++ After the UNHCR said it will pay living allowances directly to individuals in Albania, several ex members reacted. They are celebrating this as their victory over the MEK. Comments say \u2018Maryam Rajavi! You tried to take us hostage for the sake of a few hundred dollars a week. But you failed.\u2019 Some of these formers have worked for decades without pay for the MEK. Now they are increasingly speaking out about this situation. One who spoke this week gave a long, detailed interview to Faryad Azadi.<\/p>\n
++ Mohammad Hossein Sobhani wrote an article in Iran Pen Association remembering his experience as a prisoner in Iraq\u2019s Abu Ghraib prison. He talks about the celebration of the 50 MEK prisoners released from Abu Ghraib when Saddam fell. He was one of them. Sobhani reports, \u2018They were kept there as Rajavi\u2019s \u2018deposits\u2019. How thankful we were when suddenly we found out we were not going to die.\u2019<\/p>\n
++ An article by Anne and Massoud Khodabandeh published by LobeLog was translated into Farsi. The article \u2018The Iran Protests, Regime Change, And MEK\u2019 was widely distributed and praised. People for or against the regime alike agree that the MEK are a bad group. Some commentators mention that although there is a fight between various oppositions, that doesn\u2019t mean that drug smugglers, mercenaries and such like the MEK can get involved in it as well.<\/p>\n
In English:<\/p>\n
++ Mohammad Hashemi, writing for the Tehran Times, says it is \u2018Time for reflection on unrest in Iran\u2019. The article starts by denouncing major foreign media outlets \u201cfrom the U.S. to France and Germany seeking to hype the situation by disseminating sensational information, and assertions under the guise of news reporting.\u201d What Hashemi attributes to \u201cthe \u2018post-truth\u2019 world which Oxford Dictionary defined as \u2018circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief\u2019.\u201d What defined the protests were their working class character and the fact that months earlier 41 million Iranians turned out to vote in an election.<\/p>\n
Anti-Iran warmongers and the Monarchists and MEK sought to exploit the unrest for their own purposes. The author asserts however that Iranians are politically savvy and do not take the MEK or Monarchists or other external opposition or activists seriously.<\/p>\n
++ In an article titled \u2018MEK\/NCRI, the Revolution Hijackers: Iran 2018\u2019 published by Medium.com, the writer, Johnny, begins by pointing out vital differences between the recent protests in Iran and the previous Green Movement of 2009. He then talks about Maryam Rajavi\u2019s attempts to hijack the unrest even though \u201cThe vast majority [of Iranians] have made it clear that ever since the 80s, the Mujahedin have no place in Iranian politics\u200a\u2014\u200aeven going as far as to label them as the \u2018Khmer Rouge\u2019 of Iran; after the Cambodian terror group headed by Pol Pot.\u201d He goes on to describe Rajavi\u2019s attempt to position herself as a leader and criticises western politicians for taking her seriously. This, he says, \u201cseems eerily similar to the consensus determined by politicians in 2011 toward the FSA and ISIS\u201d.<\/p>\n
++ Albania\u2019s TemaTV broadcast a short video report about \u201cA training manual, which has already been used to train teachers in the country, will also be used in schools to educate children. The manual, published by the Center Against Violent Extremism, warns against the threat to society posed by Mojahedin Khalq organisation.\u201d The MEK is described in the manual as a violent extremist group.<\/p>\n
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