Mujahedin Khalq Terror group

Syrian Opposition Leaders Meet MKO Members in France

A delegation from foreign-backed Syrian National Coalition held a meeting with a group of the terrorist Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO) in the French capital of Paris, media reports said. Syrian Opposition Leaders Meet MKO Members in France

A delegation from the opposition Syrian National Coalition headed by Badr Jamous, the secretary-general of the coalition, and Abdulahad Astepho, a member of the coalition, met with a grup of MKO members in Paris on Tuesday, Jamous told Turkey’s Anadolu Agency.

The meeting was held in a hotel in Paris at the request of MKO members, Jamous said, adding that the meeting was aimed at promoting friendship, coordination and exchanging experiences between the two sides.

The MKO — listed as a terrorist organization by much of the international community — fled Iran in 1986 for Iraq, fought on the side of Saddam Hussein during the Iraqi imposed war on Iran (1980-88), and was given a camp by Saddam.

The group has been behind numerous acts of terror against Iranian civilians and officials, and was involved in the 1991 bloody repression of Shiite Muslims in southern Iraq, and the massacre of Iraqi Kurds in the country’s north.

Elsewhere, Jamous pointed to France’s military support for the Syrian opposition groups, and said they were still waiting for the country’s response as Paris is still mulling over arming the Syrian opposition.

“In Syria, we are facing the problem of air strikes and we have asked France to send us anti-aircraft weapons,” he went to say.

Meantime, French President Francois Hollande also met on Tuesday with the leader of Syria’s opposition National Coalition, Ahmad al-Jarba, in the Elysee Palace, Paris.

Hollande also announced that the opposition Syrian National Coalition’s office in Paris will be opened soon.

Syria has been gripped by a deadly unrest since 2011. The UN says more than 130,000 people have been killed since the beginning of the unrest in 2011. More than 2.2 million Syrians have fled to neighboring countries while an estimated 4.25 million have been displaced internally.

It recently warned against the humanitarian situation in Syria, saying that over nine million people are in need of urgent aid due to the crisis in the Middle Eastern country.

May 22, 2014 0 comments

Iran

Iran’s Judiciary Chief Calls for Extradition of MKO Members for Fair Trial

Iranian Judiciary Chief Sadeq Amoli Larijani in a meeting with his Iraqi counterpart Medhat Al-Mahmoud called on Baghdad to extradite the members of the Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO, also known as MEK, PMOI and NCR) to stand a fair tribunal in Tehran.

"Most of these (MKO) people have admitted to their crimes and we expect the friendly and brotherly country of Iraq to extradite them to Iran within a legal framework to undergo a fair trial," Amoli Larijani said during the meeting.

He reminded that based on proof and evidence, the MKO members are responsible for the assassination of more than 17,000 Iranian citizens.

Also after the meeting with the Iraqi judiciary chief, Amoli Larijani told reporters that he has rigidly asked the Al-Mahmoud to prepare the grounds for the extradition of the MKO members to Iran to account for their crimes against the Iranians.

During their meeting on Sunday, the Iranian and Iraqi judiciary chiefs also explored avenues for bolstering and reinvigorating their bilateral ties.

The Iranian judiciary chief pointed to the status quo of Iran-Iraq relations, and said, "Tehran and Baghdad have signed four judicial agreements and we emphasized implementation of these agreements during Al-Mahmoud’s visit."

The Iraqi judiciary chief arrived in Tehran on Saturday and he is due to confer with other high ranking officials, including President Hassan Rouhani and Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani, as well.

In mid-April, Iranian Justice Minister Mostafa Pour Mohammadi and his Iraqi counterpart Hassan al-Shammari in a meeting in Baghdad explored avenues for bolstering and reinvigorating mutual cooperation.

During the meeting, the Iranian and Iraqi justice ministers signed a memorandum of understating (MoU) on extradition of prisoners. According to the agreement, the Iranian and Iraqi justice ministries would set up a joint committee at the earliest to examine the situation of the prisoners and prepare the ground for their extradition.

Many of the MKO members have abandoned the terrorist organization while most of those still remaining in the grouplet are said to be willing to quit but are under pressure and torture not to do so.

A recent Human Rights Watch report accused the MKO of running prison camps in Iraq and committing human rights violations.

According to the Human Rights Watch report, the outlawed group puts defectors under torture and jail terms.

The MKO, founded in the 1960s, blended elements of Islamism and Stalinism and participated in the overthrow of the US-backed Shah of Iran in 1979. Ahead of the revolution, the MKO conducted attacks and assassinations against both Iranian and Western targets.

The group started assassination of the citizens and officials after the revolution in a bid to take control of the newly-established Islamic Republic. It killed several of Iran’s new leaders in the early years after the revolution, including the then President, Mohammad Ali Rajayee, Prime Minister, Mohammad Javad Bahonar and the Judiciary Chief, Mohammad Hossein Beheshti who was killed in bomb attacks by MKO members in 1981.

The group fled to Iraq in 1986, where it was protected by Saddam Hussein and where it helped the Iraqi dictator suppress Shiite and Kurd uprisings in the country.

The terrorist group joined Saddam’s army during the Iraqi imposed war on Iran (1980-1988) and helped Saddam and killed thousands of Iranian civilians and soldiers during the US-backed Iraqi imposed war on Iran.

Since the 2003 US invasion of Iraq, the group, which now adheres to a pro-free-market philosophy, has been strongly backed by neo-conservatives in the United States, who argued for the MKO to be taken off the US terror list.

In September 2012, the last groups of the MKO terrorists left Camp Ashraf, their main training center in Iraq’s Diyala province. They have been transferred to Camp Liberty transient facility near Baghdad.

May 19, 2014 0 comments

Massoud Rajavi

The MKO and the mirage of Alternative for IRI

The likely successful nuclear negotiations between Iran and the West have pushed the Mujahedin Khalq Organization (the MKO) to face more challenges in order to impede a normalized Iran-West relationship. The group’s heavy scale well-funded lobbying campaign to derail diplomacy with Iran has come up with new dimensions.

For years, the MKO’s propaganda had focused on the Iranian nuclear program, spreading misinformation about it but once the nuclear talks started in Geneva, the group found itself empty handed. While the Cult of Rajavi has always claimed to be the alternative to the Iranian Government, the ongoing diplomacy process between Iran and the West has wiped out its slightest hope for achieving power in Iran. Furthermore, today the MKO is more concerned for its own survival, let alone governing Iran –Where it hardly ever enjoys public support.

That’s why the MKO is awfully nervous about the recent visits to Iran by the European politicians. For instance, the group, denounced a trip last month to Tehran by Austrian Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurz. The denunciation came two weeks after the so-called Friends of Free Iran (FoFi), an informal network of members of the European Parliament (MEPs) closely allied to the NCRI, organized a conference calling for regime change in Iran and lauding the NCRI-MEK as the democratic alternative, according to Edar Mamedov who is a political adviser for the social-democrats in the Foreign Affairs Committee of the European Parliament (EP) and is in charge of the delegation for inter-parliamentary relations between the EP and Iran. [1]

After the election of Rouhani as the Iranian president, the significant progress in the Nuclear negotiations pushed the MKO propaganda to actively run the new agenda of Human Rights. As an official who witnesses the MKO’s lobbying efforts in the European Parliament, Mamedov suggests, “So, the MEK, which detests the notion of rapprochement between Iran and the West, has shifted gears and chosen human rights as its casus belli against the Iranian regime.”[2]

Although Mamedov does not disregard “the capacity of the MEK to poison the present atmosphere of European-Iranian relations”, he clarifies, “The good news is that MEK lobbying efforts against diplomacy with Iran are unlikely to succeed.” [3]

“Even with the extravagant funds the MEK has spent on endorsements by political elites, the group’s prominence in the EU is confined only to one part of the EP,” writes Mamedov.” The foreign policy decision-making bodies of the EU — the Council of the EU and the External Action Service (EEAS) — do not consider the MEK a serious alternative to the current government in Tehran, as it has virtually no support among the Iranian population. ” [4]

Among the few European parliament members who favor Maryam Rajavi and her cult-like organization, Alejo Vidal-Quadras the Spanish EU Parliament member is “the key man in Spanish political relations with the Iranian People’s Mujahedeen”, according to Elsa S. Vejo of the Spanish News Website Esterella Digital. [] The Spanish journalist criticizes their 13-years working politician for the “astonishing” cause of the MKO. According to official versions, the MEK was “voluntarily disarmed”.” According to the unofficial version, the CIA and the Israeli Mossad is training the Mojahedin for their own benefit,” He writes. “So much so, that in January 2012, Ilan Mizrahi, former head of the secret Israeli intelligence service, disclosed the involvement of the Mojahedin in the “secret war” against Iran that had already cost the lives of four Iranian nuclear scientists.” [5]

In addition, the support for the group in the US Congress is not so noteworthy. There are also a few retired American officials who embrace the MKO in response to large amounts of donation the group pays them. Rudy Guiliani former New York mayor is one of the well-paid ardent sponsors of the group whose “warm embrace of the MEK terrorist organization is shocking and deplorable.”

Hamid Babaei counselor and head of Press Office for the Permanent Mission of the Islamic Republic of Iran to the United Nations in New York wrote a response to an op-ed by Rudolph Giuliani , “Team Obama keeps miscalculating Iran — ‘change’ under Rouhani is a mirage” that appeared in Fox News Opinion. Babaei states, ” Journalists and think tanks across the world have sounded the alarm regarding the “cult-like” practices of the MEK, such as forcing members to give up their children in order to dedicate more time to the cause, and their decades long reign of terror and brutality has been well established by many including the U.S. Department of State when it designated it as terrorist organization in 1997 while describing it as a “repressive cult despised by most Iranians and Iraqis.” Babaei also refers to the 2009 report by the Rand Corp. in which the authors denounce the MKO for its “cultic practices and its deceptive recruitment and public relations strategies”.[6]

The MKO’s large-scale effort to gain the West’s support does not seem to be efficient. “The dominant EU line now clearly favors diplomacy with Iran, which will, hopefully, lead to a final deal over Tehran’s controversial nuclear program,” suggests Mamedov.” The more the chances of success for diplomacy increase, the more irrelevant the MEK will become.” [7]

By Mazda Parsi

Sources:

[] Mamedov, Eldar, The MEK’s Influence in EU Politics Matters, Loblog FP, May 10, 2014

[]ibid

[5] S. Vejo, Elsa , SPAINISH POLITICIAN’S DANGEROUS RELATION, Esterella Digital, May 6, 2014 (Translated by Iran Interlink)

[6] Babaei, Hamid, Embrace of Mojahedin Khalq shocking, deplorable, Fox News, May 7, 2014

[7] Mamedov, Eldar, The MEK’s Influence in EU Politics Matters, Loblog FP, May 10, 2014

May 18, 2014 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Embrace of MEK shocking, deplorable

Editor’s note: The following is a response to an op-ed by former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, "Team Obama keeps miscalculating Iran — ‘change’ under Rouhani is a mirage" that appeared in Fox News Opinion on May 7.

Mr. Guiliani’s warm embrace of the MEK terrorist organization is shocking and deplorable.

Journalists and think tanks across the world have sounded the alarm regarding the "cult-like" practices of the MEK, such as forcing members to give up their children in order to dedicate more time to the cause, and their decades long reign of terror and brutality has been well established by many including the U.S. Department of State when it designated it as terrorist organization in 1997 while describing it as a "repressive cult despised by most Iranians and Iraqis."

But through what the RAND Corp. called "cultic practices and its deceptive recruitment and public relations strategies" as well as giving millions of dollars to politicians and lobbyists in Washington — where it seems everyone has a price tag as campaign donation or "speakers fees," the MEK managed to get itself removed from the list.

It also should be noted that this group supported Saddam Hussein during the Iran-Iraq war and played a major role in the violent crackdown on the civilian uprising in the early 90s while living in Iraq as a private militia for Saddam Hussein.

The people of Iraq despise them and want them out, as well they should.

Hamid Babaei is counselor and head of the Press Office for the Permanent Mission of the Islamic Republic of Iran to the United Nations in New York.

By Hamid Babaei,

May 11, 2014 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

McMillan case: Two kinds of protesters

Cecily McMillan, a young Occupy Wall Street activist has just been found guilty of 2nd Degree assault on a police officer.

The "assault" was a startled reaction after a police officer violently grabbed her breast in 2011, squeezing it so hard he left a hand shaped bruise. McMillan began having a seizure after being arrested, and the NYPD blocked emergency medical technicians from treating her. When McMillan was released from the hospital she was limping, barely able to walk, after being beaten so badly. Her body was covered in bruises.

On May 19th McMillan will receive a sentence of between 2 and 7 years in prison for her startled reaction to a violent police sexual assault. She now sits in New York’s infamous Riker’s Island correctional facility awaiting her sentence.

During the trial, Police officers spoke of "smelly protesters" in their testimony. Prosecutor Amy Choe alleged that McMillan had injured herself, and mockingly dismissed any allegations of police brutality, comparing it to belief in "space aliens." The Jury was not allowed to hear testimony about the NYPD’s record of brutality against Occupy Protesters. A great deal of video of what happened to McMillan was prevented from being shown as well. The prosecution insinuated that McMillan was mentally ill and criminal for protesting at all. Articles from Rolling Stone Magazine, where she was quoted denouncing capitalism were presented as evidence.

Wall Street’s favorite protesters

As Cecily McMillan was being convicted, one of the top stories on the news was a group of nudists in China. The US and western media have raved on and on about the "bravery" of wealthy Chinese people who "heroically" engage in public indecency on a beach.

This is just the latest trendy group of protesters the Western media has decided to embrace. The airwaves have so often been filled with reports alleging mistreatment of "green movement" activists in Iran. We were told about the US backed rebels in Libya as if they were heroes. The insurgents who terrorize Syria are also given this hero treatment.

When Right Sector and Svoboda members were openly running through the streets terrorizing people and assaulting cops in Ukraine, they received endless praise in the Western press. Anderson Cooper strolled through Maiden Square narrating their assaults on police and civilians as if it were a romantic battle.

Through the National Endowment for Democracy, the US government gives billions of dollars to fund protesters in places like Iran, Belarus, and Venezuela. These "protesters" break laws, carry out assassinations, and commits all kinds of crimes.

The reason Cecily McMillan is now a political prisoner is because she occupied Wall Street, she did not occupy on behalf of Wall Street. She did not Occupy Maiden Square, beating up ethnic Russians and Jews, to clear the way for the IMF. She did not commit acts of public indecency in churches and supermarkets hoping to destabilize Russia. She did not strip naked on a Chinese beach. She did not bomb a school is Damascus. She did not hang dark skinned Africans in Tripoli. She did not burn monuments to the Ukrainians who died in the Second World War.

Cecily McMillan slept in a park, talking about income inequality, and plutocracy in the US. While doing it she professed non-violence, and was noted for criticizing the more radical elements of her movement. She was sexually assaulted, and jumped in response. She received a horrific beating, and is now going to spend years in prison.

As far as the US government, courts, and media are concerned, there are clearly two types of protesters.

When protesters are opposing the regime currently topping Wall Street’s enemies list, they get praised on TV, they get funding from various US based non-government organizations, and the slightest attempts to suppress them are declared "tyranny." Luis Posada Carrilles, a Cuban "protester" who bombed an airplane killing over 70 people is living very comfortably in Miami. Terrorists from the "People’s Mujahadeen" (MKO) in Iran, who have tortured and murdered for decades, are happily embraced by political leaders like Tom Ridge, and provided safe evacuation by the United Nations. "Protesters" run through the streets of Venezuela, burning buildings, assaulting police officers, and yet receive support from the US government, and are treated as heroes by the US media.

The US government and Wall Street are happy to fund the most violent, terroristic "protesters" in order to destabilize a government that gets in their way. But when young people in the center of world capitalism engage in peaceful protest, they are dubbed "smelly protesters" and "traitors." They get maced in the face, beaten, and arrested. The kind of brutality routinely unleashed on black and brown people, is turned on those who take political action.

Anthony Bolognia, who famously maced two protesters in the face during the first month of Occupy Wall Street without any provocation had all charges against him dropped. He is continuing his career as a highly paid New York City Police Officer. Though the world watched Occupy protesters in New York being brutally beaten, not a single NYPD officer has been charged with brutality.

The rising police state

The Police Officers who shot Ramarely Graham, a young African-American man through the chest have also received no penalty. No one disputes that they burst into his apartment and gunned him down in front of his family, but not even the slightest penalty has been issued.

The prison system is in the United States is rapidly expanding with 2.5 million people locked away. The schools in the US are often now filled with armed police, and children are often arrested for what would be previously considered a matter of classroom discipline.

The rising expansion of the "criminal justice system" is accompanied by an increased repression of political activists.

The homes of activists from the Freedom Road Socialist Organization were raided by the FBI. Anarchists in Seattle were imprisoned for refusing to testify against their comrades. In Chicago and Cleveland, occupy activists face lengthy sentences in obvious examples of entrapment. The National Security Agency now admits it is spying on millions of people, recording phone calls, emails, etc.

Are we really expected to trust John Kerry, Samantha Power, or Barack Obama in their words against Russia, People’s Korea, China, or Iran? Are we really expected to trust them as "human rights advocates" around the world, as they preside over rising police state at home?

The next time CNN, FOX, or MSNBC begins to speak of "peaceful protesters" in some country Wall Street dislikes, and declares that government to be "tyrannical", and calls to rescue these "peaceful protesters" with sanctions and cruise missiles, millions of people will think of Cecily McMillan, and know that these words are nothing but pure hypocrisy.

Caleb Maupin is a political analyst who lives in New York City, and is an activist with the International Action Center and Workers World Party. He was part of the Occupy Wall Street mo.

May 8, 2014 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

US and continuous agenda of Hypocrisy

When in 2012 US State department removed the name of Mujahedin-e-Khalq Organization (MKO) from its list of foreign terrorist organizations critics correctly criticized the USA foreign policy’s double standards towards terrorism. Many critics considered the decision as a way to clear legal barriers in the way of overtly arming and funding the terrorists in pursuing a proxy war with Iran.

Mujahedin Khalq prolonged a decade long lobbying efforts and invested a great amount of money to get their organization removed from the Black List of FTOs. Vividly crossing the US anti Terrorism Laws, a large number of members of Congress, former White House officials and army generals supported their bid in exchange for large sums of money.

In fact the material support law under which several people with far less alleged crimes got severe punishments didn’t turned out to include over three dozen top U.S. officials who were the most vocal proponents of the War on Terror.

Tony Cartalucci analyzes the US dignitaries’ support of a Terrorist organization with the American blood on their hand as “a combination of theater and formalities to preserve in the eyes of stakeholders in the West’s international order, a semblance of “rule of law. That is to portray MKO’s American lobbyists as merely financially motivated to obfuscate the true nature of their duplicity as well as their true motives- [to use the group as an armed proxy against Iran]. He says considering the US funding of MKO, it is not believable that they are taking this money and sending it right back to America to lobby for their delisting.[1]

Indeed the United States covert support of the MKO terrorist group has been ongoing long before even under the Bush administration as Seymour Hersh exposed in its 2008 article “Preparing the Battlefield” that “the US had already begun arming and financing them to wage war inside Iran”.[2]

While hypocrisy in confronting terrorism fails to be a new subject the more disturbing point is when some ordinary people are considered criminal for far less affiliation to terrorist group.

There are more than enough proofs to prove ;the latest of which may be the Mirmehdi brothers who detained on allegations that they were affiliated with the MKO terrorist organization; though the men argued they were not members of MKO or any other terrorist group and had just attended a rally organized by NCR.[3]

To name another case; Morteza Assadi , a 49-year-old real estate agent in northern Virginia whose green card application has been on hold for more than a decade just because in the early 1980s as a teenager he distributed fliers for Mujahedin-e Khalq in Tehran. Assadi said he was never an active member or contributor to its activities and that the group was removed from the list of terrorist organizations in 2012.[4]

As the Obama administration has eased the rules for would-be asylum-seekers and refugees who gave "limited" support to terrorists or terrorist groups, now Assadi is hopeful that the U.S. government will look at his teenage activities as "limited."

The Department of Homeland Security and the State Department are tasked to determine with deciding which terrorists will be benefit from “limited material support”.

However, considering the double standards within the US policy makes the execution of the rule more complicated than it seems to be.

That is the hypocrisy reaches its heights when we see that the rule hasn’t applied to none of the Camp Liberty residents while some high ranking members can freely commute within the US. Although the US repeatedly declared concerns over the safety of TTL residents and appointed a longtime Kerry adviser as the senior advisor for Mujahedin-e Khalq resettlement trying to convince EU states to accept MKO members, yet the US itself hasn’t accepted any of the residents. In March hearing of Capital Hill, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher proposed a bill co-sponsored with 59 lawmakers to grant asylum to the MKO members in the United States but the administration officials privately suggest that Rohrabacher’s bill, and any other efforts to grant asylum to the MEK in the United States, face nearly insurmountable odds.[5]

Despite America’s attempt at window dressing the FTO list, putting some groups on it and removing others is just a political play based on the interests of the US politicians; and even not the people of the United States.

MKO members especially Camp Liberty residents are just a plaything for the US play with the group leaders.

By: A.Sepinoud

References:

[1] Cartalucci,Tony & Ziabari, Kourosh, US “Delisting” of Terror Network: Washington overtly supports the Mujahedin-e-Khalq Organization (MKO), Global Research, October 07, 2012

[2] Hersh, Seymour, Preparing the Battlefield, Newyorker, July7, 2008

[3] Gazzar, Brenda , San Fernando Valley-based Iranian brothers turn to international tribunals over U.S. detentions, Los Angeles Daily News, April22,2014

[4]Newsmax Wires,Obama Easing Immigration Rule for Terrorist Supporters, February 9, 2014

[5] Wilkie, Christina, John Kerry Gets Pressed To Grant Asylum To Former Terrorist Group Mojahedin, The Huffington Post, March 14

May 7, 2014 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Is the MKO Moving to the US?

He was a teenager when he was distributing fliers for the Mujahedin Khalq Organization in the early 1080s in Tehran. Morteza Assadi used to be a member of the MKO that "opposed the government of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and the U.S. government at one time considered a terrorist organization". The affiliation of this 49-year-old real estate agent in northern Virginia with the terrorist MKO cult has left him in a sort of immigration purgatory while his green card application has been on hold for more than a decade. Assadi’s case has remained stalled although he has told the US government that he was never an active member or contributor to the MKO activities. [1] Now, what if the US administration grants asylum to the 3000 MKO members residing in Camp Liberty Iraq despite their official membership in a cult-like group which has once been designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization?

As the MKO well-funded lobbying campaign succeeded to get the group removed from the FTO list, it is now lobbying for moving its forces to the United States territory. "In what has become an all-too-familiar sight on Capitol Hill, at least a half-dozen members of the exiled Iranian group Mujahedin-e Khalq, or MEK, arrived at Thursday [March 11th]’s hearing of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, all dressed in their trademark yellow shirts," reported Christina Wilkie of the Huffington Post. [2]

In response to the question by "most vocal" supporter the MKO’s relocation in America, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, the Us secretary of State John Kerry said "in his typically diplomatic way", “There’s one solution to the problem [of the MEK], and that is that we need to relocate those folks,” although he added that their moving to the US is " one of the things" they are looking at. [3]

Moving folks of a formerly designated terrorist group to the land of 9/11 incidence is no easy as Wilkie states, administration officials privately suggest that Rohrabacher’s bill, and any other efforts to grant asylum to the MEK in the United States, face nearly insurmountable odds.[4]

The decade long efforts of the UN, US, and Iraq to relocate the MKO remnants indicate that the process of moving them to third countries has become an international issue due to the group’s long time history of violence and terror. For the United States, the case of the MKO asylum seekers seems to be more sensitive, firstly because of the group’s involvement in the killing of 6 US citizens during the 1970s and secondly, because of their ardent support for the US embassy takeover in 1979, in Tehran.

“The policy concern with asylum is what kind of precedent that might set for the future. By those standards, the MEK isn’t looking very good,” the US official told the Huffington Post correspondent. Wilkie also refers to more than 135,000 Syrian asylum seekers that only 31 were admitted in the last fiscal to illustrate how limited U.S. asylum policy is in practice. [5]

Following the gradual relocation process, up to now not more than two hundred MKO members have been moved to Albania, Germany, and Italy. However, the US government is willing to use its influence over Eastern European countries. It plans to move the remaining 3000 residents of Liberty to Romania, according to the Voice of Russia.

The alleged decision ”may turn Romania into a hotbed of tension, which will prove quite a headache both to Romania proper and the neighboring countries”. Ilya Kharlamov of the VOR writes, "When the US State Secretary John Kerry met with his Romanian counterpart Titus Corlaţean in Brussels in December, they took up the issue of moving the Mujahedin in question to Romania, according to some reports." [6]

Actually, third countries are reluctant to receive a large group of people who as the Russian expert an expert with the Moscow-based Institute for Strategic Studies and Analysis, Sergei Demidenko says, are "drilled ideologically and militarily" in "an unstable European area". [7]

Kharlamov of the VOR accurately suggests that the MKO leaders insist on a compact settlement of all three thousand militants in Camp Liberty. "But the Albanian and German authorities see this as too dangerous," she states."The terrorist leaders are in a stalemate. They are welcome nowhere, while in Iraq they have been coming under rocket fire recently”. [8]

Therefore, the group leaders have to endeavor hard to maintain the authority over their cult. They have to be more and more generous toward their Western friends. To cope with the limbo they are stuck in they have to whitewash their dark history and to make their cause plausible and in consistence with the western democratic standards. That’s why that you may see the name of the MKO’s propaganda arm National Council of Resistance (NCR) among progressive Islamic organizations listed by the Clarion Project, a nonprofit organization whose stated mission is to educate people about inherent dangers of Islamic extremism.

To criticize Clarion Project’s misled action, the prominent American journalist Micheal Rubin puts, "The Mujahedin al-Khalq may be a lot of things, but it is neither progressive nor is it non-violent”.[9]

"To accept the Mujahedin al-Khalq as a moderate organization is analytically shallow given the group’s record of behavior, its dishonesty in its written work, its past targeting of Americans, and the fact that its rhetoric about democracy does not match its practice," Rubin warns. [10]

Furthermore, Christina Wilkie notes that the MKO has a long way to get accepted in third countries, "it’s been an uphill climb to convince other countries to accept MEK members, due to their cult-like characteristics and near-religious devotion to the Paris-based Maryam Rajavi and her husband. [11]

"But long odds don’t mean the MEK won’t keep trying to gain asylum in the United States. No longer restricted by the terrorist designation, they are now free to spend their millions of dollars — the source of which remains murky — without fear of Treasury Department scrutiny," concludes Wilkie. [12]

Mass moving of the MKO to the United States may require hard work and may face various challenges but if it happens it has two sides. On the one hand, once more it demonstrates the US double standards regarding terrorism; on the other hand the hostages of the Cult of Rajavi may find the opportunity to get released from the cult control as well as the violence ruling the region.

Mazda Parsi

Sources:

[1]A Caldwell, Alicia, Obama Administration Easing Immigration Rule for Would-be Asylum Seekers, The Huffington Post, February 9, 2014

[2] Wilkie, Christina, John Kerry Gets Pressed To Grant Asylum To Former Terrorist Group Mojahedin, The Huffington Post, March 14 2014

[3] ibid

[4] ibid

[5] ibid

[6] Kharlamov, Ilya, US to flood Romania with terrorists, The Voice Of Russia, January 10, 2014

[7] ibid

[8 ibid

[9] Rubin, Michael, Why Does the Clarion Project Endorse the Mujahedin al-Khalq?, Commentary Magazine, April 28, 2014

[10] ibid

[11] Wilkie, Christina, John Kerry Gets Pressed To Grant Asylum To Former Terrorist Group Mojahedin, The Huffington Post, March 14 2014

[12] ibid

May 4, 2014 0 comments

Iran

Americans can’t accuse us while supporting Mojahedin terrorists

Accusing Iran of supporting terrorism is distortion of truth and fully based on double standards, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Marziyeh Afkham said here on Thursday.

Rejecting the US State Department’s annual global report on terrorism published Wednesday, she reiterated that Iran, itself, has been a victim of terrorism in the past three decades and the baseless claims regarding Iran’s support for terrorism is politically motivated.

Presence and free activities of terrorists in the United States who assassinated over 15,000 Iranian civilians including senior officials as well as use of drones in massacring innocent regional people and Washington’s inaction towards Zionists crimes against defenseless Palestinians pose serious questions about the US claims of campaign against terrorism.

Such a move threatens international peace and security, she reiterated.

May 3, 2014 0 comments

Maryam Rajavi

Rajavi’s visa application challenges America’s stance on terrorism

There are rumours that Mojahedin Khalq leader Massoud Rajavi is contemplating whether and where it would be safe for him to resurface after going to ground during the 2003 invasion of Iraq. But in Europe his wife, Maryam Rajavi, is herself keen to expand her reach. According to a source inside the organisation, Maryam Rajavi has recently been ‘encouraged’ to apply for a visa to the United States of America. Maryam is currently based in Auvers-sur-Oise just outside Paris, from where the MEK plans and supports its various acts of violence including aiding the insurgency in Iraq. From here she has been able to exploit the lack of effective oversight in the European Parliament in Brussels to join with anti-Iran politicians in their drive to prevent any rapprochement between western governments and Iran, and to support a level of violence and chaos in the region which benefits Israel. With no other tools at their disposal, neoconservatives and the Israeli lobby have spent years using the MEK – at arms length – to pursue their virulent, provocative campaign to keep the two sides apart. (Matched equally of course by former president Ahmadinejad’s calculated provocations; both sides playing the same game with different footballs.)

Maryam Rajavi’s application for a US visa is embedded in the context of this deliberate animosity.

Certainly because the European Parliament has no foreign policy teeth, Maryam Rajavi tried for over a decade to obtain a visa to visit the UK to promote this agenda; even unsuccessfully using private health treatment as an excuse. Either the system of border control in the UK is more rigorous than it is rumoured to be, or the UK government considers Maryam Rajavi persona non grata. Either way – or both – she has not been welcome in the UK.

But the efforts of MEK backers like MEP Struan Stevenson failed to make an impact. The successful P5+1 nuclear talks with Iran in November 2013 have put rapprochement, no matter how difficult, back on the agenda. Anti-Iran advocates and promoters have been forced to try a new tack – attack Iran’s record on human rights. Again, at the forefront of this push is the MEK. Preparations to use the MEK have been in train for some time. The group’s US presence has been carefully managed since 2009 when Iraq moved to expel the MEK from its terrorist base there. There has been a concerted, well funded campaign to whitewash the group’s past and pass it off as a democratic, feminist opposition group. Fortunately, only the MEK’s western backers have convinced themselves there is some truth to this assertion, and this comes at a price – speaking fees paid to them range from $25-60,000 each time.

In September 2012 Hillary Clinton, as Secretary of State, reached an accommodation with the MEK over its continued occupation of this base, Camp Ashraf, and removed the MEK from the US terrorism list. By early 2013 the MEK had opened an office in Washington and registered, under its pseudonym the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), as a lobbying group. Interestingly, registration as a lobby group includes a declaration that no money is provided by a foreign government, which raises the question as to where the MEK gets its money within the USA. Previous claims that wealthy Iranian expatriates have backed the MEK’s massive expenditure are unrealistic and in any case have never been backed by any evidence.

Instead, we can join up more than a few dots by considering the MEK’s current place in American foreign policy and linking this back to its previous position as described above. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, who is Chair of the House Subcommittee on the Middle East and North Africa has been a long time supporter of the MEK, and recently described ‘her friend’ Maryam Rajavi as a human rights advocate – a description which is nonsense to American-Iranians.

In pursuit of an agenda to prevent rapprochement, hardliners (I mean neoconservatives) in America surely aimed to slip Maryam Rajavi into Washington during the next round of nuclear negotiations next week (5-9 May). On the heels of the controversy over denial of a visa to Iran’s appointed head of mission at the United Nations in New York, this would indeed have been a poke in the eye to goad Iran with. But whatever incentives have been offered by Ros-Lehtinen to John Kerry to nod through this visa application, the US Secretary of State will no doubt have lent an ear to the voices of the other members of the P5+1 group. It would mean that, after Saddam Hussein, the United States would be the only government in the world which has directly supported the MEK. It would mean that the other members of this group would drift further and further away from the US agenda, and it would mean that Iran would make a net gain rather than the US. Fortunately this time the administration has not fallen into Ros-Lehtinen’s honey trap. But who knows what may happen in future.

Anne Khodabandeh (Singleton), Middle East Strategy Consultants,

May 3, 2014 0 comments

The cult of Rajavi

Rubin: MKO neither progressive nor non-violent

The Israeli Clarion Project has National Council of Resistance of Iran, the front organization of the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK, a.k.a. MKO), on its list of “progressive Muslim organizations.”

Describing the move as “surprising,” Commentary Magazine’s Michael Rubin wrote that the MKO may be a lot of things, but it is “neither progressive nor is it non-violent.”

The Clarion Project is an institute founded by Rabbi Raphael Shore. Obsessed with the promotion of Iranophobia and Islamophbia, it has produced such films as Iranium and Obsession.

“Progressive movements tend not to dictate to women who to marry and who to divorce,” he added, referring to the mandatory divorces in the cult of MKO.

“It attached itself to Saddam Hussein and allowed itself to be used almost as a mercenary organization against both Kurds and Iraqi Shi’ites.” According to 1994 US State Department report on the MKO, Masoud Rajavi, the ringleader of the MKO which is in hiding for years, announced the formation of the National Liberation Army (NLA), the military wing of the MKO, which conducted raids into Iran during the latter years of the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war. The NLA’s last major offensive reportedly was conducted against Irai Kurds in 1991, when it joined Saddam brutal repression of the Kurdish rebellion.

“To accept the Mujahedin-e Khalq as a moderate organization is analytically shallow given the group’s record of behavior, its dishonesty in its written work, its past targeting of Americans, and the fact that its rhetoric about democracy does not match its practice.”

Habilian reporting from Commentary Magazine;Michael Rubin article:"

Why Does the Clarion Project Endorse Mujahedin al-Khalq?"

May 1, 2014 0 comments

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