156 “Country Reports on Terrorism,” US State Department, April 27, 2005.157 “Murphy Warns Congress of Campaign by Iranian Leftists,” ASSOCIATED PRESS, July 25, 1985.158 “Report on the People’s Mojahedin of Iran,” Unclassified document, US State Department, 1994159 Id.160 Id.

X. Alleged Support for US Embassy Takeover

State Department Allegation

The MEK “supported the takeover in 1979 of the US Embassy in Tehran.”156

Background

This allegation was previously articulated by the State Department on July 24, 1985, whenAssistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Richard Murphy appeared before theHouse Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Europe and Middle East. The Associated Pressquoted Murphy:

“The Mujahedeen took a measure of credit for the prolonged holding of American diplomatsas hostages, advocated putting them on trial as spies and staged a large demonstration in

Tehran in January 1981 protesting their release,” [Murphy] said. The Mujaheden, however,were not the group directly responsible for holding the 52 American hostages for 444 daysbeginning November 4, 1979.157

According to the US State Department, on the day the crisis erupted, the MEK issued aproclamation titled After the Shah, It’s America’s Turn.158 It is also alleged that “theMojahedin participated physically at the site, assisting in holding and defending theembassy against liberation.”159

The hostages were released in January 1981. The US State Department alleges, in the following

issue of Mojahed, that “the Mojahedin-e Khalq were the first force who rose unequivocally to the

support of the occupation of the American spy center,” and further noted its members had spent“days and weeks” in “heat and cold” in front of the embassy.160

Discussion

The State Department’s allegations reflect a misunderstanding of events in Iran leading upto the hostage crisis and the position of the MEK in supporting democratic freedoms inIran. While the MEK and Khomeini were aligned in the national front in opposition to

EMPOWERING THE DEMOCRATIC OPPOSITION 159

161 The Iranian Mojahedin, Ervand Abrahamian, Yale University Press, 1989, p. 57. A recent history of the

hostage crisis by David Harris (The Crisis: The President, the Prophet, the Shah – 1979 and the Coming ofMilitant Islam, Little Brown, 2004) states that the takeover was first advanced by Ibrahim Asgarzadeh, a stu-

dent at Tehran’s Aryamehr University of Technology, and two other students.162 Takeover in Tehran, Massoumeh Ebtekar, Talon Books, Canada, 2000, p. 234. David Harris, in his recent book

The Crisis, makes no reference at all to the Mujahedin, which indicates the organization’s lack of involvement.163 The Crisis: The President, the Prophet, the Shah – 1979 and the Coming of Militant Islam, by David Harris,

Little, Brown and Company, 2004, p. 236.164 The Iranian Mojahedin, Ervand Abrahamian, Yale University Press, 1989, p. 57.

the Shah, once he was removed from power, the MEK and Khomeini became

political adversaries.

Two days after the revolution, Rajavi and a number of senior colleges met with Khomeini.In the meeting, Rajavi emphasized the importance of freedom. Subsequently, Khomeinisent his son, Ahmad, to offer the MEK top ministry positions in the new government, butonly on the condition that the MEK recognize the clerics as the supreme authority. TheMEK declined. Since its inception, the organization had fought for political freedom andthe separation of power. The MEK refused to compromise its principals and a powerstruggle ensued.

The MEK initially followed a policy of non-confrontation with Khomeini in the hope ofplaying the role of the loyal opposition in the new government. When the hostage crisiserupted on November 4, 1979, the MEK chose not to challenge Khomeini, who hadimmediately endorsed the takeover.

On the day the Iranian students stormed the embassy, Khomeini blamed America as thesource of all evil in a speech to a group of university students. “It was later revealed that theseuniversity students were organized by Hojjat al-Islam Khoiniha, a prominent member of the

IRP and the leader of the Tehran University komiteh [a morality guard organization].”161

According to Massoumeh Ebtekar, who was the spokesperson during the hostage crisis forthe radical students, the MEK “had been opposed to the takeover and the confrontationwith America from the very first.”162 Ebtekar, a chemical engineering student who becameknown as Sister Mary, “held center stage at the front gate whenever the students needed to

make a statement to the press in English.”163

For Iranians, the hostage crisis was “predominately an internal crisis rooted in the constitutionalstruggle.”164 Under the cloud of the embassy crisis, the clerics rushed to ratify their proposed

constitution, which the MEK refused to endorse. The original document, modeled on De

Gaulle’s constitution, had been altered by the Assembly of Experts, shifting power from thepresident and elected deputies to senior clerics. The MEK boycotted its ratification.

160 IRAN: FOREIGN POLICY CHALLENGES AND CHOICES

165 Id. at 208.166 Id. at 208.167 Id.168 Id. at 205169 Id. at 209.170 Id.

As hostilities escalated between the MEK and Khomeini, the MEK openly criticized the

hostage crisis. The MEK said the clerics had “engineered the hostage crisis to impose onthe nation the ‘medieval’ concept of the velayat-e faqih [the title of Khomeini’s book thatadvocates the creation of a theocratic state].”165

To support that last accusation they [MEK] published articles revealing how the studenthostage-takers were linked to the IRP [Islamic Republican Party]; how the pasdars[armed volunteers] had facilitated the break-in; how those who had refused to tow theIRP line had been forced out of the compound; how Ayatollah Beheshti [head of theSupreme Judicial Council] had used the whole incident to sweep aside the Bazargan[Provisional] Government; and how Hojjat al-Islam Khoiniha, the man appointed byKhomeini to advise the students, had carefully removed from the embassy all documentswith references to US officials meeting clerical leaders during the 1979 revolution.166

The MEK accused the cleric-controlled government of “disrupting rallies and meetings;

banning newspapers and burning down bookstores; rigging elections and closing downuniversities; [and] kidnapping, imprisoning, and torturing political activists . . . .”167

In response, “The Muslim Student Followers of the Iman’s Line, the occupiers of the US

embassy, denounced the Mojahedin as secret Marxists in cohorts with the ‘pro-Americanliberals.’”168

“In criticizing the regime’s political record,” Abrahamian explained, “the Mojahedin movedthe issue of democracy to center stage.”169

They argued that the regime had broken all the democratic promises made during the

revolution; that an attack on any group was an attack on all groups; that the issue ofdemocracy was of “fundamental importance,” and that other issues, includingimperialism, hinged on it, for without political freedom the country would be

vulnerable to foreign intrigue.170

EMPOWERING THE DEMOCRATIC OPPOSITION 161

171 Id. at 1.

Six months after the hostage takeover, the MEK “could muster over half a million into the

streets of Tehran. Its newspapers outsold those of the ruling clerical party by sixteen to one.”171

In sum, MEK opposed the hostage crisis. The MEK was not in alliance with The MuslimStudent Followers of the Iman’s Line, the student organization that seized the embassy, norwith the clerics. The MEK used the crisis to reveal Khomeini’s involvement and how hisregime was using the incident to usurp power and push aside the Provisional Government.Given these facts, it is inaccurate to assert that the MEK was responsible for the hostagecrisis or that it supported it.

162 IRAN: FOREIGN POLICY CHALLENGES AND CHOICES