have written an open letter to Albanian officials over the sheer number of Iranians requesting visas to visit Albania, even though the borders remain closed due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The 8,000 Iranians currently requesting visas say that they visit family members, but the MEK doubts that narrative and wants to know what the real purpose is, rightly fearing attacks on the MEK headquarters or on Albania by operatives of the Iranian regime.

The MEK explains that the regime is openly hostile towards Albania for allowing the MEK, which is the biggest threat to the regime, to remain there. That’s why Iran has:

  • insulted the country with Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei claiming that Albania is the base for planning anti-regime uprisings
  • pressured the MEK’s relatives into signing petitions or producing videos that show them swearing at the MEK or the Albanian government
  • plotted terrorist attacks inside the country targeting the MEK, as was discovered by Albanian police in 2018 and 2019, which led to the expulsion of three diplomats.

This is nothing new. In fact, the regime’s targeting of the MEK’s headquarters was commonplace in Iraq, with 27 ground attacks, seven bloodbaths, and a food and medicine siege between 2003 and 2016. All in all, 168 MEK members were killed, 1,500 were wounded, and nine were taken hostage, something that can be attested to by Tahar Boumedra, the then chief of the UN AMI human rights office. That doesn’t even account for the abuse suffered by the MEK in Iran, where 120,000 of them have been executed.

The MEK said that the Albanian-language website Gazeta Impakt, which is run by Olsi Jazexhi and his wife, Migena Balla, is reprinting the regime’s lies about the MEK, including things that have been thoroughly debunked, and praising the fascist regime. Jazexhi made a trip to Iran last February, supposedly as a journalist, but was trained to wage an anti-MEK hate campaign.

The letter concluded with the MEK members saying that they have called on the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to send an international fact-finding mission to Iran, including the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights, to investigate the situation, and publish a public report

It also urged the Justice Minister and the Interior Minister in Albania to investigate Jazexhi regarding religious persecution in Iran and his help to suppress the relatives of the MEK and bolster terrorism against the MEK in Albania.

 The letter was signed by:

  • Mahmood Saadat
  • Farzin Hashemi
  • Abas Golrezan
  • Mehri Saadat
  • Parvaneh Rabiey Abbasi
  • Hamid Reza Noori
  • Mostafa Ghaedi
  • Jafar Mamlooki
  • Khalil Hajhoseini
  • Ali Asghar Eslami
  • Reza Salami
  • Sadegh Keyhan
  • Shokuh Ghasemi
  • Tayebeh Yeganeh
  • Mohamad Jafarnajafi
  • Nahid Saadat
  • Mohammad Hassan Bagherzadeh
  • Mohammad Reza Bagherzadeh
  • Mostafa Forooghi
  • Vahid Dowlatshahi Araghi
  • Gholamreza Ghadery
  • Alireza Balal

 

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