++ This week news emerged of a disturbance in Section 305 of Evin prison. Prisoners resisted when prison guards began searching the Section and a fight broke out in which several prisoners were bruised and injured. The guards claim to have found communication equipment and other devices during the search. Some prisoners staged a hunger strike in protest and some of their families have picketed to demand an investigation. The Mojahedin which is, as usual, desperate to link itself to anything to do with Iran has inevitably tried to connect itself to this event. Over the last few days, the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), has issued over 20 statements – which have more to do with ‘Google wars’ and getting its name out in public rather than any actual reporting. The NCRI has been inactive for many years now; its head (Massoud Rajavi) went underground ten years ago and the NCRI has therefore not been able to hold its annual meetings. Analysts suggest that the NCRI is reacting to a new line imposed on the MEK (aka NCRI) by its paymasters which shifts from the nuclear issue to criticism of Iran’s human rights situation. But more importantly it is an accepted fact that the MEK will soon be pushed out of Iraq and will not be able to interfere there anymore, therefore they need another raison d’être. The MEK has now had to return to the issue of human rights in Iran. But this change of line of the paymasters and also of the MEK contains a dilemma. Previously the MEK were used as violent mercenaries or for information laundry and propaganda. But using a cult as a human rights advocate has provoked a natural backlash. During the prison disturbance, all of the Iranian opposition inside and outside Iran, including the prisoners and their families, objected to the MEK and Rajavi’s support for them. Some have gone so far as to describe the MEK’s fallacious support for the prison disturbance as a devious plot by Iranian government hardliners to dismiss the situation and not have to investigate it by simply claiming it as the work of the terrorist MEK.

++ On the same subject of the prison disturbance, former MEK members and critics write that whatever happens in Evin is not 1% of what happened in Camp Ashraf and what is still happening in Camp Liberty. They say “How dare you talk about human rights when your own human rights situation is worse than both Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay”. The website Mojahadin.com from inside Iran has listed a catalogue of human rights abuses which is still continued by Rajavi in the MEK. The site mentions the recent UN report which clearly states that there was and is abuse inside the MEK in both Ashraf and Liberty camps. The site quotes a source within the International Committee of the Red Cross, as saying “we can hand over letters to anyone, even to Guantanamo Bay prisoners, but we are unable to hand over the letters from their families to the people in Camp Liberty”. Apparently, Camp Liberty and the MEK bases are the only places in the civilized world that the Red Cross has no access to.

++ People reacted to Rudi Giuliani and his paid speech for Maryam Rajavi last week. In particular they ridicule the way that he has been promising the “toppling of the Iranian regime”; ironically using the cult jargon of the MEK throughout his speech. Mohammad Razaghi writes that “in the Azeri language we say, if you put two horses together they won’t become the same colour, but will certainly adapt the same behaviour”. He goes through the changes that Rudi Giuliani has undergone as he has been paid year after year for giving speeches, and in the end calls him ‘Mojahed Brother Rudi Giuliani’! Other writers conclude that if you pay Americans money they will talk any rubbish you want them to.

++ Milad Ariyaie from Iran Pen Association (Ghalam Association) writes briefly to note the MEK getting over excited over Israel’s launch of a new satellite to spy on Iran’s military. He says it is “as if Israel is doing that to give the information to the MEK”. Ariyaie says “anything that gives hope to the members, whether news about Israel, Syria, Albania, Russia or anything else, is used to distract the members and delay them running away. In the same line, many others have written articles analysing recent MEK behaviour to say that the MEK are deliberately trying to claim dirty credentials and pretend they really are mercenaries. “The MEK pretends to have a new sponsor as a replacement for Saddam. Obviously this is not true.” Morad from Nejat Association has said “what is annoying about the MEK is not their ability or mercenary work, it is just the smell of them rotting which is annoying for everyone who gets near them”.

++ News emerged alleging that the Americans have helped the MEK to open an office in Yemen. Some of the MEK’s Baath affiliated high ranking people have been moved there. Apparently Washington is trying to establish bases for the MEK wherever they can so that the group will not break up and dissolve. The aim is to preserve the MEK somewhere other than Iraq so that it will maintain a presence.

++ With the election of a new mayor, Isabelle Mézière, for Auvers sur Oise in France – home of the MEK’s western headquarters – the MEK has lost one of its trusted supporters. The previous mayor, Jean Pierre Becquet, was a known advocate for the MEK. The new mayor campaigned on a platform of taking Auvers out of the control of the MEK and giving it back to the citizens of the town. An Open Letter by Ariya Assocation in Paris outlined the benefits of the new mayor’s position for the town’s citizens. In Farsi writers have pointed out how the MEK’s lobbyists come along, get paid and then disappear. One mentioned that the old ones die, such as Lord Corbett, and this fragile French mayor Becquet, has now gone, but Maryam Rajavi still, in her dreams, claims to be the rightful president of Iran.

++ This week, as the Iraqi election looms, there have been quite a few reports from Iraq that the MEK have either been paying candidates or have been the channel for others to pay candidates to stand as MPs on condition that they will support the Baath Party and Saddamists if elected in an attempt to gain a foothold in parliament.

++ The site Fergheha (the Cults) in Iran published a long article this week about the MEK, placing the rise of their European shows alongside the growing exodus of cult members from the group. The more people run away, says the article, the more shows the MEK puts on, with paid lobbyists in place of members. The article lists the recent weekly and sometimes daily shows in Brussels and Paris, along with the fees charged by Giuliani and John Bolton, etc. In the European Parliament, it is claimed, MEPs like Stevenson and Vidal Quadras devote 90% of their time to working on behalf of the MEK rather than actually being MEPs and doing work related to that. The article goes through a list of the so-called Committees which have been established in every parliament and how the Israeli lobby has pushed things to make something to support the MEK. In the UK Lord Carlisle has replaced Corbett in the Friends of Free a Iran. In Europe Struan Stevenson uses the Delegation for Iraq to advocate openly for the MEK. In the Romanian parliament another Friends of a Free Iran Committee is run by one of the MEK’s MPs. Pouya. A similar set up exists in Germany and Vidal-Quadras head yet another Friends of a Free Iran. All have been groomed to promote the MEK to prevent them from falling apart and at the back of them is the Israeli lobby. The aim is to stop any solution to the West’s Iran issue and to spread hatred; acceptance of Iran is a nightmare for the Israelis. One by one the article lists the lobbyists fees for speaking rubbish to Maryam Rajavi. It goes through the fabricated associations that MEK claim are affiliated to it. One MEK member has 25 associations listed under his name, of which he is the only member! The MEK don’t even have enough trusted people to give them one association each. The article balances the loss of members and its social base with the increase in Israeli support for the MEK, offering statistics on the number of those who have run away, people who are vocal critics, the number of MEK attacks on their own members and critics and the injuries sustained. The article identifies the MEK’s efforts to silence its critics in social networks as a typical Israeli tactic, and how this has not worked for the MEK in spite of the massive resources and backing behind the group.

++ Last week, while swearing wildly at everyone, the MEK claim the Iraqis want to kill them. Habilian published an article ridiculing the MEK, saying “the MEK again accuse the Iraqi government of stealing their wood glue”, a reference to the MEK’s own propaganda in which they claim the Iraqi’s “don’t let us expand the camp, or build walls and are stealing our wood glue”.

++ A few sites have reported from Rajavi’s own websites which have been announcing that it is not just 12,000 (civilians) we have killed, we killed 55,000 in Forough Javidan (operation Eternal Light in 1988) as well. Many say this brings shame on the Americans and Israelis who support them and claim they are not terrorists.

++ Reports emerged from Albania that a man called Mirza Agha Pakniat has been transferred to hospital. He is apparently around 90 years old. People who know him say that for at least the past 20 years he has tried to leave MEK, but has been denied and kept in the camp and because of his age he couldn’t do anything. Pakniat says they would put him in the criticism meetings and accuse him of being a dissenter and would agree and ask to leave and get in touch with his family before it became too late. But they never allowed him to contact his family. Clearly now he is in hospital and may die, the MEK are readying a glowing biography to use his death to benefit Rajavi.

++ Fanous Iran this week issued a statement from Abdul Karim Ebrahimi declaring his freedom after he managed to run away from Camp Liberty and take refuge with the Iraqi police, He briefly explained the situation he faced and promised to say more when his personal situation is improved.

++ In English language, Press TV reported that Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) says it will not allow terrorist groups and foreign-sponsored mercenaries to carry out acts of terror in the country… The statement also condemned the biased silence of the international organizations claiming to advocate human rights concerning the crimes perpetrated by the terrorist Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO) and other terrorist groups against Iranians. “It is a matter of great regret that some European and Western governments and circles have picked the despised and criminal mercenaries of the MKO terrorist group as advisors on Iran issues, and have adopted cheap positions and formal statements against the respected Iranian nation on the basis of their (MKO terrorists’) wrong, distorted and biased information,” the IRGC statement pointed out.

++ Zahra Moeini from Nejat Association reporting from Ashraf news, says “Massoud Rajavi has ordered the officials of the Camp to intensify the limitations against women especially after the revelations by Batoul Soltani and other dispatched members who bravely exposed the internal affairs especially the sexual scandals of the cult leader such as ‘Salvation dancing’. It is said that they may enclose the quarters of women in TTL by barbed wires and fences as it was the case in Camp Ashraf in order to control members more and to prevent more defections and escapes from the Cult.”

++ Hawaii based academic Farideh Farhi conducted an interview for Lobelog with Eldar Mamedov, Political Advisor for the Social-Democratic Group in the Foreign Affairs Committee of the European Parliament following the April 3 EP resolution on EU Strategy towards Iran. In the interview Mamedov said “Interestingly, conservative group members (some of them with links to the exiled Iranian opposition group, the Mujahadeen-e-Khalq (MEK), such as Spanish EPP member Alejo Vidal-Quadras and British ECR member Struan Stevenson) proposed amendments deleting the call for an opening of the EU office in Tehran, fully in line with the position of their supposed enemies — Iranian hardliners.”

++ Brenda Gazzar in the Los Angeles Daily News exposes the injustice meted out to four Iranian brothers who “were detained on allegations that they were affiliated with a terrorist organization, though the men argued they had just attended a rally in Denver opposing the Iranian government and they have no terrorist involvement.” The MEK rally was also attended by several members of the U.S. Congress who have not been accused of affiliation with a terrorist organisation, even though the MEK were on the US terrorism list at that time.

++ An article by A. Sepinoud for Nejat Bloggers examines the MEK’s role in the massacre of Iraqi Kurds. “After the Swedish Parliament in a majority vote formally recognized the Anfal Operation as genocide and crimes against humanity in early December 2012, some defected members of the terrorist Mojahedin Khalq Organization voiced their preparedness to give a testimony before the Swedish parliament about MKO’s key role in the massacre of Iraqi Kurds… The United States Department of State and the Foreign Affairs group of the Parliament of Australia also asserted the MKO’s assistance to Baath regime brutal suppression of the uprisings… Iraqi authorities have issued 148 arrest warrants for MEK members for crimes against Iraqis since 1991 but none have been arrested, according to officials. Maryam Rajavi was also included in the warrants. Maryam Rajavi has been reported by former MKO members as having said, “Take the Kurds under your tanks, and save your bullets for the Iranian Revolutionary Guards”.”

++ According to Fars News Agency “A senior Iranian lawmaker cautioned that the parliament would allow a French parliamentary delegation which has filed a request for visiting Iran to take the trip since one of the group members is a supporter of the terrorist Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO, also known as MEK, NCRI or PMOI). “The time for the visit has not been specified and it has just been under discussion,” member of Iran-France Parliamentary Friendship Group Amir Khojasteh told FNA on Wednesday.”

++ Tasnim News reports that Senator Philippe Marini, Head of the French parliamentary delegation which hopes to visit Tehran “rejected reports about a member of the delegation, Senator Philippe Dallier’s support for the terrorist Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO), saying that Dallier had unwittingly attended an MKO meeting in Paris. “I suppose Dallier fell in MKO trap like many others,” he said, adding “we are well aware … how unpopular this group can be in Iran.” On his participation in an MKO gathering in France a long time ago, Senator Dallier told Tasnim that he had no idea it was a rally staged by the terrorist group. He said he once was invited to a rally in his constituency, a city near Paris, along with some other elected officials. “All of a sudden, I realized I am sitting next to individuals from other countries. Actually, that day I went there, a general gathering, without any specific plans… At the end of the program I left and have had no contacts with the group ever since,” he said.”

++ Mazda Parsi from Nejat Bloggers examines the denial of a visa to Iranian UN Ambassador Hamid Abutalebi against the backdrop of the MEK’s role in the hostage crisis. “As a matter of fact, the 52 American hostages were finally released after 444 days by the Iranian government – the move was harshly opposed by the MKO that at the time considered itself as “vanguard of struggle against the US Imperialism”. It is worth to notice that the Islamic Republic did not kill or injure the US hostages but the MKO is the only Iranian group that has the blood of Americans in its hands. According to the U.S. Department of State the group conducted several assassinations of U.S. military personnel and civilians working in Iran during the 1970s. Thus it was not bizarre when they opposed the release of the hostages in 1981 by the Iranian state, and called for their execution instead. As a result they staged a large demonstration, based on the presentation of the MEK by the Foreign Affairs group of the Australian Parliament.” MEK members are currently active lobbyists in Washington D.C.

 25 April 2014

++ News has been continuously filtering out from Albania. One report suggests that commanders from the MEK have approached various people with the promise that Maryam Rajavi asked them to compile a list of useful people so they can be smuggled into Britain with false passports. One high ranking person commander who has been selected for this process is Hooshang Doodkani, from Khoy in Western Azerbaijan province. Considering that the process of refugee status has started and that it is likely that most of these people will be granted refugee status in Albania after the interviews, this is seen as an attempt to prevent people from having straightforward refugee status and instead create dependency on the MEK which will provide the false identity and passports and so trap them in the cult. Commander Farzaneh Maidanshahi is Rajavi’s contact in Albania for these activities.

++ Other news from Albania is that a high ranking member called Mansour Sha’bani has defected from the MEK and joined with the other former members. This defection has resulted in greater efforts at control by MEK commanders in Tirana who are now checking on people who want to go out on their own as they are worried more will leave. There are other credible reports that the MEK is reshuffling its system in Tirana. Maidanshahi has been retained as main commander, but Ismael Moretezai (aka Javad Khorrasan) has been replaced by another known henchman, Abdulvahab Najafinejad Jahromi (aka Afshin). Although the MEK don’t regard Albania as a place for their activities, the cult has decided to expend much more energy to sort the place out; more people have been dispatched there to help keep control. Other news suggests that out of seventeen residents of Camp Liberty who had previous residency in the UK and whose applications for asylum are currently under review by the UK immigration service, three are currently in Albania.

++ A few short comments have been posted about Maryam Rajavi’s gathering for ‘Iranian Youth of Europe and America’. Pictures published by the MEK mostly feature Maryam Rajavi with her bunch of lobbyists who are neither ‘youth’ nor ‘Iranian’, and this has become a joke among the MEK’s own supporters. Many articles pick on Rudi Giuliani who according to MEK websites claims that the overthrow is imminent. He has given a message to the residents of Liberty and Ashraf (!?): “I know you are having a hard time… but the day of freedom of Iran is near, I pray for your sacrifices and support you. Because of the leadership of Mrs Rajavi the new Iran will be built on the back of the martyrs of freedom very soon, and soon you will destroy the murderous dictators and replace them with a government of your own.” Many articles ridicule Rajavi and the rest of them, calling him ‘brother Rudi Giuliani’.

++ Mojahadin.com website in Iran carries a brief note on the appearance of Maryam Rajavi in the European Parliament. The organization has dismissed the European Parliament’s recent statement against Iran on human rights. Under the title, ‘The murderer of 17,000 Iranians appears in the gathering of so-called human rights advocates’, the organization criticizes Rajavi’s speech in which she insists that the west should stop talking and confront Iran.

++ Many people have analyzed Struan Stevenson MEP’s invitation to Maryam Rajavi to appear inside the European Parliament as symptomatic of a desperate Israeli reaction to Catherine Ashton’s visit to Tehran. In particular, they say, it was Ashton’s meetings with human rights and opposition activists in Iran that has made the MEK and Israel shiver. Stevenson used his gathering of the usual paid MEPs and officials, they claim, as a platform to harshly attack Ashton and the previous European Parliament delegation on behalf of his paymaster Maryam Rajavi, to the point of swearing at Ashton calling her ‘ignorant’. The writers highlight the intense shakiness of Stevenson and the rest to the lobbyists with the conclusion that they are reaching the end of the road.

++ Nabil Saeb al A’raji, Secretary General of the Free Iraq Party announced in an interview that the MEK is a terrorist and murderous organization affiliated with the remains of Saddam, and which has killed scores of innocent Iraqis, irrespective of what its western supporters believe of it. At the same time Aliyeh Nassif, MP, had a lengthy interview with Al Rai news agency in which she described the MEK as “a cancerous tumour which the enemies of Iraq have implanted in the body of Iraq and which will be removed surgically as soon as possible”. In addition, Hayedeh Al Ameri, a famous Iraqi writer who was working very closely with Saleh Motlaq (now one of the deputy prime ministers and a supporter of the MEK and Saddam), revealed that Motlaq used to receive 200,000 dollars though the MEK, but that now he is directly being paid millions of dollars he is not so keen on them. Al Ameri revealed that Motalq used to spend 50,000 dollars on advertising for the MEK and pocket the rest of it himself.

++ Nejat Association made a short comment that the MEK is screaming even louder than the Israelis over the oil deal of 500,000 bpd between Iran and Russia. Nejat says that while a business deal is not a crime, the torture and murder of your own people, however, is.

++ Edaalat (Victims of MEK Terrorism in Iran), published a short article among those from many others about the MEK’s shift from the nuclear issue to the human rights issue. Edaalat reminds Israel and its allies that “you may use MEK for information laundry for a while, but don’t you think it is ridiculous to use them to attack Iran over human rights with their dirty past”.

++ Amir Hossein Panahi from Ariya Association in Paris wrote a short article titled ‘Struggle Against the Regime as a Money Spinner’. He examines the role of MEK lobbyists who make money out of speaking in MEK rallies and identifies regulars such as Patrick Kennedy, Lee Hamilton, Rudi Giuliani, David Phillips and etc. who get paid between 25 to 160,000 dollars to come and let Maryam Rajavi flirt with them. The obvious thing is that this has nothing to do with any struggle or even lobbying as work. A lobbyist, Panahi points out, works to make changes. These are simply crooks charging money just to stand and speak to no end.

++ Nejat Association wrote an open letter to the UNHCR office in Tirana in appreciation of a New Year party it held for the former residents of Camp Liberty. The event was enjoyed by those who have separated from the MEK and who refused to attend a party held by the MEK which, according to Nejat, fears the decline of its cult hegemony. The letter thanked the UNCHR saying the party “reinforced our friends in their effort to distance themselves from the cult indoctrination system”.

++ There have been several articles about the MEK’s angry reaction to the release of the four Iranian border soldiers last week who had been abducted by terrorists. This reaction came alongside Maryam Rajavi’s efforts to send her condolences to the families of four high Sunni leaders who had reportedly been killed by Iranian security forces in Balouchestan. Embarrassingly for Rajavi this report proved to be completely false.

++ Comments were made about the MEK’s deafening silence as the anniversary of the re-opening of their office in Washington passed by this week. Some commentators reminded the MEK about the amount of jumping up and down and shouting ‘victory, victory’, which accompanied the re-opening and the MEK’s claim that America would definitely take Iran and give it to Rajavi.

++ There were a few reactions to Rajavi’s announcement to her usual lobbyist audience that the US should not give a visa to Iran’s UN ambassador, Hamid Abutalebi. Many referred to existing documents about the MEK which show that when the US hostages were released the MEK criticized Khomeini’s government for not executing them. They also refer to some of the MEK’s activists in the US – Ali Reza Jafarzadeh, Sona Samsoni and Ali Safavi – who are part and parcel of the Pentagon of America but who have all published their suicide notes whenever MEK asked them to. They also remind us that the MEK killed Americans in Iran as part of its anti-Imperialist struggle.

 18 April 2014