{"id":10032,"date":"2019-07-20T11:33:59","date_gmt":"2019-07-20T07:03:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/?p=10032"},"modified":"2021-01-21T19:27:55","modified_gmt":"2021-01-21T15:57:55","slug":"speaking-at-mek-cult-held-conference","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/posts\/10032","title":{"rendered":"Speaking at MEK Cult-held conference!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Stephen Harper speaks at conference held at \u2018cult\u2019 Iranian dissident group\u2019s Albanian compound<\/p>\n

For a second straight year, former prime minister Stephen Harper spoke at a conference organized by the MEK, a controversial Iranian dissident group that his government once labelled a terrorist organization and has been described as a cult.<\/p>\n\n

Harper, who has been a vocal critic of the Iranian regime during and after his time as prime minister, gave a speech at the Free Iran conference on July 13. This year\u2019s gathering was held at the MEK\u2019s newly-built headquarters located in rural Albania.
\n\u201cI am delighted to be here, because there are a few causes in this world today more important, at this moment, than what you are pursuing: the right of the people of Iran to change their government and their right to do it through freedom and the power of the ballot box,\u201d<\/em> he said, to applause from the audience.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The conference was organized by the Paris-based National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), a group founded by the MEK, which aims to topple the current theocratic regime in power since the Iranian revolution. The council calls itself \u201can inclusive and pluralistic parliament-in-exile.\u201d
\nAccording to the Guardian, the MEK\u2019s new headquarters is located in a rural fenced-off hillside compound outside Albania\u2019s capital of Tirana. It\u2019s where more than 2,000 of its members live.<\/strong>
\nThe well-funded and well-organized MEK, also known as the People\u2019s Mojahedin Organization of Iran, has received the backing of numerous high-profile politicians in the West.
\nFor example, U.S. President Donald Trump\u2019s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, spoke at the conference and called for the overthrow of the clerical regime. Former Democratic senator Joe Lieberman and British Tory MP Matthew Offord also participated.
\nMembers of Trump\u2019s inner circle, including his national security adviser John Bolton, have also spoken in favour of the group and its mission.
\nHarper\u2019s former foreign affairs minister John Baird was also a speaker at the event. Former B.C. Conservative MP Paul Forseth also spoke.
\nConservative figures calling for a regime change have increasingly offered support in recent years, but Liberals, such as Irwin Cotler, David Kilgour and Judy Sgro, have also publicly supported MEK.<\/p>\n

While the 50-year history of the organization is long and complicated, the MEK has been criticized more recently as a cult.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

According to a 2009 RAND Corporation analysis<\/a>, the MEK turned toward cultlike practices after its leadership relocated to Paris in the mid 1980s. It included engaging in \u201cnear-religious devotion\u201d to the married Massoud and Maryam Rajavi.<\/p>\n

Its members were said to engage in \u201cpublic self-deprecation sessions, mandatory divorce, celibacy, enforced separation from family and friends, and gender segregation\u201d \u2014 allegations reinforced by independent reporting over the years.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Massoud disappeared during the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, where the MEK was based for years with the support of Saddam Hussein, but Maryam Rajavi has continued to represent the MEK.
\nRajavi is now the \u201cpresident-elect\u201d of the NCRI. According to the council\u2019s website, she will hold the position for \u201cthe provisional period for transfer of power to the people.\u201d
\nIn his speech, Harper endorses Rajavi\u2019s 10-point plan for a post-clerical Iran, calling it \u201cthe future the world wants.\u201d
\nThe plan includes universal suffrage, political freedom, ending the death penalty, secular governance, equality, an independent judiciary, upholding human rights, installing a capitalist economy, promoting regional peace and establishing a non-nuclear Iran.
\nThomas Juneau, a Middle East expert at the University of Ottawa, said while the group bills itself as a \u201cviable democratic opposition to the Islamic Republic,\u201d that\u2019s far from the truth.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is a violent, thuggish, corrupt cult,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s also a movement that has absolutely no support inside Iran.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u201cFor Canadian politicians, serving or retired, to endorse the MEK and by attending the event \u2026 that should not be acceptable.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Juneau, who took to Twitter over the weekend to criticize Harper, said supporting an \u201cundemocratic\u201d leader like Rajavi does a \u201cdisservice\u201d to the actual cause of democracy in Iran.
\nHarper was criticized last year for speaking at an MEK-sponsored conference in Paris.
\nJuneau also noted independent reporting has shown the MEK runs a \u201cslick propaganda machine\u201d and handsomely pays speakers to support their cause.<\/p>\n

The Guardian recently spoke to men in Tirana who had fled the MEK compound over the last two years, where they said life inside the camp was of a \u201ccultlike atmosphere\u201d in which mobile phones and contact with relatives, and between men and women, were prohibited.
\nMembers were also required to spend days sitting at computers flooding the internet with messages in support of the MEK.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/p>\n

Iran\u2019s Mohajedeen e Khalq: MEK Money Sure Can\u2019t Buy Love But it can buy a lot of politicians<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Questions from iPolitics sent to Harper\u2019s office on Monday via his website, including whether he was paid by the MEK to speak at the event, were not met with a response.
\nUntil 2012, the U.S. and Canada designated the MEK as a terrorist entity. The group was once an armed faction, carrying out assassinations of Iran regime figures, but now supports propping up a secular government via non-violent means.
\nFor much of his speech, Harper called for countries to take a harder line on the ayatollah\u2019s regime.
\n\u201cThe right policy, the only realistic policy is to impose sanctions, boycott, designate institutions as terrorist organizations and do what my government did in Canada: close down the regime\u2019s embassies around the world,\u201d he said.
\n\u201cWeakness and appeasement will not avoid a military confrontation with this regime.\u201d<\/p>\n

Juneau said he believes political figures such as Harper know of MEK\u2019s reputation but want to be seen as taking a hard line on the Iran regime through a controversial, but well-organized group.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s opportunism in the most cynical way possible.\u201d
\nipolitics.ca<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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