++ Exit News in Albania, which previously reported the arrest of two high ranking MEK personnel on charges of drug and human trafficking, is continuing to report on the crackdown on criminal activity in Albania. This time involving unauthorised cryptocurrency labs, fraud and hiding income. Commentators ask in Farsi why the authorities turn a blind eye to the MEK’s criminal behaviour. Why the two arrested MEK officials are not being prosecuted and why the authorities refuse to investigate well-evidenced allegations of modern slavery and human rights abuses in Camp Ashraf 3.

++ The MEK are placing fundraising ads on their TV channel. This is in spite of the fact that everyone knows the MEK is paid for by the anti-Iran coalition (US, Israel, Saudi Arabia and UK). As several commentors pointed out, the MEK’s main job is money laundry for the purposes of propaganda and dissemination of false and misleading information.

++ Maryam Rajavi was delighted to pose with some non-Iranian former politicians and personalities presumably in a bid to win over the hearts and minds of Iranians. It was deliberately unclear whether these photo ops were made Albania or France, though Rajavi is trying hard to pretend she is living in France. Responses pointed out that the Rajavi Cult is more and more irrelevant to Iran and that observers expect the group to morph into the Cult of Qajar in Paris headed by Maryam’s daughter and her niece (her brother’s daughter) who are both French citizens by birth.

++ Hackers managed to hack an Iranian TV channel for a few seconds last week, placing photos (over 30-year-old) of Massoud and Maryam Rajavi on screen. This prompted a hashtag storm with # down with MEK in Farsi from everywhere. Social media found the stunt ridiculous. Nobody cares about MEK and those who did simply laughed at how desperate MEK is to prove it actually exists at all.

In English
++ Gjergji Thanasi wrote about the trafficking activities of MEK being revealed in Greece which are a repeat of the drug and human trafficking which led to the arrest of two high ranking members in Albania. Thanasi wrote that Greek police and journalists have raised concerns about the long term activities of Mehdi Mazloomi and Bahman Rahimi, both MEK members, in Greece. The fear is that MEK is causing problems in the EU and in NATO countries. Thanasi suggests that the US embassy should help Albania to end the Rajavi cult.

++ In a joint broadcast between ASILA in Albania and Nejat Society in Iran, Albanian journalist Gjergji Thanasi told families of the entrapped MEK members that things are changing for the better. According to the Albanians there is now an alternative for the inmates, to have a normal life in Tirana; Thanasi stressed that new legislation allows them to find a job. He said everyone should work together to help the MEK members as the alternative could be that they die of COVID 19 due to negligence.
++ Nejat Society published the story of Mahvash Jahanbanian whose husband Ali Ebrahimi was taken as a PoW during the Iran-Iraq while serving as an officer in the Iranian army. In spite of being registered with the ICRC, Ebrahimi’s letters stopped in 1989 and his wife had no news of him until an anonymous note revealed he was with the MEK. After the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003 Jahanbanian, with other families, visited Camp Ashraf and Camp Liberty four times to find her husband. They had rocks thrown at them. Later, former MEK members who knew him told her that he refused to comply with MEK demands that he denounce his wife as an agent of Iranian Intelligence and was punished for this. Jahanbanian is continuing her efforts to contact her husband and called on the Albanian authorities to help. Meanwhile, she sent a direct message to him on her video with Mardom TV: “Ali! I still love you and respect you the same as I did the day you left. We will warmly welcome you whenever you come back home.”

February 04 2022

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The MEK, of course, is not in Albania to directly oppose the Iranian regime – that would be a ludicrous conclusion for anyone to make. Instead, it acts as a propaganda and intelligence tool for the anti-Iran coalition which includes the US, Israel and Saudi Arabia. The MEK is well known as a conduit for Mossad intelligence – a two-way street. With Jones’ company embedded in the security infrastructure and the corrupting, criminal MEK acting with impunity in Albania, who knows what real threat there may be to national security in that country.

What guarantee does Albania have that general Jones will not share Albania’s sensitive information with the Iranian mojaheden? pic.twitter.com/OSP2wqo4rE

— Olsi Jazexhi (@OlsiJ) January 11, 2022

++ Saber from Tabriz answered an article by Iran-Efshagar, an MEK website built to attack critics and ex-members. The article claims that the name ‘Rajavi Cult’ was invented by Iranian intelligence to discredit Rajavi and is not true. Saber accepts that this name should not be used. Instead, he says, the name ‘Rajavi’s Destructive Cult’ is the correct terminology. He explains that only destructive cults do what Rajavi does – destroy their members.

++ Hamed Sarafpour, Iran-Interlink, wrote about MEK Money Laundering after Rajavi announced the “week of financial support”, a week when members are supposed to go all out to collect financial support for her cult. Every year she does this so that she can claim that the MEK is financed through people’s money. Sarafpour exposes the history of money laundry by the MEK from the deceptive Iran Aid bogus charity to the 3 tons of gold and food for oil, etc to the payments made to John Bolton, the Vox Party, and more. He also publishes the amount of money Maryam spends on makeup and shoes and decoration for her meetings and compares this with the situation of ordinary members – referring to modern slavery to explain why the money does not reach the members.

++ Massoud Khodabandeh concluded the 9th hour-long podcast interviews with Bakhshali Alizadeh, a former MEK member now living in Iran with his family. In the series, Alizadeh describes how he went to the front line in the Iran-Iraq war as a conscript and was captured and imprisoned as a POW in Saddam’s camps. He talks about conditions in the camp and how he and others were given to Rajavi contrary to international law. He describes the situation of the MEK camps – forced marriages, forced divorces, the fall of Saddam, the Americans disarming the MEK, and the approach of the new Iraqi government. Alizadeh talks about internal conflicts inside the camp, why Rajavi resisted leaving Camp Ashraf, the transfer to Camp Liberty and how UNAMI behaved inside Liberty. Alizadeh was among those members transferred to Albania. Once there he had the opportunity to leave the MEK. This began another journey – from Albania to Germany where he was granted refugee status. He explains why he gave this up and returned to Iran where he got married and had a baby. In the concluding podcast Alizadeh touched on the importance of family in restoring his life – his father had previously travelled to the camp in Iraq to try to contact his son. He explains that in order to leave point A you need a point B to go to. The MEK cult, protected by benefactors, is denying people the point B, i.e. contact with family and society to prevent them leaving.

++ Ex members broadcast a touching video on YouTube of former MEK member Parviz Heydarian saying farewell to his friends as he returns to Iran from Albania. Heydarian was supported by the recently established ASILA association. The film shows Heydarian with other former members, who all look happy, healthy and relaxed in their new lives. The MEK have been on overdrive to denounce them all as agents of the Iranian regime. The reality is that both ASILA in Albania and Nejat Society in Iran are legally registered in their respective countries where they pay taxes and obey the laws. Unlike the MEK which has never registered anywhere, does not pay any taxes and certainly does not obey any laws.

In English:

++ Mazda Parsi for Nejat Society writes about the MEK’s constant and futile habit of labelling all its critics as ‘agents of the Intelligence Ministry of Iran’. Parsi identifies three main groups which the MEK regards as enemies: former members, families of members and the child soldiers made to join MEK’s army in Iraq. The common characteristics linking these groups is their scathing criticism of the MEK and revelations of horrendous abuses and crimes. The MEK also singles out ASILA in Albania and Nejat Society in Iran to attack as agents. The simple reason is that these organisations effectively and persistently help and support all those groups.

++ Nejat Society reveals that the MEK’s policy of recruiting child soldiers has been known about in western political circles for some time. In a report on Iran published by the UK Home Office Border and Immigration Agency, it is stated: “According to the Child Soldiers Global Report 2004 ‘The MeK reportedly recruited members from the USA, Europe and Iraqi prisoner of war camps and jails. Children were said to be among MeK members in Ashraf camp, including 17-year-old Majid Amini who ‘was recruited to join the MeK in Tehran with promises of completing two school grades in one year and gaining a place in college’, according to his parents. There were reports that the MeK recruited children from Sweden.”

++ A Letter was sent from Nejat Society CEO Ebrahim Khodabandeh to the ASILA President outlining the problem that families have in gaining visas to visit Albania and seek out contact with their loved ones incarcerated in camp Ashraf 3 in Manez as modern slaves. The letter asks ASILA to petition the authorities to ignore Maryam Rajavi’s deceptive lies and grant the human rights of MEK members and their families.

++ Habilian Association in Iran published a second volume of its book ‘Mujahedin-e Khalq Uncovered 2, The Terrorist Group in the Eyes of International Media’. After Trump’s presidency ended, Habilian compiled media reports to update the latest narrative from western media viz a viz the MEK. “The book, published in 830 pages, vividly demonstrates that the MEK is still a highly dubious and notorious group in the West and despite the efforts to present a different image of itself among Westerners, it has not attained much success.”

++ Anne Khodabandeh in Iran-Interlink exposes the MEK’s deceptive recruitment of vulnerable Iranian asylum seekers arriving in Albania. The MEK has imposed its personnel on the police by offering to identify the Iranians among the refugees. Once recruited, they are taken to MEK camps and detained there as modern slaves. According to Khodabandeh, this practice of deceptively exploiting Iranian refugees has been going on for decades. This time, however, the Albanian authorities have a duty to detect and prevent it rather than facilitate it.

++ Geopolitica published an interview Jack Turner made with Dr Haniyeh Tarkian, an Italian Islamic-Studies researcher and geopolitical analyst, about different aspects of the MEK’s activities. Interestingly, the conversation continually returned to the issue of western double standards and hypocrisy in relation to the MEK over every issue.

++ Atefeh Nadilian, human rights lawyer, writing for Nejat Society reveals that the MEK’s sensitivity toward families has become worse in recent times. The MEK has tried to depict the families as dangerous agents of the Iranian regime. But this has backfired as most observers and analysts have realised that the MEK’s main enemy are elderly parents and siblings of the entrapped members languishing in Camp Ashraf 3.

January 22, 2022

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++ The anniversary of the assassination of generals Qassem Soleimani and Abu Mahdi al-Mohandes in Iraq by the Trump administration has prompted speeches and commemoration ceremonies not only in Iran but in other countries. It was and remains an event which uniquely united the people of Iran against foreign interference and the malicious anti-Iran coalition which includes the MEK. Both Iranians and Iraqis have continued their claims for justice. In 2019 Maryam Rajavi said this: “From December 2017 to November 2019, and throughout the past year, it became crystal clear that the strategy of ‘uprising and overthrow’ devised by the commander of the Liberation Army is going to be victorious. And it will successfully lead all anti-regime fighting forces towards their great destination.” After Soleiman’s assassination Massoud Khodabandeh wrote that his death guaranteed that there will be no regime change in Tehran. Maryam Rajavi will need to re-visit her predictions in 2022.

++ Albanian journalist Gjergji Thanasi wrote in Gazeta Impakt that the US and its allies must control MEK crimes in Albania. The piece follows the arrest of two leading members of MEK on charges of human and drug trafficking. It appears that the US embassy intervened and arranged a media blackout of the arrests and the alleged crimes committed by MEK members. Thanasi gives an example of a MEK member now living illegally in Vienna. Thanasi asks as an Albanian journalist and patriot that the Americans keep the criminal activity of MEK under control and the members on a tight leash.

++ Iran Interlink commented on recent events which exposed Maryam Rajavi’s increasingly tenuous situation. Rajavi’s appearance in a church in Paris was promoted by MEK sites as a great example of her embrace by the west. In fact it reminded everyone that Maryam Rajavi has been expelled from the EU and her appearance was engineered, probably by Israel of its allies, to poke Iran in the eye. Thus revealing not only how desperate Rajavi is for publicity, but how empty the anti-Iran tool box is for the west. A second example of push back against the Rajavi regime came with the reappearance of the media article about the arrest of two leading MEK members. Iran Interlink concluded “it appears that this message has got through to the right people in the country. The EXIT article has been restored. Some honest, patriotic elements in the Albanian establishment have gained control and the MEK and its mafia collaborators are being pushed further and further back.”

Dec 31, 2021

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++ Albanians have reacted to news that the US State Department Country Reports on Terrorism 2020: Albania, goes full out in support for the MEK “opposition group” against “Iran’s state-sponsored activity directed primarily” against the MEK, and that “On July 23 a suspected agent sponsored by Iranian authorities was declared ‘unwanted’ by the Government of Albania and subsequently expelled from the country”. Commentary points out that although in Albania, where members of the political class, judiciary, security services and media are openly for sale, this type of unfounded bias is to be expected, coming from the US the assessment has either been pushed by Israel or paid for by Saudi Arabia.

US Assessment Paid or Pushed

US Dept of State in its latest report on Albania defends the Iranian terrorist cult Mujahedeen-e-Khalq, an ex-terrorist cult which is involved in terrorism, drug and human trafficking, abductions. How can the @USStateDepartm1 expect to be taken seriously?https://t.co/KXfaL3sbdH

— Olsi Jazexhi (@OlsiJ) December 17, 2021

If the above declaration is true it means that @USEmbassyTirana is directly supporting Narges Abrishamchi & Hassan Nayeb-Agha who were caught by Albanian police trafficking drugs to Italy! @GiulioTerzi does #FreeIran mafia works with you in these smuggling operations?

— Olsi Jazexhi (@OlsiJ) December 8, 2021

++ Albanian journalist Gjergji Thanasi wrote about a romance between two former MEK members who recently married in Tirana. Thanasi says that love is a great antidote to the effects of cult membership. He likens the couple to Romeo and Juliet with Maryam Rajavi as the wicked enemy of love. But this time there is a happy ending. Thanasi reports that the Albanian police – immigration directorate – will be issuing ID cards to Iranian former MEK members who live in Albania in December. The ASILA Association, which protects the interests of these Iranians, has undertaken to help the couple with their rights.

In English:

++ Nejat Society reports that a book by Hanif Azizi, one of the evacuated children from Iraq, has been well received by Swedish readers. The book is reviewed on Good Reads where several people comment on it as ‘important’, ‘both tragic and inspiring’. Azizi was taken to Sweden as a child and was fortunate to have been placed with a non-Iranian, non-MEK foster family. This allowed him to develop as a normal citizen – although at one point in his youth he meets his mother in Iraq and is almost persuaded to join MEK. After returning to Sweden, he finds his direction and becomes a police officer. His book describes these experiences, which for the readers who review the book, is an ‘amazing story’.

++ Nejat Society comments on the MEK response to recent revelations by some of the evacuated children from Iraq, some of whom became child soldiers, and who, as adults, are beginning to speak out about their experiences. MEK typically denies their testimonies and says it is Iranian propaganda. However, in a Club House room with the topic ‘Accounts by former child soldiers of the MEK’, several of these former child soldiers met and revealed and confirmed accounts of abuse and mistreatment at the hands of MEK, including sexual abuse.

Dec 17, 2021

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++ Gazeta Impact, Albania, published an article highlighting the difficulties faced by MEK members who try to leave or have already left the cult. The piece focuses on the Danafar family of father and two sons who requested from the MEK leadership that they be allowed to live freely in Tirana rather than continue in the closed camp in Manez. This was not a defection, simply a change to their living arrangements. They were refused. One son attempted suicide. In hospital, he was guarded 24/7 by MEK minders. The article points out that under Albanian law, inciting suicide – for example through ill treatment – is a criminal offence, as is depriving a person of their liberty. The article’s authors call for state protection of these people from Maryam Rajavi and her lieutenants. Another case is mentioned, that of Farshad, a famous singer who escaped the MEK camp. He has since been subjected to extreme psychological pressure by an MEK commander. The authors appeal to the Albanian police to protect Farshad “thus avoiding any extraordinary event such as murder, suicide or even murder disguised as suicide”. After all, the state is responsible for protecting all Iranians sheltering in Albania.

++ Nejat Society draws our attention again to the plight of MEK children who were separated from their parents by the leadership. A translation of an interview of Hanif Azizi by Linda Eliasson in folkbladet.nu describes the lucky escape he made. Azizi, who is now a policeman in Sweden, describes how he was deceptively recruited by his biological mother and the brainwashed to join the MEK fighters in Iraq. When he returned to Sweden to say goodbye to his foster family, they were able to alert him to this deception. Waiting to renew his passport allowed him time to realise he was living his dream life and he returned to Swedish society, eventually joining the police.

++ Mehdi Khoshhal in Cologne, Germany has addressed an Open Letter to Olaf Sholz, the new Chancellor of Germany. Khoshhal says that the working class and immigrants have good expectations from Sholz based on his policies. This must include guarding against the continued activities of the MEK in Germany. Khoshhal gives a brief overview of the danger that the MEK poses because of its belief in violence and human rights abuse and points out that this propensity for violence does not only affect Iran but also Europe where self-immolations were ordered. He suggests that the office of Green Party Minister Annalena Baerbock could be used to leverage human rights policies that would target the MEK’s abuses.

December 12 2021

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In a Facebook post, Hassan Heyrani says: “We know clearly that they [ex-members] are being approached by MEK with large amounts of cash to get together with the lawyers and others to discredit our Association. We warn Maryam Rajavi that this is not Iraq, and your organisation MEK, which is legally non-existent in Albania, trying to work against a registered organisation for helping Iranians will not turn out well for you. We will take you to court and expose you.”

In reaction, Maryam Rajavi has found someone among the 348 Senators to hire a room in the French Senate for propaganda purposes. A few people are sent to attend and watch a link to Maryam Rajavi speaking from Albania where she was deported to. In English, French, Arabic, etc the MEK advertise that Maryam Rajavi sent a message to this group. On the face of it, the meeting is about the JCPOA talks and is anti-Raisi. But in reality, what she has done in Farsi is advertised it as though she is actually in the meeting in France. Since she doesn’t have an audience in Iran and her only Farsi audience is MEK members, the only conclusion we can draw is that she is reacting to the loss of members because of the ID cards and wants to show to the members that she can still travel to France. What we call in English a big fat lie!

++ Mehdi Khoshhal in Germany wrote an article titled ‘The Phase of Court Cases’. He explains that MEK started with an armed anti-imperialist phase because their political predecessors were not radical enough. After the Revolution they started the political phase. Then after falling out with the new Khomeini regime went into military phase followed by a terrorism phase. That collapsed so they were reduced to a ‘cutting the fingertips of the regime’ phase. They moved on to a phase of eliminating all opposition outside Iran to leave them the only opposition group in case of regime change. The phase of everyone going to Iraq and the National Liberation Army phase faded when they lost half the forces in the Eternal Light operation. They then entered yet another ‘Internal Revolution’ phase (about 3 or 4 had already passed); this one added divorce and giving up children, giving up individuality and dreams etc. Then they came back to the phase of political lobbying, involving McCain, Bolton, Giuliani, etc. Between this, of course, they had a phase of self-immolation in Paris. Now MEK has arrived at the phase of court cases. Specifically, against an Iranian diplomat in Belgium and another against a former official in Sweden – which because of MEK has been moved to Albania where the knackered old people with Zimmer fames try to go and explain why they were not executed back in Iran and have now ended up in Albania. Khoshhal concludes that none of these phases are about what they are stated to be – not about Iran or regime change or human rights. This Swedish court phase is not about justice. It is obvious to all who know the MEK it is all about Rajavi. “All through the years I have seen these phases, they have been to support Rajavi against the ex-members. That is the fight, no one else is involved. I write this to promise that this court case will end, and this phase will end, but Rajavi will use it against ex-members not against Iran. Then use it inside the camp to say, ‘if you leave you will end up like them’.”

In English:

Iran Interlink Weekly Digest Mojahedin Khalq MEK NCRI Rajavi cult++ Following on from the interview with a former MEK child soldier in Germany by Luisa Hommerich, Mazda Parsi of Nejat Society has written about the memories of Zahra Moini – former MEK member and former ‘babysitter’ for the children who arrived in Germany during the First Gulf War. The treatment of these vulnerable children that she describes is harrowing. The cynical and brutal exploitation of them for financial gain and free labour is shocking, but not new. Others have written similar detailed accounts. A huge number of children, particularly girls, became victims of the Rajavi Cult in different ways.

++ Habilian Association in Iran has re-published some reporting from Germany about the MEK as a terrorist entity. One is titled ‘Rajavi’s Red Army’. Habilian writes: “Despite the publication of numerous reports by various intelligence services in Germany, why this intelligence nucleus is still present and active in this country still remains to be seen. After the disbanding of the Red Army Faction terrorist group, which had brought insecurity and violence for Germans for about two decades, the question is, what the Rajavi terrorist and leftist cult is doing in Germany? Terrorists are a time bomb wherever they are.”

Nov 26, 2021

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++ Rahman Mohammadian in Albania wrote that for the last four decades Massoud and Maryam have been telling us that all their critics are agents of the regime. The actual intelligence ministry of Iran has answered that in order to be legitimate, the members should be allowed to criticise the regime 80% and MEK 20%. Mohammadian argues that “this means Iran is more tolerant than you. At least allow your critics to do that. This could not be in favour of the regime.” But, asks Mohammadian, “would you allow 99% criticism of the regime and 1% criticism of MEK, or even just one question about you. You can’t tolerate even that. Why?”

In English:

++ Kourosh Ziabari writes in Asia Times, ‘Well-Funded Exile Regime-Change Outfits Are Hardly Paragons of Virtue’. He asks are “these kaleidoscopic opposition groups the ‘saviors’ that will cultivate democracy in Iran and put national interest above anything else when they rule the roost, including ideological dogmas, ethnic divisions and partisan interests? The answer is a clear, if not resounding, “no.” Among the groups he covers, MEK is prominent. Ziabari charts the MEK’s murky behaviours and activities – from collusion with Saddam Hussein to arguing for severe sanctions against Iran – as well as questioning its internal workings so that “it is so cryptic in its workings and so unethical in its conduct that the majority of Iranians reckon it to be a shadowy cult, leaving it with little to zero credibility among the populace it professes to be fighting for.” He offers us the example of his own treatment by the MEK after publishing a critical article. “ As soon as the story went viral, hundreds of Twitter accounts began slandering me – posting identically worded tweets – as an apologist of the Islamic Republic, and some of them went so far as to claim that I was a member of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps!” As for the credibility of the opposition groups he concludes that the “alternative to a bad situation is not a parlous one.”

++ Jack Turner interviewed Robert Fantina, journalist and political analyst, about the MEK for Geopolitica. Concerning recent court cases against Iranian officials – in Belgium and the Swedish court case which has now moved to Albania – Fantina says it highlights double standards that western criminals such as the assassins of Soleimani are not prosecuted by the International Criminal Court and yet Iranian officials are being brought to trial in other countries.

“The MEK is a terrorist organization that seeks the overthrow of the legitimate government of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Their terrorist activities – the killing of innocent people – are well-known. Yet they receive support from some western nations, most notably the United States, because that nation’s government harbors an irrational hatred of Iran, and will support any organization, even a terrorist one, that opposes it.”
“The leaders of the MEK should be charged in the International Criminal Court with the many crimes they have committed.”

++ The MEK proudly advertised that UK MP Bob Blackman attended their ‘Free Iran’ rally in London this week. Blackman made an intervention in a parliamentary debate on the government’s treatment of asylum seekers crossing the channel in small boats. Blackman offered the example set by the Albanian government “who moved, satisfactorily, Camp Liberty from Iran into Camp Ashraf?” Iran? The MEK pays these people, yet they can’t even do their homework and get their facts right.

Nov 26 2021

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According to observers in Albania, the situation is “chaotic” as one witness was dismissed by the judge because he suffers dementia. Another MEK member claims they witnessed the “massacre of 30,000 people”. Certainly the legal teams on both sides will have a lot of work to sort out fact from fiction in this case. The MEK witnesses are led by the MEK’s legal representative, Behzad Safari, a man who defrauded his own father of $30,000 and who studied dentistry in London before joining MEK in the 1980s.

This, as much as anything, signals that not a lot of legal principle is involved in pursuing this case. Ironically, simultaneous to this trial, Iran’s judiciary is pursuing the MEK leaders through the International Criminal Court in The Hague to seek redress for 42 former MEK members who, it was found, were subjected to human rights abuses while members of the organisation. A petition raised by families of MEK members exposes why the Swedish prosecutors have had to travel to Albania: “At present, about 2,000 members of the MEK are living in the organization’s forced labor camp in Albania under the control of a destructive mind control cult and in modern slavery situation, and have no right to have any contact with the outside world, especially family and friends.”

++ Zeit Online in Germany has published another lengthy and informative piece by Louisa Hommerich. Last week the MEK exploded with anger at publication of her interview with a former MEK member and child soldier who has now returned to Germany. He accepted to be named and he talked in some depth about the abuses committed against the children of MEK members like himself. This led to the MEK issuing defamatory rants and death threats against Hommerich. This week’s article exposes activities linked to the MEK’s Berlin headquarters. Speaking to former MEK members, Hommerich has pieced together the ways MEK controls its members through psychological manipulation and what essentially amounts to captivity. She also writes about how and why German politicians have been advocating for the MEK for years. Delving into the history of the MEK, Hommerich elicits a damning picture of the extreme cultic abuse used by Rajavi to control and exploit the members. In Germany, former members describe their activities as fundraising through deception and computer work. They describe how politicians who were persuaded to support the MEK were victims of this deception.

“You only need one or two famous names,” a former member of the People’s Mojahedin explains of its lobbying strategy. You have to invest a lot of energy in the first contact person. You have to shower the person with attention and compliments, give them gifts – and give them the feeling of being committed to a meaningful, noble cause. In the second step, one would then slowly introduce the idea that the person could establish an association or a society that advocates for the People’s Mojahedin. ‘It’s a psychological trick: when you ask someone for a favour after so much flattery, people think they owe you something and can hardly say no.’ With a single respected politician, you can attract many more prominent supporters.”

Although the former members speak of historical events, Hommerich leaves us in no doubt that these practices are still ongoing and that from the inside of the MEK “many things look different with the People’s Mojahedin or Iranian Mojahedin Khalq than from the outside.”

++ A protest in Isfahan attracted around half a million citizens who asked for changes to the water management which causes the Zayanderud river to dry up. Anti-Iran media and commentators were quick to jump on the event to either claim it was an entirely government created event or that an uprising was imminent. When it became clear that this was a genuine, peaceful demonstration concerning a genuine grievance of ordinary citizens, several outlets withdrew their posts. Hilariously, the protest breathed life back into the long-dead Massoud Rajavi, who announced his support for “toppling the regime” in Esfahan and essentially claiming he had organised it. This prompted a flurry of social media posts ridiculing both Massoud and Maryam Rajavi for supporting the Esfahan protest.

Hundreds of people in the central Iranian city of Isfahan have joined farmers on the dried-up riverbed of Zayandehrud to demand that the government release water into the river.

State broadcaster reports that First VP Mokhber will address the protesters on live TV today. pic.twitter.com/Q1jQhPu2gA

— Kian Sharifi (@KianSharifi) November 19, 2021

In English:

++ A right-wing British newspaper reported on the Home Office’s openly racist attempts to remove ‘illegal’ asylum seekers before their claims are considered by flying them to Albania. According to a source close to the MEK in Durres, Maryam Rajavi is very unhappy about this influx of brown migrants. She believes this will lower public tolerance of ‘foreigners’, ‘dilute’ the attention paid to her and undermine her monopoly on corrupt government collusion. This comes on top of previous reports that America will send Afghan refugees to Albania for processing before accepting them in the US. No wonder the prospects for EU membership are diminishingly small.

++ The same right-wing British newspaper, The Daily Mail, picked up on another controversy this week as Jordan’s FA alleged that the Iranian women’s team goalkeeper is actually a man. In addition to Zohreh Koudaei’s own retort that this is bullying from Jordan, this prompted an angry response from Iranians who accused Jordan of being sore losers. Some pointed out that the Jordanian mindset is so backward that they can’t conceive of a woman saving goals and therefore conclude that she must be a man. Several commentators remarked that Maryam Rajavi said absolutely nothing about this situation because she will never waste her breath unless she is being paid for it. And that since she never supports women or Iranians, she herself is neither Iranian nor a feminist.

Nov 19, 2021

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++ More on the Swedish court in Albania. Commentators ask why the court has gone to Albania to take witness testimony? Why didn’t they send the witnesses to Sweden? Some say that it is clear: if they get to Sweden they will run away and claim asylum there. Many know these people from MEK. They explain: they have been killing and begging, but they have done so as Gladiators, forced to do this by Rajavi. If they have the chance, they will not go back to Albania. Maryam Rajavi has to keep them captive there. Others comment that even though the judge could arrange visas for them to travel to Sweden, he knows they are fine to be used in Albania, but like dogs, should be kept in a kennel at the end of the garden. For the same reason, they don’t allow Maryam Rajavi out of Albania to visit the US, EU or UK. They will use her but not bring her inside the house.

++ Other commentators go into detail about the witnesses in the Swedish court case. One such witness is Mahnaz Meimanat, head of Maryam Rajavi’s office and a commander in Saddam’s Private Army. The MEK have published her mother’s picture as though she has been executed by Iran. But in the MEK’s Farsi archives, we discover that MEK have published a memoir about her as the oldest woman who was martyred in the failed Forough Javidan (Eternal Light) operation in 1988. In this sense it was Rajavi who killed this old woman, since she had no idea about war or fighting, and was actually taking watermelons to the front line for refreshment when she was killed. Some commentators say that there were many people like her, young kids and others brought to Iraq from abroad who were sent to get killed in Forough and later had their names published by MEK as though they had been executed. Any decent court would prosecute Rajavi for killing them rather than blaming Iran. Commentators say it is a ridiculous court in which the judge accepts testimony from people with these pasts: people who have never worked a day in their lives, or paid taxes, people who have killed, and proved daily that they go into the streets and lie to beg for money to give to Rajavi [Iran Aid charity collections], people who have had their suicide operative pledge published. The conclusion of all these ridiculous things is that this is not a court about justice, this is a reflection of the anger felt by Mossad and the US against Iranians. They want to punish the Iranian people for voting for Raisi. In fact, this court case is all about Raisi. This aligns with all the other issues that have arisen since his election. Suddenly Pence and Pompeo coming out in support of MEK for example. The anger is that not only was he elected, but that he might actually come to a deal in Vienna over the JCPOA. The Neocons and Israel and Saudis have reacted and want to derail this.

++ Abdul Karim Ebrahimi has published a lengthy piece about his own and others’ memories which they have published about how Massoud and Maryam Rajavi forced them to commit and live with horrible activities while in the MEK. For example, one woman who has escaped MEK tells how the MEK used her mother – who was executed – to kill people. She says ‘I knew my mother was not a murderer and that MEK made her do this. I was brought up with them and had nowhere else to go. They used to say my Mum was executed as a human rights activist but in fact her crime was that she had killed Iranian people My Dad was a torturer in Rajavi and Saddam’s prisons. I was brought up in this environment and had to live with these things. I was even sent to Forough Javidan as a child and had no say in this. If these are not crimes against humanity and war crimes then what is, and why are they [MEK] not in court?’ Ebrahimi concludes that Raisi’s election really hurt the anti-Iran coalition. Their Farsi outlets have been vigorously against Raisi since his election. Some commentators add that while we understand the Israeli ‘Manoto’ and Saudi ‘Iran International’ outlets are really hurt by the election in Iran, we don’t understand why VOA – which is paid for by the State Department under the Biden administration – is also on overdrive promoting the MEK in the hope Raisi’s government will stop talking and abandon the JCPOA. Whoever is in charge in the US, they conclude, it is not Joe Biden.

In English:

++ Nejat Society published the second part of its series Nine Women Under the Rule of Massoud Rajavi. In this part, Maryam Sanjabi who escaped the MEK’s notorious base, Camp Ashraf, in Iraq in 2011, recounts the stories of five more of these women under the abusive ruling of the MEK authorities.

++ Anne Khodabandeh wrote ‘Maryam Rajavi Enemy of Diplomacy’ to highlight Rajavi’s real agenda among all the anti-Iranian activities and propaganda. “There is only one reason why the MEK, through disinformation, character assassination and false accusations, would need to totally reject any move toward increasing diplomatic relations with Iran. That is because the very existence of this group depends on conflict, violence and enmity. Unfortunately for Maryam Rajavi, the world has moved on without her.”

++ Nejat Society reports on a petition signed by 1,700 families of the MEK members held captive in the MEK camp in Albania. The petition is addressed to Karim A A Khan QC, Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court in The Hague. It calls on the ICC to prosecute the leaders of the MEK who “continue to criminalize their followers and violate their most basic rights on European soil. And to rule for the rescue of hundreds of captives who are currently held incommunicado in the Rajavi Cult’s closed, isolated and remote camp in Albania.”

++ Press TV reports: “A senior official of Iran’s Judiciary has slammed Western countries for adopting a “selective” approach to human rights by allowing the anti-Iran Mujahedin Khalq Organization (MKO) terrorist organization to hold “ridiculous” meetings on the issue.
“Kazem Gharibabadi, the Iranian Judiciary chief’s deputy for international affairs and secretary of the country’s High Council for Human Rights, made the remarks on Saturday, two days after the MKO ringleader delivered an online address to an Italian Senate panel.
“Gharibabadi strongly condemned the session, calling on the Italian government and Senate to end their “dual and destructive policies” towards terrorism and human rights.”

++ Mehr News reported that the “Secretary of Iranian Judiciary’s Human Rights Council Kazem Gharibabadi has lambasted the European countries for supporting the MKO as well as siding with the US sanctions against Tehran while claiming to be HR defenders… in an apparent reference to gatherings in European countries and the United States organized by the MKO terrorist organization which are usually attended by the hawkish US politicians, Gharibabadi lambasted the Western countries for their double standards regarding human rights. He pointed out that while the Western governments sponsor the atrocities committed by the MKO Iranian innocent Iranians, they make claims on the human rights situation in Iran.”

Nov 12, 2021

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++ This week there was a cyber-attack on petrol stations in Iran which disrupted supplies for around half a day. For the next week the MEK claimed it as a victory as though they had done it. Some people comment that even if they haven’t done it, they should be given the credit because ‘if they could have, they would have’. This is the kind of people they are. The name of the attackers matches what they are: the killer sparrows.

++ Mehdi Khoshhal wrote about MEK acolyte Parviz Khazai in Norway. For the last three decades Khazai has said whatever the MEK ask him to with the pitch: ‘In Norway during the Second World war they executed traitors. So, therefore the MEK should execute the ex-members as traitors’. He gets paid to write this every time. Khoshhal has commented about Khazai himself. Before the 1979 Revolution, he was working in the Scandinavian embassy for the Shah. After the Revolution he stayed at the embassy and convinced the new government he would work for them. However, because he is a corrupt person, they wanted to dismiss him. This corruption included selling blank passports. When he was pushed out he took a lot of passports and documents from the embassy with him and took them to Rajavi, asking ‘how much?’ Rajavi appointed him his representative in Scandinavia. Khoshhal makes a second point: the ex MEK members that he is talking about executing are those who joined the MEK when the life expectancy for an MEK activist was around six months. They joined wanting nothing and giving everything. ‘Do you think’ asks Khoshhal, ‘that they are worried about execution?!’

++ In Albania, in the total silence of Rajavi and all the MEK sites and YouTube and Twitter etc, Ehsan Bidi has gone back to normal life. This week he celebrated his birthday with his friends – the former members. In a short interview he said, “I could not have resisted if it wasn’t for support of the families and these friends. I had the idea that this is not about me, it was about rescuing everybody.”

In Germany, Zeit Magazin published an interview by Lusia Hommerich with Amin Golmaryami, a former MEK child soldier. Golmaryami was a child of MEK parents who fled to Iraq after the Revolution. He was smuggled into Germany along with at least 40 other children in the early 1990s as Massoud Rajavi separated families to gain greater control over the cult members. Golmaryami had his brothers were exploited for social security fraud in Germany before being deceived into travelling to Iraq. Once in Iraq he was trapped and unable to leave until the MEK was transferred to Albania in 2013 and he could finally make his way back to Germany. In the interview, which spanned five meetings, Hommerich skilfully teases out the heartbreaking details of Golmaryami’s life under MEK control and his struggle to recover and pursue a normal, fulfilled life with his partner and new baby.

In English:

++ Massoud Khodabandeh wrote a piece on the MEK’s celebration of Maryam Rajavi’s three-decade long stint as ‘president-elect’, pointing out the irony that not a single election has been held sine to affirm or reject her in this role. Khodabandeh explains the way and the reason why this role was constructed by Massoud Rajavi in the early 1990s. The aim, for Massoud Rajavi, was to regain political support lost when he remained under Saddam’s protection during the First Gulf war. According to Khodabandeh, Maryam did not have the intelligence or political capabilities to undertake this work and instead tried to push her ‘feminist’ agenda among western women. Her main focus was on recruiting Iranian refugees to swell her audience. Essentially, Maryam Rajavi has based her career on performance and shows, with nothing concrete to show for her efforts or the vast sums of money spent.

++ Tasnim News in Iran reported on the use of terrorists as witnesses as Iran rejects the UN Human Rights Rapporteur’s report on Iran. “Ambassador and Deputy Permanent Representative of Iran to the United Nations Zahra Ershadi delivered a speech to the 76th session of the United Nations General Assembly focusing on “item 74: Report of the Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran.” During her speech, Ershadi said, “We regret that one of the main sources of the Special Rapporteur continues to be the same terrorist groups which have long been laundered by their supporters and portrayed as opposition and so-called human rights defenders. Making use of unofficial, biased vague sources coming from sworn enemies, and taking a selective approach towards human rights achievements in the Islamic Republic of Iran put a serious question mark over the validity and reliability of such a report. It is repugnant to glorify terrorists whose hands are stained with the blood of innocent citizens.”

++ Several outlets reported on Mike Pence’s collaboration with the MEK. Daniel Larison, writing in the Anti War Blog, said “The willingness of so many prominent politicians and ex-officials to embrace such a group reflects how warped and toxic the debate over Iran policy is in this country.” He adds, “Any former official or retired officer that throws in with the MEK proves beyond any doubt that he hates the Iranian people and wants to cause them harm. In Pence’s case, we already knew that from the policies he supported in Congress and as Vice President, but it is useful to have it confirmed.”

++ Nejat Society in Iran has published Part One of a series of stories about nine women under the rule of Massoud Rajavi. Maryam Sanjabi, herself a former MEK member, writes about nine specific women who escaped the cult after it was relocated to Albania. She says, ‘the stories of some of these women were more complicated. The first part features the stories of four of these women.

Nov 05, 2021

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