Responce to MSNBC lies about MEK

Response from the Natonal Council of Resistance of Iran

Editor's note: The following reponse to this article was received after publication from Shahin Gobadi, a spokesman for the Nationa Council of Resistance of Iran.

The claim that the Mujahedin-e Khalq (PMOI/MEK) had any role in the assassination of Iranian nuclear scientists and the claim of the PMOI/MEK cooperation with Mossad is a sheer lie without even a scintilla of truth.

The National Council of Resistance of Iran has repeatedly denied the baseless allegation of playing a role in the assassination of Iranian nuclear scientists. The primary source of this baseless allegation has been the propaganda machine of the Iranian regime and its officials. The last MEK denial was on January 11, 2012. Faced with tightening sanctions, growing internal and international isolation, the prospect of losing its strategic ally in Syria and growing internecine internal feuding, the clerical regime is paranoid about the prospect of delisting of the MEK by the U.S. Department of State. As such, it resorts to any fabrication and fairy tales, including the one that has been rehashed by NBC, to prevent the delisting of the MEK. 

The Iranian Resistance revealed last year that Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei had ordered a special unit of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) to liquidate any managers or experts in nuclear projects if it detected that they are distancing themselves from the regime or intend to leave the country. He also said that the killings should be blamed on the MEK, the U.S., Israeli operatives or “world arrogance”.

On January 7, Fereydoon Abbassi, the Director of Atomic Organization of Iran, referred to widespread dissatisfaction among the regime's nuclear experts and told IRGC-run Fars news agency: "One should not lose site of the fact that just as we had deserters during the war, there are those scientists who refrain from cooperating with nuclear projects in order to maintain their international ties... Of course, we have never been worried and are not worried about this issue since there are plenty of human resources and experts in the country. At the moment, there is greater demand for activity in nuclear projects than there is the possibility.”  He predicted curiously that since the enemy cannot prevent the entry of science in Iran, "it resorts to assassinating Iranian scientists."

The totally fabricated story on the MEK is nothing but rehash of the thread-bare and baseless propaganda by the clerical regime. It gets repeated for a sole political objective: To justify the illegal, immoral, and baseless continuation of terrorist designation of the MEK by the State Department. A listing that is totally discredited, punctured from all directions and is on its death bed. It should be reiterated that no fantasy story such as the one by NBC and remarks by anonymous officials who according to the article make vague comments such as "all your inclinations are correct," cannot provide last minute oxygen to keep this listing alive.

The DC Federal Appeals Court ruled on July 2010 that there were no credible evidence on this listing and all of the documents provided by the State Department had been heresy and uncorroborated.  It said their sources were unknown or suspect and some were in and of themselves implausible. Thus, the court ordered the State Department to review this listing. More than 100 members of Congress, including Representative Mike Rogers (R-MI), Chairman of the House Select Committee on Intelligence, in a rare bipartisan initiative called for revoking of the listing. Dozens of the most senior national security officials of the past four administrations have joined this campaign.

Contrary to the claim of the article, this rare consensus, as has been stipulated by the most senior national security officials of the past four administrations, is because there exists no evidence and document connecting the MEK with terrorism and the US government has not been able to provide even a single document to this effect.

It is not a coincidence that the main source of this story, similar to the shows broadcast by mullahs on their state TVs, is Mohammad Javad Larijani, who has been introduced as advisor to Ali Khamanei.

The main mission of Larijani, who in fact has been one the ideologues of the ruling dictatorship, is to justify at the international stage the brutal suppression, public hangings and stoning to death  of Iranian people by the clerical regime.

Blaming others for what oneself does, is one of the main attributes of Iranian regime and its officials. In fact, Larijani is the same person that on 1990 officially declared that the only means for the survival of the clerical regime was to expand its fundamentalist brand of Islam other Islamic countries.  It is clear that the main means of this expansion has been export of terrorism, and fundamentalism.

The unfounded nature of these allegation become all the more clear if one recalls the claim about MEK's cooperation with the Ramzi Yousef for bombing Imam Reza Shrine in Mashad in 1994. This allegation amounts to defamation and could be pursued legally.  The MEK has never had any contact or connection to Ramzi Yousef. It is very telling that when this tragic bombing took place on June 20, 1994, Ali Khamenei, personally attributed the bombing to the MEK, something the MEK flatly denied at the time. A few years later, during the regime's factional feuding, a former member of the regime's Ministry of Intelligence (MOIS) revealed that the bombing had been perpetrated by the MOIS and in particular by Saeed Emami faction, then a deputy of the MOIS.

Shahin Gobadi, National Council of Resistance of Iran, Paris, February 9, 2012