Iran Interlink Website

­++ The Mojahedin Khalq websites have been on overdrive this past week in support of the Saudis. The MEK repeats the crude propaganda of Saudi outlets like Al Arabiyeh which claims that Iran was responsible for the deaths of pilgrims during Hajj. Even the most anti-Iran Farsi commentators have responded with disgust and accused the MEK of sinking to new levels.

++ This week the MEK started forcing people in Tirana to call their families in Europe, North America and Iran to extract money from them. Using such stories as, we need money for hospital or, I’m in prison or, I need money to pay a smuggler to get to Europe. Anything to get money. If a family agrees to send money, the MEK offers various ways to pay. But when two families asked their relatives if they received the money they were told they hadn’t. The families then traced the money they sent and found it had gone directly to MEK bank accounts about which their relative had no knowledge. After this was exposed, some families have answered phone calls by their relatives by saying “yes, we’ll give money, but only if we can see you and give it to you directly. We are not rich enough to pay for John Bolton or Rudi Giuliani to make speeches in Paris!” The Farsi Commentariat has reacted with disgust that families who only want a visit after thirty years are being labelled “agents of the regime” and “Iran’s Intelligence agents” and accused of visiting Camp Liberty to “kill” the MEK there, but are now being contacted and told lies by their relatives in an effort to fool them into paying to sustain Rajavi’s cult empire.

++ The MEK’s planned demo in New York on 28th has been so dismal they didn’t even cover it on their own websites. It was a complete disaster – they couldn’t even bring outside people to swell the ranks like before, no poor black or homeless persons. There is evidence that this demo was backed by the Israeli Defence League in the US and that they are severely disappointed with Rajavi that he couldn’t bring anyone to stand against Iran at that critical time.

++ Ghorban Ali Hossein Nejad who is based in Paris wrote in his Blog to say he has been informed by those close to the MEK and others that Maryam Rajavi has booked a large salon in Paris for October 10th to commemorate the ‘day of the abolition of execution in France’. She clearly intends to create another carnival event with foreign paid speakers. People say they found out about it when the MEK started recruiting in refugee camps and paying people to come. Hossein Nejad reminds us of the MEK’s own papers which boast how many people they killed in Iran and Iraq during Saddam’s era. He also gives the names and documentary evidence for people who were executed inside the MEK after being tortured in Abu Ghraib and Camp Ashraf. The title is: ‘Rajavi celebrates abolition of execution – joke of the year’.

In English:

++ Fars News covered the exposure of letters sent by Massoud Rajavi and the Mojahedin Khalq to the Soviet Union: “The three letters which date back to 1985 were sent to the Soviet Union and the communist party 4 years after Rajavi escaped to France. A copy of each letter can also be found in Stanford University’s archives.

“In these letters, Rajavi and Farhad Olfat, an MKO representative, have demanded $300mln aid and granting asylum to the MKO members who had fled Iran.

“But what attracts attention in these letters, is Rajavi’s crystal-clear confession that he had ordered the killing of over 10,000 Iranians across the country which proves Tehran’s claims that the MKO has killed over 12,000 Iranian people.”

++ Nejat Bloggers’ article ‘Mojahedin Khalq and Islamphobes, Strange Bedfellows’ analyses the irony and paradox that “the MKO leaders endeavor to pass themselves off as democratic progressive Muslims as an alternative for the government in Tehran. However, the majority of the group’s supporters in the West is consisted of anti-Islam politicians who detest Islam and particularly Islamic Republic.”

++ ‘Brace Yourself, New York! The Annual Anti-Iran Terrorist Freak Show Is Back in Town!’ The title says it all. Although the MEK were too embarrassed to give coverage to their own disastrous demonstration outside the UN building, Caleb T. Maupin writing in Countercurrents.org had no hesitation in exposing the debacle. The gratuitous nod to the cultic LaRouche movement adds spice the piece:

“You would think that individuals claiming to be “Islamic Marxists” — former members of an illegal Zionist terrorist organization — and Republican elected officials would generally not associate with each other. However, once a year for the last decade or so, they all gather together in front of the United Nations during its General Assembly to display their insanity to the world by calling for greater hostility between the United States and the Islamic Republic of Iran.

“Already on September 21, some of the early arrivals were out in front of the United Nations. With sandwich boards and like carnival barkers, a few blocks down from where the Lyndon LaRouche movement was set up, a group of elderly, agitated Persians tried to pass themselves off as ‘Human Rights Activists.’

“All it takes is a little bit of research to discover that the psychologically disturbed protesters in bright yellow shirts with “No to Rouhani” on them are members of the Mujahideen-e-Khalq (People’s Holy Warriors). This is a violent cult whose members claim to be “Islamic Marxists” while they openly collaborate with Israel’s Mossad and the US Central Intelligence Agency. (http://www.cnn.com/2011/OPINION/09/12/abdi.dont.delist.mek/)”

++ Juan Cole’s piece ‘Things Like Ted Cruz’s Threat to Kill Iran’s Ayatollah Are Why Iranians Don’t Trust the U.S.’ doesn’t need deep analysis to explain why “If the UN Security Council can implement in a fair way the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action for inspecting Iran’s civilian nuclear enrichment activities so as to make impossible down the road any weaponization of the program, it will start the process of overcoming decades of American dirty tricks and dastardly plots against the Iranian people.”

Cole simply lists some of these “dirty tricks and dastardly plots”, including:

“5. In the 1980s the group the MEK (Mujahedin-e Khalq or People’s Jihadis) committed several dramatic acts of terrorism. In 1981 it bombed the HQ of the ruling civilian Iranian party and killing over 70 high officials, including several cabinet members and a supreme court justice. Saddam Hussein gave the group a camp in Iraq from which they struck into Iran in the 1980s, when the US was actively allied with Saddam. After the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, the US kept the camp in place, essentially deploying a terrorist group against Iran. Several mysterious bombings took place in Iran after 2003. The State Department delisted the MEK as a terrorist organization, apparently under Israeli pressure, in 2012, and the MEK has now bought a number of US congressmen (there is an obvious overlap between politicians supported by the Israel lobbies like AIPAC and politicians who support the MEK). So Cruz’s threat to send Khamenei to paradise, i.e. murder him, is not actually crazy talk from an American politician.”

++ Nejat Society reported the visit of two fathers of MEK hostages to the Mayor of Auvers-sur-Oise last week. The two were escorted by police for protection after two previous visits had been met by violent attacks by MEK operatives in the streets of the quiet French tourist village.

++ Massoud Khodabandeh wrote an explanation in Iranian.com ‘What does it mean when we say ISIS operates as a mind control cult?’ Using a quote from Chapter nine of Judit Neurink’s book ‘The war of ISIS: On the road to the Caliphate’, Khodabandeh describes the internal dynamics of ISIS and the methodology used to convert brainwashed recruits into suicide bombers and beheaders.

October 02, 2015

++ Stanford University published a series of letters which were exchanges between the then Soviet Union and the Mojahedin Khalq. In one letter the MEK asks for $30m to push the Soviet agenda for Iran. In another, Massoud Rajavi writes directly to Mikhail Gorbachev. Ironically, in this advertising letter, Rajavi admits that the MEK had killed thousands of people. The letters date around 1986. Farsi commentaries say that this clearly shows that Rajavi had always been a mercenary, and didn’t just fall into it after he joined with Saddam Hussein.

++ Rajavi has been very active this week trying to persuade neoconservatives in the West to put pressure on Iraq to stop the deliberately estranged families from demanding family visits with Camp Liberty residents. Experts interpret this as a panicked reaction by Rajavi as the UN exerts pressure to allow the visits. The families reply is to affirm that they will not go away and they are pursuing a fundamental human right to have family contact. Interestingly, although the MEK made no mention at all of a missile attack on Baghdad airport on its websites, the MEK instead fed false reports to several news outlets suggesting that Camp Liberty had been the target. One of these was the well-known Al Arabiyeh of Saudi Arabia. MEK operatives are then able to show the manufactured news to their lobbyists and advocates in the West as proof that the families at Camp Liberty – who, in spite of being mostly elderly parents, are accused of being “agents of the Iranian regime” – pose a serious threat to the lives of the residents and must therefore be prevented from visiting the camp.

++ Maryam Rajavi has sent a message to Iranian school students at the start of the school year which has become a laughing stock for everyone. One point which everyone highlights is that the target audience of the message cannot be the children or any Iranians for that matter. Her speech is obviously directed at her backers in the West. The lies she tells are something which everyone living in Iran sees through instantly, so clearly they cannot be her intended audience. Other comments ask whether Maryam Rajavi has given up being Iranian since she says ‘you and your country’ rather than ‘our country’. Some suggest she has adopted Saudi identity.

In English:

++ Mazda Parsi of Nejat Bloggers writes that the panic of the MEK over the prospect of normalized Iran-US relations is evident in its propaganda media. While US Democrats blocked the Israeli-led effort to kill the Iran nuclear deal, the MEK has had to reinforce its links with the US Zionist warmongers and Israel in order to survive the deal.

++ ‘The Rubicons That Have Been Crossed’ – Farhang Jahanpour from Oxford University, England writing in Inter Press Service (IPS) – “In their attempts to sabotage Iran’s nuclear program, the United States and Israel have resorted over time to a number of unorthodox, illegal and in some cases criminal methods to achieve their aims. They have included the following:…

“2. Assassination of Iranian nuclear scientists.

“There have been at least four documented cases in which Iranian nuclear scientists have been assassinated on the streets of Tehran. Israeli agencies have been implicated in those assassinations. A number of suspects who had been arrested testified that they were members of the terrorist organization, the Mojahedin-e Khalq, who had been recruited by Mossad, taken to Israel and trained in the use of those explosive devices…”

++ “College of William & Mary Professor and Ron Paul Institute Academic Board Member Lawrence Wilkerson frankly assesses that former United States General and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Director David Petraeus’ proposal that the US support al-Qaeda to fight the Islamic State (ISIS) is a “crazy idea” that creates a blowback danger for Americans. Wilkerson declared this assessment in an interview Thursday with RT host Thom Hartman.

“In the interview, Wilkerson, a former US Army colonel and chief of staff for Secretary of State Colin Powell, elaborates on his conclusion by warning:

“’I would point out that this is just the kind of thing we do that gives us this enormous blowback later. There is a direct line between our support for the mujahideen — the training and arming of al-Qaeda in particular in Afghanistan — and 9-11. And there will be a line, I assure you, between any support we give al-Qaeda or al-Qaeda-like elements in Syria and any future attack on the United States overseas, or here, by them. It’s just something that happens, and it’s extremely dangerous to be playing with this sort of thing.’”

++ nsnbc international website published an interesting and detailed article by Finian Cunningham of the Strategic Culture Foundation which exposes the Mojahedin Khalq’s decades long terrorist campaign against Iranians from every background which resulted in the deaths of over 17,000 individuals.

The article concludes:

“Iran’s three decades of battling Western state-sponsored terrorism within its borders is an illuminating example of Washington’s real connection to international terrorism, and how that relationship has been obscured by Western media. Washington’s relationship to Al Qaeda and the Islamic State is wholly consistent with Washington’s support for the MEK in Iran. Why this connection appears anomalous or perhaps shocking is simply because of the sanitising role that Western media disinformation, commonly referred to as “news”, has played in making the Western public ignorant of such criminal connections.

“Russia and Iran have therefore every right to take measures to combat terrorism within their own borders and those of their allies such as Syria and Iraq. Washington’s recent remonstrations with Moscow and Tehran over military aid to Syria are, in the light of American state-sponsorship of terrorism, contemptible. Washington’s remonstrations are disingenuous, double-think and outrageous hypocrisy.

“The least party that deserves to be consulted or listened to about counter-terrorism is the arch-sponsor of terrorism – Washington.”

September 25, 2015

++ In response to the news that Maryam Rajavi’s niece Narges Azadanlou will be named ‘Masoul-e Aval’ (Secretary General) of the MEK, Hamed Sarafpour has written a long detailed exposure of the history of the ‘Masoul-e Aval’ of the MEK and by going into more detail about Narges Azadanlou and the family relation, suggests that the MEK has now become a family cult.

++ Farsi commentary about the MEK’s 50th anniversary examines the cult’s attempt to whitewash its past. Several comments show that the MEK’s selective version of its own history only amounts to five out of the past fifty years. Forty five years are left out! Mohammad Razaghi says this is not the first time, the MEK always edits its past. He then gives the example that MEK leaders are even ashamed of using their own names and hide behind pseudonyms instead.

++ Mostafa Mohammadi and Soraya Abdolahi are the heads of two outspoken families of MEK victims. Last week both Mohammadi’s daughter Somayeh and Abdolahis’ son Amir Aslan Hasanzadeh were transferred to Albania. Many people congratulated them because Rajavi has bowed to pressure by the families and has had to remove them from Camp Liberty. Both families have published open letters saying that “whether they are in Camp Liberty or in Albania is not the issue, the problem is they are hostages of the MEK and the MEK still don’t want to allow us to meet them. That is still our minimum demand.” Both Somayeh and Amir are in quarantine in Tirana and not allowed contact with anyone. Other new arrivals are also being moved to quarantine in Tirana. But last week some internal critics and MEK members had gone to try to visit these newcomers. One of the MEK’s leaders Javad Khorasan (real name Mortezai, a notorious MEK thug) moved to stop them telling them they can’t come in and he will call the police (he’s the one who shows his ‘Pentagon ID card’). The visitors say they have family members among those newly arrived and the MEK has no right to keep them separate. In response the MEK leaders started to physically prevent them, fighting until the Albanian police had to intervene to separate them.

++ Nader Naderi addressing Maryam Rajavi refers to the Kababi California video made by defected members in Albania. He says the last nail in the Ideological coffin is to show that the people in the MEK are not doing what you demand willingly. The moment they come out this is what they do, they enjoy themselves, use their talents and are happy. When you are in charge of them they miserable. You were lying that they are willingly staying with you. All this time they couldn’t be themselves and as soon as they come out they become happy normal people and are simply who they really are. You prevented this. And that means the rest of them are like this – there is no such thing as a ‘Mojahed’ character.

++ Nader Naderi’s letter to the Head of French Security Services says “clearly you know what is going on in your country; the MEK are involved in beatings, knifing and other threatening activities. It is also known that recently a number of Saddam trained personnel led by Mojgan Parsai have been dispatched to follow and intimidate former members and critics, and that this network is expanding all over Europe.” Naderi says the latest information available to France is video of a female former member titled, ‘Iran’s intelligence agent Batul Soltani performs ‘wuzu’ (Muslim cleansing for prayer) in a church’. The video doesn’t show anything except Soltani sitting in a church in Dusseldorf. What it does show however is that the MEK has sent agents to covertly follow her from Cologne to Dusseldorf and film her in a church without her knowledge. Naderi demands of the security services, “Where were you?” Another Farsi writer challenges Massoud Rajavi’s mental health asking “in your mind, is it a sin to sit in a church?”

++ The last Farsi item of the week is humorous. A prominent Iranian writer claims on Facebook that the French are hanging on to the MEK in order to develop a vaccine against Daesh – LOL.

In English:

++ Ebrahim Khodabandeh, former MKO member and expert on destructive cults is writing a series of articles about what is going on inside the MKO based on emails he receives from group members who are willing to leave the cult but cannot do so due to the severe pressure they are exposed to. Khodabandeh’s latest post includes crucial points about the new agenda of the Rajavi Cult in Albania. He states that the focus is on members in Tirana base because they mostly include critics of the group’s acts and the leaders’ decisions and they have asked to leave the group. The MKO leaders see dissident members as ‘creditors’ who only want to make claims of the leader and not sacrifice anything for him.

According to Khodabandeh’s information, the MKO has bought a campus called Vitrina in the Albanian capital in order to build another concentration camp like Ashraf. This way they can manage their mind control system much better. “Cults need an isolated place where they can cut the contact between their followers and the outside world and they can absolutely control all aspects of a member’s life,” suggests Ebrahim Khodabandeh.

Members of the Rajavi Cult pose questions that leaders do not like to hear. As Khodabandeh has been informed, residents in Tirana have begun questioning the million-dollar expenses of Maryam Rajavi’s meetings in Paris and expensive payments for Western speakers of the group’s propaganda shows despite the urgent need of several members in Iraq for medical treatment.

“Someone has written to me that the group refuses to pay for medical treatment of an old member saying plainly that there is no money, but the parties and ceremonies of Maryam Rajavi are held non-stop,” Khodabandeh writes.

Criticism against the system and its leader has turned into a crisis in Albania to the extent that Maryam Rajavi was forced to hold a video conference for members accusing them of being rude, according to the article.

The process of defection from the MKO has been accelerated in Tirana. However, the leaders of the cult endeavour to maintain the same cult-like system of manipulation and indoctrination in Tirana as they had kept in Camp Liberty and Camp Ashraf, Iraq. They have enhanced their mind control cult jargon. Self-criticism sessions are held under various titles in the cult’s base in Albania. These sessions are aimed to distract the members’ minds from the controversial situation the group is stuck in.

++ Last week another group of families arrived in Baghdad to try to find their loved ones who are trapped in Camp Liberty. The families went to stand outside Camp Liberty holding placards with the names of their loved ones. The slogans they shout say that ‘meeting with our loved ones is our fundamental human right’. Many have been denied contact for decades because the Rajavi cult bans members from contacting their families.

++ Anne Khodabandeh wrote a synopsis of MEK activity in relation to the UK. Maryam Rajavi wants to escape France and take up residence in the UK to evade continuing judicial investigations into her criminal activities and human rights abuses. Rajavi remains persona non grata in the UK which refuses to grant her a visa. Rajavi’s frustration and anger is vented by attacking the BBC World Service Persian Programme, then attacking PM David Cameron, before settling on FM Philip Hammond as the focus of her ire. Khodabandeh points out this is a strange kind of diplomacy from somebody who wants a favour from the UK.

++ Nedaye Haghighat website reported that fifty five more residents of the temporary transit camp Liberty in Iraq have been transferred to Albania. This group included Somayeh Mohammadi and Amir Aslan Hasanzadeh whose families have been campaigning for years to have contact with them. Twenty individuals were named in the report.

++ Nejat Society reported that Ghorbanali Hosseinnejad and Mostafa Mohammadi along with his wife, Mahboubeh and his daughter Huriyeh met with the Mayor of Auvers-sur-Oise and her deputy on Tuesday September 8th. Expressing solidarity with the families of MKO hostages, the Mayor of Auvers said, ”We don’t want them [Maryam Rajavi’s Cult] to stay in our village… they try to pay some of the cities’ personalities and officials to be at the Cult’s service. … However we would ask them to come and reply your appeals and questions on the fate of your children. .. Here is a democratic state and the democracy principles require the issue to be resolved through negotiation… “

The families reiterated, ”Maryam Rajavi should personally come and answer our questions, because Maryam herself is responsible for kidnapping our daughters as minors and for endangering them by transferring them from France and Canada to military camps of the cult in Iraq. In the Cult camps they have been denied any family contacts as well as marital life.”

Municipal officials contacted the MKO asking them to reply to the families. However the Cult’s response was to insult and curse the suffering families. Cult officials didn’t attend the Town Hall but henchmen and thugs were stationed outside to report everything to their commanders.

The authorities then removed the MKO members to allow the families to hold a protest in front of the Town Hall. The families handed out leaflets and CDs to publicize their plight and to expose the Cult’s atrocities against them and their loved ones. The Rajavi Cult’s attempts to thwart the families’ activities to expose their crimes was futile.

The municipal and gendarmerie authorities demonstrated their support for the families’ public activities before escorting outside the city with seven cars in order to prevent the Cult thugs from chasing or harming the families as happened on previous occasions.

 September 11, 2015

++ cibloggers dot com which publishes information about the MEK in Farsi has said the MEK is paying reporters to go to Iran and then publish false reports on their return. The MEK’s aim is for Iran to stop allowing people to come there. Some years ago the MEK tried other tactics of annoyance and interference such as paying for newspaper adverts for shampoo using Massoud Rajavi’s picture. This had no effect since nobody in Iran recognised him.

++ Ebrahim Khodabandeh has written an article examining how the MEK has marked its fiftieth year. To mark the anniversary, the MEK’s websites in Farsi and English feature a side banner purporting to show the group’s history. Khodabandeh says that what is most interesting is both what is missing and what is just plain wrong about this history. For example there is no mention of the MEK logo – which is still used – nor that the MEK was founded as an armed, anti-Imperialist group. Nothing is said about killing Americans in Iran and supporting the American embassy siege. There is no mention of Saddam Hussein whatsoever and no mention of the MEK’s current relocation to Albania.

++ September 1st marked the anniversary of the last attack on Ashraf Camp in 2013. The MEK is still refusing to allow investigators to talk with the 42 survivors. And as much as the MEK tries to whitewash events through its internet misinformation campaigns, it is clear that former member Massoud Dalili was taken by force, kept hostage and murdered at the camp.

++ MEK websites have been virulently attacking everyone who is not in favour of war against Iran – that is, anyone who supports the nuclear deal. More than anyone the attacks have focused on the Nobel Prize winning human rights and opposition activist Shirin Ebadi who has asked Congress not to oppose the deal. Many people have written open letters in her support congratulating her on being attacked by Rajavi because ‘this means you are doing something right’. Nader Naderi has pointed out that Maryam Rajavi’s hatred of Ebadi is personal and stems from jealousy. Rajavi is jealous of anyone, but particularly women, who is acknowledged in any way. Even though Rajavi herself does nothing, she still wants all the prizes.

++ Mostafa Mohammadi was interviewed by Haghighat Association about the MEK video of his daughter Somayeh. Mohammadi says “it is clear to me that that this is not my daughter speaking her own mind and she has been forced to say these things to camera”. He says that this is an act of desperation by Massoud Rajavi who is reacting to the outrage of the outside world to his hostage taking. Mohammadi continued, “The fact that already they have had to take off her uniform and put her in civilian clothes is a step forward for us”.

++ Ebrahim Khodabandeh has published the 9th part of the informative series of articles containing reports from inside the MEK which he receives from friends, former colleagues. This time there is news about Albania. The MEK has bought an empty university site where it is hoped to create another Ashraf Camp to isolate and control the cult members. Even there though they have a serious problem with disaffected members who are leaving by the day. The MEK is in a state of panic that most of the new people who come from Iraq will leave. As well as planning to shut off the site to create another isolated camp, Massoud Rajavi has planned new brainwashing sessions as a continuation of his so-called ‘Ideological Revolution’. This phase called ‘talab kar’ or ‘creditor’. This is based on Rajavi’s accusation that ‘after divorcing your spouse and separating from your children you still think I owe you something. You have to undergo this new phase so that you see that you are in debt to me. I owe you nothing.’ Rajavi has appointed four notorious torturers to oversee this indoctrination process: Faezeh Mohabatkar, Shahin Haeri, Mahmoud Attai, Adel Darbandi. These two women and two men are now in charge of controlling people. Khodabandeh says that the emails he receives suggest that one of the major questions for members concerns the expenses of Maryam Rajavi’s fancy events from which they see no gain or benefit. At the same time, they point out, long serving members are deprived of even a doctor’s visit. Maryam Rajavi has a recorded a video speech in which she attacks every single member and says it’s their own fault they got to this point because they failed to do their job. She claims the members in France are having a worse time than Iraq or Albania. She says ‘The money I spend is justified, but you don’t understand, and anyway we have no money’. In Albania several members have run away and got married. As a result the gender segregation is very strictly applied in an attempt to stop more such defections. Last week a female member was briefly imprisoned for handing over a glass of water to a man. According to Khodabandeh’s friends, only the high ranking members understand that this new phase of the Ideological Revolution is designed to bring the members under submission so that the next Secretary General of the MEK can be announced. This is something which Rajavi does every two years or so. The high ranking members are sick of this since they see the incompetence of these women. The brainwashing process has already been started in Europe but not in Albania since the MEK needs to get the rank and file isolated and in mental order first. Even though Khodabandeh’s friends say they know this is mostly about keeping people’s minds occupied rather than a significant change, this time the corruption is too much. The new MEK Secretary General will be Narges Ghajar Azadanlou who is Maryam Rajavi’s neice.

In English:

++ A number of female survivors of the Rajavi cult wrote an open letter to Womankind charity after it became the latest target of a Mojahedin Khalq propaganda campaign to promote Maryam Rajavi as a women’s rights activist. The letter advised the charity to research Rajavi as a controversial character and not to allow the charity to be tarnished by association with a woman with a long record of human rights abuses, particularly against women.

++ Tasnim News Agency in Iran reported on a visit by President Rouhani to The Second International Congress of 17,000 Iranian Terror Victims which was held in Tehran. A number of officials and families of the Iranian victims of terrorist attacks attended the congress. During the event, a book including a chronology of terrorist incidents in Iran during the first two years after victory of the Islamic Revolution (1979 and 1980) was unveiled. Press TV interviewed Tony Gosling, an investigative journalist in Tehran, about Rouhani’s visit.

++ Nejat Bloggers writes that the success of the nuclear agreement has destroyed the MEK’s efforts to be re-armed as a terrorist group. “…before the nuclear agreement, there was always a possibility for a US-Israeli invasion against Iran. In case of a military invasion against Iran, an armed MKO would have had the capacity to get prepared to be at service of the invaders as it has the eight-year long experience of serving the enemy of Iran, former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. Besides, the progress of the ISIS terrorists in Iraq and Syria had given the MKO the hope to become an accomplice for ISIS in order to fight Islamic Republic.”

++ Ali Akbar Rastgou of Aawa Association wrote an open letter to President Obama explaining that the MEK is trying to falsely portray anyone who agrees with the nuclear agreement as supporters of the Iranian regime. Rastgou says, “Please do not forget that those who have paid the highest price for the cause of democracy and human rights in Iran (majority of the Iranian people) are supporting the deal.”

++ Nejat Bloggers: “On Tuesday August31, 2015 some families of MKO hostages gathered together at Nejat Society office, Khuzestan branch. The meeting was to look at the Cult function in transferring Camp Liberty residents to Albania. Mr. Hamid Hasani, MKO defector, while offering the latest news on the transfers, presented some explanations on the way the Cult acts in relocating TTL residents to Albania. Mr. Hasani reiterated that the families’ efforts and the ex-members’ revelations on the Cult has forced the MKO leaders to accept the members’ transfer to third countries. The Director of Nejat Society Khuzestan branch called on families to continue their efforts until all captives of MKO Cult be released from the physical and mental barriers of the cult. Mr. Ali Ekrami, another cult survivor, offered some explanations on the Cult history as well as the causes of the cult demise. At the end Nejat families emphasized: ‘Our ultimate goal is not just to visit our beloved ones, rather we will do our best to liberate all those who are captivated behind the bars of Rajavi’s Cult and to bring them a normal life. Our presence in front of Camp Ashraf and our direct observations on the Cult inhumane practices has multiplied our determination to liberate all the Cult hostages.’“

September 04, 2015

++ cibloggers.com has an online analysis of MEK activities. Among these activities, cibloggers.com lists the various blogs, Facebook pages and websites created by the MEK as deceptive clones of genuine internet places. Ironically many of these clones are of ex-members sites – in particular the MEK is using the name ‘Iran Interlink’ for these clones. Cibloggers describes this as ‘Rajavi’s Desperation’ and says that all this effort is just so that people might mistakenly visit their sites instead of genuine ones like Iran-Interlink.org. That is their maximum expectation.

++ The MEK have begun a campaign to publish a series of articles and pictures to show that the residents of Camp Liberty are holding demonstrations. Farsi commentators point out that this is a place to which even UNAMI officials have restricted access, let alone any press, media or families. They ask, “How can you call this a ‘demonstration’ when there are no media or officials to witness and report it?” Others have highlighted the MEK’s misuse of women’s rights by publishing pictures of a handful of women posing for pictures holding banners written in English. Several people have said, “We know these women, some are known dissenters and in any case none of them speak English. Their faces show they are under pressure. Rajavi is trying to position women at the front of the organisation, but the reality of their situation is obvious from this picture.”

++ News has emerged that Mojgan Parsai is in Tirana. Many people who knew her as a notorious torturer under Saddam’s Iraq condemn the fact that she is now freely walking around in Albania.

++ Ebrahim Khodabandeh has published part 8 of the ongoing articles in which he reveals what MEK insiders divulge to him about what is happening inside the cult. In this article Khodabandeh says this coming week marks the 50th anniversary of the MEK and Massoud Rajavi is on overdrive to spend money to uphold the past (nobody in the MEK still thinks they are continuing the original path of ant-Imperialism). Rajavi will shortly announce who he has appointed as the new MEK leader and will start a new series of Ideological Revolution sessions. According to people inside the MEK, this is his last effort to keep it together and stop it disintegrating. The reason is that nobody believes in it anymore and the MEK is falling apart. The most common doubts and questions which are being raised, and are being suppressed through physical and mental means, are:

– Rajavi always said after Maliki we will move back to Camp Ashraf, but everyone sees that even Camp Liberty is being closed and everyone is being moved to Albania.

– Second, how long does a man live that he is in hiding for 12 years? What’s the point of him?

– Third the NLA and military capability is finished, so what happened to the armed struggle which Rajavi still insists we must believe in? How does that work?

– There are many question about the recent nuclear deal and the fate of Camp Maryam in France as the French are saying more and more clearly that the MEK are no longer – have never been – welcome there.

– There is a huge amount of questioning and uncertainty about the fate of the people in Albania. There is clearly no plan. What is Rajavi’s strategy or tactic for them?

– The main question which frightens the MEK more than any other and which is gaining momentum is, ‘Can anyone give an example of the MEK doing anything for themselves, any independent action or strategy it has followed that has not been dictated by Saddam Hussein, America, Israel or Saudi Arabia?’

In English:

++ Two main threads this week. One is criticism of the MEK in the political context of the nuclear agreement. The other are reports concerning the ongoing human rights violations of the MEK, particularly the efforts of the Mohammadi family whose search for MEK hostage Somayeh has been met with violence in the streets of the small tourist village of Auvers-sur-Oise by the MEK.

++ A good news story from Nejat Bloggers: Fereydoun Ebrahimi, who had been forced to remain in the MEK’s cult camps for 15 years, managed to escape Camp Liberty in 2014 by approaching the UN officials and asking for help. Fereydoun had no contact with his family from the time he was recruited by the cult. He called his family as soon as he stepped back into the free world. He then went to Turkey. In Turkey he was able to meet with his mother and other family members after 15 years, though unfortunately his father had passed away. Ebrahimi now lives a free life in Germany and is due to repatriate to his homeland to join his family. The MEK Cult leaders prevent any family contact and consider family relations as their cult’s enemy. According to the reports of defected members of the group, most of those residing in Camp Liberty are willing to leave the Cult.

++ Fars News reports that according to an informed source in Bahrain “The Al Khalifa regime has recently asked the MKO terrorist group to cooperate with the Manama government to confront Iran”. He noted that the Bahrain intelligence service believes that Iran is the main supporter of the Manama government’s opponents and for this reason it supports the MKO as an armed opposition group which has assassinated over 12,000 Iranian citizens and officials. “The Manama government has sent Bahraini lawmaker Jamal Bouhassan to Paris to meet MKO leaders to the same end,” the source said. The source also revealed that Bahraini journalist Hani al-Fardan has been arrested for publishing an article against MKO. Al-Fardan has been arrested over an article during which he criticized Bahraini lawmakers for supporting the MKO terrorist group. Al-Fardan, the Arabic-language Al-Wasat journalist, was interrogated over his article that criticized the Salafist Member of Parliament, Jamal Bouhassan, who attended the MKO meetings in Paris, and disclosed how Bahrain and its Parliament support the MKO terrorist organization’s activities against Iran.

 August 28, 2015