Following the Canadian federal elections, The Iranian Canadian Congress (ICC) reported about”a smear campaign linked to Mujahedin-e-Khalq (MEK) against Iranian-Canadian MP and Richmond Hill candidate Majid Jowhari.”[1]
Liberal Majid Jowhari was re-elected, beating out the Conservative candidate Costas Menegakis who is supported by the Mujahedin Khalq Organization for his rivalry with Jowhari! ICC clarifies MEK’s smear campaign against Mr. Jowhari:
“On social media, fake accounts associated with MEK have distributed false information about Mr. Jowhari. Seemingly, the only reason behind the targeting of Mr. Jowhari by the MEK is that, aligned with PM Trudeau’s promise in 2015 to re-engage with Iran and reopen the embassies, Mr. Jowhari supported this promise as well and presented the views of his constituents to the Canadian government. Time and again we have also witnessed that the majority of Canadian-Iranians also support diplomacy and peace with Iran and are against policies of sanctions and war.”[2]
The very representative of the fake accounts associated with the MEK was denounced just a few months ago by Murteza Hussain of the Intercept. Morteza revealed that a character named Heshmat Alavi appears non existing but rather is a persona, a propaganda operation run by the MEK. Murteza’s revelations was widely covered by the main stream media and consequently Twitter suspended the account for a period but it was then reinstated. [3]
Heshmat Alavi was actively attacking before the reelection of the Iranian Canadian liberal candidate Majid Jowhari. This is one of the tweets of a thread of tweets that Alavi launched against Jowhari:
“@MajidJowhari , a Liberal MP in Canada known for his pro-#Iran regime views & policies, is up for reelection. This thread sheds light on Jowhari being a Tehran apologist/lobbyist, supported by @ICCongress , the mullahs’ lobby arm in Canada, and should not be reelected.”
Fortunately Jowhari won the election. However, the so-called Heshmat Alavi is the outcome of a team work by the MEK members who slur each and every person who advocates for peace and diplomacy with Iran. This team never stops demonizing all those who believe in engagement rather than war and sanctions and Jowhari is not the first person who is slammed with the tweets and previously published articles by fictional personas like Heshmat Alavi.
Negar Mortazavi consultant editor of The Independent and Trita Parsi founder of the National Iranian American Council (NIAC) are also some of other activists with Iranian origin that have been attacked by Alavi several times.
Jeremy Scahill is an investigative reporter and one of the three founding editors of The Intercept. In his podcast which was published a few days after Murtaza’s article, Scahill asked Negar Mortazavi to explain more about his colleague’s revelations.”What more can you tell us about this persona that Murtaza’s reporting indicates is a creation of the MEK, Heshmat Alavi?”, he asked Negar. [4]
“Murtaza actually talked to me and a few other Iran watchers”, Negar replied.”For us who observed Heshmat Alavi and who are the targets of Heshmat Alavi’s smear attacks for quite long time, it was obvious that this doesn’t seem like a real person. There was no photo of him. There was no video of him. There was all these murky articles. And also this clear line, if you look through his work, it wasn’t subtle, this clear, pro-MEK, as you said Mojahedin-e-Khalq line throughout his work. His articles, also his tweets, and also the way he attacks so many of us on Twitter. But it was a complete failure on the part of some credible media organizations.”[5]
“The goal of the project was ostensibly to fight Iranian propaganda online but, instead, the initiative focused on attacking critics of the Trump administration’s Iran policy”, Trita Parsi also told Aljazeera. [6]
“To make it worse, the fund that came from the State Department was actually designed to fight ISIS propaganda and Russian interference in the United States. Instead, the Trump administration diverted that money to fight critics of Trump’s Iran policy,”Parsi explained about financial resources of the MEK’s troll farm in social media. [7]
“Evidence of MEK machinations are substantiated by online campaigns intended to influence the narrative on Iran in favor of regime change,”Assal Rad a research fellow at NIAC wrote on Lobelog.”Former MEK members have confirmed the operation of MEK troll farms based in Albania, where members create thousands of inauthentic accounts and promote hashtags, propaganda, and tweets targeting anyone that favors diplomacy with Iran. The group also uses front organizations, like the OIAC, to take out paid ads that advance its cause at the expense of U.S. security interests in the region.”[8]
Actually, Heshmat Alavi’s persona is not the first one nor the last one that MEK has created to manipulate the social network running war mongers’ agenda against Iran. The MEK’s survival is based on more and more conflicts between the world and Iranian government. The MEK leaders do not care that the Iranian people are awfully impacted by the maximum pressure strategy that they support against Iran.
Mazda Parsi
References:
[1] ICC secretory, ICC Condemns Foreign-Linked Smear Campaign Against Richmond Hill MP Majid Jowhari, Iranain Canadian Congress, Iranain Canadian Congress Website, October 18th, 2019.
[2] ibid
[3] Hussain, Murtaza, An Iranian Activist Wrote Dozens of Articles for Right-Wing Outlets. But Is He a Real Person?, The Intercept, June 9th, 2019.
[4]Scahill, Jeremy, Intercepted Podcast: Donald Trump, Iran, and the Gulf of Tonkin Redux, the Intercept, October 22th, 2019.
[5] ibid
[6] Aljazeera, US-Iran tensions, trolls and the dubious case of Heshmat Alavi, June 18th, 2019.
[7] ibid
[8] Rad, Assal, Propaganda War to Real War: The MEK’s Treacherous Operation, Lobelog, July 1st, 2019.
