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Iran Interlink Weekly Digest – 51

++ Many people reacted to the news that Maryam Rajavi has instructed MEK members in Europe and America to kill the cult’s vocal critics and ex members wherever possible. Several blamed western governments rather than the actual terrorists who are somehow being protected. Many say that any harm that comes to us or our friends is therefore done with the permission of these governments as they are responsible for what happens in their streets. But in any case, most conclude, such threats are too little and too late to stop us talking, and even more are coming, so the exposures won’t stop.

++ Responses to the articles by Anne and Massoud Khodabandeh over Maryam Rajavi’s failed visa application, include those who point to the failure of the anti-Iranian lobbyists, specifically Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, to derail the nuclear negotiations. All the responses point out that the American government and European representatives at the talks have reported that progress had been good and more advanced than they had hoped. The only groups screaming against this progress have been Maryam Rajavi and the Israeli Prime Minister – to the point that the former head of MOSSAD has criticised Netanyahu and his ilk for damaging Israeli interests. Putting this together, several writers anticipate that the neocons and Israeli lobby will resort to instigating violence and perhaps terrorism to disrupt the next round of talks in Vienna which are coming up soon.

++ Irandidban has a short note contrasting the fates of the MEK with Hizbollah. Maryam Rajavi has ‘licked ass’ but they still won’t give her a visa, whereas due to what is happening in Syria and the Lebanon, the US administration has been compelled to meet with Hizbollah in Cyprus, even thgouh Hizbollah doesn’t care about the US terrorism list. It is a case of contrasting two extremes – one group relies totally on its own people for support rather than western patronage, the other is totally dependent on America and not a single bit on the people. Putting aside any moral concerns, it is clear which one works.

++ Reports are coming out of Albania on a daily basis. Among the news is of another social gathering hosted by the UNHCR, to which the MEK sent infiltrators to photograph participants and threaten that anyone there without their permission would be dealt with. MEK commander Javad Khorrasan and Hasan Nayebagha a member of the NCRI, are at the forefront of the threats and intimidation, and again are carrying cards saying they are employed by the Pentagon. But other reports say that people are laughing at them and one has shouted, “the Pentagon did its utmost to us in TIPF and after all the things you have done do you think we are afraid for our lives”. Hasan Nayebagha got angry and responded, “if we have to kill you one by one, we will not allow you to make another TIPF in Tirana”. Other reports say that in anticipation of more people coming to Albania from Camp Liberty, the MEK are making great efforts to organise a closed camp to house them. The MEK has b land and are trying to get permission to build accommodation on it. Also in Tirana, since the MEK couldn’t stop the UNHCR interviews, they now say that ‘if you cooperate with us fully, when you are given your refugee status we have the contacts and channels to move you and your status to France, Germany and other good places, otherwise you will have to remain in Albania’. Former MEK members are warning the refugees not to be fooled; ‘the MEK are lying and won’t help you, they just want you to keep quiet for a few more months’.

++ Following the successful Iraqi elections, the results already show there is no hope for sympathy for the Saddamists or the MEK. The MEK reaction is to ignore everything they said before and are now shouting that Al Maliki should not be Prime Minister. Ironically, all the other candidates are even more anti-MEK than he is. Apparently the MEK’s tactic is to say a hundred different things in the hope that one of them will come true and they can claim the credit for having made it happen.

++ This week there were a few events inside Iran in relation to the MEK. One was a press conference in Semnan which had good coverage attended by Ebrahim Khodabandeh, Ronak Dashti, Ali Ekrami, and Iraj Salehi. The exposure was so great that the MEK issued five statements under name of the NCRI to denounce it. But they never rejected or refuted any of the points made, for example about the forced divorces and other cultic practices. Another event was the International Book Fair in Tehran. Mojahadin.com website reported on its attendance, with many interesting items, featuring Steve Hassan’s book on cult recovery called Releasing the Bonds, which is translated into Farsi by Ebrahim Khodabandeh. Mohsen Rezai (former presidential candidate), sitting nearby their stand, remembered when the MEK started and how they ended up where they are now, and said ‘thank God they couldn’t do more harm’.

++ This week five more residents of the temporary transit camp, Camp Liberty, in Iraq, managed to escape the MEK run camp at dawn and surrender themselves to the Iraqi security forces. Mohammad Salman Al-Asadi, a security officer responsible for the protection of Camp Liberty protection, quoted the escapees as saying that they had been planning their escape for months. He said all five have been handed over to the United Nation’s office. The names of the escapees are: Mohammad and Massoud Enayati, Bayez Ali Keshawarzi, Hussein Bahari and Jawad Reza Yousefi.

++ Habilian Association referred to the many NCRI announcements this week about a riot in a street in Tabriz when local shopkeepers placed on the pedestrian sidewalk and ‘the government’ has come to stop them. Habilian says, “The MEK once claimed to be the main opposition but have now been reduced to supporting local shopkeepers in civil matters”.

++ Edalaat Association has a short note referring to this year’s US report on terrorism. It highlights the paragraphs which describe some groups in Syria as having cult culture. In that case, says Edalaat, you know exactly what you are doing when you take the MEK off your terrorism list, because you know exactly how the MEK works.

++ Esmail Yaghmai has listed all the MEK’s swearing at him over the last week. It is a very long list. He adds a couple of his own articles and invites anyone to see what he has said to attract so much swearing. He addresses the MEK leader directly, saying, “One thing I found out for sure, whatever internal critics say to help you, nothing has gone into your brain as it is just blocked. Secondly I am very sorry for the people that you distort to put them under this much swearing as they will be damaged and no good to you in the future. In Persian it is said, ‘the madman who has enjoyed the taste of madness, with a hundred tricks will not be brought back to sanity’.”

In English this week:

++ Fars News reported that Lieutenant Commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Brigadier General Hossein Salami addressing a ceremony in the Northern province of Alborz said western efforts to prevent Iran’s progress have failed. He accused western spy agencies, collaborating with the terrorist Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO), of assassinating several Iranian scientists over the last four years.

++ Chairman of the National Security and Foreign Policy Committee of Iran’s Majlis Alaeddin Boroujerdi used a meeting with Co-Chairman of the Iran-Italy Parliamentary Friendship Group Ettore Rosato in Tehran to criticise some European countries for supporting the MEK, pointing out that the group has killed some 16,000 Iranians. He said, “The actions by some European countries in support of such a terrorist group are not consistent with the principles of democracy”.

++ Eldar Mamedov political adviser for the social-democrats in the Foreign Affairs Committee of the European Parliament (EP), wrote a very important and revealing article on “The MEK’s Influence in EU Politics Matters”. The article details the MEK’s negative impact on the politics of the EP, even to the point that, “On the operational level, the MEK is extremely persistent and aggressive. MEK lobbyists maintain a constant presence in the coffee bars of EP buildings in Brussels and Strasbourg, or in front of the plenary room in Strasbourg. These are strategic locations from which to bombard MEPs and their staffers with requests to support the MEK. Sometimes, however, they overdo it — one MEP recounted to me about how she had to scream at an MEK activist until they exited the elevator she was using to get to her office. Even MEPs’ offices are targets: the MEK lobbyists have no qualms about entering them uninvited and distributing flyers against alleged “Islamo-fascist tyranny” in Tehran.”

May 9, 2014

May 10, 2014 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

McMillan case: Two kinds of protesters

Cecily McMillan, a young Occupy Wall Street activist has just been found guilty of 2nd Degree assault on a police officer.

The "assault" was a startled reaction after a police officer violently grabbed her breast in 2011, squeezing it so hard he left a hand shaped bruise. McMillan began having a seizure after being arrested, and the NYPD blocked emergency medical technicians from treating her. When McMillan was released from the hospital she was limping, barely able to walk, after being beaten so badly. Her body was covered in bruises.

On May 19th McMillan will receive a sentence of between 2 and 7 years in prison for her startled reaction to a violent police sexual assault. She now sits in New York’s infamous Riker’s Island correctional facility awaiting her sentence.

During the trial, Police officers spoke of "smelly protesters" in their testimony. Prosecutor Amy Choe alleged that McMillan had injured herself, and mockingly dismissed any allegations of police brutality, comparing it to belief in "space aliens." The Jury was not allowed to hear testimony about the NYPD’s record of brutality against Occupy Protesters. A great deal of video of what happened to McMillan was prevented from being shown as well. The prosecution insinuated that McMillan was mentally ill and criminal for protesting at all. Articles from Rolling Stone Magazine, where she was quoted denouncing capitalism were presented as evidence.

Wall Street’s favorite protesters

As Cecily McMillan was being convicted, one of the top stories on the news was a group of nudists in China. The US and western media have raved on and on about the "bravery" of wealthy Chinese people who "heroically" engage in public indecency on a beach.

This is just the latest trendy group of protesters the Western media has decided to embrace. The airwaves have so often been filled with reports alleging mistreatment of "green movement" activists in Iran. We were told about the US backed rebels in Libya as if they were heroes. The insurgents who terrorize Syria are also given this hero treatment.

When Right Sector and Svoboda members were openly running through the streets terrorizing people and assaulting cops in Ukraine, they received endless praise in the Western press. Anderson Cooper strolled through Maiden Square narrating their assaults on police and civilians as if it were a romantic battle.

Through the National Endowment for Democracy, the US government gives billions of dollars to fund protesters in places like Iran, Belarus, and Venezuela. These "protesters" break laws, carry out assassinations, and commits all kinds of crimes.

The reason Cecily McMillan is now a political prisoner is because she occupied Wall Street, she did not occupy on behalf of Wall Street. She did not Occupy Maiden Square, beating up ethnic Russians and Jews, to clear the way for the IMF. She did not commit acts of public indecency in churches and supermarkets hoping to destabilize Russia. She did not strip naked on a Chinese beach. She did not bomb a school is Damascus. She did not hang dark skinned Africans in Tripoli. She did not burn monuments to the Ukrainians who died in the Second World War.

Cecily McMillan slept in a park, talking about income inequality, and plutocracy in the US. While doing it she professed non-violence, and was noted for criticizing the more radical elements of her movement. She was sexually assaulted, and jumped in response. She received a horrific beating, and is now going to spend years in prison.

As far as the US government, courts, and media are concerned, there are clearly two types of protesters.

When protesters are opposing the regime currently topping Wall Street’s enemies list, they get praised on TV, they get funding from various US based non-government organizations, and the slightest attempts to suppress them are declared "tyranny." Luis Posada Carrilles, a Cuban "protester" who bombed an airplane killing over 70 people is living very comfortably in Miami. Terrorists from the "People’s Mujahadeen" (MKO) in Iran, who have tortured and murdered for decades, are happily embraced by political leaders like Tom Ridge, and provided safe evacuation by the United Nations. "Protesters" run through the streets of Venezuela, burning buildings, assaulting police officers, and yet receive support from the US government, and are treated as heroes by the US media.

The US government and Wall Street are happy to fund the most violent, terroristic "protesters" in order to destabilize a government that gets in their way. But when young people in the center of world capitalism engage in peaceful protest, they are dubbed "smelly protesters" and "traitors." They get maced in the face, beaten, and arrested. The kind of brutality routinely unleashed on black and brown people, is turned on those who take political action.

Anthony Bolognia, who famously maced two protesters in the face during the first month of Occupy Wall Street without any provocation had all charges against him dropped. He is continuing his career as a highly paid New York City Police Officer. Though the world watched Occupy protesters in New York being brutally beaten, not a single NYPD officer has been charged with brutality.

The rising police state

The Police Officers who shot Ramarely Graham, a young African-American man through the chest have also received no penalty. No one disputes that they burst into his apartment and gunned him down in front of his family, but not even the slightest penalty has been issued.

The prison system is in the United States is rapidly expanding with 2.5 million people locked away. The schools in the US are often now filled with armed police, and children are often arrested for what would be previously considered a matter of classroom discipline.

The rising expansion of the "criminal justice system" is accompanied by an increased repression of political activists.

The homes of activists from the Freedom Road Socialist Organization were raided by the FBI. Anarchists in Seattle were imprisoned for refusing to testify against their comrades. In Chicago and Cleveland, occupy activists face lengthy sentences in obvious examples of entrapment. The National Security Agency now admits it is spying on millions of people, recording phone calls, emails, etc.

Are we really expected to trust John Kerry, Samantha Power, or Barack Obama in their words against Russia, People’s Korea, China, or Iran? Are we really expected to trust them as "human rights advocates" around the world, as they preside over rising police state at home?

The next time CNN, FOX, or MSNBC begins to speak of "peaceful protesters" in some country Wall Street dislikes, and declares that government to be "tyrannical", and calls to rescue these "peaceful protesters" with sanctions and cruise missiles, millions of people will think of Cecily McMillan, and know that these words are nothing but pure hypocrisy.

Caleb Maupin is a political analyst who lives in New York City, and is an activist with the International Action Center and Workers World Party. He was part of the Occupy Wall Street mo.

May 8, 2014 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

US and continuous agenda of Hypocrisy

When in 2012 US State department removed the name of Mujahedin-e-Khalq Organization (MKO) from its list of foreign terrorist organizations critics correctly criticized the USA foreign policy’s double standards towards terrorism. Many critics considered the decision as a way to clear legal barriers in the way of overtly arming and funding the terrorists in pursuing a proxy war with Iran.

Mujahedin Khalq prolonged a decade long lobbying efforts and invested a great amount of money to get their organization removed from the Black List of FTOs. Vividly crossing the US anti Terrorism Laws, a large number of members of Congress, former White House officials and army generals supported their bid in exchange for large sums of money.

In fact the material support law under which several people with far less alleged crimes got severe punishments didn’t turned out to include over three dozen top U.S. officials who were the most vocal proponents of the War on Terror.

Tony Cartalucci analyzes the US dignitaries’ support of a Terrorist organization with the American blood on their hand as “a combination of theater and formalities to preserve in the eyes of stakeholders in the West’s international order, a semblance of “rule of law. That is to portray MKO’s American lobbyists as merely financially motivated to obfuscate the true nature of their duplicity as well as their true motives- [to use the group as an armed proxy against Iran]. He says considering the US funding of MKO, it is not believable that they are taking this money and sending it right back to America to lobby for their delisting.[1]

Indeed the United States covert support of the MKO terrorist group has been ongoing long before even under the Bush administration as Seymour Hersh exposed in its 2008 article “Preparing the Battlefield” that “the US had already begun arming and financing them to wage war inside Iran”.[2]

While hypocrisy in confronting terrorism fails to be a new subject the more disturbing point is when some ordinary people are considered criminal for far less affiliation to terrorist group.

There are more than enough proofs to prove ;the latest of which may be the Mirmehdi brothers who detained on allegations that they were affiliated with the MKO terrorist organization; though the men argued they were not members of MKO or any other terrorist group and had just attended a rally organized by NCR.[3]

To name another case; Morteza Assadi , a 49-year-old real estate agent in northern Virginia whose green card application has been on hold for more than a decade just because in the early 1980s as a teenager he distributed fliers for Mujahedin-e Khalq in Tehran. Assadi said he was never an active member or contributor to its activities and that the group was removed from the list of terrorist organizations in 2012.[4]

As the Obama administration has eased the rules for would-be asylum-seekers and refugees who gave "limited" support to terrorists or terrorist groups, now Assadi is hopeful that the U.S. government will look at his teenage activities as "limited."

The Department of Homeland Security and the State Department are tasked to determine with deciding which terrorists will be benefit from “limited material support”.

However, considering the double standards within the US policy makes the execution of the rule more complicated than it seems to be.

That is the hypocrisy reaches its heights when we see that the rule hasn’t applied to none of the Camp Liberty residents while some high ranking members can freely commute within the US. Although the US repeatedly declared concerns over the safety of TTL residents and appointed a longtime Kerry adviser as the senior advisor for Mujahedin-e Khalq resettlement trying to convince EU states to accept MKO members, yet the US itself hasn’t accepted any of the residents. In March hearing of Capital Hill, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher proposed a bill co-sponsored with 59 lawmakers to grant asylum to the MKO members in the United States but the administration officials privately suggest that Rohrabacher’s bill, and any other efforts to grant asylum to the MEK in the United States, face nearly insurmountable odds.[5]

Despite America’s attempt at window dressing the FTO list, putting some groups on it and removing others is just a political play based on the interests of the US politicians; and even not the people of the United States.

MKO members especially Camp Liberty residents are just a plaything for the US play with the group leaders.

By: A.Sepinoud

References:

[1] Cartalucci,Tony & Ziabari, Kourosh, US “Delisting” of Terror Network: Washington overtly supports the Mujahedin-e-Khalq Organization (MKO), Global Research, October 07, 2012

[2] Hersh, Seymour, Preparing the Battlefield, Newyorker, July7, 2008

[3] Gazzar, Brenda , San Fernando Valley-based Iranian brothers turn to international tribunals over U.S. detentions, Los Angeles Daily News, April22,2014

[4]Newsmax Wires,Obama Easing Immigration Rule for Terrorist Supporters, February 9, 2014

[5] Wilkie, Christina, John Kerry Gets Pressed To Grant Asylum To Former Terrorist Group Mojahedin, The Huffington Post, March 14

May 7, 2014 0 comments

Maryam Rajavi

Using cult leader Maryam Rajavi to derail nuclear talks backfires

With the P5+1 nuclear negotiations with Iran due to resume on Monday (5th May), American anti-Iranian hardliners have been working hard to destroy or disrupt any rapprochement between Iran and the US. As an example, The Hill newspaper, written for the political community in Washington D.C. to reflect business and lobbying views, has been persuaded to give webspace to blogs directly promoting the notorious MEK cult. The blogs, written by Soona Samsami, a member of ‘Saddam’s Private Army’ (aka MEK) and a Briton, Lord Alton (a long time MEK advocate presumably pulled in to give the illusion that this is not an exclusively American plan), are part of a pattern of activity deliberately designed to disrupt or destroy any rapprochement between the US and Iran.

An article (below) by Anne Singleton reveals that these anti-Iranian hardliners in the USA, headed by Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, already failed in a provocative bid to bring the Mojahedin Khalq’s second-in-command Maryam Rajavi to the US to speak in Washington to coincide with the nuclear talks. Such a visit could have only one purpose; the hope that Iran would take offence and walk out of the talks.

But anyone even remotely familiar with the way in which the view of Iran’s mainstream political establishment toward the MEK has evolved over the past twenty years will understand that this is a futile hope; sure the MEK is a terrorist organisation, but one that has long passed its sell-by date as an actual threat to Iran. (Although Iranian hardliners are just as keen as their American counterparts to exploit the MEK to foment enmity and prevent progress.) The Rajavis, and indeed the MEK itself, are essentially political lightweights who are only able to attract notice through well-paid publicity stunts like that in The Hill.

Rather than causing the talks to fail, the other P5+1 countries would see clearly that America has been reduced to a publicity stunt to gain leverage. Who wins then except Iran?

This is the article by Anne Singleton of Iran Interlink:

Rajavi’s visa application challenges America’s stance on terrorism

May 6, 2014 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Is the MKO Moving to the US?

He was a teenager when he was distributing fliers for the Mujahedin Khalq Organization in the early 1080s in Tehran. Morteza Assadi used to be a member of the MKO that "opposed the government of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and the U.S. government at one time considered a terrorist organization". The affiliation of this 49-year-old real estate agent in northern Virginia with the terrorist MKO cult has left him in a sort of immigration purgatory while his green card application has been on hold for more than a decade. Assadi’s case has remained stalled although he has told the US government that he was never an active member or contributor to the MKO activities. [1] Now, what if the US administration grants asylum to the 3000 MKO members residing in Camp Liberty Iraq despite their official membership in a cult-like group which has once been designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization?

As the MKO well-funded lobbying campaign succeeded to get the group removed from the FTO list, it is now lobbying for moving its forces to the United States territory. "In what has become an all-too-familiar sight on Capitol Hill, at least a half-dozen members of the exiled Iranian group Mujahedin-e Khalq, or MEK, arrived at Thursday [March 11th]’s hearing of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, all dressed in their trademark yellow shirts," reported Christina Wilkie of the Huffington Post. [2]

In response to the question by "most vocal" supporter the MKO’s relocation in America, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, the Us secretary of State John Kerry said "in his typically diplomatic way", “There’s one solution to the problem [of the MEK], and that is that we need to relocate those folks,” although he added that their moving to the US is " one of the things" they are looking at. [3]

Moving folks of a formerly designated terrorist group to the land of 9/11 incidence is no easy as Wilkie states, administration officials privately suggest that Rohrabacher’s bill, and any other efforts to grant asylum to the MEK in the United States, face nearly insurmountable odds.[4]

The decade long efforts of the UN, US, and Iraq to relocate the MKO remnants indicate that the process of moving them to third countries has become an international issue due to the group’s long time history of violence and terror. For the United States, the case of the MKO asylum seekers seems to be more sensitive, firstly because of the group’s involvement in the killing of 6 US citizens during the 1970s and secondly, because of their ardent support for the US embassy takeover in 1979, in Tehran.

“The policy concern with asylum is what kind of precedent that might set for the future. By those standards, the MEK isn’t looking very good,” the US official told the Huffington Post correspondent. Wilkie also refers to more than 135,000 Syrian asylum seekers that only 31 were admitted in the last fiscal to illustrate how limited U.S. asylum policy is in practice. [5]

Following the gradual relocation process, up to now not more than two hundred MKO members have been moved to Albania, Germany, and Italy. However, the US government is willing to use its influence over Eastern European countries. It plans to move the remaining 3000 residents of Liberty to Romania, according to the Voice of Russia.

The alleged decision ”may turn Romania into a hotbed of tension, which will prove quite a headache both to Romania proper and the neighboring countries”. Ilya Kharlamov of the VOR writes, "When the US State Secretary John Kerry met with his Romanian counterpart Titus Corlaţean in Brussels in December, they took up the issue of moving the Mujahedin in question to Romania, according to some reports." [6]

Actually, third countries are reluctant to receive a large group of people who as the Russian expert an expert with the Moscow-based Institute for Strategic Studies and Analysis, Sergei Demidenko says, are "drilled ideologically and militarily" in "an unstable European area". [7]

Kharlamov of the VOR accurately suggests that the MKO leaders insist on a compact settlement of all three thousand militants in Camp Liberty. "But the Albanian and German authorities see this as too dangerous," she states."The terrorist leaders are in a stalemate. They are welcome nowhere, while in Iraq they have been coming under rocket fire recently”. [8]

Therefore, the group leaders have to endeavor hard to maintain the authority over their cult. They have to be more and more generous toward their Western friends. To cope with the limbo they are stuck in they have to whitewash their dark history and to make their cause plausible and in consistence with the western democratic standards. That’s why that you may see the name of the MKO’s propaganda arm National Council of Resistance (NCR) among progressive Islamic organizations listed by the Clarion Project, a nonprofit organization whose stated mission is to educate people about inherent dangers of Islamic extremism.

To criticize Clarion Project’s misled action, the prominent American journalist Micheal Rubin puts, "The Mujahedin al-Khalq may be a lot of things, but it is neither progressive nor is it non-violent”.[9]

"To accept the Mujahedin al-Khalq as a moderate organization is analytically shallow given the group’s record of behavior, its dishonesty in its written work, its past targeting of Americans, and the fact that its rhetoric about democracy does not match its practice," Rubin warns. [10]

Furthermore, Christina Wilkie notes that the MKO has a long way to get accepted in third countries, "it’s been an uphill climb to convince other countries to accept MEK members, due to their cult-like characteristics and near-religious devotion to the Paris-based Maryam Rajavi and her husband. [11]

"But long odds don’t mean the MEK won’t keep trying to gain asylum in the United States. No longer restricted by the terrorist designation, they are now free to spend their millions of dollars — the source of which remains murky — without fear of Treasury Department scrutiny," concludes Wilkie. [12]

Mass moving of the MKO to the United States may require hard work and may face various challenges but if it happens it has two sides. On the one hand, once more it demonstrates the US double standards regarding terrorism; on the other hand the hostages of the Cult of Rajavi may find the opportunity to get released from the cult control as well as the violence ruling the region.

Mazda Parsi

Sources:

[1]A Caldwell, Alicia, Obama Administration Easing Immigration Rule for Would-be Asylum Seekers, The Huffington Post, February 9, 2014

[2] Wilkie, Christina, John Kerry Gets Pressed To Grant Asylum To Former Terrorist Group Mojahedin, The Huffington Post, March 14 2014

[3] ibid

[4] ibid

[5] ibid

[6] Kharlamov, Ilya, US to flood Romania with terrorists, The Voice Of Russia, January 10, 2014

[7] ibid

[8 ibid

[9] Rubin, Michael, Why Does the Clarion Project Endorse the Mujahedin al-Khalq?, Commentary Magazine, April 28, 2014

[10] ibid

[11] Wilkie, Christina, John Kerry Gets Pressed To Grant Asylum To Former Terrorist Group Mojahedin, The Huffington Post, March 14 2014

[12] ibid

May 4, 2014 0 comments

Iran Interlink Weekly Digest

Iran Interlink Weekly Digest – 50

++ Both Iran Setaregan in Zurich and Iran Ava Association in Cologne staged information pickets and leaflet distributions to inform the public about the deceptive practices of the MEK and how they raise funds through false information and conning people. Both groups have asked the respective mayors in their cities to step in to stop the MEK’s illegal activities.

++ Many open letters by Farsi speakers congratulated the new Mayor of Auvers-sur-Oise, Isabelle Mézières, expressing their pleasure and hopes following her election. The new mayor herself has criticised the support which the previous mayor gave to the MEK, and says this did not work for the benefit of the people of the town.

++ Mohammad Razaghi reported information coming from inside Camp Liberty. The MEK commanders there have made an announcement to residents on behalf of Maryam Rajavi. The commanders have been given orders that if they have any doubts at all about whether someone wants to run away, they should be stopped, imprisoned and if necessary killed. Rajavi says, don’t worry about the political consequences, you do your job and we will sort out the consequences in France. She referred specifically to Massoud Dalili – who was killed in Camp Ashraf – saying that when he left, this endangered the life of Massoud Rajavi, therefore we cannot afford another like this so, you are allowed to kill them.

++ Mojahadin.com published an article on claims that the raid on Section 350 in Evin prison resulted in the discovery of several SIM cards and mobile phones, etc. One individual has been named as Gholam Reza Khosravi from Abadan who has a history of several arrests for working for the MEK. The authorities claim that he has been the main contact from prison to the MEK. Farsi writers have reacted to the MEK’s claim that the prisoners of Evin support them. They say there is no evidence that any prisoners support the MEK and the only people claiming this are the MEK themselves and Iran’s hardliners because both want to crush them and use their blood.

++ Mohammad Babai died in Camp Liberty this week. The MEK as usual issued a quick statement blaming his death on the conditions of the camp, claims which have been frequently and unequivocally refuted by the UN and ICRC etc. Gilan branch of Nejat Association published the MEK’s official picture of Babai (in a suit and tie) who was under fifty years old. They question why he looks to be over sixty-five year old, and ask, is this because of conditions in Camp Liberty as well? Many others who knew him witness that Babai tried to escape from the camp several times, and write that “we don’t believe he died of natural causes, but was eliminated like many others in the MEK”.

++ Irandidban has an article titled, ‘the situation of MEK after the election in Iraq’. This says that although the MEK shout against Nouri al Maliki, if you look at the actual situation in Iraq they should have been praying to God that he be re-elected – anyone else would have got rid of them years ago. No other leader, says Irandidan, would have been as patient as al Maliki or as willing to cooperate with the UN, etc.

++ Ghorbanali Hosseinnejad has written an extensive article exposing the MEK’s activities in support of the Saddamists. In his article he has named some Arabic speaking people in Europe who are working for the MEK and the Saddamists. One is called Saffi Al Yasseri, an Iraqi writer. Half his job appears to be to support Saddamists and the other is writing against ex-MEK members, specifically Hosseinnejad himself who writes in Arabic. He also has exposed many other names along with websites run by the MEK for Saddamists. One of these is Iraq4all.dk, an MEK site used for supporting Saddamists in Arabic and which ironically uses the old flag of Iraq with Saddam’s handwriting on it under its logo. Most of the site is devoted to praising Maryam Rajavi and other Saddamists and the rest is used to attack Maliki and others of their enemies. Another site run by the MEK is the Arabic-Islamic Committee in Defence of Ashraf and Prevention of the Expansion of Fundamentalism, which is in Arabic, French and English but not in Farsi. Hosseinnejad says it is obvious that the expansion of MEK activities in these three languages is to give support to Saddamists, but the main targets are ex-MEK members. He points out that the MEK may make ten sites and use twenty bought writers to attack one person who writes in Arabic, or make tens of sites in English to attack those handful of ex-members who write in English, but they never create Farsi sites to respond to the thousands of critics who write in Farsi. Clearly the MEK only feels the need to whitewash its image in other languages, not for Farsi speakers.

++ Mohammad Ali Malek Andi has a short note in his weblog listing the names of 120 of the people who have left Camp Liberty in the past few months. This includes 104 in Tirana, 10 in Germany, 1 in Norway, 1 in America and 1 in France, and others. He has promised he will publish the names of others as and when he gets them. He also questions the MEK’s fear that these names be made public saying “this is what the organisation should have done itself. It is only because of my friends and I looking out for one another and trying to make contact that I have been able to make this list. Obviously this is what the MEK are afraid of, that we help and support each other without them.”

++ Iran Fanous carried the story of Abdulkarim Ebrahimi who was recruited into the MEK in 1989. He says he was imprisoned by the MEK in 1994 “because they didn’t trust him”, and only managed to escape in 2012 when the residents were being moved from Camp Ashraf to Camp Liberty. “I rushed at the Iraqi police station while MEK operatives were chasing me. I managed to lose them and take refuge with the Iraqis”, he writes.

++ Iraqi Ambassador to Tehran Mohammad Majid Al-Sheikh told Fars News Agency that “many defected members of the terrorist Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization are willing to surrender themselves to the Tehran government to return to Iran… If the grounds are paved to facilitate their (MKO members) repatriation to Iran, this can persuade other MKO members to do the same.”

++ Fars News also reported that in a meeting with Austrian Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurz in Tehran, Mohammad Javad Larijani, Secretary of Iran’s Human Rights Council criticised European countries for double-standards while campaigning against drugs and terrorism. “Today, we are witnessing that the most infamous terrorists, including Monafeq [MEK] and PJAK (Party for a Free Life in Kurdistan) and other groups whose hands are stained with the blood of thousands of innocent Iranian people, are freely visiting the European countries and are warmly hosted in those capitals,” he added.

++ Michael Rubin writing in Commentary questioned why the Clarion Group endorses the MEK, saying “it is neither progressive nor is it non-violent. Progressive movements tend not to dictate to women who to marry and who to divorce… To accept the Mujahedin al-Khalq as a moderate organization is analytically shallow given the group’s record of behavior, its dishonesty in its written work, its past targeting of Americans, and the fact that its rhetoric about democracy does not match its practice… to lump the Mujahedin al-Khalq in with progressive Muslim organizations not only erodes the credibility of Clarion, but tars legitimate progressive Muslim organizations that already have an uphill battle.”

++ Iran Pen Association published an open letter to the newly elected mayor of Auvers-sur-oise, Isabelle Mézières, by Ali Jahani, a twenty year veteran of the MEK who recently managed to escape and who is currently living in Europe. Like many other writers he congratulates her and the town on ousting the previous mayor who was in the pocket of the MEK, which led to the neglect of the townspeople. Jahani hopes the new mayor will prevent the MEK transforming the town into a military barracks [when more people are transferred from Camp Liberty].

++ IRNA reported that Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Marziyeh Afkham said American “claims regarding Iranˈs support for terrorism is politically motivated… Presence and free activities of terrorists in the United States who assassinated over 15,000 Iranian civilians including senior officials as well as use of drones in massacring innocent regional people and Washingtonˈs inaction towards Zionists crimes against defenseless Palestinians pose serious questions about the US claims of campaign against terrorism.”

++ Anne Khodabandeh in Iran Interlink writes ‘Rajavi’s visa application challenges America’s stance on terrorism’ which exposes Maryam Rajavi’s ‘encouragement’ to apply for a US visa. The move would be part of a wider campaign by neoconservatives and pro-Israeli politicians to prevent rapprochement between Iran and the west, says Khodabandeh. The visa failed to materialize to coincide with the P5+1 talks in New York next week, but, says, Khodabandeh, “On the heels of the controversy over denial of a visa to Iran’s appointed head of mission at the United Nations in New York, this would indeed have been a poke in the eye to goad Iran with. But whatever incentives have been offered by Ros-Lehtinen to John Kerry to nod through this visa application, the US Secretary of State will no doubt have lent an ear to the voices of the other members of the P5+1 group. It would mean that, after Saddam Hussein, the United States would be the only government in the world which has directly supported the MEK. It would mean that the other members of this group would drift further and further away from the US agenda, and it would mean that Iran would make a net gain rather than the US.”

Iran Interlink Weekly Digest – 02 May 2014

May 3, 2014 0 comments

Maryam Rajavi

Rajavi’s visa application challenges America’s stance on terrorism

There are rumours that Mojahedin Khalq leader Massoud Rajavi is contemplating whether and where it would be safe for him to resurface after going to ground during the 2003 invasion of Iraq. But in Europe his wife, Maryam Rajavi, is herself keen to expand her reach. According to a source inside the organisation, Maryam Rajavi has recently been ‘encouraged’ to apply for a visa to the United States of America. Maryam is currently based in Auvers-sur-Oise just outside Paris, from where the MEK plans and supports its various acts of violence including aiding the insurgency in Iraq. From here she has been able to exploit the lack of effective oversight in the European Parliament in Brussels to join with anti-Iran politicians in their drive to prevent any rapprochement between western governments and Iran, and to support a level of violence and chaos in the region which benefits Israel. With no other tools at their disposal, neoconservatives and the Israeli lobby have spent years using the MEK – at arms length – to pursue their virulent, provocative campaign to keep the two sides apart. (Matched equally of course by former president Ahmadinejad’s calculated provocations; both sides playing the same game with different footballs.)

Maryam Rajavi’s application for a US visa is embedded in the context of this deliberate animosity.

Certainly because the European Parliament has no foreign policy teeth, Maryam Rajavi tried for over a decade to obtain a visa to visit the UK to promote this agenda; even unsuccessfully using private health treatment as an excuse. Either the system of border control in the UK is more rigorous than it is rumoured to be, or the UK government considers Maryam Rajavi persona non grata. Either way – or both – she has not been welcome in the UK.

But the efforts of MEK backers like MEP Struan Stevenson failed to make an impact. The successful P5+1 nuclear talks with Iran in November 2013 have put rapprochement, no matter how difficult, back on the agenda. Anti-Iran advocates and promoters have been forced to try a new tack – attack Iran’s record on human rights. Again, at the forefront of this push is the MEK. Preparations to use the MEK have been in train for some time. The group’s US presence has been carefully managed since 2009 when Iraq moved to expel the MEK from its terrorist base there. There has been a concerted, well funded campaign to whitewash the group’s past and pass it off as a democratic, feminist opposition group. Fortunately, only the MEK’s western backers have convinced themselves there is some truth to this assertion, and this comes at a price – speaking fees paid to them range from $25-60,000 each time.

In September 2012 Hillary Clinton, as Secretary of State, reached an accommodation with the MEK over its continued occupation of this base, Camp Ashraf, and removed the MEK from the US terrorism list. By early 2013 the MEK had opened an office in Washington and registered, under its pseudonym the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), as a lobbying group. Interestingly, registration as a lobby group includes a declaration that no money is provided by a foreign government, which raises the question as to where the MEK gets its money within the USA. Previous claims that wealthy Iranian expatriates have backed the MEK’s massive expenditure are unrealistic and in any case have never been backed by any evidence.

Instead, we can join up more than a few dots by considering the MEK’s current place in American foreign policy and linking this back to its previous position as described above. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, who is Chair of the House Subcommittee on the Middle East and North Africa has been a long time supporter of the MEK, and recently described ‘her friend’ Maryam Rajavi as a human rights advocate – a description which is nonsense to American-Iranians.

In pursuit of an agenda to prevent rapprochement, hardliners (I mean neoconservatives) in America surely aimed to slip Maryam Rajavi into Washington during the next round of nuclear negotiations next week (5-9 May). On the heels of the controversy over denial of a visa to Iran’s appointed head of mission at the United Nations in New York, this would indeed have been a poke in the eye to goad Iran with. But whatever incentives have been offered by Ros-Lehtinen to John Kerry to nod through this visa application, the US Secretary of State will no doubt have lent an ear to the voices of the other members of the P5+1 group. It would mean that, after Saddam Hussein, the United States would be the only government in the world which has directly supported the MEK. It would mean that the other members of this group would drift further and further away from the US agenda, and it would mean that Iran would make a net gain rather than the US. Fortunately this time the administration has not fallen into Ros-Lehtinen’s honey trap. But who knows what may happen in future.

Anne Khodabandeh (Singleton), Middle East Strategy Consultants,

May 3, 2014 0 comments

The cult of Rajavi

Rubin: MKO neither progressive nor non-violent

The Israeli Clarion Project has National Council of Resistance of Iran, the front organization of the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK, a.k.a. MKO), on its list of “progressive Muslim organizations.”

Describing the move as “surprising,” Commentary Magazine’s Michael Rubin wrote that the MKO may be a lot of things, but it is “neither progressive nor is it non-violent.”

The Clarion Project is an institute founded by Rabbi Raphael Shore. Obsessed with the promotion of Iranophobia and Islamophbia, it has produced such films as Iranium and Obsession.

“Progressive movements tend not to dictate to women who to marry and who to divorce,” he added, referring to the mandatory divorces in the cult of MKO.

“It attached itself to Saddam Hussein and allowed itself to be used almost as a mercenary organization against both Kurds and Iraqi Shi’ites.” According to 1994 US State Department report on the MKO, Masoud Rajavi, the ringleader of the MKO which is in hiding for years, announced the formation of the National Liberation Army (NLA), the military wing of the MKO, which conducted raids into Iran during the latter years of the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war. The NLA’s last major offensive reportedly was conducted against Irai Kurds in 1991, when it joined Saddam brutal repression of the Kurdish rebellion.

“To accept the Mujahedin-e Khalq as a moderate organization is analytically shallow given the group’s record of behavior, its dishonesty in its written work, its past targeting of Americans, and the fact that its rhetoric about democracy does not match its practice.”

Habilian reporting from Commentary Magazine;Michael Rubin article:"

Why Does the Clarion Project Endorse Mujahedin al-Khalq?"

May 1, 2014 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Ordinary citizens trapped for years while Senators paid for supporting terrorists

San Fernando Valley-based Iranian brothers turn to international tribunals over U.S. detentions

Ordinary citizens trapped for years while Senators paid for supporing terrorists Four Iranian brothers who live in the San Fernando Valley are asking two international tribunals to rule that they were unlawfully held on alleged immigration violations for more than 40 months shortly after Sept. 11, 2001.

The Mirmehdi brothers were detained on allegations that they were affiliated with a terrorist organization, though the men argued they had just attended a rally in Denver opposing the Iranian government and they have no terrorist involvement.

They have already filed claims asking for compensation and an apology but were rejected by the U.S. courts who said federal officials are immune from prosecution. But now with help from UCLA law students, they are asking the U.N. Working Group on Arbitrary Detention and the Washington D.C.-based Inter-American Commission for Human Rights to take up their case.

The two human rights bodies do not have the legal authority to force the U.S. government to compensate the brothers, but the Mirmehdis and their backers feel the groups could give them a form of justice by authenticating their claims.

“We do want some sort of monetary damages and compensation as well (but) the most important thing is that the court says that the U.S. government was wrong about us,” said Mostafa “Michael” Mirmehdi, 55, of Lake Balboa.

The brothers say they were “arbitrarily detained” in October 2001 and mistreated while held on the basis of a false allegation that they were members of a terrorist organization for which no criminal charges were ever filed. The brothers, who were denied political asylum more than a decade ago but are allowed to stay in the country for the time being, were released from detention in March 2005.

According to federal officials, the Mirmehdi brothers were found to have been subject to removal from the United States because they were in the country in violation of the nation’s immigration laws and were subject to mandatory detention because of their alleged affiliation with a terrorist organization.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed the Mirmehdis’ claims against U.S. government officials in 2012 and the U.S. Supreme Court declined to take up the case last year.

The Mirmehdis’s troubles date back to 1998 when they applied for political asylum with the help of an attorney named Bahram Tabatabai, who falsified certain details in the brothers’ applications, according to a 9th Circuit Court opinion. After Tabatabai was arrested for immigration fraud in March 1999, he agreed to cooperate with federal authorities; as part of a plea bargain, he told federal authorities that the Mirmehdis were supporters of an Iranian terrorist group known as the Mujahedine-e Khalq (MEK) “though he later recanted,” according to the opinion.

The agents arrested the Mirmehdis for immigration violations in March 1999 and they were later released on bond. The other three brothers are Mohammad, 43, of Tarzana, Mojtaba, 51, of Encino, and Mohsen, 47, of Tarzana.

Immigration authorities, however, revoked the bonds in October 2001 largely based on a document known as the “L.A. Cell Form,” a handwritten piece of paper that the government maintained listed members, affiliates and supporters of the MEK but that the Mirmehdis and their attorneys say was just a list of attendees at a “constitutionally-protected, pro-democracy” rally in Denver in 1997. That rally was hosted by the National Council of Resistance of Iran, which was affiliated with the MEK, and attended by several members of the U.S. Congress, the brothers said.

The Mirmehdis have maintained that they are not members of the MEK nor any other terrorist organization. They contend that federal officials detained them for as long as they did to try to get them to provide terrorist-related information about MEK members they did not possess.

An FBI spokeswoman said it would be inappropriate to comment beyond the U.S. courts’ decisions on this case.

Immigrations and Customs Enforcement spokeswoman Virginia Kice declined comment on Tuesday, but she pointed to earlier statements made by her agency about the case.

“The Supreme Court has ruled that aliens may not be detained indefinitely when the United States is unable to carry out their removal,” Kice said in a written statement in 2005 after the brothers were ordered released from custody. “However, the law permits continued detention of individuals who pose an imminent threat to national security. Following a detailed analysis of all-important factors, there is insufficient basis to support continued detention of the brothers. One of these important factors is a judicial finding that, although they were associated with a terrorist organization, there was not enough evidence to connect the brothers to personally engaging in terrorist acts.”

When the Supreme Court rejected their case last year, there was no other avenue in the United States for the Mirmehdis, said Catherine Sweetser, an associate of the Venice-based law firm Schonbrun DeSimone Seplow Harris & Hoffman that has represented the brothers for years. The firm then asked the UCLA School of Law’s International Human Rights Clinic for help in taking the course to the international arena.

“The first thing we’re hoping for… are opinions that vindicate our clients’ position saying they were arbitrarily detained and experienced all these human rights violations under detention,” said E. Tendayi Achiume, instructor of the UCLA School of Law’s International Human Rights Clinic and a Binder Teaching Fellow. “We’re hoping that both tribunals will also make recommendations that ask the U.S. government to do several things … award damages and some form of rehabilitation/compensation for our clients for the violations they suffered. In addition to that, we would like both tribunals to recommend that the U.S. government amend the laws that immunize governments agents that engage in this conduct from being held accountable.”

A decision from the Inter-American Commission for Human Rights can take many years while the U.N. Working Group on Arbitrary Detention could respond within the year, Achiume said.

Brenda Gazzar, Los Angeles Daily News

April 26, 2014 0 comments

Iran Interlink Weekly Digest

Iran Interlink Weekly Digest – 49

++ This week news emerged of a disturbance in Section 305 of Evin prison. Prisoners resisted when prison guards began searching the Section and a fight broke out in which several prisoners were bruised and injured. The guards claim to have found communication equipment and other devices during the search. Some prisoners staged a hunger strike in protest and some of their families have picketed to demand an investigation. The Mojahedin which is, as usual, desperate to link itself to anything to do with Iran has inevitably tried to connect itself to this event. Over the last few days, the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), has issued over 20 statements – which have more to do with ‘Google wars’ and getting its name out in public rather than any actual reporting. The NCRI has been inactive for many years now; its head (Massoud Rajavi) went underground ten years ago and the NCRI has therefore not been able to hold its annual meetings. Analysts suggest that the NCRI is reacting to a new line imposed on the MEK (aka NCRI) by its paymasters which shifts from the nuclear issue to criticism of Iran’s human rights situation. But more importantly it is an accepted fact that the MEK will soon be pushed out of Iraq and will not be able to interfere there anymore, therefore they need another raison d’être. The MEK has now had to return to the issue of human rights in Iran. But this change of line of the paymasters and also of the MEK contains a dilemma. Previously the MEK were used as violent mercenaries or for information laundry and propaganda. But using a cult as a human rights advocate has provoked a natural backlash. During the prison disturbance, all of the Iranian opposition inside and outside Iran, including the prisoners and their families, objected to the MEK and Rajavi’s support for them. Some have gone so far as to describe the MEK’s fallacious support for the prison disturbance as a devious plot by Iranian government hardliners to dismiss the situation and not have to investigate it by simply claiming it as the work of the terrorist MEK.

++ On the same subject of the prison disturbance, former MEK members and critics write that whatever happens in Evin is not 1% of what happened in Camp Ashraf and what is still happening in Camp Liberty. They say “How dare you talk about human rights when your own human rights situation is worse than both Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay”. The website Mojahadin.com from inside Iran has listed a catalogue of human rights abuses which is still continued by Rajavi in the MEK. The site mentions the recent UN report which clearly states that there was and is abuse inside the MEK in both Ashraf and Liberty camps. The site quotes a source within the International Committee of the Red Cross, as saying “we can hand over letters to anyone, even to Guantanamo Bay prisoners, but we are unable to hand over the letters from their families to the people in Camp Liberty”. Apparently, Camp Liberty and the MEK bases are the only places in the civilized world that the Red Cross has no access to.

++ People reacted to Rudi Giuliani and his paid speech for Maryam Rajavi last week. In particular they ridicule the way that he has been promising the “toppling of the Iranian regime”; ironically using the cult jargon of the MEK throughout his speech. Mohammad Razaghi writes that “in the Azeri language we say, if you put two horses together they won’t become the same colour, but will certainly adapt the same behaviour”. He goes through the changes that Rudi Giuliani has undergone as he has been paid year after year for giving speeches, and in the end calls him ‘Mojahed Brother Rudi Giuliani’! Other writers conclude that if you pay Americans money they will talk any rubbish you want them to.

++ Milad Ariyaie from Iran Pen Association (Ghalam Association) writes briefly to note the MEK getting over excited over Israel’s launch of a new satellite to spy on Iran’s military. He says it is “as if Israel is doing that to give the information to the MEK”. Ariyaie says “anything that gives hope to the members, whether news about Israel, Syria, Albania, Russia or anything else, is used to distract the members and delay them running away. In the same line, many others have written articles analysing recent MEK behaviour to say that the MEK are deliberately trying to claim dirty credentials and pretend they really are mercenaries. “The MEK pretends to have a new sponsor as a replacement for Saddam. Obviously this is not true.” Morad from Nejat Association has said “what is annoying about the MEK is not their ability or mercenary work, it is just the smell of them rotting which is annoying for everyone who gets near them”.

++ News emerged alleging that the Americans have helped the MEK to open an office in Yemen. Some of the MEK’s Baath affiliated high ranking people have been moved there. Apparently Washington is trying to establish bases for the MEK wherever they can so that the group will not break up and dissolve. The aim is to preserve the MEK somewhere other than Iraq so that it will maintain a presence.

++ With the election of a new mayor, Isabelle Mézière, for Auvers sur Oise in France – home of the MEK’s western headquarters – the MEK has lost one of its trusted supporters. The previous mayor, Jean Pierre Becquet, was a known advocate for the MEK. The new mayor campaigned on a platform of taking Auvers out of the control of the MEK and giving it back to the citizens of the town. An Open Letter by Ariya Assocation in Paris outlined the benefits of the new mayor’s position for the town’s citizens. In Farsi writers have pointed out how the MEK’s lobbyists come along, get paid and then disappear. One mentioned that the old ones die, such as Lord Corbett, and this fragile French mayor Becquet, has now gone, but Maryam Rajavi still, in her dreams, claims to be the rightful president of Iran.

++ This week, as the Iraqi election looms, there have been quite a few reports from Iraq that the MEK have either been paying candidates or have been the channel for others to pay candidates to stand as MPs on condition that they will support the Baath Party and Saddamists if elected in an attempt to gain a foothold in parliament.

++ The site Fergheha (the Cults) in Iran published a long article this week about the MEK, placing the rise of their European shows alongside the growing exodus of cult members from the group. The more people run away, says the article, the more shows the MEK puts on, with paid lobbyists in place of members. The article lists the recent weekly and sometimes daily shows in Brussels and Paris, along with the fees charged by Giuliani and John Bolton, etc. In the European Parliament, it is claimed, MEPs like Stevenson and Vidal Quadras devote 90% of their time to working on behalf of the MEK rather than actually being MEPs and doing work related to that. The article goes through a list of the so-called Committees which have been established in every parliament and how the Israeli lobby has pushed things to make something to support the MEK. In the UK Lord Carlisle has replaced Corbett in the Friends of Free a Iran. In Europe Struan Stevenson uses the Delegation for Iraq to advocate openly for the MEK. In the Romanian parliament another Friends of a Free Iran Committee is run by one of the MEK’s MPs. Pouya. A similar set up exists in Germany and Vidal-Quadras head yet another Friends of a Free Iran. All have been groomed to promote the MEK to prevent them from falling apart and at the back of them is the Israeli lobby. The aim is to stop any solution to the West’s Iran issue and to spread hatred; acceptance of Iran is a nightmare for the Israelis. One by one the article lists the lobbyists fees for speaking rubbish to Maryam Rajavi. It goes through the fabricated associations that MEK claim are affiliated to it. One MEK member has 25 associations listed under his name, of which he is the only member! The MEK don’t even have enough trusted people to give them one association each. The article balances the loss of members and its social base with the increase in Israeli support for the MEK, offering statistics on the number of those who have run away, people who are vocal critics, the number of MEK attacks on their own members and critics and the injuries sustained. The article identifies the MEK’s efforts to silence its critics in social networks as a typical Israeli tactic, and how this has not worked for the MEK in spite of the massive resources and backing behind the group.

++ Last week, while swearing wildly at everyone, the MEK claim the Iraqis want to kill them. Habilian published an article ridiculing the MEK, saying “the MEK again accuse the Iraqi government of stealing their wood glue”, a reference to the MEK’s own propaganda in which they claim the Iraqi’s “don’t let us expand the camp, or build walls and are stealing our wood glue”.

++ A few sites have reported from Rajavi’s own websites which have been announcing that it is not just 12,000 (civilians) we have killed, we killed 55,000 in Forough Javidan (operation Eternal Light in 1988) as well. Many say this brings shame on the Americans and Israelis who support them and claim they are not terrorists.

++ Reports emerged from Albania that a man called Mirza Agha Pakniat has been transferred to hospital. He is apparently around 90 years old. People who know him say that for at least the past 20 years he has tried to leave MEK, but has been denied and kept in the camp and because of his age he couldn’t do anything. Pakniat says they would put him in the criticism meetings and accuse him of being a dissenter and would agree and ask to leave and get in touch with his family before it became too late. But they never allowed him to contact his family. Clearly now he is in hospital and may die, the MEK are readying a glowing biography to use his death to benefit Rajavi.

++ Fanous Iran this week issued a statement from Abdul Karim Ebrahimi declaring his freedom after he managed to run away from Camp Liberty and take refuge with the Iraqi police, He briefly explained the situation he faced and promised to say more when his personal situation is improved.

++ In English language, Press TV reported that Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) says it will not allow terrorist groups and foreign-sponsored mercenaries to carry out acts of terror in the country… The statement also condemned the biased silence of the international organizations claiming to advocate human rights concerning the crimes perpetrated by the terrorist Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO) and other terrorist groups against Iranians. “It is a matter of great regret that some European and Western governments and circles have picked the despised and criminal mercenaries of the MKO terrorist group as advisors on Iran issues, and have adopted cheap positions and formal statements against the respected Iranian nation on the basis of their (MKO terrorists’) wrong, distorted and biased information,” the IRGC statement pointed out.

++ Zahra Moeini from Nejat Association reporting from Ashraf news, says “Massoud Rajavi has ordered the officials of the Camp to intensify the limitations against women especially after the revelations by Batoul Soltani and other dispatched members who bravely exposed the internal affairs especially the sexual scandals of the cult leader such as ‘Salvation dancing’. It is said that they may enclose the quarters of women in TTL by barbed wires and fences as it was the case in Camp Ashraf in order to control members more and to prevent more defections and escapes from the Cult.”

++ Hawaii based academic Farideh Farhi conducted an interview for Lobelog with Eldar Mamedov, Political Advisor for the Social-Democratic Group in the Foreign Affairs Committee of the European Parliament following the April 3 EP resolution on EU Strategy towards Iran. In the interview Mamedov said “Interestingly, conservative group members (some of them with links to the exiled Iranian opposition group, the Mujahadeen-e-Khalq (MEK), such as Spanish EPP member Alejo Vidal-Quadras and British ECR member Struan Stevenson) proposed amendments deleting the call for an opening of the EU office in Tehran, fully in line with the position of their supposed enemies — Iranian hardliners.”

++ Brenda Gazzar in the Los Angeles Daily News exposes the injustice meted out to four Iranian brothers who “were detained on allegations that they were affiliated with a terrorist organization, though the men argued they had just attended a rally in Denver opposing the Iranian government and they have no terrorist involvement.” The MEK rally was also attended by several members of the U.S. Congress who have not been accused of affiliation with a terrorist organisation, even though the MEK were on the US terrorism list at that time.

++ An article by A. Sepinoud for Nejat Bloggers examines the MEK’s role in the massacre of Iraqi Kurds. “After the Swedish Parliament in a majority vote formally recognized the Anfal Operation as genocide and crimes against humanity in early December 2012, some defected members of the terrorist Mojahedin Khalq Organization voiced their preparedness to give a testimony before the Swedish parliament about MKO’s key role in the massacre of Iraqi Kurds… The United States Department of State and the Foreign Affairs group of the Parliament of Australia also asserted the MKO’s assistance to Baath regime brutal suppression of the uprisings… Iraqi authorities have issued 148 arrest warrants for MEK members for crimes against Iraqis since 1991 but none have been arrested, according to officials. Maryam Rajavi was also included in the warrants. Maryam Rajavi has been reported by former MKO members as having said, “Take the Kurds under your tanks, and save your bullets for the Iranian Revolutionary Guards”.”

++ According to Fars News Agency “A senior Iranian lawmaker cautioned that the parliament would allow a French parliamentary delegation which has filed a request for visiting Iran to take the trip since one of the group members is a supporter of the terrorist Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO, also known as MEK, NCRI or PMOI). “The time for the visit has not been specified and it has just been under discussion,” member of Iran-France Parliamentary Friendship Group Amir Khojasteh told FNA on Wednesday.”

++ Tasnim News reports that Senator Philippe Marini, Head of the French parliamentary delegation which hopes to visit Tehran “rejected reports about a member of the delegation, Senator Philippe Dallier’s support for the terrorist Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO), saying that Dallier had unwittingly attended an MKO meeting in Paris. “I suppose Dallier fell in MKO trap like many others,” he said, adding “we are well aware … how unpopular this group can be in Iran.” On his participation in an MKO gathering in France a long time ago, Senator Dallier told Tasnim that he had no idea it was a rally staged by the terrorist group. He said he once was invited to a rally in his constituency, a city near Paris, along with some other elected officials. “All of a sudden, I realized I am sitting next to individuals from other countries. Actually, that day I went there, a general gathering, without any specific plans… At the end of the program I left and have had no contacts with the group ever since,” he said.”

++ Mazda Parsi from Nejat Bloggers examines the denial of a visa to Iranian UN Ambassador Hamid Abutalebi against the backdrop of the MEK’s role in the hostage crisis. “As a matter of fact, the 52 American hostages were finally released after 444 days by the Iranian government – the move was harshly opposed by the MKO that at the time considered itself as “vanguard of struggle against the US Imperialism”. It is worth to notice that the Islamic Republic did not kill or injure the US hostages but the MKO is the only Iranian group that has the blood of Americans in its hands. According to the U.S. Department of State the group conducted several assassinations of U.S. military personnel and civilians working in Iran during the 1970s. Thus it was not bizarre when they opposed the release of the hostages in 1981 by the Iranian state, and called for their execution instead. As a result they staged a large demonstration, based on the presentation of the MEK by the Foreign Affairs group of the Australian Parliament.” MEK members are currently active lobbyists in Washington D.C.

25 April 2014

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