The world must stop ignoring Iran's pattern of obstructing nuclear inspections

Giving Tehran a free pass is simply too dangerous. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)

The Islamic Republic of Iran has demonstrated a long pattern of obstruction regarding inquiries and investigations into its nuclear activities, and that pattern persists more than two years after the conclusion of a landmark nuclear agreement between Iran and six world powers.

The conclusion of that agreement in 2015 was to some extent dependent upon the neglect of certain controversial issues, including access to Iranian military sites, where the regime apparently carried out research and development related to weaponization aspects of the country's nuclear program. The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action effectively skirted this issue by making it theoretically possible for the International Atomic Energy Agency to ask for and receive access to military sites, but only following a month-long process during which the Islamic Republic could work to erase evidence of past activities.

Examining Politics: A change in course for the Environmental Protection Agency

This is exactly what happened at the highly suspect Parchin military base, from which the IAEA obtained soil samples that still showed the presence of some nuclear material after satellite imagery showed the site being partially demolished and sanitized. Despite this fact, the IAEA closed the file on the past military dimensions of the Iranian nuclear program so that the JCPOA could go forward toward implementation.

This and other instances of Iranian deception and international neglect were the focus of a recent report published by the International Committee In Search of Justice (ISJ), the non-profit NGO that I head up in Brussels. The report drew upon public information and intelligence gathered by the People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK), the main Iranian opposition group with a solid record of exposing information about the regime´s nuclear project. The new information identifies a much broader pattern of behaviors going far beyond well-publicized issues like Parchin.

But even without this additional intelligence, the Parchin situation and the Iranian regime's repeated insistence that military sites are simply off limits to international inspectors should be enough to demonstrate to the world that the JCPOA has likely not halted Iran's nuclear activities, much less convinced the regime to cooperate with the international community.

Sadly, various world powers seem to be well aware of the shortcomings of the JCPOA, yet remain committed to preserving that agreement and arguing that it is serving its purpose effectively.

Regardless of one's position on the JCPOA, it is indefensible to suggest that the agreement has succeeded in its objective of halting Iran's progress toward a nuclear weapon, or even that the resulting inspections have closed the issue of the past military dimensions of the program.

Anyone familiar with Tehran's pattern of deception for the past two decades should recognize the need for coordinated international insistence upon immediate and unrestricted access to Parchin and other military sites, as well as access to the sites and personnel associated with the Organization of Defense Innovation and Research, which has been identified as the institution at the heart of weaponization aspects of the Iranian nuclear program. It is simply naïve and utterly dangerous to overlook Tehran's deceptive behaviors just for the sake of preserving the nuclear deal and pretending the issue of possible military dimensions is resolved.

So far, President Trump has remained silent on whether he plans to certify before Congress that Iran is complying with its obligations under the agreement, as he will be required to do on October 15.

To the extent that the recent report relies upon information from the IAEA's publicly available documents, it establishes that the nuclear monitoring agency has effectively cast its own findings aside. For instance, the report quotes one IAEA document, published just on the verge of the JCPOA's implementation, as saying, "The Agency assesses that the extensive activities undertaken by Iran since February 2012 at the particular location of interest to the Agency seriously undermined the Agency's ability to conduct effective verification."

Despite this fact, the Agency now acts as if Tehran's ongoing patterns of obstruction are not grounds for suspicion about its compliance. The IAEA has repeatedly insisted to the world that Iran is in compliance with the nuclear deal, but in so doing it has not only ignored the issue of what remains unknown about possible military dimensions, but it has also ignored confirmed, if minor, violations of the JCPOA's limits on Iran's stockpiles of nuclear materials and nuclear byproducts.

To the extent that Iran refuses to cooperate with the international community, the nations of the world should show that they can do better by cooperating among themselves in order to exert the pressure that is necessary to make absolutely certain that this theocratic regime is no longer pursuing the capability to build weapons of mass destruction. Giving Tehran a free pass is simply too dangerous.

Alejo Vidal-Quadras, a Spanish professor of atomic and nuclear physics, was vice-president of the European Parliament from 1999 to 2014. He is currently president of the Brussels-based International Committee in Search of Justice (ISJ).

FORMER INTELLIGENCE MINISTER TALKS ABOUT 1988 MASSACRE OF MEK PRISONERS IN IRAN

By INU Staff

INU - Ali Fallahian, a former Intelligence Minister of Iran, participated in an interview with Tarikh Online – a state-affiliated news website, earlier this month. He admitted that the Supreme Leader at the time, Ayatollah Khomeini, ordered the execution of anyone linked to the Iranian opposition (MEK) in a fatwa in 1988.

During the summer of 1988, more than 30,000 political prisoners, most of whom were members or supporters of the People’s Mojahedin Organisation of Iran (PMOI or MEK), the main Iranian opposition group, were executed.

He said that the fatwa ordered the execution of the MEK members who insisted on maintaining their beliefs. To deal with the logistics of it, a commission was formed, he said. This is what has become known as the “Death Commission”. Fallahian said that the purpose of the commission was in actual fact to see who would be pardoned instead of being executed.

He explained that the people could have escaped execution by saying that they no longer hold their beliefs and do not support the MEK or any other opposition. If they declared their commitment to the Supreme Leader they would have remained alive.

Mr. Hossein-Ali Montazeri released an audio recording of him warning the other members of the death commission about what they were partaking in. He said that such an act would go down in history as an unforgettable and horrific event. He was also concerned that it was not a good image of Islam. Fallahian said that he also clashed with Khomeini on other matters, and he was instructed to carry out his religious duties, in this case to participate in the 1988 massacre, without any regard for “history’s judgement”.

The Iranian regime has commented that the people who were executed in 1988 were armed when they were arrested, but Fallahian explained that this was not the case. Not all of the people who died were part of armed rebellion activities. Fallahian said that they did not distinguish between those who were armed and those who were not – if they were faced with a member of the MEK then they were treated as if they were armed.

The interviewer, clearly shocked by what they were hearing, asked Fallahian to clarify what he said. They asked him that if someone was carrying a MEK newspaper, would they have been arrested. Fallahian said yes, because they were part of the MEK.

The people of Iran are still waiting for justice despite repeated calls by the international community.

The National Council of Resistance of Iran With Its MEK Members, Goes on Offensive at Weekend Events

By Jubin Katiraie

This weekend in a cavernous convention hall outside of Paris, over 100,000 flag waving, foot-stomping, cheering supporters of the National Council of Resistance of Iran ( consisted of MEK/PMOI and other groups and personalities) gathered for their annual meeting.

Part pep rally and part television programming for a global audience, the annual event has for years been focused on galvanizing support for the MEK and drawing attention to the plight of dissident refugees sheltering in squalid camps inside Iraq and subject to frequent attacks from Iranian-backed forces resulting in score of deaths.

What was different this year was that all of MEK members —nearly 3,000 of them—were safely evacuated to a welcoming Albania as part of long-delayed resettlement program and escaped the clutches of an Iranian regime that seemed hell-bent on eradicating any sign of an indigenous Iranian resistance movement.

In a dramatic cinematic touch, a satellite feed from Tirana, Albania of the 3,000 resettled MEK members was beamed into the main Paris rally to the delight of the participants and vice-versa in what could be considered the world’s largest video conference call.

The atmosphere bordered on giddy as the MEK logged several positive developments over the past few months, not the least of which was the survival of their besieged members in Iraq.

The movement , from a sea change in political fortunes with the departure of the Obama administration and the incoming Trump administration taking a decidedly harder tone with the Iranian regime, along with a Republican-controlled Congress that has made it a legislative priority to re-impose economic sanctions on Iranian regime for its ballistic missile program and sponsorship of terrorism.

The Iranian resistance movement, led by the National Council of Resistance of Iran which counts as its members human rights groups and the People’s Mojahedin-e , (PMOI/MEK), experienced a similar resurgence within Iran itself as the Iranian political landscape experienced what can only be described as a significant earthquake during presidential elections this year.

Top mullah Ali Khamenei and his personally selected councils did an admirable job vetting thousands of candidates for president to just six men, all of whom were old hands within the clerical bureaucracy, but Khamenei and the Revolutionary Guard Corps which controls virtually all of the Iranian economy, made a move to push incumbent Hassan Rouhani out and install Ebrahim Raisi whose dubious claim to fame was to be part of a “death commission” that helped sentence 30,000 Iranian dissidents mainly MEK members and supports to death in 1988.

The attempted swap failed and the regime had to resort to its usual ballot box stuffing to make it look like there was an overwhelming turnout from an electorate that was decidedly unenthusiastic over its choices or lack thereof.

In fact, the NCRI and its leader, Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, got an unexpected boost with some of the most overt and daring signs of public protest yet in Iran under the mullah’s rule with the hanging of banners and signs bearing Mrs. Rajavi’s picture throughout Tehran and other provinces.

The mere act of publicly supporting the banned MEK can get you imprisoned and executed in record time, but that did not deter what seemed by a considerably larger number of clandestine protestors, including a steady stream that secretly filmed themselves (without their faces showing) clapping in rhythm to a banned resistance song in front of iconic Iranian landmarks.

The parallel changes in fortunes in the U.S. and in Iran produced a cavalcade of speakers ranging from noted American politicos such as former Speaker Newt Gingrich, former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani and former FBI director Louis Freeh to human rights activists Ingrid Betancourt of Columbia and Rama Yade, French human rights minister, taking the podium to pronounce a common theme: The Iranian regime was in trouble internally and it was time for the world to align itself with the Iranian resistance movement.

Gingrich, ever the professorial lecturer, reminded the audience of President Ronald Reagan’s decision to support a nascent Solidarity union movement led by a then-unknown welder named Lech Walesa in helping topple Poland’s communist regime and spark and the beginning of the end of the Cold War.

A similar move to endorse the NCRI and Mrs. Rajavi might be the catalyst necessary to ignite regime change within Iran according to several speakers, including former Senator and vice-presidential candidate Joe Lieberman.

Most intriguing was the unity shown by a parade of speakers and delegations from assorted Arab nations, led by Saudi Prince Turki bin Faisal, who emphasized how radically things had shifted in the Middle East by labeling Iran the center of all of the turmoil the region is currently experiencing.

It was a notion hard to ignore since Iranian forces and support are now involved in a vast area including Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Bahrain, and Pakistan in a variety of proxy conflicts, terrorist actions and efforts to overthrow regional governments.

This is on top of the proliferation of ISIS which was enabled by Iranian regime through its meddling in Iraqi politics forcing a split between Sunni and Shia coalition partners and driving Sunnis into the arms of a then-nascent ISIS that was getting a free pass in Syria from attack by Assad regime and Iranian regime-backed forces in order to concentrate their firepower on moderate rebel groups.

Speaker after speaker noted how the Obama administration’s ill-fated attempt to curry favor with the mullahs in Tehran through a flawed nuclear agreement that essentially paid for most of the regime’s military for the past three years had failed miserably and now the Trump administration is left to deal with the debris in its wake.

But the tone was upbeat and optimistic in that the prospect of real regime change within Iran actually closer now that it had been in most participants’ recent memory.

Mrs. Rajavi, in her remarks, emphasized that regime change must come from within Iran and not be perceived as being fueled or controlled by external forces such as the U.S. Only then could the Iranian people embrace a peaceful movement to a true democracy willingly aligning themselves with fellow exiled Iranians notably MEK members.

The stage has been set and the recipe seems to be cooking. Now we just have to see if the chef can whip up a masterpiece.

More 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.

#MaryamRajavi #Iran #FreeIran

London, 22 Jun - Forty-Six US Congressmen and women have sponsored a resolution which calls on the US Government and its allies across the world to publically condemn the 1988 massacre of Iranian political prisoners and calls on the UN to launch an investigation into this crime against humanity.

Unlike much in Congress nowadays, Resolution 188 (officially titled: The condemnation of the Iranian government for the massacre of political prisoners in 1988 and the invitation to call for justice for the victims) receives wide bipartisan support.

The main victims of the massacre were members of the People's Mujahedin of Iran (PMOI/MEK), an anti-fundamentalist group who espoused equal rights, a secular government and a ban on the death penalty, whom the Regime wanted to exterminate because the opposition was becoming too strong.

The resolution stipulates that those responsible for the brutal massacre of the MEK should be held to account for their roles. None of them have ever been punished for this slaughter, not even under the supposed moderate Hassan Rouhani; who interestingly cannot account for his whereabouts during the massacre.

Last year, the Iranian Resistance, which includes the MEK as its largest group, revealed the names of 59 current Regime officials who were involved in the massacre of the MEK, including “Justice” Minister Mostafa Pourmohammadi. Head of the Supreme Disciplinary Court for Judges Hossein-Ali Nayyeri, and Ebrahim Raisi, a member of the Assembly of Experts and 2017 presidential candidate.

Some of the co-sponsors include:

• Michael McCaul (Chair of the House Homeland Security Committee)

• Ed Royce (Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee)

• Eliot Engel (ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee)

• Pete Sessions (the Chair of House Rules Committee)

• Barbara Comstock

• Tom MacClintock

• Bill Keating

• Brad Sherman

• Donald Young

• Judy Chu

Back in March, six human rights organisations who consult with the UN signed a joint statement calling for justice for the MEK titled: “The 1988 massacre of political prisoners in Iran constitutes a crime against humanity”.

They recommended that the UN appoint a commission to investigate the massacre of the MEK and that the Special Rapporteur on the human rights situation in Iran, Asma Jahangir and Special Rapporteur on the promotion of truth, Pablo de Greiff, carry out an inquiry into the massacre.

Massacre of MEK

Then-Supreme Leader of Iran, Ruhollah Khomeini ordered a Fatwa to slaughter MEK members and supporters, even if they had already been sentenced to jail for their beliefs or already served their sentence in full.

The MEK supporters were put through a mock trial which lasted all of five minutes, where they were asked ‘What is your political affiliation?’ before being sentenced to death. They were then buried in secret mass graves and their families were given no information on them.

This move was criticised by then-heir to the supreme leader Hossein Ali Montazeri, who wanted the Death Commissions against executing pregnant women as it violated Shiite law and called the massacre "the greatest crime that the Islamic Republic of Iran has committed and the history will condemn us".

He was then stripped of his power and sentenced to house arrest until his death in 2009. His comments came to light last year, after his son, Ahmad, released the audio of the conversation online. Ahmad was then sentenced to 21 years in prison.

In February, a political science professor at Tehran State University, who supported President Rouhani admitted to the massacre on his website.

Sadegh Zibakalam wrote: “The Iranian regime, has killed thousands of MEK members just like killers of Imam Hossain (a 7th-century revolutionary Shiite leader who made the ultimate sacrifice for social justice in the face of corruption and tyranny). Thousands of members of the People's Mujahedeen opposition organisation (MEK) were killed without any trial and any proof of the crime on them, during the first years after the revolution.”

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.