++ The MEK have retreated into themselves. But in Farsi the questioning has continued: ‘what are we celebrating?’ Esmail Vafa Yaghmai a former member, well-known poet and now an internal critic, gave a long interview to Mihan TV. He was asked, ‘you [MEK] went to Iraq to overthrow the Iranian regime and up until this year many people have been killed because you refused to leave Camps Ashraf and Liberty. Now you have been deported, you are all celebrating. What is it you are celebrating? Yaghmai talks about cult mentality and why the members have no choice but to obey orders. He says, however, there is hope because the members are out of the isolated and closed atmosphere of Iraq. They are now closer to the real world and the controls imposed in Iraq cannot be replicated. Their future will be different – they will be different. But, of course, after 30+ years, don’t’ expect overnight change. Several other Farsi commentators, in particular MEK internal critics, demand an explanation, a review of the past 30+ years, some kind of closure on the Iraq venture. The most amusing reactions in the Farsi commentosphere are in response to Maryam Rajavi’s interview with a Saudi paper in Qatar in which she declares ‘the phase of toppling the regime is starting now’! Then, just what were you doing until now?

++ Nejat published its third communique to the families. As with the first two, Nejat congratulates the families because their loved ones have been moved to safety and we can be more hopeful about their futures. However, Nejat warns the families about the MEK’s plots so they don’t fall into their trap. The MEK has now instructed members to contact their families. Nejat greets this as a positive thing because even hearing a mother or father’s voice can break the cultic mentality which imprisons the members. However, behind this contact, the MEK are organising. They tell the member to ask their families for money. They have even placed people in separate accommodation according to their family circumstances. For wealthy families, the member is to ask for a capital lump sum to help them start a business venture. Nejat’s advice is:

1. Keep all conversation to family matters only. No matter how much you hate the MEK, please don’t provoke your loved one. Remember they are in a cult and are not thinking for themselves. Do not alienate or anger them but keep the conversation flowing.

2. Do not refuse to give them money. Instead, ask for more information about the channel through which they will receive the money and how they can be sure the money will get directly to them. Do not send any money.

3. Do not allow your loved one to pass you over to a third party saying ‘I can’t talk just now’. The other person will be an expert deceptive manipulator. Only talk directly to your loved one and keep the conversation going as much as possible. The more you keep talking and do not pay anything, the more likely it is that your loved one will exit the Mojahedin cult.

In English:

++ Iran-Interlink and Mazda Parsi for Nejat Bloggers pick up on the MEK’s celebrations and ask what victory, what celebration? What is this propaganda hoping to achieve? Both mention the MEK’s murky past and point out that the move was forced and that the MEK resisted until the last moment. This ‘victory celebration’ is aimed at diverting attention and numbing the members’ minds so they don’t ask awkward questions.

++ Nejat Society criticises the MEK’s advocates as ignorant of the group’s internal dynamics and points out that Nancy Pelosi in particular has been misled about what ‘family’ means inside the MEK. Pelosi released a statement about the removal of the “last families” from Camp Liberty and claims the relocation “marks the beginning of a new and hopeful chapter for families who have suffered terrible persecution and violence.” Nejat describes the reality of the MEK in which families have been destroyed and no peer relationships are allowed. MEK members only attach themselves to the leader.

++ Al-Alam has been granted first exclusive access to the empty Camp Liberty. The film [in Arabic] shows conditions inside the camp.

++ Press TV has produced a half-hour documentary based on an award winning film made in Iran. The film is a love story but shows how involvement in a terrorist cult like the MEK is destructive of both families and society. The documentary describes modern slavery and links common behaviours in the Jonestown cult, Daesh and the MEK that endanger society.

++ Impact newspaper, Tirana, Albania, [translated by Iran-Interlink] has published a letter from MEK families to Prime Minister Edi Rama. The estranged families ask for his help since the MEK leaders don’t allow them to make contact with their loved ones. [This is different from the MEK tactic of getting members to contact their families to ask for money. In this case, it is the families who take the initiative who are rejected.] The letter ends saying “We hope that this letter will be read personally by you, the Prime Minister of Albania and that you will enable us to rejoice with our children. It is in your power to help us and grant us our request.”

September 30, 2016

++ This week Farsi media has been dominated by analysis about the future of the MEK after they left Iraq. The BBC, Radio Farda, VOA and others predict the end of the MEK, as we know it, as a viable force. But as a mercenary force, we can only wait and see what they do next. At the same time, the MEK is on overdrive, using paid lobbyists, to say that ‘being deported from Iraq after thirty years is a victory’. This has been widely ridiculed by commentators.

++ There are many new films being broadcast from Albania, mostly by Albanian media, about the MEK in Tirana. Some show groups of MEK wandering about aimlessly, others are hiding behind windows and doors at the apartment block. Journalists have been able to talk with the MEK’s neighbours at their apartment block as well as other concerned citizens. The overriding message is that the MEK are ‘into themselves’ and don’t talk to anyone, not even officials. The neighbours see them as secretive people who hide behind closed doors and don’t interact with outsiders and who keep their curtains shut all day and night. The Arabic channel Akhbar Al’an managed to find a couple of MEK members outside the building and questioned them on camera. The film shows two women who are clearly ‘lost’. Asked ‘are you staying in Albania?’ One replied ‘Yes, this is our last stop’. But suddenly she looks at the other woman and then turns and says ‘No, we’re here until the regime is toppled’. The film shows the other woman hiding her face saying ‘my family in Iran are in danger’. But pictures of the same woman with posing with a Kalashnikov at the time of Saddam Hussein are all over the internet. All these reports conclude that the MEK as we know it is finished.

++ This week Iran’s President Rouhani spoke at the UN General Assembly in New York. As expected, the MEK staged a picket in a nearby square. This year, however, the attendance was negligible. None of the MEK’s usual lobbyists turned up and they had to make do with Joe Lieberman, who has clearly lost the plot and therefore resorts to unconvincing anti-Iran rants. Every year the MEK enacts a scenario showing a prisoner and prison guard to symbolise the human rights situation in Iran. This year however the actors in the MEK’s photos were blond haired. Perhaps they couldn’t find any Iranians to take part. There was no news coverage of the event except in Saudi media; they want to show that the MEK is still alive. However, in its weekly programme, Mardom TV broadcast some of the MEK’s photo-shopped images in which they try to disguise the fact there were no more than 20 people in the square. In some pictures, images of people holding a flag in each hand have been replicated over and over in an effort to show more flags. VOA had a brief discussion about the situation of the MEK. The MEK representative was Raymond Tanter who is a laughing stock for Iranians. Many wrote comments that ‘the death of the leader has to be announced by the former Saudi Intelligence chief, and on a Farsi broadcast channel the MEK send CIA-affiliated Raymond Tanter to represent them in English, which then has to be translated to Farsi for the audience’.

In English:

++ Fatjona Mejdini, Balkan Insight reports ‘Iranian Opposition Ex-Fighters ‘Transferred to Albania’. The article outlines the known facts about the agreement Albania made to accept 210 members of the Mojahedin Khalq in 2013. But says that since then “no official statement” has been released about the transfers by the Albanian government. Instead, the writer relies on American sources to provide information. “’In the last two years, Albania has accepted around 1,000 members of this group, and according to a high official of State Department, the country has promised that is going to accept also 2,000 others,’ wrote journalist Pam Dockins in an article for Voice of America after she was part of the press entourage accompanying US Secretary of State John Kerry to Tirana on February 14. Dockins’ article also said that during the visit, Kerry thanked the Albanian government for its effort in the taking the Iranians, although the issue was not publicly mentioned while he met the country’s political leaders.”

++ Pars Today (Translated by Nejat Society), Tirana, Albania, ‘How much does it cost to keep Iran’s enemies in Albania?’ The article does not dwell on the financial cost, but raises the issue of the political and security cost to Albania and Europe as the war between America and Iran has now been brought from Iraq to the border of Europe.

September 23, 2016