Several agents of the Iranian regime’s Minister of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) staged a ridiculous photo exhibition in Stockholm, Sweden, trying to whitewash the crimes of Iran’s genocidal regime and tarnish the image of the Iranian opposition.
This circus happens a couple of days before a court in Stockholm renders its judgment on Hamid Noury, a torturer arrested in 2019 and put on trial for his role in the 1988 massacre of over 30,000 political prisoners. Most of the victims of the 1988 genocide were members and supporters of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK).
The MOIS agents staged this circus on three different occasions, but every time they were disrupted by the survivors and family members of the 1988 massacre victims. The MOIS engages in such foolish and desperate acts against the Iranian Resistance, as the arrest and conviction of Noury could lead to broader international accountability for the perpetrators of the 1988 genocide, including the regime’s president Ebrahim Raisi. The escapade was held by the “Habilian Association,” a so-called NGO whose main task is to demonize the Iranian opposition and whitewash the regime’s crimes against humanity.
About “Habilian Association”
This so-called Non-Governmental Organization is nothing but a façade for the MOIS. This organization was formed in September 2005. Its main task is to disseminate propaganda against the MEK within Iran and abroad by sending MOIS agents under the pretext of former members of the MEK.
They are also actively involved in exerting pressure on the families of the members of the MEK to force them to return to Iran.
While in the meeting with the UNHCR representative, its so-called Secretary General claimed that families were not allowed to visit their children in the MEK, thousands of families have visited their loved ones in Iraq and now in Albania, where the MEK members were located in 2016.
Of course, the MOIS has tried to tag along its agents among the families with the idea of trying to gather intelligence about the MEK.
Who is Hasheminejad?
Javad Hashemi-nejad is the son of Cleric Abdul-Karim Hashemi-nejad and a member of the MOIS.
Besides being the head of the Habilian Association, he is also in charge of managing the international affairs of Astan-e Quds Razavi, a vast financial empire under the control of the regime’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei. In addition to Habilian, Astan-e Quds also funds various organizations acting as the IRGC and the MOIS façade, such as the New Horizon.
New Horizon also uses foreign agents to produce and disseminate material for the regime’s demonization campaign against the Iranian opposition, particularly the MEK. According to a comprehensive report by the Iranian Resistance in 2020, “During the sixth conference of New Horizon that was held in Mashhad on May 2018, representatives of the Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) advocated and distributed several books and publications of the MOIS against the MEK in English and also used the event to tarnish the image of the MEK and also briefed the individuals who were brought to the conference by the regime and tarnished the image of the MEK.”
It is worth noting that Hasheminejad’s father was Ruhollah Khomeini’s representative in the northeastern city of Mashhad. He had sentenced tens of thousands of political prisoners to death in the 1980s. His son was a notorious interrogator-torturer in the early 1980s in Mashad’s Vakil-Abad Prison and personally tortured many political prisoners.
Habilian, the regime’s propaganda arm!
This association is one of the many entities set up as bogus NGOs to engage in propaganda against the MEK and the Iranian Resistance. As a matter of fact, the MEK and the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) have been the main target of Tehran’s misinformation campaign in the past decades.
German Security Service, the Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), wrote in its annual 2005 report, “Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) has several opposition groups under surveillance in Europe. Particularly the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI) and the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) are the focus of MOIS’s attention. Iran’s intelligence service (MOIS) uses a network of agents who have defected from these organizations to collect information and spy activities. The agents are invited to travel to Iran for briefings.”
Habilian’s sole task is to create a legal and political cover for the MOIS operations against the MEK and limit the opposition’s activities. According to Hasheminejad, this organization plots against the MEK since “the MEK is behind all deadlock and miseries that we face.”
“The only organization we have so far failed to dismantle is the MEK. The MEK is very dangerous. Do you see how they work? They turn a simple social protest into an uprising and clash with the security forces.”
Iran’s ruling theocracy has a dark record filled with crimes against humanity, such as the 1988 massacre of tens of thousands of protesters in a few months. Due to the international community’s failure to hold regime officials accountable for human rights abuses, Iran suffers from the “crisis of impunity,” which allows the regime to continue its atrocities.
Allowing the MOIS to hold theatrics like the one in Stockholm is regrettable because it provides the necessary cover for the regime to spread terrorism in the European countries.