“The Mujahedin Khalq Organization (MKO/ MEK/ PMOI/ Cult of Rajavi) are skilled manipulators of public opinion”, according to the RAND report.
Assassinations of the American military advisers and civilians in Tehran in 1970s, the statements and declarations of the group about assassinations and sabotage in various cities of Iran in Mujahed journal during the 1980s and 90s, the group’s military operations against Iraqi Kurds and Shiites and its cross-border operations against their own Iranian fellow countrymen were all as fuel for the group’s propaganda machine.
Mojahed Magazine – Statement of the MEK on the assassination of Brigadier General Harold Price
Mojahed Magazine – on the assassination of civilians in Iran
However, many of these media show offs, which Indeed, the MEK are very skilled in it, later turned out to be counterproductive. They were actually presented as the evidences of their crimes. For example, the content in the Mujahed journal on the assassination of American citizens was one of the most important documents that were strongly denied by the MEK during the years that the group was listed as a terrorist organization by the US State Department.
The terrorist history of the MEK in Iran and the genocide of nearly 12,000 people in the streets of Iran were among the documents that MEK leaders attempted to deny, while the names, specifications, methods of assassination and … of each of the victims was detailed in The Mujahed journals of the 1980s. Mujahed journal was the official publication of the MEK.
During the years of the presence of the MEK in Iraq, there was always a headquarters in the suburb of Paris, Auver sur d’Oise which provided the media with a very visible and playable appearance. Its mission was commuting in the corridors of the European parliament and lobbying for the MEK, and particularly communicating the Western media.
Agents of the MEK, with their traditional ways, linked with Western media secretaries and journalists, and, while paying bribes in the form of fixed and monthly wages, demanded from the media connoisseurs to portrait the MEK as a democratic and freedom-loving group in Western media.
The same media propaganda has given rise to the opportunity and dare to put the issue of the claim of the MEK as the “alternative” to the Islamic Republic of Iran. However, the agenda was hardly ever covered in the media.
The group continued to use the capacity of Western media until it was entirely expelled from Iraq and relocated to Albania. With arriving in Albania, very soon, it became a very interesting subject for the same Western media, given that the view of the MEK forces were no longer inside the walls of Ashraf and in the deserts of Iraq and transmitted to the eyes of the European media.
In fact, the media could not publish the fictitious and custom reports fabricated by the MEK, because they were in Europe and before the eyes of thousands of cameras and Medias. Spreading fake news about the MEK would knockout the media.
Besides, the Cult of Rajavi turned into something stimulating with all controversial facts about human rights violations committed inside it. The presence of a large number of men and women together, without any marriage between them, without being a child among them, and other issues, such as frequent escape of members could all be hot topics of news reports. These issues made it possible for actual reporters to get interested in the cult-like group, and forced the organization to write a statement about it, and even, in some cases, attack reporters and certain Western media accusing them of being the agents of the Islamic Republic.
For example, The SPIEGEL’s report on the MEK and its defectors, the BBC report of the Iranian war prisoners who were jailed in the MEK or the lack of media coverage of the group’s un-crowded demonstrations in European cities, show that the MEK has lost the propaganda battle. The testimonies of hundreds former members of the group, now living in Europe has completely undermined the focus of the MEK in the media.
Meanwhile, the media’s progress towards the issues surrounding the MEK and dissemination of information on compulsory maintenance and slavery of about 2,000 people in Camp Ashraf 3 in Manez, Albania is the group’s problem of every day. This will get close to many other less-known dimensions of the MEK atrocities towards its own rank and file.