No Mather dead or alive, Massoud Rajavi is politically dead
Massoud Rajavi disappeared in 2003
The last time Rajavi was heard of was in 2003 when he issued a statement on Ashura Day. Since then, no video of him has appeared.
There have been numerous accounts about Massoud Rajavi’s destiny. But what is very significant about him is that he disappeared just in the most critical situation. He disappeared after the US invasion but the most iconic event at that time was the arrest of Maryam Rajavi by French Police and the fall of Saddam Hussein as the main financial and military supporter of the group.
Occasionally the group publishes statements under the came of Massoud Rajavi.
The MKO’s propaganda might be seeking to maintain the sacred figure they have always portrayed for Massoud Rajavi, according to critics, because after the US invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the coincident disappearance of Massoud Rajavi, many criticized him for leaving his members in danger and escaping to save his own life.
The fact is that nobody outside the MEK really cares whether Rajavi is dead or alive.
Maryam Rajavi tries to cover her violence under benevolent gestures but the Iranian people’s hatred returns the path of the bullet against herself
“Massoud’s generation“is a title Maryam Rajavi gives to those members of the Mujahedin Khalq Organization (the MKO/ MEK/ PMOI/ Cult of Rajavi) who originally joined the group before the 1979 revolution up to 1985 when recruitment methods of the group changed. The average age of these people is between sixty to seventy years old now.
Ann Singleton the British former member of the MEK is the author of”Saddam’s Private Army”, a book on the Cult of Rajavi. In 2003 when the group was in Camp Ashraf, Iraq, the writer believed that Massoud’s generation makes it impossible to regard Mojahedin as an ordinary fighting force.”Certainly, it is not a force which can take on Iranian armed forces,”Singleton writes in the book.”However, it is a force which is prepared to sacrifice itself in such a way that makes it just as useful to Rajavi in the long term. These members are in”to the end”. For them ordinary life has no attraction or meaning. Indeed, one of the Mojahedin’s pejorative terms about their supporters is that they are ‘ordinary people’.”
Elizabeth Rubin the author of the famous article on the New York Times Magazine,”The Cult of Rajavi“, presents an evidence of what Singlton says. She writes of a woman in Camp Ashraf as”one of the most disturbing encounters“she had in Ashraf. She visited Mahnaz Bazazi, a commander who had been with the Mujahedeen for 25 years up to 2003.
“I met her in the Ashraf hospital,”Rubin writes.”Bazazi was probably on drugs, but that didn’t explain the natural intoxication she was radiating, despite — or perhaps because — she had just had her legs amputated after an American missile slammed into the warehouse she was guarding. The doctor told me he never heard her complain.
”Even in this way, she’s confronting the Mullahs,” he said. Bazazi interrupted him. ”This is not me personally,” she said in a soft high voice. ”These are the ideas of the Mujahedeen. It’s true I lost my legs, but my struggle will continue because I have a wish — the freedom of my country.” At the foot of her bed, surrounded by candles, stood a large framed photograph of Maryam in a white dress and blue flowered head scarf.”
Ann Singleton accurately explains this allegedly extraordinary situation.”Members of the Mojahedin exude a kind of attractive purity and intensity of purpose, which on the surface appears as a deep personal confidence and conviction,”she asserts.”Their behaviour however is the result of having lost all their inhibitions and having no personal responsibility for anything or toward anyone beyond obedience to Rajavi. Their existence is completely outside what is recognizable as normal experience. The normal values which govern any society, have no meaning for the Mojahedin. The values of honesty, truth, independent thought, freedom of action to name but a few, have no meaning here.”
However, a large number of the so-called generation of Massoud turned out to be ordinary people with ordinary ambitions and values. The Cult-like structure of the group was not so successful in keeping them all in. Many of the early members left the group in recent decades although the majority of defectors still consists of those who were deceitfully recruited as war prisoners or young Iranian job seekers in Turkey.
Saeed Shahsavandi, Ali Rastgoo, GhobanAli Hosseinnezhad, Hadi Shams Haeri, Hamed Sarrafpour, Mohammad Hossein Sobhani, Mohammad Razaghi, Masoud Khodabandeh, Ebrahim Khodabandeh, Mehdi Khoshhal, Mohammad Karami, Esmaeel Vafa Yaghmai are just some of the so-called generation who left the group and as soon as they entered the free world they began denouncing the group’s oppressive structure. Somewhere in the path, they started doubting Massoud Rajavi’s indoctrinations and quit. The glamorous portrait of Massoud and Maryam Rajavi shattered in their minds.
Sooner or later this will happen to the other members of the Mujahedin Khalq. Seemingly, Massoud generation is eating Massoud!
By Mazda Parsi
MEK elderlies from nursing home, sick and tired of freeing Iran
Maryam Rajavi, countdown of her rule and Ashraf
Facebook has taken down a number of “deceptive campaigns” and networks including one from Albania.
In a statement published on their website, Facebook said they had investigated and disrupted a “long-running operation from Albania that targeted primarily Iran.”
They observed that while the network had limited success in gaining any kind of meaningful audience, it was run by “what appears to be a tightly organized troll farm linked to an exiled militant opposition group from Iran, Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK).”
During March alone, they removed 128 accounts, 41 pages, 21 groups, and 146 Instagram accounts based in the country. They had some 121,000 combined followers.
Facebook said these accounts were targeting “global audiences including Iran.”
“The network violated our policy against foreign interference which is coordinated inauthentic behavior on behalf of a foreign entity,” they wrote in their in-depth report.
As a part of their investigation into the network, Facebook said they found “three separate clusters of activity” that included the consistent and long-running connection between fake and authentic accounts of MEK individuals and pages, all of which were operating from within Albania.
They said the network was most active in 2017 but experienced a spike in the second half of 2020. Despite posting at “high volumes”, they mostly failed to gain a following.
“This campaign appeared to operate according to a shift pattern on Central European Time with a dip in activity in the early afternoon consistent with a lunch break, and a nearly complete pause overnight.
The individuals involved posted MEK-related content on their, and others posts. They included links to international media sites and to sites affiliated with the MEK. Facebook found that they exclusively talked about Iran and “routinely praised the activity of MEK and its leaders and criticized the Iranian government.”
In terms of the technical infrastructure, Facebook said most accounts were run from Albania who shared the same network. This meant the same individual could run muliple accounts. Facebook said these were “some of the hallmarks of a so-called troll farm”.
The report said that many of the accounts used pictures of deceased dissidents, Iranian celebrities, models, and even children. Some had even used photos that appeared to be generated using machine learning techniques.
It was noted that the operation put significant effort into driving traffic to sites run by or associated with MEK including their official website and other sites linked to the organization.
The National Council for Resistance in Iran, an organization that includes MEK, issued a statement to the media denying that any accounts affiliated with MEK have been removed. They also denied that there was a troll farm in Albania affiliated with them in any way.
In 2019, an Exit was able to visit the MEK compound in Manez near Durres. You can read the account of the visit here.
by Alice Taylor – exit.al
SAN FRANCISCO — Facebook said Tuesday it has removed hundreds of fake accounts linked to an Iranian exile group and a troll farm in Albania.
The accounts posted content critical of Iran’s government and supportive of Mujahedeen-e-Khalq, a dissident group known as MEK. In many cases, the Facebook and Instagram accounts used fake profile names and photos.
Facebook FB, -0.86% determined the accounts were being run from a single location in Albania by a group of individuals working on behalf of MEK. Facebook found other telltale clues suggesting a so-called troll farm, in which workers are paid to post content, often misinformation, to social media.
For one, researchers found that the activity seemed to follow the central European workday, with posts picking up after 9 a.m., slowing down at the end of the day, and with a noticeable pause at lunch time.
“Even trolls need to eat,” Ben Nimmo, who leads Facebook’s global threat intelligence operation, told reporters on a conference call Tuesday.
MEK is a leading group opposing the Iranian government. It killed Americans before the 1979 Islamic Revolution and was labeled as a terrorist organization by the State Department until 2012. Nevertheless, U.S. politicians from both parties including Rudy Giuliani and Newt Gingrich have given paid speeches to MEK in the past.
The network of fake accounts was most active in 2017 and again in late 2020, Facebook said. In all, more than 300 accounts, pages and groups on Facebook and Instagram were removed as part of the company’s action. Around 112,000 people followed one or more of the Instagram accounts.
In some cases, the fake accounts used photos of Iranian celebrities or deceased dissidents. A small number of the more recent Instagram accounts appear to have used profile pictures that were computer generated.
Facebook has removed hundreds of fake accounts linked to an Iranian exile group and a troll farm in Albania.
The accounts posted content critical of Iran’s government and supportive of Mujahedeen-e-Khalq, a dissident group known as MEK. In many cases, the Facebook and Instagram accounts used fake profile names and photos.
Facebook determined the accounts were being run from a single location in Albania by a group working on behalf of MEK.
MEK members working in the ‘ troll factory’ in Manez Camp, Albania
Facebook found other telltale clues suggesting a troll farm, in which workers are paid to post content, often misinformation, to social media.
For one, researchers found that the activity seemed to follow the central European workday, with posts picking up after 9am, slowing down at the end of the day, and with a noticeable pause at lunchtime.
MEK is a leading group opposing the Iranian government. It killed Americans before the 1979 Islamic Revolution and was labelled as a terrorist organisation by the US State Department until 2012.
The network of fake accounts was most active in 2017 and again in late 2020, Facebook said. In all, more than 300 accounts, pages and groups on Facebook and Instagram were removed as part of the company’s action.
About 112,000 people followed one or more of the Instagram accounts.
7news.com
led by Maryam Rajavi, the Organization (MKO) is going through a very difficult situation that can be called the post-Trump period. On the other hand, the Corona virus is killing the members of this group one after another, while the wishes of Maryam Rajavi, John Bolton and their former leader Donald Trump, to celebrate the overthrow of the Iranian government in Tehran’s Azadi Square have faded.
With rising of criticism and dissatisfaction among the MKO members concerning its leadership, a number of them have recently split from the group; an issue that has been admitted by the MKO ringleaders.
The group’s commander knows that the situation differs from what they experienced in in Iraq, where they were supported for many years by Saddam Hussein’s regime. They know very well that space is much freer in Albania, and they cannot control their members as easily as they did in Iraq. The issue of controlling the members who lived in this dark tunnel for 40 years and are now seeking freedom and exit has become a problem for Maryam Rajavi and her companions.
Therefore, the continuous contradictions and the gradual death that has overshadowed Rajavi’s group, has entered its final stage with the collapse of Trump. Maryam Rajavi is well aware that the policy of deception, lying and brainwashing, which were carried out by her missing husband and then by herself is no longer useful to persuade the members of the group to stay.
Rajavi sought to prevent separation of the group’s members by this deception that the government in Iran would be overthrown by entering of Trump to the White House. She had promised her members that this goal would be achieved if they used all their best. In the same way, Rajavi’s husband used to force the members to work eighteen hours a day in order to deprive them of the opportunity to think about their future.
At the end, nothing new was happened. The analysis and prediction of Maryam Rajavi and some of her American supporters was nothing but an illusion. For this reason, the leadership of this Iranian group has difficulty in convincing its members to stay. In the time of Saddam Hussein and with his support for Massoud Rajavi, members could be somehow controlled, but now it is very difficult for Rajavi to act in the heart of Europe, and to be able to deceive the members of the group as before.
By Ahmad Jafar Alsaedi – Translated by Habilian