Iranian Official Calls for Prosecuting Members of the People’s Mojahedin

Members of the People’s Mojahedin in front of the entrance to Camp Ashraf 3 near Tirana on Tuesday (AFP)
Members of the People’s Mojahedin in front of the entrance to Camp Ashraf 3 near Tirana on Tuesday (AFP)
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Iranian Official Calls for Prosecuting Members of the People’s Mojahedin

Members of the People’s Mojahedin in front of the entrance to Camp Ashraf 3 near Tirana on Tuesday (AFP)
Members of the People’s Mojahedin in front of the entrance to Camp Ashraf 3 near Tirana on Tuesday (AFP)

The Assistant for Legal Affairs in the Iranian Presidency called for the trial of members of the opposition Mojahedin-e-Khalq, at a time when the Albanian police issued an indictment against six members of the organization, which is opposed to the regime in Iran.

Mohammad Dehghan, legal affairs assistant to Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, said that his country was making legal arrangements to return “the remnants of the hypocrites” to the country, in reference to the designation used by Iranian officials to describe the People’s Mojahedin Organization (MEK).

“We must issue sentences for people who committed crimes against people or state property inside the country and enforce these verdicts abroad,” he said.

The People’s Mojahedin is the most organized faction among the Iranian opposition parties, which includes a wide range of supporters of the Shah’s regime, banned leftist parties, in addition to parties belonging to ethnic groups.

Dehghan, said legal measures were underway in coordination with the ministries of intelligence and foreign affairs as well as the judiciary to return “the hypocrites” to Iran.

The regime alleges that since the establishment of Iran in 1979, the group has carried out numerous terrorist attacks against Iranian officials and civilians, killing some 17,000 people.

Fars Agency, which is affiliated to the Revolutionary Guards, stated that the IRGC’s intelligence service had arrested the group’s “recruitment official” in the provinces of Golestan and Mazandaran, without revealing the identity of the person.

The Iranian vice-president’s comment came at a time when the Albanian police announced the indictment of six members of the MEK, in connection with clashes in Camp Ashraf 3, the headquarters of the group.

The Albanian police said that they had carried out raids at Camp Ashraf 3, which is inhabited by members of the People's Mojahedin, who are suspected of plotting cyber-attacks against foreign institutions, according to local media.

Media reports added that these operations were carried out as part of investigations into cybercrimes, noting that the police confiscated computers and software.

The clashes at Camp Ashraf 3 coincided with a French decision to ban a major demonstration in Paris by the Iranian opposition, due to security threats.

More than 290 French deputies and 76 members of the Senate had called for “supporting the Iranian people in their quest for change" and for taking “strong and decisive measures against the current regime.”

On Friday, French President Emmanuel Macron spoke to his Iranian counterpart, Ibrahim Raisi, for an hour and a half, on various bilateral and international issues.

 



Trump Victory Expected to Boost Musk's Mars Dream

US President Donald Trump and Elon Musk are seen at the Firing Room Four after the launch of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and Crew Dragon spacecraft on NASA's SpaceX Demo-2 mission to the International Space Station from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, US, May 30, 2020. (Reuters)
US President Donald Trump and Elon Musk are seen at the Firing Room Four after the launch of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and Crew Dragon spacecraft on NASA's SpaceX Demo-2 mission to the International Space Station from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, US, May 30, 2020. (Reuters)
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Trump Victory Expected to Boost Musk's Mars Dream

US President Donald Trump and Elon Musk are seen at the Firing Room Four after the launch of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and Crew Dragon spacecraft on NASA's SpaceX Demo-2 mission to the International Space Station from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, US, May 30, 2020. (Reuters)
US President Donald Trump and Elon Musk are seen at the Firing Room Four after the launch of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and Crew Dragon spacecraft on NASA's SpaceX Demo-2 mission to the International Space Station from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, US, May 30, 2020. (Reuters)

Elon Musk's dream of transporting humans to Mars will become a bigger national priority under the administration of US President-elect Donald Trump, sources said, signaling big changes for NASA's moon program and a boost for Musk's SpaceX.

NASA's Artemis program, which aims to use SpaceX's Starship rocket to put humans on the moon as a proving ground for later Mars missions, is expected to focus more on the Red Planet under Trump and target uncrewed missions there this decade, according to four people familiar with Trump's burgeoning space policy agenda, according to Reuters.

Targeting Mars with spacecraft built for astronauts is not only more ambitious than focusing on the moon, but is also fraught with risk and potentially more expensive. Musk, who danced onstage at a Trump rally wearing an "Occupy Mars" T-shirt in October, spent $119 million on Trump's White House bid and has successfully elevated space policy at an unusual time in a presidential transition. In September, weeks after Musk endorsed Trump, the latter told reporters that the moon was a "launching pad" for his ultimate goal to reach Mars.

"At a minimum, we're going to get a more realistic Mars plan, you'll see Mars being set as an objective," said Doug Loverro, a space industry consultant who once led NASA's human exploration unit under Trump, who served as U.S. president from 2017 to 2021.

SpaceX, Musk and the Trump campaign did not immediately return requests for comment. A NASA spokeswoman said it "wouldn’t be appropriate to speculate on any changes with the new administration." Plans could still change, the sources added, as the Trump transition team takes shape in the coming weeks. Trump launched the Artemis program in 2019 during his first term and it was one of the few initiatives maintained under the administration of President Joe Biden. Trump space advisers want to revamp a program they will argue has languished in their absence, the sources said. Musk, who also owns electric-vehicle maker Tesla and brain-chip startup Neuralink, has made slashing government regulation and trimming down bureaucracy another core basis of his Trump support.

For space, the sources said, Musk's deregulation desires are likely to trigger changes at the Federal Aviation Administration's commercial space office, whose oversight of private rocket launches has frustrated Musk for slowing down SpaceX's Starship development.

The FAA did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

NASA under Trump, the sources said, is likely to favor fixed-price space contracts that shift greater responsibility onto private companies and scale back over-budget programs that have strained the Artemis budget.

That could spell trouble for the only rocket NASA owns, the Space Launch System rocket (SLS), whose roughly $24 billion development since 2011 has been led by Boeing and Northrop Grumman. Cancelling the program, some say, would be difficult since it would cost thousands of jobs and leave the U.S. even more dependent on SpaceX.

Boeing and Northrop did not immediately return a request for comment.

Musk, whose predictions have sometimes proven overly ambitious, said in September that SpaceX will land Starship on Mars in 2026 and a crewed mission will follow in four years' time. Trump has said at campaign rallies that he has discussed these ideas with Musk.

Many industry experts see this timeline as improbable.

"Is it possible for Elon to put a Starship on the surface of Mars in a one-way mission by the end of Trump's term? Absolutely, he certainly could do that," said Scott Pace, the top space policy official during Trump's first term.

"Is that a manned mission on Mars? No," Pace added. "You have to walk before you run."