The following is a piece written by former MEP Struan Stevenson in the book “Iran Democratic Revolution,” published by the International Committee in Search of Justice (ISJ).
Regime Tactics
The uprising and its longevity have exposed the regime’s intrinsic vulnerability and desperation to end or at least reduce the power of the unrest. At the time of writing, these unprecedented protests have expanded to at least 280 cities. Over 700 people have been killed and more than 30,000 have been arrested by the regime. Significantly, virtually all social sectors and demographics have voiced their opposition to the regime in one way or another, demonstrating the geographical breadth and social depth of frustration and utter disenchantment with the status quo. These circumstances have shaken the regime to its core, exponentially raising the probability of its overthrow. They have also put the spotlight on the regime’s main viable alternative, the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), and its major constituent, the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK).
Naming the main actor
Amid the grim realities for the regime in Iran and the social, political, and economic crises that have fueled the flames of unrest, a critical element has bolstered the uprising. The organized opposition, in the form of the MEK and particularly its Resistance Units inside Iran, has been instrumental in inspiring, leading, providing logistical support, and ensuring the persistence of the protests. An increasing number of regime officials and media outlets are alive to this reality and have publicly warned about the growing influence and reach of the MEK and its Resistance Units, particularly among the younger generation and women.
Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s main envoy within the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), said in November that nearly 50 of the primary “leaders” of the uprising arrested by the regime are MEK sympathizers. Mostafa Pour-Mohammadi, a member of the Death Commission during the 1988 massacre and former minister of interior and judiciary, admitted as far back as July 2019: “There has not been a single incident of destruction [against the regime] over the past 40 years in which the MEK has not had a leading role. We have not yet settled the score with the MEK We
are going to deal with every single one of them. We are not joking.”
The rapid expansion of MEK Resistance Units has long been on the regime’s radar. In 2019, the then-Intelligence minister Mahmoud Alavi reported: “Over the past year, 116 teams (“Resistance Units”) associated with the MEK have been dealt with.”3 In May 2019, Tehran’s Revolutionary Court sentenced an MEK activist Abdullah Ghassempour to death, while sentencing several others to imprisonment on charges of supporting the MEK.
On a number of occasions, no less an authority than Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei himself has publicly lambasted the MEK as the main organizer and leader of the nationwide protests. For example, in the midst of protests in 2020, Khamenei criticized Albania for hosting the MEK and said in a televised speech that the “small and sinister” country of Albania is now home to thousands of “treacherous” MEK members responsible for the unrest in Iran.
Khamenei added that the MEK “drew up plans” to lead the nationwide protests in November 2019. During the December 2017 protests, Khamenei again acknowledged the MEK’s leading role, saying: “The MEK had prepared for this [protest] months ago.
… The MEK’s media outlet had called for it.”
All roads to regime change
There is a reason why the regime’s highest officials and security agencies have focused so intently on the MEK and its broadening activities. Over the past 40 years, the organization has been the first and only serious opposition movement calling for the entire theocracy’s overthrow and advocating for regime change at the hands of the Iranian people themselves. This has been the MEK’s consistent strategy since June 1981 when the clerical rulers massacred thousands of MEK supporters on the streets of Iran, leaving no other legitimate option but to call for the complete overthrow of the theocratic regime.
The 2022 uprising has shown in no uncertain terms that the MEK’s strategy was indeed correct and all other proposed alternatives, including “civil disobedience” and inducing vague behavior change in the regime, have been wholly ineffective and futile. Only by aligning with the strategy deployed by the MEK and Resistance Units can other options prove effective. Today, young people in the streets of Tehran and other cities are calling for the regime’s complete overthrow, attesting to the legitimacy and effectiveness of the MEK’s slogans and strategies over the past four decades. In unison with the MEK’s message, protesters are calling for regime change and democracy, explicitly rejecting both the previous monarchy and the current theocracy.
Diversionary tactics
This explains why the regime views the MEK and the NCRI coalition as existential threats. Tehran has engaged in multi-faceted tactics against the organized resistance movement to weaken, marginalize and ultimately destroy it.
On the one hand, during previous uprisings, the MOIS tried to promote the slogan “Reza Shah, may your soul rest in peace” to convey the notion that protesters are inclined to support the return of the monarchy. By doing so, the regime sought to demoralize protesters by advocating for the previous infamous dictatorship. But the attempt quickly failed. Video footage capturing scenes of protests, for example in Isfahan, showed demonstrators exposing those who chant slogans as members of the paramilitary Basij. At the same time, eyewitness testimonies exposed this plan even more. For example, Hashem Khastar, a teachers’ union representative who has spent a long time in Mashhad prison, called attention to attempts by the MOIS to promote monarchy over the MEK. He wrote:
“There is a sea of blood separating the regime and the MEK. Everybody knows that the biggest enemy of the regime is the MEK because it has an ironclad organizational prowess and as admitted by the rulers of the regime, they have been involved in all protests. On the contrary, the forces affiliated with the monarchists are incredibly scattered and unorganized. Therefore, the regime is trying to encourage dissidents to move toward the monarchists’ camp. Meanwhile, it has sent infiltrators within their ranks, who express support for the Crown Prince and attack the regime, while simultaneously attacking the MEK. In other words, they identify the main enemy as the MEK rather than the Islamic Republic. To make these individuals appear as credible opponents of the regime, some of them may even be jailed for a while, so that they can acquire a more acceptable standing and safety net, to be able to advance their mission more effectively. Other individuals may fall unwittingly in the intelligence agents’ trap and view the MEK, rather than the regime, as the primary enemy.”
RENOWNED IRANIAN TEACHER: “EVERYONE KNOWS PMOI/MEK IS THE REGIME’S MAIN ENEMY”
He also wrote in a post on the social media application Telegram: “In April 2018, when the intelligence agents raided my garden, they asked me why I do not work with the Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi. Would you like us to call his mobile so you to talk to him? I said no.”
Syrianization myth
The regime also tries to decelerate the MEK’s growing social reach by causing deviations when it comes to the protests’ primary aims and core messaging. It does this by attempting to distort reality, disseminate fake news, and fabricate a dominant narrative unfavorable to protesters. Tehran has promoted the message that if it were to be overthrown, Iran will risk becoming like Syria or Lebanon, especially considering the many ethnic and religious groups that comprise the country. “Civil war,” “Breaking Iran into pieces,” and “jeopardizing Iran’s territorial integrity” are code words used by the regime to both discourage new acts of protest and to legitimize the suppression of ongoing ones.
On October 31, 2022, for example, the official IRNA news agency quoted the regime’s foreign minister as saying that foreign entities are “plotting a civil war in Iran” and stressed that Iran’s “territorial integrity” is in danger due to the nationwide protests. On November 18, a senior IRGC commander, Majid Arjomandfar, similarly underscored the “enemies’ renewed attempts to break apart the Islamic Iran and sow the seeds of insecurity.”9 The daily Kayhan newspaper, close to the regime’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, said on November 26 while pointing to the protests: “The enemy wants more bloodshed to keep the country in emergency circumstances and in the end, move Iran toward civil war.”10 And on November 23, the IRGC’s political deputy said that the “enemy” carried out the recent “riots” in order to “create a Syrian scenario” in Iran.11
But in Iran, the ongoing nationwide protests encompass all classes, gender, ethnicity, and religious beliefs. Slogans from Kurdistan in the west to Sistan-va-Baluchistan in the east show that this is not a battle among ethnicities or religious groups. It does not pit a social or political majority against a minority or vice versa. Rather, virtually everyone is rallying around the slogans of “Death to Khamenei” (overthrow), and “Death to the oppressor, be it the Shah or the Leader” (charting a path forward to a democratic republic). Therefore, the regime’s hyperboles in this case are pure fiction simply designed to keep itself in power for as long as possible.
People across Iran, from Tehran, Isfahan, and Mashhad, to Azerbaijan, Zahedan, and other cities in Baluchistan and Kurdish cities, chant slogans like “From Baluchistan to Tehran, I sacrifice my life for Iran,” or “From Kurdistan to Tehran, I sacrifice my life for Iran.” Therefore, it is clear that the progress of the uprising and the revolution against the entirety of the regime is leading to further expressions of unity and solidarity among Iran’s ethnicities.
Demonization
Another attempt by the regime to confront the MEK is to strictly demonize, delegitimize, and invalidate the entire resistance movement inside and outside Iran. This sophisticated vilification campaign has been multi-faceted, unrelenting, well-funded, and extensive as a matter of state policy. It relies on fabricated and well-orchestrated messaging and narratives promoted by “former members” of the MEK, guided commentary by fake “opponents” of the regime, and Tehran’s burgeoning cyber army in the virtual world.
For years, the regime has employed the services of so-called former MEK members who defected years or decades ago. According to a US Library of Congress report in December 2012: “From 1990– 93, [the Iranian regime’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security] MOIS recruited former members of the Mojahedin-e-Khalq (MEK)—also known as the People’s Mujahedin of Iran (PMOI) or MKO— in Europe and used them to launch a disinformation campaign against the MEK. The Iranian government and its intelligence apparatus consider the MEK the most serious dissident organization with regard to the Revolution.”12 The report adds: “Ali Younesi, the former minister of intelligence and security, reported on state television in October 2004 that the ministry’s Department of Disinformation had hired thousands of agents, including some former MEK members, to boost the department’s function.”
The report draws attention to two clear cases regarding these so-called “former MEK members,” publishing their pictures and revealing the MOIS policy in this regard: “The recruitment of a British subject, Anne Singleton, and her Iranian husband, Masoud Khodabandeh, provides a relevant example of how the MOIS coerces non-Iranians to cooperate. She worked with the MEK in the late 1980s. Masoud Khodabandeh and his brother Ibrahim were both members of the MEK at the time. In 1996 Masoud Khodabandeh decided to leave the organization. Later, he married Anne Singleton. Soon after their marriage, the MOIS forced them to cooperate by threatening to confiscate Khodabandeh’s mother’s extensive property in Tehran. Singleton and Khodabandeh then agreed to work for the MOIS and spy on the MEK.”
Judicial and security officials in Europe have shown, based on concrete evidence, that these “former members” are involved in malicious activities and disinformation against the MEK guided strictly by the regime’s intelligence and terrorist agencies. For example, Albania’s police chief announced in October 2019 the disruption of a terrorist network controlled by the regime that intended to harm the MEK and its members. He said Alireza Naghashzadeh, an agent of Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS), was involved in this terrorist operation. Naghashzadeh identifies himself as a “former member” of the MEK. In April 2016, German authorities arrested Meysam Panahi, who claimed to be a former MEK member, for spying on the MEK and NCRI.16 He was sentenced to over two years in prison. Court proceedings revealed that Panahi operated under orders from a senior intelligence officer based in Tehran and identified as Sajjad.
In 2022, the Albanian media reported that authorities had detained and interrogated 20 Iranian nationals on charges of espionage in the service of the regime’s intelligence services. These individuals were accused of “receiving money from Iran’s secret services, the Quds Force, and the IRGC to obtain information about the MEK in Albania.” This ring was comprised of “former members” of the MEK recruited by the regime’s intelligence service. Tellingly, the anti-MEK ring runs out of Tehran and residing in Albania was able to dupe or manipulate a dozen journalists from such news media sources as The Guardian, Foreign Policy, The Independent, Der Spiegel, MSNBC, and even the BBC and the New York Times, as well as others, to publish derogatory and outlandish accusations against the MEK.
The 80/20 rule
The regime’s other method to demonize the MEK is using individuals who identify themselves as “opponents”, to criticize the MEK. Cognizant of the fact that its own propaganda against the MEK would have little if any, chance of success in undermining the Resistance’s international standing, Tehran devised what is commonly known within the Iranian diaspora as the 80/20 rule for those who sought its favor.18 This tactic means that so-called “opponents” focus eighty percent of their criticism on the obvious and unavoidable, including mild or implied criticism of the regime, in order to establish credibility. They then target the MEK for the remaining twenty percent of the time, pushing Tehran’s propaganda line. This tactic is meant to lend a measure of credibility to the anti-MEK propaganda, supposedly because it is coming from those who at first glance cannot be dismissed as regime agents.
An example is Mehrdad Arefani. Sentenced by a Belgian court to a 17-year imprisonment term in February 2021 for his role in the attempted bombing of the NCRI annual gathering in 2018, Arefani started to cooperate with the regime while in prison in Iran. He was later sent to Europe. He claimed to be a poet, a human rights activist, and even an atheist in order to distance himself from the regime. He even launched a campaign against Iranians visiting Iran to gain credibility as an opponent of the regime. He claimed to be a political sympathizer of the MEK and acted as a sleeper cell and intelligence asset of the regime for nearly 18 years. In a report to a Belgian tribunal, the Belgian State Security wrote: “The MOIS continues to portray the opposition in a negative light and describes them as terrorists. The MOIS is particularly active in the field of anti-MEK (Mujahedin-e Khalq, Iranian opposition group) propaganda in the European Parliament.”
The ultimate objective of the regime’s demonization and vilification campaign is to set the stage for the execution of terrorist plots against the Iranian Resistance. Arefani, for example, had carried out all his activities and preparations as the groundwork for a large-scale terrorist plot.
The cyber army
Finally, the regime uses its vast resources to deploy a cyber army as yet another prong in its demonization campaign against the MEK. According to a report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies on June 25, 2019,19 three military organizations were playing leading roles in cyber operations: the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the Basij, and Iran’s ’Passive Defense Organization (NPDO).’”
In a striking admission in May 2022, Ruhollah Momen Nasab, a former commander of Tehran’s cyber army, provided a glimpse of its operations and said: “We created new accounts on Twitter, using the persona of other Twitter influencers who were mainly counter-revolutionary activists. Ours just differed in a single character and was quite similar to the real one. We used the same picture and the same name, but everything was fake. Once created, we started our activities.”
On November 4, 2019, the regime posted fake stories about the MEK. It used a fake Twitter account of Alexis Kohler,21 Secretary- General of the office of French President Emmanuel Macron in the Elysée Palace, claiming that “The Secretary-General of the French Presidency has announced that the People’s Mojahedin (PMOI/MEK) will soon be driven from France.” The next day, the Elysée denied this statement, adding that the senior official did not even have a Twitter account.
on Twitter, and all three dramatically increased the rate of anti-MEK posts after the mid-July 2022 cyberattack became public.”
Now that the instrumental and expanding role of the MEK and its Resistance Units have become increasingly threatening for the regime, Tehran has become even more focused on its demonization campaign against the movement. Persistent and systematic attacks and lies against the MEK are critical as far as the regime is concerned. Not least because the MEK has a leading role in organizing the protests. Moreover, the mullahs are keenly aware that the MEK and the NCRI are the most viable alternatives to their rule. During an unprecedented nationwide uprising, a weakened and desperate regime is utilizing every means at its disposal, including “former members,” “opponents,” and a cyber army to confront the MEK’s rising popularity and organizational prowess in the hopes of countering the powerful tides of the uprising.
On December 10, 2020, Treadstone 71, a California-based independent cyber intelligence company, released details of an Iranian influence operation.22 It said: “The IRGC Cyber Units triggered core team members with military precision aimed at the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) annual online conference. The IRGC, MOIS, and low-level Basij Cyber Units flooded Twitter with nearly one hundred twelve thousand tweets over sixty hours using hashtags and content intent on controlling the social media narrative.”
More recently, in September 2022, Microsoft was asked to investigate a destructive cyber-attack against the Albanian government in mid-July. The tech giant said in a report: “The messaging, timing, and target selection of the cyberattacks bolstered our confidence that the attackers were acting on behalf of the Iranian government.”23 Microsoft added: “Ahead of the cyberattack, on June 6, Ebrahim Khodabandeh, a disaffected former MEK member posted an open letter addressed to Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama warning of the consequences of escalating tensions with Iran. Invoking ‘[h]acking of Tehran municipal systems’ and ‘gas stations,’ Khodabandeh claimed that the MEK was the source of ‘sabotaging acts against the interests of the Iranian people [sic]’ and argued that these constituted ‘the hostile work of your government’ and has caused “obvious enmity with the Iranian nation [sic].’”
The comprehensive and detailed Microsoft report also said: “In May 2021, at around the same time that Iranian actors began their intrusion into Albanian government victim systems, accounts for two anti-MEK social media personas, which do not appear to correspond to real people, were created on both Facebook and Twitter. The accounts largely post anti-MEK content and engage with the social media accounts of some of the individuals detailed above. These two accounts along with a third, older account, were among the first to promote posts from Homeland Justice accounts.
