German magazine Der Spiegel published a defamatory report on banned Iranian opposition group the People’s Mujahedin Organisation of Iran (PMOI/MEK) last month based entirely on the fake testimony of former MEK members who now serve in the Ministry of Information and Security (MOIS).
Even worse, the article was near enough verbatim an article published by Iranian state media months before.
Former MEP Struan Stevenson said: “This kind of horrible Fake News an attempt to blacking and demonize the MEK simply playing to the hands of the mullahs.”
It is abhorrent for Der Spiegel to present this as journalism, especially when the MEK invited the magazine to their headquarters in Albania several times to see the site for themselves and meet actual MEK members. The magazine failed to even include reference to the many publicly available court documents that prove their report to be false.
Instead, they relied solely on the testimony of those who have sought to vilify the MEK for years.
People like Mostafa Mohammadi, an MOIS operative who repeatedly claimed that his 39-year-old daughter Somayeh is being held captive by the MEK and has filed complaints in Canadian, Iraqi and Albanian courts seeking the “release” of his daughter. All three courts ruled that the claims were baseless and rejected his complaint because of Somayeh’s testimony and her interviews with media outlets.
Another ‘witness’ is Gholamreza Shekari who claimed to be jailed, tortured, and brainwashed, by the MEK 24 years ago and admits that he took monthly financial help from the MEK until his ties to the regime were revealed. He is now a paid stooge of the Regime and it goes without saying that his ludicrous claims are completely untrue. He is nothing but a mercenary.
Stevenson said: “The report shows how the mullahs have reacted to the threats to their regime by ramping up their sponsorship of international terror and cyber warfare, as well as a demonization campaign against their main organized opposition.”
Sadly, this sort of defamation is nothing new. In fact, the MOIS has had an “Anti- Hypocrisy Division” (the derogatory name the regime used to describe the MEK) for over 30 years.
The mullahs follow a two-pronged approach when it comes to eradicating the MEK, which is to arrest, imprison, torture, and execute MEK supporters inside Iran, while carrying out an extensive propaganda campaign to demonize the MEK abroad, which includes accusing them of terrorism, murder, kidnapping, torture, etc. Incidentally, these are all things that the Regime have carried out.
The Regime says that the MEK cuts off their members support to the outside world, destroys the family unit by divorcing members and separating them from their children, and has some kind of financial-political relationship with Saddam Hussein.
By design, this demonization campaign tricks the international community into not being too concerned about the mullahs’ violence against the MEK.
Take, for instance, the assassinations of key MEK figures, including Kazem Rajavi, Mohammad Hossein Naghdi, Zahra Rajabi, and the massacre of 30,000 MEK members in the summer of 1988.
Source » irannewsupdate