One of the most striking aspects of it was the fact that the programme relied heavily on the agents of the Iranian regime, posing as former members of the resistance and former residents of Camp Ashraf. The BBC program pursued this one-sided approach despite scores of earlier warnings to the BBC from various sources, including dozens of cross-party members of the British Parliament and former senior U.S. military officers who were commanders of U.S. forces in charge of protection of Camp Ashraf, Iraq, and who have firsthand experience of the PMOI/MEK and the tactics of the Iranian regime and its secret services.
Since the senior editors of BBC have not responded to April 10 letter of the Representative Office of the National Council of Resistance of Iran and have not reflected on the legitimate request of this office to broadcast this rebuttal, this response is distributed in its entirety for public use.
National Council of Resistance of Iran
UK Representative Office
83 Victoria Street, London SW1H 0HW
Mr Peter Horrocks
BBC Global News Director
British Broadcasting Corporation
Bush House, The Strand
London WC2B 4PH
10 April 2012
Dear Mr Horrocks,
The BBC report, “Strange world of the People’s Mojahedin,” instead of being a venue for an untold story regarding the Iranian Resistance and their perseverance in the face of suppression and massacre at the hands of the Iranian regime was a venue to rehash Iranian regime lies against the PMOI.
What is strange is not the world of the People’s Mojahedin, but rather the blind animosity of the BBC towards the PMOI. It is this blind animosity that has once again led to the BBC producing a
program which lacks the basics of journalistic integrity. Unfortunately this is not the first time we have had to write to the BBC to demand basic fairness in your dealings with the PMOI and
an end to targeted propaganda against the group which does little to distance the BBC from its disturbing appearance to bow to the Iranian regime at each and every juncture. The BBC report had several pillars which I will address in turn below to prove that rather than be an investigation this was propaganda against the PMOI.
Anti-PMOI
Much of the report centered on interviews with individuals who were described as former members of the PMOI who had escaped the group. The BBC was made fully aware that these individuals were believed to have detailed links with the Iranian regime’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) and to have been financed by the Iranian regime. Some semblance of journalistic integrity would require these allegations to be investigated. Instead, the words of these individuals were treated as gospel and not once were they questioned as to their links to the Iranian regime.
Pro-PMOI
The investigator spoke to a number of senior US politicians who have supported the PMOI. Interestingly, the reporter decided to spend more time talking about whether these figures had received financial gain from speeches given in favour of the PMOI than concentrating on the issues that the investigation was supposedly meant to address. Clearly, the reporter took great pains to try to discredit the high ranking support for the PMOI. It appears that as in the past with the BBC there was one rule for the PMOI supporters and one for its detractors.
Any attempt to carry out a balanced report would have demanded investigations to be carried out into the links the alleged former members of the PMOI had with MOIS and these questions put to them. This was not done and acts as clear evidence of bias on the part of the BBC.
In addition to Western Intelligence agencies, a number of think-tanks and even British Parliamentary groups have exposed this method of the mullahs’ regime and its attempts to depict its agents as former members of the MEK in this demonising campaign. This is very strange that BBC has made no reference to this revelation.
Reporter not questioning clear inaccuracies
1. In the report one of the alleged former members of the PMOI says that he was witness to a murder at Camp Ashraf. Surely one would expect a journalist with any integrity to investigate what is clearly a serious allegation and ask a number of simple questions such as the name of the alleged victim and to investigate whether any such individual ever existed. The distinct lack of any such questioning or investigations shows clear BBC bias.
2. Next we heard the story of the man who stated he had wanted to leave Camp Ashraf and when he had asked to do so was kept in solitary confinement. This individual’s story then develops to how he escaped by jumping over a fence. The two parts of the story clearly do not add up or at a minimum require detailed explanation. A simple question would be, “If you allege you were in solitary confinement, then how were you able to escape in what appears to be such a simple story of jumping over a fence?” The distinct lack of any such questioning further evidences BBC bias.
3. The reporter further interviewed an individual as an expert of the Rand Corporation. The political allegiances of this individual were evidenced by his views in relation to Tehran’s nuclear program. Firstly, as an alleged expert it was incredible that he couldnot recollect the year in which the PMOI exposed Tehran’s nuclear facilities at Natanz.
This alleged expert expressed dismay at the fact that the PMOI had disclosed this nuclear plant. It appears therefore that this alleged expert is dismayed by the fact that the PMOI brought this to the world’s attention and stopped that regime from obtaining nuclear weapons. Only supporters of the Iranian regime could be dismayed by the fact that the international community was made aware of a clandestine nuclear program being carried out by a rogue state.
Furthermore, this alleged expert would have us believe that the revelations provided by the PMOI is war-mongering by the group. In fact, the PMOI’s revelations have done the exact opposite in providing the international community the time to deal with the Iranian threat rather than allow the world to be confronted with a nuclear armed Tehran. It is incomprehensible that the reporter did not question this individual for what in reality are quite shocking views about Tehran’s nuclear program. Unfortunately this is further evidence of BBC bias.
4. The terror tag on the MEK by the State Department is one of pillars of this report. It sounded as though the report intends to justify the illegal conduct of the State Department in not revoking this label and has become more Catholic than Pope. As such the report contends that the MEK was placed in the list because it murdered American officers in 1970s. Firstly, the assassination of American officers has nothing to do with the MEK and took place at a time when all of its leadership and majority of its members were in Shah’s dreadful prisons. Secondly, even the State Department does not contend that the MEK is kept in the list for murdering American citizens four decades ago, since the statute stipulates that the period of the review is maximum the past five years.
Bruce Ridel and John Limbert
The reporter introduced Bruce Ridel and John Limbert as an expert and a former hostage in the US Embassy hostage crisis. Neither of these parties are impartial and have clear ties to the Iranian regime’s lobby in the US which is led by NIAC and Trita Parsi. Both have supported not de-listing the PMOI in a public campaign.
John Limbert’s claim as to the involvement of the PMOI in the US Embassy hostage crisis in Tehran is false. The book Iran: Foreign Policy Challenges and Choices detail this:
On the day the Iranian students stormed the embassy, Khomeini blamed America as the source of all evil in a speech to a group of university students. “It was later revealed that these university students were organized by Hojjat al-Islam Khoiniha, a prominent member of the IRP and the leader of the Tehran University komiteh [a morality guard organization].”
According to Massoumeh Ebtekar, who was the spokesperson during the hostage crisis for the radical students, the MEK “had been opposed to the takeover and the
confrontation with America from the very first.”
Ebtekar, a chemical engineering student who became known as Sister Mary, “held center stage at the front gate whenever the students needed to make a statement to the press in
English.”
For Iranians, the hostage crisis was “predominately an internal crisis rooted in the constitutional struggle.”
Under the cloud of the embassy crisis, the clerics rushed to ratify their proposed constitution, which the MEK refused to endorse. The original document, modeled on De Gaulle’s constitution, had been altered by the Assembly of Experts, shifting power from the president and elected deputies to senior clerics. The MEK boycotted its ratification. As hostilities escalated between the MEK and Khomeini, the MEK openly criticized the hostage crisis. The MEK said the clerics had “engineered the hostage crisis to impose on the nation the ‘medieval’ concept of the velayat-e faqih [the title of Khomeini’s book that advocates the creation of a theocratic state].”
To support that last accusation they [MEK] published articles revealing how the student hostage-takers were linked to the IRP [Islamic Republican Party]; how the pasdars [armed volunteers] had facilitated the break-in; how those who had refused to tow the IRP line had been forced out of the compound; how Ayatollah Beheshti [head of the Supreme Judicial Council] had used the whole incident to sweep aside the Bazargan[Provisional] Government; and how Hojjat al-Islam Khoiniha, the man appointed by Khomeini to advise the students, had carefully removed from the embassy all documents with references to US officials meeting clerical leaders during the 1979 revolution.
The MEK accused the cleric-controlled government of “disrupting rallies and meetings; banning newspapers and burning down bookstores; rigging elections and closing down
universities; [and] kidnapping, imprisoning, and torturing political activists . . . .”
In response, “The Muslim Student Followers of the Imam’s Line, the occupiers of the US embassy, denounced the Mojahedin as secret Marxists in cohorts with the ‘pro-American
liberals.’
Interestingly we are led to believe that the PMOI’s alleged involvement in the crisis means that the group should remain on a list of banned organisations and thereby sidelined. The reporter
fails to question John Limbert as to whether he now supports dialogue with the Iranian regime and individuals within that regime which spear-headed the hostage-taking. Again the distinct
lack of any constructive questioning by the reporter shows BBC bias.
There is further no investigation into the alleged allegation. Ambassador Lincoln Bloomfield, a former senior U.S. official in an academic and professional report published in 2011 reviewed all
these allegations including assassinating American citizens, and involvement in the hostagetaking and challenged them. A copy of this report was easily accessible online.
PMOI/MEK listing as a terrorist organisation in the US
The reporter further led us into a discussion about the PMOI’s current listing as a terrorist organisation in the US and a campaign by the group to be de-listed. Allow me to start with the first issue at hand, the original listing of the group in 1997 by the Clinton administration. There was minimal reference made by the reporter to the original listing being a goodwill gesture made
to the incoming President Khatami. This was clearly an important issue which required detailed discussion. Press coverage detailed below proves beyond doubt this point.
Oct. 9, 1997 A day after the Clinton administration included the MEK in the terrorism list for the first time, a senior U.S. official told the Los Angeles Times that this was done “as a good-will gesture” to the new Iranian President Mohammad Khatami.
Nov. 29, 2006 The Wall Street Journal: Senior diplomats in the Clinton administration say the MEK figured prominently as a bargaining chip in a bridge-building effort with Tehran… In 1997, the State Department added the MEK to a list of global terrorist organizations as “a signal” of the U.S.’s desire for rapprochement with Tehran’s reformists, says Martin Indyk, who at the time was assistant secretary of state for Near East Affairs. President Khatami’s government “considered it a pretty big deal,” Mr. Indyk says.
Oct. 10, 1997 Reuters: “A U.S. decision branding Iran’s main rebel group [MEK] “terrorists” is being seen in Tehran as the first positive sign of American goodwill towards the new government of moderate President Mohammad Khatami. Diplomats, analysts and Iranian newspapers said on Monday the U.S. move was important because it satisfied one of Tehran’s basic demands.”
Oct. 14, 1999 Reuters: “The United States, in response to Iranian government inquiries, has imposed new restrictions on the activities of the main Iranian opposition group in exile…”
Sep. 26, 2002 Newsweek in an article about circumstances surrounding the 1997 designation of the PMOI wrote that: “The other prong in the Clinton strategy that led to the inclusion of the [MEK] on the terrorist list was White House interest in opening up a dialogue with the Iranian government. At the time, President Khatami had recently been elected and was seen as a moderate. Top administration officials saw cracking down on the [MEK]–which the Iranians had made clear they saw as a menace–as one way to do so… May 22, 2006 The Wall Street Journal: For more than a decade, the MEK has been employed as a political football in the diplomatic games played between Washington and Tehran, say current and former U.S. officials. The Clinton administration placed the MEK on the State Department’s terrorism list in 1997, as Washington sought to appeal to moderate leaders inside the theocratic government in Tehran. A blacklisting of the MEK was among the actions the Iranians sought in exchange for better relations, these officials say.”
July 6, 2003 The Washington Post: “The Mujaheddin has become a prime example of the politicization of the State Department’s terrorism list, illustrating how political considerations can help determine whether an armed resistance group is labelled a foreign terrorist organization…
The reporter went on to mention the de-listing of the PMOI in the UK and EU. Absurdly, the reporter described the EU decision as if it were a technical victory for the PMOI and took great pains in highlighting two or three paragraphs from the UK judgment which were negative towards the PMOI.
The reporting of this issue was quite incredible. Not once did the reporter mention that the UK government’s failure to de-list the PMOI was described by POAC as “perverse”. Perverse as I
have no doubt you will be aware is the strongest of findings in legal terms, determining that no reasonable secretary of state based on the evidence put before could have come to a decision that
the group should not be de-listed. Furthermore, your reporter failed to mention that the Court of Appeal in hearing the government’s application for permission to appeal rejected it in the strongest of terms. It went further in clearly stating that it had seen nothing in either the classified or unclassified material to justify the ban on the PMOI.
In fact Wikileaks disclosure of discussions at the time showed that the UK’s actions in those proceedings were determined by their desire to please Tehran. Again the reporter made no mention of this fact and the entire coverage of the de-listing issue was clear biased.
Finally, the issue of the PMOI de-listing was discussed in a fashion as if de-listing the group would increase tensions with Tehran and lead to war with that regime. It is despicable to muddy the legal waters in such a way. The de-listing of the PMOI must be a legal determination based on facts. As soon as this became the case in the UK and EU the group was de-listed and the same determination process must be undertaken by the US.
The PMOI’s stance has forever been clear in that it requests no money or support from any international power and it has loudly and repeatedly stated that war against Iran is wrong and would not be supported by it. The PMOI has a simple demand that rather than being used a political football in negotiations with Tehran, illegal obstacles are removed from its path and the group is allowed to work towards a democratic and free Iran. It appears that freedom and democracy for the Iranian people is not something the BBC supports.
PMOI renouncing violence The report did not state that every Ashraf resident signed a written agreement with the U.S. government that in return for their voluntary disarming, the U.S. would protect them until their final disposition. I would question why this simple fact was missing and that following investigation by seven U.S. federal agencies for 16 months, none of the residents were charged with any wrong-doing and all were accorded the fourth Geneva Convention status.
In several parts of the BBC report, in order to challenge the PMOI position on renouncing operations and in order to place doubts regarding the veracity of the PMOI position, a fabricated report by the LA office of the FBI dated 2004 was cited. Mr. Richard Schoeberl, a former official and special agent of the FBI who has been personally involved in combating terrorism cases, in an article on foxnews.com on August 22, 2011 revealed that this is not a documented FBI report and even in forms does not meet the standard FBI reports. No public official of the FBI has been willing to corroborate this report. It is therefore absurd that your report gave such attention to a challenged and disputed report, but gave such little creed to judgments by the British courts.
The PMOI’s widespread support
Despite massacring 120,000 members and sympathisers of the PMOI, the clerical regime of Tehran was not able to destroy the resistance and it has for the past three decades launched a demonising campaign against the PMOI using front organisations. Accusing the Resistance of being a sect has been the anchor of this campaign.
The PMOI is a political movement with a widespread social base all across Iran and abroad. It has been resisting against two dictatorships – the Shah and mullahs – for over 46 years. Over these years, 120,000 PMOI members and supporters have been executed throughout Iran, a fact that justly indicates their social base. Following the 2009 uprisings in Iran, 11 people were sentenced to execution. They were all charged with having affiliation with the PMOI. Three individuals who were executed for influencing the 2009 revolt were charged with supporting the PMOI. The largest non-governmental and grass-rooted social network inside Iran belongs to the PMOI.
Outside Iran, in the last major meeting of the Resistance that was held in Paris on June 18, 2011 nearly 100,000 Iranians and supporters from three generations took part. The PMOI have an articulated political agenda and political offices in almost all European countries with supporters’ branches in hundreds of cities across the world.
Anyone with the slightest familiarity with the definition of a sect, its agendas and conducts, knows that labeling this tag to the Iranian resistance is merely a justification for repression of the
resistance. Common sense would dictate that such uninformed and incognisant individuals would not for 10 years resist in Ashraf under the most extreme pressures, including two bloody attacks. Without a highly democratic relationship between individuals and their profound democratic choice, such perseverance wouldn’t be possible, let alone for 10 years.
The aim of the report
The report acknowledges that the original idea was to deal with the crisis at Camp Ashraf, the current conditions at Camp Liberty and the crimes perpetrated against the residents. In fact, the
reporter gave lip service to all these issues in an hour’s worth of programming. Instead the listeners were led down a merry path of misinformation against the PMOI relating to allegations
which at best are over 10 years old. There is no evidence of the reporter making any attempt to interview current residents at Camp Ashraf or Camp Liberty, a prerequisite for any ‘balanced report’.
In order to give a retrospectively balanced view I urge you to have this letter read out on the BBC World Service. Failure to do so will further prove that the BBC never had any intention of
producing a balanced piece, but was instead intent upon producing anti-PMOI propaganda.Yours sincerely,
Hossein Abedini
UK representative office of the National Council of Resistance of Iran
cc: Mark Thompson, Director-General of BBC
Helen Boaden, Director, BBC News
Caroline Thomson, Chief Operating Officer