++ This week marked the 40th anniversary of the turning point in the 8-year Iran-Iraq war when Iranian forces took Abedan and forced the Iraqis into retreat. Several media outlets in Iran reminded their readers that at this exact time when Saddam Hussein began to lose the war, Massoud Rajavi ordered the MEK inside Iran to go all out in Tehran to intensify and maximise their indiscriminate terrorist attacks. Rajavi later admitted that ‘we knew that these attacks (armed gangs attacking anywhere and anyone) would not succeed, but we had to try’.
++ This week, schools in Iran opened. Maryam Rajavi called on schoolchildren to take up arms and undertake an uprising. She didn’t say how they could achieve this. Commentators wrote that Rajavi is so nasty that she can’t even bear to see children being educated. Some compared her to the Taliban.
++ Over the past few weeks, Iran has been in the news for various reasons, political, social and economic: Iran became a full member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization; the US agreed to withdraw combat troops from Iraq (something Iran’s leaders vowed to make happen after the illegal killing of general Soleimani, deputy commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis and eight others); Iran’s naval commander highlighted the navy’s various successes; Iranian fuel successfully arrived in Lebanon to ease shortages there; Ali Landi, a 15-year-old boy who heroically rescued two women from a fire, died of severe burns; Iran’s women’s football team qualified for the AFC Women’s Asian Cup; Iran’s volleyball team beat Japan to win the 21st Asian Volleyball Championship. Maryam Rajavi and the MEK maintained complete silence over all this news, pretending none of it happened at all. Not even a word of criticism or scorn. Nothing. Just sliding rapidly into irrelevance.
++ In Albania, news about the Swedish court case has reached the media as several members of the MEK cult travelled to Sweden to give evidence. Commentators point out that this in itself throws the case into question – members of a terrorist cult giving testimony against their sworn enemy. One social media post pointed out that it would be equally possible to ‘find’ fifty witnesses to present exactly the opposite evidence based on their memories of that time.
In English:
++ Swiss media and the MEK’s own sites reported that the investigation into the assassination of Kazem Rajavi in 1990 has been re-opened. Last week, Massoud Khodabandeh wrote a lengthy piece outlining the various stages in which Massoud Rajavi and his family were slowly but surely ousted from their leadership of and involvement with the MEK. One of those stages was this assassination which, according to Khodabandeh, could only have been performed with inside knowledge of Kazem Rajavi’s security. The re-investigation was initiated by Saleh Rajavi last year. Perhaps he too felt that his family had been ignored and pushed aside too far and for too long. Prescient.
++ During a meeting with his counterpart Ann Linde on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, Iranian foreign minister Hossein Amirabdollahian mentioned the ongoing trial of an Iranian national which features witness testimony by the MEK. Amirabdollahian characterised this as a ‘fabricated case’ and that ‘all evidence and allegations presented to the court, are fabricated by a group, which is known to engage in falsification and deceit’. He added, ‘this demonstrates that the court process lacks validity and is politicized’.
++ Iran Front Page reported that the Head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization (AEOI), Mohammad Eslami, warned the IAEA not to allow terrorist groups (MEK) to use it as a plaything. The comments came while the AEOI chief was in Moscow for talks with Russian nuclear officials. Press TV also reported on Eslami’s remarks indicating that the MEK manipulates the IAEA through fake news.
September 02 2021