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Mujahedin Khalq Organization's Propaganda System

Library of Congress pulls sketchy Iran intel report

The Library of Congress has pulled a report on Iran’s intelligence activities from circulation after an American journalism watchdog showed that the widely cited text was playing fast and loose with the facts.

American and international media outlets had jumped in the report’s claim that Iranian intelligence was employing 30,000 people, a figure called "ill-supported" by ProPublica, a New York-based non-profit reporting on public interest matters.

The report had been produced by a Pentagon office and posted to a US government intranet site before leaking to the public in early January.

And a massive Iranian intel staff wasn’t the only dubious claim brought to light by ProPobulica: the report also alleged, without much evidence, that Vienna was the European hub for the Iranian foreign spy network and that Tehran was gathering information by way of "signals intelligence stations" throughout the Middle East, with many of them in Syria.

"The report was pulled for revisions after the Division staff identified a passage that should have been caveated but was missed in the initial reviews," Federal Research Division chief David Osborne told ProPublica in an email.

Though the document was taken offline "for revisions," it has not gone back up in a modified form.

It was also the source of public humiliation in the UK after claiming explicitly that Briton Anne Khodabandeh (nee Singleton) and her Iranian-born husband Massoud were Iranian foreign intelligence operatives, even showing their pictures. Khodabandeh, a former member of the MEK, the exiled group fighting the Iranian government, has in recent years become a critic of the group, which was recently taken off the US government’s list of terrorist organizations.

To back up its claim that Khodabandeh was spying for Tehran, the report cited a 2007 essay written by Rabbi Daniel Zucker, who chairs a group called Americans for Democracy in the Middle East and is known to write often in support of the MEK. The website where his essay was published is no longer operational, but had linked to the also now-defunct iranterror.com as its source.

After seeing the report, even the MEK claimed that the Pentagon’s report showed that "Anne and Massoud Khodabandeh are agents of the mullahs’ Ministry of Intelligence and Security."

"Everything they’ve said is just made up," Anne Khodabandeh told ProPublica.

Despite such sketchy sources, the report was for all intents and purposes the official word of the United States government.

The Khodabandehs are refraining from legal action due to the costs of such a lawsuit and the fact that report does not credit an author.

January 24, 2013 0 comments

Iraq

MKO, Unwanted Guests in Iraq

MKO is a heavy burden on Iraq whose potential threats have to be drastically curbed

Despite the UN’s efforts in negotiating with immigrant-accepting countries to convince them to accept and shelter the MKO members, no country has yet agreed to let them on its soil as refugees. Labid al-Abawi, the Iraqi Deputy Foreign Minister has recently stressed that the Iraqi government has complied with all its undertakings to ensure the rapid expulsion of the terrorist MKO from its soil saying: “The group [MKO] is now in the transit Camp Liberty in Baghdad and the UN will start their transition as soon as a third country is found for them”.

MKO is not the Iraqi government’s sole serious problem to tackle with but one of the most complicated among many. Unrest, tribal insurgence and bombing are post Saddam legacies that have to be curbed. Based on official reports, Martin Kobler, the Special Representative of the United Nations Secretary-General for Iraq (SRSG), has strongly condemned the frequent wave of fomented unrests and bombings which have targeted thousands of individuals especially in northern and southern provinces. Expressing his concern, Mr. Kobler states that “I am particularly alarmed that attacks in disputed internal areas further aggravate the tensions there”.

The latest figures from UNHCR show that there are currently more than 70,000 Syrian refugees in Iraq, all fleeing the escalated violence in Syria to seek protection in Iraq. Majority of these refugees suffer from serious lack of basic living needs and the harsh living conditions and there is an ongoing joint cooperation to respond to the pending needs intensified in the camps particularly located in the sub-zero temperatures. Lack of healthcare services, clothing, inappropriate shelters to keep the cold off, the cold weather itself coupled with unhygienic conditions and more shortages have made displaced people vulnerable to a variety of diseases and have left them with no choice but to be engaged in a desperate struggle to survive.

Compared to these poor refuges, MKO’ members, if they insist to be recognized as refugees, are enjoying the convenience of living in an ideal location abundantly provided and left over by the US army. Any life-threatening shortage? Sometimes you cannot tell if MKO’s leaders are talking seriously or just kidding. For instance, they complain why they have to suffer walking on the mud-laden ground at the rainfall or, as they have recently accused Iraqi forces, be deprived of using forklift trucks because “moving of loads by residents during this period of time has led to orthopedic diseases, acute pains in the limbs and backs, and irreparable osteo-lesions”.

In a recent demand pressed by the NCR Secretariat, which MKO claimed to be an effort to end inhuman restrictions in Camp Liberty, the group called on “the United Nations and the US government with specific responsibility towards safety and security of Camp Liberty residents to adopt urgent measures to end torture of residents and inhumane restrictions on them such as depriving them of their own forklift trucks, and also to remove the aforementioned officers from Camp Liberty”. One may ask what the loads are, how heavy and abundant they are and where they have come from to need forklift trucks to carry and stockpile them in a transit camp!

The call comes after the disappointed news that the Iraqi government refused the demand made by MKO to return to the old location they had occupied for more than 25 years calling it City of Ashraf. Asserted by the Chairman of the Commission on Security and Defence and Parliamentary leader of the Coalition of State Law, Hassan al-Sanid, MKO will not return to Camp Ashraf in Diyala province after having been transferred to Camp Liberty near Baghdad. He further notified that “the Iraqi government, in coordination with the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI), will act speedily on the mutually agreed resolution to drive them out.”

Besides ceaseless complains and new demands as well as spreading unfounded rumors of a massacre threat by Iraqi forces, MKO denounces the Iraqi government for plotting to plunder “the residents’ property and expropriation of their property, without paying any compensation”. Not only the government but also Mr. Kobler is accused of cooperating to pave “the way for stealing Ashraf resident’s property and third massacre in Ashraf by Al-Maliki at behest of the Iranian regime.

The Iraqi government has so far tolerated the cantankerous, strange behaviors of an imposed remnant of the ousted dictator. Neither are they refugees nor prisoners of war waiting repatriation nor trusted temporary settlers to grant them limited autonomous, self-dependent living. It is just a heavy, unthankful burden provided with free, double rations whose potential threats have to be drastically curbed until they are transferred out of the country. How long more can the Iraqi government tolerate the impudence of the guests who have outstayed their welcome is a question that remains unanswered.

January 24, 2013 0 comments

The cult of Rajavi

Defectors bugging the Rajavis

Cult leaders often tend to claim that they are so spiritually elevated that they know the “absolute Defectors bugging the Rajavis truth” for the well-being of their followers. In this way, they apply various bizarre practices to blind the followers from observing the reality of maltreatments against them. In the cult, they are constantly kept under a sever mind control manipulative system that they cannot see their leaders abusive acts.

Once the member defects from the cult whether mentally or both mentally and physically, he realizes what has gone to him during the period of his engagement with the cult. He seriously gets motivated to denounce the cult and its leaders.

The majority of former members of the cult of Rajavi (the Mujahedin Khalq Organization/ the MKO/ MEK) are determined to reveal what they once thought as normal in the cult because of the responsibility they feel regarding the threat of the cult for both their former friends in the MKO and the humane community. Overwhelmed with feeling of anger and vengeance against Massoud and Maryam Rajavi, defectors of the MKO can help keeping silent over the human rights abuses they witnessed in the cult. Unsurprisingly, they are labeled by the cult as “agent of the Iranian regime” which is according to Mrs. Ann Singleton (a defector of the cult) a “one size fits all used to designate the victims” of the MKO [1]

Mrs. Singleton and his husband Massoud Khodabande and his brother-in-law Ebrahim are even mentioned as agents of the Iranian intelligence in the recent Pentagon report on Iranian intelligence. The misleading Pentagon report was noticeably run by the MKO’s agents in the US government. Iran Interlink offers evidences on the allegation:

The report is characterized by its mixture of allegation, assertion and allusion, much of which is not substantiated by evidence. The report blends fact and fiction in a manner intended to deceive and mislead. As such, this document is not an attack, it is a defensive act, it is a play on words intended to prevent informed discussion and stop important people being listened to. Indeed, the gratuitous mention of two specific individuals, Anne Singleton and Massoud Khodabandeh, who have consistently exposed the aspects of the Mojahedin Khalq which it most wants to hide – cult nature, human rights violations, mercenary relation to foreign agents – is the strongest possible indication of the provenance of this report.
The other indication is that the source of this specific misinformation is Rabbi Daniel M. Zucker. In a footnote the article “Disinformation Campaign in Overdrive: Iran’s VEVAK in High-Gear” is sourced at Global Politician, September 3, 2007, http://www.globalpolitician.com/23386-vevak-iran (accessed April 17, 2012). Interestingly, this website can no longer be accessed. [2]

However, the whole deceitful report –which was highly propagandized by the MKO – did not disturb the Khodabandehs. On January17, a few days after the report published Massoud Khodabandeh posted this status on his face book profile:

“I told my Mum that the Khodabandeh family was being attacked by the MEK in Washington and that she had been mentioned too. She said – I’m sure you three are more than enough for Rajavi and his cult, but if not, I’ll be happy to personally sort out Rajavi.”

For defectors denunciation of the violence committed in the MKO is kind of delightful job that helps enlighten the world community and release of their ex-comrades.

Ann singleton was among the first defectors to write about her experience with Rajavi’s Cult. She is the author of a book titled “Saddam’s Private Army”[3]. This is a sentence the review of the book published by Amazon.com:

”Told by a western woman who for twenty years had unique access to the secret inner world of the Mojahedin.”[4]

As you read on the book cover, "Saddam’s Private Army” gives a very detailed account and analysis on “How Rajavi changed Iran’s Mojahedin from armed revolutionaries to an armed cult."[5]

Regarding recently published testimonies of female former members about sexual abuse and women’s rights violations in the cult of Rajavi, Singleton’s book is perhaps the first document on the corrupt world created by Maryam and Massoud Rajavi. Singleton describes how Maryam’s ambitions lead her to promote herself in the MKO until she becomes Rajavi’s “personal assistant”. In 1984, Massoud who had been married to Firouzeh Banisadr – daughter of his then ally — divorced from her,” in this respect it is widely believed that she began a sexual relationship with Rajavi even before he divorced from Firouzeh in 1984. Singleton writes, ”She had been appointed head of Rajavi’s office and she worked closely with him in his office often not returning home at night for days. Before their marriage on 8th February 1985 Maryam hadn’t returned home to her husband Abrishamchi for several months. In this time. She had also attended a hospital in Paris for what is believed to have been a termination of pregnancy.”[6]

It took us just a few years more to learn about further violations of human rights in the MKO. Batoul Soltani, is a former member of the MKO’s so-called elite called “Leadership Council”. She bravely revealed horrifying facts about sexual abuse by Massoud Rajavi although she said that recalling those memoires is “awfully difficult” for her.[7]

Mrs. Soltani exposed a cultic ceremony in the MKO, called “Salvation Dance” (nude dancing) in which women of the “Leadership Council” were made remove their clothes in front of Massoud Rajavi and dance before him.”Get close to Massoud and unite with him”, Maryam said to dancing women.[8]

The former member of the Mojahedin Leadership Council added “They had portrayed the issue of having [sexual] relations with Massoud Rajavi in such a way that it appeared to us as the most sacred task. Mas’ud Rajavi also used verses from the Koran to justify his behavior.”[9]

A few months ago, Soltani together with two other former members, Zahra Mirbaqeri and Nasrin Ebrahimi once again denounced the MKO by receiving a list of 100 female members of the group who have gone under hysterectomy to be sexually abused by the Cult leader, Massoud Rajavi.[10]

Nasrin Ebrahimi had previously revealed that Rajavi had entitled the operation to remove women’s womb as “Summit”[11] referring to women’s extreme devotion to their leader. They lose their final sign of sexuality and motherhood, or as Mrs. Singleton says” to neutralize their sexuality”.[12]

Mir Baqeri said that the surgical operations were carried out to take out the victims’ wombs so that they would not be pregnant after being raped by Rajavi.[13]

Women of the Leadership Council were given a necklace on which Massoud’s portrait was graved earlier than they were made married with him. Zahra Mir Baqeri has one of the necklaces to show those who are concerned.

“Maryam Rajavi invented rituals such as being washed by other women members so as to ‘spiritually purify’ them, followed by the instruction to dance naked before both the Rajavis to prove they had ‘broken the physical and mental barriers’ to their total submission to Massoud. After these coercive practices, he would choose a bedmate for sex. The women have said that they did not agree to sex with Rajavi out of free will but because they had been coerced through deception into submitting to what they later came to recognize as rape.”, Ann singleton notifies.[14]

As she suggests:
“The facts are easily verifiable. The physical evidence of hysterectomy can be found in the women’s bodies. It is a matter of fact, not opinion. And if those who managed to escape the cult have evidence consistent with their accusations, does it not behove those people actually responsible for their welfare to conduct an investigation into the condition of the other named women in the MEK who are trapped incommunicado in (the ironically named) Camp Liberty.”[15]

There may be a much longer list of abuses committed in the Cult of Rajavi, as some of them were already reported by Human Rights Watch in 2005. This is what terribly disturbs the leaders of the MKO. To defend themselves they have no way except using their old tactic, labeling them “agent of regime”. Such reaction cheers defectors up as they see that they’ve been successful to bug the cult leaders.

By Mazda Parsi

References:
[1]Singleton, Ann, Do not Disturb – Criminals at work in Camp Liberty, IranInterlink, January 5, 2013
[2]Iran Interlink, More smoke and mirror from the MEK propaganda factory, January &, 2013
[3]Singleton, A, SADDAM’S PRIVATE ARMY: How Rajavi Changed Iran’s Mojahedin from Armed Revolutionaries to an Armed Cult, IRAN INTERLINK, 2003, ISBN 0-9545009-0-3
[4]http://www.amazon.co.uk/Saddams-Private-Army-Mojahedin-Revolutionaries/dp/0954500903
[5] Singleton, A, SADDAM’S PRIVATE ARMY: How Rajavi Changed Iran’s Mojahedin from Armed Revolutionaries to an Armed Cult, IRAN INTERLINK, 2003, ISBN 0-9545009-0-3
[6]ibid. Page 57
[7] https://www.nejatngo.org/en/posts/3261
[8]ibid
[9] BBC Monitoring, Massoud Rajavi accused of "sexual exploitation" of women, September 22 2010
[10]Fars News Agency, MKO Ringleaders Abuse Female Memoires Sexually, December 25, 2012
[11]Fars News Agency, The Ideal Summit Mujahedin Khalq makes women unfertile, October 15, 2008
[12] Singleton, Ann, Do not Disturb – Criminals at work in Camp Liberty, IranInterlink, January 5, 2013
[13] Fars News Agency, MKO Ringleaders Abuse Female Memoires Sexually, December 25, 2012
[14] Singleton, Ann, Do not Disturb – Criminals at work in Camp Liberty, IranInterlink, January 5, 2013
[15]ibid

January 22, 2013 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization's Propaganda System

MKO’s Trick of Concentrating upon a Single Foe

It is natural to see defected members being demonized as the paid agents of Iranian regime

Pretty remarkable in MKO-run propaganda machine is a strange paradox. It highlights anti-Iranian regime sentiments and demonizes whoever is attached to it and minimizes whatever might cause MKO fall into disrepute of being represented as an undemocratic terrorist cult. It It is natural to see defected members being demonized as the paid agents of Iranian regime fuels global rage against Iranian regime but praises the group and its leaders as pro-democratic unity devoted to peaceful campaign against all cruelties and violations of human rights! MKO is not the first in history clinging to such a paradox but following the footsteps of countless bullies who were determined to shift the focus of public attention and rage away from their own devious intention and plans to a hateful image of a “single adversary”.

For example, Stalin‘s collective label for his foe was the bourgeoisie or exploiter and Hitler aimed his propaganda at a similar enemy, mainly Jews. As Hitler wrote in Mein Kampf:

“The art of all truly great national leaders at all times consists…primarily in not dividing the attention of a people, but in concentrating it upon a single foe…. It belongs to the genius of a great leader to make even adversaries far removed from one another seem to belong to a single category.”

Learning his lessons from the dictators and leaders of the personality cults rather than the great men of peace, Rajavi, as the leader of a terrorist cult, came to grasp that the first rule in any struggling movement is to have an enemy to challenge and overcome. Thus, a particularly important place in the struggle matrix of MKO was assigned to Iranian regime as the sole adversary along with those it accused them to be siding with it. In fact, MKO requires the existence of enemies, internal and external, all associated with the single adversary at all times because too many enemies arouse suspicions and questioning. That is exactly outlined by Hitler for MKO to adhere to:

“Once the wavering mass sees itself in a struggle against too many enemies, objectivity will put in an appearance, throwing open the question whether all others are really wrong and only their own movement are in the right. And this brings about the first paralysis of their own power. Hence a multiplicity of different adversaries must always be combined so that in the eyes of one’s own supporters the struggle is directed against only one enemy.”

And all roads in MKO’ propaganda blitz end to demonizing an opponent and critic as a hand joined with and paid by Iranian regime. Inflicted as a harsh psychological punishment, the insiders stand on the verge of being suspected agents of the enemy in case of making protests, just as any detached and escaped member is accused to be. Indeed, the threatening omnipresence of the enemy acts like a Damocles Sword that protects MKO against the internal threats. As Eric Hoffer depicts in his The True Believer:

“Suspicion is given a sharp edge by associating all opposition within the ranks with the enemy threatening the movement from without. This enemy-the indispensable devil of every mass movement-is omnipresent. He plots both outside and inside the ranks of the faithful. It is his voice that speaks through the mouth of the dissenter, and the deviationists are his stooges. If anything goes wrong within the movement, it is his doing. It is the sacred duty of the true believer to be suspicious. He must be constantly on the lookout for saboteurs, spies and traitors”.

Asserted by majority of defected members, any suspected dissidence and defiance of leaders or taken decisions within the group would be harshly repressed. Unfortunately, there exist no tangible evidences to prove anti-human practices within MKO but the confessions made by the defected members themselves whose confessions MKO tries to misrepresent as untrustworthy voice of the enemy that speaks through the mouth of the dissident.

That is how suddenly three defected ranking members of the group, Massoud Khodabandeh, a high-ranking and highly trusted member working as a computer expert and deeply involved in intelligence activities as well as providing security for the group’s leadership, and his later wife Ann Singleton, an English born veteran who defected MKO, and Ibrahim Khodabandeh, Massoud’s brother, also a ranking member highly trusted by MKO for illegal acts and international smuggling programs, turn to be agents of Iranian regime after starting to talk and exposing against MKO. And there more to name whom MKO has so far refrained to mention.

For sure, the most reliable information one can have access to concerning cultic and atrocious practices inside MKO are those revealed by the active defected members like Khodabandeh brothers who were the closest to the group’s leading echelon. And of course it is natural to see them being demonized as the paid agents of Iranian regime while they are enjoying their free life and feeling a responsibility to do their best to help rescue more enslaved victims out of the cult.

January 21, 2013 0 comments

Massoud Rajavi

Forged System of Values in MKO’s Ideological Revolution

Rajavi forged ideological revolution as a forge to shape the adherents as he wished

Delivering a speech in the manner of a sermon in Paris in 1985, Massoud Rajavi addressed the Forged System of Values in MKO’s Ideological Revolution members saying: “This [ideological revolution] is to test you; we need iron men. We seek new versions of power and capacity. Those Mojahedin who pass through this forge will be more rough and resistant”.

Believing to be the smith, Rajavi likens his forged ideological revolution to a forge to shape the adherents as he willed. In this new system of values, the standard for a faithful Mojahed were set to measure the members’ degree of loyalty and commitment to the organization and leadership. The imposed revolution before being considered an extraordinary way of initiating change in MKO can well be defined as an internal coup d’état to accomplish Rajavi’s own ambitions and promoting him to the highest and unbeatable status of a hegemonic leader and even above that. Of course, it was not so easy a task to compel members to surrender to the Rajavi’s selfish ambitious on their own will and to dissolve in a leader whom many believed to be inadequate to assume the status.

Since MKO is heavily built on a hierarchical structure, the members are controlled and organized under the command of higher ranks who in turn receive orders from higher command echelon. It made it much easier for the organization to impose the change on the members through such a forced stratum either through persuasion or designed processes of penalization. As the members would be provoked by persuasive heroic deeds of the responsible ranks, the statements of submission had to be first made by them. In this way, the rational thinking power of the rank and file had to be paralyzed under the impact of the impressive expressions of emotional parodies. Consequently, through a new plot of a systematic fashion of letter writing, the ranking members were allotted to write consecutive open letters of congratulation to the newly wed Rajavis, and Massoud Rajavi himself in particular, appreciating the heroic move and the initiated new phase in MKO.

There were countless volume of these letters, known as the letters of ideological revolution, with identical themes of expressing total devotion to the leadership and his novel ideological revolution. Resorting to these crafts to subjugate its own insiders was in direct contrast to its democratic slogans advertising on the political scene. There are more than enough volume of these letters as evidences all published in the organization’s official gazette Mojahed soon after the unconventional marriage. Writing of her unconditional dedication to ideological revolution, Mina Khiyabani, the teenage member wedded to Mahdi Abrishamchi soon after he divorced Maryam Azodanlu, in her letter addressed to Rajavi stated:

I hope to be close behind you and devoted to your emancipating revolution with my soul. To be worthy to follow the path, I need to be cleaned of whatever evil and element of filth. I bow to you to the extreme of my appreciation of your high status, and appreciate your miraculous move of self-sacrifice, that is far above the martyrdom of many thousands, that has guaranteed a history. Now I believe to be all blameworthy before this revolution. I hope this revolution will act as a motivation to reinforce iota of values within me to make me capable of being under your command as once I was. *

Mohammad Seyyedi Kashani, one of the oldest, experienced veterans whose organizational activities even exceed that of Rajavi, was another devotee who directed a letter in which he stated:

Dear Massoud, I will call you brother no more. You are my sage. Dear to my heart. You are my teacher…. many things have undergone a change in the organization and also inside us. I am sure that the last rusted layers of the old world would be eliminated from within the forces and sympathizers. Obviously, in our most favourite organization the real Mojahed is the one who is more unselfish and capable and also most cherished before God. *

In another letter from Mohammad Hayati, another member of MKO, we read:

I congratulate the blessed marriage of my ideological leader Massoud and Maryam. Definitely and knowingly I recant for failing to understand the grandeur of this leadership. *

In the letter of Hussein Abrishamchi, Mahdi Abrishamchi’s junior brother and a commander in chief of the organization, addressed to the Rajavis it was stated:

I wish I could kneel before you [Maryam] and Massoud as the forerunners of this great revolution and take my oath of allegiance. *

Mohsen Rezai, a member of central cadre, in his testament of allegiance to Rajavi earnestly supplicated salvation from him:

Great men have marvellous power of attraction and repulsion. Now I see it in you and you can influence all. Anybody endowed with an iota of humanism and nobility falls in your love and you repel whoever walks in the wrong path. I am sure that you will be among those closest to God in the Day of Judgment and I am also sure that you will take my hand for my salvation.*

Mahdi Abrishamchi, playing his own influential role in the ideological revolution, was one of the most enthusiastic espouses of the move started by his ex-wife and Rajavi:

This ideological move shed light on all of us. We were purged of our filth and dirt by passing through the hearth of purification that Rajavi demonstrated. Now our ideology is shining and we are different people. We have the honour of surpassing all those that ceased to follow the path. Now I dare say that , after this revolution, we are true members of Mojahedin, aren’t we? We pride ourselves on being his [Rajavi] followers and disciples; he is our mentor and educator who trained us and we hope he will do in future, and he will. We praise God for leading us to the right path through Massoud and Maryam, otherwise we would have gone astray. *

As seen, in all these letters the ranking members insist to state that the crystallized ideological revolution has led to great changes within them and the structure of the organization as well. According to many assertions made by Rajavi, Mojahedin are engaged in a never-lasting change until all intended objectives of leadership have been accomplished.

* The quotes are all from Mojahed issues 241, 242, 247 published in 1985.
Mojahedin.ws, January 17, 2013
http://www.mojahedin.ws/en/?p=16982

January 19, 2013 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization

The Fortune of MKO Can Fall in Iraq

MKO is afraid of no front but the one wherein the front-line combatants are the ex-members

Presently highlighted in MKO’s media, the group has started an all-out campaign aimed to MKO is afraid of no front but the one wherein the front-line combatants are the ex-members prolong its stay in Iraq. Now, after a lengthy process of transferring the members in Camp Ashraf to a Temporary Transit Location and since its settlement there, MKO has kept caviling at the camp’s conditions and now presses to be returned to Ashraf complaining that the recent rainfalls have inundated the whole camp. The call is made after the vain attempt to enforce recognition of the transit location as a refugee camp. However, as the possibility of returning to Ashraf is out of question and a transit location fails to be an appropriate location for a refugee camp, MKO is changing expectations for a third location that could guarantee a few years stay in Iraq; “UNHCR has another refugee camp in Iraq and on the UNHCR Web site it is stipulated that its residents have the right to ownership of land and vehicles and to revenue generating activities”.

Everything is actually ready for the residents’ transfer to EU member states and any third country that will offer to receive them as refugees. Reportedly, up to this point, 2600 residents have gone through identity verification process by the UNHCR and close to 1750 have been privately interviewed outside the camp. But the problem is that so far no country has shown a willingness to accept them and the best option for MKO to survive is to prolong its stay through any flimsy excuses and accusations made against people like the head of UN Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) or Prime Minister Maliki’s government. And of course, all blames as usual are on Iranian regime as behind-the-curtain hand for whom all the mentioned as well as other opponents and the defected members are accused to be working as the agents.

It is a taboo making any allusion to Iranian regime inside MKO and it is an unforgivable sin to defect from the group. MKO tags any defected member an Iranian agent, particularly if the defected engage in counter-MKO activities, in an attempt to besmirch what it highly values as the acquired reputation of a resistance fighter. In fact, in the black and white world of MKO anyone siding with Iran against it is regarded an enemy of the group and nobody is more threatening and harmful than a defected member since the exposed information makes the closed group vulnerable to the adversaries outside.

Unfortunately, the key role these defected members can play to frustrate plots and anti-human activities of MKO go unnoticed. Majority of these defected members volunteer to have an active role to rescue their comrades if the responsible organizations demand their aids as some do. But it is not enough as the activities lack the needed cohesion. If MKO insists to stay in Iraq, no problem, let it be there as it might be the land where it is doomed to crumble by dissociating its enslaved members. And it can be done by the lantern of those who survived after being lost on a dark path that was not straight. Ex-members of a terrorist cult know how to fight fire with fire and MKO is afraid of no front but the one wherein the front-line combatants are the ex-members. The fortune of MKO might decline in Iraq, a land that once fulfilled its wishes can now crush it by refusing them.

January 16, 2013 0 comments

The cult of Rajavi

MKO’s Ideological Revolution, an Absolute Deviation

The Cult of Mojahedin; A Modern Cult of Personality – 3

The internal ideological revolution was the turning point that paved the way for the transformation of MKO to a cult of personality. Rajavi needed to construct a plot, regardless of the large cost, similar to that of the ideological drift in 1975 drafted by Taghi Shahram, who broke the seemingly Islamic ideology of the organization and officially announced it to be Marxism. Consequently, Shahram suppressed any protest and opposition and even plotted assassinations to liquidate opponents or as a method of silencing them.

Now ten years later, in 1985, Rajavi had faced a more complicated situation worse than before. The announced armed warfare with the heavy cost imposed both on regime and the organization had proved totally unproductive. Rajavi had come under harsh criticism and disapproval and blamed for his countless errors that had led to discredit what was being advertised as a revolutionary movement because of excessive use of unnecessary terror. And Rajavi was in urgent need of exploiting the intact huge potentiality of female insiders as motivators in inter-organizational relations and a prototype of a campaigning modern woman for tradition-bond Iranian women. The big change started itself with another error and scandal and the Rajavis, Massoud and Maryam, were the firsts to publicly break with Islamic and Iranian tradition; a wife’s infidelity misrepresented a sacred act and was considered as a turning point in the campaigns of the organization as well as a shocking strike against Islamic Republic regime! Any logical mind could anticipate what would be the outcome of a change started by challenging established traditions that Rajavi judged as impediments in the path of spurring innovations. MKO was the first in Iranian contemporary history to publicly legitimizing the unconventional remarriage of a woman immediately after her divorce.

Maryam was known to be the fruit of the so-called “ideological revolution” and who, consequently, paved the way for the other details of the revolution and was built a prototype for Iranian women. Mehdi Abrishamchi, a ranking aid to Rajavi and Maryam Rajavi’s late husband, was himself the one to make the first sacrifice for the revolution! and among the firsts to justify his wife’s divorce and her remarriage to Rajavi:

Maryam had to be either unquestionably promoted to a high status in the organization free from any [conjugal] obligation, just like Massoud, and be totally devoted to revolution or had to give it up. 1

According to Abrishamchi, since Maryam had to be promoted to a leadership status and every decision in the organization had to be made by Maryam and Massoud together, the matrimonial obligations and restrictions prevented Maryam to be in Massoud’s company all the time. She had to deny all her obligations and tear whatever bonded her except to Massoud and the revolution. As such, her divorce and remarriage before anything was instilled to be the accomplishment of a revolutionary obligation. Thus, the marriage was hailed as a great sacrifice made by Masoud and Maryam and all the members had to follow the steps to undertake their own revolution not in a similar line with the leaders but by identifying their personal shortcomings in later arranged self-criticism sessions. Immediately following the Rajavi’s marriage, the military command of the MKO issued a directive stating:

In order to carry out your organizational duties under the present circumstances, there is an urgent need to strengthen and deepen this ideological revolution. You must pay the necessary price by allocating sufficient time and resources for absorbing related teachings…Thus in your daily routines give priority to listening to radio messages and explanations provided by your commanders. Believe in the central committee’s proclamation that “this ideological revolution will enhance the Mojahedin’s capacities enormously; it will ever more unify and cleanse our ranks.”…Be certain that your deep belief in the novel leadership of the new democratic revolution of the heroic Iranian people, meaning Masoud and Maryam Rajavi, and by making a direct connection with this leadership and setting it as your example….you will be able to correct your work habits and be able to deal with and resolve personal, organizational, and military difficulties. 2

It was followed by another directive issued by the Social Division commanding the members to prove their revolutionary obedience by submitting to the initiated self-criticism tradition within the organization:

To understand this great revolution…is to understand and gain a deep insight into the greatness of our new leadership, meaning the leadership of Masoud and Maryam. It is to believe in them as well as to show ideological and revolutionary obedience of them…By correcting your old work habits and by criticizing your individual as well as collective shortcomings, we shall gain much awareness in confronting our enemies…Report to your commanders and superiors in a comprehensive manner your progress, its results and outcomes that you gain from promoting and strengthening this ideological revolution. 3

Consequently, protests were aborted and a cult of personality was provided for the leader and his wife to the sanctuary of where nobody was permitted either to enter or violate it. The experience taught Rajavi to apply this tactic to remove any obstacle and save the organization and him when facing a challenge. His Machiavellian inclinations and his seizing any opportunity to achieve his goals made the impossible possible for him. The members` crushed identity had made them undergo an amazing metamorphosis to follow the orders. The exploited coercive mental and physical approaches against the insiders developed into a counteraction against the ever-increasing criticisms and protests.

According to many MKO’s ex-members, in this phase, under the pretext of security considerations, many dissident members and critics were either imprisoned or killed suspiciously and the first consequences of settlement in Iraq was establishing prisons and exercising mental and physical pressures on prisoners. The worst was despicable justification by zealous devotees of Rajavies for such maltreatment and offenses which they called the inevitable consequence of the ideological revolution which they believed to be necessary for assessing the loyalty of members to leadership. In their opinion, themselves enjoying the abundant luxury of the post-revolution, blind obedience and submission to imprisonment, as well as suffering physical and mental tortures were indications of expressing absolute devotion and loyalty to the leadership.

Resources:

1. The delivered lecture by Mehdi Abrishamchi on the internal ideological revolution within MKO, [1985].
2. Mojahed, No. 241, April 4, 1985.
3. Mojahed, No. 242, April 12, 1985.

January 14, 2013 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Pentagon Report and the MeK

Pentagon’s report about the Intelligence power of Iran once again has created opportunity for Pentagon Report and the MeK Rajavi’s gang to try to pose itself. Referring to the content of Pentagon report on Iran, remnants of Rajavi forge that they are the greatest and the most dangerous opposition of the Iranian government.

Also, upon this report, MeK leadership makes effort to justify her accusations to some of the dissidents, to undermine their legitimacy and get rid of their disclosures especially about Rajavi’s moral and sexual corruption.

At first it should be noted that regardless of specific individuals named in the Pentagon report and their alleged relations with the Iranian government, which is raised unauthentic and ambiguous, the flow of defection from the MeK is accepted and believed by the world public opinion. More absurd than Rajavi’s striving to eliminate dissidents is her scramble to prove existence of the terrorist group MEK.

Pentagon’s report and the like that in previous years, with any intention, occasionally have been broadcasted, contrary to the claims of Rajavi and her gang, not only are not signs of the Islamic Republic’s breakup but prove authority of Iran and wholly mess up Rajavi’s illusions.

Interestingly, in none of American reports on the MeK – at least since the eighties – the group’s alleged roots in the Iranian society or its social base are mentioned. Rather, what is brought up is Iranian intelligence system’s confrontation with the Mek out of the country and its supposed utilization of dissidents of Rajavi. This indicates that even drafters of such reports are well aware that they are faced with a rootless and unimpressive group which is under tight control of information.

January 14, 2013 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization as a terrorist group

MKO and the Demonizing Campaign

Nobody is immune from the threatening, anti-human, cultic practices of MKO

Everybody is curious as to why any defected member and escapee from MKO happen to be an Nobody is immune from the threatening, anti-human, cultic practices of MKO agent of Iranian regime whenever the organization ever publicizes the news of some defection itself. The announcement does not appear just after the escape or defection but months and even years later and after the group fails to come to terms with the defected to stop him/her talking out. The stigma, MKO believes, on the one hand will possibly neutralize the disclosures and on the other, hand will boost a propaganda battle to talk big of its intelligence potentiality in detecting the infiltrated agents. Thus, it may appear to many as a never-ending battle between MKO and Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and security; and of course the more secretive and sophisticated the ministry is depicted the more capable its rival can be proclaimed.

But there are other reasons for MKO to enter a demonizing campaign against the regime’s security apparatus. Majority of the ranking members who leave MKO have been aware of hypocrisy and corruption within the group and majority are victims of cultic abuses themselves. However, as they have maintained an element of independence and some connection with their old values, they consider it a responsibility to become a volunteer to disclose facts long concealed from the public under a variety of pseudo social and democratic activities. Naturally, unable to provide justifiable responses to what MKO claims allegations against it, the group directs countless hateful attacks and attempts at character assassination of the defected members. The smear and character assassination campaign against dissidents further ensures that the exposé continues with full force.

That is why MKO was among the firsts to publicize the report by the Library of Congress report on Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security and to translate its parts, particularly those concerning MKO and ex-members, into other languages to be circulated in a variety of affiliated web-sites and blogs. Although the report itself blends fact and fiction, a look at the given references leaves no doubt that either MKO has been tasked with the responsibility to prepare the report or has acted as a close consultant in preparation. Typically, whenever a disclosure is made by some defected member, MKO call it a slander against the group and a work of individuals who officially work with the regime. To look at it through the eyes of MKO and its leaders, anybody who is against the group is an agent of Iranian regime, that is to say all Iranian people but the group’s members and sympathizers. They include even the families who insist to see their relatives and children held against their will by the group.

To have a real understanding of the intra-organizational behaviors and principles within MKO in relation with the defection of members, the split and runaway of a member, and the ranking members in particular, is considered an unforgivable sin since the escapes have always faced the group with serious challenges. That is mainly because they make the closed group vulnerable to outsiders’ scrutiny. As a rule, the members are organized into teams and units each headed and controlled by a loyal ranking who is directly responsible for the deeds of his subordinates and their defections and escapes since they impose considerable political costs on the organization due to the fact that it would be hard to figure how much information is disclosed by the defected and to whom. Even the rank-and-files are under tight control if they turn to be willing to leave. To tell the truth, neither the insiders nor the ex-members as the outsiders are immune from the threatening, anti-human, cultic practices of MKO. It is a global threat and problem to be dealt with.

January 13, 2013 0 comments

Maryam Rajavi

Who can interview with Maryam Rajavi ?

Maryam Rajavi’s recent interview with Spanish newspaper El Pais appears to be one her few interviews with mass media. As the so-called president elect of the National Council of Resistance and the leader of the most viable alternative- as she claims – to the Islamic Republic, it seems odd that she has experienced so few appearances in the media, and roughly no appearance in Persian media.

Maryam Rajavi, the self-assigned president of the NCR and the co-leader of the Mujahedin Khalq Organization (the MKO),seems to be too reluctant to appear in front of her country fellow men and answer controversial questions on her cult-like organization and its disappeared leader, Massoud Rajavi.

About two years ago in August 2011, Nooshabeh Amiri, the Iranian journalist published an article titled”Interview with Maryam Rajavi” on Rooz Online. Amiri wrote of a failed effort to have an interview with the leader of the MKO, Maryam Rajavi:

“A few years ago, one of the producers of CBS’s 60 Minutes asked me to arrange for the networks interview with Maryam Rajavi, a leader of Iran’s Mujahidin Khalq Organization (MKO). I told him then that I thought it was not possible to do this, to which he replied, “If the interview is going to be with a non-Iranian network, the response will certainly be different.”

“I then recruited the assistance of a person affiliated with the MKO. A few days later he provided me with an email address to contact. When I did, I was given a telephone number to contact, which in all honesty made me feel embarrassed for my initial assumption which was based on hear say. Subsequent events however proved me right.

“When I made the first call, I was given another telephone number to call. This was repeated several times in the course of a few months that followed, until the American producer called me and said the issue was over and that there was no need to follow-up.

“I concluded that 60 Minutes must have decided to call off the pursuit because of how long it had taken to arrange for the interview. He surprised me when he said that a representative of the MKO had made arrangements with the program’s senior producer and had made a condition for the interview and had written up the questions to be asked….

“This was pathetic, something that still continues.”[1]

“Pathetic”! This is the term Ms. Amiri uses to describe the MKO’s propaganda system. However, the group’s approach regarding media is fraudulent.

The MKO’s propaganda decides what media to interview with its leader as well as what questions to be asked. Considering various reports on human rights violations committed inside the MKO as a cult of personality, the group’s propaganda runners know that all peace activists, freedom lovers and independent journalists would ask questions of which the answers are beyond the red lines of the group. Thus, they never risk the façade of a “democratic” opposition to Islamic Republic they are trying to build for their cult-like organization.

The Spanish daily, El Pais does not ask any question to trouble Rajavi but the questions are so simply and directly asked that could recall you a memorized dialogue in a screenplay. For an authentic unbiased interview with Maryam Rajavi the most crucial question which has never been answered since American invasion to Iraq in 2003 — the same year that Maryam Rajavi was arrested by French Police in her headquarters in the suburb of Paris—is this:”Where is Massoud Rajavi?”

There are many other important questions to be asked particularly regarding numerous testimonies of former members. For instance, recent testimonies of former female members on sexual abuse of women of elite council of the group by Massoud Rajavi must be explained by Maryam Rajvi who is according to evidences the main person to make women sleep with Massoud Rajavi.[2]

According to the 2005 Human Rights Watch report ” No Exit”, inside MKO camps there are ”abuses ranging from detention and persecution of ordinary members wishing to leave” to “lengthy solitary confinements, severe beatings, and torture of dissident members.”[3]

In Ms. Amiri’s article you can also find a list of questions that may obsess any independent journalist who is going to interview Rajavi. The followings are some of them:

“Does the MKO see itself responsible to respond to questions such as its cooperation with Saddam Hossein in attacking and invading Iran?

“Under what strategy and goal were inexperienced youth asked to respond to the Mersad Operation inside Iran?

“Is internal criticism allowed within MKO and can it be reflected outside the organization?

“Is it true that some MKO members have left the organization on the basis of such instructions by the group to take up the responsibility of attacking other opponents of the Islamic republic?”[4]

To our surprise, the biased report of EL Pais begins with this ludicrous statement by Maryam Rajavi: ”popular support inside Iran is a source of legitimacy for this resistance” (!)

This opening sentence clearly indicates that the interview was actually managed by the interviewee not the interviewer.

What does Maryam Rajavi mean by “popular support” inside Iran?!

One thing is sure; Rajavi’s claim is absolutely false. Although the MEK claims to be loved and respected inside Iran, the truth is that most Iranians view the terrorist organization as ruthless traitors who killed their own countrymen, according to many reports. For example Massoud Banisadr who is a former top official of the group say in an interview with Steve Hassan:”After Iranian revolution, late seventies and early eighties MEK could change from a guerrilla (or terrorist organization according to different people’s definition) into a popular political group attracting thousands of young people. But after moving back to terrorism, ignoring and violating people’s ethics, beliefs and principles, especially working with Iraq’s president, Saddam Hussein after the incursion of Iraq into Iran, they lost all their support inside Iran and as matter of fact in public view they changed into a traitor organization”. [5] Also, The Wall Street Journal writes of critical views on the group,”Critics of the MeK allege that the organization has no major support inside Iran and that its leaders, who are based outside Paris, run the group like a cult.”[6]

Based on Mrs. Rajavi’s own claim, the “source of legitimacy for the resistance”is definitely absent.

By Mazda Parsi

Reference:
[1] Amiri , Nooshabeh, Interview with Maryam Rajavi, Roozonline, August 22,2011
[2] https://www.nejatngo.org/en/posts/3261 ;

MKO Ringleaders Abuse Female Members Sexually

[3]Human Rights Watch, No Exit, 2005
[4] Amiri , Nooshabeh, Interview with Maryam Rajavi, Roozonline, August 22,2011
[5] http://freedomofmind.com/FormerMeKtopofficialanswersquestions
22February2012.php
[6]Solomon, Jay &Perez, Evan, Iran Exile Group Nears U.S. Rebirth, the Wall Street Journal, May 15, 2012

January 10, 2013 0 comments

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