Articles

Ali Akbar Rastgou Open letter to Giulio Terzi

Open letter to Italian ex FM

Dear Mr. Terzi,

In your interview with “Il garantista” from 6/17/2015 the “National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI)” is described as a “coalition of Iranian organizations, groups and Democrats residing abroad”.

Accurate would be to designate the NCRI as a political arm of the People’s Mojahedin “Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK / MKO / PMOI)”. Although after its foundation in 1981 in addition to Abulhassan Bani Sadr, a former president of the Islamic Republic, also the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan (DPKI), followers of Mohammad Mosaddeq founded National Democratic Front and various Stalinist groups joined the NCRI, but in 1982 Bani Sadr already left the NCRI. Like him many other groups not being satisfied with the absolute leadership style of Rajavi and the dominance of the MEK in the NCRI, followed him till the 1984th.

Furthermore, it is said, the NCRI combines “representatives of ethnic and religious minorities, such as Kurds, Baluchis, Jews and Zoroastrians “.

Also in the Iranian parliament, according to the Constitution of the Islamic Republic, there are reserved five seats for representatives of religious minorities. Even Article 13 of the Constitution recognizes Iranian citizens of Zoroastrian, Jewish and Christian faith officially as religious minorities, who determine their personal status and religious education even after the corresponding own religious rules. Should we therefore call the Islamic Republic as a prime example of religious freedom and democracy?

What matters is how this apparent openness for minorities and other opinions and ways of life is implemented in reality.

Mr. Terzi, in the interview, you talk about the demand of young Iranians “… for more freedom in the school, in information, in everyday life …” But can such a claim at all to be implemented by an organization that keeps its members under strict supervision in the camps since decades, prohibiting them from access to information and independent media, controlling and directing all social contacts?

You point out, the fight against the Islamic State is “hopeless” when Islamic fundamentalism will further be “fueled by Tehran”. The “Shiite sectarianism” be the “trigger” for the “radicalization of large parts of the Sunni world.”

How can you seriously believe that an organization with such a strong personality cult around its leaders Massoud and Maryam Rajavi and such cultish structures based on a radical indoctrination of its members against all dissenters could make a contribution to the pacification of this regional and religious powder keg? An organization that has always been calling on Iranian people to rise up and overthrow the regime, only to take itself to power as a “transitional government”.

So worthy of support the demand for the inclusion of other refugees from Camp Liberty in Italy may be, you should look carefully whether the organization you designate “…The only solution for the future of Iran…”, can deliver what it promises, or whether the many dropouts and critics, human rights organizations and aid workers as well as nearly all those who have taken a critical look with the MEK apart, are right when they accuse the organizations cultish structures, the leader cult , indoctrination and oppression up to the ill-treatment of members, foreclosure of the world and reality, and a very idiosyncratic understanding of democracy.

You cannot fight the fact that you support an organization with a more radical and more fundamental ideology of fundamentalism and radicalism.

You cannot fight terrorism and bloodshed, by supporting an organization that has been practicing this for many years and still takes the view, “liberation” of Iran can only be possible through a (violent) overthrow of the government.

As nice as moderate and western-democratic the facade of the MEK may seem, viewing behind the facade reveals its true face fast!

Best regards,

AAWA Association e.V.

Dipl. Ing. Ali Akbar Rastgou (Chairman)

[2] http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2000/09/iran-s14.html.

[4] http://othes.univie.ac.at/18784/1/2012-02-29_0948167.pdf , S. 6.

[6]NCR

August 5, 2015 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization

Who is the Finance Director of the MKO?

Mohammad Tarighat Monfared alias Yaser is a high ranking member of Mujahedin-e Khalq who commutes within Europe under the alias Lolakiyan.

He is from Tehran. In 1982 he escaped Iran. He now resides in Berlin, Germany. Tarighat Monfared is a veteran member of the MKO. From 1979 he has been the financial director of the group.

As the financial supervisor of the group, one of his most important operations has been receiving financial aids from Saudi Arabia, Israel and Saddam Hussein.

The Iraqi collapsed dictator; Saddam Hussein had allocated 3 million oil barrels per month to the Mujahedin-e Khalq. The MKO received the oil share in coupons which then were sent to Europe to be changed in to dollars and to be invested.

Tarighat Monfared was tasked with operating as Rajavi’s representative in receiving the monthly 3 million oil barrels coupons and supervising the finances.

In 2003 he left Iraq for Europe in accompany with Maryam Rajavi. From then on he lives in Germany and organizes the money laundering operations of the group.

Most recently three members of the MKO traveled to Germany from Albania under the command of Yaser (Tarighat Monfared). They were tasked with transferring a huge sum of money. The three members arrested by the Germany Police and imprisoned.

Based on the report of Hamidreza Bikas; former member of the group

August 5, 2015 0 comments

The MEK to launch Armed Struggle

On the Anniversary of MKO leader’s escape from Iran

Terror In The Name Of Democracy: Initiation of Armed Revolt

The eruption of riots was actually MKO’s first organized armed revolt to steer the country to the verge of anarchy

The eruption of riots was actually MKO’s first organized armed revolt to steer the country to the verge of a chaotic atmosphere and anarchy and it was followed by daily scattered clashes, bombings and terrorist atrocities. The ousted Bani-Sadr himself used as the pretext to trigger MKO’s armed revolt, encouraged the group to precipitate the created crises by a wave of violent activities including assassination of high-ranking statesmen and personalities. In her confessions after her arrest, Sudabeh Sadifi, an adviser to Bani-Sadr, asserted that Bani-Sadr after his dismissal in a message to Massoud Rajavi, MKO’s leader, urged him to “Start striking their heads. There is no other way.”

Plots to assassinate the key, influential heads in charge hatched just after Bani-Sadr and Rajavi’s hiding in the organization’s secret hideouts. The first perpetrated terrorist act was an attempt to assassinate Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Tehran’s Friday prayers at the time, on 27 June, 1981; a bomb, concealed in a tape recorder, exploded beside him while he was delivering an address in Abu Dhar mosque south of Tehran. He escaped assassination but suffered serious injuries that left his right hand handicapped. The terrorist agent was identified to be a MKO’s central cadre, Javad Qadiri.

Tehran was still under the shock of the attempt assassination when MKO stroke the successive terrorist blow the day after on June 28. Reportedly, two blasts ripped through IRP building as the chief Ayatollah Beheshti was addressing his regular weekly meeting. The death toll rose to 74 including Ayatollah Beheshti, Cabinet ministers, deputy ministers and members of Parliament. The perpetrator was identified to be an infiltrated agent of MKO, Muhammad-Reza Kulahi. It was so heavy a strike for the newly formed regime and both MKO and Bani-Sadr expected complete destabilization and overthrow of the ruling authority. However, the public reaction to such violent, immoral deeds was nothing more than a strong feeling of repulsion towards MKO.

On July 27, 1981, Muhammad-Ali Rajai won a landslide victory in Iran’s second post-revolution presidential election. Deeply disappointed, the sole option before the two fugitives living in secret hideouts was to immediately leave the country. On 29 July, Bani-Sadr accompanied by Rajavi, in disguise and by having shaved off his customary mustache, were driven to a Tehran military base and got on board of a hijacked Iranian air force 707 jet tanker around 10 at night. It seemed unlikely that they could have gotten to the plane and aboard without the cooperation of other military personnel and particularly the pilot who flew the plane to land it at the military airfield of Evreux near Paris. The pilot, Col. Behzad Moesi, was the personal pilot of the ousted Muhammad-Reza Pahlavi whom, along with his family, he had flown out of Iran to Egypt and then to Morocco in December 1978. Unexpectedly, Moesi had returned Pahlavi’s plane, Shahin, to Iran and received a warm welcome as a hero and a revolutionary. He had succeeded to win the trust of authorities and had been appointed to sensitive military positions.

It is reasonable to assume that his return to Iran was a scenario outlined by the states antagonizing the Islamic regime and directed by intelligence agencies to establish a direct contact with the active opposition groups to arrive at an agreement for a variety of collaborative programs to advance political policies and interests inside Iran. And his return aroused nobody’s curiosity in Iran to question controversial aspects of such an easy return; how had he managed to refuel the plane and flew it out of a heavily guarded military base and pass over a few countries’ air borders to make a heroic return?

The Second Terrorist Tragedy

The fugitives’ escape to France postponed MKO’s second appalling terrorist operation scheduled to be perpetrated the month after the explosion at IRP building. Being granted political asylum just after his arrival in France, Bani-Sadr said “we must try to find a quicker way of overthrowing the absolutists”, and Rajavi vowed to “organize the resistance” against the Islamic Republic from France. There they were granted the opportunity of conveniently planning, by abundantly offered external aids, for more destructive and successful operations. The quick way to success had to be involved a variety of violent options including suicide bombing; MKO had enough devoted infiltrated agents as volunteers for these types of operation. Massoud Keshmiri, the agent who detonated the bomb in the Prime Minister’s office, had already volunteered to be a suicide bomber if necessary although he succeeded in his mission without endangering his life and managed to escape through a well-planned trick played by his fellow-mate accomplices.
On August 30, 1981, Mohammad Ali Rajai, the Iranian President, and Mohammad Javad Bahonar, the Prime Minister, were burned beyond recognition by an incendiary that set fire to the Prime Minister’s office. The victims’ bodies were identified only through dental records. No group immediately claimed responsibility for the bombing but there was speculation, proved later, that it was work of MKO. There still remains questions concerning the planted incendiary bomb that just burned the president and his prime minister but leaving others merely injured. The third victim, Abdolhussein Daftarian, the prime ministry’s authority, died of uncontrolled consequences of the blast. The fourth victim, Hushang Dastjerdi, the head of the national police, passed away 6 days later in hospital as a result of the injuries. The bomb was said to have been planted inside a briefcase that Keshmiri carried, but there was a different judgment that it had been planted inside a tape-recorder stationed before the victims. Col. Muhammad Mahdi Katibe, a member of the meeting who survived the blast, states that:
“I believe the appropriate container to plant the bomb inside was the tap-recorder that had a capacity for more than 10 pounds explosives. I think it was a hollow case inside which they had planted a TNT time bomb with alarm clock detonator. I doubt if there was a better vessel.”

August 3, 2015 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

The “Manufactured crisis” ended, the MKO left in Catastrophe

“After decades of tensions and distrust, 12 years of hope and fear and 22 months of intense, difficult, highly technical and political negotiations, we had finally made it,” write Mrs. Frederica Mogherini in her enlightening piece on the Guardian titled “The Iran agreement is a disaster for Isis”. The High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy believes that the nuclear agreement between Iran and the West will open a new chapter in the relations between the two sides. She explains one of the main reasons for her trip to Tehran concerns with the implementation of the agreement. Besides, she writes of another duty she and other sides of the agreement have to build on “the historical result” they have achieved in Vienna which is” an alliance of civilizations“ that according to her can be “our most powerful weapon in the fight against terror” and sectarianism in the region , particularly ISIS. [1] Mrs. Mogherini’s good will for peace making seems truly honest but why the Mujahedin Khalq Organization (the MKO) condemns her trip to Tehran?

The so-called National Council of Resistance of Iran the propaganda arm of the MKO claims that the Iranian Government is in decline and Europe should not tie its future to it! As he claims Europe will lose the friendship with Iranian people in future!

The future the NCR tries to imagine for Iran is entirely based on the mirage its leaders Massoud and Maryam Rajavi have been portraying for more than three decades. This is while Mogherini writes, “The Vienna deal tells us that we all have much to earn if we choose cooperation over confrontation”. She believes that hard work is needed to create peaceful mutual relationship but she points out,”We Europeans have a long tradition of cultural and economic relationship with Iran. Before sanctions began in 2005, cooperation between our parts of the world spanned many areas, from energy to trade. But our shared interests go well beyond the economy.” As she clarifies there is enough political will that “could open unprecedented possibilities of peace for the region”. [2]

The MKO leaders have other reasons to be mad at European countries. In the aftermath of the nuclear agreement, delegations of Germany and France also travelled to Tehran to expand economic and political relationships with Iran. “German business leaders landed in Iran with Economy Minister Sigmar Gabriel and have said they have high hopes to renew contacts”, reported DW. “Sigmar Gabriel, Germany’s vice chancellor and economy minister, flew to Iran on Sunday, becoming the first top Western official to visit the country since world powers and Tehran reached a historic nuclear deal.” [3]

“On the first visit to Iran for 12 years by a French foreign minister, Laurent Fabius conveyed an invitation from President Francois Hollande to Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani to visit France”, reported Reuters . “Fabius met with Iranian counterpart Mohammad Javad Zarif and was also due to meet Rouhani on his one-day visit, two weeks after a landmark deal under which Western sanctions are to be lifted in exchange for limits on Iran’s nuclear program.” [4]

Thus, the “manufacture crisis” made by the MKO-Israel alliance –as the famous historian journalist Gareth Porter investigated—seems to be ended.[5] The MKO now is endeavoring to ally itself with Zionist warmongers of the Congress to survive.

The two independent journalists Ali Gharib and Eli Clifton investigated the alliance between the Zionist lobby the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) that declared war on nuclear accord and the MKO: “AIPAC, Washington’s most influential pro-Israel lobby reportedly plans on spending $20 million over the next two months urging Congress to vote against the deal. But its efforts at a full frontal attack on the accord, inked by the P5+1 (the US, China, France, Russia, the UK, and Germany) and Iran is leading to some politically awkward alliances.” [6]

They affirm that an advocacy group called Citizens For a Nuclear Free Iran (CNFI) is an off-shoot of the AIPAC, “ Now that the campaign is taking shape, the AIPAC spin-off appears to be relying on a typical, if troubling, ally of American groups and individuals opposed to diplomacy with Iran.” They highlight the MKO’s part in this notorious alliance, ”Namely, two items on the website of Citizens for a Nuclear Iran, one of which was later removed, featured an exiled Iranian opposition group called the Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK).” [7]

The MKO is publicized in the multi-million dollar advertisement made by the Zionist advocacy lobby CNFI. As Gharib and Clifton state, the ad “incorporates b-roll footage from a press conference held by the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), which the State Department deemed the MEK’s “political wing” (earning it a corresponding terrorist designation). “ [8]

They add, “The footage in the Nuclear Free Iran ad shows Alireza Jafarzadeh, a longtime Washington-based MEK apparatchik, at the National Press Club using a pointer aimed at a satellite photograph.” [9] This must be one of the hundreds press conferences held by the MKO propaganda machine in which Alireza Jaafarzadeh, Sona Samsami, Mohammad Mohaddessin …or any other MKO agent repeats the repeated unproved claims of the so-called revelations on the Iranian nuclear program.

“Rajavi counts among her supporters one of Citizens for a Nuclear Free Iran’s advisory board members: former Democrat and former senator Joe Lieberman,“ Gharib and Clifton report. “Lieberman has made several appearances at MEK events, including this June when he appeared at a MEK confab in Paris.” [10]

There are a large number of warmongers who oppose any deal with Iran and support the MKO as an alternative for the Iranian government. On the MKO website you may see a list of people who had denounced Mogherini’s trip to Iran, from US lawmakers to Foreign Minister of the UAE. Good news for the MKO’s propaganda, skeptical lawmakers of the US Congress —some of whom induced by the MKO lobby and mostly backed by Israeli lobby — every day they challenge Secretary Kerry for not being firm on Iran. So what?

Seemingly, The MKO and its sponsors should understand that the aspirations of both sides of the agreement for peace and understanding are not easy to underestimate. It seems that the time for fabricating half-truths and false evidences about the Iranian nuclear program is over.

Mazda Parsi

References:

[1] Mogherini, Federica, The Iran agreement is a disaster for Isis, the Guardian, 28 July 2015

[2] ibid

[3] DW, German delegation aims to renew trade ties on trip to Iran, 19 July 2015

[4] Naegelen, Jacky, Fabius, visiting Tehran, invites Rouhani to France, Reuters, July 29 2015

[5] Porter, Gareth, Manufactured Crisis: The Untold Story of the Iran Nuclear Scare, Amazon.com,

February 14,2014

[6] Gharib, Ali & Clfton, Eli, Anti-Iran Deal AIPAC Spin-off Relies on Iranian Ex-Terrorist Group

, lobelog.com, July 21 2015

[7 ]ibid

[8] ibid

[9] ibid

[10] ibid

August 2, 2015 0 comments

Iran Interlink Weekly Digest

Iran Interlink Weekly Digest – 107

++ The MEK’s publicity outlets have broadcast a message from Massoud Rajavi to the members. Before this, there had not been any video of his speeches since 2003. This time there wasn’t even an audio of Rajavi’s voice and the message was read by someone else. After the usual lengthy rant, the main message is from one side threatening revenge against the Europeans and Americans for doing a deal with Iran. From other side Rajavi ironically claims the deal signals the beginning of the end for Iran because the MEK will resume its terrorist operations and “you will hear about it in Iran; we will launch terrorist attacks soon”. Contrary to the MEK’s mask of peace and democracy in the West, the MEK has announced its resumption of terrorism from its satellite TV in London and its website from Auvers-sur-Oise near Paris. The general interpretation among MEK experts is that this mixed message demonstrates Rajavi’s panic as he sees Iran getting closer to the West and the gap he depends upon to exploit is closing up. On the other hand the absence of audio has introduced more mystery to the question of Rajavi’s whereabouts.

++ Some ex-members have exposed a plot by the financial section of the MEK in Europe. Using documentation, they show that Shirin Moini and Babak NikTale’an, who were brought to Tirana from Iraq, first defected in Albania and got married and were then re-recruited by the MEK not as members but as mules for money laundry. While in Tirana they were given a house and a car and other facilities to establish a smuggling business there. But recently they travelled to Germany where they were arrested at the airport and the large sums of money they were carrying were confiscated. The MEK instructed them to try to find someone not connected to the MEK to claim the money is theirs and return it to the MEK. Knowing that anyone who claims such a large sum will be investigated, the MEK has tried to set up some of its enemies and get them implicated. They advised the couple to find ex-members and trap them in this scheme and engage them with the police. The couple have been revealed to be connected directly to the head of the MEK’s money laundry section called Mohammad Tariqat Monfared, who uses the pseudonym Yasser and who uses various passports, one of which is Lolachian which is the name of some of the MEK’s bank accounts. The ex-members who have exposed this scheme have identified similar cases that have happened before and concluded that the MEK regard this couple as expendable mules since they already defected from the cult. The MEK know they will forever be under scrutiny and are no longer of any use. But before giving them up the MEK is trying to get its money back and set up its enemies.

++ On the anniversary of Forough Javidan many people have written memories of how Rajavi knowingly sent people to their deaths and used their blood to revive the MEK, describing it as his “insurance” for his future. Hamed Sarrafpour in particular has written a detailed memoir of all the people he knew from the highest ranks to the ordinary members telling their individual stories along with pictures of the event.

In English:

++ Nedaye Haghighat website reported that two groups of fifteen individuals were transferred from Camp Liberty to Albania in the past two weeks. The process of relocation to third countries by the UN was scheduled to take only six months after the transfer to the temporary transit camp in Iraq, but obstruction by the MEK leaders has slowed the process. Also last week, Mojtaba Bidaqi managed to leave Camp Liberty after 31 years of membership in the destructive Rajavi cult by handing himself over to the UN officials in charge of the camp. His brother Amir had defected from the group last year after being relocated in Albania.

++ Mazda Parsi in Nejat Bloggers introduces the testimony of Manijeh Habashi who is a former sympathizer and member of the MKO. She gives first hand witness to Rajavi’s over-estimated Eternal Light invasion of Iran in 1988. In her detailed description she tries to portray the scenes she perceived, without judging or analysing the events. She believes that her expressive article is significant enough to enlighten the mind of her audience.

++ Following the nuclear deal, Daniel McAdams in Global Research writes a scathing criticism of neocon Bill Kristol saying at one point: “And Kristol’s objection to foreigners with American blood on their hands is highly selective. The Marxist-jihadist death cult Mojahedin-e-Khalq (MeK) has plenty of American blood on its hands, but Kristol’s own magazine joined other neocon voices in urging the US to remove the terrorists from the US list of terror organizations. Why? Because they are Kristol’s kind of terrorists: they infiltrate Iran to assassinate civilians and foment unrest, while passing off laptops with Mossad-fabricated data made to look like Iranian nuclear weapons activity.”

++ In a meeting with Elisabeth Guigou, the visiting head of the French National Assembly’s Foreign Affairs Committee, Alaeddin Boroujerdi, who chairs the Iranian Parliament’s (Majlis) National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, criticized the European Union (EU) for removing the MKO from its list of terrorist organizations and urged the French government to reconsider its position. Boroujerdi said “the EU decision has enabled the terrorist group, which has the blood of thousands of innocent Iranians on its hands, to “freely operate” in European countries”.

July 31, 2015

August 1, 2015 0 comments

The cult of Rajavi

What would Iran look like if the Mojahedin-e Khalq were its government?

Quora is a question-and-answer website where questions are asked, answered, edited and organized by its community of users. The Website raised a query on Mujahedin Khalq.

Bellow you can read the question, a brief description on the topic inserted by the Quora and the replies of the website visitors:

What would Iran look like if the Mojahedin-e Khalq were its government?

They are quite controversial, and many documentaries and news sources describe this group as a cult, not just a militant political group. It also says it wants secularism, even though all its female members are forced to wear hejabs.

If you know the group well, do you think they would truly uphold democracy if succeeding in taking power in Iran, or would they attack and kill everyone with opposing viewpoints? Is this another of these types of groups that would make a country resemble North Korea if given power? What explains all the female members having to wear hejabs, including its leader Maryam Rajavi?

The answers to the question are as follows:

Sam Sinai who has introduced himself as a theoretical biologist who went to school in an Islamic country writes:

Bring Islamic Nazis to Iran? What? They are an absolute disgrace for anyone to associate with. Unfortunately western politicians occasionally do. (De-listing, refers to de-listing as terrorists). [1]

They are one of the most dictatorial, brutal, opportunistic, ideologically dangerous cults that exist in the 21st century. I don’t know of any organization that is more capable of replicating Nazis. I mean just look at their logo, it’s just an amalgam of extremes.

They have a self-appointed supreme leader, elected for life, a ‘president-elect’, that happens to be the wife of the supreme leader, also appointed for life. How did he marry her? He ordered everyone in the camp to divorce their wives, and then went ahead and hand picked the widow he was attracted to. Then he chose her as president, and they all call her the president-elect of the Iranian people! God bless the Islamic republic, at least we can half-elect someone there.

They helped Saddam Hussein, during the Iran-Iraq war, specifically providing information for the locations that Saddam used chemical weapons on. They then attacked Iran themselves, and lost.

They buy politicians in the west with HUGE sums of money that they force their members to pay. They collect homeless (by offering food) at their annual gatherings in NYC to aggrandize their perceived support.

Every member follows the instructions to the dot, without questioning. Those who don’t are bullied and abused, if not tortured. Those who escape the camps are never safe. They take orphan children to their camps and brain-wash them to use them as fighters. They refuse to leave their military camps in Iraq, because they want to keep the environment for their fighters isolated from reality.

Their ideology is communism and Islam tied together with a military flavor. Their game-plan is to overtake the government by military force, and their claim is that they will rule ‘only for 6 months’ to stabilize things, and then they would be open to elections (saying this to get sympathy from the west). No s***, why not just have an election to begin with? Because they won’t plan on leaving power.

If they were to rule Iran, the officials will look like this:

Doesn’t it remind you of North Korea-Saddam hybrid? it should, or I am not doing my job right.

Islamic laws would be interpreted and executed as the leader wished, much less collectively than in the Islamic republic. The communistic side means a huge, dictatorial style government. A huge blood bath, from every "traitor’s" blood.

The current half-democracy will turn into absolute tyranny. People will run for their lives and try to escape to other countries. Some areas will attempt to declare independence.

NO, just no, please. I don’t even want to imagine.

[1]John Bolton Shockingly Denies Being a ‘Terrorist Supporter’

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Another user of the Quora says:

Oh my !!!!!…. That would be the worst disaster and misery for Iran, even much worse than the current government. They believe they can do ANYTHING to reach their goals, no matter how many innocent people die or suffer. They united with Iraqis and attacked their own motherland!!!!!!!….. I believe they are absolutely terrorists. Besides, their system is dictatorship, even more strict and scary than the current government. I have heard that in Ashraf Camp in Iraq, they were not allowed to question anything or discuss anything or contact anyone out of the camp or watch TV or listen to Radio (except their own programs!) and they never were allowed to leave the camp or change their minds about staying there. Also men and women couldn’t( and cant yet) contact, even talk to each other.

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Farshid Palad, writes:

Something like the parts of Afghanistan that are in control of the Taliban. Life would have been terrible for Iranians.

Other examples include Iraq under Saddam’s rule or the current North Korea but less advanced.

You would definitely fear for your life. A different point of view? Killed instantly. No question asked.

Quora.com

July 29, 2015 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Kristol objection to foreigners with American blood on their hands,highly selective

Bill Kristol on Iran Deal: ‘Its Munich!’

Bill Kristol is the epitome of the neocon mindset: cultivating a staid and urbane image while writing the most unhinged and mendacious claptrap. In his utterly predictable denunciation of the successful Iran nuclear talks, Kristol frames the issue in the crudest terms: if the deal goes through on the US end it will mean the return of $150 billion that was seized from the Iranians by the United States — and that money will be used to commit terrorism against the United States!

Writes Kristol: “How can we debate [the deal] without attending to the $150 billion that is going to a regime with American blood on its hands?”

Kristol cites the National Review which makes the fatuous claim (first made by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, which is headed by a close advisor to Israeli prime minister Netanyahu) that Iran has killed 1,000 Americans since 9/11. It turns out any weapon used in Iraq or Afghanistan against an invading US military that might have Iranian manufacturing origins means that the Iranians are responsible for that kill.

Do they want to extrapolate that methodology to include every bullet sold by the US military-industrial complex to every despot overseas?

But you can see how this works: A Netanyahu think tank makes an outlandish claim, it is picked up by the National Review and thus laundered from its biased foreign origins, and then recycled and further laundered by Kristol in his publication. Cute trick.

And Kristol’s objection to foreigners with American blood on their hands is highly selective. The Marxist-jihadist death cult Mojahedin-e-Khalq (MeK) has plenty of American blood on its hands, but Kristol’s own magazine joined other neocon voices in urging the US to remove the terrorists from the US list of terror organizations. Why? Because they are Kristol’s kind of terrorists: they infiltrate Iran to assassinate civilians and foment unrest, while passing off laptops with Mossad-fabricated data made to look like Iranian nuclear weapons activity.

The other thing that has Kristol up in arms over the deal is what he calls the “notorious” Annex III.D.10 of the agreement, which he claims will “help the Iranian regime fight off attempts by others to slow its nuclear program, and more.”

But what does that annex really say?

10. Co-operation in the form of training courses and workshops to strengthen Iran’s ability to prevent, protect and respond to nuclear security threats to nuclear facilities and systems as well as to enable effective and sustainable nuclear security and physical protection systems;

10. Co-operation through training and workshops to strengthen Iran’s ability to protect against, and respond to nuclear security threats, including sabotage, as well as to enable effective and sustainable nuclear security and physical protection systems.

In other words, the parties to the agreement will help Iran protect against attempts to attack and sabotage Iran’s peaceful and legal nuclear program. Recall the Israeli/US cyberattack on Iranian nuclear facilities and simultaneous programs to assassinate Iranian scientists. Kristol is furious that anyone would find such illegal and murderous activity to be objectionable. After all, blood on one’s hands doesn’t count if it is Iranian or other Muslim blood.

Oh, and, writes Kristol: “Munich!!!” That is obligatory any time diplomacy supplants neocon lust for war.

That Kristol remains a favored foreign policy “expert” on stations like FoxNews and ABC says very little about the quality of his analysis and much more about his saying what the mainstream media want their audiences to hear.

Who can forget Bill Kristol’s greatest hits, such as this 2011 piece on the “liberation” of Libya titled “The Party of Freedom“? In it he writes:

And so, despite his doubts and dithering, President Obama is taking us to war in another Muslim country. Good for him. …Our invasions have in fact been liberations…in our own national interest, of course, but also to protect Muslim peoples and help them free themselves. Libya will be America’s fifth war of Muslim liberation.

Ah yes, that glorious liberation of Libya!

Indeed the timeline of his faulty predictions would no-doubt span the equator. Imagine any other profession where one can be so consistently wrong and still be considered (and handsomely remunerated as) an expert. Imagine your doctor was wrong in his diagnosis 95 percent of the time. Imagine your financial advisor consistently lost 95 percent of anything you invest with him. Yet Kristol continues to drop his golden turds from the hallowed heights of the foreign policy firmament. What a country…

By Daniel McAdams,

July 28, 2015 0 comments

Iran Interlink Weekly Digest

Iran Interlink Weekly Digest – 106

++ This week saw the anniversary of the MEK’s disastrous Forough Javidan (Eternal Light) operation. Several ex-members and internal critics published articles reminding us of the crime of sending untrained civilians into war. Many said this had been a deliberate attempt to get people killed rather than an attempt to kill Iranians and march on Tehran and the reason was that Iran and Iraq had signed a peace agreement. Rajavi, whose existence relies on war and violence, used the blood of his members to divert attention from this peace and keep the organisation together. Even before he launched the operation he famously stated “this is my insurance policy”. Now it is clear what he meant by that.

++ There were a few reactions to this week’s call by Israeli lobbyists and the MEK asking for the MEK to be armed. These comments all point out that they want to create the conditions for another Forough Javidan. That is, by arming the MEK in Camp Liberty this makes them a legitimate target for an attack in which many of them would be killed. Again Rajavi wants to use the blood of his members to divert attention from the nuclear agreement and keep his cult together by providing an external fight.

++ The Israeli right wing and MEK held joint demonstrations yesterday in Washington against the nuclear agreement demanding the Senate reject it. These are the pro-war lobby. Iranian papers reported this without surprise that the MEK, as mercenaries of Israel, were doing this.

++ The MEK reaction to the activities of Mostafa Mohammadi and Ghorban Ali Hossein Nejad in Auvers-sur-Oise trying everything they can to get their daughters out of the grip of the MEK, has been to publish false reports in an attempt to overturn the turn of events and blame the fathers for the trouble, saying they had been arrested by the police. This even stretched to Yves Bonnet writing an article in the French Huffington Post full of lies which claimed the men were “agents of the Iranian regime”. The two fathers published a copy of the police report showing that they have made complaints, and also the report of the hospital showing the extent of their injuries at the hands of MEK thugs. The men have also written a compliant to the Huffington Post specifically for defaming Mohammadi who is a Canadian citizen and demanded the right to reply. They have published this on their weblog, but so far the Huffington Post has not responded.

In English:

++ Mazda Parsi in Nejat Bloggers analyses the MEK’s reaction to the nuclear agreement. They are faced with spending millions of dollars trying to overturn the agreement through lobbying Congress. Maryam Rajavi has been forced to make a speech which is full of contradictions and hopelessness.

++ M. Reza Behnam in The Register-Guard, examines the complex history between the US and Iran. In it he identifies the role of the MEK in American attempts to destabilise Iran. “Washington’s efforts to destabilize the Iranian government have been ongoing. In 1996 and again in 2006, Congress authorized millions of dollars to aid groups opposed to the Iranian government. One such group, the Mujahedin-e-Khalq was put on the U.S. State Department foreign terrorist list in 1977. The MEK moved its operation to Iraq and allied itself with Saddam Hussein in the war against Iran. The group assisted Saddam in his bloody crackdown of the Iraqi Shia Muslims and Kurds. It is widely believed in Iran that the MEK, trained and armed by Israel’s Mossad, assassinated four Iranian nuclear scientists since 2010. Seen as a vehicle for regime change, the U.S. Congress voted to remove the MEK from the U.S. Foreign Terrorist Organization list in September 2012.”

++ Jon Schwarz in The Intercept poses the question’ Why Is Iran’s Refusal to Allow No-Notice Inspections Legit?’ and in answer examines the ‘U.S. History With Iraq’. He concludes: “So Iran’s refusal to allow snap inspections doesn’t prove that its leadership wants to conceal a nuclear weapons program. It more likely suggests that its leadership simply wants to preserve its conventional military and personally remain alive. This is especially plausible given that Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei was crippled in a 1981 assassination attempt carried by out the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq, or MEK, an Iranian opposition organization that supported Iraq during the 1980s Iran-Iraq war. Making this even more threatening from Iran’s perspective, the MEK is now beloved by much of the U.S. foreign policy elite, and has apparently killed numerous Iranian nuclear scientists with Israeli funding and training. And if you hope Iran may simply be unaware of our use of arms control as cover for spying, think again: an Iranian spy in Baghdad at the time actually discovered what we were doing before even the UK, our closest ally. (Wonderfully enough, the UK only found out when it intercepted the Iranian spy’s message back to Tehran.)”

++ ‘Our story thus far: Another Mojahedin attack on two fathers and the sister of MEK’s captives’ is a report on the most recent events in Auvers-sur-Oise following a second violent attack on them by MEK thugs. “Outside of the station the Mojahedin men and women were gathered there with cameras and still yelling curses and swear words at us. This was our second complaint file we made towards them. We did not come to Paris to be attacked and treated this way. We came here begging to see our children. Why is it that to ask for the return of our child, or just plain contact with them is threatening these people so much?

What are they so afraid of that they are not allowing families to be in contact? Somayeh Mohammady was taken from Canada 18 years ago and we haven’t been able to even make a phone call with her for more than twelve years. Murders in prison have visiting rights but these people in the camp, the ones taken away from their lives are not even allowed a letter or phone call. How are we in the wrong to ask for the safety and happiness of our children?

We ask the people of France, nay, the people of the world to see the injustice in this and to help spread the word about these captors. Help our voices be heard. We are now living in fear as they are constantly posting threatening words on their websites and have followed us to our rented home in Paris. They have come to our apartment and handed out flyers filled with lies to everyone in our neighbourhood. They call us spies and people working for the Iranian government, but all we have ever wanted was the return of our child to their home. To take them back to where they belong and have always belonged. To live their lives be with their family and be happy if they can find meaning in that feeling anymore…”

July 24, 2015

July 25, 2015 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization members' families

Our story thus far: Another Mojahedin attack on two fathers and the sister of MEK’s captives

On Monday July 13, 2015 we rented a car in Paris, France and drove to Auvers-Sur-Oise. Who are we? We are two fathers and a sister, all three in Paris doing all we can to free our daughter/sister from a cult’s terrorist camp in Baghdad, Iraq called Camp Liberty. The irony of the name of this camp is that the people kept in the camp haven’t had a glimpse of liberty or freedom for fifteen plus years. The people in charge of the camp are Maryam Rajavi, Massoud Rajavi and Mehdi Abrishamchi. They are the leaders of the Mojahedin-e-Khalq – the name of the group that fifty years ago started out as a noble group for the freedom of the Iranian people.

Today, and for the past 30 odd years, this group has become a cult in which the leaders were/are affiliated with Saddam Hussein and other known terrorist leaders in the Middle East. They prey on the simple hearted, the young and the hopeless to gain power and money. They use any deceitful tactics such as propaganda, lying, torture, threats and more to get their way. They have taken the lives of many young people and kept them captive in Iraq.

Our daughters are two of the thousands of these innocent victims. We are here to open the eyes of the French government and citizens to show them that the people in charge of the kidnapping and brainwashing of thousands of people over the years are residing in Auvers-Sur-Oise, France. This was the second time that I, Mustafa Mohammady, and my daughter Hurieh have been attacked in the streets of Auvers by the Mojahedin. We want nothing more than a meeting with the town’s mayor to explain to her our story so she will know the true colours of these people.

The first occurrence of attack was a month ago on June 12, 2015. We took the train to Auvers with our lawyer and walked to rue des Gordes in the hope of getting a meeting with a Mojahedin leader since our lawyer was with us. As we turned onto the street not taking more than five steps we saw a man and a woman running towards us from different directions of the road. They begin yelling horrible vulgar curses at us without any engagement or provocation from us. They start pulling at our camera and belongings and throwing punches at us. At this time our lawyer phoned the police and alerted them to come to our rescue immediately.

We were three people, a senior Canadian, a female student and a French lawyer, and within seconds we were cornered onto a gated driveway with dozens of people attacking us. As we were trying to protect ourselves from their terrifying blows to our bodies they succeeded in separating us from each other. They threw each one of us to the ground and five/six people at a time would attempt to steal our phones, wallets and camera while throwing kicks and punches. The police came about ten minutes after the call and pulled them off us.

That did not stop them from gathering around and yelling threats and curses at us by surrounding the police and the ambulance. As we were being taken by stretcher into the ambulance a man jumped on top of Hurieh in front of the police and attacked her to the ground breaking our camera. We was handcuffed and taken to the police station and kept in a cell for one night. We were treated in the hospital in Pontoise with many cuts and bruises all over our bodies. We were traumatized but the fire in us grew bigger as now we know how little humanity is left in them and how much we need to get our children out from their clutches.

We gave our statement to the police the day after and got a full body report of our injuries in the hospital and are filing a complaint against their actions towards us. This case is now being dealt with in the court of Pointoise but we have not given up on bringing our children home to us. We talked to different police officers of Paris and Pontoise and recounted our story to them. This brings us to last week’s events.

So we drove to Auvers-Sur-Oise, with lingering fear of what happened the first time, we went there to arrange a meeting with the mayor. We drove to just outside of the town and decided to stop and enjoy the scenery as there were large beautiful wheat fields which we wanted to take pictures of. As we were about to walk towards our parked car, a man (Mojahedin member) with a camera started coming towards us. With fear we quickly ran faster towards our car, as did he, following us and pushing Hurieh to the ground. She got up and ran into the car and locked herself in waiting for Mustafa and Ali Hossein to so the same. Mustafa was able to get in but when we looked back Ali Hossein couldn’t make it fast enough and we saw that more of the Mojahedin had arrived.

The man clutched at our car trying to grab at us through the open window but we started the car and began to drive away. Ali Hossein stopped a passing car hoping to get help and security from strangers to drive him away from the Mojahedin who, by now were more than five. The driver of the car however did not drive away and the Mojahedin opened their car door trying to pull Ali Hossein out onto the streets. We were circling the roundabout trying to figure out how to save him and to get other car drivers to phone the police. We were yelling for help and for the police as we watched them forcefully pulling him out of the car and onto the ground.

We were trying to distract them until the police came when a black car approached with speed and rammed their car into ours. With fear we had no choice but to flee the scene as the car chased us through the streets at over hundred kilometres per hour. We were calling the police unable to give our whereabouts as we were not only unfamiliar with the location but nothing seemed to be around for miles. The chase went on until we reached the town of Cergy, Pontoise and headed towards the Police station there.

Once there we told them what had happened and our anxiety about what happened to Ali Hossein, hoping the police got there in time to save him. With police cars guiding us back to the station in Auvers we found out that Ali Hossein was saved in time and taken to the station and was secure. Outside of the station the Mojahedin men and women were gathered there with cameras and still yelling curses and swear words at us. This was our second complaint file we made towards them. We did not come to Paris to be attacked and treated this way. We came here begging to see our children. Why is it that to ask for the return of our child, or just plain contact with them is threatening these people so much?

The Mojahedin are threatened by a father and daughter that have put their lives on hold many times and have used the little resources they have to fly to Paris to ask for the safety of Somayeh. They call themselves an organization for the liberation of the people of Iran yet they cannot even provide freedom to the ones they call their own. We will not stop fighting for the safety of our children and this will not be over until these captives are freed.

We will go to any lengths and are begging anyone who can hear our voices to help us. Please help free our kids from their evil clutches. Help their voices be heard. Help mothers take their children back into their arms. Help children see the advancement of the world and live the rest of their lives not in fear but tranquillity and peace.

‘Together we’ll stand, divided we’ll fall’ -Pink Floyd.

Mustafa Mohammady

Ali Hossein Nejad

Hurieh Mohammady

By Hurieh Mohammady, Paris

July 23, 2015 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Anti-Iran Deal AIPAC Spin-off Relies on Iranian Ex-Terrorist Group

When the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) declared war on the nuclear accord between Iran and world powers signed last week in Vienna, it put its money where its mouth is. AIPAC, Washington’s most influential pro-Israel lobby reportedly plans on spending $20 million over the next two months urging Congress to vote against the deal. But its efforts at a full frontal attack on the accord, inked by the P5+1 (the US, China, France, Russia, the UK, and Germany) and Iran is leading to some politically awkward alliances.

As part of its efforts to kill the deal with a congressional vote, AIPAC launched a 501c4 advocacy group called Citizens For A Nuclear Free Iran. The group, according to The New York Times, was “formed with the sole mission of educating the public ‘about the dangers of the proposed Iran deal,’” said spokesman Patrick Dorton. The Times reported that the $20 million budget would go to ad buys in as many as 40 states as well as other advocacy.

Now that the campaign is taking shape, the AIPAC spin-off appears to be relying on a typical, if troubling, ally of American groups and individuals opposed to diplomacy with Iran. Namely, two items on the website of Citizens for a Nuclear Iran, one of which was later removed, featured an exiled Iranian opposition group called the Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK).

The MEK makes a cameo appearance in the television ad crafted by Citizens For a Nuclear Free Iran, the well-financed AIPAC spin-off, as well as on a now-removed news items on the group’s “Press Room” webpage—indicating that Nuclear Free Iran recognized a PR misstep by promoting the group.

MEK Footage in TV Ad

The ad Citizens For a Nuclear Free Iran is splashing across television screens the country over—which the group posted to YouTube on Friday—incorporates b-roll footage from a press conference held by the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), which the State Department deemed the MEK’s “political wing” (earning it a corresponding terrorist designation).

The footage in the Nuclear Free Iran ad shows Alireza Jafarzadeh, a longtime Washington-based MEK apparatchik, at the National Press Club using a pointer aimed at a satellite photograph. It’s not clear which press conference the footage is taken from (the MEK frequently holds these sorts of events). As Jafarzadeh gestures at the photograph, the slickly produced ad’s voiceover says, “Military sites can go uninspected” and the words “Over 50 military sites” flash onto the screen.

“We were not aware of this matter, though the statements and b-roll footage are in the public domain,” said Ali Safavi, who works with the NCRI, when asked about the commercial.

The MEK’s most prominent act since the 1981 bombing of Iran’s Islamic Republic Party headquarters—killing 73 party officials—was its 2002 public exposure of the Natanz uranium enrichment facility and Arak heavy water production plant for plutonium extraction. Although the MEK claimed its clandestine network in Iran had unearthed the nuclear facilities, The New Yorker reported in 2006 that Israeli intelligence had passed the information about the sites to the MEK.

Since exposing Natanz and Arak, the MEK has periodically drummed up publicity for other purported blockbuster revelations; many turn out to be busts. This winter, as nuclear talks with Iran talks heated up, the MEK released a report they claimed exposed a secret Iranian enrichment facility. The report garnered much credulous press from right-wing media and even a mainstream outlet or two. But a blogger at the liberal site Daily Kos quickly noticed that the photograph the MEK claimed was a steel door to the secret facility had been ripped from the public website of an Iranian company that sells safes.

According to the Sunlight Foundation’s Political Ad Sleuth project, Citizens United for a Nuclear Free Iran has already inked 247 contracts to air the aid, some of which went into effect last Friday.

Promoting MEK’s Leadership Views on Iran Deal

Citizens for a Nuclear Free Iran’s dalliance with the MEK, however, didn’t end at drawing footage from one of the opposition group’s press conferences. In the “Press Room” section of Nuclear Free Iran’s website, the group late last week reprinted an item from the right-wing Israeli news organization Arutz Sheva that promoted the MEK’s views on the nuclear deal.

(Screencaps can be viewed here and here.)

The Arutz Sheva piece is headlined “Iranian Opposition Leader in Exile: Deal Bad for Iranian People”—a headline that carries over to the Citizens for a Nuclear Free Iran website—and paraphrases quotes from an interview with Maryam Rajavi, the co-leader of the MEK (her husband, Massoud, the other co-leader, has not been seen publicly in a dozen years). In the interview, according to Arutz Sheva, Rajavi condemned the deal and, in the words of the pro-settler news outlet, “called on the international community to work to replace the Islamic religious regime in Iran.”

On Sunday, Citizens for a Nuclear Free Iran pulled the Rajavi article from its “Press Room” page. No explanation was given, and a query on the issue to Citizens for a Nuclear Free Iran went unanswered.

New Group’s Advisor Backs MEK

Pulling the article from its website may indicate that Nuclear Free Iran realized the potential public relations problems associating the group with the MEK could bring.

With bizarre Islamo-Marxist guerrilla roots, the MEK and its affiliates were listed as terrorists by the US State Department thanks to years of violence, including attacks against Americans and the Shah’s government in Iran in the 1970s and, after falling out of favor with Iran’s revolutionary clerics, the Islamic Republic. But the designation was lifted in 2012 as part of a deal to try to extricate remaining MEK members from peril in Iraq, where the group had fought alongside Saddam Hussein but was disarmed in the 2003 American invasion.

The MEK’s multi-million dollar lobbying campaign to get removed from the terror rolls gave it a newfound prominence in Washington. Its ardent anti-Iranian regime stance, robust lobbying operations and hefty political donations have kept up their favorable relations with many hawks on Capitol Hill—despite the group’s reputation for cult-like behavior and past human rights abuses against its own members. (For more background, see our February feature in The Intercept on the MEK’s history and influence in Washington.) Rajavi and her followers use their contacts in Washington to relentlessly push for overthrowing the Iranian regime—and making this goal official US policy.

Rajavi counts among her supporters one of Citizens for a Nuclear Free Iran’s advisory board members: former Democrat and former senator Joe Lieberman. Lieberman has made several appearances at MEK events, including this June when he appeared at a MEK confab in Paris. Lieberman told the audience there that the US “should be working closely with your resistance group”—making, in other words, regime change into an official US policy.

A spokesman for Citizens for a Nuclear Free Iran did not respond to request for comment about whether it supported an American policy of regime change in Iran.

by Eli Clifton and Ali Gharib

July 22, 2015 0 comments

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