TEHRAN – Iranian Ambassador to London Hamid Baeidinejad said on Sunday that members of the terrorist Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK) are using super-modern computers to publish disinformation and fake news in order to manipulate the public opinion in Iran.

Posting a photo of the group’s members, Baeidinejad tweeted, “This photo of members of the Monafiqeen (MEK) in Camp Ashraf in Albania was recently leaked.”
 
He added, “Many of the members of the organization, with non-military clothes, have laid their hands on new weapons, which are super-modern computers by which they extensively publish fake news and disinformation in order to poison public opinion.” 

The MEK was established in the 1960s to express a mixture of Marxism and Islamism. It launched bombing campaigns against the Shah, continuing after the 1979 Islamic Revolution, against the Islamic Republic. Iran accuses the group of being responsible for 17,000 deaths.

Based in Iraq at the time, MEK members were armed and equipped by Iraq to fight against Iran alongside the Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein during a war which lasted for 8 years.

In 2012, the U.S. State Department removed the MKO from its list of designated terrorist organizations under intense lobbying by groups associated to Saudi Arabia and other regimes opposed to Iran.

A few years ago, MEK members were relocated from their Camp Ashraf in Iraq’s Diyala Province to Camp Hurriyet (Camp Liberty), a former U.S. military base in Baghdad, and were later sent to Albania.

Murteza Hussain of The Intercept have recently revealed how the MEK uses fake social media accounts to curate a false narrative about Iran to influence U.S. policy.

Then a series of photographs were leaked from inside the MEK’s camp in Albania and published in Iran. The photos offer an unguarded glimpse into the operational and organizational life of the cult.

Earlier this year, Germany’s Der Spiegel revealed that members of the MEK undergo horrific training in a camp in Albania.

Der Spiegel said the members held in the camp practice “cutting throats with knife”, “breaking hand”, “removing eyes with finger” and “tearing down mouth”.

The German weekly magazine added those who left the cult group say the members are being tortured and subjected to psychological trauma.

Talking to 15 members of the group, the magazine said the camp in which 2,000 members are kept is 50 times the size of a soccer field.

MH/PA