Now, the rebuttal has been released to the public, to
detail the facts and add insight into what the Iranian opposition believes to
be “the crux of the matter”.
Shahin Gobadi, press spokesman of The People’s
Mujahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) stated, “The AP story, “Trump
Cabinet pick paid by ‘cult-like’ Iranian exile group” of February 5, is a rehashing of old
and long-debunked allegations aimed at disparaging the principal Iranian
opposition group, the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK) and its bipartisan supporters.
The religious dictatorship ruling Iran and its lobby abroad have tried for
years to discredit the Iranian opposition in an effort to proffer the
appeasement of the ruling mullahs as a viable policy.”
AP reporter Jon Gambrell ignored “facts regarding the
conduct and history of the Iranian resistance. Instead of reporting the views
of a large (number of) bi-partisan lawmakers in both chambers of the U.S.
Congress, and the decisions by the highest U.S. and European Courts,…he has
chosen to rely heavily on only two individuals, both of whom have been
proponents of the appeasing (of) the murderous mullahs of Iran,” added Gobadi.
Gambrell's sources have been proven to have little to
no experience in the region, and have no up-to-date writings or reports about
the issues facing Iran and the Middle East. Updated reports, books, and studies
about the history, accusations and current conduct of the MEK, have published
by many independent scholars and experts, but none of these sources were cited
in the AP article.
Information Gambrell presented about the day to day
life at Camp Ashraf was not verified by the
, who
have testified before Congress that allegations against the MEK were propaganda
concocted by the Iranian regime’s intelligence services.
The rebuttal also called the opening paragraph an
example of “editorializing” that “makes one wonder whether ulterior political
motives by the ‘echo chamber’ crowd tasked to sell the Iran nuclear deal to
(the) U.S. Congress and American public was at work here.”
23 bi-partisan signatories hand delivered a letter to President Trump, in which the
officials wrote about the discredited allegations, noting that “Iran’s Ministry
of Intelligence and Security has for many years impaired the exiled opposition
by covertly spreading false and distorted claims through third parties in the
West. Other governments…closely monitor Iran’s influence operations on their
soil; a thorough counter-intelligence investigation by the U.S. is clearly
needed and long overdue.”
The U.S., UK and France all have proven findings,
showing that there is no evidence the group was ever involved in terrorism. As
far as the deaths referred to in the article, these have not been credited to
the MEK, as reports from independent sources, as well as from the U.S. State
Department, and from well-respected Iran experts. None of these sources were
mentioned in the article, as noted the rebuttal.
The New York Times reported in 2004, that a 16-month
investigation by seven different U.S. agencies, including the Departments of
States, Defense, Treasury, Justice, the FBI, the CIA and the DEI “found no
basis to charge any member of the group with the violation of American law.”
Furthermore, U.S. military commanders have testified before Congress that MEK
members never engaged the U.S. forces during the invasion of Iraq.
“The local cease fire agreement of mutual understanding and coordination” signed between the U.S. military and
the MEK in 2003, makes it clear that the MEK had not fired a single bullet
against U.S. forces in Iraq.
Bi-partisan majorities in the U.S. House of
Representatives and a very large group of bi-partisan Senators have lent their
unequivocal support to the MEK for the past three decades, describing it as a
“legitimate resistance movement,” despite being fully aware of these
illegitimate accusations.
Most importantly, the AP story didn’t reference what
the MEK has done to expose the Iranian regime’s terrorism and reveal their
major nuclear sites, which triggered the International Atomic Energy Agency’s
(IAEA) inspections of the uranium enrichment facility in Natanz for the first
time. Since then, the majority of the visits by the IAEA inspection teams have
been to the sites first uncovered by the MEK.
Congressman Brad Sherman (D-CA) told a House Foreign
Affairs Committee Hearing that, “We all owe a debt of gratitude to the MEK for
bringing this information to the world, and causing the United States and the
world to focus on the problem.”
In former Secretary of State John Kerry’s farewell speech,
he stated, “And one of the things that I am very proud of is the effort we made
– I remember going to hearing after hearing, and you remember all those folks
you’d see up there in those yellow jackets representing the Mujahedin-e Khalqu
– MEK as we’ve known them – and we got 3,000 of them out of Camp Liberty and to
places where they are safe and their lives are saved from being attacked
regularly, as they were.”
“Why would the U.S. Secretary of State and his
Department undertake such a massive effort to save the lives of members of a
‘cult-like’ group that has been engaged in ‘terrorism’ and ‘killing Americans’
in the first place, if they believed such allegations were true?” asked
Gobadi.
More about the People’s Mojahdin Organization of Iran
(PMOI/ MEK)
The People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (Also known
as MEK, or Mujahedin-e-Khalq / Mujahedeen-e-Khalq), was founded on September 6,
1965, by Mohammad Hanifnejad, Saeed Mohsen, and Ali-Asghar Badizadgan. All
engineers, they had earlier been members of the Freedom Movement (also known as
the Liberation Movement), created by Medhi Bazargan in May 1961.1
The MEK’s quest culminated in a true interpretation of
Islam, which is inherently tolerant and democratic, and fully compatible with
the values of modern-day civilization. It took six years for the MEK to
formulate its view of Islam and develop a strategy to replace Iran’s
dictatorial monarchy with a democratic government.
MEK’s interpretation of Islam
The theocratic mullah regime in Iran believe
interpreting Islam is their exclusive domain. The MEK reject this view and the
cleric’s reactionary vision of Islam. The MEK’s comprehensive interpretation of
Islam proved to be more persuasive and appealing to the Iranian youth.
MEK’s founders and new members studied the various
schools of thought, the Iranian history and those of other countries, enabling
them to analyze other philosophies and ideologies with considerable knowledge
and to present their own ideology, based on Islam, as the answer to Iran’s
problems.
MEK’s leadership’s arrest during the 70s.
The Shah’s notorious secret police, SAVAK, arrested all
MEK leaders and most of its member’s in1971. On May 1972, the founders of the
MEK, Mohammad Hanifnejad , Saeed Mohsen and Ali Asghar Badizadegan, along with
two members of the MEK leadership, Mahmoud Askarizadeh and Rasoul Meshkinfam,
were put before death squads and were executed after long months of
imprisonment and torture. They were the true vanguards, who stood against the
dictatorial regime of Shah. However, they are also recognized for their
opposition to what is today known as Islamic fundamentalism.
The death sentence of Massoud Rajavi, a member of MEK’s
central committee, was commuted to life imprisonment as a result of an
international campaign by his Geneva based brother, Dr. Kazem Rajavi
(assassinated in April 1990 in Geneva by mullahs’ agents) and the personal
intervention of the French President Georges Pompidou and Francois Mitterrand.
He was the only survivor of the MEK original leadership.
Massoud Rajavi’s critical role in characterizing
religious extremism
From 1975 to 1979, while incarcerated in different
prisons, Massoud Rajavi led the MEK’s struggle while constantly under torture
for his leading position.
Massoud Rajavi stressed the need to continue the
struggle against the shah’s dictatorship. At the same time, he characterized
religious fanaticism as the primary internal threat to the popular opposition,
and warned against the emergence and growth of religious fanaticism and
autocracy. He also played a crucial role when some splinter used the vacuum in
the MEK leadership who were all executed or imprisoned at the time, to claim a
change of ideology and policy. Massoud Rajavi as the MEK leader condemn these
individual’s misuse of MEK’s name while continuing to stress the struggle
against dictatorship. His efforts while still in prison forced these
individuals to no longer operating under the name of MEK and adopting a
different name for their group. These positions remained the MEK’s manifesto
until the overthrow of the shah’s regime.
Release of Political Prisoners on the last days of the
Shah
A month before the 1979 revolution in Iran, the Shah
was forced to flee Iran, never to return. All democratic opposition leaders had
by then either been executed by the Shah’s SAVAK or imprisoned, and could exert
little influence on the trend of events. Khomeini and his network of mullahs
across the country, who had by and large been spared the wrath of SAVAK, were
the only force that remained unharmed and could take advantage of the political
vacuum. In France, Khomeini received maximum exposure to the world media. With
the aid of his clerical followers, he hijacked a revolution that began with
calls for democracy and freedom and diverted it towards his fundamentalist
goals. Through an exceptional combination of historical events, Shiite clerics
assumed power in Iran.
Khomeini’s gradual crackdown on MEK in fear of their
popular support
In internal discourses, Rajavi the remaining leader of
the MEK, argued that Khomeini represented the reactionary sector of society and
preached religious fascism. Later, in the early days after the 1979 revolution,
the mullahs, specifically Rafsanjani, pointed to these statements in inciting
the hezbollahi club-wielders to attack the MEK.
Following the revolution, the MEK became Iran’s largest
organized political party. It had hundreds of thousands of members who operated
from MEK offices all over the country. MEK publication, ‘Mojahed’ was
circulated in 500,000 copies.
Khomeini set up an Assembly of Experts comprised of
sixty of his closest mullahs and loyalists to ratify the principle of velayat-e
faqih (absolute supremacy of clerical rule) as a pillar of the Constitution.
The MEK launched a nationwide campaign in opposition to this move, which
enjoyed enormous popular support. Subsequently, the MEK refused to approve the
new constitution based on the concept of velayat-e faqih, while stressing its
observance of the law of the country to deny the mullahs any excuse for further
suppression of MEK supporters who were regularly targeted by the regime’s
official and unofficial thugs.
Khomeini sanctioned the occupation of the United States
embassy in 1979 in order to create an anti-American frenzy, which facilitated
the holding of a referendum to approve his Constitution, which the MEK
rejected.
MEK’s endeavors to participate in the political process
avoiding an unwanted conflict with government repressive forces
The MEK actively participated in the political process,
fielding candidates for the parliamentary and presidential elections. The MEK
also entered avidly into the national debate on the structure of the new
Islamic regime, though was unsuccessful in seeking an elected constituent
assembly to draft a constitution.
The MEK similarly made an attempt at political
participation when [then] Massoud Rajavi ran for the presidency in January
1980. MEK’s leader was forced to withdraw when Khomeini ruled that only
candidates who had supported the constitution in the December referendum –
which the MEK had boycotted- were eligible. Rajavi’s withdrawal statement
emphasized the MEK’s efforts to conform to election regulations and reiterated
the MEK’s intention to advance its political aims within the new legal system”.
(Unclassified report on the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran(PMOI/ MEK)
by the Department of State to the United States House of Representatives,
December 1984.)
However, the MEK soon found itself in a direct struggle
against the forces of the regime’s Supreme leader. The MEK’s differences with
Khomeini dated back to the 1970s, and stem from its opposition to what is known
today as Islamic extremism. Angry at the position taken by the MEK against his
regime and worried about the MEK’s growing popularity, Khomeini ordered a
brutal crackdown against the MEK and its supporters. Between 1979 and 1981,
some 70 MEK members and sympathizers were killed and several thousand more were
imprisoned by the Iranian regime.
June 20, 1981- Khomeini’s order to open fire on
peaceful demonstration of half-a-million supporters of MEK
The turning point came on 20th June 1981, when the MEK
called a demonstration to protest at the regime’s crackdown, and to call for
political freedom which half-a-million supporters participated at. Khomeini
ordered the Revolutionary Guards to open fire on the swelling crowd, fearing
that without absolute repression the democratic opposition (MEK) would force
him to engage in serious reforms – an anathema as far as he was concerned; he
ordered the mass and summary executions of those arrested.
Since then, MEK activists have been the prime victims
of human rights violations in Iran. Over 120,000 of its members and supporters
have been executed by the Iranian regime, 30,000 of which, were executed in a
few months in the summer of 1988, on a direct fatwa by Khomeini, which stated
any prisoners who remain loyal to the MEK must be executed.
Having been denied its fundamental rights and having
come under extensive attack at the time that millions of its members,
supporters and sympathizers had no protection against the brutal onslaught of
the Iranian regime, the MEK had no choice but to resist against the mullahs’
reign of terror.
“Towards the end of 1981, many of the members of the
MEK and supporters went into exile. Their principal refuge was in France. But
in 1986, after negotiations between the French and the Iranian authorities, the
French government effectively treated them as undesirable aliens, and the
leadership of the MEK with several thousand followers relocated to Iraq.”
(Judgment of the Proscribed Organizations Appeal Commission, November 30,
2007.)
MEK Today
The MEK today is the oldest and largest
anti-fundamentalist Muslim group in the Middle East. It has been active for
more than a half century, battling two dictatorships and a wide range of
issues. The MEK supports:
• Universal suffrage as the sole criterion for
legitimacy
• Pluralistic system of governance
• Respect for individual freedoms
• Ban on the death penalty
• Separation of religion and state
• Full gender equality
• Equal participation of women in political leadership.
MEK is actually led by its central committee consist of 1000 women.
• Modern judicial system that emphasizes the principle
of innocence, a right to a defense, and due process
• Free markets
• Relations with all countries in the world
• Commitment to a non-nuclear Iran
The MEK remains a strong and cohesive organization,
with a broad reach both worldwide and deep within Iran. MEK is the leading
voice for democracy in Iran, supported by its interpretation of Islam that
discredits the fundamentalist mullahs’ regime.
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