Talk:People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran

1988 execution of MEK prisoners

The 1988 executions of Iranian political prisoners has its own dedicated page, linked to as the main page for the 1988 execution of MEK prisoners section on this page. The material on the page was, however, until today, rather lacking. I have now copied across the better sourced material from this page on the 1988 executions of members of the MEK to the relevant People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran section on the page, paving the way for the material to be reduced and summarized here - an easy thing to cut since we now have a main page for it that retains the information in full. Iskandar323 (talk) 11:13, 5 July 2022 (UTC)

I've gone ahead and condensed the material in this section as proposed following the copying of the contents to the main article. Iskandar323 (talk) 12:58, 18 August 2022 (UTC)

If we're going to condense that section, I think we should leave in the recorded atrocities that the Iranian government did against the political prisoners, otherwise we'd be downplaying those crimes against humanity. I've gone ahead and condensed the material that way. Fad Ariff (talk) 12:07, 23 August 2022 (UTC)

Removing a short sentence about the reason why the executions happened, and restoring long quotations from this or that writer is not a good way of condensing the text. I am trying to make it a little better. Ghazaalch (talk) 05:14, 24 August 2022 (UTC)

I just took a crack at it too. I kept the reasons of what led to the executions. I also kept Ayatollah Montazeri's testimony since it provides a lot of the behind-the-scenes information. Also kept the details human right abuses and demonization of victims (why would anyone want to remove that?). Iraniangal777 (talk) 15:39, 24 August 2022 (UTC)

I'm glad we can all agree on the question of length here (given the availability of all of the information on a page dedicated to the event). I've tweaked the opening sentence again, since this has somehow ended up not in Wikivoice. I also restored an Amnesty quote. The impartial analysis of specialist third-party human rights bodies is a bit more balanced and encyclopedic than the quote from Basmenji, which I removed, since it relates to the executions at large, not just the MEK. Iskandar323 (talk) 10:54, 26 August 2022 (UTC)

It seems we all can agree that the section can be condensed, the question is what should be removed and what should be kept. I'm not in favor of removing the recorded atrocities that the Iranian government did against the political prisoners, so I have rescued some of the article's original version. Please do not remove the restored original content without consensus. This is the condensing I am in favor of: [7]. Fad Ariff (talk) 12:02, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

Unless there is an extended version of the quote that provides a direct link to the MEK, it has no place in this article. This section should not a WP:COATRACK of related material about the 1988 executions - any material that remains needs to be directly linked to the MEK. Iskandar323 (talk) 12:38, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

Are you talking about Montazeri's quote saying "at least order to spare women who have children"? The book page where that quote is found links the Mojahedin, Khomeini's fatwa, and the executions of prisoners to Montazeri's quote [8]. Fad Ariff (talk) 12:01, 30 August 2022 (UTC)

@Fad Ariff: So after three other editors worked on this, clearly all agreeing on shortening it, and you also said that you agreed on shortening it, could you please explain to us all how exactly that squares with your restoring of most of the material, bringing it back to not much less than its original length? This is notably material that all has a place on another article now, and the apparent sudden disinterest in making this particular body of content shorter sits alongside what I can only describe as your marked enthusiasm about removing material (often when it is the only copy of it anywhere) from other page sections. Iskandar323 (talk) 11:09, 2 September 2022 (UTC)

@Iskandar323: see my comment from a couple of days ago when I explained that [9] and also gave a proposal to condense that section[10]. Also I don't know why you're singling me out here since all of the editors here, including you, restored paragraphs from the original version. Removing the recorded atrocities that the Iranian government did against the political prisoners is not a way to condense that section. Fad Ariff (talk) 12:12, 2 September 2022 (UTC)

@Fad Ariff: I'm asking you because you restored 2,800 bytes - almost all of the material. And it's not about "giving your proposal" and asking people to take it or leave it; it's about collegiate or collaborative editing. "My way or the highway" is not a Wikipedia policy, and restoring material back to the original again and again until people accept the one and only version you want, or raising an RFC to try to force the one and only version you want, is not that. This page is also not about "atrocities that the Iranian government did": it's not about the Iranian government or its activities at all. This article is meant to be a concise, encyclopedic entry on the MEK. All of this material is now on another dedicated page. Why do we need it duplicated here? Iskandar323 (talk) 12:38, 2 September 2022 (UTC)

@Iskandar323: I did not say the things you are saying about me, so please do not engage in aspersions. I have built on what others did in that section but there is some content removal I don’t agree with, and there is other content removal that you don’t seem to agree with. The central theme of the section "1988 execution of MEK prisoners" is the atrocities that the Iranian government did against the political prisoners. We know this because it’s what the sources talk about (the same ones are trying to remove). I think removing that content would be downplaying the regime's atrocities, and have offered an alternative way to make the section more concise, but you don’t agree with that version either. We can disagree, but please don't make things up about me (I did not say "take it or leave it" or "my way or the highway", and none of the RFCs I opened were to "try to force the one and only version you want"). Fad Ariff (talk) 12:05, 3 September 2022 (UTC)

• Iskandar323: I think it is important that the first paragraph addresses why the killings happened, for this reason, I have restored the content from the stable version, "In order to eliminate potential political oppositions, the Islamic Republic started "coordinated extrajudicial killings" in Iran""(removing the quotation marks as you suggested [11]). This sentence is well sourced and explains why the killings happened, and is also part of the original version, so you do not have consensus to remove it from the article. If you would like to put it in another part of that section, try instead explaining where and why, but please don't remove it anymore. Let's try to keep each paragraph about the same content. I also restored "women" (your revert[12]) because I don’t think it’s an "odd emphasis", but instead an accurate description. Fad Ariff (talk) 12:10, 9 September 2022 (UTC)

  The 'coordinated' quote has no place at the front of the section in Wikivoice. In the earlier version of the text it appeared in the fourth paragraph. Moreover, more of the statement is a direct quotation than was originally bracketed by quotations marks. I hadn't realised that it is a quote from Amnesty International, but given this, it needs in-text attribution like the other Amnesty International text, which is what I have gone ahead and merged it with in the second paragraph. Iskandar323 (talk) 17:57, 20 September 2022 (UTC)

Iskandar323: these are the sources about Operation Mersad in the original version:

• "The reason for the new round of widespread executions was Operation Mersad, a military attack on Iranian forces by the Mojahedin-e Khalq."
• "Right after the ceasefire went into effect, the MKO forces attacked Iran from Iraq in an operation they called Amaliyat-e Forough-e Javidaan [Operation Eternal Light], but referred to as Amaliyat-e Mersaad [Operations Trap] by the IRGC. The MKO forces were defeated easily and had heavy losses -- at least 1700 according to the MKO, and many more according to other sources. Evidence indicates that before the ceasefire went into effect and the MKO attacks began, the Islamic Republic was already thinking about eliminating most, if not all, the political prisoners. Ayatollah Khomeini had ordered the formation of a secret commission to look into executing the MKO prisoners, as well as secular leftists, and had secretly authorized their execution. The former were classified as the mohaarebs [those who fight against God], while the secular leftists were considered as mortads [those not believing in God]."

Why do you think these sources should be removed from the article? Fad Ariff (talk) 12:05, 20 September 2022 (UTC)

I haven't removed them and I have no reason to think they should be removed, so I don't quite understand the question. Iskandar323 (talk) 18:08, 20 September 2022 (UTC)

Iskandar323, you are removing [13] an important element about why the Islamic Republic started the extrajudicial killings from the paragraph that explains why the killings happened. Fad Ariff (talk) 12:03, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

I didn't remove it - it's an Amnesty quote that I actually expanded and merged with the other Amnesty material. You are just decontextualising it and placing it at the front of the section, where it never was in the earlier stable version (it was in the fourth paragraph, and not properly attributed). Iskandar323 (talk) 13:17, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

Iskandar323, you don't have consensus for merging that content with other Amnesty material because it changes the meaning of the content (that content explains why the executions happened). The first paragraph in that section is used for explaining why the executions happened, so if you want this content moved down to the fourth paragraph, you first need to explain why. I will add more sources to this content so that you're at ease about the attribution and validity of its claims. Fad Ariff (talk) 12:04, 23 September 2022 (UTC)

The content started in the fourth paragraph - I moved it to the second. In this edit, you have simply duplicated the Amnesty material again without adding anything new (and removed a source). You haven't raised any issues with the other changes to the first paragraph. Iskandar323 (talk) 12:26, 23 September 2022 (UTC)

References

RFC follow-up

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

Following the "no consensus" of this RFC, would anyone object to removing the sentence "During the second phase of the ideological revolution, all members were forced to surrender their individuality to the organization" from the article?

Wie @Alex-h: said, it is a "WP:NPOV-problematic claim by a Masoud Banisadr: an MEK detractor and former member, so the source is not on par with scholarly material from an unaffiliated person". Fad Ariff (talk) 11:55, 6 September 2022 (UTC)

Wait, what happened in this diff? Why did you replace the original reference with the source that you now want to remove on the basis of source quality? Iskandar323 (talk) 12:14, 6 September 2022 (UTC)

I just corrected the information in that citation with the correct author. What is "odd" about that? Fad Ariff (talk) 12:23, 6 September 2022 (UTC)

Ok, I see that you updated the chapter information, but the book is still edited by Eileen Barker, a sociology professor that studies precisely such groups. Iskandar323 (talk) 12:24, 6 September 2022 (UTC)

So the source has been vetted by a subject-matter expert as well as published by an academic publisher. That Masoud Banisadr may have bias as a former MEK member is neither here nor there with respect to NPOV. Bias sources are allowed. The MEK are bias about themselves, but we don't ignore them. It is only natural that the individuals with the most information on the MEK are former group members. NPOV means neutrality with respect to the sourcing, and here the sourcing we have is extremely well controlled academic publishing. Iskandar323 (talk) 12:28, 6 September 2022 (UTC)

Are you saying that it is ok to use controversial content from authors that have affiliation with the MEK as long as it is printed by a reliable publisher? (I don't agree with this, because like Alex-h said, "the source is not on par with scholarly material from an unaffiliated person", and there are many reliable sources available from unaffiliated authors). Fad Ariff (talk) 11:53, 7 September 2022 (UTC)

We go by source quality, and as I have explained above, the source quality here is very good and there is no reason (or no reason has been provided) to simply discount it. Masoud Banisadr has been published through reliable channels. If the assertion here is one of bias, than in-text attribution, not deletion, is the guideline's solution. Iskandar323 (talk) 12:12, 7 September 2022 (UTC)

WP:HUH?, nobody is talking about source bias. The issue, like I have said a few times already, is using an affiliated author for controversial content, which is " not on par with scholarly material from an unaffiliated person". There are many other authors affiliated with the MEK (such as Manshour Varasteh). Would you have an objection to using him, for example, as a source in this article ? Fad Ariff (talk) 12:02, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

All sources are biased. There is a reason why Wikipedia emphasises being neutral not unbiased. See WP:BIASED. What we know with respect to this particular source is that a professor edited the content, and a reliable publisher approved it. Manshour Varasteh can potentially be referenced for some things, where his material is published in reliable sources, sure - though his active membership of the NCRI could complicate this in relation to certain subjects where a clear conflict of interest may be present. Iskandar323 (talk) 13:05, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

FYI this old RfC where the consensus for using that sentence by Masoud Banisadr was this: "The discussion of the source has established that it isn't unreliable, but neither is it on par with scholarly material from an unaffiliated person. As such, I would say that consensus has not been established to remove it entirely, but there aren't strong arguments for keeping the simile in the second piece of the sentence, and if there are additional sources supporting the first, they should be added.". Alex-h (talk) 17:03, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

I replaced the content from the controversial source with some content from another source which is not controversial. The new content mean the same thing as the previous one but has different phrases. The second bold part of the new content means surrender of their individuality as you could see bellow.

Rajavi launched what he called an ideological revolution in 1985, which over time imbued the MEK with many of the typical characteristics of a cult, such as authoritarian control, confiscation of assets, and sexual control (including forced divorce and celibacy), emotional isolation, forced labor, sleep deprivation, physical abuse, and limited exit options.

This is the old content: During the second phase of the ideological revolution, all members were forced to surrender their individuality to the organization.

Ghazaalch (talk) 06:14, 9 September 2022 (UTC)

In the days of yore, the full paragraph on this read: According to Country Reports on Terrorism, in 1990 the second phase of the 'ideological revolution' was announced during which all married members were ordered to divorce and remain celibate, undertaking a vow of "eternal divorce", with the exception of Massoud and Maryam Rajavi. The wedding rings of women were replaced with pendants engraved with Massoud's face. During the second phase of the ideological revolution, all members were forced to surrender their individuality to the organization, an incident which Masoud Banisadr described as changing into "ant-like human beings", i.e. following orders by their instinct. A report commissioned by the US government, based on interviews within Camp Ashraf, concluded that the MEK had "many of the typical characteristics of a cult, such as authoritarian control, confiscation of assets, sexual control (including mandatory divorce and celibacy), emotional isolation, forced labour, sleep deprivation, physical abuse and limited exit options". - so both elements were in there. In any case, the list above is further supported by direct quotation in the Guardian. Ok-ish with the switch if others agree. Iskandar323 (talk) 06:48, 9 September 2022 (UTC)

If we're going to put in the article that people were "forced to surrender their individuality", we need multiple high-quality sources (WP:ECREE). A think tank and a Guardian article quoting the think tank are not enough to put these types of damning allegation in the article. Iraniangal777 (talk) 15:02, 11 September 2022 (UTC)

This is just one wording: we have dozens of sources noting the MEK's descent into a cult-like state, so none of this stuff is remotely exceptional. Iskandar323 (talk) 07:00, 12 September 2022 (UTC)

Also, that wasn't the text that you removed in this edit - what you removed was Ghazaalch's suggested replacement text. However, since you seemingly can't agree to the replacement, and instead just seem intent on scoffing at gold-plated sources like the Guardian, I've restored the original line from the source that sparked this discussion, since that has already survived an old RFC. I guess the discussion can continue where it left off - more constructive suggestions, rather than just notes on what people don't like, would be welcome. Iskandar323 (talk) 07:20, 12 September 2022 (UTC)

The problem is the sentence "During the second phase of the ideological revolution, all members were forced to surrender their individuality to the organization", which you just restored to the article even though the consensus is that it is not on par with scholarly material from an unaffiliated person. Do you have "multiple high-quality sources" to justify having this in the article? If you do not, then this should be removed. Fad Ariff (talk) 11:44, 12 September 2022 (UTC)

I added the Guardian and the RAND report as new sources for this text since as I said above the text: During the second phase of the ideological revolution, all members were forced to surrender their individuality to the organization. is a kind of summary of this text: Rajavi launched what he called an ideological revolution in 1985, which over time imbued the MEK with many of the typical characteristics of a cult, such as authoritarian control, confiscation of assets, and sexual control (including forced divorce and celibacy), emotional isolation, forced labor, sleep deprivation, physical abuse, and limited exit options. Ghazaalch (talk) 04:18, 13 September 2022 (UTC)

The RAND and Guardian do not support "During the second phase of the ideological revolution, all members were forced to surrender their individuality to the organization.". Fad Ariff (talk) 11:58, 13 September 2022 (UTC)

The RAND and Guardian do support "Rajavi launched what he called an ideological revolution in 1985, which over time imbued the MEK with many of the typical characteristics of a cult, such as authoritarian control, confiscation of assets, and sexual control (including forced divorce and celibacy), emotional isolation, forced labor, sleep deprivation, physical abuse, and limited exit options." which is similar to the existing text and I suggested it as a replacement. Another alternative is the following. Masoud Banisadr is quoting MeK themselves here:

If one accepts the ideology, strategy and … principles of an organisation, then he or she should accept the structure of that organisation as well. Undisciplined action by a person is a sign of giving priority to personal interest over organisational interest. While Ironic Discipline is a sign of the deep dissolution of individuality of a person within the organisation and it is a sign of his total understanding of the organisation’s ideology. (MEK 1980c: 31)

• MEK 1980c. An Examination of the Possibilities of the Deviation of Democratic Centralism or the Difference between Scientific Doubt and Unscientific Doubt within the Organisation. MEK Publication.

Ghazaalch (talk) 03:15, 14 September 2022 (UTC)

Well that's fairly clear: it's in the MEK's own handout materials. I hope "the deep dissolution of individuality" is a clear enough reference for everybody. Iskandar323 (talk) 05:28, 14 September 2022 (UTC)

If you're still using Masoud Banisadr as a source for what the MEK allegedly said then that obviously won't work. Like others said already, you need multiple high-quality sources, that are unaffiliated to the subject, and that support "During the second phase of the ideological revolution, all members were forced to surrender their individuality to the organization." Either provide them, or this sentence needs to be removed for violating WP:ECREE. Fad Ariff (talk) 11:57, 14 September 2022 (UTC)

@Fad Ariff: If we have the MEK saying it themselves in their own material, I don't see how you can even begin to think WP:ECREE might apply. Iskandar323 (talk) 12:08, 14 September 2022 (UTC)

Using Masoud Banisadr as a source for an alleged MEK interpretation is no good for the same reasons everyone else has already made clear: Masoud Banisadr "is not on par with scholarly material from an unaffiliated person". If you want to add to the article what the MEK is saying about themselves, there are many other sources we can use for this other than this source by an affiliated author. Fad Ariff (talk) 12:07, 15 September 2022 (UTC)

@Fad Ariff: My point is it's hardly an exceptional claim, since both the MEK and Banisadr (who you assert is bias against the MEK) say it, and there aren't obviously any sources countering this. So on what basis exactly do you assert that the claim (as stated by the organisation and supported by secondary sourcing) is exceptional? Iskandar323 (talk) 12:55, 15 September 2022 (UTC)

@User:Iskandar323: Again, the problem with the source is not that it's biased, it's that it comes from an affiliated author. And like others have already explained, the source it's not on par with non-affiliated authors, and you haven't provided any other sources that support Masoud Banisdar's statement. Fad Ariff (talk) 11:56, 16 September 2022 (UTC)

Yes, we have, the MEK's own publication - so there are both a primary and secondary source from this from opposite ends of the ideological spectrum, making it far from clear that affiliation or bias even feed into this. As was pointed out in the old RFC, this publication of Banisadr is also not a one-off: his work has been published at least twice in separate peer-reviewed publications. He should be attributed in-text though. Iskandar323 (talk) 12:07, 16 September 2022 (UTC)

Because he is an affiliated author, I don't agree that using Massoud Banisadr's polemic statements (including what the MEK allegedly said about themselves) is a good idea, specially when we have many other good (unaffiliated) sources that can be used for the same thing. Since we don't agree, I will start a RFC. Fad Ariff (talk) 12:14, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

You haven't actually provided any suggestions of 'unaffiliated sources' saying the same thing. Iskandar323 (talk) 15:32, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

@Andrevan: since you closed the previous RFC saying "It will be easier to gain consensus if you start with one narrow question at a time"[14], would a RFC with the following question be good for a RFC?

"Should the following sentence be removed from the article: 'During the second phase of the ideological revolution, all members were forced to surrender their individuality to the organization'"?

Thank you, Fad Ariff (talk) 12:14, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

Perhaps request the closure of the outstanding RFC before dragging the community into another much-ado-about-nothing RFC. Iskandar323 (talk) 15:31, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

I think that is a fine question for an RFC Andre🚐 18:40, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

Fad Ariff, since you still think the sentence "During the second phase of the ideological revolution, all members were forced to surrender their individuality to the organization" comes from an affiliated author, I replaced it with a similar sentence from Cohen, Ronen (2009). The Rise and Fall of the Mojahedin Khalq, 1987-1997: Their Survival After the Islamic Revolution and Resistance to the Islamic Republic of Iran. Sussex Academic Press. ISBN 978-1845192709.

Here are some quotations from the book:

• … all members were in reality forced to obey Rajavi. (page 8)
• When Rajavi set his ideological revolution ….[m]embers were required to sacrifice their lives in the name of the organization’s goals and become “living martyrs” until the revolution was complete…Rajavi did not distinguish between veterans and new members in terms of status, but promoted individuals according to their blind obedience… (page 32)
• Once the ideological revolution began, Rajavi required organization members to accept and obey a discipline that would enable him to control them……each member, no matter what rank, was required to write a daily report about his or her daily activities and thoughts …Rajavi threatened to expose the reports to the world’s media, as well as to other members and friends of any person who voluntarily resigned from the organization. …The information recorded in the reports could also be used to apply emotional blackmail to members who were not obedient or who demonstrated their dissatisfaction with the organization. (page 33)
• Organization members were forced to believe that keeping in touch with family members could corrupt them, since those family members were simple people who could not understand the significance of the “revolutionary struggle”. (page 34)

Ghazaalch (talk) 03:30, 18 September 2022 (UTC)

Ghazaalch, the new content you added to the article is about the group’s own ideological teachings (it’s indicated in the title of the section where the content is found, "Ideological Teaching Methods Within the Organization"). I read the chapter and Cohen says many things about this (as do other authors), and what you added lacks any form of context (which the author himself includes in that chapter). I will pick a more neutral content by him (and Abrahamian), and add it to the Ideology and ideological revolution section. Speaking of which, there are also other cherrypicked lines with no context in the ideology section. Fad Ariff (talk) 11:51, 20 September 2022 (UTC)

Fad Ariff, we cannot talk about the Cult of Rajavi without mentioning his ideology, as we read in RAND report: “Rajavi instituted what he termed an “ideological revolution” in 1985, which, over time, imbued the MeK with many of the typical characteristics of a cult, such as authoritarian control, confiscation of assets, sexual control (including mandatory divorce and celibacy), emotional isolation, forced labor, sleep deprivation, physical abuse, and limited exit options.9” So why can't we replace Banisadr's text with the text I proposed from RAND report? Ghazaalch (talk) 03:36, 21 September 2022 (UTC)

We’ve already discussed why RAND is not a good replacement. The RAND does not support "During the second phase of the ideological revolution, all members were forced to surrender their individuality to the organization." (the point of this discussion). Also like another editor said, a think tank (RAND) is not good enough as a source to these kinds of allegations. Everyone seems to agree that the source is "not on par with scholarly material from an unaffiliated person", yet his content is still in the article. It’s time for a RFC. Fad Ariff (talk) 12:16, 21 September 2022 (UTC)

How is whether the source supports the previous text relevant when someone is suggesting replacing the text entirely? Iskandar323 (talk) 12:25, 21 September 2022 (UTC)

References

RFC, 21 September 2022

Should the following sentence be removed from the article?

"During the second phase of the ideological revolution, all members were forced to surrender their individuality to the organization"

Yes or Nay? Fad Ariff (talk) 12:16, 21 September 2022 (UTC)

References

*Comment The author for this statement, Masoud Banisadr, is an ex member of the MEK who has published very little and only about detracting the MEK. Fad Ariff (talk) 12:16, 21 September 2022 (UTC)

This comment is irrelevant, you just start your RfC, don't post such a comment to sway the vote towards an outcome you prefer.---Wikaviani ^{(talk) (contribs)} 12:29, 21 September 2022 (UTC)

• Bad RfC The RfC title fails WP:RFCBRIEF. In particular, the RfC is supposed to be neutral, and the title is not. Adoring nanny (talk) 13:21, 21 September 2022 (UTC)

@Adoring nanny: @Wikaviani: great to finally see some new editors participating here, and do appreciate the feedback. Since you’re both uninvolved editors here, the issue with this statement is that it’s coming from an affiliated author. The point of the RFC is to determine whether this would be good enough for the given claim. How would either of you frame the RFC in a more neutral oder acceptable way but still making the issue clear to others who may not know the author is affiliated to the subject? or maybe this shouldn't be mentioned in the proposal? Thanks. Fad Ariff (talk) 12:14, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

Personally, I would not have formulated the sentence in this way, it should present the problem in a neutral way, and to say that Bani Sadr is against the MEK isn't.---Wikaviani ^{(talk) (contribs)} 20:27, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

• Bad RFC obviously - both the RFC title and introduction are meant to be neutral. The title here is not, and the comment posted immediately after the question also violates the spirits of this. The whole point of seeking wider community support is to received neutral editorial input unfettered by involved opinions. Iskandar323 (talk) 09:55, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

Fad Ariff, you pay no heed to others points and start new RFCs instead. I told you in the above section that the sentence you want to delete is not only Masoud Banisadr's point of view. Masoud Banisadr is quoting MeK themselves as saying this: If one accepts the ideology, strategy and … principles of an organisation, then he or she should accept the structure of that organisation as well. Undisciplined action by a person is a sign of giving priority to personal interest over organisational interest. While Ironic Discipline is a sign of the deep dissolution of individuality of a person within the organisation and it is a sign of his total understanding of the organisation’s ideology. (MEK 1980c: 31)

MEK 1980c. An Examination of the Possibilities of the Deviation of Democratic Centralism or the Difference between Scientific Doubt and Unscientific Doubt within the Organisation. MEK Publication.

Moreover I proposed replacing the text you want to delete with a similar text from another source. This one: "Rajavi launched what he called an ideological revolution in 1985, which over time imbued the MEK with many of the typical characteristics of a cult, such as authoritarian control, confiscation of assets, and sexual control (including forced divorce and celibacy), emotional isolation, forced labor, sleep deprivation, physical abuse, and limited exit options." Because the cultic characteristics mentioned in this alternative text simply means ...surrender their individuality to the organization(the text you want to delete)

I also proposed replacing the text you want to delete with a similar text from Cohen: When Rajavi set his ideological revolution, MeK members were required to sacrifice their lives in the name of the organization's goals and become "living martyrs". Each member was required to write a daily report about his or her daily activities and thoughts. Rajavi threatened to expose the reports to the world's media, as well as to other members and friends of any person who voluntarily resigned from the organization. The information recorded in the reports could also be used to apply emotional blackmail to members who were not obedient or who demonstrated their dissatisfaction with the organization. Again the second part of this alternative text means ...surrender their individuality to the organization(the text you want to delete)

Even if the text you want to remove is not the same as the ones I suggested, we can still replace it with one of them. Ghazaalch (talk) 05:18, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

• Comment: Some comments above have discussed the neutrality of the section heading, which was "RFC: Using source by affiliated person for controversial content". I've changed it to the more neutral "RFC". FYI, section headings are not copied over to the central RfC listings, and anyone following the link doesn't usually see them. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 02:47, 23 September 2022 (UTC)

• Commment. Thank you User:Firefangledfeathers for fixing the RFC's title. @Andrevan: and @Redrose64: since you are both uninvolved and have a wealth of experience with RFCs, could you please advice chime in with a comment about whether this RFC is ok to continue, or should I shut this one down and start a new one? Thank you, both. Fad Ariff (talk) 12:12, 23 September 2022 (UTC)

Not one of the people you pinged, but I would start over. If you can write a properly neutral RfC, this discussion becomes a distraction. As proposer, you have the right to withdraw the RfC at any time, and this discussion is a terrific reason to do so. Basically, anything that is an argument for or against should not be a part of the RfC title or statement. You are of course welcome to mention such arguments in the survey and discussion. Adoring nanny (talk) 13:53, 23 September 2022 (UTC)

• RFC WITHDRAWN. I am withdrawing this RFC per comments by others. I will be starting a new one based on the advice given. Fad Ariff (talk) 12:01, 24 September 2022 (UTC)

References

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

1988 executions section - disputed accuracy

Statements from Amnesty International and other advocacy groups are currently inappropriately being presented as fact in this section, affecting its overall accuracy. I have tried to clean this up and attribute the obvious quotations and claims appropriately, but have been repeatedly reverted. It remains flawed. Iskandar323 (talk) 12:39, 23 September 2022 (UTC)

In particular that Amnesty claim that the executions were "extrajudicial", despite the involvement of the judiciary, is an extraordinary one and very much does fall under WP:ECREE. The only current sources for this are Amnesty and Radio Farda, a US government-funded service. As noted, the claim is inherently illogical, since in Iran the supreme leader is the head of the judiciary, so any orders or directives stemming from the supreme leader, as in the case of the 1988 executions, which were set in motion by a fatwa from the supreme leader, are quintessentially judicial. This has been raised in the talk page of 1988 executions of Iranian political prisoners. Iskandar323 (talk) 13:05, 23 September 2022 (UTC)

@Fad Ariff: Your recent edit introduced some useful sources with quotes that provided novel information about both the letter sent to the judiciary and estimates for the numbers of deaths. Thank you for those additions. As you will see, I have not removed any of these sources, but I have redistributed them to cite the statements that they each best support. (As it stood, there were six clustered sources, against WP:OVERCITE, so it couldn't stay like that.) The entire second paragraph now explores the political nature of the executions, as you have been calling for. Please have a good read. It would be good to find some common ground on this. Iskandar323 (talk) 14:25, 23 September 2022 (UTC)

Iskandar, you haven’t shown how there are accuracy problems in that section, so I’m removing the accuracy tag you added. Also, we don’t seem to agree how this section should be organized, so I’m restoring the original [15] version.

Let’s now discuss how the section should be organized, starting with the top paragraph.

In order to eliminate potential political oppositions, the Islamic Republic started coordinated extrajudicial killings in Iran. Under International law, the killings were considered a "crime against humanity". The executions were carried out by several high-ranking members of Iran's current government. These executions were carried out after Operation Mersad, a military attack on Iranian forces by the MEK desiring to gather Iranian opposition, overthrow the Islamic Republic, and capture Kermanshah, Ayatollah Khomeini used the failed invasion as a "pretext for the mass execution of thousands of MEK members" along with many other individuals from other leftist opposition groups. In a 1988 audio recording of an official meeting, Hossein Ali Montazeri is heard saying that the ministry of intelligence used the MEK's armed incursion as a pretext to carry out the mass killings, which "had been under consideration for several years".

Do you agree with this as the top paragraph? Once we can agree with the first paragraph, we can move on to the second paragraph, and then the rest of the section. Fad Ariff (talk) 12:58, 26 September 2022 (UTC)

No. As I've noted over and over again, your proposed first sentence is dysfunctional. A) It's basically just a copyright violation of the Amnesty International report, which should be attributed in-text, not plagiarized without acknowledgement. B) It's terrible English - why use a subjugated clause when you could just write a normal sentence? C) It flows on terribly from the previous section, which is about Operation Mersad. Hence, the stable version starts: "Following Operation Mersad..." Page sections do not exist in isolation. And D) It presents a muddled ordering of ideas. The stimulus for the executions was Operation Mersad, which provided the Iranian regime with the political excuse it needed to brand the MEK as traitors and carry out the executions. The regime may have wanted to do this for years, but, quite evidently, it did not do so. Clearly therefore, and as presented in reliable sources, it is the events of Operation Mersad and the the MEK's role in it that acted as the stimulus and prime mover of these events. Iskandar323 (talk) 15:32, 27 September 2022 (UTC)

We can attribute and reword Amnesty if you want, but the content is not "dysfunctional" in the least. I don't question what the article says about Khomeini using the MEK's invasion as a pretext for carrying out the killings, but I also don't question what the article says that there was a bigger scheme behind it all (many of those killed didn’t even participate in Operation Merad or do anything wrong, some weren’t even related to the MEK). Also over and over describing your edits as the "stable version" won’t make it true. The stable version is what is in the article right now. Fad Ariff (talk) 12:01, 28 September 2022 (UTC)

Fad Ariff: The stable version is the version before I or anyone else played around with it. It is certainly not the version you have created, and if you think that you can project that image over the content simply by saying it enough times, you clearly fail to understand how evident all of this is in the editing history. You have numerous times now cried out 'stable version' while pushing your own point of view, and you should stop. The revisionism will fool no one. Iskandar323 (talk) 12:42, 28 September 2022 (UTC)

Never "cried out", but yes, I had made a mistake about which version what the correct stable version. The one in the article now seems to be the correct one. Fad Ariff (talk) 12:08, 29 September 2022 (UTC)

References

RFC, 24 September 2022

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

Ok, so for most closes, I don't worry too much if my admin hat is necessarily on or not. But due to this article being under Discretionary sanctions (DS), I'll confirm, that I'm wearing my admin hat, but also that I'm not adding any additional DS. Though I am deferring to the existing notice in the DS banner in this close.

I also read several discussions and followup proposals/RFCs concerning this. (And archived several on this page.)

The result of the discussion is Remove the text - the consensus of the discussion is that it does not provide enough context on its own. And none of the various proposed clarifying text/context had consensus.

This text is therefore considered "challenged" as per the DS banner at the top of this talk page (The bolded section starting with "Consensus required...").

So per that, do not re-add this text without clear consensus on this talk page, and without adding the clarifying text/context as deemed necessary by this (and/or future) consensus.

I will implement this close by removing the text myself. - jc37 15:09, 1 December 2022 (UTC)

---

Should the following sentence be removed from the article?

"During the second phase of the ideological revolution, all members were forced to surrender their individuality to the organization"

Yes or No? Fad Ariff (talk) 12:03, 24 September 2022 (UTC)

Survey, 24 September 2022

• Yes, this sentence should be removed because it is cherrypicked without providing any context, and also because the author is affiliated with the topic. In a previous RFC other editors also said that the source "had a conflict of interest problem", and that it was "unencyclopedic" to use a conflicted source when there are "a lot of neutral and reliable scholarly sources about the MEK". The editor closing that RFC said "The discussion of the source has established that it isn't unreliable, but neither is it on par with scholarly material from an unaffiliated person." Then some of us attempted to replace this sentence with content from other sources, but there are disagreements about what that content should be or where it should go. What has become clear from that RFC and another discussion here is that the author is not on par with scholarly material from an unaffiliated person, so it should be removed. Fad Ariff (talk) 12:03, 24 September 2022 (UTC)
• Remove sentence Summoned by bot. Without more context, this is not an objective, observable fact. Provide the context about what they actually did that supports that description of it. Chris vLS (talk) 22:26, 26 September 2022 (UTC)

@Chrisvls: I provided the sentence without context with some context. The bold part is the new added context. Is it OK now or I should add more context?

• The MEK has barred children in Camp Ashraf in an attempt to have its members devote themselves to their cause of resistance against the Iranian regime, a rule that has given the MEK reputation of being "cultish"." Various sources have also described the MEK as a "cult", "cult-like", or having a "cult of personality", while other sources say the Iranian regime is running a disinformation campaign to label the MEK a "cult".

• According to a RAND Corporation policy report, while in Paris, Massoud Rajavi began to implement an "ideological revolution", which required members an increased study and devotion that later expanded into "near religious devotion to the Rajavis". After its settlement in Iraq, however, it experienced a shortfall of volunteers. This led to the recruitment of members including Iranian dissidents, as well as Iranian economic migrants in countries such as Turkey and the United Arab Emirates, through "false promises of employment, land, aid in applying for asylum in Western countries, and even marriage, to attract them to Iraq". MEK also gave free visit trips to its camps to the relatives of the members. According to the RAND report, the recruited members were mostly brought by MEK into Iraq illegally and then were asked to submit their identity documents for "safekeeping", an act which would "effectively trap" them. With the assistance of Saddam's government, MEK also recruited some of its members from the Iranian prisoners of the Iran-Iraq war. Rajavi did not distinguish between veterans and new members in terms of status, but promoted individuals according to their blind obedience. It was at this time that the Mojahedin's organizational structure changed. Since members could no longer prove themselves via traditional means such as fighting the regime or by simply identifying with the organization’s history and ideology. According to Banisadr, during this phase of the ideological revolution, all members were forced to surrender their individuality to the organization. This ideological revolution over time imbued the MEK with many of the typical characteristics of a cult, such as authoritarian control, confiscation of assets, and sexual control (including forced divorce and celibacy), emotional isolation, forced labor, sleep deprivation, physical abuse, and limited exit options.

Ghazaalch (talk) 09:06, 27 September 2022 (UTC)

• Remove sentence. @Chrisvls: and @Fad Ariff: have it right that this a sentence taken out of context. I would also echo that the author is not at the same level as other unaffiliated authors. As the discussion section below is showing, there are differences of opinions about which sources, and what content from those sources, should be used to replace this sentence (or contextualize such claims). But that's a separate discussion. Remove this sentence for now (and replace it only if a proposal for replacing it receives consensus). Alex-h (talk) 16:37, 27 September 2022 (UTC)

  @Alex-h: As you have noted, there already has been an old RFC that this sentence survived. This repeat RFC was started needlessly after the OP abandoned the discussion on replacement content. Like many RFCs on this page, it has been impetulantly drawn up and circumvents real discussion. Iskandar323 (talk) 08:04, 28 September 2022 (UTC)

As I said before the sentence in question is not only Masoud Banisadr's point of view. Masoud Banisadr is quoting MeK themselves as saying this: If one accepts the ideology, strategy and … principles of an organisation, then he or she should accept the structure of that organisation as well. Undisciplined action by a person is a sign of giving priority to personal interest over organisational interest. While Ironic Discipline is a sign of the deep dissolution of individuality of a person within the organisation and it is a sign of his total understanding of the organisation’s ideology. (MEK 1980c: 31)

MEK 1980c. An Examination of the Possibilities of the Deviation of Democratic Centralism or the Difference between Scientific Doubt and Unscientific Doubt within the Organisation. MEK Publication.

Ghazaalch (talk) 04:22, 28 September 2022 (UTC)

@Chrisvls: As noted above, the academic source simply echoes the MEK's primary literature on service and self-sacrifice. Iskandar323 (talk) 07:46, 28 September 2022 (UTC)

@Iskandar323: As Vice regent noted before, those who vote in this page might not read RfCs carefully before voting and seem to vote along WP:BATTLEGROUND lines. We should be hoping that the admins reviewing these RFCs do not simply count the votes. And I encourage them to read BATTLEGROUND RfCs however. Ghazaalch (talk) 16:54, 28 September 2022 (UTC)

• Yes, remove. There is an overarching view that the author is problematic and that the claim is controversial. Claims of this nature would also require some kind of rational context (and I don't see any of the proposals below providing such context). Iraniangal777 (talk) 17:06, 5 October 2022 (UTC)

@Iraniangal777 and Alex-h: What's wrong with the context I provided above? (see the bold parts of the above proposal) Ghazaalch (talk) 06:20, 6 October 2022 (UTC)

@Ghazaalch: Others have already asked that you keep the discussions about proposals for new content in the section below. Iraniangal777 (talk) 17:12, 6 October 2022 (UTC)

All of you are talking about the context in this section but expect me to move my question about this talk to another section? first @Chrisvls voted and said Without more context... Provide the context about what they actually did that supports that description of it. Then I provided the context and pinged the voter but they didn't give me an answer. Then @Alex voted and said @Chrisvls: and @Fad Ariff: have it right that this a sentence taken out of context with no heed to the context I provided. Then you wrote Claims of this nature would also require some kind of rational context (and I don't see any of the proposals below providing such context) Then I wanted to know if you saw the context I provided above and if yes what is wrong with it? why don't you talk about it?Ghazaalch (talk) 05:18, 7 October 2022 (UTC)

Discussion, 24 September 2022

• Kommentar: if this is removed and other editors think it should be replaced with new content, then I suggest something like this: According to Ronen Cohen, in 1985 Massoud Rajavi set out his ideological revolution claiming that the goal was to get people to praise him as "ideological revolutionist" while despising Khomeini and the values he represented. This would create within the MEK a desire for sacrifice, resulting in the deposing of the Islamic Republic. According to Abrahamian, Rajavi’s methods were criticized by some while praised by others. Fad Ariff (talk) 12:03, 24 September 2022 (UTC)
• @Chrisvls: A good example of the material supporting this text was provided above in the abortive prior rendition of this RFC: When Rajavi set his ideological revolution, MeK members were required to sacrifice their lives in the name of the organization's goals and become "living martyrs". Each member was required to write a daily report about his or her daily activities and thoughts. Rajavi threatened to expose the reports to the world's media, as well as to other members and friends of any person who voluntarily resigned from the organization. The information recorded in the reports could also be used to apply emotional blackmail to members who were not obedient or who demonstrated their dissatisfaction with the organization.

Iskandar323, the problem with your proposal is that it's not neutral because (like the debated sentence in the RFC) it cherrypicks certain parts of the content that the author said. For example, I used the same author (Ronen Cohen) in my proposal, and the claims there are much more NPOV. Fad Ariff (talk) 12:29, 27 September 2022 (UTC)

What rhetorical nonsense: neither is more cherrypicking than the other. But your extract is unrelated to individuality. Iskandar323 (talk) 15:19, 27 September 2022 (UTC)

Not at all "rhetorical nonsense". The extract is talking about what happened during the ideological revolution, and there are a variety of sources available for information about the ideological revolution. Why only pick certain lines from certain authors? For example, why not replace it with content by Ervand Abrahamian?

"In the months subsequent to the ideological revolution, the paper Mojahed published a ream of letters, speeches, poems and songs in praise of Masud Rajavi. For example, Mehdi Abrishamchi, in a four-hour speech, reiterated Rajavi’s feats, and argued that 'Masud spoke on behalf of all Mojaheds, both living and dead.' He described him as both 'great leader-thinker' and the 'Masud of his age for every age should have its Masud.'... He also credited him for having forged the ideological revolution: ‘the key that would unlock the door to the new Iranian revolution.’ He thanked him profusely for having hurled the organization into a ‘2000 degree furnace’ so that it would come out like high-grade steel. He stressed that those who could not understand the new ideological revolution should henceforth leave. He further thanked Rajavi for making the marriage ‘sacrifice’ to initiate the ideological revolution; for bearing the burden of leadership during the last fourteen years... 'Masud', he proclaimed, 'is to the Mojahedin what Marx was for Marxism and Lenin for Leninism.' He also praised Maryam Azodanlu for being both ‘the living symbol of revolutionary womanhood', and the person 'most capable of grasping the subtleties of Masud’s ideological thought.'... In another speech, Mehdi Abrishamchi confessed that if it had not been for Rajavi’s steadfastness in 1975-6 he would have lost faith in the revolution and would have succumbed to the 'right-wing defeatists.'... Similarly Abu Zarr Varadasbi, one of the few intellectuals still associated with the Mojahedin, thanked Rajavi for giving Iranians the hope that the Khomeini regime would soon be overthrown..."

For the record, I don't propose we replace it with this (since it would be similar to just using sentences that are out of context). But I do propose that we consider the big picture (context) and different assessments through a variety of supporting sources. Iraniangal777 (talk) 17:29, 27 September 2022 (UTC)

The line in question, from a section about the MEK's cult-like characteristics, is about the loss of individuality. I would not mind contextualizing it more, but, to date, the OP has resisted all attempt to add information providing more context, even from the most reliable sources. Iskandar323 (talk) 20:38, 27 September 2022 (UTC)

That is a blatant lie. I started this section with a proposal of my own. Just because I don't agree with your proposal doesn't me that you have to resort to making aspersions. Fad Ariff (talk) 11:58, 28 September 2022 (UTC)

@Fad Ariff: Forget aspersions, calling anything another editor says a "lie" is a blatant personal attack. Iskandar323 (talk) 12:43, 28 September 2022 (UTC)

Correction: what I mean is that what you're saying about me is blatantly and obviously false. Many times I have offered compromises, but you have not accepted them, which is why we have a RFC now. Fad Ariff (talk) 12:14, 29 September 2022 (UTC)

The sentence in question is a controversial sentence and if we are going to replace it with another one, we should bear in mind that the new one should be:

1. Most similar to the old one
2. be related to the section "cult of personality"
3. and be in context.

Ghazaalch (talk) 04:33, 28 September 2022 (UTC)

• @Iskandar323, per your comment to Chrisvls in the above section, here is a full book about "the MEK's primary literature on service and self-sacrifice" that we can also use (it has a lot of primary information). Whatever we add in the end, it should be in context (like several editors have said already). The current sentence in the article is really bad for that exact reason. Fad Ariff (talk) 11:58, 28 September 2022 (UTC)

Fad Ariff, FYI, Iskandar is not saying that we use the primary source alone, they say: "there are both a primary and secondary source from this from opposite ends of the ideological spectrum, making it far from clear that affiliation or bias even feed into this. As was pointed out in the old RFC, this publication of Banisadr is also not a one-off: his work has been published at least twice in separate peer-reviewed publications. He should be attributed in-text though."

So what is your answer to this? Ghazaalch (talk) 15:51, 28 September 2022 (UTC)

@Ghazaalch and @Iskandar323: I’m also not saying that we should use primary sources alone. Both of you suggested that we use primary sources, so what I’m saying is that there are other primary sources besides the ones you’ve chosen. Also please be mindful of Wikipedia:Don't bludgeon the process in the "Survey" section (which is mainly reserved for survey). If you have something to ssay about if and how that sentence should be replaced (or opinions about anything else), this section ("Discussion, 24 September 2022") is intended for that. Fad Ariff (talk) 12:14, 29 September 2022 (UTC)

@Fad Ariff: What I've said is that we have both primary and secondary sources supporting this statement about individuality within the MEK as an organization, both from an MEK perspective, and (according to you) an anti-MEK perspective, so there is consistency regardless of the source. Iskandar323 (talk) 14:04, 29 September 2022 (UTC)

@Ghazaalch and @Iskandar323: the problem with your proposals is that they cherrypick some material and leave out other material (the other material that it leaves out is important for context). Why don't you want other material that explains some of this content to be added? For me it really doesn't matter that it's "anti-MEK" (or the opposite), but some kind of objectivity (or context) is required, and we are very far from that at this stage. Fad Ariff (talk) 11:59, 7 October 2022 (UTC)

@Fad Ariff: I haven't seen an indication that you are interested in adding "context" in your suggestions so far: your suggested replacement text whitewashes the ideology by waving away all of the clearly problematic aspects of the organization's thinking as simply "a desire for sacrifice". Iskandar323 (talk) 12:09, 7 October 2022 (UTC)

References

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Unexplained reverts

@Ghazaalch: why did you revert these edits and why did you change the name of the group from "People's Mojahedin" to "People's Mujahedin"? Iraniangal777 (talk) 15:51, 10 October 2022 (UTC)

I reverted to an old version and explained Restoring content to the original stable version until we can agree on how the article can be organized. Concerning the word "Mujahedin", you have my agreement to change it into "Mojahedin". Ghazaalch (talk) 04:15, 11 October 2022 (UTC)

Yes you reverted to an old version, but you did not give any explanation why. If you disagreed with those edits pls explain why. Iraniangal777 (talk) 06:46, 12 October 2022 (UTC)

My explanation is that we should agree on new changes before implementing them into the article. So explain them one by one in the talk page so that we could discuss them. Ghazaalch (talk) 02:59, 15 October 2022 (UTC)

But which new changes are you disagreeing with exactly? or did you just revert the whole thing without looking at what changes were made to the article? For example, why did you change "On February 1972, "four guerrillas" were sentenced to life imprisonment for the kidnap attempt" back to "On 9 February 1979, four assailants were sentenced to life imprisonment for acts of terrorism and sixteen others received confinements up to ten years."? Iraniangal777 (talk) 07:49, 17 October 2022 (UTC)

Did you explain in your edit summary why you changed "On 9 February 1979, four assailants were sentenced to life imprisonment for acts of terrorism and sixteen others received confinements up to ten years." to "On February 1972, "four guerrillas" were sentenced to life imprisonment for the kidnap attempt"? Ghazaalch (talk) 04:01, 18 October 2022 (UTC)

Ghazaalch: I didn't provide an edit summary for that edit. Is that the reason why you reverted it? Iraniangal777 (talk) 07:20, 19 October 2022 (UTC)

Why did you change "On 9 February 1979, four assailants were sentenced to life imprisonment for acts of terrorism and sixteen others received confinements up to ten years." to "On February 1972, "four guerrillas" were sentenced to life imprisonment for the kidnap attempt"?

Ghazaalch: because that is what it's in the source. Will you now explain why you reverted the edit? Iraniangal777 (talk) 00:53, 22 October 2022 (UTC)

You mean "On 9 February 1979, four assailants were sentenced to life imprisonment for acts of terrorism and sixteen others received confinements up to ten years." is not in the source? Ghazaalch (talk) 03:37, 23 October 2022 (UTC)

Ghazaalch: The first source doesn’t even mention the MEK:"Fourteen months later, on Febryary 9, 1972, Iranian military authorities sentenced four guerrillas to life in impsonment for the attempted kinapping and other acts of terrorism"

The second source just mentions that The MKO also tried to kidnap U.S. Ambassador Douglas MacArthur III in Tehran."

So why did you revert the edit?Iraniangal777 (talk) 07:31, 24 October 2022 (UTC)

You mean that the first source is not talking about MeK? Ghazaalch (talk) 05:15, 25 October 2022 (UTC)

Ghazaalch: I already replied to your question. Now please explain why you reverted the edit. Iraniangal777 (talk) 07:24, 25 October 2022 (UTC)

If the first source is not talking about MeK and the second source just mention that MeK tried to kidnap U.S. Ambassador, then where did you bring the "four guerrillas" from? Ghazaalch (talk) 04:05, 26 October 2022 (UTC)

Ghazaalch: I already addressed that. Now please explain your revert. Iraniangal777 (talk) 06:10, 26 October 2022 (UTC)

You didn't address that. Ghazaalch (talk) 02:36, 27 October 2022 (UTC)

Ghazaalch: I already explained to you what's in the sources (The first source says:"Fourteen months later, on Febryary 9, 1972, Iranian military authorities sentenced four guerrillas to life in impsonment for the attempted kidnapping and other acts of terrorism"). That's where "four guerrillas" was taken from, so that has been addressed. Iraniangal777 (talk) 06:56, 28 October 2022 (UTC)

Ghazaalch: please explain why you reverted. Iraniangal777 (talk) 07:54, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

I thought you understood by now. Because that is what it's in the source.Ghazaalch (talk) 08:15, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

Ghazaalch: if the source says "February 9, 1972", and what you reinstated to the article says "9 February 1979", then what you reinstated is not supported by the source. Also the source doesn’t even mention the MEK, just says "four guerrillas", which is why I had made that distinction in the article. And also looking at the rest of your revert, why did you reinstate a version of the section "1988 execution of MEK prisoners" that had been previously reverted? Iraniangal777 (talk) 17:03, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

The year 1972 and the revert to the unstable version of the section was a mistake and could be corrected. What is disputed here is the other parts of the source that you omitted. Ghazaalch (talk) 08:25, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

Ghazaalch: that's already several mistakes you made in your revert. If the source says "four guerrillas", then why do you dispute having that in the article? Also why did you revert the "1980s to 2004" title to "1980s"? And why did you revert "aside from the Kurdish Democratic party, few significant groups joined. This derived from the MEK's ideology of establishing an Islamic Democratic People's Republic, which secular forces of the anti-Soviet left did no think was attainable"? Iraniangal777 (talk) 07:59, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

Let's discuss the issues one by one. We were talking about "Fourteen months later, on February 9, 1972, Iranian military authorities sentenced four guerrillas to life in imprisonment for the attempted kidnapping and other acts of terrorism" and you did not explain why you omitted acts of terrorism from it.Ghazaalch (talk) 05:00, 6 November 2022 (UTC)

If keeping "acts of terrorism" was your only issue with that, then all you had to do was restore that to the article instead of reverting all the edits and making all the mistakes that you made. I've now fully quoted the author with "sentenced four guerrillas to life in imprisonment for the attempted kidnapping and other acts of terrorism". So now explain your revert: "1980s to 2004" title to "1980s"? And why did you revert "aside from the Kurdish Democratic party, few significant groups joined. This derived from the MEK's ideology of establishing an Islamic Democratic People's Republic, which secular forces of the anti-Soviet left did no think was attainable"? Iraniangal777 (talk) 07:33, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

keeping "acts of terrorism" was not the only issue with your edits, but we were going to discuss them one by one. Now explain why you removed the "acts of terrorism". Ghazaalch (talk) 02:52, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

Ghazaalch, I restored "acts of terrorism" to the article on my last edit, so that content is no longer disputed. What is in dispute is your other edits, so explain your revert: "1980s to 2004" title to "1980s"? And why did you revert "aside from the Kurdish Democratic party, few significant groups joined. This derived from the MEK's ideology of establishing an Islamic Democratic People's Republic, which secular forces of the anti-Soviet left did no think was attainable"? Iraniangal777 (talk) 07:03, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

You just restored "acts of terrorism" but didn't explain why you omitted it first, not even in the edit summary. Was it a mistake or you didn't like it? What about In August 1971, the Shah's security services arrested 69 members of the MEK, with additional arrests and executions following in 1972 that "practically shattered the organization". Further infighting within the organization followed, with a breakaway group highjacking the MEK name and identity.?Ghazaalch (talk) 07:52, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

Ghazaalch, I had removed "acts of terrorism" because that had nothing to do with MacArthur or the MEK, and had removed the second content you quoted because the Schism within the MEK is already described in the section "Schism (1971–1978)". Since those two edits are not in dispute, then please stop diverting and answer why you reverted "1980s to 2004" title to "1980s" and why you reverted "aside from the Kurdish Democratic party, few significant groups joined. This derived from the MEK's ideology of establishing an Islamic Democratic People's Republic, which secular forces of the anti-Soviet left did no think was attainable". If you don't respond I will restore this content to the article. Iraniangal777 (talk) 09:01, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

Could you quote the page 178 of "The Encyclopedia of Kidnappings" to see who the source is talking about other than MEk? Could you also quote the part in the section "Schism (1971–1978)" where In August 1971, the Shah's security services arrested 69 members of the MEK, with additional arrests and executions following in 1972 that "practically shattered the organization". Further infighting within the organization followed, with a breakaway group highjacking the MEK name and identity is repeated?

As for the subtitles of the section "Membership" I think the long standing version is better organized unless you could convince me the new titles are much better. And aside from the Kurdish Democratic party, few significant groups joined. This derived from the MEK's ideology of establishing an Islamic Democratic People's Republic, which secular forces of the anti-Soviet left did no think was attainable is kind of unnecessary expanding of an already long article. Ghazaalch (talk) 07:21, 12 November 2022 (UTC)

Increasing a sentence by some 10 words to fix information about why few other groups joined the PMOI at the time is hardly a problem, so that has my consensus. About the Douglas MacArthur kidnap attempt, many reliable sources mention that there were different suspects, so you can’t pick and choose which suspects are named and which ones aren’t, that is POV pushing (so I'm also giving consensus for that information). About the sentencing and suspects, the source names "gunmen" or "four guerrillas", not the PMOI, so the way you (Ghazaalch) had worded it made it look like the source was talking about the PMOI (but it's not) so I’m removing that too. NMasiha (talk) 15:09, 13 November 2022 (UTC)

I'm in the same opinion with NMasiha here. Fad Ariff (talk) 13:03, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

This is getting difficult to follow, so will separate each question. Iraniangal777 (talk) 08:01, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

Ghazaalch, about the making a distinction on the membership section (1980s to 2004), that's when the MEK moved from Iraq to Europe. Their structure seems to have changed during this move, and that's how sources portray it. Why do you oppose making this distinction? Iraniangal777 (talk) 08:34, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

2nd part

Content in question: "In August 1971, the Shah's security services arrested 69 members of the MEK, with additional arrests and executions following in 1972 that "practically shattered the organization". Further infighting within the organization followed, with a breakaway group highjacking the MEK name and identity"

Ghazaalch, If you want to add the Shah’s arrest of MEK members, then that's ok with me (it should be placed before the 1973 events since that took place before 1973), but the rest about the infighting within the organization with a breakaway group highjacking the MEK name is information that's already in the Schism section ("By 1973, the members of the Marxist–Leninist MEK launched an "internal ideological struggle". Members who did not convert to Marxism were expelled or reported to SAVAK.[100] This new group adopted a Marxist, more secular and extremist identity. They appropriated the MEK name, and in a book entitled Manifesto on Ideological Issues, the central leadership declared "that after ten years of secret existence, four years of armed struggle, and two years of intense ideological rethinking, they had reached the conclusion that Marxism, not Islam, was the true revolutionary philosophy". This led to two rival Mojahedin, each with its own publication, its own organization, and its own activities" etc.) Iraniangal777 (talk) 08:01, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

I see no repetition.Ghazaalch (talk) 09:38, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

Ghazaalch The infighting within the MEK is in the article, and also is the new group highjacking the MEK name and identity. Exactly what new information is that sentence providing? Iraniangal777 (talk) 09:46, 18 November 2022 (UTC)

Again I see no repetition. The second text relates details that we cannot get from the first one. Ghazaalch (talk) 08:20, 19 November 2022 (UTC)

Ghazaalch which "details" is the second text providing that isn't provided already in the first text (or in that section)? Iraniangal777 (talk) 08:27, 22 November 2022 (UTC)

"By 1973, the members of the Marxist–Leninist MEK launched an "internal ideological struggle". Members who did not convert to Marxism were expelled or reported to SAVAK.[100] This new group adopted a Marxist, more secular and extremist identity. They appropriated the MEK name, and in a book entitled Manifesto on Ideological Issues, the central leadership declared "that after ten years of secret existence, four years of armed struggle, and two years of intense ideological rethinking, they had reached the conclusion that Marxism, not Islam, was the true revolutionary philosophy". This led to two rival Mojahedin, each with its own publication, its own organization, and its own activities"Ghazaalch (talk) 10:23, 24 November 2022 (UTC)

Ghazaalch I don’t get what you’re saying. What is the difference between the text you quoted and "Further infighting within the organization followed, with a breakaway group highjacking the MEK name and identity"? Iraniangal777 (talk) 09:45, 30 November 2022 (UTC)

The second text relates details that we cannot get from the first one.Ghazaalch (talk) 05:56, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

3rd part

Ghazaalch, you deleted the "source needed" code for the content "Al Jazeera reported on an alleged Twitter-based MEK campaign. According to Exeter University lecturer Marc Owen Jones, accounts tweeting #FreeIran and #Iran_Regime_Change "were created within about a four-month window", suggesting bot activity". Why? Iraniangal777 (talk) 08:01, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

It has a source.Ghazaalch (talk) 09:38, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

Ghazaalch can you please quote the part of the source that supports the information in the article? Iraniangal777 (talk) 09:46, 18 November 2022 (UTC)

I fixed the link to the source. Ghazaalch (talk) 08:20, 19 November 2022 (UTC)

4th part

Ghazaalch, you deleted "A statement by MEK representatives said that the attacks were a way to protest the bombing of a MEK military base where several people had been killed and wounded." Why? Iraniangal777 (talk) 08:01, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

This article is already too long. We are not going to make it longer with unnecessary denials and apologias.Ghazaalch (talk) 09:38, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

Ghazaalch if length is the problem, that can be solved by rephrasing using less words. Iraniangal777 (talk) 09:46, 18 November 2022 (UTC)

We can add the MEK's response and reduce the word count by about half if we change the way it is written, to something like

In April 1992, the MEK attacked 10 Iranian embassies using different weapons, taking hostages, and injuring Iranian ambassadors and embassy employees. According to MEK representatives, the attacks were a way to protest the bombing of a MEK military base where several people had been killed and wounded.

I'm open to other proposals, but removing this information because of "length" is not justified. Fad Ariff (talk) 13:51, 18 November 2022 (UTC)

Balanced paraphrasing / summary of main points is a simple solution, and I would support Fad Ariff's proposal.Iraniangal777 (talk) 08:27, 22 November 2022 (UTC)

@Ghazaalch: this is yet another one of your comments that doesn't make any sense. By removing all of the denials, you are giving all the weight to the accusations, and zero weight to the denials. I will restore this based on WP:NPOV. Fad Ariff (talk) 13:12, 24 November 2022 (UTC)

Fad Ariff, by default we know that MEK deny any bad thing done by the group or has a justification for it. We cannot fill the already long article with denials and justifications and apologetics given by the militant group. If we include them we should also include the justifications given by Iran which makes the article even longer. And we don't want that. So I restore the longstanding version. Ghazaalch (talk) 05:01, 25 November 2022 (UTC)

@Ghazaalch: I proposed a way to shorten the text amount for this information, but you only want to keep the accusations and remove any other content that says anything different. That is a violation of WP:NPOV. Fad Ariff (talk) 13:00, 25 November 2022 (UTC)

• I think length is a problem as has been mentioned many times before. We should seriously consider creating several spin-off articles.VR _talk 01:27, 19 November 2022 (UTC)

  @Vice regent: We should, but no simple improvements appear to be simple on this page. E.g.: The material of the entire People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran#1988 execution of MEK prisoners section was copied to 1988 executions of Iranian political prisoners, but subsequent editing to usefully summarize the material on this page encountered resistance. Iskandar323 (talk) 07:09, 25 November 2022 (UTC)

• Length is not a "problem" for adding another version of events if one uses paraphrasing. My proposal in talk reduced the length, which Iraniangal777 supported. Fad Ariff (talk) 13:03, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

I do support Fad Ariff's proposal, and since that's the only proposal on the table, I have implemented the change. Iraniangal777 (talk) 08:34, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

VR and I do not support. If you take a look at the rest of the article, Zarif(sarif) said that the attack or the bombing was in revenge for another Mojahedin attack, which should be added to the article too, but since we don't want this article to be too long, we will delete both.Ghazaalch (talk) 05:53, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

5th part

Ghazaalch, you deleted In 2011, Mohammad Ali Haj Aghaei and Jafar Kazemi were also executed by the Iranian government for co-operating with the MEK, despite Hillary Clinton urging Iranian authorities to release the two activists. Why? Iraniangal777 (talk) 08:27, 22 November 2022 (UTC)

You should explain why you should add such unimportant details to an already long article and why you should delete an important detail like a joint military invasion of Iranian Kurdistan by Iraqi forces and 7,000 MEK militants aimed at capturing Kermanshah from the article. Ghazaalch (talk) 10:23, 24 November 2022 (UTC)

@Ghazaalch: I added that. It shows how the Iranian government kills people in Iran for cooperating with the MEK (and the international reaction by Clinton), something which is not in the article. Why are you opposed to having this in the article? Fad Ariff (talk) 13:09, 24 November 2022 (UTC)

See edit summary.Ghazaalch (talk) 05:20, 25 November 2022 (UTC)

@Ghazaalch: I did read it but don't undestand how this information is an "UNDUE WEIGHT" addition [16] ? Fad Ariff (talk) 13:02, 25 November 2022 (UTC)

UNDUE weight refer to the content that discuss one aspect of the article in too much detail. This is especially true if the article focuses on an unimportant aspect of the topic while ignoring items of importance.Ghazaalch (talk) 09:45, 27 November 2022 (UTC)

Ghazaalch I also don't get what you're saying here. The information gives basic details about something that has received international reporting and isn’t mentioned in the article. This isn't UNDUE weight at all. Iraniangal777 (talk) 09:49, 30 November 2022 (UTC)

@Ghazaalch: like most of your edits here, your response doesn't make any sense. Please address or this material will be restored to the article. Fad Ariff (talk) 13:03, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

Ghazaalch, you still have not explained how this content is UNDUE. For this reason, I have implemented the change. Iraniangal777 (talk) 08:34, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

As I quoted above UNDUE is especially true if the article focuses on an unimportant aspect of the topic while ignoring items of importance Fad Ariff you deleted an important content like a joint military invasion of Iranian Kurdistan by Iraqi forces and 7,000 MEK militants aimed at capturing Kermanshah, but you are insisting on restoring this unimportant content. Also NMasiha deleted an important content like In 1970 and 1971, MeK "assassinated five U.S. military technicians seconded to the Iranian military" that you kept silent about it. Why?Ghazaalch (talk) 05:45, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

6th part

Ghazaalch, you deleted For some Iranians, the marriage institution was being used as a means to challenge "unjust organization orders" at the time in Iran. For MEK members, the marriage between Massoud and Maryam Rajavi became a platform for women to challenge forced marriages. Why? Iraniangal777 (talk) 08:27, 22 November 2022 (UTC)

Iraniangal777, You added For some Iranians, the marriage institution was being used as a means to challenge "unjust organization orders" at the time in Iran. For MEK members, the marriage between Massoud and Maryam Rajavi became a platform for women to challenge forced marriages. Why? Ghazaalch (talk) 10:23, 24 November 2022 (UTC)

@Ghazaalch: I added that, and added it because it gives context to the events surrounding the MEK's ideological revolution. It explains how the marriage between the Rajavis became a platform for women to challenge forced marriages in Iran. Why are you opposed to having this in the article? Fad Ariff (talk) 13:07, 24 November 2022 (UTC)

See edit summary.Ghazaalch (talk) 05:20, 25 November 2022 (UTC)

Unless we have multiple sources for this, this has some weight issues. It also seems confused: I have not seen Rajavi's first marriage called 'forced'. Iskandar323 (talk) 07:18, 25 November 2022 (UTC)

@Ghazaalch: and @Iskandar323: please explain why this information is undue weight. Most of the information in that section is taken from only one source (Abrahamian 1989), so whatever logic you are trying to use here needs to work for other sources too per WP:NPOV. Fad Ariff (talk) 13:05, 25 November 2022 (UTC)

You know that Abrahamian is an established subject matter expert and that there is no comparison to be made. Aside from the lack of supporting information from the source provided (it is a brief and unexplained statement), it is from an associate professor without tenure and the published work has not even been academically reviewed. Iskandar323 (talk) 08:04, 26 November 2022 (UTC)

@Iskandar323: The book "Women and the Islamic Republic: How Gendered Citizenship Conditions the Iranian State" is peer reviewed (published by Cambridge University Press) and is from 2022, making it even a better source than a book from 1989. The source is reliable, so that won’t work as a reason to exclude this content. Fad Ariff (talk) 13:01, 26 November 2022 (UTC)

It's a book, not a journal, so no, it's not peer-reviewed. It is just published by Cambridge University Press. In any case, reliability was not the question; the question was weight. Additionally, the entire phrase "became a platform for women to challenge forced marriages" was identical to the source, and so a copyright violation. Iskandar323 (talk) 13:52, 26 November 2022 (UTC)

@Iskandar323: It's a published book just like the book by Abrahamian. But if you're saying the question is about weight, how do you explain having 330 words from Abrahamian’s book in that section, and not allowing 41 words from a different book there? Fad Ariff (talk) 13:20, 28 November 2022 (UTC)

Almost everything stood up by Abrahamian can be also be stood up by other sources, such as Katzman. Is the same true here? Iskandar323 (talk) 13:54, 28 November 2022 (UTC)

@Iskandar323: if "Almost everything stood up by Abrahamian can be also be stood up by other sources", then provide those other sources. Fad Ariff (talk) 13:08, 29 November 2022 (UTC)

@Iskandar323: I'm still waiting for the other sources you said supported Abrahamian's material. If you fail to provide them, I will revert this edit. Fad Ariff (talk) 13:03, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

This discussion isn't about material supported by Abrahamian, so the two comments above are simply nonsensical. Iskandar323 (talk) 13:08, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

@Iskandar323:you said that keeping the material by Abrahamian was ok because "Almost everything stood up by Abrahamian can be also be stood up by other sources", and then said that the material by the new source was not ok because other sources didn’t support it. So if other sources also don’t support Abrahamian’s claims, they should also be removed (per your own logic!). Fad Ariff (talk) 13:28, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

If you want to challenge some material by Abrahamian, that is a separate discussion, and you would need to point to a specific statement. What I was pointing to was the lack of multiple sources supporting this statement from someone not established as a subject-matter expert. Iskandar323 (talk) 13:45, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

Iskandar323, the material by Abrahamian is about the same thing that Shirin Saeidi is talking about. Both sources are reliable, and both sources discuss the same topic. Since your objection to Saeidi is that its content is not backed by other sources, then it's only fair to use the same objection to also exclude the material by Abrahamian. So I'm challenging the material by Abrahamain using your own objection against Saeidi. Iraniangal777 (talk) 08:34, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

This is getting silly. Regardless of other considerations, there is little comparison to be made between Abrahamian, who is an established expert on the MEK specifically, and Saeidi, who is a gender studies specialist who has simply mentioned the MEK as a brief example. But honestly, if you are all that passionate about including this material, I don't have too much objection to the second statement being included, i.e.: "For MEK members, the marriage between Massoud and Maryam Rajavi became a platform for women to challenge forced marriages. - but with a slight twist. At the moment this sentence fails verification. What the source actually says is "for women involved in the organization", and this should not be generalized to all women in Wikivoice - but this can be easily fixed: since the wording already tracks far to close to the source, it would be better quoted directly anyway. Iskandar323 (talk) 09:05, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

Though this still reads quite weirdly, because nowhere have I actually seen it established that either of the Rajavis was actually in a forced marriage, so ideally a statement of this type should be preceded by a sourced statement explaining this if so. Iskandar323 (talk) 09:08, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

@Iraniangal777: This edit, where you remove stable material from Abrahamian seemingly just to make a point, as your post makes clear, is a poster child for WP:POINT, a recognised form of disruptive editing. I would strongly suggest that you undo that action. Iskandar323 (talk) 10:30, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

Without speaking to the rest of that edit, I've restored the Abrahamian material, so that's done. Iskandar323 (talk) 18:12, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

@Iskandar323: whatever logic you are trying to use for one source also needs to apply to other sources, but that’s not what you’re doing. If your argument for removing the content by Shirin Saeidii is that it’s WP:UNDUE, then the same argument for removing the content by Abrahamian applies. I would support removing that Abrahamian text on those grounds, or including something that includes more than a single POV, like this

For some Iranians, the marriage institution was being used as a means to challenge "unjust organization orders" at the time in Iran. For MEK members, the marriage between Massoud and Maryam Rajavi became a platform for women to challenge forced marriages. According to the announcement, Maryam Azodanlu and Mehdi Abrishamchi had recently divorced in order to facilitate the ideological revolution. This was signified as an "act of supreme sacrifice designed to promote collective leadership and appeal to the female half of the Iranian populace." According to Ervand Abrahamian "in the eyes of traditionalists, particularly among the bazaar middle class, the whole incident was indecent. It smacked of wife-swapping, especially when Abrishamchi announced his own marriage to Khiabani's younger sister. It involved women with young children and wives of close friends – a taboo in traditional Iranian culture;" something that further isolated the Mojahedin and also upset some members of the organization.

Let me know if you have any grounds for rejecting something like this, or you propose something for a change. Fad Ariff (talk) 13:13, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

The main argument from the start has been that Saeidi is simply a not particularly expert source and one that should ideally be supported with others, nothing else. I'm not going to respond to any of the above ramblings about "logic" - Wikipedia is based on policy and consensus; it's not an amateur logician's playground. The proposed additions from Saeidi's book have very little to do with any POV; they are simply the interpretation of events from a genders studies, rather than historical or political perspective. I've said above what statement I wouldn't mind seeing included. The first statement, of the variant above: "For some Iranians, the marriage institution was being used as a means to challenge "unjust organization orders" at the time in Iran." is certainly not due, however, because it is not specifically about the MEK, making it not just a little bit, but entirely tangential to the subject of this page. A single line on this marginal gender studies perspective is more than enough coverage. Iskandar323 (talk) 13:39, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

References

Denial of charges

@Ghazaalch: why did you remove[17] "The MEK denied the charges, with a representative responding that the charges were "politically motivated" and a "gift" to the Iranian government."? Fad Ariff (talk) 13:04, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

It is undue weight to MEK denials.

@Ghazaalch: the information about the charges, and the information about the denial of the charges, is all extracted from the same source, so your "undue weight" claim doesn’t make any sense. The article should either show Judge Mohammed Abdul-Sahib’s accusations and Mahdi Uqbaai’s response, or not mention either one (both statements are equally due or undue). Fad Ariff (talk) 13:04, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

@Fad Ariff: it really doesn't help to make a lot of changes in one edit. I would support adding the MEK's denial, though simply shortening it to "the MEK denied the charges". Also, I would support keeping the name of the court, Supreme Iraqi Criminal Tribunal, and not simply calling it "an Iraqi court", which is vague.VR _talk 01:25, 19 November 2022 (UTC)

I added the shorted denial. Ghazaalch (talk) 08:23, 19 November 2022 (UTC)

@Ghazaalch: and @Vice regent: You are using around 34 words to describe the details of the accusations, and using about 5 words to describe the details surrounding the denial of accusations. How is that WP:NPOV? Fad Ariff (talk) 13:03, 22 November 2022 (UTC)

@Fad Ariff: that's sort of how the English language works. If I say, "the police accused X of this, this, and these charges, while X denied the charges," I am necessarily going to give more space to the charges. Now I could say "X denied this, this and these charges, which the police made against him." This way the denial has more space. But its awkward wording because the charges were made first, so they should be covered first, before we mention the denial.VR _talk 17:18, 23 November 2022 (UTC)

@Ghazaalch: and @Vice regent: you're both avoiding the question which was about NPOV distribution of content. Covering this information as "In July 2010, an Iraqi court issued an arrest warrant for 39 MEK members, accusing them for crimes against on Shi'ites and ethnic Kurds. The MEK denied the charges, with a representative responding that the charges were "politically motivated" and a "gift" to the Iranian government" would conform to "how the English language works" while having a similar amount of details about the accusations and the denials. If you then want to add more details about the accusations, then we can also add more details about the denial (which there is). Fad Ariff (talk) 13:03, 24 November 2022 (UTC)

WP:NPOV is not giving the same weight to the accusations and denials. When the sources give more words/weight to the accusations, we should do the same, and it is not against WP:NPOV?Ghazaalch (talk) 04:44, 25 November 2022 (UTC)

@Ghazaalch: what I proposed is indeed giving more weight to the accusations, so I’m restoring this content. Fad Ariff (talk) 13:08, 25 November 2022 (UTC)

@Fad Ariff: I'm really not seeing your NPOV objections here. The Reuters source gives significantly more weight to the court's statements than the MEK's response. It does that by devoting it 5 paragraphs vs 1 for the MEK's statement and the MEK's statement is covered at the bottom of the article, vs the court's charges are at the top.

You are trying to include every statement the MEK has made about everything, which is one of the main reasons why this article is so large and unreadable. This is contrary to WP:SUMMARYSTYLE and WP:PARAPHRASE.VR _talk 22:09, 25 November 2022 (UTC)

@Vice regent: what you are saying about the source is not accurate (most of what you call "paragraphs" are really one or two sentences, and there is more to the denials of the accusations that I haven't added to the article like "Mahdi Uqbaai, a spokesman of the PMOI, said the court was pressured by the government to order the arrests."). The MEK didn't just deny the charges, it said the accusations were politically motivated. Explaining the incident in that context (rather than cherry picking parts) is what WP:NPOV is for. Even with adding this, the denials are considerably shorter than the accusations. Fad Ariff (talk) 13:03, 26 November 2022 (UTC)

• Ghazaalch, you cannot revert consensus building without a proper argument. Restoring the denial of the charges per WP:NPOV. Iraniangal777 (talk) 08:40, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

When some people are against the additions, it shows the consensus is not built yet.Ghazaalch (talk) 05:11, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

References

Atrocious lead

Was this lead written by John Bolton? Literally nothing about it being wildly unpopular in Iran, about it being undemocratic, about it carrying out terrorist attacks, about it being supported by several of Iran's enemies etc. What gives? I don't know why Wikipedia's quality goes down so much when it comes to these articles closely tied to US foreign policy. This doesn't reflect RS at all. Prinsgezinde (talk) 23:45, 26 November 2022 (UTC)

@Prinsgezinde: That's the problem with this page. Consensus required rule entails that they can revert your good changes in this article but you cannot restore the changes without consensus. And no admin is watching this page to decide on what content should be added and what content should be deleted from the article. Ghazaalch (talk) 13:02, 27 November 2022 (UTC)

Fully agreed.

• I have placed tags on one sentence in the lead. None of the sources say that the MEK "is also Iran's largest and most active political opposition group". Notice given the sentence says "is", the source must be able to reasonably make this status about MEK's as of 2022. This means the source would ideally be from the past 5 years or so; a source from 1989 can't possibly be used to say MEK is popular in 2022. If reliable sources for this statement aren't provided, I will go ahead and remove that sentence because this is a violation of our WP:CORE policies.VR _talk 17:48, 27 November 2022 (UTC)

Yes, the lack of any mention of its bombing or other terror campaigns is a fairly serious omission - very wide of the mark in terms of due weight and badly wide of NPOV. Iskandar323 (talk) 19:43, 27 November 2022 (UTC)

The sources in the lead support "Iran's most active opposition group" (Katzman 2001, p. 97), "And many foreign diplomats considered it to be by far the largest, the best disciplined, and the most heavily armed of all the opposition organizations. As the main foe of the Islamic Republic..." (Abrahamian 1989, p. 1.), "The MEK, which has been in exile for years, is Iran's most organized and only opposition group." (Financial Times, 2018). These sources span from 1989 to 2018. I don't see a problem with these sources, but I have seen other sources for this content.

• the main democratic Iranian opposition movement, the People's Mojahedin of Iran (PMOI/MEK)

• Iran's main opposition group, the People's Mujahedeen Organization of Iran

• Iran’s main opposition group Iraniangal777 (talk) 08:36, 28 November 2022 (UTC)

The Financial Times spin is quite different: it says "the only" opposition group, which would make it the largest, most active, most organized, etc. group by default - all of these statements follow on from it being the only one. However, if that is the case, the pertinent fact to mention would not be comparisons to nothing (in a vacuum), but that it is the "only one". Iskandar323 (talk) 09:27, 28 November 2022 (UTC)

The Financial Times article also says "Analysts say it [MEK] has little support inside Iran today...Often described by Iranian and western political observers as a cult, the MEK has an ideology that is a mix of revolutionary Shia Islam, Marxism and nationalism...But even Iran hawks in Washington who favour regime change tend to dismiss the MEK’s influence in Iran. “The Iranian people hate the MEK so the notion that they are somehow going to be part of the future of Iran is laughable, completely,”..." So I would say to use FT source would be an example of WP:CHERRYPICKING. The "CNN source" is actually an editorial and it actually says at the very top that the author received money from the groups that wanted the MEK delisted (see WP:EDITORIAL and WP:INDEPENDENT). So we are left with just the Telegraph source that calls mentions MEK as main opposition group in passing, gives no explanation for this and was published in 2008 prior to both the Iranian Green Movement and the Mahasa Amini protests which may very well have a more legitimate claim to being Iran's largest opposition movement.VR _talk 12:22, 28 November 2022 (UTC)

On the whole, none of these sources are particularly detailed on the subject or adequately qualify what it considered an "opposition group" in an Iranian context (indeed, are we counting the Green Movement and the like?), making the claims about relative size unqualified at best. This 2018 Guardian article makes no such claims, instead referring to it as "a tiny revolutionary group stranded in Albania", "not democratic", and backed by UK and US politicians only as "the easiest way to irritate Tehran" - all of which seems much closer to the mark. Iskandar323 (talk) 12:59, 28 November 2022 (UTC)

MeK repeatedly claims to be the most influential opposition group in that country, in reality it appears that this once-prominent dissident group can now validly claim only to be highly organized and well (albeit illegally) funded. Ghazaalch (talk) 03:02, 29 November 2022 (UTC)

There are also recent sources (as well as older sources) supporting this statement

• "the biggest and most resilient Iranian opposition group."
• "Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK), Iran's major armed opposition group"
• "the main opposition organization in Iran, the PMOI (known also as Mujahideen Khalq)"

I will add these sources to the article. Iraniangal777 (talk) 08:39, 29 November 2022 (UTC)

Again, how many of these statements relate to the present? These snippets do not include the time periods that they pertain to. The second sentence "major armed opposition group...", for instance, continues with "...based in Iraq" and pertains to the pre-2003 situation. Yes, the MEK was a major armed opposition group in the 80s and to a lesser extent in the 90s (in exile in Iraq), but these time periods and phases need clarifying, not glossing over with cherrypicked quotations to imply that the MEK is the same force today that it was pre-revolution and in the 1980s. Iskandar323 (talk) 08:56, 29 November 2022 (UTC)

On National Council of Resistance of Iran, we also have rival claims that the NCRI is the "largest political opposition group", sourced to the Guardian in 2018. There are also various major Kurdish opposition groups (outside of the NCRI) that are actually in Iran and which have come to the fore in the recent unrest, including Komala [18], and others [19]. Iskandar323 (talk) 09:08, 29 November 2022 (UTC)

I'm counting 7 sources in the lead relating to the present and to the past. I don't think that is the problem in the lead, but I do think should be shorter. Fad Ariff (talk) 13:03, 29 November 2022 (UTC)

Hold on a second. If we have conflicting sources, then per WP:CONFLICTING, we should prefer the most up-to-date reliable sources and, if a conflict still exists, provide all viewpoints. I think this is one of the lesser problems of the article but the fact that there are sources expressly saying that its size is exaggerated makes calling it the biggest opposition group in the lead (with the other view not expressed) undue. Prinsgezinde (talk) 20:20, 30 November 2022 (UTC)

I think we can all agree that the MEK was the Iranian regime's main opposition group until around the 2003 period, but there are different views about if they still are? The sources added to the lead are recent and reliable but perhaps we should be looking at all academic sources from around 2003 onwards and determine what is the most prominent account since then. Iraniangal777 (talk) 08:53, 2 December 2022 (UTC)

No, there are plenty of sources, including Abrahamian, that state that MEK is being quite unpopular in Iran since its alliance with Saddam, and that happened in the 1980s. Before that, I'd agree that MEK was a fairly popular group.VR _talk 21:59, 3 December 2022 (UTC)

VR, you asked for recent sources, and that’s what you got, yet you’re still adding that the information is "verification failed". If you prefer that we revert the article to its original form I won’t object but there are enough sources saying the MEK is the regime’s "main", "most active", and "largest" opposition, both recent and less recent (including Katzman and Abrahamian, so stop adding "verification failed" to those sources). Iraniangal777 (talk) 09:05, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

I replaced the old sentence with It was described by some sources as Iran's largest and most active political opposition group,[34][35][36][37][38][39][40] while others say that this "once-prominent dissident group" nowadays is only "highly organized and well (albeit illegally) funded".[41] Ghazaalch (talk) 10:28, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

The sources show that what we first had in the article was more WP:DUE. For this reason, I’m restoring the article’s original version with some of the new sources. I would also support "main opposition" per the sources. Fad Ariff (talk) 12:54, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

Fad Ariff, here are some quotations from the sources that you say support the claim "It is also Iran's largest and most active political opposition group."[10][33][34][35][36][37][38]:

"And many foreign diplomats considered it to be by far the largest, the best disciplined, and the most heavily armed of all the opposition organizations."

"The MEK, which has been in exile for years, is Iran’s most organised and only armed opposition group."

"Casaca was the chairman of the European Parliament delegation to NATO and a leading activist on behalf of democracy in Iraq and the region. According to his findings, the main opposition organization in Iran, the PMOI (known also as Mujahideen Khalq)…"

Could you provide the related quotations for the rest of the sources too, namely [10][35][37][38]? Please quote the whole paragraph around the words that you say support the claim. In the source [37] for example you quoted only the biggest and most resilient Iranian opposition group. I want you to quote the sentences around the words too.Ghazaalch (talk) 06:05, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

Any designation of the group from the 1980s/90s is obviously heavily dated at this point. The qualifier of "most/highly organised" seems like the phrase with the most continuity from past through present in reliable sources, and seems to be the least objectionable. However, I would note that the FT, which uses this terminology contains at least one major error - that is it is definitively NOT the "only" armed opposition groups, as evidenced by the presence of Kurdish armed groups [20]. Iskandar323 (talk) 08:09, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

There are enough sources, past and present, that support "main Iranian opposition", isn’t it? Fad Ariff (talk) 13:07, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

There are also enough sources that say it is an armed opposition group or unpopular opposition group, or a terrorist group, why did you decide to put your favorite version in the lede?Ghazaalch (talk) 04:45, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

Ghazaalch, please provide the "enough sources", so far I'm seeing that the version with most sources is what was originally in the lead. Iskandar323, I don't agree with your change because not only "experts and Western diplomats" make this reference. The content "repeatedly claims to be the most influential opposition group" is just unscholarly, most of all for the lead. Iraniangal777 (talk) 08:21, 9 December 2022 (UTC)

As Ghazaalch notes, there are plenty of sources that say other things about the group or dispute its influence or relevance. The lead currently includes one POV and no other, which is not just a violation of NPOV but borderline propagandistic. If no solution is forthcoming on how to fairly reflect not just the one POV, but all of the valid perspectives on the PMOI's significance, the entirety of the disputed statement will simply need to be removed. Iskandar323 (talk) 11:26, 9 December 2022 (UTC)

VR, Iskandar323 and I provided enough sources that challenges the claim and it should be removed from the lede. If the claim that it was the main opposition group once could be stated in a present tense in the lead, then we should be able to say that it is a terrorist group too, because there are plenty of sources that said so in a present tense.Ghazaalch (talk) 03:13, 11 December 2022 (UTC)

Is the sentence that Iskandar added last time the final version of what you want to add to the lead? This may be better solved by a RfC. Fad Ariff (talk) 13:00, 13 December 2022 (UTC)

Many WP:NINJA changes to the article

@Iskandar323: you have made many sweeping edits to the article, and as you are aware, it has taken a lot of time to make small advancements in this article. See WP:NINJA.

Many of your changes have WP:STRUCTURE and WP:NPOV problems, a lot of the content was better explained before your edits, and many of your changes appear to be nonconstructive. For that reason, I’m reverting your edits to the original stable version of the article until you can explain them.

1) Your deletion of Arab News sources and text. You removed this from the article twice already, even after I wrote in my edit summary that "if it's a policy that Arab News is prohibited as a source for this subject, then please share this information in the talk page and I will self-revert upon review."[21]

You haven't explained where in Wikipedia it says that Arab News is not allowed for this subject, so please stop edit warring this deletion and instead address this here.

You also made many changes to the organization of the whole article. You moved sections and even changed titles of a number of sections, diminishing certain key points (such as the use of former MEK members hired by the regime against the MEK), and emphasizing others (such as moving the section "Propaganda campaigns" higher up in the article).

Why do you want to change the organization and some of the titles? What's wrong with the current titles and organization of the article?

2) For example why did you move sections like "Ideology" lower in the article and "propaganda campaign" and "Intelligence and operation capabilities" higher up in the article?

3) Why did you change "Fundraising" to "Funding"? (and then move it higher in the article, and then added "Ties to foreing and non-state actors" as a section within it?)

4) Why did you add "Cult of personality" as part of "Ideology"?

5) Why did you change the title "Intelligence and misinformation campaign against the MEK" and "Disinformation through recruited MEK members"? (and then blurred both sections by moving content between them?)

6) Why did you add the "Organization" title to the section "Membership"?

7) You also changed that the MEK was considered Iran's "largest and most active Iranian exile organization" only up until 2010, even though in the talk page newer sources have been provided.

8) Why did you add BSN tags on [22] [23] [24] [25]? What is wrong with these sources? Is it that they are opinions of academics published as opinion articles?

9) Why did you remove "The MEK claims that in 1996 a shipment of Iranian mortars was intended for use by Iranian agents against Maryam Rajavi."?

10) Why did you remove"MEK was reportedly among the most prominent targets of the attacks."?

11) Also the way you worded the New York Times report about hackers hacking the MEK seems more confusing than the original version. Fad Ariff (talk) 13:03, 29 November 2022 (UTC)

I'm happy to answer some questions, but this wall of text is a bit ridiculous, especially when many have extremely commonsense answers when given just a moment's thought, e.g.: 8) - all of the sources tagged were blog/opinion pieces. I explained the Arab News removals in this edit summary. No diffs have been provided for any of the other questions, making it hard to relate them to the changes being referenced. Reversion is best reserved for disruption/vandalism. Even assuming the other changes were questionable, that alone is not cause for casual reversion. Iskandar323 (talk) 15:10, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

Iskandar323: I could not have posed my objections any easier to follow, I’ve even numbered them for you, so I would appreciate it if you follow that format.

8) Are opinion pieces by subject-matter experts published in reliable sources not considered reliable? Please provide a link to a policy about this. If this what is in policy, then there might be several other things we need to remove from the article.

You have not explained none of your other edits, so I can’t comment on them at this time. Fad Ariff (talk) 13:21, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

I explained this on your talk page. Asking editors endless questions is covered in WP:BADGER. Your sense of entitlement to question and review any changes in advance (here and elsewhere) is straight out of WP:OWNBEHAVIOR, i.e.: "The editor might claim, whether openly or implicitly, the right to review any changes before they can be added to the article.". Your question: "What's wrong with the current titles and organization of the article?" is analogous to the guideline quote: "I can see nothing wrong with the article and there is no need to change anything at all.". As I have mentioned above, you have not provided the diffs with any of the questions above, making them difficult to review for other editors, and for most, you also have not explained the perceived problem. Iskandar323 (talk) 14:08, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

New added content

Ghazaalch, reverting this addition here because this sort of content in the article already, and about this change here I fixed the strange syntax. Iraniangal777 (talk) 08:42, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

Quot the content the you say is repeated in the article? Ghazaalch (talk) 05:09, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

"According to the RAND report, the recruited members were mostly brought by MEK into Iraq illegally and then were asked to submit their identity documents for "safekeeping", an act which would "effectively trap" them." "This led to the recruitment of members including Iranian dissidents, as well as Iranian economic migrants in countries such as Turkey and the United Arab Emirates, through "false promises of employment, land, aid in applying for asylum in Western countries, and even marriage, to attract them to Iraq"." Iraniangal777 (talk) 08:26, 9 December 2022 (UTC)

Where in this quotation we read that According to a colonel who was in daily contact with the MEK leadership for six months in 2004, some members who wanted to leave had to flee?Ghazaalch (talk) 03:10, 11 December 2022 (UTC)

References

Propaganda and social media

Ghazaalch why did you revert "Propaganda and social media"to an older version? Iraniangal777 (talk) 08:26, 9 December 2022 (UTC)

Iraniangal777; why did you changed "Propaganda and social media" to a newer version?Ghazaalch (talk) 03:10, 11 December 2022 (UTC)

Ghazaalch please provide the diff that shows that I changed "Propaganda and social media" to a newer version. Iraniangal777 (talk) 08:43, 12 December 2022 (UTC)

Ghazaalch you're making a real mess out of the article. Alex-h had updated that section, and you reverted it without even explaining why, and now you're moving a lot of the content from that deleted article although the AfD consensus specifically closed as "Further, there is not a clear clear consensus that should be covered in the main article due to the latter's size, rendering that not a viable ATD". So please start by answering why you first reverted "Propaganda and social media" to an older version. Iraniangal777 (talk) 08:29, 13 December 2022 (UTC)

Previously we had an article on troll farm and we could add the information to that article, but now that it was deleted we could have a summarized version of the deleted article here. Ghazaalch (talk) 09:56, 13 December 2022 (UTC)

Alex-h had already summarized it, and you reverted it without explaining (like many of your other reverts). Instead of article shopping for dumping this somewhere, explain why did you reverted Alex-h's summary of this content in this article. Iraniangal777 (talk) 08:08, 15 December 2022 (UTC)

1988 execution of MEK prisoners

@Fad Ariff: why did you delete a joint military invasion of Iranian Kurdistan by Iraqi forces and 7,000 MEK militants aimed at capturing Kermanshah, from the section ‘’ 1988 execution of MEK prisoners’’?Ghazaalch (talk) 03:40, 11 December 2022 (UTC)

Early years (1965–1971)

@NMasiha: Why did you delete "In 1970 and 1971, MeK "assassinated five U.S. military technicians seconded to the Iranian military." from the section Early years (1965–1971)?Ghazaalch (talk) 03:40, 11 December 2022 (UTC)

Because repeating details without context is similar to the issues in your article MEK troll farm, which has been just deleted. NMasiha (talk) 20:08, 12 December 2022 (UTC)

@NMasiha: where is the right context for such information?Ghazaalch (talk) 03:57, 13 December 2022 (UTC)

The information about Americans killed in Iran in the 1970s is already in Schism (1971–1978). NMasiha (talk) 16:40, 13 December 2022 (UTC)

RFC, 10 December 2022

Should the following sentences be added to the article?

In 2010, political prisoner Ali Saremi was executed by the Iranian regime for co-operating with the MEK. Saremi's torture and execution was covered in the press and brought international attention to the Human rights situation in Iran. In 2011, Mohammad Ali Haj Aghaei and Jafar Kazemi were also executed by the Iranian government for co-operating with the MEK, despite Hillary Clinton urging Iranian authorities to release the two activists.

Yes or No? Fad Ariff (talk) 13:12, 10 December 2022 (UTC)

Survey, 10 December 2022

Yes. This information was removed from the article as "UNDUE WEIGHT", but I can’t see how that makes any sense. These killings were covered by the international media and even have their own Wikipedia pages, which alone proves they are notable and WP:DUE. Fad Ariff (talk) 13:16, 10 December 2022 (UTC)

Yes, support. For the same reasons Fad Ariff is saying. There are many sources for this information, and it's also WP:DUE information. NMasiha (talk) 20:15, 12 December 2022 (UTC)

Yes. The information is important and undisputed. It gives basic details about something that has received international reporting and isn't mentioned in the article. The mindless stonewalling on this page has resulted in now needing RFCs for such simple edits. Iraniangal777 (talk) 08:43, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

• Yes. It seems due and well sourced. MarioGom (talk) 08:16, 22 December 2022 (UTC)

No. WP:NOTNEWS. There is nothing special about the three executed people. They were prisoners who, like others who were executed in 1988, had collaborated with the MEK. Occurring in a different year does not make the executions significant. There is already too much information of that kind in the article. Ghazaalch (talk) 08:39, 22 December 2022 (UTC)

Unjust deletions

1st part

@Fad Ariff: why did you delete According to a RAND Corporation policy report, the MEK initially acquired supporters and members through "its Marxist social policy, coeducational living opportunities, antipathy to U.S. influence, and—unlike traditional Leftist groups—support for a government that reflected Islamic ideals. The members, which primarily consisted of University students and graduates, were encouraged to live together and form close social bonds.

2nd part

@Fad Ariff: why did you delete They appealed to all opposition groups to join NCRI, but failed to attract any except for the Kurdish Democratic Party. The failure is mainly associated to MEK's religious ideology.

3rd part

@Fad Ariff: why did you delete Gunmen ambushed MacArthur's limousine while he and his wife were en route to their house. Shots were fired at the vehicle and a hatchet was hurled through the rear window, however MacArthur remained unharmed. On 9 February 1979, four assailants were sentenced to life imprisonment for acts of terrorism and sixteen others received confinements up to ten years.

All of these edits have edit summaries. An edit summary is a brief explanation of an edit to a Wikipedia page located on top of the diff (see H:ES). In this case my edit summary was "Restoring version by NMasiha. There isn't "emphasis" on other groups here. Nmasiha made the challenge that "About the sentencing and suspects, the source names "gunmen" or "four guerrillas", not the PMOI, so the way you (Ghazaalch) had worded it made it look like the source was talking about the PMOI (but it's not)". If there is something you don't understand about that, you can start there (ditto with your other questions). Fad Ariff (talk) 12:58, 13 December 2022 (UTC)

RFC, 15 December 2022

Should we replace the sentence (It is also Iran's largest and most active political opposition group.) with the following?

Some sources has described it as Iran's main, most active, or biggest opposition group, Other sources described it as a "tiny revolutionary group stranded in Albania" that has "little support inside Iran today" and "can now validly claim only to be highly organized and well (albeit illegally) funded"

Yes or No? Ghazaalch (talk) 05:55, 15 December 2022 (UTC)

Survey, 15 December 2022

• Yes. Per talk above, I am Quoting Prinsgezinde who said If we have conflicting sources, then per WP:CONFLICTING, we should prefer the most up-to-date reliable sources and, if a conflict still exists, provide all viewpoints... the fact that there are sources expressly saying that its size is exaggerated makes calling it the biggest opposition group in the lead (with the other view not expressed) undue.Ghazaalch (talk) 06:17, 15 December 2022 (UTC)
• Yes: This line needs to change. It is a violation on NPOV with respect to what reliable sources, and an extreme example of cherrypicking in favour of aggrandizing statements. I would perhaps ditch the overly specific quote about it being "stranded in Albania" in the visible text and maybe make that a note after the quote about it having little support inside Iran (since these lines are two sides of the same coin). The key point here, however, is that the PMOI is objectively tiny (~3,000 members) - that's only twice as many members as the Official Monster Raving Loony Party, which is basically a joke party in the UK. Iran's Kurdish armed opposition, while fragmented, is demonstrably larger, but split across a myriad of small groups. Many of the statements about the PMOI are dated and hark back to when it had tens of thousands of members. Today, it is possible that the PMOI may still be the largest opposition group by numbers, but only because the Iranian opposition in general is so fragmented, not because it is actually large - and that is why it is so important to have the other statements noting that is actually rather small. Perhaps a present-day membership estimate would also be warranted in this statement? Iskandar323 (talk) 06:44, 15 December 2022 (UTC)

  Happier still with the abridged version suggested by Ghazaalch in the discussion, which ditches some of the quotes/detail in favour of paraphrasing. Iskandar323 (talk) 10:35, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

I agree that the way this proposal has been formulated is essentially flawed, but length is only a part of the reason. Fad Ariff (talk) 13:09, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

• Yes, provided the sources are reliable and accurately represented. · · · Peter Southwood ^(talk): 06:54, 15 December 2022 (UTC)
• Obvious No. Per WP:FALSEBALANCE, False dilemma.

"tiny revolutionary group stranded in Albania" is WP:UNDUE or/and WP:FALSEBALANCE of what is in most of the academic literature (I added some sources just below).

"has "little support inside Iran today" is a loaded statement. See RFC, 10 December 2022 about the executions of some Iranians that cooperated with the MEK in Iran, or even the Iranian diplomat terror plot trial which happened in mainland Europe. These examples are just the tip of the iceberg of what supporting the MEK involves in Iran (we're currently seeing something similar with Iranians supporting the Mahsa Amini protests in Iran).

"(albeit illegally) funded" is a False dilemma because it has nothing to do with the MEK being the regime's opposition.

In this talk page we already verified that most sources describe the MEK as the regime's main or major or most active opposing group (since the 1979 revolution).

• "Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK), Iran's major armed opposition group"
• "the main opposition organization in Iran, the PMOI (known also as Mujahideen Khalq)"
• "Iran's most active opposition group"
• "And many foreign diplomats considered it to be by far the largest, the best disciplined, and the most heavily armed of all the opposition organizations. As the main foe of the Islamic Republic"
• "Iran’s main opposition group"
• "the biggest and most resilient Iranian opposition group."

Fad Ariff (talk) 13:06, 15 December 2022 (UTC)

@Fad Ariff: Prinsgezinde moved this discussion to the "discussion" section where it belongs, and it is here again. However, I put my response there.Ghazaalch (talk) 08:04, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

@Ghazaalch: "No one but admins should be clerking the MEK talk page, pretty much ever." [26] Fad Ariff (talk) 13:13, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

• Partial yes, I agree that the other side should be mentioned but I think that's too much detail. Can we paraphrase it and indicate that some current RS describe it as overstating its size and having relatively little support? Prinsgezinde (talk) 20:59, 15 December 2022 (UTC)
• No. There are several problems with Ghazaalch's proposal here. The biggest one is that it has some clearly UNDUE issues, particularly for the lead of the article. The following are more (recent) sources all still describing the MEK as the main opposition to the Iranian regime: "members of the MEK, the main opposition organization to the regime", "the presence in Albania of over 3,000 mujahideen (MEK), also known as the opposition of the Iranian regime", "focusing on the main opposition movement MEK", "Supporters of the Iranian resistance and the main opposition MEK rally in Lafayette Park, near the White House.",

Having "support" inside Iran (there isn't any credible data about what people openly think in Iran, especially about political opposition groups) or how a Think Tank describes its "funding" is a non sequitur to most (current and older) sources which describe the MEK as the main opposition group to the regime. Retain the lead's longstanding (WP:DUE) version. Iraniangal777 (talk) 08:35, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

@Iraniangal777: I would implore you to assess the quality of the sources you reference a little more seriously. Of the above, only Politico is clearly reliable. The European Strategic Intelligence and Security Centre is clearly not. Both clearly not very professionally produced pdfs listed above were composed by Claude Moniquet, who is simply the owner of the aforementioned ESISC, which is his own lobby group, making this nothing more than self-published opinion (and from a lobby group at that, and therefore possibly as part of paid promotional work). This is the antithesis of a reliable source, and I would hope that you only even put this source forward because you hadn't looked at the details too closely. The Security Science Journal looks a little more like a valid source, but on closer inspection it also raises some questions (and eyebrows). It claims to be peer-reviewed and clearly masquerades as a journal, but it is not published by a serious academic or non-academic publisher, but instead the Institute for National and International Security, which would appear to be some sort of Serbia-based thinktank of unclear providence whose main claim to fame is publishing said journal. Iskandar323 (talk) 09:33, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

I'm also not sure how you can in good faith lambast the extremely well-grounded research of the RAND Corporation, which is an incredibly prominent and widely referenced US research institute and think tank, while in the same breath citing a quite clearly dubious Serbian imitation of the same (I'm assuming that self-contradiction is not your intent). Iskandar323 (talk) 09:39, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

@Iskandar323: Security Science Journal is not reliable? What about "Kurdish Politics in Iran" published by Cambridge University Press (2021)? or "The Coming Revolution: Struggle for Freedom in the Middle East" published by Threshold Editions? or "Iran: Outlaw, Outcast, Or Normal Country?" published by Nova Science Publishers or "Radical Islam: The Iranian Mojahedin"? Also not reliable? Fad Ariff (talk) 13:13, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

Umm yes, not everything with 'journal' in it is reliable. If I self-publish "The Iskandar Journal of Awesomeness" tomorrow, it would not automatically be trustworthy for having the word 'journal' in it. Also, when it comes to history, source quality is not just about publishing. Cambridge University Press is obviously a trustworthy publisher, but that doesn't mean everything from CUP is stellar material. For subjects such as this, we still want to see works authored by specialist historians, political science professionals and other experts. Simon & Schuster, which is the parent of Threshold Editions, is also an established publisher. That doesn't necessarily make any work by any author it publishes awesome. Basic stuff really. Iskandar323 (talk) 15:04, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

These sources are not self published, and that academic literature should also require some kind of awesomeness seal of approval does not form part of WP:RELIABILITY. The author Ervand Abrahamian who wrote "Radical Islam: The Iranian Mojahedin" is an Iranian historian for example, but if you have doubts, please use the section "Discussion". Fad Ariff (talk) 13:03, 17 December 2022 (UTC)

European Strategic Intelligence and Security Center reports by Claude Moniquet (2/4 sources above) are indeed self-published. Iskandar323 (talk) 14:16, 17 December 2022 (UTC)

Perfect, let's not use that journal. I just started a List of sources supporting MEK as main or major (etc.) opposition group below. So far there are 15 sources and if necessary I will add some more (but those look enough). Fad Ariff (talk) 13:09, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

• No, because MOS:INTRO: "The reason for a topic's noteworthiness should be established, or at least introduced, in the lead". The MEK isn't known for being a "tiny revolutionary group stranded in Albania"; that contradicts everything that's in the article from the 1988 executions of political prisoners (see also the 2019 trial of Hamid Nouri) to the 2022 cyber attacks in Albania (or even the alleged spending to demonize it as a group without popular support). The MEK's trajectory as the Iranian regime's main opposition constitutes a big part of the article and is supported by a huge quantity of sources. From sections "Conflict with the Islamic Republic government (1981–1988)" to "Islamic Republic of Iran operations against MEK inside Europe", that is how it's portrayed in the article, and that's how it should be read in the lead. MA Javadi (talk) 21:47, 17 December 2022 (UTC)

@MA Javadi: MOS:INTRO is just a general guideline about the entire lead, which already contains all of the information about why the topic is noteworthy. This discussion is about neutrality in the opening paragraph, which is covered in MOS:OPEN. Neutrality in the opening section of the lead with respect to reliable sources is, as in all things on Wikipedia, core policy and of critical importance. The MEK's role as a major opposition group (and military outfit) is largely in the past, so aside from neutrality issues there is also the clear need to reflect the group's current status. Iskandar323 (talk) 08:22, 18 December 2022 (UTC)

The same rules apply because no matter what guideline you throw at this, the MEK is not known for being a "tiny revolutionary group stranded in Albania", which is why having that in the lead would be factually wrong. I also see many sources here that still support it being the prominent opposition to the regime, so I support to leave that as is and focus instead on making the lead shorter (it's way too long). - MA Javadi (talk) 09:01, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

If you note my response, I also voiced my concerns about including that specific quoted detail on Albania, but the proposal is still an overall improvement in terms of balance, and as I've noted below, there is not even any direct contradiction between the statements about it being a prominent opposition group and also being tiny. The excess history is the main problem in the lead (a common problem on many articles), though actually the overall lead is far from the worst example I've seen in terms of pure length. The 6 paragraphs is not great, however. Iskandar323 (talk) 10:33, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

It is a direct contradiction when you see there is only one source supporting "tiny" and "stranded", and over a dozen sources supporting main oder major (etc.) Describing a group with over 3000 members as "tiny" is subjective, but the solution to that would be to add the membership count rather than an opinion about whether 3000 people is a "tiny" group of people. Fad Ariff (talk) 13:09, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

By the same measure, "main" or "major" is highly subjective when a group has only 3000 members. All of these statements are similar. Iskandar323 (talk) 13:12, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

"Main" and "tiny" are too completely different signifiers. Fad Ariff (talk) 13:23, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

They are different, but not mutually exclusive descriptors based on different perspectives. I've explained all this in discussion. Iskandar323 (talk) 13:30, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

They are mutually exclusive, and "tiny" is supported by just one source while "main" by many sources. Fad Ariff (talk) 13:09, 20 December 2022 (UTC)

No, giant and tiny, or major and minor, are antonyms; "main" and "tiny" are not. Again, this is explained in the discussion. Iskandar323 (talk) 09:29, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

• Yes. The lead should provide an updated view of the group as the recent academic reliable sources say. As MOS:OPEN requires, the opening paragraph should be neutral. Ghazaalch's is neutral since it contains the major POVs in a summarized style. All that brilliant past from 1979 Iranian Revolution, to conflict with the Islamic Republic government (1981–1988), to siding with Saddam in Iran-Iraq war, to 1988 execution of MEK prisoners and finally escaping from Iran, belongs to the past. No one denies that. Even the sources given by Ghazaalch confirm it when they say for example "this once-prominent dissident group can now validly claim only to be highly organized and well (albeit illegally) funded." But we are talking about most up-to-date reliable sources.Ali Ahwazi (talk) 07:19, 18 December 2022 (UTC)
• No. It's evident that Ghazaalch’s proposal is faulty (even by his own review). I see many reliable sources from the last 10 years still using terms like "main opposition" for the MEK, while only 1 source is describing it as a "tiny revolutionary group". Also as others have said the claim about support inside Iran is a small detail part of a much larger context (the Iranian regime has one of the worst track records for censorship regarding anything opposing the government, see its laws for "spreading corruption on Earth" oder human rights for example). This is an bad RFC and should be a procedural close. NMasiha (talk) 20:15, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

  As you have highlighted, Ghazaalch has offered an alternative wording below. That is how discussion works. That his first suggestion was not to everybody's tastes does not mean it is a bad RFC - which is a term reserved for discussions with non-neutral wording or confused or unclear questions. This one is perfectly straightforward. Detailed context is likewise something for the body of an article; the lead is just a summary. However, that the PMOI, which claims to by a major opposition group, has little to no support within its home country, is highly significant. Iskandar323 (talk) 09:11, 20 December 2022 (UTC)

Reliable sources talk for themselves; and some uninvolved users have already voted "Yes". NMasiha's logic here is the like of a banned user who was warned by the admin,Vanamonde who wrote:I am particularly tired of "The MEK is the subject of propaganda by the Iranian government" being used to stonewall any and all criticism.Ghazaalch (talk) 14:39, 20 December 2022 (UTC)

The MEK's support within Iran is a completely different RFC topic. Fad Ariff (talk) 13:09, 20 December 2022 (UTC)

The proposed text above includes the addition of text about the group's support within Iran, so quite clearly it is directly pertinent to the topic. Iskandar323 (talk) 09:32, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

• Yes, it is misleading to simply describe MEK as the largest opposition group in Iran. No objection to further iterations on the proposed text to refine or simplify it, or to add more sources, of course. MarioGom (talk) 08:13, 22 December 2022 (UTC)

Discussion, 15 December 2022

Fad Ariff, it doesn't matter if you can rebuke these sources. It's vital that we all agree that Wikipedia is about summarizing and representing reliable sources, not about "getting it right". Not that getting it right isn't the goal, but it's an impossible task in and of itself. That's why we use sources. We have multiple reliable sources arguing that it is not the largest organization or even as large as it claims. The only sources that refer to it as the "biggest or "most active" group are the pay-walled Times article and two articles from 1989 and 2001. We need to use current sources if we want to put something in the lead that claims to describe its current status, so anything that's over 10 years old is definitely unusable and frankly 5 or so years old is already pushing it. Alternatively we leave it out altogether. Prinsgezinde (talk) 20:56, 15 December 2022 (UTC)

Hi Prinsgezinde, and welcome to this talk page. You are right that we should want to summarize from reliable sources, I agree. Have you read the article? Similar content about what you’re referring to is already summarized there. What is questionable is Ghazaalch’s proposal in this RFC since there is a lot in the academic literature supporting the lead’s original version, while this isn't the case with Ghazaalch’s proposal. And this is a source from Cambridge University Press from 2021: "Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK), Iran's major armed opposition group" Fad Ariff (talk) 13:13, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

Fad Ariff, most of the quotations you provided above were tagged and you had to remove them from the lede. You are presenting them again here. The first quotation, for example, "Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK), Iran's major armed opposition group"[26] continues with "...based in Iraq" in the source and pertains to the pre-2003 situation (as Iskandar said in the above talk). The second quotation ("the main opposition organization in Iran, the PMOI (known also as Mujahideen Khalq)") starts with According to his findings… that shows it is Casaca’s opinion not the author's. The same thing can be said about other tagged sources. Moreover the source you presented call MEK as main or most active opposition group in passing, thus they are less reliable than the sources that provide analysis. That is why they should be given less weight, and that is why they are more summarized. In fact they are not summarized. Main and most active oder biggest opposition group are the whole thing that are said about MEK in that sources. But in the other side, there are analyses like the following:

• "Analysts say it [MEK] has little support inside Iran today...Often described by Iranian and western political observers as a cult…even Iran hawks in Washington who favour regime change tend to dismiss the MEK’s influence in Iran. “The Iranian people hate the MEK so the notion that they are somehow going to be part of the future of Iran is laughable, completely,”..."
• after siding with Saddam – who indiscriminately bombed Iranian cities and routinely used chemical weapons in a war that cost a million lives – the MEK lost nearly all the support it had retained inside Iran. Members were now widely regarded as traitors...It would be hard to find a serious observer who believes the MEK has the capacity or support within Iran … US and UK politicians loudly supporting a tiny revolutionary group stranded in Albania are playing a simpler game: backing the MEK is the easiest way to irritate Tehran. And the MEK, in turn, is only one small part of a wider Trump administration strategy ... …this group is not democratic and anyway has no constituency inside Iran…
• MeK repeatedly claims to be the most influential opposition group in that country, in reality it appears that this once-prominent dissident group can now validly claim only to be highly organized and well (albeit illegally) funded.

About the (albeit illegally) there is a long section in the article but you cannot stand a words of it in the lead.Ghazaalch (talk) 07:55, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

@Ghazaalch: you’re a bit all over the place here, but I’ll try to respond as neatly as I can. The academic literature supports Main oder most active oder biggest opposition group (even if you added tags to them). The sources you list here are not as good or as many as the other sources, but I agree they should be represented in one of the article's sections. About the {{tq|(albeit illegally)}, it has really nothing to do with the rest of the material. We can have a new RFC about what sections should be represented in the lead if you want. And what do you mean by "you cannot stand a words of it in the lead"? Fad Ariff (talk) 13:13, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

There are 500 words on fundraising in the article out of about 17,000 words total, which is roughly 3%. The lead is also 500 words, so if we were to fairly summarise information on the group's dubious fundraising activities, this information would be due about 15 words ... so just two words on the subject is actually a rather merciful amount. Iskandar323 (talk) 15:14, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

Iskandar323, in an article that has length issues, there shouldn't be a section on fundraising with 500 words (when WP:SUMMARYSTYLE and WP:PARAPHRASE are policy). While that section should be better paraphrased, comparing it to the MEK being the regime’s opposition is a false dilemma. But you are free to make a counter-proposal with logical and evidence-supported explanations as said by another editor below. Fad Ariff (talk) 13:03, 17 December 2022 (UTC)

I'm stuck at: "there shouldn't be a section on fundraising..." umm why? Of course there should; this is highly relevant for organizations. Iskandar323 (talk) 14:03, 17 December 2022 (UTC)

• Those of you who prefer a different description are free to make their counter-proposals in the discussion section, complete with reliable sources, and logical and evidence-supported explanations of why they are better. If you invoke a policy or guideline you are advised to explain how and why it applies. so that it may be given the consideration it deserves.· · · Peter Southwood ^(talk): 17:01, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

Per Yes and No comments above, I think a more summarized proposal would be more agreeable:

• Some sources has described it as Iran's main, most active, or biggest opposition group, More recent sources say this once-prominent group is now a tiny revolutionary group with little support inside Iran.

Of course there are other descriptions like "notorious Iranian opposition group" a terrorist group/terrorist cult too, but we are trying to reach consensus.Ghazaalch (talk) 06:21, 18 December 2022 (UTC)

A key point here is that all of the different statements here can potentially be simultaneously valid (most are highly relativistic) - it could potentially be the biggest opposition group while also being objectively tiny, since most Iranian opposition groups are tiny (depending on whether or not you count the likes of the Green Movement). Equally, it can be both the most active group and also have very little support inside Iran. While it has been suggested that some of these sources conflict with each other, this is not self-evidently the case. The only real conflict here is providing a balanced, well-rounded appreciation of what all reliable sources have to say on the matter, and the current version, which provides an unbalanced and demonstrably partial set of cherrypicked qualifiers. Iskandar323 (talk) 08:15, 18 December 2022 (UTC)

List of sources supporting MEK as main or major (etc.) opposition group

1) " The Mek is the most prominent and well-organized opposition group to the ruling Iranian government in existence today." (Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2014 )

2) "Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK), Iran's major armed opposition group" (Cambridge University Press, 2021)

3) "the main opposition organization in Iran, the PMOI (known also as Mujahideen Khalq)" (Threshold Editions, 2010)

4) "the biggest and most resilient Iranian opposition group." (The Times, 2021)

5) "Iran's most active opposition group" (Nova Publishers, 2001)

6) "And many foreign diplomats considered it to be by far the largest, the best disciplined, and the most heavily armed of all the opposition organizations. As the main foe of the Islamic Republic" (IB Tauris, 2021)

7)"The MEK has been the leading opposition voice against the Islamic Republic for years." (Newsweek, 2019)

8) "The theocratic regime’s new onslaught against its opponents, most notably against the principal opposition, the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran or Mujahedin-e-Khalq (PMOI/MEK), is a serious indicator of changing times in Iran." (International Policy Digest, 2018)

9) the main democratic Iranian opposition movement, the People's Mojahedin of Iran (PMOI/MEK) (UPI, 2022)

10) "Iran’s main opposition group" (The Telegraph, 2008)

11) "is reputedly the largest militant Iranian opposition group committed to the overthrow of the Islamic Republic” (Council on Foreign Relations, 2014)

12) "largest Iranian armed opposition group, the Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization" (Human Rights Watch, 2022)

13) "The People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran, or the MEK, the country's leading pro-democracy opposition group" (IB Times, 2022)

14) "Government fights to keep ban on main Iranian opposition group (The Guardian, 2008)

15) "Supporters of the Iranian resistance and the main opposition MEK rally in Lafayette Park, near the White House." (Politico, 2020)

Fad Ariff (talk) 13:02, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

Ok, sources. Lovely. Is there a point to accompany this? No one is trying to remove statements to the effect of the above - just balance the lead intro. Iskandar323 (talk) 13:10, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

The sources that show the MEK has been changed from a political group to a terrorist/cultish group

• "MEK’s metamorphosis from an opposition group to designated terrorist organization..."
• "Gradually the organization transformed into a cult around the personality of their leader, Masoud Rajavi. The following statements by two lower rank leaders of theorganization reveal the essence of this cult of personality."
• "As an objective historian, the author does not seek to judge, but only to explain how the Mojahedin have since evolved into what is clearly more of a Messianic cult than a political party. Rajavi's unlimited power over the dwindling membership, exercised by tight organization and control and by indoctrination, means that the Mojahedin sect now resembles a totalitarian dictatorship."
• "From 1985, Rajavi transformed the PMOI from a mass movement into a cult with himself as its guru. Among the weird decrees, Rajavi has ordered many married members to stop conjugal relations, and others to get divorce."
• "By 1985 - 86, Masoud Rajavi, the already absolute leader of the PMOI , turned the organization into a cult, where he was praised and regarded to be the equivalent of Prophets Abraham, Jesus, Mohammad, Shia Imam Ali and Shia Imam Hussein."
• "It has since gradually evolved into a strange mix of a radical cult centered around its leaders,the Rajavis, and opposition to the Iranian regime from 1988 onwards."
• "MEK, a cult-like terrorist organization that espouses regime change has links to Saudi Arabia."
• "Rajavi's personality cult ... forced a number of Mojahedin activists to leave the organization."

More WP:COATRACK with no context, again. Fad Ariff (talk) 13:09, 20 December 2022 (UTC)

• The M.E.K. advocacy campaign has included full-page newspaper advertisements identifying the group as “Iran’s Main Opposition” — an absurd distortion in the view of most Iran specialists; leaders of Iran’s broad opposition, known as the Green Movement, have denounced the group. The M.E.K. has hired high-priced lobbyists like the Washington firm Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld. Its lawyers in Europe won a long fight to persuade the European Union to drop its own listing of the M.E.K. as a terrorist group in 2009.
• "Although the group's leadership is being touted as a secular, democratic alternative to Iran's clerical establishment, exiled members describe the organization as an authoritarian personality cult that enforces "weekly ideological cleansings" and family separation among its ranks...Elizabeth Rubin, who has profiled the group extensively, wrote in 2011, the MEK "is not only irrelevant to the cause of Iran's democratic activists, but a totalitarian cult that will come back to haunt us."

Ghazaalch (talk) 05:46, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

The sources that show MEK has a little or no support inside Iran

• Analysts say it has little support inside Iran today, where it is regarded as a terrorist organisation and has been accused of assassinating senior politicians and targeting civilians.
• MEK developed a significant base of support in Iran immediately after the revolution, but ...[its] alliance with the hated Saddam Hussein embitered most Iranians and largely eliminated whatever respect the MEK may have won from its earlier resistance. After the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, the United States allowed the MEK to keep its small arms and control its own military base, originally established by Saddam’s officials.
• "When [MEK] lost, it became the tool of Saddam Hussein until the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, and is now little more than a Rajavi cult with little influence in Iran and even less popularity."
• "While the Mujahedin remains the most widely feared opposition group because of period raids across the Shatt al-Arab, it is also the most discredited among the Iranian people who have not forgotten the Mujahedin's support of Iraq in the war against Iran."
• the notorious Iranian opposition group Mujahedeen Khalq (MEK)
• Since that moment, the group has been widely seen as a pariah among the Iranian public.
• the MEK lost nearly all the support it had retained inside Iran. Members were now widely regarded as traitors.

More WP:COATRACK with no context, again. Fad Ariff (talk) 13:09, 20 December 2022 (UTC)

• "described by State Department officials as a repressive cult despised by most Iranians and Iraqis ... the official said, the group is “hated almost universally by the Iranian population,” in part for siding with Saddam Hussein in the Iran-Iraq war"
• Mujahideen-e Khalq, a cultlike terrorist organization that is despised by many Iranians...the MEK relinquished its legitimacy among many Iranians through a campaign of terror tactics and support for Saddam Hussein's invasion of Iran in the 1980s."

Ghazaalch (talk) 05:47, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

The sources that shows MEK is a small organization

• "the US was able to convince Albania to accept the 2,700 remaining members – who were brought to Tirana on a series of charter flights between 2014 and 2016...the US and UK politicians loudly supporting a tiny revolutionary group stranded in Albania ... a fringe Iranian revolutionary group that has been exiled to Albania, known as the People’s Mujahedin of Iran..."

@Ghazaalch: did you just repeat the same source from your proposal 3 more times here, and then described it as "The sources that shows MEK is a small organization"? Fad Ariff (talk) 13:09, 20 December 2022 (UTC)

I would add more sources if you give me the time. As Vice regent once wrote, High quality journalistic sources published in recent years have called the MEK a "fringe" group: New York Times, CBC News, Washington Post and an expert quoted in NBC News:

• the organization as a fringe group... Their population in Iran hovers between negligible and nill
• "to protect and resettle about 3,400 members of the group, known as the M.E.K...a fringe Iranian opposition group, long an ally of Saddam Hussein, that is designated as a terrorist organization... "
• "Mark Wallace, who has drawn criticism for including a fringe Iranian diaspora group, Mujahideen-e Khalq, or MEK"
• "Harper was in Paris last weekend at a "Free Iran" rally hosted by a fringe group of militant Iranian exiles known as the Mujahedin-e Khalj (MEK)..."

Ghazaalch (talk) 09:06, 22 December 2022 (UTC)

Sources

Verification failed tag

@Ghazaalch: this source [27] attributes the kidnappint to "identified gunmen" (not the MEK), so why did you add a to it? [28] Fad Ariff (talk) 13:02, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

RFC, 20 December 2022

Should these two sentences be taken out of the article? Iraniangal777 (talk) 08:14, 20 December 2022 (UTC)

The MEK was one of the supporters of the occupation of the American embassy in Tehran after the Iranian revolution. MEK described the eventual release of the American hostages a "surrender". Ref: Q&A in the Guardian

Survey, 20 December 2022

• Yes, per WP:ECREE which says "Any exceptional claim requires multiple high-quality sources"; and a single Q&A does not fit the bill for this sort of claim. If the Iranian regime had called the release of American hostages "a surrender", we wouldn't be adding this to Wikipedia based on sources like a Q&A. The embassy takeover in Iran happened in 1979, so there has been enough time for a book to cover this. In fact, it is covered in books and is already mentioned in the article:

"It has also been suggested that the group supported the U.S. embassy takeover in Tehran in 1979. According to Ervand Abrahamian and Kenneth Katzman, the MEK "could not have supported the hostage taking because the regime used the hostage crises as excuse to eliminate its internal opponents"."

Iraniangal777 (talk) 08:17, 20 December 2022 (UTC)

NB: As noted below, the statement immediately above fails verification, with the quote starting: "The PMOI claims..." making it an MEK claim, not a Katzman claim. The Atlantic article meanwhile states in no uncertain terms that the MEK did support and participate in the embassy takeover and hostage crisis - "It has also been suggested..." is misleading. Iskandar323 (talk) 10:23, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

• Yes. keep the version cited to academic publishers and remove the Q&A material. Fad Ariff (talk) 13:05, 20 December 2022 (UTC)
• Comment: The statement at the top of the survey attributed to Ervand Abrahamian and Kenneth Katzman fails verification. The quote used is from Katzman's text, which says no such thing - the quote has been selectively cut and incorrectly paraphrased. Katzman says: "The PMOI claims it could not have supported the hostage taking because the regime used the hostage crises as excuse to eliminate its internal opponents." - which is a completely different thing. Katzman makes no truth claim about whether this was actually the case. It is unclear what the Abrahamian text says, as there is no direct quotation from the work. By way of contrast, the PMOI's support for the hostage taking is well documented as one of the reasons for the designation of the group as a terrorist organization by the US state department, e.g.: [29] Indeed, the MEK played an instrumental role in the hostage taking. "Following the seizure of the US embassy in Tehran, the MEK participated physically at the site by assisting in defending it from attack. The MEK also offered strong political support for the hostage-taking action. - making it unclear how this can be considered 'exceptional' information. Iskandar323 (talk) 09:57, 21 December 2022 (UTC)
• No: While the statement could do with with further supporting sources (I will add some), its claims is in no way 'exceptional', and no evidence suggests this. Iskandar323 (talk) 10:01, 21 December 2022 (UTC)
• NB: For reference purposes, I have provided a copy of the text above with the updated set of sources that are now present in the article (after additions). Iskandar323 (talk) 10:19, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

Iskandar323, don't WP:BLUDGEON the RFC please! (you made 5 different posts in a span of about an hour!) or delete sections (like you did by deleting the RFC Discussion section). You also added sources to the opening statement that don't address the RFC question (this RFC is not about adding sources to duplicated information). I've explained further in the section below. Iraniangal777 (talk) 09:28, 22 December 2022 (UTC)

• No: The first sentence seems to have enough sourcing. The second sentence sourcing is currently weak, so I'm not opposed to remove it unless there are more sources other than The Guardian Q&A (which is still good to support the first sentence). MarioGom (talk) 08:08, 22 December 2022 (UTC)

Discussion, 20 December 2022

Text with updated sourcing:

The MEK was one of the supporters of the occupation of the American embassy in Tehran after the Iranian revolution. MEK described the eventual release of the American hostages a "surrender" comment by Iskandar323 on 10:16, 21 December 2022

Iskandar323 your proposal is unrelated to the RFC question which is about removing duplicated information and a WP:ECREE claim from a Q&A article. If you want to update the the Katzman and Abrahmian content, then let's have a look at that (I started a new section below). Iraniangal777 (talk) 09:28, 22 December 2022 (UTC)

Updating the content by Ervand Abrahamian and Kenneth Katzman

It's been suggested that the following content in the article should be updated.

It has also been suggested that the group supported the U.S. embassy takeover in Tehran in 1979. According to Ervand Abrahamian and Kenneth Katzman, the MEK "could not have supported the hostage taking because the regime used the hostage crises as excuse to eliminate its internal opponents"."

In analysis of the three sources, this is what Max Fisher (the Atlantic article) writes.

Other than this one uncomfortable moment, Gingrich's visit seemed to go well. He did, however, open his speech by citing the 1979 Tehran hostage crisis, in which Iran held American embassy officials hostage for over a year, as the first strike against the U.S. and as proof of the "intolerable" and "anti-human rights" nature of the regime. "We will never have peace and we will never have justice in the region as long as that dictatorship survives," he concluded. What he didn't seem to know is that his host, the MEK, had supported and participated in holding the Americans hostage, which is part of how they got the terrorist designation that Gingrich would like to see removed.

This is what Ervand Abrahamian writes.

In the political sphere, the Mojahedin attacked the regime for ... engineering the American hostage crisis to impose on the nation the 'medieval' concept of the velayat-e faqih. To support the last accusation they published articles revealing how the student hostage-takers were linked to the IRP; how the pasdars had facilitated the break-in; how those who had refused to toe the IRP line had been forced out of the compound; how Ayatollah Beheshti had used the whole incident to seep aside the Bazargan government; and how Hojjat al-Islam Khoiniha, the man appointed by Khomeini to advise the students, had carefully removed from the embassy all documents with references to US officials meeting clerical leaders during the 1979 revolution.

This is what Kenneth Katzman writes.

According to eyewitnesses and PMOI documents, including its official paper Mojahed, the PMOI supported the November 4, 1979 takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and reportedly argued against the early release of the hostages. (The takeover itself was conducted primarily by Islamic radicals close to Khomeini, according to most accounts). The PMOI claims it could not have supported the hostage taking because the regime used the hostage crises as excuse to eliminate its internal opponents, including the PMOI. The hostage crisis brought down the government of the Islamic Republic's first Prime Minister, Mehdi Bazargan, and the clerics quickly worked to monopolize power and institute clerical rule in line with Khomeini's ideology.

Iskandar323 is also suggesting that we should look at two additional sources:

• st.nejatngo.org/file/Book_EN/CPT_MKO_Dossier.pdf About this source, I'm a bit uncomfortable with using a dossier hosted in a shady website like nejatngo.org. Iraniangal777 (talk) 09:28, 22 December 2022 (UTC)
• "Following the seizure of the US embassy in Tehran, the MEK participated physically at the site by assisting in defending it from attack. The MEK also offered strong political support for the hostage-taking action."

Let's see what other reliable sources are found to better understand where we're at with this content. Iraniangal777 (talk) 09:28, 22 December 2022 (UTC)

Sources

Merging hostage crisis content

I plan on moving the material mentioning the MEK's involvement in the 1979 Iran hostage crisis from the section "Schism (1971–1978)", where it does not belong, to "1979 post-revolution", where it does belong. There I will be merging it with existing material on the subject that largely fails verification. 'Merging' is a generous term, since the existing material in that section largely needs to be simply replaced. The statement beginning: "It has also been suggested..." incorrectly paraphrases a source that far from 'suggesting' anything, states the information in no uncertain terms. The following quote is meanwhile missing its all important first four words: The PMOI claims it... - which lends an entirely different meaning to that statement too. I hope that is clear for all. Let me know of any potential issues with this. Iskandar323 (talk) 10:58, 21 December 2022 (UTC)