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Nejat Society, Tehran, Marhc 07 2020:… My name is Narges Beheshti. My brother Mostafa Beheshti is a member of the Mojahedin-E Khalq Organization (MEK, MKO, NCR, NLA . . .) who is trapped in a remote isolated camp of the group in Albania. MEK is a terrorist cult supported by the Albanian government. The cult brainwashes the members and forces them into terrorism and crimes. My other brother Morteza Beheshti was also a member of the MEK living in the cult’s camp Ashraf in Iraq who was killed through a conflict. Both brothers left Iran for more income and a better life, but were deceived into joining the group. Morteza was married and had a son. My mother passed away recently. MEK Families Appeal To Intl. Human Right Bodies
The Life of Camp Ashraf. Mojahedin-e Khalq – Victims of Many Masters
By Anne Khodabandeh (Singleton) and Massoud Khodabandeh
MEK Families Appeal To Intl. Human Right Bodies
For Milad
Beheshti family’s letter to Intl. human right bodies
Nejat BloggersMarch 7, 2020
To the international Human Rights Bodies
My name is Narges Beheshti. My brother Mostafa Beheshti is a member of the Mojahedin-E Khalq Organization (MEK, MKO, NCR, NLA . . .) who is trapped in a remote isolated camp of the group in Albania.
MEK is a terrorist cult supported by the Albanian government. The cult brainwashes the members and forces them into terrorism and crimes.
My other brother Morteza Beheshti was also a member of the MEK living in the cult’s camp Ashraf in Iraq who was killed through a conflict. Both brothers left Iran for more income and a better life, but were deceived into joining the group. Morteza was married and had a son.
My mother passed away recently. After Morteza was killed, her only wish was to talk to Mostafa. Unfortunately, this never happened until she died. The leaders of the MEK, just like other destructive cults, prevent the members to have access to the outside world, in particular to their friends and family.
How Mujahedin Khalq abducted my two brothers
What should I do if I want to contact my brother in Albania and learn about his situation? The Albanian government, in order to appease the MEK, does not let the families to travel to Albania. Even if the families be able to enter the country, they have no chance to see their loved ones and they would be harassed by the Police and authorities.
I firmly urge you to show me a way to persuade the MEK leaders as well as the Albanian authorities to let the members contact their relatives. I am eagerly waiting for your response and thank you in advance for your efforts.
Narges Beheshti, Tehran, Iran
The Beheshtis speak to their beloved Milad taken as a hostage in the MEK camp in Albania:
MEK Families Appeal To Intl. Human Right Bodies
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Also read:
https://iran-interlink.org/wordpress/mek-base-in-albania-they-gave-us-a-tour/
MEK Base In Albania – They Gave Us a Tour
Patrick Kingsley, The New York Times, February 16 2020:… I wasn’t shown the computer suites, which defectors had portrayed as a kind of troll farm: junior members using multiple accounts on Facebook and Twitter, typing messages that criticize the Iranian government, lionize the M.E.K. leadership and promote its paid lobbyists. When Mr. Giuliani and Mr. Bolton made public speeches in recent years, members were ordered “to take a particular line and tweet it 10 times from different accounts,” said Mr. Mohammadian, the former member. I was taken to an empty gym, and then to a small cafeteria. It was already close to midnight, but a small group of women had been told to wait up for me. MEK Base In Albania – They Gave Us a Tour
Nobody Can Be “Comfortable” With Regime Change Involving MEK
MEK Base In Albania – They Gave Us a Tour
Highly Secretive Iranian Rebels Are Holed Up in Albania. They Gave Us a Tour.
Depending on whom you ask, the People’s Jihadists are Iran’s government-in-waiting or a duplicitous terrorist cult that forbids sexual thoughts. What are they doing in Albania?
The entrance to the camp housing members of the Mujahedeen Khalq, or People’s Jihadists, near Manez, Albania.Credit…Tara Todras-Whitehill for The New York Times
MANEZ, Albania — In a valley in the Albanian countryside, a group of celibate Iranian dissidents have built a vast and tightly guarded barracks that few outsiders have ever entered.
Depending on whom you ask, the group, the Mujahedeen Khalq, or People’s Jihadists, are either Iran’s replacement government-in-waiting or a duplicitous terrorist cult. Journalists are rarely allowed inside the camp to judge for themselves, and are sometimes rebuffed by force.
But after President Trump’s decision to assassinate Qassim Suleimani, a powerful Iranian general, it seemed worth trying again. Would a group that claims to want a democratic, secular Iran allow a reporter inside their camp?
The group’s loudest allies include Rudolph W. Giuliani, the president’s personal lawyer, and John R. Bolton, his former National Security Adviser. Both have received tens of thousands of dollars for speaking at the group’s conferences, where these influential Americans describe the People’s Jihadists as Iran’s most legitimate opposition.
Initially, the group ignored several requests for access. So less in hope than desperation, I drove to its base and presented my credentials to a guard.
Three hours later, shortly before sunset, I got a call. To my surprise, I was being allowed inside. So began a series of interviews, propaganda sessions and tours that lasted until 1:30 a.m. A New York Times photographer was admitted several days later.
The group perhaps hoped to correct the impression left by previous journalistic encounters. A visit in 2003 by a Times reporter to the group’s former base in Iraq ended badly after her subjects spoke from a rehearsed script, and she was barred from talking to people in private.
Credit…Tara Todras-Whitehill for The New York Times
This time around, most residents were off limits, but officials did allow private interviews with several members.
At my request, these included Somayeh Mohammadi, 39, whose family has argued for nearly two decades that she is being held against her will.
“This is my choice,” said Ms. Mohammedi, after her commanders left the room. “If I want to leave, I can leave.”
While the group may not have tried to hide Ms. Mohammedi, there were several odd and telling moments when secrets were tightly held.
In particular, senior officials stumbled when asked about the whereabouts of the group’s nominal leader, Massoud Rajavi, who vanished in 2003.
“Where is he?” said Ali Safavi, the group’s main representative in Washington. “Well, we can’t talk about that, that’s … ”
He trailed off, staring at his feet.
Is he still alive? Is he in Albania?
“We can’t talk about it,” Mr. Safavi replied, after several seconds of silence.
Credit…Adrian Dennis/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Founded in 1965 to oppose the Shah of Iran, the group later rejected the theocracy that replaced him.
Immediately following the revolution, the group attracted significant public support and emerged as a leading source of opposition to the new theocratic regime, according to Professor Ervand Abrahamian, a historian of the group.
The group claims it still attracts significant support, but Mr. Abrahamian said its popularity plummeted after becoming more violent in the early 1980s.
“When you talk to people who lived through the revolution, and you mention the name ‘Mujahedeen’, they shudder,” said Mr. Abrahamian.
By the 1980s, the group’s ideology had begun to center on Mr. Rajavi and his wife, Maryam.
To prove their devotion to the Rajavis, members were told to divorce their spouses and renounce romance.
At the time, the group was based in Iraq, under the protection of Saddam Hussein.
Its destiny changed after the American-led invasion of Iraq. After an initial standoff, the group, also known as the M.E.K., gave up its weapons. Despite having been listed by America as a terrorist organization in 1997, it was placed under American protection.
But in 2009, American troops ceded responsibility for the M.E.K. to the Iraqi government. Led by politicians sympathetic to Iran, the Iraqi authorities tacitly allowed Iran-allied militias to attack the group.
American and United Nations diplomats began searching for a safer country to house the group. After intensive lobbying by a bipartisan group of lawmakers, the American government also removed them from a list of terrorist organizations in 2012.
A year later, they were finally welcomed by Albania. The Albanian government hoped its hospitality would curry favor with Washington, according to the foreign minister between 2013 and 2019, Ditmir Bushati.
Credit…Tara Todras-Whitehill for The New York Times
The group purchased several fields in a valley 15 miles west of Tirana, the capital, and built a camp there.
When I visited, the base seemed oddly empty. The group claims it houses about 2,500 members. But across the two days, we saw no more than 200.
The others seemed to have been sequestered away — or to have left the group altogether.
Dozens of former members now live independently in Albania. I met 10 of them, who each described being brainwashed into a life of celibacy.
Inside the group, they said romantic relationships and sexual thoughts were banned, contact with family highly restricted, and friendships discouraged.
All recounted being forced to participate in self-criticism rituals, whereby members would confess to their commanders any sexual or disloyal thoughts they had.
Credit…Tara Todras-Whitehill for The New York Times
“Little by little, you are broken,” said Abdulrahman Mohammadian, 60, who joined the group in 1988 and left in 2016. “You forget yourself and you change your personality. You only obey rules. You are not yourself. You are just a machine.”
The group strongly denied the accusations and portrays many of its critics, including Mr. Mohammadian, as Iranian spies.
I was taken on a three-hour tour of a museum about the M.E.K.’s history, where the exhibits did not mention Saddam Hussein or forced celibacy. Instead, they focused on the group’s persecution.
Some rooms had been turned into replica torture chambers, to explain how Iranian jailers punished and interrogated supporters during the 1980s.
In each room, members waited in silence for me. These turned out to be survivors of the torture — ready to personally explain each method of repression.
Credit…Tara Todras-Whitehill for The New York Times
One survivor, Raheem Moussavi, stood beside a bloodied mannequin and slowly detailed the four different techniques the Iranian torturers used to beat him. The process culminated in being whipped by a metallic cat-o’-nine tails.
Searching for influence, the group has turned increasingly to the internet.
I was shown a recording studio, where two musicians compose anti-regime songs and music videos for release on Iranian social media.
Credit…Tara Todras-Whitehill for The New York Times
I wasn’t shown the computer suites, which defectors had portrayed as a kind of troll farm: junior members using multiple accounts on Facebook and Twitter, typing messages that criticize the Iranian government, lionize the M.E.K. leadership and promote its paid lobbyists.
When Mr. Giuliani and Mr. Bolton made public speeches in recent years, members were ordered “to take a particular line and tweet it 10 times from different accounts,” said Mr. Mohammadian, the former member.
I was taken to an empty gym, and then to a small cafeteria. It was already close to midnight, but a small group of women had been told to wait up for me.
Credit…Tara Todras-Whitehill for The New York Times
They scoffed at the idea of the troll farm. As for the limits on their private lives, they said such discipline was necessary when battling as cruel an adversary as the government of Iran.
“You can’t have a personal life,” said Shiva Zahedi, “when you’re struggling for a cause.”
After I left, the group put me in touch with three former American military officers who had helped guard an M.E.K. camp in Iraq after the American invasion.
Each spoke glowingly about the M.E.K., and said its members had been free to leave since the American military began protecting it in 2003.
American officers had access to every area of the Iraqi base, and found no prison cells or torture facilities, said Brig. Gen. David Phillips, who commanded the military policemen guarding the camp in 2003 and 2004.
“I wanted to find weapons, I wanted to find people tied to beds,” General Phillips said. “We never found it.”
But other records and witnesses gave a more complex account.
Capt. Matthew Woodside, a former naval reservist who oversaw American policy at the Iraqi camp between 2004 and 2005, was not one of those whom the M.E.K. suggested I contact.
He said that in reality American troops did not have regular access to camp buildings or to group members whose relatives said they were held by force.
Credit…Tara Todras-Whitehill for The New York Times
The M.E.K. leadership tended to let members meet American officials and relatives only after a delay of several days, Captain Woodside said.
“They fight for every single one of them,” he said.
It became so hard for some members, particularly women, to flee that two of them ended up trying to escape in a delivery truck, he recalled.
“I find that organization absolutely repulsive,” Captain Woodside said. “I am astounded that they’re in Albania.”
Besar Likmeta contributed reporting.
End
MEK Base In Albania – They Gave Us a Tour
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The Many Faces of the MEK, Explained By Its Former Top Spy Massoud Khodabandeh
Secret MEK troll factory in Albania uses modern slaves (aka Mojahedin Khalq, MKO, NCRI ,Rajavi cult)
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Iran Interlink, February 09 2019:… Maryam Rajavi headed a ‘protest’ in Paris yesterday using paid participants to promote her regime change agenda against Iran. Rajavi is afraid of being overlooked by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s Iran Action Group run from inside the State Department. Pompeo will hold a summit in Warsaw next week where it is predicted Iranian opposition…Also Ali Safavi NCRI White House MEK Trolls and the Iran Case Fake MEK Writers MEK Base In Albania – They Gave Us a Tour MEK Families Appeal To Intl. Human Right Bodies
Muhammad Sahimi, Lobe Log, February 07 2019:… According to documents filed online by the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), the political arm of the MEK, Uskowi has repeatedly met with NCRI’s Alireza Jafarzadeh. Iranians consider Jafarzadeh the “foreign minister” of the MEK leader, Maryam Rajavi. Bolton and Trump’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, have been long-time lobbyists for the MEK, receiving large fees for their lobby…Also Ali Safavi NCRI White House MEK Trolls and the Iran Case Fake MEK Writers MEK Base In Albania – They Gave Us a Tour MEK Families Appeal To Intl. Human Right Bodies
Nejat Society, February 07 2019:… One of the fears expressed by many Iranians, people who detest the current regime but do not take active measures to overthrow it, is that because there is no clear alternative, they are afraid the West would interfere again and impose a regime they don’t want, such as the Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK)—the People’s Mojahedin Organization of… Also Ali Safavi NCRI White House MEK Trolls and the Iran Case Fake MEK Writers MEK Base In Albania – They Gave Us a Tour MEK Families Appeal To Intl. Human Right Bodies
Behnam Gharagozli, Iranian.com, February 06 2019:… One manifestation of this trend is witnessing how the MEK was somehow transformed from a terrorist organization to a dissident Iranian organization after only a short time. This transformation from terrorist to dissident just so happened to occur after the MEK’s base in Iraq was sacked (the MEK had been an ally of Saddam Hussein) and the… Also Ali Safavi NCRI White House MEK Trolls and the Iran Case Fake MEK Writers MEK Base In Albania – They Gave Us a Tour MEK Families Appeal To Intl. Human Right Bodies
Borzou Dargahi, Independent, February 05 2019:… MEK Base In Albania – They Gave Us a Tour MEK, a bizarre but influential Iranian political cult dedicated to overthrowing the government in Tehran. The group has cultivated strong ties to the Trump administration and others in Washington, as well as to Saudi Arabia, Iran’s arch-nemesis. Several leading Trump administration figures including John Bolton and Rudy Giuliani spoke at the 30 June event, though neither… Also Ali Safavi NCRI White House MEK Trolls and the Iran Case Fake MEK Writers MEK Base In Albania – They Gave Us a Tour MEK Families Appeal To Intl. Human Right Bodies
Robert Azzi, Concord monitor, February 03 2019:… MEK Base In Albania – They Gave Us a Tour Bolton is a longtime supporter of the Mujahedeen Khalq (MEK), a cultist Iranian dissident group that advocates for regime change in Iran. MEK, which was on our State Department’s list of foreign terrorist organizations from 1997 to 2012, is still suspected of the assassination of six Americans and the bombings of American companies in… Also Ali Safavi NCRI White House MEK Trolls and the Iran Case Fake MEK Writers MEK Base In Albania – They Gave Us a Tour MEK Families Appeal To Intl. Human Right Bodies
Iran Interlink, February 01 2019:… MEK Base In Albania – They Gave Us a Tour As Pompeo’s Warsaw summit approaches, the MEK are on overdrive spewing out lies. In Farsi they have been caught out over five times putting words in the mouths of EU officials etc. which are simply lies. Farsi reaction says that US warmongers and their puppets are panicking, especially after Europe’s SPV announcement on trade with Iran… Also Ali Safavi NCRI White House MEK Trolls and the Iran Case Fake MEK Writers MEK Base In Albania – They Gave Us a Tour MEK Families Appeal To Intl. Human Right Bodies
Press TV, February 01 2019:… MEK Base In Albania – They Gave Us a Tour the utilization of the MEK/MKO terrorist organization to assassinate Iranian scientists in Tehran, even as the United States maintains high-level public contacts with the MEK/MKO leadership in Albania; the co-optation of the Trump regime by Zionist forces which has facilitated the theft of East Jerusalem, the continued illegal Israeli settlements on the West Bank, and Israel’s… Also Ali Safavi NCRI Also Ali Safavi NCRI vWhite House MEK Trolls and the Iran Case Fake MEK Writers MEK Base In Albania – They Gave Us a Tour MEK Families Appeal To Intl. Human Right Bodies
MEK Base In Albania – They Gave Us a Tour Fake MEK Writers A spokesman for the Dutch prosecution service told the BBC: “We have two men in custody who are suspected of being involved in the death. The investigation has not led to any signs of involvement of Iranian authorities.” The 56-year-old is suspected of being Mohammad Reza Kolahi Samadi, who was accused of planting a bomb that resulted in the deadliest attack… Also Ali Safavi NCRI White House MEK Trolls and the Iran Case Fake MEK Writers MEK Base In Albania – They Gave Us a Tour MEK Families Appeal To Intl. Human Right Bodies
Thierry Meyssan, Mint Press News, January 31 2019:… MEK Base In Albania – They Gave Us a Tour Fake MEK Writers John Bolton’s links with the MEK date back to the Bush administration. They were strengthened by his presence – for a price of 40,000 dollars – during their annual meetings at Villepinte (France), in 2010 and 2017. Having become the National Security Advisor, he now unites the jihadists from Daesh and the loyal… Also Ali Safavi NCRI White House MEK Trolls and the Iran Case Fake MEK Writers MEK Base In Albania – They Gave Us a Tour MEK Families Appeal To Intl. Human Right Bodies
Stephen Gottlieb, WAMC, Morning Edition, January 30 2019:… MEK Base In Albania – They Gave Us a Tour Fake MEK Writers The MEK has been the darling of the Administration as a potential successor to the mullahs because they both dislike the Iranian regime. Never mind that the MEK objected when Khomeini decided to release the hostages, that it has been a terrorist organization and killed Americans. Never mind that it has no support… Also Ali Safavi NCRI White House MEK Trolls and the Iran Case Fake MEK Writers MEK Base In Albania – They Gave Us a Tour MEK Families Appeal To Intl. Human Right Bodies
Nejat Society, January 30 2019:… MEK Base In Albania – They Gave Us a Tour Fake MEK Writers In 2014, this organization (Mojahedin Khalq MEK MKO NCRI Rajavi cult …) financed the vast majority of the Vox campaign for the European companies led by Vidal-Quadras. The PP exec exempted did not obtain a seat and although the far-right formation directed by Santiago Abascal has affirmed that it was audited by the Court of Auditors,… Also Ali Safavi NCRI White House MEK Trolls and the Iran Case Fake MEK Writers MEK Base In Albania – They Gave Us a Tour MEK Families Appeal To Intl. Human Right Bodies
