Mojahedin. WS

Temporary Transit Location and MEK excuses

In a symposium held in New York on the situation of MKO’s members in the Temporary Transit

The conditions in TTL are justifiable and acceptable enough for a few days stay

Location TTL, Alan Dershowitz, an American lawyer, stated that: “… if it (TTL) truly is designed to keep people for a couple of days until they are moved to a safer place, one could understand perhaps, even justify that. But if this is to be a place where people are expected to live, my God, what kind of humanity would compel people who are protected individuals under the United Nations to whom the United States made a sacred promise to make this their home. This is not a home”.

The last part of Mr. Dershowitz is approved; TTL is not going to be a permanent home for the relocated members. As the name of the location itself indicates, it is a temporary center to hose the transferred residents for a short span of time to process their refugee status and to transfer them to a third country. The group’s relocation to TTL was agreed between the United Nations, Iraqi authorities, the United States, the European Union and the leaders of the group itself. All the parts were well aware what was to happen and on 31 January, the UN High Commissioner for Refugee (UNHCR) and the human rights office of the UN Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) said they had confirmed that the infrastructure and facilities at the new relocation camp met international standards.

In January, Daniel Fried, U.S. special adviser on Camp New Iraq, said that TTL, a former U.S. military base near Baghdad International Airport, is the Iraqi government’s property and the MKO members are not authorized to reside there for a long-term period. Not only the members themselves but also MKO’s American and European advocates should understand that a temporary location does not need to be as convenient as the Ashraf within which MKO built itself an autonomous, authoritarian territory. The conditions in TTL are justifiable and acceptable enough “to keep people for a couple of days until they are moved” to a third country. Unless MKO intends to violate all agreements and plan for another prolonged stay; the object of the Iraqi Government does not seem to be letting terrorist bastions multiply, it is decisive to uproot them.

March 1, 2012 0 comments

Rajavi Banned to Enter UK

The UK Home Secretary barred Maryam Rajavi from coming to Britain.

According to Evining Standard, some British parliamentarians are angry at Theresa May, the Home Secretary, after she barred Maryam Rajavi from coming to Britain.

The ban was imposed on Maryam Rajavi after the Home Secretary claimed that her presence on the country’s soil might damage efforts to stop Iran obtaining nuclear weapons and put Britons in the country at risk.

Baroness Boothroyd, the former Commons Speaker, and Lord Waddington, a former Conservative home secretary, have denounced the ban as “intolerable” and are bringing a judicial review in an attempt to overturn it.

After her presence in the European Parliament, Rajavi was invited by the British peers and MPs to speak in Parliament but was refused permission to visit Britain after the Home Office ruled that it would have a “significant damaging impact on relations between the UK and Iran”.

Maryam Rajavi was originally excluded from Britain in 1997 because of her leadership role in the terrorist MKO, a group proscribed as a terrorist organization before the ban was lifted by the Britain’s Court of Appeal in 2008. Mrs May renewed the ban in October last year and again last month.

February 27, 2012 0 comments

The MEK Expulsion from Iraq

TTL is not a permanent place of host and stay

With the relocation of about 400 residents of Camp New Iraq, formerly Camp Ashraf, to a new

TTL, A Temporary or Permanent Location
is not a permanent place of host and stay as some may presume

transit center, Temporary Transit Location TTL, near the Baghdad’s airport, the United Nations has welcomed the move calling it “the first step towards a better future” for the transferred residents. But it seems that the relocation does not follow smoothly on the agreed path. For humanitarian reasons and to end the presence of MKO’s members in Iraq in a peaceful way, the Iraqi government agreed to extend the decided deadline 0f their expulsion, in line with the memorandum of understanding signed in December by the UN and the Iraqi Government. Although the relocation of the residents to TTL imposes heavy costs on the Iraqi government, but it demonstrates Iraq’s good will to resolve the situation facing the residents of Camp New Iraq.

As the name of the new location denotes, Temporary Transit Location TTL, it is a temporary facility to facilitate the process of residents’ departure to third countries. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees UNHCR has announced that it will immediately start the process of verification and refugee status determinations, a key step in preparing the submissions of eligible candidates for resettlement in third countries.

Then, TTL is a center for:

– Temporary settlement of the relocated residents,

– To recognize the residents’ individual identity,

– To determine and verify the residents’ former refugee status in other countries

– To determine the residents’ future of returning to Iran or applying asylum in a third country,

– Preparing legal process of applying for asylum seekers,

As stated in MoU signed by Special Representative of the Secretary-General and head of the UN Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) Martin Kobler and National Security Advisor to the Prime Minister of Iraq, Faleh Fayad, the Iraqi government will facilitate relocation of the residents of Camp New Iraq to TTL where the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) will start a process of refugee status determination of residents individually and regardless of their organizational rank as a necessary step for their resettlement in a third country.

In fact, TTL is not a permanent place of host and stay as some may presume. For sure, the residents’ cooperation with the Iraqi authorities and representatives of UNHCR to complete the relocation and process of refugee status without delay guarantees the human rights, safety and welfare of all residents. Of course, any disapproval and protestation by MKO that might end in prolongation of stay in TTL not only satirizes the meaning of the phrase itself but is also a different aspect of a method of sophistry utilized by the group; to turn TTL into another permanent camp.

By M. Nelson

February 27, 2012 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

The US and Possibility of Delisting MKO

The following article was sent by one of the users. Regardless of any judgment concerning the political views of the author, what is important is her fair reflection of some points on the recent support of some Americans in behalf of MKO. It should be noted that Mojahedin.ws welcomes similar opinions and respects political stances.
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There are evidences of a possible change in the policy and position of America towards Mojahedin Khalq [MKO, MEK, PMOI, NCR, NLA]. Regardless of the enthusiastic support of people like John Bolton, and the representatives of two American ruling parties, the supports for Mojahedin is believed to be an attempt to end the deadlock in the West’s negotiations with Iran over the nuclear issue. Fox News TV that covered the reports of a conference held in Washington quoted a board of America’s former national security experts saying:

A bipartisan delegation of former senior national security experts said more talks with the Iranian regime would be futile. They urged the President Obama to support a controversial opposition group struggling against the regime in Tehran. The delegation, including General James Jones, reached a consensus that the current and the previous policy of appeasement towards Iranian regime is doomed to failure. [MKO website, 24 January 2011]

The report adds:
These authorities urged the removal of the Mojahedin Khalq Organization from the US list and Michael Mukasey put forward the question "Why should MEK remain in such a list? [MKO website, 24 January 2011]

In his closing statements in the conference, Torricelli is reported to have said:

The listing of the MEK as a terrorist organization by the United States government is wrong. It is wrong as a matter of law, it is contrary to the facts, it is interfering with the rights of American citizens to be heard, and it is contrary to American foreign policy. [MKO website, 24 January 2011]
But, when the change takes a practical form depends on factors: that how long the State Department and Obama can stand up to the pressure of their critics: that what will be the US’s alternative to choose between its short or long term interests and its international credit; and that when the US reaches a a convincing decision to remove MKO from its terrorist list, a decision that, apart from political and interest-securing achievements, can be considered rational in the framework of democratic ends.

The truth is that, despite claims of MKO that its designation was the outcome of a political decision, Americans know well that even if it was a politically-purposeful decision, it was not actually a wrong decision. Perhaps what has pandered such suppositions was the simultaneity of the US’s policy of shift toward engagement with Iran and the willingness of Iran’s then-new president, Mohammad Khatami, for an international interaction and dialogue coincidental with the designation of MKO as a terrorist organization. But it should be reminded that America’s first serious stance against MKO goes back to years before 1997.

Despite the statement provoked an angry reaction from the organization, Mujahedin never tried to contest the charges at the time as a political decision. Rather, they considered the decision the outcome of an inappropriate, weak research and disregarding the right of the organization to defend itself against the charges. Now more than two decades after the State Department’s first position, the US seems to have taken a different turn to utilize Mujahedin for the advancement of its political and strategic objectives. You can well notice this interest-seeking turn in the speeches of the former senators and ex-security experts talking in behalf of MKO. It means that the two rival parties have reached a consensus on utilizing the group especially when you hear the former Sen. Robert Torricelli saying “The listing of the MEK as a terrorist organization by the United States government is wrong”.

The question now is what interests America seek to achieve by the removal of MKO from its terrorist list. Can it be that America does it to persuade Iran to stop its nuclear program? It will be so naïve an idea since Americans know better than anyone that MKO lack the social support and the needed legitimacy. But it will be different if America’s aim is to bring MKO out of the list, re-arm it and let it instigate disorder and carry out terrorist operations inside Iran. Furthermore, Rajavi’s struggle to be removed from the terrorist list is worthless in itself unless the group and its so-called the Liberation Army can be re-armed. Once in an interview with PressTV Abbas Dashti, a defected member of MKO, quoted Rajavi saying: “We must do all our best to be removed from America’s terrorist list to get our weapons back again”.

Of course, we have already heard Rajavi addressing Camp Ashraf residents, when it was surrounded by American forces, that between the arms and the master of the arms [Americans] he preferred the latter since the arms could be somehow provided at any time but hardly the master of arms. As a result, delisting of MKO is a revival of the group and its re-arming by the US for a new round of terrorism whether Americans intend it or not. But what will be the consequent of unleashing the terrorist Mujahedin? Rajavi has a past experience that once in their best state, the organization’s operation cells stationed close to Iranian borders failed in their terrorist operations. The alternative will be a new chain of blind terrorist operations as it is absolutely impossible for MKO to launch other military operations similar to that of ‘the Eternal Light’.

However, even if the US’s step to delist MKO imply an antagonistic move against the Iranian regime’s behavior, the worst for its own is challenging its international repute for unleashing a most controversial, unquestionable terrorist organization. The least America has to pay will be widening of a credibility gap between the US and Iranian people. But more can be said about the possibility of such decision, and which of course will be a suicidal one, by America.

Farkhondeh Farahmand

February 19, 2011 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization as a terrorist group

MKO’s disastrous military venture

On 25 July 1988, only days after Iran-Iraq governments accepted the UN Security Council Resolution 598 that called for a cease fire in the eight-year long war, Mojahedin Khalq Organization (MKO, MEK, PMOI, NCR, NLA) launched its major military invasion onto the Iranian borders. Supported by Iraqi army and its air cover, Rajavi dispatched his estimated 7000 forces National Liberation Army (NLA) to demonstrate his organization’s military potentiality in a four-day lasted operation, the great ”Operation Eternal Light” as the organization called it and the organization’s irreversible suicide operation as many critics referred to it. Although presumed to be a part of Iran-Iraq war, the operation was the most disastrous venture by an organization whose strategy of struggle was mainly built on militarism and terrorism.

In its unclassified 1992 report on the organization, the State Department refers to the operation as an explicit evidence of MKO’s armed struggle and close collaboration with Saddam’s regime.

The group launched its most significant incursion in June and July 1988, when they coordinated an advance into Iran with Iraqi forces. During the same offensive, Iraqi units in other sectors of the front used chemical weapons against Iran. NLA units briefly seized the Iranian border towns of Mehran, Karand, and Islamabad-e Gharb. The Mojahedin claimed to have killed 40,000 Iranians, but other military observers said the, NLA "just got wiped out" when Iranian reinforcements arrived.

MKO’s Eternal Light withstood nothing more than a short, four-day lasted spark. The operation on which MKO had heavily invested turned to be a total military failure and a proven suicide operation that led 1304 forces, according to the organization’s own report, to their sacrifice. In fact, MKO hurried to take advantage of a no-war no-peace situation created after the ceasefire in limbo, a golden opportunity for Rajavi to take his last chance totally disregarding the high cost it would impose. Of course, Rajavi knew beforehand what the result could be when he decided to pass over the borders of a country that had survived eight years a war that had wore out Saddam’s army. But he was desperately in need of and search for an outlet out of an inevitable cul-de-sac rather than to accomplish a strategic necessity. An analysis of the operation from the political and tactical point of view and Rajavi’s rationalization of the operation indicates that the move was the outcome of a desperate situation that had completely immobilized Mojahedin both in political and military fronts.
It was a fact many of group’s sympathizers, advocates and even critics and other opposition were well aware, but they were all shocked to see that a group that had once concentrated all its campaign marrow in a form of militia warfare and had already suffered great loss, suddenly and unbelievably had shifted to a classic military tack to start a big cross-border operation.

The failure of the operation Eternal Light initiated challenges against Rajavi’s egocentric decision-making that had led hundreds of recruits, many of them arrived in Iraq only a few days prior to the operation with the list military training, to their death. Most of his critics believe that the operation was in no way correspondent with the organization’s line of strategy and that, Rajavi’s uncertain analysis of the post cease-fire situation compelled him to make a hasty decision to create a ‘turning point’ to attract the attention of those in the West to be relied as a potential tool to be utilized against the Iranian regime. As stated in its later analyses, MKO claimed that “What distinguishes the Eternal Light Operation, making it a "turning point," is not its unique military achievements alone, but more importantly, its strategic political and historic significance”.

In spite of MKO’s widespread terrorist operations of bombing and assassination inside Iran and its later out-of-the-border organized hit and run operations perpetrated in the last three decades as well as its broadly launched military operation like that of the Eternal Light, it seems that the organization has never been considered a serious threat for the Iranian regime. But the consequence of such irrefutable charges of militarism and terrorist atrocities for MKO was to be globally recognized as a terrorist group. However, the good part is that the history and the recorded facts can never be distorted. But some Western countries tried to when they made a sudden U-turn and decided to declare that MKO was no more a terrorist organization; they still continue their negligence and unclear position takings toward Mojahedin due to political considerations. People have eyes to see and minds to think even if some so-called court of justice proceeds inexpertly to discolor the spots of a leopard.

July 28, 2010 0 comments

USA

The DOS responses to previous demands of MKO designation review

The judgment of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia urging the State Department to review its decision to label MKO as a terrorist is the last of a quintuple series concerning MKO’s designations by the Secretary of State. The following text is the last response by the Department of State denying MKO petition for review of the order in question. The three previous responses are also linked in this last one. The response well indicates that the State Department has never changed its views about the inclusion of the notorious MKO terrorists and has ever insisted that the group’s designation complied with the governing statute and all constitutional requirements. We have to wait to see how sincere and determined America is in its war against terrorism when it designates a group as a FTO on sound evidences.

National Council of Resistance of Iran, Petitioner, v. Department of State and Colin L. Powell, Secretary of State, Respondents

United States Court of Appeals, District of Columbia Circuit. – 373 F.3d 152

Argued April 2, 2004 Decided July 9, 2004

On Petition for Review of Orders of the Department of State.

Paul F. Enzinna argued the cause and filed the briefs for petitioner. Martin D. Minsker entered an appearance.

Douglas Letter, Litigation Counsel, U.S. Department of Justice, argued the cause for respondents. With him on the brief was Peter D. Keisler, Assistant Attorney General.

Before: HENDERSON, GARLAND, and ROBERTS, Circuit Judges.

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge ROBERTS.

ROBERTS, Circuit Judge:

1 This is the fourth in a series of related cases concerning the biennial designations by the Secretary of State of the Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization (MEK)1 and its aliases as a foreign terrorist organization (FTO). See People’s Mojahedin Org. of Iran v. Dep’t of State, 182 F.3d 17 (D.C.Cir.1999) (PMOI I); National Council of Resistance of Iran v. Dep’t of State, 251 F.3d 192 (D.C.Cir.2001) (NCRI); People’s Mojahedin Org. of Iran v. Dep’t of State, 327 F.3d 1238 (D.C.Cir.2003) (PMOI II); see generally 8 U.S.C. § 1189. In 1999, and again in 2001, the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) was determined by the Secretary of State to be an alias of MEK and was accordingly also designated an FTO. See 1999 Designation, 64 Fed.Reg. at 55,112; 2001 Redesignation, 66 Fed.Reg. at 51,089. In May 2003, after a remand to cure certain due process deficiencies, see NCRI, 251 F.3d at 208-09, the Secretary decided to leave in place the 1999 and 2001 designations of NCRI as an FTO. NCRI now again petitions for review. After reviewing NCRI’s arguments, the entirety of the administrative record, and certain classified materials appended to that record, we conclude that the Secretary’s latest designation complied with the governing statute and all constitutional requirements. We therefore deny the petition for review.

2 The Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA) empowers the Secretary of State to designate an entity as an FTO whenever the Secretary determines that (1) the entity is foreign; (2) it engages in terrorist activity; and (3) the terrorist activity threatens the security of the United States or its nationals. 8 U.S.C. § 1189(a)(1). A designation as an FTO persists for two years, after which the Secretary may redesignate the entity as an FTO for a succeeding two-year period upon finding that the statutory circumstances still exist. Id. § 1189(a)(4)(B).

3 An FTO designation visits serious consequences on the affected organization: The Secretary of the Treasury may require financial institutions to freeze any assets of the FTO, id. § 1189(a)(2)(C); the members and representatives of the FTO become ineligible to enter the United States, id. § 1182(a)(3)(B)(i)(IV), (V); and anyone who knowingly provides "material support or resources" to the FTO — including any donation of money — may be prosecuted and imprisoned for up to fifteen years, 18 U.S.C. § 2339B(a)(1). The manifest purpose of these provisions is to deny terrorist organizations support — financial or otherwise — in and from the United States. See H.R. REP. NO. 104-383, at 43-45 (1995) (House Report on AEDPA’s primary predecessor bill).

4 Despite these serious consequences of designation, the governing statute affords suspect entities only "truncated" participation in the administrative process leading to the designation and "quite limited" judicial review after the fact. NCRI, 251 F.3d at 196. As we noted in PMOI I, "unlike the run-of-the-mill administrative proceeding," "there is [under AEDPA] no adversary hearing, no presentation of what courts and agencies think of as evidence, [and] no advance notice to the entity affected by the Secretary’s internal deliberations." 182 F.3d at 19. Once the Secretary has designated an entity an FTO, the statute directs us to "hold unlawful and set aside a designation" only if we find it to be:

5 (A) arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, or otherwise not in accordance with law;

6 (B) contrary to constitutional right, power, privilege, or immunity;

7 (C) in excess of statutory jurisdiction, authority, or limitation, or short of statutory right;

8 (D) lacking substantial support in the administrative record taken as a whole or in classified information submitted to the court [ex parte and in camera], or

9 (E) not in accord with the procedures required by law.

10 8 U.S.C. § 1189(b)(3). Although the statute permits this court to base its review either "solely upon the administrative record" "taken as a whole," or as supplemented by any classified information submitted by the Secretary, the Act makes no provision for the disclosure of that classified material to the designated entity. See id. § 1189(b)(2), (3)(D); see generally 28 C.F.R. pt. 17 (governing access to classified national security information).

11 In 1997, and every two years since, the Secretary has designated MEK an FTO. See 1997 Designation, 62 Fed.Reg. at 52,650; 1999 Designation, 64 Fed.Reg. at 55,112; 2001 Redesignation, 66 Fed.Reg. at 51,089; 2003 Redesignation, 68 Fed.Reg. at 56,861. Starting in 1999, the Secretary added NCRI to the list of designated FTOs, having concluded that NCRI was an alias of MEK. See 1999 Designation, 64 Fed.Reg. at 55,112 ("I hereby designate … the following organization as a foreign terrorist organization: … Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization … also known as National Council of Resistance, also known as NCR."). NCRI now, for the second time, seeks review of that designation. In NCRI’s previous challenge — brought jointly with MEK — we concluded that both the 1999 designation of MEK as an FTO and the designation of NCRI as an alias of MEK satisfied the requirements of the statute. Specifically concerning NCRI, we held — based on the record then presented to us by the Secretary — that the Secretary’s conclusion that NCRI was an alias of MEK "does not lack substantial support and … is neither arbitrary, capricious, nor otherwise not in accordance with law." NCRI, 251 F.3d at 199.

12 As a constitutional matter, however, we determined that the procedures afforded by the statute and employed by the Secretary in arriving at those designations violated both organizations’ due process rights. See id. at 208-09. We did not vacate the Secretary’s designation as to either MEK or NCRI, but remanded to the Secretary with instructions that each entity be afforded the opportunity to: (1) respond to any part of the Secretary’s administrative record that is not classified material; (2) file evidence on its own behalf; and (3) be meaningfully heard by the Secretary. Id. at 210.

13 Both MEK and NCRI availed themselves of these opportunities. NCRI submitted voluminous materials that purported to demonstrate that it was sufficiently independent of MEK that it could not be considered an alias of that organization. On September 24, 2001, the State Department informed MEK and NCRI that the Secretary had decided to leave the 1999 designation of MEK in place but that "no such determination regarding the NCRI as an alias of the MEK is possible at this time." Letter of Ambassador Francis X. Taylor, Coordinator for Counterterrorism, U.S. Dep’t of State, at 2 (Sept. 24, 2001). This was shortly followed, on October 5, 2001, by the Secretary’s redesignation of both MEK as an FTO and NCRI as an alias of MEK. See 2001 Redesignation, 66 Fed.Reg. at 51,089. At that time, the State Department assured NCRI that although "the present situation… requires continued designation of [NCRI] as an alias of MEK for now," upon the completion of review of NCRI’s submissions, "the Secretary will make a de novo determination in light of the entire record, including the material you have submitted." Letter of Ambassador Francis X. Taylor, Coordinator for Counterterrorism, U.S. Dep’t of State, at 1 (Oct. 5, 2001).

14 Nearly a year later, the State Department provided for NCRI’s review additional materials obtained by the FBI in the course of "its long-running investigation of the MEK and NCRI." Letter of Ambassador Francis X. Taylor, Coordinator for Counterterrorism, U.S. Dep’t of State, at 1 (Sept. 4, 2002). Within two months, NCRI submitted its response. See Letter of Paul F. Enzinna, Esq. (Nov. 1, 2002). In May 2003, the State Department completed its review process and, on May 24, the Secretary decided to leave in place the 1999 and 2001 "designations of the National Council of Resistance (NCR) and the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) as foreign terrorist organization aliases of the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK)." Action Mem. from William Pope & William H. Taft, IV to the Secretary of State, at 3 (May 22, 2003) (Action Mem.). NCRI now petitions for review of this latest decision.

15 NCRI’s primary argument is that the Secretary’s conclusion that NCRI is an alias of MEK lacks substantial support in the administrative record. NCRI insists that it is an umbrella organization of Iranian dissident persons and groups of which MEK is only a single member, no more powerful than any other. In addressing this contention, we begin with our earlier holding in this action. In NCRI, we concluded — based on the record then presented to us — that the Secretary’s designation of NCRI as an alias of MEK "does not lack substantial support and … is neither arbitrary, capricious, nor otherwise not in accordance with law." 251 F.3d at 199. Although that decision is obviously not determinative of the question before us today — we are now reviewing a record that has since been supplemented both by the Government and NCRI — its holding must nevertheless inform our decision here. Logically, NCRI’s challenge can succeed only if the new record materials establish its independence from MEK so that we can no longer affirm that "the Secretary, on the face of things, had enough information before [him] to come to the conclusion" that NCRI is an alias of MEK. Id. Having reviewed the supplemented administrative record as a whole and the classified information appended to it, we conclude that NCRI has not met this burden.

16 To explain our decision, we must first review what it means — in the very particular context of AEDPA — for one organization to be an alias of another. On its previous appeal, NCRI argued that the Secretary lacked authority under AEDPA to designate an entity an FTO based on a finding that it was an alias of another designated FTO. See id. at 200. We rejected that contention, finding that the grant of authority to designate FTOs "implies the authority to so designate an entity that commits the necessary terrorist acts under some other name." Id. In so doing, we used a mathematics metaphor — specifically, the transitive property — to describe the alias concept: "Logically, indeed mathematically, if A equals B and B equals C, it follows that A equals C. If the NCRI is the [MEK], and if the [MEK] is a foreign terrorist organization, then the NCRI is a foreign terrorist organization also." Id.; see also id. ("If the Secretary has the power to work those dire consequences on an entity calling itself `Organization A,’ the Secretary must be able to work the same consequences on the same entity while it calls itself `Organization B.’"). Seizing upon our earlier invocation of the transitive property, NCRI now argues that the administrative record does not demonstrate that "A equals B" — that is, that NCRI equals MEK — and therefore NCRI cannot be an alias of MEK. Indeed, NCRI rightly points out that even the State Department acknowledges that NCRI and MEK are not " one and the same." See Pet. Reply Br. 4-6.

17 Implicit in NCRI’s argument, however, is a mistaken assumption that the alias concept, under AEDPA, is bounded by the transitive property. This reads too much into our mathematical metaphor in NCRI. See Berkey v. Third Ave. Ry. Co., 244 N.Y. 84, 94, 155 N.E. 58 (1926) (Cardozo, J.) ("Metaphors in law are to be narrowly watched, for starting as devices to liberate thought, they end often by enslaving it."). While it is certainly correct to use the term alias to describe scenarios where a single entity is known by more than one name — for instance, Mojahedin-e Khalq is an alias for People’s Mojahedin, two names for the same organization, one Farsi, the other English — nothing in AEDPA or any more general rule of logic or language requires that the application of the alias concept be strictly limited to such circumstances.

18 To the contrary, our citation in NCRI to First National City Bank v. Banco Para El Comercio Exterior de Cuba, 462 U.S. 611, 103 S.Ct. 2591, 77 L.Ed.2d 46 (1983), indicates that we intended the alias concept to have a sweep beyond the transitive. In that case, which concerned a suit brought by Banco Para El Comercio Exterior (BPECE) against First National City Bank for performance under a letter of credit, the Supreme Court held that First National could counterclaim for setoff of the value of its assets that had been seized and nationalized by the Cuban government, notwithstanding the fact that BPECE had been established by the Cuban government as a juridical entity separate from the government. See id. at 623-34, 103 S.Ct. at 2598-2603. Acknowledging a presumption that "government instrumentalities established as juridical entities distinct and independent from their sovereign should normally be treated as such," id. at 626-27, 103 S.Ct. at 2599, the Court nevertheless concluded that the normally separate juridical status had to be set aside where the Cuban government was the real party in interest behind BPECE’s letter of credit claim, id. at 632, 103 S.Ct. at 2602. The Court, in reaching its conclusion, looked to ordinary principles of agency law, noting that "where a corporate entity is so extensively controlled by its owner that a relationship of principal and agent is created, we have held that one may be held liable for the actions of the other." Id. at 629, 103 S.Ct. at 2600 (citing NLRB v. Deena Artware, Inc., 361 U.S. 398, 402-04, 80 S.Ct. 441, 442, 4 L.Ed.2d 400 (1960)). We think those same ordinary principles of agency law are fairly encompassed by the alias concept under AEDPA. When one entity so dominates and controls another that they must be considered principal and agent, it is appropriate, under AEDPA, to look past their separate juridical identities and to treat them as aliases.

19 The inclusion of these fundamental precepts of agency law within AEDPA’s alias concept is entirely consistent with — indeed, necessary to — the effective pursuit of the statute’s objective of denying support in and from the United States to terrorist organizations. Just as it is silly to suppose "that Congress empowered the Secretary to designate a terrorist organization… only for such periods of time as it took such organization to give itself a new name, and then let it happily resume the same status it would have enjoyed had it never been designated," NCRI, 251 F.3d at 200, so too it is implausible to think that Congress permitted the Secretary to designate an FTO to cut off its support in and from the United States, but did not authorize the Secretary to prevent that FTO from marshaling all the same support via juridically separate agents subject to its control. For instance, under NCRI’s conception, the Government could designate XYZ organization as an FTO in an effort to block United States support to that organization, but could not, without a separate FTO designation, ban the transfer of material support to XYZ’s fundraising affiliate, FTO Fundraiser, Inc. The crabbed view of alias status advanced by NCRI is at war not only with the antiterrorism objective of AEDPA, but common sense as well.

20 We need not plumb all the complexities of agency law to determine when an agent, under AEDPA, is the alias of its principal. It is sufficient for our purposes to note that the requisite relationship for alias status is established at least when one organization so dominates and controls another that the latter can no longer be considered meaningfully independent from the former. See, e.g., NLRB v. Deena Artware, Inc., 361 U.S. 398, 403, 80 S.Ct. 441, 443, 4 L.Ed.2d 400 (1960) ("`Dominion may be so complete, interference so obtrusive, that by the general rules of agency the parent will be a principal and the subsidiary an agent.’") (quoting Berkey, 244 N.Y. at 95, 155 N.E. 58); Casino Ready Mix, Inc. v. NLRB, 321 F.3d 1190, 1196 (D.C.Cir.2003) ("`agent’ is one who agrees to act `subject to [a principal’s] control’") (quoting RESTATEMENT (SECOND) OF AGENCY § 1, cmt. a (1958)); cf. Transamerica Leasing, Inc. v. La Republica de Venezuela, 200 F.3d 843, 848 (D.C.Cir.2000) ("A sovereign is amenable to suit based upon the actions of an instrumentality it dominates because the sovereign and the instrumentality are in those circumstances not meaningfully distinct entities; they act as one.").

21 We thus frame our inquiry here as whether "the Secretary, on the face of things, had enough information before [him] to come to the conclusion" that NCRI was dominated and controlled by MEK. PMOI I, 182 F.3d at 25. Based on our review of the entire administrative record and the classified materials appended thereto, we find that the Secretary did have an adequate basis for his conclusion. While our determination is buttressed by classified information provided to us on an ex parte and in camera basis — the contents of which we cannot discuss — the voluminous unclassified materials contained in the administrative record by themselves and by a comfortable margin provide sufficient support for the Secretary’s conclusion, given the standard of review. It would serve little purpose to catalogue all the material in the administrative record supporting the conclusion that NCRI is dominated and controlled by MEK, but we will set out below a few of the pieces of information we found to be most compelling. As we do so, it bears repeating that AEDPA does not permit us, in exercising our limited judicial review, to make any "judgment whatsoever regarding whether the material before the Secretary is or is not true," but allows us to inquire only whether the Secretary "had enough information before [him] to come to the conclusion" that NCRI is dominated and controlled by MEK. Id.

22 After an extensive investigation of MEK and NCRI, the FBI reported to the State Department that "[i]t is the unanimous view of the FBI personnel who are involved in and familiar with the FBI’s investigation of the [MEK] that the NCRI is not a separate organization, but is instead, and has been, an integral part of the MEK at all relevant times." Letter of Charles Frahm, Section Chief, International Terrorism Operations Section II, at 1 (Aug. 28, 2002). Contrary to NCRI’s portrayal of itself as an umbrella organization, of which the MEK was just one member, the FBI concluded that it is NCRI that is "the political branch" of the MEK. Id. Attach. at 1.

23 This conclusion was based in large part on evidence gathered from the search — executed in December 2001 pursuant to a valid warrant — of a house in Falls Church, Virginia apparently used as office space by both NCRI and MEK. There, the FBI discovered NCRI and MEK materials "commingled together, and not separated," including bank records, signed blank checks, MEK propaganda, NCRI publications, travel documents, and letterhead which listed the same French address for each organization. Id. Attach. at 2-4. Crucially, among the recovered documents was a schematic breakdown of the "Iranian Resistance," which described NCRI as "The Political Branch" of the movement. Id. at Tab 6.

24 Additionally, earlier investigations of MEK and NCRI had revealed that the two organizations shared an essentially unitary leadership structure. The overall head of MEK, Massoud Rajavi, also leads NCRI. And Rajavi’s wife, Maryam Rajavi, was selected by NCRI to be Iran’s President-inExile. Id. Attach. at 2; see also id. Attach. at 4 ("The leadership of [MEK] and NCRI is intermixed, and the entities operate in a day-to-day way as a single unit."). These facts corroborated the FBI’s earlier conclusion prior to the 2001 designation of NCRI as an FTO that "the NCR/NCRI is in fact controlled by and inseparable from the MEK." Decl. of Agent Michael Rolince (quoted in Action Mem., Tab 2 at 11).

25 The State Department acknowledged that "NCRI has submitted numerous affidavits purporting to show that it is not controlled by the MEK and is not an MEK front," and even credited some of NCRI’s "subsidiary points." Action Mem., Tab 2 at 12, 9. The agency, however, concluded that "the evidence developed by the FBI is convincingly to the contrary." Id. Tab 2 at 12. It may be true that the State Department relied very heavily on the conclusions of the counterterrorism experts of the FBI. As noted above, though, under the narrow powers of judicial review Congress has accorded to us under AEDPA, it is emphatically not our province to second-guess the Secretary’s judgment as to which affidavits to credit and upon whose conclusions to rely. We are to judge only whether the "support" marshaled for the Secretary’s designation was "substantial." 8 U.S.C. § 1189(b)(3)(D). We conclude that the support for the Secretary’s conclusion that NCRI was dominated and controlled by, and thus was an alias of, MEK was indeed substantial, and we therefore reject NCRI’s statutory challenge to its designation as an FTO.

26 This leaves only NCRI’s constitutional challenges to certain procedures employed in making that designation. Specifically, NCRI argues that due process requires that (1) it be provided access to any classified materials that the Secretary relied upon in making the designation, and (2) it have an adversary hearing before the agency at which it could confront witnesses against it. Both these arguments are foreclosed by our earlier decisions in NCRI and PMOI II. See 251 F.3d at 208-09, 327 F.3d at 1242-43. Concerning NCRI’s claim that it is entitled to review classified materials, in NCRI we wrote that the government "need not disclose the classified information to be presented in camera and ex parte to the court under the statute." 251 F.3d at 208. In PMOI II, addressing the same claim, this time brought by MEK, we were even more emphatic: "We reject this contention…. We already decided in [NCRI] that due process required the disclosure of only the unclassified portions of the administrative record." 327 F.3d at 1242. PMOI II also disposes of NCRI’s claim for an adversary hearing. There, we held that NCRI established the constitutional baseline for fair process and, the Government having complied with those commands on remand, that "nothing further is due." Id. at 1243. We reach the same conclusion with regard to NCRI.

The Mojahedin-e Khalq translates into English as People’s Mojahedin. [AR268] The Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization (MEK) is known in English as the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI). Our prior decisions have variously referred to the Mojahedin-e Khalq as MEK, People’s Mojahedin of Iran, and PMOICompare PMOI I, 182 F.3d at 20 ("the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran — the MEK, for short"), with NCRI, 251 F.3d at 197 ("petitioner People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (`PMOI’)"). To limit confusion, wherever possible we will use the terms Mojahedin-e Khalq and MEK, and, except in case names, not the terms People’s Mojahedin or PMOI. We adopt this convention because it is the Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization that the Secretary has designated as a foreign terrorist organization. See Designation of Foreign Terrorist Organizations, 62 Fed.Reg. 52,650 (Oct. 8, 1997) (1997 Designation); Designation of Foreign Terrorist Organizations, 64 Fed.Reg. 55,112 (Oct. 8, 1999) (1999 Designation); Redesignation of Foreign Terrorist Organizations, 66 Fed.Reg. 51,088, 51,089 (Oct. 5, 2001) (2001 Redesignation); Redesignation of Foreign Terrorist Organizations, 68 Fed.Reg. 56,860, 56,861 (Oct. 2, 2003) (2003 Redesignation).

July 21, 2010 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

The US, MKO, and the Global War on Terrorism

In a research report by Margaret D. Stock published in Refugee Council USA (RCUSA) in 2006, she has explored one of the stranger and more embarrassing legal conundrums arising out of efforts by the US Congress to tighten the immigration and criminal laws relating to terrorism. The case she delved into is the terrorist organization (MKO, MEK, PMOI, NCR, NLA) that since 1997 the Secretary of State Madeleine Albright designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO), a group that has since remained on the list.

As The Department of Justice has been prosecuting and deporting persons who provide material support to MKO, at the same time, the Department of Defense has designated Iraq-based members of the group as “protected persons” under the Fourth Geneva Convention, and is maintaining its members at Camp Ashraf in Iraq, where in full awareness of its designation as a FTO the U.S. military personnel provide “material support” to the group.

Although four years old, the research report gives especial attention to the existing internal conflict in the administration wherein some party equivocate about the nature and the status of the organization for certain political interests. And MKO has long survived in Washington policy crevices and has been rallying support from conflicting factions to challenge its designation on the list. Cunning seizers of opportunity as MKO is, it knows when to take advantage of a created political gap between the administration and the group’s adversary in the political arena. As Ervand Abrahamian, a history professor at Baruch College in New York asserts about MKO,”They have a lot of money. They have spokesmen who know how to deal with congressmen and the press. But people who sign their petitions don’t know anything about the mujahedeen. […] It’s hypocritical. If we are running a war against terrorism and one day we define a group as terrorists and the next day they cease to be terrorists, that undermines U.S. credibility.”

Link to the main text (pdf)

July 20, 2010 0 comments

The cult of Rajavi

Cultic identity formation in Mojahedin Khalq

To stripe somebody of his individual identity to replace it with a new identity has been a common process in majority of all contemporary cults. This cult identity is created by sophisticated mind control techniques and it does not represent the whole individual. Steven Hassan stresses that “[cult] members are taught to suppress negative personal thoughts and emotions. They are trained to speak only positively of their involvement. When the cult member says he is "happy," it is usually the cult identity who is talking. The cult self is doing what it has been instructed to do”. 1

As cults have developed their own principles and rules, their reactions to the outside world are based on some certain criteria different from that of other political and social organizations that have to exercise the discipline of their own in order to achieve certain objectives; however, rarely they make use of any process to forge identities. At the present, cults are largely in need of obedient and submissive members whose mentality can be shaped through a change of identity and our aim here is to take a brief look at the concepts of individual identity, cult identity and investigate the process of setting up new identity in MKO similar to that of other cults.

We may consider the individual identity as the sum of mental and ideological beliefs of a person and the extent to which he is affected by the environment out of the cult. On the contrary, the detachment of the person from such beliefs and values by means of a system controlling his behavioral, mental and psychological aspects constitute one of the major goals of cults. Such a replacement of values leading to a new cult personality makes the person struggling with many contradictions to adapt his potentiality in line with cult objectives. In other words, cult identity neutralizes the individual identity of the members. In fact all the cultist instructions depend on such a mechanism for actualization.

As such, cults make their best to recruit members with unstable identity and ready to acquire cult identity due to their political, emotional and familial discouragements in order to play the major role in the quantitative growth of cults. Under the impact of a new identity, members easily submit to cultic domination and whatever sacrifices for the cult causes. Eric Hoffer evaluates the factor of devotion based on the cult identity. He believes that the relation between these concepts may clarify the nature of members’ full obedience to cultist instructions:

To RIPEN A PERSON for self-sacrifice he must be stripped of his individual identity and distinctness. He must cease to be George, Hans, van, or Tadao- a human atom with an existence bounded by birth and death. 2

Reviewing the historical cults may reveal the role of such a factor. The earliest religious cults such as Isma’ilis (Hasan Sabbah) tried hard to instill a kind of cult identity into members. They declared openly that members had to do something more than self-sacrifice for leaders and consider the extent of obedience as the main measure for a new cult identity. Therefore, they asked their members to put the principle of absolute obedience into action rather than pretending by merely saying it. What the leaders asked members was to have absolute faith in the cult’s commands:

We don’t ask Fedayeen [self-sacrificers] for passion but for a sound belief. We are to be sure that in case of issuing any order for any of our Fedayeen, there is nothing to prevent it. 3
Cultist relations of Mojahedin, as the most typical political leftist cult, are the same as that of Hasan Sabbah’s cult. The term "spiritual journey" refers to the negation of individual personality and development of a cultist one instead. The theoreticians of Mojahedin resort to mystical concepts in order to justify their procedures and approaches saying:

In spiritual journey, no question is allowed. The wayfarer has to put his faith in Sheikh wholeheartedly and must regard him as the most perfect person to conduct him in spiritual training, guidance and education, be his interlocutor and obey Sheikh far from any inward or outward objection. 4

Then a quotation from Maulavi, the Persian mystic poet, is resorted to:

A wayfarer has no responsibility and should be submissive like a piece of wood in the hands of carpenter. 5
An intellectual outlook does not bear such a procedure and also may denounce it. Mojahedin are against any spiritual identity but have to pretend to its reception. They analyze the

mechanism of such a new identity as follows:

It is evident that such a process does not follow a logical trend. Its dominant factor is not reason nor logic but love and emotion. Its means is not discussion nor justification but blind obedience. Herein Masoud asks for Mojahedin’s hearts. 6

Contemporary cults resort to such techniques in order to establish subordinate identities in which their members have to replace their external ties with internal ones. A new identity is regarded as the origin of cults’ power. Therefore, external bonds are the main barriers in the way of a new identity replaced by cultist models. Hofer refers to such a process saying:
The chief burden of the frustrated is the consciousness of a blemished, ineffectual self, and their chief desire is to slough off the unwanted self and begin a new life. They try to realize this desire either by finding ‘a new identity blurring and camouflaging their individual distinct- and both these ends are reached by imitation. 7
From a cultist viewpoint, a new identity works as a new faith to which a member has to be attached. It may tie an individual to an ideological group, band, political party or any ritual concept. In this regard, Hoffer writes:

Faith here is primarily a process of identification; the process by which the individual ceases to be himself and becomes part of something eternal. Faith in humanity, in posterity, in the destiny of one’s religion, ation, race, party or family -what is it but the visualization of that eternal some- tiling to which we attach the self that is about to be annihilated? 8
The relationship between cults and producing of new identities is a complex one and varies widely from cult to cult. But what is common is that the main goal of producing a new identity in cults is to make insiders dependant on the cult and to be obedient. The mechanisms the cults exploit to achieve the goal are interrelated but each can be discussed separately since they are all prerequisites for insiders’ persuasion and control and the final transformation of the recruits into real cultists. It will not be wrong to say that whatever the cults do is to cut the members off from the outside world to produce a new identity and belief totally different from what the members previously held as right and dear. The process finished, the insiders will adopt a new and reborn personality as Singer states:

As part of the intense influence and change process in many cults, people take on a new social identity, which may or may not be obvious to an outsider. When groups refer to this new identity, they speak of members who are transformed, reborn, enlightened, empowered, rebirthed, or cleared. The group’ approved behavior is reinforced and reinterpreted as demonstrating the emergence of "the new person." Members are expected to display this new identity. 9
The new personality totally split from the outside world is manipulated for a variety of group tasks based on the objectives of the group and cult that consider the outsiders as the enemies who have to be confronted:

The conflicts a mass movement seek and incites serve not only to down its enemies but also to strip its followers of their distinct individuality and render them more soluble in the collective medium. 10

As Hoffer asserts, a cultist personality is formed to be submissive to the inner-cultic relations that have priority to outwardly demonstrated ambitions and goals. The members undergoing overall identity change easily consent to any means of changing behaviour and conduct. Thus, cults can successfully accomplish their goal of binding new members to the group. Considering the stages people will go through as their attitudes are changed by the group environment and the thought reform processes, Singer points to psychologist Edgar Schein’s second stages of three:

During this second stage, you sense that the solutions offered by the group provide a path to follow. You feel that anxiety, uncertainty, and self-doubt can be reduced by adopting the concepts put forth by the group or leader. Additionally, you observe the behavior of the longer, term members, and you begin to emulate their ways. As social psychology experiments and observations have found for decades, once a person makes an open commitment before others to an idea, his or her subsequent behavior generally supports and reinforces the stated commitment. That is, if you say in front of others that you are making a commitment to be "pure," then you will feel pressured to follow what others define as the path of purity. 11

There are also the eight psychological themes that psychiatrist Robert Lifton has identified as central to totalistic environments and cults invoke these themes for the purpose of promoting behavioural and attitudinal changes in the members. The third theme, demand for purity, depicts two opposite world of black and white; the cult being an absolutely white and clean world versus the black and evil world of outside. Of course, the members with a new personality have no other choice but to think and act according to cult’s ideology and drawn strategy:

An us-versus-them orientation is promoted by the all-or-nothing belief system of the group: we are right; they (outsiders, nonmembers) are wrong, evil, unenlightened, and so forth. Each idea or act is good or bad, pure or evil. Recruits gradually take in, or internalize, the critical, shaming essence of the cult environment, which builds up lots of guilt and shame. Most groups put forth that there is only one way to think, respond, or act in any given situation. There is no in between, and members are expected to judge themselves and others by this all-or-nothing standard. 12

The process of producing identity within MKO follows the same mechanism as practiced in other cults and its orientation began with the start of the internal ideological revolution. All the members undergoing the revolution process have admitted, unveiled by the ex-members, their identity change, and the result was development of a long distance between their organizational and personal identities. It was instilled into them that their identity would be prompted based on the extent of adherence to the ideological system of the group and denial of any personal identity. In a written testimony by a member of MKO, he is somehow proud of his new identity that believes has granted him a new insight into his within and without:

Personality, egocentrism, self-reliance and individualism are all souvenirs of the bourgeoisie’s worthless humanism that distanced me from the organization as far as its degree of its impact on me. I was unworthy and this barred me to drink the pure, life-giving instructions of the organization and was leaving me alone in a desolate waste-land with no way out. I was enslaved by dominant ambiguities within me. When I failed to overcome the ongoing struggle inside me, I was even more vulnerable to the outside misfortunes and could not even face them. 13

The member’s confession well depicts his identity destabilization and what psychologists call an identity crisis. He looks back at his own world and values to find out that he has been wrong in the past. This process makes him uncertain about what is right, what to do, and which choices to make and of course, as he admits, only the cult-like instructions of the organization can lead him to what is inspired to be the right path. Consequently, he takes on a new organizational identity which he considers a change for the better. In the process, he, as the member of a cult, detaches from his most dear ideas and attachments which he discovers to have been nothing beyond a barren waste-land for the identity reborn, a utopia in the horizon he fails to dismiss easily. Masoud Banisadr, another separated member of MKO, in his memoir relates of the time when sat tearing whatever attached him to the past under the commands of the organization:

This time I attacked my old photographs from my own childhood till marriage and up to then, my parents photographs as I wanted to deny all of them, my father who was perhaps responsible for my bourgeois tendencies and my mother who was responsible of my own ‘mild’ and ‘gentle’ behaviour known as liberal ones. Anna seeing me taking all those photographs and albums, with anger, was quietly crying, then when I attacked our marriage Album she start crying louder, and asked me to stop it. She said those are not just yours . . . but I was not listening to her and took everything and put them in a rubbish bag. 14

Quoting Lifton’s forth theme, through a cult’s instructions, members are told whatever connects them to their former lives is wrong and has to be avoided, a fact well affirmed by MKO’s ex-members:

Through the confession process and by instruction in the group’s teachings, members learn that everything about their former lives, including friends, family, and non-members, is wrong and to be avoided. Outsiders will put you at risk of not attaining the purported goal: they will lessen your psychological awareness, hinder the group’s political advancement, obstruct your path toward ultimate knowledge, or allow you to become stuck in your past life and incorrect thinking. 15

That is why MKO refer to members’ solubility in the organizational identity as a “reborn” or “identity salvation”. The organization, being transformed into a cult, pursues the same cult mechanism of altering the members’ personal identity to produce a new identity.

References:
1. Steven Hassan’s Releasing the Bonds: Empowering People to Think for Themselves. FOM Press, 2000.2. Eric Hoffer; The true believer, Harper &. Row, Publishers, New York, 1966, p.60.
3. Paul Amir; The Lord of Alamout, p.45.
4. Niyabati, B. A different look at the ideological revolution within MKO, p.32
5. ibid, p.40
6. ibid, p.15
7. Eric Hoffer; The true believer, Harper &. Row, Publishers, New York, 1966, p.94.
8. ibid, p. 62.
9. Margaret Thaler Singer; Cults in Our Midst, JOSSEY-BASS, 2003, p. 78.
10. Eric Hoffer; The true believer, Harper &. Row, Publishers, New York, 1966, p. 112.
11. Margaret Thaler Singer; Cults in Our Midst, JOSSEY-BASS, 2003, p. 76.
12. Ibid, 71.
13. Mojahed, no. 252; Abdol-ali Maasoumi’s letter to the ideological revolution.
14. Masoud Banisadr; Memoirs of an Iranian Rebel.
15. Margaret Thaler Singer; Cults in Our Midst, JOSSEY-BASS, 2003, p. 72.

July 18, 2010 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization's Propaganda System

Gathering in Taverney, the new fiasco

At last, after months of manipulating advertising techniques through its sizable direct and cyber propaganda machine, Mojahedin Khalq Organization (MKO, MEK, NCRI, PMOI, NLA) managed to hold its announced gathering at Taverney, near Paris, on 26 June. But what happened in Taverney went against the expectations and predictions regarding the number of the participants of the Iranians living in European countries. Far less than the expected minimum number! The organization itself preferred to remain silent about the exact number of those who gathered in the rally but the responsibility, as usual in such cases, was on the others whom it quoted. For example, Terry Glavin in his covering of the story stated “The NCRI gathering, which drew about 30,000 Iranian exiles from around the world, was more like an outdoor rock concert than a political rally. Jean Bouin Stadium in Taverny, a Paris suburb, was transformed into a sea of mauve hats and mauve sun umbrellas”. Or quoting Al-Quds daily, MKO-run media released “In the Iranian massive gathering held in Paris, nearly 100,000 attended, among them hundreds of youths of the Iranian uprising could be seen who had fled the country”. How such a remarkable difference can be justified is a question that only those who are masters of faking figures can possibly answer.

None of the reporters releasing the news and the event were themselves present at the rally and they only repeated what was put before them by the organization. That is obvious that when the sole reporting eyewitness is the organization itself, the rally is publicized as a gathering of tens of thousands, 30,000, 35,000, and at last 100,000. And to conceal the reluctance of the claimed the exiled Iranian participants, compared with similar events, there was no cover better than “a sea of mauve hats and mauve sun umbrellas”.

As the husband-appointed political wing of the organization, Maryam Ralavi had nothing more to add to her previously stated idea of democratic change in Iran. The new points were attaching the creators of the post-election anarchy in Iran to the organization’s policies and to stress that their move was nothing new but the continuation of the line of struggle MKO had already started: “Your uprising represents the triumph of a path for which Ashraf has been the standard bearer”.

Of the organization’s biggest prides in this gathering was the presence of John Bolton, former US ambassador to the United Nations, who repeated what the organization was delighted to hear, that is the support of the United Sates government for the regime change in Iran and to remove its designation as a terrorist organization. Of course, there were other ex and retired politicians whose only job was to read from the notes the organization had prepared and set before them. MKO rally at Taverney was in fact the end of a scenario MKO’s was planning and advertising to direct and put into practice just coincident with the anniversary of its bloody atrocities in June 1981, when it destroyed all bridges of any democratic struggle behind it and announced an all-out military campaign. And an end to all promises of Rajavi and Maryam Azdanloo in the past few months.

The bomb Massoud and Maryam had promised to explode in the month of June to change everything, and specifically from June 10 to 20, was turned into the purple balloons that were exploded at Taverney’s gatherings; the created sound was hardly audible to the participants at the rally, let alone to the world and the Iranian people. However, the end of this gathering is the beginning of a rather longstanding planned propaganda from which the organization habitually benefits most, to repeat a thing that they know isn’t true, in the hope that if they keep on saying it, others might come to believe it. But it teaches a lesson to the Rajavis and their advocates and sympathizers as well, that the hired masses and paid hirelings to be demonstrated as Iranian people and supporters, although costly, can build no more hope and aspiration.

Of course, the organization had done its best to attract, if not all but a big number, from among the supporters of Mousavi, the leader of the Green Movement, in abroad to bring them to Taverney’s gathering by declaring its backing of his move. The organization hit another failure, anyway, and adding digits to the number of the participants in its razzle-dazzle rally can no longer save it from the abyss of the illusion it is thoroughly drowned in.

July 4, 2010 0 comments

Iran

France’s double-dealing against terrorism

The gathering of Mojahedin Khalq terrorists and their advocates at Taverney, near Paris, on 26 June, just on the anniversary of one the group’s bloodiest terrorist operations inside Iran, has raised suspicions that the group has the support of the West who endorses its violent atrocities perpetrated against the Iranian people and the current regime. Criticizing the West double-dealing concerning the terrorist group, the daily RESALAT, in its editorial entitled “Paris paying tribute to terrorists”, says that the French government allowed Mojahedin Khalq Organization (MKO) members to hold a political rally and a political meeting in a suburb of Paris on the anniversary of the 7th of Tir (June 28) incident, which was the most infamous terrorist act in the history of the Islamic Revolution of Iran.

It continues that granting permission to MKO members to hold a rally and a meeting, which endorsed terrorism and the murder of former Judiciary chief Ayatollah Mohammad Hosseini Beheshti and 72 Iranian officials, once again showed that the French government is a pro-terrorist government. It also shows that the French government is aware of the atrocities committed by the MKO and endorses them. Former U.S. ambassador to the UN John Bolton attended the MKO meeting as an unofficial on representative of the U.S. government, which was the Zionists’ expression of solidarity with the MKO. The MKO members gathered in a suburb of Paris to remind the U.S. and Europe to tighten the sanctions on Iran and to discard respect for human rights and humanitarian considerations. It seems that the U.S. and Europe were in dire need of such a reminder from the MKO.
Resalat

July 3, 2010 0 comments

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