Sir,
I refer to the article by Patrick Kingsley which appeared on February 16th in which he makes a succession of unfounded claims about the People’s Mojahedin of Iran/ Mojahedin-e-Khalq (PMOI/MEK), and their current compound in Albania. Firstly, Mr Kingsley suggests that “few outsiders have ever entered” the “vast and tightly guarded barracks.” In fact, thousands of Albanians, Europeans, Americans and Iranian family members have entered the camp and many are regular visitors. I have myself visited Ashraf III on several occasions. The compound is subject to tight security because of repeated assassination attempts and bomb threats by the theocratic Iranian regime. Indeed, the Iranian Ambassador to Albania and his First Secretary, were both expelled from the country because of terrorist plots against the PMOI/MEK.
Secondly, Mr Kingsley asserts that “journalists are rarely allowed inside the camp”, yet he himself spent nine and half hours in Ashraf III undertaking a guided tour when he was allowed to speak to residents freely and at will, encounters that he described egregiously as “propaganda sessions”. Mr Kinglsey goes on to infer that some people regard the MEK as “a duplicitous terrorist cult”, notwithstanding the fact that the highest courts in America, the UK and the EU unanimously agreed to remove the MEK from their respective terrorist lists many years ago, after finding that they had been blacklisted erroneously based on similar “duplicitous terrorist cult”allegations by the fascist Iranian regime.
It is a great pity that Mr Kingsley did not allocate even a few paragraphs in his article to the appalling suffering of the Iranian people under the Ayatollah’s repressive tyranny, including the fact that over 120,000 supporters of the MEK have been ruthlessly eliminated by the regime since they seized power in 1979.
Yours,
STRUAN STEVENSON
Former member of the European Parliament representing Scotland (1999-2014)
