Human Rights Abuse in the MEK

Investigate human rights abuses in Mojahedin Khalq

Open letter to Ben Emmerson, QC

Dear Mr Ben Emmerson, QC

With all my best wishes.

My name is Mohammad Razaghi. I was a member of the Mojahedin Khalq Organisation (MKO, MEK, PMOI, NCRI,…) for over 20 years. I worked 24/7 for the cultish organisation of Rajavi in garrisons given to them by the late dictator Saddam Hussein. Most of my youth and the best years of my life was wasted in the mental and physical captivity of that terrorist/ Mafia organisation. During my stay in Iraq, I have been imprisoned and physically and mentally violently tortured on the direct order of Massoud Rajavi and Maryam Ghajar Azodanloo, (who how now lives in Europe under the pseudonym Maryam Rajavi). I have also witnessed the deaths of some of the disaffected members of the Mojahedin Khalq under the savage torture of Rajavi’s cult lieutenants in the infamous Camp Ashraf in Iraq. I am now living in France as a political refugee.

Dear Mr Emmerson,

I have been informed by some of my friends about your responsibly, activities and effective position as “the UNHCR’s special rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism”, and about your investigations into the abuse of human rights of the victims of violence. I decided to write to your good self to bring to your attention some small examples of the crimes Massoud Rajavi and Maryam Ghajar Azolanloo have been committing with the help of their lieutenants in the Mojahedin Khalq.

Massoud and Maryam Rajavi portray themselves to the cult members as saints who have never sinned and have no weaknesses and as the bridge between mankind and God. Hence there is no way anyone would be tolerated if they criticise them in any shape or form.

Massoud and Maryam Rajavi introduce themselves as “the leaders of the Mojahedin Khalq” but in reality they are cult leaders of the “Cult of Rajavi” with all the characteristics of cult leaders.

They get away with anything and everything as they write and rewrite their inhuman laws, as and when they wish. The main philosophy by which this is done is on the basis that “members have no right to live a normal life and in fact belong to the leadership to use for the progress and survival of the cult; i.e. Rajavi.

In Rajavi’s cult, marriage is forbidden. Contact with families is forbidden. Free contact with the outside world is forbidden. Having a home or a normal life is forbidden. Coming out of the garrison or the safe houses is forbidden. And any resistance to these rules is countered by mental and physical tortures. No one has the right to decide his or her own future. It is only the leader who has the right to decide for you. Normal interactions and human relations are forbidden. Listening to the radio and television is forbidden, except what is broadcast through the cult’s internal broadcasting network and internal TV networks. Having friends is strictly banned and no emotion should exist between other people. Writing letters, emails, telephone conversations with friends and family or internet connection is banned. There are compulsory daily sessions of brainwashing meetings under the name of “daily operations”, and weekly sessions under the name of “weekly cleansing” (members are forced to bring all their most intimate sexual thoughts including their possible dreams, write them down and read them to the others and hand their writing to their commanders). Anyone who dares to ask to leave the cult is automatically condemned to execution and death. They are imprisoned and tortured, and during the rule of Saddam they would be transferred to the notorious Abu Ghraib prison. Critics, ex members and survivors who have managed to get to European countries are subjected to character assassination. All these are being ordered directly by Massoud and Maryam Rajavi according to the overwhelming amount of documents and evidence and witnesses.

Forced labour for 14 hours a day is routine in the Mojahedin Khalq camps and is nothing short of slavery, again directly supervised by the leaders of the cult.

Massoud and Maryam Rajavi abuse the members by forcing them to participate in money laundry. I am personally a witness to the years when the Mojahedin Khalq forced members in Iraq to create false statements and letters in order to whitewash the activities of their money laundry and deception of the British public under the name of a so-called Charity, Iran Aid.

On top of all the inhuman atrocities committed by the leaders of the Rajavi Cult there is the specific case of the women. They are subjected to frequent rape by Massoud Rajavi who has made a harem for himself under the pretext of an “Ideological Right” of the “Ideological Leader”, so that all the women in the organisation belong to him. (The reason marriage is forbidden). There are now many surviving women who are ready to testify to their ordeals and the crimes committed by Massoud and Maryam Rajavi in this respect.

Dear Mr Emmerson,

I have also directly witnessed the collaboration between Massoud Rajavi and Saddam Hussein in the massacre of the Iraqi Kurds in 1991. I have witnessed the terrorist teams being sent to Iran to carry out acts of terror. Rajavi pretended these were his forces based inside Iran. In fact they were forces trained by the Republican Guard of Saddam Hussein and were sent by the Mojahedin Khalq and Saddam from Iraq. All the logistics, weapons, money and support and even the plan and the subject of attack was provided by Saddam’s intelligence officers to Massoud Rajavi.

After the fall of Saddam, a camp (TIPF) was arranged by the American military adjacent to Camp Ashraf where the disaffected members who managed to run away would be kept. Rajavi was paying some of the corrupt officers of this camp and as a result, for four years people were under severe mental and physical pressure. This resulted in over 500 of them being forced to choose to accept to go to Iran to rid themselves of the constant torture and pressure.

Dear Mr Emmerson,

I urge you to investigate the abuse of my human rights through forced labour of 14 to 16 hours a day. And the mental and physical torture directly ordered by Massoud and Maryam Rajavi in Camp Ashraf prisons, specifically in the year 1994; the physical and mental scars of which I still carry with me. The documentation of my ongoing treatment in France is available.

Dear Mr Emmerson,

These are only a small portion of the crimes committed by Massoud Rajavi and Maryam Ghajar Azodaloo and their henchmen which I have brought to your attention.

I hope you will give me and others the opportunity to meet you in person so that I, and my other surviving friends, would be able to explain what has been done to us in more detail.

Thanking you in advance.

Yours sincerely,

Mohammad Razaghi, Paris

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UN

Open Letter to Mr. Ben Emmerson, the UN special rapporteur on human rights

Dear Mr. Emmerson,

I am Mehdi Sojoudi a victim of the the Iranian MEK/PMOI (Rajavi’s Cult). I had spent 20 years of my life in this organization before defecting to Europe, where I now live. I would like to ask you to investigate the grave violations of human rights in MEK/PMOI and at the same time help release the enslaved members of this cult in Camp Liberty in Baghdad, Iraq and dispatch these victims to third countries.

As a victim and surviving witness of this Cult, I’d like to bring to your attention some human rights abuse practiced in MEK/PMOI.

– For more than 2 decades marriage is forbidden and with orders from the cult’s leader, Masoud Rajavi, all married couples were forced to separate and divorce.

– The leader of the cult called “family as the heart of corruption” and thus, many Families and family life were disintegrated and young children were taken away from parents and dispatched abroad.

– Any direct or indirect communications with family members have been forbidden for many years and members are deprived of any means of communications such as phones, internet, etc.

– Due to imposed isolation by the leaders, members are not in touch with the outside world. There is a systematic censorship imposed. There is no access to news and media outlets such as TV or radio or internet.

– Members who try to question or oppose these inhuman conducts are harshly suppressed. During Sadam Hussain’s rule in Iraq, many opponents of Rajavi were tortured and even executed inside MEK camps.

– Despite propaganda made by the leaders of MEK/PMOI that they defend women’s rights and equality, ironically women in this cult have suffered the most. After forcing women members to get divorced, Rajavi made many women to marry him and in fact set up a Harem for himself in his cult.

– Inside Rajavi’s cult, children have been widely abused, too. For many years children and under 18s in MEK/PMOI have been given military and ideological training and have been used to carry out acts of terrorism.

– MEK/PMOI has a long bloody history of terrorism ranging from attacking innocent civilians inside Iran to killing Iraqi Kurds minorities during Sadam Hussain’s rule in Iraq.

– There is a systematic daily mind manipulation and brain washing program carried out by the cult’s hierarchy on members. These victims have neither the right of choice to decide their own destiny nor the right of freedom of expression.

– In many circumstances until very recently, members are forced to go through hunger strikes. These human beings are abused systematically and misused as tools by the leaders.

As a living witness and having mentioned some aspects of the widespread human rights violations inside this cult – that claims is fighting for freedom and human rights for Iran –

I call on you and your good office to do all you possibly can to help the victims of MEK /PMOI cult to be transferred to third countries so that they can enjoy a free life, away from the suppression and humiliation they are subjected to inside MEK/PMOI and away from the everyday bloodshed and threats in Iraq.

Finally, I would like to thank you for your humanitarian efforts for this cause and wish you success.

Best regards,

Mehdi Sojoudi

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Maryam Rajavi

Rajavi’s Nowruz Message, reproduction of a fantasy

As the Iranian New Year begins, the leader of the Mujahedin Khalq cult of personality every year holds her luxurious ceremony of delivering message to her so-called Resistance but for over three decades the Nowruz speeches of the cult leaders have included one unique message: "The new year is the year of the overthrow of the Iranian government"!

However, Maryam Rajavi’s this year Nowruz message has one new point: "the regime is in the final stage of being overthrown."(!)  When did the Islamic Republic pass the primary stages of being overthrown that this year is the "final stage"?

Rajavi bases her allegations on what she calls "Bakhtiari uprising" (the recent democratic protest by Bakhtiari tribe against a TV serial that was ended with the apology by Iranian TV officials ) and the Iranian traditional and historical custom, Fire Festival which is held on the eve of last Wednesday of the year, literally the eve of ‘Red Wednesday’ .  Bonfires are lit in public places with the help of fire and light, it is hoped for enlightenment and happiness throughout the coming year.

Every Year, the propaganda websites of the MKO misuses the photos of fireworks and bonfires in the streets and alleys of Iranian cities where people are celebrating their national ancient tradition, labeling that as "uprising"!

As an annual convention, Rajavi’s New Year speech promises the absolute collapse of the Iranian government due to "the existence of a democratic alternative and organized movement". She claimed that the past year was a "momentum and achievement" for her cult. What does she consider achievement? The shutdown of the 26-year old base of the MKO in Iraq, Camp Ashraf? The gradual removal of the group from Iraqi territory?  Or the collapse of the Group’s hegemony by moving members to Albania, Germany and Italy? Or the mass defection of 76 individuals after resettlement in Albania and their actions to reveal the internal relations in the cult of Rajavi?

The latest revelations on the true substance of the MKO cult was published in open letters written by former members to UN representatives. Mehdi nikbakht is a survivor of the MKO who wrote of "his first hand experience of the cultish relationships" inside the MEK to the UN special Rapporteur on Counter Terrorism and Human Rights, Ben Emmerson.

Nikbakht denounces the reality of the MKO cult-like violent attitude despite the group’s hard efforts "to portray a democratic, freedom loving, pro-human rights and pro-women’s rights face in the west". The followings are his revelations about inside the MKO:

"Inside the MEK cult no one has the right to have a spouse or family and even thinking about it is a severely punished crime. Members are regularly forced to write and announce their most intimate thoughts in front of large audiences and the audience is to shout and swear at the person.

"Inside the MEK no one has the right to contact their families in any shape or form. Even mothers and fathers who come to Iraq from Iran with all the risks and hardships are not given permission (by MEK leaders) to meet their children. Some of these people have not seen their families for over 25 years.

"Inside the MEK harsh forced labour, together with a regime of inquisition, has taken away the critical minds of the members. They can no longer think properly and normally. Their every day life is confined to a restricted, forced, mental and physical circle. They no longer decide for themselves about anything. It is the leaders who decide for them."

Maryam Rajvi’s fantasy for regime change in Iran would never be fulfilled because she can never silence the voice of critics and former members of the cult as well as the voice of the hatred of the Iranian nation. She can repeat her Nowruz message of "overthrow" year after year to calm her inside anger but no one outside the bars of her cult, would be deceived by her illusions.

Mazda Parsi

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Iran Interlink Weekly Digest

Iran Interlink Weekly Digest – 46

++ Ben Emmerson QC is the UNHCR’s special rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism. After his recent report about human rights, several people from different places wrote letters to him to bring the situation of the victims trapped inside Camp Liberty to his attention. Mehdi Nikbakht from Setaregan Association in Switzerland wrote a moving letter, pleading on behalf of former colleagues and friends. He starts, “The Mojahedin Khalq (MEK) tries to portray a democratic, freedom loving, pro-human rights and pro-women’s rights face in the west. The reality, and what we have seen from the inside of this organisation is 180 degrees contrary to this claim. We have never seen anything but suppression and injustice. The leaders of MEK harshly crush any voice of criticism and they go to extreme extents to silence the voice of the survivors and ex members. They constantly spend money and energy to character assassinate and intimidate the vocal critics and survivors by calling them mercenaries, agents, traitors, etc. They try to dismiss their testimonies about the reality of the crimes they have suffered themselves and/or have seen at the hands of MEK leaders.” Nikbakht lists several abuses committed by the MEK against the members including forced divorce and celibacy, forced hard labour, forced separation from families, imprisonment and torture of dissenting members etc. Asking for investigation into these abuses Nikbakht says, “The MEK leaders do not want the trapped people to be moved to third countries and deliberately resist any attempt to facilitate such a transfer. They see this as an end to their cultish organisation and more than that, are afraid of the people reaching European countries where they can start exposing the real nature of the organisation and what has happened to them. They are afraid of the truth coming out.”

++ There have been more reactions to Maryam Rajavi’s New Year message in which she ridiculously claimed that the MEK have won in Iraq and the Iraqi and Iranian governments and Lebanon, Syria and parts of America and Europe have lost. In general the reaction has been, ‘Never mind about your views, could you not at least acknowledge the suffering of your people in the camps in Iraq, the disaster your members have fallen into?’ Mohammad B. also commented, saying that last year, she came out with a placard in her hand which read ‘this is the year the regime will be toppled’. This year she has come up with the same slogan and that only which reminded us of the past thirty years of her saying the same thing. He describes the rapid downfall of the MEK after the fall of Saddam, saying that after 30 years Maryam Rajavi is ‘trying to cut her nose to keep her face red’ (slap her own face to make it look healthy) but nobody is buying it.

++ Said Shahedi Mirzand writes about the shaky internal situation of the MEK. Quoting from one of the MEK’s phalangist members, Hassan Habbibi (who is famous for attacking people in the streets of Europe and swearing at critics, etc), Shahedi Mirzand says that while he is living in Paris and advocating the deaths of the people in Camp Liberty, it is interesting that even he has been writing that Rajavi should really not talk about toppling the regime this year. Even though Hassan Habibi knows this is the only justification and rallying cry Rajavi has to keep the cult together.

++ Hanif Heydar Nejad, a recently separated internal critic of the MEK, has published an article on his site looking over the last (Persian) year and “what we learned and how we learned to think freely and talk freely”. He talks about last year’s disasters and the exposure of human rights abuses by Massoud and Maryam Rajavi, and says that was when he and some of his friends separated and started talking alongside Iraj Mesdaghi. And “by doing that we freed ourselves and started a movement to think freely and talk freely and respect other people’s beliefs and more than anything, accept that we were wrong”.

++ M. Eftekhari from Nejat Association wrote an article in response titled, ‘A criticism of Hanif Heydar Nejad’s article’. He puts it to him that there has been a stream of disaffected members over the past twenty years, and “the point that you suddenly find yourself at a turning point is of course good, but remember that everyone except the MEK already knew what you now profess to know. If it wasn’t for them I’m not sure you would have had the guts to be the first one to do that. Even so, I am happy you people are out as well.” Massoud Khodabandeh commented in response to M. Eftekhari agreeing with him and reminding the people who first came out how they suffered and couldn’t even get a job in the west because of serious pressure from the MEK. They opened the way, says Khodabandeh and names former members like the late Hadi Shams Haeri, Said Shahsavandi in Germany, Ali Zarkesh who was killed inside the MEK, Parviz Yaghoubi in Paris, and many others who became the cutting edge. “They opened a space for the others to follow to the point that leaving the MEK is now a value, whether those who have come out understand it or not”, Khodabandeh says. “It is not an excuse to say you haven’t lived the history and therefore wasn’t to know. You have to read this history and find out what did happen. It is important that the people who escape the camps [Ashraf and Liberty] and come to live in normal society investigate what was happening to those others while they were inside the MEK and had no access to that information.”

++ Iraj Mesdaghi wrote about the Indian fortune teller and, as usual, was attacked by writers using pseudonyms in MEK websites. This week Mesdaghi responded with a note on his site saying, “I thought Rajavi would be more clever than to answer this. He should have let it die, not keep it alive. Apparently he doesn’t realise he is talking to someone who has lived with this organisation for many years and who knows it well, therefore I will dig a bit more.” Mesdaghi published pictures and documents from Spring 1984 when Massoud Rajavi was in Paris, and they had brought this same fortune teller there to present a prize to Massoud Rajavi on behalf of another organisation in India. Mesdaghi mocks, “Last time they brought him to Paris and paid him to present the prize. This time they couldn’t get him to Paris and he had to post it”. He says, “It is interesting that Rajavi’s papers all attack me saying that by exposing this I have been siding with the Intelligence Ministry of Iran. They don’t see that the creation of such a situation is to blame, not its exposure. Rajavi is doing the damage himself, not those who talk about it.”

++ A. Minoo Sepher published an article on the website ‘Women trapped in the Rajavi cult’, titled ’1392 (last Persian year), from the collapse of the terrible towers of Ashraf to the promotion of Maryam Rajavi by an Indian fortune teller’. He goes into detail about events of the last year and how at the end of it, Rajavi is reduced to trying to survive by being awarded a fortune teller’s prize, by making a film in Hollywood with Mansour Ghadarkhah and a few other desperate retired actors from the time of the Shah, and then goes on to expose the real issues, such as the UN report which says the MEK are to blame for obstructing the transfer process out of Camp Liberty and Iraq, the situation of the families not able to contact their loved ones, and the MEK trying to hide their torturers from the law. The article concludes with a prediction, that contrary to the last thirty years of Rajavi saying the toppling of the regime is imminent, “I personally predict that this year is the last year of Rajavi and his cult, and he will be toppled by the people within. I stand by my word and will talk about it when it has happened.”

++ Bahar Irani from Mojahedin.ws comments on ‘The MEK’s contradictory announcement about Catherine Ashton’s trip to Iran.’ He quotes some of their writing which is full of swearing at Cathy Ashton, and her predecessor Javier Solana, for engaging with Iran in line with their jobs. The MEK say that “none of you [EU negotiators] will be able to stop the regime being overthrown by armed struggle”. On the other hand, the MEK portray the negotiations between Ashton, Iran and the 5+1 as showing the desperation of Iran so that “whatever they do at the start of this conversation, they will be giving up all their nuclear facilities in order to survive, and even then they will collapse very soon”. Irani points out that the MEK can’t come out clearly with what is their actual initial estimate, is this something in favour of Iran or in favour of the West. What is their real analysis? Will Iran be reconciled with the West [by giving up its nuclear programme] or will Iran be toppled and invaded by the West? The MEK put out both these scenarios and every day they change their minds. Following this Irani points out that, “The MEK, after 30 years of swearing at each other and ex members and everyone else, they have forgotten how to talk properly and can’t distinguish between what they write about Catherine Ashton and what they do in their internal brainwashing sessions. This easily exposes their true nature – how they see the world.”

++ This week the MEK published a letter written by Tareq Al Hashemi (the fugitive Iraqi who was Maliki’s deputy and who is wanted in Iraq on terrorism charges and who has been sentenced to death in absentia), to Ban Ki Moon demanding that the UN should do something to protect the people in Camp Liberty, and ironically claiming, as the MEK falsely claim, that the government of Iraq doesn’t allow any investigation into the attacks. Many analyses say that on one hand, this man who was trying to become a figurehead and bring the Baathists back to lead Iraq, has been reduced to someone who copies MEK letters. Even the last time they used him in Brussels to speak, the reaction from the government of Iraq brought the European Parliament to denounce the event and announce clearly that there was no official invitation and this was a private meeting since he is a wanted man. By writing this propaganda letter, say the Farsi analysts, Al Hashemi has found his place. Another point is that in writing to Ban Ki Moon – who already knows him and the MEK full well – this letter has surely been written for internal consumption, to keep the people inside the MEK happy. Over the last few months reports from UNAMI, UNHCR, the USA and the GOI have bluntly put the blame on the MEK for not giving access to the people in Camp Liberty, and even the UN’s newly appointed Jane Hol Lute is struggling to have direct access to the witnesses. A year ago, in March 3013, Ban Ki Moon praised the work of his former representative in Iraq and urged “those who express support for the residents of Camp Hurriya and the remaining residents of another camp, New Iraq, to stop spreading insults and falsehoods about Mr. Kobler, who heads the UN Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI), and instead help to promote a durable solution.”

++ Much English news about the MEK is still concentrating on the revelations made by Gareth Porter in his book ‘Manufactured Crisis’. The MEK have not responded. Perhaps they are still in shock!

 28 March 2014

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Maryam Rajavi

Beware of Maryam Rajavi’s deception

open letter to Régine Deforge

Dear Ms Régine Deforge

I am Nasrin Ebrahemi a defected member of the People’s Mujahidin Organization of Iran (Rajavi Cult). Due to my decade long membership and work with this Cult, have a deep and thorough knowledge of them. I got to know you through your website and your news broadcasted on the Rajavi Cult’s websites.

Having read your comments about Mariyam Rajavi, who has many atrocities about the women inside her cult, was deeply moved and wondered how they could have deceived people like yourself by feeding them with false information and taking advantage of their humanitarian feelings.

Rajavi Cult is based on lies and deception from the day one. Rajavis even mislead and betray their own members. This is the only methodology that Maryam Rajavi and her Cult utilize to keep the Cult going. They never tell you about their horrific atrocities inside their Organization. They only use the nice western accepted terminologies that would move any human being. This is so especially when it is said about the women. About the 1000 women who have washed their hands off their life, beloved ones and whatever they have had to stay in the struggle. The stories that had deceived the same 1000 women who are now trapped in the Camp Liberty and can’t get out. This and other similar stories are what are used to lead others on with.

I am one of those 1000 women that Maryam Rajavi has been lying about them to yourself and the rest of world. The fabricate stories that these women have freely chosen to leave whatever they have had because of the love of freedom and willingly entered their Cult is a total lie.

Maryam Rajavi claims to be women supporter, were she and her organization breach basic rights of the women inside their Cult. This is whilst Masoud and Maryan Rajavi are married to each other, forced their members to divorce their spouse. They did not stop at this, and went further and brutally forced them to separate from their children. Some of whom were still being breast feeded. And the excuse was the war in Iraq.

Visiting your husband or wife was not only forbidden. The next step was to report to Rajavi if they missed their loved ones or even thought of them for a second. Never mind that any communication with outside Camp Ashraf was absolutely forbidden, and no one had the means of doing so. If any woman or any man thought of their ex-spouse or child and worried about their condition, would be taken to Ideological courts which would be frightened to death to make a lesson out of it for the future and for the others too.

Having a nice look was forbidden. In order to destroy and tendency towards life outside Camp Ashraf, Maryam Rajavi used to tell us, “I like your tanned faces, I don’t like you having nice complexion, your hands should bear the scars of hard work under the sun”, bearing in mind that we experienced horrific temperatures 50-60 degree centigrade in Iraqi hot climate.

By the way had you seen Maryam Rajavi’s her own complexion, or hands? She never experienced any sun, never mind Iraq sun.She did not stop at that. She forced some women to go under operation to be spayed. This was done to kill the sense of ever having a child. Maryam Rajavi recognizes the equality of man and woman in hard labor work. Some women were crippled under such hard labor in the Camp.

Did you know that leaving the Camp Ashraf was forbidden? If anybody wanted to leave the Camp, he or she would be eliminated. Alan Mohammedi was one of those women who wanted to leave the Camp. She was eliminated. She was only 16 years of age. Did Maryam Rajavi tell you that there are many women that commit suicide because they cannot take the situation in the Camp Asharf.

I remember when there was a guest from outside as like a reporter or women activists, a very tense security atmosphere was created. No visitor was taken to visit the men, since they were scared of them tell the horrific facts of inside the Camp. All those who were supposed to come in contact with the visitor were strictly chosen and briefed to watch what they say and only those who were selected were allowed to talk and say what they were dictated to say. While we were sitting at a far distance from the visitor wished that there was a drop of freedom to the guest about the hell we were in, and wished the visitor could take us out of it.

Dear Ms Régine Deforge

You believe in the Freedom of Women’s Dress. Have you ever asked Maryam Rajavi why is it that the dressing especially covering the head in Camp Ashraf is mandatory? Did you know that if a few of our hair was out of the mandatory scarf we were severely humiliated in the ideological courts. Did you know that we could not have any makeups what so ever? We could not have put on colored clothing.

Those women that you called them with dignity and their poise had gained your praise are starving for a drop of freedom inside the Cult of Maryam Rajavi, where everything has been taken away from them. They can’t have a normal life, can’t think of their loved ones, can’t visit their families, can’t contact them. Can’t have a child, can were whatever they wish like Maryam Rajavi.

I hope that Maryam Rajavi had told you the realities about the struggle of these women. She used to tell us that we all belong to Masoud Rajavi, her husband. Our soul and body must be for him. We were told that without Masoud, we women did not mean anything. You must be ready to sacrifice your lives for him whenever he wanted. He owns our souls, blood and breath. You will leave Masoud only in your coffin.

But as far as Rajavies were concerned, the struggle before the Iraqi dictator Saddam was toppled, meant, to work on the broken second world war tanks that Saddam gave as present to Rajavis with only 4000 members all over the world, which about 70% of them were over aged and retired, to topple a country with an army of 2 million or so personnel. (90% of the members of the Modjahedin were at their 20s or 30s when they broke with the Iran regime in 1980 and were forced to leave Iran.) On the other hand we had to be proud that we are the only women in the world that have access to tanks. This is the progress we have made. We were lead to believe so, and forced to do hard labor like cutting the grass by hand, displace heavy parts of Tanks, and armored vehicle, Kitchen works and you name it. But shortly we found that all we have been told to free our country is just a mirage. This has left us wishing to be freed from this hell we were in, and almost forgotten the Regime in Iran.

This is only one out of thousands that I could put in this letter to you. I beg you to investigate more about this cult, don’t let them play with your humanitarian feelings. Ask Maryam Rajavi to let only one of your books to be circulated within the cult. She will not even let the name of your books to be circulated never mind the book itself. This is the red line within the Cult. No information, no news no books no article … can circulate outside their very much censored information controlled by them to be circulated. I ask you to personally hand in your books within the members of her cult. And monitor the results. If you are successful there would be no body left for her in her cult. All the members are kept away from the normal life and news and the information of the real life. They are not allowed to watch TV even in Europe or anywhere outside Iraq.

Maryam Rajavi is scared to death if the people in camp Liberty come out to a third country and disclose the atrocities committed against the members. She prefers them to die in there and use it for propaganda purpose for her cult. The best result for her is, all members to be killed by the terrorists in the Camp Liberty. So she can make martyrs out of them to use it to play with the feelings of very humanitarian people like you.

I you permit me I can give you great deal of information about our lives in Camp Ashraf and all the pains that are being suffered in there due to the cult rules applied there.

Best regards

Nasrin Ebrahimi, Setaregan Association, Switzerland

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Albania

Latest reports from Albania

Help rescue refugees from the traps of MKO terrorists

The latest reports from Albania are that eleven new people have arrived there.

However, ex members who are living separately from the MEK in Tirana are saying that the UNHCR representative in Albania has told them they will not be given refugee status and will get no passport. Some commentators believe the UN has been pushed by the MEK to annoy members just as they pushed American army to annoy members who wanted to transfer from Camp Ashraf to the TIPF.

The ex members were told ‘if the Albanian government gives you something, good luck! Otherwise, tough!’

Interestingly this report also says that immediately after the UN visit, Esmail Mortezai from the MEK, who claims to be working under the protection of the Pentagon, approached them and told the ex members “Don’t worry. To Hell with the UN and the rest of them! Come back to us and we will take you to European countries as we always have done”.

The UNHCR representative had also told them that their accommodation was limited to four months and after that they will have to either pay for it or go.

Again the MEK immediately stepped in and said, “We will take care of it ourselves”. Other reports say that the police in Tirana and the MEK themselves have placed CCTV and guards around their accommodation. The ex members believe this is to put pressure on them to either go back to the MEK or run away by themselves to escape the country, which is very dangerous. Even so, several have declared they will chose the second option and have asked the others to speak out on their behalf if they are killed along the way.

On top of this, the Albanian government has told the ex members that, “Although people from the MEK are free to talk to you, and you have to talk to them because they are taking care of you, your families from Iran are not allowed to come to visit you”. Many organisations and other ex members in the west have written to Albania and the UN to ask “is the UNHCR working for Esmaili Mortezai, the MEK and Mossad, or is it supposed to help rescue refugees from the traps of terrorists?”

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Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Just what Tel Aviv ordered? Inside the”manufactured”Iran nuclear crisis

The representative of the Jewish minority in Iran’s parliament (Majlis) has recently given an extensive interview to the Iranian Fars News Agency and discussed his different viewpoints regarding the Israeli regime.

According to Siamak Mareh Sedq, Tel Aviv needs to create crisis in the Middle East in order to survive. “If Israel faces no threat it will be destroyed within one month. Israel needs (regional) crises in a bid to continue its existence,” he said.

This analysis is exactly what the audacious commentators, intellectuals and journalists in the West who dare to criticize the policies and practices of the Israeli regime without fear of losing their jobs or being vilified as “anti-Semites” agree on. This is something that even the Israelis know well and confess to. An anonymous Israeli official once privately told the president of the National Iranian American Council Trita Parsi, “You have to recognize that we Israelis need an existential threat. It is part of the way we view the world. If we can find more than one, that would be preferable, but we will settle for one.”

But what I want to touch upon today is not Israel’s illegitimate and unlawful military attacks on Jordan, Egypt and Syria in 1967 or the Osirak nuclear reactor in Iraq in 1981, even though all of these events need investigation and contemplation as the crises which Israel has nimbly created in order to consolidate its position in the Middle East and secure its fragile survival by the use of military force.

What I want to allude to is the crisis which Israel manufactured around one decade ago to make sure that the international community will be busy dealing with the different aspects of the crisis until finding a solution, and in this period, it can work to build more settlements, kill or imprison more Palestinian leaders and fortify the castle of its nuclear monopoly in the Middle East.

The crisis that Israel manufactured was the controversy surrounding Iran’s nuclear program. This is the topic which the prominent American investigative journalist and historian Gareth Porter skillfully discusses in his recently published book “Manufactured Crisis: The Untold Story of the Iran Nuclear Scare.”

"Israel has been pulling all the stops to foil the endeavors of Iran and the international community to settle their dispute."

Although Gareth Porter does not concur with me on all points I have mentioned, he generally shed a light on “how Israel and the George W. Bush administration successfully portrayed the various actions taken by Western nations and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) as responses to a long history of Iranian covert work on militarization of its nuclear program.”

The breakthrough book which is the product of Gareth Porter’s six years of close investigation of Iran’s nuclear standoff and the developments of Iran’s foreign policy tries to show that Iran’s civilian nuclear program has been used as a pretext by the United States in unison with Israel to put pressure on Iran and extinguish its technological and political progress.

Porter says that the IAEA used documents as the reference of its allegations and accusations against Iran that were provided to it either directly by Israel or through the terrorist cult Mujahedin-e-Khalq (MKO or MEK) which was just recently removed from the U.S. Department of State’s list of foreign terrorist organizations in an attempt to provide political shelter for the group which sees Tel Aviv as one of its main benefactors and sponsors.

The book provides reliable and confirmable evidence showing that Israel was one of the main culprits behind the complication of Iran’s nuclear dossier through forging false documents and evidence and presenting them to the IAEA.

Porter’s book published by the “Just World Books” is a must read and is praised by such figures as the renowned American director Oliver Stone, leading investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, prominent Middle East expert Juan Cole and former U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia Charles W. Freeman.

Gareth Porter’s book inspired me to think about the crisis that has been manufactured in the most wicked way by Israel and its patrons and led to years of animosity and acrimony between Iran and the West, in particular the United States. The controversy surrounding Iran’s nuclear program soared when the IAEA Board of Governors, under the pressure by the United States, voted in 2006 to refer Iran’s nuclear file to the UN Security Council.

It was after then that the economic sanctions began being shot at Iran one after the other. The inhumane, illegal and unjustifiable sanctions created different hardships for ordinary Iranians, including the patients suffering from chronic disorders in need of foreign-imported medical equipments and pharmaceutical products.

The “manufactured crisis” not only embittered Iran’s trade with the United States and the European Union, but also imposed costs on the European firms that sustained significant damages as a result of cutting their business with Iran.

There are credible statistics showing that in such countries as Germany and France, thousands of people lost their jobs due to the direct or indirect consequences of the economic sanctions. The sanctions which were pioneered and cheered by Tel Aviv also caused serious irregularities in international banking systems and protocols and brought about disastrous outcomes for the global economy.

However, after almost one decade of dispute and quarrel, Iran and the six world powers have once again sat at the negotiation table, and the first outcome of their intense negotiations became evident in November 24, 2013 when they reached an interim agreement in Geneva known as the “Joint Plan of Action” by which Iran would limit certain portions of its nuclear activities and will receive relief from some of the important parts of the sanctions it has been enduring in the recent years. This is what dissipates and fritters away more than one decade of Israel’s efforts to hamper Iran’s relations with the world and embroil it in a stalemate over its nuclear program.

As the negotiations for a comprehensive and final agreement between Iran and the P5+1 (five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany) get started in Vienna, Israel finds itself in an awkward position that will be costing it a lot if the talks lead to substantive and successful results.

Israel has been pulling all the stops to foil the endeavors of Iran and the international community to settle their dispute, which is why the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the Geneva accord a “historic mistake” and the “deal of a century” for Iran.

The fact that Iran’s nuclear file was passed to the Security Council by the IAEA, that the Security Council decided to impose four rounds of sanctions on Iran in its eight resolutions regarding Iran’s nuclear program, and also the fact that the United States, in the past ten years, went through fire and water to make sure that Iran will remain under huge economic and political pressures indicate that Israel was pleased and somehow relieved as it could see that its efforts to manufacture a new crisis in the region were bearing fruits. No conscious mind would accept the claim that Israel didn’t play a central role in Iran’s nuclear standoff.

By Kourosh Ziabari , albawaba.com

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Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

The Manufactured Story about Iran’s Nuclear Program

Israel used Mojahedin Khalq, MKO, MEK, Rajavi cult

As Iran and the world powers resume nuclear talks in Vienna with the hope of reaching a comprehensive agreement over Iran’s nuclear program by mid-July, the Israelis and their lobbyists in Washington are intensifying their efforts to scuttle the talks. In addition to all the efforts in the US Congress to impose additional sanctions on Iran, thus bringing the talks to a premature end, there are indications that Israel and her friends are continuing with various acts of sabotage against Iranian nuclear facilities.

In 2010, the so-called Stuxnet virus temporarily disrupted the operation of thousands of Iranian centrifuges. At least five Iranian nuclear scientists have been assassinated. Iran has also said that it has discovered tiny timed explosives planted on centrifuges but has disabled them before they could go off. On Monday 17 March 2014, Iran said that an alleged attempt to sabotage one of its nuclear facilities had involved foreign intelligence agencies that had tampered with imported pumps. However, in addition to all those acts of sabotage, there seems to be an intensive effort to manufacture a crisis by means of false intelligence.

Prior to the devastating Iraq war that destroyed the country and killed upwards of half a million people, not to say anything of thousands of Coalition forces who were killed and the two trillion dollars that was spent, a number of neocons bent on the invasion of Iraq manufactured various false reports in order to mislead the public and pave the way for the war.

On September 8, 2002, Michael R. Gordon and Judith Miller published a story in the New York Times that openly alleged that Saddam Hussein had intensified his quest for a nuclear bomb. They wrote: “In the last 14 months, Iraq has sought to buy thousands of specially designed aluminum tubes, which American officials believe were intended as components of centrifuges to enrich uranium… Bush administration officials say the quest for thousands of high-strength aluminum tubes is one of several signs that Mr. Hussein is seeking to revamp and accelerate Iraq’s nuclear weapons program.”

The unsuspecting public was misled by that false intelligence and the result was one of the longest and most disastrous wars in US history.

How the manufactured crisis was manufactured

In his latest groundbreaking book, entitled  A Manufactured Crisis: The Untold Story of Iran Nuclear Scare , the historian and investigative journalist Gareth Porter catalogs a long list of false reports manufactured by Israeli intelligence agencies in order to mislead the public and pave the way for a war against Iran.1

MC-cover-final-684x1024In this book Porter shows how Israeli agents have fabricated many stories in order to accuse Iran of trying to manufacture nuclear weapons. He also shows how the IAEA has been manipulated to put out reports suggesting that Iran had a covert weapons program. One instance of the false intelligence is the story of how some documents allegedly stolen from an Iranian nuclear weapons research program became a primary driving force in building a consensus about an Iranian covert program.

Porter shows how John Bolton cooperated with the Israelis to ensure that “the IAEA would not be able to allow Iran to get by without being accused of having a nuclear program, and he didn’t believe that would be possible unless some special moves were made.”2

Around the same time, in the absence of any proof that Iran was trying to get nuclear weapons, the Israelis decided to create a file of documents, which would be attributed to a covert nuclear weapons program. They got the terrorist group the Mojahedin-e Khalq to make the public case on behalf of Israel about the existence of a covert military program in Iran.

A major revelation in the book concerns the account provided by a former senior official in Germany’s Foreign Ministry, Karsten Voigt , who was in charge of German-U.S. relation from 1997-2013 and who had warned his U.S. colleagues that the information about Iran’s nuclear program had come from a member of the Mojahedin-e Khalq and was unreliable.

The German Intelligence Service, the BND, had warned the Americans during the run-up to the Iraq war that a source used by American officials, now known as Curveball, whose false stories about mobile bioweapons lab had been used by Colin Powell in his UN speech could not be relied upon. However, it seems that the aim of the policy-makers is not to ascertain the truth, but to make use of any material that backs their policies.

As we saw during the run-up to the Iraq war such false assumptions could be very dangerous and could justify an illegal war. The same thing seems to be happening again. As Jim Lobe pointed out in an important article, “Top Israel Lobby Group Loses Battle on Iran, but War Not over,” frenzied efforts to demonize Iran and prevent the success of the talks are still continuing.3

Prominent neoconservative writers Bret Stephens and Reuel Marc Gerecht called for a much tougher approach to talks with Iran over its nuclear program in a debate hosted by the McCain Institute on March 11.4 In an article written in 2002, Reuel Marc Gerecht had argued that an invasion of Iraq would “probably” cause regime change in Iran. 5 As that did not happen, he is at it again, trying to bring the regime change by other means. Meanwhile, State Department Assures Israel that war is likely if Iran talks fail and that attacking Iran is “alternative” to diplomacy.6

However, faulty intelligence has enabled some US analysts to claim that Iran has a large-scale nuclear weapons program. However, none of these assumptions have been based on facts. Porter writes: “US and Israeli policies have been driven by political and bureaucratic interests, not by a rational, objective assessment of available indicators of the motives and intentions of Iranian leaders”.

Nevertheless, the same faulty intelligence has enabled the West to take Iran’s file out of the IAEA and into the U.N. Security Council and to impose unprecedented sanctions on Iran that have gravely affected Iranian economy and the lives of millions of Iranians.

A recent example: The Iranian ship with missiles heading from Iran to Gaza

It is clear that despite some setbacks the Israelis still continue to demonize Iran by any means possible. On the eve of Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit to Washington early in March 2014 to meet with President Obama and speak at the annual AIPAC conference, suddenly a story grabbed the headlines of most Israeli and US newspapers about the Israeli Special Forces seizing an Iranian ship with missiles heading from Iran to Gaza.

Haaretz reported: “Israeli naval forces on Wednesday intercepted an Iranian arms vessel carrying medium-range missiles in the Red Sea, about some 1,500 kilometers (930 miles) from the Israeli coast. The shipment was headed for the Gaza Strip via Sudan.” The report helpfully added: “Israel is hoping the incident will help prove to the P5+1 that Iran is still deceiving the West, despite the friendly tone characterizing the recent talks in Vienna over the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program.”

According to the Israelis, the weaponry actually originated in Syria from where it was flown to Tehran. It was then put on board the Klos-C ship at the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas. From there it went to Um Qasr in Iraq, before heading back out of the Persian Gulf and round to the Red Sea where it was intercepted. 7

The Israelis say that it was due to dock in Port Sudan, from where the weapons would have moved overland through the Sinai Peninsula and ultimately into the Gaza Strip.

The fact that many parts of the story do not add up does not seem to bother anyone as long as it provides a backdrop to Netanyahu’s appearance in Washington.

Why in the midst of a war would Syria send some of her most sophisticated weapons to Tehran to be then sent to Iraq before heading back to the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea to go through the Sinai Peninsula that is in the midst of intense insurgency activities, to then be sent to the Gaza Strip through the tunnels that have been destroyed by the new Egyptian regime?

And why it is acceptable for Israel to intercept the ship heading for Sudan in international waters? These are some of the questions that need to be answered.

It seems that those who concocted this story did not even know that since the start of the Syrian crisis Iran has broken with Hamas, which has clearly sided with the rebels. At a time when the Iranian government is getting close to the West and is on the verge of make-or-break talks with the West, why would Iranian leaders jeopardize the success of the talks by trying to smuggle weapons to Hamas, with which they have hostile relations?

As Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif’s Twitter account noted, the weapons’ shipment was seized just in time “for the AIPAC conference”. He added: “An amazing coincidence! Or the same unsuccessful lies.”

The post 9/11 Karine A story

Shortly after 9/11 when the then reformist government of President Mohammad Khatami expressed condolences to “the great American nation” and collaborated with the Americans in Afghanistan and a new chapter of more friendly relations was about to open up between Iran and America, we had a similar incident, the so-called Karine A affair. In that incident too, commandos from Israel’s Navy seals unit allegedly swooped on the Karine A in international waters in the Red Sea, overpowering the crew of the ship and seizing the weapons that they claimed were intended for the Palestinian Authority headed by Yasser Arafat, with whom Iran did not have very warm relations

Ariel Sharon stood on the dock at Israel’s Red Sea Port of Eilat displaying the alleged weapons that had been seized. The illegal seizure of the ship in international waters achieved Sharon’s two main aims. It blew up the faint hopes of peace with the Palestinians, and at the same time it put an end to any rapprochement between Iran and the United States.

No excuse when it comes to Iran

If in the case of Iraq Western leaders could claim that they were not sure whether Iraq was pursuing nuclear weapons or not – although the “Dodgy Dossier” and fabricated intelligence by the Office of Special Plans created by Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith suggests otherwise – in the case of Iran they do not even have that excuse.

At least since 2003 when an Iranian negotiating team led by Hassan Rouhani and the European Troika (Great Britain, France and Germany) reached an agreement on Iran’s nuclear program and Iran signed the Additional Protocol and even suspended enrichment for over two years, and certainly since 2007 when the NIE said with “high degree of confidence” that Iran did not have an ongoing nuclear weapons program, the world has known that all the hype about Iran’s nuclear weapons was only aimed at manufacturing a false crisis.

It is in the light of all these previous experiences that Gareth Porter’s A Manufactured Crisis is of such great significance, because it shows once and for all with meticulous documentation the nature of the lies concocted by Israel against Iran.

Questions we must ask

The question is why the information provided by the book is not at the top of the news in the Western press?

Why is the case against Iran not reviewed in the light of these revelations and why has a final deal not been reached?

What are the negotiators waiting for and what else do they need to have in order to be convinced of the peaceful nature of Iran’s nuclear program?

Why is the public so quiet about all these lies and distortions, and why do they not speak out against a manufactured crisis that could affect us all?

Why are Israeli officials who have been guilty of such willful distortion of truth not brought to book and condemned by the international community?

Are we not colluding with all these lies and disinformation by remaining silent?

The Soviet dissident author Yevgeny Yevtushenko said: “When the truth is replaced by silence, the silence itself is a lie.” It is time for all of us to speak out and put an end to all these lies.

•Gareth Porter, Manufactured Crisis (Just World Books, 2014) For a review of the book see: “A Manufactured Crisis”, by Peter Jenkins, Lobe Log, January 29, 2014. [↩]

•See “Manufacturing a Narrative for War – Gareth Porter on Reality Assets Itself”, The Real News Network, March 17, 2014. [↩]

•Jim Lobe, “Top Israel Lobby Group Loses Battle on Iran, But War Not Over”, antiwar.com, January 23, 2014. [↩]

•See “Iran Nuclear Deal: Breakthrough or Failure”; Also see: Derek Davison, “Give Peace (Talks) a Chance?” Lobe Log, March 12, 2014 [↩]

•See: Reuel Marc Gerecht ,“Regime Change in Iran? Applying George W. Bush’s ‘liberation theology’ to the mullahs”, The Weekly Standard, August 5, 2002 [↩]

•See Jason Ditz, “State Department Assures Israel: War Likely if Iran Talks Fail. Attacking Iran Is ‘Alternative’ to Diplomacy”, antiwar.com, February 01, 2014 [↩]

•See: Israel Halts ‘Weapons Shipment from Iran’, BBC [↩]

Dr Farhang Jahanpour is a former professor and dean of the Faculty of Languages at the University of Isfahan, Iran, and a former Senior Fulbright Research Scholar at Harvard. He is Associate Fellow at the Faculty of Oriental Studies and tutor in Middle Eastern Studies at the Department of Continuing Education at the University of Oxford Read other articles by Farhang, or visit Farhang’s website.

Farhang Jahanpour

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Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Current Iran “Crisis” Began With Overthrow of Democratically Elected Government in 1953

MARK KARLIN interviews GARETH PORTER

In Manufactured Crisis, investigative journalist Gareth Porter details the manipulation and fabrications that have accompanied the current Iranian nuclear situation. The main difference between this and the Iraq war conspiracy, the author says, was that the neoconservatives who were carrying it out never got the war on Iran they wanted.

Have we narrowly averted a war with Iran, and were the Neocons again behind the bellicose threats against Tehran?  Investigative journalist Gareth Porter offers his perspective, as detailed in Manufactured Crisis in this interview with Truthout.

MARK KARLIN: You use the phrase Manufactured Crisis as the title of your book about the Iran nuclear scare. Were you thinking about Dick Cheney and George W. Bush’s manufactured crisis to justify the Iraq War as precedent?

GARETH PORTER: No, I wasn’t thinking of the direct parallel with the “manufactured crisis” that preceded and paved the way to the invasion and occupation of Iraq when I first came up with the title. But the more I have uncovered about the details of manipulation and fabrications that have accompanied the Iranian crisis, the clearer it has become that the parallel between the two “manufactured crises” is extremely close.

In fact, the book shows that the Bush administration was laying the groundwork for creating a false WMD case against Iran in much the same way that it did in the run-up to the war in Iraq. Readers will be shocked to find that the information that the Bush administration exploited politically most effectively in making the case for a covert nuclear weapons program in Iran came from a German intelligence agency source – a member of the same MEK terrorist organization – just as the source of the famous Iraqi “mobile bioweapons labs” story told by Colin Powell in a UN speech had been the source that the BND [German federal intelligence service] had code-named “Curveball.”

But the parallels between the two conspiracies are even stronger: In both cases the BND warned the US government not to rely on the information from its source, which had been passed on the CIA, because they had concluded it was not trustworthy. And equally startling, in both cases, the Bush administration officials pressured top CIA officials to use the information anyway, while keeping poor Colin Powell ignorant of the BND warning!

I show that the “manufactured crisis” over Iran’s nuclear program was part of a war conspiracy every bit as heinous as the Iraq war conspiracy. The main difference was that the neoconservatives who were carrying it out never got the war on Iran they wanted.

MARK KARLIN: You describe three primary stages to the Iranian nuclear crisis diplomatic narrative.  Can you briefly describe them?

GARETH PORTER: The first stage was triggered by the discovery of the Natanz enrichment facility in 2002 by the Mujahedin-e-Khalq, a terrorist organization that was working hand in hand with Israel. The Bush administration, in coordination with Israel, used that event to launch an [International Atomic Energy Agency] investigation that was intended by the two allies to put Iran on trial for deceiving the IAEA for two decades in order to cover up a nuclear weapons program. That would in turn make it possible to haul Iran before the UN Security Council, giving the Bush administration a basis for a potential military option.

But the IAEA investigation fizzled out, but the Bush neoconservative-Israel alliance had a secret weapon – a set of documents that was said to have come straight from a Iranian nuclear weapons research project. In 2008, the IAEA, cooperating closely with the Bush administration, began pushing those documents as evidence for Iran’s nuclear weapons intentions, thus beginning the second phase of the crisis.

The third phase of the crisis began with an IAEA report in November 2011 that was based almost entirely on intelligence coming from Israel. It was the signal for the phase of punishing sanctions against Iran’s oil exports and Central Bank, which followed immediately.

MARK KARLIN: What is your perspective on the current “bridge” agreement with Iran between the United States and its allies on the development of its nuclear program?

GARETH PORTER: I’m not sure that it was really necessary to have such an agreement, which appears to have been primarily pushed by the US side. The time spent on negotiating it could have been spent on negotiating the long-term agreement that they are now finally tackling more than three months later. One of the problems I see with it is that it may have reinforced the tendency for Obama administration policymakers to feel that the sanctions had put them in the driver’s seat in the negotiations.

MARK KARLIN: Was regime change in Tehran a major goal of the Iranian nuclear scare?

GARETH PORTER: For the Bush administration’s neoconservative inner core it was absolutely the major goal.  John Bolton and David Wurmser, both close to the Likudists, believed that regime change would require the use of US military force, which was the anticipated end result of the strategy they cooked up with Israel in 2003-04 to make the case that Iran was threatening to get nuclear weapons – the Iran equivalent of the Iraq war conspiracy that involved Wurmser as well.

MARK KARLIN: Within Israel, although Netanyahu was threatening a military strike on Iran’s nuclear sites, a significant number of former prominent Israeli politicians, the military and intelligence services were arguing that such an attack would be a mistake. What explains the unprecedented public disagreement with Netanyahu?

GARETH PORTER: The most important thing to understand about the Israeli threat of war on Iran, as I document in great detail in the book, is that it was always a political ruse which no Israeli government ever intended to actually carry out. It didn’t start with Netanyahu, but he and Defense Minister Ehud Barak refined it to an art form. The public disagreement with the idea of attacking Iran is a reflection of the fact that the Israeli military and intelligence establishment never supported an attack – although many believed that threatening to do so was necessary and effective. After 2011, however former Mossad Chief Meir Dagan broke publicly with the policy, because he believed that Netanyahu was irresponsible and had taken unnecessary risks of provoking Iran.

MARK KARLIN: How did you go about researching the book, given all the smoke screens thrown up around Iran’s nuclear programs. You provide very detailed footnotes to buttress your argument.

GARETH PORTER: It was a combination of two things that gave me sufficient evidence to make what I believe is an iron-clad case that the narrative about an Iranian nuclear weapons program was a fiction: First, I was able to establish clearly one falsehood in the narrative after another by identifying a series of contradictions between the official line and verifiable facts on the public record. In other words close analysis and the use of logic was crucial. Second, although most officials from the Bush and Obama administrations were not interested in cooperating with my investigation, some former intelligence officials and a key German source provided some key insights and facts that helped to give my account much more documentary basis.

MARK KARLIN: Can you summarize the “mystery of the laptop documents”?

GARETH PORTER: The “laptop documents” were the ones said to have come from the purloined laptop of a scientist in a purported Iranian secret nuclear weapons research project. But the Bush administration was always unwilling to answer questions about their origins. Fortunately I was able to penetrate that mystery thanks to a former high-ranking German official who told me on the record how the documents were given to German intelligence by a member of the Muhjadehin-e-Khalq, the terrorist organization that had worked for Saddam against the Iranian regime and then developed close ties with Israel’s Mossad.  I show in the book that the documents could not have been authentic, contrary to the IAEA’s official line that they were “credible” and that they were fabricated by Mossad.

MARK KARLIN: What shadow does the US overthrow of the democratically elected government in Iran in 1953 – and its long-term military support of the Shah – cast over the US confrontation with Iran over its nuclear program?

GARETH PORTER: The US relationship with the Shah, which was a central element of US Middle East policy for decades from 1953 until 1979, cast a long shadow on the policy of the Reagan administration toward Iran’s nuclear program. The Reagan administration was still looking for an opportunity to overthrow the Islamic regime and restore a cooperative government, and its support for Saddam’s war against Iran in the 1980s was the essential reason for trying to stifle the Iranian nuclear program in the early 1980s. I show that the misguided US policy led to Iran’s deciding to have its own uranium enrichment capability, contrary to its original plan.

MARK KARLIN: You single out Robert Gates, who has a best-selling memoir out now, as a key figure in laying the foundation for the Iran nuclear scare. Can you expand on his role?

GARETH PORTER: Gates had a twofold interest in keeping Iran as an adversary at a time when President Rafsanjani was trying to thaw the relationship in 1990-91. His career had almost been ruined by his involvement in the Iran-Contra affair, which had gone off the rails when Rafsanjani had made the Reagan administration secret 1985 U.S. mission to Tehran public. But more important, he became CIA director in 1991 at a time when the agency desperately needed a substitute for the Soviet threat that had disappeared. I show in the book how he exploited the idea that WMD proliferation in general was the new equivalent of the Soviet threat and that Iran was the primary candidate to play the heavy on that issue.

MARK KARLIN: You appropriately single out the United States and Israel as perpetuating a war cry about Iran’s nuclear program, but haven’t other non-Persian and non-Shi’ite Arab states played a behind-the-scenes role in supporting the United States and Israel, particularly Saudi Arabia?

GARETH PORTER: It is certainly true that the Saudis and other Gulf Arab regimes were extremely suspicious of Iran’s nuclear program and wanted the United States to do something about it.  But it’s a bit more complicated than The New York Times coverage led the public to believe. The WikiLeaks documents show that those regimes were extremely concerned about the Israeli threat to attack Iran during the Bush administration’s second term, which most Gulf security officials believed would have disastrous consequences, and they wanted the United States to prevent it.

Obtain this book, Manufactured Crisis: The Untold Story of the Iran Nuclear Scare, from Truthout with a minimum contribution. Just click here. You will be enhancing your knowledge, supporting progressive authors and backing the vital journalism of Truthout.

Mark Karlin

Mark Karlin is the editor of BuzzFlash at Truthout.  He served as editor and publisher of BuzzFlash for ten years before joining Truthout in 2010.  BuzzFlash has won four Project Censored Awards. Karlin writes a commentary five days a week for BuzzFlash, as well as articles for Truthout. He also interviews authors and filmmakers whose works are featured in Truthout’s Progressive Picks of the Week.

Truthout

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Human Rights Abuse in the MEK

Please help us stop Human Rights abuse in Mojahedin

Open Letter to Ben Emmerson, QC.

Dear Mr. Ben Emmerson, QC

My name is Mehdi Nikbakht, I am one of the survivors and ex members of Mojahedin Khalq (MKO, MEK, PMOI, Rajavi cult). I have first hand experience of the cultish relationships inside the MEK.

Your long term activities as a Human Rights advocate and your responsibilities as the UN special rapporteur on human rights has brought me to write this letter to your good self appealing for help. Me and many of my friends have been the direct subject of human rights abuse inside this organisation (cult). We need help to achieve justice.

I take this opportunity to bring to your attention some brief explanations.

The Mojahedin Khalq (MEK) tries to portray a democratic, freedom loving, pro-human rights and pro-women’s rights face in the west. The reality, and what we have seen from the inside of this organisation is 180 degrees contrary to this claim. We have never seen anything but suppression and injustice. The leaders of MEK harshly crush any voice of criticism and they go to extreme extents to silence the voice of the survivors and ex members. They constantly spend money and energy to character assassinate and intimidate the vocal critics and survivors by calling them mercenaries, agents, traitors, etc. they try to dismiss their testimonies about the reality of the crimes they have suffered themselves and/or have seen at the hands of MEK leaders.

Inside the MEK cult no one has the right to have a spouse or family and even thinking about it is a severely punished crime. Members are regularly forced to write and announce their most intimate thoughts in front of large audiences and the audience is to shout and swear at the person.

Inside the MEK no one has the right to contact their families in any shape or form. Even mothers and fathers who come to Iraq from Iran with all the risks and hardships are not given permission (by MEK leaders) to meet their children. Some of these people have not seen their families for over 25 years.

Inside the MEK harsh forced labour, together with a regime of inquisition, has taken away the critical minds of the members. They can no longer think properly and normally. Their every day life is confined to a restricted, forced, mental and physical circle. They no longer decide for themselves about anything. It is the leaders who decide for them.

Leaving the organisation (cult) is forbidden and no one is free to choose. Being inside the cult is forcefully compulsory.

And there are hundreds more similar cases.

Dear Mr. Ben Emmerson. You know more than anyone that each and every one of these cases specially in this day and age is in direct contradiction with the recognised freedoms of individual and is an abuse of their human rights. The same human rights you have been so passionate about and have, and are, working so hard for. The Mojahedin Khalq (MEK) have been keeping thousands of people trapped in their camps for decades. Before the fall of Saddam Hussein, they were able to imprison and torture people inside their camp for crimes as simple as asking to leave the organisation and return to normal societies. After the fall of Saddam, the MEK leaders insisted on not leaving Iraq to the point of deliberately sending some members to their deaths, which had no effect and still the Iraqi Government is adamant that they should leave. They have now been moved to Camp Liberty which has been attacked a few times by terrorist groups and in this camp some of the members have again been sacrificed for the unlawful demands of the cult leaders. The MEK leaders do not want the trapped people to be moved to third countries and deliberately resist any attempt to facilitate such a transfer. They see this as an end to their cultish organisation and more than that, are afraid of the people reaching European countries where they can start exposing the real nature of the organisation and what has happened to them. They are afraid of the truth coming out.

Dear Mr. Ben Emmerson,

What I have explained here is no more than a very brief example of what is happening. Our claims are certainly backed by a huge amount of documents and evidence, as well as the testimony of many of my friends who have managed to get themselves to European countries. Me and my friends are ready to meet in person and explain in detail and clarify any question in this regards.

I urge you to investigate the abuses of human rights, women’s rights, individuals’ freedom, etc. inside the MEK, and as I mentioned we are ready to provide the documents and evidence at any time and any place you wish. We need your expertise and we need your help to bring a condemnation against these practices and certainly to stop the continuation of it against the trapped hostages inside the MEK.

Yours Sincerely,

Mehdi Nikbakht

Switzerland,Setaregan association

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