INTELLECTUAL CONSERVATIVE – By Joseph Omidvar, on August 6th, 2011
The US was wrong to label the Iranian opposition organization MEK a terrorist organization. The MEK has been under savage repression in Iran. Finally, the US State Department has been ordered by a DC court to conduct a serious review of the MEK FTO listing and this cannot be done by low ranking officials fed by Iranian regime’s Washington lobbies and sent to the Secretary for approval anymore.
On July 29 2011, The Financial Times published an article by Anna Fifield in which it repeated allegations against the MEK/PMOI in an effort to discredit the widespread support by various former US officials in their calls for de-listing of MEK from US Terrorism (FTO) list and supporting Iran’s democratic opposition. Propagation of these allegations has been orchestrated by the Iranian regime lobbies in Washington such as NIAC and the regime in Tehran itself in recent days.
MEK was placed in FTO list by the US in 1997 in the hopes of opening an avenue for dialogue with Tehran. These efforts proved to be futile. In the years that followed, Iran advanced its nuclear program, extended its terrorist activities to Iraq, Lebanon and Syria and continued crackdown on the opposition inside Iran. The Iranian regime used its propaganda machine through its lobbies in Washington and European capitals to nullify the opposition outside Iran.
Financial Times article states that the MEK has spent millions of dollars to former Officials to speak in their favor. It is ironic to say that MEK is a small cult which has no support inside Iran and among the Iranian dissidents outside Iran, but at the same time speak of million dollar campaign to gather support from numerous distinguished and patriotic personalities from different political tendencies. Surely, the funding for the organization does not come from billionaires and millionaires. It comes from millions of people who see this organization as their hope for a future democratic Iran. No need to go further to find out how much support MEK has among the Iranians.
How could an organization that has been under most savage repression in Iran, has been placed in various unjust terrorist lists outside Iran, is under siege and savage military attacks in Camp Ashraf in Iraq, its bank accounts have been closed and its resources have been blocked in the US since 2003, mobilize this campaign if it did not have the popular support in Iran and all over the world.
Last week more than 3.24 million dollars were raised during a telethon by Simay-e-Azadi (INTV Satellite Channel which broadcasts programs supporting MEK and Camp Ashraf) in a 6 day campaign which was initially scheduled to be only for 2 days. Many people from Iran took the risk to call and announce their support. Many others donated to the movement what they could afford from their meagre income. An Iranian refugee in Germany called and said that they were 8 refugees in a camp who have given their daily food allowance of 3 Euros each to collect 25 Euros to for INTV.
The vain efforts to demonize the MEK through baseless and fabricated allegations have received a severe blow by a number of Courts of Justice in the UK, France, and the EU. They have ruled out these allegations and called them wrong, illegal and corrupt. It is time to stop repeating them when there is nothing to offer other than sheer lies. One should tell these lobbies; don’t play in the Iranian regime’s court to advocate these tainted efforts.
The fact is that for the first time the US State Department has been ordered by a DC court to conduct a serious review of the MEK FTO listing and this cannot be done by low ranking officials fed by Iranian regime’s Washington lobbies and sent to the Secretary for approval anymore. These lobbies in anticipation of removal of MEK from the FTO list have escalated their disinformation campaign, well-funded by the Iranian regime to prevent the right decision by the Secretary of State.
The time has now come to end this injustice and remove MEK from the US FTO list.