By Lisa Daftari

Read about the drawn-out ordeal of four Iranian brothers who came to the United States in search of better living conditions but instead were faced with charges of being affiliated with a United States-recognized-terrorist organization under the Patriot Act. Click here to find out more about how these accusations led to an over three year prison sentence.

THE MIRMEHDI BROTHERS

The Mirmehdi brothers, Mohsen, Mojtaba, Mohammed and Mostafa, were detained for over 40 months by the Department of Homeland Security under the Patriot Act since October 2001. Marc Van Der Hout, a San Francisco lawyer who led the Mirmehdis’ defense says his clients were “victims of post-9/11 hysteria.”

The Mirmehdis first came onto the State Department’s radar in 1999 when they were arrested on immigration charges. They admitted to lying on applications for political asylum. They misstated the date of their original entry into the United States since they were late on a 1998 deadline for Iranians to file for political asylum. The brothers said they received bad advice from an immigration consultant who told them that their real date of entry would have made them too late to apply under U.S. asylum regulations. (San Francisco Chronicle).

Bahram Ben Tabatabai, a U.S. citizen of Iranian decent, advised the brothers to sign a blank application which he then filled out with incorrect spelling of their names and false information. In November 1999, Tabatabai was arrested and accused of being part of a forgery ring helping Iranians obtain visas and asylum in the United States. The FBI said that Tabatabai confessed that the Mirmehdis were connected to the Mujahedin-e Khalq party or MEK. The brothers spent some time in jail, but after testifying about their connection and dealings with Tabatabai, they were released on bond. (Washington Post)

In October 2001, a month after the Sept. 11 attacks, the Mirmehdis were again arrested on charges of being MEK members. It was clear that the federal agents had been tracking them for a while. Their association with the group became apparent when the brothers attended a pro- MEK rally in Denver in June 1997, and their names appeared on a roster of rally participants later found in an FBI raid of an MEK safe house in Los Angeles in 2001. Despite the group’s long-term goals to overthrow the fundamentalist Iranian regime, the political organization still qualifies as a terrorist operation by the State Department (San Francisco Chronicle).

BACKGROUND

The State Department designated the MEK as a terrorist organization in October 1997, only months after the presidential election of moderate reformer, Mohammed Khatami. Former Clinton administration officials felt that the marginalization of the group would garner support for Khatami, who faced strong opposition from hard-line religious groups in Iran such as the MEK. According to political analysts, the Bush administration is continuing this designation toward the MEK to encourage the Iranian regime to negotiate with Washington. The Mirmehdis say they are unfortunate to be caught in the middle of this diplomatic chess game (Washington Report on the Middle East).

The Mirmehdi case is better understood after looking at the controversial history of the MEK. Former members describe the organization as a cult in which members are blindly loyal to its leaders – Massoud and Maryam Rajavi. During the 1970s, the group gained support in its opposition to the American supported monarch, Shah Reza Pahlavi. The group’s platform is a mix of Marxism and Islam. Its guerrillas killed several U.S. military advisers and civilian contractors in Tehran during that time (San Francisco Chronicle).

After the 1979 Iranian Revolution, the MEK was yet to be satisfied with the government replacement. They broke with the new regime and resumed guerrilla warfare. At that time, they assassinated several regime officials and attacked Iranian military bases.

From the mid-1980s through the 1990s, the MEK earned the backing of Saddam Hussein who accessorized the group with weapons and military bases. It is widely believed that the MEK fighters helped Husseins’s troops crush a rebellion by Iraqi Shiites after the 1991 Gulf War.

According to Abbas Milani, an Iranian exile who is a research fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, Iran sees the MEK as its principal internal enemy. It serves Iran well to pressure the United States and Europe to crack down on these groups. Iran has indicated that it might even exchange al-Qaeda prisoners for members of the MEK, Milani says. The United States cannot appear to be siding with a terrorist group. If the war on terror is to have any credibility, he says, it needs to be consistent- to apply the same standards to all groups (San Francisco Chronicle).

THEIR RELEASE

After 40 months in prison, Feb. 2 of last year, the brothers were told to gather all their personal items and to change into civilian clothing. Their lead attorney called from San Francisco and said they were going to be released, but not without several conditions. There were 13 written conditions that the Mirmehdis had to agree to, but after reading them carefully, they refused. They said they would rather remain locked up than accept the restrictions placed on them. Some of the restrictions were not traveling more than 30 miles from their home, reporting to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) office in downtown Los Angeles twice a week, not associating with known MEK members and not attending political rallies. At the thought of having many of their rights taken from them, the Mirmehdis took off their civilian clothes and put their prison jumpsuits back on. Shortly after the refusal, Mohammad says he was beaten by an ICE guard whose misconduct was later investigated. The brothers do not consider it a coincidence that, on March 16, prison officials suddenly informed them that they were being released and that many of those earlier restrictions had been dropped. A prior interview with ABC’s Nightline was cancelled, the detention center refused any further interviews and the brothers were instructed not to inform the media of their release (Loyola Phoenix).

Since then, the Mirmehdis have been trying to renew their expired realtors’ licenses and clean up a home they abandoned for all those months. They are also getting back in touch with their relatives back in Iran. The Mirmehdis didn’t tell their parents of their imprisonment until they were released. “They kept asking us why we aren’t sending pictures. It’s a lot to go three years without sending some pictures,” Mohsen Mirmehdi said in a phone interview.

Life after their release has been very difficult, but at the same time it’s been getting better everyday. At first they were not able to work and had to wait for their work permits to arrive. Mohsen had more trouble since his name was still in a data base which prevented him from passing the fingerprint portion of the realtors’ exam. The brothers have since renewed their licenses and are working to build their lives again.

“I don’t believe in the system anymore. At one time I believed in the United States and their Bill of Rights, but after what they did to me and how I can see that they can create problems for people, I don’t believe in them anymore,” Mirmehdi said.

What’s still an irony for Mirmehdi is how 31 senators, including John Ashcroft prior to him joining President Bush’s cabinet, supported the MEK party. “I see them as freedom fighters,” Mirmehdi said while he still remains adamant about not supporting their group. “It’s not like you can have dialogue with the government of Iran. They are oppressive and work a certain way,” Mirmehdi said.

Although the original 13 restrictions that were presented to the brothers in February were taken back, the brothers still need to report to the ICE office in downtown Los Angeles once a month. They also are required to update the federal government with any address or phone changes.

“Of course they’re watching us. Let them watch. I am not doing anything wrong,” Mirmehdi said. “I don’t know for a fact if they are tapping my phone, but I have a feeling they are.”

According to Mirmehdi, the U.S. government is still better than any other government. You can stand outside the White House and scream “Death to Khomeini,” but if you dare do so in Iran, despite the fact that Khomeini is already dead, you could lose your life, he reasoned.

“I just feel like the U.S. government used my brothers and me to make a case against the MEK party,” Mirmehdi said. “They didn’t have a real problem with us. We were used to teach others a lesson.”

Despite the fact that the Mirmehdis have gone through this ordeal, Mohsen said he and his brothers do not want their personal story to affect how Iranians living in Iran view the United States. The Mirmehdis even refused to do an interview with Voice of America and its Iranian counterpart because the interview would be aired in Iran.

“I know for a fact that the Iranian clerics would use this situation to their advantage. They would play the interview over and over again and manipulate it to show that America is evil.”

According to Mohsen, if there is any hope for the United States to help in the removal of the current regime, he wouldn’t want his story to jeopardize that.