By Jubin Katiraie
29
years ago these days, in Iran under the mullahs’ regime, the massacre of over
30,000 political prisoners, mainly members, and supporters of the Iranian
opposition People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) had engulfed all
of Iran.
The
intensity and speed of this massacre were so severe that not only PMOI/MEK
families, but all other families of prisoners sought information about their
loved ones. No authorities would provide answers, however.
The
international community had turned its back on this horrible genocide, all
under the pretext of Iranian regime founder Ruhollah Khomeini signing United
Nations Security Council Resolution 598 ending the Iran-Iraq War. This signing
was the result of Khomeini becoming terrified of his regime being toppled by
the PMOI/MEK.
Initially,
groups opposing the PMOI/MEK, followed by the mullahs’ regime, portrayed these
executions as the mullahs’ response to a massive combat operation staged by the
National Liberation Army of Iran and the PMOI/MEK in the final days of July of
that year.
However,
these claims were discredited shortly and other sources indicated that the
massacre was carried out based on Khomeini’s inhumane and anti-Islamic fatwa
against the PMOI/MEK issued far before. Khomeini and his regime have to this
day considered the PMOI/MEK as the sole serious threat that remains steadfast
on its non-negotiable position of “overthrowing” this regime.
In
a recent interview with state-TV Aparat, former Iranian intelligence minister
Ali Fallahian said the order to massacre PMOI/MEK inmates in 1988 was issuedpreviously by Khomeini.
“In
relations to the PMOI/MEK, and all groups considered mohareb (enmity against
God), their rulings are execution. He emphasized in saying don’t hesitate in
this regard… they have always been sentenced to execution, before or after
1988,” he said. Based on this fatwa, over 30,000 political prisoners were
hanged in less than three months.
Last
year in the PMOI/MEK convention in Paris the Iranian Resistance President-elect
Maryam Rajavi launched a justice movement seeking accountability for those
involved in the 1988 massacre of PMOI/MEK inmates and other political
prisoners. This movement expanded throughout Iran at a rapid pace, caused major
troubles for the Iranian regime and been welcomed across the globe. This
movement is demanding that senior Iranian regime officials be brought to
justice for their PMOI/MEK genocide.
The
PMOI/MEK genocide by the regime ruling Iran is the most important dossier
challenging this regime after Tehran’s nuclear program controversy. This
dossier has such deep roots in Iran’s society and enjoys the enormous global
support that it prevented Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei from engineering
the May presidential elections. He intended to have conservative cleric Ebrahim
Raisi replace the incumbent Hassan Rouhani as president.
Raisi
was a member of the notorious “Death Commission” involved in the PMOI/MEK
genocide back in 1988. The PMOI/MEK justice movement and revelations by the
PMOI/MEK regarding Raisi’s candidacy – blessed by Khamenei – shocked the very
pillars of the mullahs’ regime.
Iranian
youths across the country, previously unaware of such crimes by the mullahs’
regime, are now in defense of the PMOI/MEK demanding the mullahs admit to their
crimes against humanity. This has led the United Nations Secretary-General
Antonio Guterres to refer to the 1988 massacre of
PMOI/MEK members and supports in this year’s annual report.
From
the very days when reports of this massacre leaked outside of Iran’s prisons,
the PMOI/MEK placed a massive global effort to unveil these crimes. They
published the names of a number of massacred PMOI/MEK members, along with their
graves and information about members of the Death Commission in various
provinces. Human rights organizations and other such bodies were provided with
this data.
Marking
the anniversary of this justice movement, new measures are necessary to realize
the goals set for this initiative:
1)
Inside Iran, gathering new information about massacred PMOI/MEK members, their
burial sites, identifying the perpetrators and officials behind these crimes
and…
2)
Abroad, further condemning the massacre of PMOI/MEK members by parliaments,
political parties, human rights advocates, religious leaders and political
figures to hinge political and economic relations with Iran on ending all
executions and torture, launching an independent commission to investigate into
the massacre of PMOI/MEK members and supporters in 1988 to have senior regime
officials brought to justice for crimes against humanity and …
Now
is the time for the international community to open its eyes to the flagrant
human rights violations, and specifically the massacre of PMOI/MEK
members and supporters in 1988, and not permit this dossier to remain closed as
it has for years.
There
is no doubt that that the solution for Middle East crises, now affecting all
other countries, is through regime change in Iran. Realizing such an objective
needs all of this regime’s senior figures to be tried for human rights
violations and massacring PMOI members and supporters in 1988.
This
should be followed with the official recognition of the democratic alternative,
the National Council of Resistance of Iran. The PMOI/MEK is the pivotal force
of this coalition.
This
reminds us of how US President Donald Trump said the Iranian people are the
main victims of the regime ruling Iran.
*Some important issues about MEK:
A Long Conflict between the Clerical Regime and the MEK
The
origins of the MEK date back to before the 1979 Iranian Revolution., the MEK
helped to overthrow the dictatorship of Shah Reza Pahlavi, but it quickly
became a bitter enemy of the emerging the religious fascism under the pretext
of Islamic Republic. To this day, the MEK and NCRI describe Ruhollah Khomenei
and his associates as having co-opted a popular revolution in order to empower
themselves while imposing a fundamentalist view of Islam onto the people of
Iran.
Under
the Islamic Republic, the MEK was quickly marginalized and affiliation with it
was criminalized. Much of the organization’s leadership went to neighboring
Iraq and built an exile community called Camp Ashraf, from which the MEK
organized activities aimed at ousting the clerical regime and bringing the
Iranian Revolution back in line with its pro-democratic origins. But the
persistence of these efforts also prompted the struggling regime to crack down
with extreme violence on the MEK and other opponents of theocratic rule.
The
crackdowns culminated in the massacre of political prisoners in the summer of
1988, as the Iran-Iraq War was coming to a close. Thousands of political
prisoners were held in Iranian jails at that time, many of them having already
served out their assigned prison sentences. And with the MEK already serving as
the main voice of opposition to the regime at that time, its members and
supporters naturally made up the vast majority of the population of such
prisoners.
As
the result of a fatwa handed down by Khomeini, the regime convened what came to
be known as the Death Commission, assigning three judges the task of briefly
interviewing prisoners to determine whether they retained any sympathy for the
MEK or harbored any resentment toward the existing government. Those who were
deemed to have shown any sign of continued opposition were sentenced to be
hanged. After a period of about three months, an estimated 30,000 people had
been put to death. Many other killings of MEK members preceded and followed
that incident, so that today the Free Iran rally includes an annual memorial
for approximately 120,000 martyrs from the People’s Mojahedin Organization of
Iran.
The
obvious motive behind the 1988 massacre and other such killings was the
destruction of the MEK. And yet it has not only survived but thrived, gaining
allies to form the NCRI and acquiring the widespread support that is put on
display at each year’s Free Iran rally. In the previous events, the keynote
speech was delivered by Maryam Rajavi, who has been known to receive several minutes
of applause from the massive crowd as she takes the stage. Her speeches provide
concrete examples of the vulnerability of the clerical regime and emphasize the
ever-improving prospects for the MEK to lead the way in bringing about regime
change.
The
recipients of that message are diverse and they include more than just the
assembled crowd of MEK members and supporters. The expectation is that the
international dignitaries at each year’s event will carry the message of the
MEK back to their own governments and help to encourage more policymakers to
recognize the role of the Iranian Resistance in the potential creation of a
free and democratic Iranian nation. It is also expected that the event will
inspire millions of Iranians to plan for the eventual removal of the clerical
regime. And indeed, the MEK broadcasts the event via its own satellite
television network, to millions of Iranian households with illegal hookups.
MEK’s Domestic Activism and Intelligence Network
What’s
more, the MEK retains a solid base of activists inside its Iranian homeland. In
the run-up to this year’s Free Iran rally the role of those activists was
particularly evident, since the event comes just a month and a half after the
latest Iranian presidential elections, in which heavily stage-managed elections
resulted in the supposedly moderate incumbent Hassan Rouhani securing
reelection. His initial election in 2013 was embraced by some Western
policymakers as a possible sign of progress inside the Islamic Republic, but
aside from the 2015 nuclear agreement with six world powers, none of his
progressive-sounding campaign promises have seen the light of day.
Rouhani’s
poor record has provided additional fertile ground for the message of the MEK
and Maryam Rajavi. The Iranian Resistance has long argued that change from
within the regime is impossible, and this was strongly reiterated against the
backdrop of the presidential elections, when MEK activists used graffiti,
banners, and other communications to describe the sitting president as an
“imposter.” Many of those same communications decried Rouhani’s leading
challenger, Ebrahim Raisi, as a “murderer,” owing to his leading role in the
massacre of MEK supporters in 1988.
That
fact helped to underscore the domestic support for the People’s Mojahedin
Organization of Iran, insofar as many people who participated in the election
said they recognized Raisi as the worst the regime had to offer, and that they
were eager to prevent him from taking office. But this is not to say that
voters saw Rouhani in a positive light, especially where the MEK is concerned.
Under the Rouhani administration, the Justice Minister is headed by Mostafa
Pourmohammadi, who also served on the Death Commission and declared as recently
as last year that he was proud of himself for having carried out what he
described as God’s command of death for MEK supporters.
With
this and other aspects of the Islamic Republic’s record, the MEK’s pre-election
activism was mainly focused on encouraging Iranians to boycott the polls. The
publicly displayed banners and posters urged a “vote for regime change,” and
many of them included the likeness of Maryam Rajavi, suggesting that her return
to Iran from France would signify a meaningful alternative to the hardline
servants of the clerical regime who are currently the only option in any
Iranian national election.
Naturally,
this direct impact on Iranian politics is the ultimate goal of MEK activism.
But it performs other recognizable roles from its position in exile, not just
limited to the motivational and organization role of the Free Iran rally and
other, smaller gatherings. In fact, the MEK rose to particular international
prominence in 2005 when it released information that had been kept secret by
the Iranian regime about its nuclear program. These revelations included the
locations of two secret nuclear sites: an uranium enrichment facility at Natanz
and a heavy water plant at Arak, capable of producing enriched plutonium.
As
well as having a substantial impact on the status of international policy
regarding the Iranian nuclear program, the revelations also highlighted the
MEK’s popular support and strong network inside Iran. Although Maryam Rajavi
and the rest of the leadership of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran
reside outside of the country, MEK affiliates are scattered throughout Iranian
society with some even holding positions within hardline government and
military institutions, including the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Drawing
upon the resources of that intelligence network, the MEK has continued to share
crucial information with Western governments in recent years, some of it
related to the nuclear program and some of it related to other matters
including terrorist training, military development, and the misappropriation of
financial resources. The MEK has variously pointed out that the Revolutionary
Guard controls well over half of Iran’s gross domestic product, both directly
and through a series of front companies and close affiliates in all manner of
Iranian industries.
In
February of this year, the Washington, D.C. office of the National Council of
Resistance of Iran held press conferences to detail MEK intelligence regarding
the expansion of terrorist training programs being carried out across Iran by
the Revolutionary Guards. The growth of these programs reportedly followed upon
direct orders from Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and coincided with
increased recruitment of foreign nationals to fight on Tehran’s behalf in
regional conflicts including the Syrian and Yemeni civil wars.
In
the weeks following that press conference, the MEK’s parent organization also
prepared documents and held other talks explaining the source of some of the
Revolutionary Guards’ power and wealth. Notably, this series of revelations
reflected upon trends in American policy toward the Islamic Republic of Iran.
And other revelations continue to do so, even now.
MEK Intelligence Bolstering US Policy Shifts
Soon
after taking office, and around the time the MEK identified a series of
Revolutionary Guard training camps, US President Donald Trump directed the
State Department to review the possibility of designating Iran’s hardline
paramilitary as a foreign terrorist organization. Doing so would open the
Revolutionary Guards up to dramatically increased sanctions – a strategy that
the MEK prominently supports as a means of weakening the barriers to regime change
within Iran.
The
recent revelations of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran have gone a
long way toward illustrating both the reasons for giving this designation to
the Revolutionary Guards and the potential impact of doing so. Since then, the
MEK has also used its intelligence gathering to highlight the ways in which
further sanctioning the Guards could result in improved regional security,
regardless of the specific impact on terrorist financing.
For
example, in June the NCRI’s Washington, D.C. office held yet another press
conference wherein it explained that MEK operatives had become aware of another
order for escalation that had been given by Supreme Leader Khamenei, this one
related to the Iranian ballistic missile program. This had also been a
longstanding point of contention for the Trump administration and the rest of
the US government, in light of several ballistic missile launches that have
been carried out since the conclusion of nuclear negotiations, including an
actual strike on eastern Syria.
That
strike was widely viewed as a threatening gesture toward the US. And the MEK
has helped to clarify the extent of the threat by identifying 42 separate
missile sites scattered throughout Iran, including one that was working closely
with the Iranian institution that had previously been tasked with weaponizing
aspects of the Iranian nuclear program.
The
National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) led by Maryam Rajavi is thus
going to great lengths to encourage the current trend in US policy, which is
pointing to more assertiveness and possibly even to the ultimate goal of regime
change. The MEK is also striving to move Europe in a similar direction, and the
July 1 gathering is likely to show further progress toward that goal. This is
because hundreds of American and European politicians and scholars have already
declared support for the NCRI and MEK and the platform of Maryam Rajavi. The
number grows every year, while the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran
continues to collect intelligence that promises to clarify the need for regime
change and the practicality of their strategy for achieving it.
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