Articles

++ News has been continuously filtering out from Albania. One report suggests that commanders from the MEK have approached various people with the promise that Maryam Rajavi asked them to compile a list of useful people so they can be smuggled into Britain with false passports. One high ranking person commander who has been selected for this process is Hooshang Doodkani, from Khoy in Western Azerbaijan province. Considering that the process of refugee status has started and that it is likely that most of these people will be granted refugee status in Albania after the interviews, this is seen as an attempt to prevent people from having straightforward refugee status and instead create dependency on the MEK which will provide the false identity and passports and so trap them in the cult. Commander Farzaneh Maidanshahi is Rajavi’s contact in Albania for these activities.

++ Other news from Albania is that a high ranking member called Mansour Sha’bani has defected from the MEK and joined with the other former members. This defection has resulted in greater efforts at control by MEK commanders in Tirana who are now checking on people who want to go out on their own as they are worried more will leave. There are other credible reports that the MEK is reshuffling its system in Tirana. Maidanshahi has been retained as main commander, but Ismael Moretezai (aka Javad Khorrasan) has been replaced by another known henchman, Abdulvahab Najafinejad Jahromi (aka Afshin). Although the MEK don’t regard Albania as a place for their activities, the cult has decided to expend much more energy to sort the place out; more people have been dispatched there to help keep control. Other news suggests that out of seventeen residents of Camp Liberty who had previous residency in the UK and whose applications for asylum are currently under review by the UK immigration service, three are currently in Albania.

++ A few short comments have been posted about Maryam Rajavi’s gathering for ‘Iranian Youth of Europe and America’. Pictures published by the MEK mostly feature Maryam Rajavi with her bunch of lobbyists who are neither ‘youth’ nor ‘Iranian’, and this has become a joke among the MEK’s own supporters. Many articles pick on Rudi Giuliani who according to MEK websites claims that the overthrow is imminent. He has given a message to the residents of Liberty and Ashraf (!?): “I know you are having a hard time… but the day of freedom of Iran is near, I pray for your sacrifices and support you. Because of the leadership of Mrs Rajavi the new Iran will be built on the back of the martyrs of freedom very soon, and soon you will destroy the murderous dictators and replace them with a government of your own.” Many articles ridicule Rajavi and the rest of them, calling him ‘brother Rudi Giuliani’.

++ Mojahadin.com website in Iran carries a brief note on the appearance of Maryam Rajavi in the European Parliament. The organization has dismissed the European Parliament’s recent statement against Iran on human rights. Under the title, ‘The murderer of 17,000 Iranians appears in the gathering of so-called human rights advocates’, the organization criticizes Rajavi’s speech in which she insists that the west should stop talking and confront Iran.

++ Many people have analyzed Struan Stevenson MEP’s invitation to Maryam Rajavi to appear inside the European Parliament as symptomatic of a desperate Israeli reaction to Catherine Ashton’s visit to Tehran. In particular, they say, it was Ashton’s meetings with human rights and opposition activists in Iran that has made the MEK and Israel shiver. Stevenson used his gathering of the usual paid MEPs and officials, they claim, as a platform to harshly attack Ashton and the previous European Parliament delegation on behalf of his paymaster Maryam Rajavi, to the point of swearing at Ashton calling her ‘ignorant’. The writers highlight the intense shakiness of Stevenson and the rest to the lobbyists with the conclusion that they are reaching the end of the road.

++ Nabil Saeb al A’raji, Secretary General of the Free Iraq Party announced in an interview that the MEK is a terrorist and murderous organization affiliated with the remains of Saddam, and which has killed scores of innocent Iraqis, irrespective of what its western supporters believe of it. At the same time Aliyeh Nassif, MP, had a lengthy interview with Al Rai news agency in which she described the MEK as “a cancerous tumour which the enemies of Iraq have implanted in the body of Iraq and which will be removed surgically as soon as possible”. In addition, Hayedeh Al Ameri, a famous Iraqi writer who was working very closely with Saleh Motlaq (now one of the deputy prime ministers and a supporter of the MEK and Saddam), revealed that Motlaq used to receive 200,000 dollars though the MEK, but that now he is directly being paid millions of dollars he is not so keen on them. Al Ameri revealed that Motalq used to spend 50,000 dollars on advertising for the MEK and pocket the rest of it himself.

++ Nejat Association made a short comment that the MEK is screaming even louder than the Israelis over the oil deal of 500,000 bpd between Iran and Russia. Nejat says that while a business deal is not a crime, the torture and murder of your own people, however, is.

++ Edaalat (Victims of MEK Terrorism in Iran), published a short article among those from many others about the MEK’s shift from the nuclear issue to the human rights issue. Edaalat reminds Israel and its allies that “you may use MEK for information laundry for a while, but don’t you think it is ridiculous to use them to attack Iran over human rights with their dirty past”.

++ Amir Hossein Panahi from Ariya Association in Paris wrote a short article titled ‘Struggle Against the Regime as a Money Spinner’. He examines the role of MEK lobbyists who make money out of speaking in MEK rallies and identifies regulars such as Patrick Kennedy, Lee Hamilton, Rudi Giuliani, David Phillips and etc. who get paid between 25 to 160,000 dollars to come and let Maryam Rajavi flirt with them. The obvious thing is that this has nothing to do with any struggle or even lobbying as work. A lobbyist, Panahi points out, works to make changes. These are simply crooks charging money just to stand and speak to no end.

++ Nejat Association wrote an open letter to the UNHCR office in Tirana in appreciation of a New Year party it held for the former residents of Camp Liberty. The event was enjoyed by those who have separated from the MEK and who refused to attend a party held by the MEK which, according to Nejat, fears the decline of its cult hegemony. The letter thanked the UNCHR saying the party “reinforced our friends in their effort to distance themselves from the cult indoctrination system”.

++ There have been several articles about the MEK’s angry reaction to the release of the four Iranian border soldiers last week who had been abducted by terrorists. This reaction came alongside Maryam Rajavi’s efforts to send her condolences to the families of four high Sunni leaders who had reportedly been killed by Iranian security forces in Balouchestan. Embarrassingly for Rajavi this report proved to be completely false.

++ Comments were made about the MEK’s deafening silence as the anniversary of the re-opening of their office in Washington passed by this week. Some commentators reminded the MEK about the amount of jumping up and down and shouting ‘victory, victory’, which accompanied the re-opening and the MEK’s claim that America would definitely take Iran and give it to Rajavi.

++ There were a few reactions to Rajavi’s announcement to her usual lobbyist audience that the US should not give a visa to Iran’s UN ambassador, Hamid Abutalebi. Many referred to existing documents about the MEK which show that when the US hostages were released the MEK criticized Khomeini’s government for not executing them. They also refer to some of the MEK’s activists in the US – Ali Reza Jafarzadeh, Sona Samsoni and Ali Safavi – who are part and parcel of the Pentagon of America but who have all published their suicide notes whenever MEK asked them to. They also remind us that the MEK killed Americans in Iran as part of its anti-Imperialist struggle.

 18 April 2014

++ Mohammad Karami in Paris has received two reports from the people in Albania. One concerns the disastrous Nowruz celebration organized by MEK henchmen Farzaneh Meidanshah and Esmail Mortezai. Even though the MEK paid people to attend, many refused, and those who did attend either left before the food was served or started arguing and shouting at the MEK representatives berating them for what the MEK did to them in Iraq. Meidanshahi and Mortezai from the MEK at the start were paying people and trying to persuade them to take part in filming. But by the end of the evening resorted to threatening everyone and saying they would deal with them later for their treachery against the MEK. The second report is about a letter from UNHCR given to all the individuals which refutes the denials of help and succour which were made verbally to them last week by a UN representative. The official UN letter, published alongside the article says, “This is not our stance, you will be provided for while under our protection, not evicted from your accommodation, interviews will be held one by one, individually, for refugee status.” The people in Albania believe that what they were told verbally, which was immediately followed by the MEK’s own attempt at re-recruitment, was a stunt set up by the MEK to threaten them and force them to submit to MEK hegemony.

++ Mohammad Alavi from Ariya Association published a short article about Rajavi’s Nowruz celebration in Paris along with a couple of pictures calling it ‘Rajavi’s Show for Retired American Lobbyists’. The pictures reveal the non-Iranian nature of both audience and speakers. Alavi quotes from the infamous General Phillips, who allegedly made life very difficult for potential escapees when he was in charge of Camp Ashraf and TIPF. Phillips apparently complained, ‘Everyone is asking me why are you doing this, you have no connection with Iranians, nor seen the country, you have no relation with it. But my answer is, unfortunately I am not Iranian, but my hope is that Iranians will change their regime and I will be able to celebrate Nowruz next year alongside the Mojahedin in Iran.’ Alavi says, if you love Iranians so much why don’t you have an Iranian audience when you speak. He then tells Phillips, “Topping up the shortfall in your small military pension with Rajavi’s money is one thing, but you are talking more than you are paid for. Insulting Iranians with your rubbish talk is unacceptable and thank God you will never wake up from your delusion and be able to do anything against Iran and Iranians. Get your money and go home.”

++ Several more open letters have been written to Ben Emmerson, QC asking for his help in his role with the UN to help the people in Liberty.

++ News in English language again this week placed a lot of focus on Gareth Porter’s revelation that the MEK were the front line of an information laundry campaign by Israel which tried to pass off false information about Iran’s nuclear programme to the IAEA and the world community. Porter had several more interviews this week to talk about his book, Manufactured Crisis, which was reviewed by Edward S. Herman in The Real News. One such interview resulted in an article by Johannes Hautaviita,columnist for the Helsinki Times. The article points out, “There is a set of myths about Iran, including its foreign policy and nuclear program, that dominate the Western narrative of the nuclear issue. It is the responsibility of Western journalists to do their job and set the record straight on Iran in order alleviate the threat of yet another US/Israeli-initiated war in the Middle East. One troubling media omission in the saga of the Iranian nuclear dispute is that there has never been credible and hard evidence presented to support the claims of an Iranian nuclear weapons program…”

++ Mazda Parsi from Nejat Bloggers critiqued Maryam Rajavi’s Nowruz speech from her luxurious surrounding just outside Paris, ironically pointing out, “…For over three decades the Nowruz speeches of the cult leaders have included one unique message: “The new year is the year of the overthrow of the Iranian government”! However, Maryam Rajavi’s this year Nowruz message has one new point: “the regime is in the final stage of being overthrown.”(!) When did the Islamic Republic pass the primary stages of being overthrown that this year is the “final stage”?”

++ Nasrin Ebrahimi from Setaregan Association, Switzerland, writes an open letter to French erotic author Régine Deforge warning of Maryam Rajavi’s deception and asking not to allow her humanitaran feelings be exploited. Ebrahimi who spent ten years with the MEK describes in moving detail the real situation of women inside the MEK, and contrasts this with Maryam Rajavi’s comfortable lifestyle and the false image she presents as a feminist and humanitarian person.

++ An open letter addressed to Nouri al Maliki was published by Iran Zanan Association in Germany. It highlights the letter smuggled out of Camp Liberty warning of a humanitarian disaster after Rajavi ordered compulsory self-immolations should the residents be moved from the camp. Asking for Maliki’s intervention, Iran Zanan points out that some of them have family members still trapped inside Camp Liberty whose lives are in danger.

04 April 2014

++ Ben Emmerson QC is the UNHCR’s special rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism. After his recent report about human rights, several people from different places wrote letters to him to bring the situation of the victims trapped inside Camp Liberty to his attention. Mehdi Nikbakht from Setaregan Association in Switzerland wrote a moving letter, pleading on behalf of former colleagues and friends. He starts, “The Mojahedin Khalq (MEK) tries to portray a democratic, freedom loving, pro-human rights and pro-women’s rights face in the west. The reality, and what we have seen from the inside of this organisation is 180 degrees contrary to this claim. We have never seen anything but suppression and injustice. The leaders of MEK harshly crush any voice of criticism and they go to extreme extents to silence the voice of the survivors and ex members. They constantly spend money and energy to character assassinate and intimidate the vocal critics and survivors by calling them mercenaries, agents, traitors, etc. They try to dismiss their testimonies about the reality of the crimes they have suffered themselves and/or have seen at the hands of MEK leaders.” Nikbakht lists several abuses committed by the MEK against the members including forced divorce and celibacy, forced hard labour, forced separation from families, imprisonment and torture of dissenting members etc. Asking for investigation into these abuses Nikbakht says, “The MEK leaders do not want the trapped people to be moved to third countries and deliberately resist any attempt to facilitate such a transfer. They see this as an end to their cultish organisation and more than that, are afraid of the people reaching European countries where they can start exposing the real nature of the organisation and what has happened to them. They are afraid of the truth coming out.”

++ There have been more reactions to Maryam Rajavi’s New Year message in which she ridiculously claimed that the MEK have won in Iraq and the Iraqi and Iranian governments and Lebanon, Syria and parts of America and Europe have lost. In general the reaction has been, ‘Never mind about your views, could you not at least acknowledge the suffering of your people in the camps in Iraq, the disaster your members have fallen into?’ Mohammad B. also commented, saying that last year, she came out with a placard in her hand which read ‘this is the year the regime will be toppled’. This year she has come up with the same slogan and that only which reminded us of the past thirty years of her saying the same thing. He describes the rapid downfall of the MEK after the fall of Saddam, saying that after 30 years Maryam Rajavi is ‘trying to cut her nose to keep her face red’ (slap her own face to make it look healthy) but nobody is buying it.

++ Said Shahedi Mirzand writes about the shaky internal situation of the MEK. Quoting from one of the MEK’s phalangist members, Hassan Habbibi (who is famous for attacking people in the streets of Europe and swearing at critics, etc), Shahedi Mirzand says that while he is living in Paris and advocating the deaths of the people in Camp Liberty, it is interesting that even he has been writing that Rajavi should really not talk about toppling the regime this year. Even though Hassan Habibi knows this is the only justification and rallying cry Rajavi has to keep the cult together.

++ Hanif Heydar Nejad, a recently separated internal critic of the MEK, has published an article on his site looking over the last (Persian) year and “what we learned and how we learned to think freely and talk freely”. He talks about last year’s disasters and the exposure of human rights abuses by Massoud and Maryam Rajavi, and says that was when he and some of his friends separated and started talking alongside Iraj Mesdaghi. And “by doing that we freed ourselves and started a movement to think freely and talk freely and respect other people’s beliefs and more than anything, accept that we were wrong”.

++ M. Eftekhari from Nejat Association wrote an article in response titled, ‘A criticism of Hanif Heydar Nejad’s article’. He puts it to him that there has been a stream of disaffected members over the past twenty years, and “the point that you suddenly find yourself at a turning point is of course good, but remember that everyone except the MEK already knew what you now profess to know. If it wasn’t for them I’m not sure you would have had the guts to be the first one to do that. Even so, I am happy you people are out as well.” Massoud Khodabandeh commented in response to M. Eftekhari agreeing with him and reminding the people who first came out how they suffered and couldn’t even get a job in the west because of serious pressure from the MEK. They opened the way, says Khodabandeh and names former members like the late Hadi Shams Haeri, Said Shahsavandi in Germany, Ali Zarkesh who was killed inside the MEK, Parviz Yaghoubi in Paris, and many others who became the cutting edge. “They opened a space for the others to follow to the point that leaving the MEK is now a value, whether those who have come out understand it or not”, Khodabandeh says. “It is not an excuse to say you haven’t lived the history and therefore wasn’t to know. You have to read this history and find out what did happen. It is important that the people who escape the camps [Ashraf and Liberty] and come to live in normal society investigate what was happening to those others while they were inside the MEK and had no access to that information.”

++ Iraj Mesdaghi wrote about the Indian fortune teller and, as usual, was attacked by writers using pseudonyms in MEK websites. This week Mesdaghi responded with a note on his site saying, “I thought Rajavi would be more clever than to answer this. He should have let it die, not keep it alive. Apparently he doesn’t realise he is talking to someone who has lived with this organisation for many years and who knows it well, therefore I will dig a bit more.” Mesdaghi published pictures and documents from Spring 1984 when Massoud Rajavi was in Paris, and they had brought this same fortune teller there to present a prize to Massoud Rajavi on behalf of another organisation in India. Mesdaghi mocks, “Last time they brought him to Paris and paid him to present the prize. This time they couldn’t get him to Paris and he had to post it”. He says, “It is interesting that Rajavi’s papers all attack me saying that by exposing this I have been siding with the Intelligence Ministry of Iran. They don’t see that the creation of such a situation is to blame, not its exposure. Rajavi is doing the damage himself, not those who talk about it.”

++ A. Minoo Sepher published an article on the website ‘Women trapped in the Rajavi cult’, titled ’1392 (last Persian year), from the collapse of the terrible towers of Ashraf to the promotion of Maryam Rajavi by an Indian fortune teller’. He goes into detail about events of the last year and how at the end of it, Rajavi is reduced to trying to survive by being awarded a fortune teller’s prize, by making a film in Hollywood with Mansour Ghadarkhah and a few other desperate retired actors from the time of the Shah, and then goes on to expose the real issues, such as the UN report which says the MEK are to blame for obstructing the transfer process out of Camp Liberty and Iraq, the situation of the families not able to contact their loved ones, and the MEK trying to hide their torturers from the law. The article concludes with a prediction, that contrary to the last thirty years of Rajavi saying the toppling of the regime is imminent, “I personally predict that this year is the last year of Rajavi and his cult, and he will be toppled by the people within. I stand by my word and will talk about it when it has happened.”

++ Bahar Irani from Mojahedin.ws comments on ‘The MEK’s contradictory announcement about Catherine Ashton’s trip to Iran.’ He quotes some of their writing which is full of swearing at Cathy Ashton, and her predecessor Javier Solana, for engaging with Iran in line with their jobs. The MEK say that “none of you [EU negotiators] will be able to stop the regime being overthrown by armed struggle”. On the other hand, the MEK portray the negotiations between Ashton, Iran and the 5+1 as showing the desperation of Iran so that “whatever they do at the start of this conversation, they will be giving up all their nuclear facilities in order to survive, and even then they will collapse very soon”. Irani points out that the MEK can’t come out clearly with what is their actual initial estimate, is this something in favour of Iran or in favour of the West. What is their real analysis? Will Iran be reconciled with the West [by giving up its nuclear programme] or will Iran be toppled and invaded by the West? The MEK put out both these scenarios and every day they change their minds. Following this Irani points out that, “The MEK, after 30 years of swearing at each other and ex members and everyone else, they have forgotten how to talk properly and can’t distinguish between what they write about Catherine Ashton and what they do in their internal brainwashing sessions. This easily exposes their true nature – how they see the world.”

++ This week the MEK published a letter written by Tareq Al Hashemi (the fugitive Iraqi who was Maliki’s deputy and who is wanted in Iraq on terrorism charges and who has been sentenced to death in absentia), to Ban Ki Moon demanding that the UN should do something to protect the people in Camp Liberty, and ironically claiming, as the MEK falsely claim, that the government of Iraq doesn’t allow any investigation into the attacks. Many analyses say that on one hand, this man who was trying to become a figurehead and bring the Baathists back to lead Iraq, has been reduced to someone who copies MEK letters. Even the last time they used him in Brussels to speak, the reaction from the government of Iraq brought the European Parliament to denounce the event and announce clearly that there was no official invitation and this was a private meeting since he is a wanted man. By writing this propaganda letter, say the Farsi analysts, Al Hashemi has found his place. Another point is that in writing to Ban Ki Moon – who already knows him and the MEK full well – this letter has surely been written for internal consumption, to keep the people inside the MEK happy. Over the last few months reports from UNAMI, UNHCR, the USA and the GOI have bluntly put the blame on the MEK for not giving access to the people in Camp Liberty, and even the UN’s newly appointed Jane Hol Lute is struggling to have direct access to the witnesses. A year ago, in March 3013, Ban Ki Moon praised the work of his former representative in Iraq and urged “those who express support for the residents of Camp Hurriya and the remaining residents of another camp, New Iraq, to stop spreading insults and falsehoods about Mr. Kobler, who heads the UN Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI), and instead help to promote a durable solution.”

++ Much English news about the MEK is still concentrating on the revelations made by Gareth Porter in his book ‘Manufactured Crisis’. The MEK have not responded. Perhaps they are still in shock!

 28 March 2014