Iranian widow faces terror charges in NYC

Source: AP

NEW YORK - In March 2003, Zeinab Taleb-Jedi was a middle-aged widow who found herself trapped in a cold, dusty bunker in Iraq as invading U.S. forces began blowing up buildings and inflicting casualties all around her.

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Her largely overlooked arrest and protracted prosecution have outraged civil rights advocates, who accuse federal authorities of trampling free speech by overzealously enforcing laws against providing material support to terrorist groups.

Defense attorney Justine Harris has questioned why "the government would want to put this woman in jail for associating with a group whose goal is regime change in Iran, arguably a central tenet of our own foreign policy."

Taleb-Jedi has been linked to the People's Mujahedeen Organization of Iran, a group designated a terrorist organization by the State Department in 1997. Prosecutors say she became an English teacher in 1999 at the organization's Iraq headquarters, Camp Ashraf, and that two informants have since identified her as a member of a leadership council.



Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080619/ap_on_re_us/terror_support;_

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'Tank girl' army (MKO - US allies) accused of torture
Guardian and Human Rights Watch find evidence of abuse by Iranian revolutionaries under US protection

May 31 2005

A bizarre revolutionary army supported by British politicians who want more "regime change" in the Middle East, has been accused of torture and brainwashing.

Evidence obtained by the Guardian backs a report by Human Rights Watch. This makes detailed accusations of abuse, including deaths under interrogation, against the "People's Mujahideen" of Iran (MKO).

The Mujahideen are a 4000-strong anti-Iranian dissident army, currently under US protection in a camp in Iraq. They have a vociferous public relations campaign in Britain and the backing of some Washington neo-conservatives.

The group, known as the "tank girls" because of the preponderance of women in its ranks, has also won the support of the Daily Telegraph, which wants it to help overthrow the mullahs in Tehran. It says in a leader: "We should back the main resistance group, the People's Mujahideen ... Give them the tools and they will finish the job".

There is a growing right-wing campaign in parts of Washington and London for regime change, citing Iran's nuclear ambitions. But leftwing UK figures have also joined the campaign to legitimise the Mujahideen, whom they see as freedom fighters.

more:http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2005/may/31/iran.usa

Iraq Intensifies Efforts to Expel Iranian Group
Though Labeled Terrorist, MEK Has Updated U.S. on Tehran's Nuclear Program

By Ernesto Londoño and Saad al-Izzi
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, March 14, 2007; A10


BAGHDAD -- For three years, thousands of members of a militant group dedicated to overthrowing Iran's theocracy have lived in a sprawling compound north of Baghdad under the protection of the U.S. military.

American soldiers chauffeur top leaders of the group, known as the Mujaheddin-e Khalq, or MEK, to and from their compound, where they have hosted dozens of visitors in an energetic campaign to persuade the State Department to stop designating the group as a terrorist organization.

Now the Iraqi government is intensifying its efforts to evict the 3,800 or so members of the group who live in Iraq, although U.S. officials say they are in no hurry to change their policy toward the MEK, which has been a prime source of information about Iran's nuclear program.

The Iraqi government announced this week that roughly 100 members would face prosecution for human rights violations, a move MEK officials contend comes at the request of the Iranian government.

more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/13/AR2007031301782_pf.html