The MEK; the Hypocrites

Iraq to expel Washington Backed Mojahedin Khalq

Iraq to expel Washington Backed Mojahedin Khalq Despite American desperate support for terrorists

Larijani warns of plots to cause Iran-Iraq rift

Iran’s top lawmaker says efforts are underway to create a rift between Tehran and Baghdad, but stresses that all such efforts are in vain.
Second Deputy Speaker of the Iraqi parliament, Aref Tayfour, said MKO/MEK/PMOI members must be transferred to a third country
"Iran and Iraq have great potential for economic cooperation. That is why serious attempts are made to prevent them from establishing deep ties," Iranian Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani said during a Wednesday meeting with Iraqi lawmakers in Baghdad.

Larijani, who is in the Iraqi capital for a four-day visit, did not specify which parties oppose close ties between the two countries, but went on to criticize the United States for its ‘extremist’ behavior in the region.

He held Washington responsible for the rise in terrorist activities in Iraq and accused it of trying to spread ‘modern barbarism’ in the world.

Larijani also attacked Washington for encouraging the former Iraqi dictator, Saddam Hussein, to wage a devastating eight-year war against Iran in the 1980s.

Moving to the issue of the Mujahedeen Khalq Organization (MKO), Larijani asked the lawmakers to expedite the process of expelling members of the terror group from Iraqi soil.

After the meeting with Larijani, an Iraqi lawmaker described the Iranian parliament speaker’s comments about the MKO as very important and said that Baghdad was doing its best to expel the group, but added that no country was willing to accept them.

Second Deputy Speaker of the Iraqi parliament, Aref Tayfour, said MKO members must be transferred to a third country far from Iraq and Iran to be unable to infiltrate the borders of the two countries.

Late in July, Iraqi security forces stormed Camp Ashraf in Iraq’s Diyala province near the Iranian border and shut it down. Camp Ashraf had been housing some 3,500 members of the terrorist group for years.

The MKO, listed as a terrorist group in Iran, Iraq, Canada, and the US, has claimed responsibility for numerous deadly attacks against Iranian government officials and civilians over the past 30 years.

The attacks include the assassination of the late president Mohammad-Ali Rajaei, prime minister Mohammad-Javad Bahonar and judiciary chief Ayatollah Mohammad Beheshti.
The MKO is also known to have cooperated with former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hossein in suppressing the 1991 uprisings in southern Iraq and the massacre of Iraqi Kurds.

The organization is also notorious for using cult-like tactics against its own members and for torturing and murdering its defectors.

November 7, 2009 0 comments

European Union

Ancient Iran Association Letter to Mr. Vidal Quadras Roca

MR. Alejo Vidal Quadras Roca, The honorable Vice President of European Parliament

The Ancient Iran, Glorious Future which comprises of separated members and oppressed victims of notorious Rajavi’s cult , knows its humane task to notify all European parliamentarians and you in particular who are a humanitarian parliamentarian, of deception and trickery which this inhumane cult use to magnetize honorable European politicians with a glamorous slogans such as freedom, democracy ,peace and the like, because this religious cult had been at Saddam Hussein (dictator of Iraq) disposal for decades in suppression and slaying of Iraqi Kurd citizens in 1990-1991 uprisings thus , on the one hand the Iraqi people hate and loathe them because of their atrocities and savagery against Iraqi people and on the other hand as a result of violent and armed deeds and blind terrorism on Iran’s soil, are subjected to hatred and blame of Iranian people so they have been isolated and secluded in Iranian community and society.

This cult has even had no mercy upon its own members and these members for variety of reasons are imposed and coerced to set themselves on fire or hunger strike to death to safeguard and preserve the cult’s interests and its leaders. MR. Alejo Vidal Quadras Roca, The honorable Vice President of European Parliament

This cult fundamentally does not believe in democracy and freedom so that the slightest criticism to this inhumane cult causes outpour and flowing out a variety of labels and scandals and even in some cases it has led to beating of dissident members who dared to criticize them.

Mr. Quadras, as you are informed that Mr. Paulo Casaca , former Portuguese politician from Portugal socialist party in European parliament who was backing and supporting this notorious cult up for years lost his seat in the European parliament as well as being defeated in his struggle to become the Mayer of Ponta Delgada in the Azores vis a vis his rival Mrs. Berta Maria Cabral in municipality election in Ponta Delgada so that he lost his popularity among his own people for his support of PMOI which led him to egregious defeat and fiasco vis a vis his rival.

We the victims of this cult , urge all the European politicians specially the politicians who have been deceived and fallen in pmoi’s ambush by their glamorous slogans which are devoid of any real content to revise their support of this notorious and dishonorable cult( Rajavi’s cult) and instead , question and inquire them for the numerous crimes which are perpetrated and carried out by them against the people of Iraq and Iran and suppression and slaying of its own dissidents .

Best Regard

Ancient Iran, Glorious Future Association, Paris

November 2, 2009 0 comments

Former members of the MEK

Camp Ashraf, MKO’s political excuse in the West

An interview with Batool Soltani on MKO self-immolations – a précis of parts 33-34

Sahar Family Foundation: Ms. Soltani, your given reasons for preservation of Ashraf implies that MKO does not shrink to sacrifice all of the camp Ashraf members to survive the organization considers two functions for the camp, political and strategic with your focus more on the latter function. You also had references to the organization’s attempts in the West to preserve Ashraf which I classify as the former function. Do you have anything more to add?

Batool Soltani: Your classification seems accurate and right. Besides considering the strategic potentialities of Ashraf that secures the permanence of the organization, there are other interests that it strives to achieve in the West. As you have noticed especially in the recent years, Ashraf has given the organization a good excuse to orchestrate a variety of rallies and gatherings, some arranged with only a handful of people, in different Western cities. They work as fuels to run the organization’s propaganda machine throughout the world as a vindication of its entity and practically influential political life.

Naturally, to survive on the world’s political stage to show off as a potential alternative it has to buy credit by playing up whatever trifle. The victimization of Camp Ashraf can influentially impress the public opinion that the organization exploits as a working leverage in European countries.

The volume of reports and news released at the present concerning Ashraf indicates that the organization has no other lever to rely on to advance its political ends in the West. While the organization calls the world’s attention to Ashraf to intervene to stop the human tragedy taking place there, which also puts its great impact on the Ashraf residents as well, it does not shrink to sacrifice all of the camp’s members to survive and further its ends. The propagandas persuades insiders to insist on their resistance since they may come to believe that for sure something would come out of these propagandas and they may achieve Rajavi’s promised victory to start a triumphant return to their home country. Would not you be influenced by such illusion if you are made to believe that you have the support of whole world behind you?

The consequent easy result will be that Rajavi can persuade Ashraf residents to commit suicide for the final battle to gain the victory. That is the political function the organization intends to grab at and to convince the West that Ashraf is no more a military camp housing listed terrorists but a city that resists to survive and it is a duty on the world to join the resistance. That is why in most of its programs on Ashraf aired by its TV it focuses on the existing facilities, accommodations, green avenues and gardens as well as people in civilian, clean outfits rather than military uniforms.

SFF: If you will, Ms. Soltani, lets return to our unfinished issue, that is, reasons for Mojahedin to stay in Iraq, and the possible fluctuations that may help them to continue with their strategy of overthrowing the regime. How is it possible and what guarantees it to achieve the end by effectuating its stay in Iraq?

BS: You know, the principal thing Rajavi exclusively relies on is the time, which plays a crucial role for someone in his position. He knows well that the question of time can be either accelerating or deterring the accomplishment of events. He has the experience of being driven forth by the time in tortuous paths and strained circumstances. He knows that the states are after their own interests and may dodge to be observant of their promises. He has reiterated again and again that neither Europeans nor Americans believe in any principle but accomplishment of their own interests and they consider no ethics in their relations, feeling under no obligation to be observant of their pledge.

Thus, each side was after achieving its own interest more or less and Rajavi believed that it would be so treasured if the organization could convince them to support it even if it imposed makeshift costs on the organization to furnish them with the interests that pleased them. Such reasoning was enough to push them into an attempt to draw the US political support regardless of a notorious anti-American history and assassination of its personnel. The organization hoped that the pass of time had changed many things and the two sides reckoned on a guarantee that could well ensure collective interests.

As a result, the organization needed to procure time to pass over the crises and to continue its anchor in Iraq. That is why from the very beginning of Saddam’s fall the organization began to invest on the existing internal disorder and frictions among the dissident groups. It is still through the support of some factions and individuals that the organization hopes a permanent residence in Iraq. However, the question of buying time and letting their supports profit out of it remains a strategic priority in its global relations. Why France tolerates presence of Maryam Rajavi on its soil while it is well aware of the costs that her presence imposes on the country? Does not it know all problems the organization is facing in Iraq? While France is still opposing removal of the organization from the EU terror list, we see the leader of the organization is freely active in the heart of the country?
SFF: For sure it is looking after its own interests.

BS: Exactly. Since 1997 Maryam Rajavi has two times travelled between Iraq and France with no restriction. France could have easily occluded or expel her for leading a blacklisted, clandestine terrorist group in France. If France had abjured to grant her asylum, no state or organization would have condemned it for breach of human rights because the organization had been listed a terrorist group. Not only the French government let her settle on its soil, but also provided for her protection. Trading a profitable political deal, France tries taking advantage of a potential lever by paying the least cost. Of course, we have nothing to do with Franc’s reluctance to receive Ashraf residents as it is another case to discuss. What is of great importance for the organization at the present is to be removed from the US list of FTO which may grant the organization the legitimacy of a liberation army permitted to carry arms. That is the future in perspective.

SFF: But it is possible on condition that the organization has soil to settle on. It is impossible to organize a liberation army when it has no piece of land on the border. How is it possible?

BS: That is it. It depends on the influence of Americans on the Iraqi government. It would be enough for the organization if the US could convince Iraqis to let it carry arms, of course on condition it is removed from the US terrorist list. It all relies on possibilities and ifs, but does it have any other choice but to wait for the unexpected opportunity to arrive? So, the organization waits and waits for the ripe time that can change its course and connect another ring of the chain. As the violence is innate in its nature, violent tactics of mass suicide and immolation may work as good instruments to evade or pass over the temporal impediments.

Rajavi believes that a tree with dried leaves and branches can possibly bloom but it cannot if it is uprooted. It is the very same case with the organization and the duty on the members is to prevent uproot and demise of the organization so it may be rejuvenated by a new political entity. The members play the role of the leaves that their drop, as they sacrifice for the organization, help safeguarding the trunk that may come to life by shooting greens. So it is the body that is of significance and all have to do their best and sacrifice their lives to protect it.

SFF: Ms. Soltani, will you be clear enough to say that how can the organization kill the time to use the present Iraqi Government as a lever to effectuate its strategy of armed struggle and liberation army?

BS: The organization insists to become an outlet of violence and arms for both Americans and Iraqis to carry out their ambitions against Iran. It hopes to be equipped with arms and does whatever it can to instigate tension that deters any peace. By demonizing Iranian regime, they try to justify the right of carrying arms.

Link to the previous parts

October 28, 2009 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

How ‘Terrorists’ Become ‘Freedom Fighters’

How ‘Terrorists’ Become ‘Freedom Fighters’?: Tom Tancredo and the Iranian Mujahedin

Over past few months neoconservatives in Denver, Colorado, have been exploiting a political How'Terrorists' Become'Freedom Fighters'?: Tom Tancredo and the Iranian Mujahedin window of opportunity opened by two unrelated events, one in Iran and the other in Iraq, using the publicity surrounding the events to subtly reiterate their hawkish call for war against Iran.

Americans Against Terrorism (AAT), the organization that held demonstrations in Denver to support the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, has joined with a little-known charity called Colorado’s Iranian-American Community (CIAC), a former congressional representative and current chair of the conservative Rocky Mountain Foundation think tank, Tom Tancredo (R-CO), and a number of other pro-Israel hardliners and neo-cons alike.

Their aim has been to use the unrest following the June elections in Iran and the July 28 police crackdown on Camp Ashraf, Iraq, as propaganda to support a group the State Department calls terrorists.

The Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK), also known as the People’s Mujahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI), among several aliases, has been the subject of desire by neoconservative lawmakers in the West, in recent years, to use as a proxy army for a "regime change" in Iran, developing another angle of pressure on US President Barack Obama. The MEK has been listed as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) by the US State Department since 1997.

The group, at first, appeared to be demonstrating for "Democracy For Iran," as their signs read at the Colorado State Capitol building on Saturday, August 8, the “International Day of Solidarity with Camp Ashraf,” as AAT representative Ana Sami called it. The group has been holding these demonstrations at the State Capitol "regularly, as [they] see fit," she said.

They claim that the Iraqi police crackdown on Ashraf, during which 36 people were arrested and 12 allegedly killed, with hundreds injured, was in compliance with the government of Iran, however, they consistently over-emphasize the protests against the results of the last Iranian election, which is not related to the crackdown on Ashraf.

"Iranian Americans and Americans, of course, have gathered here today to show our support and solidarity for what’s been happening in Iran since the elections took place in June," Sami said at the August 8 demonstration.

She made that statement while standing near a large poster displaying images of the faces of MEK members allegedly killed during the July 28 police raid in Iraq.

However, the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki in Iraq has been noted by news reports dating before the June Iranian election as being keen on expelling the MEK.

The groups also held a panel on August 30 under the title; "The New Iranian Revolution: Done or Just Begun?" Sami sat on the panel for AAT, and it was headed by Rabbi Daniel Zucker of the group Americans for Democracy in the Middle East.

Tom Tancredo also sat on the panel and next to him was a little-known but highly active chair of CIAC and owner of the Lone Tree/Denver-based Alborz Real Estate Company, Tim Mehdi Ghaemi.

Again, just as the demonstrations hook an observer out of compassion for human rights, the panel speakers blurred the two events, and the bulk of the discussion focused on neither, rather, instead on scenarios of an Iranian nuclear threat, and the notion that the MEK should be supported by the United States as a military asset against Iran, all culminating into repetitive calls for ‘regime change’.

Zucker headed the panel with an over-the-top claim about Iran’s alleged nuclear ambitions.

"One missile sent from a, uh, rogue freighter out in the Atlantic, exploding a nuclear warhead, no larger than the size of that of Hiroshima" could theoretically be used by Iran, or for that matter anyone, to cause "magnetic resonance" by detonating the warhead in the atmosphere, Zucker explained.

Tancredo further illustrated Zucker’s imagination by asserting that in the event of a ‘magnetic resonance’ attack "200,000 people would fall out of the skies immediately," due to the effect on computer chips in airplanes.

"Then a dark age descends upon that area affected by it," Tancredo hyperbolized, putting the icing on the cake of this bourgeoning false dilemma presented by the panel.

Tancredo and Zucker gave credit to the MEK for being a valued source of intelligence on Iranian nuclear weapons programs, claiming they had proven their credibility with reports of a clandestine weapons program in Iran in 2003, which did prompt an investigation by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), but has turned up no violations of any weapons treaty or nuclear non-proliferation treaty, thus Iran’s nuclear facilities are perfectly legal.

According to Gareth Porter’s article "Iran nuclear leaks ‘linked to Israel’," for Inter Press Service (IPS), dated June 5, 2009, the "alleged studies" documents that the IAEA has been investigating ever since may very well be as fake as the evidence of Saddam Hussein’s desire for uranium from Africa, used as a justification for invading Iraq in 2003. The IAEA accepted evidence from the MEK, allegedly fabricated by their allies in Israel, with whom they have had relations since the early 1990s, according to Porter’s article.

A more recent article by Porter, also for IPS, dated September 14, titled “IAEA Conceals Evidence Iran Documents Were Forged,” explains that the IAEA has been ignoring evidence, brought to the agency’s attention by Iran, that the documents were fabricated, which appears in the press as though Iran has not been fully cooperative, but how cooperative should they be when they have evidence that the premise is bogus?

Pressed with this question the panel speakers would have simply accused Iran of misinformation because it’s Iran, a fallacy they consistently recommitted on August 30.
The panel framed Iran as a miniature evil empire. For example, Mehdi Ghaemi claimed that mass graves were recently found near Tehran.

The overall focus was ‘regime change’ in Iran and not human rights.

The part that focused on Camp Ashraf was a presentation of Youtube videos of the July 28 police raid. The footage showed crowds of people being beaten by riot police in a variety of uniforms, wielding large, 2-x-4 wooden sticks as batons, and wrecking fences and buildings with bulldozers. They also showed several enlarged, and full-color, photographs of the bodies of 11 members of the MEK who they say were killed by the Iraqi police.

They also mentioned a hunger strike underway in Washington DC to pressure the Obama administration, and have lately been claiming online that some of the hunger strikers have died in the midst of the strike, although I could find no independent support for that information.

At both the rallies and the panel it quickly became very clear that the victims of violence in both Iran and Iraq, to the hosts of these events, are nothing more than propaganda.

At the August 8 rally Sami shamelessly evoked the identity of Neda Soltan, a young woman shot in the chest during the election unrest in Iran, and whose death the world witnessed via social networking websites. Sami spun her death into propaganda for the MEK within but a few words.

"The Iranian government is, uh, an incredibly oppressive government and there’s been a lot of bloodshed since that time. I think the world has gotten to know the image of Neda, who was the female who got shot by a sniper in the chest … and I think the world was so touched, and I think the voice of Iranians really [is] what’s symbolized by Neda’s … death," Sami said, shortly before saying, "since the election the unrest has not been able to be silenced … and in addition to that you have an opposition that has been fighting for 30 years. It’s time we support them."

By ‘them’ she is obviously referring to the MEK, which is not part of the democracy movement popular among the youth of Iran today, and there is no relationship between the two even ideologically.

However, when one so bravely questions whether or not the Iranian people, even those who protested against the election results in Iran, who are average Iranian’s like Neda herself was, would support the MEK, the panelists of this estranged bed-fellowship claim that anyone who believes otherwise has somehow fallen under the spell of the Iranian government.

Responding to a comment by one very skeptical audience member, Zucker said, "I think that the image of the MEK being unpopular in Iran is part of the Iranian regime’s very successful disinformation campaign."

The audience member shook his head in rejection.

Tancredo responded to the comment as well.

"You may have a different [opinion], and certainly then if you do then I would think … that I can totally understand your unwillingness to have the United States do anything that would, that would cause the present regime [of Iran] some degree of heartburn, and this would, taking them off the list would certainly do that," said Tancredo.

Tancredo also mentioned that when he signed a letter to have the MEK removed from the terrorist list it provoked a critical response from the now-defunct Rocky Mountain News. He stopped just short of accusing the Rocky of being influenced by the Iranian government.

"I do not know the extent to which the influence of the regime in Tehran, um, actually extends, but I know it’s, it is enormous … they’ve used the money that they have; oil revenues; to influence politicians throughout the world," he said.

Tancredo went on to explain that whether or not the MEK is popular does not concern him.

Tancredo said that he is "mostly concerned right now with Ashraf."

"That’s [his] immediate concern, trying to do something to protect these people who are truly being held hostage."

However, he also said; "I’m really not concerned with whether or not they win the vote in Iran."

"It’s a murky world out there," he said, "but I am convinced that these people are who they say they are. They are dedicated to the overthrow … of this Islamic Republic."
"To me [the MEK] are allies."

The truth of Tancredo’s view finally peeked out from behind the façade of concern:

"I believe that our interests, the interests of the United States of America; by the way, I think Western Civilization, to tell you the truth; are advanced, by, by using the advantage, by using the things that are available to us in the fight against radical Islam."

According to Dokhi Fassihian, an expert on Iranian-American affairs, with the National Iranian-American Council (NIAC), the notion that the MEK is supported by anyone inside Iran is not even realistic. Most Iranians around the world detest the MEK, and in the case of dissidents inside Iran it is even likely that they hate the MEK more than the Ayatollah.

Part of the reason it would be in error of international law to allow the repatriation of the MEK to Iran is that not only would the government persecute them but they could face mobs and lynching among the population as well.

According to Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Amnesty International (AI) has reported that Neda’s fiancé was just released from prison in Iran, and allegedly the Iranian authorities attempted to coerce him into signing a statement blaming the MEK for her death.

Fassihian explained to me almost a week prior to that AI report that in the face of the threat posed by the MEK, among average Iranians, feelings of support for the leadership and patriotism ensue, just as in any society. To blame the MEK for Neda’s death would, therefore, be Iran’s attempt to preserve what popular support it still has. The government may be repressive but it has defended the country since the revolution against such threats for 30 years.

World-renowned critic of US foreign policy and host of the popular syndicated radio program Alternative Radio, David Barsamian, also said that the MEK is far from popular in Iran and is commonly misconstrued as being so only by hardliners while beating the drums for further ventures of US imperialism. In fact Barsamian explained that when such advocates of these types of policies use terms like "democracy," or "freedom," they often mean just the opposite.

The way Sami used the terms ‘freedom’ and ‘democracy’ at the August 8 demonstration certainly implies that this is the case.

"The way freedom and democracy works in America is not necessarily the way it might look in Iran, but still, there are some very, very basic, core elements that exist everywhere that we deem to be a free or democratic … society," she said.

The term ‘regime change’ was repeated again and again on August 30, overemphasized to say the least.

The MEK formed during the 1960s and 70s as a Marxist-Islamic and feminist militant student group that took up arms and participated significantly in the revolution against the Shah, Reza Pahlavi. The US sponsored a coup d’état against the popular secular leader, Mohammad Mosaddeq, in 1953 and reinstalled the Shah who was ousted in 1979 by the Iranian revolution that ushered in the power of the Ayatollah, expelling the US from country with a dramatic hostage crisis played out on Western television from the US embassy in Tehran. The first Ayatollah, Khomeini, purged the leftist factions after the revolution, and honed in especially on the MEK, persecuting and killing many members.

In the Early 1980s the MEK was exiled to Iraq and France where they established a military and political wing respectively, at the invitation of Saddam Hussein. As the Iran-Iraq war (1981-1988) flared up the MEK worked directly for Saddam against Iran, and were involved in campaigns of repression against the Kurds and Shiite communities in Iraq.

In 1997, while the MEK was still working for Saddam, the US State Department put the MEK and its political wing in France, the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) on the list of FTOs. The listing was upheld again in 2001 and 2003, under the Presidency of George W. Bush, and they remain on the list today. The US Treasury Department listed the NCRI as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT) organization under Executive Order 13224 in August of 2003, and their assets were subsequently frozen by the US Treasury Department.

In March of 2003 the US military carried out Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) and occupied Iraq, ending the rule Saddam, and during this operation engaged in combat with the MEK when they approached Camp Ashraf, bombing the camp and leaving several MEK members dead.

The Department of Defense (DOD) was ordered to have the group disarmed and failed to do so at the time. The MEK signed a disarmament agreement after repeated attempts for DOD compliance by the State Department, finally, once they were guaranteed status as "protected persons" under Article 27 of the Fourth Geneva Conventions, even though they remain on the State Department’s FTO list.

The DOD declined to respond to my inquiry for this report.

After the US installed the government of the current Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, and began withdrawing troops from Iraqi cities, the responsibility for protection of the residents of Ashraf was handed over to the Maliki government.

The Maliki government is dominated by Shiites like himself and is thought by many to be friendly with Iran. In a July 31 press release Human Rights Watch (HRW), Joe Stork, deputy director of the HRW Middle East and North Africa division said the MEK "has made lots of enemies among Iraqis with their support for Saddam Hussein." Stork’s comment was part of a call on Iraq to conduct "an independent investigation into the deaths of at least seven Iranians during [the] police raid on Camp Ashraf" on July 28.

However, the status of ‘protected persons’ does not legitimize aiding covert terrorist activities.

According to a May 2005 report by Human Rights Watch called No Exit: Human Rights Abuses Inside the Mojahedin Khalq Camps, the MEK has a history of human rights violations against its own membership. The RAND Corporation said in a 2009 report, The Mujahedin-e Khalq in Iraq: A Policy Conundrum, that many of the MEK’s members were people who fled Iran not expecting to be smuggled to an MEK camp in Iraq, and the report implied that the group’s popularity even among Iranian dissidents fleeing the country is highly questionable.

"Although the exact figure is not known, it is estimated that approximately 70 percent of [MEK] members now in Iraq joined the group after its relocation there and subsequent decline in popularity. Many of them were victims of these fraudulent recruiting practices," (original emphasis) the report reads (RAND, 2009, p. xvi).

The loyalty of the membership to the leaders of the MEK, Maryam Rajavi and her at-large husband Massoud, last seen in Iraq, is merely a result of the group’s cultish practices, far from its roots in popular and rational ideologies like Marxism, Political Islam and feminism. This implies that there is cause to protect the MEK membership from the MEK leadership.

In the January 17, 2007, broadcast of BBC Newsnight, Tim Whewell aired interviews with former MEK members who described the organization as a deceptive group that uses "psychological manipulation" to enforce a "system of control," Whewell narrated.

The MEK is largely made up of women and the freedom of women in this group amounts to a rigid obligation against any sexual pleasure or relationship, regular arbitrarily enforced disclosures of everything in their personal lives, and the group even issued a "decree" forcing all married members to divorce. Equality of men and women in the MEK is merely equality of total devotion to the leader, Maryam Rajavi, who lives in France and heads the NCRI.

In a March 30, 2007, report on an AhlulBayt Islamic Mission (AIM) TV program called Dateline, entitled "US Intelligence on Iran & the MEK," which can be viewed on the AIM website, two former MEK members explained that the group’s internal practices are "like a cult."

Tom Tancredo has apparently fallen under their sway, enough to argue that they are nice and friendly people, supporting this notion with an alarming, and somewhat incriminating anecdote in which he admitted to having traveled to France and meeting Maryam Rajavi on two occasions in Auvers-sur-Oise, a little town just north of Paris.

However, Mr. Tancredo is not alone.

According to the November 8, 2007, report, "Breaking Stories: Paris Sojourn" by Matt Potter, for the San Diego Weekly Reader, Tancredo’s former colleague and co-chair of the US Congressional Iran Human Rights and Democracy Caucus (IHRDC), Rep. Bob Filner (D-CA), had also traveled to France to make a speech to the NCRI, and his travel expenses of almost $8,000, were covered by Ghaemi’s charity, CIAC.

A March 15, 2005 report compiled for the Center for Policing Terrorism (CPT), Mujahideen-e Khalq (MEK) Dossier, by Nicole Cafarella, reveals on page 11 that the MEK demonstrably uses front groups to raise money and support. Among these groups, according to the CPT report, is the Iranian-American Community of Northern Virginia (IAC-NV), which held a fraudulent fundraiser for the victims of the Bam Earthquake in Iran, but was a fundraiser for the MEK, and the quake victims never saw a penny. According to the report several agents of the US Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) attended the fundraiser and the US Treasury Department has since frozen the IAC-NV’s assets.

The FBI press agent for the Denver branch office took my questions regarding their possible concerns about similar front groups in Colorado but they have thus far not responded.
The MEK description on the State Department website, regarding their funding, agrees with the CPT report that they have increasingly resorted to front groups for fundraising following the 2003 occupation of Iraq, and before that relying mostly on material support from Saddam (MEK description, "External Aid," in "Country Reports on Terrorism 2006" on the US State Department website).

An article in National Journal, dated January 19, 2008 (Vol. 40, Issue 3), titled "Touting ‘Terrorists’," by Julie Kosterlitz, raised the notion that CIAC may well be one of those front organizations for the MEK.

The Colorado Secretary of State’s office told me that they had no record of even the existence of CIAC, and a search on the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) online listing of businesses and charities revealed nothing as well.

Possibly the organization operates on a budget under $25,000, making them exempt from disclosures or registration at the Secretary of States office, the representative explained, but the fact that the IRS has no information either is suspicious.

AAT is also an organization with a spotty record to say the least. The group was originally founded in Colorado by a Boulder Real Estate lawyer Boulder, Matt Finberg, whom according to a DC Journalism Collective report, "Not All Politics Is Local: A Colorado Race And the International Kahanist Network" (August, 2008), is a staunch follower of the right-wing fringe ideology of Meir Kahane, and in 2007 moved to Israel to live in an "illegal settlement" in the Palestinian West Bank. The report said that AAT disbanded in September of 2004.

The current chair of AAT is Finberg’s former AAT director and co-founder, Dr. Neil Dobro.

According to the DC Journalism Collective article AAT, implicated in an attack ad campaign against a Republican legislative candidate, Rima Sinclair; attacking Sinclair using anti-Islamic defamation (she is Palestinian American); in favor of her Republican competitor Joshua Sharf; the alleged Kahanist founder of AAT is tied to another organization whose name appears on the very same State Department FTO list, and on a similar Israeli government list, the extremist Israeli Kahanist group known as Kach, or Kahane Chai. Kach was the subject of a 2005 Frontline documentary on PBS called "Israel’s Next War?"

Dobro said AAT is a 501c3 non-profit organization, however, the person I spoke with at the Colorado Secretary of State’s office said that if they are operating on a budget at or above $25,000 then "they are out of compliance with our office."

Upon formal request of IRS Form 990 from AAT I have thus far not received any response. AAT was collecting donations at a table during the panel.
Current co-chair of the IHRDC, who took Tancredo’s position, Representative Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA), has also been an outspoken supporter of the MEK, and along with Filner, signed a letter from the IHRDC to President Obama to demand that Ashraf residents be protected.

Rohrabacher’s career has long been funded by billionaire Charles Koch, according to his profile on SourceWatch, a website of the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD), and during his career he has been known to cuddle with some of the world’s most dubious names, including the Afghan Mujahedin (no relation to the MEK) that fought the Soviet Union, and bore the notorious Al Qaeda, which allegedly carried out the most extreme terrorist attack ever in history on September 11, 2001. Rorhabacher was no supporter of Al Qaeda at that point, however, his knack for fraternizing with such groups over the years is nothing new.

The Koch family is known to be funding the anti-Obama town hall-meeting disruptors and anti-tax rallies via FreedomWorks, a think tank now headed by another long-time supporter of the MEK, former US House Majority Leader, and former policy adviser to the Bush administration,…

by Evanherzoff

October 21, 2009 0 comments

Former members of the MEK

Hierarchical administration of information within MKO

An interview with Batool Soltani on MKO self-immolations – Part 30

none of the information would be circulated among the rank and file and there was a strict hierarchical discipline with no leak Sahar Family Foundation: Ms. Soltani, you have put your finger on an issue worthy of note, that is, victimizing insiders and sending them to their death. Did they really theorize such issues for the insiders with concretized exemplars from the outside?

Batool Soltani: As for the subjects I mentioned, I have to underline that none of the information would be circulated among the rank and file and there was a strict hierarchical discipline with no leak to the lower ranks. The reactions concerning Zamani’s execution that I mentioned were limited to the members of the Leadership Council. On the surface and among the rank and file you could see what was commonly seen outside of the organization; they were in tears and mourned his death. Massoud and Maryam always insisted on the exigent priority of the Leadership Council and were of the opinion that information had to be restrained within the council. The lower ranks had to only carry out the orders of the top even if the day came when a mass suicide was inevitable.

Rajavi believed there was no need to let the lower body be enlightened about the matters discussed in top levels which could mount unnecessary tensions. It was enough to move on a slow path or effusive acts like that of the June 17 immolations. What was of the significance and vital for the organization was to keep rank and file in readiness and ripe for suicide operations through justifications that could be embedded in them from the top. I tell you for sure that if the subordinate members knew the truth and what they plotted at top layers, half of them would detach from the organization; their role was to materialize the chimeras of the leaders. In contrast to them, the higher echelons had the responsibility of constantly testing the inferiors’ loyalty and readiness and lay the groundwork. Even they would be equipped with the prerequisite means of suicide in a practical test to calculate reactions.

SFF: At the present, what means they have ready at hand in Camp Ashraf for committing mass suicides?

BS: I do not now just now, but when I was there any member of the Leadership Council carried at least two cyanide capsules. Wherever they were present, you could find equal quantity of cyanides. Or there were always supplies of fuel, the alcohols reserved for medical uses, and incendiary substances and devices mainly used in celebrations which could all be utilized easily for self-immolations. In general, the organization is potential enough to access to any type of substance and means needed for suicide and immolation operations. Even if you could detect noting kept by the organization, you will be surprised to see how ready they would be when the right time came.

SFF: Does it mean that the organization has still amounts of weapons secretly stored for a day to come?

BS: As far as I was involved, there was no possession of stored weapons because Americans were so sensitive and had sophisticated instruments that could easily detect hidden arms. Besides, the organization had no intention to give any excuse to Americans which could make them suspect the organization in other grounds that required a reciprocal trust following the disarmament. The organization tried to show straightforward which could ease the way to achieve a comprehensive collaboration. Possession of arms completely spoiled the martyred expression the organization tried to wear.

To be continued

October 19, 2009 0 comments

Human Rights Abuse in the MEK

Let’s emancipate women enslaved in Rajavi’s cult

In the contemporary history, no cult has overexposed women using them instrumentally as much as MKO. Although Mojahedin have adopted the false ideological and strategic slogan of setting women free form social, conventional, religious, and historical bonds, yet in practice women have been subject to a kind of modern slavery under the cover of freedom through mental and physical convincing mechanisms.

Rajavi has focused all his efforts in recent years to misuse various social, cultural, religious, and ethical backgrounds to submit women. In this regard, he has exploited the emotional attachments and nature of women as well as their ethical, religious, and traditional constraints to increase their dependence on the organization preventing their leaving from the organization.

Meanwhile, promoting women in leadership cadre of the organization is one of the tricks for intensifying the various aspects of this slavery. In this regard and up to the time when the well-founded documents of these misuses are revealed publicly, we will discuss the open aspects of these misuses and ask all human rights organizations to do their best to save these victims from Rajavi’s slave-house and revive their lost soul.

What is of utmost significance at the time being is setting thousands of women free from the bonds of MKO. As MKO leaders acknowledge, the main role of MKO female members as silent hostages is to be used as human shields for protecting leadership.

However, the difference between these hostages and their reactionary and seemingly outdated counterparts is that the former are captive in invisible and cultic bonds of Rajavis rather than visible chains and bonds. The statements made by the separated members indicate that these women in MKO are used as more than anything accessible instruments and levers in the hands of Rajavi to be victimized whenever necessary. Up to that time their role is securing camp Ashraf as the ideological and strategic container of Mojahedin.

Mojahedin media has recently called the world for supporting these women in order to sidetrack the reality. MKO leadership is aware that according to an unspoken consensus, the main efforts of western intelligentsia and the focus of public opinion at the time being is on defending the rights of women hence concentrates all his efforts to win the sympathy of outsiders toward female members of Mojahedin.

However, the issue of misusing MKO female members has been ignored due to Rajavi’s covering it under the banner of the emancipation of women. The former members have repeatedly referred to the significance of women for Rajavi. He is well aware that the special characteristics of these women like their emotional attachments, lack of support and ethical and religious constraints has excluded the possibility of their leaving from the organization.

The affairs of Rajavi with the female members of leadership council in the form of ideological marriages revealed by Mrs. Batool Soltani, a member of MKO leadership council who has recently managed to escape camp Ashraf, as well as flattering them have been levers at the hands of Rajavi for keeping them in the organization.

Parallel to the exposure of these issues, Rajavi has focused on these women insisting on the existence of a potential threat for them through an extensive propaganda blitz to sidetrack the public opinion. Evidently, the life of tens of female members of MKO leadership council as well as other Ashraf residents is in danger yet here the question arises that who poses this threat?

During the recent events and conflicts in camp Ashraf, it was observed that these women were used as human shields to prevent the entrance of Iraqi police to camp Ashraf and also to win the sympathy of the world toward Ashraf residents.

Regardless of the achievements of Mojahedin in recent days, what is of significance is the full-scale propaganda blitz of MKO on the necessity of saving the life of thousands of women living in camp Ashraf. Although the efforts of Mojahedin media were focused on MKO leaders, Masoud and Maryam Rajavi, now they have been concentrated on the issue of MKO female members and their security. It is for the first time that Mojahedin dare to put the members of their leadership council in attention.

The reason of this turnabout is to be investigated. Surprisingly enough, these women’s photos have been published and worries for their safety has been expressed. What are the objectives of this approach? The statements of Mrs. Soltani on the role and position of women in leadership council as human shields for defending camp Ashraf may be problem solving. According to the events of June and warnings given by Rajavi, the challenges inside camp tend to be intensified.

However, Rajavi makes his utmost efforts to determine the destiny of Mojahedin in either remaining or leaving camp Ashraf once forever. According to the above reasons, female MKO members are of a high potential to be victimized, therefore, Rajavi has decided to use them as human shields for defending Ashraf. In this regard, taking necessary measures for setting Rajavi’s victims free from cultic relations is of highest priority for Iraqi government and international bodies.

Our main responsibility is making the public opinion and the concerned bodies aware of this imminent disaster. As it was said before, MKO female members have been the most ill-fated and vulnerable stratum of the cult of Mojahedin in recent years and now after years of suffering pain and misuse, they are supposed to be used as Rajavi’s scapegoat of Rajavi.

The fact is that the lack of support and hope has led many of them to submit to Rajavi. Arriving at an international consensus, the world is to provide these women with reliable guarantee and support, let them govern their own destiny and breathe new life into their captive soul.

October 11, 2009 0 comments

Former members of the MEK

Neda had been tutored from the childhood

An interview with Batool Soltani on MKO self-immolations – Part 26

Sahar Family Foundation: Ms. Soltani, you know better that the organization had highly invested Neda Hassani,had been tutored from the childhood to become a devoted MKO memebr on Neda who was hardly of any weight and importance within and without the organization until she was burned to death, an anonymous girl who had suddenly become the focal attention of the media in a week. I believe she achieved preeminence in public and it can be said that she had great impact on the whole situation. Of course, that was exactly what the organization expected. As Neda’s case is sensitive, let’s talk about her and her life and struggle background and I will pose further question if necessary.

Batool Soltani: You are right. Neda was not a preeminent among the members before her immolation. It was possible that in the higher echelons they had given her some attention but nothing amongst the rank and file. Her popularity is considered to be for a variety of reasons especially her age. To talk of my acquaintance with her, we were once on the same team-work in Camp Ashraf before the US invasion of Iraq and when Maryam (Rajavi) was still in Ashraf. the organization had highly invested on Neda who was hardly of any weight and importance within and without the organization until she was burned to death, However, Neda left for the Europe simultaneous with Maryam’s relocation to France. Of course, Neda had been raised and living in Europe and came to Ashraf after she was graduated.

SFF: Pardon me, Ms. Soltani, I prefer to pose questions on the spot. Was Neda an active member of the organization abroad?

BS: Not from the very beginning. The organization first worked on Neda’s family and they became sympathizers through participation in rallies and protest meetings. Gradually, the organization succeeded to recruit Neda and her brother to transfer them to Ashraf. The family, however, remained just sympathizers. You know, it is one of the approaches through which the organization recruits members. There are countless instances of the families that ceased their support for the organization while their children are still enthusiastic cadres who gainsay their own families. There are also instances of the parents detached from the organization while their children are active members or vice-versa; a real tragedy that has been going on all these years within the organization.

SFF: There is a photo of Neda in her seven or eight busy fundraising for the organization. Have you seen the photo?

BS: Yes, I have seen. The very same year Neda set herself on fire, it was one of the many photos they publicized in a biography of her. It is an indication of the organization’s impact on her family to have convinced them to let their daughter to engage in fundraising activities because of her low age. So she was somehow a sympathizer from the childhood. She was naive and emotionally sensitive and could be easily impressed. I think such photos talk enough to condemn the organization of abusing the sympathizer’s children.
SFF: Were Neda’s family political refugees?

BS: I do not know. But it was typical of the organization to establish contacts particularly with the political refugees since a cause of sympathy could easily convince them to cooperate with the organization especially when the families were on the fence or were facing problems. Because of its influence abroad, the organization could attract some of these families under its umbrella to exploit them for its political aims. Noteworthy, many of these families that had been granted political asylum through mediation of the organization faced troubles after they announced their detachment.

SFF: Was Neda born in Europe?

BS: I do not know, but I know she was raised in abroad.

SFF: What about her education?

BS: I have no exact information but I have seen a videotaped celebration of her graduation as well as her photos.

SFF: I think there is something ambiguous about her academic education because of her age. How old was she when she committed suicide?

BS: I think she was twenty-one.

SFF: Naturally, she could not have possibly been a university graduate. Beside her age, she was on a continuous process of moving and relocation.

BS: I may have seen a videotaped party of her becoming a high school graduate. So she must have been nineteen when she came to Ashraf. (Here Ms. Soltany pressed some keys on the laptop at her hands to make sure) Yes, it is here, she was nineteen. However, she was in Ashraf for a year and then left for the Europe accompanying Maryam; she came in 2001 and left in 2002.

SFF: How did she behave in Ashraf?

BS: She was a kind of friendly, I mean, she was warm and intimate and very active.

SFF: What organizational rank did she carry?

BS: She was a K2, the lowest organizational rank. But she caught their attention because of her active potentiality and they were satisfied with her activeness. At the time, they hardly sent anybody abroad and they were sensitive to select one if one had to be sent to Europe. But they selected Neda to send abroad and she was one of the few who accompanied Maryam.

SFF: Did not it raise question when they decided to send someone in her eighteens abroad especially after she had just arrived at Ashraf?

BS: She was too close to organizational standards and was well melted in the relations. These parameters were influentially decisive.

SFF: How is it possible that a young, europeanized girl who had just detached from a common, bourgeoisie world to join a remote camp and whose only distinctiveness was to have been recruited from a sympathizer family could so fast become the main focus of the organization’s attention. Could she in a one-year span reach a practically ideological maturity?

BS: You know, a great drawback that disputed sending members abroad was a risk of sticking to the tastes of the bourgeoisie life there. In contrast to what you think, the age and
struggle background were not the fixed canons to pick a member for a mission abroad.

There were members with a forty-year record of struggle who the organization never consented to send abroad because they could be easily enticed by the threats of the bourgeoisie life. Nasrin Asadi, for example, was a real expert in accounting who had long lived in abroad. Then, she could be a suitable choice to be sent abroad since she was well acquainted with the social atmosphere there to play an influential role but they opposed her dispatch.

Even I, who had been already sent to England for some time to receive computer trainings, had failed to win their trust since there was a possibility of making contacts with my family and children. In general, they never selected exhausted, questionable members to dispatch to abroad where they could be probably magnetized by the bourgeoisie life. It was of great importance for the organization to learn that the selected members had truly despised the bourgeoisie life and abhorred returning to it in the same way that they loathed the imperialism and the regime.

SFF: How is it logically acceptable that a girl in Neda’s age had reached a point to despise such a life? Of course by logic I mean the very logic that rules within the organization. Possibly that is because the organization had worked on Neda from her childhood when values deeply form in man. It can be said that Neda received her ideological trainings from the very childhood which precisely differentiated her with the adults who received their trainings in their young and mid-ages. Besides, Neda voluntarily came to Ashraf while the organization insisted her stay in Europe. She had reiterated many times that she preferred a militia life to political activities and she was absolutely opposed to her transfer to Europe and even cried and begged to stay in Ashraf while others like Laleh Tariqi and Zelal Habibi who had been picked to be sent abroad submitted to orders with pocketed pleasure. I want to know how Neda could overcome the threats of being melted in bourgeoisie life while the more experienced, old members had failed?

BS: Neda was selected for abroad because she felt no attraction for the bourgeoisie life. There was no doubt and the organization had been convinced. She had no craving to return to the world she had divorced. As a rule, the organization dispatched recruits to Ashraf to caulk their bourgeoisie appeals and to obviate threats of returning to it. Talking about Neda, it is different. She was young and standing at the beginning of a long path full of costs and threats and she lacked the organizational maturity to understand these facts in a theoretic, political and ideological framework. Her sympathy for the organization was the result of her childhood enthusiast and the information the organization had instilled into her in a one way relation. Above all, she was so young to face any challenge and adversary.

She was different with those who had been tied in with the organization at least from its post-revolution phase and had long been witnessing repeated losses and Rajavi’s promises that never came true. They had surmounted a tortuous path that had raised further doubts in each step; they had been broken many times but remodeled through Rajavi’s justifications and promises. They know how Rajavi dealt with the dissidents and they were well aware of the costs they had to pay to defect; they have long been engaged in a never-ceasing battle with the past and future and the organization has to devise approaches to monitor them and to discover what passes in their mind. How busy is the young mind of Neda to know anything of these wrestling?

Unlike Neda, these members have lost a precious life with no hope to refurbish. At least they try to take advantage of any possible opportunity to rebuild the remaining days of an unsecure future, let them call it threats of reunion with the bourgeoisie life or anything, for them it is closeness to freedom. They have long been filled with promises but nothing has ever changed. That is the reason why the young Neda is selected while the old veterans are kept behind the closed doors.

To be continued

October 10, 2009 0 comments

Former members of the MEK

The members were coerced into dedicating themselves to Massoud and Maryam

An interview with Batool Soltani on MKO self-immolations – Part 24

Sahar Family Foundation: Ms. Soltani, in our last session, you pointed to instances of the The members were coerced into dedicating themselves to Massoud and Maryam organization’s persuasive approaches in its contact with the victims’ families with particular emphasis on Neda’s family. Did not such dual behavior raise any suspicion when the family saw that on the one hand the organization eulogized Neda as a holy martyr but on the other hand claimed her immolation as an impulsive and willful act? Did the organization or Maryam have any other scenario to justify the dual deal?

Batool Soltani: it is a good point. In General, the organization had adopted a dual position concerning the immolations. You could easily make out two images of the victims; an image was to demonstrate them as holy individuals to fuel its propaganda machine and encourage others to take the same line, and the other, to put the responsibility of immolations on the victim themselves to dodge any charges against the organization. But, as you pointed out, the organization is clever enough not to err and prepares an exact scenario before stepping into action. To make Neda’s family to believe, for example, the organization forged a journal that it claimed belonged to Neda.

It contained some personal photos and some recollections from her family and friends and especially notes indicating her enthusiastic devotion and commitment to Maryam. Neda’s parents were simple people who could simply believe as if their daughter’s life was tied to Maryam and finally, they appeared to be convinced to show no reaction even if they could not believe it all at the bottom of their hearts.

At the end, they came to be persuaded that their daughter had committed suicide and they could change nothing for her loss. Then, the organization put two choices before them; to move in parallel with the organization’s scenario in glorification of their daughter’s death or take an opposite side and spoil everything and sully their daughter’s name. Facing such a dilemma, of course they preferred to consent to the organization’s will and follow its scenario. Thus, in spite of the fact that they might have discerned the contradiction in the organization’s manner, they faced the bitter truth that they could in no way change anything. Of course, I am not sure if Neda’s parents or other victims’ families had ever become aware of such contradiction. In any case, the organization had thought of a plan to ward off any criticism or charge. The first priority was to make them reconcile themselves to the organization through a variety of offers, threatening, deception and smearing the reputation. Each can be a different subject to talk about.

SFF: In relation to the approaches you pointed out, what could have been the reaction of the organization if Neda’s family took a different turn against it?

BS: Naturally, the organization would face a rocky road to ride but not impossible. It always had a trick up its sleeve and the best working one would be to classify them as the opponents. Everything would be clear then and the organization did to the family whatever it would do vis-à-vis its opponents. To mention, remember Reza Asadi the father of Zohreh Asdi. The father separated from the organization while his daughter is still a member. Or the case of Somayeh Muhammadi whose father strives to get his daughter out of Camp Ashraf. The least charge against them is that the organization has labeled them the agents of IR regime. The organization does everything to spoil their characters and indicting them for a variety of baseless charges of theft, immorality and the like.

Imagine a defector in its worst become the agent of the regime, it might be possible. But being so scoundrel an individual was impossible especially when he had served the organization for some time and they had disclosed nothing about such a rogue. Anything for the organization is either black or white, nothing in the middle. You have to be either on its side or the opposite against whom it has adopted an antagonist attitude to the end. Even if a defector had once been exalted as a hero, nothing can save him from the wrath of the organization by joining the opposite side.

I mean to say that it could be the same thing with the families if they failed to compromise with the organization. Only if it happened that Neda’s family had taken an antagonistic route against the organization, the first person who stood against the family would be their own son living in Ashraf. And only God knows what charge would be posed against them and they would be accused of what untold scandals; and it was enough to mobilize the sympathizers against them to disturb and annoy them and turn their life into a real hell.

The organization had always a coin with two sides at hand; a brilliant, alluring side and a hell of a bad side and I have seen the bad side abroad when it decided to treat the opponents. The simplest approach was to instigate hatred among the sympathizers and the opponents; there was nothing more to do but to sit and watch them finish the job themselves. For sure, the organization had shown the other side of the coin to Neda’s family and what it was capable of doing to change things completely; they could choose to become wretched, dejected people who could not even dare to visit their daughter’s tomb.

It is a tactic for the organization not to open a war front at the first stage and to arrive at a compromise through other approaches and promises. That is because it may inflict much cost on the organization and a longer process to follow if it shows an antagonistic attitude from the very beginning. Of course, there is a red line nobody should ever transgress; the sanctity of leadership, Maryam and organizational principles should never be violated. Now imagine Neda’s family had taken a different path and had fallen with the organization; their very first move to make preparation for their daughter’s burial and mourning would turn as a backlash against themselves and they would face accusations of being provisioned and provided for by Iranian regime and more.

An odd but common approach was to coerce members to endorse in their own handwriting that they had entrusted whatever they had to Massoud and Maryam, as I did myself. We put it in writing to announce we were possessions of the two and had willingly chosen our path of struggle and devotion. We also stated that our emotional communion with family and relatives was not a superficially common and limited but relatively ‘pardakhtgar’ (an organizational jargon meaning sacrificing all love and emotion for a greater cause).

Our real love and devotion all had to be spent for the accomplishment of higher and dearer causes and for Massoud and Maryam; they were the central integrity of all love and devotion and all families had to be grateful of entrusting the life of their children into the hands of the two. I am sure Neda too had signed such papers before committing immolation and had conceded her life and love to Maryam which could be used as a winning card before her family.

To be continued

October 5, 2009 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization's Propaganda System

MKO’s new propaganda show

Following their failure in the so-called hunger strike in Camp Ashraf ,London, New York … where Mujahedin Khalq didn’t succeed in drawing Western governments’ attention to their terrorist cult, last week they launched a new propaganda campaign in order that they could find the West’s sympathy by their new show.

The leaders of Rajavi’s cult have always believed that Western support is the only way to achieve political power in Iran.

In their recent press conference they have claimed that they have found classified intelligence on Iranian Nuclear sites.

After the hunger strike comic play, the numerous sources(!) of National Council of Resistance committed another anti-national act but it is obvious that the more Mujahedin play the role of spies for the West, the less they can find support among Iranian people.

MEK’s now show on revealing Iranian nuclear program by showing satellite pictures and maps of Tehran, denounces deceitful nature of the group’s propaganda system since taking photos of military nuclear sites requires military satellites that only belong to governments. Thus MKO as a terrorist group has no access to military satellites and the so-called pictures are allegedly given to the group by other sources. (Some say that the intelligence is given to MKO by Israel).

Therefore, given that the intelligence is true, MKO has always been a tool or a canal to reveal Iranian nuclear program. Indeed Mujahedin have never had such an ability to penetrate Iranian nuclear sites.

The act shows the nature of MKO terrorist leaders who are always trying to get in bed with enemies of their country whether it is Saddam Hussein or America, Israel … but the experience shows that MKO has never been a credible source of intelligence.

The history of People’s Mujahedin of Iran contains a list of treasons and crimes that never were successful.

By Mazda Parsi

October 4, 2009 0 comments

Former members of the MEK

Neda’s family feeling obligated to the organization

An interview with Batool Soltani on MKO self-immolations – Part 23

Sahar Family Foundation: Remarkable in the immolation’s observation is the subject of the compare the organization’s indifference to Khata’s death and its manner and conduct with Neda’s family before and after her suicide operation. organization’s establishment of relation with the family of the victims. First, it is of significance to learn from what angle the organization does look at the families.

Second, how it opens relations with them; third, is the family background ever important to select the suicide, and forth, what deterrent role this family backgrounds plays to affect selection of the victims? And last, elucidate the impact of the 17 June self-burnings on families as you have witnessed.

Batool Soltani: Your questions although they all focus on a single issue, they can be discussed from a variety of aspects concerning the organization’s furthering relations with families. Let’s begin with some introductory details and I will further explain if needed. The organization keeps a confidential file for members with whatever ranking and organizational background in which there is certain sub-file containing information about the members’ family; the individual statistics of any family member, social class, job status, political inclinations and where they live, that is to say, inside or outside of Iran.

The latter information is highly important for the organization and it cares about the families’ dwelling in foreign countries. All supervisors were sensitive to find out if the members under their command had any member of their family residing in any foreign country.

It was much because the presence of a family member in a foreign country could be challenging and would cost the organization a lot. From a political-security point of view, they could possibly infiltrate the organization under any pretext to get it into trouble. As a result, members whose family or some member of their families lived abroad were suspected to be bonded with an infiltrator. I will explain how they could cause trouble. The organization became hypersensitive to families especially in the case of occurring suspicious deaths, suicide operations, missing of members and imprisonments and the like. When, for instance, a member like Soheil Khata died of a suspicious cause, the organization cared not the least because he had nobody abroad. Nobody knew he died of suicide or was murdered. His death was no cause of trouble because he had nobody abroad to question the organization, but it could be different if he had.

Now compare the organization’s indifference to Khata’s death and its manner and conduct with Neda’s family before and after her suicide operation. That is because Neda’s family lived abroad since long and they could push the organization into real crisis if they wanted and reacted against her death. So the organization mobilized all its power to bring her family under its control and, I believe, the organization had been in close contact with her family even before her self-immolation. It is even of magnitude to work first on her father or mother and I am sure they worked according to a scenario as I know that is how they act.

Here is the evidence to prove my claim. Following the immolations, Mozhgan Parsai stated that the immolations had inflicted heavy responsibility on the organization abroad. She meant Neda’s immolation with regard to her family’s living abroad could get the organization into big trouble and that calculated steps had to be taken when dealing with her family.

It was not important in the case of Marzieh Babakhani because she had nobody living abroad. Mozhgan insisted that all had to be mobilized to concentrate on Neda’s family and especially on her brother who was in Camp Ashraf. She issued additional orders to watch him directly and closely and to establish specific contact with him to further and justifiably clarify the issues. They in the organization know the right time for the right action through the proper means.

It is also of great concern in what country the families live, in England, France, Germany or any other European or non-European country. That is because the juridical systems in these countries could influentially affect the results of any lawsuit by the families against the organization. Remarkable in the organization’s ploy was Maryam’s showy behavior with Neda Hassani’s family. From the very beginning, Maryam started with a ceremoniously emotional demeanor and would weep tears in their presence to show her grief over her death. She wept for her and, at the same time, praised her spontaneous act in a show of her ultimate commitment to repudiate responsibility of her death and avert any lawsuit by her family.
The organization had even purchased gifts and presents to give her family on occasions. It moved just according to a preplanned scenario. Noteworthy in this entire affair was that all these factitious manners were filmed and photographed for widespread propaganda shows that were heavily reflected in the media.

SFF: Sorry to interrupt Ms. Soltani. Let’s continue the subject corroborated with your evidences in the next session. What were other issues the organization explicitly stressed on in relation to Neda’s family? Did they merely intend to gratify the family or implicitly made threatening to deter the family from engaging in any lawsuit against the organization?

BS: As I said, the organization mainly tried to persuade them that Nada’s immolation was not an organizationally persuaded action but impulsive. Of course all was implicitly stated otherwise it could imply organizational disobedience and Maryam was reluctant to use such terms directly. She rather meant to persuade the family that Neda’s death was the outcome of her great devotion and commitment to her leader and thus, on the one hand Neda would be the sole responsible for her own death and on the other hand, it would be Maryam who pocketed the merit of her action. Of course, Maryam showed so distraught with grief for Neda’s death that her parents who, impressed by Maryam’s performance, forgot about their own grieves and began to condole her on their own daughter’s death. Although it might be hard to believe and digest, but it really happened and the organization acted much cunningly in its role playing; to send an innocent to her death and then to sit weeping along with her family and then, not only escape trial on charges of her death but to make the family feel indebted to the murderer.

To be continued

October 3, 2009 0 comments

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