Iran Interlink Weekly Digest – 138

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++ Families have written to the UNHCR saying that “on the occasion of the Iranian New Year, could you not, after two decades, do something to facilitate a meeting with our loved ones, even if it is from a distance”. They ask, “Is this not our right?” Another family member pleads “after all these years can you not convince them to give me a photograph of him. The last one I have is thirty years old.”
++ Sot al Iraq published an article by a paid MEK lobbyist called Saafi Yasseri. To give right of reply the paper published the letter of Mrs Iranpour – whose two brothers are in Camp Liberty – in answer to this man. Iranpour complains that “even as a paid lobbyist you should have some dignity and not call the sister of the members of MEK an ‘agent’ while everyone can see that I have been a teacher for over two decades. What I ask couldn’t be more legitimate; to see my brothers and to check their wellbeing. What agent? You, as a paid agent, convince your benefactors to allow me to see them then there’ll be no other demands.”
++ In an item titled ‘The Message of President Maryam Rajavi to the British Parliament’ the MEK wrote that on March 23 a few known MEK lobbyists gathered in a private room in parliament to listen while a message by Maryam Rajavi was read out loud to them. A respected parent from Tabriz wrote a note on this announcement and what Rajavi has been saying. He titles his piece ‘They should tax people for talking rubbish’. He briefly examines the contradictory and illogical things which Rajavi says. He then points out to Rajavi, “They have repeatedly denied you even the visa that ordinary people get to go on holiday in the UK. Anyway, how can you call yourself a president when for two decades nobody has even voted for you. Then when a few lobbyists are paid to listen to you how can you claim this is ‘addressing parliament’. You are losing the plot. But this is not the problem, the real problem is that my family are stuck in Camp Liberty and you won’t let them go.”
In English:
++ Ali Gharib in Lobelog tears a strip off The Israel Project for trying to bolster its anti-Iran message by using the MEK. The tightly written article concludes: “This much is certain: as long as Block and his Israel Project are willing to leverage and boost Maryam Rajavi and the Mojahedin-e Khalq – a group that, again, Block thinks is a ‘terrorist organization’ – they ought not to be taken very seriously on either Iranian politics or American Iran policy.”
++ An article in Panorama Online exposes the correspondence sent by the former Albanian Ambassador of Albania to the former Prime Minister Sali Berisha. Ambassador Sedje Qerimaj tells the PM that Albania should not take the MEK as refugees because they are dangerous and no other country is prepared to host them. He advises that even a small financial contribution would be sufficient. Berisha, however, suddenly agreed to take the MEK terrorists after consultation with the USA in spite of this warning.
++ Iran Interlink joins the dots between events marking Noruz, Halabja in Westminster by reminding us of the MEK’s Operation Pearl in which thousands of Kurdish civilians were killed on behalf of Saddam Hussein – when Maryam Rajavi issued her infamous order ‘Crush the Kurds under your tanks and save your bullets for the Revolutionary Guards’. This would explain why Maryam Rajavi remains, according to Middle East minister Tobias Ellwood, persona non grata in the UK. MEK lobbyists need to do more fact-checking if they are to retain any credibility.