to Paris where he believed he would start a new life in Europe.

Hadi Sani Khani

The MEK published his ‘confessions’ on their websites. But after reaching Paris, Khani disappeared and nobody has heard or seen anything from him since. Now two major European security agencies are in Albania collecting information about the MEK and investigating the role of MEK leader Maryam Rajavi and her lieutenant Mehdi Abrishamchi who has been identified as one of the MEK’s main people traffickers. The security agencies have evidence that Khani was in contact with the MEK right up to the time he disappeared and have traced his phone to Paris where it was switched off. Rajavi has denied knowledge of his whereabouts.

Two major European security agencies are investing #Maryam_Rajavi, #FreeIran, @Abrichamtchi mafia for their human trafficking network in Europe. #MKO, #NCRI is being asked to show where is #HadiSaniKhani. They have found proof of #MEK contacts with Hadi SaniKhani. Is Hadi dead?

— Olsi Jazexhi (@OlsiJ) March 5, 2021

https://dlb.nejatngo.org/Media/Interview/Olsi-Thanasi-Sanikhani-202102.mp4

To download the video file click here

The MEK has a track record of eliminating its critics and unwanted members. MEK experts warn that Khani may have been killed. Another scenario is that the MEK could use Khani’s drug addiction as leverage to force him to take part in a false flag terror operation in Europe. As the MEK’s fortunes have waned in recent years – Rajavi was expelled from Europe in 2018 over security concerns – the MEK is desperate to regain some relevance in the west’s continued covert war against Iran. Khani could have been kidnapped to be used as part of another plot to discredit Iran in Europe.

Hadi Sanikhani

Whatever has happened to Khani, his friends and family are following the investigation with deepening concern.

The longer Khani has gone missing, the more worrying is his situation. And since the last information about Khani is that he was trafficked to Paris by the MEK, Maryam Rajavi must be called upon to account for his location, safety and wellbeing.

March 7, 2021 0 comment

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