Sander Lleshaj and the MEK did not want the case of Ehsan Bid and his illegal dumping at the Greek border to come to the media but they failed. Here we are.
An Iranian citizen and ex-member of MEK has been accused of being a foreign agent and is at risk of being expelled from the country.
Ehsan Bidi came to Albania with more than 2000 Mujahadeen from the Freedom Camp in Iraq. He was granted refugee status, supposedly lasting until 2023. During his time in Albania, he defected from the MEK and had his refugee status revoked. He was then imprisoned for one year at the Karrec detention centre with several other defectors.
On 13 August, media reported that he would be deported from Albania to Greece because he is an “Iranian agent”. The MEK claim that “an asylum seeker, under international law, is a person whose life is in danger in his country of origin,” and that Bidi does not fit this criterion.
Bidi was then taken to the Greek border at Kapshtica where the Greek authorities wouldn’t let him cross. It was reported that the Greek side did not want to carry out deportation procedures.
A representative of Bidi speaking to Exit said that he is not an Iranian agent and that the attempts to deport him and therefore “risking his life” are because he defected from the MEK camp. Exit has been unable to verify this either way.
Bidi was due to hold a press conference at Tirana International Hotel today at 11.00 in an attempt to clear his name but the Hotel cancelled at the last minute, citing orders from the police.
Exit called the hotel and asked what reason the police gave for cancelling the conference, and they said it was due to COVID-19 protocols.
https://exit.al
Sorayah Abdollahi appeals to Albanian government to allow her to meet her son Emir Aslan Hasanzadeh
Dr. Olsi Jazexhi:
Emir Aslan Hasanzadeh is an Iranian mojahedeen taken by MEK in 2002 (1381) when he was 21 years old. Now he is 38 years old. Not married. Kept in isolation as a jihadi by the Maryam Rajavi mojahedeen gang in Manza, Albania. His mother Sorayah wants to meet him. But Albanian authorities who obey to the Mojaheeden command do not allow her and hundreds of other Iranian mothers to come to Albania and see their sons.
In the following video she explains to Dr. Olsi Jazexhi her story and the struggle that this Iranian mothers do in order to liberate their children from the Mojahedeen el Halk terrorist organization. Sorayah pleads like a mother to her son, the Albanian government, international community to allow them to meet their children.
BY Olsi Jazexhi,
The complicity of corrupt elements of the security services, the Albanian government and the Rajavi terrorist cult with the intervention of the US embassy is not hidden from anyone. Iranian diplomats and journalists have been expelled from Albania for alleged security reasons, based on information given solely by the MEK. And this has become the sole propaganda platform of the Rajavi cult, for which Trump has expressed his satisfaction with the Albanian government.
Maryam Rajavi, who considered herself successful in carrying out such conspiracies and used this excuse to suppress dissidents in her organization and linked any criticism and opposition to her to the Ministry of Intelligence of Iran and security issues, this time created a plan for Ehsan Bidi, a former member of the Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK) and an asylum seeker.
Corrupt elements in the Albanian security police, who easily covered up even the murders by the Rajavi cult in their third camp, this time, went to silence the voice of a former member who had made revelations and encouraged other dissident members to make revelations.
Ehsan Bidi left the MEK in Iraq about seven years ago and tried to reach Europe, where he was imprisoned in Egypt and finally entered Albania as a refugee with the intervention of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.
In Albania, he endured all kinds of pressures, all of which originated from the Rajavi terrorist cult, and was even threatened and harassed by the mercenaries of the Rajavi cult, but he did not give up and was determined to expose the inhuman nature of Rajavi to everyone.
Finally, in August of last year, Ehsan Bidi, who had a ten-year residence permit as well as a work permit, was illegally arrested by corrupt elements in the security services and the Albanian government without charge. The aim was to expel him from Albania and send him to Iran, and an attempt was made to force Ehsan Bidi to sign such a request so that it could be done easily. But he was tough as nails and resisted.
Maryam Rajavi imagined that Ehsan Bidi was similar to an Iranian diplomat or journalist who could easily be framed and expelled from Albania by giving large bribes to corrupt elements and bringing the US embassy to the square and shouting victory.
Albania wants to join the European Union in order to solve its growing economic problems, and in return, the European Union wants the Albanian government to resolve the current corruption in the judiciary, the police and the government and to bring itself closer to the desired European standards.
A year passed and the issue of Ehsan Bidi was brought to the attention of many legal and human rights circles. The Rajavi cult could not carry out its conspiracy in this one case, and the task became much more difficult for them. The Albanian government was forced to withdraw due to considerations in Europe.
Ehsan Bidi is now free in Albania, and Albanian officials have apologized to him, but this is just the beginning. He will certainly speak more, in detail and at appropriate times. Of course, it goes without saying that the Rajavi cult was so sure of the work of the corrupt elements in the Albanian security apparatus that it published the news of Ehsan Bidi’s illegal expulsion from Albania and fed it to the paid media.
In addition to Mr. Ehsan Bidi and his unparalleled one-year resistance, thanks to political activist Mr. Olsi Yazeji, journalist Mr. Gjergji Thanasi, and lawyer Ms. Migena Balla, and many other Albanian politicians, journalists, and lawyers who have worked in this direction and of course, they were insulted, slandered and threatened by the Rajavi cult, as well as the former members’ activities in Albania and the families in Europe. Rajavi’s conspiracy could not have been thwarted without their tireless efforts.
BY Lawyer Ms. Atefeh Nadalian, Translated by Iran Interlink
The families of the members of the MEK in Albania from Ardabil province protest against the treatment of a former member of this organization by the authorities of this country
Families of members of the Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization (MEK) in Albania from Ardabil Province (North West Iran) have issued a letter to the Albanian Interior Minister protesting the organization’s recent collusion with corrupt elements in the Albanian government regarding Mr. Ehsan Bidi, a former member of the organization.
According to Feraq news-analytical website, the text of this letter is addressed to Mr. Sander Lleshaj, Minister of Interior of Albania, a copy of which has been sent to other officials of this country and European and international authorities and the media:
Mr. Sander Lleshaj, Honorable Minister of Interior of the Republic of Albania
The families of members of the MEK in Albania are trying to get in touch with their loved ones in the organization’s camp and find out about their situation. They are now receiving news about the organization’s conspiracy in collaboration with corrupt elements in the Albanian government against a former member has greatly worried the families.
Since last year, the MEK has handed over one of its former members, Mr. Ehsan Bidi, to Albanian security officials in an illegal conspiracy.
Unfortunately, the relevant authorities of the Albanian government have not yet provided any logical explanation for this, and now we are informed that the decision has been made to deal with him more unconventionally. Ehsan Bidi was not allowed to visit during this period and was denied access to a lawyer.
We, the families, are sure that MEK has setup a trap against Mr. Bidi, because of his revelations about the internal behaviors of Massoud and Maryam Rajavi, the leaders of this organization, in order to warn other dissidents and their dissatisfied members.
As for the unfriendly attitude of the Albanian government, it should be noted that our children and loved ones arrived in Albania as asylum seekers in agreement with the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, and we expect the Albanian government to respect the rights of asylum seekers in accordance with international law.
Unfortunately, what we are witnessing today is a clear violation of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) rules, including cutting off the monthly pensions of former members and not issuing identity documents to them in accordance with international standards.
Finally, we, the families, expect the Albanian government to provide security for those who break away from the MEK in this country so that they can live in peace and freedom in a country that claims democracy, freedom of expression and is on the verge of joining the European Union.
With respect,
A group of families in Ardabil province (North West of Iran)
Faragh Society, Ardebil Provence
The propaganda media of the Mujahedin Khalq Organization (the MKO/ MEK/ PMOI/ the Cult of Rajavi) published a claim against a Swedish journalist who had come to the group’s camp in Albania, labeling him as the spy of the Iranian Government. The ID cards of the Swedish journalist Ivan Blanco Bravo and two children of MEK members have been published on the MEK’s websites to verify their claim!
This is not the first time that the MEK accuses reporters and journalists of cooperating with the Islamic Republic. During the past decades, there were very few journalists who could manage to enter the MEK’s headquarters.
Actually, journalism is based on certain ethical principles that could terribly risk the MEK’s character. “Ethical Journalism Network” compiles five core principles of ethical journalism: 1. Truth and Accuracy, 2.Independence, 3. Fairness and Impartiality, 4. Humanity and 5. Accountability. Therefore, if an independent journalist wants to seek for the truth concerning humanity and fairness in the MEK’s headquarters, he will be responsible enough to transfer the evidences and the reality he or she witnesses in the camp. This is the conflicting point between the MEK and journalists. Although the MEK authorities have made efforts to portrait their establishment as a democratic entity made of freedom fighters, the realities have always leaked from the cult-like structure of the group.
June 13th, 2003 might have been the first time that the MEK authorities found out that the arrival of journalists in their camps will result in a disaster for them even if they take care for all elements of a democratic gesture. The date is the day a correspondent of the New York Times, Elizabeth Rubin published her revealing report on the life inside Camp Ashraf, Iraq. The MEK leaders had allowed Rubin to enter their large base in Iraq showing her different parts of the camp. She was received by a group of members running general interviews. Everything was under the supervision of the group authorities but finally the title of the published article turned out to be: “the Cult of Rajavi “. Rubin wrote a very detailed report of what she saw and heard in Camp Ashraf and frankly described MEK members in the camp as “a slight march to their gaits as at a factory in Maoist China”.
Since then, the MEK leaders seemed to be more cautious about the entrance of any person who is involved with mass media in any way. They do not allow any journalist to enter their camps unless they make sure that he or she is completely coerced to portray an ideal picture of their so-called freedom fighters.
Therefore, those many journalists and reporters who sought to discover the truth of the world inside the MEK and to verify the testimonies of defectors, have been always attacked by the MEK authorities; they were labeled as Iranian spies and harassed by the guards of the group’s camps.
One of the most recent accounts of such attitudes towards journalists took place in 2018. Lindsey Hilsum of the British Channel 4 TV tried to film a documentary of Camp Ashraf 3 in Manez north of Tirana but she was barred by the Abanian guards of the camp. Some of the group members came to the barbed wires and called her “terrorist” and “Iranian spy”. In September 2018, Hilsum published an eleven-minute video report titled “The shadowy cult Trump advisors tout as an alternative to the Iranian government”. She described the MEK as a political religious cult that brainwashes its members; forces celibacy and oppresses dissent.
The International editor of Channel 4 who did not succeed to access the inside of the MEK’s base had to listen to the testimonies of those who have left the group. So, she interviewed the Mohammadis, the parents of Somayeh.
Somaye Mohammadi’s Parents – Tirana – Albania
They were active in Albania at that time making efforts to visit their daughter in the MEK. Hilsum’s report also shows Somayeh’s parents being attacked by the MEK agents in the streets of Tirana.
Linda Presley and Albana Kasapi are BBC correspondents who went to the gates of Ashraf 3 last year. They were not allowed to enter the camp so they restricted their report to the interviews with defectors of the group who reside in Albania and with Albanian authorities. In November 2019, they published a report titled, “The Iranian opposition fighters who mustn’t think about sex”. In their article, they clarified:
“Uninvited journalists are not welcome here. But in July this year, thousands attended the MEK’s Free Iran event at the camp. Politicians from around the globe, influential Albanians and people from the nearby village of Manze, joined thousands of MEK members and their leader, Maryam Rajavi, in the glitzy auditorium. US President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, addressed the crowd.”
also read: MEK Terrorist Cult Members In Albania Who Mustn’t Think About Sex
The journalists also stated that the BBC was not able to put any of this to the MEK, because the organization refused to be interviewed. Despite, all of these precautions that the MEK leaders take care about, sometimes the invited journalists do not act the way the leaders expect. Alice taylor is the British journalist who lives in Albania.
She was invited to the MEK’s grand gathering in Ashraf 3 in August 2019. She then published her observations of the MEK’s annual grand gathering in Balkanista weblog and her tweeter account under the title “My Day with the MEK”. Her account simply reveals crucial facts about the internal structure of the MEK. For example, she writes about the way she was first received at the event:
“The security guard confiscated my lipstick, face powder, cigarettes, and lighter and put them in a plastic bag, advising me I could collect them afterwards. They tried to confiscate my mobile phone as well, but I argued that having a one-month-old daughter at home, I needed to be contactable. A male MEK member was called over and after pleading my case, I was allowed to take my phone inside on the condition I switched off the internet (I didn’t).”
When she first introduces herself as a journalist to one of the event organizers, she was faced with anger. She got shocked to hear the man telling her “who the hell told you to be here?”. She realized that there were no other journalist, reporter or TV staff in the hall. She just saw a few cameramen and photographers whom she was sure they were MEK members. Alice who had been invited to the event by one of the female commandants of the group, left the gathering after a few hours. Fed up with the repetitive speeches “broken up by periods of coordinated chanting and flag-waving with each outburst as frenetic and enthusiastic as the one before”, she did not answer the Mujahed woman’s consequent phone calls.
And ultimately, another journalist from the New York Times entered Camp Ashraf 3 in Albania. Patrick Kingsley waited for hours in front of the camp before he was allowed to enter. His presence in Ashraf 3 was considered a new opportunity by the MEK leaders to correct the impressions of the former NYT’s journalist Elizabeth Rubin. However, their efforts to portrait the camp as a nice-looking place embellished with museums, gym, music studio and coffee shop, did not work.
Playing chess at the camp.Credit…Tara Todras-Whitehill for The New York Times
A street inside the camp.Credit…Tara Todras-Whitehill for The New York Times
They tried to convince Kingsley and his photographer colleague that the group members are freedom fighters who are friendly and peacefully devoted to the group’s cause: the freedom of Iranians. But his report published on February 16th 2020, revealed new dimensions of the life of whom he called “Highly Secretive Iranian Rebels”. He described his “tour” in Ashraf 3 as “series of interviews, propaganda sessions and tours”.
Kingsley believes that the MEK leaders allowed him to enter the camp because they “perhaps hoped to correct the impression left by previous journalistic encounters” about 17 years ago. According to Kinsley Rubin’s “subjects spoke from a rehearsed script, and she was barred from talking to people in private”. So Kingsley was allowed to interview Somayeh Mohammadi in private. The outcome was obvious. As before, Somayeh denies her parents’ desire to meet her accusing them of being the Iranian regime’s agent.
However, the NYT’s correspondent does not stop challenging the group. When he asks Ali Safavi about the whereabouts of Massoud Rajavi, the disappeared leader of the MEK, he answers, “Well, we can’t talk about that, that’s … ”. “He trailed off, staring at his feet,” Kingsley writes.
In his two-day tour in Ashraf he does not see more than 200 people around the camp although he was told that the group has 2500 members. He thinks that the rest are isolated. Like any other independent journalist Kingsley decides to interview ten of many defectors of the MEK who live in Albania. Based on their testimonies, he writes of the MEK’s cult-like structure and the troll farm of the group whose job is to launch propaganda against the Iranian government on the Internet.
He also interviews certain US army officials who were in charge of the MEK camp in Iraq after the US invasion. The MEK authorities suggested some army officials who trust but as Kingsley tweets: “But I was keen to find former US officials who no longer have ties with the MEK. They told a very different story.”
Capt. Matthew Woodside, a former naval reservist who oversaw American policy at the Iraqi camp between 2004 and 2005, was not one of those whom the MEK suggested. “I find that organization absolutely repulsive,” Captain Woodside told Kingsley. “I am astounded that they’re in Albania.”
After the publication of the report, Kingsley tweets some additional explanations about his observations that exposes more revelations about the dark life in “the Cult of Rajavi”. For instance, he tweets: ‘’naturally, they all denied most of what is said about the group. They said celibacy, forced divorce and rejection of family life is just a necessary part of overthrowing the Iranian government. One admitted the self-criticism. One admitted it the corrected himself. The rest denied.“
also read:New York Times Questions Presence of MEK in Albania
Therefore, as the mass media and social networks are highly effective to transfer the news, the presence of an independent journalist inside or outside the MEK’s headquarters is totally against the interests of the group and eventually they are all labeled by the MEK leaders as the agents of the Iranian intelligence. The leaders are so terrified of journalists that they accuse a son –who wants to visit his mother in the group—of being the Iranian agent because he is accompanied with a Swedish journalist. This is the absolute right of any child to see his or her mother even though their previous unsuccessful efforts to visit their mothers have made them use mental pressure by bringing a journalist with them.
Mazda Parsi
Nejat Society, in solidarity with the families of the captive members of the Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization (MEK, MKO, Rajavi Cult) in Albania, held a nationwide online gathering with the participation of a number of provincial representatives and the presence of some families on Thursday, July 16, 2020.
The online gathering began at 10:30 a.m. and lasted for three and a half hours and was broadcast live on the Nejat NGO site. A limited number of families from a total of 20 provinces were able to speak on the program and convey their messages on behalf of all families. A number of provinces were unable to connect and participate in the gathering due to shortage of time.
First, Ebrahim Khodabandeh, CEO of Nejat Society, explained the recent activities of the families and the society. He thanked and appreciated the activists of the society in all provinces, as well as the families who have always supported them. He then reported on some of the activities of Nejat Society and the families.
He said that with the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, families’ concerns about the situation of their relatives in the remote and isolated MEK camp in Albania had increased, and they were rightly worried about the health of their loved ones. This prompted them to write letters to the World Health Organization and Albanian officials, as well as international authorities, demanding to be in contact with their loved ones.
Khodabandeh also referred to the petition by families, asking the Albanian Prime Minister, as the person in charge of the MEK, to remove obstacles to meeting with members of the MEK, or at least to establish phone/video calls with families on an ongoing basis.
This petition attracted nearly 11,500 signatures from families, relatives, friends and acquaintances of members of the Rajavi cult from all over the world, who wanted nothing more than connection with their relations in the MEK camp in Albania.
Khodabandeh then referred to the Rajavi cult’s response, saying that the Rajavi response to the request, like all destructive cults, was base obscenity, slander and insult. He cited the example of a mother who has not heard the voice of her son – who had one day joined the MEK for some reason – for more than 30 years. He explained that for years this mother has been writing in various forms and by letter to whoever it occurred to her that she could, and that she had asked only for a call from her son. But after all this, the Rajavi cult brought the son to their television, and instead of a few kind words that would make his mother happy, the son started swearing at his mother and called her a mercenary, terrorist and even a”so-called mother.”
The CEO of the Nejat Society said that the MEK and Maryam Rajavi can shout for democracy, freedom, human rights, social justice, etc. from morning to night, and hold regular conferences and seminars, costing millions of dollars and bring war mongering American politicians to the stage, but in practice even cannot allow a kind word from the son of an elderly mother who is struggling with various diseases and finds herself in the last days of her life so that her only wish is to hear the voice of her child.
Khodabandeh concluded that all those slogans about defending the freedom and rights of the people, in practice start with these families, and when the MEK members do this to their families and when also MEK leaders do not tolerate the slightest word of dissent, it is clear what model of democracy and human rights they promise.
The program was broadcast live from the Nejat NGO site, and at the same time it was possible to post comments and log in to the chat system, where many families introduced themselves and wrote their messages. Their loving messages encourage the activists of Nejat Society.
The families stated that they had only one humanitarian demand and asked what was wrong with an organization that could connect 2,000 points to have a video chat but is unable to connect one simple video link for members to contact their family to make them happy? Aren’t these families among the people?
One of the interesting things that one of the families said was that while his relative was held captive by Saddam Hussein in an Iraqi POW camp, his letters kept arriving, informing his family of his condition, but after he was handed over to the MEK, there were no more letters and no further connection.
In his speech, Khodabandeh referred to the Rajavi cult’s excuses for preventing its members from visiting their families, and said that the organization used the excuse of the danger of coronavirus to prevent the visits. He asked if the officials of the organization do not meet or travel? In fact, he said, they are constantly traveling between France, Italy and Albania. Don’t they have a tight group life in a closed camp?
He continued that another excuse the Rajavi cult uses is ‘security threats’. They should be asked what security threats elderly parents can pose to the MEK in Albania. The ‘security threat’ has always been an excuse to separate a person from the family in the Rajavi cult from the beginning.
Regarding preventing members from communicating with their families, the CEO of the Nejat Society explained that this goes back to the cultic nature of the MEK. Cults not only coerce members to sever contact with their family, they also induce the member to hate and fear their family and have no feelings for them.
The member’s feelings must only be for the leader. For this reason, the cult does not allow its members to establish a loving and emotional relationship with their families, but instead they must confront their families with insults and slander so that their innate emotional attachment is not revived to hinder the brainwashing process.
Ebrahim Khodabandeh then raised the issue of the dilemma the MEK is now facing. He suggested that Nejat Society’s activities had placed the Rajavi cult at a crossroads. The organization must either obey the wishes of the families and allow the members’ relationship with their families, which is what we want. And this would show that the MEK has the capacity not to be afraid of families and family emotions. Or it continues in its current way,
exposing more and more of its anti-popular nature to the public, and it reveals that its slogans are completely empty and hollow, and that in practice the MEK is something else.
In the next part, the Rajavi cult’s suggestion of a visit by an international delegation to the families in Iran to prepare a report in this regard was welcomed.
Khodabandeh announced, on behalf of all the families, that this proposal is welcome, and the families are ready to meet and talk with any foreign delegation. And, of course, this delegation should also visit the MEK camp in Albania and talk to the members and deliver the letters of the families and bring their answers back.
In the end, while apologizing to the provinces and the families who did not have time to speak, the demands of the families were summarized, which is the same demand that was raised in the petition of the families with nearly 11,500 signatures addressed to the Albanian government as being responsible for the MEK. It means endorsing the right of families to communicate with their loved ones in the MEK camp in Albania and removing obstacles to establishing this connection.
About 2,000 MEK members are based in the cult camp in Albania, who are deprived rights such as the right to communicate with the outside world, especially with family and friends, the right to marry and create a family, the right to leave the cult, the right to criticize the cult leader and the organizational actions, the right to privacy and many other basic rights.
The extent to which the Rajavi cult fears families as part of the Iranian people and the hysterical and irrational reactions they evoke is truly thought-provoking. This fear proves to what extent the MEK is anti-people and to what extent it has the potential to suppress.
In this conference, the voices of the families were brought to every quarter and will be repeated over and over. The Rajavi cult will expose its anti-popular nature through threats and blackmail against the claims of the elderly mothers and fathers. They will not evade or silence these claims.
News that, in spite of the difficulties thrown up by the COVID-19 pandemic, the European Commission accession talks are going ahead is welcome. Albania, in particular, has many serious issues to address if it is to make progress and the country will benefit from pressure to meet EU expectations on combatting crime and corruption as well as instituting judicial and political reforms.
The recent arrest of 5 senior officials of Albania’s Regional Border and Migration Directorate on charges of people smuggling and illegal assistance to cross the borders, after an investigation into illegal trafficking and abuse of migrant documentation, illustrates the depth of Albania’s problems. Coordination with the CIA in these arrests by Director General of the State Police, Ardi Veliu also reminds us that one of Albania’s difficulties has been to emerge in any meaningful way from under the control of the US as a NATO state.
These arrests have inadvertently exposed another significant, but easily ignored aspect to US influence – the presence of the Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK, MKO, Rajavi cult), an Iranian terrorist group which operates as a mind control cult. The MEK in Albania is protected by the Trump administration and claims CIA links. Albania’s government has allowed the MEK unprecedented freedom; freedom that former benefactor Saddam Hussein never granted. Indeed, the tolerance of and collusion with the MEK’s maverick, often criminal behaviour acts like a litmus test for how corrupt various Albanian institutions are.
In the case of the police arrests, several former members of the MEK who live in Tirana said they were surprised and relieved because “These five are the same police who have been harassing us, refusing to give us residence permits and denying our basic rights. They have arrested one of us and detained him without charge for almost a year. The police have been doing this on behalf of MEK leaders.” What this exposes is that the MEK enjoys undue influence with the police services, and that MEK members do not have any legal status in the country; no ID papers, work permits or travel documents. They are not refugees, they are stateless and unaccountable people who live outside the law.
Since arriving in Albania in 2016, the MEK presence has been at best problematic – the MEK has interfered in the internal and external affairs of the country – and at worst poses a serious security risk. An examination of MEK behaviour reveals profound corruption in every institution of Albania.
The following sample of the range of MEK activities in Albania displays a pattern not of simple disregard for the laws and norms of the host community, but a deliberate exploitation of weaknesses in every aspect of the Albanian state from local to national level.
The MEK:
Persuaded deputy Anti-Trafficking Coordinator, Dr Elona Gjebrea to support Maryam Rajavi even though MEK modern slavery is clear for all to see.
Diverted drinking water [in English] from a tourist area for their camp.
Taken precedence for the supply of electricity to their camp over local residents.
Angered locals by burying one of their dead in an already overcrowded cemetery.
Evaded the post mortem examination of a member who died in suspicious circumstances [in English].
Had media interviews removed after Anne Khodabandeh revealed the MEK was recruiting Albanian youth.
Falsely accused two Iranian academics of being terrorists and used this as evidence to have diplomatic staff from the Iranian embassy expelled after MEK labelled them terrorists.
Established an extrajudicial, extraterritorial camp to keep members in a state of modern slavery.
Used slaves to run a troll farm against the national interests of Albania.
Interfered in media freedoms to have favourable articles published and critical articles suppressed.
Denied access and physically assaulted western journalists who came to report on the activities in the closed camp in Manez.
Paid politicians and personalities to attend their meetings and promote their anti-Iran agenda using Albania as a platform to call for violent regime change against Iran [in English].
In response to revelations of its activities, the MEK accuses critics of being “agents of Iran’s intelligence services” – cult jargon intended to frighten the members and call into question the integrity of the critics and distract attention from MEK illegal activities.
Even respected and well-known Albanian citizens are not exempt from the MEK’s unchecked defamation and intimidation campaign. Albanian journalist Gjergji Thanasi is still seeking justice against leading member MEK Behzad Safari as court hearing after court hearing is postponed after spurious excuses are raised. Civil rights activist and historian Olsi Jazexhi and lawyer Migena Bala have been threatened with violence by MEK for investigating and criticizing the cult.
What is to be done?
Clearly, if the European Union is to welcome Albania as a member state something must be done to root out the MEK’s influence in that country. In the past two years, member states of the European Union have severely curtailed MEK activities in Europe. The MEK leader Maryam Rajavi has been obliged to quit France and set up her new headquarters in Albania. There can be no doubt that the EU will not tolerate the group re-entering by default should Albania finally join the union. If Albania does issue them with ID papers, these ‘refugees’ will have direct access to everywhere in the EU following accession.
It is time to dismantle the group.
In 2003 when Saddam Hussein was removed from power, families of MEK members who had not seen their loved ones for two decades made the perilous journey to Camp Ashraf to make contact. These families joined together as an NGO called Nejat Society (Rescue Society) and Sahar Family Foundation was created to help disaffected members in Iraq. Since then they have helped hundreds of individuals who left the MEK to reunite with their families, de-radicalise and return to normal life. In that time, the MEK has transferred from Iraq to Albania, but still in 2020, many, many members remain trapped, incommunicado without knowledge of how they can be helped.
Back in August 2017, an official from the Ministry of Internal Affairs in Tirana met with representatives of these families and pledged to help. Visiting Tirana, Iran Interlink representative Anne Khodabandeh explained how important families are to helping de-radicalise MEK members after they leave the group, and offering them support in returning to normal life.
Since then MEK have waged a campaign to demonize families of MEK members who travelled, or want to travel, to Albania to make contact with their long estranged loved ones, labelling them terrorists and accusing them of wanting to kill their relatives, ensuring they cannot obtain visas.
Families’ petition Albania’s PM
In May this year, a petition by the families addressed to Albania’s Prime Minister Edi Rama reached over eleven thousand signatures. There is a lot of sympathy for the plight of these families, many of whom are elderly and are desperate to be reconciled with their loved ones before it is too late. The petition urges Albania’s prime minister to allow the families to contact their loved ones in the MEK camp. Tens of families added personal appeals and wrote individual letters. Still Rama has not responded.
MEK leader Maryam Rajavi boasts that she can organize a Zoom conference from Albania on July 17th to link up paid pundits she would normally invite to her annual rally – a cut price event. On July 16th families from every province in Iran linked up by Zoom to talk and asked ‘if Rajavi is so afraid that we will come to the camp with bombs, why can’t she allow our loved ones to make supervised Zoom calls with us from afar?’
MEK leader Maryam Rajavi boasts that she can organize a Zoom conference from Albania on July 17th to link up paid pundits she would normally invite to her annual rally – a cut price event. On July 16th families from every province in Iran linked up by Zoom to talk and asked ‘if Rajavi is so afraid that we will come to the camp with bombs, why can’t she allow our loved ones to make supervised Zoom calls with us from afar?’
Albania Accession TO EU – Open Letter to the Negotiators
If the European Union is serious about allowing Albania to accede to the union, the negotiators on all sides must take this issue seriously. The coronavirus pandemic offers a strange but real opportunity to treat this as a humanitarian issue rather than a political or terrorism problem. The MEK can be dismantled, the members rescued, their families are ready to help. Edi Rama should be supported in taking this courageous and defining step to secure the future of his country.
To:
Olivér Várhelyi – European Commissioner Neighbourhood and Enlargement
Genoveva Ruiz Calavera – Director of the Western Balkans at the European Commission
Isabel Santos – EP Standing Rapporteur on Albania
Zef Mazi – Albania’s chief negotiator for EU integration
David McAllister – Chair of Foreign Affairs Committee EUP
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By Anne and Massoud Khodabandeh, Iranian.com
Ramin Abdollahi deceived by the MEK operatives into joining the group about 17 years ago.Since then he have had no contact with his family.
His aging,ailed mother regularly send letters to the international human rights bodies in order to help her contact his beloved son.
her recent letter to the Albania’s PM, reads:
“Mr. Edi Rama, Prime Minister of Albania,
I, as a heartbroken mother, ask you and all the officials of the Government of Albania to accelerate the conditions and help me visit my dear son even just for a few seconds.
Thank you in advance for taking steps to respect human rights.“
Ms. Pampuri, former MP
Greetings and kind regards,
According to a website of the Albania based Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization (MEK, MKO, Rajavi Cult), you have made a speech as an MP (even though you had resigned in 2019) for “the International Online Conference on Freedom and Democracy in Iran” on June 20, 2020, in an online conference held connecting about 2,000 locations around the world.
In your political message you addressed the people of Iran and showed your sympathy for them to the best of your knowledge. However, it appears you are not fully aware of the real situation of the MEK members in your own country, their estranged families and how much suffering they have endured for not having contact between loved ones for decades.
We are mothers of the Rajavi cult members. They are trapped in the MEK camp in Albania with no access to the outside world and they are banned from contacting their families. We wish to bring this painful situation to your attention.
We wish to draw your attention to the cultic practices imposed inside the camp and ask you to learn more about this from former members, the families and the critics of the MEK. If the MEK officials can connect 2000 locations at once, why can’t they arrange for their members to call their families?
The truth is that the MEK, like all other destructive mind control cults, has the following characteristics:
1. Suppressing critical thinking about the leader and the cult by the members, or even by outsiders, in the harshest possible way (no criticism);
2. Isolating members from the outside world, in particular their family and friends (no contact);
3. Penalizing the members for even thinking about leaving (no exit);
4. Seeking inappropriate loyalty to their leaders which means the members are practically the possessions of the leaders Massoud and Maryam Rajavi (modern slavery);
5. Denying the formation of family units (no marriage, no children, no family relations – mothers, fathers, spouses, offspring are considered as the main enemies, even more than the Iranian government);
6. Imposing strict boundaries of behavior (perverting normal emotional responses and spiritual beliefs and denying personal ownership);
7. Perversion from mainstream religious practices and imposing invented cultic doctrines outside actual scripture (under the guise of modern Shiite Islam).
We have just one humanitarian and rightful request. Since you have a close relation with the MEK and Maryam Rajavi, would you kindly act as an intermediary for the families, in particular the elderly mothers, to get in touch with their loved ones so we can at least, in the last days of our lives, hear their voice after the long decades.
Sorayya Abdollahi, on behalf of “Mothers, the forgotten victims of MEK”