{"id":225539,"date":"2020-09-09T16:37:30","date_gmt":"2020-09-09T15:37:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ncr-iran.org\/en\/?p=225539"},"modified":"2023-01-25T18:14:38","modified_gmt":"2023-01-25T17:14:38","slug":"irans-disinformation-against-mek-may-do-more-damage-than-its-repression-and-terrorism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ncr-iran.org\/en\/news\/irans-disinformation-against-mek-may-do-more-damage-than-its-repression-and-terrorism\/","title":{"rendered":"Iran\u2019s Disinformation Against MEK May Do More Damage Than Its Repression and Terrorism"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"fake-breaking-news-1-1\"<\/p>\n

The Iranian regime is globally infamous for its international terrorism. Its history of domestic repression is also well-recognized, albeit with significantly less detail than its history of attacks on Arab and Western assets. Meanwhile, there seems to be hardly any attention at all being given to the Iranian regime\u2019s parallel strategy of sowing disinformation about its domestic situation in order to influence policy decisions among foreign adversaries.
\nHowever, some Western lawmakers and foreign policy experts have been making an effort to correct this oversight. Many of them appeared in a videoconference that was organized in July by the National Council of Resistance of Iran<\/a> (NCRI<\/a>). While not strictly focused on the regime\u2019s strategy of disinformation, that event went to great lengths to counter the regime\u2019s official narratives regarding the domestic opposition groups that make up the NCRI coalition, particularly the People\u2019s Mojahedin Organization of Iran<\/a> (PMOI-MEK<\/a>). Supporters endorsed the view that this group presents a meaningful threat to the regime\u2019s hold on power, and they also sought to explain why their own governments have not yet done the same.
\nAmong these speakers was US ambassador and former Assistant Secretary of State Lincoln Bloomfield<\/a>. His remarks largely focused on the findings of an investigation that he made into the MEK<\/a> in the year before it was finally freed of its false inclusion in the State Department\u2019s list of terrorist groups. Bloomfield noted that his findings eventually led to him co-authoring a book on the history of the MEK, with the intention of correcting many falsehoods that had spread throughout the world with their roots in Iranian state propaganda.
\n\u201cIncredibly,\u201d he told the NCRI event, \u201cseven years after this book came out \u2013 in 2020 \u2013 Western media and think tank reports still repeat the allegations that were entirely debunked, officially, by court challenges in France, the European Union, the UK and the United States.\u201d Bloomfield and others then went on to explain that this persistent disinformation is generally the result of ongoing efforts by the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence and Security to infiltrate Western media with its talking points, often by having government operatives pose as independent experts or even former members of the MEK.<\/p>\n

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Iran's disinformation campaign against the MEK via 'friendly journalists'<\/div><\/div>
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