How MSM “sources” turned out to be Iranian regime agents
On July 15, Albanian media reported 20 Iranians have been under investigation by local authorities and anti-terrorism units on suspicion of espionage, based on orders of Albania’s Special Courts against Corruption and Organized Crime (SPAK—GJKKO). “At the request of the Special Prosecutor's Office, inspections are being carried out in their apartments,” according to one report. The investigation into these individuals has continued for four years, according to the BalkanWeb website.
These former members of the Iranian opposition MEK in Albania “are now suspected of carrying out prohibited activities within the territory of our country on behalf of the Revolutionary Guard (IRGC) of Iran and the secret services there,” the report adds. Albanian authorities were granted search warrants to inspect four offices, eight apartments, and several other buildings where the suspects had stayed and carried out their dubious activities. Authorities also confiscated all their communication devices, including mobile phones and computers.
Hassan Heyrani is identified by the abovementioned reports as the ringleader of this group of IRGC spies. It is worth noting that Heyrani has been the source of several controversial hit pieces published by the mainstream media in the past few years.
An Albanian court ruling indicates that these individuals face charges of receiving money from Iran’s secret services and the IRGC Quds Force to obtain information about the Iranian opposition MEK stationed in Albania. Local authorities conducted their investigations with the objective of preventing “any type of possible terrorist attacks,” the court ruling adds.
“On July 12, control was exercised in the offices of an association run by a former MEK member, named Hassan Heyrani, and in 11 apartments distributed in Tirana that are used by these Iranian citizens, and in two cars,” according to the SOT website in Albania. “These former MEK members are suspected of acting as a terrorist cell in the country and providing information about the mujahedin sheltered in Manez,” the report adds.
Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) had established a front association by the name of “Asila,” according to a statement issued by the Iranian opposition coalition NCRI’s Anti-Terrorism and Security Commission. This three-story facility, registered under Heyrani’s name, along with his apartment and vehicle were also specifically investigated by Albanian authorities. The top floor of the Asila facility was used by Heyrani and others in his group “to hold meetings, plan their activities, and brief the agents,” according to the NCRI statement.
“By order of the GjKKO, several inspections were also carried out of apartments and offices where these people stayed and performed various activities. It is suspected that they were infiltrated by the RAIS regime in Iran,” according to another Albanian media report.
On July 31, the NCRI Anti-Terrorism and Security Commission issued another statement indicating “four terrorists” linked to Iran’s MOIS and the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) Quds Force were expelled from Albania after being dispatched by the Iranian regime to the Balkan country from Germany and the UK “for a terrorist mission.”
These individuals are described by Amb. Ken Blackwell as “so-called 'former members' of the MEK who were actually on the payroll of the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) or the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).”
Following these latest developments, it becomes all the more necessary to review the western media outlets that cited Heyrani in a chorus-style manner as their source in controversial hit pieces. It is only logical to demand these outlets take down their biased pieces considering the fact that Heyrani is obviously an agent of the Iranian regime and anything but a credible source.
July 9, 2019—The Intercept
“Heshmat Alavi is a persona run by a team of people from the political wing of the MEK,” said Hassan Heyrani, a high-ranking defector from the MEK who said he had direct knowledge of the operation. “They write whatever they are directed by their commanders and use this name to place articles in the press. This is not and has never been a real person.”
Heyrani said the fake persona has been managed by a team of MEK operatives in Albania, where the group has one of its bases, and is used to spread its message online.
For those interested, this is my response debunking The Intercept’s hit piece. And to know more, read this piece by Glenn Greenwald, a co-founder of The Intercept explaining how “the same trends of repression, censorship and ideological homogeneity plaguing the national press generally have engulfed the media outlet I co-founded, culminating in censorship of my own articles.”
December 11, 2019 – Middle East Eye
Heyrani, the former MEK member who defected, said he believes the main reason Albania has been so supportive of the MEK is a result of the close relations between Albania and the US.
“Albania is under American control and also MEK is supported by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC)," he said.
Heyrani said that recently his image was splashed on Albanian television where he was described as an enemy of the state. “They have no evidence,” he said.
The investigations conducted by the Special Courts against Corruption and Organized Crime in Albania has shed light on why Heyrani was described as an “enemy of the state” in Albanian TV.
Alongside his assertions of being a senior member of the MEK’s political establishment, Heyrani also claims to have deep knowledge about the MEK’s finances. Of course, he conveniently parrots Iran’s talking points of the MEK receiving money from Saudi Arabia, without providing any evidence to back his claims.
April 27, 2019 – Foreign Policy
… while the donations to Vox technically came from followers of the MEK rather than directly from the organization, the distinction between “members,” as in those actually part of the MEK, and so-called “supporters” outside the organization itself is false, claimed Heyrani. “Those in other countries are also members. They have daily schedules. There are circles led by MEK offices in each country, and they act upon their orders,” he said.
Heyrani, the recent MEK defector, also handled parts of the organization’s finances in Iraq and was blunt when asked about the current financial backing of the MEK: “Saudi Arabia. Without a doubt,” he said.
It is worth noting that the Foreign Policy hit piece also quotes Massoud Khodabandeh, a well-known Iranian regime agent. The Library of Congress issued a Pentagon-requested report in December 2012 describing Khodabandeh and his wife, Ann Singleton, as recruited by the Iranian regime intelligence (MOIS).
January 7, 2019 – The Independent
Heyrani, the 38-year-old former member of the MEK’s political section, says he suspected the group’s sudden riches were coming from Saudi Arabia’s coffers, through a channel organised by Saudi prince Turki al-Faisal, who over the summer, attended an MEK rally in France, along with Giuliani, Trump’s lawyer, and Bolton, the White House National Security Adviser.
Heyrani says he had no evidence of Saudi support for the group other than conversations with members of its political leadership. “I said, ‘What a big camp, with so many buildings,’” Heyrani recalls. “He said, ‘Finally, Faisal laid the golden egg.’”
Heyrani runs the same rant about the MEK’s financial resources and acknowledges having no evidence other than claimed “conversations” that anyone can lie about and can be deemed as hearsay in a court of law. Furthermore, the author of the Independent hit piece is Borzou Daragahi, another known Iran apologist who loves to run the regime’s talking points.
September 2, 2020 – The American Conservative
“Amir Basiri and Heshmat Alavi are two fake accounts,” Hassan Heyrani, an MEK defector told TAC. “At Camp Liberty, near the BIAP airport in Iraq, I was in the political unit of the organization with some of the persons who grew up in America and Canada. We worked as a team to write the articles analyzing the Iranian regime. The MEK put them in The Washington Post and all the newspapers in Western countries.”
November 9, 2018 – The Guardian
According to one recent MEK defector, Hassan Heyrani, the group’s main work in Albania involves fighting online in an escalating information war between Iran and its rivals. Heyrani, who left the MEK last summer, says that he worked in a “troll farm” of 1,000 people inside the Albanian camp, posting pro-Rajavi and anti-Iran propaganda in English, Farsi and Arabic on Facebook, Twitter, Telegram and newspaper comment sections.
It is worth noting that this Guardian piece is written by Aaron Merat who is known as an Iran apologist with fond views about the mullahs’ regime in Tehran.
Sep 6, 2018 – Channel 4 News - UK
As a trusted member, Hassan was a keyboard warrior, while others were barred from any contact with the outside world. He says his job was supposed to fake comments on Twitter, exaggerating Iranian people's support for Maryam Rajavi and insisting that the MEK is behind current protests in Iran.
Considering the latest developments in Albania and local authorities taking action against an Iranian regime cell on their soil, it is time for the mainstream media to retract their biased and baseless stories. The MSM should also acknowledge the media scam run by Tehran through their slush funds, so-called journalists and producers with pro-Tehran viewpoints, and apologize for using a ring of Iranian regime agents as their “sources.”
For example, in March 2019, a German court ordered weekly magazine Der Spiegel to pull passages from an article written by Luisa Hommerich that raised false against the Iranian opposition PMOI/MEK, saying the article didn’t support it claims. The Hamburg state court said in its ruling that it would fine the magazine 250,000 euros if the passages about the MEK complex in Albania weren’t removed.
It is worth noting that Hommerich has suspicious ties with Iran’s regime and can be described as an Iran apologist.
Subsequently, in June 2020 a court in Hamburg ordered another German newspaper, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ), to immediately remove false allegations raised against the PMOI/MEK. The lawsuit contested three false allegations published by FAZ and ordered to pay a fine of up to €250,000 to be determined by the court for each case of the offenses against MEK members in Albania and to bear the cost of these court hearings. If this amount was not secured, a detention order of up to a maximum of six months (for each item in place of the maximum fine of 250,000 Euros, for a total of a maximum of two years) would have been issued.
The media should know better than to cite sources associated with the Iranian regime. The mullahs have a long history of publishing extensive criteria to demonize the Iranian opposition PMOI/MEK. According to a report published by the NCRI website: “The books published against the Iranian Resistance from 1979 to August 2020 are a total of 538 volumes, of which: 461 volumes have been published between 1979 and 2016, which is an average of 12 volumes per year. But starting 2016, until now, the number of published books is 77 volumes, with an average of 19 books per year.”
As Amb. Blackwell explained very well in his recent article, these “outlets should consider the impact of their credulous repetition of regime talking points on giving Tehran a sense of impunity to its pursuit of terrorism targeting dissidents and activists throughout the world, and its expectation of appeasement in spite of the recurrence of hostage-taking and other malign activities.”
This brings us to three safe conclusions:
The Iranian regime considers the MEK as its main opposition and enemy
The Iranian regime has long gone to great distance to publish biased criteria against domestically and through foreign media outlets
Media reporters, journalists, and editors should practice extreme caution when working on issues related to Iran considering the fact that many “sources” are biased and have a history of running the regime’s talking points