++ Analysts have engaged with the translation of Maryam Rajavi’s Farsi description of her missing husband Massoud Rajavi as ‘the ever wakeful lion’. Ebrahim Khodabandeh talked with an English speaker to ask whether Maryam Rajavi’s phrase is in contradiction with Prince Turki’s when he says Massoud is dead. In his view, the English speaker explained, the phrase ‘ever wakeful’ implies somebody who cannot sleep or doesn’t need to sleep and such a person should be dead because they don’t need a body. The conclusion is that both are saying Massoud Rajavi is dead in different language. There are still other articles on this issue. Many written by MEK supporters who cannot swallow the fact that they do not know if their leader is dead or not.
++ Habilian Association held its annual conference under the title: ‘Iran against terrorism, terrorism against Iran’. Various papers were presented. Including by Manuchehr Mottaki former foreign minister of Iran. He describes how Iran has tried to tackle terrorism and how the enemies of Iran, including the MEK, have used terrorism against the country.
++ Transfers of Camp Liberty residents in Iraq to Tirana in Albania continue and there are only a few hundred left in the camp. It is only a matter of days before this episode becomes part of history. There are several articles about the relief felt by the Iraqi government and about how tension is already being felt in Albania over this group. Albanian TV broadcast a propaganda programme about the MEK. Some believe this is because the TV station is backed by neocons in America. Ironically in this programme, the MEK claim they want to topple Iran not from Iraq but from Albania. The country is facing a dilemma, a choice between what the Albanian people want and what the Americans impose on their leaders – including re-settling Guantanamo Bay prisoners there. The worry is that Albania is becoming the hub for terrorism around the world – as it already is for smugglers.
++ Mohammad Hossein Sobhani in an article in Iran Pen Association refers to the recent American charter flight which took the heads of the MEK, all with false names and passports, from Iraq to Europe and Albania without the consent of the Iraqi government. The article, titled ‘Imperialists pay their dues to the MEK’, explains that the MEK is supposedly anti-Imperialist, but clearly they were ‘their’ [American] terrorist. Now, for all that the MEK did for them, they have to make payment and this means setting them up in one of America’s neo-colonies – Albania.
In English:
++ Iran marked the anniversary of the assassination of former President Mohammad Ali Rajaei and then-Prime Minister Mohammad Javad Bahonar, who lost their lives in a bombing in the capital, Tehran, 35 years ago. On August 30, 1981, President Rajaei, Prime Minister Bahonar and several other Iranian officials had convened at the Tehran office of the Iranian prime minister in a meeting of Iran’s Supreme Defense Council when a bomb explosion ripped through the building.Survivors said an aide, identified as Massoud Kashmiri, had brought a briefcase into the conference room, placed it near the two high-ranking Iranian political figures and then left. The explosion occurred when one of the victims opened the briefcase. The blast killed Rajaei, Bahonar and three other members of the Islamic Republican Party. Subsequent investigations later revealed that Kashmiri was an operative of the terrorist Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO), who had infiltrated the then-prime minister’s office disguised as a state security official.
++ Open letter of Ali Akbar Rastgoo to the Australian Ambassador in Germany: Keep Mojahedin Khalq on terrorist List. Rastgoo lists MEK activity to expose the real nature of the MEK and show that the group is a cult and has no support among Iranians. As such the group is untrustworthy and should not be removed from the Australian terror list which is up for review.
++ A number of former MEK members, as well as families of the group’s hostages and victims of the group’s terror acts met Ms Segolene Royal on August 29, 2016. The French Environment Minister listened with great interest to the representatives of the MEK victims’ delegation: Ms Narges Beheshti and Mr Khodabandeh. Ms Segolene Royal welcomed and appreciated the documentations’ on the MKO Cult as well as the group’s hostages’ families’ pleas offered to her by the MKO victims’ representatives.
++ Eli Clifton writes for Lobelog about the participation of two prominent American personalities in one of the MEK’s recent publicity meetings. Dr Kenneth Katzman, a prominent Iran expert at the taxpayer-funded Congressional Research Service (CRS), and Amb. Adam Ereli, a lobbyist for Qatar and former U.S. Ambassador to Bahrain attended the meeting.
++ Press TV: Bahram Qassemi, the Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman, says the world has learned that Saudi Arabia and Wahhabism, the radical ideology freely preached in the Arab country, are to blame for the violent acts of extremism in the Middle East region and elsewhere. Speaking on Thursday, Bahram Qassemi, the Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman, said Saudi Arabia’s attempts to cover up its role in terrorism have failed
September 2, 2016