La Resistenza Iraniana

["Notiziario delle Donne " <donneiran at yahoo.it>]

-	Campaign of "demonizing" the Iranian Resistance and character
assassination undermines French justice
France's public opinion and the media asked to be the judge

After the unprecedented and brutal police onslaught, Tuesday, June 17, on
Iranian refugees and the offices of the Iranian Resistance in France
nothing, neither weapons, nor explosives and nor any incriminating evidence
was found at the alleged "headquarters of international terrorism" at
Auvers-sur-Oise.

It became clear as never before that the fabricated dossier against the
Iranian Resistance was "devoid of any charges and saturated with ulterior
political motivations."

Now, the French public has come face-to-face with an organized campaign of
"demonizing" the Iranian Resistance the People's Mojahedin of Iran (PMOI).
The aim of this campaign is to derail France's Justice system, justify the
barbaric actions on June 17 and the continuing detention of Mrs. Maryam
Rajavi, the Iranian Resistance's President-elect, and 10 other Iranian
political refugees.

The Iranian regime's Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS)
manufactured these allegations a decade ago and published them hundreds of
times since then. Plans were in the works since long time ago to recycle
these absurd lies in France.

Last April, the clerical regime, assisted by some French services, staged a
several-day-long meeting in Paris, attended by about 30 notorious and spent
MOIS agents, posing as former PMOI members. The action was a bid to speed
up this misinformation campaign in France.

Iranians abroad and European intelligence services were aware fully that
those taking part in this meeting, including Karim Haggi, Mehdi Khoshhal,
Ahmad Shams Haeri and Mohammad-Hossein Sobhani, have sold their services to
the MOIS. Le Figaro quoted the DST on June 24 as saying that these
individuals were former PMOI members who were in the service of the MOIS.
In February 2000, security police in the Netherlands, Germany and several
other Western countries, interrogated persons - who French services are
using as the source of their information against the PMOI and the Iranian
Resistance - for their links to, and being on the payroll of, the MOIS.

Many of these individuals have been in the service of the MOIS outside Iran
for many years. The clerical regime sent a number of them abroad from Iran
last year to obtain refugee passports and engage freely in espionage
activities and a misinformation campaign against the PMOI.

The Iranian Resistance has published several books and articles in reply to
these allegations. Below, we will refer briefly to a number of them:



Mojahedin, a sect or a cohesive political party?
Those inventing this tag have invested in the public's ignorance. A minimum
knowledge of the Mojahedin and of the phenomenon of "sect" renders baseless
this label. One could never label as a "sect" an organization that has,
during the mullahs' 24-year rule, emerged as the main opposition to the
clerical regime and as the largest Muslim, antifundamentalist movement,
120,000 of whose members and activists have been executed and hundreds of
thousands more imprisoned and tortured.

In more than two decades, the PMOI has been at the heart of an extensive
political coalition, the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI),
with more than 500 members. The council encompasses a wide spectrum of
different beliefs and ideologies, including liberals, free-market-economy
advocates, socialists and Marxists.  As the Resistance's parliament, the
NCRI is the ultimate authority for adopting the Resistance's programs and
main policies as well as the highest organs of accountability.

None of the main attributes of a "sect," being introverted and isolated
from the outside world, limited size, a lack of leadership structure and
accountability and secret conduct, applies to the PMOI. Friends and foe
acknowledge that the PMOI has been the largest political organization in
Iran's history. Most senior officials of the regime admitted that before
the massacres of the 1980s, the PMOI had organized half-a-million people in
its organizational structure nationwide. In addition to its nationwide
network inside Iran and its forces along the Iran-Iraq frontier, the PMOI
has offices and presence in 200 cities across the world and has the most
extensive channels of communication with political parties and the news
media around the globe.

Could a sect organize demonstrations and political meetings in which
hundreds of thousands would take part? The PMOI organized such events in
Tehran and other cities before the clerics' imposition of absolute
repression and summary executions of dissidents. Since last year, the
Iranian Resistance played a role in organizing more than 1,000
demonstrations and strikes inside Iran and staged at least 20 major
demonstrations in Europe and America in which tens of thousands of Iranians
took part. Majorities in the United States Congress, British House of
Commons, Italian, Belgian and Luxembourg parliaments and thousand of other
parliamentarians and political dignitaries have supported the Iranian
Resistance over the years.

The PMOI has formal structural organs and a collective leadership. In the
past 16 years, despite the repression prevailing in Iran and threats of
mullahs' terrorism, the PMOI has held, according to its bylaws, the
bi-annual congress of its members and officials in the presence of foreign
journalists and guests. It has elected five secretary generals through
direct vote of all members. Despite security risks involved, the PMOI has
announced the names of its officials at all times.

What is the truth?
The efforts by the clerical regime and its allies to dismantle and shatter
the PMOI in the past quarter century have miserably failed. The PMOI and
the Iranian Resistance's cohesion and unity are the biggest thorn on the
side of Tehran's mullahs. This has prompted them to resort to the absurd
label of "sect" against the PMOI. Since 1979, from the onset of Khomeini's
rule, the mullahs carried out at great costs many plots to disintegrate or
cause a schism in the Mojahedin, but utterly failed.



Cult of personality or responsible leadership?
The "cult of personality" charge is an insult to the intellect of millions
of members and sympathizers of the Resistance in and out of Iran, who have
consciously and voluntarily joined the ranks of the Resistance. Vast
numbers of them are graduates of Universities in Iran and in Western
countries.  If by this label, one means to describe the affection and
feelings of all Iranian patriots toward the leadership of this movement,
that would be another matter. In response to question on this issue during
a meeting of France's human rights organization who opposed the recent
actions against the PMOI and the Iranian Resistance, Daniele Mitterrand
said: "When I was 18, and a messenger in the French resistance, I worshiped
General de Gaulle." The charisma of the Iranian Resistance's leadership is
due to the role they have played in leading this movement against the
religious fascism in Iran. In more than two decades, despite the highest
costs, including the execution, torture and ass
assination of their closest family members, the Iranian Resistance's
leaders have not relented for a moment in their struggle against this
regime.

The talk about "cult of personality" about Maryam Rajavi, a woman at the
helm of a popular resistance against the religious fascism whose most
distinct feature is misogyny is outright absurd. Massoud Rajavi's nearly
four decades of struggle against the monarchic and religious dictatorships
explains his enormous popularity. Having spent seven years in the Shah's
prisons as the symbol of defiance against torture, Rajavi was first in
rejecting the newly established clerical dictatorship and challenged
Khomeini's policy of suppression and export of terrorism. While Khomeini
issued a fatwa to veto Massoud Rajavi's candidacy in the first presidential
election, hundreds of thousands took part in meetings he addressed in
Tehran, Tabriz (northwest Iran) and Rasht (northern Iran).

At the time, Le Monde's special envoy Eric Reaulou wrote from Tehran: "One
of the most important events not to be missed in Tehran are the courses on
comparative philosophy, taught every Friday afternoon by Mr. Massoud
Rajavi. Some 10,000 people presented their admission cards to listen for
three hours to the lectures by the leader of the People's Mojahedin on
Sharif University's lawn." He added: "The courses are published in
paperback and sold by the hundreds of thousands of copies."

Yet, Rajavi's important role in the democratic movement never resulted in
the decision-making process depart from the realm of relevant organs,
collective works and formal and announced rules of procedure. In a
statement in December 1994, the NCRI stressed: "The NCRI's modus operandi
and decision-making process are conducted in accordance with democratic
guidelines and regulations that have been formally announced. Throughout
the 13 years since the NCRI's foundation, its President has unfailingly
adhered to these guidelines and regulations."

The history of the French resistance against Hitler's fascism demonstrated
that General Charles de Gaulle was accused of cult of personality and
arrogance many times because of his uncompromising attitude toward fascism.
The leader of Iran's nationalist movement Dr. Mohammad Mossadeq was accused
of being stubborn because he refused to surrender to the colonialists.

The only crime the Iranian Resistance and its leadership - which is accused
of promoting a sect or a cult of personality -  has committed today, is
that they have refused to act opportunistically and compromise with
Khomeini and his successors who have usurped the right of the Iranian
people to sovereignty. They did not forsake for a moment the right of the
Iranian people to popular sovereignty in the face of clerics' absolute
dictatorship. They did not allow democracy and human rights to be taken
hostage by imposters such as Khatami. In the view of the mullahs and those
whose only cherished value is business, this is, no doubt, an unforgivable
crime.

Imprisonment and torture of dissidents
In 1980, the PMOI protested against the torture of its members and
sympathizers and supporters of other opposition groups. Khomeini claimed
impudently that the Mojahedin tortures its members. The allegation of
torturing and mistreating Mojahedin dissidents is as old as the clerical
regime. It does not beguile anyone.

In a sworn affidavit submitted to a court in the US, Jamshid Tafrishi (a
former MOIS agent who had operated in Europe but defected in late 2000)
wrote: "Alleging human rights abuses against the PMOI was one of the most
serious projects the Ministry was pursuing outside Iran with me and a
number of its other agents. The Ministry was convinced that if it were
successful in neutralizing the PMOI and the NCRI in their actions that
exposed human rights abuses in Iran, the United Nations would no longer
condemn the Iranian regime. They felt that the only way to achieve this was
to accuse the PMOI of human rights abuses. Thus, acting as disaffected
members of the PMOI, our responsibility was to accuse the organization of
human rights abuses in order to disarm them of the human rights weapon...
We were engaged in an extensive campaign to convince Human Rights Watch and
the UN Special Human Rights Representative that PMOI is engaged in human
rights abuses."

Following extensive investigations in mid-1990s, Lord Avebury, the Vice
Chairman of the Parliamentary Human Rights Group, concluded: "Another
method is using the small number of defectors who had at one stage
co-operated with opposition organizations and individuals. These persons,
due to their low or non-existent motivation to continue the struggle and
maintain their principles, allowed themselves to be bought by the regime at
a later stage. Such people have so far provided the regime's terrorists in
Europe with most extensive intelligence and political services." The German
and Dutch security services emphasized in their annual reports in 2001 and
2002 that the People's Mojahedin and the National Council of Resistance of
Iran remain as the main target of the Iranian regime's Intelligence
Ministry. The Ministry tries to "use former members of these organizations
to demonize them in Western countries."

In another case which unveiled the clerical regime's misinformation
campaign, Pax Christi organization distributed a statement as a United
Nations document at the Sub-commission of Prevention of Discrimination and
Protection of Minorities in 1995. It wrote: "MOIS officials approached the
parents of Mr. Abbas Minachi, a veteran PMOI member and claimed he had been
imprisoned by the organization. They pressured Mr. Minachi's parents to
write to Professor Copithorne, Amnesty International and other human rights
organizations to state his concern. Ultimately, Mr. Minachi came to Europe
and contacted his father who was in the United States to assure him of his
well-being."

In a letter to the United Nations Special Representative on the situation
of human rights in Iran, MEP Stephen Hughes wrote about another example of
the Iranian regime's efforts to mislead the European Parliament. He wrote:
"Unable to defend its human rights record, the Iranian government has
consistently tried to tarnish the image of the Iranian Resistance in a bid
to cover up its crimes inside the country and the export of terrorism and
fanaticism outside Iran. My colleagues and I have a first hand experience
in this respect: 'In March 1993, a group of so-called NCR and Mojahedin
dissidents contacted the EP's Liberal Group supposedly in Defense of those
who were being held and mistreated in different prisons in Iraq, including
the Al-Tash camp. They deliberately misinformed us on the nature of the
said camp and a hunger strike there. After we made inquiries through the
offices of the UNHCR in Geneva and Brussels, we realized that Al-Tash was a
refugee camp under the auspice
s of the UN and the Iraqi government and not a Mojahedin prison. The hunger
strike by Iranian refugees in the Al-Tash camp was a protest against UNHCR
delayed action to relocate the refugees in a third country and not a
protest against Mojahedin.'"

The Iranian Resistance has always been prepared to welcome foreign
observers at its bases along the Iran-Iraq frontier and repeatedly and
formally informed relevant international organizations such as the Amnesty
International and the UN Human Rights Special Representative. The very
people who now claim to have been imprisoned and tortured by the Mojahedin
were sent to Europe with the PMOI's money and resources.

The charge that the PMOI intended to "physically eliminate former members
who are now working with Iran's Intelligence services" is utterly
ludicrous. The clerical regime's agents outside Iran have in the past 20
years repeated the claim that the PMOI intended to assassinate them. After
his defection, Tafrishi revealed that in the 1990s, Iranian intelligence
agents repeatedly placed pre-arranged calls to him, describing themselves
as PMOI members and threatening him to death. Upon instructions by the
MOIS, Tafrishi wrote a letter to then-German Chancellor Helmut Kohl and
claimed that he faced the risk of being murdered by the Mojahedin.

This lies contrast sharply with the treatment the PMOI accorded thousands
of Revolutionary Guards detained in the course of battles between the PMOI
and the clerical regime's suppressive forces. Despite  120,000 martyrs, the
PMOI did not even execute one Revolutionary Guards commanders, who had
murdered a number of the Mojahedin. In fact, the PMOI did not punish even
one of them and released them under  the supervision of the ICRC.

Forced divorces and separating children from their parents
Through false allegations, the clerical regime attempted to misrepresent
one outstanding facet of the Iranian Resistance in a bid to frighten away
Iranians from the PMOI. Prior to the Kuwaiti War, PMOI members lived with
their families in residential quarters next to the military camps. The war
and the subsequent insecure environment made it impossible for the PMOI to
maintain family life in Iraq. In 10 years, the clerical regime's terrorists
conducted 150 terrorist attacks against the PMOI, leaving dozens killed or
wounded. Some of these attacks were carried out against residential
quarters because they were easier to attack. Ultimately, consistent with
requirement of a warlike situation, to prevent military and security blows
and concentrate its resources on the campaign to unseat the Tehran regime,
the PMOI reached the conclusion that it was impossible to continue family
life in Iraq. Yet, they did not impose separation on any couples.
Naturally, a decision to forego famil
y life, at a time when the PMOI was under constant terrorist attacks, air,
and missile strikes, was not out of the ordinary. Even the ICRC uses
unmarried members in war zones and dangerous areas. Those who have gone to
Iraq to join the ranks of the Resistance in the past 12 years were aware
fully that no possibility exists for family life and voluntarily chose to
join. This is one of the honorable aspects of the Resistance's history. Men
and women sacrificed their own welfare and family life for the liberation
of their fettered nation and 70 million Iranians. Has the PMOI committed
any crime in so doing?

During the Kuwaiti crisis, heavy bombing across Iraq greatly alarmed the
families about the well-being and safety of their children. Many requested
that their loved ones be taken out of Iran. Despite extreme difficulties to
go ahead with the task, the PMOI accepted to do so out of humanitarian
considerations. The transfer of so many children entailed great cost, which
the PMOI had to pay for. All parents with children had the choice of
accompanying their children. Some only sent their children. In no case did
the PMOI interfere in the decisions of the parents, which was entirely a
private affair between couples. In a letter, to then-UN Special
Representative Professor Maurice Copithorne, a well-known German lawyer,
and an expert on youth and children affairs in Germany, who served as the
guardian for some of these children, Christoph Meertens wrote in 1996: "In
our view, the People's Mojahedin sense of responsibility towards their
children is a good example particularly in li
ght of the well-known fact that an exiled organization has limited social
and financial resources."

Attacks against the Iranian regime's embassies and consulates
This is one of the most unfounded allegations in the DST report raised only
to justify the June 17 attacks. The PMOI and the Iranian Resistance have
always abided by the laws of their host countries during two decades of
residing in Europe. They have never acted against the clerical regime's
embassies and consulates. How could they, now, all of a sudden, make such a
decision? The only document to substantiate this charge is a marked map of
Paris. It found its way in the French daily Le Figaro, as a document
proving "PMOI plans for terrorist operations." The map, however, was a
route for a peaceful march by the Iranian Resistance that had been already
provided to the police in Paris by the organizers of the demonstration. The
claim, shows, before all else, that the case against the PMOI and the
Iranian Resistance is hollow. In a speech to the House of Commons in March
2001, British Home Secretary underscored the PMOI "does not target Western
interests" and does not engage in v
iolent actions outside Iran. In reply to repeated questions by the French
radio, France Info, on June 24, concerning "PMOI's plans for terrorist
actions in France," the French Foreign Minister only said: "This
organization has conducted many attacks inside Iran." Former DST chief Yves
Bonnet told the French media: "I have known the Mojahedin. They are not
terrorists… In my view, all of this has been dictated by the Iranian
regime."

The PMOI has remained committed to two red lines: Violent actions outside
Iran and bringing harm to civilians. In this respect, the Congressional
Research service concluded after an extensive investigation on the PMOI:
"It appears in their operations inside Iran, the Mojahedin do not target
civilians."

Mojahedin, Marxist-Islamists
The contradictory, ridiculous and stale label the Shah's SAVAK coined 30
years ago to counteract the PMOI's social credibility and popularity is
again being used against the organization. It is common knowledge that
Islam and Marxism have fundamental difference in the fields of philosophy,
politics and the economy, and thus impossible to mix. The frenzied reaction
of the Shah and the mullahs (who later used the same label) emanated from
the fact that the PMOI's democratic and modern interpretation of Islam
garnered vast social support for them.

Suppression of Iraqi Kurds and Shiites
There is not a shred of evidence that would prove the PMOI participated in
the suppression of the Kurds in the north or the Shiites in the south of
Iraq. In a dispatch from Washington on May 22, 2002, Reuters quoted a
senior official of one the two main Kurdish groups in Iraqi Kurdistan as
saying: ")We) can confirm that the Mujahedin (sic) were not involved in
suppressing the Kurdish people neither during the uprising nor in its
aftermath. We have not come across any evidence to suggest that the
Mujahedin have exercised any hostility towards the people of Iraqi
Kurdistan." The opposition daily, Al-Zaman also dealt with this accusation
and said: "These claims are basically propagated by the Iranian
intelligence and the Mojahedin do not interfere in internal affairs of
Iraq."

Today, the falsity of these claims has become even more apparent. After the
fall of the former regime in Iraq, the PMOI continues to enjoy the
widespread support of the people in Iraq. Foreign journalists were witness
to a gathering of more than 20,000 Sunni and Shiite Iraqis at Camp Ashraf
in support of the PMOI on June 19.

The masterminds of the June 17 attacks against the Iranian Resistance and
Iranian refugees were aware fully of these facts. That these allegations
are disseminated by those whom the French police acknowledge are affiliated
with the Iranian regime's Intelligence Ministry, is only a desperate
attempt to hide the realities from the people of France.

People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran
June 30, 2003



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