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UN chief tells Mojahedin Khalq in Iraq to move

UNITED NATIONS — The U.N. chief is urging some 1,200 Iranian exiles who are refusing to UN chief tells Mojahedin Khalq in Iraq to move leave Camp Ashraf to cooperate with Iraqi authorities and resettle in a new refugee camp near Baghdad.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Wednesday also urged other countries to give asylum to the People’s Mujahedeen Organization of Iran, an exiled Iranian dissident group that had waged a campaign from foreign bases to overthrow Iran’s clerical government.

The exile group, also known by its Farsi name, Mujahedeen-e-Khalq, have already moved about 2,000 of its residents from Camp Asraf in northern Iraq to a Baghdad refugee camp, Camp Hurriya, which is a former U.S. military base. But they ignored a July 20 deadline to move the remaining 1,200 members, saying they will not go until they see proof of more water, increased electricity, better facilities for sick and disabled people and other improvements to the base. The U.N. says the services there are already far better than at most other refugee camps worldwide.

On Tuesday, Iraqi National Security Adviser Faleh al-Fayadh warned the group to move soon or his government will take matters into its own hands.

Ban expressed "appreciation" for Iraq’s government and urged the refugees to "earnestly prepare for their next transfer."

But he added that "violence should, at all costs, be avoided" and urged Iraq’s government to "exercise restraint."

The People’s Mujahedeen Organization of Iran has been labeled everything from a cult to a terrorist organization — although one that has provided the U.S. with intelligence on Iran. The group says it renounced violence in 2001, after carrying out bloody bombings and assassinations in Iran in the 1980s.

The Iraqi government considers them a terrorist group that is in the country illegally. Over the last six months, the U.N. has tried to mediate, and helped broker an agreement to close Ashraf and temporarily move the exiles into the refugee camp. Ultimately, Iraqi and U.N. officials want to give the Ashraf residents refugee status and resettle them outside of Iraq.

The distrust between the exiles and Iraq’s government has always been palatable, but it peaked after security forces led deadly raids in Ashraf twice in the last four years.

"The government of Iraq receives all of its orders on Ashraf from the Iranian regime, refrains from implementing this simple and practical plan, and it’s planning for the third massacre at Ashraf," the exiles said in a statement Tuesday.

CBS News

August 2, 2012 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization

Mujahadeen-e-Khalq

Mujahadeen-e-Khalq (MEK) (aka People’s Mujahedin of Iran or PMOI)

Introduction
The People’s Mujahedeen of Iran, more commonly known as the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq or MEK, is listed as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) by the United States for its killing of U.S. personnel in Iran during the 1970s and its links to Saddam Hussein in the 1980s and 1990s. The U.S. State Department is considering whether to delist the group, a decision expected later this year.

— — The MEK helped Islamists overthrow the Western-backed Shah in 1979, but broke violently with the clerics shortly after the revolution and were forced into exile in France in 1981. The group moved its base of operations to eastern Iraq in 1986, but a new Iraqi regime has called for the group to be resettled elsewhere in 2012. International efforts have been under way to relocate the group to a temporary base outside Baghdad and then eventually to other countries. The State Department considers MEK’s successful relocation as a "key factor" in its forthcoming decision about delisting. The group publicly renounced terrorism in 2001 and has waged a sophisticated lobbying campaign in Washington to have its official status changed.

Roots of Resistance
MEK was founded in 1963 by leftist Iranian students opposed to the monarchy of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and its supporters in the West, including the United States. Many of MEK’s leaders–including current chief Massoud Rajavi–were imprisoned by the Shah in the 1970s, and several were executed. MEK participated in the 1979 revolution that swept Ayatollah Khomeini into power and supported the takeover of the U.S. Embassy that year. However, MEK’s ideology–a blend of Marxism, feminism, and Islamism–put it at odds with the Ayatollah Khomeini government. The group soon began plotting against the Islamic new government, killing dozens of senior government officials, including the president and prime minister. The clerics retaliated with the arrest and execution of Mujahedeen. Eventually the group was driven into exile in Paris, where Rajavi set up the National Council of Resistance in Iran (NCRI), also known as MEK’s "parliament in exile."

In 1987, the Chirac government expelled Rajavi and much of the MEK as part of a French-Iranian deal (NYT) that freed French hostages held by pro-Iranian groups in Lebanon. The MEK was welcomed into Iraq, where it helped Saddam Hussein wage the eight-year Iran-Iraq War and battle Kurdish uprisings in the north. According to the U.S. State Department, Baghdad armed MEK near the end of the Iran conflict (1980-88) "with heavy military equipment and deployed thousands of MEK fighters in suicidal, mass wave attacks against Iranian forces." Iran’s Revolutionary Guard killed some two thousand MEK in this failed assault, known as "Operation Eternal Light."

MEK’s campaign against the Islamic Republic, including the assassination of high-ranking officials, continued throughout the 1990s and early 2000s. Following the 2003 invasion of Iraq, U.S. forces disarmed the group of heavy weaponry and sequestered it in Camp Ashraf, a 14-square-mile former Iraqi military base in the country’s northeast.

Leadership & Ideology
MEK is led jointly by husband-and-wife team Massoud and Maryam Rajavi, and represents the largest militant Iranian opposition group committed to the overthrow of the Islamic Republic. It is also "the only army in the world with a commander corps composed mostly of women," says former CFR press fellow Elizabeth Rubin. Maryam Rajavi joined the resistance as a student in Tehran in the early 1970s and, at the behest of her husband, assumed joint control of the group in 1985. Feminism and allegiance to the Rajavi family are pillars of MEK ideology, which was founded on both Islam and Marxism–though the group has denied its affiliation with the latter, Rubin says. Some analysts have characterized MEK as a cult (BBC), citing the group’s ardent fealty to the Rajavis and the observance of bizarre practices such as "eternal divorce" and celibacy. Older women were required to divorce their husbands in the late 1980s, and younger girls cannot marry or have children.

Maryam Rajavi was chosen as president-elect of the NCRI in 1993 and, according to the group’s website, expects to oversee a six-month democratic transition in Iran "once the mullahs are toppled." Based out of Paris, she also serves as the group’s chief ambassador to the international community. NCRI’s political platform includes support for human rights, women, capitalism, religious freedom, minority rights, and Iran’s integration into the global community. Massoud Rajavi disappeared following the invasion of Iraq in 2003; his whereabouts and current status are unknown. "Cult leaders generally don’t retire," says Karim Sadjadpour, an Iran expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "They either die or go to prison. I’d be surprised if Massoud Rajavi is still alive," he says.

Size & Support Structure
The U.S. State Department puts MEK global membership between 5,000 and 10,000, with significant contingents in Paris and other European capitals where the group maintains offices, according to an August 2011 report. Approximately 3,400 MEK members reside in Iraq. As of July 2012, two-thirds of them have relocated from Camp Ashraf to Camp Liberty (AFP), a former U.S. military base outside Baghdad.

An MEK front group kept a branch in Washington, DC, until the U.S. Justice Department closed it in 2003. Nonetheless, the group continues to operate a sophisticated network of advocates in the United States (USNews), enlisting the support of dozens of high-profile advocates, including former U.S. officials such as former New York City mayor Rudolph Giuliani and former governors Edward Rendell and Howard Dean. The advocacy is centered on the campaign to delist MEK as a U.S.-designated terrorist organization.

Until 2003, the MEK received funds, arms, and state sponsorship from Saddam Hussein. Since the Iraq invasion, MEK has relied on donations from Iranian expatriates and front organizations that often campaign for greater human rights in Iran, according to the State Department.

Exodus from Ashraf
As part of the 2003 invasion, U.S. forces initially attacked MEK military targets in Iraq despite the group’s claims of neutrality. The sides eventually negotiated a cease-fire that disarmed MEK members and confined them to Camp Ashraf. In 2004, Washington granted the group "protected persons" status under the Geneva Convention. That designation expired after Iraq regained full sovereignty in January 2009.

MEK had long feared that a transition to Iraqi control of Ashraf (PDF) would result in their eviction, according to the Congressional Research Service. As U.S. forces pulled out of Ashraf in April 2011, violence broke out between the Iraqi military and camp residents. Thirty-five MEK were killed, according to the UN. After the incident, Iraq reiterated its vow to close Ashraf following full U.S. withdrawal at the end of 2011. Iraq and the UN reached an agreement with MEK in December 2011 that would relocate Ashraf residents to Camp Liberty outside Baghdad, a "temporary transit station" from which group members could eventually be taken in by other countries. As of July 2012, the State Department reports that this transfer has stalled since the last relocation convoy left Ashraf in March.

The UN High Commission on Refugees is determining MEK members’ eligibility for refugee status, which would eventually set the stage for their resettlement outside Iraq. UN special representative for Iraq Martin Kobler has called on foreign governments to open their doors, but negotiations are still under way.

FTO Status
MEK was added to the U.S. State Department’s list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations in October 1997. Washington holds the group responsible for the deaths of several U.S. servicemen and civilians in Iran during the mid-1970s, as well as its alleged participation in the seizure of the U.S. Embassy during the 1979 revolution. Other terrorist activities cited by the State Department include MEK’s decades-worth of terror attacks on the Iranian regime, and the groups’ cooperation with Saddam Hussein in his crackdown on Iraqi Shia and Kurds in the early 1990s.

MEK has been trying to be removed from the FTO list for several years, officially renouncing terrorism in 2001. The group argues that its FTO status prevents it from legitimately participating in the Iranian opposition movement and points to the European Union and the UK’s decisions in the last five years to delist MEK as a terrorist group. In February 2012, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said MEK’s compliance with the relocation to Camp Liberty would be a "key factor" in the decision whether to remove the FTO designation.
The Debate over Delisting
The debate over MEK’s FTO status has attracted both critics and supporters. In the National Interest, national security expert Raymond Tanter argues that "nothing is likely to be more decisive in reducing the strategic threat from Tehran than having a vigorous democratic opposition in Iran." The MEK, which he says should be a valuable component of this opposition, was designated an FTO by the Clinton administration as part of an effort to open dialogue with moderates in Tehran. Tanter writes that MEK should be delisted based on a lack of evidence of its terrorist activities since 2001.

Trita Parsi, an MEK critic and leader of the National Iranian American Council, says efforts by MEK and its supporters to frame the group as a legitimate Iranian opposition group are suspect. Their PR campaign is analogous to the now-discredited claims made by Ahmed Chalabi and the Iraqi National Congress (NYT) in the push for a U.S. overthrow of Saddam, Parsi says.

Others say that delisting MEK will unnecessarily damage U.S. relations with Tehran and harm Iran’s domestic democratic resistance, a movement that allegedly opposes MEK. Muhammad Sahimi of PBS’s Tehran Bureau told al-Jazeera: "Anyone who opposes the [Iranian government] and cares about Iran and democratic principles cannot do anything other than vehemently oppose the MEK." There is "no comparison with the non-violent Greens and the MEK," he said. Carnegie’s Sadjadpour concurs, noting MEK "is widely viewed as a backward and intolerant cult by their opposition peers in Iran."

Notably, the delisting debate seems to be hindering the relocation of MEK to Camp Liberty. Some U.S. backers of MEK have severely criticized the conditions at the new site. Former New York governor Rudolph Giuliani characterized the location as a "concentration camp" at an MEK-sponsored conference. The State Department condemns such attacks. Speaking to Foreign Policy, a U.S. official said "as delicate negotiations between the UN, the United States, the Iraqis, and the MEK continue, the role of these often paid advocates [on behalf of MEK] is becoming even more unhelpful and potentially dangerous."

Author: Jonathan Masters, cfr.org

July 21, 2012 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Caught in a Bad Alliance

The Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK) is in the news again. Images of Newt Gingrich bowing to the Iranian dissident group’s leader, Maryam Rajavi, after speaking to MEK members at a Paris rally, Caught in a Bad Alliance and Chicago Tribune columnist Clarence Page’s unauthorized, paid speech at the same event have brought renewed attention to the MEK’s expensive (and possibly illegal) lobbying operation in Washington.

Gingrich and Page aren’t the only high-profile figures the MEK has enlisted in its bid to get off the State Department’s foreign terrorist organization list. The group has persuaded a number of onetime officials, including former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge, former Homeland Security Adviser Francis Fragos Townsend, former Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, and former Vermont Governor Howard Dean, to argue its case. These public figures have taken money, in some cases more than $30,000 per speech, to speak on the group’s behalf. As a result, the U.S. Treasury Department has begun to look into the fees, because, according to the Supreme Court, “advocacy performed in coordination with, or at the direction of, a foreign terrorist organization” constitutes the federal crime of “material support of terrorism.” The speakers have also failed to register as lobbyists under the Foreign Agent Registration Act, and there is an increasing push for criminal investigations.

As it turns out, however, many of the public figures openly admit that they did not know much about the MEK when they agreed to attend the events. Many were invited by suspected MEK front groups with names such as the Organizing Committee for Convention for Democracy in Iran and the Iranian American Community of North Texas, and they approached the ex-officials through their agents. Former chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and co-chair of the 9/11 Commission Lee Hamilton, who also spoke in support of the MEK, told The New York Times, “I don’t know a lot about the group.” Clarence Page told ProPublica that he thought he was giving a talk on promoting democracy and regime change in Iran.

Accidentally or not, though, the speakers were helping to raise the profile and legitimize the aims of a cult group that will not bring democracy to Iran and has no popular support in the country. And while the latest news stories on the MEK highlight its immediate goal of getting off the terrorist list, they miss the group’s real aim: to have the United States install the MEK as Iran’s new government. That would mean war. The MEK may deny wanting violent regime change, but the only conceivable way it could become the next government in Tehran would be at the head of a U.S. invasion force.

Once upon a time, the MEK did enjoy some measure of popular support in Iran. But after getting shoved aside by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s party after the 1979 Iranian Revolution, the MEK spent the next two decades launching terrorist attacks against the new regime and its military, harming bystanders in several instances. The MEK joined sides with Saddam Hussein in the Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988), moving to camps in Iraq in 1986 and fighting against Iranian conscripts. Frustrated that Saddam failed to install it in power in Tehran by the end of the war, the MEK attempted its own invasion of Iran (using more of Saddam Hussein’s military munificence), resulting in the death of thousands of its members. These acts destroyed the MEK’s credibility among Iranians. Trapped in the Iraqi desert, the group’s leaders transformed the MEK into a cult after the failed invasion—engaging in such practices as mandated divorce and celibacy, sleep deprivation, public shaming, separation of families, and information control—and continued its terrorist attacks in Iran.

Now the MEK, through its Paris-based National Council of Resistance of Iran, has ramped up its public-relations campaign to convince the outside world that it is the biggest Iranian opposition group, one dedicated to the values of Western liberal democracy. (It just happens to have a parliament-in-waiting and a president-elect—Rajavi, of course.) To bolster its case, the MEK inflames fears of a nuclear Iran, consistently claiming that the country has an ongoing nuclear-weapons program, notwithstanding the opposite, unanimous opinion of U.S., European, and Israeli officials and the Iranian supreme leader’s fatwa against building one.

It remains to be seen if the MEK’s costly lobbying campaign will pay off. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has until October 1 to decide whether to keep the MEK on the foreign terrorist organization list; otherwise, a federal court will automatically delist it. That’s just a few short weeks before the presidential election. Republican candidate Mitt Romney claimed in December that he had never heard of the MEK. Nevertheless, he is using the question of Iranian nukes—kept in the public eye by the MEK and its shills—in a desperate effort to make President Barack Obama look weak on national-security issues. Romney has also surrounded himself with a hawkish national-security team that includes several MEK supporters, such as Bush administration veterans like former U.N. Representative John Bolton, who believes that engagement with Tehran is “delusional” and that “the only real alternative to a nuclear Iran is pre-emptive military force”—the sooner the better. Bolton’s writings suggest that he hopes that the so-called P5+1 talks over Iran’s nuclear program will fail. (The next round of negotiations is next week.)

But the MEK’s supporters and other hawks who insist on wanting regime change in Iran need to understand that, in this case, the enemy of my enemy is not my friend. The MEK is a bad ally. It has been a bad ally in peace, and it would be a bad ally in war and reconstruction. Aligning ourselves with the MEK would undermine any attempt at credibility among Iranians because it would make us look like dupes. The public figures who have spoken in support of the MEK are dangerously mistaken when they describe the group as “a force for good, and the best hope we have” (Rendell) and “a massive worldwide movement for liberty in Iran” (Gingrich). On the contrary, this deceptive foreign cult is pouring millions of dollars into an effort to steer the United States toward war.

Jeremiah Goulka, The American Prospect,

July 21, 2012 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

MEK Spokesmen and Their Cozy Home at The Huffington Post

Earlier this week, Glenn Greenwald reported that, on Tuesday,

The Huffington Post published a post by Hossein Abedini, who was identified in the byline as a “Member of Parliament in exile of Iranian Resistance.” His extended HuffPost bio says that he “belongs to the Foreign Affairs Committee of the National Council of Resistance of Iran” (NCRI). The NCRI is the political arm of the Mujahideen-e Khalq, (MeK), the Iranian dissident group (and longtime Saddam ally) that has been formally designated by the U.S. State Department since 1997 as a Terrorist organization, yet has been paying large sums of money to a bipartisan cast of former U.S. officials to advocate on its behalf (the in-hiding President of the NCRI, Massoud Rajavi, is, along with his wife Maryam Rajavi, MeK’s leader). Abedini, the HuffPost poster, has been identified as a MeK spokesman in news reports, and has identified himself the same way when, for instance, writing letters to NBC News objecting to negative reports about the group.
After noted journalists Hooman Majd, Robert Mackey, Greenwald himself, and others "noted the oddity that HuffPost was publishing pieces from a designated Terrorist group, HuffPost deleted the piece." A HuffPo spokesperson also told Greenwald that Abedini’s post "was published by mistake," adding, "By policy, we don’t publish blog posts by people affiliated with designated terrorist organizations. The blog editor who published it was unaware that NCRI is MEK’s political arm. When the mistake was discovered the post was removed."

Nevertheless, all of Abedini’s previous articles remain archived on HuffPo. Furthermore, Greenwald points out that "The Huffington Post has also repeatedly published Ali Safavi, who is also identified as ‘a member of Iran’s Parliament in Exile, National Council of Resistance of Iran’" and "use[s] his HuffPost platform to propagate standard MeK propaganda." All of Safavi’s posts remain accessible.

But that’s not all.

There’s yet another MeK/NCRI spokesman and propagandist who also regularly posts articles on HuffPo: Alireza Jafarzadeh. All of his posts remain live on HuffPo, where he is touted (in a bio written by himself) as a foreign affairs analyst who has appeared all over Western media, speaking on behalf of the terrorist group. Fox News has long featured him as a contributing commentator and he currently runs his own "consulting" firm in Washington D.C. called "Strategic Policy Consulting" which is pretty much just a phony company that manages his own media appearances and lobbying to Congress. One look at his Twitter feed removes all doubt as to Jafarzadeh’s affiliation (at the highest level) with the MeK.

In a tweet from June 2, 2012, Jafarzadeh linked to a New York Times article about potential MeK delisting and added the hastag #WhatIDreamAbout.

New York Times: Court Presses U.S. on a Terror Listing of Iranian opposition group nyti.ms/LmKMvM #iran #WhatIDreamAbout
— Alireza Jafarzadeh (@A_Jafarzadeh) June 2, 2012

Many of his online bios ignore his clear connection to the MeK; however, his bio on the "Strategic Policy" site and HuffPo itself contain a version of the following: "Until August 2003, Jafarzadeh acted for a dozen years as the chief congressional liaison and media spokesperson for the US representative office of Iran’s parliament in exile, the National Council of Resistance of Iran."

When the D.C. office of NCRI was shut down in 2003 by the State Department, Jafarzadeh and others like him created a network of front organizations to continue spreading the MeK message without explicitly using the name. According to a 2004 FBI report, Alireza Jafarzadeh was said "to be running the MEK cell in the Washington D.C. area" along with another MeK shill Soona Samsami. No one would honestly believe that Jafarzadeh’s role as MeK spokesman is something of the past.

At a Capitol Hill hearing last July, Jafarzadeh, along with well-known MeK spokesman Ali Safavi, was seen counseling three of the panel’s witnesses – Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA), Representative Bob Filner (D-CA), and former Bush Administration Attorney General Michael Mukasey – in the halls of Congress right before the hearing. This would appear to demonstrate even more evidence of direct coordination between current and former U.S. officials and representatives of a designated terrorist group – in the halls of our own government no less. Shockingly, Capitol Hill police made no arrests.

But hey, at least it’s not like these designated terrorists throw parties, attended by people like House Foreign Affairs Chairwoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) and former Homeland Security secretary and Pennsylvania Governor Tom Ridge, in Congress itself. Oh wait, never mind.

It should also be noted that neocon hawk Danielle Pletka of AEI is even disgusted by the high-priced advocacy on behalf of the MeK by U.S. political players. Earlier this month, she referenced the Foreign Agents Registration Act in a post excoriating paid MeK shills like Howard Dean, Mike Mukasey and Jim Jones, writing,

This litany of whoring (is there any other word?) for foreign terrorists is appalling. And don’t soothe yourself with the notion that the MEK aren’t really terrorists or are about to be delisted by the State Department. Delisting is ridiculous, but also irrelevant. Foreign principals are foreign principals, and people who do their bidding are foreign agents. FARA is a criminal statute; let’s see what Justice does about enforcing it. For shame on these lobbyists for terrorists, each and every one.

And that’s coming from a pal and defender of fake dissident leader/regime change hero Ahmad Chalabi. Yikes.

By Nima Shirazi ,Wide Asleep in America

July 17, 2012 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

MEK: Working with Terrorists for US Hegemony in Iran

The two-tiered American justice system is in full effect as felonious political actors advocate and promote the Iranian terrorist group Mojahedin-e-Khalq (MEK) in order to pursue US hegemony in the region.

In 2010, the United States Supreme Court ruled in the case Holder v. Humanitarian Law that providing material support in coordination with a designated foreign terrorist organization is a felony punishable by 15 years in prison. If you or I took money from the MEK to advocate lifting the terrorist designation, how long do you think it would take to be hooded, shackled and indefinitely detained under the National Defense Authorization Act?

Abby Martin of Media Roots and RT reports on the current efforts to convince the State Department to de-list MEK as a foreign terrorist organization.

A wave of American leaders have illegally lined up to get their slice of the MEK bankroll for speaking on their behalf. Former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Hugh Shelton said, "Why would we not want to put the weight and power of this country behind an organization that we know stands for the same principles we stand for, and that is the best-organized, best-led organization to take on the current Iranian regime?" Louis Freeh, former Director of the FBI stated that “MEK is leading the fight for freedom in Iran. Just as our military forces fight for freedom on the battlefields, you fight in a more difficult and much more dangerous place."

The end-game of all this bought and paid for rhetoric is a writ entered on June 1, 2012 to the United States Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C. asking Hillary Clinton, the U.S. Secretary of State to review the designation of MEK as a foreign terrorist organizations within four months or by default the designation will be removed.

These naïve politicos with imperialist illusions of Iranian regime change want to jump in bed with the MEK who vocally supported the U.S. embassy takeover in Tehran in 1979 and vehemently called for the execution of diplomats in 1981. The very same MEK that attempted to kidnap US Ambassador Douglas MacArthur in 1971, wounded Air force General Harold Price in 1972, assassinated US Army Comptroller Louis Lee Hawkins in 1973, assassinated US Air Force officers Paul Shaffer and Jack Turner and assassinated American employees William Cottrell, Donald Smith and Robert Krongard in 1976. The very same group that hijacked a plane in 1971 and bombed and killed 70 members of the Iranian parliament including Chief Justice Mohammad Beheshti, the second highest ranking official in Iran at the time. MEK also reportedly celebrated the 9/11 terrorist attacks, as well as helped carry out the assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists last year.

American justice calls on the following Americans to surrender and submit to interrogation so it can be determined what degree of material support they provided officially designated terrorists: Tom Ridge, Wesley Clark, Michael Mukasey, Frances Townshend, James Jones, Peter Pace, Hugh Shelton, Louis Freeh, Michael Hayden, Anthony Zinni, Rudi Giuliani, Howard Dean, Andy Card, Bill Richardson, Lee Hamilton, John Bolton and all other Americans that feel they can operate above the law. All money received for speaking engagements should be returned, resignations should be tendered and pleas should be entered.

The arrogant criminal hypocrisy is absolutely surreal as American politicos subvert the draconian laws they perpetrate upon the rest of America. Swift sanctions are necessary to ensure the general public that all Americans live under one set of laws. So far the defenses offered by these haughty elitists are their right to free speech, which is specifically limited by the Holder Supreme Court case. Their argument is that the MEK will make a fine marionette for American imposed regime change in Iran. But Americans don’t want war or regime change in Iran—America wants representatives with common sense and ethics to be focused on this country. Let the Iranian people determine their own leadership and destiny.

Chris Martin for Media Roots

***

SALON –We now have an extraordinary situation that reveals the impunity with which political elites commit the most egregious crimes, as well as the special privileges to which they explicitly believe they — and they alone — are entitled. That a large bipartisan cast of Washington officials got caught being paid substantial sums of money by an Iranian dissident group that is legally designated by the U.S. Government as a Terrorist organization, and then meeting with and advocating on behalf of that Terrorist group, is very significant for several reasons. New developments over the last week make it all the more telling. Just behold the truly amazing set of facts that have arisen:

In June, 2010, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its 6-3 ruling in the case of Holder v. Humanitarian Law. In that case, the Court upheld the Obama DOJ’s very broad interpretation of the statute that criminalizes the providing of “material support” to groups formally designated by the State Department as Terrorist organizations. The five-judge conservative bloc (along with Justice Stevens) held that pure political speech could be permissibly criminalized as “material support for Terrorism” consistent with the First Amendment if the “advocacy [is] performed in coordination with, or at the direction of, a foreign terrorist organization” (emphasis added). In other words, pure political advocacy in support of a designated Terrorist group could be prosecuted as a felony — punishable with 15 years in prison — if the advocacy is coordinated with that group.

MEDIA ROOTS

July 15, 2012 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization

Forever in Exile: The Iranian Mujahideen-e Khalq

The Mujahideen-e Khalq will never have the necessary popular grassroots to carry the banner of a future revolution against the Islamic Republic of Iran.

With the failure of yet another round of nuclear talks and the Islamic Republic of Iran remaining ever more defiant, sentiments in the West may once again shift to regime change and positioning opposition groups as alternatives to the current leadership. The Mujahideen-e Khalq (MEK), an Iranian Islamic-leftist terrorist organization, is one of the major such opposition groups to the current regime in Iran.

Espousing a controversial blend of Islamic-Marxism and claimed secular outlook, the MEK originated from anti-Shah university students. It later adapted into the cultish militant group of the Forever in Exile: The Iranian Mujahideen-e Khalq 1990s and eventually into the self-described liberal-Islamic alternative to the regime that exists in Tehran today.

Continuing an apparent metamorphosis, the MEK and its associates claim to have shirked their original anti-Western roots and now seek recognition by the international system in their struggle to overthrow the Islamic Republic of Iran and to establish an apparent democratic society with secular ideals. From their current base of operations in Iraq and around the world, the MEK continue to fight a battle for legitimacy and identity through a well-funded lobbying campaign to gain the favor of the West and facilitate opposition to the Islamic Republic. Still, the MEK’s violent history and Iran’s long cultural memory do not bode well for its prospects of acceptance by Iranians as an alternative to the authoritarian state. Thus, while it will continue to expediently transform, it is unlikely that the MEK can effectively rebrand its image to suit the Iranian people. This can be attributed to its violent history, cultish overtones, and cooperation with Saddam Hussein during the Iran-Iraq war.

Enemy of the State

The MEK’s ideology has been developing since the group emerged in 1963. Initially, the organization sought to antagonize what it perceived as a US–Shah dependent relationship. Violent undercurrents were evident in their efforts as some members underwent combat training with fighters from the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). By 1972 two failed attacks on the regime brought reprisals as the SAVAK — the Shah’s secret police — imprisoned half their members. The militant trend continued as the MEK’s terrorist attacks and street fighting, with Westerners also in the crosshairs, contributed to the overthrow of the Shah. In the consolidation of power after the Shah fell, the MEK positioned itself as ideologically antithetical to the proponents of an Islamic republic, and thus suffered additional retaliations.

The group eventually dissolved and its remaining leadership fled from the hostility of the Islamic regime. In 1981, the leaders escaped to Paris and completed the transition of the MEK from a grassroots peoples’ movement to a cultish organization focusing on an armed attrition. From their base of operations, the MEK fought a “tit for tat” with Hezbollah, engaging Iranian targets across the world.

From Terrorists to Traitors

While the MEK has an extensive public history of violence in Iran, the pinnacle of its repugnance in the eyes of many Iranians came during its cooperation with Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. Chased out of Iran, the MEK settled under the wing of the Ba’athist regime in the 1980s. From Iraq, the National Liberation Army (NLA), the paramilitary wing of the group, carried out military excursions and over the horizon attacks on Iran. Directly fighting against their countrymen while guests of Saddam, the MEK reached a new low for Iranians as it became allies with one of Iran’s most hated enemies in one of her bloodiest wars.

After the Iran-Iraq War, the counterstrike between Iran and the MEK continued well into the 1990s. Military incursions into Iran were met with an MEK base falling victim to Iranian airpower. In response, 13 Iranian embassies were targeted by the MEK. Other attacks inside Iran, such as bombings and assassinations, continued throughout the decade.

In 2002, the MEK released corroborated intelligence that Iran was covertly enriching uranium, seeking to gain the favor of the West and to undermine Tehran. Today, the MEK remains on the US State Department’s terrorism list, and its personnel in Iraq at Camp Ashraf remain in a dangerous state of flux while their fate is debated in a newly hostile Iraq. Despite the publically uneasy relations with Western governments, the MEK reportedly maintains a partnership with international intelligence agencies in a covert sabotage and espionage effort against Iran’s nuclear program.

As the MEK continues to weather hostility from the Iraqi government, it also fights a different kind of battle for legitimacy from the West. The MEK’s old hostility towards the West has been supplanted by a professional and well-funded public relations campaign to convince Western policy elites of a reformation from a violent past and of the MEK’s new status as a viable democratic opposition group to the Islamic Republic.

Regardless of whether these claims of rebirth are true, the MEK faces huge obstacles in its struggle for legitimacy in the hearts and minds of the Iranian people. Its violent history of political resistance and its treasonous relationship with Saddam has left a stubborn sense of loathing for the organization within Iranian consciousness. The animosity and mistrust for the MEK will be persistent as history shows that the proud Persian culture does not take such interference and hostility lightly.

For Iranians, past “insults” persist within their cultural memory; the Arab invasion of the Sassanid Empire in the 7th century is still lamented to this day in Iranian culture as a grand affront against Persian heritage. In modern times, Iranian’s have felt their sovereignty was being infringed upon due to the great game in Iran being played by Russia, Britain and the US. Indeed, this has not been forgotten either.

Perhaps most salient is the American led coup d’état of Iran’s democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadeq in 1953, which resulted in a still seething animosity and blowback, which helped trigger the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Furthermore, Iranians are very nationalistic, and in dire straits, such as during the Iran-Iraq War, they have supported their country despite reservations towards the new Islamic Republic. It is thus unlikely that the proud Iranian public will forget the MEK’s violent, cultish and treasonous past.

Although clouded by the intense propaganda from both the Islamic Republic and the MEK, there appears to be very little love or sympathy for the MEK from Iranians. These sentiments are practical corroborators of the theoretical possibility that, despite its resistance to the hated Iranian regime, the MEK will continue to receive its share of animosity from Iranians.

If not mass popular appeal, the MEK does have impressive funding and apparent support from entities not well disposed to the Iranian regime. However, without a grassroots momentum, the MEK can never become the viable superstructure of an opposition movement that some in the West, who ignore the MEK’s failings for the potential prize of overthrowing the Islamic Republic, hope for.

In fact, it need not be.[..]
That is not to say that MEK has no role in Iran’s future. In the past, revolutionary scale resistance movements in Iran have been populist amalgamations of varied and diverse groups from both the right and the left. If the cauldron of popular dissent once more reaches a critical point in Iran, the MEK cannot hope to completely — ideologically and fundamentally — encompass what will surely be a larger and more diverse enterprise. Nonetheless, that reality does not preclude it from some role in fighting with their fellow Iranians, as they have in the past, for a free future.

Ari Katz, Fairobserver

July 9, 2012 0 comments

The MEK Expulsion from Iraq

Where will MEK enter Iran from?

Foreign Ministry spokesman of Iran Ramin Mehmanparast has recently expressed his concern over the possibilities of provision a shelter in Azerbaijan to anti-Islamic regime People’s Mujahedin of Iran (MEK) by the US and Israel.

Mehmanparast, at the same time, has warned that neighbors should take into account sensitiveness of this issue to Iran; otherwise Tehran’s response will be severe. Statement is not Where will MEK enter Iran from? by chance.

It is another proof that Tehran tries to take preventive measures as Iran’s statement is based on possibilities rather than true facts since West and Israel use Southern Azerbaijan national issue and internal and external anti-Iran regime in order to cause disorder in Iran.

MEK’s survival began from 2009 when MEK was removed from the EU list of terrorist group. Besides between 2005-2009 MEK trained in the US military bases.

In April a group of American politicians asked for removal of MEK from the list of terrorist group. Such progress of the events enables us to believe that the offer will be accepted by the White House:

»Official Tehran is concerned about MEK. This organization was established by Shah Pehlevi as a close power to him. As the organization was established on basis of interests, instead of ideas, it changed its position. MEK has strong support and reputation both in and outside of Iran. This is well-organized organization. Being not a nationalist group, it meets the demands of the west with regard to overthrow of political power of Iran».

MEK also has media organizations broadcasting in the US. Although its TV broadcasting has been stopped for a while, it is expected to restore its broadcast for political pressure over Iranian government.

In April of this year US New Yorker magazine reported that MEK had received standard training that included communications, cryptography, small-unit tactics and weaponry. The training in the U.S. took place at the Department of Energy’s Nevada National Security Site. The article also says that the purpose of the trainings was to commit terror attacks in Iran.

In order to penetrate into Iran MEK militants need to use territories of neighbor countries. However, permission of neighbor countries for it is not required. They may apply various methods that the terrorists use like entering different countries under different names through which they can enter Iran.

To settle such well-organized and trained armed groups within the territories of Azerbaijan is a dangerous as it might lead to destabilization in the country, as well as of statehood point of view. So, Azerbaijan itself would be interested in cooperation with Iran to prevent MEK militants from access to the country.

Reference – People’s Mujahedin of Iran was founded in 1965 by a group of leftist Iranian university students. Although the goal was to establish a socialist republic in Iran, they offered establishment of Tovhid society.

MEK carried out various terror attacks in Iran in the 1970s, then fought against Iran during Iran-Iraq war. Despite recognition of new regime following Islamic Revolution MEK chose to struggle against Islamic regime after being subject to terror and torture. Group’s armed wing is called National Liberation Army of Iran whose leader is Masoud Rajavi.

Gulnara Inanch, Turkishnews

July 9, 2012 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Iranian Terrorist Group M.E.K. Pays Big to Make History Go Away

Come October 1, a federal appeals court decision will force the State Department to decide whether the exile-Iranian group Mujahadin-e Khalq, or M.E.K., belongs on the list of designated foreign terrorist organizations.

As recently as 2007, a State Department report warned that the M.E.K., retains "the capacity and will" to attack "Europe, the Middle East, the United States, Canada, and beyond."

The M.E.K., which calls for an overthrow of the Iranian government and is considered by many Iranians to be a cult, once fought for Saddam Hussein and in the 1970s was responsible for bombings, attempted plane hijackings, and political assassinations. It was listed as a foreign terrorist organization in 1997. Iranian Terrorist Group M.E.K. Pays Big to Make History Go Away

If the State Department does decide to delist M.E.K., whose name means "People’s Holy Warriors of Iran," it will be with the blessing of dozens of congressmen.

A congressional resolution that urges Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to remove M.E.K. from the State Department list of foreign terrorist groups was signed by 99 politicians, including Rep. Darrell Issa, a California Republican, Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton, a Democrat from Washington, D.C., and Alabama Republican Sen. Spencer Bachus.

Those signatures may have been obtained with real money to grease the wheels. A U.S. News investigation found that three major lobbying firms were together paid hundreds of thousands of dollars by U.S.-based Iranian-American community groups with ties to the M.E.K. to drum up support for the resolution.

Victoria Toensing of DiGenova & Toensing, a lobbying shop famous for its involvement in the Bill Clinton-Monica Lewinsky scandal, was paid $110,000 in 2011 to lobby for the resolution. The firm Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld dedicated five lobbyists to getting signatures for the resolution, and was paid $100,000 in 2012 and $290,000 in 2011 to do so. Paul Marcone and Association similarly lobbied for the resolution, and received $5,000 in 2010 and $5,000 in 2011 for its efforts.

"It’s a worthy cause," said Toensing, who believes the M.E.K. has reformed from its violent past. "Have you ever seen a more bipartisan disciplined group as the one that supported this issue?"

(Akin, Gump, et al. declined to comment to U.S. News. Paul Marcone said despite its history, the M.E.K. "has every right to petition the government on resolutions.")
While dozens of congressmen have signed on to the delist resolution, those no longer holding office appear to be even more supportive of the group.

Last week, at a Paris rally for the M.E.K., Newt Gingrich was captured on camera bowing to the Iranian exile-group’s leader, Maryam Rajavi. (The M.E.K.’s political arm, the National Council of Resistance of Iran, has its headquarters in Paris).
Also in attendance were former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, former State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley, and former Bush U.N. Ambassador John R. Bolton.

Video of the rally in Paris shows what appear to be tens of thousands of M.E.K. supporters waving flags and holding up pictures of Rajavi, who has called democracy "the spirit that guides our Resistance." Some assert the M.E.K. would prefer Iran to become a Marxist state, as it was founded by Marxist-Islamist Iranian students in the 1960s.

"The MEK are trying to portray themselves as a popular and democratic opposition to the current Iranian regime," said Karim Sadjadpour, an Iran analyst at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "The reality is that they’re neither popular nor democratic."

A prominent Iranian journalist, who did not want to be named for fear of repercussions from the M.E.K., said that despite the group’s attempts to present itself as the main Iranian dissident group, the majority of the Iranian diaspora "does not want to get close" to it. A 2011 New York Times story said most Iranians and Iraqis see the M.E.K. as a "repressive cult."

The "cult" descriptor isn’t just popular opinion. A 2009 Rand study of the M.E.K. described the group as having "cultic practices" and "deceptive recruitment and public relations strategies."

Patrick Clawson, director of research at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, which has been described as a pro-Israel group, describes the M.E.K. this way: "It’s a cult. There’s no other way to put it."

Clawson, who has spent time with M.E.K. members abroad and their supporters in the U.S., says politicians have been "misled" by "these charming individuals."

"They tell what seems at first glance to be a believable story," he said. "People in cults are charming sometimes. I mean, Scientologists convince movie stars."

There’s no doubt the M.E.K. knows how to charm. When reached by U.S. News & World Report, the spokesman for the National Council of Iran (the M.E.K.’s Paris-based political arm), Shahin Gobadi, spent an extraordinary amount of time answering questions, both over the phone and by E-mail.

"I have sent you a lot," he said, after an E-mail arrived containing 17 attachments. "But I am happy to send much more."

Gobadi repeatedly said that the M.E.K. was working for a democratic future for Iran, emphasizing freedom of speech, abolition of the death penalty, equality for women, and peaceful coexistence with the rest of the world.

"The designation of the M.E.K. as a foreign terrorist organization was … a goodwill gesture to the murderous regime in Iran as part of a policy of appeasing the mullahs," Gobadi said, skimming over the group’s violent past. "Various senior U.S. officials have acknowledged this reality."

Among these officials is former Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean, who once called for Rajavi to be recognized as Iran’s president.

As happened at the Paris rally last week, a number of politicians also deliver energetic speeches on behalf of the M.E.K.

Rendell, who has given at least eight supportive speeches, has made $150,000 for his efforts.

The Treasury Department is currently investigating Rendell along with several former senior government officials for giving M.E.K. speeches for money, as transactions with a terrorist group are against the law. Treasury spokesman John Sullivan said that the department "takes sanctions enforcements seriously," but would not give a timeline for when the investigation would be complete.
Rendell says his support for M.E.K. is humanitarian-based, as thousands of the group’s members currently live in exile in a refugee camp in Iraq.

The humanitarian situation is undoubtedly real—Camp Ashraf has been attacked several times since the U.S. transferred control back to the Iraqi government in 2009. In April of last year, Iraqi security forces reportedly stormed the camp and killed 31, wounding 320 more, though news reports vary widely. The M.E.K.’s various websites are heavily Camp Ashraf-focused.

"Ithink our reneging on protecting Camp Ashraf is nothing short of disgraceful," Rendell said, calling it.

Ask any politician who has supported the M.E.K., though, and they are unlikely to be able to tell you very much about the group or its history.

Both Rendell and Giuliani, who has spoken at M.E.K. events in Paris, Geneva, and New York, and who was in Paris twice last week to advise the group, said they knew little about the group before their paid speaking gigs began.

Giuliani said he first learned about the group from former FBI head Louis Freeh, who told him the M.E.K. were a group of revolutionaries, not terrorists. Then, Giuliani said, he "did research." "And every time I go to one of these meetings, I am more convinced," he said.

Former State Department spokesman Crowley, who has been paid to speak at at least four M.E.K. events, acknowledged that the exile group has in the past "on more than occasion been on the wrong side of history." But Crowley said he became increasingly "intrigued" with the group during his time at the State Department, whose location on C Street the M.E.K. regularly visits. He said he believes "their pursuit now is peaceful."

Sadjadpour, the Carnegie analyst, finds it remarkable that so many politicians have supported a group with so much baggage. "In some cases it’s greed, in some cases it’s cluelessness, in some cases it’s remarkably poor judgment, and often it’s all of the above," he said of the political support.

While Gobadi repeatedly told U.S. News that the group is peaceful, a number of news reports allege that the M.E.K. may have been involved in a string of nuclear scientist assassinations over the last several years, with monetary and other aid from the U.S. and Israeli governments.

"On the premise that the enemy of my enemy is my friend, funding, arming or training M.E.K. is an important strategic tool for Israel and the U.S.," Dilshood Achilov, assistant professor of Middle East politics at East Tennessee State University, told the International Business Times of the nuclear scientist assassinations.

Gobadi called the allegations "absolutely absurd" and "directly from the textbook of the mullahs’ Intelligence services."

But the New Yorker’s Seymour Hersh this April gave credence to possible ties between the M.E.K. and the U.S. government, publishing a short piece that said the U.S.’s Joint Special Operations Command had trained members of the M.E.K starting in 2005. According to Hersh’s sources, the training stopped sometime before President Obama took office. But "some American-supported covert operations continue in Iran," Hersch wrote, under the headline, the M.E.K. "Our men in Iran?"

Gobadi insists they aren’t anyone’s men. He says the M.E.K has "not received any funding or weapons from any foreign country and does not seek" it. "The Iranian crisis has an Iranian solution," he said.

Much of M.E.K.’s support, Gobadi says, comes from the Iranian diaspora. While he doesn’t name the group’s U.S. supporters, the Senate disclosure database reveals the Iranian American Community of North Texas and Iranian American Community of Northern California have been most active. Dozens of similar community groups came into existence after the U.S. government shut down a partner office of the M.E.K. in D.C. in 2003, but many have since disappeared. Requests for comments from both community groups were not returned, but it’s clear that they have had enormous fundraising and sway.

IACNT and IANCC paid the lobbying firms in Washington thousands of dollars to get signatures for the congressional resolution. They paid the speakers lobby thousands of dollars to get Rendell, Giuliani and Crowley, participants said.

And they funded a series of sleek ads that have aired on channels like Fox calling for a delisting of the M.E.K.

While it initially looked as though the M.E.K. would be delisted in October, new comments from the White House suggest the group won’t be.

In June, a senior administration official told reporters in a conference call that the M.E.K. may have "over-interpreted" recent events to its favor. "It appears that MEK leaders believe that the Secretary has no choice now but to delist them," the official said. "That is, quite plainly, wrong."

Gobadi said he can’t predict the outcome, but can only be hopeful the "unlawful designation" can come to an end.

Despite hundreds of thousands of dollars in effort, that may be impossible while doubts over the group remain.

US News reporter Seth Cline contributed to this report.

By Elizabeth Flock ,USNews.com

July 7, 2012 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Lobbying for terrorists: More on the MEK

Today’s Washington Post has another in a long series of deeply troubling press pieces about the terrorist group Mujahedin e Khalq (MEK) and those who have sold their principles for a few thousand bucks to lobby for them. I wrote about the problem before, but count me even more gobsmacked by Joby Warrick’s fine WaPo piece. It’s one thing to take money for speeches from the MEK, something a bipartisan group of luminaries has done on repeated occasions; it’s completely another to join a series of calls and meetings with the State Department on the MEK — representing their interests — and pretend it’s anything other than what it is: Acting for a foreign agent.

Just a reminder for those out there who don’t know what the Foreign Agents Registration Act is: The law requires that anyone, regardless of compensation, register if they are acting at the behest of a foreign principal. Howard Dean, former presidential candidate, former head of the Democratic Party, former screamer, makes the stunning assertion to the Post that, “[s]ince this is an effort to facilitate U.S. government policy, it does not require any form of registration.” Um, Howard, um. The law doesn’t work that way. Or let’s put it another way: Since I don’t think things should be classified, I leaked millions of top secret documents to the public. Since I don’t think Obama should be president, I’m refusing to pay taxes. Since I think U.S. policy should support a terrorist group, I don’t need to register as a foreign agent when I work at their behest for cash. Oh yeah, that’s right.

Obama’s former National Security Adviser Jim Jones is among the MEK’s unregistered lobbyists, begging the question why he did nothing to liberate them from the onerous burden of a U.S. terrorist group designation when he was in office… Ditto former Attorney General Michael Mukasey. Answer? Because the MEK wasn’t paying them then.

Danielle Pletka ,aei-ideas.org

July 7, 2012 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization's Propaganda System

Columnist Clarence Page to return $20k speaking fee to MEK

Late last month, syndicated columnist Clarence Page appeared at a rally in Paris in support of the Mujahadin-e Khalq (MEK), an Iranian group that has been lobbying Washington to be removed from the U.S. government’s list of designated foreign terrorist organizations.

Before a huge crowd waving portraits of MEK leaders Maryam and Massoud Rajavi as well as Iranian flags, Page called for the MEK to be removed from the official terrorist organization list.

Contacted about the appearance by ProPublica, Page said he has decided to give back his

Syndicated columnist Clarence Page who Spoke At Rally returned $20k speaking fee to MEK terror org after realizing who they were

speaking fee for the event, as well as reimburse the cost of travel to and from France, which was paid for by a group called the Organizing Committee for Convention for Democracy in Iran.

“I thought they were simply a group of Iranian exiles who were opposed to the regime in Tehran,” Page said. “I later found out they can be construed as a MEK front group, and I don’t think it’s worth it to my reputation to be perceived as a paid spokesman for any political cause.”

Page said he was paid a fee of $20,000 and travel expenses and that he attended the June 23 event during vacation time. He said he just arrived back at work from vacation and has not yet given back the money. He did not have the text of the speech he delivered, but he told ProPublica he spoke in favor of the MEK being removed from the list of terrorist organizations, a move he expects to occur shortly.

The MEK, which fiercely opposes the current regime in Iran, has mounted a high-priced lobbying and legal battle to get off the terrorist list in recent years. The group was placed on the list in 1997 by the Clinton Administration, which cited its record of attacks against Iranian targets. The group also “assassinated several U.S. military personnel and U.S. civilians working on defense projects in Tehran” in the 1970s when the U.S. was allied with the Shah, according to the State Department. The MEK says it has renounced violence. A federal appeals court last month ordered the State Department to decide within four months whether the MEK should remain on the list.

Groups supporting the MEK have paid millions of dollars to attract former officials and retired military officers to appear at events supporting the group in recent years. But because the MEK is an officially designated terrorist organization, it is illegal for Americans to accept money from the MEK itself. NBC reported in March that former officials had received subpoenas as part of a federal probe “focused on whether the former officials may have received funding, directly or indirectly, from the [MEK].”

Besides Page’s role as a columnist whose work is distributed by Tribune Media Services, he is also a member of the Chicago Tribune’s editorial board. Page has not written about Iran in his column recently, but the Tribune editorial board regularly weighs in on foreign policy. Last month, the paper called on the Obama administration to “ratchet up the economic pressure” on Iran in the dispute over the country’s nuclear program. A spokeswoman for the Tribune did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment.

Organizers assert that 100,000 people attended the Paris event last month, but that figure has not been independently verified. In a speech, Maryam Rajavi hailed the “unparalleled bipartisan coalition which has challenged the official policy” that labels the MEK a terrorist group.

Others attending the event last month include Newt Gingrich, former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, former State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley, former Bush administration official John Bolton, and several former high-ranking military officers.

“When I got involved with it, I saw the stellar list of VIPs who were also on the program, and I saw this to be another conference with another speech,” Page said.

Page said the invitation to the event last month came through the Harry Walker Agency, a speakers agency which represents Page as well as others who have become regulars at pro-MEK events, including former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean and conservative operative Linda Chavez. The agency did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Justin Elliott ,Pro Publica

July 3, 2012 0 comments

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