In a strongly worded letter dated June 5, 2024, Dr. Alejo Vidal-Quadras, former Vice-President of the European Parliament, criticized Le Monde for perpetuating a demonization campaign against the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI).
The letter addresses Le Monde’s Director of Publication, Jérôme Fenoglio, and Editorial Director, Caroline Monnot, condemning journalist Ghazal Golshiri’s approach to a hit piece that clearly mischaracterizes the Iranian people’s struggle against the clerical dictatorship in Iran.
Dr. Vidal-Quadras, a long-time supporter of the PMOI and the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), rebuked Golshiri’s questions as prejudiced and influenced by the Iranian regime. Citing his extensive experience with the PMOI and personal risks he has faced, including a terrorist attack in Madrid allegedly orchestrated by Tehran, the former EU Parliament VP urges Le Monde to reconsider its stance and avoid becoming an instrument of Iranian state propaganda.
The letter of Dr. Alejo Vidal-Quadras to le Monde follows:
5 June 2024,
Mr. Jérôme Fenoglio, Director of Publication, Le Monde
Ms. Caroline Monnot, Editorial Director, Le Monde
Mr Afchine Alavi, a spokesman for the PMOI, sent your journalist Ms Ghazal Golshiri’s e-mail for my information on 3 June. In view of the context of the case I have described below, I thought it necessary to send you the following note so that you do not allow Le Monde to become the playground of the religious fascism ruling Iran against your will.
My name is Aléjo Vidal-Quadras, and I’m a professor of atomic physics.
As well as being a member of the Spanish legislature for many years, I was Vice-President of the European Parliament for 15 years, and during that time I opposed the religious dictatorship in power in Iran and supported its opponents, in particular the PMOI and the NCRI. Despite the great risks, in 2008 I went to the PMOI HQ in Camp Ashraf in Iraq and met hundreds of them up close. Because of this story, in November 2023, I was the target of a terrorist attack organized by the Iranian regime in Madrid; I was seriously injured and miraculously saved from death.
I have read Mrs. Golshiri’s questions on several occasions over the last 50 years, when I have met and interviewed hundreds of journalists, many of whom fervent opponents of my political line were, and I have never come across such an approach. I am sure that if you read these questions carefully, you will agree with me that they are not a series of questions, but prejudices and accusations cloaked in the clothing of questions, the aim of which is never to establish the truth.
Fact-Checking Le Monde: #MEK’s Official Rebuttalhttps://t.co/oAuWLNIywn
— NCRI-FAC (@iran_policy) June 24, 2024
I am well aware of all the accusations that Mrs. Golshiri has made against the PMOI; I have heard them on several occasions from the regime’s ambassadors and lobbies, particularly over the last two decades in Brussels. Neither my scientific nor my political position would allow me to simply ignore such accusations, so I studied them and was sure of their invalidity. Ironically, one of the reasons I support this resistance is the demonization campaign that the Iranian regime has launched against it, costing hundreds of millions of dollars. A campaign in which your journalist has unfortunately participated, knowingly or unknowingly.
I know the leaders and thousands of members of this resistance over the last 25 years, from Ashraf in Iraq to Ashraf in Albania to Paris and all the way to Washington, I have lived with them continuously and at close quarters; they are educated and determined women, men, and young people. Therefore, Mrs. Golshiri’s accusations against members of this movement are as disgusting as accusing the French resistance during the Second World War of terrorism and accusing General de Gaulle and other resistance leaders of using force against members of that resistance. The PMOI would never have been able to survive against this regime for 45 years and develop further every day without the popular support and deeply democratic relations that I witnessed.
My aim here is not to respond to the slander that your journalist has raised under the heading of a question, because responding to the interrogation under the guise of a press interview is both a betrayal of the truth and a betrayal of journalistic neutrality, and there is no question of her being able to profit from it, because in the end she will write what she was supposed to write from the start, and otherwise she could easily have found the answer to these accusations from various sources, including the websites of the PMOI and the NCRI along with numerous documents.
What further validates my assessment is Ms. Golshiri’s 48-hour ultimatum. If the report on the PMOI is to be published, the first person who should have been interviewed was the Mojahedin themselves, but your journalist took weeks and months and perhaps even longer to interview sources, most of whom are undoubtedly linked to the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence. It is clear that the purpose of publishing such an article against the resistance follows political objectives at a time when the PMOI is widely welcomed inside and outside the country.
I would like to draw your attention to the broad support for the PMOI in the US Congress, the French National Assembly, the Italian Parliament, the British House of Commons, and from a large number of political leaders around the world. You can be sure that they, who have been running their country’s political affairs for many years, are aware of the accusations that Mrs Golshiri has put on paper, without being novices who can be deceived by the PMOI.
Whatever Ms Golshiri’s intention, the article she wishes to write is in fact a complement to the court in absentia that the Iranian regime has been organizing for a year against the PMOI inside the country, to prepare the ground for acts of terrorism. In this connection, I would draw your attention to the announcement by the International Committee Seeking Justice (ISJ).
Mr Director, Madam Director,
I hope that you are following this case personally and that you will not let Le Monde fall into the trap of demonizing the Iranian regime. I have always been a lover of France and I received the Légion d’honneur from the President of the French Republic. I therefore have a twofold interest in ensuring that Le Monde does not place itself, beyond your control, against the Iranian people and their resistance movement. In this respect, I am at your disposal for any help I can provide.
Alejo Vidal Quadras