++ Maryam Rajavi’s event on November 26th was her most feeble ever. Even the MEK couldn’t make anything of it in terms of media (or anyone else’s) interest and resorted to incorporating old videos into their report simply to make it look decent. All the MEK’s usual speakers have abandoned them and the group was left with third rate speakers and their paid lawyer. The MEK introduced Shabnam Madadzadeh and Arash Rezai as ‘victims’. Madadzadeh had been imprisoned in Iran and as soon as she was released came to Europe where she aligned herself with the MEK. This created a backlash against human rights advocates outside Iran because they had claimed false imprisonment. Now it appears that Iran was right and she really was involved with an anti-Iran terror group. Fars News published sensational titles such as ‘Failed Coalition of Human Rights activists and MEK terrorists’ to smear the rights groups’ reputations. In this respect, an individual known to Iran Interlink who is from Jolfar where Madadzadeh originates, has written a piece revealing that Madadzadeh and her family are known in Jolfar as notorious charlatans and con artists. She and her brother have corrupted and cheated many people in their small city. “This in itself is not shocking” the author writes, “what is shocking however is that the MEK have stooped so low as to encompass her and welcome her as one of their own”. Others have written that human rights organisations shouldn’t have to suffer because of people like her. Human rights in Iran is a serious issue. The MEK haven’t conned Iran, they have conned human rights groups instead.
++ There has been further reaction to Rajavi’s Day of Students message. Commentators dismiss Rajavi as unrelated to the student organisation which was involved and unrelated to any students at all – no student supports Giuliani and Bolton. In the end, they say, you are doing this to benefit the hardliners in Iran. Writers ask ‘can Maryam replace Massoud?’. The answer: “No way!” Even if he was alive today he couldn’t do it, but her copying him, trying to do what he did twenty years ago, jumping on the bandwagon of anything to do with Iran, no way can she lead anyone or anything.
In English:
++ The questions relating to the past of some of Donald Trump’s potential cabinet members rumble on with a variety of articles devoted to either supporting or damning Rudy Giuliani in particular over his support for the MEK. Those rooted in truth and reality point to Giuliani’s own admission that he gave support to the MEK while they were listed as a terrorist entity in the USA; a criminal and moral offence. This particular aspect was pounced upon by Press TV which gleefully reported the anomaly. Jacob Sullum in Newsweek also pursued this issue arguing that if Hillary Clinton belongs in prison over the email scandal, so much more so does Rudy Giuliani belong in prison for supporting terrorists. Other articles variously try to whitewash the MEK’s past [not published by Iran Interlink] or to expose it. Daniel Larson writing in The American Conservative says “One of the more troubling things about American MEK supporters is their willingness to whitewash the group’s past as well as its present-day behavior. They aren’t content to work with an avowedly bad group against a common enemy, but feel compelled to pretend that the group is upstanding and noble.” In The Unz Review, Philip Giraldi writes about the ‘Iranophobes on Parade’ as Donald Trump seems to be filling his foreign policy and national security roles with ‘Iran haters’, notably those with links to the MEK. Referring to the MEK role in helping Israel to assassinate Iranian nuclear scientists, Giraldi argues – as many others do – that building on the diplomacy involved in creating JCPA is America’s best option, not war.
++ Mazda Parsi in Nejat Society uses the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women on November 25, as an occasion to expose Maryam Rajavi’s false and deceptive pretence to be the voice of Iranian women. Parsi argues that what happens to women inside the MEK is probably the most significant example of hidden violence against women. He quotes the RAND report to explain that the group leaders are “skilled manipulators of public opinion”, but that evidence of MEK violence against women is countless. The article provides several helpful links to information in English about this situation.
December 02, 2016