https://arab.news/wwx85
The Aug. 10, 2021 opinion article (“Why the US should not trust the MEK”) by Dalia Al-Aqidi in Arab News comes at a peculiar time.
On Aug. 10, the trial of a former Iranian prison official, Hamid Noury, began in Sweden over alleged “crimes against humanity.” He is accused of participating in the horrific 1988 torture and execution of over 30,000 political prisoners, mostly members and supporters of Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK).
Since the newly installed president Ebrahim Raisi was also involved in the 1988 massacre, Iran’s brutal regime must be desperate to save face — which means it will do whatever it can, however it can, to tarnish the image of the MEK, its main opposition.
Whether knowingly or not, Al-Aqidi’s opinion article aligns perfectly with Iran’s propaganda war against the MEK. It is recycling stale reports that have long been superseded and/or debunked by credible independent investigation, scholarly research, and court rulings in the US and Europe.
Defaming the MEK is a priority of Iran’s mullahs. On July 5, 2010, for example, a Canadian newspaper claimed that the head of a think tank was offered $80,000 to publish a piece on the Mujahedin-e Khalq. “Iran is trying to get other countries to label it as a terrorist cult,” it wrote.
More recently, on Jan. 19, 2021, US authorities arrested Kaveh Afrasiabi for being an “unregistered agent of the Iranian government.” For many years, Afrasiabi lobbied US officials, and published books and articles advancing the Iranian regime’s political agenda while being secretly employed by the regime’s mission to the UN. One of Afrasiabi’s central tasks was to demonize the MEK.
Whether knowingly or not, Al-Aqidi’s opinion article aligns perfectly with Iran’s propaganda war against the MEK
Ali Safavi
One of the article’s most egregious errors is its casual relabeling of the MEK as a “terrorist” group. It cites the 1997 US designation of the MEK as a foreign terrorist organization (FTO) for the killing nearly half a century ago of several US service members and Pentagon contractors who assisted the Shah’s military. Ambassador Lincoln Bloomfield Jr.’s well-researched book “The Mujahedin-e Khalq, Shackled by a Twisted History” debunks this unfounded allegation.
More importantly, the article fails to clarify that the designation was found to have been politically motivated. The Los Angeles Times, among other news outlets, reported that “one senior Clinton administration official said inclusion of the People’s Moujahedeen (sic) (as FTO) was intended as a goodwill gesture to Tehran and its newly elected moderate president, Mohammad Khatami.”
The truth is that no member of the MEK, since its inception in 1965, has ever been prosecuted or convicted of terrorism by the US or any country governed with due process under the law.
Al-Aqidi’s article then says that the MEK’s removal from the terrorist list was “a surprise move.” In fact, the MEK spent 15 years in courts to challenge the false FTO designation, and seminal court rulings, including one in June 2012 at the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit, ultimately proved its innocence.
Similar vindications of the MEK came in European courts. In 2011, Lord Fraser, former Solicitor-General and Lord Advocate for Scotland, wrote: “In the court, at first we were told that the evidence is classified. But when the documents finally became public by the court’s ruling after a long battle, all we found in the MEK’s dossier was fabricated disinformation provided by the mullahs and their Ministry of Intelligence, none of which was admissible to the court.”
As to the claim that the MEK attacked Iraqi Kurds and Shiites from its Camp Ashraf in Iraq, the author is unwittingly repeating what can only be the Iranian regime’s lies. The Iraqi Kurds themselves have rejected that allegation.
As to the author’s reference to the MEK’s treatment of its members, including the abuse of its female members, courts in Germany ordered two major publications, Der Spiegel and Frankfurter Allgemeine, to remove similar outlandish accusations from their reports or face six months in jail or pay €250,000 ($294,000) in fines.
Moreover, the MEK’s secretary general is a woman, and women are playing leadership roles in every sphere of activity within the organization. As such, these allegations are, to say the least, ridiculous.
Finally, Al-Aqidi’s article seems to presume that outside governments will bring regime change in Iran. This is nonsense. Change has to come from within the country. The MEK has never looked to any foreign backing because it believes the Iranian people are ready and more than capable of bringing about regime change themselves. What they expect from the US and other international governments is to stay neutral in the Iranian people’s fight against religious fascism and refrain from creating obstacles in the path of their struggle for freedom.
• Ali Safavi (@amsafavi) is a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Paris-based National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI).