Articles

++ Mohammad Reza Rohani, former member of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), published the third part of his series of articles titled ‘The Smell of Joseph’s Shirt’. This third part answers questions raised in the first two articles. Rohani says the main objections against him have been as to why he writes against the MEK and he reminds these people that he didn’t start it. He only resigned and wished the MEK good luck. But for months after this the MEK did nothing but swear at him. He didn’t think this would happen but now he knows what they are really like.

++ Ashraf News reported on a statement issued by Ban Ki Moon’s Press Office following a meeting between the UN Secretary General and Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zibari. Moon announced in the statement that the MEK must be removed from Iraq asap.

++ In a meeting with Catherine Ashton at the UN meeting in New York, Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zibari said Europe should think about finding a place for the MEK asap. ‘They will be thrown out and you have to take them’, he said.

++ Several articles were published about how isolated the Israelis and also the MEK were this time in New York during the UNGA meetings.

++ Irandidban website has an article about Massoud Rajavi’s latest proclamations, which were not in his voice but were read out as a general rant. During the broadcast Rajavi claims that everyone who was killed in Camp Ashraf had loved to be martyred and he clearly stated that they were there for that purpose. Irandidban reminds us that the MEK had publicly demanded that they stay in Camp Ashraf in order to sell their belongings, not to get killed.

++ An Open Letter to Mr Samir Tahiri, Interior Minister of Albania, was published in English and signed by many former members and critics of the Mojahedin Khalq. Warning that the MEK is trying to send its trusted henchmen to control the new arrivals the letter asks Tahiri to ‘prevent the entrance of Mrs Masoumeh Malekmohammadi to Albania. She should be handed over to the Iraqi courts of justice for her criminal activities in Iraq’. And concludes, ‘We urge you and your government to allocate and designate a place for the separated members of the PMOI away from those who are loyal Mojahedin members in Albania in order for them to be safe and sound from the psychological tortures and pressures of the PMOI.’

++ An article by Amir Hossein Panahi from Aryia Association in Paris titled ‘Rajavi’s group and what they gained in New York’, discusses those individuals who were paid to make speeches to beggars in New York during the MEK’s mock demonstration. He concludes that the speakers would be better off if they hadn’t exposed like this how empty handed they are.

++ Sahar Family Foundation has translated several Iraqi newspaper articles into Farsi. These are some examples of what is covered: Iraq’s Foreign Minister declared again that the government of Iraq had no involvement in the disappearance of any MEK members and if Catherine Ashton or anyone else has any concerns they can of course talk with him and he can explain more about this issue; The Badr faction spokesman in parliament has declared that there is overwhelming evidence that the MEK massacred Kurdish people during the era of Saddam Hussein and that they have to be prosecuted before their deportation; Some Iraqi newspapers reported that while searching Camp Ashraf they have found mass graves some of which appear to contain Kurds and some Kuwaitis. A joint American-Kuwaiti team are investigating this and apparently one of the victims is a child princess related to the ruling royal family of Kuwait; another paper has said that, contrary to what the MEK claims, the American government has denied visiting the seven allegedly lost people and the government of Iraq also dismisses such claims.

++ A. Rayhani has written to Iraj Mesdaghi, a vocal critic of the MEK, giving many reasons why he and his colleagues who have deserted the MEK should start a separate MEK group so that other like minded people can join with them. Mesdaghi has answered this by reminding Rayhani that ‘you can’t start an opposition group from Sweden, all we can do from outside Iran is to help the opposition there. Mesdaghi says people can’t believe in an army without arms and they can’t believe in fighters who have suddenly become asylum seekers, and nor can they believe that MEK are warriors when they are working from Paris. In the same way such people wouldn’t accept us if we announced ourselves as the new MEK but this time from Sweden. Mesdaghi says ‘I am no Don Quixote! I am a realist. Let Rajavi make his wild claims’. Mesdaghi refers to Rajavi’s claims that the 3000 old and sick men and women in Iraq are going to play the role of Robin Hood from Camp Liberty, and that from there Rajavi will break down all the walls and go against the wishes of the UN and the international community, and he will break the chains of Imperialism and then destroy the army of Iraq and topple the Iraqi government…!

++ This week many have written articles marking the anniversary of America removing the MEK from its terrorism list. They commonly remark that contrary to what Rajavi claimed to the MEK forces, that being on this list was why they couldn’t topple the Iranian regime, now we see that this wasn’t the problem after all as the MEK are in a worse state than then. Some writers analyse the situation as ‘how the Americans use everything without hesitation’ – such as adding the MEK to the list then taking them off again just as easily. They point out that Hillary Clinton promised to remove the MEK if they agreed go to Camp Liberty. In Tehran, Dr Sajadi, Head of the Society for the Defence of Victims of Terrorism in Iran, says that although Clinton – wrongly – promised such a thing to a group of terrorists and kept her word, we saw that the terrorists did not keep their word and did not empty Camp Ashraf which has cost many lives until now. He says that the fact that the cult leaders have not been able to come back and are in a worse situation now is cannot be credited to the Americans since they have tried their best to use terrorism and groups like the MEK which has spent millions of dollars on Senators and ex-officials, etc.

++ A delegation from Faryad Azadi Association visited the Albanian embassy in Paris to discuss the MEK arrivals in Tirana. The delegation thanked the government of Albania for its humanitarian act and went on to explain the behaviour of the MEK, how they operate as a cult and offered consultancy as to how Albania can deal with them.

++ Ghorban Ali Hosseinejat wrote about the MEK’s so-called hunger strike in Camp Liberty which has apparently not affected the health of any of them after four weeks. (Hosseinejat points out this is a known sham tactic and the MEK typically do this for propaganda purposes.) He poses the question to Rajavi that if what you claim is true and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard was responsible for the attack on Camp Ashraf and the deaths of 52 people while letting the remainder take photographs and films to be sent immediately to Paris for propaganda, and if meanwhile they take seven random people and put them in the hands of the Iraqi government – while most people believe this whole event has been an internal act – then, if this is true, isn’t it even more ridiculous that the MEK have gone on hunger strike asking the IRG to release them or they will kill themselves? If what you say is true, why would the Iranian Revolutionary Guard want to stop you killing yourselves?

++ According to Nejat Bloggers, Cologne city officials have objected to moves to bring 77 MEK from Camp Liberty to their city. Citing security concerns Mr Guido Kahlen, director of Cologne City Council seriously protested the decision. The Council considers the presence of those people with records of military, terrorist and cult-like activities as a risk to the security of Cologne’s citizens, he said.

++ Mohammad Reza Rohani – formerly a member of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) – has begun a series of articles titled ‘The Smell of the Shirt of Joseph’. Parts 1 and 2 go into detail about why he resigned from the NCRI and the pressure the MEK exert on him now to keep quiet. He points out that he is writing as a person who is not against them and has done his best to bring them back to normality, nevertheless he details the difficult situation he was in and why he had to leave.

++ Dr Ghassim writing similarly as a former NCRI member describes why he felt he was no longer an effective or useful member of the Council. One specific example he gives is that over the last decade Maryam Rajavi has held around 60 or 70 conferences and meetings, but, even putting himself aside, not once during the past ten years has a single Iranian been on the panel. Instead the panellists were always American or European lobbyists. Ghassim points out that as a member of the Council he should surely have been able to represent it at least once in the past ten years, but this example shows why he felt unable to play a part and be helpful any more.

++ Several writers in Farsi have pointed out that over recent days Rajavi’s stance toward Iran is an exact copy of that of Benjamin Netanyahu, and that the word for word copying makes it clear the MEK is being paid to repeat what Netanyahu says. They point out that no one else in the world, not even the Neoconservatives, follow word for word what Netanyahu says except the MEK.

++ The office of Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki issued a statement in English denying the MEK’s propaganda claims. The statement reads in part: “The Khalq Organization is accustomed to fabricating lies and disseminating them, in this regard they alleged that seven of its members had been missing in the recent events that took place in the New Iraq camp, and claimed that they were abducted by Iraqi troops. As we reject these allegations altogether we reiterate the fact that the Iraqi forces has never conducted any actions against members of this organization, whether in the camp of New Iraq or any other site, but the elements of this organization, which is still on the list of terrorist organizations refused to allow Iraqi forces, which were protecting the camp, entering the camp at the time of the accident and impeded investigation efforts.”

++ The US embassy in Iraq also issued a denial of MEK propaganda claims saying: “The U.S. Embassy in Iraq says it has no information on the whereabouts of seven Iranian dissidents allegedly missing following a deadly shooting on their compound north of Baghdad this month. The parent organization of the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq dissident group says it has information that an American delegation has met the seven people held by Iraqi forces near Baghdad airport. U.S. Embassy spokesman Rodney Ford told The Associated Press by email Sunday that the claim of an American visit is “categorically untrue.” He says no one from the U.S. government has seen or visited those said to be missing.”

++ Several articles about Camp Ashraf have concluded that the MEK are trying to divert attention away from the UN’s efforts to remove them in order to keep themselves in Iraq. It is ironic that a couple of days ago another audio message from Massoud Rajavi was broadcast inside the MEK in which he viciously attacks everyone and says they have to get their ground back and fight to the last person. Rajavi says no one is allowed to leave Iraq. Many have written in response that it is clear he wants to get rid of the whole 3000. The 52 killed on September 1st have given him some blood and he is now prepared to kill them all.

++ Ashraf News and other Iraqi media report that some unnamed officials claim they believe Massoud Rajavi had been in Camp Ashraf but ran away shortly before the transfers to Camp Liberty began.

++ News from inside Camp Liberty is given by Mohammad Karami who has contact with an insider. He was informed that since the 42 survivors of the Camp Ashraf incident were transferred to Camp Ashraf, nobody has seen them or had contact with them. They have been held in quarantine so that it is clear they know things which Rajavi doesn’t want others to find out about.

++ In Iran, General Seyed Mohammad Baqerzadeh, commander of the search committee for the lost people at the Armed Forces Headquarters said his organisation had met with officials of the ICRC and representatives of the Iraqi defense and human rights ministries in the south western Iranian city of Ahvaz to discuss the search for missing war dead. General Baqerzadeh said that some Iranian POWs were handed over to MKO terrorists, who were based in camp Ashraf, by the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussain and that some of them “were martyred and buried there,” which is why the search committee wants permission to search the cemetery of Camp Ashraf for bodies.

++ During President Rohani’s visit to the UN General Assembly in New York the MEK held a demonstration in Manhatten. Not one serious media outlet covered it. Only one or two weblogs mentioned it and a few paid adverts tried to make something out of it. However a reporter for the Farsi section of Radio Free Europe (Radio Farda) posted a short note and a picture gallery titled, ‘Full of colour, full of people’. The pictures showed only a few white people including John Bolton with the rest – a few hundred – being mostly poor black people (apparently beggars) who had presumably been paid to attend.

++ Mehrdad Sagharchi from Germany was the guest on Mardom TV this week. He answered questions on a variety of subjects from his own experience of Ashraf and Liberty.

++ A few Iraqi MPs , officials and Tribal Leaders in Iraq have issued announcements asking the Government of Iraq to put more pressure on the UN and the US to take the remains of Saddam – as they call the MEK – out of the country as soon as possible. Many refer to the incident in Camp Ashraf and say that if this was done by the families of the victims of MEK terrorism in Iraq as is claimed, then it show that people’s patience is running thin and the Americans should take their mercenaries out and back home.

++ Mohammad Razaghi responded to Massoud Rajavi’s audio broadcast in an article that points out how Rajavi is inciting the members to resist to the death and follow the path of the 52 who were killed. From this approach Razaghi draws the conclusion that no one else was after the blood of these people and no one else benefited from it except Rajavi himself.

++ Iran’s President Hassan Rohani and Iraqi Vice President Khazir al-Khazai met in New York on September 25. During the meeting in which many regional issues were discussed, including the crisis in Syria, President Rohani expressed gratitude to the Iraqi government for its closure of Camp Ashraf… Stressing that the terrorist group had the blood of Iranians and Iraqis on its hands, the Iranian president expressed hope that the remaining MKO terrorists would leave Iraqi soil shortly.

September 27 2013

++ Several articles in Farsi, the most thorough of which is by Amir Movasaghi, criticise Maryam Rajavi for her crocodile tears over the Camp Ashraf victims which the articles describe as ‘playing victim’ for an American audience. As usual, the articles point out, Rajavi does not ask for the remaining people to be removed from Iraq but instead insists the MEK retain a base in Iraq. This has led many to conclude that this is based on a policy of getting rid of them.

Hamid Reza Salmani, from Yaran in Paris, has written an article titled, ‘Why wasn’t Camp Ashraf evacuated sooner?’ He details the efforts that Rajavi made to delay the evacuation and encourage the residents to fight with Iraqi security forces and shed blood. He concludes by asking, ‘shouldn’t western judicial systems question Rajavi and the lobbyists about their deliberate role in this bloodshed and the deaths of the hostages?’

++ Homayoun Kohzadi’s article is about Rajavi himself and how he has continually insisted on ‘going back to Ashraf’. Kohzadi points out that Rajavi also begs the MEK backers to send them to Syria as a way to get rid of them. Finally Kohzadi reminds everyone that Rajavi claimed ‘Camp Ashraf is everything we have and if it is not there we should not be alive’. But in the end he was resigned to abandoning Camp Ashraf with as much bloodshed as possible. Kohzadi reminds us that Rajavi used to quote Lenin by saying ‘to negotiate we can even wear a skirt if needed.’ But, he says, Rajavi should remember that Lenin was stressing the importance of negotiating, not suggesting a disguise for escaping.

++ A statement issued by the MEK this week swears at anyone who speaks about Camp Ashraf or criticises anything that has happened there in the past 25 years. The statement calls such people ‘mad dogs of the Iraqis’, or ‘monkeys of Iranian Intelligence’. In the end the MEK threatens every person from Iranian officials to journalists, reporters and commentators in the West, we will ‘punish you in the same way we have the likes of Lajevardi, Sayad Shirazi or the mullahs blown up like Sadughi, Dastgeib, Madani, etc’ – names of people the MEK has killed in assassinations and suicide bombings over the past thirty years. In response many have written in Farsi to warn that it is all very well saying the MEK is no longer on western terrorism lists when it is apparent their next targets are not in Iraq or Iran or Syria, but will be in London or Washington or Paris. They warn, it is not the first time the MEK has diverted attention from their defeats by resorting to acts of terrorism.

++ Irandidban website has warned America, the UN and the government of Iraq that if they do not supervise the Camp Liberty residents when they are taken out of Iraq, there will almost certainly be a series of murders, killings and terrorist activities, because these people have unstable and disturbed mental health and many have been trained by Saddam’s Fedayeen exclusively for such activities.

++ This week’s guests on Mardom TV were Batul Soltani and Zahra Moini, who talked about their personal experiences of Camp Ashraf.

++ Nimnegah site published part ten of its interview with Mohammad Razaghi, a former MEK member. In this episode he recalls the MEK’s massacre of the Kurds in 1991 and describes how they didn’t even leave the dead but instead burned and destroyed the bodies and the villages as much as possible. The savage hatred and intimidation shown by the MEK as they ran over bodies with their tanks was to act as a warning for others to be afraid and submit.

++ Mohamamd Karami published more news about Albania. The ninth series have now joined the 159 already transferred. Significantly, from these, 69 have declared themselves to be against the MEK and the government of Albania has housed them separately from the others in an apartment block.

++ Sahar Family Foundation of Baghdad has published an article titled ‘After 27 blood filled years, Camp Ashraf finally closed’. The article reminds us of the three and a half years of picketing by families of the Camp Ashraf residents and then briefly recaps the history of Camp Ashraf from time Rajavi went to Iraq, how the base was built and how it has now been destroyed and renamed Camp New Iraq. It goes through each strategy that Rajavi announced over these 27 years and shows how he changed his word every few months until failure after failure brought the camp to what it is now.

++ Other Farsi commentators point out that the end of Camp Ashraf came about not because of the MEK themselves but because of the stubbornness and dictatorship of Massoud Rajavi. It is a failure of his leadership, they say, not his followers. In response to the threat to kill critics, many point out to Rajavi that Saddam Hussein has gone and those days have gone with him.

++ The former deputy head of Iraq’s parliament stated that he condemned the killings but welcomed the evacuation of Camp Ashraf and said Iraq is on the right track to getting rid of this terrorist entity but that this has to be accomplished faster.

++Many write about the situation of the Iranian opposition outside Iran, in particular in relation to the government of Iran. They explain how the MEK and Rajavi have always been used as a winning card in the hands of Iran in international relations which uses the terrorist MEK cult as an example of Iranian ‘opposition’ groups, and uses the MEK against foreign governments by pointing to the double standards of supporting a widely despised terrorist group as the main Iranian opposition. These writers warn real opposition groups to clearly separate themselves from the MEK or they will never gain trust among people and make progress.

++ Following widespread criticism, the MEK removed the ‘death threat’ item from its website after only a few days. Commentators pointed out that the MEK clearly don’t know how to react after they were warned that the item and the process of its removal have been scanned and linked and re-published on the internet by MEK critics. The MEK are in an mess they say. By this morning the MEK had restored the ‘death threat’ item. Similarly, this week the MEK published an item claiming that a group of Iraqis had held a demonstration in their favour – until several people identified the main image as taken in 2004 from inside Camp Ashraf when the MEK were inviting Iraqis into the base to win them over with meals and money. A photoshopped banner had been transposed across the centre of the image to make it look current. The MEK immediately reacted by removing the picture but then, days later, restored it.

++ Mohammad Karami has published reports from Camp Liberty residents who have arrived in Albania who say that the MEK are trying to get a woman called Masoumeh Malek Mohammadi on the transfer list for Albania. Mohammadi is a well known torturer and murderer inside the MEK and is wanted by Iraqi judicial authorities for crimes committed in Iraq. The MEK now want to get her out of the country before she is arrested. Previously another wanted woman, Farzaneh Meidanshahi was transferred to Albania to avoid arrest.

++Iraqi newspapers this week do not have much to say about the MEK and Camp Ashraf because of more important issues gripping the country but a few parliamentarians, including Sadegh Al-Laban, have been quoted asking their government to expedite the MEK’s expulsion because they are agents of foreign governments in Iraq. Iraqi police referred to the MEK threats of assassination made against officials and others in Iraq. Officials refer to the fact that in Iraq the MEK are a designated terrorist organisation and they must be brought to justice. A few papers have quoted officials who say the Camp Ashraf killings were the work of MEK leaders and that they have killed their own people inside the camp. Iraq is still investigating this. They say some of the bodies show signs of having been tortured before they have been shot, so some areconcluding this has been an internal affair.

++ In English, various media reported Iraqi dismissals of MEK claims it is holding seven allegedly missing Camp Ashraf residents. Nejat bloggers quoted Iraq Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari saying that “the presence in Iraq of dissident groups and terror militants was no longer tolerable – directly referring to MKO members”. Zebari “called on the UN and Western countries to honor their promises and relocate all militants out of Iraq as soon as possible”. Fars News reports a speech made by senior Iranian MP, Naqavi Hosseini, “Since the victory of the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran the US has been using MKO as a tool to achieve its objectives in the region”. But, he stressed, Iran “intends to pursue the rights of the Iranian victims of MKO terrorist attacks through international human rights organizations”.

++ Meanwhile, an American newspaper gives coverage to Ted Poe, member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and chairman of the panel that handles terrorism issues, as he urges the UN to place a United Nations peacekeeping force in Camp Hurriya and report back to the Security Council” because “…it should be evident to all by now that the government of Iraq cannot be trusted to keep these refugees safe.”

++ Anne Singleton, author of two books on Camp Ashraf and the MEK, writes in an article titled ‘Loving families offer security and a future for Camp Liberty residents in Iraq’, that the residents are being used for political purposes by various quarters and that America has a moral duty to help them after they have spent nearly three decades working for western interests. She says, “Once it is acknowledged that the residents of Camp Liberty are individuals and not pawns to be deployed or destroyed, and the MEK leaders are required to restore their basic freedoms, then solutions as to what can be done with them will not be difficult to find. First and foremost of these is to reunite them with their families.” The article concludes, “When looking for a permanent solution for the residents, anybody with any sincerity must acknowledge that the involvement of these people’s families can offer the emotional, financial and mental security needed for them to return to normal life wherever they finally settle. Beyond this, the normalising presence of families at Camp Liberty will forestall the opportunity for further attacks.”

September 20, 2013