On Friday, August 26th, 2011, the streets surrounding the US State Department featured a motley crowd of protesters wearing yellow hats and t-shirts, chanting slogans, and pleading for the removal of Mujahedin Khalq (MKO\/MEK) from the State Department\u2019s list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations. The crowd was mixed in race, and top-heavy with African Americans. An unusually large number of the protesters had scruffy hair and tattered clothes. And surprisingly, only a small number were actually Iranian-Americans. As the crowd was addressed by US politicians who supported the group\u2019s cause, oddly, many in the crowd were not aware of what exactly it was they were protesting\u2014this is because the majority of protesters did not really *have* a cause. They were merely following the assignment of the organizers, who paid them, fed them, and lodged them so they would commit to demonstrate that day. Protestors at the scene told one reporter that the Mujahedin Khalq organizers had told them that there were at least two thousand demonstrators present that day, but the estimate seemed high. [1]<\/p>\n
The MKO is a terrorist group and has been blacklisted by the Department of State since the list was first created in 1997. Since then the MKO has persisted with a campaign to get itself removed from that list. And this time they have stooped to new lows: hiring the needy and desperate to do their dirty work, enlisting what seems like a busload of homeless to turn out in grand numbers for a spurious representation of support. It was purely a show of spectacular exploitation\u2014the latest and greatest example of the MKO\u2019s multi-million dollar effort to build support among Washington political elite, according to *The Cable*. [2] And if the false demonstration wasn\u2019t bad enough, it has been reported in *The Christian Science Monitor*<\/a> and *The Huffington Post*<\/a> that many of the so-called MKO advocates had been paid large amounts of speaking fees. [3][4] According to Zaid Jilani of *thinkprogress.org* <\/a>the rally included well-paid speakers and also paid demonstrators \u201cwho, it is probable fair to say, know even less about the MEK than the big-money speakers\u201d and \u201cwere bused in from as far as New York city.\u201d [5]<\/p>\n The group\u2019s purchased advocacy was also confirmed by *Radio Free Europe \/ Radio Liberty, The National Interest, and The Cable*.<\/p>\n Golnaz Esfandiari and Hossein Aryan of *Radio Free Europe \/ Radio Liberty*report that \u201crally participants also included a number of non-Iranian-Americans. Several of them told Esfandiari and Aryan that they had little or no knowledge about the MKO.\u201d One African-American who was asked whether he and his female companion received money to attend the rally\u2014his companion admitted they had, but then retracted her statement at the man\u2019s behest. [6]<\/p>\n Many non-Iranian rally attendees claimed that they were there in the name of Iranian human rights but were actually confused by the term MEK. Zaid Jilani writes t<\/a>hat \u201cof this group [of demonstrators], few seemed to have many details about the MEK, and instead pledged vague notions of support for human rights and democracy, often even getting the name of the MEK wrong.\u201d [7] He revealed that in fact \u201csome of the attendees had been bused and flown in at no personal cost, receiving transportation and in some cases lodging and meals.\u201d [8] Another attendee told Zaid Jilani that he supported human rights in Iran and he was informed about the rally at his church and admitted, \u201cto be honest, I don\u2019t really understand what the MEK is.\u201d [10]<\/p>\n
\nPaul R. Pillar of *The National Interest* write<\/a>s that one of the participants, a 23-year-old man from Staten Island named Melvin Santiago, said he learned about the demonstration from a friend who in turn got word of it through a flyer distributed in front of a church where the friend said that Santiago \u201cusually goes for the food pantry\u201d. [9]<\/p>\n