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Balkans Post, Tirana, Albania, July 18 2019:… On the last Saturday, 13 July 2019, the annual “Free Iran” conference was held for the first time at Ashraf 3 in Albania, the headquarters of the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK or MKO), a notorious terrorist cult known by several other different names and acronyms, including People’s Mojahedin of Iran (PMOI), National Liberation Army of Iran (NLA), and National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI). Newest MEK terror festival in Albania
MEK the most hated in Iran’s history
MEK terror festival in Albania: a few incumbents among the mass of former officeholders
On the last Saturday, 13 July 2019, the annual “Free Iran” conference was held for the first time at Ashraf 3 in Albania, the headquarters of the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK or MKO), a notorious terrorist cult known by several other different names and acronyms, including People’s Mojahedin of Iran (PMOI), National Liberation Army of Iran (NLA), and National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI).
Saudi lobbyist Salman al-Ansari
Terrorist-genocidal past
Founded in the 1960s by a group of Iranian leftists opposed to the country’s pro-Western Shah, later it developed into the largest and most militant group opposed to the Islamic Republic of Iran. After the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran, the group was driven from its bases on the Iran-Iraq border and resettled in Paris, where it began supporting Saddam’s Iraq in its eight-year war against Iran.
Due to the terrorist attacks committed by the Mujahedin-e Khalq, more than 16,000 people have been killed in Iran alone, not counting their atrocities against Iranian and Iraqi civilians during the Iran-Iraq war and the 1991 uprisings in Iraq. Their tactics included bomb attacks, targeted assassinations, aircraft hijackings, and so on. For comparison, around 14,000 Iraqi and Syrian civilians have been killed by the ISIL terrorist attacks. The MEK has also conducted attacks against numerous Western targets, both in Europe, North America and elsewhere.
CIA Use Mujahedin-e-Khalq MEK to Fabricate Proof against Iran Programs
In 1986, the MEK accepted Saddam’s offer of alliance and moved its headquarters to Iraq where it received its primary support to attack the targets in Iran. This decision was viewed as treason by virtually all of Iranians and it irretrievably destroyed the MEK’s appeal in its homeland. Furthermore, the MEK assisted Ba’athist government in systematic attacks against the Kurdish fighters (Iran’s allies) in northern Iraq, and the result of their action was a genocide that killed between around 100,000 Kurdish civilians. Former MEK members remember Maryam Rajavi’s infamous command at the time: “Take the Kurds under your tanks, and save your bullets for the Iranian Revolutionary Guards.”
Balkans as terrorist safe haven
The MEK is designated as a terrorist organization by Iran and Iraq, but their former headquarters at Iraqi Camp Ashraf still enjoyed the US protection after the fall of the dictatorship. Until the 2008–2012 period when long-term lobbying efforts by their Neocon, Zionist and Saudi sponsors gave results, the MEK was officially designated a terrorist organization by the UK, the EU, the US and Canada. Nevertheless of official designation, the MEK leadership freely lived and operated in the EU.
In 2012, the MEK headquarters have been relocated from Camp Ashraf to former US military base Camp Liberty, also in Iraq, and finally in 2016 the headquarters have been relocated again, this time to Ashraf 3 in Albania. A poor Balkan country, encircled by the EU member states and ruled by the US puppet regime, proved to be a safe haven. The transfer of hundreds of MEK members was carried out by US military aircraft.
Today, the gates to the MEK compound, situated on a gently inclined hillside in rural Albania, are usually firmly closed, guarded by two sculpted lions atop stone pedestals and a large team of Albanian security guards. Unannounced visitors are not welcome at the fenced-off, secretive site, where more than 2,000 MEK members live. With no passports or other documents, they remain in limbo, unable either to work or to leave the country. Besides clapping in the audience at fanciful terror festivals, their only activity is spreading anti-Iranian propaganda on social networks.
According to the recent interviews, given to journalists by a dozen men in Tirana who had fled the MEK compound, life inside the compound was of a cult-like atmosphere in which mobile phones and contact with relatives were banned, all interactions between men and women were prohibited, and days were spent sitting at computers firing out tweets and other online messages in support of the MEK. An investigation by the Intercept recently found that an anti-Iranian activist, who had written extensive media columns about Iran, in fact appeared to be an invented persona created by MEK trolls.
Terror festival
The last Saturday’s conference “Free Iran” has no political significance, nor does it differ in any way from similar terror festivals that were previously held in Paris. We could see the same personalities from the neoconservative & Zionist circle, like Joe Lieberman and Rudy Giuliani, representatives of the Saudi dictatorship, and numerous former or obscure politicians.
From all of them, we could hear the same slogans about “freedom, democracy, justice and gender equality,” but the only true message is “we hate Iran,” more precisely “we hate it so much that we’ll publicly lie and celebrate the terrorist-genocidal organization.” Taking into account the well-known moral values of the US neoconservatives, the Zionists and the Saudi regime, as well as their cheap mercenaries, such messages are not surprising.
Participants and organizers of the conference are perfectly aware that their words are empty and the MEK can never gain ground in Iran, so the gathering is far from being political in practical sense. Its only purpose is a desperate attempt of spreading Iranophobic hate around the world. Evidence for this is the fact that most of participants do not have real political role, only influential names, thus the media publicity is guaranteed. The names of these terror supporters deserve to be mentioned here.
Formers and incumbents
Looking at the list of participants, there’s an astonishing amount of former officeholders. These’re former US Vice Presidential candidate (Joe Lieberman), former Mayor of New York (Rudy Giuliani), former US Congressmen (Ted Poe and Dana Rohrabacher), former US Senator (Robert Torricelli), former US Assistant Secretary of State (Lincoln Bloomfield), former US Homeland Security Secretary and Governor (Tom Ridge), former US Special Envoy for Nuclear Nonproliferation and Under Secretary for Arms Control and International Security (Robert Joseph), former US Ambassador to Morocco (Marc Ginsberg), former FBI Director (Louis Freeh), former commander of the Multi-National Forces in Iraq (George W. Casey Jr.), former Commandant of the US Marine Corps (James T. Conway), former Canadian Prime Minister (Stephen Harper), and former Canadian Foreign Minister (John Baird).
The list of former officeholders does not end in North America, in the EU these’re former Foreign Minister of France (Bernard Kouchner), former Foreign, Defense, Interior and Justice Minister of France (Michèle Alliot-Marie), former French Minister of Human Rights (Rama Yade), former German Deputy Interior Minister (Eduard Lintner), former Vice President of the European Parliament (Alejo Vidal-Quadras), former UN special representative to Iraq (Ad Melkert), former Norwegian MP (Lars Rise), and former Minister of Transport and Communications of Finland (Kimmo Sasi). The list also includes former Albanian Prime Minister and President (Sali Berisha), former Albanian Prime Minister (Pandeli Majko), former UN Special Rapporteur (Yakin Ertürk), former Minister of Culture and Publicity of Jordan (Saleh al‐Qalab), former Algerian Prime Minister (Sid Ahmed Ghozali), former Colombian presidential candidate (Ingrid Betancourt), and former head of the International Association of Women Judges (Susana Medina).
Ironically, the introductory speech at the conference was held by the former MEK Secretary-General Fahimeh Arvani, the 30th former officeholder on this list. If we exclude above-mentioned individuals with ended careers, the list is reduced to a third and literally all political celebrities are gone. Among the incumbent ones, all are relatively unknown and belong to the opposition parties, including Congressman Lance Gooden (United States), MP Matthew Offord, MP Bob Blackman, Lord Temporal Sandip Verma (United Kingdom), Senator Roberto Rampi, MP Giuseppina Occhionero, MP Anotonio Tasso (Italy), MP Michèle de Vaucouleurs, Mayor of Paris’s 1st District Jean-François Legaret (France), MP Martin Patzelt (Germany), Senator Gerry Horkan (Ireland), Deputy Attorney General Maria Candida Almeida (Portugal), MP Ben-Oni Ardelean (Romania), and Chairman of the Republican Party Fatmir Mediu (Albania). A handful of others also include South Asian activists Ranjana Kumari and Bandanda Rana, as well as Syrian terrorist activist Nazir Hakim.
Summing up, if we put aside all figures without any real political influence, only two or three will remain. Namely, influential pro-Israeli lobbyist Joe Lieberman, Donald Trump’s cybersecurity adviser Rudy Giuliani, and Saudi lobbyist Salman al-Ansari. The latter one is founder and president of the Saudi American Public Relation Affairs Committee (SAPRAC), a Washington DC-based lobby organization which advocates strengthening relations between Saudi Arabia and the United States, whitewashing of Saudi regime’s crimes, collaborative alliance with Israel, and aggressive foreign policy against Iran, Syria, Yemen and Qatar. Therefore, the answer to the question of who financed this lavish terror festival, seems more than obvious.
MEK terror festival in Albania: a few incumbents among the mass of former officeholders
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Assal Rad, Lobe Log, July 02 2019:… The MEK also utilizes promoted content on news sites. For instance, The Hill is running a 10-week mini-series on Iran sponsored by the Organization of Iranian-American Communities (OIAC), a front group for the MEK. Even more unsettling is the MEK’s creation of fake personas that publish in major U.S. outlets as a way to promote the pro-regime change… MEK terror festival in Albania
Brett Wilkins, Common Dreams, July 01 2019:… Chief among these was the People’s Mujahedin of Iran (MEK), a State Department-designated terrorist group that had previously assassinated six US officials when it was fighting the Shah’s regime. Despite this, the US military secretly trained MEK fighters while the terror group paid leading US officials to lobby for its cause. USA Uses MEK Terrorist Against… MEK terror festival in Albania
Press TV, June 30 2019:… A US and Saudi Arabia-backed anti-Iran terrorist group, which is responsible for the murder of thousands of innocent Iranian civilians and officials, has announced a plan to assassinate a senior Iranian military commander and the country’s new Judiciary chief. Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO) informed its members about the plan through a recent internal communiqué. MKO… MEK terror festival in Albania
Soraya Sepehrpour Ultich, American Herald Tribune, June 30 2019:… What is even more mind-boggling is the fact that Israel was supporting a terrorist cult that had massacred the Kurds in Iraq in 1991, and only a few year later, the Israelis were training the Kurds in Iraq who has survived the massacre (obviously something that has been lost on the… MEK terror festival in Albania
Iran Interlink, June 29 2019:… Well, forget regime change in Iran, forget Trump losing his mind in America, Maryam Rajavi has lost her mind and gone berserk against Sweden over this. The MEK have gone full rant against the Swedish people. How dare they side with Iran. An audio of a phone conversation between two MEK members leaked to Iran… MEK terror festival in Albania
The Economic Times and The Telegraph, New Delhi, June 29 2019:… Iran also claimed it was a victim of terrorism — and had lost 17,000 citizens to acts of terror committed by the “US-supported terrorist group (MKO/PMOI)” and by being at the “forefront of fighting groups such as (the) ISIS”. The mission’s statement further accused the US administration of jeopardising… MEK terror festival in Albania
WIONews, June 27 2019:… “Iran as a victim of terrorism which has lost 17,000 of its citizens by US-supported terrorist group (MKO/PMOI) and being in the forefront of fighting these groups such as ISIS, has identified its regional interests with good-neighborliness, and peace and stability in the highly sensitive Persian Gulf region,” the statement added. “Iran is determined to actively… MEK terror festival in Albania
Alexander Rubinstein, Mint Press News, June 25 2019:… Virtually every investigation into the so-called “People’s Mujahedeen” — whether by think tanks, NGOs, or the media — concludes that their support inside of Iran is virtually non-existent. The group participated in the revolution against the Shah but was not invited to the table as a new government was being formed. And… MEK terror festival in Albania
Iran Front Page, June 22 2019:… In the audio, which is being released by the Iran Front Page for the first time, Shahram Fakhteh, an official member and the person in charge of MKO’s cyber operations, is heard talking with a US-based MKO sympathizer named Daei-ul-Eslam in Persian. Mujahedin-e-Khalq Organization, and Saudi Arabia have colluded to frame Iran for the… MEK terror festival in Albania
Iran Interlink, June 21 2019:… Today, 21 June, marks the MEK’s annual celebration of armed struggle. Not only did France not allow the MEK to rally at Villepinte, the group’s planned street demonstration was also banned. An advertised demonstration in Germany was also not allowed to go ahead. The only place MEK gathered in Europe was in Brussels. Except for… MEK terror festival in Albania
Reid Champlin Open secrets, June 21 2019:… Recent documents in accordance with the Foreign Agents Registration Act reveal that the council, the political arm of opposition group Mujahedeen Khalq or MEK, has been hosting opulent events at the National Press Club and elsewhere, publicizing itself through national and international media, and meeting with dozens of current and former government officials, all with the end goal of toppling the… MEK terror festival in Albania
Nejat Society, June 21 2019:… Twitter has turned out to be a field for a “troll farm” of a thousand people inside the camps of Mujahedin Khalq (the MKO/ MEK/ PMOI/ Rajavi’s Cult) who work in three shifts to launch anti Iran disinformation advocating war and sanctions against Iran. Former member of the group Hassan Heirani who left it in… MEK terror festival in Albania
