Dean of the faculty of world studies at the University of Tehran said the MeK members were murderous traitors fighting alongside Saddam and they are not in any way regarded as dissidents.
Asked about the human rights groups’ allegations against President-elect Ayatollah Raeisi’s involvement in ‘mass-killing of dissidents in the late 1980s’, Professor Mohammad Marandi said in an interview with Al-Jazeera, “This is not the international community. These are western regimes. Western regimes that gave Saddam Hussain chemical weapons.”
“And those were not dissidents by the way. They were the MeK terrorist Organization that were fighting for Saddam Hussain against Iran. They were traitors.”
“We all know that in WWII how the Europeans and the Americans dealt with traitors,” he added. “These people fought alongside Saddam Hussain. They carried out terrorist attacks.”
Professor Marandi stated, “When I was going to school one morning, a bomb exploded near my house killing 9 or 11 people including an Armenian family of four. So, this has nothing to do with Mr. Raeisi. This was the Judiciary. So, these were people who were fighting for Saddam Hussain, and enemy of the country, waging war against the country. In any country they would be considered to be traitors. These are not dissidents and we shouldn’t get trapped within these Western narratives.”