Another fake persona under the name of”Amir Basiri“who publishes articles on behalf of the Mujahedin Khalq Organization (the MKO/ MEK/ the Cult of Rajavi) was recently revealed by the American Conservative Magazine.
The first one had been exposed by Murtaza Hussain of the Intercept, last year. He revealed that”Heshmat Alavi“is a created persona run by trolls working inside the camp of the MEK, Ashraf 3, in the region of Durres in Albania. [1] [2]
According to both reports, the so-called articles circulated in certain western media such as Forbes and the Hill under the name of Alavi and Basiri were then boosted by a chain of accounts, many with only a few followers and which solely tweet the authors’ arguments: support for the MEK and regime change in Iran.
Paul Brian and Arthur Bloom of the American Conservative describe the MEK-run troll farm in twitter against the Iranian government as”a hall of mirrors amplifying the case for war with Iran”. They consider the MEK’s large amounts of money going to the pockets of twitter as a good reason to use the platform of this social network for warmongering propaganda and aggressive content.”The ad money from NCRI and pro-MEK accounts seems to have dampened Twitter’s desire to crack down”, they state.”A request for comment from Twitter was not returned as of press time.”[3]
Naturally, the MEK accuses the American Conservative of being the”a mouthpiece for the mullahs”. This accusation is a frequent one against anyone who challenges the MEK regulations or criticizes its behavior. Similarly, they accuse the families of their members who desire to visit their loved ones taken as hostages inside camp Ashraf 3 in Durres, a region in North of Tirana as agents of Iranian regime.
The calls of families of the MEK hostages on the Albanian authorities and human rights bodies have not been responded yet. While their humanitarian request to contact their loved ones in the MEK is totally ignored by the Albanian authorities, the mayor of Durres Emiriana Sako, in a note published in the Washington Times, praises the MEK for providing”humanitarian aid”to the local residents of Manza, Durres! She is proud of accepting the MEK cultic group”as part of their community”. [4]
Mayor of Durres officially expresses her support for what she calls”the Iranian people’s struggle for freedom and democracy”and hopes”that the residents of Ashraf 3 can return to their country very soon when freedom and democracy is restored in Iran”.
In an open letter to Maria Arena, the head of the European Parliament’s subcommittee on Human rights, former member of the MEK and the CEO of Nejat Society, Ebrahim Khodabandeh urged her”to endorse the humanitarian demands of the families and asked the Albanian government, which is responsible for this organization in its own country,”why elderly mothers and fathers after some four decades should not have contact with their children“. [5] The right to live in a free world with normal relationships with family and friends is one of the most basic rights of a human being. The MEK members are deprived of such an absolutely humanitarian right.
Western politicians and particularly the authorities of Albania should stop getting fooled by the MEK’s fake journalists, fake democratic gestures and fake humanitarian aids. The authors of the American Conservative accurately suggest,”As a matter of journalistic ethics any organization engaging in systematic dishonesty like this has provided a very good reason to blacklist them”.
Mazda Parsi
References:
[1] Brian, Paul & Bloom, Arthur, Another Opinion Columnist Pushing War with Iran Who Doesn’t Actually Exist, the American Conservative, September 5th, 2020.
[2] Hussain, Murtaza, An Iranian Activist Wrote Dozens of Articles for Right-Wing Outlets. But Is He a Real Person?, the Intercept, July 9th, 2019.
[3] Brian, Paul & Bloom, Arthur, another Opinion Columnist Pushing War with Iran Who Doesn’t Actually Exist, the American Conservative, September 5th, 2020.
[4] Sako, Emiriana, ‘Mutual respect and understanding’ in Ashraf 3, the Washington Times, August 13th, 2020.
[5] Nejat Society CEO’s letter to Ms Maria Arena MEP | Nejat Society