Fact-Checking Le Monde: MEK’s Official Rebuttal

Today, June 23, two weeks after Le Monde published its controversial article under the guise of “a comprehensive investigation on the existence of child soldiers” among those fighting against the clerical regime in Tehran, the English version was released in its international section. Since the French version’s release on June 9, many events have unfolded, clarifying what initially seemed obscure for those engrossed in the Middle Eastern crisis, Iran, and its intricate processes involving the Iranian Resistance movement. Above all, narratives originating not in France or Europe but thousands of kilometers away in Iran have shed light on what might have been the motivation for such a delicate undertaking.

Following the publication of Le Monde’s article, Iranian regime websites, particularly the official IRNA news agency and the Nejat Society site—a front organization of Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence advocating the destruction of the Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MEK)—welcomed and thanked the article’s author, Ghazaleh Golshiri.

On June 12, French security forces inspected the “Sima Association,” affiliated with the Iranian Resistance, seeking to scrutinize the building. Iranian state media immediately portrayed this incident as a “raid on the MEK offices,” claiming that “Tehran was closely monitoring the operation.” Fake images of handguns, allegedly seized from the MEK base, were circulated by Tehran’s news agencies, which French police later denounced as fraudulent.

On June 13, Louis Arnaud, a 35-year-old advisor allegedly arrested in September 2022 for participating in anti-government protests in Iran, was returned to Paris. No French official explained the sudden shift in Tehran’s stance.

In its recent publication, the Journal du Dimanche (JDD) in its June 20 issue provided an in-depth analysis of the circumstances surrounding the release of Louis Arnaud, a 35-year-old consultant who had been imprisoned in Iran since September 2022.

However, the article suggests that Arnaud’s release was not simply a goodwill gesture from the Iranian regime. According to JDD, the diplomatic negotiations between France and Iran may have been influenced by a strategic operation conducted by the French state: “a raid on the premises of the People’s Mujahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI), an exiled opposition group, and a significant adversary of Ayatollah Khomeini.”

On June 12, a coordinated operation involving the police, gendarmerie, and anti-fraud agents targeted the “Simaye Azadi” association in Saint-Ouen-l’Aumône, a digital television channel linked to the PMOI that broadcasts opposition content to the Iranian diaspora.

The timing of these events has raised eyebrows. Just hours after the French authorities’ raid, Iranian news agency “Mizan,” citing Kazem Gharibabadi, a deputy at the regime’s Judiciary, praised the French police for their action against the PMOI “terrorists,” claiming, “the operation was followed live by Iran,” to ensure no safe havens for exiled opponents. Another agency, “Tasnim,” falsely reported that firearms were seized during the raid, a claim denied by a police source who confirmed, “No firearms were found on site.”

The JDD points out that the sequence of events—Arnaud’s release and the raid on the PMOI headquarters within 24 hours—fuels speculation about possible diplomatic bargaining. When questioned, the French Ministry of the Interior declined to comment.

Additionally, the JDD points out that the PMOI expressed concern over a coinciding article published by Le Monde on June 9, three days before Arnaud’s release. The four-page report titled “We, Child Soldiers of the People’s Mujahedin of Iran,” focused on former PMOI recruits. Aladdin Touran, a PMOI member, criticized Le Monde for sending an “inquisitive” questionnaire only 48 hours before publication and for stating that the PMOI “did not wish to respond.” Furthermore, Le Monde received an email from the PMOI discrediting the witnesses featured in the article as “notorious agents of the mullahs’ regime.”

Similarly, the weekly Canard Enchaîné on June 19 viewed these developments as a quid pro quo between Tehran and Paris.

Within 48 hours, another shocking news story emerged, stunning the Iranian community domestically and abroad. Hamid Noury, a former prison guard sentenced to life imprisonment by a Stockholm court for crimes against humanity, suddenly resurfaced in Tehran. Iranian state media once again broadcasted their triumphant and boastful narratives to the domestic audience. In exchange for this criminal’s release—who was involved in the systematic killing of thousands of political prisoners, 90% of whom were MEK members, in the summer of 1988—two Swedish hostages were freed.

However, MEK’s name wasn’t quite an unfamiliar topic to the Swedish people as well, who have faced a breach of judicial independence by their government. In recent weeks, they have witnessed news reports about a documentary film about “MEK child soldiers,” apparently made by an amateur Iranian filmmaker, intending to depict the MEK—the only organized group that has consistently opposed the Iranian regime for decades—in a negative light.

Below is the official response of the MEK to Le Monde’s article.

Mr. Louis Dreyfus, Publication Director
Mr. Jérôme Fenoglio, Deputy Publication Director
Madam Caroline Monnot, Editorial Director

Le Monde
67-69 avenue Pierre Mendès-France
75013 Paris
Auvers sur Oise, June 10, 2024

Dear Directors and Madam Editorial Director,
On June 8, I urgently requested that you address the vile and repugnant slanders spread by the agents of the execution and massacre regime, which rules Iran. I explained that, “A defamatory article against the People’s PMOI Organization of Iran (PMOI/PMOI) was published on the front page and geopolitical pages of Le Monde on Sunday, June 9, and Monday, June 10. The article was penned by Ghazal Golshiri and entitled “Child Soldiers of the People’s PMOI Organization of Iran.” As the press spokesperson for the PMOI, I request that you to publish in the next issue, on the front page and geopolitical pages, all the letters sent to your newspaper before the article’s publication. This will uphold the principle of neutrality and allow your readers to make an informed judgment.”

Unfortunately, however, I have not received any response to date. Therefore, I have prepared the following reply for your newspaper and kindly request that you publish it as soon as possible. In accordance with the principles of impartial journalism, you acknowledge that our right to respond should be fairly granted across four pages of the geopolitical section and on the front page. This is the right of a resistance that has endured immense suffering and bloodshed under the dictatorships of both the Shah and the clerical regime over the past 60 years.

1. Le Monde, in its Sunday and Monday editions of June 9 and 10, published on Saturday, June 8, included a so-called investigative article titled “Child Soldiers of the PMOI.” This article is an unparalleled collection of lies, slander, misinformation, and inaccuracies, occupying part of the front page and four pages of the geopolitical section. The enthusiastic reception of this article by the branch of the Ministry of Intelligence of the mullahs’ regime, known as the Nejat Association, and its publication on their website under the title “Le Monde’s Bombshell Report on the PMOI and Military Exploitation of Children,” clearly demonstrates the article’s goals and purpose. This association has made it their mission to destroy the PMOI.

If you ask what new accusations this report brings against the PMOI that the mullahs and their agents have not already presented, you will find absolutely nothing. The essence of the report, wrapped in much fanfare and a dose of false romanticism to stir the reader’s emotions, is the story of three men in their forties who found the struggle against the mullahs difficult and have now turned against those who continue to fight the regime. These three, now tools of the regime’s Ministry of Intelligence, accuse the PMOI of using child soldiers in their fight against the child-killing mullahs’ regime.

Astonishingly, your reporter suggests that the remaining children who do not speak out have become addicts or mentally ill, and now 20 years after the capture of Camp Ashraf by American, Iraqi, and the mullahs’ forces in Iraq, they now supposedly fear the PMOI in all corners of the world! It appears that Ghazal Golshiri has no understanding of the fear of dishonor, of being a stooge of the religious mullahs’ Gestapo, or of the shame of being labeled a “Kolbeh” (a term used to describe traitors).

3. The author of the article, Ghazal Golshiri, an Iranian known for her hostility towards the Resistance against the mullahs, has frequently traveled to Tehran, revealing the disgraceful nature of her connections. From the very beginning, this report, which lacks both investigative depth and journalistic impartiality, betrays her anxiety over the international credibility of the PMOI, coincidentally echoing the worries of the mullahs’ regime. She writes: “This group, which presents itself as a peaceful, democratic, and non-nuclear alternative to the Tehran regime, continues to wield significant influence in the West, particularly in the United States and France.”
4. Golshiri, from the outset of her article, uses the label “Islamic-Marxist” against the PMOI, a term originally concocted by the Shah’s notorious secret police, SAVAK, and later amplified by the mullahs’ regime. This label underscores her commitment and loyalty to the dictatorships in Iran, opposing the democratic aspirations of the Iranian people. Parviz Sabeti, head of SAVAK’s Third Directorate and the highest-ranking official responsible for torture and executions under the Shah, stated in an interview on November 26, 2023, regarding the PMOI: “From the very beginning, in the report I prepared for His Majesty, I stated that this is an Islamic group which later became Marxist, hence the term ‘Islamic Marxist’ stuck to them. … In 1971, when we arrested this Islamic-Marxist network, we apprehended eighty percent of them in one day” (Interview aired on Manoto TV).

The Iranian Resistance’s Leader, Massoud Rajavi, told Time magazine in September 1981, “[F]or dictators like Khomeini, ‘Marxist Islamic’ is a very profitable phrase to use against any opposition.  If Jesus Christ and Muhammad were alive and protesting against Khomeini, he would call them Marxists, too.” Many experts, even those who do not hold a favorable view of the PMOI, have highlighted this point.

 According to Mehrzad Boroujerdi, a professor at Syracuse University, “Rajavi reserved his most extensive critique for the Marxist materialist epistemology. … The organization remained skeptical of Marxism’s philosophical postulates and rejected the latter’s cardinal doctrine of historical materialism. It held firm to the beliefs in the existence of God, revelation, the afterlife, the spirit, salvation, destiny, and the people’s commitment to these intangible principles.” Afshin Matin-Asgari, an Iranian scholar, described Islamic Marxism as “an ingenious polemical label” used by the Shah’s regime to discredit its enemies.

A 14-month Mission

5. As stated in the article, the mission to concoct this investigation, favored by the religious fascism in Iran, began at least since April 2023, 14 months ago, when the journalist interviewed two of the “witnesses” in Germany. Le Monde took photographs of these witnesses in Germany in August 2023, indicating that this journalist, who easily travels to Tehran and was last there in 2022, has been working on this piece since April 2023. However, it was only on June 3, 2024, that she remembered to send an email to the PMOI, donning the garb of the Inquisition, and posing a series of accusations and slanders disguised as questions, giving a 48-hour deadline for a response. The next day, on June 4, one of her three “witnesses” announced the publication of the article on the social media platform X, set for Saturday, June 8. This indicates that everything was orchestrated, and the questions posed to me were solely meant to protect the reporter and the newspaper from legal repercussions, and not to uncover the truth. The witness is Amir Yaghmaei, whose biography was published along with the same photos for Le Monde on the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence’s website the day after the article’s publication. You can see how the interrogator journalist, the witness, and the Gestapo operate in perfect harmony!
6. There is no doubt that the falsehoods published in Le Monde under the guise of an investigation had been prepared long in advance. However, those involved were waiting for the right moment and the necessary green light to publish it. Let us not forget the timing that comes after the parliamentary elections in March and May 2024, which were boycotted by over 90% of the people, the strategic blow of the death of the regime’s president, Ebrahim Raisi, the butcher of the 1988 massacre, and the upcoming sham presidential election scheduled for June 28!

We are currently unaware of other behind-the-scenes dealings (similar to those behind the attacks and arrests on June 17, 2003, against the PMOI, which we later learned about). However, we do know that this article complements the trial in absentia of 104 members of the PMOI, whose fourteenth session will be held tomorrow in the judiciary of the executioners in Tehran.

The prosecutors, witnesses, and investigators from the Ministry of Intelligence and the Revolutionary Guards (Quds Force) are demanding the extradition of the PMOI, especially from France and Albania, to execute them in accordance with Khomeini’s fatwa against the steadfast PMOI members in 1988. In essence, their narrative is no different from that of the witnesses and the researcher of the Le Monde article. Of course, to be fair, Golshiri presents her arguments more elegantly and tries to avoid legal pitfalls.

Extremist propaganda against the PMOI paves the way for terrorism

6. Based on decades of experience, extremist political propaganda against our movement, a campaign built on sheer lies, facilitates terrorist actions by the mullahs’ regime. The attempt to assassinate Dr. Alejo Vidal-Quadras, former Vice President of the European Parliament, due to his support for the Iranian Resistance in November 2023, and two terrorist attacks and shootings at one of the PMOI supporters’ buildings in May and June 2023 in Saint-Ouen-l’Aumône (95), the terrorist attack on the National Council of Resistance office in Berlin, and the attempt to bomb the 2018 Iranian Resistance gatherings in Villepinte, north of Paris, and in Tirana, Albania, had all been facilitated by similar demonization campaigns.

Stale Lies

7. The staleness and putrid nature of Golshiri’s article come from the old lies that have already been investigated in France. After 14 years and a 100,000-page dossier initiated by Judge Bruguière following a deal between the then-French government and the Iranian regime, all allegations were found baseless and hollow. Interestingly, the witnesses in that case, who cost France tens of millions of euros, were similar to Golshiri’s witnesses, carrying the title of “former PMOI members” at the behest of the mullahs’ intelligence services.

In the book “If You Repeat It, I Will Deny It” by Jean-Claude Maurice, a journalist from Le Journal du Dimanche, who had attended a meeting between the French Foreign Minister and the Iranian Foreign Minister in April 2003, the behind-the-scenes negotiations that laid the groundwork for the accusations against the PMOI are revealed. Yves Bonnet, former head of DST (French counterintelligence), in his book, “The Great Conspiracy – The French Government is Manipulated by Iran’s Secret Services,” delves into other dimensions of this conspiracy. In another book, “Vevak,” Bonnet exposes an agent of the Ministry of Intelligence who introduced the “fake witnesses” in Judge Bruguière’s fabricated case.

This case was closed with two non-lieu (dismissal) orders by the investigating judge: The first in 2011 concerning terrorism and terrorist financing, and the other in 2014 regarding accusations like money laundering. However, Golshiri deliberately ignores the non-lieu issued on terrorism, which explicitly stated that the PMOI’s resistance is not consistent with terrorism but instead a struggle against tyranny. If she had acknowledged this truth, the backbone of her investigation would have collapsed. This cannot be a mere mistake because a simple internet search would have revealed the truth.

Agence France-Presse, in one of its reports on this matter, writes:

“…Judge Marc Trévidic, who inherited the case in 2009, closed his investigation at the end of 2013 and the prosecution must make its submissions. But as early as 2011, the magistrate had abandoned all terrorist incriminations (…) The dismissal of the case on terrorism “had put an end to more than eight years of instrumentalization of justice with the consent of Judge Bruguière, for political reasons that no one can no longer contest”, denounces lawyer Me William Bourdon” (January 31, 2014).

Attacking the PMOI, a Down Payment for Deals with the Mullahs

8. It is evident that Ghazal Golshiri’s accusations and slanders on June 3 were not worthy of a response. Nevertheless, on June 4, I wrote to the Publishing Director, Deputy Publishing Director, and the Editorial Chief of Le Monde, while providing evidence and documents that clearly demonstrated Golshiri’s unprofessional conduct. I stated: “Ms. Golshiri’s interrogation method is not befitting of Le Monde. I am willing to provide any explanation for your newspaper, but not to someone who has discredited herself with her hostility and prejudice.” I attached documents showing how the “witnesses” are discredited and affiliated with the regime. However, since writing an article against the PMOI was a political decision and a dictated directive, these had no effect on the publication of the article, except to include a few generic denials from the PMOI in a bid to avoid a legal challenge.

Golshiri claimed that the PMOI identified the witnesses as regime affiliates without knowing who they were. She thinks this is a novel revelation. Her three witnesses have been used by the mullahs’ regime and its handpicked journalists repeatedly over the past two to three years. Moreover, if she had good intentions, she could have provided their names on June 3 and requested their backgrounds from us. Is it not telling that on June 8, she publishes their names and large photos resembling movie stars from Western films in unprecedented dimensions in Le Monde?

9. Ali Fallahian, the former minister of the theocracy’s Gestapo (Intelligence Ministry), and the killer of Dr. Kazem Rajavi in Switzerland, Mohammad Hossein Naqdi, the representative of the National Council of Resistance of Iran in Italy, Fa’ezeh Rajavi, a member of the PMOI’s leadership council in Istanbul, and dozens of other PMOI members in Pakistan and Turkey, explicitly stated in an interview on July 9, 2017: “The Ministry of Intelligence needs a cover for gathering information, both inside and outside the country. We don’t send an intelligence officer to Germany or America saying, ‘I am from the Ministry of Intelligence.’ A business or journalistic cover is necessary. Many journalists are intelligence agents.” Attacking the PMOI as a down payment to prove goodwill to the mullahs for various deals and schemes is a well-known tactic. On May 7, 2008, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing several European diplomats involved in nuclear negotiations with the regime: “Iranian officials for years have made suppression of the PMOI a priority in negotiations with Western governments over Tehran’s nuclear program and other issues, according to several diplomats who were involved in those talks.”

Transferring Children to Outside of Iraq

10. After Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait in August 1990 and the subsequent First Gulf War on January 17, 1991, the PMOI in Iraq were not spared from the dangers of coalition forces’ attacks on Iraq. Although this war had nothing to do with the PMOI, from August 1990, comprehensive crippling sanctions, including food shortages, disruptions in many communication systems, and the cessation of flights between Baghdad and foreign countries, along with medical shortages and, most importantly, intense bombings, endangered the lives of about 900 vulnerable PMOI children. This became a serious concern.

The threat of the Iranian regime exploiting the situation to attack PMOI positions and bases had increased. This threat quickly materialized in March 1991 when the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) infiltrated Iraq with seven brigades and divisions to massacre and capture PMOI members. In these attacks, dozens of PMOI members were killed, and two were captured by mercenaries, handed over to the IRGC, and subsequently executed.

Under such circumstances, parents were urging the PMOI to find a way to save these children’s lives and, if possible, to get them out of Iraq.

12. Initially, the PMOI sought help from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Geneva and Amman, Jordan, to transfer the children out of Iraq. The UNHCR office had moved from Baghdad to Amman due to the war conditions. The office told our representative, Mr. Ali Safavi, that all their resources were dedicated to evacuating tens of thousands of foreign nationals living in Iraq who had made their way to the Iraq-Jordan border, and that they couldn’t assist these children. Thus, the PMOI raised the issue with the Jordanian government. The PMOI and Jordan had maintained relations since 1985, when the Leader of the Iranian Resistance had met with King Hussein of Jordan at the Hotel de Marigny in Paris, a meeting reported by Le Monde at the time. After securing the Jordanian government’s agreement, the PMOI decided to take the risk and use their limited resources to send the children to Jordan, with a subsequent plan of gradually sending them to the US and Europe via Jordan.
13. Eventually, the PMOI, with their limited resources and through extraordinary self-sacrifice, and without any help from any government sources or the UN, managed to safely transfer all the children out of Iraq. These children were welcomed and embraced by their relatives or Iranian families. Years later, some of these children, now grown up, decided to return to their families and the PMOI in Ashraf. They had made the PMOI’s goals and ideals their North Star. Some remained in Europe and the US, continuing their education and personal lives while supporting the PMOI’s efforts for a free Iran.

Child Soldier? Or Member of the Resistance?

13. Ghazal Golshiri’s article, along with those of the Iranian regime’s agents, primarily aim to accuse the People’s PMOI Organization of Iran (PMOI/PMOI) of using children in military battles. The use of the term “child soldier” in relation to the PMOI is purely deceitful and demagogic, originating from the regime’s demonization campaigns. It is the regime that first used this term to cover up its own extensive child-killing during the Iran-Iraq war and the execution of teenagers in prisons. According to commanders of the IRGC and the then Minister of Education, between 440,000 to one million young students were sent to the frontlines of the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s to clear minefields ahead of the IRGC’s advance.

Therefore, this is deceitful because in the PMOI and the National Liberation Army of Iran (NLA), everything and everyone, from day one to today, has been voluntary. There is no such thing as soldiers or conscription. They are freedom fighters in a blood-stained resistance movement that has persisted in its struggle against religious fascism for 45 years. No one can participate or endure without their own desire or free will under these circumstances.

Moreover, no one in the PMOI or the NLA has ever been sent on military operations by the organization’s orders or decisions when they were under the age of 18. Even if they wanted to go to the front, the organization would prevent their deployment as soon as it became aware. Furthermore, the individuals discussed in the film Children of Ashraf are all people who went to Ashraf after the late 1990s, during which time the NLA and Ashraf residents had no military operations.

Most importantly, those who claim that the PMOI took children to Ashraf in order to be soldiers should name just one child, only one, who was killed or wounded in the alleged PMOI operations.

The young individuals who decided to go to Iraq and Ashraf were all living in democratic countries and were fully aware of the conditions in Iraq. Many of them have spoken or written about their motivations for going to Iraq and joining the Resistance. Their aim was both to join their families and to become part of the Resistance movement.

Those under 18 had to have at least one parent in the PMOI in Iraq and needed written parental consent to be accepted. Not a single case exists of anyone going to Iraq outside these conditions. After the Kuwait war, the Iraqi government could no longer protect the PMOI, and we had to ensure our own protection. Thus, familiarity and training in personal defense were never synonymous with participation in military operations.

During the 1991 war, the PMOI sent children, as well as elderly mothers and fathers, to Europe and America. Only parents who could receive training in weapons and personal defense remained.

A Malicious Lie

14. The article claims that Amir Yaghmaei “becomes a soldier after military training. In April 2001, their unit fell into an ambush set by the Iranian regular army near Dehloran in Iran. One of his comrades, Shahram Jouyandeh, is killed. … Amir says, ‘His death changed me forever.'”

Golshiri, whose fondness for “spies” is hardly concealed, uses the word “ambush” to evoke the participation of the “star” of her story in a military operation, which is entirely false. Even though Yaghmaei was 18 at the time, his participation in this mission is an outright lie. Most of those who were in that unit are still alive and testify to this fact.

15. False claims about the PMOI children were made long before these individuals brought them up recently. They were first raised by the Research Center of Iran’s Ministry of Science during Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s presidency in 2009. In a 15,000-word so-called research report on the PMOI, it addresses the “violation of children’s rights in Camp Ashraf,” “forced migration,” and the use of children in military and terrorist activities.

Among its many absurdities, the report states: “The organization tried to sever the emotional ties between parents and children by resorting to various tricks to relocate the children to European countries. The forced migration operation is akin to human trafficking. The organization’s intention was to re-indoctrinate and brainwash the children and then use them as obedient soldiers of the cult.” It ridiculously adds that international organizations “are obliged to take humanitarian action regarding the deplorable situation of the children in Camp Ashraf in Iraq and the situation of other children outside Iraq.” The report continues: “The abuse of women and children, as well as the forced migration of children from Iraq to Western countries and the falsification of the identities of these children … are among other human rights violations by this cult” (link to the article). This is the same mission that Le Monde took up 15 years later.

Moreover, the Iranian regime and its political proxies attacked the PMOI for evacuating children from Iraq in 1991, describing it as an organizational decision or a lack of familial affection. Yet the same people attack the PMOI also for allegedly bringing children under 18 from Europe to Iraq and using them as “child soldiers.” The question arises: If the PMOI’s goal was to recruit child soldiers, why would they send them abroad only to bring them back again?

International Standards

16. This empty virtue-signalling and uproar about “child soldiers” occurs despite the fact that the regulations of the National Liberation Army (NLA) and the PMOI regarding the participation of individuals in military activities align with the most cautious international standards, which set the minimum age at 18. In contrast, the minimum recruitment age in the United Kingdom is 16.

Deutsche Welle reported on March 31, 2024, that 10.6% of soldiers recruited into the German army in 2023 were under 18 years old. This figure was 9.4% in 2022.

According to the United Nations and UNICEF, boys and girls aged 15 and above who receive training in military academies are not considered child soldiers. This is because the focus of military academies is on education and cadre training, not active armed conflict or support for armed conflict.

The United Nations defines “recruitment” by emphasizing that if a boy or girl over the age of 15 voluntarily and knowingly joins a military academy, it is not considered forced recruitment. In many countries, including the US, the UK, France, Germany, and Belgium, there are hundreds of military schools where boys and girls aged 15 and above receive education and basic military training. These academies cannot engage boys and girls aged 15 and above in armed conflicts, as doing so would classify them as “child soldiers,” which is against international law.

Some renowned military academies in the US that accept applicants aged 15 and above include The Citadel in Charleston, South Carolina; the Virginia Military Institute; Fork Union Military Academy; and Marion Military Institute in Alabama.

The requirements for admission to the armed forces at the most prestigious military academies in the US, such as West Point Military Academy (the most famous military academy in the US), as well as other military academies like the Naval Academy in Annapolis, the Air Force Academy, and the Coast Guard Academy, all accept applicants aged 17 to 23.

It is widely known that in the French Resistance, individuals of all ages fought against the Nazi occupation and collaborated with the Allied forces. Today, the resistance is honored in France, and the names of young people of various ages are revered. If these young people were in the ranks of the PMOI today, Golshiri would lament them as child soldiers. A large number of young Germans under 18 were executed for “sabotage” or armed actions against the Nazis.

Another noteworthy point is that the legal age in Iran, including for participating in presidential and parliamentary elections, was 16 in previous decades.

Three “Witnesses” or Mercenaries

17. The article states that the PMOI, in an email to Le Monde before the article’s publication, pre-emptively discredited the article’s witnesses, describing them as well-known agents of the mullahs’ regime. The three witnesses forming the backbone of Golshiri’s report prove that what I wrote in my June 4 letter to Le Monde was entirely accurate. They are part of a small group of sellouts who have been spreading the same lies presented in Golshiri’s questions for years. There is not a single new claim in the Le Monde article that hasn’t been previously repeated hundreds of times by regime media and journalists affiliated with the Ministry of Intelligence. Basic journalistic neutrality, or at least a modicum of human decency, should have compelled Golshiri to be ashamed of the group photo of dozens of people, whom she surely identified through these three mercenaries, rather than serving the religious fascism ruling.

In fact, Golshiri’s interview with these three individuals is not an exclusive one, as they have previously given similar interviews to other Western media to fuel the regime’s propaganda. However, Golshiri attempts to present these worn-out, second-hand goods as fresh and previously unknown!

Another Malicious Lie

18. Amir Yaghmaei, like some other children during the time of the war and bombing of Iraq in early 1991, was sent to Sweden at the request of his parents. Contrary to the lies being spread today, his father, Esmail Yaghmaei, along with Amir and his mother (who was in Ashraf at the time), insisted that Amir return to Iraq to be with his mother. A letter from Esmail Yaghmaei dated July 1, 1998, in his handwriting, signature, and bearing his fingerprint, strongly requesting Amir’s dispatch to Iraq, is attached. The claim that Le Monde quotes him as saying, “I killed myself trying to stop him from going, but then I gave in and signed a form allowing Amir to go,” is another malicious lie. The letter requesting Amir’s dispatch to Iraq, dated July 13, 1998, signed and fingerprinted by Esmail Yaghmaei, bears no resemblance to the alleged form mentioned in Golshiri’s story.

The reality is that Esmail Yaghmaei, who had started a relationship with an English woman and later married her, saw his son as a nuisance and intended to send him to Iraq to be with his mother. In February 2024, former national football hero Asghar Adibi wrote about this issue:

“I witnessed another scene 10-12 years later when many of these children, now grown up, wanted to return to their parents and fight. I want to mention one such case that I am a living witness to. I witnessed a conversation between Esmail Yaghmaei, Amir’s father, and Mr. Massoud Rajavi, the Leader of the Iranian Resistance, at the end of the meeting to elect the secretary-general of the PMOI in September 1997. At that time, we, members of the NCRI, were in France and were on a conference call with the PMOI members in Camp Badi and other camps in Iraq, talking and discussing issues. The conference call was also conducted with the members and supporters of the PMOI in several other countries.

Esmail Yaghmaei’s conversation with Mr. Rajavi, which has now become the basis for slander against the PMOI and plays a central role in this film, was about Amir wanting to go to Iraq to join the PMOI and be with his mother. There was never an issue with family visits, and Yaghmaei could take his son with him whenever we went to Baghdad for NCRI meetings or send him separately. However, regarding joining the PMOI and the National Liberation Army (NLA), the Leader of the Iranian Resistance told Yaghmaei that his son had not yet reached the legal age and it was better for him to stay with his father in Paris. But Yaghmaei insisted and argued that age should not determine the right to fight. Nonetheless, Mr. Rajavi did not agree. A year later, I heard that Yaghmaei had insisted again, and submitted a written request, and eventually, his son went to the PMOI and his mother in Iraq. By this time, some other children whose parents were there had also gone to Iraq.

Later, I learned that Yaghmaei’s insistence on sending his son to Iraq was intended to get rid of a child who had become a hindrance to his ‘free lifestyle.’ There is much more to say on this subject, but I will stop here.”

1. Seyedi Kashani, who was responsible for the music and songwriting section of the PMOI for 40 years and passed away in Albania in December 2018, wrote in his book “Symphony of Resistance” (published in February 2018) about Esmail Yaghmaei, who was under his supervision within the PMOI for some time:

“After the non-prosecution order and the Court of Appeals ruling, the June 17, 2003 case against the PMOI collapsed, and the regime’s last attempts in 2014 and 2015 to revive the case failed, destroying all the regime-fabricated accusations, including money laundering and fraud. Subsequent to this, Esmail Yaghmaei, at the behest of the regime’s intelligence services, began publishing nonsense and vulgar language on the ‘Daricheh Zard’ website. He falsely claimed that the PMOI and the Iranian Resistance committed financial fraud against an English woman, whom Yaghmaei had married years earlier by introducing himself as a poet of the Iranian Resistance. This added a new claim to the previous accusations against the PMOI, including ‘suspicious deaths’ within the organization and ‘forced divorces.'”

2. The Le Monde article states that Amir Yaghmaei was born in 1983. However, to complete the absurd tragedy concocted by Ms. Golshiri, when he went to Iraq in the second half of 1998, he suddenly turned a year younger, 14 years old, instead of his actual age.

Amir Yaghmaei, like other teenagers, did not participate in any military operations after going to Iraq. He only received basic weaponry training, which was given to everyone in Camp Ashraf for self-defense in case of an attack. Another lie is Amir’s claim that when he went to Iraq, he was separated from his parents and sent to a boarding house. This is yet another crude falsehood intended to suggest some form of forced separation of children from their parents.

After the American bombings in Iraq in 2003, a frightened and disheartened Amir Yaghmaei surrendered to the American forces and went to a facility under their control called TIPF. From there, he connected with his uncle, who is an intelligence officer in Yazd province in Iran, and subsequently served the religious Gestapo.

3. The connection of Esmail Yaghmaei, Amir’s father, to the clerical intelligence services is such that on May 31, 2020, the Rahyaftegan website, affiliated with Khamenei’s faction, listed his name among those recruited by the Ministry of Intelligence. It wrote: “The fact that Mr. Alavi’s (the honorable Minister of Intelligence) team, through their round-the-clock efforts, has recruited some repentant PMOI members like Soltani, Khodabandeh, Ezzati, Hosseini, Yaghmaei, Karimdadi, Mesdaghi, Pourhossein, and others, and, with substantial energy investment and financial support, has drawn these repentants into a psychological confrontation with the PMOI itself is excellent; but is it enough?”
4. Esmail Yaghmaei’s older brother, Abolqasem Yaghmaei, is an active member of the Ministry of Intelligence and the head of the Nejat (Rescue) Association branch of this ministry in Yazd province. Amir Yaghmaei states: “After I left the Americans in Iraq, I returned to Sweden and contacted my uncle.” The Nejat Association was established by the regime to harass the families and relatives of PMOI members.

In the photo below, Abolqasem Yaghmaei is shown contacting known regime agents in Albania. Some of these agents were later arrested and expelled by the Albanian police. [Link to the Nejat Association: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBCERXnku4M].

https://www.nejatngo.org/fa/posts/49163

Amin Golmaryami

1. Amin Golmaryami, another star of the Le Monde article, spent 10 out of his 12 years in Iraq in direct contact with American forces, UNAMI officials, the UNHCR, the International Red Cross, and Iraqi officials. He was interviewed by them multiple times alone, without any third-party presence, and was thoroughly debriefed. The absurd storytelling that he covertly delivered his message to a UN liaison is ludicrous. Nine American agencies conducted investigations with each resident at Camp Ashraf for 16 months, as reported by The New York Times on July 27, 2004.

Despite the presence of numerous ill individuals and those under direct security threats, the PMOI prioritized the introduction of defectors and potential enemy spies to the UNHCR, giving them their only viable option, Albania, to prevent them from falling into the hands of the mullahs’ Gestapo and former Qods Force Commander Qasem Soleimani’s agents in Iraq. Amin Golmaryami and his two brothers were among those sent to Albania in the second group of 15 people from Liberty.

One day before his flight from Iraq to Albania, Golmaryami wrote a letter dated May 31, 2013, in his own handwriting and signature, stating: “…I want to thank you before anything else, thank you for resolving all my issues and helping me reach my choice for a new life. … Please be assured that my two brothers and I, despite not being able to stay in Liberty for certain reasons and choosing to leave, will always be supporters and backers of the organization.”

The claim that he escaped from Albania is another ridiculous assertion. When the Golmaryami brothers went to Albania, the PMOI had little presence there for him to need to escape from them. The same person who claims to have fled from the PMOI in Albania was receiving a monthly stipend of $500 from them until the day he left Albania, with the receipts shown below. Additionally, he received a $1,000 financial aid from the PMOI when he left Liberty.

In a letter dated June 7, 2014, he wrote: “…given that a year has passed since my arrival in Albania, and considering the regular monthly payments from the PMOI’s financial fund since August 2014… I again request that my monthly stipend from the PMOI be extended.” Below are some samples of the receipts for this aid, signed by Amin Golmaryami himself:

Mohammad Reza Torabi

1. The third witness of Golshiri, Mohammad Reza Torabi, has such hysterical accusations against the PMOI that even Golshiri was compelled to state, “Their statements are used by the Islamic Republic of Iran.” Yet, she immediately adds, “But these men have no sympathy for the Tehran regime.” It’s unclear what Golshiri considers to be sympathy for the Tehran regime in Europe. Perhaps it means explicit support for the IRGC and Khamenei!

On March 2, 2017, Mohammad Reza Torabi left the PMOI. Contrary to the lies he now tells Le Monde, he wrote a letter to the PMOI, emphasizing his clear separation from the clerical regime and requesting financial assistance from the organization.

From March 2017 until September 2018, when he left Albania, Torabi received a total of 720,000 lek from the PMOI over 19 months, with monthly receipts available. Two samples of these receipts are provided below.

Accusation of Crimes Against the PMOI

2. Golshiri writes that Torabi, who had internet access in Ashraf, came across a short article on the Nejat Society website, written by Alireza Miraskari (an exposed agent of the regime’s intelligence service), claiming, “Mohammad Reza’s father died in 1994 due to the torture he endured in a detention center at Camp Ashraf.” However, more than 12 years later, when he left the PMOI in 2017, he “came across a report by Human Rights Watch (HRW) from twelve years earlier, in which ‘Abbas Sadeghi Nejad (a defector) told HRW that he witnessed the death of a detainee named Ghorbanali Torabi after he returned from an interrogation session in a cell they shared.’ This revelation solidified his [Torabi’s] break from the organization.”

Golshiri speaks of Torabi discovering the HRW report 12 years after its publication as if it were a top-secret document from Khamenei’s office or the White House. It’s unclear how someone with internet access took 12 years to find the HRW report, which all the regime’s media had translated and published. What else could this be but a disgraceful mission to demonize the PMOI? Furthermore, it is widely known that during those years, news of the HRW report and its efforts to strip the PMOI of protected status in Iraq, based on phone interviews with 12 regime operatives inside and outside Iran, was prominently featured on the Iranian National TV, Simaye Azadi, affiliated with the Iranian Resistance. It was broadcast daily for six months in 2005. American officers in Ashraf also wrote numerous articles about it, all of which were publicized in Ashraf and during the Iranian Resistance gatherings in Europe and America, broadcasted on TV. There was absolutely nothing secret about it that could remain hidden for 12 years until someone found out! What happened after 12 years is nothing but the transmission of a mission from his superiors in the Ministry of Intelligence to revive the false rumor of “suspicious deaths.”

3. The report by the European Parliament delegation, which visited Ashraf in July 2005 to investigate the HRW report, states regarding the death of Ghorbanali Torabi:

Zahra Seraj (the wife of Ghorbanali Torabi) said Ghorbanali had spent seven years in the Iranian regime’s prisons whilst she had been imprisoned for five years.  Whilst in prison she said her husband was subjected to the severest tortures.  Zahra Seraj recalled how in 1989 the couple had travelled to the offices of the UN in Geneva to testify before the Human Rights Commission rapporteur, Reynaldo Galindopohl, about their physical and psychological torture whilst in the prisons of the Iranian regime.  An emotional Zahra Seraj said Ghorbanali Torabi had the scars visible on his feet and legs as a result of the torture he had sustained in the notorious Evin prison, which finally caused his death… She says, as a result of the severe tortures he sustained whilst in prison, “he had no abdomen, no stomach” and that “when he came here [Ashraf], he was under a great deal of pain and visited lots of doctors.  In 1995 he passed away as a result of a heart attack/stroke….”

She further went on, “Ghorbanali died due to the torture he had already suffered in jail in Iran, that is why he died…as the wife of an individual and as a PMOI member I must question why they [HRW] did not ask me about him? I, my sister-in-law and his son should have been asked first.”

Ghorbanali Torabi’s sister, Masoume Torabi also resides at Camp Ashraf.  She spent three and a half years in prison in Iran and was saddened that her brother’s memory was dishonoured in this way.  She said she first became aware of these allegations when her other brother came to visit her from Iran.  Her brother had told her that his family in Iran had been informed by the regime that the PMOI had killed Ghorbanali.“It was very strange for me.  It seems there is a connection.  I told him, I was there [when Ghorbanal died] and it’s a lie.” Lars Rise, a Norwegian Member of Parliament and member of its Foreign Affairs Committee, who had carried out his own independent investigation into the allegations contained in the Report, said of his meeting with Masoume Torabi and Zahra Seraj, “Both had been shocked by the allegation.  They testified that Qorban Ali had died after a heart stroke.  All relevant medical documents were available.”

4. Golshiri refers to Alireza Askari as a source of lies about Torabi. Askari was one of the seven witnesses for Judge Bruguière to initiate the June 17 case against the PMOI. He contributed a wealth of false information to fabricate a disastrous case against the Iranian Resistance. The Iranian Resistance has exposed this case and its fabricators, including this mercenary, since 2003. If Le Monde wishes, we can provide a separate report on this matter.

Reliance on Discredited or Contested Reports

5. Citing the 2005 Human Rights Watch report and the 2009 RAND Corporation report, both of which have been contested, without mentioning rebuttals, violates journalistic neutrality and clearly indicates political motives. Even if we assume that Golshiri was unaware of the rebuttals during the year she claimed to have worked on his article, I sent Le Monde rebuttals for both cases on June 4. But when someone serves a political agenda under the guise of journalism, the first casualty is the truth.

Regarding Human Rights Watch

6. In July 2005, a delegation from the European Parliament, including Portuguese Socialist Paulo Casaca, Dr. André Brie from the German Left Party, and their legal assistant, visited Camp Ashraf. They conducted private interviews with hundreds of PMOI members. Their investigations revealed that the accusations by Human Rights Watch, including myths like “dissenting members being sent to Abu Ghraib prisons to be monitored or exchanged with Iranian prisoners,” were entirely baseless. These findings are documented in a 132-page report titled “The People’s PMOI of Iran: Mission Report,” which provides a detailed account of the delegation’s observations and conclusions. This report was published by Harmattan Publishing in Paris and is available in English, French, and Swedish, and can easily be accessed online.

7. Golshiri’s reliance on the 19-year-old May 2005 Human Rights Watch report is flawed. At the time, this report was heavily criticized and discredited by many of those familiar with Ashraf’s situation, including US military commanders who protected Ashraf from 2003 to 2009. The author of this report served for years on the advisory board of the notorious NIAC, the clerical regime’s lobby in Washington. A Washington court ruling explicitly stated that there is sufficient evidence to consider NIAC as an agent of the Iranian regime in the United States.

Additionally, the claims in this report were entirely based on directed and hasty phone interviews with 12 known Ministry of Intelligence operatives and the author cited no other sources or documents. The report’s preparation involved no contact with the PMOI nor references to the PMOI’s published documents on the matter. It was created to curry favor with and appease the so-called reformists within the Iranian regime. As previously stated by Martin Indyk, Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs, in the Los Angeles Times on October 8, 1997, the purpose of the PMOI’s terrorist designation was a goodwill gesture towards the newly elected moderate Iranian regime President Mohammad Khatami.

8. Following the HRW report’s release, Brig. Gen. David Phillips, who was responsible for protecting thousands of PMOI members at Camp Ashraf in Iraq, wrote a letter to Kenneth Roth, Executive Director of Human Rights Watch, on May 27, 2005. He strongly criticized the organization for publishing what he described as a completely inaccurate report. His letter was published in the Congressional Record, the official journal of the US Congress. He wrote:

“I am the commander of the 89th Military Police Brigade and in that role was responsible for the safety and security of Camp Ashraf from January-December 2004. Over the year long period I was apprised of numerous reports of torture, concealed weapons and people being held against their will by the leadership of the Mujahedin e-Khalq. I directed my subordinate units to investigate each allegation. In many cases I personally led inspection teams on unannounced visits to the PMOI/PMOI facilities where the alleged abuses were reported to occur. At no time over the 12-month period did we ever discover any credible evidence supporting the allegations raised in your recent report. I would not have tolerated the abuses outlined in your report, nor would I have sanctioned any acts on the part of the PMOI/PMOI to hold people against their will. Each report of torture, kidnapping and psychological depravation turned out to be unsubstantiated.”

Reference to the RAND Corporation Report

9. The article relies on the RAND Corporation report, published in July 2009, to support some of its false claims. As stated within the report itself, it was commissioned by the US Department of Defense to evade the responsibility of protecting the PMOI by the then-government and to strip them of their protected status under the Fourth Geneva Convention. This report paved the way for the US administration to transfer the protection of Ashraf to the Iranian regime’s puppet government in Iraq, leading to a clear crime against humanity. Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel lamented the decision at the Paris Symposium on April 27, 2011, with this outcry: “No more genocide, no more crimes against humanity, no more war crimes” (video clip of the speech is available).
10. The principal author of the RAND report was Jeremiah Goulka, who at the time held the title of Associate Behavioral/Social Scientist at RAND. There was nothing in his background to indicate any familiarity or expertise with the PMOI. The oversight and conclusions of this report were managed by James Dobbins, who was then the director of the International Security and Defense Policy Center at RAND. Dobbins, a representative of the Afghan opposition prior to the collapse of the Taliban and a staunch advocate of engagement with the Iranian regime, had long been in close contact with the Campaign for a New U.S. Policy on Iran (CNAPI), consistently promoting the lifting of sanctions against the Iranian regime and advocating for engagement between the US Congress and government with Tehran.

11. In January 2010, Executive Action, a research, counter-terrorism, and intelligence institute in Washington, published a 133-page report exposing the lies, fabrications, and accusations contained in the RAND report. Neil Livingston, the president of Executive Action, explained that the purpose of the RAND report was to challenge the applicability of the Fourth Geneva Convention to the PMOI in Ashraf. The US government needed this to shirk its obligations to protect Ashraf. Therefore, a completely false report was necessary to deny the legal status of “protected persons under the Fourth Geneva Convention” so they could evade responsibility and transfer it to the Iraqi government, which was under Tehran’s influence. The deceitful RAND report, although cleverly disguised, was very clumsy and purely served this purpose. The result was the deaths of 177 PMOI members during those years (27 due to a medical blockade and the rest by bullets and rockets), 1500 injuries, including hundreds of amputations, and nine hostages whose fate remains unknown.

Hostility Towards the PMOI and Whitewashing the Regime’s Bloody Hands

12. In the role of an overseer of a captive people’s resistance, Golshiri writes: “Operation Eternal Light had dramatic consequences. First in Iran, where thousands of political prisoners—some unrelated to the PMOI—were executed.” This is a blatant lie, refuted by Ayatollah Montazeri, Khomeini’s deposed designated successor, Amnesty International, and many other credible human rights sources. This boundless audacity is a repetition of the regime’s justification for the greatest crime against humanity since World War II, whose perpetrators have remained unpunished.

Baroness Betty Boothroyd, the former Speaker of the UK House of Commons, said at an Iranian Resistance conference on January 29, 2013:

“Surely, you, like me, remember 1988, when Khomeini was forced to accept a ceasefire in the Iran-Iraq war. That summer, thousands of prisoners, innocent men, women, and children were massacred in a few weeks based on Khomeini’s fatwa. After World War II, this was the greatest crime against humanity that remains unpunished. But as Lord Carlile said, the day will come when we witness the restoration of justice” (the film is available).

14. This same lie was repeated by Golshiri on May 3, 2022, during the trial of the executioner Hamid Nouri in Sweden, who was responsible for the murder of many PMOI prisoners and other activists. My colleague Behzad Naziri, a former political prisoner tortured in Khomeini’s prisons (1982-1985) and a former journalist with Agence France-Presse in Tehran, responded in a letter on May 5, 2022: “Amnesty International’s December 2018 report states that the mass executions, i.e., the extermination of political prisoners affiliated with the PMOI, were a planned operation years before the summer of 1988 and not a reaction by the ruling regime to the PMOI’s National Liberation Army (NLA) incursion into Iran. Prisoners had long been categorized for such a purge.” The Swedish court’s ruling and the testimony of dozens of political prisoners who survived the 1988 massacre, whether PMOI supporters or Marxist prisoners, all indicated that these executions had been planned long in advance.
15. In the audio recording of the meeting of the Death Committee (including deceased regime President Ebrahim Raisi and current presidential candidate Mostafa Pourmohammadi), it is explicitly stated:

Mr. Pourmohammadi, it is true, is now a responsible official in intelligence. But before he is an intelligence official, he is a mullah. His mullah side overshadows his intelligence side. In my opinion, this (the mass executions) is something that intelligence was after, and had invested in, and Ahmad Agha, Mr. Khomeini’s son, has been saying for three or four years, “The PMOI, even the ones who read their newspaper, to the ones who read their magazine, to the ones who read their statements – all of them must be executed.”

15. Amnesty International reports that former prisoners in Evin and Gohardasht recall a pattern of threats, interrogations, and a process of classifying and transferring prisoners between Evin, Gohardasht, and other prisons months before July 1988, well before the PMOI’s armed attack on July 25, 1988. In retrospect, many believe this was a prelude to the mass executions. Amnesty International’s investigations show similar patterns in other regional prisons. Survivors reported facing unexpected interrogations, both verbal and via lengthy written questionnaires, focused on their political views and continued allegiance to opposition groups between late 1987 and mid-July 1988, according to Amnesty. They also reported that during this period, prison officials and interrogators threatened them with future “dealings” and indicated that the prisons would be “cleansed.” The repetition of the falsehood that the 1988 massacre was a result of the Eternal Light operation serves, intentionally or not, as propaganda against the PMOI and fuels the regime’s killing machine. It’s also untrue to claim that Golshiri was unaware of such reports.

Golshiri’s Hostility Toward the PMOI

16. The issue of the political prisoner massacre is not the only example of Golshiri’s intense hostility towards the PMOI. She has long supported the so-called reformist mullahs and clerics in articles written from Iran for Le Monde. On January 2, 2018, during confrontations between protesters and oppressive forces, and as many PMOI activists were being killed or imprisoned, she quoted an anonymous source as saying: “I regret voting for Rouhani. I have no hope for the future and will continue to protest. My only regret is that it makes the PMOI [a banned opposition group] and the exiled Shah’s son [overthrown by the 1979 revolution], whom I detest, happy.” In essence, Golshiri’s political twin explains that the problem is not the regime, but the PMOI, who have resisted religious despotism for forty years, while at the same time equating them with the heirs of the monarchical dictatorship.

During the 2022 uprising, as Iranians marched in impressive solidarity, Golshiri wrote on October 24, 2022: “This opposition group is hated by many Iranians who have not forgiven them for attacking Iran from Iraq at the end of the war between the two countries (1980-1988).”

17. On October 28, 2022, the National Council of Resistance of Iran responded to Le Monde: “It is strange that the author uses an abbreviation for the PMOI that is exclusively used by the religious dictatorship of the mullahs and their partners: MKO. We explained in response to this ridiculous argument: ‘The PMOI’s operation in 1988 aimed at overthrowing the mullahs’ regime, a goal all Iranians desire today. How can Ms. Golshiri believe that the Iranian people would condemn the PMOI for striving to overthrow a dictatorship that everyone now wants gone? Those who do not forgive the PMOI for their steadfastness are those in the regime’s camp and their torturers.” Of course, Le Monde ignored this response.

Obfuscating Another Massacre

18. Regarding the September 1, 2013 massacre of Ashraf residents, the article states: “A violent event leads to a massacre. UN investigators counted fifty-two bodies, mostly executed. The Iraqi government, blamed for the bloodshed, denied any responsibility.” On that day, the regime’s Qods Force agents and Nouri al-Maliki’s government commandos, known for their ties to Tehran, attacked Camp Ashraf in broad daylight, killing fifty-two of the one hundred defenseless PMOI members stationed there to protect property valued at $550 million under a quadrilateral agreement among the PMOI, the US, the UN, and Iraq. Tehran’s regime officials and government media repeatedly stated that this crime against humanity was carried out by the Iraqi government at the mullahs’ request. For instance, the state-affiliated Mehr News Agency wrote on that day: “Mahmoud Alavi, the Minister of Intelligence of the eleventh government, responded to a question about the killing of PMOI members in Ashraf camp, saying that there had long been issues between the Iraqi government and those occupying the camp, leading to the possibility that Iraq had to confront the terrorists in the camp.” Interestingly, Mehr News removed this report hours later.

19. On January 28, 2022, Fatemeh Irlou, daughter of Brigadier General Hassan Irlou, the former regime ambassador to Yemen, said at her father’s fortieth-day memorial: “Many of my father’s jihadist actions were not disclosed for security reasons, and even we were unaware of them. We learned after his martyrdom that he was one of the key forces in the Ashraf evacuation operation.”

20. Taher Boumedra, the UN Human Rights official in Iraq and directly responsible for the Ashraf file, has repeatedly testified about the Iraqi government’s long-standing plan for this massacre. Another absurd claim in the article is that the PMOI supposedly prevented Liberty residents from contacting UNHCR officers. This is merely deceit and exploiting readers’ unawareness. How could the PMOI prevent anyone from approaching the UNHCR and UNAMI vehicles, which were never more than ten meters away? Numerous UNHCR statements have thanked the PMOI for their cooperation in relocating residents out of Iraq.

21. The Le Monde article repeatedly references an interview with Amir Yaghmaei on a television network called Mihan TV, widely detested by Iranians and mockingly referred to as “the no-good TV.” Its operator, Saeed Behbahani, a mercenary thug, has no mission other than to slander the PMOI and Iranian Resistance. He frequently featured a man named Heshmat Raisi, who, after being exposed as a regime affiliate, claimed absurdly: “I cut ties with him [Raisi] once I realized his information came from the regime and the IRGC” (April 23, 2019). In August 2021, Behbahani attempted to disrupt the first session of the executioner Hamid Nouri’s trial by making an obscene gesture in front of the martyr families gathered outside the court, only to be countered effectively by the assembled Iranians.
22. In reality, the PMOI, which I proudly belong to, is a democratic movement. It believes in a tolerant Islam and the separation of religion from the state. It upholds democracy, the legitimacy of the ballot box, and adheres to individual and social freedoms as outlined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It opposes torture and the death penalty, as explicitly stated in Maryam Rajavi’s 10-point plan. The PMOI does not seek power at any cost but aims to establish freedom and justice, a goal for which it has paid dearly, with over 100,000 martyrs and hundreds of thousands of tortured prisoners. Thirty thousand were hanged in a few weeks in 1988 for refusing to renounce their beliefs. Thousands of war prisoners captured by the PMOI and the National Liberation Army of Iran were quickly released under Red Cross supervision without harm, even though some had killed PMOI members.
23. The members of this movement have sacrificed everything to achieve their goals, a concept incomprehensible to those driven by petty interests. Lucie and Raymond Aubrac, Abbé Pierre, and Danielle Mitterrand supported this resistance because they understood that a volunteer resistance member cannot be coerced. The PMOI consists of multiple generations of Iran’s intellectual elite, whom neither the regime, Le Monde, nor any power can force to act against their noble humanitarian ideals.
24. It is laughable that fools talk of forced divorces. Can anyone forcibly divorce you? Anyone repeating such nonsense furthers the mullah regime’s objectives. Did you expect us to let our children be killed during the brutal bombings in Iraq in 1991? We don’t need your concern for our children. Members of the French resistance, like Olga Bancic, or people like Abbé Pierre and Danielle Mitterrand, understood and supported our cause. The deepest affections between parents and children exist within the PMOI ranks.
25. The PMOI is the only movement in the world that has chosen female leadership to combat the misogynistic mullahs’ regime. What seemed a dream and unimaginable, we have realized in our ranks today. Women among the PMOI are not only free from discrimination but hold positions of hegemony, and we men take pride in this. We aim for a free, independent, prosperous, and peaceful country, and we are willing to pay any price for it. It is natural that many vested interests are displeased by this, but for us, the only measure is the joy of the Iranian people.

Afshin Alavi

PMOI Spokesperson in France