Page 398 – Nejat Society

MKO Ringleader Orders Execution of Defected Members

The ringleader of the terrorist Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO, also known as MEK, NCRI or PMOI), Maryam Rajavi, has issued an order for the assassination and execution of any member who intends to defect the group, media reports revealed on Saturday.

Rajavi in a message two weeks ago branded those MKO members trying to defect the group as enemy and also called for murdering them, informed sources disclosed to the Persian-language Ashraf News website.

She has asked the MKO ringleaders in Camp Liberty to gather intelligence and find out who intends to defect the group.

Many of the MKO members have abandoned the terrorist organization while most of those still remaining in the group are said to be willing to quit but are under pressure and torture not to do so.

A recent Human Rights Watch report accused the MKO of running prison camps in Iraq and committing human rights violations.

According to the Human Rights Watch report, the outlawed group puts defectors under torture and jail terms.

The MKO, founded in the 1960s, blended elements of Islamism and Stalinism and participated in the overthrow of the US-backed Shah of Iran in 1979. Ahead of the revolution, the MKO conducted attacks and assassinations against both Iranian and Western targets.

The group started assassination of the citizens and officials after the revolution in a bid to take control of the newly-established Islamic Republic. It killed several of Iran’s new leaders in the early years after the revolution, including the then President, Mohammad Ali Rajayee, Prime Minister, Mohammad Javad Bahonar and the Judiciary Chief, Mohammad Hossein Beheshti who were killed in bomb attacks by MKO members in 1981.

The group fled to Iraq in 1986, where it was protected by Saddam Hussein and where it helped the Iraqi dictator suppress Shiite and Kurd uprisings in the country.

The terrorist group joined Saddam’s army during the Iraqi imposed war on Iran (1980-1988) and helped Saddam and killed thousands of Iranian civilians and soldiers during the US-backed Iraqi imposed war on Iran.

Since the 2003 US invasion of Iraq, the group, which now adheres to a pro-free-market philosophy, has been strongly backed by neo-conservatives in the United States, who argued for the MKO to be taken off the US terror list.

In September 2012, the last groups of the MKO terrorists left Camp Ashraf, their main training center in Iraq’s Diyala province. They have been transferred to Camp Liberty transient facility near Baghdad.

May 4, 2014 0 comments

Iran

Americans can’t accuse us while supporting Mojahedin terrorists

Accusing Iran of supporting terrorism is distortion of truth and fully based on double standards, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Marziyeh Afkham said here on Thursday.

Rejecting the US State Department’s annual global report on terrorism published Wednesday, she reiterated that Iran, itself, has been a victim of terrorism in the past three decades and the baseless claims regarding Iran’s support for terrorism is politically motivated.

Presence and free activities of terrorists in the United States who assassinated over 15,000 Iranian civilians including senior officials as well as use of drones in massacring innocent regional people and Washington’s inaction towards Zionists crimes against defenseless Palestinians pose serious questions about the US claims of campaign against terrorism.

Such a move threatens international peace and security, she reiterated.

May 3, 2014 0 comments

Iran Interlink Weekly Digest

Iran Interlink Weekly Digest – 50

++ Both Iran Setaregan in Zurich and Iran Ava Association in Cologne staged information pickets and leaflet distributions to inform the public about the deceptive practices of the MEK and how they raise funds through false information and conning people. Both groups have asked the respective mayors in their cities to step in to stop the MEK’s illegal activities.

++ Many open letters by Farsi speakers congratulated the new Mayor of Auvers-sur-Oise, Isabelle Mézières, expressing their pleasure and hopes following her election. The new mayor herself has criticised the support which the previous mayor gave to the MEK, and says this did not work for the benefit of the people of the town.

++ Mohammad Razaghi reported information coming from inside Camp Liberty. The MEK commanders there have made an announcement to residents on behalf of Maryam Rajavi. The commanders have been given orders that if they have any doubts at all about whether someone wants to run away, they should be stopped, imprisoned and if necessary killed. Rajavi says, don’t worry about the political consequences, you do your job and we will sort out the consequences in France. She referred specifically to Massoud Dalili – who was killed in Camp Ashraf – saying that when he left, this endangered the life of Massoud Rajavi, therefore we cannot afford another like this so, you are allowed to kill them.

++ Mojahadin.com published an article on claims that the raid on Section 350 in Evin prison resulted in the discovery of several SIM cards and mobile phones, etc. One individual has been named as Gholam Reza Khosravi from Abadan who has a history of several arrests for working for the MEK. The authorities claim that he has been the main contact from prison to the MEK. Farsi writers have reacted to the MEK’s claim that the prisoners of Evin support them. They say there is no evidence that any prisoners support the MEK and the only people claiming this are the MEK themselves and Iran’s hardliners because both want to crush them and use their blood.

++ Mohammad Babai died in Camp Liberty this week. The MEK as usual issued a quick statement blaming his death on the conditions of the camp, claims which have been frequently and unequivocally refuted by the UN and ICRC etc. Gilan branch of Nejat Association published the MEK’s official picture of Babai (in a suit and tie) who was under fifty years old. They question why he looks to be over sixty-five year old, and ask, is this because of conditions in Camp Liberty as well? Many others who knew him witness that Babai tried to escape from the camp several times, and write that “we don’t believe he died of natural causes, but was eliminated like many others in the MEK”.

++ Irandidban has an article titled, ‘the situation of MEK after the election in Iraq’. This says that although the MEK shout against Nouri al Maliki, if you look at the actual situation in Iraq they should have been praying to God that he be re-elected – anyone else would have got rid of them years ago. No other leader, says Irandidan, would have been as patient as al Maliki or as willing to cooperate with the UN, etc.

++ Ghorbanali Hosseinnejad has written an extensive article exposing the MEK’s activities in support of the Saddamists. In his article he has named some Arabic speaking people in Europe who are working for the MEK and the Saddamists. One is called Saffi Al Yasseri, an Iraqi writer. Half his job appears to be to support Saddamists and the other is writing against ex-MEK members, specifically Hosseinnejad himself who writes in Arabic. He also has exposed many other names along with websites run by the MEK for Saddamists. One of these is Iraq4all.dk, an MEK site used for supporting Saddamists in Arabic and which ironically uses the old flag of Iraq with Saddam’s handwriting on it under its logo. Most of the site is devoted to praising Maryam Rajavi and other Saddamists and the rest is used to attack Maliki and others of their enemies. Another site run by the MEK is the Arabic-Islamic Committee in Defence of Ashraf and Prevention of the Expansion of Fundamentalism, which is in Arabic, French and English but not in Farsi. Hosseinnejad says it is obvious that the expansion of MEK activities in these three languages is to give support to Saddamists, but the main targets are ex-MEK members. He points out that the MEK may make ten sites and use twenty bought writers to attack one person who writes in Arabic, or make tens of sites in English to attack those handful of ex-members who write in English, but they never create Farsi sites to respond to the thousands of critics who write in Farsi. Clearly the MEK only feels the need to whitewash its image in other languages, not for Farsi speakers.

++ Mohammad Ali Malek Andi has a short note in his weblog listing the names of 120 of the people who have left Camp Liberty in the past few months. This includes 104 in Tirana, 10 in Germany, 1 in Norway, 1 in America and 1 in France, and others. He has promised he will publish the names of others as and when he gets them. He also questions the MEK’s fear that these names be made public saying “this is what the organisation should have done itself. It is only because of my friends and I looking out for one another and trying to make contact that I have been able to make this list. Obviously this is what the MEK are afraid of, that we help and support each other without them.”

++ Iran Fanous carried the story of Abdulkarim Ebrahimi who was recruited into the MEK in 1989. He says he was imprisoned by the MEK in 1994 “because they didn’t trust him”, and only managed to escape in 2012 when the residents were being moved from Camp Ashraf to Camp Liberty. “I rushed at the Iraqi police station while MEK operatives were chasing me. I managed to lose them and take refuge with the Iraqis”, he writes.

++ Iraqi Ambassador to Tehran Mohammad Majid Al-Sheikh told Fars News Agency that “many defected members of the terrorist Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization are willing to surrender themselves to the Tehran government to return to Iran… If the grounds are paved to facilitate their (MKO members) repatriation to Iran, this can persuade other MKO members to do the same.”

++ Fars News also reported that in a meeting with Austrian Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurz in Tehran, Mohammad Javad Larijani, Secretary of Iran’s Human Rights Council criticised European countries for double-standards while campaigning against drugs and terrorism. “Today, we are witnessing that the most infamous terrorists, including Monafeq [MEK] and PJAK (Party for a Free Life in Kurdistan) and other groups whose hands are stained with the blood of thousands of innocent Iranian people, are freely visiting the European countries and are warmly hosted in those capitals,” he added.

++ Michael Rubin writing in Commentary questioned why the Clarion Group endorses the MEK, saying “it is neither progressive nor is it non-violent. Progressive movements tend not to dictate to women who to marry and who to divorce… To accept the Mujahedin al-Khalq as a moderate organization is analytically shallow given the group’s record of behavior, its dishonesty in its written work, its past targeting of Americans, and the fact that its rhetoric about democracy does not match its practice… to lump the Mujahedin al-Khalq in with progressive Muslim organizations not only erodes the credibility of Clarion, but tars legitimate progressive Muslim organizations that already have an uphill battle.”

++ Iran Pen Association published an open letter to the newly elected mayor of Auvers-sur-oise, Isabelle Mézières, by Ali Jahani, a twenty year veteran of the MEK who recently managed to escape and who is currently living in Europe. Like many other writers he congratulates her and the town on ousting the previous mayor who was in the pocket of the MEK, which led to the neglect of the townspeople. Jahani hopes the new mayor will prevent the MEK transforming the town into a military barracks [when more people are transferred from Camp Liberty].

++ IRNA reported that Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Marziyeh Afkham said American “claims regarding Iranˈs support for terrorism is politically motivated… Presence and free activities of terrorists in the United States who assassinated over 15,000 Iranian civilians including senior officials as well as use of drones in massacring innocent regional people and Washingtonˈs inaction towards Zionists crimes against defenseless Palestinians pose serious questions about the US claims of campaign against terrorism.”

++ Anne Khodabandeh in Iran Interlink writes ‘Rajavi’s visa application challenges America’s stance on terrorism’ which exposes Maryam Rajavi’s ‘encouragement’ to apply for a US visa. The move would be part of a wider campaign by neoconservatives and pro-Israeli politicians to prevent rapprochement between Iran and the west, says Khodabandeh. The visa failed to materialize to coincide with the P5+1 talks in New York next week, but, says, Khodabandeh, “On the heels of the controversy over denial of a visa to Iran’s appointed head of mission at the United Nations in New York, this would indeed have been a poke in the eye to goad Iran with. But whatever incentives have been offered by Ros-Lehtinen to John Kerry to nod through this visa application, the US Secretary of State will no doubt have lent an ear to the voices of the other members of the P5+1 group. It would mean that, after Saddam Hussein, the United States would be the only government in the world which has directly supported the MEK. It would mean that the other members of this group would drift further and further away from the US agenda, and it would mean that Iran would make a net gain rather than the US.”

Iran Interlink Weekly Digest – 02 May 2014

May 3, 2014 0 comments

Maryam Rajavi

Rajavi’s visa application challenges America’s stance on terrorism

There are rumours that Mojahedin Khalq leader Massoud Rajavi is contemplating whether and where it would be safe for him to resurface after going to ground during the 2003 invasion of Iraq. But in Europe his wife, Maryam Rajavi, is herself keen to expand her reach. According to a source inside the organisation, Maryam Rajavi has recently been ‘encouraged’ to apply for a visa to the United States of America. Maryam is currently based in Auvers-sur-Oise just outside Paris, from where the MEK plans and supports its various acts of violence including aiding the insurgency in Iraq. From here she has been able to exploit the lack of effective oversight in the European Parliament in Brussels to join with anti-Iran politicians in their drive to prevent any rapprochement between western governments and Iran, and to support a level of violence and chaos in the region which benefits Israel. With no other tools at their disposal, neoconservatives and the Israeli lobby have spent years using the MEK – at arms length – to pursue their virulent, provocative campaign to keep the two sides apart. (Matched equally of course by former president Ahmadinejad’s calculated provocations; both sides playing the same game with different footballs.)

Maryam Rajavi’s application for a US visa is embedded in the context of this deliberate animosity.

Certainly because the European Parliament has no foreign policy teeth, Maryam Rajavi tried for over a decade to obtain a visa to visit the UK to promote this agenda; even unsuccessfully using private health treatment as an excuse. Either the system of border control in the UK is more rigorous than it is rumoured to be, or the UK government considers Maryam Rajavi persona non grata. Either way – or both – she has not been welcome in the UK.

But the efforts of MEK backers like MEP Struan Stevenson failed to make an impact. The successful P5+1 nuclear talks with Iran in November 2013 have put rapprochement, no matter how difficult, back on the agenda. Anti-Iran advocates and promoters have been forced to try a new tack – attack Iran’s record on human rights. Again, at the forefront of this push is the MEK. Preparations to use the MEK have been in train for some time. The group’s US presence has been carefully managed since 2009 when Iraq moved to expel the MEK from its terrorist base there. There has been a concerted, well funded campaign to whitewash the group’s past and pass it off as a democratic, feminist opposition group. Fortunately, only the MEK’s western backers have convinced themselves there is some truth to this assertion, and this comes at a price – speaking fees paid to them range from $25-60,000 each time.

In September 2012 Hillary Clinton, as Secretary of State, reached an accommodation with the MEK over its continued occupation of this base, Camp Ashraf, and removed the MEK from the US terrorism list. By early 2013 the MEK had opened an office in Washington and registered, under its pseudonym the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), as a lobbying group. Interestingly, registration as a lobby group includes a declaration that no money is provided by a foreign government, which raises the question as to where the MEK gets its money within the USA. Previous claims that wealthy Iranian expatriates have backed the MEK’s massive expenditure are unrealistic and in any case have never been backed by any evidence.

Instead, we can join up more than a few dots by considering the MEK’s current place in American foreign policy and linking this back to its previous position as described above. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, who is Chair of the House Subcommittee on the Middle East and North Africa has been a long time supporter of the MEK, and recently described ‘her friend’ Maryam Rajavi as a human rights advocate – a description which is nonsense to American-Iranians.

In pursuit of an agenda to prevent rapprochement, hardliners (I mean neoconservatives) in America surely aimed to slip Maryam Rajavi into Washington during the next round of nuclear negotiations next week (5-9 May). On the heels of the controversy over denial of a visa to Iran’s appointed head of mission at the United Nations in New York, this would indeed have been a poke in the eye to goad Iran with. But whatever incentives have been offered by Ros-Lehtinen to John Kerry to nod through this visa application, the US Secretary of State will no doubt have lent an ear to the voices of the other members of the P5+1 group. It would mean that, after Saddam Hussein, the United States would be the only government in the world which has directly supported the MEK. It would mean that the other members of this group would drift further and further away from the US agenda, and it would mean that Iran would make a net gain rather than the US. Fortunately this time the administration has not fallen into Ros-Lehtinen’s honey trap. But who knows what may happen in future.

Anne Khodabandeh (Singleton), Middle East Strategy Consultants,

May 3, 2014 0 comments

The cult of Rajavi

Rubin: MKO neither progressive nor non-violent

The Israeli Clarion Project has National Council of Resistance of Iran, the front organization of the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK, a.k.a. MKO), on its list of “progressive Muslim organizations.”

Describing the move as “surprising,” Commentary Magazine’s Michael Rubin wrote that the MKO may be a lot of things, but it is “neither progressive nor is it non-violent.”

The Clarion Project is an institute founded by Rabbi Raphael Shore. Obsessed with the promotion of Iranophobia and Islamophbia, it has produced such films as Iranium and Obsession.

“Progressive movements tend not to dictate to women who to marry and who to divorce,” he added, referring to the mandatory divorces in the cult of MKO.

“It attached itself to Saddam Hussein and allowed itself to be used almost as a mercenary organization against both Kurds and Iraqi Shi’ites.” According to 1994 US State Department report on the MKO, Masoud Rajavi, the ringleader of the MKO which is in hiding for years, announced the formation of the National Liberation Army (NLA), the military wing of the MKO, which conducted raids into Iran during the latter years of the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war. The NLA’s last major offensive reportedly was conducted against Irai Kurds in 1991, when it joined Saddam brutal repression of the Kurdish rebellion.

“To accept the Mujahedin-e Khalq as a moderate organization is analytically shallow given the group’s record of behavior, its dishonesty in its written work, its past targeting of Americans, and the fact that its rhetoric about democracy does not match its practice.”

Habilian reporting from Commentary Magazine;Michael Rubin article:"

Why Does the Clarion Project Endorse Mujahedin al-Khalq?"

May 1, 2014 0 comments

Iran

Western Support for MKO shows their hypcritical policies in fighting terrorism

Secretary of Iran’s Human Rights Council Mohammad Javad Larijani lashed out at the European countries for their double-standard policies in campaign against drugs and terrorism, and called for their seriousness in fighting the two ominous phenomena.

“The European countries slogan about war conterrorism is based on double-standards,” Larijani said in a meeting with Austrian Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurz in Tehran on Monday.

“Today, we are witnessing that the most infamous terrorists, including Monafeq (Hypocrites, a term used for the terrorist Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization, MKO also known as the MEK, NCR and PMOI, in Iran) and PJAK (Party for a Free Life in Kurdistan) and other groups whose hands are stained with the blood of thousands of innocent Iranian people, are freely visiting the European countries and are warmly hosted in those capitals,” he added.

Larijani also blasted the European states for their hues and cries about executions in Iran, and said most of those executions in the country are punishments for major drug traffickers and if the European countries increase their cooperation with Iran in fighting drugs and terrorism the number of executions will certainly decrease.

Tehran has always complained about the EU and other international bodies’ lack of serious cooperation with Iran in the campaign against drug trafficking from Afghanistan.

According to the UNODC World Drug Report 2013, Iran accounted for the highest rate of opium seizures (80 percent) as well as heroin seizures (30 percent) in the world this year.

According to official estimates, Iran’s battle against drugs cost the country around $1 billion annually. Strategies pursued by Tehran include digging canals, building barriers and installing barbed wire to seal the country’s borders, specially in the East.

Iran has recently established a central database and strengthened police-judiciary cooperation in a new effort to combat organized crime.

Every year, Iran burns more than 60 tons of seized narcotics as a symbol of its determination to fight drugs.

April 30, 2014 0 comments

France

Open Letter to Ms. Isabelle Meziere, Elected Mayor of Auvers-Sur-Oise

I am Ali Jahani one of the victims and critic of the Terrorist cult of Rajavi. I have lost twenty years of my life in this cult and having been able to release myself from it, now live in Europe.

Open Letter to Ms. Isabelle Meziere, Elected Mayor of Auvers-Sur-Oise I would like to congratulate you from bottom of my heart upon your election as new Mayor of Auvers-Sur-Oise and wish you success in your objectives.

Dear Mayor

I fully support your election slogan, that the ex-Mayor has badly damaged the reputation of your beautiful town by supporting the Rajavi Terrorists that has used Auvers Sur Oise as a base for terrorist activities.

As you know, Mojahedin headquarter is in your town, and they are intending to transfer Auvers Sur Oise to a new barracks after leaving the Camp Ashraf in Iraq. Of course the supports of the ex-Mayor had given them an open hand in this line. I hope that you will prevent them from transferring Auvers-Sur-Oise to a Military barrack to further damaging your town.

Dear Mayor

Mojahedin has long left a political entity, and are transferred to a full cult by the Rajavi couple. At the time of Saddam Hussain, Iraq dictator, they were fully supported by him and committed many terrorist acts in Iran and also against the Iraqi Kurds and Shiites to help Saddam. They have also been involved in killing the Iranian soldiers during the Iran and Iraq war.

Although, Mojahedin claim to be democratic and freedom lovers, they physically suppress their members and their opponents and do not tolerate any critics. In this respect we and many French people have been witness to how they attack the peaceful actions of their ex-members in revealing Mojahedin atrocities, by sending club wielders from Auvers-Sur-Oise in Paris. Where several people were beaten by the club wielders sent from Auver s Sur Oise.

Mojahedin also claim to support womens freedom, but in their cult they forced them to divorce their spouse and took their children from them and later were sexually assaulted by Rajavi himself.

While they pretend to support human rights, deceives the European people humanitarian feelings especially of the people of Auvers-Sur-Oise to gain support to cover up their atrocities inside their cult. They don’t allow the parents or the children to meet each other. They use children in military operations. They jail and torture their critics inside their cult. All this resembles that they have no support inside Iran and within the opposition outside Iran.

Dear Mayor

At the end I would like to wish success, and hope that you can stop this terrorist cult from transforming Auvers-Sur-Oise to a new barrack like the one in Iraq.

Sincerely yours

Ali Jahani, Iran Pen Association (Iran Ghalam),

April 30, 2014 0 comments

Former members of the MEK

Iraqi Envoy: Defected MKO Members Willing to Return to Iran

Many defected members of the terrorist Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO, also known as MEK, NCRI or PMOI) are willing to surrender themselves to the Tehran government to return to Iran, a senior Iraqi diplomat said.

"If the grounds are paved to facilitate their (MKO members) repatriation to Iran this can persuade other MKO members to do the same," Iraqi Ambassador to Tehran Mohammad Majid Al-Sheikh told FNA on Saturday.

He explained that 10 MKO members are currently settled in a hotel in Baghdad waiting to return to Iran, and said, "The representative of the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has asked me to talk to the Iranian officials to facilitate the return of these MKO members to Iran."

The Iraqi ambassador pointed to an agreement between Iran and Iraq on extradition of criminals, and said, "This agreement will be implemented in the next several weeks and we are doing our best to implement it."

He reiterated that if Iran files a lawsuit against the MKO at the Interpol, the Interpol can take action and arrest the MKO members and hand them over to Iran according to the universally accepted laws on the extradition of criminals.

The last group of MKO terrorists at Camp Ashraf, now called Camp New Iraq, was evicted by the Iraqi government on September 11, 2012 to join other members of the terrorist group in the former US-held Camp Liberty, now called Camp Hurriya, near Baghdad International Airport where they are awaiting relocation to other countries.

The group fled to Iraq in 1986, where it was protected by Saddam Hussein and where it helped the Iraqi dictator suppress Shiite and Kurd uprisings in the country.

Since the 2003 US invasion of Iraq, the group, which now adheres to a pro-free-market philosophy, has been strongly backed by neo-conservatives in the United States, who eventually took the MKO off the US terror list.

The US formally removed the MKO from its list of terror organizations in early September 2012, one week after the then Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, sent the US Congress a classified communication about the move. The decision made by Clinton enabled the group to have its assets under the US jurisdiction unfrozen and do business with the American entities, the State Department said in a statement at the time.

April 28, 2014 0 comments

Former members of the MEK

Memoirs of Abdulkarim Ebrahimi, MKO defector

I am Abdulkarim Ebrahimi, 47, from Ilam, Iran. I left the Mujahedin Khalq Organization in 2012, after 24 years of imprisonment behind the bars of the anti-Iranian cult. I could manage to escape the MKO after

Memoirs of Abdulkarim Ebrahimi, MKO defector the relocation of the second convoy in Camp Liberty. I rushed to Iraqi Police station while MKO guards were chasing me. Finally, leaving the MKO security forces behind, I thrived to reach Iraqis.

Before my escape, when I was in Camp Ashraf, I had several times asked for permission to leave the organization but not only the MKO leaders refused my request, but also they verbally abused me, humiliated and mentally tortured me.

In 1994, after 5 years of membership in the group, together with a large number of other members, I was imprisoned by the cult authorities, under the pretext that they didn’t trust us. We were jailed in a prison in Camp Ashraf where we were physically and mentally tortured. I recall one of my fellow prisoners whose head had been entirely swelled due to severe beatings.

I entered the MKO in 1989 after I was deceived by the phony promises of the group. As soon as I arrived in the MKO, I found myself as a hostage in a inhumane cult where I even didn’t have the right to think freely. Any kind of socializing with others was forbidden as a “plot”. Members were under a 24-7 controlling system that forced them to attend daily and weekly sessions of inquisition. During these sessions members had to confess their thought and dreams, even sexual ones, in front of others. I myself was humiliated and verbally abused in these meetings several times.

The leaders of the MKO – who all the time claim that Camp Liberty is like a prison – are the main people who turned the MKO Camps into a prison. The MKO prison is so exceptional that its prisoners – the same members – are not allowed to contact their families, either by phone of by letter. They have no access to the Internet and other mass-media. They are forbidden to visit their loved ones. They have no news of the outside world but prisoners in the whole world, even under the worst dictatorships, at least are allowed to visit their families or even take a few days off to go home.

The MKO camps have been turned into a horrible jail because: relations and conditions are very oppressive, and tyranical, under cult-like practices members are manipulated, they are kept in an absolute ignorance, celibacy is obligatory, children are separated from their parents, emotional relations are forbidden as well as sexual relations, there is no access to mobile, Radio, TV, newspapers and the Internet. News, books and films are filtered by the cult authorities.

Therefore, I ask the United Nations Organization and the families of Liberty residents to try their best for salvation of my former friends who are still taken as hostages in the cult of Rajavi. In order to release them, the presence of residents’ families in Iraq is vital.

By Iran Fanous

April 27, 2014 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Ordinary citizens trapped for years while Senators paid for supporting terrorists

San Fernando Valley-based Iranian brothers turn to international tribunals over U.S. detentions

Ordinary citizens trapped for years while Senators paid for supporing terrorists Four Iranian brothers who live in the San Fernando Valley are asking two international tribunals to rule that they were unlawfully held on alleged immigration violations for more than 40 months shortly after Sept. 11, 2001.

The Mirmehdi brothers were detained on allegations that they were affiliated with a terrorist organization, though the men argued they had just attended a rally in Denver opposing the Iranian government and they have no terrorist involvement.

They have already filed claims asking for compensation and an apology but were rejected by the U.S. courts who said federal officials are immune from prosecution. But now with help from UCLA law students, they are asking the U.N. Working Group on Arbitrary Detention and the Washington D.C.-based Inter-American Commission for Human Rights to take up their case.

The two human rights bodies do not have the legal authority to force the U.S. government to compensate the brothers, but the Mirmehdis and their backers feel the groups could give them a form of justice by authenticating their claims.

“We do want some sort of monetary damages and compensation as well (but) the most important thing is that the court says that the U.S. government was wrong about us,” said Mostafa “Michael” Mirmehdi, 55, of Lake Balboa.

The brothers say they were “arbitrarily detained” in October 2001 and mistreated while held on the basis of a false allegation that they were members of a terrorist organization for which no criminal charges were ever filed. The brothers, who were denied political asylum more than a decade ago but are allowed to stay in the country for the time being, were released from detention in March 2005.

According to federal officials, the Mirmehdi brothers were found to have been subject to removal from the United States because they were in the country in violation of the nation’s immigration laws and were subject to mandatory detention because of their alleged affiliation with a terrorist organization.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed the Mirmehdis’ claims against U.S. government officials in 2012 and the U.S. Supreme Court declined to take up the case last year.

The Mirmehdis’s troubles date back to 1998 when they applied for political asylum with the help of an attorney named Bahram Tabatabai, who falsified certain details in the brothers’ applications, according to a 9th Circuit Court opinion. After Tabatabai was arrested for immigration fraud in March 1999, he agreed to cooperate with federal authorities; as part of a plea bargain, he told federal authorities that the Mirmehdis were supporters of an Iranian terrorist group known as the Mujahedine-e Khalq (MEK) “though he later recanted,” according to the opinion.

The agents arrested the Mirmehdis for immigration violations in March 1999 and they were later released on bond. The other three brothers are Mohammad, 43, of Tarzana, Mojtaba, 51, of Encino, and Mohsen, 47, of Tarzana.

Immigration authorities, however, revoked the bonds in October 2001 largely based on a document known as the “L.A. Cell Form,” a handwritten piece of paper that the government maintained listed members, affiliates and supporters of the MEK but that the Mirmehdis and their attorneys say was just a list of attendees at a “constitutionally-protected, pro-democracy” rally in Denver in 1997. That rally was hosted by the National Council of Resistance of Iran, which was affiliated with the MEK, and attended by several members of the U.S. Congress, the brothers said.

The Mirmehdis have maintained that they are not members of the MEK nor any other terrorist organization. They contend that federal officials detained them for as long as they did to try to get them to provide terrorist-related information about MEK members they did not possess.

An FBI spokeswoman said it would be inappropriate to comment beyond the U.S. courts’ decisions on this case.

Immigrations and Customs Enforcement spokeswoman Virginia Kice declined comment on Tuesday, but she pointed to earlier statements made by her agency about the case.

“The Supreme Court has ruled that aliens may not be detained indefinitely when the United States is unable to carry out their removal,” Kice said in a written statement in 2005 after the brothers were ordered released from custody. “However, the law permits continued detention of individuals who pose an imminent threat to national security. Following a detailed analysis of all-important factors, there is insufficient basis to support continued detention of the brothers. One of these important factors is a judicial finding that, although they were associated with a terrorist organization, there was not enough evidence to connect the brothers to personally engaging in terrorist acts.”

When the Supreme Court rejected their case last year, there was no other avenue in the United States for the Mirmehdis, said Catherine Sweetser, an associate of the Venice-based law firm Schonbrun DeSimone Seplow Harris & Hoffman that has represented the brothers for years. The firm then asked the UCLA School of Law’s International Human Rights Clinic for help in taking the course to the international arena.

“The first thing we’re hoping for… are opinions that vindicate our clients’ position saying they were arbitrarily detained and experienced all these human rights violations under detention,” said E. Tendayi Achiume, instructor of the UCLA School of Law’s International Human Rights Clinic and a Binder Teaching Fellow. “We’re hoping that both tribunals will also make recommendations that ask the U.S. government to do several things … award damages and some form of rehabilitation/compensation for our clients for the violations they suffered. In addition to that, we would like both tribunals to recommend that the U.S. government amend the laws that immunize governments agents that engage in this conduct from being held accountable.”

A decision from the Inter-American Commission for Human Rights can take many years while the U.N. Working Group on Arbitrary Detention could respond within the year, Achiume said.

Brenda Gazzar, Los Angeles Daily News

April 26, 2014 0 comments

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