Why get involved with Link for Freedom?
Thank you for your interest in matters Iran and Link for Freedom.
You may be reading this because you have expressed some concern about what is happening in Iran, have been curious about Link for Freedom, and perhaps have wondered if there was anything that you could do.
The first thing to say is that Iran is run by a cruel and dangerous theocracy who steal the country’s oil and gas income for their own personal enrichment, earning breath-taking fortunes thereby over the last 40+ years, and squirrel much of it away in prime value properties and secret offshore accounts all over the world.
They maintain their grip on power by oppressing the Iranian citizens at home. Abroad they run a large and chillingly successful hostage-taking programme (think about Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe), and export terrorism, conflict, and population flight to broaden their control. You may have read about their meddling in Syria, Iraq, and Lebanon. They seek to build a nuclear bomb with which to threaten other countries and make their reign permanent. If the USA were to unravel their sanctions, the regime could achieve this goal in a matter of months.
Iran’s people want nothing more than to rid themselves of these dictators, who have blighted their lives and futures for over four decades now. Their oppressive reign will not go on forever; and the sooner the regime is gone the better for peace in the rest of the world.
We are a group called Link for Freedom (LFF) who are doing what we can to support the Iranian people in their struggle for a fair, democratically-elected and secular form of government in their country; one that works to help the people build a good future and supports nuclear-free international norms of behaviour.
We do this in a peaceful and purposeful way, by seeking to persuade our Government, trade unions, business organisations, and world bodies to challenge and economically sanction the Iranian regime.
Are we being successful? Yes, in partnership with Iranian opposition groups and respected parliamentarians in the UK and Europe, we have contributed to a number of achievements:
* The relocation of around 2,700 persecuted Iranian opposition members from a prison camp in Iraq to safety in Albania (around 140 were killed and 1,000 injured by the regime in Ashraf and Liberty before supporters could get them moved). Before the residents escaped, we highlighted their plight to the media, government and international authorities.
* A change to UN policy over Iran and drugs, which helped to reduce the number of hangings per year carried out by the regime for so-called 'drug-related crimes’.
* Discouraging business attempts to initiate trade between the UK and Iran; it remains low.
* A huge result at the IMF, when we and other Iranian opposition organisations successfully persuaded the International Monetary Fund to refuse the regime’s $5bn loan request in April 2020.
* Uncovering and outing an Iranian regime spy in the Labour Party, rendering his value useless to Tehran.
* Educating new groups of UK Members of Parliament to replace retiring MPs to keep the Opposition case alive. For example, rare is the time we get less than 120 cross party MPs signing an Early Day Motion.
Would you be interested in joining Link for Freedom to help our civil society amplify our voice and make the hoped-for change happen sooner rather than later?
You can join here:
Or you may have many questions to ask; we have tried to answer the more common ones below. We would be delighted to talk with you and answer any further questions. We look forward to making a date with you to do so.
Will you join us?
Yours sincerely
Carolyn Beckingham
Liz Carter
Chris Clark
Zohreh Moalemi
Martyn Storey
Rosalind Topping
and Lff members and campaigners
Frequently asked questions
Q1. Who is the Iranian Opposition?
A1. The National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), formed in 1971, is a body 500 groups and individuals making up the parliament in exile. The People’s Mojahedin Organisation of Iran (PMOI/MEK), formed in 1965 against the authoritarian Shah is its largest constituent member. Like all the other groups, it only has one vote in the NCRI. The NCRI is led by President-Elect Maryam Rajavi. They have a Ten Point Plan for Future Iran, which you can read here:
https://www.ncr-iran.org/en/news/maryam-rajavi/maryam-rajavi-s-ten-point-plan-for-future-iran/
The NCRI is privately supported by millions in Iran (for whom membership carries a death sentence) and visibly supported worldwide by hundreds of thousands of Iranians and their non-Iranian friends such as LFF.
The opposition maintain Iran's cultural and musical arts (which are banned in Iran by the regime) and regularly, graciously and generously host well-attended events featuring Persian cuisine and music. For example, recently, the NCRI held an online conference that had 30,000 Zoom locations inside and outside Iran sign up (and we don’t know how many viewers were behind each connection). A striking speech was given by Ambassador Lincoln Bloomfield detailing the regime activities since 1979, see link at:
Q2. Is Maryam Rajavi head of the PMOI or NCRI?
A2. Maryam Rajavi is the National Council of Resistance of Iran’s (NCRI’s) President-elect for the transitional arrangement to a democratic government. The NCRI is a coalition of 500 Iranian opposition groups and individuals, committed to a democratic, secular and non-nuclear republic in Iran. It is independent and entirely self-funded; half of its members and most of its leaders are women.
The NCRI has an agreed 10-point plan for democracy, which in terms of international harmony and law, defangs the Iranian regime’s nuclear threat, proxy conflicts, and terrorist activities. Creating a fair, rules-based democratic society will allow Iran to offer excellent trading opportunities, as its infrastructure and businesses rid themselves of endemic corruption.
Q3. The Iranian regime and other people I read about claim that the MeK is a cult.
A3. After murdering 30,000 prisoners in 1988, and hanging about 600 people per year ever since (some publicly from cranes), they have exported conflict, shot dead 1,500 protesters demonstrating against a fuel price hike in November 2019, are trying to build a nuclear bomb, and run a very successful hostage-taking programme, of which Nazanin Zaghari Ratcliffe is sadly only one example.
The Iranian regime and its supporters desperately try to discredit the Iranian Opposition at every opportunity because if the Opposition get in, they are doomed. So why would they ever say anything nice about the MeK?
(For more ad hominem regime attacks of this type see: http://www.lfffoundation.com/contents/subnav/sub_id/7)
Let us introduce an Iranian regime former agent, a Hadi Sani-Khani who resigned from the MeK in Albania in 2016 because ‘he could not continue the struggle’. The regime’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) swept him up within four days, with a promise of a return to Iran, then forced him to collaborate with the regime’s Albanian and UK agents, all known to us. He was specifically ordered to gather information about Mrs. Maryam Rajavi and senior PMOI officials. The regime wanted to know where the officials stayed and how many bodyguards they had. Later, the regime directed him to write articles against the PMOI, providing him with regime talking points around ‘torture of dissidents, lack of freedom in PMOI relations, brainwashing’ and four other commonly repeated propaganda tropes.
But perhaps we have said enough. Instead, might we invite you to be the jury, and to ask yourself whether one or other side might be putting you at risk of making an error? Re-examine your evidence for both sides of the argument, particularly the quality and variety of the sources you read, and note the factchecks and verifications taken by the sources to ensure authenticity.
Q4. Why does the regime still persist in this defamation if it is clearly untrue?
A4. Defamation sadly works. The correct but laborious approach is to debunk each one using the Queensland University researched Fact/Myth/Fallacy formula, and let the journalist know if they are dealing with untrue content, expect to be challenged. There is however some evidence that the media is getting on top of this particularly after the case of the regime terrorist Assadollah Assadi was jailed for 20 years for trying to bomb the MeK rally at Villepoint France in June 2018. (A point insufficiently covered is Assadi carried the unstable TATP bomb from Tehran on an Austrian Airlines plane.). Prior to this was a court case against Der Spiegel when they unwittingly employed a regime propagandist, and faced jail time and heavy fines as a result. It was found the ex-“journalist” Claas Relotius had committed journalistic fraud ‘on a grand scale’.
The regime propaganda did not end well in Germany with this court case:
Hamburg Court Prohibits Der Spiegel From Spreading False Allegations Against Iranian PMOI / MEK
https://www.ncr-iran.org/en/ncri-statements/iran-resistance/25987-hamburg-court-prohibits-der-spiegel-from-spreading-false-allegations-against-iranian-pmoi-mek
Q5. Why are the world's media persisting in publishing defamatory articles?
A5. This appears to stem from the close and active decades-long interactions of employment opportunities, lobbying, and frequency of engagement of fossil fuel companies based in countries in heavy need of oil and gas, between a triangle of their governments on one hand, and Middle East tyrants on the other, with dependable control over oil wells.
The result is an observable passive reluctance of editors in countries with major oil interests, with, we believe, but cannot evidence, pressure from their Foreign Offices, to publish much that would upset this valuable applecart, whilst other editors in countries less concerned with oil do present the right stories. There is copious evidence of the latter.
It is definitely known that in the UK:
- oil and gas supply policies are written around national security, not trade,
- there is enough evidence to show BP had a hand in writing the Government policy on national security. This February 2021 article by Declassified, ‘Revealed: Dozens of UK former senior officials profit from fossil fuel corporations, rubber-stamped by Whitehall committee’, shows the detail and extent of the connections inside this unholy triangle:
https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2021-02-04-revealed-dozens-of-uk-former-senior-officials-profit-from-fossil-fuel-corporations-rubber-stamped-by-whitehall-committee/
The Guardian has reported similarly citing one to two oil company/Government meetings per week.
It was noticeable that the rising renewable energy agenda, and BP/Shell’s reduced 2020 dividend, has diminished the oil company influence somewhat, and there has been a limited, but not zero level of improvement in MeK/NCRI coverage from 2016.
The regime has a long-term programme of recruiting fake journalists such as Claas Relotius, (fired), US lobbyist Kaveh Lotfolah Afrasiabi (facing jail), and the UK’s Arron Merat, employed at the Guardian during Seamus Milne’s tenure, who then wound up at Right Hon Diane Abbotts office as a researcher. With his role exposed by us, he has since left Parliament and presently disappeared. Seamus Milne, long term with The Guardian until 2017, has a long history of defending the regime through Stop The War protests. A Guardian journalist known to us and whilst Milne was in tenure, stated an intense Guardian interest in the MeK complete with a collateral pack, designed to convince anyone willing to listen, that the that MeK is a highly undesirable organisation.
When Milne left (his colleagues don’t want him back), The Guardian’s position drifted back to an extent, though not without an outrageous deeply criticised article written by protégé Arron Merat whilst working for Diane Abbott.
In 2021, during coverage of JCPoA discussions, an LFF member, Chris Clark, captured evidence of The Independent striking out an unambiguously researched comment on three occasions in a story about Nazanin Ratcliffe after short periods of time, whilst comments, some critical of Nazanin, were left to stand. Their view was this may have been Foreign Office or Iranian Embassy pressure, or even both, and that the regime would have certainly been monitoring the comments page in real time.
Finally, Iranian Opposition and LFF have a reasonable number of first-person accounts of protestors at Iranian Opposition protests since 2009 talking to British journalists attending them writing for mainstream media and TV. When they didn’t appear, the reason, when found, was ‘the editor spiked it’ or ‘the editor said we can’t run this stuff’’, curiously without elaboration.
We have yet to find a better explanation for the appearance of defamatory articles.
Q6. Will I be in any danger by supporting Link for Freedom and the Iranian opposition?
A4. As long as you never, ever go to Iran whilst the regime remains, and whilst one can never say never, the probability of a mishap caused by the normal risks of everyday life is more likely.
Q7. Can I really make a difference?
A7. Yes! Absolutely. You will join an intelligent and informed civil society whose activities carry weight, has changed opinion at the UN and has the engagement of many parliamentarians.
Q8. What would I be asked to do?
A8. More invited than asked! Sometimes we’ll invite you to write a letter for Government ministers via your MP, at other times we’ll ask if you can send one of ours in your name. On other occasions there might be a protest in London or a meeting in Albania, Brussels or Paris - this has all happened to several members. We will consult and ask for your views on how to take a campaign forward and keep you up to date with news about what is happening in the country.
Q9. What is it like to be a member of LFF?
A9. LFF members are intelligent, concerned about the world and fairness in society, and want to make a difference. We are friendly and community-minded, come from a variety of backgrounds, all united in a wish to see the Iranian regime gone. Whilst there are sometimes dark issues we have to deal with, our twice-yearly meetings combine fun, information sharing, and positivity, with an ever-present sense of the purpose at hand.
Get in contact with us to find out more at admin@ lfffoundation.com
Q10. What does it cost to join?
A10. We ask for £50 per year for membership. There is a discount for students and younger people. Occasionally we reach out for donations if we need to do something that we don’t otherwise have the cash to do.
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THE LAST WORD: US Ambassador Lincoln P. Bloomfield
Reviled for so long, the MEK's members and supporters will continue to endure unflattering descriptions that utterly fail to grasp their central motivation and source of self-respect. Those who make the effort to better understand the MEK will find a community of survivors whose collective quest is based not on keeping dark secrets but on exposing the past - a quietly proud society of educated and capable men and women bound not by cult-like dependency but by unity of purpose in the face of unspeakable loss and adversity.
(Ambassador Lincoln P. Bloomfield is a former Assistant Secretary of State for Political-Military Affairs in the George W. Bush Administration, and as Dan Quayle's Assistant for National Security Affairs.)
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