March 28, 2024

A Rally Never Seen At U.S. State Department

OfficialWire.com

In an unprecedented political move, thousands of Iranian expatriates supporting the Mujahedin-e-Khalq (MEK) movement converged on the State Department on Friday, August 26, to join voices with former U.S. Congressmen and senior officials to call the U.S. Government to take the MEK off its list of foreign terrorist organizations (FTO).

Former Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D-RI) addressed the rally in front of the State Department headquarters. The event also featured speeches by former Gov. Ed Rendell (D-PA), former FBI Director Louis Freeh, former CIA Deputy Director of Clandestine Operations John Sano.

It might have been the first time in the history of the State Department that such a rally holds on its doorsteps in regards to a decision by the Department. It certainly marks a point in democratic values, where victims of a decision on “security measures” have the opportunity to express their feelings for the world to see it. It can certainly show the way to regimes like the one in power in Tehran, that know no way other than shooting defenseless demonstrators back home.

But at the same time the event shows flaws in the decision-making procedure permitting a wrong decision to prevail for long periods of time in support of a wrong and perverse policy, and shows the whole world how vulnerable democratic principles can be in the face of political interests.

The MEK was blacklisted in Washingtonin 1997 as a “goodwill gesture” to Iran in the hope that the mullahs could be placated to abandon terrorism and repression. The Clinton administration was looking for a way to establish “special” relations with Mohammad Khatami, then newly-elected president in Iran and pretending to incarnate “those who stand for reform” inside the clerical regime. A senior White House official said to the Los Angeles Times on October 9, 1997, that the listing was a “goodwill gesture” towards Iran’s new president. Martin Indyk, then Assistant Secretary of States for Near East Affairs, was quoted in September 2002 by Newsweek confirming that the listing was part of Clinton administration’s policy of rapprochement with the Iranian regime.  

Putting Iranian politics’ considerations parallel to those concerning foreign terrorist organizations is unethical in the first place, and is detrimental to US anti terrorist policy in the second.  At the end, it undermines democratic principles of coherent state behavior.

Great care should be taken to keep there only those who merit a place on that list, thus isolating the real terrorists and those who support them. Tehran’s regime is the world’s first sponsor of State terrorism, according to State Department’s categorical definitions. Listing the main opposition movement to the same regime in the FTO list sends a wrong signal to all parties. It suggests that everything, including FTO lists, can be subject to opportunistic bargaining when it comes to short or middle term political interests. Other countries might be influenced by US policy. The UK and the EU followed Clinton administration’s tracks to include, in 2001 and in 2002 consecutively, and again on specific demand byTehran, the MEK in their own “terrorism” lists. It took the movement seven years of legal fight to get off those lists. In fact, the evidence presented by the State Department’s lawyers to justify the ban is a virtual copy of the Iranian regime’s misinformation against the group. All of these allegations were introduced as evidence by various European governments to justify their blacklisting of the MEK but were subsequently dismissed as Iranian state-propaganda by the courts, and the MEK was delisted in the UK and Europe.

But even if we were putting foreign policy considerations first, the worst policy is to continue a failed policy with no reason. Mohammed Khatami never delivered the promised “reforms”. On the other hand,  Hassan Rohani, his chief negotiator in nuclear affairs, later admitted that the “open” Western attitude towards Khatami permitted Iran to quietly construct its array of enrichment centrifuges needed to produce more than necessary enriched uranium to bring the country close to making its first Bomb, creating one the most serious foreign policy challenges of all US administrations thereafter.  After eight years of Khatami, we are now witnessing the second four year term of Ahmadinejad.

The brutal regime in power in Iran has definitely not changed its behavior, nor has the State Department in listing the MEK.

Finally, several courts, including the US Appeal’s court have studied every bit of “proof” presented against the MEK, and concluded that it is not a terrorist organization. Among Washington DC’s speakers on August 26 was Brian Binely, conservative member of the British House of Commons, giving the complete ordeal of the British and European  judiciary who studied, in long hearings over more than seven years, the case of the MEK and consecutively deciding that terrorist allegations against the movement were, ‘perverse’ and ‘flawed’. But more than mere judicial and legal aspects are at stakes.

Thousands of MEK members have repeatedly come under deadly attack in their main base in Camp Ashraf, Iraq, by Iraqi armed forces at the behest ofIran’s fundamentalist regime. Iraq’s Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki uses the terror label as an excuse to murder the residents. On April 8, 2011, 36 MEK members were slaughtered by Iraqi forces and hundreds of others were injured. Eleven people had lost their lives in similar attacks carried out by Maliki’s forces in July 2009. Maliki has now threatened to close the camp and expel the residents by force at the end of the year. An urgent humanitarian task would now be saving those lives, with the United Nations and the US bearing the main responsibility. A situation which would normally not have occurred were it not for the FTO listing.

This is now a matter of life and death. Maintaining this illegitimate ban on the MEK will lead to the massacre of all Camp Ashraf residents.

In an unprecedented political move, thousands of Iranian expatriates supporting the Mujahedin-e-Khalq (MEK) movement converged on the State Department on Friday, August 26, to join voices with former U.S. Congressmen and senior officials to call the U.S. Government to take the MEK off its list of foreign terrorist organizations (FTO).

Former Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D-RI) addressed the rally in front of the State Department headquarters. The event also featured speeches by former Gov. Ed Rendell (D-PA), former FBI Director Louis Freeh, former CIA Deputy Director of Clandestine Operations John Sano.

It might have been the first time in the history of the State Department that such a rally holds on its doorsteps in regards to a decision by the Department. It certainly marks a point in democratic values, where victims of a decision on “security measures” have the opportunity to express their feelings for the world to see it. It can certainly show the way to regimes like the one in power in Tehran, that know no way other than shooting defenseless demonstrators back home.

But at the same time the event shows flaws in the decision-making procedure permitting a wrong decision to prevail for long periods of time in support of a wrong and perverse policy, and shows the whole world how vulnerable democratic principles can be in the face of political interests.

No decision is more legitimate. No other foreign policy issue has in the past gathered so much opposition back home. An array of former American administrative, military and state officials, including a former Attorney General, FBI director, Homeland Security Secretary, two CIA directors, three former Chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, a former NATO commander, two former US envoys to the UN, President Obama’s ex-National Security Advisor, and political heavyweights Howard Dean, Rudi Giuliani, and Patrick Kennedy support the call for the de-listing of the MEK.

A number of bipartisan US legislators from the Senate and House of Representatives, through sending messages, expressed their solidarity with the rally of thousands of Iranians in Washington DC on August 26 calling for delisting of MeK and protection of Ashraf. They represent a Congress that has insisted since long time ago on the necessity of delisting the movement. American lawmakers are not alone in such endeavor. More than 500 British Parliamentarians from all parties and both Houses of Parliament and a total of 4,000 lawmakers globally, stand on their side.

Apart those politics, there are the Iranian people as well.

MEK leader Maryam Rajavi, speaking to the rally from France via a video message on a big screen, echoed those people’s view in reference to the April massacre in Ashraf:  “The terror listing in the U.S. is openly used as a justification to legitimize such bloodletting, by both the cruel mullahs as well as their proxy government in Iraqi,” she said. “Therefore, the Iranian people are asking the United States, ‘Why are you not annulling the license to kill our children?'”

Nooredin Abedian taught in Iranian higher-education institutions before settling in France as a political refugee in 1981. He writes for a variety of publications on Iranian politics and issues concerning human rights.

http://news.officialwire.com/main.php?action=posted_news&rid=176645

Truth will trump fiction in Iran opposition case

SCOOP INDEPENDENT NEWS

On August 13, 2011, an article written by Elizabeth Rubin appeared in NYT’s Sunday review. The highly biased article which lacks the slightest notion of neutral reporting cites allegations emanating from Iran’s rulers against their main opposition, Mujahedin-e-Khalq (MEK/PMOI). As the US Department of State is due to review its decision on FTO designation of MEK, the Iranian regime and its lobbyists have been hard at work to influence Secretary Hillary Clinton’s decision.

Elizabeth Rubin’s allegations against MEK are a duplication of what has filled websites and media known to be affiliated with the Iranian regime for the past 10 years. The article, which repeats the same allegations she made in 2003, was well received by the Iranian regime’s media. Her July 2003 article was used as propaganda material by Iranian embassies throughout the world and widely distributed for some time. The source of her misinformation is certainly not any of the residents of Camp Ashraf, where she visited in April 2003; rather the propaganda seems to come from MEK adversaries working with Iran’s infamous Ministry of Intelligence.

Needless to say that Elizabeth Rubin has links to some circles and elements within the Iranian regime, devoted to helping the regime stay in power. She has reportedly visited Iran in 2003 and again in 2007 where she met and interviewed many of the so-called moderates inside the ruling dictatorship.

The MEK was placed on the FTO list in 1997 for political reasons to appease the so-called moderates inside the ruling dictatorship in Iran. Now that the myth of moderation in Iran has faded, the players have resorted to another ploy, advocating for a “green movement” in Iran and purporting to represent Iranian protesters.

US military personnel and commanders who have worked closely with MEK members in Camp Ashraf from 2003 to 2009 are certainly more qualified to judge MEK. In contrast, Mrs Rubin who has spent only a few hours in the camp has spent more time with Iranian officials in Tehran and their Washington based lobbyists.

Captain Vivian Gembara, an attorney for the U.S. military for 4 years, was deployed in Iraq for 12 months, beginning in April 2003. During that time, she participated in negotiations with the MEK. She was a member of the 4th Infantry Division team that negotiated and drafted the “voluntary consolidation” agreement between the United States and the MEK. In an article published in Global Politicianon April 11, 2005 she writes that the U.S. Special Forces were first to encounter the MEK in April 2003, when the MEK “offered to work alongside the U.S. to stabilize the country.”

Describing the MEK as a resistance movement which aims “to overthrow Iran’s current Islamic fundamentalist regime and replace it with a democratic government,” Captain Gembara added “classified as a terrorist organization by the State Department in 1997, the [MEK] bears the burden of an outdated and inaccurate label.”

After Ashraf residents submitted their arms to the US forces in 2003, General Ray Odierno, who was then the commander of 4th Infantry Division was quoted by the French News Agency as saying “I would say that any organization that has given up their equipment to the Coalition clearly is cooperating with us, and I believe that should lead to a review of whether they are still a terrorist organization or not.”

Court rulings in the UK, France, and EU have also indicated that the terrorist allegations against MEK are unfounded.

On Nov. 30, 2007, a British court ordered MEK to be removed from the British government’s list of terrorist organizations. MEK was subsequently removed from the UK list and was later removed from the European list in January 2009, following a 7-year court battle. The Washington DC Circuit of the US Federal Appeals Court has also ordered the US State Department to review MEK’s FTO listing.
Elizabeth Rubin’s article gives the Iranian regime and the Maliki government in Iraq the excuse they need to massacre the residents of Camp Ashraf, home to 3400 unarmed and defenseless members of MEK in Iraq. The Iraqi army has conducted two separate raids on the camp in July 2009 and April 2011. In the recent deadly attack 35 residents of the camp were murdered in cold blood.

Many Iranian-Americans concerned at the listing and the legacy of appeasement of the current Iranian regime have organized to voice their opposition to the State Department’s FTO listing of the MEK. They have held numerous seminars and public events to educate the public about the facts of the case. In a large rally opposite the State Department on August 26, thousands of Iranian Americans joined former US officials to call again on Secretary Hillary Clinton to delist the MEK.

There have been strong calls by former US officials from both parties to delist MEK from the State Department’s FTO listing and provide protection for Camp Ashraf in Iraq. The appeals by three joint chiefs of staff of the U.S. armed forces, a former commander of NATO, a former national security adviser to the president, a former attorney general, two former directors of the CIA, two former U.S. ambassadors to the U.N., a former Homeland Security secretary, a former White House chief of staff, a former commandant of the Marine Corps, a former policy planning director of the State Department, a former FBI director, and a director of Counterterrorism at the State Departmenthas apparently troubled the Iranian regime forcing it to launch the recent disinformation campaign against its main opposition.

Recently, a bi-partisan panel was held in Washington D.C. on July 18, 2011. The panel was joined by General Hugh Shelton, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (1997-2001) and Howard Dean, former Chair, Democratic National Committee and other US former officials. The speakers expressed dismay over the administration’s failure to resolve the humanitarian crisis in Camp Ashraf in Iraq, and its failure to review delisting of MEK from FTO list.

General Hugh Shelton stated, “The State Department has failed to provide any, either classified or declassified, information that states why the MEK should have been placed on the list in the first place. They also last week, exceeded the 180 days that they had been given by the Court to produce evidence to substantiate their reasons why the MEK is on the list. I say, Wake up, State Department, take the MEK off the FTO list today.”

Referring to the recent heightened campaign by the Iranian regime and its U.S.-based lobby to overshadow the growing consensus in the U.S. Congress and among policy and political circles on the need to immediately de-list the MEK, Governor Dean stated: “These people are not terrorists. You see in the paper the pro-Iranian lobbyist saying, well, they’re a cult and they’re this and they’re that. Well, first of all, I don’t believe that’s true, but even if it were, does that justify the murder in cold blood of people who are under American protection? I think not. Let’s stop the name calling and the foolishness and look at this for what it is. This is genocide, and we will not have it.”

Many members of the US Congress have also joined the calls for removing MEK from FTO list and protection of Ashraf. On July 28, 2011 a bi-partisan panel was held by members of U.S. Congress and senior former public officials.

The panel, held at the U.S. House of Representatives, praised the unanimous adoption of a language to H.R. 2583 to make it the policy of the United States to “prevent the forcible relocation of Camp Ashraf residents inside Iraq and facilitate the robust presence of the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq in Camp Ashraf.”

The House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairwoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) said, “Now, the government of Iraq knows full well what the position of the U.S. House of Representatives is as stated by our committee … and it’s time for the Obama administration to follow suit and to make sure that Ashraf residents receive the protections that they were promised, that they are entitled to. There is no time to waste.”

The Florida lawmaker added, “There’s no guarantee that the government of Iraq and their security forces will not repeat their past unacceptable behavior [the April 8 massacre] because they have paid no price for it in the international community. The safety of the residents of Camp Ashraf is in jeopardy. It’s in jeopardy right now, right this moment. It will be in jeopardy until the international community says that this is unacceptable. This is the critical time for the U.S. to stand up and do the right thing.”

Judge Ted Poe (R-Texas) who is a member of the House Foreign Relations Committee stated: “I have seen everything that they [State Department] have to offer and I am not convinced that the MEK should stay on the foreign terrorist organization list. So I introduced a resolution, along with about 80 cosponsors — republicans and democrats — to delist the MEK. It’s time to do that because as long as the MEK is designated as an FTO it will be harder to preserve freedom for those people in Camp Ashraf. [Iraq’s Prime Minister] Mr. Maliki and his government and the Iranian government both use that designation by the United States as a reason to oppress those residents,”

The fact is that the MEK listing has been a main stumbling block against democratic change in Iran. The Iranian regime has used this label to arrest demonstrators in Tehran’s streets during 2009 uprisings and has executed prisoners supporting the MEK. Ali Saremi, 63 was executed in Tehran’s notorious Evin prison on December 28, 2010 for affiliation with MEK and visiting his son in camp Ashraf. Jafar Kazemi, 47 and Mohammad Ali Haj-Aghaii, 52 were hanged in Evin prison on the same basis on January 24, 2011. There are many other prisoners in Iran, whose lives are endangered by continued MEK designation as a terrorist organization.

The injustice against MEK must end; the continued listing of MEK will result in more killings in Camp Ashraf and of MEK supporters in Iran. Secretary Hillary Clinton should remove the MEK from the US Department of State’s FTO list based on facts and evidence as demanded by many Iranian-Americans and prominent US dignitaries.

Joseph Omidvar is an Iranian Scholar in Middle Eastern Studies now living in exile.

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL1109/S00004/truth-will-trump-fiction-in-iran-opposition-case.htm

MEK FTO List Has Put Innocent Lives At Risk

OfficialWire.com

My name is Hanif Hosseindost born in 1980 in Rasht in northern Iran.  All my family members are in Camp Ashraf. 
 
I was active in the student protests during Khatami’s presidential period in 1382.  In the universities, these protests ended in clashes between protesters and the Revolutionary Guards ( Pasdaran).  I was arrested and taken to the notorious Evin prison.  After months of psychological torture and interrogation, I was transferred to section 209.
 
From my early ages, I was always harassed and intimidated by Mullahs’ thugs, because I had relatives in Camp Ashraf.  After my arrest, monthly meetings were organized for my wife and I, to force us join a smear campaign against the MEK (PMOI Mujahedin) in different countries and poison public opinion. They told us they are enlisting families of Camp Ashraf to work in a massive campaign under supervision of the Mullahs Intelligence.
 
During this time, I was deprived of basic needs as a citizen. I was banned from education, the opportunity to work or even associate with other people. More than that, having no social status according to the Mullahs; I was not allowed to acquire the licence to set up my own business and make ends meet. Once in a while we were summoned and interrogated.

Most other people who had a similar situation were kept after being summoned for days on end, only to be bribed for money and released. Others were hanged; Jafar Kazemi and Haj Aghaii, or tortured to death; Mohsen Doghmechi and many are still in the dungeons.

The animosity of regime thugs and Bassijis against MEK supporters and families has been a known fact in the public. This fear is depicted through dozens of TV serials, programs and Political speeches each day slurring abuse against the MEK.

The simple reason for all the hardship we faced was that I had family members in Camp Ashraf and having been active against the Mullahs dictatorship in various humanitarian campaigns. I was unwilling to succumb to pressure. 
 
I was one of the protesters during the 2009 sham election protests which led to an uprising.  I was arrested and released on bail a number of times, since there were numerous attempts to buy and cow me. 

According to a number of witnesses, including my grandmother, on March 5, 2010, my brother was tricked into the woods in Gilan (a town in northern Rasht province) where he was subsequently lynched by Intelligence agents of the Mullahs.
 
His death was intended to intimidate and break down our resistance. They had tortured him out of shape before they had put the rope around his neck. This savage act was to send a clear message to anyone who dared speak out against the Velayat Fagih (one man representing God on Earth founded by Khomeini and ruled by Khamenei).

In no time, the whole town had found out through a huge psychological campaign led by the Mullahs to quash their sympathy towards my family.
I embarked to file a legal complaint against my brothers’ murderers, but  the remaining witnesses refrained from supporting my claim out of fear, including my own grandmother.

They continued to exert pressure on me to return to Iran and cooperate with the regime even when I had escaped.  The Iranian regime agents have so far carried out more than 450 assassinations of MEK supporters, families and members and other dissidents outside Iran.
 
With the hundreds of thousands and more like me, who have sacrificed for ”Freedom” it is now the US Secretary of State’s fair and just decision that could draw a red line between our butchers and us. 

For all of us who have had a hand in the 2009 protests and who make the basic girds of the social movement in Iran, one definite step is crucial: De-list the MEK that has been the main threat only to the butchers in Iran. 

We are those with firsthand experience of taming the Mullahs. It is time for the US to side with us.
 
My uncle, Saeed Chavoshi , was one of the 36 massacred on 8 April 2011. He was a kind, responsible, tolerant and loving uncle. However, the Iraqi’s pieced his heart with US provided bullets and crushed his friends to death with US Humvees.

I and many more in Iran could not understand where US humanitarian values stood with regards to this scene:

Accountability for neglected moral, ethical and International obligations on one side, elongating the decision to delist the MEK on the other will only embolden our killers in Iran and in Iraq.

My pregnant wife was kicked unconscious in Iran, and we lost a child not because the MEK is seeking regime change, but because the Mullahs have been given a wrong message by the FTO list, a blank cheque against dissidents.

The moral and ethical question is: Does the US endorse butchers and State terrorism and nuclear warmongers?

The legal question is: is the State Department above US law?

Other looming questions that boggle the mind and fuel ones impetus to strive for more “Rights” are: 

How many more scenes of loved ones butchered to death do we have to see?

Have you ever lived with the conscience of your brothers’ innocent hanging haunting you all the time?

Would you endorse such murders?

Are innocent lives important to you?

Would it matter for any of you, if you knew that taking one step would stop or at least limit all this bloodshed?

Is Human Rights betrayed? This is the question.
 
Dear Mrs. Clinton,

Millions in Iran have already chosen out of dire need for Freedom to support the MEK. This choice cannot be seen on websites or polls.

It will not be conveyed to you through Mullah Pundits posing as the movement in Iran; it is in our hearts until we obtain our rights .The same right bravely protected by US President Abraham Lincoln, who guided his country through the most devastating experience in its national history.

Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, we await your sincere decision. It is the right thing to de-list the “freedom movement.

Hanif Hosseindost, student activist and 2009 protester and also familly member of MEK, whos uncle was shot dead in Camp Ashraf by Iraqi troops. He has escaped a death penalty in Iran for having relatives in camp Ashraf.

http://news.officialwire.com/main.php?action=posted_news&rid=173598

Obama’s Iran Appeasement Syndrome

TOWNHALL.COM

Calling President Obama’s approach toward Iran “bad policy” is like calling a rotten egg a failed omelet.

The Iranian regime is an avowed enemy of the US and the West by virtue of its stated goals and its violent actions. The Iranian government’s visceral, unmitigated hatred of the United States and its hostile intentions are manifest in every speech by President Ahmadinejad and every edict from the mullahs of the ruling Islamic High Council. No American should doubt that Iran is at war with the US and the West and will escalate its hostilities as new weapons and new resources become available.

None of this is new or controversial among people who have followed Iran’s actions since the mullahs seized power in 1979; the most potent and portentous symbol of the Iranian revolution were the 52 Americans held hostage there for 444 days. Indeed, virulent anti-Americanism has been a source of national identity for the Iranian regime from its inception. What should worry Americans more than Iran’s posture is that such commonsense statements are heresy in the Obama White House.

The naïve hand of friendship extended by President Obama to this hostile regime has led to a series of humiliations and increasingly dangerous strategic threats. Since President Obama took office and sent Nowrouz greetings to the Iranian people, the regime has responded by — holding three innocent American youths hostage, accelerating their nuclear weapons program, violently suppressing democratic movements, providing weapons and materiel to terrorists who attack American troops in Iraq, and coddling enemies of America including Hamas, Hezbollah, Hugo Chavez, and Bashir al Assad.

But nowhere is President Obama more out of touch with the reality of the Iranian threat than in his treatment of the Mujahedin-e Khalq (or MEK), the Iranian dissident movement.

The MEK was put on the State Department’s list of terrorist organizations in 1997 by the Clinton administration as a sop the Islamist regime. It was a condition demanded by the ruling mullahs in Tehran because they hated and feared the MEK. Thousands of MEK members have been killed by the regime. Tehran maintains a constant propaganda barrage attacking the MEK and millions of dollars have been spent to curry resistance to the MEK in the West.

In recognition of the changed, democratic character of the MEK, both Great Britain and the European Union have taken the MEK off their terrorist lists. The list of American foreign policy experts calling for the de-listing of the MEK is impressive: a former Attorney General, two former US Ambassadors to the UN, a former Director of the FBI, and a former Secretary of Homeland Security, to name only a few. Additionally, almost 100 members of Congress have signed a resolution calling for removal of the MEK from the terrorist roster.

While the continued blacklisting of the MEK is unreasonable and illogical, it is eerily consistent with Obama’s selective indignation when civilians are bludgeoned to death by police in Islamic regimes. Obama’s lack of support for the massive democratic dissent in the streets of Tehran in 2009 was shocking, but he welcomed the recent uprisings in Egypt, Libya and Syria despite the prominent presence of radical Islamists in the leadership of those protests. Obama committed American forces to help topple the dictator Gaddafi, but has not committed America and prestige and power to help the pro-democracy forces in Iran.

What is the thread that ties Obama’s strange and inconsistent policies together? The consistency lies in the peculiar ideology Obama brings to foreign policy decisions.

President Obama pledged during his campaign that an “open hand” would be extended by his administration to all nations, friend or foe. Disastrously enough, he has kept this promise. This has required overlooking mortal threats such as those posed by the Iranian regime, and ignoring potential allies like the MEK. It also explains why President Obama and his appointees in the US State Department have resisted firmer measures against Iran. In plain language, Obama’s ideology blinds him to the serious danger a nuclear-armed, anti-democratic Iran poses to the United States and our allies.

The United States urgently needs to confront and oppose Iran’s terrorist agenda through strong diplomatic and economic measures. A simple first step to signal our serious intentions would be to support Iran’s internal dissidents, a strategy which should begin with lifting the outdated and invalid terrorist stigma from the Mujahideen-e Khalq.

When Iran’s internal democratic forces see that the United States will no longer tolerate that nation’s backing for international terrorism, we will begin to see an unraveling of that regime’s despotic grip on its people.

Tom Tancredo represented Colorado’s 6th Congressional District from 1999 until 2009 where he chaired the 100+ member bipartisan Immigration Reform Caucus. He currently serves as co-chairman of Team America PAC and president of the Rocky Mountain Foundation. He authored “In Mortal Danger: The Battle for America’s Border and Security.

http://townhall.com/columnists/tomtancredo/2011/08/30/obamas_iran_appeasement_syndrome

Thousands of Iranians Rally in Washington, Urge delisting of MEK

StopFundamentalism.com

I was among thousands of Iranian-Americans from 41 states across the country who took part in a huge rally and march outside the State Department last Friday, urging Secretary Clinton to act swiftly and delist the principal Iranian opposition movement, the Mujahedin-e Khalq (PMOI/MEK).

Several senior former US Government officials also spoke at the rally, including Governor Ed Rendell; Rep. Patrick Kennedy; FBI Director Louis Freeh; CIA Deputy Director for Covert Operations, John Sano; and Col. Wesley Martin, chief of counterterrorism for the Coalition forces in Iraq and commandant of Camp Ashraf in 2006. 

Thousands of Iranian-Americans from 41 states took part in a huge rally outside the State Department on August 26, 2011, urging Secretary Clinton to act swiftly and remove the principal Iranian opposition movement, the Mujahedin-e Khalq (PMOI/MEK) from the State Department’s list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations.

Aware that if the Secretary of State were to base her decision strictly on law and fact, she would have no choice other than to delist the MEK, the Iranian regime and its lobby inside the Beltway have embarked on an unprecedented campaign to distort the facts. To this end, in the past few weeks, a battery of articles have appeared in the U.S. media lashing out against the Iranian-American communities and their campaign to uphold the rule of law by calling for an objective review of the FTO status the MEK. Based on all the evidence reviewed by U.S. courts, MEK should have been delisted by now. 

Most notable among these articles is Elizabeth Rubin’s hit-piece in the New York Times on August 14, 2011, which suggests that senior former U.S. officials endorsing the MEK’s delisting have been “paid” to do so. This and other articles like it have been widely distributed via social media, and their false claims are embedded in the talking points of the pro-Tehran lobby group National Iranian American Council (NIAC) and its head, Trita Parsi.

To set the record straight, we are proud to fund the activities of our own community in the exercise of our First Amendment rights and aimed at bringing democracy to Iran. The Iranian regime has spent millions of dollars in an attempt to delegitimize the MEK. They have many willing accomplices.

Ms. Rubin is the sister of Jamie Rubin, who served as Assistant Secretary of State in the Clinton Administration that listed the MEK at the behest of Tehran, unsurprisingly failed to cite a single act of terrorism and parrots the Iranian regime’s party line. She ignores the fact that the European Union and the United Kingdom have already removed the group from their lists and a U.S. Federal Court of Appeals ruled the State Department had violated the MEK’s due process rights.

Rubin cites a RAND Corporation report to justify her arguments. That report was spearheaded by none other than James Dobbins, who has a long history of involvement with NIAC and Trita Parsi and former Iranian Ambassador to the United Nations. Not surprisingly, she fails to mention a thorough rebuttal to that report published shortly afterwards.

Ms. Rubin’s piece can only be used to justify the killing of 47 unarmed civilians in Camp Ashraf in July 2009 and April 2011. About 1,000 residents were also injured. Her assertions encourage the Iraqi Army to attack the camp again, presumably to “free” the residents.

Ms. Rubin implicitly endorses the use of violence against the residents of Camp Ashraf and portrays the residents–most of whom were former political prisoners in Iran — as individuals who deserve to be mistreated.

It is no coincidence that Ms. Rubin went to Tehran before her Ashraf visit in 2003, and described the then president of the Iranian regime, Mohammad Khatami, as “a moderate” and “Iran’s Mikhail Gorbachev.”

The regime and its allies, particularly NIAC, have undertaken an unprecedented campaign against the delisting of the MEK. They are good company. The despotic and cruel Iranian theocracy has adopted at their instrument of influence in the U.S. an outfit that is itself facing widespread accusations of illegal lobbying. Their complicity has cost lives: in Camp Ashraf, in Evin Prison and throughout Iran. The New York Times should be ashamed for enabling their continued collaboration.

Ahmad Moein is an Electronics Engineer in Silicon Valley and Executive Director of the Iranian American Community of Northern California (info@iacnorcal.com)

UN envoy disputes Iraq’s PM on Iranian exiles

ASSOCIATED PRESS

BAGHDAD (AP) — The departing head of the U.N. mission in Iraq on Monday bluntly disputed Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s account of their farewell meeting, saying he did not embrace the government’s efforts to deport a group of Iranian exiles by the end of the year.

The public disavowal was rare for the U.N. office in Baghdad, which goes to great lengths to avoid engaging in political disputes.

At issue is a group of several thousand Iranian exiles who live at the remote Camp Ashraf in Iraq’s eastern Diyala province. The Ashraf residents were formally allied with Iraq’s Saddam Hussein in resisting Tehran’s clerical regime, and have been a thorn in al-Maliki’s side as he bolsters ties with Iran.

A deadly April raid on the camp by Iraqi forces drew international criticism of Baghdad’s treatment of the group, and al-Maliki responded by pledging to deport the Ashraf residents by the end of the year.

U.N. monitors have been among the only people the Iraqi government has allowed to go inside the camp since the April raid. But they have made very few, if any, public comments about the raid or the government’s plan to deport the Ashraf residents.

In a statement after they met to say goodbye Sunday, al-Maliki said U.N. envoy Ad Melkert affirmed U.N. support on a bevy of matters, “including the issue of Camp Ashraf and the necessity of implementing the Cabinet’s decree to deport its residents outside Iraq by the end of this year.”

In one of his last acts after two years as envoy to Iraq, the mild-mannered Melkert flatly said that was not true.

“The U.N. continues to advocate that Camp Ashraf residents be protected from forcible deportation, expulsion or repatriation,” Melkert’s office said in a statement Monday. It said Melkert reiterated the position during his meeting Sunday with the prime minister.

Iranian Dissidents Gather High-profile Support

THE WASHINGTON POST

Politicians, former national security officials and thousands of others gathered outside the State Department on Friday to call for the removal of the Mujahedin-e Khalk, an Iranian opposition group, from the list of foreign terrorist organizations.  

Politicians, former national security officials and thousands of others gathered outside the State Department on Friday to call for the removal of the Mujahedin-e Khalk, an Iranian opposition group, from the list of foreign terrorist organizations. WASHINGTON POST

Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” blasted from large speakers and doves and clouds of confetti flew into the air as former congressman Patrick J. Kennedy (D-R.I.) introduced the group’s leader, Maryam Rajavi, to speak by video link from Paris.

“I salute your protest and gathering, which symbolizes an uprising for the freedom of the Iranian people,” said Rajavi, speaking in Farsi.

The controversial group, usually called by the acronym MEK, is made up of exiled Iranian dissidents who organized in the 1960s and now are mounting a political and legal campaign to end their designation as terrorists.

The group violently opposed the rule of the shah and initially supported the Islamist regime that came to power in 1979, but they became disillusioned with the theocracy and eventually fled amid growing hostility.

Some went to Europe, and others went to Iraq, where they built a heavily fortified base, called Camp Ashraf, northeast of Baghdad. MEK fought with Saddam Hussein’s forces against Iran. The U.S. designated MEK a terrorist group in 1997 after blaming it for attacks on Iranian government institutions in which dozens were killed, including Americans working in Tehran.

Kennedy said the group does not nowcommit acts of terrorism or pose a threat to the United States. He and others hailed the group as a legitimate alternative to Iran’s repressive government.

“How much worse can we do than the mullahs in Tehran now?” Kennedy asked. “Does it make sense to shackle the primary opposition group internationally? You may not like them. They may not have a lot of support. . . . But we ought to be on the opposite side of what Tehran favors as a matter of principle.”

Retired Army Col. Wesley Martin said: “The opposition in Iran has been sent to the gallows or prison. [MEK is] the only external organization with influence.”

A growing number of high-profile figures support removing the MEK from the list of terrorist groups. Those who have spoken in support of the move include retired Army Gen. Hugh Shelton and retired Marine Gen. Peter Pace, both former chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; retired Marine Gen. James L. Jones, who was President Obama’s national security adviser; and former Vermont governor Howard Dean (D).

Lawmakers from both parties have criticized the Obama administration for not moving swiftly to clear MEK’s name or to facilitate a move to a country outside Iraq. Administration officials say there remains concern about the group’s nature.

“This is a group that has a lot of blood on its hands, including American blood,” said a senior administration official, who insisted on anonymity because legal and political decisions were being made about MEK. “We don’t want to be in a position where we later determine that a de-listed group has returned to violence.”

Many people in the Iranian diaspora support MEK, but within Iran, it has limited support even among opposition movements.

After the 2003 invasion, MEK members were offered American protection in exchange for giving up their weapons, but they are reviled by the Iraqi government because of their association with Saddam Hussein. About 3,400 members still live at Camp Ashraf, where there have been clashes with Iraqi government forces.

Speaking at the event Friday, former FBI director Louis J. Freeh called for American support for the group as U.S. troop levels decline in Iraq. He said abandoning MEK to Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, whom he accused of collusion with the Iranian regime, could lead to a massacre “worse than Srebrenica,” a reference to a notorious 1995 atrocity during the war in Bosnia.

Iraqi authorities have long called for MEK to leave the country. Members would likely face detention and punishment in Iran, and it is difficult to resettle them in other countries as long as the United States designates them as terrorists.

“I think the U.S. should be willing to take at least some of these people, because we have agreements with them,” said Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.), who in most cases is a hard-liner on immigration issues. He said the group had provided intelligence on Iran to the United States.

Rohrabacher said he had received campaign donations from individuals linked to the group. Many other officials, including Freeh, have received money for speaking at events supporting MEK. Freeh said he received no compensation for attending Friday’s event.

“The issue is whether the group should be on the list,” he said. “Are these people being paid to say something they do not believe in? Absolutely not.”

MEK says it receives money largely from wealthy Iranian American families who support its cause, but it does not disclose the names of donors.

Alireza Jafarzadeh, a spokesman for MEK, said the group should be removed because it does not currently support terrorism and poses no threat to the United States.

There were large numbers of people at the demonstration Friday, but some seemed confused about its purpose.

“We need to go out and let our voices be heard,” said David Smith, 27, who had traveled from New York on a bus with other members of his church after their pastor encouraged them to attend. Smith said he did not know the name of the organization holding the rally or the country it is from. 

Staff writer Joby Warrick contributed to this article.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/iranian-dissidents-gather-high-profile-support/2011/08/26/gIQAIuREhJ_story.html

Protesters hope to end terrorist label for Iranian group

THE MCCLATCHY NEWSPAPERS

WASHINGTON — Thousands of supporters of Iran’s leading opposition group rallied outside the State Department on Friday, calling on the agency to take the group off its list of terrorist organizations.
 
Former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell and several other politicians addressed the mostly Iranian-American crowd, which gathered at midmorning in support of the People’s Mujahedeen of Iran, commonly referred to by the initials of its Farsi name, MEK.

The State Department has classified the MEK as a terrorist organization since 1997, citing its alleged involvement in multiple assassinations of Americans in the 1970s and the 1979 takeover of the American Embassy in Tehran. From 1986 through the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, the group relied on the late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein for funding and military support, according to a State Department report released this year.   

Thousands of supporters of Iran's leading opposition group rallied outside the State Department on Friday, calling on the agency to take the MEK off its list of terrorist organizations. MCCLATCHY NEWSPAPERS

Supporters of the group, however, say it’s posed no threat to the United States for years. They say it serves the U.S.’s national interest to back the group, which ultimately could help topple Iran’s dictatorship as opposition groups have done in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya.

“The evidence is overwhelming,” Rendell, a Democrat, told the demonstrators Friday as he called on the State Department to delist the MEK. “The time is now.”

Demonstrators — decked in the MEK’s blue and yellow — heard a similar message from Patrick Kennedy, a former Democratic congressman for Rhode Island.

“The future of Iran is right in here in front of me,” Kennedy said. “Your cause is our cause, is the cause of democracy and human rights.”

The State Department is reviewing the MEK’s designation, but no final decision has been made, spokesman Mark Toner said last month at a news briefing. Reached late Friday afternoon, a department spokesman declined to comment about the day’s protest.
 
The rally brought Iranian-Americans to Washington from across the country. Hoora Mostashari, 50, flew in from Orange County, Calif., to protest what she sees as American appeasement of Iran’s leaders.

“It’s a failed policy from Neville Chamberlain until now,” she said, in reference to the former British prime minister who favored appeasement over confrontation with Adolf Hitler.

Mostashari said she was hopeful that the Arab Spring revolutions would reach Iran, a country she left for the United States in 1976.

“It is coming our way,” she said.

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2011/08/26/122145/protesters-hope-to-end-terrorist.html#ixzz1WB3PQ3x9

Thousands Demonstrate Outside the State Department, Calling For MEK Delisting

[oqeygallery id=1]

WASHINGTON, Aug. 26, 2011/PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — This morning, thousands of Iranians from 41 states across the U.S. staged a huge and colorful rally outside the State Department urging the immediate delisting of the Mujahedin-e Khalq (PMOI/MEK), Iran’s main opposition movement. They also called for ensuring protection of MEK members in Camp Ashraf, Iraq, according to Human Rights and Democracy International.

The ensuing march stretched several blocks around the State Department. The police were very cooperative by blocking the lanes for the peaceful marchers.

Among the participants were more than 100 university professors, eminent scholars and physicians from all over the U.S.

A number of former senior U.S. Government officials including Louis Freeh, Director of Federal Bureau of Investigation (1993-2001); Ed Rendell, Governor of Pennsylvania (2003-2011); John Sano, former Central Intelligence Agency National Clandestine Service first Deputy Director ; and Colonel Wesley Martin (Ret.), Coalition’s counter terrorism commander in Iraq and U.S. commander for protection of Ashraf spoke at the rally and asked the U.S. to live up to its commitments regarding 3,400 Ashraf residents. They reiterated that no delay in removing the MEK from the FTO list is permissible. Patrick Kennedy, U.S. Congressman (1995-2011), and son of late Senator Edward Kennedy, moderated the rally. 

In his speech, the British Conservative MP Brian Binley announced the support of 4,000 parliamentarians from across the globe, including a significant number of members of the UK Parliament and House of Lords, for delisting the PMOI from the U.S. FTO list.

Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, the President-elect of the Iranian resistance, who was addressing the rally via satellite link from Paris, said, “It has been more than a year since the ruling of the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, which ordered the State Department to review the terrorist listing of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK). Iranian people and the Iranian Resistance have paid the price for this unjustified delay with the blood of their most courageous children…The terror listing in the U.S. is openly used as a justification to legitimize such bloodletting, both by the cruel mullahs in Tehran as well as their proxy government in Iraq…”

“Clearly, the U.S. bears special responsibility for ensuring the protection of these residents on the basis of its agreements with every single one of the residents in Camp Ashraf,” Mrs. Rajavi reiterated.

Video of rally: http://youtu.be/8cB0LCSFSe4

 SOURCE Human Rights and Democracy International

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/thousands-demonstrate-outside-the-state-department-calling-for-delisting-irans-main-opposition-movement-the-mek-and-protection-of-camp-ashraf-128500998.html

DC Rally Draws Thousands Calling for MEK Delisting

WASHINGTON, DC – Thousands of Iranian-Americans from 41 states took part in a huge rally outside the State Department on August 26, 2011, urging Secretary Clinton to act swiftly and remove the principal Iranian opposition movement, the Mujahedin-e Khalq (PMOI/MEK) from the State Department’s list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations.

Thousands of Iranian-Americans from 41 states took part in a huge rally outside the State Department on August 26, 2011, urging Secretary Clinton to act swiftly and remove the principal Iranian opposition movement, the Mujahedin-e Khalq (PMOI/MEK) from the State Department’s list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations.