Brussels — November 2025. The International Committee in Search of Justice (ISJ), led by its President Prof. Alejo Vidal-Quadras, today released a detailed open-source intelligence report documenting how the Iranian regime has orchestrated and disseminated a fabricated “mind-control” dossier through its proxy networks in Europe and North America. The investigation provides a decisive, evidence-based rebuttal to a widely circulated document produced in October 2025 by an obscure individual, Pouya Ahmadi, whose report targeted Iran’s principal democratic opposition movement and misled policymakers with pseudo-academic claims and falsified testimony.
The ISJ report, Open-Source Report on Fabricated “Mind-Control” Document Circulated by Iranian Regime Proxies Abroad, reveals that Ahmadi’s publication is not an independent human-rights study but the latest iteration of the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence and Security’s (MOIS) decades-old smear campaign against the People’s Mojahedin Organisation of Iran (PMOI/MEK) and the broader democratic coalition, the National Council of Resistance of Iran.
Coming at a time of heightened domestic unrest in Iran, renewed sanctions, and intensified international scrutiny of the regime—including discussions in European capitals over designating the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist entity—the Ahmadi dossier constitutes a state-directed influence operation aimed at policy distortion rather than human-rights advocacy.
A Disinformation Blueprint: Regime Tactics Dissected
According to the ISJ’s findings, the concept of “destructive mind control,” central to Ahmadi’s report, has never had academic grounding. Instead, it first appeared in MOIS training materials in the early 1990s, created explicitly to demonize the MEK and delegitimize its internal structure, discipline, and ideological commitment.
The Ahmadi document mirrors this historical propaganda pattern, repackaged in the language of international law and human rights. By invoking international conventions such as the ICCPR and CRC, and presenting fabricated personal testimonies, the report attempts to obscure its origins and lend credibility to an intelligence-manufactured narrative.
ISJ’s open-source research shows that such tactics form part of a long-standing strategy whereby the regime promotes “former members,” “insiders,” or supposed human-rights complainants—individuals whom Western security services have repeatedly identified as assets cultivated and deployed by Iranian intelligence agencies. These individuals are selected to project the appearance of legitimacy in Western political circles, while their real task is to disseminate propaganda aligned with Tehran’s strategic objectives.
Case Study: The Operational Role of Ehsan Bidi
At the center of the Ahmadi report is the case of Ehsan Bidi, depicted as a victim of MEK “mind control.” The ISJ investigation provides extensive documentation establishing Bidi as a long-serving operative of the MOIS whose activities in Iraq and later Albania were conducted in close coordination with Iran’s intelligence and security apparatus.
The report outlines Bidi’s recruitment at Hotel Mohajer in Baghdad, his use of forged and later official Iranian passports, his operational briefings by MOIS officers, and his eventual relocation to Albania under the guise of a PMOI member—a move the ISJ notes was strongly protested by actual MEK residents at the time. Once in Albania, Bidi became part of an MOIS-run network managed through the Iranian Embassy in Tirana, receiving monthly payments for espionage, recruitment, and media manipulation operations.
Testimonies from former regime operatives, including Hadi Sani Khani and Abdulrahman Mohammadian, confirm Bidi’s role in organizing staged interviews for foreign journalists from outlets such as Der Spiegel, BBC Persian, The New York Times, and Le Monde. These sessions, they reveal, were carefully choreographed to propagate standard MOIS narratives portraying the MEK as coercive and undemocratic. According to Mohammadian’s letter to the UN Secretary-General, participants were instructed to deliver predetermined talking points dictated by MOIS handlers—statements later published as “firsthand accounts.”
Albanian authorities, upon uncovering Bidi’s intelligence activities, detained him in 2019 and declared him persona non grata in 2020 for national-security reasons.
Independent Verifications Ignored or Concealed
The ISJ report underscores that Ahmadi’s document relies heavily on discredited sources—primarily the 2005 Human Rights Watch report and the politically motivated 2009 RAND study—both of which were repudiated by subsequent investigations and judicial decisions.
Among these refutations:
• A European Parliament investigative delegation conducted extensive on-site interviews with MEK residents in Camp Ashraf in 2005 and found no evidence supporting allegations of coercion, detention, or abuse.
• A letter by Brig. Gen. David Phillips, the U.S. military commander responsible for Camp Ashraf’s security, confirmed that American forces conducted unannounced inspections for over a year without finding any evidence of the alleged abuses.
• Multiple European courts, the U.S. judiciary, and UN bodies have issued rulings that nullified terrorist designations, acknowledged PMOI protections under international law, and recognized their activities as legitimate resistance to tyranny.
Furthermore, Western intelligence reports—from Germany’s Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), the Dutch AIVD, and the U.S. Congressional Research Service—have repeatedly warned that the Iranian regime deploys networks of “former members” to disseminate propaganda abroad and manipulate public opinion.
Ahmadi’s report, ISJ concludes, precisely matches this pattern.
Extensive Firsthand Observations at Ashraf Facilities
The Ahmadi dossier also ignores substantial eyewitness documentation from European lawmakers, retired judges, military officials, and diplomats who have independently inspected PMOI communities, including Ashraf-3 in Albania. Across several official visits over six years, observers report open movement, voluntary association, professional and cultural programming, and no trace of the coercive practices alleged by the regime.
Prominent jurists such as the late Lord Slynn of Hadley, and senior European Parliament figures including Prof. Vidal-Quadras, have described Ashraf communities as models of civic discipline, democratic values, and resilience.
ISJ Calls for Safeguards Against Regime Influence
The ISJ report concludes with a call for European institutions to strengthen safeguards against foreign intelligence interference. Policy recommendations include:
• Verification of unsolicited “human-rights” documents through national security channels.
• Integration of counter-intelligence screening into humanitarian relocation programs.
• Monitoring embassy-linked cultural or media organizations for covert influence.
• Mandatory transparency for media outlets regarding sources linked to foreign intelligence services.
• Enhanced EU-Albania cooperation to detect and disrupt regime interference operations.
A Critical Moment for Policy Integrity
“The publication of this report is intended to equip policymakers, journalists, and civil society actors with the facts they need to protect public discourse from manipulation,” said Prof. Alejo Vidal-Quadras, ISJ President. “Disinformation masquerading as human-rights reporting not only distorts policy toward Iran but undermines democratic processes within Europe.”
The ISJ emphasizes that genuine engagement with Iranian democratic actors—and credible human-rights documentation—is essential as the international community assesses pathways toward a post-theocratic Iran.
Click here to read the full report: The ISJ report, Open-Source Report on Fabricated “Mind-Control” Document Circulated by Iranian Regime Proxies Abroad
