Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Tom Cotton Allies Himself with the MEK

Freshman Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) garnered two profiles this week, one in The Wall Street Journal and another in The New York Times, highlighting his efforts to disrupt normal Senate procedure in hopes of adding “poison pill” amendments to the Corker-Cardin bill that, if passed, would give Congress a say in any comprehensive agreement reached between the P5+1 and Iran.

But in a Senate meeting room Wednesday, Cotton, seated alongside Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC), may have outdone himself by joining a panel hosted by the Organization of Iranian American Communities (OIAC), a front group for the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq (MEK or MKO).

Cotton and Tillis were not alone. They were joined on the OIAC panel by former Ambassador to Morocco Marc Ginsberg, Senior Belfer Center fellow (and United Against Nuclear Iran advisory board member) Olli Heinonen, former Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Robert G. Joseph, and the former director of the National Counter Proliferation Center, Joseph R. DeTrani.

The MEK, which has worked hard – and spent a lot of money — to gain respectability in Washington since its armed units surrendered to U.S. forces in Iraq in 2003, is believed to have been responsible for the killing of six Americans in Iran between 1973 and 1976. Exiled following a power struggle in the early years of the Islamic Republic, the group fought alongside Saddam Hussein in the Iran-Iraq war. Following a lengthy lobbying and legal campaign that included the payment of substantial honoraria to prominent U.S. politicians and retired national-security officials, the MEK was removed from the State Department’s terrorism list in 2012.

The group, along with its numerous fronts in the U.S. and Europe, describes itself as Iran’s democratic government-in-exile but has little to no support within its homeland, according to independent Iran experts.

A 2005 report by Human Rights Watch detailed the group’s cult-like control over its members and a record of human rights violations designed to severely punish dissidents or would-be deserters.

But Cotton and the MEK share a common agenda when it comes to the nuclear negotiations with Iran. In a controversial video appearance from her Paris headquarters before the House Foreign Affairs subcommittee on counterterrorism last week, the group’s co-leader, Maryam Rajavi, recommended that the best way to defeat the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq was to pursue regime change in Iran. And, in January, Cotton, a protégé of Bill Kristol of the Emergency Committee for Israel, told an audience at the Heritage Foundation:

Certain voices call for congressional restraint urging Congress not to act now, lest Iran walk away from the negotiating table, undermining the fabled yet always absent moderates in Iran. But the end of these negotiations isn’t an unintended consequence of congressional action. It is very much an intended consequence — a feature, not a bug.

Neither Cotton nor the MEK, in other words, thinks there should be any negotiations with the Iranian government.

It appears that Cotton, who has quickly displaced Lindsey Graham as the Senate’s most hawkish member, has decided that it is necessary – perhaps even politically desirable – to make common cause with a group that has committed serious human rights abuses, allied itself for some two decades with Saddam Hussein, and carried out terrorist acts, including against U.S. citizens and servicemen – all in the interests of sabotaging an Iran nuclear agreement.

As Rajavi herself might say, “Quel enfant terrible.

By Eli Clifton

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Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Maryam Rajavi and her cult brand prove too toxic for The Hill

Struan Stevenson has written an article for The Hill titled ‘Iraqi pipe dreams’ which attacks both the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Iraqi government led by Al Abadi. But in spite of the usual hyperbolic tone, driven by his support for the remnants of the former Saddam regime, the article has not a single mention of the Mojahedin Khalq or Maryam Rajavi.

For those who know his background, this absence is significant. It indicates very strongly that the Rajavi brand has become so toxic that it is better to omit it completely. It’s not as though Stevenson has dropped the MEK though. His biography admits he is currently President of the Mojahedin Khalq’s lobby group ‘European Iraqi Freedom Association (EIFA)’. Before this he spent a decade in his former position as an MEP advocating for the MEK and its destructive role in Iraq as chairman of the European Parliament’s Delegation for Relations with Iraq. Here he misused the parliamentary system to recruit other MEPs to his side by using the MEK’s deceptive blend of fact and fiction, aided by the MEK’s financial incentives and its neoslave labour. Several times he hosted Maryam Rajavi in parliament to pass the message of ‘violent regime change’ against both Iran and Iraq.

Now, although the MEK has publicised Stevenson’s article and other writings in its websites, he has not been able to reciprocate by giving them desperately needed publicity in one of America’s top political publications. Apparently The Hill has drawn the line at that kind of propaganda stunt.

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Maryam Rajavi

Maryam Rajavi, ludicrous testimony in a “historic hearing”

Appearance of the self-claimed president of National Council of Resistance, Maryam Rajavi in a hearing in US Congress indicates the absurdity of the claim of fighting against terrorism. Although the credibility of this so called leader is questionable getting support among some US congressmen for her presence in the congress is interesting and creates doubts in everybody’s mind.

The support is basically due to multi—million dollar lobbying campaign over years which includes paying good money for speaking and providing first class flights plus fancy hotel for those congressmen who support this terrorist organization.  These are the true motivation behind supporting this cult like group.

The hearing was hosted by Congressman Ted Poe, chairman of the congressional subcommittee on the threats posed by ISIS. Why did Poe and the Republican majority on the terrorism subcommittee decide to invite Maryam Rajavi while main victims of ISIS terror acts are mostly among Iraqi Yazidis.  However, no one of the Yazidi community was invited to the hearing!  The reason is crystal clear since we know that Yazidis do not have such financial resources to attract any congressman.

“Poe received $17,900 in campaign contributions from supporters of the MEK between 2009 and 2014, according to an analysis I conducted of campaign finance data,” Eli Clifton writes. ”Surprisingly, nearly half—or $8,600—of the total flowed into his campaign while the group was still on the State Department’s terrorism list between 2009 and its delisting in 2012.”

Clifton adds,” In 2013 and 2014, the group also paid for $19,671 in travel expenses (including business-class plane fare) for Poe’s travel to MEK events in France.”

Indeed, it is so unusual to have Maryam Rajavi to testify in a hearing about ISIS.  It is as if bringing Stalin to testify about Fascism, or asking Hitler to testify about Nazism. It seems money is everything in the US Politic. “Money talks” is an appropriate phrase here. 

Shaylyn Hynes, a spokeswoman for Poe, told Joshua Keating by email that Rajavi has a “long history of speaking against what she calls ‘Islamic fundamentalism,’” and “can speak to how ISIS’ ideology is both similar to and different from the mullahs leading Iran.” Asked if there were any concerns given the MEK’s history, Hynes replied, “the administration does not consider them a terrorist group and neither do we.”

Hynes might be right to say that Rajavi has a “long history of speaking against what she calls ‘Islamic fundamentalism,’” but he should notice that “actions speak louder than words”.  In other words, this does not mean that she herself is a moderate Muslim or she is pro-democracy.  As it has manifested in her cruel treatment of its own members.

As Sean Nevins of Mint Press News asserts, “the MEK is a kind of cult, according to the FBI, Human Rights Watch, the Rand Corporation, and just about every other organization which has investigated the group.” He correctly writes that the MKO is “precisely the kind of organization that should not testify about Islamic extremism.”

Jeremiah Goulka, author of “The Mujahedin-e Khalq in Iraq: A Policy Conundrum,” a report published by the Rand Corporation in 2009, told MintPress, “At the MEK camps, there’s a whole set of practices that are all textbook out of cult theory – sleep deprivation, make-work projects… forced celibacy, forced divorce, [and] gender segregation.”

Nevins also interviews Masoud Banisadr, a former member of the MKO, who had served as the group’s representative to the United Nations and the U.S. Banisadr confirmed that forced divorces were common in the group. Banisadr told MintPress: “All members were forced to divorce their spouses, and later they have to send their children abroad to Europe and United States to be adopted by supporters and other members.”

This is Eli Clifton’s description of the MKO: “The group has long faced criticism from Iran specialists and rights groups such as Human Rights Watch that it has devolved into a cult based on devotion to Maryam and her long-missing husband, Massoud Rajavi. According to numerous accounts, the group exerts a high degree of control over its followers, going so far as to mandate divorces and celibacy for their soldiers.”

According to the report by Julian Pecquet  the congressional correspondent at Al Monitor, “Other lawmakers, including ranking member William Keating, D-Mass., ignored Rajavi and directed their questions only at the other witnesses. Rep. Danny Davis, D-Ill., who also isn’t a committee member, was the only one to challenge her to explain why the United States should put its trust in a group that was kicked out of Iran in the early 1980s and fought alongside Saddam Hussein against Tehran.

"Over the past 30 years, the United States has been drawn into some serious diplomatic and military dead-ends in the Mideast by mistakenly backing individuals and organizations claiming popular support, which turned out to be exaggerated and somewhat manufactured," Davis told Rajavi. "Would you please tell us about the role of the [MEK] … and its place in the current Iranian political life?"

Rajavi’s reasoning in responding to Davis just included the same old fallacy that “regime’s "fear" of the group and its efforts at "demonizing" was a strong indication of the MEK’s "strength." However, her claim has been numerously rejected by international investigated report that clearly acknowledge that MKO has hardly any support among Iranians. 

By the way, could the event organizers really define the enemy and the threat of ISIS by listening to the MKO cult leader? In conclusion, what can be achieved by listening to the MKO’S cult leader? Can the threat of ISIS be eliminated?

Mazda Parsi

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Maryam Rajavi

US Envoy Becomes Next to Refuse Attending House Hearing Due to MKO Leader’s Attendance

Former US Ambassador to Syria Robert Ford joined former State Department counter-terror official Daniel Benjamin as a second witness that refused to testify at a House hearing because of the presence of the leader of the anti-Iran Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO also known as MEK, PMOI and NCRI) in the meeting.

“I didn’t want to be on a panel with the MEK. I was shocked they invited the MEK. What the MEK has to do with the ISIL, I don’t have a clue,” Ford told FP.

“I told the committee to put me on a panel without the MEK or I wouldn’t appear,” the former envoy stressed.

The April 29 hearing, in front of a House subcommittee on terrorism and nonproliferation, will focus on the threat from the ISIL, which has overrun much of Syria and Iraq. Among the invited speakers is Maryam Rajavi, president of the Paris-based National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), which is the umbrella organization for groups that include Mojahedeen-e-Khalq (MKO), the foreign policy reported.

Earlier, former State Department counterterror official Daniel Benjamin balked at sharing the spotlight with terrorist group’s leader.

Daniel Benjamin, formerly the State Department’s counterterror coordinator, also was slated to testify at the House hearing. But on Monday, Benjamin declared that “I will not appear at a hearing” about the ISIL with the MKO’s leader, because “I know of no substantive expertise that the MKO has developed on the ISIL.” News of Benjamin’s cancellation was first mentioned on Twitter by ALM Congress Pulse.

In an email to Foreign Policy, Benjamin noted that the MKO’s “exclusive focus” of concern has for decades been Iran. “So one has to wonder what the purpose of Rajavi’s presence on this panel is,” said Benjamin, who is now director of an international studies program at Dartmouth University.

“Being delisted as a Foreign Terrorist Organization — a decision I took part in — doesn’t mean that this group … has suddenly … become trustworthy or worthy of engagement,” he said.

Meanwhile, in a follow-up interview with Foreign Policy, Benjamin — who had a role in the State Department’s decision to delist the MEK — criticized the House panel for agreeing to let Rajavi testify by video. He said that is not a perk that is offered to US witnesses.

“Why won’t she travel here to testify?” Benjamin asked.

"MEK offered me tens of thousands of dollars to speak on its behalf, but i turned down the request," he underlined.

“This is still a group that has American blood from killings in the 1970s on its hands and killed many other innocents as well. That has never been apologized for,” the former senior American official stressed.

The Obama administration believed the MKO was providing misinformation in an effort to derail recent nuclear talks with Iran. During negotiations the MKO insisted Tehran was building underground nuclear facilities, an assertion dismissed by the State Department.

The MKO, founded in the 1960s, blended elements of Islamism and Stalinism and participated in the overthrow of the US-backed Shah of Iran in 1979. Ahead of the revolution, the MKO conducted attacks and assassinations against both Iranian and western targets.

The group started assassination of the citizens and officials after the revolution in a bid to take control of the newly-established Islamic Republic. It killed several of Iran’s new leaders in the early years after the revolution, including the then President, Mohammad Ali Rajayee, Prime Minister, Mohammad Javad Bahonar and the Judiciary Chief, Mohammad Hossein Beheshti who were killed in bomb attacks by the MKO members in 1981.

The group fled to Iraq in 1986, where it was protected by Saddam Hussein and where it helped the Iraqi dictator suppress Shiite and Kurd uprisings in the country.

The terrorist group joined Saddam’s army during the Iraqi imposed war on Iran (1980-1988) and helped Saddam and killed thousands of Iranian civilians and soldiers during the US-backed Iraqi imposed war on Iran.

Since the 2003 US invasion of Iraq, the group, which now adheres to a pro-free-market philosophy, has been strongly backed by neo-conservatives in the United States, who argued for the MKO to be taken off the US terror list.

The US formally removed the MKO from its list of terror organizations in early September, one week after Secretary of State Hillary Clinton sent the US Congress a classified communication about the move. The decision made by Clinton enabled the group to have its assets under the US jurisdiction unfrozen and do business with the American entities, the State Department said in a statement at the time.

In September 2012, the last groups of the MKO terrorists left Camp Ashraf, their main training center in Iraq’s Diyala province. They have been transferred to Camp Liberty. Hundreds of the MKO terrorists have now been sent to Europe.

Earlier this month, the managing editor of Veterans Today from Atlanta said the number of Iranian terror victims is “in effect almost six 9/11’s,” but these attacks never got enough coverage in international media.

Jim W. Dean said even now, very few people know the scale of the Iranians who were killed in terrorist acts. “I would imagine your maimed casualties would also be high, and those statistics should be publicized as well.”

He went on to say that despite this great number of terror victims, “Iran did not crank up a huge War on Terror that slaughtered countless thousands of innocents, as happened with the Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld gangsters and their army of helpers.”

The US political analyst underscored that the story of Iranian victims of terror, “with all of its gory details,” still has to be brought to the international audience. “The Western media blackout shows they fear their audiences wanting to know more about why this was being covered up and eventually figuring out that these were offensive Western Intel operations during peacetime.”

"You have been maligned in Western media as a longtime supporter of international terrorism, but we know that hiding the history of Iran having been the top victim of terrorism was part of the false propaganda," he continued.

“Suppressing publicity of your being the major victim of terrorism at the time played a key role in falsely casting Iran as a major terror threat to everyone else,” Dean continued. “This is what people remember as it was an organized campaign in the Jewish controlled media for years and years.”

Regarding the presence of Iranian terrorist groups such as MKO in the US and their role in anti-Iran policies, Jim Dean said, “They have no negative profile here whatsoever. They are presented as oppressed freedom fighters and that is all the public ever hears.”

He pointed out that American people would be shocked, if Iranian terror victim groups and families were constantly touring the American college campuses and the church networks on speaking tours. “But the Zionist Lobby, the NeoCons and Christian Zionists would fight any attempt to do this, but that would be good as it would show they fear exposure.”

The US veteran went on to say that Iran should not act alone in exposing the state sponsors of terrorism, “as the victims of terror are now manufactured on an industrial scale, most of it state-sponsored terrorism, and the guilty parties naturally dread having this exposed.” “This is why I feel Iran is in a unique position to be the tip of the spear for efforts to uncover the long sordid history of state-sponsored terrorism and to publicize it on a continual basis to challenge the various nations involved to hold their leaders and operational organs responsible.”

“Their goal to destabilize target countries to protect their own nations will not be believable once the truth is out that these were purely offensive operations straight out of the Cold War operations manual, where anything could be done to hurt ‘the other side’ and be done with immunity, despite there being no state of war existing.”

He also made a reference to the Zionists’ killing of Iranian nuclear scientists and said, “Unfortunately, we see old tactics being reused, the ones with a track record of being successful and low risk.” “The killing of a few scientists would not have much effect on a major program. Personnel losses get replaced. And with 20/20 hindsight, we see from the 18 months of nuclear talks with Iran that neither Israel nor Britain ever disclosed any hard evidence of an Iranian nuclear weapons program.”

He finally said that he saw Iran nuclear deal as “an offering of good will from Obama,” and that “he wants to turn the corner on the sordid past of US diplomacy and start a new era.” “The average American is not aware of how our CIA and British intelligence basically hijacked your country and terrorized it under the Shah for a long time. No reparations for that flagrantly offensive act have ever been discussed here.”

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Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

The Backlash Against the MEK’s Fans in Congress

The enthusiasm of some hawks in Congress for the Mujaideen-e Khalq (MEK) has started to create a bit of a backlash. The Terrorism, Nonproliferation, and Trade Subcommittee of the House Foreign Affairs Committee invited the cult’s leader, Maryam Rajavi, to testify remotely as part of a panel on ISIS. That prompted one former State Department official to withdraw from the meeting entirely. Robert Ford, the former ambassador to Syria, has also said he won’t take part in a panel that includes Rajavi:

“I didn’t want to be on a panel with the MEK. I was shocked they invited the MEK. What the MEK has to do with the Islamic State, I don’t have a clue,” Ford told FP. “I told the committee to put me on a panel without the MEK or I wouldn’t appear.”

The refusal of these former officials to play along with some hawks’ disturbing admiration for the MEK is appropriate, but it is unfortunate that it should be necessary. The attention and praise lavished on the MEK in recent years by former officials, retired military officers, and politicians has been an embarrassing spectacle. Now the strange infatuation that many hawks have with the “former” terrorist group is spilling over into the regular business of Congress. As if to underscore how misguided inviting Rajavi was, a copy of the cult leader’s testimony shows that she intends to use her time to argue for regime change in Iran. Ali Gharib comments:

But more to the point, the MEK has always had only one goal: the overthrow of the Iranian regime. For decades, it has tried to shoehorn regional and geopolitical dynamics into its aim, irrespective of any salient connections.

The plan to bring down ISIS by toppling Iran’s government, then, is little more than the latest chapter of group’s 50-year history of monomaniacally trying to install itself atop the Iranian government.

This obviously has nothing to do with combating or understanding ISIS, and allowing her to speak at such a meeting just lends a totalitarian cult a platform from which it can promote its own warped agenda. Inviting Rajavi demonstrates exceptionally poor judgment, and her testimony will make a farce of the proceedings tomorrow. It would be one thing to invite a representative of this awful group if it had anything useful to contribute to the subject being discussed, but of course it doesn’t. The invitation to Rajavi is simply a way for hawks on this subcommittee to flaunt hostility to Iran and to indulge the fantasy that the MEK speaks for the Iranian opposition.

By Daniel Larison

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Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Why Is Congress Listening to an Ex-Terrorist Iranian Cult Leader?

In what one member of Congress called a “historic hearing” yesterday, Maryam Rajavi, leader of the controversial Iranian dissident group Mujahedeen-e-Khalq, or MEK, testified via satellite before a congressional subcommittee on the threats posed by ISIS and Iran, which she sees as one and the same. The MEK is considered a dangerous cult by many, and until three years ago was labeled a terrorist organization by the U.S. government. But after years of concerted lobbying, it enjoys a surprising amount of support on Capitol Hill. And yesterday the MEK displayed its growing influence in U.S. foreign policy debates.

It’s been a long and winding road for the MEK. Ideologically, the MEK originally sought to fuse revolutionary Marxism with Islam, but it has largely abandoned that rhetoric today for something more palatable to Western supporters. The group was formed in the 1960s by leftist Iranian students opposed to the Shah’s regime. During the 1970s it carried out attacks that killed several Americans working on defense projects in Iraq, and supported the takeover of the U.S. Embassy in 1979. After the Iranian Revolution, the group fell out with the new Islamic state and went underground, carrying out a series of high-profile attacks against the Iranian government while its leaders fled to Paris. During the 1980s and 1990s, the MEK fought as a private militia on behalf of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.

But things changed after the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, when the MEK renounced violence (after being disarmed by the American military) and cast itself as supporters of the democratic opposition in Iran. Not everyone bought the group’s transformation into defenders of liberty, secularism, and women’s equality. Critics say the group began to transform into a cult centered around its leaders, the married couple Massoud and Maryam Rajavi, after the Iran-Iraq War, when thousands of its fighters were killed.

In 2003, New York Times reporter Elizabeth Rubin visited the group’s Iraqi compound at Camp Ashraf and described it as resembling a “fictional world of female worker bees … dressed exactly alike, in khaki uniforms and mud-colored head scarves, driving back and forth in white pickup trucks, staring ahead in a daze as if they were working at a factory in Maoist China.” Followers at Ashraf were reportedly cut off from the outside media, required to attend regular self-criticism sessions, and barred from personal friendships and emotional relationships. 

But the group played its cards well as Western concerns grew over Iran’s nuclear program, reportedly passing information from its supporters within the Islamic Republic on nuclear facilities to the U.S. and, according to some reports, cooperating with Mossad to assassinate Iranian scientists. It also began a multiyear, multimillion-dollar lobbying campaign to remove itself from the terrorist list, including paying American figures like Rudy Giuliani and Howard Dean to give speeches on its behalf. It worked, and in 2012, Hillary Clinton took the MEK off the list.

Since then, the group’s influence has been growing. Its supporters regularly crowd hearings on Capitol Hill dealing with Iran and its increasing influence in Iraq. The Iraqi government has long viewed the MEK with hostility and has carried out several brutal attacks on its compound. U.S. officials also believe Iranian troops participated in a 2013 attack  that killed at least 50 MEK members in 2013. One of its staunchest supporters on Capitol Hill, Sen. Robert Menendez of New Jersey, held up a planned arms sale to former Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s government in part over concerns about the treatment of the MEK.   

Ted Poe, R-Texas, chairman of the House Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation and Trade, which held Wednesday’s hearing, is another prominent MEK backer. Shaylyn Hynes, a spokeswoman for Poe, told me by email that Rajavi has a “long history of speaking against what she calls ‘Islamic fundamentalism,’” and “can speak to how ISIS’ ideology is both similar to and different from the mullahs leading Iran.” Asked if there were any concerns given the MEK’s history, Hynes replied, “the administration does not consider them a terrorist group and neither do we.”

Rajavi was certainly feeling the love from Congress on Wednesday, testifying before an overflow crowd at the hearing, which was titled “ISIS: Defining the Enemy.” Rep. Brad Sherman, D-California, compared her appearance to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s address to Congress that day, noting that Japan had also once been an enemy of the United States. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas, is not a member of the subcommittee but dropped in to refer to Rajavi as a “great leader.”

Still, not everyone was as welcoming. Former State Department counterterrorism director Daniel Benjamin, who had been scheduled to testify, dropped out of the hearing rather than appear with Rajavi. Another, former ambassador to Syria and prominent administration critic Robert Ford, told Foreign Policy he was “shocked” to learn she was on the panel and demanded that the subcommittee “put me on a panel without the MEK or I wouldn’t appear.” He wound up speaking earlier in the day.

Suspect groups playing on American naiveté by telling gullible politicians exactly what they want to hear. Anybody remember that great band Ahmed Chalabi and the Iraqi Expatriates? They sure were reliable sources, weren’t they…  More…

In her appearance, via satellite from Paris, Rajavi made a case familiar to anyone who listened to Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech to Congress in March: that ISIS and Iran are two sides of the same coin, despite the fact that Iranian-backed militias are fighting the group in Iraq. “The Mullahs regime is not part of any solution to the current crisis. Instead, it is the heart of the problem,” she said, referring to the Iranian government as the “Godfather of ISIS.” She referred to the current fight between ISIS and Iran as merely an “internal power struggle” within Islamic fundamentalism and warned that “fundamentalism of the Shiite kind is more dangerous than the Sunni one” because Shiites already have a state, Iran, which is projecting its power in Yemen, Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, and elsewhere.

While the support for Rajavi was a bipartisan affair, her message seemed to resonate in particular with critics of the Obama administration’s Iran policy. Hynes denied to me that the timing of the hearing had anything to do with the ongoing debate over nuclear diplomacy and Iran sanctions, saying “There is no relation. Ms. Rajavi is an expert on radical Islamist extremism and is being called to testify in that capacity.” Still, Rep. Lee Zeldin, R-New York,, who praised Rajavi and the MEK as the legitimate democratic opposition of Iran, said during the hearing that when he listens to the administration’s rhetoric on the Iranian regime, “I honestly do not know if my president is on the same team as I am.”

By Joshua Keating, Slate.com

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Iran Interlink Weekly Digest

Iran Interlink Weekly Digest – 94

++ The appearance of Maryam Rajavi by videolink (because she is refused a visa to enter the USA) in Congress last week attracted a flurry of responses from critics and ex members in Iran Interlink’s Farsi site. These largely ignored American politics and instead demanded to know what was being done to help the 2000+ hostages being held captive in Camp Liberty by the Rajavis. Open letters from families and ex members were addressed to Ban Ki Moon and UN Rapporteur Ahmad Shahid asking ‘where is the international community, why do you not have power over a cult?’ Several petitions sprung up with the same demands.

++ The daughter of former MEK member Ghorban Ali Hossein Nejad had visited Baghdad with her husband in another attempt to get a meeting with her estranged sister inside Camp Liberty. Along with several other families, she met with UN officials to plead for help in securing the safety and freedom of their loved ones from the camp. The MEK reacted by publishing a photograph of her but with the faces of UN officials blacked out and a caption underneath saying this was evidence of her working with the Iranian Intelligence ministry and Pasdaran.

++ The situation in Albania has worsened for around five hundred ex MEK members who were transferred there over the past two years. They report that Rajavi has sent two top level fixers – Mehdi Abrishamchi and Zohreh Merikhi – to intervene to stop the rapid dissolution of the MEK. Growing numbers are escaping the hold of the MEK and the cult is very worried about them exposing the internal crimes and abuses to the world. To stop people talking the MEK has employed intimidation tactics, saying that because the group is backed by the might of America and Israel it only takes a phone call for anybody’s refugee status to be denied and all aid cut off. Their message is that only the MEK can endorse a person’s refugee status and allow them to go to another country, claiming falsely that they endorsed the transfer of those accepted by the US. The MEK also says it will pay people if they declare themselves to the UN as ‘Mojahedin’ not as individuals and insist that they want to stay in Albania. This is interpreted as further evidence that the MEK is seeking to establish a closed cult base in that country with the intention of bringing Massoud Rajavi there. Outspoken critics of the MEK in Albania are now openly threatened in public meetings. People like Ehsan Bidi are told in front of the others that they will be killed and nobody will know how or by whom.

++ Former Iranian President Abol Hassan Bani Sadr has published the first of a series of damning articles in his newspaper ‘Enghelab Eslami’. Bani Sadr has begun to explain the real reasons why he left Massoud Rajavi and his Mojahedin Khalq after they arrived in Paris in 1981. It was not only, he says, because the MEK were traitors. In more detail he exposes what the MEK were doing in collaboration with Saddam Hussein without the knowledge of most of the MEK members. Further articles will be published revealing this hidden history.

In English:

 

++ The headlines tell the story this week as several articles reported on Maryam Rajavi’s testimony to Congress. ‘Cult Leader Will Tell Congress: Fight ISIS by Regime Change in Iran’ says Ali Gharib in The Nation. An analysis which was confirmed after the event with the headline ‘Controversial MEK Leader, Asked to Talk Islamic State, Instead Talks Iran’ by David Francis in Foreign Policy blog The Cable. Anger at the inclusion of Rajavi was expressed in Al Monitor’s article ‘Congressional invite to MEK (Mojahedin Khalq) sparks furious backlash’ with the succinct and accurate reaction from America’s former ambassador to Syria Robert Ford who said “What the fuck do the MEK know about the Islamic State?” He only agreed to testify in a separate panel because he said American soldiers deserved the benefit of his expertise. Ex-counterterrorism coordinator Daniel Benjamin refused to testify because of Rajavi citing as his reason that he “did not believe the MEK had anything to contribute to a discussion of [IS], and that this would be a distraction from an important issue,” he told Al-Monitor. “I said the story of the day would be the rehabilitation of the MEK, and I did not want to be associated with that in any way.”

Most articles pointed out the financial links between the MEK and members of Congress who support the cult.

In an article titled ‘Congress cannot rely on Rajavi’s testimony – Camp Liberty residents must be taken to safety now’, Anne and Massoud Khodabandeh predicted that Rajavi would not be able to criticise the Islamic State because she is on the same side as them. They urged members of Congress to question Rajavi about her hostages in Camp Liberty.

“Instead of condemning the Islamic State, Maryam Rajavi will speak about how the Iranian government wants to kill the people in Camp Liberty and is plotting every day to find ways to massacre them all. This is an old script. It has been the MEK script for thirty years. Does Ted Poe think the MEK has suddenly flipped sides and will line up with Iran against the Islamic State?

Whatever threats are faced by the residents of Camp Liberty, one thing is certain. The reason they cannot leave is because the MEK leaders refuse to allow them to leave. Members of Congress should robustly question Maryam Rajavi about that. They need to ask why the UN is unable to progress its work with these vulnerable people. Why, if they are in such direct danger, she doesn’t allow the Iraqi authorities to remove them to separate accommodation. The Iraqis have offered to place the MEK in various secure hotels and apartments in order to make life safer and more comfortable for them. The MEK have refused. Congress needs to ask Maryam Rajavi why the residents of Camp Liberty are not able to make contact with their relatives. Hundreds of families have travelled to Iraq since 2003 attempting to make contact with their loved ones. The MEK have accused them all of being ‘agents of the Iranian regime sent to kill them’. Is this plausible? Most of the family members are old people; the parents and siblings and in some cases the children of people trapped in Camp Liberty. Are they really desirous of massacring their loved ones?”

May 1, 2015

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Maryam Rajavi

Open letter to Robert Ford and Daniel Benjamin

The gratitude letter of Iran-Ghalam Club to gentlemen Robert Ford and Daniel benjamin

Daesh and Mojahedin both are from the same gender

We declare our severe criticism to Mr. Ted Poe for inviting Mrs. Maryam Rajavi

Greetings and best wishes to Mr. Robert Stephen Ford and Mr. Daniel Benjamin

first of all, we would like to inform you that the Iran-Ghalam club consist of the former members, critics, and specialists in Rajavi cult’s affairs with more than 20 years record of service in People’s Mojahedin Organization who had separated from this organization because of criticism which they had to its violent and terrorist strategy and its cultish structure begotten by Massoud and Maryam Rajavi, and now we are living in Europe and we are active in humanitarian affairs.

We declare our gratitude and sincere congratulation regarding to non-participation of you gentlemen Robert Ford and Daniel Benjamin in subcommittee session of congress which was convened on 29-April-2015 with participation of Mrs. Maryam Rajavi the leader of Rajavi cult through video-conference for testifying about Daesh or the Islamic State.

Your participation, as the former officials of the US state department who have enough recognition of international relations and the terrorist infrastructure of PMOI, in the same panel with Mrs. Maryam Rajavi to testify about the bloodthirsty and slayer group of Daesh, was going to fortify the terrorism and violence in the Middle-East. We should ask other participants in that panel with Mrs. Maryam Rajavi that how is the participation of leader of a terrorist organization in this panel who has led more than 100 terrorist operations can help to reduce violence and terrorism begotten by Daesh and Islamic State?

Mr. Robert Ford by asking a question that what do Mojahedin know about Daesh? and Mr. Daniel Benjamin former coordinator of counterterrorism section in US State-department in an Email to the News-Website , Al Monitor wrote, no one seriously can deny that the hands of Mojahedin is smeared with blood of Americans . Not only they participated in killing of military and non-military personnel of USA in Iran and participation in seizure of American embassy in Teheran and serving as a strike-force for Saddam Hussein but also they have dictatorial attitude and behavior against their members.

Mr. Daniel Benjamin, invitation of Maryam Rajavi by the head of the subcommittee, called shameful and reiterated and emphasized that this organization will not do any good in our discussion.

Mrs. Maryam Rajavi who was invited for this session in the subcommittee of fighting with terrorism by Ted Poe the republican representative from the state of Texas to give her speech about Daesh through video-conference from Paris.

Mrs. Rajavi in her speech for fighting against fundamentalism and terrorism indicated to 7 topics as follows:

1) Expel the Quds Force from Iraq and end the Iranian regime’s influence in that country;

2) Enable full participation of Sunnis in power sharing and arm Sunni tribes to provide security for their communities;

3) Assist Syria’s moderate opposition and people to end Assad’s regime and establish democracy in that country;

4) Recognize the Iranian people’s aspirations to overthrow the mullahs and end inaction vis-à-vis the gross human rights violations in Iran.

5) Provide protection for, and uphold the rights of members of Iran’s organized opposition, the MEK, residing in Camp Liberty in Iraq.

6) Empower the true, democratic and tolerant Islam to counter fundamentalist interpretations of this religion; and

7) Block all pathways for the Iranian regime to acquire nuclear weapons.

Gentlemen Robert Ford and Daniel Benjamin,

Mrs. Maryam Rajavi in her speech did not mention anything about Daesh and its leader , leadership, forces and severe breach of human rights which happens wherever Daesh goes specially about women , why did not she?!!

We ask you, which organization is responsible for the connection between the remnants of Saddam Hussein’s government and daesh in Iraq? with no doubt , one of its financial and logistical nets is PMOI(MKO, Rajavi cult). If is not, why Maryam Rajavi insists on staying in Iraq?!!

what is the connection between providing security and taking their arms back, which has been requested by Mrs. Maryam Rajavi , and finding solution to eliminate Islamic State or Daesh in Iraq? It’s irrelevant!!

Our question as the former members of this dangerous and vicious cult from this subcommittee regarding to invitation of Mrs. Maryam Rajavi is that inviting the leader of Rajavi cult which till 3 years ago was in the terrorist black list of the US state-department

it has cultish internal relations and it does not tolerate even the smallest criticism to its cult and it threatens or lure the person who dare to criticize or beat him/her up .

the cult which in terrorist-operation of 9/11 on US soil called it as a revolutionary act and called all those terrorists from al-Qaeda who planned and carried out the operation as martyrs and for the massacre of more than 3000 innocent American men and women who lost their lives , threw party and celebrated in its garrisons in Iraq.

The cult which calls its members’ families as agent, spy, special force (commando), and slayer and ….etc !!!!And in this regard it does not allow its members to have even 5 minutes of meeting with their families and loved ones.

With all those facts mentioned above, can you count on the leader of a terrorist cult as specialist and expert in subcommittee of US congress to solve the Daesh and Islamic State phenomenon?!!!!!

Why such a cult with lots of money and resources and diversity of lobbies throughout the world has not done anything in replacing its forces, more than 2500 men and women who are stranded and stuck in Iraq, from Iraq to a safer place to save them from Daesh bloodthirsty group?

Do they really care about the life of those 2500 men and women or they prefer those 2500 men and women be sacrificed so they can take political advantage of their sacrifice in Iraq!? Really, with all these facts can she and her cult be part of the solution regarding terrorism and Daesh phenomenon when she was calling those savages and man-eaters as revolutionary nomads and popular revolutionary forces?!! Is not it shameful??

We, as victims of this violent and bloodthirsty cult, condemn inviting such person, who does not believe in democracy and freedom, in subcommittee of US congress. Non participation of you gentlemen in the same panel with the leader of this cult in US congress is sincerely and truly welcomed.

Maryam Rajavi in the end of her speech quoted from George Washington and said, the harder the conflict the greater the triumph,

Well we believe so, but when it happens that, all forces who are participating in the war against their enemy such Daesh, are pure and they do not have the same gender as daesh. Massoud Rajavi calls himself as a spiritual leader of mojahedin and muslims while Abobakr Al- baghdadi also calls himself as khalifeh or the spiritual leader of muslims and Daesh’s mojahedin. both of them call themselves the permanent religious leader and they believe that their orders are the god’s will and disobeying their orders mean hell , destruction, and death!

Quoting from George Washington from the leader of a cult who has a dark history and record in terrorism in subcommittee of US congress is very shameful.

We the members of Iran – Ghalam Club thank you gentlemen Robert Ford and Daniel Benjamin and wish you both success and victory in your objectives and also we would like to announce our severe criticism to Mr. Ted Poe the Republican representative of Texas.

Best Regards,

Iranian Pen Club (Iran Ghalam)

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Somayeh Mohamamdy
The cult of Rajavi

An Unfinished film for my daughter Somayeh – Trapped in the MEK Cult

An unfinished story about the Mohammadi family who were deceived by the Mojahedin Khalq in Canada. This is the story of a father who lost his daughter to the cult and who is still trying to rescue her from captivity in Iraq. The documentary charts the history of this bizarre group and how its cultic practices were developed to devastating effect for members and their families.

to download the video file click here

Family videos are odd objects. You can sit around all together and for a few hours reliveyour life. Family videos are valuable. The older the videos are, the more valuable they become for us. Especially for those of us who have had complicated lives…

An Unfinished Film, for My Daughter Somayeh’ is based on more than 500 hours Mohammadi’s family video footage, shot from 1992 to 2013 by the father.

This is an important film that provides a glimpse into the inner workings of this Organization which is often veiled in secrecy. It captures the lives of the real people involved, current and past members and its effect on Iranian families everywhere. Do not miss this screening. You will walk away with many answers and many more questions.

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Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Seeking to understand Islamic State, Congress hears from foe of Iran

A controversial foe of the Iranian government sought to tie the rise of the Islamic State terrorist group to the regime in Iran before Congress on Wednesday — a link that President Obama and many foreign policy experts have rejected but one that has gained traction on Capitol Hill as Obama continues nuclear talks with Iran.

A House foreign affairs subcommittee’s decision to invite Maryam Rajavi, a longtime leader of Mujaheddin-e Khalq, had generated objections before the hearing. The exile group, also known as MEK, was listed as a terrorist organization by the State Department as recently as 2012 and had been known to ally itself with Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein against Tehran.

But since the group formally renounced violence, the most aggressive U.S. foes of the Iranian regime have embraced MEK as an ally. With Wednesday’s hearing on the Islamic State, that alliance has been extended to discussions of the Sunni extremist group now attracting the attention of lawmakers as it wreaks havoc in the Middle East.

“The mullahs’ regime is not part of the solution to the current crisis,” Rajavi said, referring to the Iranian government. “It is indeed the heart of the problem.”The regime in Tehran is the “godfather” of the Islamic State, she said, adding that “the ultimate solution to this problem is regime change by the Iranian people and resistance.”

At a Senate hearing last month, Secretary of State John F. Kerry said it was a grave mistake to link the Shiite regime in Iran with the Sunni-led Islamic State. In fact, he said, the group has given the United States reason to make common cause with Iran.

“They want us to destroy ISIS; they want to destroy ISIS,” Kerry said, using an alternative name for the group. “ISIS is a threat to [Iran]; it’s a threat to the region.”

Rajavi testified as president-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, MEK’s political affiliate. She appeared before the subcommittee on terrorism, nonproliferation and trade via video link from Paris.

Her appearance prompted another scheduled witness, former State Department counterterrorism official Daniel Benjamin, to withdraw.

“Congress can invite anyone it wants to testify, but I don’t understand why a group with a history like this should be accorded this treatment,” Benjamin, now a Dartmouth College scholar, said in an e-mail, citing MEK’s role in Iran’s 1979 revolution, and international terror attacks to which the group has been linked.

He asserted that MEK is chiefly interested in overthrowing the Iranian regime. “The notion that it has any particular insights into ISIS is absurd,” he said.

Shaylyn Hynes, a spokeswoman for the subcommittee’s chairman, Rep. Ted Poe (R-Tex.), said Rajavi was invited to testify on the basis of her “personal knowledge of the prejudices inherent in radical Islamist ideology” as well as her knowledge of the plight of MEK members living as refugees at a Baghdad camp.

Greg Miller contributed to this report.

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