Albania just for Albanians not for Rajavi Terrorists
From Mr. Muhammad Veliu’s writing in Gazeta Shqiptarja.com we learned that representatives of the group, organization, cult of Madam Rajavi, with its headquarters (camp, barracks) in Manza, are coming more and more under the spotlight of the most prestigious international media (TV, newspapers, news agencies etc.), and have decided to fight back. In their counter attack they dealt with me personally. In this writing they will have the preface of my answer.
Elderly folk, MEK, former terrorists, currently stateless (refugees) who are sheltered in Albania as persons protected for humanitarian reasons, I remind you with humility that attacking me with all kinds of slanders, tales and idiocies just reminded me of Communist Albania before 1990. You old men and women, presently stateless former criminals, I can say that by scratching at me in a false and fabricated way they have confused toilet paper with sandpaper!
To the public, I am explaining one of their idiosyncratic allegations, not only to reject it, but also to bring to life the paranoia of these criminalized “fossils”, still in circulation from a bygone era.
MEK! Do not be so stupid as to lie about the incident of March 22, 2018, when collaborators in the Albanian police ordered by you (and you have left traces, as ignorant as you are), detained two Iranian journalists. Within 3-4 hours they were released and received an apology (documented with audio recording in Albanian, English and with a phrase in Farsi). How is it possible that the Albanian police release terrorists and apologize?!?!? Are you living in a cave, oh you elderly stateless former criminals?!?!?!? These two Iranian “terrorists” came to Albania at the invitation of the Bektashi World Chief of Bektashis, Baba Mondi. Do you believe, you wretched people, that Baba Mondi is a collaborator with Iranian terrorists?!?!?! The two “terrorists” were detained during the celebrations of the Bektashi Celebration, Sultan Novruz, in the premises of the Headquarters in Tirana, some 30 km from the camp barracks, your residence in Manza. Did these terrorists, with their presence at this ceremony, want to commit terrorist acts against their host Baba Mondi or even the President of the Republic of Albania, who was a participant in this ceremony?!??!?! Two Iranian “terrorists” entered Albania with a regular visa issued by the Albanian Consulate General in Istanbul for free (gratis). It is a miserable day when our diplomats in Istanbul have become a conduit for Iranian terrorists?!?!?!?! Ask your unintelligent collaborators in the Albanian intelligence service, to read, for further information, my article at the link:
https://www.cna.al/2018/03/26/dy-terroristet-iraniane-aprofesionalizem-ulerites-apo-thjesht-false-flag-operation/
The MEK states that journalist and British citizen Arron Reza Merat is an infamous Iranian agent of the Iranian regime. I appeal to British diplomats in Tirana to urgently report to MI5 and MI6 that the MEK have discovered this dangerous Iranian spy in our Tirana. While we are here, the British diplomats in Tirana should urgently inform the British intelligence service that MEK of Manza have also discovered a dangerous Iranian spy (British citizen) named Anne Singleton, with whom I was a participant last November (not December as they have incorrectly and unintelligently informed our readers) in a public activity, a seminar, a workshop in Tirana, an activity featured in the electronic media, written media and with videos on You tube, and photos on my personal Facebook. Albanian readers are offered this link to the most recent article by Arron Merat (with associates), the Iranian “spy” for the most serious British newspaper “The Guardian”. link:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/jun/30/rudy-giuliani-mek-iran-paris-rally
Elderly, stateless ex-terrorists, (without a homeland), I explained that I went to Manzas as a translator for the British journalist, not as co-author of his article. I remind the miserable MEK that their Albanian collaborators went to the Faculty of Philology in Tirana to verify that I really did graduate in English in 1988, inter alia to perform the role of a professional oral translator and in writing (interpreter & translator). I did not hide my identity because I presented to MEK a legal identification document, an international passport. I also had an identity card, a driving license, a journalist’s card and a permit to enter Durres Port. I gave my passport, the document contains more info and I had the suspicion that the training which they which they had 30 years ago from Saddam Hussein’s 9th Mukhabarat Directorate was shallow, deficient and very rudimentary. The MEK, in a very professional way, photographed and documented by my side, not just the passport page with my personal details on it, but also every passport page, where there were the exit and entry stamps for whenever I had travelled abroad since December 2010! I remind the MEK that neither they nor the Argon security employees and security guards, have the jurisdiction to check ID documents of Albanian or foreign nationals outside the fence of the camp, barracks, MEK refuge in Manza. I gave my documents and those of the person driving the car owned by my wife to test the professionalism of these former terrorists for the sake of the “Argon” company employees who are ordinary people who support their families with that job!
I did not come to your camp as a reporter but as a translator, however, since, according to your “spokesperson”: “He is part of the Albanian network working with the Iranian Embassy”, I will publicly expose your extreme paranoia. While I still have a very good, almost photographic memory, of being outdoors outside your camp, outside the gate, often in the public road asphalt, I am informing you publicly that I noticed, among other things, these things:
Works in your camp are being carried out by the “Victoria Invets” company owned by Mr. Fatmir Kuqin “. I have almost photographed in my mind, the types, brands and vehicle plates of this company, which entered and left the camp.
Among the subcontractors I noted three different firms. So you don’t think I’m bluffing I’ll mention one of them, company “Beton 5”.
I noted the types and Trademarks used by the “Argon” company’s employees, as well as the type and brand of their handsets (walkie talkies).
I noted the brand of hand radios used by two of the MEK, who were a bunch of commanders, one of whom, in 1991, as a tank driver with “Assad Babylon” [Saddam Hussein] stained the tracks of his tank with the blood of women, children, babies and Shiite tribal elders in the villages in the wetlands near Basra and up to the outskirts of the Iraqi Port Um-Qasser!
I promise you that I will carefully investigate and make public in detail the procedure for obtaining permission from the Albanian authorities for the installation of antennas for such radio transmitters!
I have photographed in my mind the types, brands and license plates of the transport which conveys Albanian employees into and out of the camp. Such details are important to understanding MEK-Albanian relations.
I also fixed in my memory such details as the type and brand of telescopic mirror, which was used to check the underneath of the car chassis entering and leaving the MEK residence. Congratulations, yours are better quality than the ones used by the Vehicle Inspection Guard at the entrance of the Prime Ministry (SIC!).
While on the subject of the Prime Minister, my brother Edwin, the famous leader: Wait, wait, you haven’t seen anything yet. I assure you, oh you wretched MEK, that in the second part of my answer you will be treated to such topics as: 1) Ashraf Camp 3 or George Orwell’s Animal Farm. 2) Edwin ‘the Believer’ hopes to use MEK as a master key to open the Oval Office door. 3) Details of how I will accompany other foreign journalists to the gate of Madam Rajavi’s “Animal Farm”. 4) The public outcry against the MEK and the rule of hearing two bells in journalism. 5) Albanians generally do not endure foreign boils and do not allow them to command in Albania. 6) From Ruskik Haza! Fuck off MEK, this is dialectical!
Oh you MEK, all this story about you started from my writing in this link here:
https://www.cna.al/2017/11/24/kryeministri-edvin-do-strehoje-ne-shqiperi-familjaret-e-terroristeve-te-isis-it/
MEK tomorrow! And tomorrow! / IMPACT GAZETTE
Gjergji Thanasi, Gazeta Impact, Translated by Iran Interlink
In a tweet that the US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo made on July 12, 2018 against Iran, he asked the partners and allies of the United States to join the economic pressure campaign against Iran’s regime. Pompeo went on to say that: “We must cut off all funding the regime uses to fund terrorism & proxy wars. There’s no telling when Iran may try to foment terrorism, violence & instability in one of our countries next.”
To illustrate Iran’s involvement in terrorism, Pompeo placed a link from the US Bureau of Counterterrorism which showed that on March 22, 2018 the Albanian authorities had arrested two Iranian operatives on charges of terrorism in Albania. The news that Albania had arrested two Iranian terrorists first appeared in the pages of the Mojahedin-e Khalq(MEK, National Council of Resistance of Iran) terrorist organization website. This news was later replicated in a number of Mojahedin paid news websites, but was quoted even by Wall Street Journal and Fox News.
However, the Albanian journalists who followed the detention of two Iranian journalists in Albania on March 22, 2018 have shown a different story from what Secretary Pompeo, the US media and the Mojahedin have shown. Gjergji Thanasi, an Albanian investigative journalist who followed the case of the detention of the Iranians showed that the two journalists that MEK and Secretary of State Pompeo claim to be Iranian terrorists were in fact two Iranian journalists who were invited by the Bektashi Community of Albania to celebrate the Shiia festival of Novruz in Tirana, Albania and participate in a Muslim conference about Imam Ali. Their visas were issued by the Albanian consulate in Istanbul and their profile was vetted by the Albanian anti-terrorism police who found them to be genuine journalists. However, on the day of Novroz these two Iranian journalists were detained by the Albanian anti-terrorism police on a fake tip by the Mojahedin. When the news about the detention of two Iranian “terrorists” broke in Tirana, the Albanian ambassador in Prishtina rejected these claims issued by a foreign diplomat.
Gazeta Impakt, which followed the detention of the Iranian journalists on the day of Novruz and visited police station No. 1 in Tirana, showed how their detention created a diplomatic scandal between the Bektashi Community and the Albanian government. Baba Mondi, the Grand Dervish of the World Headquarters of the Bektashis who had personally invited the journalists to Albania, had to personally phone the interior minister and president Ilir Meta and ask for the release of his honorary guests. Gazeta Impakt discovered that their detention was made on fake claims issued by the Mojahedin military command in Albania which targets any Iranian delegation or diplomat that visits the country. The Albanian anti-terrorism police who briefly detained and questioned the journalists at Tirana’s police station 1, found them to be innocent and according to the law were forced to let them free and apologize for their detention.
Even though the detention of the Iranian journalists has now been clarified and there are no Iranian terrorists held or charged in Albania, American government officials and their Mojahedin allies still claim that on March 22, 2018 the Albanian authorities have arrested two Iranian operatives on charges of terrorism.
The repeated fake news on the detention of the “Iranian terrorists” has been followed by other fake news that the Mojahedin are creating in their news outlets. Another claim that MEK has made against Iran is that Albanian Minister for the Diaspora, Pandeli Majko has been threatened by Iranian agents and that Iran is sending agents to attack the MEK terrorist organization which now portrays itself as the Iranian democratic opposition.
The fake news that the Mojahedin, in coordination with the US government are fabricating against Iran, comes at a time when the Mojahedin organization is involved in a number of scandals in Albania. Out of 3,000 Mojahedin that the United States brought to Albania in 2016, around 400 of them have deserted the paramilitary organization, have abandoned jihad and many of them have been trafficked to Germany, Italy, Greece and other European countries. MEK which is panicking because of these mass defections of its jihadis has moved its members in camp Ashraf 3 in the Albanian village of Manza and does not let them out. Some ex-Mojahedin who are still in Albania and have managed to escape, are now coming out in the media and talking about the horrible torture, enslavement and brainwashing that MEK is doing to its own members.
In the past few weeks, the Albanian public has been horrified to learn about the story of the Canadian Mohammadi family. The MEK, which abducted their daughter Somayeh when she was 17 years old and was attending Etobicoke Collegiate Institute in Toronto, is refusing to let Somayeh out of the paramilitary camp of Manza to meet her family. Her desperate parents are appealing to the Albanian authorities to help them deradicalize and free their daughter from the violent jihadist organization and allow them to take her back to Canada. However, MEK refuses by claiming that her family will send Somayeh as a slave to the mullahs in Tehran.
The Mojahedin, have gone crazy because of the presence of the Canadian family in Albania who are suing them in court for abduction of their daughter, assaulted Mostafa Mohammadi in the streets of Tirana on 27 July 2018. Mostafa was subsequently hospitalized and later harassed by a group of 50 Mojahedin who surrounded police station nr. 4 in Tirana under the leadership of military commanders Behzad Saffari, Jila Deyhim and Ahmad Taba. In their news websites the Mojahedin labelled Mostafa an Iranian agent and wrote declarations in the name of his daughter to say she does not want to meet her father since she has heard that he is an Iranian agent. The Mojahedin even assaulted a British journalist crew from Channel 4 who went to visit their camp Ashraf 3 on August 10, 2018. This violent incident which was reported to the Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama by Albanian anti-terrorism police is not being yet punished by the Albanian authorities who fear the wrath of the Trump administration if they move against MEK.
The Albanian authorities who are afraid of the U.S. administration are hesitant to implement the law against the Mojahedin, who are nowadays attacking and insulting journalists, Albanian, British, Dutch and Canadian citizens in Albania. Even though the Albanian Criminal Code Articles 231 and 265 condemns the participation, incitement, recruitment in terrorism and calls for the overthrow of regimes in other countries, the Mojahedin make continuous calls for jihad against Iran from Albania. They are behaving like a military gang in the country. On 27 July 2018, when the Mojahedin attacked Mostafa Mohammadi and the Albanian police arrested the attackers, the Mojahedin surrounded police station number 4 in Tirana and blackmailed the police who were forced to release the assailants. Commander Behzad Saffari who is no lawyer and has no right to intervene inside law enforcement agencies, forced himself inside the police station to attend the confession of the Mojahedin before the police, contrary to the Albanian law.
The Mojahedin are attacking anyone who opposes them in Albania. Their latest attack against a group of journalists from the British Channel 4 is arousing huge condemnation by the media in Albania who are questioning the aggression of MEK against the media. However leading American politicians and advisers to Trump, like Rudy Giuliani and John Bolton portray them as the Iranian opposition which will bring democracy to Iran.
Many Albanian security officials and analysts who are following the extremist behavior of MEK, fear that in the future the Mojahedin will use Albania as a launchpad to create a major incident between the West and Iran. Thus far they have shown themselves capable of eliminating their dissident members, abducting and holding hostages, beating families who want to liberate their abducted children, threatening the media and civil society, blackmailing the local police and distributing fake news on daily basis. The fear is that if the Trump Administration wants, MEK will carry out a major false flag terrorist incident in Albania or in Europe and this attack will serve the Trump – Pompeo administration as a justification for a major confrontation with Iran and the European Union.
Olsi Jazexhi,
British journalist Lindsey Hilsum was hit by members of the Iranian opposition group known as Mujahedin e Khalq (MEK) living in a “fortified camp” nearby-Durres’ Manez village, on which she’d come to report on for Britain’s Channel 4, local media reported on Sunday.
According to Shqiptarja.com, Albanian authorities attempted to keep the Aug. 10 incident a secret from the public, although Prime Minister Edi Rama, Minister of Interior Fatmir Xhafaj, high police authorities and the British Embassy to Tirana were notified.
Hilsum and her producer Darius Bazargan were investigating and filming the 3,000 Mujahedin, whom Iran considers a terrorist group and whom Albania has been controversially hosting as refugees after the US removed MEK from its terrorist groups’ list in 2012, accompanied by an Albanian translator.
According to the testimony of an eye-witness, private police guarding the fortified camp where the MEK members are hiding attempted to take hold of the camera used to film, while some of the members hit Hilsum, who began to scream, until state police patrolling the area stopped them and took the foreigners at the police station, where they testified.
“They tried to take her camera and break it. The journalist panicked and began to scream, while they grabbed the man that was accompanying them by the neck,” the eye witness told Shqiptarja.com.
It is also reported Channel 4 will run the recordings of the MEK members in Albania in the following days, where the incident with Hilsum and her team will also be depicted.
After a request made by the Albanian media, a spokesperson for MEK said they have reason to doubt the British journalists are, in fact, in contact with the Iranian secret service, which they fear will attack the Mujahedin in their camp here in Albania, which was the only country that accepted to host them.
The MEK announcement said that no one had notified them of the journalists’ arrival and plans to film them and added that Albanian secret service had also requested them to stop filming and had been ignored.
According to the announcement, the violence reported is misinformation spread by Iranian secret agent Massoud Khodabandeh, who is allegedly in touch with the journalists.
It is unclear what further steps have been taken by the Albanian authorities after Hilsum’s testimony, but local media reports violence between MEK members and international journalists who have come to Albania to investigate on their lives here has occurred before.
Relations between Albania and Iran date back to the 19th and 20th century, when several Albanian Renaissance poets were inspired by Persian culture and Bektashism, an ultra-liberal mystical Muslim sect with roots in Sufism and Shia Islam that is also present in Albania, to promote Albanian independence.
However, relations between Albania and Iran in the past few years have been strained by Albania’s willingness to accept providing shelter to MEK, which had been on the list of terrorist organizations for several years by the United States.
Meanwhile, independent experts have raised serious question marks on MEK members presence in Albania, even more than the concerns already raised by their presence here as an ex-terrorist group that is still considered terrorist in many parts of the world.
According to earlier statements by MEK members, their stay in Albania will stretch until the end of Iran’s dictatorship, however experts have not excluded the possibility that MEK members may be building a base against Iran, during their stay in Albania.
Tirana Times
After Interior Minister Fatmir Xhafaj, Iranian Mostafa Mohammadi has also written to Prime Minister Rama, saying he wants his daughter released. According to him, she is held hostage by Mojahedin at the Manza camp in Durrës
shqiptarja.com and Report TV ‘s editorial board have secured another exclusive letter sent by the Iranian father of 38-year-old Somayeh Mohammadi, Mostafa Mohammadi, to the highest state office. After Interior Minister Fatmir Xhafaj, Mohammadi has also written to Prime Minister Rama, saying he wants his daughter released. The letter is addressed Mr. Agron Soyat, the prime minister’s adviser on anti-terrorism.
Mostafa says he is a Canadian citizen and that the MEK organization in Manzas of Durres has held his daughter hostage for 21 years. He even says he was assaulted by members of this organization on July 27, 2018. According to him, about 50 mujahideen that same day surrounded the police station no. 4, as well as terrorizing lawyers and police in the region and calling him and his wife terrorists.
“I believe you have seen in the media how the Mojahedin beat me on July 27, 2018 near the madrasa in Tirana. Mojahed Humayun Deyhim, a person who has committed crimes in Iraq, stopped me on the street and together with 7 other Mojahedin, pushed me, struck me and then called me a terrorist, and as a result of this assault I ended up in the hospital. Then when we went to police station No. 4, the Mojahedin commanders, consisting Behzad Saffari, Jila Deyhim and Ahmad Taba (persons who committed crimes in Iraq) with around 50 Mojahedin surrounded police station No. 4 and terrorized lawyers and police in the region and called us terrorists”, he says.
The Iranian also mentions the case of British Channel 4 journalists headed by Mrs Lindsey Hilsum who says she has interviewed him about this issue.
“In a few days they labelled as Iranian agents two journalists, one from the British newspaper The Guardian, who were not given access inside their camp to see Somayeh. The violent behavior of the Mojahedin against journalists and the parents of the persons they hold hostage in their organization not new. They firebombed the Mansur hotel in Baghdad, Iraq, in 2006, when I wanted to meet my daughter and have sent a killer to kill me. I am alive thanks to US Marines who rescued me in Iraq. These facts are shown in the documentary I produced for my daughter which is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hjYLhpB9Xyg, “he explains in the letter
To download the video file click here
The Girl’s Denunciation
On the other hand, a short time ago his daughter Ms. Sommyeh Mohammadi, personally went to Manza police station to file a lawsuit against him. Earlier, Somayeh wrote a letter to the Interior Minister of Albania, in which she explains that her father is in this country with a mission on behalf of the Iranian Intelligence Ministry.
Shqiptarja.com and Fxmedia.al, Tirana, Albania, Translated by Iran Interlink
International Affairs Editor on Channel 4, Lindsey Hilsum mistreated, authorities are silent about the event. Minister Fatmir Xhafaj, the highest police authorities, and the British Embassy in Tirana have become aware of this incident.
An attempt was made to keep secret an incident at the Iranian Mojahedin camp in Manzas, Durrës, in which a well-known British journalist and her film crew were beaten. But Shqiptarja.com has discovered all the details of this incident.
Sources from the State Intelligence and Anti-terrorism Services, speaking on terms of anonymity, indicate that the incident occurred on August 10. The whole event was not reported in the daily communiques of criminal events by the police, although it is a scandal, and not a small one.
The Event
At the beginning of August, a British television crew for Channel 4 arrived in Albania, along with the well-known Middle East affairs journalist Lindsey Hilsum. The purpose of their visit was to investigate the lives of the Iranian Mojahedin, who have been given refuge for some years in our country, and the mystery of the newly-built, giant and fortified camp, hosting 3,000 dissidents of the Iranian regime.
Shqiptarja.com learned that on the morning of August 10, Lindsey Hilsum, accompanied by her producer Darius Bazargan, travelled in the direction of Manza, in the Durrës Region, to film the camp. They were accompanied by an Albanian translator.
As Lindsey Hilsum was standing outside the camp’s fence, at the back, trying to look inside the camp, she was pushed, and she was subjected to force by the private security guards, as well as by some Iranians.
An eyewitness told Shqiptarja.com that the attack was immediate and that the journalist was frightened. “They tried to take the camera and break it. The journalist panicked and started screaming, while young man of short stature who accompanied her was grabbed by the throat”, he said.
After a few minutes, an emergency police patrol arrived, which protected the journalist and her crew. They were escorted to the police station where they reported the incident and explained that they were doing their job [as journalists]. After giving their statements, they were released.
The Incident
The entire incident has been filmed by the British film crew and will be broadcast in the next few days on Channel 4. A source aware of the content of the investigation told Shqiptarja.com that the film material provided by British television and the interviews taken show what happens inside the camp which is guarded fanatically so that nothing escapes outside the massive walls of this camp, lying on 26 hectares.
Minister Fatmir Xhafaj, the highest police authorities, and the British Embassy in Tirana have become aware of this incident.
Meanwhile, SHISH has sent Prime Minister Rama a detailed memo about the event. Shqiptarja.com sent an email to producer Darius Bazargan asking him to comment on the event to which he replied to contact his executive producers who would make a public statement later.
Albanianja.com requested a statement about this incident from the Mojahedin spokesman in the Manza camp, who claimed to believe that the TV crew was serving the interests of Iran’s regime’s secret police.
Full Reaction of MEK:
“On Friday, August 10, 2018, a television crew of three, secretly and without prior notice, filmed and photographed within the residence of members of the Mojahedin People’s Organization of Iran (PMOI-MEK), refugees in Albania, from an adjacent place. Local Albanian security agents, who pointed out this suspicious and unlawful act, asked not to film and surrender the footage. But team members, who were introduced as Britons working for British TV Channel 4 TV, disregarded this request and continued their work until the Albanian police came and escorted them to the police district.
“The next day, the news of their visit to the PMOI residence and photos taken there was featured on Facebook’s site by Massoud Khodabandeh, a notorious agent of the Iranian Intelligence Ministry (MOIS), as well as on Iran’s website -Interlink that is run by MOIS. Thus, it became clear that this audio-visual team from Channel 4 is in active communication with this Iranian intelligence agent and has taken the task of preparing a program to denigrate PMOI. But when MOIS realized that the publication of the news and photos had tarnished her conspiracy against Mojahedin, she ordered that they be removed on August 12th.
“On August 10, shortly after the release of the Channel 4 filming team, a PMOI press spokesman wrote an urgent letter to the television channel editor, telling the story and threats facing Mojahedin in Albania: “We are very worried that the filmed videos will fall into the hands of the Iranian Intelligence Ministry, “but he did not receive any response. He sent another letter to the editor on August 13 about the release of photographs describing the story of MOIS agent Khodabandeh, and attached two reports from a parliamentary group of the United Kingdom and the Federal Library of Congress’s Library Division about his dependence on MOIS, as well as an explanation from the editor. The letter remains unanswered.
“The claims that the reporter is beaten are completely lied. For your information, the first person claiming the reporter was beaten was Massoud Khodabandeh, the Iranian intelligence agent. So the origin of this claim is the Iranian intelligence ministry. Moreover, if the security personnel who, based on the advice of the Albanian government, are there for protection, would have done something wrong, the police would have banned them, not the reporters. Lies and gathering information about the compound of the MeK are part of preparing the ground for terrorist attacks against Iranian refugees. Similarly, in March a terror plot against their residential complex was prevented and two Iranian “reporters” were arrested.”
It is not yet known whether the Durrës police and prosecutor’s office have investigated this serious incident after receiving the testimony of the British journalist and her crew, or questioned the security guards at the camp, the protagonists in beating the English media people.
This is not an isolated incident between the Mojahedin refugee camps and international media interested in reporting on their lives. Shqiptarja.com learned that some days ago there has been another clash with an English-speaking journalist, The Guardian reporter named Arron Merat.
Profile / Lindsey Hilsum, Channel 4 journalist
Lindsey Hilsum is an international news editor on the prestigious British Channel 4 channel. During her career as a journalist, she has covered the world’s main conflicts over the last two decades, including the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Kosovo, as well as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In 2011, she reported on the ground the riots and unrest in Egypt, Bahrain and Libya. She has made numerous reports from Iran and Zimbabwe and was the Channel 4 Correspondent in China from 2006 to 2008. During the 2004 American attack on Fallujah, Iraq, she was on the front line of the attack alongside American Marines. She was the only foreign-language journalist who spoke English in Rwanda when the genocide began. Before engaging in journalism, she worked with relief missions in Latin America and Africa.
Her first book “Sand Storm: Libya at the Time of the Revolution” was published in Britain in April 2012 and May of that year in the US.
Hilsum was honored with an honorary doctorate from the English Essay University in 2004 and received awards such as television journalist of the year and was awarded medals by the Royal Geographic Society.
Dissidents
Three thousand opponents of the Tehran regime settled in Albania.
Since 1986, dissenters against the Iranian regime were sheltered in Ashraf camp, built by the United States on Iraqi land, on the border between Iraq and Iran. Their transfer to Albania began when the government of Berisha agreed to accommodate the first 210 Mojahedin who arrived in Tirana in May 2013. All of the Camp Ashraf residents came to Albania following an agreement between Prime Minister Rama and former Secretary of State John Kerry in 2016. The Iranian People’s Mojahedin Organization (MEK) is a movement that acts to overthrow the current regime in Iran.
The 3,000 Iranian Mojahedin who came to Albania previously lived in rented flats, but are now accommodated in the Manzas area, some kilometers from the city of Durres. It is understood that money for the land purchase and construction of new housing within the camp is funded by the community of Iranian dissidents living mainly in Europe. The new housing is surrounded by a security perimeter to avoid any potential risk. The protection of Iranian dissidents coming to Albania is guaranteed by intelligence agents. Meanwhile, the camp is guarded by private guards.
“We will stay in Manza until the end of the dictatorial regime in Iran. Our dream is to go back to our families in a free Iran”, one of them said off-camera for Report TV.
By Muhammad Veliu, Arsen Rusta,Shqiptarja.com, Translated by Iran Interlink
At the height of the tourist season, one of the most frequented beaches in Durres, Lalzi Bay, is not supplied with drinking water.
The news was announced by the journalist Andi Bejtja, who in a post on his social network, writes that the reason for this is because a special pipe has been added to the network which prioritises water for the Mojahedin camp at Maminas.
“Come on, come on, there is no water at all in Lalzi at the height of the tourist season, that a special pipe is inserted into the network and as a priority water goes to the Mojahedin camp in Maminas. It’s better to be a Mojahed than a tourist in the summer.”
CNA, by G.T., Albania, Translated by Iran Interlink,
A family drama playing out in Albania has caught the attention of media and public opinion. But this is no ordinary drama. It is the story of Iranian born Mostafa and Mahboubeh Mohammadi, who are Canadian citizens and their twenty-one-year struggle to rescue their daughter from a dangerous terrorist cult.
In 1997, Somayeh and her brother Mohammad, were deceptively recruited into the violent extremist group, Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK). Somayeh was seventeen. They travelled to Iraq for a two week visit to the MEK training camp, and never returned home. Their parents were supporters of MEK and at first simply appealed directly to the group’s leaders for their children’s return to their studies and family. MEK ignored their requests.
It wasn’t until the fall of Saddam’s regime in 2003 that Mostafa was able to travel to Iraq independently of MEK and reach out to his children. He managed to rescue Mohammad and bring him back to Canada. But Somayeh was under constant supervision by MEK commanders who used coercive control to confuse and intimidate the girl. She was afraid to leave, even though she had written several times to the US Marines guarding the camp asking for help.
Her parents made repeated attempts to meet freely with Somayeh, so they could reassure her of her future with them in Canada. MEK closed all doors to them and in doing so, alienated a whole family which had been ardent supporters. Mostafa had even volunteered to take part in the MEK orchestrated self-immolations in 2003 to protest the arrest in Paris of MEK leader Maryam Rajavi. He was only saved when a friend snatched the lighter from his hand after Mostafa had doused himself in petrol. Now, instead of returning Somayeh to Canada and having a family of active supporters for their cause, MEK has destroyed the life of a young woman and broken the hearts of her family.
Somayeh was brought to Albania with another 3,000 MEK after Iraq expelled the terrorist group. From their first arrival in Tirana in 2013, MEK members frightened ordinary citizens with their intimidatory behaviour. Intense and forceful but somehow disengaged, MEK members swept through the capital like a plague. In place of a de-radicalization programme, the Americans in charge of them allowed them to retreat behind the closed walls of a purpose-built terrorist training camp in a rural town, Manez in the district of Durres. In spite of this, over four hundred have managed to escape the group and are willing to endure hardship rather than continue to associate with MEK. One recent escapee described conditions inside MEK as “slavery”.
In this context, Mostafa and Mahboubeh are now in Tirana making another attempt to meet their daughter. This time, without the presence of MEK minders. They have appealed to the Albanian authorities to help them. They refused.
Instead, MEK has been allowed to go berserk, instigating a campaign of propaganda and intimidation that has created a real crisis for the country; for its citizens, its government and its security and law enforcement services.
Albanian media presents this as a family dispute. But there is no equivalence between the ordinary parents from Canada and the people who are surrounding Somayeh. These are people whose background reveals how dangerous they are. So that when the Albanian police are called to an incidence of public disorder, they are not expecting nor are they quipped through training or resources to deal with radicalised violent extremists trained by Saddam Hussein’s Republican Guards, many with blood on their hands. Yet this is what the government has imposed on them. Even the security and intelligence services of Albania are inadequately prepared to deal with the criminal unpredictability and unaccountability of MEK.
The MEK commanders and agents involved in delivering MEK’s version of Somayeh’s story are as follows:
The female commander, Jila Deyhim, was recruited as a student at Manchester University in the UK at the time of Iran’s 1979 Revolution. Her husband Ahmad Shadbakhti was killed in an armed clash with security forces in Tehran. Jila left their daughter in the UK to be raised by her brother Khosro Deyhim (aka Haji) in Newcastle Upon Tyne while she went to join MEK in Iraq.
Jila is the head of MEK Operations in Tirana. As well as being present when two MEK operatives publicly assaulted Mostafa in a street in Tirana, she organised for over 60 MEK to surround Police Station 4 in Tirana while two arrested MEK members were being questioned by police. Afterwards, JIla sent the 60 MEK to spread through the city to hunt down and intimidate and beat up ex-MEK members. (Local police officers, used to dealing with ordinary crimes and criminals, were so shocked by the MEK behaviour that they wrote to the Interior Ministry saying they are not equipped to deal with sixty potential suicide bombers and to ask that the security forces in charge of MEK make sure the police will not have to deal with these ‘guests of the state’ again.)
Historically, Jila served as a commander during the Kurdish massacres – Operation Morvarid (Pearl) in 1991 – as well as many other operations. Witnesses have given further testimony of her torturing and killing disaffected members in MEK/Saddam Hussein prisons in Camp Ashraf. Jila ‘graduated’ as a highly trained intelligence officer under Saddam Hussein’s security service. In addition, she undertook field training, tank driving, basic combat and SWAT command.
Homayoun Deyhim – in the pink shirt assaulting Mostafa Mohammadi – is a brother of Jila. He studied Electrical Engineering in Newcastle University in the UK just before the Revolution. During the Revolution he went to India to study for an MSC. In India he worked for MEK, but was later recruited by Jila to go to Iraq.
Homayoun never achieved any significant rank, working mostly in the technical and repair departments. But he is famous inside MEK for agreeing to do anything to get promoted. Hence, on many occasions he was involved in punitive beating and humiliating of other members in Camp Ashraf. Homayoun undertook basic military training and Republican Guards operations training.
In Police Station 4 in Tirana after his arrest for assaulting Mostafa, Jila instructed Homayoun to claim that Mostafa had attacked him. They did not know at that time that there was videoed evidence from the scene which shows what actually happened.
Behzad Saffari from Isfahan went to the UK to study dentistry He was recruited by MEK and sent to Iraq after Rajavi moved there. He was injured in operation Eternal Light (Forough Javidan) in 1988 and brought back to London to recover before being sent back to Iraq. Witnesses allege that Behzad was involved in beatings in MEK prisons. Behzad cheated his family out of their life savings – which he gave to MEK – by falsely claiming to have left the organisation. His father sent money to family members in Canada, but it ended up in MEK accounts in the UK.
Behzad was involved in liaising with the UNHCR during the transfer process from Iraq to Albania. Former members recount how the UNHCR gave each individual 100 USD for the journey and after their arrival. When the members arrived in Tirana airport, Behzad took the $100 from each one of them and gave them one hundred Albanian LEK as local currency (around one US dollar).
Behzad is currently involved with the teams harassing ex-members and journalists in Tirana. Behzad Saffari is liaising with the MEK lawyer and answers to Jila Deyhim.
Ahmad Taba (aka Akbar), was a student in UMIST (Manchester) at the time of the Iranian Revolution in 1979. He was recruited by MEK to work in London and was then transferred to Iraq after Massoud Rajavi went there.
Ahmad was trained as a helicopter pilot by the Iraqi Army. He graduated from training by Saddam’s Republican Guards, which included guerrilla war and SWAT tactics. He also underwent a 9-month course with Saddam’s Mukhabarat, from which he graduated as an Intelligence officer. He killed many civilians in the Kurdish attacks and there are witnesses connecting him to the torture of prisoners in Camp Ashraf.
Somayeh Mohammadi herself has not left the MEK camps in Iraq or Albania for twenty-one years. She has no idea about what is happening in the outside world. It is incomprehensible that a woman who claims to be freely pursuing a political struggle for violent regime change against Iran is incapable of meeting alone with her parents to tell them face to face of her decision. Her parents, who know her so well, say it is clear she is afraid and not acting freely when she speaks out against them. Surrounded by the above MEK characters, it is clear that she is under control and is unable to speak or act for herself in any meaningful way. This is not a family dispute, Somayeh is a hostage.
Under the pressure of coercive control, experts can easily recognise in Somayeh a victim who, in the hands of MEK, has been forced to the edge of a cliff over which she may be pushed or fall. If it is subsequently reported that she has disappeared, committed suicide, drowned in a reservoir or otherwise come to harm, there can be no doubt that the government of Albania must be held accountable. She cannot save herself from harm, yet the possibility of MEK harming her is very high. She is in great danger.
Albania may be a failed state, but it is not a rogue state like Saddam’s Iraq. It is a state with pretensions to joining the European Union. The government can and should be held accountable for whatever happens to Somayeh Mohammadi. The way to prevent such an outcome is to step in and separate her from her captors.
Iranian.com
An Iranian father and daughter have traded accusations against each other over Iranian opposition group Mujahedin-e-Khalq, MEK, whom Albania has offered accommodation under a deal with the United States but whose members official Iran has banned as terrorist group.
Mostafa Mohammedi, a Canada-based Iranian citizen, claims his 38-year-old daughter is being held hostage by MEK, the “Peoples’ Mujahedin of Iran,” but his daughter denies claims and has filed a lawsuit against him.
Somayeh Mohammadi is one of the 3,000 mujahedeen who have been accommodated in a camp outside Durres, Albania’s second largest city, as part of United States efforts to find them new homes outside of Iraq where they were stationed at a U.S-backed camp until late 2016.
While in Albania seeking to meet his daughter whom he hasn’t seen in more than a decade, Mostafa Mohammedi is asking Albanian authorities to free his 38-year old daughter from MEK, which he says is holding her hostage.
His daughter has responded undertaking legal action against him over alleged persecution, accusing her father as an undercover agent of the Iranian regime and says that she joined and is staying with MEK of her own free will for two decades now.
Mostafa, who holds Canadian citizenship, says he moved to Canada in 1994 to seek political asylum. The Iranian father claims MEK ‘kidnapped’ his daughter from Canada in 1997 when she was only 17, convincing him to allow her for a two-week trip to Iraq, but never came back. He says he hasn’t met her since 2005.
“We believe and we have testimony from former mujahedeen who have left the extremist organization and live in Tirana that our daughter lives under conditions of torture and inhuman treatment by the MEK jihadists,” says the Iranian-Canadian in his letter to Albanian Interior Minister Fatmir Xhafaj.
His appeal to the Albanian authorities is “think with your heart and understand the pain that a mother and father suffer when they see their daughter being held hostage by a violent and extremist group.”
The Iranian father says he has filed a lawsuit with Albanian authorities over alleged MEK kidnapping but his daughter has responded by initiating legal action over alleged persecution.
‘Father is undercover agent,’ daughter claims
In a letter published on Albanian media, Somayeh Mohammadi claims her father is a undercover agent of the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence and Security and that the real reason he is in Albania is to undertake undercover operations against MEK, which the Iranian government considers a terrorist organization for about four decades now.
Somayeh says she voluntarily left Canada in 1998 like many Iranians to join MEK seeking freedom and democracy for Iran.
She claims her father surprisingly told Canadian media she was being held hostage by MEK after meeting her at the Ashraf camp in Iraq in 2002, 2003 and 2004. “He created online propaganda blogs allegedly belonging to me and put other pressure to force me to surrender and collaborate with the Iranian authorities,” she says in her letter to Albanian authorities.
Somayeh says she has published her whole story in a book available in Persian and English unveiling efforts by Mostafa Mohammedi to abuse her, and claims that her father had a role as an undercover Iranian agent in the Ashraf and Liberty camp killings in Iraq.
“The presence of Mostafa Mohammad in Albania is very troubling for me. I am not concerned about myself, but the security of my friends in Albania. His presence shows that the Iranian regime is seeking to engage in other heinous plotting against us in Albania,” she says in her letter to the Albanian Interior Minister, asking him to ban her father from staying in Albania.
In another interview with local Albanian media, the Iranian-Canadian father claims that the letter signed by his daughter and published on Albanian media was written by Mujahedeen leaders who don’t want her to joint her family.
“I am not an Iranian agent. I am a Canadian citizen and parent who wants to free his daughter from the kidnapping of the Iranian jihadist group,” he says.
MEK in Albania
Albania’s decision to accommodate 3,000 MEK members in the past few years has angered official Tehran who has banned them from Iran since 1981.
Mujahedin e Khalq members are opponents of Iran’s regime. Following the Islamic revolution of 1979, MEK supported Saddam Hussein in the 1980s war between Iraq and Iran.
MEK had been on the list of terrorist organizations for several years by the United States until it was finally removed from the list in 2012 after the dissident group supported the U.S in military operations in the Middle East and in its fight against terrorism.
Relations between Albania and Iran date back to the 19th and 20th century when several Albanian Renaissance poets where inspired by Persian culture and Bektashism, an ultra-liberal mystical Muslim sect with roots in Sufism and Shia Islam that is also present in Albania, to promote Albanian independence.
Iran is represented in Albania with its own embassy while the Saadi Shirazi cultural foundation has been present in Albania since the early 1990s promoting ties between Albania and Iran.
Tirana Times,
DURRES / A couple of Canadian citizens, who are Iranian nationals, are asking the Albanian state to allow them, after 21 years, to meet with their daughter who, according to them, is in the Manza camp where the Mojahedin (MEK) are resident.
The couple arrived in Albania at the beginning of July, but after 20 days of trying, are still unable to meet with her. They say that she left the family, aged 17, without their knowledge and went to Iraq to join the MEK organisation. The daughter, called Somayeh Mohammadi, was born on September 8, 1980. She joined the Iranian Mojahedin MEK in 1997. They learned that their 38-year-old daughter is in Camp Ashraf 3 in Manza, where the Mojahedin are hosted in Albania. Her parents, Mostafa and Mahboubeh Mohammadi, claim that the girl is held in this camp against her will and want to meet her and take her home to Canada.
Mr Mostafa, why are you in Albania?
We are in Albania to find our daughter who left the family 21 years ago. We are a couple with Canadian citizenship, but with Iranian ethnicity. 21 years ago, aged 17, our daughter left Canada to join activists in Iraq to overthrow the regime [in Iran].
How did she leave Canada, with or without your knowledge?
Of course without our knowledge. We didn’t know anything about her leaving. When she arrived in the Middle East, she contacted us and told us that she was there for this purpose, to join the activists. We were very worried because we knew what was happening in Iraq in 1997, the country was at war.
When she left, who was waiting for her?
I don’t know what to say. After she arrived in the Middle East, we only spoke with her a little. She just told us she had left for this reason without any details, not about to whom she had departed, nor who was waiting for her. She was only 17 years old. She could be manipulated easily. Probably through online contacts.
Was that the last contact you had with your daughter after she arrived in the Middle East?
After she arrived in Iraq, she no longer contacted us. We had no opportunity to find her anymore. As I said, we were worried that the country was at war and as time passed, the days, months, years passed, we didn’t know what had happened to our daughter.
How long have you been in touch with your daughter?
About six years after the US took control of the camp [in 2003]. The US armed forces and authorities identified the people in the camp. We had lost hope that she was alive. Then, at one point we were informed by the Canadian authorities that our daughter was in this camp, which was under US supervision.
Do you think your daughter is in the Mojahedin camp in Manza?
Yes, yes, we are sure. We are confident because all the members of the camp, which was under the control of the US authorities, were transferred here to Albania and are now in Camp Ashraf 3 in Manza, where the Iranian Mojahedin refugees arrived in Albania from Iraq after they were originally taken to Iraq.
What is your daughter called and how old is she?
Her name is Somayeh Mohammadi, she was born on September 8, 1980. She joined the Iranian Mojahedin in 1997. The girl is being held at Camp Ashraf 3 in Manza against her will by these Mojahedin.
You said you were not in contact with your daughter for years, how do you know she is being held against her will?
She is being held against her will because the mission is accomplished. The regime has changed and this was her aim. Already she prefers to join her family in Canada, where her parents and two brothers are waiting.
You came to get your daughter and return to Canada?
Yes, that’s why I came, along with my wife. But not only can we not take her home, we can’t even meet with her. We came specifically from Canada to find our daughter because we discovered that she is in the Mojahedin camp in Durres (Manza). We have joined with Albanian and international institutions and we have not finished our task. We seek nothing but to meet with our daughter who we have not seen for 21 years. This meeting will only be possible if it takes place in the presence of the police or other authorities.