I suppose one could argue that Iranian public opinion shouldn’t affect what the U.S. government decides to do, but the MEK’s lack of support inside the country where it is supposedly the “most important” opposition group shows that the advocates for the MEK/MKO/PMOI are just repeating falsehoods they’ve been told to say…The organization engages in terrorist activity or terrorism, or retains the capability and intent to engage in terrorist activity or terrorism
..Shockingly, on the Huffington Post, Safavi is introduced as a member of Iran’s parliament in Exile which is the elegant, polished title for NCR. According to the US State Department NCR is an alias for the MKO, thereby it is a terrorist organization –the State Department added NCR to the list in 1999. [1] Only the fact that Safavi is a member of a terrorist designated organization, writing on a professional media leads to the idea of shady journalism which is manipulating the ignorant audience.
Congressional supporters of the drive to remove the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK/MKO/PMOI) from the U.S. terrorism list defended the organization’s use of violence at a hearing on Capitol Hill last week. The hearing was also remarkable in that senior leaders of the designated foreign terrorist organization were caught counseling some of the witnesses before the hearing. It is illegal to coordinate with a foreign terrorist organization to advocate on behalf of the terrorist group.
Former spokesman of, National Council of Resistance in London – member of parliament in exile according to the Huffingtonpost – has posted 19 articles on the Huffingtonpost since February 2010. Reading through the whole articles, I looked for the salient features. ..The essence of Ali Safavi’s writings taken out of the particular patterns he applies to propose his arguments proves the hypotheses that he is promoting the cause of MEK in an apparently moderated media like the Huffington Post. That’s kind of biased journalism.
I have marveled at the willingness of numerous former government officials, retired military officers, and elected representatives to embrace the MEK. There’s no question that they are motivated by their loathing of the Iranian government, but their hostility to the regime had led them to endorse a group that most Iranians loathe. Michael Rubin has been sharply critical of MEK boosters here in the U.S. for some time now, and he most recently called out Michele Bachmann for her foolish support for the group…
..as a result of intense lobbying and a deceptive campaign by the supporters of the MEK, the EU recently removed the organization from its list of terrorist entities.The same tactics are being used by the MEK in the United States. It has been spending millions of dollars on lobbyists, public relations agents, and communications firms in an attempt to pressure the State Department to remove the organization from the terrorist list. The MEK’s argument is that it renounced violence and terrorism in 2001. This is a lie. FBI documents indicate that as late as 2004 the MEK was involved in planning terrorist operations…If the MEK is removed from the terrorist list, there is no reason to believe it will not use its lobbying apparatus to obtain U.S. funding and to promote war with Iran.
Iranian politics are complex and can be as confusing as US foreign policy is on Iran, but of this you can be certain: the MEK and it’s “parliament in-waiting” is considered illegitimate at best by the vast majority of Iranians living inside and outside of Iran. It can’t serve the interests of the US government or normal Iranians either.But that doesn’t seem to matter to the likes of Rudy Giuliani, Tom Ridge, John Bolton and other neoconservatives, far right-wingers and their European counterparts..is it naive to hope that the mainstream media which failed so badly in the run up to the Iraq war with figures like Ahmed Chalabi will give this group better investigative coverage?
The MEK have been lobbying hard in Washington since the 80s at least, despite being on the terrorist list for killing American diplomats and military personnel in the days of the Shah. .. they seem able to persuade Congressmen .. Yet besides their track record of killing US personnel in the Shah’s day, they are based in Iraq, fought on the side of Saddam Hussein during the Iran-Iraq war, maintain to this day a cultlike”Camp Ashraf”in Iraq..Their PR skills are good. In my journalism days they used to drop by regularly to try to cultivate me, and while I listened politely, I had too many US military friends ..
… The Iraqi government summoned the French ambassador to Baghdad to protest at Paris for hosting a conference of the Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO) where the terrorist group raised unfounded allegations against Baghdad.”To affect the international community and attract international support, the MKO has claimed that the Iraqi government has killed 35 members of the group and injured 350 others,”the Iraqi government said on Monday.”But, this is a sheer lie …
French lawyers of Yves Bonnet seriously condemned the group’s misinformation on his court ruling and reproached MKO/MEK/PMOI for distortion of the ruling.Following the biting failure of Yves Bonnet, former Head of French Secret Service, in French appeal court in Paris, Rajavi’s band set off for a disinformation campaign quoting fake words of Bonnet’s French lawyers…He was sentenced to pay penalty and publish an apology letter in three French newspapers.He was required by the court to mention in the letter of apology that his book was written under the orders of MKO. He also had to pay a 3000 – euro penalty.