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Iran Interlink, August 16 2020:.. Olsi Jazexhi, a prominent Albanian historian and media personality, named Sandër Lleshaj as one of the politicians colluding with the MEK against Bidi. Jazexhi gathered support from several members of parliament who are strongly opposed to the MEK presence in their country. Journalists willing to investigate the case were also called into action. Gjergji Thanasi, an acclaimed investigative journalist, alerted local and foreign media in Italy, France and Greece and interested parties in Europe and beyond including the UNHCR and the ICRC were informed. In Tirana, Migena Balla, a lawyer, kept everyone up to speed on the legal parameters of what was happening – mostly it was illegal state activity. Rajavi House of Cards Destroyed By Ehsan Bidi – Iran Interlink Weekly Digest
Albanian Police No Match For MEK Commanders Trained By Saddam’s Mukhabarat
Iran Interlink Weekly Digest – Aug 14, 2020 – Rajavi House of Cards Destroyed By Ehsan Bidi
++ A cruel conspiracy between corrupt elements in the Albanian government, security services and the MEK to illegally remove Iranian asylum seeker Ehsan Bidi from Albania blew up in a dramatic series of events this week. Bidi, an outspoken former member of the MEK, had already been accepted as a refugee in Albania and had been issued with ten-year residence and work permits. Last August, Albanian security officials illegally detained Bidi without charge and held him in a deportation centre in conditions worse than a prison. He was denied legal representation or visits from his friends. Over the subsequent year, Bidi was put under intense pressure to sign documents agreeing to his deportation from Albania and to be sent to Iran. He resisted.
Under Albanian law, if after a year, the subject has not been charged with any crime and/or deported, the state is obliged to release them. However, in the case of Ehsan Bidi, the MEK were not going to accept his release. Consequently, a series of misinformation and illegal activity were instigated at state level to have Bidi physically removed from the country.
Information leaked by patriotic officers of the security services related that immigration police were directed to tell Bidi that he would be released according to the law but immediately kidnapped and deported to Turkey. This was of course nonsense because Turkey would not accept such a deportee. But this information triggered an immediate prevention and rescue intervention by friends and supporters of Bidi.
Olsi Jazexhi, a prominent Albanian historian and media personality, named Sandër Lleshaj as one of the politicians colluding with the MEK against Bidi. Jazexhi gathered support from several members of parliament who are strongly opposed to the MEK presence in their country. Journalists willing to investigate the case were also called into action. Gjergji Thanasi, an acclaimed investigative journalist, alerted local and foreign media in Italy, France and Greece and interested parties in Europe and beyond including the UNHCR and the ICRC were informed. In Tirana, Migena Balla, a lawyer, kept everyone up to speed on the legal parameters of what was happening – mostly it was illegal state activity.
On the morning of Thursday 13 August Ehsan Bidi was told to pack his belongings. Bidi was in fear of his life, knowing that MEK have killed several of their members and former members in the past.
Collusion Against Ehsan Bidi . Corrupt Albanian Officials And MEK
Former MEK member Hasan Heyrani – also an outspoken critic – immediately drove to the detention centre to keep eyes on Ehsan. He was soon joined by Olsi Jazexhi. Two witnesses to events already in place before Bidi was moved.
Bidi was put in a police vehicle along with his belongings and driven west in the direction of the coast. But then they turned back in the direction of Tirana. At first, Bidi feared he was being driven to the extraterritorial, extrajudicial MEK camp in Manez. But the vehicle continued toward Tirana. Bidi managed to post GPS images of his location from his phone. After Tirana they took the direction of the border with Greece. As they passed Kapshtica, which has a refugee reception Centre nearby, it became clear that the vehicle was headed directly for the Greek border. The police vehicle went off road and travelled several kilometres into the neutral zone between Albania and Greece. Once inside Greece, the Albanian police off loaded Bidi and his belongings and left. Bidi was abandoned without food or water or any means to move beyond that spot. He filmed these events on his mobile phone revealing his predicament.
This elicited an angry response from Greece. Nearby border posts were closed to prevent entry into the country. The Greek government expressed deep displeasure at this international incident – Albanian police entering Greece and dumping a refugee there.
In the meantime, several media outlets wanted to travel to where Bidi was to capture the story and hopefully interview him. The problem was, Bidi was now off grid in the middle of nowhere. However, those who followed the police vehicle to protect Bidi included a lawyer. Arriving at the border town, he spoke with the police, who admitted there had been a mistake. They returned and picked up Bidi with his possessions and took him to a converted container made up as a dormitory. After further intervention by the lawyer, he was taken to a proper building and given a room. The police claimed that a mistake had been made when “immediate deportation” had been typed instead of “immediate release”. Bidi was brought to Tirana today (Friday 14th August), and released into the care of his friends (former MEK members who are resident in Tirana).
As expected, these events caused outrage in the Farsi commentariat. Families of MEK members, former MEK members, interested persons and media authors all wrote to condemn this stupid and cruel action. The Albanian government was rightly vilified. But more importantly this is seen as a huge humiliating defeat for Maryam Rajavi.
Rajavi and her MEK members, incapable of making real relationships with outside bodies, are forced to pay for media coverage – through bribes, back handers or straightforward advert-articles. They went overboard to publish news in every second-rate news outlet in Albania that Ehsan Bidi had been deported from the country. Only, he hadn’t. So, Rajavi not only implicated herself in the conspiracy, but she had to try to retract these news items. The MEK websites were guiltily cleaned of these mentions of deportation.
But Rajavi’s biggest failure was that the fundamental message drilled into the brains of every MEK member is that if you leave you will be demonised and persecuted and forced back to Iran where you will be tortured and worse. Rajavi claims she is backed by everybody and can order Albania to do her bidding. She claims she can still do what she was doing in Iraq – force people back to Iran to be arrested on charges of terrorism. She claimed to be able to do the same thing in Albania.
Ehsan Bidi’s brave resistance, in Iraq and Albania, to Rajavi’s every effort to destroy him, along with the support he has from many, many quarters, has completely broken this spell. Now every MEK member knows that if Bidi can do this, so can they. Members are stuck there because of the ‘cult phobia’; fear of what might happen to them. Now they all know that they will be OK if they leave. Ehsan Bidi has completely exposed and demolished the false edifice of Rajavi’s control mechanism.
Ehsan Bidi is free and is happy. He resisted Rajavi’s worst and nastiest efforts to intimidate and crush him. He is now surrounded by friends and supporters. The Albanian government has fingers of blame pointing at it – not least from Greece and the EU accession negotiators, as well as the UNHCR and the ICRC. Rajavi is diminished – as a person, as a leader, even as a useful idiot. Bidi is considering his options. He will look into legal redress and compensation. He is also planning challenging Albania’s media to tell the truth about these events and the characters involved. There may even be a Hollywood film – maybe.
Iran Interlink Weekly Digest – Aug 14, 2020 – Rajavi House of Cards Destroyed By Ehsan Bidi
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Also read:
https://iran-interlink.org/wordpress/ehsan-bidi-victim-of-mek-and-albanian-government-collusion/
Ehsan Bidi Victim of MEK and Albanian Government Collusion
Iran Interlink, August 13 2020:… Although Ehsan Bidi was officially free, elements in the Albanian government’s mafia apparatus and the US, Israeli, and Saudi embassies that the MEK had approached, prevented them from giving him this freedom, and were instead constantly trying to force him to leave Albania. Finally, today he was taken in a car to the Greek border. Greek border guards prevented their car from entering Greece, completely closing the border. Consequently, the Albanian government agents left Bidi in a completely uninhabited area between the two counties with his belongings but without any food or water. This is the last point at which there has been news of Ehsan Bidi. Ehsan Bidi Victim of MEK and Albanian Government Collusion
A Step Further Than Saddam Hussein!
Ehsan Bidi Victim of MEK and Albanian Government Collusion
The Rajavi Cult in collaboration with corrupt elements in the Albanian government against an Iranian asylum seeker
Why are the MEK and the Albanian government so afraid of Ehsan Bidi?
Iranian asylum seeker Ehsan Bidi has been illegally detained for a year without charge, without trial and without the right to visitation. This was after he had previously been accepted as a refugee in Albania and even had a residence and work permit.
Ever since Ehsan Bidi, a former member of the Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization, was arrested, he has been under intense pressure to leave Albania voluntarily, but he resisted and refused to sign any confession. The pressure of the Albanian government, in full cooperation with the MEK, on the one hand, and the efforts of lawyers and a number of Albanian citizens who were constantly threatened by MEK elements, on the other hand, marked the battle of captivity and freedom during one year.
It is interesting that the same officials who arrested Ehsan Bidi and kept him in prison illegally are now accused of corruption, bribery and illegal actions in several cases. These corrupt officials worked in full complicity with the Rajavi terrorist cult.
#MaryamRajavi and her terrorist #MEK has forced @SanderLleshaj to deport Ehsan Bidi because he denounced the Mojahedin-e Khalq group for its terrorist and illegal activities in Albania. Please ask Albania to stop its discrimination of MEK defectors! pic.twitter.com/yagSgZ05sn
— Ebrahim Khodabandeh (@ebi_khodabandeh) August 12, 2020
Today, Thursday 13 August 2020, Ehsan Bidi was finally released after a year of illegal detention. In this regard, the Rajavi cult, which considered itself the main loser, under the name of “Security and Counter-Terrorism Commission of the National Council of Resistance”, revealed its weakness and false rhetoric by labelling every person and agency that had supported Bidi as ‘Iran’s intelligence agents’.
Although Ehsan Bidi was officially free, elements in the Albanian government’s mafia apparatus and the US, Israeli, and Saudi embassies that the MEK had approached, prevented them from giving him this freedom, and were instead constantly trying to force him to leave Albania. Finally, today he was taken in a car to the Greek border.
Greek border guards prevented their car from entering Greece, completely closing the border. Consequently, the Albanian government agents left Bidi in a completely uninhabited area between the two counties with his belongings but without any food or water. This is the last point at which there has been news of Ehsan Bidi.
Ehsan Bidi was left in the neutral zone between Albania and Greece without the slightest means of helping himself. It has been essentially proven that the corrupt elements in the government of Edi Rama and his Saudi and Zionist supporters are no better than the Rajavi cult, and they are all involved in committing crimes.
The Greek authorities announced that they have closed the border and prevented them from entering. Lawyers and former MEK members in Albania, and even members of the Albanian parliament and a number of journalists, are trying to locate Ehsan and return him back to Albania, and some have travelled to the border for this purpose.
Terror has gripped Rajavi’s criminal den. Whenever this criminal and treacherous cult talks about a terrorist conspiracy, it is clear that it is itself carrying out a terrorist conspiracy. What will an organization that does this to its helpless former member simply because he has expressed dissatisfaction, do with serious opponents and critics? With each passing day, the hands of these evil elements, who are hired by one of the enemies of Iran and Iranians time to time, become more and more exposed.
Ehsan Bidi Victim of MEK and Albanian Government Collusion
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MEK Families Petition Addressing Albanian PM , A Unique Opportunity To Take Control
Anne Khodabandeh, Iranian.com, May 12 2020:… A petition addressed to Albania’s Prime Minister Edi Rama has reached over ten thousand signatures. The petition was created by estranged families who need help to contact their loved ones trapped in the Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK) cult’s closed camp ‘Ashraf 3’ in Albania. The families are demanding that PM Rama ensures they get this contact. Now with the global coronavirus pandemic affecting Albania as elsewhere, they are even more urgently concerned to have news about the fate of their loved ones. MEK Families Petition Addressing Albanian PM , A Unique Opportunity To Take Control
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MEK Families Petition Addressing Albanian PM , A Unique Opportunity To Take Control
Coronavirus gives Albanian PM Edi Rama unique opportunity to control MEK
A petition addressed to Albania’s Prime Minister Edi Rama has reached over ten thousand signatures. The petition was created by estranged families who need help to contact their loved ones trapped in the Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK) cult’s closed camp ‘Ashraf 3’ in Albania. The families are demanding that PM Rama ensures they get this contact. Now with the global coronavirus pandemic affecting Albania as elsewhere, they are even more urgently concerned to have news about the fate of their loved ones.
The families have tried for decades to find ways to have news of their relatives – including taking the dangerous journey to the gates of MEK’s Camp Ashraf in Iraq after the 2003 defeat of Saddam Hussein. The MEK’s policy of forced divorce and separation of families has meant this has not been possible. It was hoped that the move to the more open western country Albania might give the families a better chance to visit their loved ones. Unfortunately, after 2016, the Trump administration allowed the MEK to corral the ordinary members back inside a closed and isolated camp in Manez, Durres county, where they are kept incommunicado.
In addition to the Trump administration’s support for the MEK, the government of Albania also capitulated to the MEK leaders’ demands, turning a blind eye to the conditions of modern slavery which characterise this group. Indeed, although they are said to be refugees, neither the government of Albania nor the UNHCR take any responsibility for the MEK members. Ex-members appealing for help are told by the UNHCR and the Interior Ministry that their existence in Albania is governed by an agreement that allows the MEK to take charge of all the people transferred from Iraq; they are entirely reliant on support from the MEK itself. This suits leader Maryam Rajavi very well. It is imperative for her to exert total control over the members since she has re-purposed her former combatants in Iraq to keyboard warriors in Albania where the MEK now runs a notorious click farm. Rajavi does whatever she can to prevent the members from leaving, no matter their state of health or willingness to work.
In the petition, the families – the elderly parents, siblings, cousins and children of the members – have appealed to Edi Rama to be granted visas to travel to Albania to search for their loved ones. These have so far been refused. But preventing the members from having contact with their families is just one element in a panoply of tactics designed to prevent defections. The MEK members have been denied the identity papers, travel documents and work permits which would enable them to live independently. This means that those who have managed to leave the MEK cannot work, cannot get a driving license and cannot even open a bank account to allow their families to transfer funds to cover their basic sustenance. These conditions of forced dependence are all part of a deliberate scheme to close every possible door to help from outside the MEK.
Municipal workers in Manez, Durres county | Photo credit: Gjergji Thanasi from Manez, Albania
But the blatant human rights and justice implications of hosting a slave camp on its territory that has been largely swept under the carpet by corrupt politicians and media in Albania, has now become an urgent matter because of the coronavirus pandemic. The MEK members did not choose to live in Albania but were brought en masse under an agreement between the MEK, U.S., Albania and the UNHCR. Once in Albania they were herded into the camp and kept isolation there. In Albania, there is a refusal at government and local level to acknowledge them as individual people and grant them rights – they are dealt with only as a group.
According to investigative journalist Gjergji Thanasi, who reports from Durres county where MEK is based, and where the worst of the coronavirus outbreak has been recorded, the Albanian Ministry of Health “deals with Camp Ashraf 3 as if it does not exist. There is not a single line in the Durres Municipality health officials’ paperwork written about the camp and its residents. No Albanian health official has ever entered the camp.” The group is therefore inaccessible and unaccountable. This means that no matter how hard epidemiologists may be working to trace the contacts of positive cases throughout the country, the MEK will not submit to allow Health Ministry staff inside the camp to test or treat the individuals there. Based on its past behaviour, the MEK is also unlikely to register deaths inside the camp as COVID-19 related as this would itself force the involvement of the local health authorities. This makes the group an unsafe entity for the general citizenship of Albania and in particular the residents of Manez and the greater Durres county, the epicentre for the virus in that country.
This is a thorny issue for PM Rama. On one hand he must kowtow to the demands of the Trump administration which continues to support the MEK. President Trump and Secretary of State Pompeo have been happy to use MEK disinformation and propaganda emanating from the troll farm in Camp Ashraf to boost their anti-Iran agendas. On the other hand, Albania’s aspirations to join the European Union are hampered in part by the MEK presence there. The EU’s tolerance of the MEK ran out in 2018 when an alleged bomb plot brought the MEK’s conflict with Iran to the heart of Europe, forcing France, Belgium, Denmark and Germany to look afresh at the security implications of allowing the MEK a free rein in their countries. As a result, MEK leader Maryam Rajavi was obliged to relocate to a new headquarters in Albania, and MEK activities in the EU were severely curtailed, particularly public demonstrations and gatherings. As long as the MEK remain in Albania, the EU will not accept them returning through the back door by allowing Albania to join the union.
In a strange way then, the pandemic offers an opportunity for PM Rama to address this issue once and for all. To deal with the MEK not as a political or terrorist problem but instead as a social problem. The petition of the families points to an obvious solution to this problem: allow the families of MEK members to make contact with them and help them individually. But this relies on the acknowledgement of government that MEK poses a threat to Albanian society, along with the willingness to deal decisively with them. This is possible. But will PM Rama have the courage and wisdom to take this opportunity?
MEK Families Petition Addressing Albanian PM , A Unique Opportunity To Take Control
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Olsi Jazexhi, Anne Khodabandeh, May 04 2020:… Rajavi House of Cards Destroyed By Ehsan Bidi Ehsan Bidi Victim of MEK and Albanian Government Collusion Dr. Olsi Jazexhi discusses with Anne Khodabandeh a petition that an Iranian NGO, Nejat Society has sent to the Prime Minister of Albania, Edi Rama. This petition which is being signed by thousands of persons in Iran and in the world asks the Albanian government to issue visas for Iranian families who want… MEK Families Petition Addressing Albanian PM Ehsan Bidi Victim of MEK and Albanian Government Collusion Rajavi House of Cards Destroyed By Ehsan Bidi – Iran Interlink Weekly Digest
Tehran Times, April 26 2020:… Rajavi House of Cards Destroyed By Ehsan Bidi Ehsan Bidi Victim of MEK and Albanian Government Collusion U.S. President Donald Trump has shared an appreciative tweet for his anti-Iran policies by a fake account belonging to the terrorist group of Mojahedin-e-Khalq (MEK). The tweet, posted by Heshmat Alavi on Wednesday, read: “The mullahs’ regime ruling #Iran harasses UN Navy ships for propaganda purposes.” “Thank you, President Trump, for reminding this regime that… MEK Families Petition Addressing Albanian PM Ehsan Bidi Victim of MEK and Albanian Government Collusion Rajavi House of Cards Destroyed By Ehsan Bidi – Iran Interlink Weekly Digest
Ali Harb, Middle East Eye, April 25 2020:… Rajavi House of Cards Destroyed By Ehsan Bidi Ehsan Bidi Victim of MEK and Albanian Government Collusion The US president’s post was celebrated by an MEK-linked account. Trump retweeted that response, taking a dig at the presumptive Democratic nominee, former vice president Joe Biden. “The mullahs’ regime ruling Iran harasses UN [sic] Navy ships for propaganda purposes,” Heshmat Alavi, a popular MEK-linked Twitter account, responded to Trump’s post. “Thank… MEK Families Petition Addressing Albanian PM Ehsan Bidi Victim of MEK and Albanian Government Collusion Rajavi House of Cards Destroyed By Ehsan Bidi – Iran Interlink Weekly Digest
Anne and Massoud Khodabandeh, Balkans Post, March 29 2020:… Rajavi House of Cards Destroyed By Ehsan Bidi Ehsan Bidi Victim of MEK and Albanian Government Collusion But, as destructive as the MEK presence has been in Albania, the group has inevitably played a greater role in the West’s confrontation against Iran. In June 2019, Murtaza Hussain of The Intercept revealed that an internet troll farm was operating from the MEK’s closed camp in Manez. The enslaved members, sitting behind… MEK Families Petition Addressing Albanian PM Ehsan Bidi Victim of MEK and Albanian Government Collusion Rajavi House of Cards Destroyed By Ehsan Bidi – Iran Interlink Weekly Digest
Iran Interlink, March 08 2020:… Rajavi House of Cards Destroyed By Ehsan Bidi Ehsan Bidi Victim of MEK and Albanian Government Collusion For the last two weeks the MEK has been working hard on damage limitation over the New York Times article. Those answering back against the MEK point out that all the MEK’s attacks are against the reporter. The only thing MEK says is that ‘because the NYT published this, the regime will come and kill… MEK Families Petition Addressing Albanian PM Ehsan Bidi Victim of MEK and Albanian Government Collusion Rajavi House of Cards Destroyed By Ehsan Bidi – Iran Interlink Weekly Digest
Anne Khodabandeh (Singleton) , Iranian.com, March 01 2020:… Rajavi House of Cards Destroyed By Ehsan Bidi Ehsan Bidi Victim of MEK and Albanian Government Collusion From its first arrival in Albania in 2013, the MEK continued its antagonistic anti-Iran political activities. In 2017, the Trump administration overturned plans to de-radicalize the MEK members. Instead, the MEK built an extra-territorial garrison to house the enslaved members so they wouldn’t escape. Emboldened, the MEK was able to coerce the… MEK Families Petition Addressing Albanian PM Ehsan Bidi Victim of MEK and Albanian Government Collusion Rajavi House of Cards Destroyed By Ehsan Bidi – Iran Interlink Weekly Digest
