Articles

++ A great deal has been written this week prompted by the anniversary of the Forough Javidan (Eternal Light) operation, mostly focusing on the suffering and disaster caused by Massoud Rajavi’s recklessness and his living in his own dream world.

++ Hojat Seyed Ismaeli, former Mojahedin Khalq intelligence officer at the time of Saddam Hussein, has gone into detail about how Forough Javidan contributed to the change of the organisation into a full cult.

++ Another writer, Hanif Heydar Nejat, in number 4 of a series of articles goes into detail as an eye witness to events just before, during and after Forough Javidan from the point of view of someone who was in contact with both the high ranks and lower ranks at that time.

++ Bijan Niabatti, who has occasionally written critically about the MEK with the hope of correcting them, has now reached a dead end as this week the MEK has reacted by lumping him with all the other critics and started labelling him. Instead of answering him they now treat him as their enemy.

++ In an interview with the Reporters’ Club in Tehran, Ebrahim Khodabandeh has talked about many issues including the collective marriage of all the women in the MEK to Massoud Rajavi. Under the title ‘Forced Marriage Of All MEK Women’ he confirms this action and goes on to explain that the purpose behind the Ideological Revolution was to facilitate Rajavi’s ownership of all the MEK’s women members.

++ Many blogs and articles have been written about how the MEK have tried to re-create the closed environment of Iraq in the camp in Albania and how operatives have been sent there to try to isolate the newly arrived refugees.

++ The United Nations has announced that the MEK have again stopped co-operating with the UNHCR interview process in Camp Liberty.

++ Many articles have questioned why Massoud Rajavi is still in hiding after ten years and speculate on the various possible reasons for it.

++ Karim Ghassim (former NCRI member) was interviewed by Ahmad Rafat on Raha TV. This created a stir as he spoke publicly and openly about what was happening inside the MEK. Ebrahim Khodabandeh published an article about the internal problems of the Mojahedin Khalq and how they have become more and more desperate as they realise that the separation of people like Ghassim is having an effect on the people inside and around the MEK. He says this interview has really panicked them. In the same vein, a few Iranian personalities have published articles about the separation of formerly loyal supporters and have criticised the MEK for resorting to viscous character assassination instead of simply answering people’s concerns.

++ Karim Ghassim has also published an article this week complaining that Massoud Rajavi is postponing the answer to every question until ‘after the overthrow’. Ghassim says this is unacceptable and that the overthrow of Iran’s regime is a serious issue, not something to be played with by the MEK who have to answer for their deeds today, not later.

++ Mahnaz Ghezlou’s article for Pejvak Iran is titled ‘Mr Rajavi, you have been shaking hands with your own ignorance’. She details his words and actions and asks ‘what has Iraj Mesdaghi done apart from ask a few questions which made you get so hysterical?’ She goes through Rajavi’s audio speeches in which he accuses the survivors (escapees) of being homosexual and sleeping with Iraqi workers. She reminds Rajavi that in this day and age, being homosexual is not regarded as something to be held against someone or to use to whitewash the questions they ask, and says this kind of reaction fools nobody and he has to answer people.

++ The Government of Iraq has issued an announcement that the Mojahedin Khalq have to be removed from Iraq more quickly. A copy has been sent to UNAMI asking the UN to get more serious about this issue according to the agreements they have signed up to.

++ A statement from Ted Poe’s website from 2012 has been translated into Farsi. In it he welcomes the removal of the MEK from the US terrorism list and claims “The MEK long ago renounced violence, and in recent years, has been actively working with US intelligence agencies to get information on activities inside Iran. Ted Poe, Congressman for 2nd District of Texas is a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

++ Mohammad Karami continues his series on the suspicious deaths inside the Mojahedin Khalq. This week he focuses on the death of Mohammad Norouzi and some others as they lived and died, or were allegedly killed, inside the MEK.

++ Arash Sigarchi an American/Iranian journalist who contributes to Voice of America and other media, writes in his weblog ‘The Mojahedin Khalq swears its innocence but is caught red-handed.’

He details the reports of the United Nations and other international bodies which allege human rights abuses inside the MEK; sources which all say the same thing. Sigarchi compares the MEK’s propaganda machine to the Islamic Republic of Iran’s television. When anything is said in their favour the source is always reliable, but if it is against them they either ignore it or claim the sources is not reliable, even when it is the same source as for a previous issue.

++ Writing for U-T San Diego, Trent Seibert reports that San Diego Mayor Bob Filner, a long term MEK lobbyist, now claims he was unaware that the group which paid for his trip to Paris was not a real charity. He will “pay out of his own pocket the nearly $10,000 it cost for his trip to France last month.”

“Filner’s announcement came one day after U-T Watchdog reported that the IRS had no record of the organization Filner said paid his tab of being a U.S. tax-exempt nonprofit.”

“Filner said his $9,839 in travel costs to Paris were covered by the Organization of Iranian-American Communities, a group Filner initially claimed was a charity organized under Internal Revenue Code section 501(c)(3).”

““I have become aware that the OIAC’s representations regarding its non-profit status were inaccurate,” Filner said in a news release late Wednesday. “For this reason, I will reimburse OIAC for all amounts it paid for my travel and expenses in its international conference in Paris, France, above the $440 gift limit.””

++ Javad Firouzmand’s article for Aryia Iran is titled ‘The Philosophy behind the MEK leader’s reaction to critics and ex-members’. He explains that from Massoud Rajavi’s point of view as a cult leader the only reaction he can have is to reject everyone and everything. This is because he would otherwise have to explain that he is sitting in the place of God for the MEK members, something he cannot do in the outside world. Rajavi only cares about keeping his cult members so he has to protect them from the outside world and he therefore relies on activating the cult phobia that keeps them in line.

++ Bahar Irani has published an article in the Mojahedin.ws website titled ‘MEK: capable of change or changed under pressure?’

He explains why the MEK are incapable of changing their ideology and how the apparent changes to their behaviour over the past thirty years are simply a reaction to the pressures on them not a deliberate change.

 August 2, 2013

Iran’s election a setback for Washington’s anti-Iran lobby as Mojahedin Khalq goes into a tailspin

++ Quite a few articles have been published in various Farsi sites responding to the MEK’s toadying to the Americans. Many have published documents from the start of the revolution which show that the Mojahedin Khalq were more Anti-Imperialist than the Islamic forces which came to power. The MEK criticised Khomeini and his followers for not killing the American embassy hostages. The documents include letters to the government calling for their execution and praising themselves for killing American servicemen before the revolution. Massoud Rajavi’s MEK said “Let’s make another Vietnam for the Americans”.

++ While western media and political circles ignored the MEK’s latest claim to new ‘nuclear revelations’, this provoked several articles in Farsi. Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman, in answer to a journalist’s question, dismissed the claim as unworthy of notice or answer. Ironically, many Iranian opposition figures have condemned Rajavi and the MEK for being played with in the hands of the Israelis rather than being an Iranian opposition. Many have suggested that this shows the desperation and panic of the MEK and the neoconservatives following the election result in Iran.

++ Letters have been written by various Associations to the Albanian Prime Minister thanking the country and asking Albania to give enough help to the people from Iraq and not leave them to the mercy of the MEK leaders. Many have referred to the agents of the MEK being sent from Paris to try to bully them into not speaking out about the MEK.

++ The Mojahedin Khalq continues to swear at Iraj Mesdaghi, Dr Ghassim, Rowhani and Yaghmai. Many commentators have again noted that continuation of this kind of character assassination does not work outside the MEK, but then again they are not doing it for this reason, but to keep the people inside afraid of leaving or speaking out.

++ Mehdi Khoshhaal was the guest of Mardom TV this week. He discussed the forced marriages, forced divorces and the forced separation of children in the MEK, and went into detail over some of the suspicious disappearances and deaths that have occurred over the years inside the MEK. He also talked about some of the people he knows who are still in Camp Liberty.

++ Karim Ghassim published an article in Pejvak Iran directly addressing Mehdi Sameh – who is still in the NCRI. Ghassim criticises him for blatantly lying about things. He specifically tells him that ‘we did not change sides as you try to imply, it is you and your masters who have changed sides’.

++ There have been quite a few reports in the Albanian media, including TV reports, on the arrivals from Camp Liberty some of which have been translated into Farsi. The arrivals are now living in a refugee camp alongside more refugees from other countries.

++ In a media interview, the ex-minister of national security of Iraq, Shervan Vaa’eli, said that Iraq has clear evidence that the MEK have close contact and cooperation with Al Qaida Iraq.

++ Faazel Mirani, Head of the Kurdish Democratic Party of Iraq, which is affiliated to Massoud Barezani, announced to the media this week that the regional government of Arbil fully supports the central government of Iraq’s aim to expel the MEK as soon as possible. He went on to say that deleting them from the list of terrorism in America does not mean that the people of Kurdistan would ever forget their suffering at MEK hands under the regime of Saddam Hussein.

++ In addition to articles in English there have been many articles and comments about paid MEK advocate Bob Filner as someone not only anti -Iranian but also anti-women as he admitted sexually harassing several women of his acquaintance.

++ Mohammad Karami has published the second part of his ongoing articles about mysterious and suspicious deaths in the MEK. This week he talks about Mojtabah Mir Miraan, a poet who wrote under the pen name M. Baaroon. Karami explains what led up to the MEK announcing that he had killed himself. He explains the things the MEK did to him so that it resulted in him killing himself or (possibly) being killed by the MEK.

++ This week the fifth group of Camp Liberty refugees arrived in Albania. The group comprised 14 people, three of whom are notorious high ranking commanders, Hooshang Doodkhani, Afshin Ebrahimi and Akbar Chavoshi. Mohammad Karami questions, when there are so many needy and desperate people left in Camp Liberty, why, we wonder, does the MEK need torturers in Albania?

++ Nima Mihandoost’s article in Nim Negah website exposes another way the MEK have attacked Iraj Mesdaghi. The MEK published a three line paragraph followed by 255 signatures of people supposedly in prison in Iran during the 1980s. Mihandoost points out that the MEK claims that although Mesdaghi was a prisoner at this time, because all these 255 people were also in prison and all agree, then logically Mesdaghi doesn’t have the right to question the MEK over human rights abuses in Iraq.

++ Ali Keshgar, a famous Iranian opposition personality, published an article titled ‘Collaboration with invaders does not qualify as political activity’. He mentions the MEK and their mercenary role for the Israeli lobby and Americans. He goes on to say that the people who get paid by the MEK to speak in Paris are the same people who get paid from the other side to say that Israel and America should attack Iran right now.

++ UNAMI chief Martin Kobler used an outgoing speech at the UN to expose concerns about human rights abuses inside the MEK. Kobler told the Security Council that the United Nations had received complaints about the Iranian group’s leadership at the camp.

“Of increasing concern are the human rights abuses in Camp Hurriya itself by the camp leadership,” Kobler said. “Hundreds of daily monitoring reports suggest that the lives of Camp Hurriya members are tightly controlled.”

“A significant number of residents have reported to U.N. monitors that they are not free to leave the camp, to participate in the resettlement process offered by UNHCR, to contact family members outside Iraq, or to have contact with other relatives even within the camp itself,” he said, referring to the U.N. refugee agency.

Some Hurriya residents reported being denied access to medical treatment by camp leaders, while others spoke of verbal and other forms of abuse for disagreeing with camp leaders or voicing the desire to leave, Kobler said.

++ Mohammad Ali Esfahani another prominent Iranian opposition figure wrote an article also criticising the MEK for bringing the likes of John Bolton to talk in their favour since Bolton then leaves their ceremony and goes to the most right wing Israeli newspaper, The Jerusalem Post, to announce that Israel should have bombed Iran ‘yesterday’. Esfahani refers to Giuliani as another MEK paid figure working for the Zionists and mentions a few American retired military who he describes as the murders of civilians in Afghanistan and Iraq.

++Aryia Iran has collated reports in the Albanian media concerning the arrival of the refugees. Aryia Iran’s representative spoke with several reporters and made his own investigations. According to this report the Albanian interior ministry has said 109 have now been transferred to the refugee camp in Tirana.

++ Daniel Larison, writing in The American Conservative, criticises those who accept money to lobby for the MEK. “When the MEK was originally designated as a terrorist organization, that wasn’t wrongful. It was an acknowledgment that the group had employed and continued to employ terrorist tactics to pursue their political goals. The current pro-MEK line is that the group has renounced those tactics, which is debatable, but it’s the purest revisionism to say that the group never deserved to be labeled as a terrorist group. Given that the MEK is a totalitarian cult, it is crazy to think that their leaders have anything in common with “freedom-loving people.” In the extremely unlikely and horrifying event that the MEK obtained real power, they would not preside over anything resembling a democratic government, but would establish their own deranged brand of authoritarianism. If not because they are being paid to say it, why would otherwise sane and intelligent people repeat such obvious propaganda again and again?”

++ Akhbar e Ruz which lists every group’s activities and gatherings on its news page, added a short announcement for the NCRI’s three day annual gathering in Paris. It says that most of the announcements which followed this gathering were only to attack critics of the MEK and about Maryam Rajavi. Nothing about other members’ views have been published. It also points out that Karim Ghassim, Mohammad Reza Rowhani and Massoud Rajavi were all absent on this occasion, saying the first two resigned a couple of months ago.

++ Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) ridiculed the MEK for paying beggars to sit in their protest gathering outside the United Nations in New York.” A UN staff member who had worked in Tehran for several years and is quite familiar with the demographic and national structure of the Iranian society was quite bewildered to see people with colored skins in the terrorist MKO gathering.

“An elderly lady who was participating in the MKO gathering said that she was from South Africa and was a professional beggar.

“She said two people had asked her to come in front of the UN headquarters and wave the MKO flag in return for 20 dollars and a meal.”

++ Behzad Alishahi has published a satirical booklet entitled ‘The typical methodology of the MEK’. As somebody who has worked in many of their organisational sections he goes into every individual case and describes how a checklist exists to counter various challenges like when they face an ideological, military or political defeat. He shows how a few bullet points help the MEK to counter these threats. Alishahi describes the MEK methods for ‘how to keep forces, how to attack critics, how to attract foreigners, how to write articles, how to make sites and organisations’, etc. Item number 10 is ‘how to give a speech’ (which of course means Maryam Rajavi) and the methodology is: to scream and shout and never put yourself in a position where you would be asked a question. Then issue a paid advertisement about freedom and women’s rights and all the things you never believed in. Memorise a few sentences in the language of the country you are in – write them in Farsi font so you can read from it – and pretend you know what you are saying with a silly smile on your face. Then read out what you actually want to say, choose the relevant parts you like the most and repeat each one five times and then ask the paid audience to clap for it. The ‘toppling of the regime’ and ‘victory’ and the name of Massoud Rajavi must not be forgotten to be used. The next item is ‘how to make a speech’ for Massoud Rajavi. No 13 is ‘how to react to news’: Immediately boycott the sources of the news and announce that you imposed the boycott because you didn’t like the news. Then create some opposite news and use photoshop to back it up. Divert attention by making and editing films and photos and publishing these in made up sites, and as a last resort announce a ‘nuclear revelation’…

July 19, 2013