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Ending hypocrisy of terrorist designation

October 14, 2011 by

THE WASHINGTON TIMES

Friends are branded as enemies while real enemies are appeased

As two current high-profile cases demonstrate, the U.S. government’s practice of listing “foreign terrorist organizations” (FTOs) has become an increasingly dangerous and hollow political exercise rather than a sober assessment of the real threats to America.

llustration: Terrorist by Linas Garsys for The Washington Times

Last month, Afghanistan’s ruthless Haqqani Network reportedly staged a brazen attack against the U.S. Embassy in Kabul. The Haqqanis, who conduct grisly terrorist attacks on hotels, embassies and other targets to advance their agenda to become power brokers in a future political settlement, reportedly are responsible for hundreds of American deaths since 2001. Some American military officers apparently are furious that the Obama administration decided not to designate the Haqqani Network as a terrorist organization because it was feared that listing the group would make it harder for the Afghan government to negotiate with the Haqqanis.

At the same time, the United States continues to list the Mujahedin-e-Khalq (MEK), Iran’s main opposition group and a declared democratic ally, as an FTO even though it meets none of the criteria and long ago renounced violence. Importantly, the group was the first to reveal Iran’s 20-year clandestine nuclear program and provided invaluable intelligence to the U.S. military in Iraq, which not only helped identify and neutralize Iran’s proxy terrorist groups operating in that country but undoubtedly saved American lives in the process.

What gives? Listing organizations like the MEK and not listing groups like the Haqqanis sends the wrong message to friends and foes alike.

In the case of the MEK, the group was put on the State Department’s list of terrorist organizations in 1997 to appease the Tehran regime. The mullahs, who hate and fear the MEK, demanded that the group be listed as a precondition for potential negotiations with the United States. Those negotiations never materialized, and today, Iran remains the most dangerous player in the region. Ironically, the misguided FTO designation has given Iran and its proxies in Iraq a license to kill thousands of MEK members, including a massacre on April 8 that killed or wounded hundreds of unarmed men and women in their Iraqi base known as Camp Ashraf. The current drawdown of protective U.S troops in Iraq means that almost certain annihilation awaits a group that has dedicated itself to a democratic, non-nuclear Iran.

There is a growing movement to delist the MEK. It includes a bipartisan group of 96 members of Congress, including chairmen of the House Select Intelligence and Armed Services committees and an impressive roster of former high-level intelligence, law enforcement and security officials from the Clinton, George W. Bush and Obama administrations.

As for the Haqqanis, sources indicate that during high-level discussions last year, Obama administration officials debated listing the group as an FTO, which would have allowed for assets to be frozen and could help dry up the pool of financial donors supporting the group. Though some political leaders and military commanders pushed for the designation in response to the group’s escalating attacks on Americans, the administration decided that such a move might alienate the Haqqanis and drive them away from the negotiating table. It also would have been perceived as another “provocation” in the already tenuous U.S.-Pakistani relationship. In late September, Adm. Michael Mullen, then chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, made a compelling case for Pakistani complicity in the attack against the U.S. Embassy in Kabul.

What began as a coordinated effort to identify, list, delegitimize and defang terrorist groups has instead become a symbol of appeasement: America put the MEK on the list to appease the Iranians and has kept the Haqqanis off the list to appease Pakistan as well as Afghanistan, which will have to deal with the network long after Americans leave.

Today, there is once again a fierce debate inside the Obama administration on whether to put the Haqqani Network on the terrorist list. At the same time, a debate rages over whether to delist the MEK. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia has ordered the U.S. State Department to evaluate the designation as pressure mounts within the department for a new strategy for dealing with the Iranian regime, which it acknowledges is the No. 1 state sponsor of terrorism.

It appears we are dangerously inconsistent when it comes to the FTO list. Potential friends are branded as terrorists, and avowed enemies avoid a stigmatized identity that could help sap their mystique, funding and support. Both decisions should be reversed immediately, and the whole FTO strategy needs to be examined. The FTO list should be an instrument for counterterrorism, not a tool of negotiation in which hundreds of lives – not to mention American prestige – are used as leverage.

Gen. Hugh Shelton is a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/oct/13/ending-hypocrisy-of-terrorist-designation/

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Tehran’s Foes, Unfairly Maligned

October 13, 2011 by

THE NEW YORK TIMES

Click on the image to view the commentary in the paper

Washington – As the United States tries to halt Iran’s nuclear program and prepares to withdraw troops from Iraq, American voters should ask why the Obama administration has bent to the will of Tehran’s mullahs and their Iraqi allies on a key issue: the fate of 3,400 unarmed members of the exiled Iranian opposition group, Mujahedeen Khalq, who are living in Camp Ashraf, north of Baghdad.

The government of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, a Shiite Muslim, has brazenly murdered members of the Mujahedeen Khalq. Mr. Maliki justifies his attacks by noting that the group is on the United States’ official list of foreign terrorist organizations.

In April, Iraqi forces entered Camp Ashraf and fatally shot or ran over 34 residents and wounded hundreds more. Mr. Maliki has now given the Mujahedeen Khalq until Dec. 31 to close the camp and disperse its residents throughout Iraq.

Without forceful American and United Nations intervention to protect the camp’s residents and a decision by the State Department to remove Mujahedeen Khalq’s official designation as a terrorist group, an even larger attack on the camp or a massacre of its residents elsewhere in Iraq is likely.

This situation is the direct result of the State Department’s misconceived attempt to cripple the Mujahedeen Khalq by labeling it a terrorist organization, beginning in 1997. At the time, I was director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. I concluded that this was part of a fruitless political ploy to encourage a dialogue with Tehran. There was no credible evidence then, nor has there been since, that the group poses any threat to the United States.

Tragically, the State Department’s unjustified terrorist label makes the Mujahedeen Khalq’s enemies in Tehran and Baghdad feel as if they have a license to kill and to trample on the written guarantees of protection given to the Ashraf residents by the United States. And Tehran’s kangaroo courts also delight in the terrorist designation as an excuse to arrest, torture and murder anyone who threatens the mullahs’ regime.

For better or worse, the State Department often makes politically motivated designations, which is why the Irish Republican Army was never put on the list (despite the F.B.I.’s recommendation). Similarly, Moktada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army in Iraq and the Haqqani terrorist network in Pakistan — both of which have murdered many Americans — have successfully avoided being listed.

During my tenure as F.B.I. director, I refused to allocate bureau resources to investigating the Mujahedeen Khalq, because I concluded, based on the evidence, that the designation was unfounded and that the group posed no threat to American security.

I did, however, object to the State Department’s politically motivated insistence that the F.B.I. stop fingerprinting Iranian wrestlers, and intelligence operatives posing as athletes, when the wrestlers were first invited to the United States in a good-will gesture. And the F.B.I. did try, unsuccessfully, to focus the Clinton administration on the threat posed by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, which exported terrorism and committed or orchestrated acts of war against America, including the 1996 Khobar Towers attack in Saudi Arabia, which killed 19 American airmen. We learned from prosecutors on Tuesday that a unit of the corps plotted to murder the Saudi ambassador in Washington.

Some critics call the Mujahedeen Khalq a dangerous cult. But since leaving office, I have carefully reviewed the facts and stand by the conclusion that the Mujahedeen Khalq is not a terrorist organization and should be removed from the State Department’s list immediately. Many of the most knowledgeable and respected terrorism experts in the world have come to the same conclusion. (Though I have on some occasions received speaker’s fees or travel expenses from sympathizers of the Mujahedeen Khalq, my objective analysis as a career law enforcement officer is the only basis for my conclusions.)

Britain and the European Union have already acted on the evidence, removing the Mujahedeen Khalq from their sanctions lists in 2008 and 2009, respectively. The British court reviewing the Mujahedeen Khalq dossier went so far as to call the terrorist designation “perverse.”

The Mujahedeen Khalq is now led by a charismatic and articulate woman, Maryam Rajavi, who enjoys significant support in European governments. In 2001, the Mujahedeen Khalq renounced violence and ceased military action against the Iranian regime. And in 2003, the group voluntarily handed over its weapons to American forces in Iraq and has since provided the United States with valuable intelligence regarding Iran’s nuclear weapons program. By the State Department’s own guidelines, Mujahedeen Khalq should be delisted.

Yet Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and the White House have balked at delisting the group and protecting its members at Camp Ashraf, despite bipartisan calls for action.

Incredibly, as our duty to protect the camp’s residents reaches a critical stage, the State Department offers only silence and delay. The secretary is still “reviewing” the designation nearly 15 months after the United States Court of Appeals in Washington ruled that the department had broken the law by failing to accord the Mujahedeen Khalq due process when listing it as a terrorist group. Mrs. Clinton has not complied with the court’s order to indicate “which sources she regards as sufficiently credible” to justify this life-threatening designation. The reason is clear: there is no evidence.

Louis J. Freeh was director of the F.B.I. from 1993 to 2001.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/13/opinion/tehrans-foes-unfairly-maligned.html

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New York Times: Delist MEK (PMOI) Now, Protect Camp Ashraf

October 11, 2011 by
(Click on the image for the PDF version of the letter)
 

NEW YORK TIMES: 14 Senior US National Security and Policy figures write an open letter to President Obama to Delist MEK (PMOI) and Protect Camp Ashraf

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Taking Iranian Opposition Group Off U.S. Terror List

October 10, 2011 by

THE NEW YORK TIMES

It is a valid observation that a majority of Iraqis, including Shiites, hate the Iranian regime (“Vacuum Is Feared as U.S. Quits Iraq, but Iran’s Deep Influence May Not Fill It,” news article, Oct. 9). Yet Tehran, worried about the consequences of the Arab Spring and faced with a growing domestic crisis and isolation, still seeks to manipulate Iraq by controlling its security apparatus and supporting paramilitary groups.

Under the circumstances, the regime and the pro-engagement crowd are paranoid over the likelihood of the removal of the principal Iranian opposition movement, the Mujahedeen Khalq, or MEK, from the State Department’s Foreign Terrorist Organizations list.

In July 2010, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled that there was no legal basis for the designation. And a bipartisan Congressional initiative and a growing roster of former senior political, military, and national security officials have urged delisting of the MEK. In a demonstration in August in front of the State Department, thousands of Iranians echoed the Iranian people’s disdain for the designation. The European Union and Britain delisted MEK in 2009 and 2008.

“An Iranian Cult and Its American Friends,” by Elizabeth Rubin (Sunday Review, Aug. 14), repeated discredited allegations against the MEK in urging maintenance of the designation, which senior American officials acknowledged had been a good-will gesture to Tehran in 1997.

Scores of independent reports, including those by several delegations of the European Parliament, the Iran Policy Committee in Washington and Dick Armey, the former majority leader of the House of Representatives, clearly show that these allegations, particularly those implicating MEK in suppressing Iraqi Kurds in 1991, are unfounded.

Despite repeated denials by the Iranian resistance, the Op-Ed writer claimed that the Iranian resistance’s president-elect, Maryam Rajavi, ordered crushing the Kurds under tanks. This is another desperate attempt to discredit the person who is a point of hope for Iranians seeking freedom, and a major part of Tehran’s demonizing campaign against the MEK.

Hoshyar Zebari, foreign minister of Iraq, stipulated in an affidavit in 1999, when he was the head of international affairs for Iraq’s Kurdistan Democratic Party, that MEK had no role in suppressing Iraqi Kurds.

SHAHIN GOBADI
Paris, Oct. 10, 2011

The writer is spokesman for the National Council of Resistance of Iran, which includes the MEK.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/11/opinion/taking-iranian-opposition-group-off-us-terrorist-list.html

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Washington Times: 42 Prominent Iranian Personalities Call for the Delisting of the PMOI/MEK

October 10, 2011 by

Condemn Smear Campaign against Iranian Opposition

(Click on the image for the PDF version of the letter)
 

Washington Times: 42 Prominent Iranian Personalities Call for the Delisting of the PMOI/MEK; Condemn Smear Campaign against Iranian Opposition

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Why Tehran Cannot Stop Nuclear Enrichment

October 10, 2011 by

 OfficialWire.com

Iran has posed the most serious nuclear challenge to the international community, and experts believe that it is only steps away from getting the nuclear weapons capability. Yet, international efforts have to date failed to stop the mullahs and evidence shows that they are carrying out secret work to further enrich uranium.

It is also too clear that Tehran does not need nuclear energy. Iran is the second-largest crude producer in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) after Saudi Arabia. The country’s Deputy Oil Minister Ahmad Qalebani said that Iran’s oil reserves has reached 155 billion barrels following the recent discovery of new onshore oil and gas fields in southern and western Iran with reserves of 500,000 million oil barrels and five trillion cubic feet gas respectively.

Sounding worried about Iran’s nuclear activities, this is what the former deputy director of the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, Olli Heinonen, said in an interview with Spiegel on October 6th, explaining how he felt they were tricked and misled:

“It’s undeniable that Iran’s nuclear program is far more advanced than it was in 2003, when the discovery of the Natanz facility brought it to the IAEA’s attention. At the time, uranium enrichment tests were being carried out in secret on a small scale. But at the end of 2003, the Iranians admitted they were also planning to set up a heavy-water reactor in Arak to generate plutonium.

Today the facts are as follows: The conversion plant in Isfahan has produced 371 tons of uranium hexafluoride. Some 8,000 centrifuges in Natanz are being used to enrich this raw material. In February 2010, Iran began increasing enrichment to 20 percent. That’s a significant step closer to making an atomic bomb because it takes only a few months to turn that into weapons-grade material.”

 In september, the  head of the United Nations nuclear agency announced plans to publish new information backing up his belief that Iran may be working on a nuclear warhead—developments that leaves his organization “increasingly concerned.” 

There are two important questions that need to be answered:

One. Why does Tehran not accept to stop nuclear enrichment?

Two. Does Iran have an Achilles’ heel to force it stop its drive to become a nuclear power?          

To answer the above questions, we need to look inside Iran.

First: The mullahs are facing a very young population (more than 70% below 30 years of age), who are almost entirely against the regime. The protests in the Iranian streets two years ago, showed the threat facing Tehran. The demonstrations have to date been stopped by brutal crackdown and wide spread torture of those arrested in the prisons, but the wind of changes in the Arab world is certainly not blowing against the regime in Iran.

The mullahs utterly need a way out. Capability to produce nuclear weapons is being seen as a solution to create crisis and survive. Tehran is too weak and is surrounded by too many problems to be able to negotiate stopping nuclear enrichment, no matter how many carrots it is offered.

Second: Tehran has a very hurt able Achilles’ heel that it has to be attentive of. The weakness, which is well recognized by the mullahs themselves, is their main opposition group, the MEK.

Shackling the MEK is a must for the mullahs as they feel the threat facing them inside country and they experienced it two years ago on the streets of the capital. The opposition must be kept under maximum pressure no matter what and that is the reason why the mullahs lobbies in Europe and the US, have clear-cut outlines to work with. The MEK was put in the FTO list in 1997 when the Clinton administration, keen on placating Tehran’s regime through various “goodwill gestures,” designated the group as a terrorist organization. Since then, the MEK has won every legal challenge it filed, whether in the United States, the United Kingdom, France or the European Union. Eight European courts have reviewed thousands of pages of classified and unclassified materials and have concluded that the MEK is simply not involved in terrorism.

The correct policy towards the mullahs in Iran is to recognize their Achilles’ heel. Tehran’s threat is too real but it does not need to be stopped by a war. The impasse can be opened by unshackling the mullahs’ opposition and delisting the MEK before it is too late.

Kambiz Assai is a scholar of Iranian politics living in exile in Britain and a former political prisoner of the religious dictatorship in Iran. He writes about Iranian current events and human rights issues extensively and dreams of returning to a free and democratic Iran.

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Tehran’s Slick Way of Demonizing its Opponents

October 8, 2011 by

INTELLECTUAL CONSERVATIVE

Barbara Slavin, who has been highly critical of the Iranian opposition organization MEK, has an awfully cozy relationship with the Iranian government.

Barbara Slavin is proud to have maintained a close relationship with Iranian officials. In fact, one reason she has a claim on being an Iran expert is her “access” to such officials. Anyone with remote familiarity with the ruling theocracy in Iran knows that the high-ranking officials in national security and foreign affairs have previously held positions in the intelligence services and the Revolutionary Guards Corps.

Barbara Slavin, as an “Iran expert,” knows well that the transition from the intelligence units and the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) to government positions intensified during Ahmadinejad’s tenure and many of the key governmental positions are now run by former IRGC commanders.

Slavin herself has underscored the Iranian regime’s expediency in recognizing and maintaining their interests. Given the above background, one wonders what interest the Iranian regime has in allowing Slavin to visit Iran, not once or twice, but seven times? It is imperative that if Slavin’s visits would not serve its interests, the Iranian regime would not allow a repeat.

So far as it pertains to developments in Iran and Western policy on Iran, Ms. Slavin was for a while nostalgic about the Khatami and Rafsanjani eras (the regime’s former presidents) as though there was some moderation at work and the opportunity has been missed.

More intriguing is Slavin’s claim that the West and in particular the US are to blame for not offering the Iranian regime more concessions, and had they offered more, the Iranian regime would be more reasonable and logical to deal with and would show better cooperation with the rest of the world and treating its people.

When drawing such a rosy picture of Iran (which is far from the reality), Slavin intentionally ignores the fact that Iran is a theocracy and that its supreme leader always has the last word. What about the IRGC domination of all key governmental positions as well as Iran’s economy? What about the medieval court rulings, e.g., stoning to death? And what about the regime’s persecution of its opposition as mohareb (God’s enemies)?

The truth is that Khatami had an essential role in playing the “bad cop, good cop” game with the West, in order to acquire certain concessions and, in particular, having the main Iranian opposition, the MEK, put on the list of terrorists. He neither could facilitate a change in Iran nor was he really interested in doing so, as his best interests were in securing the very regime.

A few years later, when Ahmadinejad was appointed (elected?), it became very clear that the Iranian regime had planned to confront the international community and that the so-called moderation was only a myth, but Slavin encouraged the U.S. to be more “realistic.” She also has been very active in protecting the Tehran regime by participating in the campaign to defend Iran from economic sanctions and diplomatic isolations. Indeed, Slavin not only promoted the Iranian regime as a strong regional power but taunted the U.S. for not recognizing and respecting its hegemony in the region. Less than a year later, internal uprisings in Iran shook the regime’s foundations to the verge of collapse.

Slavin’s super-friendly relationship with the Iranian regime is best reflected in her rants against the main Iranian opposition, which often echo the regime’s itself.

During Rafsanjani’s and Khatami’s era, when Slavin made most of her high-level visits to Iran, the Iranian Intelligence Ministry devised its 80–20 percent formula.

According to this scheme, the Iranian regime’s contacts were encouraged to rant about non-serious allegations against the Iranian government 80% of the time and spend 20% making very serious accusations against the principal Iranian opposition, The People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK). The rationale was: tell the truth 80% of the time and lie 20%, thus avoiding detection and giving a false image of opposing both while keeping the best interests of the regime in mind.

When reviewing Slavin’s writings against the MEK (e.g., her September 28 Inter Press Service [IPS] piece), one can see many similarities between her claims and the Iranian regime’s official propaganda.

Slavin’s biggest criticism of the MEK is that it is a sect. She complemented her claim with the mullahs’ favorite rhetoric – that the MEK does not have a popular support in Iran.
 
The essence of this message is very simple: the Iranian people are not interested in an organized opposition, and they’d be happy with some reforms within the existing theocracy. That is precisely a key 20% claim that makes Slavin and those like her very profitable for the Iranian regime.
 
The sectarianism label first was leveled against the MEK by the Iranian regime. In a Le Figaro interview in December 2008, an Iranian diplomat revealed that the label was invented during Khatami era and was repeated in diplomatic circles to characterize the MEK as a dangerous sect, not a political party.
 
In fact, last June, multiple high-ranking Iranian regime intelligence officials reiterated in TV interviews that they invented and widely propagated the sectarianism characterization as a means of reducing the MEK’s impact on the society.
 
The fact is that the Iranian regime has used every resource and lobbying campaign at its disposal to throw dirt at its main opposition and has spent millions on “research” and “think tank” firms during the past 30 years to draw an evil image of the MEK. The sect label against the Iranian resistance is one result of such campaigns.
 
With respect to the popular base of the MEK in Iran, suffice it to say that it is the oldest and most popular political organization in contemporary Iran that has fought two dictatorships in more than 46 years. Some 120,000 of its members and supporters have been executed throughout Iran, attesting to its widespread base. After the 2009 uprising in Iran, 11 were condemned to death and all were accused of MEK connections. Those condemned to death were executed precisely because of their MEK affiliations. Many are currently imprisoned in Iran because of their MEK sympathies or family connections in Camp Ashraf.
 
The MEK’s social network in Iran is by far the biggest nongovernmental network through which the MEK has been able to reveal more than 80 of Tehran’s nuclear programs, confidential sites, and secret projects.
 
Outside Iran, MEK gatherings have attracted tens of thousands of Iranians in the diaspora. In a gathering in Paris last June, some 100,000 participated, an unprecedented event in modern history. MEK has offices in most European countries and has sympathizers throughout the world. Its supporters are among the best educated and intellectual of the Iranians abroad, who have an extensive communication network.

Those have a deep understanding of the term sect know that it does not fit the MEK and is used against it to justify repression, killings, and restrictions of Camp Ashraf residents.
 
The above said, let me ask Slavin a few questions about the popularity or lack thereof the MEK:

• On what poll or survey is your opinion based? Is it possible under the Iranian regime for the people to freely express their opinion about the opposition? Don’t the Iranian constitution and its supreme leader make it a crime (“mohareb”) punishable by death to have any connection or affiliation with the MEK? Have you conducted a free survey on the campuses during her seven trips to Iran? Or do you expecting your contacts in the Iranian regime to offer a fair assessment of the MEK and its popular support? The main issue in Iran has been and continues to be freedom of expression. That’s is precisely why the Iranian regime resorts to widespread imprisonment, torture, rape, executions, has established so many oppressive units, and spends millions of dollars because it cannot tolerate freedom of expression.

• If the MEK does not have a popular base in Iran, why do high level Iranian regime officials continually warn about the MEK’s threats and its impact on the youth? According to the Wall Street Journal of May 7, 2008, the Western diplomats dealing with Iran have stated that Iran’s number one demand during the meetings has been restricting the MEK.

• If the MEK does not have a popular base in Iran, why are mullahs so concerned about Camp Ashraf and constantly conspiring against it? Didn’t Slavin characterize the Iranian regime as logical? Is it logical to campaign so hysterically against camp Ashraf? How does she explain the contradictions here?

The personality cult charge leveled against Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, the Iranian resistance President-elect, has been one of the anchors of Tehran’s propaganda against the Iranian resistance, one that Slavin repeats.
 
Doesn’t Slavin recognize the right of resistance against the mullahs? If she you do agree that resistance against a tyranny is a right, then an organized resistance will have leader to represent it. Mrs. Rajavi represents the Iranian people’s hope for a regime change and symbolizes a democratic Iran, just as de Gaulle symbolized the French resistance against Nazism.
Another propaganda charge that Slavin levels against the Iranian resistance is that the Ashraf residents are kept in camp against their will. This is an absolute lie propagated by the Iranian regime and its agents in Iraq.
 
How could these individuals be forcefully kept under most horrible and inhuman conditions imposed on Camp Ashraf by Tehran’s Iraqi agents and under a 24/7 emotional torture via 300 loudspeakers deployed around the camp? The truth is that these individuals have made a decisive personal choice to live in a most democratic and modern environment that Ashraf has provided for them, despite all external risks.

All Camp Ashraf residents have been interviewed multiple times by various U.S. officials and government units and were given an opportunity, with U.S. and Iraqi officials present, to exit Ashraf; each and every individual in the camp chose to – indeed insisted – to stay.
 
At the official hearing of the U.S. Congress on July 7,2011, retired Army Colonel Wesley Martin, former base commander, Camp Ashraf for 2005 t0 2006, testified: “One perpetual rumor worthy of specific address concerns members of the MEK being held against their will. I was able to validate through specific occurrences anyone wishing to leave has that choice.”
 
Colonel (now General) David Philips wrote on May 27, 2005: “I am the commander of the 89th Military Police Brigade and in that role was responsible for the safety and security of Camp Ashraf from January-December 2004. Over the year long period I was apprized of numerous reports of torture, concealed weapons and people being held against their will by the leadership of the Mujahedin-e-khalq. I directed my subordinate units to investigate each allegation.  In many cases I personally led inspection teams on unannounced visits to the MEK/PMOI facilities where the alleged abuses were reported to occur. At no time over the 12 month period did we ever discover any credible evidence supporting the allegations raised” … I would not have sanctioned any acts on the part of the MeK/PMOI to hold people against their will. The MEK/PMOI in fact notified us on a routine basis of people who desired to leave the organization and then transported them to our gate … I’ve visited male and female units on a routine basis. Sometimes these visits were announced, but most frequently they were unannounced inspections … Not one time did they (my subordinate units) discover any improper conduct on the part of the MeK/PMOI.” At the end of his letter he stated: “I would like my own daughters to someday visit these units for the cultural exchange.”
 
Col. Julie Norman, the U.S. Commander responsible for protection of Ashraf in 2006, in a Memorandum For Record on August 24, 2006, wrote: “There exists no prison or any obligation to stay in Ashraf; everyone is free to leave PMOI anytime he/she wishes to.” She added: “Normally, PMOI members invite their families, friends, and colleagues who live in Iran or foreign countries to Ashraf for visits.”
 
The above three official statements by three US commanders in charge of Camp Ashraf during 2004–2006 are very telling and contradict that of Slavin.
 
While Camp Ashraf was accessible to outsiders, six Europeans parliamentarian delegations visited Ashraf and documented their observations and talks with the individual camp residents, and all of them contradict Slavin’s baseless claims.

Slavin further blames the MEK for a lack of access by the camp residents to the UNHCR. But the truth is the opposite. The Red Cross did visit the camp and interviewed hundreds of its residents. Lastly, while the camp has been under the Iraqi blockade during the past three years, it has been the camp officials who repeatedly have called for a visit by international organizations, news media, parliamentarian delegations, and camps residents’ families.

As an Iran “expert,” Slavin knows that her reporting on the Iranian resistance best fits the 80–20 formula.

Antonio Stango, a political scientist, lecturer in International Law and Human Rights, is the founder and the Secretary General of the Italian Helsinki Committee, member of the International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights. In 2003 he served also as an expert for the EU / TACIS Project “The Legal Protection of Human Rights in the Russian Federation.”

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It could be another Srebrenica if MeK is not delisted

October 5, 2011 by

StopFundamentalism.com

According to the Supreme Leader of Iran, Ayatollah Khamenei, the Iranian people don’t want democracy of the Western kind.   They want Sharia law.  

I know who would agree with him:  the taxi driver who, a few weeks ago, drove me from the Iranian resistance demonstration outside the State Department in Washington D. C.   “Iran is a free country,” he said.   “The mullahs are good.   I’ve lived in Iran so I know.”   When was that, I asked.   “In the Shah’s time.”  

When the Shah died the Iranian people may have had reason to hope the mullahs would free them, but they were quickly disappointed, and there has been no improvement since.   To give just one example, there were at least 62 executions in Iran during September.   A free country?

One of the obstacles to making it really free is that the main opposition group, the People’s Mojahedin of Iran, also known as the Mojahedine-e-Khalq, is still on the US list of terrorist organisations, three years after it was removed from the UK list, two and a half years after it was removed from the EU one, and fourteen months after the Court of Appeal in the District of Columbia ruled that there was no justification for keeping it there.

This makes it harder to bring about regime change in Iran, which in turn makes the whole of the Middle East less likely to be stable in the near future.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights has granted the status of asylum seekers to the 3,400 Iranian refugees now living in Camp Ashraf, in Iraq.   Now it is time for the Secretary General to take action.  

A UN monitoring force needs to be stationed at the camp, full time.   As long as these innocent people, of whom 36 were murdered and 345 wounded last April, are classified as terrorists, the High Commissioner has admitted that it is hard to find them homes in third party countries, where their safety can be guaranteed.  

The Iraqis, whose forces were responsible for the April attack, have used the terrorist label to justify it.   Meanwhile, at a rally outside the UN Headquarters in New York on 22 September, the former Secretary for Homeland Security, Tom Ridge, declared that the PMOI/MEK surrendered all weapons and pose no threat whatever to the security of the US or anyone else.  

The President-elect of the Iranian Resistance, Mrs Maryam Rajavi, is prevented as a “terrorist” from entering the United States, while President Ahmadinejad, a former torturer at Evin Prison, who claims never to hurt a fly but is happy to order six-year-old children to be hanged, speaks at the United Nations Headquarters.   As Mrs Rajavi told the New York rally by video link, “It is no place for a murderer.”

Camp Ashraf is due to be closed at the end of this year; it could be another Srebrenica if Mek is not delisted. Time is running out. 

Carolyn Beckingham, a British writer and translator of a book called “Eye to Eye of a Monster”, and a human rights activist 

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Distinguishing between rumours and facts about the MEK

October 3, 2011 by

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.

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Iranian Political Prisoners: Don’t Mollify our Butchers!

October 1, 2011 by

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.”

 

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