Articles

Eight years of solitary confinement in the MEK camps for declaring dissent

Mohammad Hussein Sobhani, went to Iraq as a member of the Mojahedin-e Khalq in the early 1980s. In 1992, Sobhani was imprisoned by the MEK after he started raising questions about the leadership’s policies.
In a telephone interview with MSNBC.com, Sobhani confirmed that he was held in solitary confinement for eight-and-a-half years inside the group’s encampment in Iraq, from 1992 until 2001, when Saddam Hussein’s government was sheltering and arming the MEK.
He said he was beaten on 11 occasions with wooden sticks and leather belts. I was beaten severely for disagreeing with them, but I thought it would not last. It lasted for years, Sobhani said.

Mohammd Hussein Sobhani

He eventually was turned over to Saddam’s government and transferred to the notorious Abu-Quraib prison. In January 21, 2002 a number of 50 MKO dissident members whom were handed over to the Iraqi former dictator; Saddam Hussein by Massoud Rajavi, got released by the help of international organizations. Then he repatriated to Iran with a group of Iran-Iraq war POWs. He says he escaped from Iranian detention and made his way to Europe.
In an article on the occasion of his release from the prolonged imprisonments, Mr. Sobhani wrote:
” January 21st reminds me and others – who were prisoners of Abu Quraib, of the bitter as well as sweet memoirs of our freedom from that gruesome prison. In January 21, 2002 a number of 50 MEK dissident members whom were handed over to the Iraqi former dictator; Saddam Hussein by Massoud Rajavi, got released by the help of international organizations.
Honoring this day, I want to remind Massoud Rajavi and Mujahein-e Khalq that we do not let their treasons and crimes be forgotten….It is very bitter and regrettable to see an organization which claims to be after freedom, equality, justice, democracy and monotheistic classless society But imprisons dissent members and those who were no more willing to cooperate with the organization in solitary confinements for years and then hand them over to Saddam Hussein; the Iraqi former dictator. Saddam relatively imprisoned them at Abu Guraib prison under the name of “Mujahedin’s loan “[ Amanat-e Mojahedin ]. We, MEK dissident members, had committed no crime… “

July 3, 2021 0 comments

Iraq

Iraq’s PMF at former MEK Camp : What were messages?

Marking the seventh anniversary of their foundation, the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) held a military parade for the first time on June 26. The parade was covered massively by regional and international media, with many of them suggesting that it marked the PMF entry to a new era of its life.

AhlulBayt News Agency (ABNA): Marking the seventh anniversary of their foundation, the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) held a military parade for the first time on June 26. The parade was covered massively by regional and international media, with many of them suggesting that it marked the PMF entry to a new era of its life.

The ant-terror movement’s parade was held at a camp in Diyala that was once called Camp Ashraf and hosted anti-Iranian terrorist organization, Mujahideen Khalgh Organization (MKO) harbored by dictator Saddam Hussein. The ceremony was attended by Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi, Defense Minister Juma Anad, Interior Minister Othman al-Ghanemi, National Security Advisor Qassem al-A’araji, the Chief of General Staff Abdelamir Yarullah, and a number other senior army commanders.

Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Forces military parade

As mentioned, this parade enjoyed a very wide coverage from media and political observers. But the question is about the political, security, and symbolic messages that this event sent.

The interesting point is that the military procession of the PMF was held at a time when this force has been widely attacked by the enemies of the Axis of Resistance especially the US and some Arab countries in recent years. But the PMF’s demonstration of force showed that the enemies plots have gone nowhere and the voluntary units have emerged even stronger than before and continue their march towards their ideals.

PMF established in Iraq’s security and political stability

The massive parade marks the establishment of this popular force in the country’s power structure. Following ISIS attack on Mosul, the grand Shiite Cleric Ayatollah Sayyed Ali al-Sistani issued a fatwa for taking up arms against terrorism on June 13, 2014, at which point Iraqi Shiites mobilized in various units within the PMF. The popular forces’ entry to the anti-ISIS war of was game-changing to the battlegrounds.

Over 40 units constituted the PMF, with their role undeniable in obliteration of ISIS on the ground. It has around 120,000 fighters and the PM is its top commander-in-chief. Faleh Al-Fayyad is its commander and Sadegh al-Saadawi is its chief of general staff. Hadi al-Amiri is the deputy and field commander of the popular forces. The Fatah coalition represents the PMF in the Iraqi parliament. Currently, the force focuses on expulsion of illegitimate American troops from Iraq, as this agenda has legal backing provided by the parliament’s bill for the government to expel the foreign forces. Amid the home and foreign conspiracies against the PMF, the military parade has much to tell and vindicates establishment in the country’s security structure.

Legal and political establishment

It should be taken into account that since its foundation, the PMF faced internal and external opposition. The opponents call for disbanding of these forces and prevention of their activities. They argue that the PMF are parallel to the regular army. The opponents are extremely afraid of the PMF closeness to Iran, a country that provided unwavering support to the anti-terror operations. A Sunni political community, led by the former parliament speaker Osama al-Nujaifi, is the main opponent of the PMF existence. Another opponent is the Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP) led by Masoud Barzani.

In a wider range, part of secular politicians, from both Shiites and Sunnis, are opposed to these forces. Outside the country, the US is the top actor calling for their disbanding. Saudi Arabia, the Israeli regime, the UAE, and the European countries also take hostile stances against the groups. All this opposition comes while the PMF was recognized as part of Iraqi armed forces in November 2016. In March 2018, the ten PM Haider al-Abadi ordered their merger into the armed forces. The recent parade shattered the speculations about their disbandment. The presence of political and military leaders bore witness to establishment of the PMF in the nation’s political and legal establishment.

PMF, a trans-religious force in Iraq

The Parade also demonstrated that the PMF is a trans-religious and trans-sectarian force. The reality is that Iraq has been mired in sectarian tensions since 2003, but the Popular Mobilization Forces showed that it is possible to transcend religious and ethno-sectarian boundaries. In fact, although the Shiites were at the core of the PMF, Sunni Arabs, Kurds, Christians, and Yazidis also joined it, and they are still at the top of decision-making process.

By AhlulBayt News Agency

July 1, 2021 0 comments

The cult of Rajavi

Shahram Nasiri fallen between two stools in the Cult of Rajavi

Shahram Nasiri is allegedly a former member of the Mujahedin Khalq Organization (MEK/ MKO/ PMOI/ Cult of Rajavi) who has always been caught between being a loyal MEK’s former member who spies for the group and a defector who is a mercenary of the Iranian intelligence ministry!
Shahram was jailed in the prisons of Camp Ashraf, Iraq, in 1994, when the MEK leaders decided to punish one forth of the group members under the allegations of working for the Iranian Intelligence! The jailed members were interrogated, tortured and even killed by MEK torturers in the absence of true facts on their relationship with the Iranian government.

Shahram continued to stay in MEK until it was relocated in Albania. He allegedly left the group after the relocation in Albania. “I have twice noticed him filming me in the streets,” Siamak Naderi, a defector of MEK writes about Shahram asserting that he spies on former members in Albania, on behalf of MEK.
“Shahram Nasiri is one of the spies of MEK leaders in Tirana,” Mohammad Karami, another defector writes. “His mission is to gather information on what is going in the UNHCR’s office in charge of former members in order to sell to MEK.”

However, in December 2020, MEK websites published a letter allegedly signed by Shahram in which he had promised to be loyal to the MEK cause denouncing other defectors who give testimonies against the group. It seemed curious that he, as a former member, had to confirm his loyalty to the MEK leaders while a lot of former members live freely in the outside world.

The case of Shahram Nasiri became more complicated when, a few weeks ago, MEK published a statement signed by Hassan Nayebagha, as the representative of the inhabitants of Camp Ashraf three. The statement says that MEK has cut off financial aids to Shahram Nasiri because he did not fulfill his commitments to the group. According to the statement, Shahram is accused of socializing with other defectors of MEK —called as agents of the Islamic Republic by MEK!

It is worth to know that the alleged financial aid claimed by MEK, is actually the monthly payment that the UNHCR was supposed to donate each MEK member as a refugee after their relocation in Albania. Regrettably, the money is not paid to them individually but it is paid in sum to the group leaders so they can simply confiscate it.

June 28, 2021 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization members' families

Mostafa fell in to the MEK’s trap in London

Mostfa Foroughi left Iran for England to continue his studies in London, in 1980. He was in contact with his family during the first year that he was going to university there.
“The phone calls stopped after a year”, his brother Mohammadreza Foroughi says. “I was in Germany at the time. I tried to call his friends to get some news about him. A friend of his told me that Mostafa was not going to university anymore because he had been recruited by a group called Mujahedin Khalq.”

Mohammadreza was shocked when he realized that his brother was taken to Iraq by MEK. His mother had awfully missed Mostafa. “I could manage to pursue the case of my brother via international bodies but we just made sure that he was in Camp Ashraf, Iraq. We were not allowed to contact him,” Mohammadreza says.

Mohammadreza Foroughi

During the past years, the Foroughis have written several letters to human rights bodies and to Albanian authorities. They also write open letters and send videos for Mostafa to persuade him to leave the Cult of Rajavi. However, they have not been able to contact him for thirty years now. The bad news is that their mother died in 2015 while she was awaiting the release of her beloved son.
Today, Mohammadreza is still hopeful to see his brother someday. “Please liberate yourself! Live like a free man!” he writes in his recent letter to Mostafa.

June 28, 2021 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization as a terrorist group

Mujahedin-e Khalq – Killing Iranian officials for losing elections

Although supporters of Ayatollah Khomeini had never sympathized with MEK elements, MEK’s enmity with the newly established government in Iran became acute when the head of this group was banned from running for presidential elections, which was followed by a heavy MEK loss at parliamentary elections in 1981. It was then that MEK started its terrorist activities in Iran; they bombed the headquarters of the Islamic Republic Party, which had won both the presidency and the parliament in landslide victories. The bomb killed Mohammad Beheshti, Head of Iran’s Judicial System who was also the party leader, as well as four cabinet ministers, plus 24 members of Parliament along with 43 other government officials and party members.

the MEK bombed the headquarters of the Islamic Republic Party in 1981

The MKO – listed as a terrorist organization by much of the international community – fled Iran in 1986 for Iraq and was given a camp by former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.
They fought on the side of Saddam during the Iraqi imposed war on Iran (1980-88). They were also involved in the bloody repression of Shiite Muslims in southern Iraq in 1991 and the massacre of Iraqi Kurds.
The notorious group is also responsible for killing thousands of Iranian civilians and officials after the victory of the Islamic revolution in 1979.
More than 17,000 Iranians, many of them civilians, have been killed at the hands of the MKO in different acts of terrorism including bombings in public places, and targeted killings.
The MKO also had a hand in the massacre of Kurds following the crushing of a 1991 uprising by Shiites in Iraq’s south and Kurds in the north, which was one of the most brutal acts of repression under Saddam Hussein.

June 27, 2021 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization's Propaganda System

A demo of modern slavery at Camp Ashraf

last week, another propaganda show was launched by the Mujahedin Khalq (MKO/ MEK/ PMOI/ Cult of Rajavi) in their headquarters called Camp Ashraf 3 in Albania. It is considered a propaganda show because it was organized under the cultic system that Massoud Rajavi has built around his own personality. The show was magnified by huge screens before the dazed faces of uniformed MEK members who automatically clapped their hands or raised their fists to chant slogans to adore their smiling guru, Maryam Rajavi.

Based on numerous records, MEK is considered a cult-like group. “The MEK’s cultic system means that decisions are imposed from the top down,” assert Masoud and Ann Khodabandeh, former members of the group. “This means that those decisions are only as intelligent as the leadership.” [1]
In July 2018, Saeed Kamali Dehghan of the Guardian published an article to discuss the support of US warmongers such as John Bolton for MEK, “the extreme Iranian opposition group who was the target of a foiled bombing attack in France and was once a sworn enemy of the United States”. Reviewing the history of MEK, Kamali Dehghan states, “Today, it functions as a fringe exiled group with characteristics of a cult that works for regime change in Iran, though it has little visible support inside the country. It portrays itself as a democratic political institution although its own internal structure is anything but.” [2]

In 2019 when some photos were leaked from inside Camp Ashraf 3 showing members sitting in front of monitors in the group’s troll farm, the Khodabandehs wrote, “What Rajavi doesn’t understand is that these photos show beyond any words that the MEK doesn’t share our values. The leader is selling unthinking, unquestioning, obedient slaves, people who won’t act or speak unless ordered to do so. And that would only be ordered if it were productive for the MEK, regardless of the needs or desires of the worker.” [3]

Leaked photos showing MEK members at work

“What these images portray are conditions of modern slavery,” they continued. “These are elderly people who are unable to escape this cult and are coerced into performing work for which they receive no recompense. They exist on cruelly basic accommodation and sustenance, whereby even asking for new underwear puts the petitioner under question about their loyalty to the leader and the cause. They cannot leave because in Albania they have nowhere to go, no identity documents or work permits, no money, and they do not speak the local language.” [4]

https://dlb.nejatngo.org/Media/Interview/Intercept-Defectors-MEK.mp4

To Download the video file click here

In March 2020, Murtaza Hussein and Mathew Cole of the Intercept, also suggested, “the MEK is a highly secretive organization”. They had interviewed five defectors of the group to support their assertion. “Five of them agreed to speak on the record about their experiences, which were broadly consistent and often confirmed aspects of other former members’ accounts,” they wrote. “Secret Iranian intelligence documents obtained by The Intercept also confirm several of their claims, including information that is not publicly known. Their testimonies reveal a brutal organization that, for decades, has held thousands in a state of physical and psychological slavery as it degenerated from a popular political movement to a freakish cult of personality under the absolute control of one all-powerful leader.” [5]

Thus, the so-called celebration that was recently hold in Camp Ashraf and other similar ones, are actually a demonstration of the modern slavery that is practiced inside the Cult of Rajavi every day.

By Mazda Parsi

References:
[1] Khodabandeh, Ann & Massoud, Nobody Can Be “Comfortable” with Regime Change Involving MEK, The lobelog, August 22, 2019.
[2] Kamali Dehghan, Saeed, Who is the Iranian group targeted by bombers and beloved of Trump allies?, The Gurdian, July 2nd, 2018.
[3] Khodabandeh, Ann & Massoud, Nobody Can Be “Comfortable” with Regime Change Involving MEK, The lobelog, August 22, 2019.
[4] ibid
[5] Hussein, Murtaza & Cole, Mathew, Defectors Tell of Torture and Forced Sterilization in Militant Iranian Cult, The Intercept, March 22nd, 2020.

June 26, 2021 0 comments

The cult of Rajavi

The Rajavi Curse

Rudi Giuliani is the latest in a long list of people who have advocated for Rajavi and the MEK, and who have fallen from grace. Giuliani is, of course, the architect of his own downfall. His support for the MEK played only a small part in his long, often unsavoury career. (Sacha Baron Cohen’s 2020 Borat film played successfully on Giuliani’s dodgy reputation.) But Giuliani is in good company when we examine the roll call of individuals who have advocated for the MEK and subsequently lost their careers and their reputations – again often in only small part due to their association with the MEK.

The common theme behind this phenomenon – which should be called the ‘Rajavi Curse’ – is corruption. Recently, the US Secretary of State sanctioned the former Albanian leader Sali Berisha over corruption. Berisha presided over the transfer of MEK from Iraq to Albania after 2013. Once they arrived in Albania, Berisha found a lucrative role in advocating for Maryam Rajavi and the MEK. His downfall reminds us of this ‘Rajavi Curse’.

The Rajavi Curse

Let’s be clear, all political persons and groups make alliances; some work out well, some work out badly. It should be well known by now that linking themselves to the Rajavis will always work out badly for everyone. From Robin Corbett (UK MP) who had to write denying he took money from the MEK shortly before his death. To Struan Stevenson, Paulo Casaca and Alejo Vidal-Quadras who abandoned their roles as MEPs after the taint of Maryam Rajavi touched them. Of course, John Bolton, Rudi Giuliani, John McCain and others in the US will be forever known as shills for the terrorist MEK. In Albania, former deputy anti-trafficking coordinator Elona Gjebrea, who fawned upon supreme slave owner Maryam Rajavi, was later linked to a mafia family. Now Sali Berisha is added to the long list of unfortunates touched by the Rajavi Curse. In June, Edi Rama’s government which is notoriously corrupt itself, impeached President Ilir Meta, citing corruption.

The roll call of the MEK’s backers is a who’s who of people in power who have tried over the years to inflict fatal damage on the Islamic Republic. They found, in the MEK, a group which offered a package of military, ideological and propaganda thrust which matched with their own anti-Iranian agendas. It mattered not a bit that the MEK members themselves are subjected to calamitous human rights abuses and extreme exploitation as modern slaves.

Several have been embroiled in scandals which are linked to their poor judgement like Sir David Amess, who as an MP advocated for Maryam Rajavi in parliament. Or Bob Torricelli and Bob Menendez who have peddled misinformation for, but not exclusively, the MEK. Others, like Dennis Hastert, are just bad characters and their willingness to shill for the MEK (Hastert appeared in MEK rallies in Paris), can be seen in that context.

Whatever their motivation for supporting and advocating for the MEK, these individuals have backed the losing side. A side which has lost because it is itself corrupt to the core. Maryam Rajavi is currently languishing in Albania, as far from Iran and its politics as could be imagined. Expelled from Europe in 2018, Rajavi has suffered nothing but diminishing forces and power. What we are witnessing as we see her advocates fail and fall along the way is not Rajavi’s power to corrupt people. Rather it is simply that it takes a level of corruption, greed and/or confidence trickery to allow a person to support such an unsavoury group. Whether that support is rooted in money, ideology, stupidity or brainwashing, the result is the same: the Rajavi Curse is toxic to all who come close.

June 26, 2021 0 comments

The MEK to launch Armed Struggle

MEK celebrating the 40th anniversary of the start of its terror campaign

Forty years ago, on 20 June 1981, the Mujahedin Khalq Organization (MKO/ MEK/ PMOI/ Cult of Rajavi) organized a mass protest of allegedly half a million people –mostly young untrained students– in Tehran, with the aim of triggering a second revolution. They had been ordered by the group leader, Massoud Rajavi to physically clash with any so-called agent of the Islamic Republic. This was actually the start of MEK’s armed struggle against not only the Iranian government but also the Iranian people.

Since the date, MEK has carried out a large number of terror attacks and assassinations in Iran, including one in 1981 that killed 70, among them, Iran’s president and premier. Only from 26 August 1981 to December 1982, the MEK conducted 336 terrorist attacks against civilian targets or government officials in Iran.
Actually, the group firstly tried to make social and political space inside Iran but it failed to obtain any success. So, they changed the orientation to the terrorist acts against Iranian nation. Over the following months and years, the violence escalated.

However, MEK has always glorified the date, during the past years. This year, Maryam Rajavi launched a huge propaganda show in her headquarters in Albania to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the start of a nationwide violence and bloodshed against her own country fellowmen.

June 24, 2021 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Training terrorists in America, from MEK to Khashoggi killers

Four Saudis who participated in the 2018 killing of the Arab journalist Jamal Khashoggi received paramilitary training in the United States the previous year under a contract approved by the State Department, the New York Times reported on Tuesday, June 23, 2021. The news is a reminder of a very similar story about the agents of the Mujahedin Khalq Organization (MKO/ MEK/ PMOI/ Cult of Rajavi) that was revealed by Seymour M. Hersh of the New Yorker, in April, 2012.
Hersh reported that the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) of the US military conducted training, beginning in 2005, for members of the Mujahideen-e-Khalq, a dissident Iranian opposition group known in the West as the M.E.K. in the terrain of the Department of Energy’s Nevada National Security Site, with its arid high plains and remote mountain peaks, has the look of northwest Iran. The site, some sixty-five miles northwest of Las Vegas.

According to the investigated report of the New Yorker, the training of MEK operatives ended sometime before President Obama took office, the former official said. A retired four-star general, who has advised the Bush and Obama Administrations on national-security issues, told Hersh that “he had been privately briefed in 2005 about the training of Iranians associated with the M.E.K. in Nevada by an American involved in the program”. They got “the standard training,” he said, “in commo, crypto [cryptography], small-unit tactics, and weaponry—that went on for six months,” the retired general said. “They were kept in little pods.”

According to Hersh, directly or indirectly, the MEK ended up with resources like arms and intelligence. “Some American-supported covert operations continue in Iran today, according to past and present intelligence officials and military consultants,” he added.

June 24, 2021 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization's Propaganda System

MEK’s PR machine on the wrong track

While the objective of regime change in Iran has been seemingly firm since the Mujahedin Khalq Organization (MKO/ MEK/ PMOI/ Cult of Rajavi) came into conflict with the newly established Iranian government in the early 1980s, the strategy to achieve the objective has changed from time to time based on the circumstances.
Having been disarmed by the US army in 2003 –after the collapse of the MEK’s former sponsor Saddam Hussein– the propaganda campaign of the group became comprehensive. Today, various events including gatherings and demonstrations, publications and media are considered as the group’s most important strategic weapons. Meanwhile, social media has helped it with more intensive activity. However, it has not been so simple for the group to run its propaganda machine.

Having been described as a terrorist organization, MEK has endured efforts to change the world community’s view of them. They have worked vigorously to make connections with Western politicians, and organize press conferences, rallies and demonstrations in North America and Europe. Maryam Rajavi has hosted the so-called NCRI conferences in Washington DC, Paris, Brussels and now in Tirana, Albania.

The offensive multi-million-dollar lobbying campaign of the group has yielded some results. The campaign has offered them support from some American and European politicians. For the United States’ part, it allegedly includes representatives, senators, ex-generals, former ambassadors and current policymakers of all political stripes including former United States security adviser John Bolton and Donald Trump’s lawyer Rudi Giuliani.
MEK also pays its guests large sums to speak at its rallies. It has been said that the group receives financial support from Saudi Arabia. Saudi speakers have participated in the group’s rallies, for instance Prince Turki al-Faisal, who is a former intelligence chief and diplomat attended and spoke in the group’s gathering in 2016.

The group also organizes demonstrations against Iran in several countries including Scandinavia. In the so-called demonstrations –that hardly ever comprise a dozen of participants– the group calls the West to isolate and put more pressure on the Iranian government through sanctions and even military actions.
In fact, the very famous proverb “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” is often used to understand the support of Western politicians for MEK. It is suggested that this is easiest way to irritate and pressure Tehran, and not necessarily an expression of a real belief that MEK is an alternative to the Iranian government.

June 22, 2021 0 comments

Newer Posts

Older Posts