Preliminary 2006 report of "Protection of Constitution of Germany’s office" (Verfassungsschutz) on the MKO After it was determined that Iranian soccer team would take part in Germany’s 2006 world cup, there were reports on the possibility of NCRI’s sabotages during Iran’s matches in Nuremberg, Frankfurt and Leipzig. In this regard, Awaa Association in Köln, comprising of former MKO members who have admittedly quit the organization fully, warned in its website about possible terrorist attacks including self-immolations during world cup by MKO supporters. In response, Justice Association tied to NCRI in Köln claimed that the Iranian regime is bringing suicide volunteers to Germany by the assistance of Awaa association. The sensitivity of the accusations by two sides rose when it was announced that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad would come to Germany to watch the games. In this regard, NCRI representatives in Germany declared that they would hold street demonstrations to protest to the issue. Now, it has been determined that NCRI’s planned demonstrations were not held in and out of stadiums due to the early departure of Iranian team, the system of selling tickets, absence of Ahmadinejad and particularly the vigilance of security systems of Germany. Only 30 to 70 took part in small demonstrations in Köln. These demonstrations were focused on Iranian nuclear issue and human rights violations. These demonstrations are determined to be of low influence. Iran Ghalam – 2007/01/11
Tortur and Harasment in Mujahedin Khalq
The interview of Radio Farda with Ms. Parivash Afarinandeh on the situation of former MKO members and Camp Ashraf itself has unsettled the Gestapo of MKO so that Abbas Davari, senior member of MKO’s repression unit, came to the scene and proved MKO’s disrepute for the media and public opinion.
Abbas Davari first started insulting Ms. Afarinandeh and then tried to hide the realities of Camp Ashraf. He even went further to link Radio Farda to Iran!
"Even the Pentagon, in its report on Sept. 27, protested to the services of Radio Farda’s agents for the mullahs in Iran. The scandal is so great that The Ministry of Defense has asked for a review on the activities of this radio.
The report by Pentagon says that reporters who work for this Radio acquired their experiences by working for Iranian news agencies," Davari said.
However, Since he couldn’t prove his claims on the existence of a link between Iran and this radio (as Neocons couldn’t do that) and since similar propagandistic efforts against individuals and other media have been responded to by mockery, Davari tried to relate this issue to something that has nothing to do with the MKO:
"Radio Farda’s broadcasting of fake reports of Iran’s Intelligence Ministry against the victims of torture and repression in Iran reveals the quality of the news by this radio as well as dreams for finding an alternative from inside the regime".
However, the fact is that any report on the internal situation of Camp Ashraf frightens MKO’s Gestapo; they try to preserve the censorship and repression that help them keep the camp.
On the other hand, to prevent the process of defection, MKO has tried in the past 3 years to make the situation difficult for the residents of US-run camp (TIPF) in order to force the defectors to return to the cult and to stop others from thinking about leaving the group.
Irandidban – 2006/11/14
“The explosion of the office of Islamic Republic Party on June 28th, 1980 and self immolations on June 17th, 2003”
Mohammad Hussein Sobhani( in persion)
June 25th, 2006
Last week was coincident with special days for Iranians, accompanying bitter experiences of which, the most notable is June 20th 1980, the day that reminds the initials of violence and terror in Iran current era in which the MKO played a key role confronting the Iranians social political challenges that were processing peacefully and politically, with a substantial trouble, delaying the process of democracy in Iran for decades of which the effects are still tangible.
Therefore, this week I want to discuss the issue of hidden and visible violence which is pertinent to these days.
In the first view you may not find any strong relation between the violence committed in the office of Islamic Republic Party and the self-immolations of metamorphosed people but I put these two terror actions near each other intentionally since they are the two sides of violence coin. One side shows committing terrorism to face the enemy, the other shows using terrorism to save Violence captured in cul-de-sac.
The result of both sides is the same. Violence is violence. One who kills another, can burn oneself too. “violence and Terror” in any form or cover ,with any motivation, with plenty of sincerity has no result except strengthening violence and dictatorship .you may be able to change a dictator regime by terror and violence weapon but you would definitely replace a more completed and complicated dictatorship. The one who burns himself, will burn his rival doubtlessly, without hesitating.
During the three past years, MKO, due to international considerations, hesitated to support the self–immolations and Rajavis tried to consider the event as non-organizational, but now they are supporting this act for different reasons, sanctifying it openly. They write on their websites:
“The first human torch throws the snare of fire around the head and neck and the second one wears the clothes of fire, and the third one becomes a flowing torch to declare a message, you can not change a direction without paying the price and the voice of protest needs a strong method of declaration. The flames of protest spread in Bern, Rome, London, Athens and Nicosia too and …”
I may view a thought as “terrorist or aggressive” while another one views it as “proclaimer of freedom”? But what is our criterion to recognize the freedom proclaimer from terrorist?
Should we consider the honesty and devotion of the think tanks as our standards of judgment?
In my opinion, honesty and devotion do not include the necessary criteria for legality of an action? Therefore at the first stage one should consider the means used by the activists. Considering their means, one can understand which one is a freedom fighter and which one is a terrorist? Although the declared objective is important or seems holy, the means used to reach the objective has the substantial importance and grants legality to the movement.
The thought that provides its metamorphosed supporters with bombs, weapons, cyanide and fire for self-immolation instead of heart, logic and language, kills its members and its dissidents on the pretext of “strong protest”. This thought is not a messenger of freedom but a terrorist and when ever it achieves the power, it would bring a new tyranny.
Using means of violence to reach any objective, an apparently or really holy objective, accustoms the users to violence. Thus the violence becomes structured in their spirit so that they use it in any case ,along with their objectives.
This violent means can terrorize American military personnel one day and the other day it can assassinate the critic and dissident Magid Sharif Vaqefi, one day it can explode the office of Iraqi Intelligence service and the other day it can order the members to set themselves on fire in the streets.
You may find differences in the form or direction of each of these violent activities, but they are all the same, in substance.
When a group, a party or an organization command its members to set themselves ablaze, it is denounced that the so-called group has crossed an identified limit of spreading terrorism and violence since, naturally using violence against the enemy such as bombing at Islamic Republic Party Office is easier than using violence against its own members like self-immolations in June 2003. The difference shows that the basis of “hidden and visible violence” in MKO has become more profound and complex. Therefore all the freedom-lovers should be warned.
The more important issue to worry about is that they pretend suicide, self-immolation and violence as devotion and honesty and a few people are paid to cry for it, this threat should be considered as serious.
Mohammad Hussein Sobhani( in persian)
June 25th, 2006
Three years ago, on Tuesday, 17 June 2003, over 1200 police officers carried out a huge raid in a Paris suburb. The target was a large complex of houses in Auvers-sur-Oise which had been turned into the international headquarters of the Mojahedin-e Khalq organisation (aka National Council of Resistance of Iran or NCRI). Up until March-April 2003, the Mojahedin/NCRI command centre had been in Iraq. It moved from there with the outbreak of war. Mojahedin co-leader Maryam Rajavi and about 160 of her closest aides were arrested during the raid.
In taking this action, France became the first Western country to take seriously the danger posed by the Mojahedin organization (aka PMOI, MEK or MKO). The operation was aimed, according to the French Interior Ministry, above all,“at the leaders of an organisation which threatened public order and is planning or preparing
to finance terrorist acts”. Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin declared that the police operations were aimed,“at the central nervous system of a terrorist organisation”.
He made clear that, “it is in our national interest to make sure that all structures sheltering terrorists on our soil be dismantled.” During an international meeting at the Prime Minister’s office, Nicolas Sarkozy, Minister of the Interior, emphasised that the materials seized at Auvers-sur-Oise justified the operation.
Immediately the MKO mobilised its supporters throughout Europe. They set off a well rehearsed series of actions which deeply shocked a European public opinion with little exposure to such extreme methods. French Government spokesperson, Jean- rancois Copé,characterised the self immolations as “obviously, extremely dramatic”. He added,“Alas! It also tells us a great deal about the mindset of their leadership”. The protests showed that the outright fanaticism of the MKO was true: that the denunciations of former Mojahedin who had escaped the organisation’s clutches were reliable.These men and women had been speaking out for years about the internal practises of the MKO, yet they had been stigmatised by the leadership and their sympathisers as Tehran’s agents.
Massoud Rajavi, the Spiritual Leader of the Mojahedin-e Khalq organisation, the Chairman of the National Council of Resistance (NCR),and the Commander-in-Chief of the National Liberation Army (NLA) found refuge first in France (1981) and then in Iraq (1986). He owes everything to Saddam Hussein: the funding of the NLA, arms and their training camps in Iraq, including their Headquarters in Camp Ashraf. The three to five thousand Iranian militants in the NLA operating from Iraqi territory, helped maintain a high level of tension with Iran. While no one is certain as to the whereabouts of Mojahedin leader Massoud Rajavi, his wife Maryam is the acting leader and practically the successor to her husband. This charismatic figure of the organization has been named “Future President of Iran” by the MKO.
Classified as a terrorist group by the State Department of the United States of America and by the British Government as well as by the Council of the European
Union (since May 2002), the MKO is largely discredited today. It was based in Iraq since 1986 and suffered the full impact of Saddam Hussein’s fall from power. Reality shows that the western governments were right all along. The accusation of terrorism is now accepted at the most authoritative international levels. “The People’s Mojahedin Organisation of Iran (PMOI or MKO) planned to attack Iranian diplomatic missions in Europe”,stated the Director of French Counter-Terrorism during a press conference. According to information gathered by this service (the DST), the Mojahedin organisation "was preparing for murder attacks outside Iran, including in Europe", stated the Director, Pierre de Bousquet de Florian. During the police search at Auvers-sur-Oise, "eight to nine million dollars in cash" was found, added the DST Director, before going on to state that the full accounting was still underway.
M. Bousquet de Florian confirmed that many MKO leaders had returned to France since the American intervention in Iraq, including Maryam Rajavi. "They had turned Auvers-sur-Oise into an operational headquarters for terrorism", he stated. The US intervention had "taken away the MKO’s Baghdad Headquarters" as well as the financial support of Saddam’s regime. The DST chief underscored how dangerous the MKO was. It was more like a sect, a cult of personality for Massoud Rajavi and his wife Maryam. In 2001, the MKO had claimed responsibility for more than 195 terrorist attacks on Iran from its base in Auvers-sur-Oise.
As Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the NLA, Maryam Rajavi had no hesitation in ordering armed attacks on Iran
* * * * *
Three years after her arrest, Maryam Rajavi and her companions, out of jail and on bail at present, are still awaiting their trial in Paris.The French judicial system alleges that they planned and funded terrorist operations. To understand the French case, we should review the organisation’s misdeeds over the years in the process of its socalled
struggle against the ruling system in Iran. Clearly, this case is not the sort that could easily be neglected. It must be dealt with thoroughly and carefully. The reasons are as follows:
1. The internal relationships of the organization and its cult status:
– The self-appointed, irremovable, lifetime leadership has unlimited power on decision making on every aspect of the organisational affairs including the most intimate personal matters concerning the members.
– The internal structure of the organization is based on absolute totalitarianism. The spiritual leadership stays well above all, and is not to be criticised by anyone under any circumstances.
– An ongoing process of brainwashing, psychological coercion, and thought reform has been widely practiced inside the organisation under the direct supervision of Massoud and Maryam Rajavi. A range of very sophisticated physiological and psychological persuasive techniques have been used to engage the followers in conspiracy and fraud as well as the most bizarre acts such as self-immolation.
– Many people have been harmed and their rights have been abused by the organisation. Small children have been separated from their parents, families have been torn apart, and the possessions of the followers have been taken away. There are many psychological casualties still under treatment from the organisation’s malfunctioning.
– The intimidation and harassment of critics inside (as well as outside) the organization have become a common habit to silence dissenters. Defectors in particular have continuously been the subject of threats and character assassination.
2. The military, financial, and political relationship between the MKO and the deposed dictator of Iraq, Saddam Hussein:
– Video tapes acquired after the fall of Saddam Hussein clearly reveal that the MKO leaders and principally Massoud Rajavi received huge boxes of money from the Iraqi officials, specifically the Security Services Chief Jaleel Tahir Habush, along with assassination orders to be carried out inside Iran.
– The National Liberation Army (the military wing of the organisation based in Iraq) has been financed, trained,facilitated, armed, and supplied with intelligence and ammunition by the Iraqi Army to counter the Iranian Armed Forces throughout the war between the two countries.
– Many ex-members of the NLA have given full statements bearing witness to how the organisation’s military forces entered into the internal conflicts in Iraq; in particular suppressing the Kurds in the north and the Shiites in the south in 1991.
– According to many members of the organisation arrested inside Iran, they have been trained, facilitated and helped to cross the border by the Iraqi Armed Forces and Security Services to carry out assassinations and terrorist activities inside major cities in Iran.
– It is worth considering that apart from being listed in various international terrorist lists, and being hated by the vast majority of the Iranian people for their cooperation with the enemy during the war, no government has ever supported the organisation in any form except for the Iraqi regime under Saddam Hussein. Of course the organisation has managed to gain the signatures of many members of parliaments (that is, the most uninformed politicians, especially in foreign affairs issues) in western countries on its petitions due to their lack of knowledge of the terrorist nature of MKO.
– According to many undeniable documents, the money collected in the USA and in Europe in the name of so-called charity and humanitarian institutes has been sent to Iraq (after its traces have been disguised by money laundering) to be used for the NLA on arms and military facilities.
3. The systematic contact between the organisation’s HQ in Paris (the establishment formed in Auvers-sur-Oise under cover of the NCRI) and the NLA bases in Iraq:
– According to the DST press releases and statements as well as the French authorities’ press conferences referring to the materials found inside the Organisation’s Paris HQ, the two bases in France and Iraq have been closely and continuously linked using very sophisticates devices.
– Documents clearly show that there is no distinction between the different establishments of the organisation and they are all run under the close leadership of the Rajavis.
– It is also clear that all activities in Western Europe and Northern America, including the political, publicity, and financial performance of the organization have been directly guided from Iraq.
4. Establishing fake societies and associations to cover the organisation’s illegal financial and other acts and money laundering in western countries:
– The members of the organisation are clearly and directly told that the money collected in western countries for the cause of homeless and orphaned children is destined to be used for arms and other expenditures of the organisation.
– The organisation has many institutions that do not reveal their nature and their dependence on the MKO, but they are all directed and instructed in their activities directly by Maryam Rajavi.
– In particular, it should be taken into consideration that the MKO (PMOI), the NCRI, and the NLA are alias establishments and cannot and should not be dealt with separately. They all have the same terrorist nature which is well theorized and justified for the participants.
Bearing in mind the above mentioned facts which are only briefly highlighted, it is now worth asking where the people of western countries stand
on this case. Should it be their concern at all? Today even the most rigorous opposition to the ruling Islamic system in Iran does not approve the methods and manners imposed by the MKO.The Iranian opposition as a whole truly believes that the organisation’s so-called struggle has severely damaged their own efforts to restore democracy and freedom in Iran.
The truth is that many offences have been committed behind the legal presence of the MKO in western countries. These could have been prevented if the case had been dealt with sooner when many members – who had been under enormous physical and psychological pressure from the organisation – ruptured from it and warned western authorities about the subject. Many have been harmed by and suffered from the organisation’s actions throughout the world. Victims of the Rajavis can be found everywhere, both inside and outside Iran. And the international community certainly bears some responsibility for that.
The organisation claims that all assassinations and sabotage activities had taken place inside Iran during their armed struggle against the Islamic Republic of Iran. In this way they aim to discard the terrorist charges. They argue that they have never used arms inside western countries where they have been proscribed as a terrorist group. But in reality the MKO is surely a terrorist organisation by nature, and, without doubt, believes in using violence for achieving political purposes. According to the Mojahedin’s beliefs, the end justifies the means.
So they have no limitation, as they have shown through the years, against committing any sort of crime to reach their goals. It should also be considered that the mastermind of the organisation has always been situated either in Iraq or in Paris and all activities inside Iran have been directed from these two places over the past two decades.
Much has been said about the crimes and misdeeds of the Mojahedin and all its related institutes. Now it is time for a small amount of action to be taken in order to show that the authorities, particularly in France, have taken the matter seriously. Any person who was assassinated inside Iran, any combatant who was self-eliminated by pulling the trigger of a hand grenade or taking a cyanide pill, or any youngster who was self-immolated, are all similar victims of this notorious cultic organisation which is led directly by unaccountable, irremovable leaders who were based in Iraq and have now moved to France. World public opinion, the many victims of the organisation, and the Iranian opposition want to see everything justly put to rights. They want to see an end to this situation which has been ongoing now for so many years
Ebrahim Khodabandeh/ Survivors’ Report
Mario Lana, head of Italy’s Lawyers Union for Human Rights, in an article published on 29 April penned in support of the MKO refuted the crimes and allegations attributed to the organization claiming that “he who struggles for democracy, cannot be a terrorist”.
Mr. Lana’s comment can be regarded from both simplistic and realistic angles. Simplistic because, from a historical point of view, almost all political struggles, at least in their mottos and sketches of their political objectives, chanted democratic slogans and represented the paradigms of a democratic society as a requisite to encourage supporters and to recruit parties. Atop of all the currents dazzles the Left movement. History tells us that the outcome was the most atrocious model of dictatorship that ever fought under the banner of emancipating man from class and political totalitarian systems.
Stalinism evolved into one of the most influential liberation movements in half of the world. Contemporary world history recognizes Stalinism as a paradigm for all practiced forms of stabilizing an authoritarian party. It theorized and exercised imprisonment, execution, political assassination, terror, and … in many ideologically justifiable forms, not only against dissidents but also against insiders. In fact, the chief victims were the movement’s linchpins rather than the foes of democracy and freedom.
Stalin exiled Trotsky, who rose to power alongside Lenin after the Russian Revolution and was in charge of foreign affairs, and then had him assassinated because of his opposition to Lenin and Stalin, a line followed by most parties and currents that were inspired by Marxism or had faith in its strategy and ideology. The true expenses of Stalinism were exposed only after its fall; no one denies Stalin’s role as the most fervent patriot fighting against the Nazism invasion, yet, he is indisputably the most tyrannical dictator recorded in history. This paradox is the essence of a theorized ideology evolved with the wear of freedom and democracy. That is to say, the thought dealing with freedom and democracy emerged out of a counter-democratic ideology, a criterion to conduct the extent of internal and external violence. It is the ideology that legalizes the conduct and recognizes its innate terrorism as a blessed act; adherents become devotees of a cause constructed on pillars of freedom and democracy.
There is good historical evidence to prove Mr, Lana’s comment can be attributed as simplistic. The discrepancy between chanted mottos and the actual practice of democracy is a product of disapproving democracy itself. To bring off democracy, the mottos should tally with real practices. The Mojahedin’s past modus operandi depict clearly that the group had taken a wrong direction for the cause of democracy. The autocratic structure of its leadership has depreciated it to a kind of Stalinist dictatorship. Thus, how can the Mojahedin guarantee that it doesn’t adapt its claims of democracy for the practice of autocracy?
It is precisely correct to say that ‘those who struggle for democracy cannot be a terrorists’, because democracy absolutely discards any form of violence. The Mojahedin’s favoured democracy, if borrowed from the West, should be defined as “a system of government in which power is vested in the people, who rule either directly or through freely elected representatives”. Can the Mojahedin really tolerate such a system? That is to say, does the group respect dissidents, recognize peoples’ rights, and draw no limitation for its assumed democracy? Even now, far away from assuming any political power, the NCRI intimidates the critics and dissident parties.
Violence has been an innately distinguishable feature of the Mojahedin from the beginning. The key solution to accomplish its organizational and ideological achievements was through the practice of violence. It believes the Iranian peoples’ uprising in 1978 was a total failure because it lacked absolute bloodshed and violence. The Mojahedin’s ideology is in no way identifiable with democracy.
Mr. Lana’s comment is dearly accepted, but the Mojahedin’s past is a negation of its claims to be struggling for democracy. The mere claims fail to endorse the group wholeheartedly as pro-democrats and the Mojahedin has proved to be anti-democratic in practice. Mr. Lana’s comment can be paraphrased as “no terrorist struggles for democracy” and the Mojahedin, knowing this fact, seek legal excuses to justify its terrorist and violent acts by referring to them as “legitimate defence”.
Mr. Lana fails to remember that the Mojahedin is at the crossroads of a critical juncture and in need of applicable instruments to survive. That is why the group takes advantage of the anxieties, well-founded or groundless, sweeping over the West in order to legitimize its political being. The great challenge the world faces today is terrorism and the Mojahedin has to be dealt with in some way; it is clever enough to realize it is walking on the verge of a slippery slope.
In representing definitions of democracy, the Mojahedin oversteps those of the West. By drilling its exaggeratedly theorized democracy into the West, the group reminds the West that it has a rather more enormous capacity to overshoot the Western adopted democracy. At the same time, it has not the least respect for democracy so as to practice it, not even in its primitive form, inside the organization. Nowhere can you find so ruthless methods of brainwashing put into practice under the cover of democracy. Mr. Lana is under the illusion that the embrace of democracy by Mojahedin defies a terrorist nature. An unbiased, realistic look would explain everything.
Mr. Lana should be reminded that his refutation of terrorism changes nothing. The fact is that the Mojahedin is innately a terrorist group and its keeping hold of the democracy motto never washes its hands of its past crimes. Democracy is a no laughing matter and a terrorist group’s struggle under the clothing of democracy, is a viper in your bosom. The supporters of terrorism must keep in mind that they too share the blame if the terrorists betray their trust.
By Omid Pouya – 10 May 2006
Nader Rafi’ee Nejad is a torturer of Mojahedin-e Khalq organization. He is an old-time member of MKO who, along with Reza Khaksar (later killed in armed clashes in 1981) and Hassan Mohassel (former police officer and later a guard in MKO prisons in Iraq), served for revolutionary court in Evin prison; he interrogated and tortured former authorities of ousted regime of Shah.
Due to MKO’s adoption of radical policies in 1980, Rafi’ee Nejad, Mohassel and Khaksar were later dismissed from revolutionary court by the Islamic republic.
After the armed struggle began in 1981, Rafi’ee Nejad came to Europe and was appointed in foreign relations department.
In 1985, he was introduced as a major member and in 1991 as deputy of an executive board in the MKO. in 1990, he took off his "diplomatic" suit and wore the uniform for jailors of MKO in Iraq.
In that year, he went to Iraq’s intelligence and security service to undergo classic training by Iraqi interrogators.
He was involved in torturing Mohammed Hussein Sobhani and also the killing of Parviz Ahmadi who died under torture.
He is one of the main promoters of "lumpenism" in the organization. Mohsen Hashemi, a former member of MKO in Abu Ghraib prison explained for me how Nader had tried to crush by saying that: "I will undress your sister right in front of you and then I …".
It should be noted that at that time, Mohsen Hashemi’s sister worked for the MKO in Iraq. Later, Hashemi referred to Fahimeh Arvani and complained about this behavior of Nader Rafi’ee; she pretended she was upset while saying: "I will pursue this case".
Negahe-no website
WASHINGTON, May 19 (IPS) – An Iranian rebel group that is aggressively campaigning for Washington’s support as part of a ”regime change” strategy in its homeland has committed serious abuses including torture and prolonged isolation, against dissident members, according to a leading human rights watchdog.
The group, the Mojahedin Khalq Organisation (MKO), also known as MEK after its Iranian initials, insists that it should lead a U.S.-backed effort to bring what it has termed democratic rule to Iran. Last month, it organised a rally, attended by several powerful Republican lawmakers and billed as the ”2005 National Convention for a Democratic, Secular Republic in Iran,” at Washington’s historic Constitution Hall.
But MKO’s own human-rights record during its almost 20 years as an armed group sheltered and supported by former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein belies its professed commitment to democratic rule, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in a 28-page report, ”No Exit: Human Rights Abuses Inside the MKO Camps”, released Thursday.
” it would be a huge mistake to promote an opposition group that is responsible for serious human rights abuses.” ‘ said Joe Stork, Washington director of HRW’s Middle East division.
The report comes amid rising tensions between Washington and Teheran focused primarily on U.S. charges that Iran is building a nuclear weapon, a development that President George W. Bush has described as ”unacceptable”.
The U.S. administration has not yet explicitly endorsed ”regime change” in Iran but hardliners based primarily in Vice President Dick Cheney’s office and at the Defence Department have made little secret of their belief that such a policy should be adopted. Their only question is how best to achieve that goal.
Since the March, 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, where the MKO had been based since 1986, the group has tried to persuade Washington that it holds the key to overthrowing the Islamic Republic next door.
It has been backed in this quest by right-wing lawmakers, a group of hard-line neo-conservatives and retired military officers called the Iran Policy Committee (IPC), and some U.S. officials — particularly in the Pentagon, as the Defence Department also is known — who believe that the MKO could be used to help destabilize the Iranian regime, if not eventually overthrow it in conjunction with U.S. military strikes against selected targets.
While the group’s supporters in the Pentagon so far have succeeded in protecting the several thousand MKO militants based at Camp Ashraf near the Iranian border from being dispersed or deported, they have failed to persuade the U.S. State Department to take the group off its terrorist list, to which it was added in 1997 based on its attacks during the 1970s against U.S. military contractors and its participation in the 1979 seizure of the U.S. Embassy in Teheran. The European Union (EU) also cites the MKO as a terrorist organization.
After a year-long tug-of-war between the two U.S. agencies, a truce between State and the Pentagon was apparently worked out. MKO members at Camp Ashraf were designated ”protected persons” under the Geneva Conventions.
Since then, the Pentagon has recruited individual members of the MKO to infiltrate Iran as part of an effort to locate secret nuclear installations, according to recent articles published in The New Yorker and Newsweek magazines. At the same time, nearly 300 members have taken advantage of an amnesty in Iran to return home, leaving a total of 3,534 MKO members inside Camp Ashraf as of mid-March, according to the HRW report.
In this context, the MKO and its supporters have been campaigning hard for the group to be ”de-listed” by the State Department as a terrorist group. That appeared to be the principal demand of last month’s rally, which was addressed via video-conference by MKO’s co-president, Maryam Rajavi.
The group, one of whose Washington representative, Ali Safavi, described it as ”Teheran’s greatest and most feared nemesis” in a recent Washington Times column, also claims a commitment to democracy.
In another column published by the International Herald Tribune in January, Rajavi, who also heads the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), a MKO front group, stressed that she was ”committed to holding free and fair elections within six months of regime change, to electing a constituent assembly and handing over affairs to the people’s elected representatives.”
Those claims are likely to invite greater scepticism in light of the new HRW report, which is based on a series interviews between February and May 2005 with 12 former MKO members currently living in Europe.
They testified to a pattern of torture, beatings, and prolonged detention in solitary confinement at military camps in Iraq after they criticised the group’s policies and what they called its undemocratic practices, or indicated that they planned to leave the organisation. Two of the interviewees said they had personally witnessed the deaths of two prisoners under interrogation.
Those who wished to leave the organisation were held incommunicado in special units in the camps, they said. If they held a high rank in the MKO, they were held for years; one of the interviewees reportedly was held for a total of eight and a half years; another for five years.
The most brutal treatment was meted out to suspected dissidents in secret prisons located within the MKO camps, according to the report. Four of the witnesses, who were suspected of dissident views, testified that they had all been severely tortured and forced to sign false confessions asserting that they had links to Iranian intelligence agents.
Three of them witnessed the death of Parviz Ahmadi, a former unit commander, in February 1995, shortly after a particularly severe beating. His death was reported three years later in the MKO’s publication, ‘Mojahed’, which described him as a ”martyr” killed by Iranian intelligence agents.
Five of the witnesses were eventually transferred to Abu Ghraib prison during the 1990s and released by Saddam Hussein’s government in 2001 or 2002.
The testimonies included in the report also lend weight to the view that the MKO is more of a cult than a political movement. They suggest that the group’s exile in the early 1980s, followed by the marriage of Masoud and Maryam Rajavi in 1985, set off a series of phases in what the husband-and-wife team declared was a permanent ”ideological revolution” which the couple embodied.
These included compulsory divorce of married couples, regular self-criticism sessions, renunciation of sexuality, and absolute mental and physical dedication to the leadership. ”The level of devotion expected of members was on stark display in 2003 when the French police arrested Maryam Rajavi in Paris,” HRW said. ”In protest, ten MKO members and sympathizers set themselves on fire in various European cities; two of them subsequently died.”
The terrorist status of the exiled Iranian resistance might be used to pressure Iran’s regime over the next few months as the US, the UN and the EU step up efforts to get the country to comply with specific rules on its nuclear program. The proposition is simple: the Mujahiddeen stays on the terrorist list for at least another two years and in return for this goodwill, Iran is more forthcoming in its nuclear pledges.
There wouldn’t be all that much substance to such a deal, but comments from diplomats reveal that it’s been pondered rather matter of factly time and again as a feasible bargaining ploy. The exiled Iranian resistance groups’ terrorist label can either be used as little more than a bargaining chip or -less likely- they might find that they might be fitted into a US cooked up plan for inciting popular uprisings inside Iran. Both ends of the spectrum have implications that might be unforeseen.
At the center of the action would be the dissident National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI). It is also known as the Mujahiddeen el Khalq (MeK) or the National Liberation Army (NLA). Some 3,000 of its members have been granted protection in July 2004 by the US in their camp in Ashraf, northwest of Baghdad. The organization’s main appeal to Western backers, of whom the Europeans are even more enthusiastic than the Americans, is the result of intensive campaigning over the last 15 years. In a sense, it has found the perfect organizational formula to win over Western hearts and minds – it puts women’s rights at the heart of its philosophy. Women make out 30 percent of the group yet they are covering 70% of all leadership functions.
The MeK has successfully attracted world media attention and it appears that it charmes work. US congress member for Florida, Illeana Ros Lehtinen, who frequently campaigns for the recognition of Iranian resistance groups certainly will have bought into the female message. However, it appears that the group got some wires crossed when it made news headlines that indicated practices in stark contrast with such lofty idealism. The freedom fighters have a dysmal appreciation of human rights according to a report last May by Human Rights Watch (HRW). The report exacerbated the controversy surrounding the terrorist status of the group, and highlighted some rather gruesome incidents inflicted on people trying to leave the group. One of the instances involved a former bodyguard of Rajavi. Le Parisien describes what happened to him. "When he decided to leave MKO, they injected narcotics into his body and Tahmasebi was under heavy mental torture". The former bodyguard’s fate was relatively mild compared to the punishments the leadership cooked up for other members and which frequently ended in the death of the people punished.
Even though in some eyes the MeK has made significant strides in becoming an acceptable organization, vowing to lay off terrorist actions, insiders say that the last decade its leaders have adopted a cult like aura that not everyone has found to be admirable and which likely contributed to its difficulty in recruiting new members. In the early 1990s, the husband and wife team leading the group, Masoud Rajavi and Maryam Uzdanlu, asked all its members to undertake their own "ideological revolution" by divorcing their spouses. One of the victims of this kind of brainwashing operation is the Iran affairs analyst Ali Reeza Jafarzade who frequently appears on Fox TV. An Iranian exile, Jafarzade is an ex MeK member, as well as the head of a think tank that is not part of the group. It was Jafarzade who was the NCRI’s official spokesman breaking the news to the world of Iran’s nuclear facilities in Natanz and Arak two years ago.
Iran Interlink, an organization that claims to reveal the MeK’s true face to the world, runs a website that claims that Jafarzade married his wife, Robabeh Sadeghi of Babol, in 1986 on Massoud Rajavi’s orders. Four years later, the couple divorced after Rajavi told all the group’s members to do so for ideological reasons. Iran Interlink published a bio of Jafarzade, that cast a shadow of doubt over his links with Fox News. "Fox News now introduces Jafarzadeh as either their employee or as the head of a consultancy company. But as recently as 2002 the same man was interviewed by Fox News as the MKO’s representative in the US Congress", according to the website. "There are serious allegations that Jafarzadeh has been involved in illegal deals in the USA, including deals involving chemicals which can be used to produce WMDs. There are also allegations that the MKO, with him as its representative, have been involved in serious money laundering and drug trafficking in the USA. These allegations, as well as his and Fox News’ dodgy connections in Washington, are currently under investigation," Iran interlink contends. Jafarzadeh apparently was such a committed member that he repeatedly volunteered for suicide operations, Interlink claims, adding that in one of the organization’s publications he is quoted as saying that he is ready to burn himself in front of the UN’s New York office whenever it is needed.
Even though it is unlikely that the MeK is not at all involved in helping out the covert agents running around inside Iran, it is equally unlikely that they are being heavily relied upon as an organization, observers believe. Ron Jacobs at counterpunch.com believes that it is not necessarily logical to expect that the US would immediately enlist the services of the NCRI’s members to conduct a foreign invasion of the country, even though this group has been actively publicizing the locations of Iran’s nuclear sites. "Should change come to Iran with minimal US interference, it seems likely that those groups and people with the fewest connections to DC will be those held in greatest favor by the Iranian people", Jacobs believes. But it is difficult to get a clear picture on this issue.
The only recent official sign that the Bush administration is working on the situation was the release by the US State Department to members of Congress of a classified report entitled ‘non compliance report’, covering the nuclear situation in Iran and a few other countries. Parts of the report were publicized, but it was also announced that there is a "secret" as well as a "top secret" version of the report in circulation – a clear sign that Washington wants the world to know that the wheels are turning.
For all that it matters, the main investigations that are ongoing into the role of individuals and groups like the NCRI are also mostly classified. It is virtually impossible to gain access to even the review dates of the three State Department lists that brand the MeK as a terrorist organization and which happens every two years.
This is bad news for the MeK, which has focused on losing the terrorist stigma for the last Decade. In recent years, the MeK appealed three times to the United States Court of Appeals to review the 1999 and 2001 decisions of the state Department to designate it as a foreign terrorist organization. But from a rational point of view it would be hardly possible to grant the MeK its wish. The Bush administration has named the organization a major reason for its invasion in Iraq, believe it or not. In a white paper released in September 2002, the US administration restated a claim President Bush had made before in a speech to the UN General Assembly, saying that one of the main reasons it had invaded Iraq had been its "sheltering of terrorist groups including the Mujahideen-e-Khalq Organization, which has used terrorist violence against Iran and in the 1970s was responsible for killing several U.S. military personnel and U.S. civilians." Michele Steinberg, a writer for the Executive Intelligence Review says that "the only major concrete charge that the Bush administration made about a terrorist organization was against, rather than in favor of the MeK.
One of the allegations to haunt the organization most persistently is that it was actively involved in suppressing an uprising of the Kurds in Northern Iraq in 1991. One of its official spokespeople has a lot of experience countering this threat and says that even the PKA dismisses these allegations. That’s one example of putting out a fire that showcases the organization’s potential use yet again as an outfit that conveys reliability. If the US administration is at all orchestrating the publicity, it’s casting the group as precisely this – a source of information.
Aside from the revelations on the two nuclear power plants that the Iranian leadership had not told the IAEA about, Jafarzade has recently started to take to repeating stories. News broken to the world by the Financial Times a few months ago was regurgitated once again, as well as the allegations that there are some 4,000 centrifuges spinning at full speed inside Iranian nuclear facilities. What the point is of such allegations is dubious. Outside observers believe that Washington might be readying the public opinion for a military strike against Iran’s nuclear sites. Analysts say that the majority of the policymakers in favor of attacking Iran favor this option over inciting an uprising. "Even so, the fate of democracy in Iran will hardly be determined solely in Washington. A year after NATO bombed Serbia to halt Milosevic’s brutal crackdown against the Kosovo Albanians, Serbian students led a peaceful struggle to overthrow Milosevic. The forces that lead to regime change are often unpredictable — and not easily suppressed", writes Laura Rozen, who is voicing just what some analysts at lobby groups are banking on. It remains to be seen whether such a scenario will be volunteered as easily. People at NCRI say they have a very difficult time educating the population on just how much money the Iranian regime is spending on the nuclear program. If the population finds it has any bones to pick with their government, it will likely be more inspired by economic incentives that are more readily digestible.
Rozen believes that a strike wouldn’t be without considerable risks either. "However, an unfortunate link might be made between the even more unfortunate bombing by US troops of Sarajevo .. in 1998 … US leaders might be dreaming of a similar scenario, when, a month after the bombing, a peaceful demonstration of a bunch of students led to the revolt that ousted the then president Slobodan Milosovic. However, it’s unlikely that policymakers will be so naieve as to think history repeats itself at their whim even without making an attempt whatsoever."
The main challenge the Iranian resistance abroad poses aside from the controversy surrounding the status of the MeK in the US and France are widely convering views within the organizations. For all the MeK hype’s worth, one wonders whether alternative support of Iranian dissidents exists besides the choice of this flagship group. But this is offset by equally few scrupules over trading the MeK’s terrorist status for better nuclear pledges from the Iranian regime. From the ground up however, there is a growing movement among Brussels politicians that wants to end the restrictions on the MeK as an organization. The French closed the organization down two years ago . They kicked out the organization before too, when in 1986 it forced the movement to relocate to Baghdad and effectively hire itself out as Saddam Hussein’s private army. Surprisingly, the French are said to be most effective in garnering results from nuclear negotiations.
It’s most likely the MeK is only used to incite terror inside Iran in a non official capacity. Or even without direct approval from the very people that are responsible at the top in the US Bush administration. This won’t be a unique development. The officials like Bush and Rice were not informed of the decision by the US army to give the Mujahiddeen fighters their arms back upon invading Iraq and very shortly after the group were bombed by the Iraqi army. Yet as soon as she got wind of what the Vice President Dick Cheney and a few like minded friends were condoning, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice cancelled this agreement and declared the Asraf grounds a protected zone later on. It is US policy not to allow dealings between US officials and members of organizations that officially are listed as terrorist. The US, round about the same time as France, closed the MeK offices in the summer of 2003.
Even from the more recent State Department documents it appears that there is scepticism within the State Department. The Decades old claim that the group is essentially Marxist and that it does not envisage Iran as an Islamic state has obviously not been updated for years save on its stay in Iraq. "The MeK philosophy mixes Marxism and Islam. […] Its primary support came from the former Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein starting in the late 1980s. The MeK conducted anti-Western attacks prior to the Islamic Revolution. Since then, it has conducted terrorist attacks against the interests of the clerical regime in Iran and abroad. The MeK advocates the overthrow of the Iranian regime and its replacement with the group’s own leadership."
Massoud Rajavi confirms that a Marxist coup d’etat took place within the group when he was in prison following the street rallies in the MeK’s heydays, but that he managed to regain control even from his prison cell. In a bid to make the organization acceptable overseas, he has repeatedly repudiated all Marxist leanings. Aside from its dodgy philosophical makeup, information about how the group functions internally reads much like the accounts of the Davidian Waco cult that was butchered by the FBI in Texas in 1993. Radio messages are broadcast every day to induce members to the gospel according to its leaders and psychological pressure is the standard way of conveying orders. The MeK’s long history starts in 1965, when three former students of Tehran University -Mohammad Hanifnezhad, Saeed Mohsen and Asghar Badizadegan set up the movement to help topple the regime of the much hated Shah. They made Marxism and Islam the foundation of their ideology, a trend that most groups of the time participated in. The MeK found soon after the revolution that the new Ayatollah-run regime would simply not trust it or allow it any role in public life and took to arms. On June 20 1981, the movement started to organize mass rallies and soon thousands of its members inside Iran were arrested and executed in the streets because they had participated in regime hostile activities. With the anti-shah revolution still fresh in the Iranian people’s minds, the new regime’s leaders had legitimate worries that a similar fate could rather easily befall them.
The Mujahiddeen nowadays is not seen by experts as a major military outfit, but it has known its moments and could be up for a similar refashioning. Maryam Rajavi has been arrested while hiding in France and is currently awaiting trial on terrorism related charges. Husband Massoud hasn’t been seen in two years. Meanwhile, Iran Interlink reports that Maryam has been replaced by someone who served in Saddam Hussein’s private army, and who in turn is succeeding a deputy leader that has mysteriously disappeared from the scene. All is very sensitive in Tehran. The European Parliament invited Maryam to outline an alternative view for state organization in Iran and outraged the Iranian regime. It shows yet again that the organization’s international standing is somewhat of a potent bargaining chip with Tehran.
The impression one gets from the official organization is however that the MeK’s aspirations to topple the Iranian regime and replace it with its own officers are still going strong. But the ambitions are rather hopeless without some staunch backing. "The presence of a female-dominated army prepared to fight the mullahs and Iran’s Revolutionary Guards is a powerful symbol to all women in the region. Its effectiveness is not in its military might. The fact that the army exists at all is a huge threat to all male-dominated fundamentalist regimes. It shows what women can do", says Anne Land, a Danish Human Rights lawyer who visited Camp Ashraf. Yet last Summer’s human rights watch report has set the scene once again for a review of the group’s ‘sins of the past’. It looks increasingly difficult to fit the organization in any official US plan for regime change. For all its campaigning however to lose the terrorist label and to muster international support for the dream team of husband and wife aided by an army of innocent virgins, the MeK simply has too much blood on its hands for it to be feasibly considered suitable material by even the most unconscionable neocon in Washington.
Within Iran, the MeK won’t be greeted with open arms either. "The MKO are highly disliked and disregarded by Iranians worldwide. During the Iran-Iraq war, Saddam Hussein financed and utilized the MKO to institute several attacks against Iranians," a writer at the IranTruth blog writes. These reports are confirmed time and again. It appears that it’s likely going to be rather difficult to gain trust as an organization that once has taken up arms against its own people -in the 1988 Iran Iraq war- rather than against only the regime in Tehran. The group is also widely perceived by the Iranian population to have been actively involved in suppressing the Kurds in 1991, together with Saddam’s army. "The MKO do not gain immunity for their previous actions simply by refraining from targeting European and American targets for 30 years", according to the IranTruth blog.
Angelique van Engelen is a former Middle East correspondent and currently runs a writing agency http://www.contentclix.com. She also participates in a writing ring http://clixyplays.blogspot.com/
WASHINGTON, Oct. 13 (UPI) — Human Rights Watch reasserted claims of abuses by an Iranian dissident group Wednesday even after a report compiled by a European Parliament delegation denounced its initial report as "devoid of any truth."
Earlier this year, the global watchdog group published a report alleging serial abuses at Camp Ashraf, the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq headquarters, six miles north of Baghdad. The report described the MeK as an extremist sect, whose leaders had exerted a manipulative psychological influence on their followers, as in the case of the 1980s mass divorces enforced to ensure total loyalty to their cause. Members who wish to leave the organization suffered from beating and prolonged solitary confinement, resulting in a number of fatalities, the report said.
The MeK denies the allegations, claiming an Iranian conspiracy to discredit the group.
A report by the parliamentary delegation, based on a visit to Camp Ashraf in September, backed the MeK’s claims. In its report, the delegation said that the watchdog group had gone "far beyond the mandate of a human rights organization." The delegation heard counter-testimonies from MeK members, supporting this view and vilifying Human Rights Watch.
"We found the allegations contained in HRW report unfounded and devoid of any truth. We also came to the conclusion that the HRW report was procedurally flawed and substantively inaccurate."
The HRW has been criticized by the delegation for not visiting Camp Ashraf and for basing their report on testimony gathered in 12 telephone interviews.
But HRW’s Joe Stork Wednesday fiercely defended his conclusions, throwing his own accusations back at the EU delegation.
"They’re fine ones to talk about methodology," he told United Press International. "The counter-testimonies are all from people high up in the MeK. Most of the criticisms in the delegation’s report are from MeK sources."
Asked why HRW did not visit Camp Ashraf, despite invitations from the MeK, Stork explained that his organization’s allegations dated back before the occupation of Iraq led by the American coalition. "We were invited during the Hussein era. No human rights organization could credibly take up that offer."
HRW had sought permission to visit the camp since the fall of Saddam, he said. But "U.S. forces did not respond positively to later requests. In hindsight, I regret not including that in the report." Coalition forces in Iraq were unable to confirm that these requests had been made, according to Stork.
The MeK was designated a terrorist organization by the Clinton administration in 1997. But the group has since won favor in the United States by providing information on the Iranian nuclear program. In 2004, MeK members were given ‘protected status’ by coalition forces in Iraq.
The group’s seemingly contradictory status, at once a source of valuable intelligence and an acknowledged terrorist organization, is fuelling a fierce propaganda war between the MeK and the Iranian regime, in which HRW, the European Parliament and the United States Government have become players.
Stork is a target of an elaborate deception by the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence and Security, claims Raymond Tanter, a Georgetown University academic and founding member of the Iran Policy Committee, which advises the United States government, citing a June White Paper issued by the IPC that describes HRW as "victims of a world class intelligence operation."
According to the IPC paper, many of the witnesses interviewed by HRW were in fact Iranian agents. These included Hossein Sobhani, "whom HRW cites as a "credible" victim but who, in fact, runs an intelligence ring in Europe that works under the direct supervision of MOIS deputy chief Mohammad-Reza Iravani."
"Human Rights Watch has been duped," said Tanter.
Terrorists or indispensable friends? Uncertainty over the true personality of the MeK has prompted debate over the U.S. administration’s relationship with the group. In an October report by Foreign Policy magazine, freelance writer Erik Saas suggested that MeK intelligence might not be quite as indispensable as their advocates claim:
"The group has a record of exaggerating intelligence or sometimes simply making things up. U.S. officials have learned to take MeK claims with very large grains of salt," wrote Saas.
Nevertheless, there is, according to Saas, increasing co-operation between the MeK and the United States. (Although they remain on the U.S. State Department’s terrorist list.) Saas even claims MeK fighters have been deployed in Pakistan and Afghanistan, although this has not been confirmed.
Alireza Jafarzadeh, President of Strategic Policy Consulting and former MeK leader, says he sees no reason why the terrorist designation should not soon be lifted. MeK was placed on the terrorist list in 1997 as a conciliatory gesture aimed at Iran’s president at the time, Mohammed Khatami Jafarzadeh told UPI. "The designation came weeks after Khatami was elected," he said. But with the election this summer of hardliner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad a shift in policy was likely. "With the new regime, the situation will change."
Tanter gives credence to the suggestion that the terrorist list has more to do with political expediency than human rights. "The designation is a diplomatic football tossed around to gain various diplomatic benefits," he said.
Asked if, in the light of the HRW allegations, co-operation with the MeK could damage the image of the United States, Tanter said: "American credibility is damaged if it doesn’t take sides with the Iranian resistance in general. The U.S. has to stand with the dissidents. That doesn’t mean picking a group."
"Regime change is the implicit policy of the Bush administration," he said. "Diplomacy has failed and the number of nuclear installations makes military action unfeasible." If Tanter is right, alliance with dissident groups, however unsavory, is one of increasingly few options.
By LEIGH BALDWIN
…Sending a letter to European countries, US and Canada, a group of former members of the MKO warned that the group is starting to harass them in western countries using its trained members. The letter said that a number of MKO members trained in security, intelligence and urban warfare courses had been deployed to Europe illegally.
I had an interview with Massoud Khodabandeh, former member of National Council of Resistance, who is among the letter’s signatories. I asked him about the reasons behind signing such a letter?
Massoud Khodabandeh: before the fall of Saddam, the MKO deployed 200-300 of its members along with Maryam Rajavi to Europe. Most of these people were trained in Saddam’s security systems and can be compared to Saddam’s Fedayeen.
It seems that this intelligence system has matured during the past 2 years and is now active. For the time being, this system is centered in Germany, with direct contact with the MKO’s headquarters in Auvers-sur-Oise in France. Its divisions are also active in the capitals of other democratic countries. They now have more than one hundred associations, companies and websites to cover-up their activities and they have come to a point, unfortunately, that their activities include kidnapping in Germany, beatings in Netherlands, harassing families and even schoolchildren whose parents are critics of the organization.
We sent this letter, signed by 80-90 people, to the Interior Ministries of European countries, the USA and Canada to be investigated seriously. But we should be careful about the process; the way it’s going now would turn the previous self-immolations into future murders and killings and we don’t want this to happen.
Interviewer: Mr. Khodabandeh, according to you, these attacks have intensified. What are the goals of such activities? Are they organized movements? In all countries?
Khodabandeh: yes, it’s organized by a trained system. Some of them have 20 to 25 year records in this. They were officially trained in Iraq. It means that we can’t ignore it. And, about the goals of such activities: they believe that their problems with being on the terror lists, or being prosecuted by the French Judiciary, are rooted in the revelations made by their critics and by former members. They’ve concluded that they will never relieved [from the terror label] while these people continue to disclose the organization’s realities. So, they spend a significant amount of their energy to suppress, or erase, those who criticize them.
Interviewer: What measures can the western countries take? What have they done?
Khodabandeh: For instance, a court in Germany is now hearing the complaints of a former Abu Ghraib prisoner who is a critic of the MKO. They [MKO] wanted to kidnap him in the street. The court is doing its work, and that’s a positive step. There have been cases of beatings in the Netherlands but it was not possible to investigate the cases because the MKO agents were able to flee the scene; that’s because, as I told you, they’re trained in this field. But it seems that there are some ways to stop such activities if western governments take this seriously. Anyway, such organized movements are not legal in these countries. Even the lawyers here say that surveillance is not legal. Making databases of opponents is not legal. Harassing people and their children is not legal. Apparently, such activities can be prevented. The only thing is that they should be paid attention to.