Material Support for the MEK Terrorists

Iranian exiles, DC lobbyists and the campaign to delist the MEK

US policy change on banned Iranian group came after extraordinary fundraising operation to transform its Images

To the US government, the People’s Mojahedin Organisation of Iran (MEK) was a terrorist group US policy change on banned Iranian group came after extraordinary fundraising operation to transform its Images alongside al-Qaida, Hamas and the Farc in Colombia. The MEK landed on the list in 1997 with American blood on its hands and by allying itself with Saddam Hussein along with a long list of bombings inside Iran.

But the organisation is regarded very differently by a large number of members of Congress, former White House officials and army generals, and even one of the US’s most renowned reporters, Carl Bernstein. They see the MEK as a victim of US double dealings with the regime in Tehran and a legitimate alternative to the Iran’s Islamic government.

That difference is in no small part the result of a formidable fundraising operation and campaign to transform the MEK’s image led by more than 20 Iranian American organisations across the US. These groups and their leaders have spent millions of dollars on donations to members of Congress, paying Washington lobby groups and hiring influential politicians and officials, including two former CIA directors, as speakers.

In a highly sensitive political game, MEK supporters have succeeded in pressing the state department into removing the group from the list of terrorist organisations after winning a court order requiring a decision to be made on the issue before the end of this month. But its supporters were forced to tread a careful path so as not to cross anti-terrorism laws.

Only a few years ago, the US authorities were arresting pro-MEK activists and freezing the assets of front groups for "material support for a terrorist organisation". Now members of Congress openly praise the group in apparent contradiction of the anti-terrorism legislation many of them supported. Nearly 100 members of the House of Representatives backed a resolution calling on the US government to drop the MEK from the terrorist list.

At the forefront of the campaign are several Iranian American organisations across the US. They are:

• The Iranian American Society of Texas. It paid more than $110,000 in fees last year to a Washington lobby firm, DiGenova & Toensing, to campaign for the lifting of the ban on the MEK and the protection of its supporters still in camps in Iraq.

The Texas group’s president, Ali Soudjani, has personally donated close to $100,000 to members of Congress and their political campaigns over the past five years because, he told the Guardian, of their positions on the MEK and Iran. Among the beneficiaries were Ted Poe, a member of the House foreign affairs committee, and Sheila Jackson Lee, who have been vocal supporters of delisting the MEK. The pair appeared at a House event at Congress earlier this year also attended by Soudjani at which Poe gave support to the MEK in calling for "freedom-loving Americans [to] support a regime change in Iran". Jackson Lee described the group as the "voices of freedom". Soudjani also gave to John Boehner, speaker of the House of Representatives as well as the National Republican Congressional Committee and the Obama Victory Fund.

• Colorado’s Iranian American Community. One of its leaders, Saeid Ghaemi, paid close to $900,000 of his own money to a Washington lobby firm, DLA Piper, for its work to get the MEK unbanned, the protection of its members in Iraq and human rights issues. Ghaemi’s brother, Mehdi, who is president of the Colorado group, paid $14,000 to fly a member of Congress, Bob Filner, to meet MEK leaders in Paris and attend the group’s rallies. In the weeks before Filner spoke at an event in support of delisting the MEK last year he was the recipient of several thousand dollars in donations from Iranian Americans living outside his district.

• The Iranian American Community of Northern California. It paid $400,000 over the past year to a Washington lobby group, Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, to work on Capitol Hill to work for the removal of the MEK from the list of foreign terrorist organisations. The company assigned several former members of Congress to the account. The IACNC has also organised events in support of unbanning the MEK with appearances by Ros-Lehtinen and other prominent members of Congress as well as former White House officials.

Its director, Ahmad Moeinimanesh, has made personal financial donations to Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the chair of the House of Representatives foreign affairs committee even though her congressional district is on the other side of the country in Florida, as well as to her reelection committee. She has accepted more than $20,000 in political contributions from activists who support the MEK’s delisting.

The IACNC’s registered address is at a photocopying shop in Albany, California, owned by Behnam Mirabdal who has made financial donations to Ros-Lehtinen and Dana Rohrabacher, a subcommittee chairman who is among the most vigorous proponents of unbanning the MEK.

• The Iranian Society of South Florida (ISSF). The group came to the notice of US authorities eight years ago as one of the sponsors of a fundraiser in Washington ostensibly to help victims of the Bam earthquake which killed 30,000 people. The FBI concluded it was a front for raising funds for the MEK.

The ISSF’s president and vice-president, Bahman Badiee and Akbar Nikooie, have for years made regular donations to Ros-Lehtinen. The Florida congresswoman boasts on her website of receiving an award from the ISSF.

Nikooie also spent at least $130,000 in 2009 to pay a lobby firm, DLA Piper, to promote "human rights" in Iran, including pressing for the unbanning of the MEK in the US. Badiee contributed $3,200 to Ros-Lehtinen. He gave $2,000 to congressman Mario Diaz-Balart in March the day after he made a speech in Congress in support of the MEK.

The principal lobbyist on the account was the former leader of the Republicans in the House of Representatives, Dick Armey, who a decade ago wielded considerable power and played a major role in the Republican takeover of Congress. He went on to head the Tea Party-supporting group, Freedom Works.

Armey used his relationship with sitting members of Congress five years ago to press them to urge the then secretary of state Condoleezza Rice to unban the MEK and to support legislation that would effectively have resulted in US sponsorship of the group. He also lobbied the Pentagon, the White House and the state department in support of unbanning the MEK.

• The California Society for Democracy in Iran. Its founder and president is Nasser Sharif who has called for the US government to "engage the Iranian people and their organized resistance". Sharif is listed as donating thousands of dollars to Rohrabacher and Filner.

Sharif called the MEK’s banning an "injustice" in an article in the Orange Country Register in which he quotes Rohrabacher in support of his cause. He has organised events at which the speakers include Ros-Lehtinen, Rohrabacher, Filner and Poe.

Several of the groups also poured money into persuading leading politicians and former administration officials to speak on behalf of unbanning the MEK. Among those who have addressed meetings arranged by the Iranian American Community of Northern California are the former Democratic presidential candidate, Howard Dean; the former FBI director, Louis Freeh; the ex-attorney general, Michael Mukasey; and Tom Ridge, the former homeland security secretary. They have been joined by members of Congress including Ros-Lehtinen, Poe and Jackson Lee.

Sharif’s California Society for Democracy in Iran has organised meetings at which John Bolton, the former US ambassador to the UN; Andrew Card, President George W Bush’s chief of staff; Mukasey, Ros-Lehtinen, Rohrabacher and other members of Congress have spoken. Several prominent former officials have acknowledged being paid significant amounts of money to speak about the MEK. The former Pennsylvania governor, Ed Rendell, has accepted more than $150,000 in speaking fees at events in support of unbanning the MEK.

Among others who have spoken in support of delisting the group are two former CIA directors, James Woolsey and Porter Goss. Some speakers have been flown to Paris and Brussels.

The US authorities have at times scrutinised efforts in support of unbanning the group, including launching investigations in to whether they breached laws against financial dealings with banned organisations or legislation barring material support for terrorism.

Three years ago, seven people in California pleaded guilty to "providing material support to a designated foreign terrorist organisation", and a parallel conspiracy charge, after fundraising for the MEK. Among other things the seven admitted to raising several hundred thousand dollars in collections at Los Angeles airport and other public locations in the name of a charity, the Committee for Human Rights.

Following an investigation by the FBI’s joint terrorism task force and the convictions, the US attorney’s office said "the CHR was simply a front organisation for MEK fund-raising operations in the United States" and that the money was going in part to support the group’s "terrorist activities".

"We cannot allow any terrorist organisation to fundraise on our shores or to steal money from our own citizens so that they can finance their own terrorism operations," said the prosecuting US attorney, Thomas O’Brien.

In 2004 Bush administration officials examined whether a fundraising event at a Washington DC convention centre, ostensibly on behalf of victims of the Bam earthquake, was in fact a cover for collecting money for the MEK. The organisers, the Iranian-American Community of Northern Virginia, described the $35 a head event as a "night of solidarity with Iran" and a "referendum for regime change in Iran".

Among those paid to speak at the event was Richard Perle, at the time a defence adviser to the Bush administration and a strong advocate of invading Iraq. Perle later said he was unaware of any connection to the MEK.

The organisers claimed the money was going to the Red Cross but even before the event was held the Red Cross said it did not want the proceeds because the fundraiser was political. The FBI concluded that the Iranian-American Community of Northern Virginia was a front for the MEK and the treasury department froze the funds raised by the event.

Those groups cosponsoring the fundraiser included several that the FBI described as MEK front organisations or as linked to prominent supporters. These included Iranian Society of South Florida, the Iranian-American Society of Texas and Colorado’s Iranian-American Community.

The Iranian-American Society of Northern Virginia is now defunct.

Soudjani pointedly said that the money was not intended to support the MEK but it’s unbanning "in the name of freedom and justice".

"The MEK is supporting a free Iran. That is what we are supporting," he said.

Sharif makes a similar argument.

"None of us are involved in illegal activities. All we’re doing is bringing the issue to the attention of members of Congress," he said.

Asked if his donation to Filner, who has a district about 2,500 miles from where Sharif lives, was because of his position on Iran and the MEK, Sharif said that it was.

"Yes. If you see members of Congress with a good position on Iran, you can support them. This is a voluntary thing. Members of the community do this. If they feel like members of Congress have a good position in supporting these issues they are willing to support those members of Congress".

Moeinimanesh and several other leaders of Iranian American organisations did not respond to questions. Neither did Ros-Lehtinen and other members of Congress did not respond to questions. But Rohrabacher did speak to the Guardian.

The California congressman said he is comfortable accepting donations from MEK supporters.

"If they want to contribute to me because I believe strongly in human rights and stand up in cases like this, that’s fine. I don’t check their credentials," he said.

Rohrabacher said he is not concerned at potentially being at odds with the law.

"When you have a person or an organisation that has been legally labelled something that is not just then you should take that label off. It doesn’t undermine efforts to label terrorists when they are indeed committing acts of terrorism," he said.

The congressman also denounced the treasury investigation of payments to speakers in support of the MEK.

"It seems to be me this is an example where somebody’s challenging a government policy and the government is trying to intimidate those who don’t believe in the policy into closing their mouths. Because someone is advocating a certain position, and it goes against government policy, it doesn’t mean the government should start focussing on them and try to find something they can hurt them with. That’s a damper on freedom of speech," he said.

Chris McGreal in Washington

September 22, 2012 0 comment

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

MEK decision: multimillion-dollar campaign led to removal from terror list

Revealed: the steady flow of funds to members of Congress, lobbying firms and former officials in support of Iranian group

Supporters of a designated Iranian terrorist organisation have won a long struggle to see it unbanned in the US after pouring millions of dollars into an unprecedented campaign of political donations, hiring Washington lobby groups and payments to former top administration officials.

A Guardian investigation, drawing partly on data researched by the Centre for Responsive Politics, a group tracking the impact of money in US politics, has identified a steady flow of funds from key Iranian American organisations and their leaders into the campaign to have the People’s Mojahedin Organisation of Iran removed from the list of terrorist organisations.

The US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, is expected to notify Congress that the MEK will be removed from the terrorism list in the coming days.

The campaign to bury the MEK’s bloody history of bombings and assassinations that killed American businessmen, Iranian politicians and thousands of civilians, and to portray it as a loyal US ally against the Islamic government in Tehran has seen large sums of money directed at three principal targets: members of Congress, Washington lobby groups and influential former officials.

Prominent among the members of Congress who have received fund is Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the chair of the House of Representatives foreign affairs committee. She has accepted at least $20,000 in donations from Iranian American groups or their leaders to her political campaign fund.

Other recipients include Congressman Bob Filner, who was twice flown to address pro-MEK events in France and has pushed resolutions resolutions in the House of Representatives calling for the group to be unbanned. More than $14,000 in expenses for Filner’s Paris trips were met by the head of an Iranian American group who also paid close to $1m to a Washington lobby firm working to get the MEK unbanned.

A Texas Congressman, Ted Poe, received thousands of dollars in donations from the head of a pro-MEK group in his state at a time when he was a regular speaker on behalf of its unbanning at events across the US, describing the organisation as the ticket to regime change in Iran.

Mike Rogers, chairman of the House of Representatives intelligence committee, has also received the backing of individuals and groups that support the unbanning of the MEK. Rogers has been among the strongest supporters in Congress of delisting the group, sponsoring resolutions and pressing other members of Congress to support the cause.

A leading advocate of unbanning the MEK and chairman of the foreign affairs committee’s oversight subcommittee, congressman Dana Rohrabacher, has received thousands of dollars in donations from supporters of the banned group this year alone.

The Guardian sought comment from Ros-Lehtinen, Rogers, Filner, Poe and Rohrabacher. Only Rohrabacher responded.

He said he was comfortable accepting donations from MEK supporters but that the money has no influence on his position that it should be unbanned.

"I wouldn’t doubt that people would donate to my campaign if it’s something that they see as beneficial to them, to what they believe in, whether it’s the MEK or whether it’s anybody else," he said.

"The question is whether it’s the right position to take or not and whether it’s a benefit to the people of the United States as a whole. In this case I’ve no doubt that supporting the MEK under this brutal attack from the Mullah regime [in Tehran] is in the interests of what I believe in but also in the interests of the people of the United States."

Rohrabacher said the MEK’s past attacks on Americans, its bombing campaign in Iran that killed top politicians and civilians, and its support of Saddam Hussein were history and the group has turned its back on violence. He also denied that public support for a designated terrorist organisation might put him in conflict with the law.

"This isn’t a bad group. A long time ago, in their history, they certainly had a questionable time – 20, 30, 40 years ago. But I don’t know of any evidence they’ve engaged in terrorism for many, many years," he said. "They’re not a terrorist group simply because some bureaucrats in the state department say so."

Three top Washington lobby firms – DLA Piper; Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld; and DiGenova & Toensing – have been paid a total of nearly $1.5 million over the past year to press the US administration and legislators to support the delisting of the MEK and protection for its members in camps in Iraq.

Two other lobby groups were hired for much smaller amounts. The firms employed former members of Congress to press their ex-colleagues on Capitol Hill to back the unbanning of the MEK.

Scores of former senior officials have been paid up to $40,000 to make speeches in support of the MEK’s delisting. Those who have received money include the former chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff, General Hugh Shelton; ex-FBI director Louis Freeh; and Michael Mukasey, who as attorney general oversaw the prosecution of terrorism cases.

The former Pennsylvania governor, Ed Rendell, has accepted more than $150,000 in speaking fees at events in support of the MEK’s unbanning. Clarence Page, a columnist for the Chicago Tribune, was paid $20,000 to speak at the rally. Part of the money has been paid through speakers bureaus on the US east coast.

Others accepted only travel costs, although in some cases that involved expensive trips to Europe.

In June, Newt Gingrich, the former speaker of the US House of Representatives and Republican presidential candidate, flew to Paris to address a pro-MEK rally and meet its co-leader, Maryam Rajavi. He was criticised for bowing to her.

Congressman Rohrabacher has described the lobbying campaign as one of the most effective he has seen on Capitol Hill. It has galvanised powerful support for delisting the MEK far beyond those receiving political contributions, lobbying fees or other payments.

Ros-Lehtinen has been a vigorous proponent of recognition of the MEK, flying around the country to speak in support of unbanning the group and pressing the issue among fellow members of Congress. She has accepted an award from one group funding the campaign to delist the MEK. Other recipients of political donations, including Rogers, Filner and Rohrabacher, have also lobbied other members of Congress to support the unbanning. As a result, nearly 100 members of Congress have co-sponsored a resolution demanding the Obama administration to delist the MEK.

Last month, 17 former senior officials and US generals called on the state department to remove the group’s terrorist designation. Among them were General James Jones, Barack Obama’s former national security adviser; Tom Ridge, the former homeland security director; as well as Mukasey, Freeh and Rendell.

Some of the same politicians and former officials have also targeted newspapers and online publications in a campaign of opinion articles and letters aimed at changing the image of the MEK as a terrorist group.

The campaign has in part been funded by substantial donations from Iranian Americans and a web of organisations they lead from Florida to Texas and California.

The most generous benefactors include:

• Saeid Ghaemi, head of Colorado’s Iranian American Community, who paid close to $900,000 of his own money to a Washington lobby firm for its work to get the MEK unbanned.

• Ali Soudjani, president of the Iranian American Society of Texas. He gave close to $100,000 over the past five years to congressional campaign funds. His organisation paid more than $110,000 in fees to lobbyists last year.

• Ahmad Moeinimanesh, leader of the Iranian American Community of Northern California. The group paid $400,000 to a lobby firm. Moeinimanesh made personal donations to Ros-Lehtinen’s campaign even though her constituency is several thousand miles from where he lives.

Some of the payments have prompted an investigation by the US treasury department. It is examining the fees paid to Shelton, Freeh, Mukasey and Rendell, and possibly others, to see if they breach laws against "material support for a terrorist group". In cases involving links to other banned organisations, such as Hamas and Hezbollah, individuals have received long jail sentences for indirect financial support.

The original source of the considerable sums involved is not always clear as groups making political donations or funding lobby firms are not required to declare their origin. Previously the MEK has relied in part on funding from Iraq under Saddam Hussein.

Soudjani told the Guardian that the moneys were raised from Iranian Americans in the US. "The Iranian community is wealthy. It has more than $600bn in the United States. This is pennies for supporting freedom," he said.

Asked if his own donations to members of Congress was specifically because of their positions on the MEK, he replied: "Yes, it is."

However, Soudjani was careful to say that the support is not for the MEK as an organisation, which could open donors to investigation under anti-terrorism laws.

"We are not giving material support to the MEK. We are supporting freedom of speech for justice and peace in Iran," he said.

Chris McGreal in Washington

September 22, 2012 0 comment

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

State Dept to Remove Iranian Rebel Group From Terror List

Years of Pricy Lobbying Gets Inaugural Group Off Foreign Terrorist Organization List

Adding hope to every other group that had found itself labeled a terrorist organization after a Years of Pricy Lobbying Gets Inaugural Group Off Foreign Terrorist Organization List decade of bloody anti-US attacks and killing a number of US military officers, the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MeK), one of the inaugural members of the US State Department’s list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations, has been ordered removed by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

The MeK was founded in the 1960′s as a Marxist-Islamist sect, called a cult by many, with designs on ousting the Shah of Iran and replacing him. After the Shah was ousted, they allied with Saddam Hussein in his invasion of Iran, and remained in exile in Iraq for decades.

How did this group manage to turn around its fortunes and find a way off the US terror list? Money, and lots of it. The MeK has been soliciting top US officials for years to give them paid endorsements, and has been quite successful in buying praise, though former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell’s endorsement did get him investigated for terrorist ties.

In the end, with so many officials not only excusing the MeK’s past attacks but openly endorsing them as a replacement regime in the event of a war with Iran, officials said it was “politically difficult” for Clinton not to sign off on their removal.

Reflecting just how successful the “advertising” campaign has been for the group, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R – CA) praised the move, saying the group desires a “secular, peaceful, and democratic government.”

by Jason Ditz

September 22, 2012 0 comment

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

MEK using boldfaced names in bid to get off terror list

Among the foreign countries and overseas organizations that hire people to advocate for them in ‎Washington, D.C., one doesn’t expect to find a group that’s listed on the U.S. government’s ‎roster of foreign terrorists. But the Mujahedin e-Khalq — a cult-like Iranian group whose killing ‎of U.S. officials landed it on the terrorist list in ‎‏1997‏‎ — has been paying hundreds of thousands ‎of dollars to a high-profile team of former Members of Congress, political notables and ex-‎administration officials as part of its push to get itself removed from that very list.‎

Indeed, over the past two years, boldface names such as former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, ‎former Attorney General Michael Mukasey, former Democratic National Committee Chairman ‎Howard Dean and retired Gen. James Jones, who was President Barack Obama’s first national ‎security adviser, have been paid as much as ‎‏$30,000‏‎ a speech to praise the MEK as a democratic ‎opponent of the regime in Tehran. Convinced of the group’s current commitment to human ‎rights, these and other luminaries rarely mention its assassinations of U.S. military advisers before ‎the ‎‏1979‏‎ Islamic revolution in Iran and its alliance with Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein against ‎Tehran afterward.‎

‎“There is one organization and one alone that stands for immediate democratic change in Iran, ‎and that is the MEK,” Mukasey told a Paris rally a year ago. Others who have spoken in support ‎of the group at events in Washington, Brussels, London and Berlin are Andrew Card, who was ‎President George W. Bush’s chief of staff for five years; Anita McBride, a chief of staff to first ‎lady Laura Bush; former State Department Director of Policy Planning Mitchell Reiss and former ‎Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge.‎

‎“We’re familiar with that passage ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,’” Ridge said at a ‎Washington event last July. “That is what the MEK stands for.”‎

It is illegal to provide direct assistance to terrorist groups. But those making speeches on behalf ‎of the MEK are booked and paid by speakers’ bureaus, which in turn are paid by MEK ‎supporters in the United States, who get their money from sources outside the United States.‎

The group enjoys support from Republicans and Democrats in the United States, and from Israel ‎and Saudi Arabia. Some critics of the MEK have compared the group’s lobbying effort to the ‎campaign for legitimacy by Ahmed Chalabi, an Iraqi Shiite who won the support of the Bush ‎administration and many in Congress as the leader of the democratic opposition to Hussein. ‎Chalabi helped spread what turned out to be false stories of the dictator’s nuclear weapons ‎program, which Bush used to justify the ‎‏2003‏‎ invasion of Iraq.‎

The MEK’s removal from the terrorist list would give the group greater legitimacy and permit its ‎members to raise funds openly in the United States after years of legally questionable fundraising ‎by supporters and front groups. And the two-year lobbying campaign may be bearing fruit. Last ‎month, the Obama administration took the first preliminary steps, behind the scenes, toward ‎delisting the MEK. The State Department is said to favor the move on the condition that the ‎group — which says it has renounced violence — evacuates a base in Iraq that it once used for ‎cross-border raids into Iran. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is expected to make a ‎decision after the last of some ‎‏3,400‏‎ residents of the base, called Camp Ashraf, relocate to a new ‎transit camp at Baghdad’s main airport.‎

But experts on Iran warn that doing what the MEK wants could have serious repercussions. ‎Delisting the group would anger the FBI, which says the MEK was planning terrorist attacks ‎long after its stated renunciation of violence. Indeed, many Iran experts believe the recent spate ‎of assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists was carried out by MEK operatives working for ‎Israel. Delisting would also complicate negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program among six major ‎powers and Tehran, which also regards the MEK as a terrorist organization. [..]

A History of Violence

The Mujahedin e-Khalq (in English, the People’s Holy Warriors) was founded in ‎‏1963‏‎ in Iran, ‎mixing Islam with communist ideology and calling for the violent overthrow of the country’s ‎pro-American leader, Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi. From ‎‏1973‏‎ to ‎‏1978‏‎, the group claimed ‎responsibility for the killings of six U.S. military advisers and an American oil executive in the ‎country. The group also played a major role in the infamous November ‎‏1979‏‎ seizure of the ‎American Embassy in Tehran, repeatedly calling for the execution of the hostages during the ‎subsequent ‎‏14‏‎-month ordeal.‎

But after the revolution, the group fell out with Iranian spiritual leader Ayatollah Ruhollah ‎Khomeini. In ‎‏1981‏‎, Khomeini banned the group, which fled to Iraq. The MEK then formed an ‎alliance with Hussein, who provided the group with weapons and a military base at Camp ‎Ashraf, north of Baghdad.‎

From there, the MEK staged deadly raids across the border during the ‎‏1980-1988‏‎ Iraq-Iran war, ‎claiming credit for killing hundreds of Iranians, as well as a series of violent attacks on Iranian ‎diplomats overseas. In one MEK bombing, Iran’s current supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali ‎Khamenei, permanently lost the use of his right arm. Hussein also used MEK forces to help crush ‎the Iraqi Kurdish uprising after the ‎‏1991‏‎ Persian Gulf War.‎

When U.S. forces invaded and occupied Iraq in ‎‏2003‏‎, Camp Ashraf came under their control. ‎The MEK’s Paris-based leaders, Massoud and Maryam Rajavi, who had renounced violence in ‎‏2001‏‎, ordered their followers in Iraq to surrender their weapons. But a ‎‏2004‏‎ FBI report said ‎wiretaps of MEK members in Los Angeles, Paris and Berlin determined that “the MEK is ‎currently actively involved in planning and executing acts of terrorism.”‎

Former MEK members have described the group as a cult that promotes unquestioning obedience ‎to the Rajavis. They say the group demands celibacy, takes away members’ children and ‎pressures couples to divorce so they can devote their lives to the MEK. In ‎‏2003‏‎, several members ‎of the group self-immolated to protest the arrest of the Rajavis, who were quickly released. A ‎‏2009‏‎ report prepared by the RAND Corp. for the Pentagon said “nearly ‎‏70‏‎ percent of the MEK ‎population at Camp Ashraf have been recruited through deception and kept there against their ‎will.”‎

The group earned some notoriety in ‎‏2005‏‎ when it claimed credit for tipping off the United States ‎about Iran’s uranium enrichment activities at Natanz. But Iran experts say Israel, which has close ‎ties with the MEK, was the source of that information and used the group to disclose it. The ‎group’s purported role in uncovering part of Iran’s nuclear program and its public embrace of ‎secular democracy have earned it friends in Washington, particularly among neoconservatives ‎and security figures.‎

Those who have given paid speeches calling for the delisting of the MEK include former CIA ‎chiefs James Woolsey, Porter Goss and Michael Hayden, former U.N. ambassador John Bolton, ‎former FBI Director Louis Freeh, former Marine Commandant James Conway, and two former ‎chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Peter Pace and Hugh Shelton. “The current Iranian regime ‎does not need to be modified, does not need to be changed. It does not need to do anything but ‎be replaced. And it needs to be replaced by the resistance movement led by the MEK,” Shelton ‎told the Paris rally.‎

The MEK’s lobbying campaign has also attracted a growing number of senior Democratic ‎figures. In addition to Dean, paid speakers include Lee Hamilton, a former Democratic ‎Representative from Indiana and former co-chairman of the Sept. ‎‏11‏‎ commission, former ‎Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell and former Energy Secretary Bill Richardson.‎

The campaign has already won bipartisan support in Congress. Backers of the MEK’s efforts ‎include both House Foreign Affairs Chairwoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.) and Bob Filner ‎‎(D-Calif.), the ranking member of the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee. “I know the MEK ‎supports a secular, democratic, non-nuclear Iran,” Filner told a BBC interviewer in April. “We ‎should be helping them in every way we can.”‎

Decision Looming

The State Department says any decision by Clinton on delisting the MEK now depends on the ‎willingness of Camp Ashraf’s remaining residents to depart. The United States is working with ‎the United Nations to resettle them in third countries. But around ‎‏1,200‏‎ MEK members at the ‎camp are resisting departure out of fear they’ll be returned to Iran.‎

‎Diplomats say a decision by Clinton to take the MEK off the list would not go down well in ‎Tehran. Iranian officials often accuse western governments of hypocrisy for sheltering MEK ‎members while condemning Iran’s support for Hezbollah and Hamas. A decision to delist might ‎cause Iran to harden its position on its nuclear program at the next round of negotiations with the ‎United States and five other world powers, which are pressing Iran to give up its stockpile of ‎‏20‏‎ ‎percent enriched uranium in return for lifting an embargo on civilian airline parts. Iran is ‎demanding a lifting of all sanctions in return for giving up the stockpile.‎

Karim Pakravan, an Iranian-born economist at DePaul University, notes that the MEK has ‎managed to portray itself to Congress as a legitimate Iranian opposition group “by an effective ‎campaign of propaganda and thinly disguised bribes to marquee political names on both sides of ‎the aisle.” Writing in an online forum on Iran, Pakravan says delisting would allow the MEK “to ‎use its massive foreign-financed war chest to try to crush all the other Iranian voices in the ‎United States and establish itself as THE democratic alternative to the Islamic Republic of Iran ‎in the eyes of a corrupt and naïve U.S. Congress. Such an outcome would be indeed a tragedy ‎for the democratic forces in Iran.” U.S. officials say Clinton will make her decision no more than ‎‏60‏‎ days after the last person is out of Camp Ashraf. But while a decision to keep the group on ‎the terrorist list is still possible, the secretary’s linking of her decision to the camp’s evacuation ‎makes it unlikely she will decide against delisting if the relocation is successful. The European ‎Union and Britain have delisted the MEK in recent years.‎

By Jonathan Broder ,CQ Roll Call Staff

September 16, 2012 0 comment

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Should Carl Benstein go to prison for supporting terrorist MEK?

ProPublica’s Justin Elliott reports that "Watergate journalist Carl Bernstein" got $12,000 for a speech he gave at the Waldorf Astoria in Manhattan last February in support of removing the Iranian opposition group Mujahedeen-e-Khalq (MEK) from the State Department’s list of "foreign terrorist organizations." Although it is unclear what ethical rule Bernstein, who writes for Newsweek and Vanity Fair, is supposed to have broken, Elliott treats this speaking engagement as vaguely scandalous, noting that Chicago Tribune columnist Clarence Page was rebuked by his employer for giving a similar speech in Paris last June without getting prior approval. But Elliott buries the real scandal: Such advocacy can be not only a professional faux pas but a federal crime, depending on the details and the government’s interpretation of a statute banning "material support" for terrorism.

Does ProPublica Think Carl Bernstein Should Go to Prison for Giving a Speech?

The MEK, blamed for killing Americans in the 1970s and for a string of attacks on Iranian targets that ended in 2001, claims to have renounced violence and has filed a federal lawsuit asking to be reclassified. Judging from Elliott’s penultimate paragraph, it has a pretty strong case:

A federal appeals court in June ordered that [Secretary of State Hillary] Clinton must decide on the MEK’s status by Oct. 1. If she fails to take action, the court said it would delist the MEK itself. The order also criticized Clinton for putting off a decision on the MEK, calling the delay "egregious."

The MEK’s cause has attracted support not only from Bernstein and Page but from prominent political figures such as former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, former Attorney General Michael Mukasey, former FBI Director Louis Freeh, former House Speaker Dennis Hastert, former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge, former Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D-R.I.), and former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell. All of them arguably committed felonies by speaking "for the benefit" of a terrorist organization, a kind of "service" that qualifies as "material support."

In its June 2010 decision upholding this broad ban on material support, the Supreme Court said "independently advocating for a cause is different from providing a service to a group that is advocating for that cause." Although the statute does not say so, the Court suggested that advocacy should be considered material support only when it is "performed in coordination with, or at the direction of, a foreign terrorist organization." But it is still not clear how much coordination is required to transform constitutionally protected speech into a felony punishable by up to 15 years in prison.

If the MEK had contacted Bernstein or any of the other speakers directly, even if it did not pay them, that presumably would count as impermissible coordination. As it is, Elliott notes (but not until the 17th paragraph), the Treasury Department is investigating whether any MEK front groups helped cover the speaking fees. "The MEK is a designated terrorist group," a department spokesman explains. "Therefore U.S. persons are generally prohibited from engaging in transactions with or providing services to this group." As if to assist the government’s inquisition, Elliott does some digging of his own:

Who paid for the Waldorf Astoria event?

Bruce McColm, president of the Global Initiative for Democracy [formerly executive director of Freedom House], told ProPublica in an email: "Resources for the event were provided by the Iranian-American community in New Jersey, New York, Northern California and Texas."

McColm added that "[t]he financial arrangements for speakers were handled by the Iranian-American Community. For the legal at heart, there were no funds provided by NCRI/MEK or any other so-called front groups." NCRI stands for National Council of Resistance of Iran and is recognized by the State Department as an alias for the MEK….

The Global Initiative for Democracy was incorporated in Virginia last November. The Alexandria-based group’s mission statement says it "engages in wide ranging activities nationwide to promote the cause of democracy, human rights, religious tolerance, and cultural and artistic diversity in Iran as well as to ensure the safety and security of political refugees and asylum-seekers."

But much like other groups that have organized pro-MEK events, the Global Initiative for Democracy appears to be primarily focused on the MEK. The only other event detailed on the group’s website was a pro-MEK event held at a Washington hotel in May and featuring former ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton and former State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley, among others. News stories featured on the group’s website mostly involve the MEK.

Elliott appears to be insinuating that McColm’s organization is another MEK front group, which if true could expose Bernstein, Bolton, and Crowley to criminal charges based on their words of support. In this context, Bernstein, who tells Elliott his speech was "largely about using the designation of terrorist and subversive organizations as a smokescreen for other things," does not seem to be exaggerating much when he calls stories like this one "journalistic McCarthyism."

Jacob Sullum, Reason.com

September 6, 2012 0 comment

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Can a designated terrorist group purchase the support of notable Americans

Can a designated Iranian terrorist group (MEK) purchase the support of notable Americans to champion their cause?

It has been often said that everything in Washington is for sale and that which is not for sale can be leased …

What do the following individuals have in common?

•Former Attorney General Michael Mukasey
•Former Congressman Patrick Kennedy (Rhode Island)
•Noted Author Carl Bernstein;
•Former Governor Howard Dean (Vermont)
•Former Governor Ed Rendell (Pennsylvania)
•Former House Speaker Dennis Hastert (Illinois)
•Former Mayor Rudy Giuliani (New York)
•Retired General Henry Shelton
•Retired General George Casey
•Retired Lieutenant General David Deptula
•Former FBI director Louis Freeh

It appears that they are all attempting to informally lobby government officials by “questioning the listing of an obscure Iranian group called the Mujahadin-e Khalq (MEK) on the U.S. government list of officially designated foreign terrorist organizations.” Some of these people I formerly respected as incorruptible or patriotic. Now I can see they are money-grubbing whores who are willing to challenge the intelligence agencies of the United States for their personal benefit and profit. I am thoroughly disgusted by the democrats and the republicans on this list. As for the journalists who purport to be unbiased, it is just another sign of the loss of journalistic ethics and the support of a cause that is alien to the American dream.

How is it that any Americans want to assist any Iranian group?

At least according to Bernstein: “The speech, before a crowd an organizer put at 1,500, made Bernstein one of the few journalists who has appeared at events in a years-long campaign by MEK supporters to free the group from the official terrorist label and the legal sanctions that come with it. He told ProPublica that he was paid $12,000 for the appearance but that, ‘I was not there as an advocate.’”

Then: “Bernstein told the crowd that, ‘I come here as an advocate of the best obtainable version of the truth’ and as ‘someone who believes in basic human rights and their inalienable status.’ He also challenged the State Department, saying that if the agency ‘has evidence that the MEK is a terrorist organization, have a show-cause hearing in court, let them prove it.’”

Bernstein’s speech, reprinted on the website of another pro-MEK group under the title "The Kafkaesque Nature of Things," compared the presence of the MEK on the terrorist list to his parents’ experience belonging to a group that was on a U.S. government list of subversive organizations during the McCarthy era.

“So I know, like you, what it means to be designated a certain way and your cause and your purpose misunderstood, twisted, and turned into something that it is not," he said. "When, in fact, the evil, the terrorism, the real terrorism, is in the heart of Tehran, not in this room."

In an interview, Bernstein told ProPublica that the pro-MEK events are “obviously … part of a lobbying campaign” but his speech was “largely about using the designation of terrorist and subversive organizations as a smokescreen for other things.” He said that stories focusing on speakers at pro-MEK events rather than on “the substance of what the controversy is” amounted to “journalistic McCarthyism.”

Was it for the money or because liberals are soft on national defense and constitutionally (pun) and prone to serve as useful idiots for foreign sovereign causes?

For example, former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, a Democrat, received $160,000 for appearing at seven pro-MEK rallies and conferences, his office confirmed to NBC in March. Each event typically involves five to 10 former officials who speak in favor of removing the group from the terrorist list. The typical fee for a speaker at one of the events has been in the $20,000 range, according to news reports. Pro-MEK groups are thought to have spent millions of dollars on the events in recent years.

What happened to one working journalist is a cautionary tale of how America may be subverted from within …

ProPublica reported in July that syndicated columnist Clarence Page had spoken at a large rally in Paris featuring MEK leader Maryam Rajavi; after we reached out to Page, he said he would reimburse his $20,000 speaker’s fee, and the Chicago Tribune reprimanded him for violating the company ethics code.

Here is a person who can slant stories and spin the truth … and he is being paid a great sum of money to advocate for a group that is listed by the United States government as a terrorist group. Why wasn’t he sanctioned by the government for providing aid and comfort to an enemy of the United States? Or is the liberal dominated Justice Department, headed by Eric Holder, too busy killing all of the pesky state legislation that protects the Constitution and the sovereignty of the United States?

Is Iran our enemy?

In the past few years, pro-MEK groups have marshaled considerable financial resources to bring high-profile speakers to an unending stream of rallies and other events in the U.S. and Europe. The pro-MEK campaign has taken on new prominence against the backdrop of the nuclear standoff involving the U.S., Israel and Iran, whose government is a sworn enemy of the MEK.

The group, sometimes described as cult-like by critics, is blamed by the State Department for killing Americans in several attacks in Iran in the 1970s and in attacking Iranian targets through the early 2000s. The MEK now says it has renounced violence and has sued to be removed from the terrorist list.

The public push in the U.S. is notable both because it has brought together a large bipartisan group of former top military officials and veteran politicians from both parties and also because of the large sums of money paid for those appearances.

My question …

Is this MEK group spinning themselves as an anti-Iran freedom fighting group to allow them to be removed from the terrorist watch list and the sanctions which would keep them from purchasing “dual use” technology or other materials that would bring aid and comfort to Iran? It would not be the first time that a front group did whatever was necessary for their cause.

Bottom line …

It is obvious, even to the casual observer that something evil is happening to our country. Pro-Marxist/Communist groups have subverted the political process, mostly involving the democrat party, and that rampant political corruption is going unchecked. Prominent politicians and others are openly espousing causes which, only a few decades ago, would have been regarded as enemies and such advocacy tantamount to sedition and/or treason.

We see major United States Corporations using foreign subsidiaries to “fullfill long existing contracts” with our enemies.[..]

We need to reform our government and the way our multi-national corporations do business. We cannot impose sanctions against an enemy and have them violated by a foreign subsidiary of any American company. Perhaps why so many companies are now incorporated in the Bahamas. Switzerland and elsewhere.

And we need to start right now in 2012 by removing President Obama and his fellow travelers from power in the Presidency, the Senate and the House of Representatives. We need to shut the revolving door between government and law firms known to be lobbyists for foreign powers. We need to put country over compromise, manhood over money.

It is time to take action at the voting booths. Before America is simply purchased and discarded by those who do not wish America well.

Steve ,One Citizen Speaking.com

September 6, 2012 0 comment

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

John Bolton Shockingly Denies Being a ‘Terrorist Supporter’

The American Conservative’s Jordon Bloom ran into a befuddled John Bolton at the Republican National Convention yesterday and had a timely question for him:
John Bolton Shockingly Denies Being a ‘Terrorist Supporter’
He was on his way in to observe the speeches, and I knew he wouldn’t have much time to answer more than a question or two in passing. So I asked the most important one: given the definition laid out in Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project, was he at all concerned that his advocacy on behalf of the Iranian dissident group the MEK could be defined as material support for terrorism under the PATRIOT Act?

Bolton, visibly flustered at the suggestion that he is a terrorist supporter, disputed the premise before cutting me off:

“I don’t know what you’re up to, but you’re flatly wrong, and I’m busy, so if you’ll excuse me.”

He is indeed a busy man, but if he ever cares to take some time out of his day to explain why I’m wrong, my email is jbloom[at]theamericanconservative.com. Or he could take it up with Glenn Greenwald or Larison.

Oh, how I’d love such an inquiry from Bolton. Perhaps Jordan could also ask why Bolton’s former employer, George W. Bush, included Saddam Hussein’s support for terrorists like MEK in his propaganda justifying the invasion of Iraq in 2003. “Iraq shelters terrorist groups including the Mujahedin-e-Khalq Organization,” reads a document in the archives of the White House’s website, “which has used terrorist violence against Iran and in the 1970s was responsible for killing several U.S. military personnel and U.S. civilians.” Is Bolton proud of this point of commonality between him and Saddam?

John Glaser

September 4, 2012 0 comment

Terrorist groups and the MEK

More MEK money fallout: Journalist paid $12,000 for speech

The Mujahadin-e Khalq – an Iranian exile group opposed to the current regime there and backed by Democratic congressman and San Diego mayoral candidate Bob Filner – has returned to the More MEK money fallout: Journalist paid $12,000 for speech news, this time with a report that ex-Washington Post reporter Carl Bernstein was paid $12,000 to give a speech at an event held on behalf of the MEK’s ongoing battle to be taken off the U.S. State Department’s list of terrorist organizations.

As previously reported here, Filner, long an outspoken advocate for the MEK, has taken two first class, all-expense-paid trips to MEK-related events in Paris, both paid for a shadowy group calling itself “Colorado’s Iranian American Community.”

We have repeatedly made requests to Filner’s office and campaign to provide more details about his Mujahadin-e Khalq-related travel, but neither he nor his aides have responded to our questions.

The online journalism site ProPublica.org reports today that Bernstein’s February address before 1500 people at New York’s Waldorf Astoria made him “one of the few journalists who has appeared at events in a years-long campaign by MEK supporters to free the group from the official terrorist label and the legal sanctions that come with it.

"He told ProPublica that he was paid $12,000 for the appearance but that, ‘I was not there as an advocate.’"

ProPublica goes on to note that the Mujahadin-e Khalq, “sometimes described as cult-like by critics, is blamed by the State Department for killing Americans in several attacks in Iran in the 1970s and in attacking Iranian targets through the early 2000s.

“The MEK now says it has renounced violence and has sued to be removed from the terrorist list. (Bernstein’s speech also referred to the “murderous bureaucracy” that runs Iran, “against whom the MEK has courageously fought.”)

"The public push in the U.S. is notable both because it has brought together a large bipartisan group of former top military officials and veteran politicians from both parties and also because of the large sums of money paid for those appearances."

In today’s ProPublica account, Bernstein is quoted as saying that "the pro-MEK events are ‘obviously … part of a lobbying campaign’ but [that] his speech was ‘largely about using the designation of terrorist and subversive organizations as a smokescreen for other things.’

"He said that stories focusing on speakers at pro-MEK events rather than on ‘the substance of what the controversy is’ amounted to ‘journalistic McCarthyism.’"

By Matt Potter, Sandiego Reader

September 3, 2012 0 comment

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Watergate Journalist Spoke at Event Supporting MEK ‘Terrorist’ Group

On a Saturday afternoon last February, journalist Carl Bernstein got up on stage at the grand

Former Washington Post reporter Carl Bernstein speaks during an event sponsored by The Washington Post to commemorate the 40th anniversary of Watergate on June 11, 2012. (Alex Brandon/AP Photo)

ballroom of the Waldorf Astoria [1] in Manhattan and delivered a speech questioning the listing of an obscure Iranian group called the Mujahadin-e Khalq (MEK) on the U.S. government list of officially designated foreign terrorist organizations.

The speech, before a crowd an organizer put at 1,500, made Bernstein one of the few journalists who has appeared at events in a years-long campaign by MEK supporters to free the group from the official terrorist label and the legal sanctions that come with it. He told ProPublica that he was paid $12,000 for the appearance but that, “I was not there as an advocate.”

Bernstein told the crowd that, "I come here as an advocate of the best obtainable version of the truth" and as "someone who believes in basic human rights and their inalienable status." He also challenged the State Department, saying that if the agency “has evidence that the MEK is a terrorist organization, have a show-cause hearing in court, let them prove it.”

Joining him on stage [2] at the Park Avenue hotel was a decorated group including former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, former congressman Patrick Kennedy, D-R.I., former Attorney General Michael Mukasey, and former House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill.

Bernstein’s speech [3], reprinted on the website [4] of another pro-MEK group under the title "The Kafkaesque Nature of Things," compared the presence of the MEK on the terrorist list to his parents’ experience [5] belonging to a group that was on a U.S. government list of subversive organizations during the McCarthy era.

In an interview, Bernstein told ProPublica that the pro-MEK events are “obviously … part of a lobbying campaign” but his speech [3] was “largely about using the designation of terrorist and subversive organizations as a smokescreen for other things.” He said that stories focusing on speakers at pro-MEK events rather than on “the substance of what the controversy is” amounted to “journalistic McCarthyism.”

ProPublica reported in July [6] that syndicated columnist Clarence Page had spoken at a large rally in Paris featuring MEK leader Maryam Rajavi; after we reached out to Page, he said he would reimburse his $20,000 speaker’s fee, and the Chicago Tribune reprimanded him [7] for violating the company ethics code.

Bernstein is a contributing editor [8] at Vanity Fair and writes periodically [9] for Newsweek. A Vanity Fair spokeswoman said the magazine does not have a policy governing outside work of its contributors. A Newsweek spokesman did not respond to a request for comment. Bernstein has not written or spoken about MEK issues apart from the paid appearance at the Waldorf Astoria.

A news release [10] issued after the event by the organizing group, the Global Initiative for Democracy, ran under the headline “Bipartisan Group of U.S. Leaders Calls on State Department to Remove Iranian Dissidents From Terror List" and quoted Bernstein.

“What is news here is [that the failure to delist] is serving the purpose of the Iranian regime. That is news,” the release said, attributing the statement to “famed Watergate journalist [11] Carl Bernstein."

The group, sometimes described as cult-like [12] by critics, is blamed by the State Department [13] for killing Americans in several attacks in Iran in the 1970s and in attacking Iranian targets through the early 2000s. The MEK now says it has renounced violence and has sued to be removed from the terrorist list. (Bernstein’s speech also referred to the “murderous bureaucracy” that runs Iran, “against whom the MEK has courageously fought.”)

For example, former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, a Democrat, received $160,000 for appearing at seven pro-MEK rallies and conferences, his office confirmed [14] to NBC in March. Each event typically involves five to 10 former officials who speak in favor of removing the group from the terrorist list. The typical fee for a speaker at one of the events has been in the $20,000 range, according to news reports. Pro-MEK groups are thought to have [15] spent millions of dollars on the events in recent years.

The Americans speaking at pro-MEK events have generally not included journalists, except for Page and Bernstein. It’s common for prominent journalists to have contracts with speaker bureaus and deliver lectures for pay; Bernstein said, “I speak before all kinds of groups.”

NBC reported [14] in March that firms representing two speakers who appeared alongside Bernstein at the Waldorf Astoria event — former FBI Director Louis Freeh and former Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Hugh Shelton — had received subpoenas as part of a Treasury Department inquiry into the source of money for pro-MEK events.

The New York City-based Greater Talent Network, which represents [16] Freeh and reportedly received one of the subpoenas, also represents [17] Bernstein. The agency did not respond to phone calls, but Bernstein told ProPublica he has not been contacted about any legal action and he is not part of the group of pro-MEK speakers that has hired [18] former Solicitor General Seth Waxman to represent them in the matter.

Treasury Department spokesman John Sullivan told ProPublica the agency does not comment on potential investigations. “The MEK is a designated terrorist group; therefore U.S. persons are generally prohibited from engaging in transactions with or providing services to this group,” he said. “The Treasury Department takes sanctions enforcement seriously and routinely investigates potential violations of sanctions laws.”

So who paid for the Waldorf Astoria event?

Bruce McColm [19], president of the Global Initiative for Democracy, told ProPublica in an email: “Resources for the event were provided by the Iranian-American community in New Jersey, New York, Northern California and Texas.”

McColm added that “[t]he financial arrangements for speakers were handled by the Iranian-American Community. For the legal at heart, there were no funds provided by NCRI/MEK or any other so-called front groups.” NCRI stands for National Council of Resistance of Iran and is recognized [20] by the State Department as an alias for the MEK.

McColm is a former executive director of Freedom House [21], a pro-democracy group he left in the early 1990s. In recent years, he has worked for [22] the government of Equatorial Guinea and served as a member of the Iran Policy Committee [23], which advocates putting support for the MEK at the center of U.S. policy toward Iran.

The Global Initiative for Democracy was incorporated [24] in Virginia last November. The Alexandria-based group’s mission statement [25] says it “engages in wide ranging activities nationwide to promote the cause of democracy, human rights, religious tolerance, and cultural and artistic diversity in Iran as well as to ensure the safety and security of political refugees and asylum-seekers.”

But, much like other groups that have organized pro-MEK events, the Global Initiative for Democracy appears to be primarily focused on the MEK. The only other event detailed on the group’s website was a pro-MEK event held at a Washington hotel in May and featuring [26] former ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton and former State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley, among others. News stories featured on the group’s website [27] mostly involve the MEK.

A decision by the Obama administration on the MEK’s status is expected soon.

Citing two unnamed American officials, The New York Times reported [28] earlier this month that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was preparing to possibly redesignate the MEK as a terrorist group, partly because of the failure of the MEK to fully vacate the group’s home in Iraq, called Camp Ashraf [29], to a new location.

The Iraqi government wants hundreds of MEK members to leave the camp and, ultimately, the country. MEK members first found haven in Iraq in the 1980s during the rule of Saddam Hussein, who armed the group and, according to [30] the State Department, “deployed thousands of MEK fighters in suicidal, waves of attacks against Iranian forces” in the Iran-Iraq war. The group now has an estimated 5,000 to 10,000 members worldwide.

The most recent acts of violence committed by the MEK were “regular mortar attacks and hit-and-run raids against Iranian military and law enforcement personnel” near the Iran-Iraq border in 2001, according to the State Department’s annual terrorism report [31]. French authorities also arrested 160 MEK members in 2003 “at operational bases they believed the MEK was using to coordinate financing and planning for terrorist attacks.”

By law [32], an organization can be placed on the list of foreign terrorist organizations if it engages in terrorist activity or “or retain[s] the capability and intent to engage in terrorist activity or terrorism.” In the waning days of the Bush administration in 2009, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice denied [33] an MEK petition to be removed from the list.

The State Department’s coordinator for counterterrorism, Ambassador Daniel Benjamin, told reporters [34] in July that the closure of Camp Ashraf would be a key factor informing the agency’s decision because “the history and the use of Ashraf is that of an MEK paramilitary base.”

“It’s where the MEK had its heavy weaponry and from which it carried out a number of military operations during the reign of Saddam Hussein,” he said. “The MEK’s relocation will assist the Secretary in determining whether the organization remains invested in its violent past or is committed to leaving that past behind.”

After several years of legal wrangling, a federal appeals court in June ordered [35] that Clinton must decide on the MEK’s status by Oct. 1. If she fails to take action, the court said it would delist the MEK itself. The order also criticized Clinton for putting off a decision on the MEK, calling the delay [36] “egregious.”

In a petition to the court, the MEK’s lawyers said the group’s leadership decided [37] to end all use of violence in 2001. It also pointed to decisions by Britain and the European Union in 2008 and 2009 to declassify the MEK as a terrorist group.

by Justin Elliott , ProPublica

September 1, 2012 0 comment

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

An Attorney Serving as Advocate forTerrorists

Dr. Gerson questions impartiality and humanitarian intention of the UN to defend MKO

It is argued that material support laws could properly be used to prosecute lawyers who act and talk on behalf of groups designated foreign terrorist organizations. But the problem is that majority of attorneys who serve terrorists escape prosecution mainly because they are either too experienced in their job or hardly any of them acknowledges that he might indeed have found himself on the wrong side of the line. Oddly enough, some of these terrorist advocates are notable attorneys and professionals known to observe traditional, anti-terrorist ethical guidelines who have often won battles against terrorists.

Dr. Allan Gerson is recognized as the first attorney to have engineered a practical basis for suing foreign governments for acts of terrorism. After the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, he initiated the first civil suit against a foreign state (Libya) on behalf of families of the victims. In 1996, his efforts were instrumental in the passage of the Anti-terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act. However, although an expert in his own profession, Dr. Gerson is walking in the same path with a designated terrorist group, Mojahedin Khalq Organization MKO/MEK/NCR, and repeating its very same baseless claims. At least nobody expected him to slam a humanitarian guideline set by the United Nations so hard in favor of a terrorist group that is waging a psychological war against international institutions.

The United Nations issued a press release on July 24 stating that its mission in Iraq, UNAMI, has presented a “roadmap” to the Government of Iraq in dealing with the temporary relocation of the Camp Ashraf residents, members of the terrorist MKO, to Camp Liberty, a temporary transit facility near Baghdad airport. Some two-thirds of the residents, or 2,000 people, were relocated to the transit camp but MKO refused to transfer the remaining residents, some 1300 people, on a variety of invented excuses some of which are natural to meet because of the regional and poor living conditions that have long impacted the local people’s lives.

It took only four days following the released roadmap to see a published article under the name of Dr. Gerson in which he slammed the UN for a pure humanitarian cause to end the stalemate in the relocation process. As MKO has repeatedly done, he questions impartiality and humanitarian intention of the UN concerning the issue. For two reasons, Dr. Gerson disputes that the UN effort is humanitarian because “effort comes at the point of a gun. It is aimed at the MEK residents of Camp Ashraf who have been understandably reluctant to move to Camp Liberty until the basic humanitarian needs of food, water, electricity, shelter and facilities for the disabled are met”.

Then, he claims that “If the UN commitment were ‘strictly humanitarian,’ it would never have supported the move of the residents from the Camp Ashraf to Camp Liberty. No purpose is served by such a move. For decades, the MEK lived peacefully at their home of Camp Ashraf, a small city that they built by themselves”.

Dr. Gerson seems to be uninformed of historically plain facts. MKO has never stated a willingness to leave Camp Ashraf known to be its ideological and military bastion allocated by Saddam. It is a legal demand by the Iraqi government and the local people, to whom the land belongs, to close the camp and return the lands to their real owners. For sure, occupiers are reluctant to return what they have seized. It is not a mere dispute over a simple matter of relocation from a camp to another; the problem is MKO’s reluctance to leave rather than the existing common shortages it claims. The ideal solution MKO appreciates is the one that disapproves any relocation from Ashraf.

The group is well aware of the fact that relocation from Ashraf means a permanent expulsion from Iraq sooner or later. But staying at the “small city that they built” even if seemingly in limbo means a permanent or decades long stay until they will be delisted from the State Department Foreign Terrorist Organization list since, as Dr. Gerson explicitly points out, “No country will be eager to take people who remain on that list. And indeed, no country has stepped forward despite the fact that some 300 residents have already been given refugee status by the UNHCR”. What is really bothering MKO is losing the lifelong opportunity of maintaining Camp Ashraf after a unanimous decisiveness for relocation of its members. And Dr. Gerson in his defense of a terrorist group has sold his principles; he tries to look sympathetic as well as promising because he is presently involved with other attorneys in representing MKO to be removed from the State Department List of FTO.

By N. Morgan

August 1, 2012 0 comment

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