March 28, 2024

Distinguishing between rumours and facts about the MEK

SCOOP INDEPENDENT NEWS

As the terrorist label of an Iranian opposition group, the Mujahedin-e-khalq (MEK), is up for review by the U.S. State Department, many Iran regime lobbyists in the United States have devoted themselves to prevent the delisting of this organisation. Why these pressure groups and lobbyists have so much against an Iranian opposition group that strives for a democratic Iran at first seems strange. But if we take a close look at the policy suggestions of these pressure groups, such as NIAC, for futile appeasement of the brutal religious dictatorship in Iran, then we begin to understand the special interests involved, further accentuated by direct and indirect Iranian regime funding of such groups and efforts to discredit the MEK.

Furthermore, the world media needs to be more critical in sourcing their news stories on the MEK and should avoid basing their reports on rumours and speculations when there are numerous sources of real information available about this opposition group. News media should present data, facts and structured arguments so that people can build their own opinion rather than being fed rumours. Regarding the MEK, there are numerous facts that need to be clarified which have been ignored or overseen during the past months’ debates.

 Why is the MEK on the terrorist list to begin with? Rumours say that the organisation was involved in the killings of U.S. citizens in Iran in the 1970s, which is why the U.S. State Department has put the MEK on its list of foreign terrorist organisations. However, the facts tell a different story. Mr Martin Indyk, Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs in the Clinton Administration has said “[It] was White House interest in opening up a dialogue with the Iranian government. Top Administration officials saw cracking down on the [MEK], which the Iranians had made clear they saw as a menace, as one way to do so.” With this plan in mind, the U.S. State Department, under Secretary Madeleine Albright, issued a statement in 1997 stating the MEK as a terrorist organisation “as a gesture of good will to Tehran”, a senior administration official has said. The labelling of the MEK as a terrorist organisation by the U.K. and the EU was also requested by the Iranian regime (as confessed by the former British Foreign Minister Jack Straw) and implemented accordingly.

The MEK decided to dispute this allegation in court and in 2008 won the battle and were removed from the list of foreign terrorist organisation in the U.K. and later also in the EU. All courts concluded that there was no evidence supporting that this opposition group was a terrorist organisation. In 2010, a similar legal procedure in the U.S. ended with a federal court in Washington D.C. demanded the U.S. State Department remove the organisation from their list of foreign terrorist organisations.

The rumours about this opposition group are too often made-up stories and fake allegations. These allegations are very similar to those spouted by the Iranian regime during the post-election uprisings in 2009, where the Iranian government blamed the U.S. and the west to have initiated the uprising, and where they blamed BBC for the death of Ms. Neda Agha-Soltan.

One of the most infamous allegations against the MEK is that they are a cult. But the clearest evidence against the MEK being a cult is that they have a very wide support from and actively seeks to engage with society. Their supporters include people from all levels of society and walks of life including prominent artists, academics, lawyers and politicians. Their yearly rally in mid-June hosts more than 100,000 people from all over the globe that come to show their support for this Iranian movement and for the Iranian people.

Numerous politicians, lawyers and prominent people from the international human rights community have spoken at MEK events. Unfortunately, the latest accusation is that these people have been paid to speak on the behalf of the MEK. It is tiring to see this being written and interpreted as something shameful, when it is completely normal and according to all protocols to have expenses covered when invited to speak at symposiums, conferences and meetings; it is something which countless former U.S. officials and politicians do every day. This does not mean that the person has been paid to say specific things; just that he or she has been asked to speak their opinion.

Besides the process of delisting the MEK, new developments for the group are that the United Nation’s High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has finally come to an agreement with the residents of Camp Ashraf, where many MEK members reside, which enables them to apply for refugee status. A statement by the UNHCR says that “there is no formal requirement for individuals to disassociate themselves from the PMOI/MEK in order to apply for refugee status.” As the UNHCR at last agreed to allow the residents to keep their political rights, the residents of Camp Ashraf did not hesitate in applying for refugee status. This is a great step towards the safety of the opposition group and its members in Camp Ashraf. However, the situation in the camp is still urgent and needs immediate action.

The 3,400 Iranian MEK members that reside in this camp in Iraq have previously been attacked by Iraqi forces in at least two raids under which several unarmed residents of the camp were injured and killed. During the latest attack, in April 2011, United Nations officials confirmed the killing of 36 residents and wounding of hundreds. But despite condemnations of the Iraqi raid by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), the EU and various parliaments throughout the world, nothing has changed and the residents have been left in mortal danger and their supporters in fear of another attack.

While the UNHCR processes the 3,400 applications for refugee status the lives of the residents of this camp are still in danger and human rights abuses by Iraqi troops continue unabated. Prominent members of the international community suggest that the safety of the residents can be guaranteed if the UNHCR send a monitoring team to Ashraf in cooperation with UNAMI, as their presence would prevent future Iraqi raids and the killings of the residents. In fact, this is probably the only solution for the residents’ safety as guarantees from the Iraqis have proven empty.

The MEK has many supporters inside Iran, despite rumours stating otherwise, and the residents of Camp Ashraf have become a symbol of hope and freedom for many people. The largest sign is the massive effort and resources put down by the Iranian regime to destroy this movement, as they see it being a threat to the ruling mullahs. The Iranian regime has during the past 30 years fed anti-MEK propaganda to the people inside Iran such that it is punishable to use the organisations real name (MEK is called “Monafeghin” by the Iranian regime). Moreover, anybody who has visited Camp Ashraf or has MEK relatives is hunted down and can be imprisoned and even executed because of his or her ties to the organisation.

The rumours and misinformation about the MEK makes the situation for the residents in Camp Ashraf more vulnerable as the international community does not get to hear their side of the story and keep basing much of its reports on these fake allegations. This seems to be the aim of Iran and Iraq as the Iraqi forces are not allowing journalists to enter Camp Ashraf to speak to the residents and has set up electronic jamming devices to stop any communication with the camp. The delisting of the MEK is therefore critical since by keeping the MEK on the list of foreign terrorist organisations, the West is helping the Iranian regime justify the execution of MEK supporters inside Iran, the blockade of Camp Ashraf and future attacks on the 3400 unarmed MEK members in the camp. Above all, delisting is the only just outcome and the only one based on the evidence.

Iranian Political Prisoners: Don’t Mollify our Butchers!

INTELLECTUAL CONSERVATIVE

Iranian political prisoner Sadegh Sistani from the Iranian opposition organization MEK recently escaped. His report? “Hundreds waiting in the gallows while the UN-US welcomes their butcher.”
 
As the motorcade of the Iranian President, Ahmadinejad moved towards the UN General Assembly for a predicted venomous speech and a mockery of World conscience, Iranian state-controlled media announced a new toll of death sentences for a group of 54 activists.

The ruling Iranian regime is an oppressive one that mixes theocracy with autocracy and extreme expansionist ideology that continues to defy the international community. It has proven that it absolutely denies the people and even members of its elite any form of Freedom.
 
I took the opportunity to ask a prominent veteran Iranian political prisoner who escaped torture only last April about the situation of his fellow prisoners back in Iran.

Sadegh Sistani, escaped Iran after enduring years of imprisonment under the present regime.

“There are thousands of political prisoners packed in hundreds of prisons in Iran. Tens of families which include whole families at times affiliated to the MEK, are in deploring inhuman conditions. Women are volatile, and suffer the most. Sexual harassment and misuse have been routine for woman political prisoners. During the 1980 executions of hundreds of MEK affiliates, a Fatwa by Khomeini allowed rape of young girls in order to make sure their spirits would not go to heaven. (They believed that sinned girls would not be allowed to heaven).

Others had their blood drained before death according to a separate Fatwa. The present regime president, Ahmadinejad, was one of the tens of torturers in the notorious Evin prison at the time. He is now shaking hands with his official counterparts. It is the same hand who pulled the trigger that killed tens in executions according to living witnesses.”

Sadegh Sistani, continued explaining the present situation; “The brutality of this regime towards families of MEK in Iran has not limits. A young mother of three toddlers is still paying the price of the “terror tag.” Her name I will disclose for her protection. She was abducted from her house as her little ones were screaming out of fear. The mother was dragged away for no apparent reason and has been in prison since. Her interrogator, a notorious torturer of the 1980s ‘Salavati’ told her: “You are paying the price of your sister and brother (supporters of the MEK and executed earlier) *1. The interrogator had asked for her children’s presence so that they would “cry their hearts out” to give him relief!

Sistani said: “In a letter smuggled out, she has bravely disclosed her ordeal and appealed to ‘World Conscience’:

“This is a FREE country, and its President Ahmadinejad claims there is total FREEDOM, where Human Rights is respected and where people have no fear of persecution. Indeed, a country in which “Breathing and being ALIVE” is a CRIME.

A place in which, a mourning mother in black has no right to cry for the loss of her darlings. Indeed, it is a role model for Freedom and Democracy!

I know very well that by writing this letter, I am accepting the worst to come, but all I want to be to voice of the many innocent in these prisons, who are suffering the cost of appeasement with the mullahs.”

“There is always hope in the dark dungeons, where your voice is not heard, and all you have desired for seems remote. That hope builds on your perseverance and resolve to stand firm on all you ever lived for: Freedom.”
Mr. Sistani said: “As this mother of three, MEK supporter has written “HOPE’” is still there, but is this still a value for the US Administration and President Obama?”

The voice for change has been resonating in comments and speeches by US senior officials supporting the movement and its struggle to establish democracy in Iran.

Dr. Sarah Sewall from Harvard Kennedy School of Government elaborated the conflict of foreign policy interests and true American values during a symposium in Washington DC and said:

“What is interesting for me concerning the issue of Democracy and Human Rights in Iran is that often, for the United States we see a significant conflict in our foreign policy between the values that America has held dear and, indeed, was founded upon and the interests of the United States of America as it plots its foreign policy and manages the affairs of state. The extraordinary issue is values, and interests are joined in a common framework for approaching the questions of Iran and democracy and human rights. Such clash in the conduct of foreign policy; so often leading to inconsistency; reversals of fortune, charges of hypocrisy; has now actually an opportunity to be reconciled.”She referred to a “third way’” in the approach towards Iran.

Published in the New York Post, a recent appeal, by dozens of senior US officials to UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon to “Save Ashraf Now,” Human Rights has been the prior concern amidst all other pragmatic and long-term interests.

We in America may have very different views about the relative success and the cost-benefit trade-off of that kind of an approach, bearing in mind Iraq-Afghanistan experience and its unintended consequences. The “third Option” argued for the past years by the MEK is the inevitable remedy.

The “Third Option” was offered by the Opposition movement years ago as an anti-thesis to “War” or “appeasement” mostly propagated by counter and pro Iranian Lobbyists in Capitol Hill. It simply leaves the complex and expensive challenge of resolving the clerical extremism, to the Iranian resistance movement and the Iranian people.

Gen.Shelton in a symposium in Washington said: “The MEK is the most formidable opposition to the regime in Tehran. It has challenged the worlds leading state sponsor of terrorism for the past 32 years and provides hope for the current Iranian people. It provides a degree of hope that far exceeds anything else that we or our allies can offer short of direct intervention.”

So what more is left and why is there no change in the country while others in the region will follow the Gale of democratic change?

The Reuters reported, “’The opposition (green movement) is leaderless and lacks any strategy.. is following the Arab uprisings with a mixture of envies and regret for its own failure.” The spirited youths who marched the streets during the 2009 uprisings were betrayed by Moussavi as he cowed to the Supreme Leader. They are pinning hope on yet a more reliable handle to grab.

However, there is a barrier that has blocked their path.

The US Foreign List of Terrorist Organization has for long favored the Ayatollahs in Tehran by enchaining the only remaining organized and capable movement.

“The List is a direct handshake with our butchers in Iran. The Mullahs managed to massacre 120,000 of MEK supporters through a fatwa. The organization was the exact anti-thesis to the clerical fascists in Iran. They believed in a tolerant Islam that based “Democracy and Peace” as its corner stone for progress and social change. It promoted complete Gender Equality, which is the landmark for any progressive society. Women from the leadership Council in the movement and recently in a democratic election, a new Secretary General was polled by members.” Said Sistani.

Ironically, as much as the clerical regime is misogynous in nature, it is an organization with “Women Leadership” which is the fear of its life and is an existential threat.

As Sistani takes a deep breath, he insisted on fatal repercussions of the enlisting:

“Keeping the 45-year-old movement in the US list, has provided a good excuse for both the Mullahs and Maliki to kill, hang and massacre us anywhere and when possible. It has enchained our ability to be used to reveal and prevent ongoing vile Human Right violations by the mullahs. It has simply put the US on the side of our butchers.”

 

Delisting MEK is good for Iran, the US, and the civilised family of nations

In regards to the legal issue of removal of the MEK (the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran) off the US list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTO), numerous court rulings in the United Kingdom and the European Union well as the US Federal Court have laid down the legal grounds to delist the MEK. Let’s now consider the moral and political grounds for delisting MEK.

The pre-mediaeval tyranny ruling Iran not only is the No. One Clear and Present Danger to the Iranian nation and its neighbours, it’s the foremost state-sponsor of terrorism globally having used its bought or set-up terrorist outposts throughout the Middle East and beyond to murder thousands of American, British, French and other nations’ citizens and soldiers in terrorist outrages.

Tehran’s role in the 9/11 terrorist barbarity also came to light with the 2004Congressional Report. Furthermore, the Washington Times on July 28th reported that the Obama administration had accused the Iranian regime of entering into a “secret deal” with an Al Qaeda offshoot that provides money and recruits for attacks in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The US Treasury has said exposing the secret agreement would disrupt terrorist operations by shedding light on the Iranian regime’s role as a “critical transit point” for money and extremists reaching Afghanistan and Pakistan. Many reports have also been published by top US military leaders in Iraq of the regime’s active backing of terrorists by all means possible. This dangerously murderous regime is now hastily speeding toward the atomic bomb regardless of the UN and the Security Council’s demands for transparency and non-evasive and non-deceitful co-operation.

Even though it was Iraq who invaded Iran, the founder of the theocratic fascism, the mullah Khomeini, instigated the war against its Western neighbour by its expansionist policies, and was the party which rejected all peace proposals. The regime’s “export of revolution” led to millions of dead and injured on both sides.

What is still not quite grasped, however, is the fact that the Iran tyrant rulers sent hundreds of thousands of innocent but brainwashed Iranians including tens of thousands of children to their death during his expansionist and aggressive operations into Iraq. In addition, this repugnant regime has most barbarically raped, tortured and murdered tens of thousands of democracy activists (mainly members and sympathizers of the MEK).

It’s clear that on legal as well as moral and political grounds, the civilised family of nations cannot afford the dire consequences of the continued and the reckless terrorist designation of the MEK as a first step in freeing the hands of the main organized opposition movement in Iran in its four-decade long struggle to bring democracy and peace to that tortured land and end Tehran’s diabolical nuclear ambitions.

EU names adviser to help resolve Camp Ashraf issue

REUTERS

BRUSSELS – The European Union has named a senior Belgian diplomat to work with the United Nations, Iraq and others to help resolve the plight of more than 3,000 opponents of the Iranian government living at a camp in Iraq.

Jean De Ruyt, a former Belgian ambassador to the EU, will act as an adviser to EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton on Camp Ashraf, a spokesman for Ashton said on Monday.

The camp, some 65 km (40 miles) from Baghdad, is the base of the People’s Mujahideen Organisation of Iran (PMOI), which mounted attacks on Iran before the U.S.-led removal of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein in 2003.

The future of its more than 3,000 residents became uncertain after the United States, which considers the PMOI a terrorist organisation, turned the camp over to the Iraqi government.

Baghdad plans to close it before the end of this year and Ashraf has been the scene of bloody clashes between residents and the Iraqi security forces.

The rights group Amnesty International says the residents are subject to harassment by the Iraqi government and denied access to basic medicine. More than 30 residents were killed in a clash with Iraqi security forces in April.

De Ruyt will liaise with EU states and organisations including the United Nations, Ashton’s spokesman said.

He said the European Union, which removed the PMOI from its terrorism list in 2009, wanted a high-level diplomatic approach.

“We need a peaceful and realistic solution and the security and safety of residents is the priority,” he said.

Washington has proposed moving Ashraf residents temporarily to a new location in Iraq but they have rejected this, saying it would lead to a massacre.

Struan Stevenson, head of the European Parliament delegation on Iraq, called De Ruyt’s appointment an “apparent breakthrough.”

“The unarmed, civilian residents of Camp Ashraf have suffered years of psychological torture and harassment at the hands of the Iraqi government, aided and abetted by their sponsors in Tehran,” he said in a statement.

“The appointment of Ambassador De Ruyt … has underlined the seriousness of this issue. I look forward to working with him to ensure that we can avoid a Srebrenica-style catastrophe occurring at Ashraf,” he said, referring to the 1996 massacre of Muslims by Bosnian Serb forces in the former Yugoslavia.

Stevenson said the United Nations was assessing the 3,400 residents for refugee status and the intention was to resettle them in EU states and third countries, but this process could not be completed by year-end. He called the Iraqi deadline to close the camp “ludicrous.”

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2011/09/26/uk-iraq-ashraf-eu-idUKTRE78P24820110926

EU joins bid to help end Iraqi Camp Ashraf standoff

AGENCE FRANCE PRESSE

EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton has appointed an advisor to mull over the fate of thousands of outlawed Iranians facing expulsion from a camp in Iraq, their home for 30 years.

Catherine Ashton, EU foreign policy chief

A spokesman for Ashton said Monday that Jean De Ruyt, Belgium’s former ambassador to the EU, will act in Brussels “as an advisor on the European Union’s response” to Camp Ashraf, located near the border with Iran and home to some 3,400 Iranian dissidents.

The camp, which has become a mounting international problem, has been in the spotlight since an April raid by Iraqi security left 34 dead and scores injured, triggering sharp condemnation. Iraq wants its closure by year’s end.

It was set up when Iraq and Iran were at war in the 1980s by the then Iranian People’s Mujahedeen and later came under US control until January 2009, when US forces transferred security for the camp to Iraq.

Maryam Rajavi, head of the dissidents, the National Council of Resistance of Iran, on Monday called for the new nominee to visit Ashraf and to demand Iraq drop its bid to close the camp by the end of 2011.

And in a statement, the head of a European parliament group on Iraq, MEP Struan Stevenson, said “Ambassador De Ruyt should visit Ashraf as soon as possible.”

Stevenson said the camp’s residents were being assessed individually by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees after applying for refugee status, which would allow them to resettle elsewhere.

“This major operation cannot be completed within the timescale set by Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki,” he added, referring to the December 31 deadline for closure.

 

What Ahmadinejad Didn’t Say

THE HUFFINGTON POST

Once again, Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has used the United Nations podium to churn out his misinformation and half-truths. And once again, the American media accepted his invitation for a fancy luncheon afterwards, enabling a ruthless murderer to wage his not-so-charm offensive. Apparently, some media outlets just want Ahmadinejad to say something, anything, as long as they get their story.

Children at an anti-Ahmadinejad rally outside the UN headquarters stomp on a poster of the controversial Iranian president before he is scheduled to speak at the UN General Assembly, Thursday, Sept. 22, 2011, in the Manhattan borough of New York. A few hundred demonstrators turned out to hear former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge and former UN Ambassador John Bolton speak. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)

Has no one learned anything from the free passes provided to Ahmadinejad’s allies, such as Moammar Qaddafi of Libya and Bashar Assad of Syria?

Ahmadinejad allocated almost the entirety of his speech to just about anything unrelated to the clerical rulers of Iran. He talked about flooding in Pakistan, famine in Somalia, how a large percentage of the world’s population earns so little, and how a small percentage of the world’s population has so much. Sounds pretty good, doesn’t it?

Next he took on an authoritative posture, portraying himself as an engineer who knows that the two planes that hit the Twin Towers could not have brought those buildings down. (Huh!) Of course, one might wonder when he practiced his sophisticated engineering skills, in that he has spent pretty much all of his adult life first as a chief thug, organizing hooligans to attack and beat up students in the early days after the revolution, then as a notorious torturer in Evin prison, and later as a commander of the terrorist Qods Force during the Iran-Iraq war.

But what is more important is what Ahmadinejad did not address. He addressed numerous problems around the world, held America responsible for much of the world’s misery, but did not talk about the Arab Spring; no mention of Libya, Syria, Egypt, Tunisia, Bahrain, or Yemen.

He attacked world powers for intervening in other countries’ affairs, but stayed off the topic of his Revolutionary Guards’ helping Bashar Assad to violently suppress the revolt in Syria; and avoided details of how his regime used violence, bribery, intimidation, and blackmail to put Iraq’s defeated Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki back in office and deny the winning candidate, Ayad Allawi, a substantive role in the political process in Iraq.

Nor did he mention his use of proxies in the Iraqi Government to kill dozens of Iranian dissidents and former political prisoners who had taken refuge across the border in Camp Ashraf, Iraq in 2009 and 2011. No wonder that while most of the delegations left the General Assembly Hall when Ahmadinejad started speaking, the Iraqi delegation remained, cheering him on.

Ahmadinejad expressed concern about three billion people in the world not earning enough to live, but failed to mention the fact that as many as 80 percent of the Iranian population live below the poverty line; the official figures put it at 55 percent. He attacked the West for making exorbitant profits, but said nothing about his own closest allies in Iran, the ruling clerics and their cronies, who are plundering billions of dollars, dominating the nation’s industry, and running or taking a cut from all business in the country.

And lastly, he said nothing about the rising rate of executions in Iran, this year’s numbers close to 490 so far, higher even than last year. Since he spoke at the last General Assembly session, his State Security Forces and the Iranian Judiciary have sentenced to death or already executed more Iranian dissidents whose only crime was peaceful participation in the anti-government demonstrations in Iran.

But let’s not be picky about the facts. Especially since again this year, prominent American media were invited to a fancy lunch after his ranting at the UN, for a taste of more of his rhetoric. The attendees are expected to throw him soft balls, and some went so far as to praise Ahmadinejad for being impressive, “well-prepared,” and speaking “confidently.”

But while Ahmadinejad spoke inside the UN, and hosted some journalists, the story outside was very different. He may be able to suppress the voices of dissent in Iran, escalate violence in Iraq, help Assad quash dissent in Syria, and defy international demands to desist enriching uranium, but in New York he was confronted by thousands of Iranian-Americans, who called him a murderer and insisted that he is not representative of the Iranian people.

That should have grabbed the headlines.

Alireza Jafarzadeh is author of ‘The Iran Threat’.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alireza-jafarzadeh/ahmadinejad-un-speech_b_978812.html

Protesters rally against Iranian leader outside UN

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Demonstrators rally outside the UN headquarters to protest against controversial Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad before he is scheduled to speak at the UN General Assembly, Thursday, Sept. 22, 2011, in the Manhattan borough of New York. Former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge and former UN Ambassador John Bolton were among the speakers at the event. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)

NEW YORK, (AP) — Former United Nations ambassador John Bolton said Thursday that the Obama administration is doing “almost nothing” to protect Iranians from the violence of their own regime — as represented at the U.N. by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Minutes before Ahmadinejad addressed the annual U.N. General Assembly, about 1,000 Iranian-Americans staged a protest rally in nearby Dag Hammarskjold Plaza.

Children stomped on a poster of Ahmadinejad among banners that covered the pavement. “Down With the Islamic Republic of Iran,” read one.

Bolton, who served as ambassador during George W. Bush’s presidency, told The Associated Press that the United States had failed to stop Iran from torturing and killing its own people.

“We expect that our commitment to the people of Iran is going to be upheld,” he said. “Right now, the Obama administration is doing almost nothing.”

Former UN Ambassador John Bolton speaks to the crowds at an anti-Ahmadinejad rally outside the UN headquarters before the controversial Iranian president is scheduled to speak at the UN General Assembly, Thursday, Sept. 22, 2011, in the Manhattan borough of New York. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)

He said this week’s release of two American hikers held for years by Iran was what he called “just Broadway theater.”

Some protesters were draped in the Iranian flag, while others hoisted yellow flags representing Iran’s political opposition led by Maryam Rajavi, head of the Paris-based National Council of Resistance of Iran.

Protesters say tens of thousands of the opposition group’s supporters in Iran have been executed by the regime.

Speaking live from Paris via satellite on a giant television screen, Rajavi told the crowd that Ahmadinejad does not represent the Iranian people.

She urged the U.N. and the U.S. to stand with the Iranian people and their organized opposition, including more than 3,000 U.N.-defined refugees in Camp Ashraf in Iraq, which was attacked twice, with 47 killed and about 1,000 wounded.

“There is no doubt today that the United States has clearly abandoned its international obligations toward Camp Ashraf,” Rajavi said.

Former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge speaks to the crowds at an anti-Ahmadinejad rally outside the UN headquarters before the controversial Iranian president is scheduled to speak at the UN General Assembly, Thursday, Sept. 22, 2011, in the Manhattan borough of New York. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)

While addressing protesters, former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge said he agreed with Bolton that the U.S. government’s policy toward Iran is inadequate — especially in how it treats the MEK, or People’s Mujahedin of Iran that is the main component of Rajavi’s resistance group.

The U.S. State Department lists it as a terrorist organization, while supporters say the group opposes Ahmadinejad.

As the nation’s first head of homeland security after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, Ridge said he started every day with a list of potential threats against the United States.

“Never, not once, among hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of potential terrorist threats, did I ever see the MEK as a terrorist organization,” said Ridge, who also served under Bush. “It’s about time we took them off the list.”

That position was echoed by many of the protesters, including one group busy assembling cardboard rolls into a “cage” symbolizing the one that held former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak at his trial. Inside was a man wearing a mask resembling Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Demonstrators rally outside the U.N. headquarters to protest against controversial Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad before he is scheduled to speak at the U.N. General Assembly, Thursday, Sept. 22, 2011, in New York. Former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge and former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton were among the speakers at the event. Demonstrators hold pictures of Massoud Rajavi, president of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, and his wife Maryam Rajavi. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)

“We hope that Khameini will be in a cage like this soon, to be tried for crimes against humanity,” said Farid Ashkan, 55, an Iranian-born New York dentist.

At the entrance to the plaza, a same-sex “wedding” was staged mocking the alliance of Syria and Iran. A protester posing as ousted Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi presided over the ceremony, with yellow cake served to onlookers, representing the uranium used to make nuclear weapons.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2011/09/22/national/a102622D80.DTL#ixzz1YoUmDyMN

Will U.N. Chief Ban Ki-Moon Do the Right Thing and Protect Iranian Dissidents?

FoxNews.com

Each September, like clockwork, a bestiary of the world’s worst rogues and criminal heads of state arrive at the U.N. building on First Avenue to join in the organization’s opening of the 193-member United Nations General Assembly.  

Protestors gathered outside United Nations headquarters in New York to protest the appearance of Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad at the UN General Assembly. New York, USA. 22nd September 2011

This season, the winner of the contest for “greatest rogue with diplomatic immunity” is, once again, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran – a president with blood on his hands and nukes in his dreams who will get his 8″ by 10” glossy photograph of a handshake with U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon–and a P.R. platform supported by U.S. tax dollars. 

Despite Ahmadinejad’s infamy as a Holocaust denier and his wild-eyed claim that the September 11 terrorist attacks were a Western conspiracy, it’s a banner year for the Mullahs’ regime, with the Iranian ambassador soon to be seated as vice president of the U.N. General Assembly.

Unfortunately, such diplomatic bon-bons are available only to heads of state, and not to their victims.For the grieving relatives of thousands of Iranian dissidents who have been killed by the Iranian Mullahs — both in jail and during peaceful demonstrations in the streets of Teheran — there will be no photo opportunity at the U.N.

Other Iranian dissidents, in the United States and Europe, are also shut out of these rarefied U.N. precincts — despite their high status in the West as university professors, medical specialists, and entrepreneurs.

The reason is simple: these successful Iranian-American and Iranian-European dissidents have asked that the world organization and its Secretary General protect their less fortunate relatives who are currently held captive at a threatened place in Iraq called Camp Ashraf.

They are, quite simply, trying to prevent a bloodbath, but that is not high on the U.N. agenda. Twice in the last 14 months, Iraqi military forces have attacked the 3,400 unarmed residents at the Ashraf camp — using U.S.-supplied military equipment — killing dozens of unarmed protesters and wounding hundreds more. Iraq will likely soon attack again, and use their cache of automatic weapons originally supplied by the U.S. to build the Iraqi army, to finish off the camp inhabitants — despite the 2004 U.S. promise to them of a protected status as unarmed civilians under the Geneva Conventions.

The reason for this crime is simple: Iraq’s Shia prime minister Nouri al-Maliki wants to prove his usefulness to Teheran, and the Ashraf residents are anti-Mullah activists. Despite this imminent danger, the American family members of Ashraf victims have not been allowed to see the U.N. Secretary General — even for a symbolic moment — amidst his chockablock schedule of handshakes and photo-ops with creatures like Ahmadinejad.

The rebuff comes even though the Ashraf residents and their allies have supplied the international community with much of the key intelligence about the location and progress of the Iranian regime’s program to build a nuclear bomb.

How would the Secretary General explain to these desperate families why the U.N. diplomatic mission in Iraq rarely visits the camp and does not bear witness when attacks are mounted against the unarmed residents, including young women and children? 

Maliki has now announced that after December 31, Iraqi military forces will dismantle Camp Ashraf and scatter the dissidents around Iraq – for a fate easily imagined.

The Secretary General has an opportunity to use his moral platform wisely at the General Assembly, to show some courage and demand that Maliki postpone this “drop dead” deadline, so that the international community has time to work out a happier solution than the one Maliki and Tehran are preparing for the residents of Camp Ashraf, Iraq.

The United States Congress has been aghast at the U.N.’s inaction, on both sides of the aisle. House of Representatives Foreign Affairs committee chairman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Florida cut her teeth fighting Fidel Castro and has made Camp Ashraf a personal issue. Texas Congressman Ted Poe has linked UN appropriations to the demand for protection of Ashraf. 

Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee — who hailed from Jamaica, Queens, across the river from the United Nations, before she moved to Texas — is equally adamant. Senator John Kerry and Congressman Howard Berman have also condemned the violence against Camp Ashraf in the strongest terms.

The U.S. currently contributes over $6 billion a year to the U.N. at a time of record-high unemployment, skyrocketing deficits, crushing debt, and great economic challenges to our citizens. Ban Ki-moon’s obtuse snub of the Ashraf victims may provoke the Congress to snub the delivery of U.S. dollars to Turtle Bay. Even as the Secretary General talks about the “responsibility to protect” as the U.N.’s new motto, he has refused to give it teeth.

Yet it is within Ban Ki-moon’s power, by the stroke of a pen, to appoint a U.N. Special Representative for Ashraf who will travel to the camp and report on its daily condition.

It is within his power to demand an immediate meeting with Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki, not to exchange diplomatic niceties but to deliver a warning that the international community will not tolerate another attack on the camp.

And it is within Ban Ki-moon’s power to openly express his support for the dissidents in Iran and Iraq who have opposed the brutal regime of the Mullahs.

The American relatives of the Ashraf hostages are also asking the Secretary General and the U.N. mission to hire private security guards — which they will pay for — in order to protect the camp’s residents and escort the Secretary General’s representative for Ashraf. Though the U.S. pays 27 percent of U.N. peacekeeping bills, this will not require any financial contribution from the U.S. or the U.N.

And finally, it is within Ban Ki-moon’s power to tell Maliki that the December 31 deadline for the relocation of Ashraf camp residents must be postponed, for so far, they have nowhere else to go. And let’s be clear: when Maliki says deadline, he emphasizes “dead.” Ban Ki-moon could do all this. The question is whether he has the fortitude and simple decency to act boldly and to save the lives of these unarmed men, women and children of Ashraf.

Michael B. Mukasey, a former federal judge, served as Attorney General of the United States from 2007-09. Ruth Wedgwood is a member of the Hoover Institution Task Force on Law and National Security and a former member of the United Nations Human Rights Committee.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2011/09/22/will-un-chief-ban-ki-moon-do-right-thing-and-meet-with-iraqs-maliki/#ixzz1YodX8VmB

Iran’s Seat Does Not Belong to Clerical Rulers

 THE HUFFINGTON POST

On Wednesday, September 21, Iran’s state-run media announced that the two American hikers held in Iran, Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal, were being released after more than two years in custody, just in time for Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s speech at the UN the following day. Not coincidentally, the third hiker, Sarah Shourd, was released a year ago just before Ahmadinejad’s last UN speech.

Alireza Jafarzadeh is the author of 'The Iran Threat: President Ahmadinejad and the Coming Nuclear Crisis'

Ahmadinejad brazenly claimed that both releases were “humanitarian” gestures. No surprise there. But it is shocking, not to mention shameful, that he is allowed to get away with it by the various media, that conducts interviews, exclusives and gives him extensive airtime to churn out his propaganda.

Perhaps the media should think about tagging its interviews with Ahmadinejad: “Iran’s chief hostage-taker.”

Reminiscent of the mid-1980s and early 1990s, when the Iranian regime earned and kept the title of the world’s most active state-sponsor of terror, partly because of its involvement in hostage-taking in Lebanon. Local proxy groups brandishing Kalashnikovs would take Americans and Westerners hostage, and then Tehran, acting on a “humanitarian basis,” would take the negotiating seat to get them released in exchange for the concessions Tehran needed.

The Iran-Contra fiasco during the Reagan administration evolved from the desire to arrange the release of Americans held hostage in Lebanon by pro-Tehran elements. In exchange, the erstwhile “moderates” among the ruling clerics of Iran asked for, and got, a few thousand TOW missiles and a terrorist label on Iran’s main opposition movement.

That policy has since evolved into a new form of hostage-taking. Over the past few years, particularly under Ahmadinejad, we have seen many Americans who had traveled to Iran, including journalists like Roxana Saberi, arrested, declared spies, sentenced to prison, and then eventually released.

What Tehran accomplishes is to take American foreign policy hostage. As the hostages linger in jail, the United States is dissuaded from pursuing a tougher approach regarding Iran, and persuaded to delay sanctions and drag its feet on decisions that run counter to the interests of the Iranian regime. Ultimately, Tehran’s rulers release the victims when it suits them, i.e. to coincide with Ahmadinejad’s visit to the United Nations.

Meanwhile, the entire region has been engulfed in uprisings. The world watches as the Arab Spring blossoms, and some of the mullahs’ closest allies fall or totter in Libya and Syria. To distract attention from the forces for change in the region, and in particular in Iran, Ahmadinejad puts on his dog-and-pony show, making the release of the hostages the news of the day. Does anyone remember that the hikers should have never been arrested to begin with, much less used as human shields for Tehran’s onslaught?

Ahmadinejad actions, however, cannot change the reality on the ground, where his regime is in deep trouble. At home, he struggles to deal with the internal infighting, even among the closest allies of Supreme Leader Khamenei, a moribund economy, and increased protests now spreading to ethnic areas. Over the past few weeks, anti-government demonstrations have been mounting in Western Azerbaijan Province, particularly in the city of Orumieh, where there is major discontent about the government’s destructive inaction on measures to prevent the drying of Lake Orumieh.

Discontent is widespread in Iran, where this year several more anti-government protestors and political prisoners have been sentenced to death on the bogus charge of “mohareb,” or waging war on God. Since January, the regime that Ahmadinejad presides over has killed a number of others for their association with the main organized opposition group and their participation in the 2009 uprising. Tehran has announced the hanging of over 450 people, including minors, some publicly.

In February, clashes between state security forces and hundreds of thousands of protesters wracked central Tehran. Security forces beat and fired tear gas at opposition supporters hoping to evoke an Egypt-like popular uprising.

As Ahmadinejad prepares to speak at the UN on Thursday, the media would do better to pay attention to the voices of change in Iran. Outside the UN, thousands of Iranian-Americans, many of them relatives of political prisoners in Iran or of those murdered by the Iranian regime, will stage a protest. Their message is to declare Ahmadinejad, once again, the representative of the most repressive regime in the region, and not the representative of the Iranian people.

This year, history will be made as the United Nations turns over Libya’s seat to its democratic representatives. Isn’t it time to do the same and turn over Iran’s seat to the Iranian opposition?

Alireza Jafarzadeh is the author of ”The Iran Threat’

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alireza-jafarzadeh/iran-hikers-released_b_974686.html

My Aunt, the Iranian Heroine

THE HUFFINGTON POST

It was an early Friday morning. I woke up with the sound of the radio in our living room and the worried voice of my father who was trying to get a hold on an important news through the statics that the Iranian regime was throwing in to block the opposition broadcast. I had never seen my parents that distraught and devastated.

Zahra Rajabi

After some time went by, I went in and asked what had happened. I was told that my aunt, Zahra Rajabi, 39, one of the leading women in the struggle against the Iranian regime was brutally assassinated in Istanbul, Turkey. Iranian agents had tracked down her whereabouts and broke into her apartment, and shortly after killed her and one of her bodyguards by gunshots. That was the 20th February 1996.

I did not know and could not understand why anyone would want to kill a member of my family. Questions started swirling in my head and then I was told… “She died fighting for the freedom of Iran and its people.”

As a nine year old my perception of the word “freedom” changed that day. I realised that in my country Iran, and under the brutal government that we were living in, in order to have freedom, you had to fight and even pay the highest price that a human can, giving up one’s life.

Zahra Rajabi was a member of the People’s Mojahedin (PMOI), an Iranian opposition group that has been fighting for the freedom of Iran and Iranians for over three decades and has had its members threatened, tortured, humiliated and executed by the Iranian regime over the course of this period.

At the time of her assassination, Zahra was working for the rights of Iranian women and refugees in Turkey. She decided to rise against the mullahs’ regime after realising what a lie the Islamic revolution of Iran really was and what a disaster was becoming of Iran and Iranians under the mullahs’ fundamentalist interpretation of “Islam”.

She lost two of her loved ones at the beginning of the revolution when her husband Mohammad and her 20 year old sister Afsaneh were executed by the Iranian regime. No doubt this contributed to her cause of fighting for freedom and justice and made her become one of the bravest women of her time.

Her assassination meant that living in Iran was no longer an option for my family, as we had to live in constant fear of our lives everyday. Despite our love and passion for Iran, thousands and thousands of families like mine were forced to leave their homeland and take refuge in other parts of the world in order to stay alive.

The loss of loved ones and the trauma that my family went through still haunts me and affects me every single day. I feel a strong sense of responsibility to be the voice of Zahra and many other martyrs who gave up their lives fighting for freedom against the barbaric regime of Iran.

The Iranian people have been suppressed for over 30 years under the current regime and there are thousands of prisoners whose voices have never been heard. The PMOI is the only opposition group, which echoes the stories and voices of the victims, political prisoners and martyrs of Iran on a global scale. They should be recognised and credited as a group which are active for the purpose of liberty, humanity and justice.

History has shown that yes dictators may rule, but they are always defeated at the end. The dark era of the mullahs’ rule is coming to an end. But until that day the PMOI shall fight for what it believes in and with it, it will carry the voice of martyrs like Zahra and the hopes of millions of people for a completely free and democratic Iran.

Naghmeh Rajabi is an Iranian Business Graduate

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/naghmeh-rajabi/my-aunt-the-iranian-heroi_b_970699.html