An Iranian parliamentarian said Friday that the European Union (EU) delisted the terrorist Mojahedeen Khalq Organization (MKO) only to exploit it in line with its own interests. Member of Majlis National Security and Foreign Policy Commission Javad Jahangirzadeh said the members of the terrorist MKO will continue to serve their new European masters just the way they did for the toppled Saddam Hussein in Iraq for a long time.
He said the MKO members will certainly try to stir unrest and make anti-revolutionary moves inside Iran but to no avail.
He predicted that soon the EU will brand the grouplet as a freedom-fighter and try to increase its support for it.
The parliamentarian termed the EU move in removing the MKO from its list of terrorist organizations as an explicit gesture of animosity with Iran.
Noting that the Europeans, too, like Iranian nation, detested the terrorist grouplet, Jahangirzadeh said delisting MKO stands in strong contrast with Europe’s claims of supporting human rights.
He opined that the EU made the decision under influence of the US and Zionist lobbies.
The People’s Mujahideen of Iran (PMOI alias, aka MKO, alias or NRCI) have been removed from the list of organizations considered terrorist by the
European Union. Just when the U.S. confirmed on their own … who can understand.
It is true that the decision to withdraw from the European list is motivated solely on technical issues and form such aspects of rights of defense.
But now, France has appealed this decision and the Belgian Minister of Foreign Affairs reiterated that for it, PMOI did have its place on this list.
Moreover, the text that was adopted makes it clear that several countries among the 27 "are not convinced that the Mujahedin were away from terrorism". It will be recalled that the process of withdrawal, the Swiss and the French had launched new accusations against PMOI.
It is therefore likely that PMOI will return to this famous list in July. Unfortunately, in the meantime, it has had time to recover the many assets it owns and those it had received from Saddam Hussein as a salary for being executive of his dirty works …
Pulling out the fangs of a viper is much safer than pressing the venom out of it every day. But even the vendors of the venom that keep and feed it to make fortune out of it are cautious enough to protect against its mortal bite by keeping it away in a safe box. A deadly viper pretending to be lying dormant, Mojahedin Khalq Organization (MKO) suddenly went rampant just when the Iranian people tried to recover from the wreaks of a revolution and had just engaged in fending off the invasion of a greedy neighbor. It emptied all its venom into the nation and inflicted irreparable damages to the same people who had feed it.
And just when it was being hunted for to pull out its fangs, it escaped away to be cared by the advocates of democracy who were, of course, concerned a lot about the rights of animals. Soon it was passed to anther monster that provided for its shelter and food to extract voluminous amounts of venom to be used against both Iranian and Iraqi people. Nobody doubts how dangerously the viper has been crawling about after its escape from Iran inflicting harm by ejecting out its venom while taking shelter in the arms of its protectors who know well that it can neither be tamed nor controlled as it is a matter of nature rather than training and instruction.
The list of terrorist organizations that for some time worked as a secure cage to repulse its possible offenses against themselves was suddenly opened to take it out. Does it mean that they intend to pull out its fangs or use it to bully Iranian regime to achieve their own interests? At least they have come to know that Iranian people are waiting with shovels at the door for the vipers unless they are fangless. It is a rule that old and harmless creatures are pitied everywhere in the world.
It is best recommended that they draw the fangs out of the adders to let them free; for sure it will make the world more secure. Some believe that the howl of a toothless wolf has the magic of lullaby causing a calm, deep sleep. It won’t take long to see how wise the viper-keepers have been!
by Mahin Tajimalek
many years, the roughly 3,500 members of the Iranian dissident group Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK) living quietly in Iraq drew little attention. But now the
relatively obscure group is at the center of an increasingly contentious argument among leaders in Baghdad, Tehran and Washington, where decisions the new White House makes about the rebels will probably set the tone for U.S. relations with Iran in the near term.
The simmering issue of the MEK’s fate flashed into the open earlier this month when Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki unexpectedly declared that the group would no longer be allowed to remain in Iraq. Shortly after that, Maliki’s national security adviser, Muwaffaq al-Rubaie, said the MEK’s camp roughly 40 miles north of Baghdad would be disbanded within two months, declaring during an appearance in Tehran that Iraq would not play host to threats toward its neighbor.
The issue grew more complicated on Jan. 26, when the European Union removed the MEK from its list of terrorist organizations, a roster that includes organizations such as Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). The E.U. move, which came after a long lobbying campaign by the MEK’s supporters in Europe, sparked an outcry in Tehran. About 300 people were gathered around noon on Wednesday in front of the British Embassy in Tehran to protest the E.U. decision. Some in the crowd threw stones at the embassy, while others held up shoes on sticks in a show of deep disrespect in the Middle East.
"What people side with the enemy and kill their own people in a war?" said demonstrator Sina Zamanian, 17, referring to the MEK’s alliance with Saddam Hussein during the Iran-Iraq war, which led them to settle in Iraq. "They are the worst kind of opportunistic terrorists and should be forever marked as such."
Nevertheless, some in Baghdad are calling for the group to be allowed to remain in Iraq, or at least to not be turned over to Iran, for political reasons. "We have to deal with this issue very delicately," says Ayad Jamal al-Deen, an Iraqi parliamentarian aligned with Shi’ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. "I’m not here to defend this organization. I have no interest in them. But I am looking out for the Iraqi national interest." Al-Deen and other Iraqi political figures see the group essentially as a bargaining chip with Iran, one of the few Iraq holds against its powerful neighbor. They argue that simply shuttering the MEK camp as Iran demands squanders what precious little leverage Iraq has against Iran. Al-Deen adds, "In my opinion, Iraq has only this card, MEK, to pressure Iran."
At the moment, however, the MEK’s ability to remain in Iraq depends on the will of the Americans. The Bush White House continued to use the military to protect the MEK at Camp Ashraf despite its current status as a terrorist organization on the U.S. list and periodic complaints by the emerging Iraqi government and Tehran, which says the group is still involved in subversive activity inside Iran. Outwardly, U.S. officials have said disbanding the camp would be in contravention of international humanitarian law because the group’s members are likely to face persecution in Iran or Iraq. But many Iraqis and Iranians suspect that the U.S. keeps the camp open for intelligence purposes, since the MEK’s spy network played a key role in uncovering Iran’s secret uranium-enrichment program in 2002.
Maliki appears intent on pressing the issue anew with the Obama Administration, which will have to decide soon whether to keep offering U.S. protection to the group or to yield to Iraqi demands to close Camp Ashraf. If the White House allows the Iraqi government to close the camp, the Iranian leadership is likely to see the move as a sign that the new Administration is eager to ease tensions between Washington and Tehran. A continuation of the status quo, however, could chill Obama’s early outreach efforts.
At Camp Ashraf, MEK members simply wait for word on what may happen to them as discussions continue in Baghdad, Tehran and Washington. Shahriar Kia, a spokesman for the group, says a closure of the camp would be a disaster for those living in what amounts to a protective quarantine for roughly the past seven years. "Closing down Camp Ashraf and the displacement of its residents, who are protected by the Geneva Conventions, against their will is a war crime," says Kia. "This will cause a humanitarian catastrophe."
— With reporting by Tariq Anmar in Baghdad
By Mark Kukis / Baghdad
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1875917,00.html
Who is MEHDI ABRISHAMCHI?
MR.ABRISHAMCHI is the second important personality in the male command section after MASSOUD RAJAVI in PMOI. He is one of the long time members of PMOI with more than thirty years record of service and partnership in this organization. He had spent many years in SHAH’s prison during shah’s sovereignty in Iran. He has an important role in PMOI’s affairs especially in the absence of PMOI’s charismatic leader MASSOUD RAJAVI.
He is ex- husband of MARYAM AZDANLO[ Maryam Rajavi ], who got divorced to get married to MASSOUD RAJAVI in an ideological event, which is known as the ideological revolution. He is totally against western countries’ politics specifically the US- government. He believes that the only way to reach to the true and genuine freedom and democracy is the destruction and annihilation of Imperialism led by the USA. He was the main political mediator between SADDAM HUSSEIN’s government and PMOI. He and MR. ABBAS DAVARI and MR. MEHDI BARAIEE were a team designated by MASSOUD RAJAVI to handle all political and military affairs from PMOI’s side with the dictator of Iraq.
He believes in MASSOUD RAJAVI as a prophet and a representative of God on earth. For that reason he agreed to hand his wife MARYAM AZDANLO over to MASSOUD RAJAVI and watched them get married. He is too devoted to MASSOUD and he worships him and he believes MASSOUD will take him and the rest of PMOI’s combatants to God’s promised paradise after their death. MR. ABRISHAMCHI in his task as a mediator and go between had handed over many of PMOI’s combatants who separated from PMOI, to Iraqi secret police during SADDAM HOSSEIN’s sovereignty, to be exchanged with Iraqi soldiers who were captured by Iranian army in Iran – Iraq war. SADDAM HUSSEIN was paying him and his organization very good money for this transaction. MR. ABRISHAMCHI believed in execution and assassination of the dissidents who wanted to secede and separate from PMOI. He believes in armed struggle and knows it as the only solution to conquer and defeat all kinds of enemies who are against his ideology and the PMOI’s commander in chief, MASSOUD RAJAVI.
This man is very dangerous for European people especially French and Americans. While the catastrophic event of 9/11 happened in USA, MR ABRISHAMCHI congratulated MASSOUD RAJAVI and MARYAM RAJAVI (AZDANLO) in the big gathering of PMOI in Iraq. He mentioned that the destruction of the TWIN TOWERS in USA is a big sign of decomposition and annihilation of USA. He adored those who carried out such an attack. MR. ABRISHAMCHI had a significant and important role in suppressing and killing Iraqi people especially KURDS during the uprising of Iraqi people against SADDAM HUSSEIN. He as a mediator was receiving orders from SADDAM HUSSEIN’s military generals to give to NATIONAL LIBERATION ARMY (NLA) to destroy and demolish any resistance from Iraqi people. MR. ABRISHAMCHI is currently living in FRANCE. He is taking advantage of your freedom and democracy to propagandize his cultish ideology which believes in annihilation and destruction of any thoughts and believes which are against PMOI’s ideology, politics and platforms.
I as a victim of this barbaric cult, would like to inform you and your government that he and the rest of PMOI in FRANCE are very dangerous and they are capable of creating horrifying and horrendous scenes like they did in 2003 in Paris. At the end, I would like to reiterate, do not trust any snake especially MR. MEHDI ABRISHAMCHI.
HASSAN PIRANSAR
A victim of RAJAVI’s cult
The family members of victims of MKO terrorist attacks have cautioned the EU against becoming the organization’s “partner in crime”.
“As victims of MKO terrorism, we advise the European Union not to turn into the group’s collaborator in their atrocities against the Iranian nation,” reads a statement from the family members.
The victims had gathered in front of the British embassy in Tehran in protest at a recent decision to remove the group known as the ‘Rajavi cult’ from a list of banned terrorist groups in the EU.
“When Masoud Rajavi and his group launched their terrorist attacks in Iran in 1981, European counties not only did not condemn their atrocities but also gave them refuge in their countries,” adds the statement.
The Mujahedin Khalq Organization (MKO), which identifies itself as a Marxist-Islamist guerilla army, was founded in Iran in the 1960s but was exiled some twenty years later for carrying out numerous acts of terrorism inside the country.
The terrorist group is especially notorious for the help it extended to former dictator Saddam Hussein during the war Iraq imposed on Iran (1980-1988).
The group masterminded a slew of assassinations and bombings inside Iran, one of which was the 1981 bombing of the offices of the Islamic Republic Party, in which more than 72 Iranian officials were killed, including then Judiciary chief Ayatollah Mohammad Beheshti.
“The Rajavi cult has conducted its campaign of terror in Iran with the support of the European governments and from their safe havens inside the European capitals,” the families said.
In recent months, high-ranking MKO members have been lobbying governments around the world to acknowledge the dissidents as those of a legitimate opposition group.
During the revolution in Iran, the group criticized Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini for releasing the American diplomats, arguing that they should have been executed instead.
The United States and Canada have refused to drop the MKO from their lists of terrorist organizations.
The group has also been engaged in cult-like activities such as psychological coercion techniques and physical abuse.
The group has also resorted to ‘forced sterilization’ as a strategy to prevent members from leaving the group.
G.P. Put on line 27/01/2009 – For Josy Dubié (Belgian MP), there is not a doubt that PMOI is "a sect". The Belgian senator draws from his memories ![Josy Dubié :"They[PMOI/MKO] are still as sectarian as before",](https://st.nejatngo.org/Image/Politician/Josy_Dubie/Josy_Dubie_Belgium_MP_1.jpg)
international reporter to the RTBF to affirm it. At the end of the Iraq-Iran war, they are the combatants of this organization which Saddam Hussein had sent like "flesh with canon" at the time of the battle of Mehran, in 1989. The treatment that Moujahidine held for their own troops, the women like the men, and that they applied to their Iranian prisoners were abominable, explains in substance Josy Dubié. "I know them from inside" , continues the senator, " and I can say to you that their behavior is to be brought closer to that of the members of Scientologie". Didn’t they evolve since the Eighties? Josy Dubié does not believe in it at all. "They are still as sectarian as before", he ensures. "However, there is in Iran an opposition much more democratic than that of Moujahidine of the people, the laic opponents, the members of the Communist party Toudeh, the sympathizers of the former Prime Minister Mossadegh ". And Josy estimates that one should not count on OMPI, which " do not represent anything the whole in Iran".
Lalibre.be
This is a documentary about the terrorist organization, MKO, told through the eyes of former MKO agents who have turned away from their former terror activities. An insight into this organization which has caused terror and is recognized as a terror organization worldwide.
Download Spite of the Soil – Part1
Download Spite of the Soil – Part2
Download Spite of the Soil – Part3
EU removes Iranian group from terrorism list
The new status of the Mujahedin Khalq organization, which seeks to overthrow the Iranian government, is likely to complicate international diplomacy with
Tehran.
Reporting from Paris and Beirut — The European Union on Monday announced the removal of a high-profile Iranian opposition group from its list of terrorists, a victory for a movement that European governments have described as a dangerous sect and prosecuted on terrorism charges.
The change in the status of the Mujahedin Khalq organization, or MKO, which seeks to overthrow the Iranian government, is likely to complicate attempts by the international community to reach a diplomatic settlement with Tehran over a range of issues.
The decision, announced at a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels, results from recent legal and diplomatic developments combined with intense lobbying by the group, whose leader, Maryam Rajavi, lives in France.
Iran’s Foreign Ministry issued a statement decrying the ruling as a violation of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1373, which requires governments to freeze the funds and halt the activities of those involved in acts of terrorism.
"The MKO’s hands are stained with the blood of thousands of innocent Iranians and non-Iranians," said the statement, according to the Iranian Students News Agency. "The delisting is invalid and condemned."
Analysts said European leaders probably acted out of diplomatic expediency because of the impending expulsion from Iraq of nearly 3,000 members of the opposition group’s military wing, who once fought against their homeland on behalf of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. Europe may find itself providing refuge for some of those fighters, and could not do so if the terrorist label persisted.
Iran quickly signaled that the move could complicate deliberations with the West, which wants Tehran to curtail sensitive aspects of its nuclear program and rein in support for militant groups opposed to Israel.
"The EU plans to use the MKO as leverage against Iran in the nuclear talks," said an editorial Monday in the conservative daily Politics of the Day. "The EU should tell the world why it blacklists Lebanese and Palestinian resistance groups fighting Israeli aggression but clears the MKO, which has committed countless crimes in Iran and Iraq."
Protesters in Tehran gathered around the French and German embassies to denounce the decision, according to the official Islamic Republic News Agency, demanding the "extradition" of MKO members "who have killed many of our children and families."
Opposition leader Rajavi in turn described the decision as a "stinging defeat for the European policy of complacency" toward the Iranian regime. "The inscription of the Iranian resistance on the blacklist has helped prolong the regime of religious fascism in Iran," she said, according to a report by Agence France-Presse.
The MKO remains on the U.S. list of terrorist organizations, a designation it acquired in 1997. European leaders made it clear Monday that they do not view the organization as fully rehabilitated. French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner and several colleagues warned that the MKO could be again designated as a terrorist group depending on its activities and on a French appeal of a Dec. 4 decision by an EU court to unfreeze nearly $9 million of the group’s assets.
The MKO was founded in the 1960s as a radical and often violent guerrilla group opposed to the U.S.-backed monarchy of Mohammed Reza Shah Pahlavi. It took part in the 1979 revolution that ousted him.
But the group quickly fell out with Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and the rest of the country’s clerical leadership. Many of its supporters were jailed, and the MKO launched a campaign of bombings against leaders of the revolutionary government.
During the 1980s Iran-Iraq war, the group fought alongside Hussein’s troops against the Islamic Republic, a move that earned it the anger of many Iranians. Iraqi Kurds allege that the MKO helped crush an uprising against Hussein after the 1991 Persian Gulf War.
Several thousand members live in Camp Ashraf, a desolate patch of desert and tumbleweed near Baqubah, Iraq. A 2005 report by Human Rights Watch said the camp was rife with abuse, citing evidence of "prolonged incommunicado and solitary confinement" as well as "beatings, verbal and psychological abuse, coerced confessions, threats of execution, and torture" against members who don’t conform to the group’s sometimes bizarre rules and rituals.
Its blend of Islamist and Marxist ideologies alienates both supporters and opponents of the Islamic Republic. Iran watchers in Europe and the U.S. say the organization has little public appeal. But it mounted an all-out lobbying campaign that won over legislators, especially in Britain, according to Farhad Khosrokhavar, an Iranian French expert on Islamic extremism.
"They have been very successful at giving a positive picture of themselves in Europe," Khosrokhavar said in a telephone interview. "I think many people have been duped by them, especially in the British Parliament."
Khosrokhavar predicted that the EU decision would only increase Iran’s animosity toward the West.
"The Islamic Republic will be stronger in its suspicion of the West and European Union," he said. "My guess is they will be angry, and the one issue where they will be even more inflexible is the nuclear issue."
Rajavi and other leaders were arrested in 2003, when more than 1,000 police officers raided their compound outside Paris. France’s top anti-terrorism judge charged that they were involved in terrorism in Iran and plotting violence in Europe as well.
The investigation, which was assisted by the FBI in the United States, did not turn up powerful proof. A lawyer for the group said Monday that prosecutors should throw out the still-pending case.
"One finds oneself confronting a judicial dossier that is empty of substance after the removal from the list," said the lawyer, Patrick Badouin, according to French reports.
daragahi@latimes.com
Times staff writer Sebastian Rotella in Madrid contributed to this report.
By Achrene Sicakyuz and Borzou Daragahi
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-iran-opposition27-2009jan27,0,1790285.story
Iran devising plan to try Mojahedin Khalq members as EU ministers endorse the terrorist group
Iran is mulling over a plan to take terrorist MKO members to court following the European Union’s decision to lift a ban on the group.
Iranian lawmakers are devising a plan to try the Mujahedin Khalq Organization (MKO) members who have taken an active part in terrorist activities against the country.
“The plan was conceived after the European Union decided to remove the MKO from its blacklist, prompting the Islamic Republic to take the required steps on the issue,”Member of the Iranian Majlis (Parliament) Heshmatollah told Mehr news agency on Monday.
According to the lawmaker, the trials would be held either in the Islamic Republic or outside the country. The MKO members who have not participated in the organization’s terrorist activities are allowed to return home, he added.
Earlier on Monday the EU removed the group from its blacklist, although the organization is recognized as a terrorist group by much of the international community, including the US.
The MKO is responsible for numerous acts of violence against Iranian civilians and government officials. Iran has repeatedly called for the expulsion of the MKO members from Iraq, which has been housing them since 1986.
The Iraqi government, in response, has ordered the members to leave their headquarters, Camp Ashraf, and return to Iran or take refuge in a third country. Iraq blames the group for conducting a significant role in destabilizing the Baghdad government.
Several members of the group have now defected from the organization and returned to Iran. According to a May 2005 Human Rights Watch report, the outlawed group imprisons defectors and even tortures them.
Defectors accuse the group of resorting to mind control in an effort to brainwash supporters and to establish a cult mindset among members.