++ Massoud Rajavi’s threat to kill former MEK members and any other critics in Europe has attracted many responses in Farsi from people who warn that both Europe and America must take this seriously as they believe that, one way or another, something bad will happen. Even internal critics of the MEK have been complaining that these threats are getting worse by the day.

++ Now that the MEK have been asking for the Americans to give them their weapons back in Iraq, Farsi commentators have found more ammunition with which to ridicule the group. The MEK have had to label even internal critics as ‘agents of the Iranian regime’ to try to answer the mockery. The MEK claims “the regime is shivering with fear at the flash of light of the MEK’s guns”. These critics report that Rajavi claims Camp Liberty to be “the centre of struggle and war”. They say these are ridiculous claims; the MEK are beating the war drum with nothing in their hands. But more in depth analyses reveal greater concerns. Families and experts alike have written to the UN pointing out that when Rajavi talks like this it means he is preparing a catastrophe for his followers. They anticipate that Rajavi intends to recruit some murderous gang to kill the residents of Camp Liberty. This scenario is not new, and Rajavi has acted in this way in the past. The families of residents are now seriously worried that their loved ones will be killed rather than be allowed out of the camp.

++ In Albania the MEK have opened up a plethora of websites using various pseudonyms. The main focus of the sites is to praise the MEK and denounce the ex-members who have just arrived in Albania from Camp Liberty as liars. But the central problem is exposed by the MEK themselves as they complain they pay $500 per month to these people to keep quiet – the UN only pays $250 per month – but in spite of this people are getting the money and still exposing everything about the situation through anonymous posts on Facebook and blogs (reporting who is coming and going from the MEK side, and who the main contacts are, etc). The MEK’s dilemma is that it cannot control this information leakage even through bribery.

++ Along with asking to be re-armed, the MEK have this week published an article claiming that because Iran is working toward rapprochement with the Americans, this proves they are not anti-Imperialist! As usual this has engendered many ironic responses. Such as Saber in Nejat, who creates the comparison between them and Iran by pointing out that ‘having a win win relation between two counties is not a problem, but being the mercenary of another country against your own is seriously a big problem’.

In English:

++ Mazda Parsi writing in Nejat Bloggers says the MEK is trying to recreate cult conditions in Albania to keep newly transferred people under their hegemony. To this end they have sent one of Rajavi’s most loyal cult lieutenants, Faezeh Mohabatkar to link the main cult in Iraq with those resettled in Albania. By choosing Mohabatkar, who is known to ex-members as a torturer, the MEK is sending the message: You cannot simply leave the cult. But Mohabatkar has been tasked with imposing cult conditions in Tirana where the group members are no longer isolated as they are behind the bars of Ashraf or Liberty. As an expert in MEK cult affairs, Parsi questions whether she can succeed in imposing the MEK’s cult practices in a European city and retain all of the relocated members inside the cult. Evidence of the previously resettled members shows, he argues, that once members are cut off from the intense control of cult relations they are able to defect more easily.

++ An article by Dr. Ismail Salami published by Global Research deals with the continued attempts of Mossad and the MEK to assassinate Iranian nuclear scientists. The article reports that over two years Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps has thwarted several such attempts. The MEK’s involvement is exposed by a NBC News report by Richard Engel and Robert Windrem which “cites two anonymous senior US officials with two interesting claims: 1) that it was MEK which perpetrated the string of assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists and 2) the terrorist group “is financed, trained and armed by Israel’s secret service.” So the report testifies to the veracity of what Iranian officials have asserted about the involvement of MEK and Israel in murdering nuclear scientists on the Iranian soil.” In the context of recent death threats by Rajavi against critics, the author writes, “Interestingly, a few weeks ago, I received a threatening email from Ali Safavi, the notorious MKO spokesman (through a western publisher of mine) in which he had pontificated about the virtues of the MKO terrorists and the so-called ‘vices’ of the Islamic Republic, accusing me of serving as a mouthpiece for the Islamic Republic. I strongly believe that revealing the murky realities of a terrorist group responsible for the deaths of 17000 innocent Iranians is only my ethical obligation. Besides, Ali Safavi and the likes of him should come to their senses and realize that their efforts to whitewash their crimes will eventually prove pointless and that there is no way at all for them to lend a cloak of legitimacy to their unnamable crimes against the Iranian nation.”

The article concludes that ISIL and the MEK are ‘cut from the same cloth’ and that “Mossad is dispatching assassins into Iran to liquidate Iranian scientists is only meant to strike fear and beyond that, to secretly make up for what the ISIL and MKO terrorists feel emasculated to do in Iran.”

++ Anne Khodabandeh of Iran Interlink has written a brief Open Letter addressed to President Hollande. The gist of the letter is that France has protected the terrorist MEK for thirty years in a de facto terrorist enclave to which even the French security services have no access. Now that Rajavi has threatened to kill his critics – with names and photographs of his targets – then the French President is responsible for anything that happens. Khodabandeh writes: “You are the President of France, not ISIS or Al Qaida. You, therefore, are responsible for the security of your citizens. I also hold you responsible for my life because you are currently hosting a terrorist group which threatens to kill me simply because I speak out against its continued crimes. In a democracy we don’t beg terrorists not to kill us. Instead we expect our elected leaders to ensure that such crimes are prevented.”

Iran Interlink, January 02 2014:…

++ The Mojahedin Khalq released a statement this week exclusively in Farsi language. The statement, purporting to be from the MEK spokesman in Oslo, Norway, consisted swearing at everybody concerned with the situation in Iraq. The Americans, along with the United Nations and the government of Iraq, were attacked for “working for Iran”. In particular American Jane Holl Lute who heads the UNAMI effort to expel the MEK from Iraq, was named in the statement as working for Iran. The US and UN were lashed for not providing sufficient security for the residents of Camp Liberty [who the MEK do not allow to leave the camp], and demands the return of ten percent of the arms that were taken from the MEK in 2003 when the group surrendered to US troops during Operation Iraqi Freedom. In the same statement the MEK lashed the US, Iran and Iraq for fighting against ISIS, saying the group belongs to the country of Iraq.

++ The MEK statement from Oslo attracted many different reactions, to the extent that the MEK was forced to issue denials of their support for ISIS in various third class English language media. Many comments in Farsi simply criticised the MEK’s support for ISIS. Others took a more ironic line, saying that even were the arms returned to them, the residents of Camp Liberty are incapable of using them. In more detailed comments people point to the number of former combatants at the time of Saddam Hussein which numbered around 4,000, and the list of arms which the US army took from them – the MEK claimed 20,000 items of heavy and light armoury were surrendered, of which 5,000 were heavy armaments. These figures simply point to the falsity of the MEK’s position say commentators, whereby 4,000 combatants had 5,000 heavy weapons – certainly they were incapable even then of using them all. Other critics say that this demand is an attempt by Massoud Rajavi to muddy the waters in order to create conditions for the residents to be killed one way or another – an attack from ISIS or Iraqi forces for example. Families of Camp Liberty residents have expressed their deep concern at this turn of events and have written extensively to the UNHCR asking to be allowed to rescue their relatives and loved ones themselves.

++ Another statement issued by the MEK this week came out in support of a criminal gang in Iran who were involved in a shoot-out with police. The armed thieves were ludicrously described as revolutionaries by the MEK.

++ An MEK website this week published an article advertising a resolution passed in the British Parliament in support of Maryam Rajavi and her views – as usual without names. Official sources in the parliamentary press office confirmed that no such resolution has been registered let alone voted on or ratified.

++ An article by Ebrahim Khodabandeh titled ‘The Cult and the Families’ goes into detail about cultish activities and compares Rajavi’s cult with others. The article reveals that such cults are very much afraid of the members’ families and examines why this is so.

++ Secretary General of Habilian Society, Hashemi Nejad, whose father, a prominent religious leader, was assassinated by the MEK, gave an interview which was reported in various Iranian media. Hashemi Nejad used documents to criticise the “financial, intelligence and political backers of the murderers of our people”. Now, he says, these same people are pretending to be human rights activists and want something from us as well.

In English:

++ Press TV reported that the MEK has spoken out in support of ISIS. “The anti-Iran terrorist Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO) has openly expressed support for the ISIL militants and their acts of terror in a clear indication of its wrath over Iran-Iraq cooperation against the Takfiri group. In a statement on Saturday, the MKO said any measure against ISIL would be a blatant violation of the UN Security Council’s agreements.”

++ An article by Ken Silverstein in The Intercept is an attack on former high-level U.S. officials, former CIA director George Tenet and former FBI director Louis Freeh, “who helped pave the way for the over decade-long “war on terror,” which has been a near complete catastrophe”. The article points out that “Freeh is one of many former U.S. officials who got paid big speaking fees (reportedly up to $50,000 a pop) by a creepy Iranian group called the People’s Mujahedin, also known as Mojahedin-e-Khalq, or MEK, to successfully advocate for its removal from the State Department’s list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations. He also opened up a consulting firm whose clients have included Saudi Arabia’s Prince Bandar, who the U.S. Department of Justice accused of taking massive bribes from a British defense contractor. That’s right, Freeh represented a prince from America’s old pal Saudi Arabia, home to fifteen of the nineteen 9/11 hijackers, and whose export of Wahhabism is credited with giving rising to the Islamic State.”

++ The sister of one Camp Liberty resident, Azar Hossein Nejad from Tehran, Iran, wrote an open letter to the UNHCR asking for them to facilitate the transfer of her sister out of Camp Liberty.

January 2, 2014