++One of the founding members of the MEK,Torab Haqshenas, died this week. When the MEK the split in mid 1970s Haqshenas led the Communist leaning side. Farsi comments following his death acknowledge his assertion that the MEK was founded as an Islamic-Marxist group. After later realising that this mix didn’t work he chose to struggle just as a Marxist.
++ The MEK inside Camp Liberty took to shouting against the families gathered at the gate and filming them. What caused most interest among Farsi commentators was the fact they covered their faces. If they are swearing at their mothers and fathers, then why, they ask, cover their faces? Are they ashamed. Is it because they have been forced to do this and they are ashamed. In fact, why are they filming the families at all? Perhaps they weren’t even linked to the families in any way. Commentators familiar with the MEK point out that as a cult, the actions of the MEK are not understandable from the outside. Cult behaviour doesn’t make sense to the outside world. This would have been used as a control mechanism targeted at specific personnel inside the cult to enforce cultic indoctrination.
++ Ebrahim Khodabandeh writes a comment about Massoud Rajavi claiming “I haven’t done anything wrong” and using others to claim this too. Khodabandeh merely gives the Headlines for some of Rajavi’s mistakes. First, starting armed struggle in 1981 just after the revolution and then running away while leaving so many others to die. Second, the Internal Revolution when Rajavi declared himself life-long sole leader and then had to suppress dissent; thinking he could control everyone but he couldn’t. Third, going to Iraq in 1986; at which point Rajavi and the MEK lost all legitimacy among the Iranian people. After this Rajavi’s history is like a roller-coaster of mistakes and failure – taking POWs and trying to make MEK fighters out of them, torturing and killing dissenters in Camp Ashraf and Abu Ghraib, abducting ‘recruits’ among economic migrants by deception and coercion, immediately after the loss of benefactor Saddam Hussein jumping into the hands of Saudi Arabia and Israel begging them to use the MEK as a tool to disrupt the nuclear deal, and now, the moment Daesh and Syrian rebels appear, Rajavi lines up with them. Then Rajavi says ‘I did nothing wrong’. He is so dirty no wonder nobody wants to be near him. Since 2003, 1300 MEK have run away and announced their separation. The rest of them are simply waiting for an opportunity to run away the moment they can.
In English:
++ Nejat Society is supporting the efforts of families in their efforts to make contact with their long estranged loved ones trapped in Camp Liberty by Massoud and Maryam Rajavi.
++ The MEK’s efforts to insert themselves into the field of genuine human rights advocates during President Rouhani’s visit to Europe failed miserably. It is known to everybody, Iranian and non-Iranian alike, that the MEK is a terrorist cult and that it is backed by Saudi Arabia. Social media commentators of all stripes and nationalities gave vent to this sentiment whenever pictures of fake MEK protests were posted. Even the KSA itself has realised that it cannot use the MEK in the field of human rights as this reflects negatively on them.
February 5, 2016
