++ On Friday 12 June, a day before the Villepinte show and following years of fruitless efforts to meet his daughter Somayeh who is still in Camp Liberty, Mostafa Mohammadi, his daughter Hooriyeh and their lawyer went to Maryam Rajavi’s MEK HQ in Paris to demand talk with someone about this issue. In response around 20 MEK thugs emerged from the secretive enclave and started beating all three of them up. Police intervened, arrested two MEK members and took them into custody. Mohammadi was hospitalised overnight with serious head injuries. He later had a meeting with Bernard Poignant, advisor to President Holland. Poignant assured Mohammadi that he recognised the seriousness of this case and it will be followed. He has passed the details to the judge of the ongoing court case against the MEK in the Judiciary. In Farsi there was much reaction from a variety of opposition personalities condemning the MEK’s inhumane behaviour. Mohammad Razaghi – a former MEK member – wrote exposing other recent attacks on people in Paris which he contrasts with Maryam Rajavi’s claims about human rights in Iran. “On Friday she sends thugs to attack and on Saturday morning becomes a humanitarian person in Villepinte” he writes.
++ Following the defection of high ranking long term MEK member Siavosh Rastar in Albania, the MEK have launched their customary campaign of character assassination and intimidation to try to silence him. Rastar writes in Farsi to expose the MEK’s activities in Albania. He is published on a new website called http://www.iran-azadi-albania.com/.
++ On June 13, the same day as Villepinte, tens of ex-MEK members held a picket in Paris which was well received and reported in France. At the picket, Nader Koshtar publicly announced his separation from the MEK and gave interviews to newspaper reporters.
++ Kayhan London, the most prominent Farsi language opposition newspaper – printed in London, published an interview with Mr Shabanpour from the families outside Camp Liberty, with Mr Ehsan Bidi about the situation in Albania and Mr Massoud Khodabandeh about the real message of Villepinte. Kayhan London’s article spawned several other articles in Farsi which discussed these hot topics. Commentators welcomed the fact that real Iranian opposition personalities are getting involved and not keeping quiet about the MEK.
++ Reactions to Villepinte in Farsi mostly highlight the fact that, as usual, nothing came out of it for Rajavi except paid-for coverage, so it wasn’t worth the money. Some pointed out that all that money could be used to bring everyone out of Iraq instead. On top of that, the Commentariat agreed that this was openly and plainly an Israeli funded and organised event against Iranians. The Israelis tried to put an Iranian face on it by attaching it to the MEK but failed miserably because even Israeli media didn’t want to touch it.
++ Nejat, writing about Camp Liberty in Farsi, published information about resident Abdul Hassan Ahangar, whose daughter is outside camp and hasn’t seen her father for over thirty years. Recent escapees from the MEK confirm that he being there by force against his will. They say he wants to leave and that’s why the MEK don’t let him see his daughter.
++ Fifteen Camp Ashraf residents arrived in Albania, but the ex-member website there reports that they are being held “in quarantine” and not allowed contact with anyone, not even loyal members. No contact has been established with them at all from outside.
++ June 17 marked the anniversary of the 2003 self-immolations and remind us how dangerous this cult can be say many analysts. Some presented documented evidence which reveals that the two women who died – Neda Hassani and Sediqe Mojaveri – had been drugged and that once they were alight no attempt was made to save them by MEK by-standers.
++ Sahar published a report about the Camp Liberty families’ activities and the officials they met. Outside the camp their numbers have doubled and they managed to stay one night. They told Iraq’s Minister of Human Rights they would be satisfied even to see their loved ones and talk to them at a distance of 10 metres and then they will leave. The Minister did intervene on their behalf and the MEK have again rejected it. From that time, less than 48 hours, the MEK has published five statements against the Minister and the families with contradictory messages and in several languages and are trying to push this into the media by doing ‘Google wars’ to tarnish this demand in some way in order to stop it.
In English:
++ Nejat Bloggers reported that Abbas Mohammadpur defected from the MEK after he arrived in Albania in 2014. On June 15 he returned to his family in Iran after 27 years absence. Mohammadpur had been imprisoned in Iraq during the Iran-Iraq War in 1988 and spent the intervening years in the MEK camps.
++ Anne and Massoud Khodabandeh published a lengthy article in Iranian.com analysing ‘Villepinte – the real message behind Maryam Rajavi’s anti-Iran speech’.
In brief: Iranians inside and outside Iran have achieved immunity from this destructive mind control cult and collectively shun the group. Iranians want to be oppositionists not terrorists.
The same can’t be said for western political communities who still believe that violent regime change should be forced on Iranians.
In order to keep the cult alive and earn money to finance their ‘mini-Iran’ over which they preside as ‘spiritual leader’ and ‘president’, the Rajavis are creating a terrorist training camp in Tirana, Albania as an education centre for other mercenary forces in the psychology of terrorism and to provide logistical help.
June 19 2015