Human Lives Human Rights: Human Rights Watch recently pointed out in a report that the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI), provided the necessary economic information from the Islamic Republic of Iran, leading to necessary conditions for intensifying economic sanctions against Iran.
This is however, not for the first time that the group has tried to spy on Iran. Since the 1980s, when Iran was involved in an 8-year war with the Iraqi Ba’athist regime, spying on Iran’s military lines, the Mojahedin used to send the necessary information to the Iraqi army.
Also, after the end of the war in 1988 until the fall of Saddam in 2003, the Mujahideen were still engaged in spying and sabotaging the Iranian society for the benefit of Iraq. In 2003, the Mojahedin by spying and exposing the dimensions of Iran’s nuclear program, they started the 20-year crisis of the Islamic Republic of Iran’s nuclear case, which is still ongoing.
Also, from the beginning of 2010 to the end of 2011, the Mojahedin cooperated with the Israeli spy service in the assassination of 4 people involved in Iran’s nuclear program. Again, in 2012, Alireza Jafarzadeh from the People’s Mojahedin Khalq revealed the dimensions of Iran’s nuclear program to Israel and Western countries.
Now, considering that the People’s Mojahedin has members within the society and government structures of Iran, it is spying on the secret aspects of the methods of circumventing sanctions by the Islamic Republic of Iran and providing its information to Western countries.
Justifying their actions, the Mojahedin Khalq say that their goal is to attack the Islamic Republic of Iran, by helping to tighten the sanctions against the Iranian government, that has ultimately led to economic hardships for the majority of people.
According to an estimate, since the unilateral withdrawal of the United States from the JCPOA agreement in 2018, over 156 billion dollars of loss has been caused to the Iranian economy due to the conditions caused by the sanctions.
Currently, economic sanctions are putting a lot of pressure on the Iranian nation. It especially affects vulnerable groups of society, majority of whom are the Iranian people. It is worth mentioning that according to the official and government statistics of Iran, more than 50% of Iranian people live below the poverty line.
Also, economic sanctions have caused irreparable damage to vital parts of Iranian society, such as health. Currently, the world’s major pharmaceutical companies are not willing to do business with Iranian banks to export drugs to Iran, because they are afraid of being subjected to American economic sanctions. As a result, Iranian patients, especially special patients such as the patients of Thalassemia, Hemophilia, MS and Cancer, are in dire situations in terms of accessibility to drugs.
Undoubtedly, the economic espionage of the People’s Mojahedin Khalq Organization has a significant effect in creating these conditions. Therefore, the group that claims to be the defender of the Iranian people has become one of the agents of inflicting suffering and hardship on the Iranian society.
