++ Picketing took place in the city centre of Cologne by MEK formers who say the terrorist group is misusing the newly transferred people in Albania against their knowledge and will. They are unable to contact the outside world as the MEK is re-building its terror camp on the edge of the European Union. Its members are not being allowed to reintegrate into normal society as the UN/US backed agreement requires. People in Albania that Iran-Interlink has contact with say that in the past few weeks over twenty people have separated from the MEK, but that they are afraid to talk because they are convinced the MEK is an American force and that the Americans will harm them if they speak out.
++ Ayatollah Seyed Mohammad Taghi Modaressi of Iraq was interviewed. The section in which he talked about MEK was translated by Habilian. In it he refers to the time of Saddam Hussein. He reveals that “they [MEK] kidnapped me and because they were working for Saddam they interrogated me. Even then I knew they were not themselves and I tried to help them come out of this atmosphere [of brainwashing] by talking about facts and logic. At one point my interrogator said ‘you are talking over my head. I have been with the MEK for 20 years and I don’t know anything about the outside world’. I posed the question for him ‘why not?’ After this he was replaced by other high ranking people like Abbas Davari who continued the interrogation.”
++ It is noticeable that in the last week the Saudis have dropped the MEK altogether and as much as the MEK is trying to support the Saudis in their websites, the Saudis are not giving anything back. Analysts say the Saudis have realised what a deep problem they made for themselves. From one side the leading Saudi religious leader has announced that Shias are worse than non-believers and Iranians are not Muslims and they should be killed. With this Wahhabi background they have recruited a group which claims to be Shia and is Iranian – it doesn’t match. On the other side the KSA is accused by the whole world of backing Daesh in Iraq and Syria. So that supporting a terrorist group like the MEK and putting its Marxist logo next to Daesh doesn’t match with that support either. In one way, openly supporting the MEK endorses and affirms their support for Daesh – they will not balk at using any terrorist group. The Saudis have backed away from supporting the MEK to the point that now it is Eid it has become apparent that Maryam Rajavi will not be invited to attend Haj as she had boasted some days ago. Instead, the Saudis have paraded some other Iranians to praise their royal leaders. Interestingly, Iran is translating all this propaganda into Farsi and insists it is done by the MEK. In this way Iran is using the MEK for its own benefit in this situation. The real problem for the Saudis after Ayatollah Khamenei’s recent speech is that they have lost the claim to be leader of the world’s Sunnis. In addition, their support for the MEK is backlashing badly now as some analysts compare the Saudis with Saddam. Saddam denounced Jews and Persians as the burden on humanity who should be killed. At same time, Saddam did host Massoud Rajavi as an Iranian Shia. Apparently the Saudis can’t even do this.
In English:
++ Mazda Parsi in Nejat Bloggers asks ‘When is Rajavi’s turn?’. His analysis draws on several examples of cult leaders – from Israel, Britain and America – who have been prosecuted for polygamy and abuse of women. But the West – while it bemoans human rights abuses elsewhere – still apparently supports the MEK even though its leader Massoud Rajavi is accused of exactly these crimes.
++ Mehr News (Iran) reported Iran’s Foreign Ministry Spokesman Bahram Ghasemi in response to the latest remarks of Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir against Iran, calling them ‘extremely repetitive and unfounded’. Ghasemi said ‘it is better for Saudi Arabia to make serious revisions to its approach to the region and to replace illusion with intellection’.
++ Tehran Times (Iran): Mohsen Rezaee, the secretary of Iran’s Expediency Council, accused UN Special Rapporteur Ahmed Shahid of ‘embedding his latest report on the situation of human rights in Iran with a ‘pack of lies’ to present to the European Parliament. “In addition to the negative report drafted by the UN rapporteur, there are other pens depicting a gloomy picture of Iran, according to the Iranian official. ‘Saudi Arabia and the Mojahedin Khalq Organization (which Iran has designated as a terrorist group) have prepared material on Iran in tens of pages and under 400 articles so as to present their reports to the European Parliament’, said Rezaee.
++ Babak Dehghanpisheh, Reuters, ‘To Iranian eyes, Kurdish unrest spells Saudi incitement’. The article links accusations that Saudi is backing Kurdish opposition taking up arms against Iran.“(Saudi Arabia) gives money to any anti-revolutionary who comes near the border and says ‘Go carry out operations,’ Mohsen Rezai, the former head of the Revolutionary Guards said after one round of clashes, according to the Tabnak website. ‘When they ask, ‘Where should we carry out operations?’ they say, ‘It’s not important. We want Iran to become insecure’.” A further example is the Saudi backing for the MEK which was recently made public.
++ Arash Reisinezhad, The National Interest, ‘Saudi Arabia Wants to Roll Back Iran’. Efforts by Saudi Arabia to curtail Iran’s growing power and influence in the region is being pursued through Saudi support for Jihadi-Salafi groups and the Mojahedin Khalq terrorist group.
++ An interview by Muslim Press with political commentator Yuram Abdullah Weiler in which he discusses the MEK. Weiler says “Washington uses the Mojahedin Khalq to fight a cover war against Iran”.
++ Iran-Interlink’s title says it all: ‘Rajavi’s lobbyist [French MEP Robert Rochefort] caught pleasuring himself in front of two teenage girls’, reported by The Express newspaper.
++ One of the families of the MEK hostages has written an Open Letter to the Foreign Ministry of Australia urging that the MEK not be removed from the country’s terrorism list when it comes up for review.
++ Rudaw (the Netherlands) writes that tensions between Iran and Saudi Arabia have been fought out by proxy actors across the region, notably Syria and Yemen. Richard LeBaron from the Atlantic Council think tank told Rudaw “both countries have an interest in working toward stability and normal diplomatic relations”. Philip Smyth, a researcher at the University of Maryland, acknowledged that Riyadh is searching “for all types of allies it can use in campaigns to put pressure on Tehran”. Smyth describes Saudi support for the MEK as ‘pragmatic’ but says it shows ‘poor strategic planning in response to Iranian successes in Iraq and Syria”.
++ Mehr News (Iran) reports that Iran has arrested a twelve-member terrorist team backed by Saudi Arabia in the northeastern city of Sardasht wich was armed and planning terrorist attacks inside Iran. Press TV reported that Noam Chomsky, political activist and philosopher has accused the United States and its Western allies of knowing about but choosing to turn a blind eye to Saudi Arabia’s support for terrorist groups. In a separate item, Press TV also quoted Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Bahram Ghassemi saying that “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”.
September 09 2016