The Iranian regime has been spending billions of dollars inside Iran and abroad through it lobbyists with fake news, struggling to promote the notion that the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) and National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) do not enjoy popular support inside Iran and have no effect. The regime’s goal of spending billions of dollars for such propaganda is to portray that the regime has no alternative.
Therefore, change must come from within the regime. In this regard, Rudy Giuliani, former Mayor of New York City, in his speech during the NCRI’s “Free Iran Global Summit,” on July 17, 2020 said:
“There are those Iranian apologists here in America and in the West, people who are paid by the Iranian regime, who said the NCRI and the MEK don’t amount to much. They’re a cult. They have very few followers. They have no chance to replace the regime. But then if you listen to the words of the Ayatollah and his puppet, Rouhani, just over the last year, two or three times the Ayatollah and four or five times Rouhani have said that the only threat to their regime, the only organization that has any change to put together a government to replace them, is the NCRI and the MEK. I mean, it’s amazing they would admit that, but they do. It’s equally amazing that the corrupt Western press suppresses that.”
During the same event, Ambassador Lincoln Bloomfield, referred to his research over the allegations against the MEK and said that even though all of these allegations have been rejected by the courts, Western media repeat the same allegations which have been denied for years. He said:
“Western media and think tank reports still repeat the allegations that were entirely debunked officially by court challenges in France, the European Union, the UK and the United States years ago. Why do they keep repeating these allegations, these falsehoods? My conclusion is the same, no matter what the regime does the reason is the same. Why are they seeking to discredit the NCRI and the MEK? Why did they rush to defend Bashar Assad’s regime in 2011 against the Syrian people? Why did they enter into a long negotiation with Europe and the United States and the P5+1 to try to talk about nuclear weapons? To keep the U.S. and Europe from acting against the regime. The reason is always the same, the same reason, to keep a weak, illegitimate regime in power... The regime sees these events, and they know the NCRI and the MEK more than anyone else are fully capable of organizing a democratic transition to legitimate constitutional government after the fall of the regime.”
Ambassador Adam Ereli, former spokesperson of the U.S. State Department, during his speech, referred to the Iranian regime’s lies and demonizing of the MEK and said that these lies only confirm one thing: Despite all the regime’s lies the MEK is the main threat to the regime. He said:
“Now, the MEK and your efforts have been instrumental in exposing this conspiracy of terror by the government of Tehran over many, many years. And you’ve had, I think, some very important successes in disrupting the Iranian regime’s terrorist activities. And that’s why, again, not only have they tried to destroy you in Iran, they’ve also tried to discredit and demonize you outside of Iran. They have funded information campaigns against you. They have tried to convince journalists, governments, think tanks, that the MEK is an outlaw organization, that it doesn’t represent Iranians, that it has no following inside Iran. Well, again, the fact that they’re saying this indicates to me that the opposite is true. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be spending all this money and effort to present a false narrative.”
Robert Torricelli, former U.S. Senator from New Jersey, while referring to the Iranian regime’s influence in the U.S. press to demonize the MEK and the Iranian Resistance, said:
“There are across the globe a shadow of public relations firms, operatives and companies that are disseminating false information. Only yesterday, one of the most respected journalists in America, Jake Tapper of CNN, wrote a report, published a tweet, and later withdrew it after receiving false information from a regime operative. This is happening every day. The humiliation of Der Spiegel, one of the world’s great publications, citing information patently false, directly from Tehran, and having to have been ordered by a German court to remove it. And I’m embarrassed to tell you the same would have happened with the New York Times, but for the fact that our laws and constitution are different, and the courts cannot as readily undertake such action.”
On the other hand, holding the Iranian Resistance’s annual gathering virtually in 30,000 locations in over 100 countries, attended by more than 1000 personalities from across the globe, had such a reflection in Iran that it extremely terrified the mullahs’ regime.
A glance at the regime’s media and news agencies in recent days shows the regime’s extreme fear of the MEK. Almost in every newspaper and state-run website of the regime in one day, on July 26, there was at least one article or report against the MEK. In some cases, some newspapers published three to four articles against the MEK.
The regime’s fear of the MEK has reached a point where the regime’s oppressive organizations and military officials have put out statements against the MEK. In this regard, in addition to the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) statement against the MEK, the regime’s highest military official, IRGC Major General Mohammad Bagheri, the regime’s Chief of Staff, in a message which the state-run Young Journalists Club news agency published as “Major General Bagheri’s warning to the MEK,” said: “We could see the MEK’s footprint and infiltrating current in creating complex seditions and new scandal-makings of the state’s enemies on cyberspace waiting to deceive people.”
We should first ask the regime: If you are saying the MEK is a grouplet with no prominence in Iranian society, and its members are wandering thousands of kilometers away from Iran’s borders in Albania, why is your highest military official sending a message to this organization? Yet, Bagheri himself clearly answers this question in his message: The “MEK’s footprint” is visible in all the elements that threaten the regime and its existence.
Therefore, this question of why the regime has carried out such vast propaganda against the MEK finds an answer. On the one hand, the regime’s situation is more critical and unstable than ever, and it has no solution for the crises that have engulfed it. On the other hand, the Iranian Resistance, despite the difficult situation during the pandemic, held its annual gathering more powerful than any other year. This gathering inspired huge reactions by the Iranian people and while the regime was trying to pacify people by using the coronavirus, this event made the Iranian people more hopeful than ever before of overthrowing this regime and creating a strong alternative.
NCRI President-elect Mrs. Maryam Rajavi said the message of this year’s gathering was: “Our first commitment is that we, the people of Iran and the Iranian Resistance, will overthrow the clerical regime and will reclaim Iran.”
This is a message that the Iranian people have also heard, and the Friday prayer leaders in cities across the country, who get their cue from the regime’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, have clearly expressed their fear of the tremendous reflection of this message in the restive society and especially its impact on the youth.
Abolhassan Mahdavi, the Friday prayer leader in Isfahan, said: “The enemy is waging a media war on us today. This is not a joke. In this media war, they strongly want to polarize the country; They are dividing the authorities and the people. They are desperately seeking public discontent so that they can bring some people on the street and then misuse the situation.”
Mohammad Reza Naseri, Yazd’s Friday prayer leader, said: “They (the MEK) have bombarded the public mind, especially our youth, in cyberspace and social networks. These are enemies who have used all their power to sow divisions and hatred in the country.”
“Today, the MEK are not looking for military war, but for cyber and media war,” said Hassan Dehshiri, Ardestan’s Friday prayer leader. “Our youth must be careful not to be deceived by fake news.”
The regime’s other Friday Prayer Leaders repeated the same words and had one common fearful message: The MEK, more powerful than ever, is pursuing the regime’s downfall, and Iran’s youth are being attracted to them.
