++ A year ago, Ghorban Ali Hossein Nejad (the father of Zeinab Hossein Nejad) and Mostafa Mohammadi (the father of Somayeh Mohammadi) visited the MEK HQ in Auvers-sur-Oise to picket and bring attention to the plight of their loved ones. They were attacked and badly beaten in the street by MEK operatives. This week the MEK gaffed by publishing a video which attempts to expose and thereby intimidate people (families and formers) who have approached their base in France. Instead, the video achieved high circulation because it shows the MEK operatives beating up Hossein Nejad and the faces of some of the perpetrators are recognisable. The film also shows that when local citizens arrived these MEK agents ran away. Payvand Rahai site carries the film with an explanation of who is who and what is happening. It is titled – ‘Rajavi is proud of torturing people in the streets of France’.
++ The mass transfers of the radicalised residents of Camp Liberty in Iraq to a closed base in Albania is continuing. But among the transfers was a charter flight carrying 115 of Rajavi’s close associates who are wanted people. Several sources in Iraq have said that although this flight is registered as a UN flight, it is Saudi Arabia along with the American military who have escorted these people safely out of the country. This has led to speculation that Massoud Rajavi may be among them, if he is still alive. In Tirana the 115 persons have been taken to a separate facility. Iran’s Tasnim News reports that it is an American base. The names of the 115 persons have been made public.
++ Man-o To TV, which is an anti-Iran Farsi channel broadcast from London, reported that the Saudi King has invited Maryam Rajavi to go visit Saudi for Haj. This prompted strong reactions among Farsi commentators. Mostly from human rights advocates and women’s rights campaigners who place this alongside the situation of women’s rights in the KSA.
++ An Iranian film ‘Emkan-e Mina’ (Mina’s Option) which has been screened for the last few weeks has prompted a strong negative reaction by the MEK in their sites. Ironically there is nothing in this film which the MEK has not previously accepted about itself. The film is set at the start of the 1979 revolution and shows the beginnings of the MEK’s armed operations and team houses etc. The film has its own story but more importantly it revives memories among the Iranian public of what the MEK did at that time.
In English:
++ The problem of hosting radicalised terrorists on Albanian soil is hugely controversial in the country. Albanian newspaper Gazeta Impakt translated and published the Huffington Post article by Anne and Massoud Khodabandeh titled ‘Grand Controversy as MEK can’t prove leader Massoud Rajavi is dead or alive’. The question of Rajavi’s death continues to be an issue inside the MEK. A short film was also broadcast by Iran-Interlink showing Maryam Rajavi’s reaction when Prince Turki al-Faisal twice and very deliberately refers to ‘the late Massoud Rajavi’.
++ Iranian officials announced that four separate terrorist units had been detected and ‘destroyed’. Major General Mohammad Marani, Commander of the IRGC’s Quds base said that Iran’s borders are under ‘vigilant protection because Arab intelligence services, especially from Saudi Arabia, are trying to create insecurity on Iran’s eastern borders’. On a separate occasion, Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Ghasemi used his first press conference to urge Saudi officials to “take rational and wise measures since stability and security of the region would also benefit the Arab kingdom”. This was in response to news of the upcoming visit of Maryam Rajavi, anti-Iran terrorist leader, to the kingdom.
++ An interesting analysis of ‘Saudi Arabia’s ambivalent relationship to terrorism’ in Deutsche Welle says: “The royal family sees terrorism as an extreme security threat, but it still has to align itself with the Wahhabi scholars in terms of ideology,” says Sebastian Sons. This means that the monarchy is constantly forced to tolerate its – at times radical – world view. They rarely have the luxury of refusing to give their support. “The structure of the Saudi state is based upon the alliance between Wahhabi scholarship and the House of Saud. That is an unsolvable dilemma for the royal family…”
August 26, 2016
