Massoud Khodabandeh

Massoud Khodabandeh responds to MEK ‘s defamations in the Gazeta TemA newspaper

Dear Sir/Madam

I have been informed by colleagues in Tirana that you have published a defamatory post

http://www.gazetatema.net

against me (Massoud Khodabandeh) and my wife (Anne Khodabandeh nee Singleton). This is not entirely unexpected since the MEK always attack their critics rather than answering their criticisms. I am, however, surprised that you did not take the trouble to contact either me or Anne for any clarification of the libelous comments made in this piece. I guess the fight against fake news has not reached your outlet yet.

Interestingly, the libellous allegations in this post are based on ‘reports’ purported to come from the United States Ministry of Defense (Pentagon) and The Library of the US Congress. They do not. They are fake. Did you not think for a moment to check these sources – perhaps with the military attaché in the American Embassy in Tirana? For your information, reports in the Library of the US Congress are available to the public. No such report exists there.

In any case, a simple check on our background would show that we are British citizens living in the same house for sixteen years in the UK. The claim, therefore, that the American authorities have been after me from 2013 should have alerted any decent journalist. The idea that we are British citizens who have not been investigated and imprisoned as spies for a foreign country – one for which the UK has a large degree of enmity – which is the central allegation of your article, is bizarre at best and indeed stretches the imagination of any normal person.

My background is widely known. I left the MEK while they still enjoyed the brutal support of Saddam Hussein in Iraq. When I left I was a high-ranking member of the Central Committee, member of the political wing (NCRI) and was head of the security of the leadership of the organisation. Since 2003 and the fall of Saddam I have been working as a consultant with the department in the Government of Iraq responsible expulsion of the MEK from that country how to facilitate this event as safely and securely as possible. A mission, I am glad to say we succeeded in.

Anne was also a member of this organisation and underwent military training in the terrorist camp of Saddam Hussein in Iraq. She spent many years in the MEK’s so-called public relations department. We met and married after leaving the MEK. Anne currently works as a consultant under the UK government Prevent Duty helping to prevent young people from being recruited into violent extremism, terrorist entities and foreign struggles which will rob them of their futures and sometimes their lives. She has just visited your country on a mandate given to her by European Members of Parliament to report back on the situation of the Mojahedin Khalq Organisation (aka MKO, MEK, NCRI, Rajavi cult, Saddam’s Private Army) in Albania.

However, again I remind you of basic journalistic principles. You failed to inform your readers that Farid Toutonchi – the author – is an active member of the Mojahedin Khalq terrorist organisation. We managed to have him expelled from Iraq along with the other members of the group. The Americans then dumped them on your country. No doubt his status in your country – like that of the other MEK – will become clear when he appears in court to answer for this libellous article.

You also failed to mention that the appearance of this ridiculous piece coincided with interviews with Albanian media by three ex-MEK members who finally managed to escape twenty-five years of slavery with this group.

You have also failed to inform your readers that there is no evidence whatsoever of any of the libellous allegations against myself and my wife in any official or reliable source (i.e., not the MEK’s own websites). Instead, you have mentioned our website Iran-Interlink.org (a site preceding the existence of your site by far) but did not mention that this organisation has and is helping the victims and the families of the victims of Mojahedin Khalq. Through Iran-Interlink, we are now helping enslaved MEK members gain their freedom. Is this considered espionage in Albania? The contact details for this site are also easily available.

Dear Sir/Madam,

The Mojahedin Khalq have been deported from Iraq to your country to be deradicalized. Your government had even been paid for this task. This did not happen. Instead we see well known American war-mongers are now reviving this terrorist organisation against Iran as they have done with many others against Turkey, Iraq and Syria.

Anne has visited Albania to warn of MEK activities there. Of particular concern is the recruitment of young Albanians to serve the group. With first-hand knowledge of this she is able to alert civil groups how this takes place and how to prevent this from happening.

With this in mind, the best way to determine what the MEK is actually doing in Albania is to arrange a live media debate between Anne and MEK leader Maryam Rajavi – or one of her followers – so that the truth can be brought into the public arena. Anne will explain her task to establish legal status for Rajavi’s followers in your country and warn against recruitment. Maryam Rajavi might then explain to the Albanian people why she is calling for war and terrorism from their country. The citizens of Albania are already deeply suspicious of the strange behaviour and secretive activities of this group. An explanation by Rajavi in the media would go a long way to clarify for them who the group is and what they are doing in the country. Although I suspect that all this would do is to further convince Albanian civil society that they do not want such a controversial, provocative and secretive group living alongside their families, their children and their youth.

With our help, over a thousand MEK members have escaped this group in the past decade. If there is still any doubt about the integrity of myself and my wife, I suggest you invite these formers to speak about their experiences.

I have briefed my lawyer on this issue and am sending a copy of this letter to the Albanian Embassy in London seeking clarification on the situation of Albanian justice regarding such matters.

Yours sincerely,

Massoud Khodabandeh

Gazeta Impakt,

November 13, 2017 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization's Propaganda System

Pssst, Whisper It, Even Iran’s Enemies Don’t Want Regime Change

Following President Rouhani’s re-election in May 2017 many Middle East analysts arrived at the conclusion that the 78% turnout and clear majority was a clear enough indication that while the people of Iran do want greater political and social freedoms, they are prepared to seek this incrementally through civic pressure, not through violent regime change.

The rationale of experts, however, has not stopped Iran’s enemies from aggressively demanding the kind of regime change aimed at preventing growing Iranian influence in the region. Donald Trump’s confrontational, high risk approach toward Iran, using the JCPOA as an instrument of conflict only feeds this agenda.

The problem is, that while anti-Iran antagonism has deep roots in the American psyche, the stark reality is that regime change would necessarily be imposed by America through violence, whether war or terrorism or both.

And while ‘regime change’ makes a good sound bite, the recent events in Egypt, Libya, Iraq, Syria and Yemen, should sound a claxon warning. Iran has developed a formidable military and naval capacity in recent years. Its missile programme presents a real threat to American interests in the region – not least the state of Israel.

Confrontation with Iran would prove catastrophic not only for the whole region but for the protagonists themselves. Would American taxpayers really accept another expensive and endless war? If Iraq and Syria have spawned chaos, destruction and blowback, the consequences of a military conflagration involving Iran would be much worse. There is good reason why, even though Saudi Arabia has maintained a verbally hostile stance toward Iran for two years, nothing has actually happened.

In any case, what system or government do the regime change proponents propose would replace Iran’s current rulers. The country itself presents an enviable level of civic stability in the region. As much as they may wish for it there is no evidence of a nationwide indigenous protest movement with the will or capability of stepping into the breach.

When Donald Trump entered the White House, Reza Pahlavi, son of the exiled Shah of Iran, wrote a letter of introduction. The monarchists, he suggested, are natural allies of the United States and would be happy to work toward regime change with the new administration. This overture was rebuffed. The fact is, that when Reza Pahlavi offers his services, there is a glimmer of a possibility that his monarchist movement would be able to garner at least some popular support among Iranian citizens chafing against repressive religious leaders. Instead, ironically, most prominent regime change pundits back the Mojahedin Khalq. And although this puzzles many (the MEK are so deeply unpopularinside Iran that it would be wilful stupidity to believe the group could seize power even with American support), the reason is quite simple. Even Iran’s enemies don’t want regime change.

Every year when the self-styled ‘Iranian Resistance’, aka the Mojahedin Khalq, holds its annual gathering at Villepinte near the French capital, there is a weary sense of déjà vu. It’s not only that the same paid speakers – John Bolton, Rudi Giuliani, Saudi Arabia’s Prince Turki and other lesser political personalities – appear on the platform with sad regularity. It’s not only that the whole audience, bar the MEK’s own fanatical followers, is made up of rent-a-crowd, bussed in as part of a cheap weekend holiday trip. It’s not even the conspicuous splurge from an apparently bottomless pit of money to hold the event.

The déjà vu arises from the elephant in the room which visits every event. Behind the glitz and glamour – and nobody loves glamour more than Maryam Rajavi – lurks the reality that regime change in Iran is not happening anytime soon and nobody in that room really believes it will either. And certainly, nobody is under any illusion that the MEK could make it happen.

It is easy to decipher the signs that the MEK is no longer working toward regime change. The MEK’s notoriously expensive propaganda aims only to promote the MEK brand. The group, under de facto leader Maryam Rajavi – is currently advertising its election of a female Secretary General, Zahra Merrikhi Ahangar Kala’i. (It is difficult to keep a straight face when the totalitarian MEK cult claims to hold elections.)

But it is not engaged in any other activity aimed at destabilising or endangering Iran. Even the MEK’s alleged involvement in the Daesh attacks on Tehran is more about attracting sponsorship money than precipitating the fall of Iran’s government.

As the West is cruelly aware, an active terrorist group aggressively recruits to swell its ranks. The MEK has not recruited for two decades. The mean age of its members is over 60 years, many are feeble and sick. Indeed, well over a thousand members have abandoned the organisation since 2003 when the group lost its main benefactor Saddam Hussein. This trend has increased since the group was forcibly transferred from Iraq to Albania. The group is disintegrating in all but name. This is not a force for regime change.

But this is exactly why politicians, retired government officials and others are lining up to promote the group. Advocating for the MEK allows them to rant and threaten and provoke ire among Iran’s leaders and hatred among the citizens. Safely.

While it is by no means clear that Donald Trump actually wants war with Iran – given the huge risks involved for the whole region – his strategy of brandishing the threat to destroy the JCPOA is certainly an attention-grabbing negotiating tactic. So too is brandishing the MEK as a terrorist threat against Iran. It is one of the cards which the anti-Iran pundits feel they can bring to the table. Promoting the MEK is about shuffling and arranging the negotiating cards because nobody, not even Iran’s enemies wants to pay the price of actual regime change.

Huffpost,Massoud Khodabandeh Director at Middle East Strategy Consultants, Co-authored by Anne Khodabandeh

September 19, 2017 0 comments

Terrorist groups and the MEK

ISIS Drew On MEK Expertise For Terror Attacks On Tehran

The following piece has been written by somebody I know well. He does not want his real name to be used because that would jeopardize the sensitive nature of his current work in counter terrorism in Europe – Massoud Khodabandeh.

As a former member of the Mojahedin Khalq terrorist organization (MEK), I followed the news of terrorist attacks on Tehran with shame, guilt and anger.

My shame and guilt stem from having been involved in such attacks in the past as a member of the MEK. My anger springs from what I see as th MEK’s ongoing influence in these current attacks. Based on my inside knowledge of the MEK I believe this organization has now helped the most notorious terror organization in the world to attack our country and our people.

As I followed news of the attacks I was forced to remember my own role in a similar mission and how my membership of the MEK had almost cost me my life. While analyzing the details of the ISIS attack as they emerged, it was easy to see that these operations in Tehran had been based on the expertise of MEK operations in several ways. I have identified some of these similarities which I have given in outline below.

Planning

The targets selected by ISIS were sites constantly targeted by the MEK. The Iranian Parliament and its members had always been primary targets for the MEK since the 1980s. The group had managed to assassinate several members of the Parliament and tried to plant a bomb there at one point. They were unsuccessful and some members were killed by security forces while other terrorist teams were arrested. Similarly, after Ayatollah Khomeini’s shrine was created, Massoud Rajavi, the late MEK leader, announced that “Khomeini’s grave must be exploded”. It became a mantra among MEK members which they would chant in indoctrination sessions. The MEK tried unsuccessfully to send terrorist teams there in 1991 and 2002.

While ISIS and the MEK have the same interests in attacking Iran, ISIS could have caused much greater anti-government fear and hatred among the civilian population in line with its regime change agenda if they had bombed a civilian target like transport infrastructure or a shopping mall. They could have done more damage by targeting the Revolutionary Guards whose forces are in Syria. Instead, the ISIS targets matched those which had been constantly under attack by the MEK for thirty years.

Logistics

ISIS used locally recruited Iranians for this attack. Their main challenge was to get their weaponry to Tehran without being detected by Iranian security forces. This had always been the main challenge for MEK terrorists. They used different methods to get their weapons to Tehran. For example, hiding the weapons in a small truck loaded with food or inside an empty computer case. The MEK experiences were helpful to the ISIS attackers. They paid a female acquaintance to join them to go to Tehran, pretending it is a family visit. This was to raise less suspicion. Between 2000-2003, the MEK used the same approach to get their terrorists from Iraq to Tehran. The first suicide bomber in Iran was a female MEK member. Since then, the MEK used women in suicide operations to ‘normalize’ their terrorist teams.

The suicide mission

An important similarity is the human factor. Just like the MEK, ISIS terrorists selected and trained for suicide missions are thoroughly brainwashed first. They undergo intensive indoctrination and psychological manipulation sessions and afterwards they are not allowed to think of anything else but their mission; terror. From the videos and reports, it is clear that the terrorists are numbed and fearful people who are prepared to use weapons as a first resort against innocent unprepared people. The ISIS terrorists exploded their vests in their first moments of contact with security forces. A couple of them even exploded their vests as soon as they just saw the security forces. This is similar to MKO terrorists who were brainwashed to assassinate unarmed civilians or perform a mortar attack in a large city like Tehran. They were also armed with cyanide pills and a hand grenade and ordered that rather than risk capture they must commit suicide and hurt as many of the people around them as possible.

Governmental backing

It has been widely reported that, just like the MEK, ISIS also gets support from inside Saudi Arabia. After the Tehran terrorist attacks neither Saudi Arabia nor the MEK condemned the events. This echoes MEK behaviour under the Saddam regime. The MEK could not and would not condemn any action of Saddam or the Saudis because they were being paid and supported by them.

The MEK needed governmental level backing to move across national borders. Saddam arranged for MEK operatives to get inside Iran from Pakistan and Turkey rather than cross the Iraqi border which was under international scrutiny. ISIS has also been able to cross borders and move weapons and fund its activities in a way that indicates governmental level of support.

There is no indication that the MEK were directly involved in the Tehran attacks. But from my inside knowledge and based on having performed a similar style of suicide attack in Tehran myself some years ago, there is little doubt in my mind that ISIS have been able to use MEK expertise to pursue this modern terrorist attack.

Massoud Khodabandeh, Iranian.com,

June 21, 2017 0 comments

Maryam Rajavi

MEK’s Maryam Rajavi blackmails Albania to become the new ‘Saddam regime’ for them

The forced relocation of the MEK organisation from Iraq to Albania resulted in drastic changes within the group. No longer forced to endure the extremes of heat and cold in Baghdad, living alongside ordinary family neighbours for the first time in two decades and the loss of their leader Massoud Rajavi have all profoundly affected the members. They now have the ‘luxury’ to think and their changed environment and circumstances have led them to challenge the leadership.

Defections started almost immediately and the MEK is now in the grip of a crisis of disaffection. The problem was exacerbated when Sahar Family Foundation moved its operation from Baghdad to Tirana. Sahar was created to offer support and help to families of MEK members who were trying to get in touch with their estranged loved ones in the MEK while they were based in Iraq. The MEK leaders regard families and familial relations as “poison” and have tried every way possible to prevent these families contacting their loved ones in the group.

Now that Sahar has begun its work in Albania, the new MEK leader Maryam Rajavi has panicked. Sahar began by reminding the UNHCR and Albanian authorities of the international laws governing refugees, in particular UN human rights conventions and articles, and how the MEK rejects these norms.

Maryam Rajavi reacted by shooting herself in the foot. https://www.mojahedin.org/news/197420

Maryam’s counter campaign is based on the tactics used by Massoud Rajavi in Iraq – blackmail and coercion – but it is too little and too late and has lost its potency.

Soon after Sahar started its campaign to inform Albanian authorities of the MEK’s illegal and scandalous behaviours, Rajavi announced that three disaffected individuals, Hadi Sanikhani, Gholamreza Shokri and Sarfaraz Rahimi, had made contact with their families in Iran and declared them therefore to be ‘agents of the regime’. For this reason, she said, “we will cut their refugee allowances from now”. The MEK then said that the only way for their UNHCR money to be restored was for these individuals (and others) to write whatever the MEK dictates. In Saddam’s prisons the MEK also used such coercive tactics to force compliance and silence.

The three individuals went to the UNHCR office and explained what had happened. The UNHCR advised them to go the MEK’s HQ and talk to them. There they were threatened and attacked by MEK operatives. Two of them have since published their account of the events, but Sarfaraz Rahimi has given in and accepted to write for them. He writes what they dictate against the other two – who are understandably complaining about having no food or money in Tirana – condemning them as agents of the Iranian regime.

Rajavi then publishes these letters of Rahimi alongside letters signed by American personalities in support of the MEK.

The letters from the Americans are addressed to the Albanian Prime Minister and bear the familiar hallmark of MEK authorship. (One letter published by the MEK is signed in blue ink. We can only speculate how the MEK obtained the original letter which should have been sent directly from the Americans to the Albanian PM!)

This combination of letters (forced confessions alongside Americans letters to the Albanian PM claiming Iran is operating against the MEK in Albania under the guise of cultural centres, etc) had two aims. One was to warn dissidents inside the MEK what will happen if they leave or disobey orders. The other aim was to get the Albanian government to back the MEK and replicate the role played by Saddam Hussein in the group’s survival by punishing dissent, only this time in Albania.

Reactions were not as Rajavi wanted or anticipated. Inside the MEK and among ex-members there has been outrage. It seems to everyone that after three decades of unpaid work for the MEK and Saddam Hussein, the day someone leaves they instantly confess, in their own writing, to being an agent of the Iranian regime. There are only two possibilities: the organisation is lying and takes forced confessions, or the organisation is a training ground for agents of the regime.

Others complain that although the Americans have the right to recruit people as mercenaries, they do not have the right not to pay them and force them to be gladiators in Albania.

Albanians themselves see this MEK presence as yet further evidence that America is using their country for any and every form of corruption and illegal activity. Albania is still notorious as a centre for narcotics, arms smuggling and people trafficking in spite of efforts to clean up the country so it can join the EU. Albanians complain that their country is reportedly being used to smuggle US arms to Syria and other places for so-called ‘moderate’ rebels, that NATO uses Albania to conduct activities it can’t perform in the US or EU and that the CIA and the Pentagon have turned Albania into an extra-judicial base for nefarious activities. And now John Bolton and Senator John McCain alongside others use Albania as a springboard to pursue unclear political agendas which may include training terrorists and providing land and logistic for groups which are to be deployed in other countries.

Along with dumping nuclear waste and Guantanamo Bay prisoners, Albania now has had the MEK dumped on it. Instead of getting advice and support to de-radicalise these fanatics the government is being blackmailed and corrupted into performing the same role as Saddam Hussein undertook to protect and deploy the MEK.

May 9, 2017 0 comments

Massoud Rajavi

Grand Controversy as MEK can’t prove leader Massoud Rajavi is dead or alive

Maryam Rajavi’s Grand Gathering in Paris on 9 July was billed as her promise of imminent regime change at her behest. Instead it turned into a Grand Controversy of a different kind. This annual propaganda show advertises Rajavi’s propaganda skills in order to secure continued funding from regime change pundits. This year was dramatically different due to the unannounced presence of Prince Turki al-Faisal, former Saudi ambassador to the UK and US. Certainly not a person you invite from a list in a speakers’ agency.

This year, Prince Turki’s involvement changed everything for the MEK. Not least because of public perception of Saudi Arabia as a repressive regime, particularly toward women. Turki insisted the venue be moved from Villepinte to Bourges for reasons of security. He then ordered changes to the layout of the stage and the speakers panel. Suddenly someone else was in charge of the event. Undaunted, perhaps even pleased to have such a prestigious guest, Maryam Rajavi opened the rally by praising her husband Massoud Rajavi. “May God protect the everlastingly vigilant lion” she announced while gesturing to his picture posted large around the arena. This was only to be expected. Even though he disappeared just before allied forces attacked Iraq in 2003, Massoud Rajavi is known to be the actual leader of the Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK – NCRI is a front name for the MEK), his wife being second-in-command.

When it was the turn of the Saudi Prince to speak, he gestured for Maryam Rajavi to sit down with the rest of the audience and listen, ensuring at the same time that she was not photographed with him in any capacity. Turki, former head of Saudi intelligence with which he is still involved, is a notoriously shrewd operator. As Ambassador to Washington he famously convinced some Americans that the backing for 9/11 came not from Saudi but from Iran. He is known to never talk off script. Therefore, there can be no doubt that when he twice announced Massoud Rajavi’s death it was not a mistake. The word ‘marhoum’ – which is understood by Arabic speakers as an expression of condolence – appeared clumsily, and thereby deliberately, inserted into his sentence.

Until that moment Maryam Rajavi had been blissfully unaware. Her lack of reaction the first time he turned to look directly at her and said ‘marhoum Massoud Rajavi’, shows that she didn’t catch what had been said. The second time the penny dropped, as did her smile. Clearly Turki had not consulted the MEK in advance on the content of his speech. And if he had made a mistake there was plenty of time afterwards to correct it. He didn’t.

So, what does this mean? Is Massoud Rajavi dead? And if so, why doesn’t his wife know, or if she does, why not say so? More importantly, why did Prince Tuki make this announcement in public during the most important event of the MEK?

Although Saudi support for the MEK goes back to the time of Saddam Hussein, the relationship was never made public. (Indicatively, the MEK have used Al Arabiya as their mouthpiece for years and much more in recent months.) Analysts have surmised that Prince Turki attended the MEK rally in order to publicly announce himself the new owner of the group.

After the fall of Saddam Hussein, the MEK needed new backers. Massoud Rajavi sold the services of his group to the Israelis, the neoconservatives and of course to Saudi Arabia. This is why we saw the MEK used during the P5+1 nuclear negotiations with Iran. Once agreement was reached their anti-Iran rhetoric shifted towards human rights abuses. Unfortunately for MEK backers the group has history in this respect, with Human Rights Watch and the RAND Corporation revealing human rights and cultic abuses taking place inside the MEK. As a fake opposition, the group is so reviled by Iranians that it has even attracted its own opposition!

With the rise of Daesh and other violent gangs and groups in Syria and Iraq, the MEK found new opportunities. Maryam Rajavi made overtures to the Syrian Free Army. It looked for a while as though the MEK would be able to use a new base in Albania – to which its ageing, but deeply radicalised fighting force in Camp Liberty, Iraq are currently being transferred – as a facilitating camp. The idea was to provide training and logistics to newer terrorist groups from a country on the edge of Europe but close to the Middle East. This was blocked when Albanian experts exposed it on national television.

Events in the Middle East have shifted. Saudi Arabia has come to the fore and covert threats of military conflict against Iran are an open secret in the region. But after being left in the cold by the United States, the Saudis have had to search for other allies in this venture. While Turki knows very well the MEK is nothing more than a propaganda machine and irritant for Iran, this is apparently better than nothing.

Turki’s appearance at the rally signals that whoever was handling Rajavi previously – presumably western intel services – have handed him over to the Saudis as they did in 1986 when Rajavi was expelled from France and handed over to Saddam Hussein to help his war effort against Iran.

Massoud Rajavi, being as naïve as he is, thought he would retain the old masters and work on new projects for the Saudis. Instead, MEK experts believe that Maraym Rajavi will have understood Turki’s message as this: ‘There are no old masters, they are all gone. It is only me. And Saudi intel will not treat you like Saddam did. At that time you had a fighting force in Iraq ready to attack Iran. Now your only use is as a propaganda outlet. Nor will we treat you with the leniency that the Israelis or UK or US have shown. And so that you understand your position as our slave I have just announced your husband’s death. Now, forget about disobeying my commands. His actual death can easily be arranged at any time’.

Whether Rajavi is already dead or now killable is not known – only he can answer this – but he and his whole organisation are certainly now, body and soul, in the capable hands of the Saudi Prince. If he is still alive, Rajavi’s only role is to act as go-between to instruct his wife what she must do on behalf of the Saudis. If he is dead, some other operative will easily do instead. The Saudis, like Saddam Hussein, regard women of equal importance to goats and sheep. It would, therefore, be inconceivable they deal directly with her as the so-called feminist leader of a group whose services they are paying for.

Days have now passed since this Grand Controversy erupted. The MEK reaction following the rally was near hysterical. They issued messages in places they would never normally talk to – VOA and BBC Persian – to emphasise beyond doubt that Rajavi is still alive. In spite of this, the MEK has still not been able to actually prove this to be true. Somebody therefore is lying.

The fact is, nobody outside the MEK really cares whether Rajavi is alive or dead. But for his followers the grim reality of their future must by now have sunk in. If the MEK cannot prove – by voice or appearance – that their leader is alive, or proclaim instead that he is actually dead, it means the whole organisation has died. For if they cannot accomplish this simple task, how can they promise regime change?

By Massoud Khodabandeh Director at Middle East Strategy Consultants., huffingtonpost.com

Co-authored by Anne Khodabandeh

July 14, 2016 0 comments

Maryam Rajavi

Maryam Rajavi – MEK propaganda queen – puts out again for Iran’s enemies

The Middle East is in turmoil. Deaths and destruction are a daily occurrence throughout the region. Families flee their homes in fear, forced into an uncertain future. No end is in sight. Yet into this calamitous scenario a slick, sophisticated terrorist recruiter’s advert has popped up which ISIS itself could learn from. The National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) website carries a glamorous advertising campaign for a Grand Gathering. Surrounded by glitzy pictures of flag waving youth, the central focus of this gathering is ‘Our pledge: regime change’. Well, we all know what that means. Don’t we? Apparently not. Because this advertising doesn’t reflect the destruction wrought in Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen. Here is no promise of jihad and the caliphate. It looks very much like a carnival. Which is exactly what it is – a show.

So, what is meant by the promise of regime change? The first port of call is to understand that the NCRI is just another name for the Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK) which was also known as the National Liberation Army of Iran (NLA).Back in 1994, MEK leader Massoud Rajavi tasked his wife Maryam to leave Iraq for America in order to regain political recognition of the Mojahedin Khalq as ‘the’ Iranian opposition which had been lost when he refused to abandon Saddam Hussein during the First Gulf war.Refused entry to the USA as the leader of a terrorist entity Maryam instead took up residence in France as a refugee. But instead of meeting politicians to talk about how the MEK could overthrow the Iranian regime, she discovered she could simply create the illusion of support by paying both audience and speakers. She discovered a talent for dressing up, holding fancy dinner parties and talking about her cult ideology.To create the appearance of a willing audience for her views, she recruited a rag tag following of Iranian economic refugees who would happily turn up when paid for their services. She paid for feminists from North America, Europe and Scandinavia to visit Auvers-sur-Oise and attend dinner parties. She posed in her hijab to speak about her version of feminism to these western women; carefully spelling it out for them that they would never really understand what feminism is until they understood her husband Massoud Rajavi.

When Massoud recalled her to Iraq in 1997 she had spent a third of the total MEK budget and had no political support to show for it. She had lost around half the loyal MEK members who had defected whilst in Europe. With morale at an all-time low, Maryam was forced to retreat to Iraq with what remained of her personnel and leave the western bases in the hands of largely uneducated paid ‘supporters’.

Maryam Rajavi Terrorist

When allied forces next invaded Iraq in 2003 Maryam Rajavi again fled to France. This time, as luck would have it, western politics was focused on curtailing Iran’s nuclear programme which it insisted was aimed at creating a nuclear weapon. The MEK’s services as propaganda experts were just what was needed, ensuring the MEK’s ostensible survival as an opposition group.But in reality the MEK was already in terminal decline. Its fighting forces, disarmed in 2003, are currently being transferred from Iraq to Albania by the UNHCR to begin a process of de-radicalisation and reintegration back into normal society. Nobody expects veterans with an average age of sixty to wage the terrorism of thirty years ago. Disarmament also allowed American experts to investigate years of complaints about human rights and cultic abuses inside the MEK. As long as the MEK was being used to muddy the waters of the nuclear negotiations, such details could be glossed over.

But since last year when agreement was reached, the MEK’s murky past can no longer be dismissed. The main reason, of course, is that the new theme for challenging Iran in the international community is based on the country’s dismal human rights record. But Maryam Rajavi has her own well documented human rights abuse dossier to answer for. The MEK, under whatever name it is used, is simply the wrong tool to use to demonise Iran. Beyond this, the MEK is not the popular opposition its own advertising claims it to be. The group is almost universally despised among Iranians both inside the country and in the diaspora. Not only did the MEK fight alongside Saddam Hussein’s army during the devastating eight-year Iran-Iraq war, but the MEK’s anti-Iran role in the nuclear negotiations hit a nerve with most ordinary Iranians who regarded support for their country’s right to nuclear technology as an issue of nationalism rather than politics. Maryam Rajavi cannot get support from Iranians unless it is paid for. Nor can Maryam Rajavi deign to share a platform with any other Iranian opposition personality. So this year Maryam Rajavi will again do what she does best; pay audience and speakers alike to give the illusion of support.

So, back to the recent advertising campaign. Any publicity campaign will be successful if it is newsworthy. Maryam, however, simply churns out the same scenario ad infinitum. Starting with describing a terrible situation in Iran – based on news items that can be gleaned from any serious reporting outlet – she then proposes a ten-point plan for Iran, approved this year by Italian parliamentarians. And then she promises regime change.Clearly this message is not aimed at Iranians. The clamour for regime change in Iran does not emanate from inside the country in spite of its many social, civic and political problems. Who then is Maryam Rajavi’s constituency? From whom is she hoping to garner support? Many constituencies outside Iran wish fervently for its destruction. It is enlightening that Maryam Rajavi’s websites are home to a bizarre mixture of anti-Shia, anti-Iran, anti-Syria, items which reflect very closely the views of neocons, Israel and Saudi Arabia. Maryam Rajavi is not promising regime change, she is advertising her services as a propaganda queen.

Co-authored by Anne Khodabandeh , toptopic.com

July 4, 2016 0 comments

Albania

Clinton-Albania deal ensures MEK members stay as terrorists

When is a terrorist, who is not a terrorist, still a terrorist?

The answer to this complicated riddle can be surprisingly simple: When they are forced to remain in a terrorist group because there is no safe way for them to escape.

Image: Ehsan Bidi and Siavosh Rastar – who have no accommodation or money because this is supposed to be provided by Mojahedin Khalq terrorist group which they left

There is an ongoing debate in Europe and North America about how defectors from terrorism should be treated as they try to return to their homes in the West. Some say that on security grounds they should be either banned from re-entry or prosecuted and where possible imprisoned as an example to others. Others, usually practitioners who understand that deceptive recruitment is a huge factor in people’s involvement in terrorism, advocate for a more humanitarian and redemptive approach: allow these people home, albeit with severe restrictions imposed on their lives and activities, and get them to undergo re-programming.

What this debate does not address, however, is just how possible it is to actually escape a terrorist group in the first place. If you are in Raqqa, how do you step outside the group and remain safe?

In this context the fate of a handful of Iranians, stranded in Albania without any financial support or accommodation and unable to access refugee services, shines a spotlight on this aspect of the West’s approach to terrorism.

It would be easy to dismiss former MEK members Ehsan Bidi and Siavosh Rastar’s case as a local, individual problem. But when we look in more detail, it has everything to do with whether America and the West are complicit in forcing people to remain in terrorist groups because we do not see the need to help them leave at all. Certainly this is not a solution to terrorism – Plan B: get them all to leave – but a more facilitating approach toward genuine defectors could be a major factor in undermining the hold such groups have on their members.

Three years ago, Ehsan Bidi was brought to Albania along with other members of the Mojahedin Khalq (MEK). But Bidi was already a separated member when he arrived; it had just not been possible for him to escape them while in Iraq. As soon as he arrived he left them. Since then, he had been living on a small financial contribution from the UNHCR along with basic accommodation which they had provided. Suddenly at the end of March this year all this support ended. He and others like him were left destitute.

What Bidi and another handful of defectors didn’t know was that under the 2013 deal struck between former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the then Albanian Prime Minister Sali Berisha, the MEK members transferred to Tirana from Camp Liberty in Iraq would not be given official UN refugee status and would be dependent on Maryam Rajavi’s MEK for all their accommodation and costs while in Albania. Amazingly, neither the government of Albania nor the UNHCR has any obligation to treat them as refugees. All of these people are being transferred not as refugees but as the active members of a terrorist entity. In fact, part of the deal struck by Clinton was that the MEK would be removed from the US terrorism list specifically to allow this deal even though every active member remains radicalised to the core and capable of committing acts of terrorism.

This means that when people like Bidi and Rastar choose to reject membership of this terrorist group, they not only face the wrath of the MEK – which has promised to kill Bidi in particular because he is so vocal about this predicament – but they are also left destitute because the state doesn’t recognise them except as members of that terrorist group. After the UNHCR pulled the plug on its support, Bidi and the others were told ‘you must ask Rajavi to allow you back in the MEK or ask the Iranian embassy to send you back to Iran’. Clearly an impossible choice. It is a conundrum which was created by America and must be resolved by America.

A similar situation arose in Iraq after 2003 when the MEK were captured, disarmed and kept in Camp Ashraf. Within weeks the American army was being approached by defectors begging them for help to escape the clutches of the cult. After trying to send them back or ignore them, the army was eventually obliged, under the Fourth Geneva Convention, to establish a separate Temporary Internment and Protection Facility (TIPF) within their own compound to house the defectors. This allowed many others to escape and return to their families and to civilian life.

It is necessary now for the American administration to acknowledge that it has the same obligation toward the people it transferred to Albania under Clinton’s 2013 deal. It must give them the same opportunity to leave the MEK as was granted to people while in Iraq. Safe, alternative accommodation and social support must be given to those who, on principle, reject membership of a terrorist group. It’s almost unthinkable that this isn’t happening already.But while nobody imagines that in among the chaos of war in the Middle East and the massive refugee crisis that has engulfed Western countries, there can be a TIPF or something similar for ex-terrorists, we also know that Daesh kills defectors. They do this under the principle of ownership – we own our fighters and can dispose of them as we see fit.

In this case, if we stand by and allow Daesh, like the MEK, to dictate the conditions of how a defector is treated without making any effort to facilitate their safe exit, if we cannot offer a helping hand to those who wish to redeem themselves, then we are no better than the terrorists ourselves.

toptopic.com

Khodabandeh: The article has been translated and published in Albania ; The issue is of course important for the Albanians too:

gazetaimpakt.com/lajm/6997/marreveshja-klinton-shqiperi-i-detyron-anetaret-e-mek-kulti-raxhavi-te-qendrojne-si-terroriste/

April 19, 2016 0 comments

Massoud Rajavi

Massoud Rajavi strangled by his own red line

There was a time when Ebrahim Mohammad Rahimi and others like him were willing to fight and die for the MEK and its leader Massoud Rajavi. Not any more. What was once a mass movement of over half a million Iranians has been reduced to a group of old and sick former combatants sitting it out in a closed camp in Iraq with no hope for the future. Neither struggle nor normal life are open to them now. In many ways, Ebrahim has been among the lucky ones. After the 2003 invasion he decided to leave Iraq and, after spending four years in the Temporary Internment and Protection Facility (TIPF) run by the American army, was able to join family members in England. In 2010, he was reunited with his fifteen-year-old son who had been left with his grandparents in Iran as a baby when both his parents – former political prisoners – joined other MEK combatants in Iraq in the 1980s. Ebrahim continued to support the MEK in England as an activist. He encouraged his son to be involved too. But what should have been the beginning of a new and happy future for father and son has been sadly cut short. Ebrahim is dying of brain cancer in a London hospital. His son, Sepher, and other family members and friends attend him in his last days.

Ebrahim’s only dying wish is to speak a few words with his estranged wife who is still trapped in Camp Liberty in Iraq. Sepher, who is now twenty, would also like to renew a relationship with his mother. Since 2010 he has only been able to speak by phone to his mother three times, and each time, he says, the call was controlled by MEK minders. In August 2015, after Ebrahim’s devastating diagnosis, they wrote to Maryam Rajavi in Paris asking her to allow this contact. They had no answer. They tried through the MEK in London, with the paperwork needed to bring her to London prepared by their lawyer through the UNHCR in Iraq. Still they received no help.

Instead the MEK began a vicious defamation campaign against the father and son. The MEK’s efshahgah website and others accused Ebrahim of being a long standing “agent of the Iranian regime’. Although this is the standard response of the MEK to its enemies, nobody could have been more surprised than Ebrahim himself that he is now being accused of this faux crime. Ebrahim remains a loyal supporter of the MEK. His son also. Even worse, the MEK began writing on behalf of his former wife; this time saying that Ebrahim had forced their son Sepher to work for the Intelligence agency of the “Khomeini regime”. Of course, for anyone familiar with the MEK this label is not new, nor does it carry any weight. It is not based on fact but is in fact the name given to the ‘red line’ used by Massoud Rajavi to define who he thinks his enemies are. MEK members and supporters at all levels are inculcated with fear of these enemies. It is a cultic control mechanism.

Rajavi first began delineating this red line in order to take control of the MEK after he and others left Iran in the early 1980s. The first victims of this red line were members of the newly formed National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) of which the MEK was only one member among several. Rajavi systematically began to draw his red line closer and closer to the needs and demands of his Mojahedin Khalq organisation. Those who disagreed with him were forced to leave the NCRI. Rajavi labelled them traitors and enemies of the Iranian people, addicted to the regime as agents of the Intelligence Ministry of Iran. This red line tactic suited him well. With hundreds of thousands of members and supporters in Iran and in the west, Rajavi intensified his aim to be recognised as the ‘sole leader of the Iranian resistance movement against the regime’. In 1985 he used his controversial marriage to Maryam Azodanloo to re-position this red line. Anyone who did not agree with his leadership was ousted from the MEK. Many left – including some who could have rivalled Rajavi for leadership of the organisation. Over the intervening years Rajavi used this strategy many times. Each time he announced a new ideological demand the red line would fall between those who accepted his leadership and those who didn’t. After each round of purges Rajavi would set about trying to recruit new members with the changed ideological framework. It didn’t work.

Little by little the MEK has shrunk as he labelled more and more people as his enemies. Alongside this strategy Rajavi tried to frighten his followers into staying with him by labelling anyone who spoke out against the organisation as ‘agents of the Iranian regime’. What outsiders may not be aware of is that Rajavi deems this ‘crime’ as punishable by death and that the reason such enemies are still alive are lack of opportunity and because of prioritising the overthrow of the ‘Iranian regime in its entirety’ before dealing with such critics. All well and good when these enemies really are against you. One such former member was Hadi Shams Haeri who rejected membership of the MEK following Rajavi’s forced divorces. Shams Haeri came to live in Holland where he began to campaign alongside other former MEK members to get his children back with him. Unfortunately, he succumbed to cancer in June 2012 without ever being reunited with his grown-up children. Shams Haeri’s actions attracted vitriolic attacks from the MEK. His demand to see his family fell outside Rajavi’s red line that separated families and banned all relationships except with him. Shams Haeri rejected Rajavi and paid the price.

Now with the situation of the Mohammad Rahimi father and son, it appears the red line is drawn even tighter. Ebrahim came from the heart of the MEK to help them in London. He and his son remain loyal to Rajavi and his aims but find themselves outside the red line simply because they want to have contact with a family member. Rajavi cannot tolerate any such contact. He wants to ban every relationship which doesn’t centre on him. Perhaps as a result of this unbearable, impossible demand, ten names have come to light over the past year of men and women inside the MEK base in Paris – from high ranking members right up to the top cult lieutenants (those just below second-in-command Maryam Rajavi) – who are on the brink of committing suicide or running away from the MEK. This will happen. It is inevitable.

As Rajavi’s red line grows ever tighter there will soon be no more room for anyone. It wouldn’t be a surprise if Mehdi Abrishamchi himself – Rajavi’s most trusted lieutenant – is soon found outside the red line. The only real task of everyone’s existence at this point is about how they can squeeze themselves inside the red line and not attract Rajavi’s wrath. Surely they are suffocating. The wonder is that these people appear unaware of their predicament. Someone who is on the brink, don’t they see that they will be next to be expelled from the MEK and subjected to character assassination on the Efshahgar website?

What is amazing is that the people remaining in the MEK do not appear to see that it is not the excluded who have changed but that Rajavi’s red line is drawn tighter and tighter around him to exclude thousands of former members and supporters. Normally, cult leaders grow their cults, attracting and recruiting new members, or as a minimum, maintaining what numbers they have. But since Rajavi stole the half-a-million-strong movement in the 1980s he has shrunk the MEK to fewer than two thousand people, most of whom are sick and old and trapped in the base in Iraq waiting to be moved to safety. This can only lead us to conclude that Massoud Rajavi is not a very effective cult leader. Not only has he failed to attract any new members for many years, but he cannot even tolerate the few followers he has left. If his red line gets any tighter only he and Maryam will be left. After he rejects her will he be unable to tolerate even his own company? Suicide then will be his only option; he can use his red line to hang himself.

Massoud Khodabandeh, Iranian.com

January 16, 2016 0 comments

The cult of Rajavi

What does it mean when we say ISIS operates as a mind control cult?

The world is waking up to the fact that some kind of brainwashing is involved in the ISIS campaign to recruit and deploy fighters in Iraq and Syria. This even extends to importing thousands of brainwashed ‘family’ recruits to populate its declared Caliphate.

As an expert on this subject, I was interviewed by Dutch writer and journalist Judit Neurink as part of her new book ‘The war of ISIS: On the road to the Caliphate’.

Judit has lived and worked in Iraqi Kurdistan for nearly a decade. This is important because she has been able to get into the hearts and minds of the people she shares this life with and they have rewarded her with a unique and intimate understanding of this region. This book is a reflection of that.

The book sets out to answer the questions which we all have about ISIS. “Who they are, how did they get their ideals, how do they operate and are they really as dangerous as they would like the world to believe?”

Avoiding any sensationalism, Judit intersperses hard facts, information and analysis with individual accounts and sharp descriptions. She allows other people to speak about their knowledge and experience and by doing so brings the ISIS phenomenon to life in a way no external observer can hope to do.

My contribution has been to talk about the cultic nature of ISIS and the specific methodology it uses to deceive and brainwash its victims into becoming killers and suicide bombers. In this respect it is very similar to the Mojahedin Khalq.

The external behaviour of such groups can sometimes lead people to the false conclusion that one is worse or better than the other. The truth is that because of their internal cult dynamic all terrorist groups are not only dangerous to their intended targets but are also destructive of their own members. Like ISIS, the MEK has killed and tortured thousands of its own members over the years.

Excerpt:

ISIS is much more than just an Islamic group that has established its own state. It is a sect which brainwashes and indoctrinates its members. All new members must first follow lessons in sharia, the Islamic Legislation. “Not in the principles of Islam, but those from the Islamic state”, a young man who left ISIS tells the BBC.

“They teach you the Islam that they want”

Whoever enters ISIS start with forty days in a religious training camp, led by a charismatic trainer. The young man said that his had come from Saudi Arabia, and was so “nice and convincing” that he was “prepared to become a suicide bomber if he has asked”. The training “aims at your heart and not your head, so that your heart becomes filled with passion for their words”.

According to Massoud Khodabandeh, who for years was in the leadership of the Iranian political sect Mujahedeen Khalq (MKO), charismatic trainers play a far more prominent role than the ideology. That is secondary to the goal of the sect, which usually revolves around the well-being and the ambitions of the leader of the group and those around him. Concretely, with ISIS it’s about Baghdadi and the group around him, and their ambition to become powerful.

“With ISIS it is not about Islam”, khodabandeh said resolutely. “No one becomes a member of a sect because of their message”. The recruits from ISIS know nothing about Islam. Because it they did, they would not allow themselves to be lured in”.

Khodabandeh broke with the MKO and now leads an organisation from Great Britain to help people follow his example. Internationally he is well known as an expert on the subject of political sects.

According to him only people who were easily influenced beforehand will fall in to the net of the recruiters. “They have problems; they are running away from something. One from his father. The other one from debt collectors. They have failed in love or at university. They are already a victim before they fall in to the net”.

Camps

For the training of its recruits ISIS had at the end of November in 2014 twenty five camps, fourteen in Syria and eleven in Iraq. One of those was exclusively for fighters from Kazakhstan. After the indoctrination a military training follows, fighters receive physical training and learn how to handle weapons.

Those camps, often far from the inhabited world, are important in the process. That is where the recruit changes in to a suicide bomber, Khodabandeh concludes. The technique used to brainwash someone only works if you have a place where you are able to isolate people from the family and acquaintances, where there are no credit cards, and no place to go back to”.

For the indoctrination of a fighter the recruitment focuses on separating them from everything they had, up to the point that they no longer want to live. For a suicide bomber live itself is a burden. If you are leading a life that you do not want, then you can convince yourself of the beckoning paradise. You only give up a life if you do not have one anyway”.

To show the extent of this, Khodabandeh uses the example of an eighteen year old fighter who was taken prisoner by the Iraqi army before he could carry out his suicide mission. With the approval of the Iraqis, he spent 48 hours with the young man in an effort to pry him loose from the grip of ISIS. “I thought that I should be able to convince him to think differently about things. But after two days and nights he said that I had committed the greatest sin. I had kept him from reaching paradise for forty eight hours. It went that deep. His life was a burden. He begged to end it”.

A sect exists from a nucleus with layers surrounding it. Like and onion, Khodabandeh says. The nucleus is the suicide bomber, for ISIS also the fighters who go in to battle to die. “You only need a certain number of these. But in order to recruit and indoctrinate them there are many more people needed”.

Not everyone becomes a suicide bomber. And that prospect alone will not lure any recruits, neither does the idea of going to kill people, or decapitate leads, khodabandeh believes. They come from money, for charity, for a role in the new state or the army. “In Syria they realize; I have to kill someone while I only came here to bring medicine. The pressure to do that is immense. Because their entire world is now ISIS. If it says that you have to chop off heads, then you do that. Otherwise you will become a victim yourself”.

From that fear, ISIS members convince themselves if they have doubts that they are wrong, and the others, in ISIS, are right. Because everyone outside of ISIS is considered to be the enemy, this would relate to them too should they turn their backs on the group. “they believe they do not have any choice; if they do not cut off that head then they will lose their own”.

Iranian.com,

October 3, 2015 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization's Propaganda System

The Iranian Mojahedin-e Khalq and Its Media Strategy

The Iranian Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK) and Its Media Strategy: Methods of Information Manufacture

In his book Manufactured Crisis: The Untold Story of the Iran Nuclear Scare (Porter, 2014b), American journalist Gareth Porter identifies the role played by the Iranian Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK) organization in Israel’s decade-long attempts to prevent a negotiated settlement between Iran and the P5+1 (the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Russia, China, and Germany), on the former’s nuclear program. When the negotiations hit a difficult phase in Vienna in May 2014, Porter suggested in an article for Al Jazeera that “If the talks fail … it will be the result of the toxic combination of wilful U.S. self-deception and deliberate falsification of intelligence by the Israelis” (Porter, 2014a).

In this context, this overview seeks to demonstrate how and why, through a sophisticated and persistent media campaign, the MEK has created a place for itself on the Iranian political scene totally disproportionate to its capabilities and support base; and how from this aggrandized position the MEK has exerted a negative influence over Western opinion and policymaking toward the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) and Iraq, which began long before and reaches far wider than its role in Tehran’s nuclear dossier. Also, this review seeks to indicate that while this propaganda campaign has been highly successful for the MEK, it has been deliberately detrimental to the growth of a civil opposition movement in Iran as well as significantly affecting Western foreign policy toward the IRI in adverse ways.

The MEK stands out as perhaps a unique example of a belligerent entity that exploits to the maximum a range of propaganda methods and outlets in the West to project itself in the international community as a constructive, almost benign, force. Far from avoiding publicity, the MEK has done everything in its power to maximize what can be described as its virtual presence. In addition to its native Farsi, the group disseminates information about and projects an image of itself in English, French, German and Arabic, in print, in broadcast and on Internet media. But insofar as it has no popular support among indigenous or diaspora Iranians, its image as a popular resistance movement has been largely invented.

Historically the group’s leader, Massoud Rajavi, as the MEK’s spokesman, enjoyed a reputation as a charismatic speaker. As such, he was fully cognizant of the power of publicity in shaping a public image. After the MEK was forced into exile to Paris in 1981, Rajavi assumed sole leadership and appointed his wife, Maryam Rajavi, second-in-command. Since then, the MEK’s raison d’être has remained in its own words “the downfall of the mullahs’ regime in its entirety and the establishment of a democratic republic based on the separation of the church and the state” (Rajavi, 2014), under a Rajavi government. Rajavi understood that he would depend on both political and financial support from the West. He established public relations departments in MEK bases in the major Western capitals. With help from sympathizers, an increasingly sophisticated and expensive propaganda strategy was devised with multiple aims. Primarily, it was used to market the MEK as the “main opposition” and the “only alternative” to the IRI to attract sponsorship. But to ensure the MEK was the only group to garner this support, Rajavi also needed to eliminate all other exiled Iranian opposition groups. This was achieved in the 1980s through physical intimidation and character assassination. This ranged from ostracizing former Iranian president, Abolhassan Bani Sadr (Gessler, 2004), to gate crashing meetings of other groups such as the communist Fedayeen, and beating up attendees. It was also necessary over the years to continuously demonize the Islamic Republic to prevent any possibility of rapprochement. MEK propaganda sculpted Western perceptions of Iran as evil and incapable of reform or moderation.

In its quest to solicit Western support, the MEK morphed its public persona several times to appeal to various Western foreign policymakers and sponsors, but maintained as pivotal its claim to be the main opposition and only alternative. While helping Saddam Hussein’s war effort during the Iran-Iraq War (1980–1988), the glossy print magazine NLA Journal promoted the National Liberation Army; photographs of combatants and armaments projected an image of military might. After losing support during the First Gulf War, a replica of Iran’s Majlis populated by these same combatants posing in Western clothing was advertised as a parliament-in-exile in The Lion and The Sun magazine (print edition in Iran-Interlink archive) and distributed to parliaments and press in the 1990s. Over time, the MEK’s image building was upgraded through emailed PDF publications like Iran Liberation and Iran Liberty Association Newsletter, which reflect the current incarnation of the group. This PDF-manufactured reputation as a democratic opposition enabled the MEK to undertake information laundry for Israel as purveyors of nuclear intelligence on Iran (Nuclear Control Institute, 2014). By extension, this adaptive, mercenary role proved persuasive among American neoconservative regime change pundits who campaigned to remove the group from the U.S. terrorism list (Symonds, 2012). This in turn, after the 2013 election of President Rouhani introduced the possibility of a negotiated settlement of Iran’s nuclear status, allowed for the MEK to be promoted as human rights advocates (Iran News Update, 2014).

The MEK’s ability to maintain its public relations platforms through the vagaries it has suffered over three decades is based largely on one propitious factor: its target audience. Western power brokers have been sympathetic and arguably myopic. Western parliamentarians, if not governments, were looking for “evidence” that the IRI was dangerous and unpleasant—whether as a state sponsor of terrorism or later as a nuclear weaponized state. They were also looking for an opposition to promote as an antithesis to the Iranian government. The MEK, a listed terrorist group for much of this time, used its chameleon-like ability (Bahari, 2007) to adapt its image to mirror Western concerns. That it did this purely for its own survival does not detract from the fact that the MEK has provided a very palatable narrative for those wanting to depose and attack the IRI.

While the Iran-Iraq War was under way, Rajavi was expelled from France but was welcomed in Iraq by Saddam Hussein to help his war effort against Tehran. Saddam provided training for MEK members to form a National Liberation Army, an adjunct to the Iraqi army, and also a generous propaganda budget. Saddam’s purpose was to bolster support for his own war effort by having the MEK present itself as a military force capable of overthrowing the Iranian regime. This became the MEK’s unique selling point, singling it out from among the remaining Iranian opposition groups.

Rajavi micro-managed the MEK’s public relations from his headquarters in Baghdad. International media were monitored for coverage, and he ranked this activity according to how important he believed it was, with “A” bearing any mention of him, “B” if the MEK was mentioned, “C” for Iranian opposition and so on. In addition, the MEK gleaned news published inside Iran for information such as numbers of arrests and executions, which it would then claim to have gathered covertly through its own network of supporters. Although this information was publicly available, the MEK claimed to a non-Farsi-speaking audience to have informants inside the IRI system. In this way, it was able to build a reputation among Western reporters, which would finally draw them to the MEK’s press conference in 2002 to expose Iran’s secret nuclear enrichment site at Natanz (Nuclear Control Institute, 2014). Indeed, it was the group’s media and political contacts that made it an ideal conduit for intelligence originally garnered by the Israeli intelligence organization Mossad on Iran’s nuclear program, not its credibility as an opposition group. The revelation led the United States to push for a United Nations (UN) investigation and subsequent sanctions against Iran. After 2003, having lost Saddam Hussein’s patronage, the MEK abandoned any attempt to build popular support with Iranians and chose instead to work for Israeli and neoconservative interests. Alejo Vidal Quadras, a former member of the European Parliament, admitted that the Friends of a Free Iran group in the European Parliament had benefited from association with the MEK whose “ ‘lobbying activity’ performed for more than 20 years … has been fundamental” (Vidal Quadras, 2014) in promoting its agenda.

A media campaign-employed lobbyists such as the Iran Policy Committee, generously paid speakers (Wilkie, 2011), and took photographs with politicians to try to recast MEK history and present itself as a democratic alternative to an exclusively Western audience. Underpinning any understanding of the MEK’s media strategy is that, according to Steve Hassan’s BITE Model (Freedom of Mind, 2014), it operates as a cult and can therefore utilize an unpaid, dedicated labor force willing to spend every waking hour in pursuit of fulfilling its leader’s requirements. Far from alienating support, this aspect has been instrumental in the creation of an indispensable tool for regime-change pundits in the West. With this free labor, the MEK was able to inundate political and media circles with a continuous flood of literature, information, films, statements, and press releases. Currently, the group ensures a daily presence in PR Newswire and engages in “Google wars,” with its forces performing keystrokes to push MEK items up the search engine scale. It also maintains a physical presence in Western parliaments characterized as “extremely persistent and aggressive” by Eldar Mamedov (2014), who is in charge of the delegation for inter-parliamentary relations between the European Parliament and Iran.

A recent example of the MEK’s efforts to control the narrative of an event through its cyberspace presence came in 2013 with the tragic attack on 101 MEK members based in Camp Ashraf in Iraq (Sen, 2013). Within hours the MEK began to take control of the media narrative by sending real-time video of the attack filmed by the MEK themselves (YouTube, 2013), to newsrooms. On the ground, however, the MEK were uncooperative with UN and Iraqi government investigators. Crucially, 42 survivors who were moved to another MEK base (U.S. Department of State, 2013), were subsequently prevented from speaking to investigators (Khodabandeh, 2013), and the investigating process stalled. Instead, mirroring the agenda of MEK advocates in the European Parliament, the MEK blamed the Iraqi prime minister, Nouri al Maliki (NCRI Foreign Affairs Committee, 2013), for the attack. An Internet search of the event now throws up a variety of articles, resolutions, and statements published by the MEK, which variously attribute blame for the massacre to the Iraqi government of al Maliki, the Iraqi army, President Rouhani of Iran and Iranian special forces, which have taken on the aspect of factual reporting simply through repetition.

In the autumn of 2013 when the nuclear negotiations between Iran and the P5+1 got under way, the regime-change narrative shifted to attacks on Iran’s human rights record. Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen now specifically referred to Maryam Rajavi as a “human rights advocate” (Ros-Lehtinen, 2014). On May 8, 2014, the MEK paid for a quarter-page advertisement in the British print edition of The Guardian in which a smiling Maryam Rajavi accuses Iranian President Rouhani’s government of “massacring 56 Iranian opponents in Camps Ashraf & Liberty in Iraq” (print edition in Iran-Interlink archive).

The MEK’s media and cyberspace presence is manifest in both positive and negative terms. What is most remarkable is that this group’s narrative is so pervasive and persuasive. The MEK has been instrumental in the manufacture of a false but dominant narrative concerning Iran, but other exiled opposition groups and individuals depict Iran in a very different manner, which is arguably more nuanced and closer to reality. Iranian writer and activist Akbar Ganji, imprisoned in Tehran between 2000 and 2006, describes “How the West gets Iran wrong” (Ganji, 2014). Any indigenous Iranian opposition has two fronts to fight. Not only do they have to challenge the IRI on civil rights, religious freedom, human rights, etc., but will also have to distinguish themselves with a different identity and a different narrative from the MEK’s “regime change” discourse and persuade a skeptical West to listen to them. And while Iran certainly has problems with civil and political freedoms and with its economy, the country has made many advances in important fields, such as literacy, polio eradication, aids education, birth control, and prevention of drug trafficking, which rarely get reported by a skeptical Western media. The root of this hostility deserves greater examination and exposure to enable negotiators, foreign policymakers and the media to dismantle the “wilful US self-deception” (Porter, 2014b) and to approach dialogue and diplomacy with greater realism.

References

Bahari, Maziar. (2007). Cult of the chameleon.
Freedom of Mind. (2014). The BITE model.
Ganji, Akbar. (2014). How the West gets Iran wrong.
Gessler, Antoine. (2004). Autopsy of an ideological drift: Analysis and background of the People’s Mojahedin Organisation of Iran. Translated by Thomas Robert Forstenzer.
Iran News Update. (2014). Maryam Rajavi: At the UN in Geneva.
Khodabandeh, Massoud, (2013). Where are the 42 missing Mojahedin Khalq eye witnesses from Camp Ashraf?
Mamedov, Eldar. (2014). The MEK’s influence in EU Politics matters.
NCRI Foreign Affairs Committee. (2013). Iraq: Sham investigation to whitewash Maliki’s crimes in Camp Ashraf.
Nuclear Control Institute. (2014).
Porter, Gareth. (2014a). Demonising nuclear Iran.
Porter, Gareth. (2014b). Manufactured crisis: The untold story of the Iran nuclear scare. Charlottesville, VA: Just World Books.
Rajavi, Maryam. (2014). Hundreds of Iranian associations support Maryam Rajavi Ten-Point Plan for future Iran.
Ros-Lehtinen, Ileana. (2014) The security situation in Camps Ashraf and Liberty is getting worse every day; The Iraqi government and the UN must keep their promises and provide adequate security, says Ros-Lehtinen.
Sen, Ashish Kumar. (2013). 52 Iranian exiles killed at Iraq’s Camp Ashraf.
Symonds, Peter. (2012). US Removes Iranian MEK from terrorist list.
U.S. Department of State. (2013). Relocation of remaining individuals from Camp Ashraf to Camp Hurriya in Iraq.
Vidal Quadras, Alejo. (2014). Alejo Vidal-Quadras, el mejor amigo de los muyahidines.
Wilkie, Christina. (2011). Mujahideen-e Khalq: Former U.S. officials make millions advocating for terrorist organization.
YouTube.com. (2013). The bravest cameraman in 2013 Camp Ashraf.

First published on onlinelibrary.wiley

February 5, 2015 0 comments

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