Follow

Share on Tumblr

Share

Peter Oborne, Middle East Eye, July 07 2018:…  Three Tory MPs – along with one Labour MP – travelled to the event, organised by the National Council of Resistance of Iran, a front organisation for Mojahedin-e-Khalq Organisation (MEK), once listed by the US as a terror organisation. There is no question that these reflect a powerful and vocal body of sentiment inside the Conservative Party. This has been clear ever since the … 

Sir David Amess MP, paid head lobby for Mojahedin khalq terrorists
(aka Maryam Rajavi cult, MKO, MEK, Saddam’s private army)
in British Parliament

Link to the source

British MPs should be ashamed of supporting regime change in Tehran

The backing inside the Tory party for the MEK, once on the US’s terrorist list, is a sign of a party that has taken leave of its senses

Britain’s prime minister has been fighting a valiant, losing battle to rescue British relations with Iran in the wake of US President Donald Trump’s reckless attempts to wreck them.

But last week Theresa May was dealt a devastating blow to her authority after several Tory MPs defied her by going to Paris for a meeting designed to promote regime change inside Iran. This event is the latest sign that the prime minister and her foreign secretary, Boris Johnson, are facing a mutiny over Iran.

No regime change

Former cabinet minister Theresa Villiers was among senior Tories who travelled to Paris last week to hear Rudy Giuliani, former mayor of New York and Trump’s highly influential lawyer, call for the downfall of the Iranian government.

This meeting was a direct defiance of British government policy, which aims to save the Iran nuclear deal intact, and is against engineering a change of government in Iran. Indeed, Johnson assured Parliament in May that “I do not believe that regime change in Tehran is the objective that we should be seeking.”

Three Tory MPs – along with one Labour MP – travelled to the event, organised by the National Council of Resistance of Iran, a front organisation for Mojahedin-e-Khalq Organisation (MEK), once listed by the US as a terror organisation.

There is no question that these reflect a powerful and vocal body of sentiment inside the Conservative Party.

This has been clear ever since the House of Commons debate on Iran on 9 May. The overwhelming majority of Conservative MPs favoured Trump’s policy of dismantling the JCPOA – and condemned May’s policy of keeping it. The overwhelming majority of speakers (I calculate 19) in the debate spoke out against the JCPOA, and only five were explicitly in favour.

Those opposing the JCPOA included former defence secretary Michael Fallon and former cabinet minister Stephen Crabb. Former leader Iain Duncan Smith also spoke out against the deal in a Commons debate later in May.  

Troubling questions

These interventions raise troubling questions about the judgment and the allegiance of Tory backbenchers. So yesterday I approached the three Tory MPs who attended last weekend’s conference in Paris with a series of questions.

I asked them: who paid for and authorised their attendance at the MEK conference? Why as a signatory for the JCPOA are members of the current government pushing for the toppling of a signatory nation? Is it the government’s policy to pursue regime change in Iran? Do they think the MEK actually have popular legitimacy in Iran?

There was no reply from any of them. Tory MP Matthew Offord’s office even hung up the phone on MEE rather than answer legitimate questions.

Then I asked the Conservative Party’s central office if they knew about and had given permission for the Tory MPs to attend. Once again – no response. A wall of silence from all involved. The support inside the Tory party for the MEK looks like a sign of a party that has taken leave of its senses.

Here is an organisation with a proven history of terrorism, including against Western interests. Though founded by the husband and wife team of Massoud and Maryam Rajavi, the MEK reportedly forces members to divorce and give up their children to foster care so as to avoid the distraction of familial love.

It has other characteristics of a cult.

For instance, former members also describe participating in regular public confessions of their sexual fantasies. The clear ambition of last week’s meeting was to use the MEK as a vehicle to bring down the current government in Iran.

No coherent plan

This conference in Paris comes against a menacing international background. The Trump administration is working flat out to destabilise Iran through the installation of brutal economic sanctions. Some observers believe the conduct of the US is very similar to the CIA destabilisation campaign aimed at Iranian prime minister Mohammad Mosaddeq in 1953.  

The CIA then at least had a clear alternative future in mind for Iran – restoration of the shah under American tutelage. In American terms, this policy was a success for the next two decades. Trump’s people have no coherent plan for Iran.

The cultivation of the MEK – an opposition group based outside Iran and thought to be supported by a rackety coalition of international backers including Saudi Arabia – has strong echoes of Ahmed Chalabi’s Iraqi National Congress in the run-up the Iraq invasion in 2003.

Chalabi was hugely influential in convincing the neo-conservative backers of the Iraq invasion that he had strong support inside Iraq and could turn the country into a model state. He was proved wrong.

Giuliani boasted how Trump had “turned his back on that very dangerous nuclear agreement with Iran”. He further boasted that recent popular protests inside Iran have been orchestrated from outside the country, insisting that they “are not happening spontaneously”.

And he ended his speech exclaiming: “Next year, at this time, I want us to have this convention in Tehran!”

Ominously, last year’s chief speaker at the Paris conference was John Bolton, one of the most eloquent advocates of the Iraq invasion, who has now become Trump’s national security adviser. This means that Trump has decided to repeat – in a larger and more dangerous country – all the errors of American policy in Afghanistan and Iraq.

He intends to hand over Iran to politicians with no democratic legitimacy – and no more loyalty to the United States and Western values than America’s former protégés, the Taliban and al-Qaeda. British MPs should be ashamed of helping him.

– Peter Oborne won best commentary/blogging in 2017 and was named freelancer of the year in 2016 at the Online Media Awards for articles he wrote for Middle East Eye. He also was British Press Awards Columnist of the Year 2013. He resigned as chief political columnist of the Daily Telegraph in 2015. His books include The Triumph of the Political Class, The Rise of Political Lying, and Why the West is Wrong about Nuclear Iran.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.

Additional reporting by Florence Ward

(End)

*** 

With the Government’s Counter-Extremism and Safeguarding Bill due this year, how can Islamic extremism be addressed?

Massoud Khodabandeh: Clinton-Albania deal ensures MEK (Rajavi cult) members stay as terrorists

Parliamentarians (Lord Carlile and others) lose Maryam Rajavi court battle

Mojahedin Khalq (MKO, MEK, Rajavi cult) leaders liable for members’ killings in Iraq

Comrades in Arms – Sexual abuse by Massoud and Maryam Rajavi

http://youtu.be/jpDUMaIntS8

An Unfinished documentary for my daughter – Trapped in Rajavi cult, Mojahedin Khalq

http://youtu.be/CEb5-ZBuk4k

Also read:
https://iran-interlink.org/wordpress/?p=8808

Toby Perkins, Labour, Chesterfield MP’s trip funded by a bizarre Iranian terrorist cult (Mojahedin Khalq, Rjavi cult) 

Guido Fawkes, UK, August 19 2017:… “[The MEK] is a bizarre organisation. As it is today, it resembles a kind of religious cult, brainwashing its adherents, taking their money and property, and separating them from partners and families… It originated in the 1960s as a violent Marxist-Islamic group opposed to the Shah; in the 1970s, it killed US servicemen in Iran, among others. It gave significant armed support to the revolution in 1979, but lost out … 

Owen Bennett-Jones, Dawn, July 27 2017: The Strange World of the People’s Mujahedin

Under President Macron, France can play a pivotal role in Western relations with Iran

Link to the source

Toby Perkins, Labour, Chesterfield MP’s trip funded by a bizarre Iranian terrorist cult (Mojahedin Khalq, Rjavi cult)

TOBY PERKIN’S TRIP FUNDED BY FRONT FOR ‘BIZARRE IRANIAN CULT’

A Labour MP’s trip to Paris was paid for by an Iranian exile group which has been described as the front organisation for a ‘bizarre cult’. Chesterfield MP Toby Perkins accepted £800 worth of accommodation, meals and transport from the France-based National Council for Resistance (NCRI) in Iran for a two-day trip in July. The NCRI is widely considered to be the political front for the Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK), who oppose the Khomeinist regime in Iran, and were a proscribed terrorist organisation in the UK until 2008. Though the MEK has been praised for its opposition to Iranian theocracy, the methods and precise motives of the group have split Western opinion, with the US government describing it as a ‘cult’. Michael Axworthy, former head of the FCO’s Iran Section, said:

“[The MEK] is a bizarre organisation. As it is today, it resembles a kind of religious cult, brainwashing its adherents, taking their money and property, and separating them from partners and families… It originated in the 1960s as a violent Marxist-Islamic group opposed to the Shah; in the 1970s, it killed US servicemen in Iran, among others. It gave significant armed support to the revolution in 1979, but lost out to Khomeini’s supporters in a bloody power struggle thereafter, was forced into exile, and later was based in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. Because it fought on Saddam’s side against Iran during the Iran-Iraq war, it has since then been completely discredited with ordinary Iranians in Iran. No one with any claim to sound judgment, let alone high office, should have given [the MEK] their backing.”

Weird!

https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm/cmregmem/170731/perkins_toby.htm

(END)

*** 

Gary Sick: To understand MEK we need to understand the source of its revenue

Radicalisation Awareness (Presentation at the ICSA Conference, Bordeaux, July 2017)

Under President Macron, France can play a pivotal role in Western relations with Iran

Debate in the European Parliament ‘What is to be done about the Iranian Mojahedin Khalq (MEK)?’

Anne Singleton: Key to de-radicalization of MEK hostages in Albania are their families

IMPAKT 55 – Muxhahedinet iraniane ne Shqiperi. Interviste eksluzive me Anne Singleton
https://youtu.be/8v-Q7UWfN3M

The MEK’s dirty past includes the anti-Imperialist inspired murder of six Americans in pre-revolution Iran which it later celebrated in songs and publications

Also read:
https://iran-interlink.org/wordpress/?p=7979

House debate contaminated by Maryam Rajavi lobbyist Lord Alton (Open letter to Baroness Afshar)

Anne Khodabandeh (Singleton), Open Minds, December 12 2016:… As a Farsi speaker I am sure you will understand when I describe Lord Alton’s contribution as throwing a mouse in the stew (moosh andakhtane Lord Alton dar dige hoghoogh bashar); he ruined it for everyone. Rather than enjoying a free and productive discussion about human rights in Iran, the whole debate was contaminated by Lord Alton’s … 

Introducing Maryam Rajavi as a human rights activist is the wrong tool for the wrong job

The Life of Camp Ashraf Mojahedin-e Khalq – Victims of Many Masters By Anne Singleton and Massoud Khodabandeh

Open Minds

House debate contaminated by Maryam Rajavi lobbyist Lord Alton (Open letter to Baroness Afshar)

Dear Lady Afshar,

We are fortunate in the UK to have in the House of Lords an Iranian woman with your distinguished past as Professor of Politics at York University and as a highly-respected advocate for Iranian and Muslim women’s rights.

The House of Lords debate you called on December 8 was most welcome and timely. Your call to exert diplomatic pressure on Iran over its failure to administer true justice to its citizens and its mistreatment of named individuals was an admirable example of ‘speaking truth to power’.

“Having spoken truth to power all my life, I find that in this country I am invited to apply to join your Lordships’ House. I fear that in my own birthplace I would be put in prison and maybe the UK Government would not be able to help.”

Surely then you were as dismayed and frustrated as myself and many others that Lord Alton brushed aside your “deep personal experiences and knowledge of Iran” to opportunistically launch into his stock speech in support of the notorious National Council of Resistance of Iran (aka MEK, MKO, PMOI, Rajavi cult) and its leader Maryam Rajavi. To say this was an unwanted and irrelevant intervention is an understatement. Indeed, when he referred to Maryam Rajavi’s (fictitious) “commitment to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and to other international instruments”, I was deeply dismayed.

Over decades, report after report by human rights bodies including various offices of the United Nations, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have charted the appalling violation of every single article of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by Maryam Rajavi and her late husband in relation to their own followers. Surely it is common knowledge – at least among Iranians – that members of the MEK are held in a state of modern slavery and subjected to bizarre cultic abuses.

As a Farsi speaker I am sure you will understand when I describe Lord Alton’s contribution as throwing a mouse in the stew (moosh andakhtane Lord Alton dar dige hoghoogh bashar); he ruined it for everyone.

Rather than enjoying a free and productive discussion about human rights in Iran, the whole debate was contaminated by Lord Alton’s unwarranted support for a terrorist group which is known far and wide for its war crimes and crimes against humanity. We cannot now expect Iran not to take advantage of this speech and denounce the UK for double standards and supporting a terrorist group.

Some in the west perhaps forget that the Iranian establishment controls the narrative on the MEK in Iran and not Maryam Rajavi, and that it has lost no opportunity in the past to bring victims of MEK bombings as well as former members to the screen to testify to the MEK’s (irrefutable) acts of terrorism, treachery and human rights abuses.

As a result of its bloody and treacherous past the MEK is reviled both inside and outside Iran. I would challenge anyone to find an Iranian who has not been paid or brainwashed by the MEK who would advocate for the group. What possible motive could Lord Alton have to support this group for three decades in full knowledge of their past and current human rights abuses? What possible benefit could be brought to the debate on human rights in Iran by such support?

As a respected member of the House and an Iranian woman who for decades has advocated for women and human rights you know that this directly damages every effort by activists and protestors inside and outside Iran to democratically challenge and change their government’s suppressive, discriminatory and harmful policies. Support for Maryam Rajavi and the MEK plays directly into the hands of the hardliners who like nothing better than to point to UK support for MEK terrorism to justify their continued crackdown on civil protest.

(END)

*** 

Comrades in Arms – Sexual abuse by Massoud and Maryam Rajavi

https://youtu.be/jpDUMaIntS8

Open Minds – Explaining Radicalisation for Prevent and Channel

Anne Singleton, Prevent Suffolk Conference 22 March 2016
From Attraction to Action — How Young People Are Radicalized 

Expert in cultic abuse and terrorism in the MEK speaks in London charity meeting

President of MIVILUDES Serge Blisko with Anne Khodabandeh (Singleton) of the FST. FECRIS 2015

U.S. pushes Mojahedin Khalq to accept Albanian asylum offer (2013)

Anne Khodabandeh (Singleton), University of Baghdad:
MEK’s Western backers are complicit in their deaths

Anne Khodabandeh (Singleton) and Nasrin Ebrahimi, European Parlaiment:
Silencing the victims of Mojahedin Khalq (MKO, MEK, Rajavi cult, PMOI, NCRI …) to promote Maryam Rajavi

Anne Singleton from Iran-Interlink
visits Camp New Iraq (Formerly Ashraf)
in wake of violence by loyalists of the Rajavi cult
‘No Exit’ – Human Rights Abuses Inside the Mojahedin Khalq Camps – Human Rights Watch, May 2005

Document on Mojahedin Khalq released by RAND (The Mujahedin-e Khalq in Iraq, A Policy Conundrum)

***

Also read:
https://iran-interlink.org/wordpress/?p=6574

Open Letter to Susana Klien and Caroline Haworth of Womankind Worldwide

A number of survivors of Rajavi cult,  August 31 2015:… This summer, your charity floated an engaging invitation on its Facebook page for women to nominate their ‘women’s rights idol’. Sadly, perhaps inevitably, Womankind was then inundated with nominations and praise for Maryam Rajavi. The effect has been to hijack the page and spoil its intent. The Mojahedin are …

Our story thus far: Another Mojahedin attack on two fathers and the sister of MEK’s captives

Council of Foreign Relations, 2014: Mujahadeen-e-Khalq (MEK). Backgrounders

(Received with many thanks – Iran Interlink)

Open Letter to Susana Klien and Caroline Haworth of Womankind Worldwide

As the outgoing and the incoming CEOs you will both be sensitive to the enduring reputation of your valuable charity Womankind Worldwide. We hope therefore that you are aware by now that you have become the latest target for another of the Mojahedin Khalq’s deceptive propaganda campaigns.

This summer, your charity floated an engaging invitation on its Facebook page for women to nominate their ‘women’s rights idol’. Sadly, perhaps inevitably, Womankind was then inundated with nominations and praise for Maryam Rajavi. The effect has been to hijack the page and spoil its intent.

The Mojahedin are not doing this to promote women’s rights and cannot point to a single real-life example of what Maryam Rajavi is supposed to have done to help women. Instead they are trying to whitewash their savage past and evade the court cases and allegations of gross human rights abuses inside the organisation.

We are all witnesses to the cruelties Maryam Rajavi has inflicted on the female members of the cult she created with her fugitive husband Massoud Rajavi. Maryam Rajavi is indisputably responsible for the deaths and mistreatment of tens of women members. And this is an ongoing problem. Only this month Maryam Rajavi’s response to a young Iranian Canadian woman who visited her headquarters in Auvers-sur-Oise, France, searching for her sister, was to send a gang of thugs into the street to beat her up. This is not the action of a defender of women’s rights.

Have no doubt, Maryam Rajavi’s notoriety is known worldwide – from the US State Department and Human Rights Watch to the Human Rights Ministry of Iraq. And closer to home, the Foreign and Commonwealth office and the Home Office in the UK.

Although we are confident that you have no intention of allowing the reputation of Womankind Worldwide to be tarnished by association with this cult and its leaders, we thought a friendly heads-up to be appropriate at this stage. All of us are happy to provide more information on this issue. The following links are a good starting point.

Yours sincerely,

Batoul Soltani – Germany 
Open letter of Iranian Women’s Association to Mr. Otto Bernhardet: Do you know who Maryam Rajavi is?

Homeyra Mohammad Nejad – Germany
Open letter to Mrs. Jane Holl Lute

Nasrin Ebrahimi – Switzerland 
Beware of Maryam Rajavi’s deception (open letter to Régine Deforge)

Zahra Mirbagheri – Iran
78 signatories: Mojahedin Khalq terror group are threatening to kill us in your country (Open letter to François Hollande)

Zahra Moini – Germany
President Hollande should curtail violent activities of Mojahedin Khalq (Rajavi cult) in France

Anne Khodabandeh (Singleton) – U.K.
Silencing the victims of Mojahedin Khalq (MKO, MEK, Rajavi cult, PMOI, NCRI …) to promote Maryam Rajavi

And some relevant links:

In 1997, the Home Secretary excluded Mrs Rajavi from the UK on the ground that “ We need to take a firm stance against terrorism”. That exclusion remains in force.
http://ukhumanrightsblog.com/2014/11/12/government-may-weigh-rights-against-national-security-without-courts-interference/

Mujahadeen-e-Khalq (MEK). Backgrounders
http://www.cfr.org/iran/mujahadeen-e-khalq-mek/p9158

No Exit: Human Rights Abuses inside the Mojahedin Khalq Camps
http://www.hrw.org/legacy/backgrounder/mena/iran0505/

UN: continued concerns about abuses committed by the PMOI/MeK leadership.
http://www.uniraq.org/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=1567:unami-half-yearly-report-on-human-rights-january-to-june-2013&Itemid=605&lang=en

New document on Mojahedin Khalq released by RAND (The Mujahedin-e Khalq in Iraq, A Policy Conundrum)
http://www.rand.org/pubs/monographs/MG871.html

State Department’s Report on Mojahedin Khalq Orgainsation, Rajavi cult
http://www.iran-interlink.org/?mod=view&id=2309

Iran Interlink Fourth Report from Baghdad
https://iran-interlink.org/wordpress/?p=5536

Comrades in Arms – Sexual abuse by Massoud and Maryam Rajavi
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jpDUMaIntS8&feature=youtu.be

An Unfinished documentary for my daughter – Trapped in Rajavi cult, Mojahedin Khalq
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CEb5-ZBuk4k

Miss Mohammady: Our story thus far: Another Mojahedin attack on two fathers and the sister of MEK’s captives
https://iran-interlink.org/wordpress/?p=6454

Behind the deceptive face of Maryam Rajavi’s Women’s Day meeting in Berlin
https://iran-interlink.org/wordpress/?p=5906

***

Judit Neurink: Iranian resistance group MKO to move to Albania

Also read:
https://iran-interlink.org/wordpress/?p=2462

Silencing the victims of Mojahedin Khalq (MKO, MEK, Rajavi cult, PMOI, NCRI …) to promote Maryam Rajavi – March 2013

Anne Singleton (Khodabandeh), Middle East Strategy Consultants, March 06 2013: … These women face a backlash of ‘power and money’ to stop them talking, while the same ‘power and money’ grooms the perpetrator, Maryam Rajavi, to talk about the rights of women and criticise marriage laws and say how they should be changed in the favour of women. ‘Power and money’ believe the MEK should not only be removed from terrorism lists but should be paraded in parliaments as exemplars of feminism. ‘Power and money’ are so dishonest that they cast the MEK in the role of victim while condemning the former women members as torturers, spies and agents …

(Maryam Rajavi directly ordered the massacre of Kurdish people)

Batoul Soltani previously spoke out about the abuse of women in the MEK in both Baghdad and now in Europe where she lives. She was recently attacked in front of her house and her neighbours had to come to her rescue. The MEK have published indecipherable false documents on their websites alleging that while she was a member of the Mojahedin’s Leadership Council (the highest rank after the Rajavis), she was working for the Iranian Intelligence Ministry. Batoul joined the MEK with her husband and two month old baby when she was barely eighteen years old. She had been a member for over twenty years.

Nasrin Ebrahimi, who now lives in Switzerland, was fourteen years old when she was taken to the MEK’s Camp Ashraf in Iraq. She was only able to escape after the American army forced the MEK to disarm in 2003. Nasrin was invited to the European Parliament to testify about her experience as a woman in the Mojahedin. After that she suffered such severe harassment by the MEK that she changed country twice to escape them. Police have had to protect her for some time against the MEK. Recently she has again been approached and threatened in Switzerland for joining the group of women exposing the abuses.

Zahra Bagheri crawled combat-style over a kilometre for hours in the dark to escape Camp Ashraf. Her body was so lacerated and bleeding that the Iraqi soldiers who found her wept on seeing her injuries. She spent several weeks in hospital recovering from this ordeal. In addition she has had to undergo various operations in Germany because of neglect of her medical conditions while she was in Ashraf. She also joined the other women in the Autumn 2012 conference. The MEK are currently using her two sisters and her brother who remain in Camp Liberty to perform on their TV to swear at Zahra and their mother.

(Women “rewarded” with pendants and robes after sexual ordeal)

Dear Washington: Kick Out This Iranian Militant Cult

Follow

Share on Tumblr

Share