Speaking is not cheap and neither is writing, particularly if you have to speak or write on behalf of a formerly designated terrorist group that fails to enjoy any popular base. That’s why, the speakers at the rallies of the 
Mujahedin Khalq receive up to 25000 $ for a ten-minute speech. They are paid to say what the group has dictated to them regardless of the genuineness of what they are told to write or say. Every now and then, certain politicians are paid to write pieces in certain media to express their support for the group. The Hill is usually one of the main bases for the MKO-paid propaganda in the US media.
Certain paid sponsors of the MKO have made big pockets with the MKO money. Former Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D-RI) is an ardent advocate of the MKO who has been on the group’s payroll for the speeches and the articles on behalf of the group.
He so passionately showed off his empathy in one of the group’s rallies, “One of the greatest moments was when my uncle, President [John F.] Kennedy, stood in Berlin and uttered the immortal words ‘Ich bin ein Berliner,’. Today, I’m honored to repeat my uncle’s words, by saying [translated from Farsi] ‘I am an Iranian,’ ‘I am an Ashrafi.”
Following the above mentioned rally in August 2011, Ali Gharib and Zaid Jilani of Think Progress reported that Patrick Kennedy (D-RI) told them he was paid $25,000 to speak at a rally to remove a controversial Iranian exiled opposition group from the U.S. terrorist rolls after previously not saying if he was paid.
However, Think Progress correspondents who published a comprehensive report on the event noted the fact that Kennedy wouldn’t tell Foreign Policy’s Josh Rogin whether or not he was paid to speak at the rally to remove the Mujahedeen-e Khalq (MEK) from the State Department list of foreign terror organizations. But asked by Think Progress, Kennedy replied that he had been paid $25,000 and that he wouldn’t accept the money if he didn’t believe in the cause. Kennedy was part of the huge campaign to delist the MKO in 2012.
Supposing that Kennedy does believe in the cause of the MKO, it is worth to ask him what the group’s cause is. As Kennedy and his comrades claim, the MKO spouses a democratic and secular Iran. But, they do not define that how they want to bring about democracy in Iran using the MKO.
Definitely, democracy takes evolution of grassroots. The seeds for any changes in any society must be sowed by its people and the Iranian people themselves are practicing democracy in their everyday life. Iranians are sure that the democratic society they look for does not exist in the MKO. Whenever you seek opinion of the people about the MKO you hear nothing but resentment and treachery.
Josh Rogin’s account on the MKO’s rally in Foreign Policy well indicates the unpopularity of the MKO among Iranian diaspora. “In a crowd made up of people who were mostly of Middle Eastern origin, a group of African-American attendees wearing MEK gear stood out”, He describes the MKO’s rented crowd.
Think Progress also describes Kennedy’s audience, “Speaking before a large crowd outside the State Department that included attendees bused-in from afar on all-expenses-paid trips, Kennedy cited one such attack — in April, which reportedly killed 34 Ashraf residents — as having spurred his support for the group.”
Following the resettlement of the MKO in Albania, the group’s propaganda made efforts to use an idiotic fallacy calling the relocation as a victory! Eventually, paid writers of the group repeated the same misjudgment in their writings.
“Always well-financed with laundered funds from hazy sources (including Saddam Hussein, and more recently the Saudis and the U.S. among others), for years the MEK spread money around like honey in Washington, Paris and other power centers,” writes Farid Khavari of the InvestmentWatchBlog.
Kennedy tries to convince the audience that the MKO relocation in Europe as a step forward to have “closer contact with European governments and the world community, where they can tell their stories and continue their activism in favor of regime change in Tehran.” He seems to be so manipulated by the group’s propaganda and money that he cannot understand that the notorious MKO cult will never be that viable force to bring regime change except with military intervention of the West. “Iranians would never vote for this government, and it could only be installed by U.S. military action,” Farid Khavari writes.
The paid advocacy campaign for the MKO should notice Farid’s clear advice: “This regime [established by the MKO] would be a worse threat to the region including Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Israel. It would also spark a civil war making Iran the next Syria.”
“The MEK owes its perceived legitimacy to the ignorance, innocent or not, of politicians and respected leaders in the free world. Let us hope their purchase of influence over U.S. policy does not lead to perpetual war”, he warns paid politicians.
Moreover, MKO is absolutely a cult-like group with an undeniable history of violence and human rights violation. It is considered a destructive cult of personality around the Rajavis. The “closer” it is to the European citizens, the more they are exposed to the threat of the destructive Cult of Rajavi.
By Mazda Parsi
