Media experts and human rights organizations expressed concerns over two bills proposed by Edi Rama, Albania's Prime Minister, that would empower the government to regulate online media outlets, under the threat of penalties and closure. The changes were presented by the office of PM at a public hearing in Tirana in mid-December last year, aiming at the creation of a registry of online publications and empower a new Complaints Council to sanction online media, based on third-party requests
Newt Gingrich, Rudolph Giuliani, Diane Jones, James Jones, Maryam Rajavi and José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, Mujahedin-e Khalq rally in Villepinte, Paris, 27 June 2014
by Robert Fantina
No one today is surprised at the foreign policy of the United States. War, violation of international law and disdain for human rights are all characteristics of the criminal enterprise known as the U.S. government.
Most of the U.S.’s allies display some or all of these same vices, but some are often
Israeli regime is providing extreme right parties in Europe with covert support to create a rift in the continent.
It’s years that extremist rightwing parties in Europe have found significant political power to the point that they have entered the parliaments of most European countries or either play a crucial role in making political decisions.
Today, Europe's dominant extremist rightwing trends have moved a bit away from their origin, i.e. traditional fascism, and reject racism selectively
After having taken back from Daesh the State they had promised, straddling parts of Iraq and Syria, the United States now intend to recuperate some of their mercenaries in order to make use of them in a different manner. National Security Advisor John Bolton has designed new goals, new partners and new methods. Since this new system is secret, we know about it only insofar as parts of the plan have already been implemented. Thierry Meyssan explores this world of violence.
In 1978
On 30 June, thousands of people gathered in Villepinte, on the outskirts of Paris in an event entitled ‘Free Iran 2018’. Among the speakers were figures such as Donald Trump’s personal lawyer and former mayor of New York, Rudolph Giuliani, whose participation highlighted the important international connections of the event’s organisers, an Iranian dissident group called the Mojahedin-e Khalq (‘fighters of the people’ or MEK as they are known) and its political wing, the National Council of
The former head of Vox’s list of candidates for the 2014 European Parliament elections, Alejo Vidal-Quadras, assures that the current leader of the far-right formation, Santiago Abascal, was aware that supporters of the National Council of Resistance Iran (NCRI) contributed funds for that campaign and did not object to that support. “Santiago Abascal knew the economic support of Iranian opponents and it seemed good to him, all help, within the law, was welcome,” he told eldiario.es.
The NCRI
The history of the Iranian People’s Mujahedeen is bloody, turbulent and tragic, their method is controversial and their ideology is full of contradictions.
No Iranian opposition group polarizes like them, no one has so many critics, but no such prominent supporters. For a long time, the People’s Mojahedin have had powerful advocates in the West, but since they have three sympathizers in the White House with Security Advisor John Bolton, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and Trump lawyer Rudy
Translated by Iran Interlink
The expulsion of the Iranian ambassador from Albania by order of the US Security Adviser John Bolton is an act that has seriously shaken Albanian politics. The Albanian government of Prime Minister Rama, Foreign Minister Ditmir Bushati and President Ilir Meta not only did not welcome the dictates of John Bolton, but until now have not made any official statement to welcome the expulsion of the ambassador. The fearful Albanian politicians have no other choice but to
The news of the expulsion of two Iranian diplomats caught everybody by surprise in Tirana on December 20. The Iranian embassy and its ambassador Gholamhossein Mohammandia have kept a very low profile in Tirana in the past months. While Iran has been very upset with Albania, which since 2013 is hosting on its soil a violent Iranian jihadi organization, the Mojahedin e Khalq (MEK), its embassy and ambassador who understand that Albania is not an independent state, but a puppet of the U. S., has
If anyone is still wondering why the United States has not won a real war since 1945, I offer up the example of retired U.S. Army Colonel Wes Martin, who writes for Town Hall and reportedly also has appeared as an expert commentator on Fox. Town Hall is a purveyor of a certain type of “American conservatism.” It was founded by the Heritage Foundation on the principle that the United States is ordained by God as uber alles. Though it features many good writers and even genuine conservatives it
Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is refusing to meet with—or respond to—a group of her Yemeni-American constituents who are calling for an immediate end to the U.S.-Saudi War on Yemen. In recent months, however, Pelosi has found the time to speak at the conference of the right-wing Israeli-American Council and meet with the Saudi ambassador (one day after journalist Jamal Khashoggi went missing).
The contrast raises concerns about the priorities of Pelosi, historically hawkish on
Thursday's terrorist attack on the police headquarters in the southeastern Iranian port city of Chabahar killed at least three people and wounded another 40. According to Iran's Press TV the so-called Ansar al-Furqan terrorist group later claimed responsibility for the assault.
Political scientist and Professor Pir Mohammad Mollazehi from the University of Tehran told Sputnik that one of the reasons for the Ansar al-Furqan attack is revenge on Iranian law enforcement officers for the murder
To help make sense of the current round of saber rattling by the Trump administration against Iran, James Carden of the Nation has spoke with Dr. Trita Parsi, author of “Losing an Enemy: Obama, Iran, and the Triumph of Diplomacy” about the role that the Mek would play in the Trump administration’s new policy of regime collapse, instead of regime change, towards Iranian government:
JC: Picking up on the theme of regime collapse. Such a policy—as opposed to regime change—would seem to imply that
Geopolitics Alert
While the US doesn’t have all that much faith in the MEK as a credible and reliable proxy alternative, the group seems to be their best bet in helping open up Iran’s free markets, allying with NATO powers, and neutralizing Iran’s support for resistance movements in Gaza, Lebanon, and Yemen against US-backed allies Israel and Saudi Arabia.
Washington’s pulling out of the Iran nuclear deal and subsequently renewed sanctions come as US National Security Advisor appointee John
Patheos
Back in 2016 I wrote a piece on this weblog entitled US Politicians Should Stop Embracing the Authoritarian Terrorist Group, MEK, in which I attempted to warn US politicians of being close to People’s Mujahedin of Iran, an extremist Islamist-Marxist group. Since then, two developments have moved to revisit this subject: (1) The US government has gotten much closer to this group and (2) I’ve read a book which has made me realize that they were far worse than what I imagined in my
Bolton, Pompeo and others in the Trump regime seem to be going down the same quagmire path with a strange Iranian exiled dissident group called the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq, or MEK.
Ipolitics
In this season of remembrance, it’s worth recalling it was only 15 years ago that snorting ideologues in the White House, an incompetent president, and a Middle Eastern confidence trickster took the United States to war in Iraq.
About 400,000 people died as a direct result of that invasion by the U.S.
Middle East Eye
The Balkan nation currently hosts the headquarters of the Mojahedin-e Khalq, dedicated to violent regime change in Iran
In early September, Albanian Foreign Minister Ditmir Bushati travelled to Israel to participate in a counterterrorism summit and some nauseating photo ops with an Israeli cast of characters, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, with whom Bushati joked around a bit before getting down to terror-fighting and other business.
Israel, of course, has
Among the many indicators of misdirection in the Trump administration’s policy toward Iran, one of the clearest is the fondness for the cult-cum-terrorist group known as the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK). National Security Advisor John Bolton and Donald Trump’s attorney, Rudy Giuliani, are among the group’s most prominent cheerleaders, having been featured speakers at its rallies. They and other shills for the MEK refer to the group as if it represented what it decidedly is not: a democratic
The American Conservative
The Guardian has published a lengthy article by Arron Merat on the Mujahideen-e Khalq (MEK), and it details the group’s ongoing abuses and crimes at its new base in Albania. This is what John Bolton’s favorite “opposition” group does to its own members:
I spoke to about a dozen defectors, half of whom are still in Albania, who said that MEK commanders systematically abused members to silence dissent and prevent defections – using torture, solitary confinement, the
The Express Tribune
American allies were American enemies before or would be enemies at some point in future. Japan was a formidable enemy of the United States. They made war with each other, which ended with the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Later, through the Treaty of San Francisco, the United States basically wrote the Japanese pacifist constitution. Ever since Japan has been an American ally in the region, which during Cold War helped the NSA eavesdrop on Soviet
Media experts and human rights organizations expressed concerns over two bills proposed by Edi Rama, Albania's Prime Minister, that would empower the government to regulate online media outlets, under the threat of penalties and closure. The changes were presented by the office of PM at a public hearing in Tirana in mid-December last year, aiming at the creation of a registry of online publications and empower a new Complaints Council to sanction online media, based on third-party requests
