If
you want to understand events in Iran you should pay particular
attention to this organisation, The MEK and to the warning of RT’s Caleb Maupin
Exiled
MEK terrorist organisation responsible for violence in Iran
2
January, 2018
Iran's
President Hassan Rouhani says an exiled opposition group is inciting
violence in Iran, where anti-government protests have been held in a
number of cities in recent days.
In
a phone call with his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron, Rouhani
called on France to stop hosting the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq group, known
as the MEK. Several of the group's leaders are based in Paris.
The
MEK fled after Iran's 1979 Islamic Revolution and later found refuge
in Saddam Hussein's Iraq. Heavily armed by Saddam, MEK forces
launched cross-border raids into Iran during its war with Iraq,
further alienating the group from many Iranians. The MEK says it
renounced violence in 2001.
The State Department considered the MEK a terrorist group until 2012, when it lifted the designation.
The State Department considered the MEK a terrorist group until 2012, when it lifted the designation.
This
piece from National Geographic is called ‘The best documentary
about Iranian opposition group (MEK)’
If you judged by the following you might make the mistake of thinking this is a nice, civilised pro-western group instead of the terrorists they are.
If you judged by the following you might make the mistake of thinking this is a nice, civilised pro-western group instead of the terrorists they are.
Exposing
the reality
Listen first to what RT's Cale Maupin has to say.
An
official in U.S. President Donald Trump’s Cabinet and at least one
of his advisers gave paid speeches for organizations linked to an
Iranian exile group that killed Americans before the 1979 Islamic
Revolution, ran donation scams and saw its members set themselves on
fire over the arrest of their leader.
Elaine
Chao, confirmed this week as Mr. Trump’s transportation secretary,
received $50,000 in 2015 for a five-minute speech to the political
wing of the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq, previously called a “cult-like”
terrorist group by the State Department. Former New York Mayor Rudy
Giuliani also was paid an unknown sum to talk to the group, known as
the MEK.
What
were a Saudi prince, a former Republican House Speaker and a former
Democratic vice-presidential candidate doing together in a suburb of
Paris last weekend?
Would
you be surprised to discover that Prince Turki Bin Faisal, Newt
Gingrich and Joe Lieberman were speaking
on behalf of
a group of Iranian exiles that was officially designated a “Foreign
Terrorist Organization”
by the United States government between 1997 and 2012?
Iran
hawks long ago fell head over heels for the Mojahedin-e Khalq, known
as the MEK, and loudly
and successfully lobbied for
it to be removed from the State Department list of banned terror
groups in 2012. Formed in Iran in the 1960s, the MEK, whose name
translates to “Holy Warriors of the People,” was once an avowedly
anti-American, semi-Marxist, semi-Islamist group,
pledged to toppling the U.S.-backed Shah by force and willing
to launch
attacks on U.S. targets.
The MEK even stands accused of helping
with the seizure of hostages at
the U.S. embassy in Tehran; the group condemned the hostages’
release as a “surrender” to the United States. But after the
Iran’s clerical rulers turned on the group in the early 1980s, its
leaders fled the country and unleashed
a series of bombings across
Iran.
"The
MEK was designated as a terrorist group by the U.S. State Department
in 1997, although the designation was lifted in 2012. Investigative
journalist Seymour Hersh said that, even while it was listed as a
foreign terror group, MEK members received training from the Joint
Special Operations Command in Nevada. During the confrontational
period between Tehran and Washington over Iran’s nuclear program,
the MEK was attractive to U.S. intelligence agencies as an opposition
group in Iran."
Israel’s
role in assassination of Iranian nuclear scientists
13
March, 2017
Although
Israel has a policy of not commenting on allegations of murder and
terrorism, authorities and unnamed sources have hinted that Israel
may be involved in the assassinations of four Iranian nuclear
scientists between 2010 and 2012.
Four
Iranian nuclear scientists – Masoud Alimohammadi, Majid Shahriari,
Darioush Rezaeinejad and Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan – were assassinated
between the years 2010 and 2012. Another scientist, Fereydoon Abbasi,
was wounded in an attempted murder.
Two
of the killings were carried out with magnetic bombs attached to the
victims’ cars. Rezaeinejad was shot dead in front of his wife and
young daughter, and Alimohammadi was killed in a motorcycle-bomb
explosion.
Reza
Najafi, the Iranian ambassador to the United Nation’s International
Atomic Energy Agency, said on Thursday at a meeting of the IAEA Board
of Governors that “Israel-hired terrorists” were behind the
assassinations of the nuclear scientists in the Middle East.
“Unfortunately,
the Zionist Regime has ignored the rightful requests of the
international community in the last years, and having the blind
support of some Western countries and with infringing all
international laws and regulations, has pushed its dangerous military
nuclear program forward,” the ambassador said.
The
former Iranian envoy to the IAEA, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, had called
the assassinations of nuclear experts instances of “nuclear
terrorism”.
During
the time of the assassinations, there was speculation about the
identity of the killers. The Israeli Mossad intelligence service and
Israel Defense Forces were seen as the most likely perpetrators.
However, the Iranian opposition group Mojahedin-e-Khalq (MEK),
intelligence agents from Arab countries opposed to the Iranian
government and the United States were also under suspicion.
While
then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton denied any U.S. involvement
in the killings, given the reported lack of U.S. intelligence assets
in Iran, Israel neither confirmed nor denied its involvement.
In
2015, Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon said in an interview
with Der Spiegel that he bore no responsibility “for the life
expectancy of Iranian scientists”. Speaking about Iran’s nuclear
program, he commented that, “it must be stopped”.
“We
will act in any way and are not willing to tolerate a nuclear-armed
Iran. We prefer that this be done by means of sanctions, but in the
end, Israel should be able to defend itself,” he said, hinting at
Israeli involvement in the assassinations. He called the nuclear
negotiations between Iran and six world powers “a historic
mistake”.
According
to a report by CBS News several years ago, the Obama administration
pressured Israel to stop carrying out assassinations inside Iran
against the country’s nuclear scientists. This came amid
Washington’s attempt to reach a nuclear deal with Iran.
Although
Israel never admitted to carrying out the killings, Mossad officials
concluded that the assassination campaign became too dangerous for
its spies, said the CBS News report.
A
well-sourced and convincing investigation from 2012 by NBC News in
the U.S. concluded that “deadly attacks on Iranian nuclear
scientists are being carried out by an Iranian dissident group that
is financed, trained and armed by Israel’s secret service”. It
also cites two senior Obama administration officials as confirming
that the MEK is responsible for the killings.
NBC
quoted Mohammad Javad Larijani, a former top diplomat and current
chief of Iran’s human rights council, as asserting that Israel’s
secret service, Mossad, trained MEK members. This information largely
came from the interrogation of a would-be assassin detained in Iran
in 2010.
The
MEK, however, denies any involvement with Israel, but Israeli
commentators have confirmed the MEK-Israel connection.
The
MEK was designated as a terrorist group by the U.S. State Department
in 1997, although the designation was lifted in 2012. Investigative
journalist Seymour Hersh said that, even while it was listed as a
foreign terror group, MEK members received training from the Joint
Special Operations Command in Nevada. During the confrontational
period between Tehran and Washington over Iran’s nuclear program,
the MEK was attractive to U.S. intelligence agencies as an opposition
group in Iran.
Israel
has a history of systematic assassinations, most prominent of which
are targeted killings of Hamas leaders in the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict. According to an Israeli intellectual, “targeted
assassinations have become the most significant and frequent form of
Israeli military attack,” and serve to control Palestinian
territories.
In
2013, a young Iraqi nuclear scientist, Mohammad al-Fouz, was
allegedly gunned down by Mossad in the country’s capital city of
Baghdad. A member of Fouz’s family told reporters that unknown
gunmen targeted the young scientist when he was on his way back home.
He had just published his new uranium enrichment formula in a number
of Western journals before he died.
No
evidence has been provided linking Israel to the murder and Israel
denies involvement. However, earlier reports suggest Mossad’s
involvement in the assassination of more than 350 Iraqi nuclear
scientists and more than 300 university professors. The attack on
al-Fouz was the most recent in a series of attacks on Iraqi nuclear
scientists.
According
to a report released in 2010 by the UN Special Rapporteur on
extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, Israel refused to
admit that it had been carrying out “targeted killings” for
decades.
“There
is no policy, and there never will be a policy or a reality, of
willful killings of suspects. The principle of the sanctity of life
is a fundamental principle of the Israeli army,” the report quoted
the Israel Defense Forces as saying.
Israel
has defended its use of assassinations and targeted killings as legal
under international humanitarian law.
However,
the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that all individuals
have the right to life, liberty and security. Article 6 of the
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights also says the
right to life must be protected by law and “no one shall be
arbitrarily deprived” of that right.
According
to the United Nations’ “Principles on the Effective Prevention
and Investigation of Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary Executions,”
governments must prohibit such executions and ensure they are
considered offenses under their state’s criminal laws. It rules out
“exceptional circumstances, including a state of war or threat of
war” as justifications for such executions.
Mark
Regev, the former Israeli prime minister’s spokesman, said in 2012
that it is preferable to arrest and bring “terrorists” to court,
but that is not always possible. “Sometimes in the combat reality,
the only real option is to eliminate,” he said.
Research
by the Gaza-based Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR), stated
that from 2000 to 2008 the Israeli military carried out 348
“extrajudicial execution operations” in the occupied Palestinian
territories. The attacks killed 754 Palestinians: 521 of whom were
specifically targeted and 233 of whom were civilian bystanders,
including 71 children and 20 women.
Source:
Tehran Times
Iranian
MEK group off terrorist list
Sep 24, 2012
An Iranian group called MEK has been removed from the US government's terrorist list. The group is responsible for killing several US military personnel and US civilians in the 1970s and it has also been linked to using terroristic violence against Iran. So why isn't this group considered a terrorist one anymore? Jamal Abdi of the National Iranian American Council joins RT's Kristine Frazao to talk more about the State Department decision.
This is a very good backgrounder from the Corbett Report
An Iranian group called MEK has been removed from the US government's terrorist list. The group is responsible for killing several US military personnel and US civilians in the 1970s and it has also been linked to using terroristic violence against Iran. So why isn't this group considered a terrorist one anymore? Jamal Abdi of the National Iranian American Council joins RT's Kristine Frazao to talk more about the State Department decision.
This is a very good backgrounder from the Corbett Report
The
EyeOpener- Meet the MEK: Washington's Favorite Terror Cult
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