++ Esmail Fallahranjkesh, who ran away from Camp Liberty during the bombing attack on 29 October, has already been reunited with his family. Another escapee, Shahroud Bahadori, has given an interview from the hotel in Baghdad. He stressed that “not a single person” in Liberty wants to be there of their own volition. They are all there by force.
++ 28 more Camp Liberty residents arrived in Tirana this week bringing the total last month to 172. Their names can be found online in the Farsi section of the Iran-Interlink site.
++ The MEK has suspended all other activity to focus on attacking former members and critics. MEK TV programming is based on this project. MEK websites have been flooded with hundreds of articles and comments written by everybody against everybody. In addition, there have been several instances of threats and intimidation of critics in the streets of Europe. In one such incident, an internal critic who was passing one of the MEK’s street pickets in the Netherlands was jeered at for not joining the picket. As he continued on his way he was first sworn at, then pursued and beaten up.
++ The MEK has put forward its version of the attack on Camp Liberty on 29 October. It is “because the critics have been emboldened”. Nobody except themselves believes this theory. Farsi commentators have written that for decades Rajavi has been trying to kill his own people and live on their blood. Apparently this time Rajavi really has broken the camel’s back and nobody in the world, not even among the MEK’s supporters in America, is willing to go along with Rajavi’s games. All parties place the blame on Rajavi for keeping the MEK in Iraq where they are in great danger. Significantly, in not a single part of its communications does the MEK say they should be removed from Iraq and taken to safety. Rajavi is not even able to pretend that he doesn’t want to leave them in harm’s way. In this respect, this tragic event has worked directly against him and his interests.
++ Rajavi claims that former MEK members and families of Camp Liberty residents have gone to the camp as spies only to get information about where and how to attack the camp. According to Rajavi’s analysis, they pass this information on to Iran so the regime can formulate attacks. [Note: Camp Liberty is a half a square kilometre space in the former US Army base near Baghdad International Airport. It can be seen clearly by anyone via Google Maps:
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place/Camp+Liberty/@33.2987099,44.2405099,1976m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m6!1m3!3m2!1s0x1559d793cfffbea7:0x7f709b3469d96187!2sCamp+Liberty!3m1!1s0x1559d793cfffbea7:0x7f709b3469d96187!6m1!1e1]
In English:
++ Acclaimed investigative journalist Gareth Porter writing in Fair (Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting) says ‘The New Yorker Doesn’t Factcheck What ‘Everyone Knows’ Is True’. The article is a critique of journalistic standards in relation to “the subject of Argentine prosecutor Alberto Nisman’s untimely death and its relation to his role in indicting senior Iranian officials for a 1994 Buenos Aires terror bombing…” Porter finds that Dexter Filkins, one of the top journalists covering America’s wars since 9/11, did not go far enough in “questioning conventional wisdom”. Typically, Porter uncovers a great deal of important detail. “Filkins appears to have been unaware, however, of Nisman’s reliance on the testimony of the armed opposition to the Iranian regime, with its shady history, for the crucial information on which his indictment of the Iranians was based. ‘Much of the testimony that guided Nisman toward the Iranian regime,’ Filkins writes, ‘was provided by a man referred to in court documents as ‘Witness C’—Abolghasem Mesbahi, an Iranian intelligence agent who defected to Germany in 1996.’
But in identifying Mesbahi as the key source, Filkins not only misrepresents the alleged evidence in Nisman’s indictment, but also demonstrates a remarkable lack of curiosity about a figure whose record as a witness on this and other cases was marked by serious anomalies and even absurdities.”
++ Mazda Parsi, Nejat Bloggers, writes about Maryam Rajavi’s bloodthirsty propaganda. He points out that both the UN and US are committed to relocating the residents of Camp Liberty but that the process has been very slow because Maryam Rajavi doesn’t want it to happen.
“Human casualties are always a tragedy. Particularly, in case of Liberty residents, many of them were not able to leave the cult-like structure of the group. Although most of these members left Iran to struggle for what they called “freedom”, once they found out that they were laboring for the evil Massoud Rajavi as the mercenary of Saddam Hussein, it was too late for them to return home. They were taken as hostages by the Cult of Rajavi. Maryam Rajavi holds both the US and the UN ‘officially and legally responsible’ for the loss of lives in Camp Liberty while she never thinks of her own part in the disastrous incident.”
++ An Open Letter by the sister of one of Rajavi’s victims, killed in the October 29 attack.
Narges Beheshti was denied contact with her brother Mostafa for 14 years even though she had travelled to Camp Ashraf, Iraq several times and appealed to the UNHCR in Baghdad for help. However, the MKO Cult leaders didn’t allow any families to visit.
“It is now 4 years that the Camp Ashraf residents have been relocated to Camp Liberty. They were due to stay there as a temporary location to soon be transferred to third countries. However, during all these four years just some 400 individuals have been transferred to Albania that is 100 people a year.
“I believe that Rajavi does not intend to save the helpless residents of Liberty. He just thinks about his zeal for power, his relatives and friends. How is it, while my brother and other stranded Liberty residents are kept by the MKO Cult leaders within the violence and insecurity of Iraq as captives and not transferred to third countries… Rajavi’s own relatives were transferred to foreign countries.
“I plead with all human rights bodies to probe the suffering families petitions. I declare that Rajavi is personally responsible for the lives of our loved ones.”
++ On November 12, the BBC updated an information page “Who are the Iranian dissident group MEK?” on its English language site. After the 1979 revolution the MEK “launched an armed struggle to topple the Islamic Republic, claiming responsibility for the assassination of several high-profile figures. The authorities launched a bloody purge of supporters of the MEK, also known as the People’s Mujahideen Organisation of Iran (PMOI), and Mr Rajavi fled to Paris. He later relocated to Camp Ashraf in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, near the Iranian border, with most of his followers. There the movement steadily acquired the characteristics of a cult, with veneration of Massoud Rajavi and his wife, Maryam.”
November 13, 2015