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Shenaz Kermalli, Ricochet Media, October 26 2019:… And on Thursday, a highly followed but fake Twitter account associated with the Mujahideen-e-Khalq (MEK), a cult-like group from Iran that has a history of engaging with Canadian politicians, added to an ongoing online smear campaign against Jowhari by tweeting a long thread urging Canadians to unseat him. MEK Trolls in Albania are activated against Canadian MP
Secret MEK troll factory in Albania uses modern slaves (aka Mojahedin Khalq, MKO, NCRI ,Rajavi cult)
MEK Trolls in Albania are activated against Canadian MP
Liberal in Richmond Hill faces smear campaign in bid for re-election
Liberal MP Majid Jowhari is being fiercely targeted by online activists, trolls, and angry Liberal members in his own riding. What’s behind the hate?
ngry protesters showed up multiple times at Liberal MP Majid Jowhari’s Richmond Hill constituency office last week, holding signs plastered with his picture that read, “Shame on You. You will not Re-elected” and “NO to Lobbyist of Islamic Terrorist Regime in Iran.”
Meanwhile, local residents received cryptic emails from a former Liberal politician, Reza Moridi, saying he and three other former Liberals are “unable” to vote for Jowhari. The email offered no explanation for the statement.
Still other voters that had placed Jowhari campaign signs in front of their homes reported finding papers dropped on their lawn or placed on car windshields. The documents, obtained by Ricochet, are titled “A Better Introduction to Mr Jowhari’s Family” and slander his wife, mother and brothers, suggesting they are connected to international drug business and other criminal activities.
And on Thursday, a highly followed but fake Twitter account associated with the Mujahideen-e-Khalq (MEK), a cult-like group from Iran that has a history of engaging with Canadian politicians, added to an ongoing online smear campaign against Jowhari by tweeting a long thread urging Canadians to unseat him.
THREAD
1)@MajidJowhari, a Liberal MP in Canada known for his pro-#Iran regime views & policies, is up for reelection. This thread sheds light on Jowhari being a Tehran apologist/lobbyist, supported by @ICCongress, the mullahs’ lobby arm in Canada, and should not be reelected. pic.twitter.com/8chotzbaet
— Heshmat Alavi (@HeshmatAlavi) October 16, 2019
Sources close to the Jowhari family and campaign told Ricochet it’s been a “horrible” time for the family and that they often feel unsafe.
“They [his critics] have painted him as the complete opposite of everything he stands for. It’s not even remotely close to who he is,” said one source who asked not to be identified due to fear of being targeted themselves.
“It’s all sophisticated and interrelated,” they added. “I’ve had to contact police before. People don’t understand that fake news can actually kill you.”
MEK Terrorists In Albania Now Targeting Canadian Politicians
Jowhari’s most vocal offline critic, Reza Moridi, is a former Liberal MPP for Richmond Hill and former Ontario minister of research, innovation and science. He denies there’s a smear campaign against Jowhari. “It’s not an attack or targeting,” Moridi told Ricochet last Friday, in reference to the cryptic email he had sent to local residents on Oct. 9. “It’s a reverse endorsement, that’s all.”
The email sent to local residents included photos of Moridi and three others: Bryon Wilfert, former Liberal MP for Richmond Hill; Sarkis Assadourian, former Liberal MP for Brampton Centre; and Richard Rupp, former president of the Richmond Hill Federal Liberal Association. Above the photos, a single line read: “As concerned Richmond Hill Liberals we regret that on October 21, we are unable to vote for Majid Jowhari, the Liberal Candidate in Richmond Hill.”
When asked why he decided to send the email to voters, particularly without an explanation of why he and the others were “unable” to vote for Jowhari, Moridi said, “These are Liberal MPs and also two former Liberal riding presidents. We came to the conclusion that we cannot support him. People can make their own decisions.
“We reviewed media reports over the past four years and also records of the candidate. I’m sure every voter is doing their own research of the candidates. We’re just saying we did that research and came to that conclusion. Coming to that decision is not difficult.”
In response, Jowhari’s office posted a response on his Facebook page the next day: “This communication represents the worst type of campaign tactics – a non-specific note from a group who do not have the courage of their convictions to say what party and policies they do support but are prepared to say only what they don’t support without providing any rationale or substantiation.”
But voters were met with another shock a few days later when the Shahrvand, a Farsi-language newspaper, came out with Moridi’s photo splashed on the front page, along with a proclamation of his support for Richmond Hill’s Conservative candidate, Costas Menegakis. The idea that a former Liberal leader was overtly canvassing for voters in his riding to vote blue sparked coverage in conservative outlets The Toronto Sun and Rebel Media.
Soon after, 100 Liberal members and supporters sent a letter addressed to the Ontario Liberal Party requesting that the party leadership publicly reject Moridi’s endorsement. Former Ontario premier and current MPP Kathleen Wynne put out a statement on Moridi’s decision to endorse a Conservative candidate in Richmond Hill. “As you know, Reza Moridi has been a trusted colleague of mine for a number of years,” she wrote. “Having said that, Reza is no longer a member of the provincial legislature nor does he speak for the Liberal Party.”
Jowhari’s office declined to comment for this story, saying they wanted to stay focused on his campaign and local residents. “We are not focused on the negative voices that are out there in the wilderness,” Jowhari’s campaign manager Michele Bussieres told Ricochet.
Canada-Iran ties
The long-term rift between the two Iranian politicians stems from their ideas around Canada-Iran relations, with Jowhari advocating for a normalization in ties, while Moridi argues Iran should be kept at a distance. Moridi and other critics interpret Jowhari’s position as support and endorsement for the theocratic regime.
When questioned by reporters last week, Jowhari said the accusations of his support for Tehran have no foundation. “Our government promised in 2015 that we will keep the dialogue open. … We will establish a relationship with our eyes wide open and step by step,” he said. “That hasn’t changed. We want to make sure that we encourage diplomacy based on a proven and deliberate track record from both sides, especially on the Iranian side.
“Dialogue also doesn’t mean appeasement,” he added. “When you talk and sit at a table, you can exchange ideas, whether it’s on the issue of human rights, whether it’s freedom of press or women. We need to sit at the table…. You cannot have a dialogue behind closed doors.”
But some residents don’t believe him. Salman Sima, a former political prisoner in Iran, is one of Jowhari’s most vociferous critics on Twitter, having previously called him a foreign agent and a representative for Ayatollah Khamenei in the Canadian Parliament. Sima stands accused of starting a smear campaign against Saman Tabasinejad, an Iranian-Canadian NDP candidate in Ontario’s last provincial elections, calling her the granddaughter of a major cleric in Iran. Tabasinejad later debunked this rumour on Twitter.
Sima joined several other critics protesting when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau visited a Richmond Hill coffee shop on Oct. 13.
“We believe that Mr Jowhari doesn’t follow Liberal and Canadian values, including respecting human rights, respecting women’s rights and respecting LGBT rights,” he told Ricochet. “Why? Because we know and I believe that he is supporting one of the most misogynistic regimes in the world — the Islamic regime in Iran.”
Sima said the staged protests were non-partisan and unlinked to any political Iranian opposition groups, including MEK.
“I write lots of things criticizing some opposition groups, including MEK,” he said, adding he knew many residents who voted for the NDP and Liberal their whole lives but were strongly opposed to Jowhari. “Linking the protests against Majid Jowhari to MEK or any political parties is not fair because I know that lots of people come from lots of different ideas and backgrounds.”
Regardless, it’s clear Jowhari is being watched. On Thursday, the “Heshmat Alavi” Twitter account tweeted a 17-post thread “shedding light on Jowhari being a Tehran apologist/lobbyist.” An investigation by The Intercept last June found the account was created by MEK, which is supported by Washington.
Also that week, Hassan Dai, an editor at the Iranian-American Forum website, urged Richmond Hill residents to vote against Jowhari in a tweet to his 11,000 followers.
Messages sent by Ricochet to both accounts on Oct. 17 requesting an interview and proof of the accusations levelled against Jowhari were not responded to by publication date.
‘Nasty environment’
Meanwhile, Iranian supporters of Jowhari’s campaign say they are particularly incensed over accusations that Jowhari and the Liberal Party are stooges of the government in Iran.
“They are using the same tactics that the Iranian regime is using — they’re claiming they’re against that but they’re doing the same thing here,” said a supporter of Jowhari’s campaign who did not want to be named out of safety concerns.
“They’re using all the resources they have to accuse and lie … they put our pictures up on Facebook and label us. This has led to a really nasty environment. We didn’t come here to be accused of being a lobby for another country or government. We came here to be contributing members of a democratic society.”
For her, the fight to keep a government in power who is open to dialogue with Iran is personal. “I have a friend who has cancer and no access to medications because of the sanctions. When Moridi ran a long time ago, I was one of his big supporters. We donated and helped, and I was so proud that an Iranian had come to power and could speak for us. But then he started to support sanctions on Iran.”
She pauses. “This is my country. But I can’t love Canada if I can’t love the country I come from. I have my best wishes for the people in Canada and I have the same wishes for the people in Iran.”
MEK Trolls in Albania are activated against Canadian MP
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MEK and other fake oppositions discrediting Iran’s authentic opposition
Remember: MEK was an American excuse to invade Iraq
The Many Faces of the MEK, Explained By Its Former Top Spy Massoud Khodabandeh
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Also read:
https://iran-interlink.org/wordpress/white-house-mek-trolls-and-the-iran-case/
White House MEK Trolls and the Iran Case
Jason Rezaian, Washinton Post, June 11 2019:… After the report, Twitter appears to have suspended the account. But the MEK, the organization that “Team Heshmat Alavi” represents, has a nasty history. It was on the State Department’s list of foreign terrorist organizations for years before being removed in 2012. These days, it has no discernible popular support in Iran and egregiously mistreats its members. Despite its history and negligible influence among Iranians, the MEK happens to have the support of many U.S. officials, including Trump advisers John Bolton and Rudy Giuliani, both of whom have appeared as paid speakers at the group’s events. White House MEK Trolls and the Iran Case
MEK Cult Operatives Undermining American Democracy
White House MEK Trolls and the Iran Case
Why does the U.S. need trolls to make its Iran case?
This weekend, a new wrinkle was added to the ongoing saga about the information war over Iran policy: the stunning revelation that an online persona that was cited by the Trump administration to justify leaving the Iran nuclear deal is likely not a real person, after all.
On Sunday, the Intercept published an investigation into “Heshmat Alavi,” a rabid supporter of the Mujahideen-e Khalq (MEK), a controversial Iranian opposition group. Since 2014, he had amassed a large Twitter following, which he apparently leveraged to attract interest in freelance submissions.
But according to the Intercept report, it turns out Alavi, the self-proclaimed “Iranian activist with a passion for equal rights” who claims to be “in contact with sources that provide credible information about the mullahs’ regime in Tehran,” was a team of MEK members producing the content in Albania.
That didn’t stop Forbes, the Hill, Daily Caller and even the Voice of America from amplifying Alavi’s platform as a voice on Iran policy. All of these outlets, and several more, have published articles by Alavi that claimed the MEK is the main opposition to the current Iranian regime.
More disturbing than the articles, however, were the Twitter tirades that Alavi directed at established journalists who write on Iran — including me — referring to us “lobbyists,” “agents” and “collaborators” of the Islamic republic. These efforts actively sought to undermine our credibility about the best approach to deal with Iran and resorted to personal attacks in order to do so.
Apparently, libel isn’t a concern if you’re not actually a person.
After the report, Twitter appears to have suspended the account. But the MEK, the organization that “Team Heshmat Alavi” represents, has a nasty history. It was on the State Department’s list of foreign terrorist organizations for years before being removed in 2012. These days, it has no discernible popular support in Iran and egregiously mistreats its members.
Despite its history and negligible influence among Iranians, the MEK happens to have the support of many U.S. officials, including Trump advisers John Bolton and Rudy Giuliani, both of whom have appeared as paid speakers at the group’s events.
The new revelations come less than two weeks after reports that the State Department had been funding an initiative called the Iran Disinformation Project, which was outed last month by Iran watchers for targeting and spreading lies about knowledgeable and experienced Iran commentators. The State Department suspended the funding to that initiative temporarily, but a full accounting of how taxpayer money may have been used against U.S. citizens — a crime under U.S. law — has not happened yet.
The Heshmat Alavi saga does not appear to be directly linked with the Iran Disinformation Project. But both operations raise similar concerns.
In both instances, the U.S. government — knowingly or not — aided in the flow of falsehoods perpetuated by opaque sources targeting U.S. citizens and attempting to discredit journalists and other commentators. And in both cases, the administration seemed to care more about advancing their views on Iran than about verifying the truth.
In the current atmosphere, any discussion of Iran that doesn’t explicitly advocate for the most severe measures against Iran — and, by extension, all people inside Iran — is branded apologia by supporters of President Trump’s “maximum pressure” campaign. The MEK and Iranian Disinformation Project talking points have a captive audience here in the capital. So, too, do the rants of others echoing the most hawkish elements of the Trump administration’s Iran rhetoric.
But this is the United States of America. In this country, at least, we can and must have these conversations in the light of day, and maintain an atmosphere where we can openly debate and defend dissenting views without spreading falsehoods or slander. This is critical, not just for our democracy, but also for long-term peace and stability.
Political commentators have pointed to this rhetorical buildup against Iran as similar to the George W. Bush administration’s case for war with Iraq. But the comparison isn’t entirely apt: We are not at the same informational disadvantage we were as a nation in the lead-up to the Iraq War.
The current Iranian American population is much bigger than the Iraqi American population of the early 2000s. It’s better positioned economically in the society and has more political representation. And crucially, there is a flow of Iranian Americans who still routinely travel to the country. Social media is rich with images from inside Iran telling myriad stories.
So, instead of resorting to false narratives and personal attacks, we should cultivate our Iran policy — because there still isn’t a coherent one — the old-fashioned way: by making real arguments, backing them up with actual evidence and prioritizing real people over the tactics of manipulation and fraud preferred by authoritarians.
White House MEK Trolls and the Iran Case Fake MEK Writers
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Also read:
Rossella Tercantin, The Jerusalem Post, September 29 2019:… The announcement followed reports that United Against Nuclear Iran’s summit would include a fringe Iranian diaspora group, Mujahideen-e Khalq, which had close ties with Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. According to a report by the Washington Post, the summit has sparked controversy for including a fringe Iranian diaspora group, Mujahideen-e Khalq, or MEK MEK and Fake News, … MEK Trolls In Albania – Cyber Terrorism against Iran MEK Trolls in Albania are activated against Canadian MP
Nebojsa Malic, Russia Today, September 20 2019:… The examples are legion. Razavi herself mentions (though not by name) “Heshmat Alavi,” a supposed expert on Iran who recently turned out to be a construct – an online persona operated by the Iranian exile group Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK). This is an outfit that seeks regime change in Tehran, and has been endorsed… MEK and Fake News MEK Trolls In Albania – Cyber Terrorism against Iran MEK Trolls in Albania are activated against Canadian MP
Massoud Khodabandeh, Lobe Log, August 23 2019:… So, when Giuliani says we should be “comfortable” with this group, right-minded people the world over can honestly and unequivocally answer, “No, we are not comfortable ignoring this harsh reality just because the MEK amplifies an anti-Iran message to the world, and no, we don’t believe the MEK have any kind of future… MEK and Fake News MEK Trolls In Albania – Cyber Terrorism against Iran MEK Trolls in Albania are activated against Canadian MP
Jordan Michael Smith, The Intercept, August 14 2019:… the MEK is covered heavily and favorably, despite having almost no support inside Iran, a history of terroristic violence, and a well-founded reputation as a cult. A VOA employee, who asked to speak anonymously for fear of reprisal, said, “VOA Persian, for the first time in decades, has been acting as media… MEK and Fake News MEK Trolls In Albania – Cyber Terrorism against Iran MEK Trolls in Albania are activated against Canadian MP
Robert Fantina, Counter Punch, August 02 2019:… The oddly named People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (known as the MKO or MEK), whose sole purpose is the overthrow of the people’s government of Iran, has been busy. Some of their members, who seem to be mainly elderly, are technologically savvy, and use social media to further their disgraceful cause. But they… MEK and Fake News MEK Trolls In Albania – Cyber Terrorism against Iran MEK Trolls in Albania are activated against Canadian MP
Neri Zilber, The Daily Beast, July 25 2019:… The account had over 2,000 followers, including the verified profiles of several prominent Israeli journalists, the French ambassador in Israel, and the French embassy in Tel Aviv. A picture of the consul general visiting a Palestinian neighborhood in East Jerusalem was tweeted out around the same time as the MEK thread; a… MEK and Fake News MEK Trolls In Albania – Cyber Terrorism against Iran MEK Trolls in Albania are activated against Canadian MP
Nejat Society, July 22 2019:… The peak of the MEK’s successful deal –to sell fake news and buy war drums—was the case of the fictional persona named Heshmat Alavi that was revealed by the Intercept, a few weeks ago. “His purported work has appeared in a wide variety of journals over the years, write Robert Fantina of the Global Research.… MEK and Fake News MEK Trolls In Albania – Cyber Terrorism against Iran MEK Trolls in Albania are activated against Canadian MP
