Harper criticized for speaking at Free Iran rally

Event hosted by ‘cult’ former terrorist group

Former prime minister Stephen Harper is taking criticism for appearing at a Paris event sponsored by MEK, an Iranian dissident group that Harper’s own government considered a terrorist organization as recently as 2012.

“Thank you for your long battle for a free and democratic Iran,” Harper told a crowd at the Free Iran rally in Paris on Saturday.

The event was organized by the National Council of Resistance of Iran, a group founded by Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK), a well-funded Paris-based group devoted to the overthrow of the current Iranian regime.

Even among Iranian dissidents, however, the group is controversial for its extremism, cultlike leadership and history of violence.

Samira Mohyeddin, a Canadian journalist a vocal critic of the Iranian regime, criticized Harper’s appearance by calling the group a “well-documented terrorist cult who have committed many crimes against humanity.”

This view was shared by Farzan Sabet, an Iranian policy expert at Stanford University’s Center for International Security and Cooperation. Sabet said Harper’s attendance “speaks to the sophistication of MEK political operations, and naivete or venality of Western politicians who chose to attend.”

However, a spokeswoman for Harper defended his appearance, noting that the former prime minister did not specifically endorse an MEK-ruled Iran.

“The Free Iran event was attended by thousands of Iranian dissidents, from all political backgrounds from around the world,” said Anna Tomala with Harper & Associates. “Mr. Harper has not, and will not, endorse specific political movements or candidates.”

Founded in the 1960s, MEK (also known as the People’s Mujahedeen of Iran) was among the dissident groups that helped to overthrow the Shah of Iran in 1979. However, it quickly broke with the country’s new Islamic regime, leading to decades of violent opposition. This included terrorist attacks and assassinations within Iran in the 1980s, as well as a close alliance with Saddam Hussein that saw MEK members fighting for Iraq in the Iran-Iraq War.

MEK has since renounced violence, helped in part by the forcible disarming of the group following the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003. This prompted both Canada and the U.S. to remove MEK from their roster of terrorist organizations in 2012.

The group has frequently been criticized for demanding cultlike devotion to its leaders, the married couple Massoud and Maryam Rajavi.

A 2009 analysis by the RAND Corporation wrote that the group engages in “public self-deprecation sessions, mandatory divorce, celibacy, enforced separation from family and friends, and gender segregation.”

Massoud mysteriously disappeared after the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, but Maryam remains a visible MEK representative. Official video feeds of Harper’s speech frequently cut away to show the reaction of Maryam Rajavi, seated in the audience.

Harper was a vocal opponent of the Iranian regime during his 10 years as prime minister, and said nothing in his Free Iran speech that he has not previously put on the record.

For much of his address, the former prime minister denounced Iran’s repressive

(MEK HAS) COMMITTED MANY CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY.

policies and listed his own anti-regime moves as prime minister, including listing Iran as a state sponsor of terror and severing diplomatic relations with the country’s government.

“We closed the Canadian embassy in Iran and told the mullahs to get out of Canada!” he said.

Given the thousands who were indeed in attendance at the Free Iran rally, however, MEK obviously has substantial expatriate support. Recently, this has included a growing cadre of prominent American conservatives, including former speaker of the house Newt Gingrich and current national security adviser John Bolton.

This year’s Free Iran event also featured a fiery call for regime change by Rudy Giuliani, former mayor of New York and personal lawyer to U.S. president Donald Trump. “Trump doesn’t turn his back on freedom fighters,” Giuliani told the crowd.

The Trump administration was quick to distance itself from Giuliani’s comments, however. “He speaks for himself and not on behalf of the administration on foreign policy,” State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said Monday.