Recent suicide attacks in Belgium capital, a park in Pakistan and a stadium in Iraq have resulted in dramatic loss of lives. All attacks were operated by the extremist terrorist suicide bombers who left their own life behind to take the lives of a large number of innocent people.
What makes a person to commit a suicide bombing?
To understand the motives behind suicide bombing many people try to excuse or approve it. It seems easier to assume that suicide bombers are just malicious characters who hate their victims but terrorism is not a simple phenomenon with easy explanations. Actually a wide variety of motives and factors are involved. For analyzing these motives and factors the Mujahedin khalq Organization (the MKO) is a significant example of such terror acts. The group may be one of the first role models of suicide bombers for extremists through the history.
One may also think that suicide bombers are crazy or psychopathic or that they lack moral feelings but most terrorists are not psychologically deviant and do not operate outside the normal rules of behavior, but are instead ordinary people from ordinary backgrounds. A glance at personalities of current and former members of the MKO indicates that the majority of them are from average Iranian families with religious or/ and honorable backgrounds. Most of them are smart, university educated individuals with intellectual tendencies.
Nonetheless, the crucial point about them is that they believe that their violent actions, while somewhat regrettable, are justified and noble. Moreover, their emotional commitment to their cause and their comrades and particularly their leader is revealing of normal human psychology. Often their actions do not ultimately stem from hatred, but rather from love of their leader and from absolute obedience to the orders of the leader. But, how leader can convince such people to commit the most atrocious acts?
In case of the MKO, in better words “the Cult of Rajavi”, the leader Massoud Rajavi manipulated his rank and file with a very complicated methodology of indoctrination. Massoud’s followers were indoctrinated that killing the innocent is inevitable consequence of fighting for the cult’s cause. Members of the cult of Rajavi were manipulated that these missions were the only way to fight for their leader. They were then glorified as martyrs.
Although the realization that MKO terrorists view themselves as soldiers engaged in a just war does not legitimize their cause or methods, it does provide some insight into their motivation. The MKO’s history is overwhelmed with suicide bombings, self-immolations and swallowing cyanide capsules just because these acts were wisely indoctrinated in the minds of members.
After the 1979 revolution in Iran, when the MKO began to fight the newly established Islamic Republic government, the MKO suicide bombers assassinated dozens of the Iranian officials and civilians. The suicide bombers were glorified in the group’s journal as suicide martyrs.
More than two decades later, suicide was repeated in the MKO history in a much more horrifying form: self-immolation. Following the arrest of the group’s co-leader Maryam Rajavi by the French Police, a dozen of the cult followers set themselves on fire in European cities to protest the arrest of the co-leader. These horrific acts in the heart of Europe revealed one important issue: The MKO is a destructive cult of personality. Self-immolators showed that they do not follow their leaders but they worship them. This was the very consequence of Massoud Rajavi’s methodology in his modern slavery.
Today, the IS and other extremist groups should be watched and destroyed but groups like the MKO seems to be more threatening because they freely have bases in Europe with hundreds of brainwashed slaves who are ready to scarify themselves for their leaders despite the group’s propaganda for human rights and democracy.
Mazda Parsi
Mujahedin Khalq Terror group
UN Watch; the Geneva-based NGO invited Mr. Davoud Arshad to its human rights meeting, No to terrorism & Cults website reported.
The meeting held on Tuesday March 15th, 2016 and representatives from most of the countries all over the world participated the meeting.
Mr. Davoud Baghervand Arshad who is the former high ranking member of the Mujahedin-e Khalq terrorist cult participated the meeting.
Mentioning the human rights abuses in the world, Mr. Arshad referred to the human rights abuses within the terrorist cults such as the MKO terror cult under the leadership of Masud and Maryam Rajavi based in Auver Sur d’Oise ; Paris.
Mr. Arshad noted the recent horrifying report published by Guardian Newspaper on how ISIS recruits, indoctrinates and trains children as prospective terrorists and stated:
“At the present time shocking news of ISIS abusing human rights especially children’s rights publishes. Still I should indicate the fact that Mujahedin- e Khalq Organization under the leadership of Masud Rajavi is the godfather of ISIS. The crimes that ISIS is committing in 2016 have already perpetrated by the MKO in 1981.” As an example Mr. Arshad stated the recruiting and brainwashing of a 13 year old girl called “Gohar Adab Awaz”. Gohar was trained by the MKO terror group as a suicide bomber of a mosque in Iran.
“Later on the MKO separated children from their parents forcibly to be grown up and indoctrinated in the cult’s orphanages in Europe and US, as it had already separated spouses. The group’s plan was to use the brainwashed children in Iraq. The MKO killed some of these children who refused to take part in the war. The cult then registered these killings as suicides. To name some I can refer to Alan Mohammadi, Yaser Akbari and Marjan Akbari. Several youngsters were transferred from Europe to Iraq without their parents to be aware of the process. For instance, Zeinab Husseinnejad who as a child was studying in Paris. She was moved to Iraq and is held hostage by the cult now for many years.”
Mr. Arshad then referred to the threat of human rights abuses committed by the terrorist cults as being global in comparison with the human rights abuses in different countries which is restricted to that specific region and its people:
“.. We are all familiar with terrorist cults such as ISIS .. The human rights abuses within the cults can transform humans to monsters who are capable of shaping incidents like that of Paris terrorist attacks or terrorist incidents we are facing with in our country for many years.
We should not compromise with this terrorism which is a global threat. Leaders of these terrorist cults shouldn’t be allowed to reside and be active freely in Europe. They should be brought to justice. They should be held accountable because of the abuses of their own members and because of the crimes and terrorist activities they have committed in their own countries and elsewhere. Like Masud and Maryam Rajavi."
“Ladies and gentlemen currently many friends of mine are held hostages by the terrorist Cult of MKO in Iraq and Albania. They are helpless.” , Mr. Arshad reiterated.
Anne KhodabandehAnne Khodabandeh (Singleton) British journalist, Director of Open Minds cultandterror.com former Mojahedin Khalq activist, says their transfer poses potential risks not only for Albania.
Deutsche Welle: Ms. Khodabandeh you are of the opinion that Albania’s agreement to take a further number of Mojahedin is associated with some risk. The international media talks about another 2,000 more Mojahedin going to Albania. What risk do they pose?
Anne Khodabandeh: There are many other NATO countries where the MEK could have gone, but only Albania agreed to accept the refugees. It would have been much better to have distributed the refugees among several countries instead of leaving Albania to take the whole burden. However, the move is very welcome since these people have to be moved somewhere for their own safety. Now they have a better chance of escaping their past and starting new lives as ordinary civilians.
The actual risk to Albania will be if the MEK is not disbanded as a group. Disbanding means that each refugee should be treated as an individual. They must be de-radicalised and then integrated back into normal society as ordinary citizens with homes and jobs and families. The MEK must not be allowed to re-organise as a quasi-military group. Clearly, Albania is not as strong as western European countries in this respect and so the process will be more difficult. But if it is done, then the country can take full credit for doing something not even the USA or the European Union could achieve.
DW: In one of your articles, you write that this is the relocation of terrorist group into Europe. Do you really think that a terrorist risk to Europe could come from Albania?
AK: It is important to remember that every member of the MEK who is relocated into Albania has been radicalised to the core. They have been undergoing terrorist training for up to thirty years in Iraq. They will not suddenly change just because the MEK name is removed from a list of terrorist groups or if they physically move to another country. They are still terrorists. Many have been highly trained by Saddam Hussein’s former Republican Guards Corps in specialist activities – from bomb making and terrorist strategies, to intelligence gathering and torture. The MEK is credited with inventing the suicide mission back in the 1970s.
DW: What do you think Albania should do?
AK: It would be a mistake for the Albanian authorities to dismiss the MEK as a defunct force simply because many of its members are old or ailing. They may not be a fighting force but they certainly have transferable skills and experience in terrorist training and logistics. These could be very useful to other terrorist organisations. The MEK has people who are experts in money laundry, people trafficking, fraud and corruption.
The location of Albania in the far south east of Europe makes it attractive as a gateway country into Europe. Without scrupulous vigilance the MEK camp could become a staging post for other terrorist leaders and commanders as well as acting as a terrorist training base.
DW: After the Mojahedin was removed from the list of terrorist organisations they could be said to be seen as allies of the Americans as they fought against Saddam Hussein. Is this fact not sufficient to exclude the possibility that they may pose a risk?
AK: The MEK have never been considered as actual allies by any western government. These governments may have benefitted from the MEK’s violent anti-Iran activities and have turned a blind eye to the support given to the group by various interest groups, but the MEK has never had governmental support except from Saddam Hussein. He paid and trained the MEK in terrorism for regime change in Iran. Expert US and EU assessment still regards the MEK as a ‘potential’ threat to Western interests.
DW: It is said that the Mojahedin Khalq helped in the fight against terrorism, why doesn’t the government in Iraq want them in their country?
AK: The MEK, referred to as Saddam’s Private Army, was responsible for the deaths of 25,000 Iraqi citizens, particularly among Kurds in the north and Shia populations in the south. For this reason, the group has many enemies in the country and their safety cannot be guaranteed.
After Saddam’s ouster, the MEK declared itself a friend to the US army and was disarmed. Over several years, Iraq’s security forces have gathered information which shows that the MEK still poses a threat to peace and stability in the country through its active support and help for insurrection forces linked to both Al Qaida and more recently Daesh.
DW: In Albania until now, they have live peacefully. Why could they be a threat to Albania right now?
AK: It is known that the MEK leaders Massoud and Maryam Rajavi are planning to establish a safe haven for themselves in Albania along with the majority of the members. They want to recreate the closed society which they have used elsewhere – in Iraq, North America and Europe – that allows them to operate outside normal legal constraints. In Albania they seek to exploit the relatively weak state of the country’s governmental, security and social institutions in order to establish an extra-judicial enclave of their own.
DW: In Albania the Mojahedin Khalq live as political refugees. As such they are included in the legal framework of the country.
AK: It is not possible to be both a political refugee and a member of a terrorist organisation. At present, because the MEK has not been disbanded, each person who arrives in Albania is still a de facto member of the MEK terrorist group, regardless of the status under which they were transferred. Their refugee status is nullified as long as they are living in MEK accommodation and obeying MEK rules. The Albanian authorities must not ignore the fact that these people are victims of cultic abuse and are living in conditions of modern slavery. No ordinary member is allowed to make independent contact with the outside world. The MEK leaders claim to represent the views and wishes of the entire membership but when they arrived in Albania about 200 of them left. This is something which humanitarian organisations, both international and local, need to urgently address. The MEK must not be allowed to close the doors against the outside world and must not prevent the people transferred from Iraq from contacting their families and the outside world.
DW: You were once a Mojahedin activist. Why did you leave them?
AK: Yes, this happened [recruitment and radicalisation] when I was in university after the Iranian Revolution in 1979. I was young and naiive. They said they were fighting for human rights in Iran, but as I got deeper inside the organisation, I saw the atmosphere of fear and secrecy. I realized they were not fighting to liberate Iran from tyranny, as they claim, but only working to save the leaders. So, I left.
British expert, Anne Khodabendeh, director of the popular online platform cultsandterror.com Open Minds, herself a former activist of the organization the Mujahedin, launched a campaign in 2001 to help the victims of the cult. In 2011 she published the book ‘The Life of Camp Ashraf’, named after the main Iraqi base of the Mojahedin Khalq. Today she works as part of the Prevent Strategy to prevent radicalization and violent extremism in Britain.
The original interview is Albanian which is Translated by Iran Interlink
Mir Bagher Sedaghi
……………….gasse26
2500 Biel/ Bienne
Switzerland
Orthodox Cathedral of Tirana
Rruga Deshmoret e 4 Shkurtit
Tirana 1001, Albania
Your Beatitude,
My name is Mir Bagher Sedaghi, a long serving member of the Mojahedin Khalq cult (aka, MKO, MEK, PMOI, …) who has now left this organization. I have been informed that the Rajavi cult has been trying to organize a meeting in your central church in Tirana under the pretext of “defending the lost rights of women”. I was delighted to hear that due to the whistleblowing of the local media during the last month the governmental officials have intervened and the show has been cancelled.
As a victim of this anti-women and anti-family cult I am happy and thankful to the Albanian officials who have stopped this misuse of Women’s Day.
Your Beatitude,
I have spent nearly 20 years of my life with this cult in Iraq. The cult leaders have denied us the right to marry, and the right to contact our families. My brother Mir Vaghef Sedaghi, who is still trapped in Rajavi cult even though he has now been transferred from Iraq to Albania, has not had any contact with our mother or father for over 27 years.
During the time I have been with Mojahedin Khalq I have witnessed their constant encouragement of violence. Their teachings included how to carry cyanide pills and how to break them in our mouth to kill ourselves and of course trained us how to effectively and efficiently kill others. This is no more than a violent terrorist group which has claimed the lives of thousands of civilians in Iran using indiscriminate bombings and mortar attacks. This is not an organization which would even remotely support the rights of women, even though it is now desperately trying to portray itself as such in your country.
Your Beatitude,
Critics and ex members of this cult know many women who have testified that they have been raped by the cult leader Massoud Rajavi. The related documents are available and many of these women are willing to testify in person in any court of law.
I would ask you to be vigilant and take care not to tarnish the reputation of the good church of Albania by letting these dirty inhuman people misuse it. This cult of course is hated by the majority of Iranians inside and outside Iran.
Other ex-members of this cult, like me, are more than happy to help should the church of Tirana like to know more or to receive documents and evidence.
Yours sincerely,
Mir Bagher Sedaghi,
Switzerland 09,03,2016
Can Albania Meet its Obligations and De-radicalize an Influx of Terrorists into Europe?
Situated on the east of Europe, Albania applied for membership of the European Union in 2009. As the poorest country in Europe and designated the most corrupt, there is a lot of work to be done before this country of 3 million people is accepted into the Union. A recent visit by US Secretary of State John Kerry does indicate that this work is well underway. But Albania’s efforts to reform and strengthen its political, security, judicial and civic institutions after years of dictatorship, could be drastically undermined if the country ignores or underestimates the threat posed by the arrival of the Mojahedin Khalq (MEK) from Iraq.
Albania is the target location for the transfer of the notorious terrorist organization Mojahedin Khalq into Europe. Currently based in Iraq, the MEK is now being transferred to Albania under a deal struck with America in 2013.
Since the 1980s the MEK were paid and trained in terrorism by Saddam Hussein to effect regime change in Iran. After his ouster in 2003 the MEK aligned itself variously with the US army – during Senator Kerry’s visit to Albania, the MEK was described as “a group that has supported the US in military operations in the Middle East and in its fight against terrorism” – as well as former Saddamists headed by Ezzat Ibrahim and more recently Al Qaida insurgents and Daesh in Iraq. Each successive government of the newly sovereign Iraq tried repeatedly to evict the group from their country, but the MEK leader Massoud Rajavi – himself a fugitive from justice – ordered his followers to put up violent resistance.
Even if they would agree to go willingly, the United Nations refugee agency has struggled to find third countries to take them in. It seems that, although Western countries have benefitted openly from the MEK’s sometimes violent anti-Iran activities, and found the group particularly useful as a thorn in Iran’s side through the period of nuclear negotiations, the MEK is deemed too dirty for them to willingly host any of them even as refugees.
In an attempt to encourage other countries to take some of the MEK, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton persuaded the then Albanian Prime Minister Sali Berisha in 2013 to take just over 200 MEK members on humanitarian grounds. That process got underway, but in 2016 Albania is now expected to take up to 3,000 MEK after the President of Romania, Traian Basescu, refused to take them in 2014.
This agreement has attracted surprisingly little attention from either inside Albania or even from a world media sensitive to terrorism and organized crime. The reason is partly because the transfers are taking place in small groups of around twenty at a time in a piecemeal fashion as the UNHCR is forced to defer to Massoud Rajavi’s demands in order to circumvent threats of violence. Rajavi hand-picks the members he allows to be transferred, many using false identities. He ensures that each group of ordinary MEK members is accompanied by minders and enforcers to keep them under control and prevent them breaking loose. In order to accomplish their mandate to remove the MEK from Iraq, UN officials have had to accede to transferring the refugees under such conditions even though it reinforces the concept that the members belong to the MEK in conditions of modern slavery.
Once they arrive in Albania, the MEK leadership takes charge of the transferees. Although the US made a donation of $20 million to the UN refugee agency to help resettle the MEK, and according to a State Department official the US has provided the Albanian government with “security and economic development assistance, to help the country build up its physical capacity to house the refugees”, none of this benefits the individual refugees. In Tirana the MEK has purchased an abandoned university campus into which it has corralled the new arrivals and recreated the conditions of isolation and cultic control which have always prevailed for the membership. What started out as a humanitarian gesture has turned into the mass relocation of a terrorist group to Europe. The MEK has created a de facto enclave in Albania which is outside the law, just as they did in Iraq.
This has put the refugees out of the reach of the Albanian authorities and because they are not free to mingle with Albania’s citizenry, the influx of over a thousand trained terrorists has cleverly avoided detection and therefore controversy.
However, even though it appears that the MEK are somehow quietly contained, the citizens of Albania are entitled to ask whether the new refugees pose any actual threat to their civic life, to their security and to their ambitions to accede to membership of the European Union.
To answer this, we must ask why the Iraqi government is so desperate to expel them and why other Western countries are so extremely reluctant to accept them.
As a violent criminal organization, the MEK thrives where the rule of law is weak – in countries like Iraq and Albania which are emerging from past turmoil and troubles. In such conditions the MEK can be dangerous through criminal activity and violence.
As expert propagandists and manipulative persuaders, the MEK leaders have no problem making connections with and bribing government officials, power brokers and media types – let’s be clear, the MEK has always been well financed. Former MEK have also reported that the MEK leaders are already vigorously pursuing links with Albania’s mafia-like gangs. The MEK will work with these gangs for mutual benefit as they did with Saddam Hussein’s regime. In the long run, if the MEK organization does become established Albania – with the quiet collusion of political circles who benefit from the cult’s track record of terrorism – they will be better placed to do from Tirana what they can’t do from Paris.
The CIA characterizes Albanian corruption as a ‘transnational’ problem involving drugs, money laundering and illegal aliens. In this sense it is the very location of the country which makes it attractive to international criminal organizations and thereby creates huge problems for law enforcement agencies. Albania essentially acts as a gateway into Europe from the rest of the world.
Now, while the various routes to Turkey, Syria and Iraq are under stringent scrutiny, terrorist commanders from any mercenary group can slip beneath the radar and seek training and logistical support in Tirana. What better location to establish a clandestine terrorist training camp than in Albania? It is in Europe, but not in the EU and therefore not so open to scrutiny by the international community.
With the changed political mood following the nuclear deal between Iran and the P5+1, the MEK is looking for new friends and benefactors. The group has already aligned itself with the Syrian Free Army and has offered to help the Saudis fight against the Shias in Yemen. The MEK has over forty years of experience in terrorist activities. The real danger posed by this group is not only that they can re-arm themselves in Albania, but they can invite other groups in for training.
The worry is that the MEK has branched out and is open to do business with any terrorist group.
It is impossible to ignore the fact that MEK members are radicalized to the core. They are not ordinary refugees. Enough of them have been trained in Iraq by the former Saddam regime for terrorist activities as well as forgery, intelligence, military operations and even torture methods, to make them extremely dangerous. Above all, the nature of the MEK leadership style is cultic. This means the followers are not able to resist the orders of the leaders even if they wanted out. So there is a danger they will be used for a variety of criminal activities without their real consent. There are already examples of people trafficked by the MEK from Albania to Western Europe and used for money laundry activities in Germany.
However, the refugees could also be described as extremely vulnerable. Another reason they have not attracted attention is that the MEK can easily be dismissed as a defunct fighting force; the average age of its fighters is sixty years old and many of them are ailing with mental and physical disease after years of punishing training in the Iraqi deserts. But while this is true of the majority, there are still many among them who are expert terrorist recruiters and trainers, people who know how to train others for suicide missions; strangely transferrable skills in today’s world of global terrorism.
Not all the members who arrive in Albania do stay with the MEK. There is a growing community of formers – around two hundred to date – who have turned their back on the group and want to return to their families and to normal life. Interestingly, it is from this pool of former members that the US has carefully selected a quota of eighty individuals to be given asylum in America. They have undergone rigorous interviews to ascertain that they have completely rejected the MEK and so no longer pose any danger. Some others have been accepted by other European countries under the same conditions but the rest remain in Albania under conditions of hardship.
With the stakes set very high, Albania’s authorities will need to stop this organization from covertly establishing a terrorist base in Europe. The first step would be to remove the MEK members from the source of their radicalization. If this doesn’t happen, the problem will simply have been moved instead of being solved.
The authorities in Tirana can ensure that all the newly arrived refugees are treated as individuals, not as belongings of the MEK leader. They should be given protection and helped with accommodation and financial support as people entitled to determine their own future paths. Experience in Iraq has already shown that once these people are physically removed from the coercive atmosphere imposed by the MEK leaders and reinforced by their peers, they very quickly find that their commitment to terrorism evaporates and the de-radicalization process can begin.
De-radicalization is greatly helped when they have contact with their families. There are numerous examples of former MEK who managed to leave the cult and establish new and successful lives. Some now live in various western European countries because they have family there who have been able to help them. Some have returned to Iran – even though Iran doesn’t want them back – where they have been granted amnesty and lead normal lives under the supervision of the UN and ICRC. Some others now live in Iraqi Kurdistan and have transferred their family assets there from Iran there so they can set up in business.
Once they are out of the ‘pressure-cooker’ of the cult their lives can be sorted out through humanitarian organizations. As a Red Cross official told the authors, ‘As individuals, three thousand is nothing, we sort out millions every year. But as a group, neither us nor any other organization can deal with or help them.’ It is a choice the Albanian government cannot ignore, for to do nothing is to risk everything.
Massoud & Anne Khodabandeh
Co-authored by Anne Khodabandeh
PCG Mentioning the Mojahedin-e-Khalq
In 1994 Gerald Flurry, leader of the Philadelphia Church of God, proclaimed Iran to be the King of the South. Ever since PCG has continuously demonized Iran. But PCG has been so hostile to Iran that they have failed to alert their readers about the controversies and disturbing authoritarian behavior of one group opposed to the current governmental in Iran, namely the Mojahedin-e-Khalq.
The Mojahedin-e-Khalq (MEK) was established in Iran as a left wing party dedicated to overthrowing the Shah in 1965. But following the overthrow of the Shah and the rise of Ayatollah Khomeini to power the Mojahedin-e-Khalq, led by Masoud Rajavi and his wife Maryam Rajavi, proceeded to wage an armed insurgency against Iran from 1981 onward. According to Iran’s Press TV the Mojahedin-e-Khalq killed 12,000 people during the course of their armed insurgency to overthrow the government.
Over time the organization also became well known for authoritarian behavior imposed upon their members causing many observers to describe them as being like a cult. Noted anti-cult author Steven Hassan mentions the Mojahedin-e-Khalq on his website. According to one ex-member in 1990 Masoud Rajavi ordered MEK members to divorce their spouses.
The US State Department regarded the Mojahedin-e-Khalq as a terrorist organization from October 8, 1997 till September 28, 2012.
These unsavory facts about MEK are not to be found in PCG’s writings aside from one vague reference to them as a "radical group" dating from 2014 that does not mention any of the specific troubling facts surrounding MEK.
Below we see PCG mentioning the Mojahedin-e-Khalq. It is described as an "opposition party". In one September 13, 2008 article it is even mentioned that Iran regards MEK as a terrorist organization and it is not mentioned that at that time the US State Department also listed MEK as a terrorist organization. With just one unusual exception MEK tends to be portrayed quite favorably by PCG’s leaders.
***[..]
On September 28, 2012 US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton removed the US State Department’s designation of the Mojahedin-e-Khalq as a terrorist organization. Since then the Mojahedin-e-Khalq is no longer viewed by the US State Department in that way. But PCG has never mentioned that it was ever viewed that way by the US government in their writings. [..]
But while PCG tended to portray the Mojahedin-e-Khalq sympathetically and sometimes even as an authority that can be trusted regarding Iran’s alleged moves in August 2014 PCG’s Robert Morley mentioned MEK in an unflattering way as a "radical group" and compared them with "Hamas, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, ISIS, Tamil Tigers [and] Babbar Khalsa". He mentioned them while scare mongering about protests in Canada concerning the war in Gaza in 2014.
“How long before Hamas, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, ISIS, Tamil Tigers, Babbar Khalsa, Mojahedin-e-Khalq and other radical groups’ family members introduce jihad to Canada? (Robert Morley, ‘Kill the Jews’ in Canada, August 7, 2014.)”
And so it may be seen that PCG has tended to portray the Mojahedin-e-Khalq quite favorably. PCG’s readers are ill served by not being informed of the facts surrounding this organization.
Living Armstrongism weblog, Posted by Redfox712,
Elimination Projects in the MKO – Mehdi Eftekhari
“Stalin killed over fifty members of the soviet communist party who opposed his plans for reform in one night and nothing happened,” asserted Massoud Rajavi in a public meeting inside the Mujahedin Khalq. This way, he justifies the removal of each and every person who disagrees with him.
Mehdi Eftekhari (commandant Fathollah) was one of the key members of the MKO’s central committee and its political office. He was the group’s top military commandant who operated certain terrorist acts of the MKO against the Islamic Republic. He was the one who managed Rajavi’s flight to flee Iran for Paris but three decades later, he was demoted to growing vegetables in a his small garden in the corner of Camp Ashraf. Rajavi eliminated all those high-ranking members of the MKO with whom he shared his rank. Since then, he became the absolute power of the cult.
Mehdi Eftekhari was an active member of the MKO who lost his first wife in the group’s disastrous operation against Iran, the “Eternal Light”. Then, Massoud Rajavi ordered him to marry another female member of the group but not so long after the second marriage, he was forced to divorce his wife. This was an organizational order to the entire members of the group, who according to Massoud were not enough dedicated to the group’s cause and because of that they were responsible for the failure of the Eternal Light! Through his so-called Ideological Revolutuon, Massouid forbid marriage and made celibacy mandatory. Practically he turned the group into a cult.
According to a defector’s weblog, bandrajavi.blogfa, Massoud Rajavi made all members sign a bond under this title “we have no exit”. In the meeting, Massoud threatened his rank and file, “those who want to leave will be faced with the iron fist!”. However, Mehdi Eftehkhari expressed his determination to leave the group. “I want to leave the organization, what should I do?” he asked Massoud Rajavi. Eventually, Mehdi was summoned to the scene by Rajavi who was awfully angry with him. Rajavi humiliated him in front of his lower ranks in the hall severely.
Based on several articles and testimonies of MKO defectors, he was then under the sever peer pressure in the group’s meetings. Certain defectors remember a meeting in 1991, in which Massoud Rajavi suppressed Eftekhari accusing him of different charges, verbally abusing him…but Mehdi’s reaction was silence!
Since then Commandant Fathollah turned into a depressed and isolated walking dead! He suffered the constant suppression and peer pressure in the group’s indoctrination sessions. He was diagnosed with cancer but he did not receive proper medical treatment. He died in Camp Ashraf in 2011.
The second part of the series on the assassinations committed by the MKO authorities, contains the elimination of another high-ranking member of the group named “Mehdi Katiraei” whose pseudonym was “commandant Sasan”.
Former member of the MKO, Mohammad Karami introduced Mehdi Katiraei in his interview with Mardom TV: “He was the deputy commandant of the June 20th protest which marks the start of the MKO’s armed struggle against Islamic Republic. He was then in charge of training partisans in Iraqi Kurdistan.”
After the so-called ideological revolution that turned the MKO into a destructive cult, Katiraei was a member of the group’s political office. Like Ali Zarkesh, he was opposed to the establishment of the National Liberation Army. “He was strictly against the establishment of the NLA so Massoud Rajavi was very angry with him,” says Mohammad Karami.” Because of his critics against the group’s strategy, he was demoted to rank and files.”
Then, Mehdi was brought to trial and sentenced to death by Massoud. He was imprisoned in the SouthWestern side of Camp Ashraf. Later, Massoud Rajavi launched his Eternal Light operation against Iran. It was a great opportunity for him to get rid of dissatisfied members such as Ali Zarkesh, Majid Hariri, Mehdi Katiraei and many others.
During that catastrophic operation, Mehdi was shot to death from behind.
In a dictatorship maintaining of absolute power requires one important action: elimination of opponents. As a totalitarian cult of personality, the Mujahedin Khalq Organizaion (the MKO) could not survive for over three decades without eliminating the opponents and critics inside the group. According to various reports and testimonies, there have been numerous cases of assassination of dissident members of the Cult of Rajavi. Some of these assassinations were then reported by the group’s media as suicide or even martyrdom.
These series of editorials will cover certain cases of internal eliminations in the MKO which are more significant in the group’s history and have been confirmed by several witnesses although there must be many more secret murders in the cult that few people might know about them.
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Ali Zarkesh Yazdi in prison before revolutions |
Ali Zarkesh might be the most important figure in the MKO whose removal from the group has been very controversial. Ali Zarkesh was the second person of the MKO and actually Massoud Rajavi’s rival. In 1986 Zarkesh was sentenced to death penalty by Massoud and Maryam Rajavi.
. Mohammad Hossein Sobhani, former member of the MKO, wrote a book on his life in the MKO, titled “Dark Days of Baghdad” in which he recounts the case of Ali Zarkesh in details. According to the book, Zarkesh’s death sentence was then reduced to imprisonment.
As Massoud Rajavi wrote in a letter to one of the group’s high-ranking member, Saeed Shahsavandi, Zarkesh was punished because he had “repositioned”! What kind of repositioning deserves death punishment?
Based on the testimonies of former members the answer was never revealed. But again based on facts witnessed by former members, Zarkesh criticizes Massoud Rajavi’s armed struggle policy for it doesnot result in the overthrow of the Islamic Republic. He is against the establishment of the so-called National Liberation Army (Saddam’s Private Army) because he sees it as a mistaken failed strategy.
Despite his opposition against military invasion, Ali Zarkesh is treated as an ordinary soldier in the MKO’s military operation across Iranian borders “Eternal Light” (Forough Javidan). He is simply killed in that disastrous operation in which a large number of the group forces were sent to death.
Last week, we reported that Howard Dean, former presidential candidate and current supporter of Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, had attacked Bernie Sanders for supporting a single-payer health plan, claiming that having the government pay for everyone’s health care would “undo people’s health care” and result in “chaos.” In our story, we noted that Dean, once a proponent of single-payer, now works for the lobbying practice of Dentons, a law firm retained to lobby on behalf of a number of pharmaceutical and for-profit health care interests.
In response, Dean tweeted: “I continue to support Single pay or [sic] and I do not Lobby.”
He tweeted the next day: “The Intercept=The Daily Caller of the left. Same propaganda techniques.”
Dean did not respond to multiple requests for comment. Dentons’ director of communications, Bennett Kleinberg, wrote to us to say, “Howard Dean is a senior advisor with Dentons in our Public Policy and Regulation practice. However, he is not a registered lobbyist and does not lobby public officials on behalf of clients of the Firm.”
Since joining the lobbying industry, Dean has oddly argued on multiple occasions that he does “not lobby.” But he engages in virtually every lobbying activity imaginable, helping corporate interests reach out to lawmakers on legislation, advising them on political strategy, and using his credibility as a former liberal lion to build public support on behalf of his lobby firm clients.
In his new career, he has helped drug companies maintain monopoly power, reversed his old positions on Medicare prices, and worked to undermine a critical component of the Affordable Care Act. Though known for his anti-war rhetoric in 2004, Dean has accepted money from Mojahedin-e Khalq, an extremist group seeking regime change in Iran and has criticized President Obama’s negotiations with Iran.
The fact that Dean is not a registered lobbyist reflects a distinction that is largely meaningless in today’s Washington. Thousands of other professionals in the lobbying business have either never registered or de-registered and lobby registration law has almost never been enforced. Newt Gingrich, who was widely criticized in 2011 for acting as a lobbyist for various clients without registering, was hired last year by Dentons’ lobbying practice, where he works closely with Dean to consult with clients on political strategy. As Legal Times reported, the Dean-Gingrich team is now a selling point for Dentons as the “pair aims to become another Washington-based bipartisan tag team who can act as political soothsayers for whichever corporate clients call upon them.”
Helping keep drugs expensive
In 2009, Dean joined the lobbying division of the law firm McKenna Long & Aldridge LLP, which represents a number of health care interests. Through the firm, he was retained that year to work for Biotechnology Industry Organization, or BIO, a lobbying group for biotech and pharmaceutical companies.
After being retained by BIO, Dean authored an opinion column for The Hill newspaper arguing in support of a bill backed by his client that called for extending the exclusivity period for drugs made from living organisms, such as vaccines or Herceptin/trastuzumab, a treatment for breast cancer.
Dean claimed in the piece that a “commonsense and fair approach, similar to the process and timeline currently in place for generic versions of chemical-based medicines, would allow the original developer of the biologic to protect the proprietary data used to develop the medicine for at least 12 years.”
Dean’s call for extending the exclusivity period for biologics — a move that would boost prices for life-saving drugs — shocked patient and consumer advocates. Dean did not initially disclose that he was working for BIO in his column, although The Hill later updated his byline to note that Dean’s law firm represented biotech companies.
The inside story of Dean’s work for the biotech lobby was revealed in an article by BioCentury, a trade publication. According to the report, Dean and his former campaign manager Joe Trippi were hired by BIO to help move forward the biologic legislation backed by the industry. Jim Greenwood, the president of BIO, told BioCentury that Dean was brought on to help with messaging, strategy, and even to contact lawmakers on Capitol Hill on behalf of the industry. BIO made clear that Dean was hired specifically for his reputation as a liberal. “As a physician clearly focused on health care, a Democrat leader and clearly to left of center, his efforts were impactful,” Greenwood said.
Dean defended his efforts to BioCentury by saying, “I do not lobby.”
In the end, a version of the biologic legislation was folded into the Affordable Care Act.
“Howard Dean navigated around the lobbying rules to push Democrats to back big drug companies on the term of the monopoly for biologic drugs,” said Jamie Love, the director of Knowledge Ecology International, a nonprofit organization that addresses human rights aspects of intellectual property rights and medical innovation. “His ‘trust me, I’m a doctor’ routine was worth billions to Roche and the other companies he represented on this. Now it is very hard to undo the damage.”
Screen grab of Dentons’ website with Howard Dean’s bio.
Photo: Dentons.com
Bashing PhRMA, then parroting it
On the 2004 campaign trail, Dean criticized the role of health care lobbyists in setting prescription drug policies, such as the deal engineered by drug companies that prevents Medicare from using its bargaining power as the Veterans Administration does to negotiate for lower drug prices. Such a change would save over $116 billion over 10 years. Dean told the Associated Press: “As president, a high and early legislative priority of my new administration would be to improve the prescription drug benefit to create one that is affordable, federally administered, and for all of America’s seniors; uses the government’s buying power on behalf of 41 million seniors to negotiate and drive down drug prices; contains meaningful cost containment including reimportation of safe, effective medicines.”
But Dean, whose new employer, Dentons, represents the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, the powerful drug lobby group known as PhRMA, has now changed his tune. During a discussion with Gingrich last year, Dean reversed his position and said he is now against allowing Medicare to bargain for lower drug prices. Dean told the audience that some expensive drugs, like those used to treat hepatitis C, could eventually save money long term, a claim Inside Health Policy noted closely echoed drugmakers’ arguments.
In September of last year, Dean took his newfound love of drug companies to the pages of the New York Times. In a letter to the editor opposing an op-ed that proposed to allow Medicare to bargain for cheaper prices, Dean wrote that “schemes to launch a federal attack on one of the last growing, innovative industries in America are in the long run counterproductive for both job creation and, more important, for the health of human beings around the world.”
Working to undermine Obamacare
In 2013, Dean again surprised health care advocates by publishing a Wall Street Journal opinion column criticizing a key component of the Affordable Care Act: the Independent Payment Advisory Board, also known as IPAB. The board is designed to allow a group of experts to make recommendations on how Medicare can save money, but only in ways that do not reduce benefits and low-income subsidies or raise premiums. Dean, repeating GOP arguments against the board, called IPAB “essentially a health-care rationing body,” and he said it should be repealed.
Health policy experts reacted furiously. The New Republic writer Jonathan Cohn noted that it was quite puzzling that Dean, supposedly a supporter of government programs designed to use evidence-based approaches to set provider payment rates, would suddenly decide to oppose IPAB. “Or maybe it’s not so strange to hear Dean say this,” Cohn wrote. “Since his career in politics ended, Dean has found a home in the K Street establishment he once held in such disdain.”
“Shame on Howard Dean,” wrote economist J. Bradford DeLong, who noted that it appears as though Dean was “being mendacious to try to protect the profits of the clients of McKenna Long & Aldridge.”
Dean conceded to Time that his firm has clients that oppose IPAB, but refused to disclose them.
And in December 2009, as the Affordable Care Act nearly died as conservative opposition grew to a fever pitch and Democratic leaders struggled to find enough votes to move it forward, Dean appeared on national network news programs to call for President Obama to scrap the legislation and start over, a process that would have doomed any chance for health care reform.
Paid by Iranian extremist group, bashing Iran negotiations
The Mojahedin-e Khalq, an exiled Iranian group that has attempted for years to overthrow the government of Iran, paid Dean to help in its campaign to be delisted as a U.S.-recognized terrorist group. In 2011, the Wall Street Journal reported that Dean was receiving speaking fees from the group. Around that time, Dean began vociferously arguing on behalf of the MEK, even though he conceded that he had known little about the group before joining its cause.
That year, Dean traveled along with other paid MEK supporters, including Rudy Giuliani, to appear in Berlin with the group and demand that Western nations recognize the MEK leader Maryam Rajavi as the president of Iran. In addition to carrying out a campaign of terrorism against Iran, the MEK helped Saddam Hussein after the Gulf War crush rebellions in Iraq’s Shiite and Kurdish communities. “Take the Kurds under your tanks, and save your bullets for the Iranian Revolutionary Guards,” Rajavi once said.
In 2014, Dean came out against President Obama’s policy of engagement with Iran, declaring that the U.S. negotiations failed to account for the interests of the MEK. (Dean even spoke on Capitol Hill on behalf of an MEK-affiliated group, which posted the video online.) Last year, Dean continued to advocate against a nuclear accord with Iran, calling Secretary of State John Kerry and Obama “far, far too eager for a deal with Iran.”
Dean’s success on the other side of the revolving door rests in part on his credibility as a left-wing icon. And yet, despite his fiery rhetoric on the campaign trail in 2003, Dean by most accounts governed Vermont as a business-friendly, moderate Democrat. Even his record on single-payer is far less supportive than what he has attempted to project.
In 1991, as the lieutenant governor of Vermont, Dean testified in support of single-payer. But as governor, he quickly backtracked, claiming that single-payer would be too expensive for the state.
John McClaughry, Dean’s Republican opponent for governor during the 1991 election, recalls that Dean continually shifted the goal posts for single-payer. “I don’t know that Howard has any fixed principles about this issue — it’s what sells at the moment,” McClaughry said.
Dean’s evolution as a politician is discussed at length during the first Huffington Post podcast Candidate Confessional. During the interview, Dean explains that he knew well before the infamous post-Iowa caucus scream that he had little chance of becoming president as an insurrectionist populist. He yearned to be regarded as a serious, establishment-friendly politician, but was too slow in making the transition as a candidate.
“I couldn’t make the turn to become an establishment candidate,” he lamented.
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Lee Fang, the intercept