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Expecting Iranians to support the MeK is absurd

Ukraine’s resistance should end calls for ‘regime change’ in Iran by Israel and the pro-Israel lobby

Ukrainian President Zelenskyy addresses Congress, introduced by Nancy Pelosi to standing ovation, March 16, 2022. Screenshot from C-SPAN.

The inspiring Ukrainian resistance to Russia’s invasion already has one positive consequence a thousand miles to the southeast — it should end, once and for all, the dangerous calls in Israel and by the U.S. Israel lobby to step up attacks on Iran to change the regime there.

Vladimir Putin apparently expected that Ukrainian resistance would collapse quickly, and that the Russian invaders would have a cakewalk into Kiev. Instead, Ukrainians rallied around their government, and president Zelinsky’s popularity shot up overnight. A month later, their ferocious defiance is once again proving a central truth; even people who don’t like their rulers won’t accept foreigners who try to dictate to them at gunpoint.

The unhinged calls to overthrow Iran’s government are not confined to the fever swamps of the far right. Just last December, 7 former U.S. government foreign policy hawks, including General David Petraeus and Leon Panetta, who headed both the Defense Department and the CIA, publicly called on the U.S. to threaten to attack Iran. They said:

We believe it is vital to restore to restore Iran’s fear that its current nuclear path will trigger the use of force against it by the United States.

Earlier, a 2020 Washington Post opinion article, also written by members in good standing of the Washington, D.C. foreign policy establishment, was entitled: “Regime change in Iran shouldn’t be a taboo.” Its tortured logic ended with:

Seeking regime change isn’t rude. It is pragmatic, cost-sensitive, humane and — in the best sense of the word — liberal.

Putin’s view that the Ukrainians would not resist the Russian military was not entirely an illusion. Ukraine has long-standing political and cultural ties to Russia; a significant proportion of its people are actually Russian-speaking; the country has only been independent for 30 years.

By contrast, Iran is a nation with a powerful, long-standing identity. John Ghazvinian notes in his recent, magisterial history of U.S.-Iranian relations that:

. . . Iran is one of the world’s oldest, proudest and most enduring civilizations. . . Iran has had 3000 years of (mostly) continuous nationhood. . . Iran is one of the very few nation-states that can legitimately claim to have existed more or less continuously since antiquity. . . Cultural, historically and politically, Iran has an extraordinarily strong sense of its identity and its regional significance.

For years now, Israel, apparently with at least some U.S. acquiescence, has been conducting a terror campaign inside Iran. The distinguished Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that this campaign has included “assassinations of nuclear scientists, explosions at nuclear sites, cyberattacks, attacks on Iranian ships, extensive airstrikes against pro-Iranian militias in Syria. . .”

The prevailing theory is that at least some of these attacks in Iran are carried out by the Mujahedin-e-Khalq (MeK), an extremist opposition group. (The cult-like group has ties, probably including financial links, to top Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani and to former national security adviser John Bolton.) Expecting Iranians to support the MeK is absurd, not least because the cult fought alongside Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein’s army during his 8-year war against Iran in the 1980s.

Meanwhile, Israel and the pro-Israel lobby have an immediate fear; the talks in Vienna to restore the Iran nuclear deal are apparently going well and nearing an agreement. The Biden administration is preoccupied with the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and the last thing it wants is another crisis in the Middle East. What’s more, Israel’s refusal to stand squarely with the U.S., NATO and the Ukrainian government has not gone unnoticed. The pro-Israel lobby is surely already working overtime at damage control.

By James North, mondoweiss.net

March 26, 2022 0 comments

The cult of Rajavi

The MEK and Children – Reza Gooran

In September 2002, Reza was five years old when his mother Farokh Farhangian took him across the Kurdistan border to join the Mujahedin Khalq (MKO/ MEK/ PMOI/ Cult of Rajavi) in Iraq.

At the time, there was almost no child in the group’s Camp Ashraf, except the child soldiers who have been smuggled from Europe to Iraq in their teen age. The child soldiers of Mujahed parents had been sent to Europe and North America under the order of Massoud Rajavi who did not want any family relationships in his cult of personality.

Reza Gooran

The very young Reza Gooran was considered as an obstacle against his mother’s activities in the cult. Therefore, the leaders of the MEK decided to smuggle Reza back to Iran. They separated him from his mother just like what they did in 1991 when they separated 700 MEK children from their parents in Camp Ashraf.
Eventually, In the summer of 2003, Reza was handed over to human smugglers who left him at the door of his grandmother in Kurdistan, Iran. Since then, Reza was grown by his father and his grandmother. Nevertheless, his father died when Reza was twelve years old.

Farokh Farhangian, Reza’s mother is still in the MEK. She was relocated in Albania in 2016. She is residing in Camp Ashraf 3, in Manza village, north of Tirana. She has not contacted her son for over 18 years. Reza and his grandmother’s efforts in order to contact Farokh have been unsuccessful.

However, life goes on for Reza. He got married last year. His mother was not informed about Reza’s wedding. She was not able to accompany her son on the memorable night of his life.
Reza is still hopeful that he will see his mother again someday.

March 19, 2022 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization as a terrorist group

Biden Dilemma: Iranians Saw Trump As A Mad Man But Blame America For Their Woes

After enduring four years of President Trump’s hostile and belligerent policies and actions – the Muslim travel ban, extreme sanctions, incitement to violence, support for terrorist groups, assassinations of nuclear scientists and of general Qasem Soleimani – the Iranian people are entitled to conclude that America is waging a war against them. And Iran has responded; maximum pressure resulted only in maximum resistance. The sanctions, unfortunate as they have been for Iran’s economy, have not destroyed it. Indeed, evidence is emerging that Iran’s resistance culture itself has led to an entrepreneurial response to overcome the restrictions. Iran’s military opened a trade and security corridor through Syria and Lebanon to the Mediterranean coast. A dedicated port is under construction. The U.S. can no longer control Iran’s finances since it is no longer limited to trading through Dubai. The only way to stop that is using bombs; an actual declaration of war, which puts Israel at risk.

Biden Dilemma Iranians Blame America

Trump and his allies spent four years trying to crush Iran, to force regime change and failing that, threats to bomb the country back fifty years. They failed. The unintended consequence of that failure has been the militarisation of Iran. The Revolutionary Guards have become stronger and their power embedded in the wider region with allies in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon. Commemorations to mark the January 3rd anniversary of the assassinations of Iranian general Qasem Soleimani and Iraqi Commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis were titled ‘Martyrs Without Borders’ signifying their wider relevance. Although Iraq is in step with Iran to eject American forces from the region, the Trump administration failed to understand that Ayatollah Khamenei’s ‘harsh revenge’ could be achieved as much through regional soft power and international law as military strikes.

Furthermore, the assassination of Soleimani unified Iran in a way that no internal politics could have hoped to achieve as Iranians rallied round their flag. Back in 2016, Iran’s leaders were almost equally divided between western leaning moderates and revolutionary hardliners. Now we hear president Rohani echoing the speeches of Ayatollah Khamenei, and foreign minister Javad Zarif amplifying the role of the Quds Force in Iran’s foreign policy. National unity against the perceived external threat of America has now created grounds for military officials to be allowed to run for president in June’s elections. If the military prevail, it will make conflict more likely, not less. Iran says its missile program is defensive, that it does not want war, but with missiles in Iran and Lebanon trained on U.S. interests in the region, Israel is clearly less safe than before.

President Joe Biden will only have months to make a difference if he wants to pursue a diplomatic route. He must demonstrate through policies and actions that Trump was a hiccup, not the way things will be. Trump was not America. If Biden wants to start talking with Iran he must accept where Iran is now, not what it used to be. Confrontation and containment cannot be the starting point for negotiations; there will have to be more carrots.

Iran experts are focused on re-joining the JCPOA. But this will not be enough on its own to recalibrate relations between the two countries. Not only will Iran expect sanctions to be lifted but will feel entitled to demand compensation for the financial losses suffered under extreme sanctions. People were denied medicine. Iranians saw Trump as a mad man, but they blame America for their woes. The damage done by Trump will take years to redress, but there is no reason why trust building cannot begin straight away. To start with Biden must treat Iran with respect. Acknowledge that assassinations and incitement to violence and terrorism are not how civilized countries behave.

Of course, the new presidency will be hampered by America’s internal problems. Biden inherits a deeply divided country. Yet, the decades long problem of Iran could very well offer a route to a new bipartisan consensus on a way forward. Although Trump has gone, the Adelson family, Neocons and Fox News will still be there; war is still on the agenda. Theirs is not a battle between Democrats and Republicans, but between warmongers and peacemakers. Their agenda doesn’t depend on who is the president. They want to defeat Iran. If Trump couldn’t do it, they will force the Democrats to do it. They want a war at any price. If Biden cannot prevent war, they will have won.

In this respect, this expert would advocate a much easier, cheaper and effective course of action to start with. Biden should immediately restore the Obama administration’s plan to deradicalize the Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK) terrorist cult in Albania. The MEK are, of course, the darlings of both the anti-Iran cabal in the US, Israel and Saudi Arabia, and the hardliners in Iran. Both sides have used the MEK to destroy Iran’s indigenous opposition movement and to control the prevailing narrative on Iran in international politics.

By dismantling and deradicalizing the MEK, Biden can score easy wins in a variety of arenas. In Albania it would free around two thousand members from conditions of modern slavery, allowing them to reintegrate into normal society and be reunited with their families. It would relieve the Albanian government and security services of the headache caused by MEK crime, corruption and impunity in their country. For Iranians who universally regard the MEK with loathing as traitors and cultists, it would send a clear message that America will not tolerate terrorism or human rights abuses in pursuit of its foreign policy aims. Iran’s people would view dismantling this terrorist group as a goodwill gesture; building a modicum of trust that may sway some voters in June to have faith in the efficacy of diplomacy with the west.

But the most significant win for Biden would be to start tackling the corruption inside America which facilitated Trump’s belligerent agenda and that of his backers. Dismantling the MEK would stem one of the hidden conduits for the flow of foreign money and false narratives into America.

The MEK paid thousands of dollars for the likes of Rudi Giuliani and John Bolton to attend their rallies in Paris and Tirana to peddle the false narrative that the only way to deal with Iran is confrontation, regime change and war. The Heshmat Alavi scandal which exposed an industry of fake social media messages and accounts and a click farm in Albania, revealed that what had previously been covert activity had, under Trump, become mainstream.

In America, Professor Raymond Tanter has been tasked with creating a bi-partisan group to undermine the work of the new Biden administration. Funding for this project relies on the kind of corruption that has become embedded in the body politic. The example of MEK funding for the extreme right Vox Party in Spain reveals how the MEK use individual and fake association accounts to channel foreign funds into anti-Iran projects.

It is incumbent on the Biden administration to approach relations with Iran on a new page. Purging the old regime need not be as difficult as it first appears. The costs of erasing any traces of the MEK from that page are low, the benefits are great and many.

By Anne and Massoud Khodabandeh,

March 17, 2022 0 comments

Massoud Rajavi

Massoud Rajavi offered his own gun to the 14-year-old Zohair

Zohair was only fourteen when he was armed by Massoud Rajavi in person

Zohair Zakeri was born in 1976. When in 1991 Massoud Rajavi ordered to separate the children form their Mujahed parents and smuggle them to Europe and North America, Zohair refused to leave Camp Ashraf; he allegedly wanted to be a fighter of the MEK’s army, the so-called National Liberation army. Eventually, Massoud Rajavi gave his colt to him as a gift!
His father, Ebrahim Zakeri was a high-ranking member of the Mujahedin Khalq Organization (the MKO/ MEK/ PMOI/ Cult of Rajavi). His mother who disagreed with the MEK had divorced before they came to Camp Ashraf, Iraq.

Zohair zakeri next to his father

Ozra Alavi Taleghani the second wife of Ebrahim Zaker was Zohair’s stepmother. Both parents were commanders in the MEK and busy working for the group. So, Zohair did not enjoy a normal family life. Before the separation from their parents and the eventual forced divorce of married members, children of the Mujahedin could visit their parents in the weekends but Zohair was even deprived from these short-time family life.
Persuaded by Massoud Rajavi, the 14-year-old Zohair became a child soldier of the Cult of Rajavi. He did not go to school or university. Instead, he was under the constant manipulation system of the cult. He was trained as a devotee of Massoud Rajavi. According to the MEK’s website, Zohair wrote a letter to Rajavi after he watched the videos of his speech addressing him, “Brother! You break a record again but what should we do with your love?” This was the result of the education system of the Cult of Rajavi.

Zohair Zakeri

When Zohair was 19, he was an official member of the MEK’s army. Radicalized by Massoud Rajavi’s trainings he was ready to act under his absolute power. Consequently, years later when he was ordered to lie down in front of the military vehicles of Iraqi army to prevent them from entering Camp Ashraf, he was manipulated (or perhaps intimated) enough to get killed for the cause of Rajavi.
Zohair was 35 when he was killed in the clashes between Iraqi forces and the MEK members in May 2011. The MEK propaganda media broadcast all kinds of content to glorify the “martyrdom” of Zohair, a young man who never enjoyed childhood in the Cult of Rajavi and lost his life under the order of the cult leader.

March 15, 2022 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

A Cult in Heart of Republic, a book on France’s ties to MKO terrorists

Iran has unveiled the Persian copy of a French book that reviews the grisly crimes committed by the notorious anti-Iran terror group, Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization.

A Cult in the Heart of the Republic is the title of the book written by a member of the French Senate, Nathalie Goulet. In her book, she shines a light into the formidable anti-Iran terror group, known as Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization, or simply the MKO.

The author tries to warn her fellow Senate members that a full-scale terror group exists in the heart of the French Republic.

A Cult in Heart of Republic, a book on France’s ties to MKO terrorists

In Iran’s city of Qom, political thinkers and activists have gathered to unveil the first Persian translation of the French book.

Iran says the MKO has killed over 12,000 Iranian civilians and statesmen, including former President Mohammal Ali Rajaei and Prime Minister Mohammad Javad Bahonar in 1981. The group also fought alongside Iraqi forces against Iran during the eight-year Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s.

In 2012, the US and Europe delisted the group as a terror organization. The MKO was then relocated from an American military base in Iraq to Albania and France. Since then, the US and Europe have been taking part in the MKO’s annual summits in Paris.

Nathalie Goulet’s book tries to highlight the criminal track record of the MKO, while warning France that it’s making a big mistake by supporting the terror group.

In 1988, Iran executed the remnants of the terror grouping in Iran. The MKO is currently led by 68-year-old Maryam Rajavi, who is facing pressure from French human rights entities as a “smear” on France’s record of human rights advocacy.

Aside from warning France of the security threats posed to the country by the MKO, the French author says capitalizing on the terror group is a waste of time and money. She argues that the MKO is viewed as an obsolete killing machine in the minds of Iranians and has no place in Iran’s sociopolitical structure.

Yusef Jalali

March 15, 2022 0 comments

Massoud Rajavi

Massoud Rajavi beat and kicked Mehri to force her to stay in his cult

Mehri Musavi a female member of the Mujahedin Khalq Organization was killed in 2003 after she asked to leave the group.

Born in 1961 Mehri Musavi was a student in her twenties studying in a university in the United States when she decided to join the MEK in Iraq. There, she worked for the group’s political unit as a translator and interpreter. Eventually, she was raised in the hierarchy of the cult of Rajavi and was nominated for membership in the group’s Elite Council which included only female members.

To remain a member of the Elite Council, Mehri had to stay in Iraq. She was not allowed to leave Iraqi territory according to the regulations of the Rajavi Cult. She had to promise that she would stay in the group for her whole life and Mehri could not admit such a harsh ruling. Thus, she asked for leaving the group.

Mehri Musavi’s grave

Mehri’s determination to leave the MEK was faced with a process of suppressive sessions. The main session was a trial for Mehri which was held by Massoud Rajavi, himself. Maryam Sanjabi, former member of the MEK, worked in the same unit as Mehri did. In her testimony about the killing of Mehri Musavi, she writes about the trial:
“Massoud Rajavi called on her to speak. Mehri repeated her request for leaving the group calmly and courageously. Instigated by Massoud Rajavi, the whole audience started shouting at her as if she had committed the most terrible crimes! Rajavi who was mad with her told her, ‘You can kill yourself swallowing your cyanide capsule!’…He explicitly told her that as a nominee of the Elite Council she was sentenced to death penalty because she wanted to leave.”

The meeting did not end by Rajavi’s ultimatum. Female commanders and peers of Mehri also tried their best to show off their obedience to Massoud by humiliating, insulting and threatening Mehri to death. Eventually, Mehri was asked if she had changed her mind. Her answer was “No”. “I never forget what happened then,” Maryam Sanjabi writes. “It was a new act of violence and cruelty played by Rajavi.”

Sanjabi describes the scene:
“Very irritated and nervous, Rajavi asked Mehri to come up to the stage to talk to her in person. Immediately after Mehri went to the stage, he, Maryam Rajavi and a few of high-ranking commanders took Mehri to the corridor behind the stage. A few minutes later, there were terrible screams and cries. About an hour later, Mehri was brought back to the hall. She had been terribly beaten. Her whole body was bruised. Her hair was messy and pulled out.”

It is said that Maryam Rajavi had pulled Mehri out of under the Massoud Rajavi’s fist and kick. She had talked to Mehri trying to persuade her to retract her words, at least in front of the audience. Sanjabi recalls, “Having a lump in her throat Mehri finally addressed the audience, ‘I was wrong. I will stay.’ “
After the trial session, Mehri was no more employed in political unit. She was sent to kitchen. “This was a systematic punishment in the MEK,” Sanjabi says.

“Mehri Musavi was ultimately forced to swallow her cyanide capsule in May 2003,” Sanjabi writes. “It was after the invasion of the US forces to Iraq.” The MEK leaders told members that Mehri had killed herself to protest the entrance of the American forced to Camp Ashraf. “She asked for permission and we allowed her to kill herself so we name her a martyr”. This was read by a commander in a meeting for the Elite Council.

Nobody could believe such an argument for the death of a dissident member. Maryam Sanjabi worked in the personnel department of the organization, at the time. Some time later, she came across with a classified document. It was an order issued and signed by Massoud Rajavi. “Regarding the presence of the American forces at Camp Ashraf and regarding Mehri Musavi’s fluency in English and her problematic organizational conditions, Rajavi had stated that her being alive is troubling and she had to be eliminated,” Sanjabi writes. “This was a fact to prove Rajavi’s crimes and treasons against his own members.”

March 14, 2022 0 comments

The cult of Rajavi

Refused to have sex with the MEK leader – They killed her

Minoo Fathali was killed by the MEK leaders because she did not want to sleep with the leader of the Mujahedin Khalq (MEK/ MKO/ PMOI/ Cult of Rajavi), Massoud Rajavi.

Minoo was a member of the MEK since her teen years. She joined the group at Camp Ashraf and soon she was elevated in the group’s hierarchy and became a member of the MEK’s Elite Council. In 1993 when Massoud Rajavi ordered Maryam Rajavi to go from Iraq to Europe, Minoo was one of the female members to accompany Maryam.

Minoo Fathali

In Europe, Minoo’s duty was raising funds for the MEK through charity activities for the so-called orphans of Iran. She had to serv the MEK fourteen hours a day in order to raise funds from European citizens. In 1998 she was ordered to get back to the group’s headquarters in Iraq. As she was a member of the Elite Council, she was expected to attend the special meetings for nude dancing of female members of the council before the eyes Massoud Rajavi. The meetings were named “Salvation Dance” which was first revealed by a female defector of the MEK, Batul Soltani. “Weeping tears, Minoo left the hall of Salvation Dance,” Batul writes in her testimonies. “This was the start of her dissent against the Cult of Rajavi.”

Female commanders including Giti Givechi and Faeze Mohabatkar, tried to convince Minoo to get back to the hall. “Maryam Rajavi came to them too,” Batul writes. “She tried to coerce Minoo by saying ‘You should take of your clothes of infidelity and hypocrisy and dive into the pool to unite with Massoud.”

Batoul Soltani

Batul recalls that Minoo was always reluctant to join Salvation Dance meetings. Minoo told Maryam Rajavi that she hated to get naked and dance in front of Massoud but she was still under pressure by the cult authorities to take part in the meetings. She was accused of being the agent of the Iranian government. Her organizational ranking was dropped.

Batul and Minoo were friends. They used to open up for each other secretly but after Minoo started to speak out her dissent the commanders changed her unit of serving so Batul could not see her regularly until the day she saw her in Camp Bagherzadeh. “She looked very desperate and frustrated,” Batul writes. “She told me ‘They have given me a hard time. I don’t want to have sex with Massoud but they want to force me to do so’.” Batul had no way to help her except praying for her. Batul herself was a victim; she had been already forced to sleep with Massoud.

In 2001, Minoo escaped the group with the help of one of the male members of the group. “We were suddenly summoned to a special meeting,” Batul says. “Massoud was shouting at female commanders who were crying ‘traitor should be shot dead’.” The horrific meeting lasted until the next morning!

Thirty to forty patrol teams of the MEK, escorted by Iraqi forces were mobilized to find Minoo and the man. Finally, they arrested them in a park in Baghdad. Zohreh Shafai was the commander of the patrol teams. In the following meeting, she reported to Massoud Rajavi about the way they found Minoo. “You were authorized to shoot her. Why didn’t you shoot her?” Massoud asked Zohreh.

Maryam Sanjabi

Maryam Sanjabi another female defector of the Cult of Rajavi has testified about the fate of Minoo Fathali too. She states, “I remember Mahvash Sepehri [or Nasrin, a female commander of the group] in a meeting saying that Minoo should have been killed because she was one of the women of Massoud who tried to escape the group and could have revealed the secrets of the Elite Council.” Since then, Minoo was imprisoned in the jails of Camp Ashraf, called Bengal. “We did not see Minoo anymore, “Batoul says.

In 2003, the US forces invaded Iraq. The MEK announced that Minoo was killed by American bombs. “When the war was over, we were shocked to see Minoo’s grave in the cemetery of Camp Ashraf,” Batul writes.
About the MEK’s claim that Minoo was killed by the coalition forces, Maryam Sanjabi argues, “Camp Ashraf had not been bombarded before they announced the death of Minoo. Most of the places were evacuated at Camp Ashraf. No body was killed in the bombings. The dead body of Minoo was not seen by anybody. Basically, all members knew that the death penalty had been issued for Minoo by the cult’s leader.”

It is worth to note that nude dancing by female members of the Elite Council was a precondition to get married with Massoud Rajavi. The chosen members were made marry the cult leader all together. They were then called to sleep with him from time to time. Massoud Rajavi practiced polygamy while all members of his called had to divorce their spouses and to engage in a mandatory celibacy.

March 13, 2022 0 comments

Massoud Rajavi

Massoud Rajavi should be convicted as Lubanga was

March 14th ten years ago, marked the day that Thomas Lubanga Dylio was found guilty by the International Criminal Court (ICC) of the war crimes of enlisting and conscripting children under the age of 15 years and using them to participate actively in hostilities. About a decade later, former child soldiers of the Mujahedin Khalq (MEK/ PMOI) began speaking out giving their testimonies on how they were snatched and recruited by the agents of Massoud Rajavi.

In March 14th, 2012, the guardian reported, “The international criminal court has delivered the first verdict in its 10-year history, finding a Congolese warlord guilty of recruiting child soldiers. Thomas Lubanga was convicted of snatching children from the street and turning them into killers. He showed no emotion as the presiding judge, Adrian Fulford, read out the verdict.”

Thomas Lubanga

Lubanga was sentenced to 14 years of imprisonment. According to the ICC official website, on 15 March 2020, Thomas Lubanga was released after having served 14 years of imprisonment. Thomas Lubanga had used a rebel militia to dominate the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo’s Ituri region. “Children as young as 11 were recruited from their homes and schools to take part in brutal ethnic fighting in 2002-03,” according to the Guardian. “They were taken to military training camps and beaten and drugged; girls were used as sex slaves.”

Lubanga’s trick to coscript militia is very similar to that of Massoud Rajavi to recruit his Mujahed militia. About eight hundred children of Mujahed parents were first separated from their parents who were allegedly fighting the Iranian government in Camp Ashraf, Iraq. They were smuggled to Europe and North America where they were kept in team houses of the MEK or were given to fostering families, sympathizers of the MEK.

Today, after over two decades, former child soldiers have launched a campaign to defend their right to reveal their own experiences of being a child soldier in the MEK. Amir Yaghmai is one of the first former child soldiers of the MEK who spoke out about his experience of living under the abusive system of the Cult of Rajavi. In 2021, two other MEK-born children who are now in their thirties spoke out. Hanif Azizi, a Swedish policeman now, published his autobiography, “Suburban snout” in Swedish recounting his childhood in the MEK’s military camps. Amin Golmaryami was the third child soldier who was officially brought to the lime light of the Western media. His life story was published by the German newspaper Die Zeit in October 2021.

This was the start of a series of revelations by other child soldiers of the MEK. Sam, Mohammad, Ray, Arman, Saeed, Zina and other young defectors of the MEK who were once recruited by the group’s agents and transferred to Iraq, spoke out in the social media, in particular Club House platform. These former child soldiers were eventually labeled as agents of the Iranian government by the MEK propaganda.

Die Zeit’s journalist Luisa Hommerich who only investigated the cases of MEK children in Cologne, Germany, writes, “From the mid-1990s, some of their former teachers remembered that People’s Mojahedin children suddenly disappeared from Cologne. They suddenly stopped showing up in their classes, 14-, 15-, 16-year-old teenagers. A former teacher says today that he informed the Cologne Youth Welfare Office and the guardian Christoph Meertens about it.”

There were a lot more children, girls and boys who were smuggled from the United States, Canada and European countries to the MEK’s military headquarters in Iraq, Camp Ashraf. At least three hundred of the MEK’s children were coerced by the MEK agents to sign a recruitment form to join the MEK’s military force, called National Liberation Army (NLA), financially and logistically sponsored by Saddam Hussein, former Iraqi dictator. Their story is very similar to Lubanga’s victims. All of these children were under 18; they were whipped from school; they were forced to wear military uniform in Camp Ashraf; they were trained military trainings and even in cases they were forced to attend military operations or clashes. Former child soldiers of the MEK even exposed several cases of sexual harassment and child abuse by MEK agents.

Although former child soldiers of the so-called People’s Mojahedin of Iran (PMOI) do not seek to sue the group leaders for the time being, Massoud Rajavi and his commanders can be hold accountable for crimes against children under legal age they recruited for the NLA. Today, former child soldiers of the MEK are determined to tell the truth as a warning for other people who are at risk of being trapped by extremist groups and destructive cults like the MEK. However, the international community must take it into consideration that the crimes of Massoud Rajavi against his own members, particularly the children of his own members are definitely blamed by illuminated public opinion.

By Mazda Parsi

March 12, 2022 0 comments

Maryam Rajavi

Maryam Rajavi John Bercow – It Takes One to Know One

For those living in the UK, it should come as no surprise that among the many shoddy failures in the Westminster bubble, former House of Commons Speaker John Bercow has been banned from parliament for life after a bullying inquiry found him guilty. In spite of his effectiveness in his role as Speaker, those close to him, professionally and personally, knew him to be a difficult, unpleasant individual. Among the panel’s findings were that he acted as a “serial bully and serial liar”, his behaviour was a ‘marked abuse of power and authority’, and that “there is ‘no doubt’ that victims were telling the truth”.

It should also be no surprise to observers of Maryam Rajavi and her tragic little cult, the MEK, that these are the characteristics her close associates will also recognise as hers: bullying, lying, abuse of power and authority. Also, that her victims are telling the truth. Maryam Rajavi’s vicious screaming hysterics are famous among her inner circle.

, former House of Commons Speaker John Bercow

Maryam Rajavi and John Bercow

What links these two is that the MEK was in the process of grooming Bercow to become the MEK’s lobbying replacement for the late David Amess in the UK parliament. Amess lined up among an anti-Iran cabal that included John Bolton and Rudi Giuliani.

The MEK has a long history of association with some very unsavoury characters. While not all of them share these personal characteristics, most have been forced out of their official positions or had reputations built on years of corruption and sleaze eventually exposed: Rudi Giuliani is only a recent example. After he was voted out as a Member of the European Parliament, Alejo Vidal-Quadras of Spain showed his extreme right-wing views as president of VOX. He channelled finance from the MEK money laundering system into the Vox Party.

The history of the MEK includes many, many of such people. It is true, of course, that Maryam Rajavi cannot pick and choose her associates because decent people will not get involved in her schemes and crimes, not for any amount of money. But certainly the role call of MEK supporters does prove that it takes on to know one as Rajavi’s nasty corruption attracts like-minded people.

March 12, 2022 0 comments

Iran

Iran Condemns Western Support For Mojahedin-e Khalq Terrorists

Secretary of Iran Judiciary’s Human Rights Council condemned Western countries for granting immunity to the terrorist group of MKO, despite the group’s long-drawn-out history of bloodshed and atrocity against the Iranians.

Kazem Gharibabadi made the remarks in a letter addressed to the United Nations secretary-general, the UN high commissioner for human rights, and the UN Human Rights Council as well as the heads of the European Council, Commission, and Parliament.

The Mojahedin-e Khalq terrorist organization (MKO also known as MEK), he wrote, is responsible for carrying out most of the assassinations that have targeted the Iranian people since the 1979 victory of Iran’s Islamic Revolution.

Secretary of Iran Judiciary’s Human Rights Council; Kazem Gharibabadi

“In order to introduce the MKO, it suffices to say that their top priority and the main basis of performance [relies on] assassination and murdering the individuals, who do not adhere to the same ideas as they [themselves],” the letter read.

The MKO has a dark history of assassinations and bombings against the Iranian government and nation. It notoriously sided with Saddam Hussein in the former Iraqi dictator’s 1980-88 war against the Islamic Republic.

Out of the nearly 17,000 Iranians killed in terrorist assaults since the Revolution’s victory, about 12,000 have fallen victim to the MKO’s acts of terror.

Western countries, topped by the United States, have, however, taken the group out of their terror blacklists.

The group throws lavish conferences every year in Paris, with certain American, Western, and Saudi Arabian officials as its guests of honor. These have included former US national security advisor John Bolton, former US President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, former Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper, and former Saudi Arabian spy chief, Prince Turki al-Faisal.

Gharibabadi reprimanded some European countries for providing “safe havens” for the group, allowing it to set up its offices there, and even letting its members address their government and parliament sessions.

The support, he regretted, had emboldened “the murderous and dangerous organization’s ringleaders to [even] introduce themselves as human rights supporters.”

“This dual perspective of the issue of human rights” and support for a group, which has the blood of thousands of Iranians on its hands “is not acceptable under any circumstances,” the letter said.

It finally urged the United Nations and the European Union to prevent the free movement of the MKO’s members across the European countries and elsewhere and hold them accountable for their atrocities.

March 10, 2022 0 comments

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