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German HRC calls on Ashraf Camp Leader to forego violence

German Human Rights Commissioner calls on Ashraf Camp Leader to forego violence and grant access to Camp residents

press release German Human Rights Commissioner calls on Ashraf Camp Leader to forego violence and grant access to Camp residents
Human Rights Commissioner on the situation in the Iraqi Camp Ashraf
date of issue20.04.2011

Markus Löning, the Federal Government Commissioner for Human Rights Policy and Humanitarian Aid at the Federal Foreign Office, issued the following statement today (20 April):

“According to information confirmed by the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI), 34 people were killed and numerous others injured when Iraqi security forces forcibly entered Camp Ashraf.

I find this deeply regrettable, and I urge the Iraqi government to immediately commence an independent investigation into these events and to enable the injured to receive medical care. Iraqi security forces are called upon to proceed responsibly and with a sense of proportion, and without endangering any more lives.

At the same time I appeal to the leaders of Camp Ashraf to forego violence and to grant an independent investigation commission full access to the camp. The leaders of Camp Ashraf must enable all of the injured to receive medical care, and must ensure full protection of the rights of the camp’s inhabitants. This includes the right to leave the camp.”

Some 3500 members of the People’s Mujahedin of Iran (MKO) and their family members currently live in Camp Ashraf. During the Iran-Iraq War, the MKO fought under Saddam Hussein against Iran. They are viewed as a strictly hierarchical organization which has never distanced itself from terrorist violence. It has often been reported that inhabitants of the camp have been prevented by their leaders from leaving Camp Ashraf.

The camp came under US control after American forces disarmed the MKO’s military units in 2003; responsibility for Camp Ashraf was handed over to Iraq at the beginning of 2009. The Iraqi Government is eager to establish full state sovereignty over Ashraf, and to dismantle the camp structures.

German Human Rights Commissioner, auswaertiges-amt.de

April 24, 2011 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization

MKO, an inside look

New defections in anti-Iran group Mojahedin-e-Khalq Organization. Some former members of the MKO give us some insight into what is happening in the group which is designated terrorist by much of the international community

Download MKO, an inside look

April 24, 2011 0 comments

Massoud Rajavi

Why Massoud Rajavi looks for victims?

"By mid 1987, the Mojahedin Organization had all the main attributes of a cult. It had its own revered leader when it referred to formally as the "Guide" and informally as the "present Imam". The Mujahedin had created a rigid hierarchy in which instructions flowed from above and the primary responsibility of the rank and file was to obey without asking too many questions" – Professor Ervand Ibrahamian/ ‘’ The Iranian Mojahedin ‘’

MKO’s ideological leader and the cult’s high ranks need to victimize their rank and file in order to survive. Whenever they fail to take advantage of the services they offer western Intelligence agencies by spying and working as their mercenaries, or they are not given any role in international relationships, they set off for victimization of their members so that they might be able to prolong their survival. Their victims are those members captured behind closed bars of the cult, distanced and uninformed from the outside world. Despite, their entirely inhuman terrorist background and their alliance with the most notorious region to oppress the Iranian and Iraqi people for two decades, the MKO leaders so boldly expect to stay in Iraqi territory, Camp Ashraf. They impudently do not obey the rules of Iraqi democratic government and Iraqi citizens but they cause tension and crisis. They step up their anti-security acts to favor Imperialist states.

In fact, Massoud Rajavi seems like a political prostitute rather than a politic man. He doesn’t care for the fewest moral and political etiquettes. He is determined to victimize his brainwashed uninformed forces to maintain his survival and his absolute power over the cult. He makes efforts to exploit the blood of MKO rank and files to run his propaganda machine.
He is a political prostitute, not a freedom fighter because he and his mercenaries never care for the lives of members kept in Camp Ashraf otherwise they would have taken them out of unstable chaotic Iraq many years ago; they should have sent their members to seek refuge in European countries. They didn’t do so; but they just saved their own lives and escaped Iraq immediately after the American invasion and the fall of Saddam Hussein. They left the forces in the waves of crisis and war in Iraq.

Today, MKO leaders send Ashraf residents to death in order to draw the West’s attention towards their cult, and in the hope of being given a role by Western politicians but evidences show that in Americans and Europeans’ view, MKO has an expiration date.

There are a few questions that always puzzle your mind about Mujahedin Khalq: why MKO leaders still deprive Ashraf residents from their right to decide for their own future and to leave the camp, despite families’ insistence and human right bodies’ demands?

Where is Massoud Rajavi hiding during all these years? What kind of a leader is he who consciously sends his followers to death? Isn’t he extremely rude and knavish?

By Arash Rezaiee

April 23, 2011 0 comments

The MEK; Baath Party Accomplice

Saddamists in Europe react to Anne Singleton’s visit to Camp New Iraq

The website (Iraq4allnews.dk) of the Saddamists in Europe have published a statement signed by their employed terrorist group NCRI (aka;Mojahedin Khalq, MKO, MEK, NCRI, Rajavi cult).

The reaction is again the threadbare allegation of attaching everyone to Iran. Reminding us of what Saddam Hussein used to say, that the Persians and Jews should be wiped off the face of the earth.

The reaction of the Saddamists comes after Anne Singleton produced evidence in Baghdad that the camp is the last untouched part of the Saddam regime’s suppressive infrastructure and that it is used to train, plan and support terrorist activities across Iraq in order to derail the process of democratisation in the country.

Note the flag presented in the site.

The flag of Iraq at the time of Saddam had 3 Stars (Baath Party) and the writing was a copy of the handwriting of Saddam Hussein.

The New Iraqi Parliament voted to change this to remove the stars and to change the handwriting to the Kufi font.

(Saddamists Wbsite in support of Mojahedin Khalq terrorists)

(The Iraqi flag after the fall of Saddam)

April 23, 2011 0 comments

Iraq

MEK Terrorists Interfering in Iraq Democratisation

Baladiyeh Foundation, a Baghdad based human rights NGO, invited Anne Singleton of Iran-Interlink in the UK to present a paper at the Mostanserieh University in Baghdad.

The meeting focused on the democratisation process in Iraq after the fall of the former regime.

Anne Singleton, a leading expert in the Mojahedin-e Khalq terrorist group, exposed the involvement of the MEK in disrupting this process. Since 2003, Iraq has held three free and fair democratic elections said Singleton, but the MEK is backed by elements in the US and Israel which want to impose their own agenda on Iraq. For this reason, the MEK, which occupies the only remaining untouched infrastructure of the former Saddam regime, has been active in training terrorist groups such as Al Qaida at its base in Diyala province, Camp New Iraq (formerly Ashraf). The MEK has also groomed and facilitated loyalists of the former Saddam regime to take part in the democratisation process in order to promote their interests.

Several prominent Iraqi personalities attended the meeting, including human rights promoters, sheikhs and members of the media.

Al Mostanserieh University, Baghdad

April 23, 2011 0 comments

MKO Former Member Open Letter to Ms. Ashton

Mojahedin Khalq exploit you for their own agenda

Honorable Ms. Ashton
I’d like to begin my letter by asking a few questions:
Have you ever been tortured? Have you ever been whipped? Have you ever been beaten, kicked, fisted or slapped? Have you ever been tortured psychologically so as you were forced to take drugs? Have you ever observed your friends’ committing suicide because they could no more tolerate terrible tortures they used to suffer?

Yes, Dear Ms. Ashton,
I was a member of Mujahedin Khalq Organization for about 30 years under the leadership of Massoud and Mayam Rajavi who claim to run a democratic organization that advocates human rights.

I was seriously beaten and tortured in MKO because I criticized the organization several times. I was imprisoned in camp Ashraf prisons where I was terribly tortured both physically and psychologically. I felt so terrible that the so-called doctor of the prison prescribed forbidden medicines for my mental problems. The scars left by torture are evidences of my words. However, Iraqi officials have documents on MKO’s human right violation cases. MKO’s propaganda presents itself as human rights advocate but in fact its leaders treat their dissident members so violently. To check the accuracy of my work, you may want to send a delegation to interview the twenty-eight members who have managed to escape Camp Ashraf since last year.

Dear Ms. Ashton,
Do you know the real meaning of those issues you mention about MKO in your speeches or your statements? Do you really know what you were given by MKO propaganda Machine? Those who are aware of MKO’s real nature believe that your words on MKO are dictated to you by the group. I’d like to warn you not to get involved in a cult-like culture. They exploit you to run their own agenda. To make sure, you might be able to have Persian language experts interpret what MKO has so far presented to you.

As soon as possible, you should stop MKO from playing with your ideals including human rights and democracy. They wear the mask of a democratic, humanitarian, peaceful organization while they widely violate human rights. I highly recommend reading the HRW’s report on MKO in 2005,No EXIT, and also RAND report published by the US Defense Department in 2010.

Mohammad Karami, Paris

April 23, 2011 0 comments

MEK Camp Ashraf

Raid on MEK Refugee Camp in Iraq Raises Questions

A raid by Iraqi security forces on a camp of Iranian opposition exiles earlier this month set off an international outcry about human rights abuses and raised old concerns about Camp Ashraf and its inhabitants. The United Nations reports the raid left 34 dead and called on the Iraqi government to launch an inquiry. The inhabitants of Camp Ashraf – some 3,500 members and supporters of an Iranian opposition group, the People’s Mujahedin, also known as the MEK or the PMOI – were once welcomed by Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. But now they are more often seen as an irritant for Baghdad and the recent attack again raised questions about just who the Mujahedin are and what their future is.

Exiled Iranians shout "Killers!" at Iraqi soldiers guarding their desert camp. These photos they say show victims killed by Iraqis in a raid on Camp Ashraf, northeast of Baghdad and base of the People’s Mujahedin.

The group has been in Iraq for decades – given shelter by Saddam Hussein in the 1980’s during the Iran-Iraq War.

But on this day there was not much to see when journalists toured parts of the Camp the day after the alleged raid.

Iraqi Defense Ministry spokesman Mohammed al-Askari said security forces had come in peace, but were threatened and insulted. "They [residents of the camp] acted in a way, which is against the law as if they were not in Iraq and as if they were not covered by Iraqi law," he said.

Details remain sketchy as to what actually happened. But the People’s Mujahedin released this video showing what they say was the massacre of Camp Ashraf residents by Iraqi forces. VOA is unable to independently verify its content, posted on YouTube and shown at a recent pro-Mujahedin press conference in Washington.

Major U.S. political figures attended, including former governor and Democratic presidential contender Howard Dean. "This is about murder and ultimately this is about genocide and for our American troops to be standing a few kilometers away watching this happen is wrong and I call upon the president of the United States to stop this now," he said.

Members of the People’s Mujahedin, or MEK, surrendered their weapons and came under the protection of U.S. troops following the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. But in 2009, control of the camp was transferred from the U.S. military to the Iraqi government.

That raised concern among MEK members and supporters and they’ve often taken those concerns to the streets in European capitals.

History of People’s Mujahedin
Founded by Iranian students in the mid-1960’s, the People’s Mujahedin mixed Marxist, left-wing and Islamic ideology. In those early days they fought against the then-Shah Mohamed Reza Pahlavi, then briefly sided with the country’s new rulers after the Islamic Revolution of 1979.
According to the U.S. State Department, the Mujahedin were linked to the killing of at least six U.S. military and civilian personnel in Iran before the revolution and were involved in the invasion of the U.S. Embassy and the capture of U.S. diplomats as hostages in the months that followed. The State Department put the group on its list of foreign terrorists in the 1990s and it remains on the list to this day.

MEK members and supporters are spread throughout Europe, especially in France where their top leadership, including Mariam Rajavi, lives. They say they seek to overthrow the Islamic regime and replace it with a secular democratic government. They like to portray themselves as freedom fighters.

‘Mind-control cult’
But for Massoud and Anne Khodabandeh the group is anything but democratic. They are former members of the British branch of the People’s Mujahedin, now living in the United Kingdom. "I was very struck by them. They were very disciplined," said former MEK member Anne Singleton Khodabandeh.
Anne says she was a low-level recruit, and Massoud, a high-ranking figure, but both left disillusioned. "We quickly discovered that where we had been was a mind-control cult. A very dangerous and destructive mind-control cult," she said.

Who are supporters?
Despite such criticism, the group has supporters, including important friends in Washington – among them former top officials in the administration of George W. Bush.
"It certainly helps for the MEK to remain a bone in the throat of Iran and a diversion to the regime because of its potential to undermine the regime," said former attorney general Micahel Mukasey.

Dana Perino, a former White House spokeswoman and a member of the U.S. Broadcasting Board of Governors that oversees VOA, joined others at a recent forum on the Iran-Iraq relationship. "So to the women of Camp Ashraf, I express my admiration…," she said.

"The organization is very effective in putting on a face…," said Near East analyst Patrick Clawson says the MEK knows how to appeal to Washington audiences. "They have presented themselves as a democratic movement in Iran which many people around the world, many people in the United States are sympathetic to – the democratic movement in Iran. "

Push for removal from terrorist list
More recently, MEK members and supporters have taken to the streets – lobbying to be taken off government terrorist lists. They are now pushing hard for removal from the U.S. State Department foreign terrorist list.

"Many of the lawmakers repeatedly in the United States asked the State Department and Secretary Clinton to remove the name from the list," said Shirin Nariman, spokeswoman for MEK supporters.

Earlier this year, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said a decision is near. "It’s proceeding. These are very important considerations and reviews, and as soon as we can we will make such a decision," she said.

The MEK renounced violence more than a decade ago, but many analysts say that while it may no longer be a terrorist group, it resonates little with modern Iranians.
"One of the chapters of the history of the MEK that they have a really hard time living down is that during the Iran-Iraq war they were essentially living in Iraq and became hired hands of Saddam Hussein," said investigative journalist Gareth Porter.

Opinions about the People’s Mujahedin still vary widely and Camp Ashraf – once a political boon to Saddam Hussein – now seems to be more of an irritant to the current Iraqi government.

For now, the government says Camp Ashraf will remain under its sovereign control and that it will safeguard the human rights of its residents.
Laurel Bowman

April 23, 2011 0 comments

Iraq

Iraq FM: Western Countries Who Care About MKO Can Take Them

Following a raid by the Iraqi military on the headquarters of the terrorist group the People’s Mujahedin of Iran, Iraq’s Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari has suggested that “countries who care about the fate and human rights of this group’s action … should welcome them and they should resettle them in their countries.”

Zebari made the remarks in an interview with Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, just days after the Iraqi military launched a raid on Camp Ashraf, 60 kilometers North of the Iraqi capital Baghdad. The camp is home to the People’s Mujahedin of Iran (PMOI), a terrorist organisation much despised by the Iranian people. The United Nations says 34 people were killed during the raid on the camp at which some 3,500 members of the death cult are stationed.

Iraq
Zebari told RFE/RL :“The Iraqi Constitution prohibits the presence of mujahedin or any other militia groups from neighboring countries, whether it’s the PKK [Kurdistan Workers’ Party], whether it’s the PJAK [Party for a Free Life in Kurdistan], or whoever to have presence on Iraqi territory and to launch attacks against our neighbors. Constitutionally, this is not allowed and the mujahedin or the MEK member [Mujahedin Khalq] of the Ashraf camp have to respect Iraqi law.”

“Iraq has a commitment not to extradite any of its members to Iran. Iraq has a commitment also to observe international humanitarian law and to have access by international organisations to them, like the United Nation missions, ICRC, and so on.”

Zebari continue: “No country in the world will tolerate any organisation to undermine its sovereignty, to defy its authority, and to act as if this is a liberated territory or a state within a state. So they have to abide by Iraqi rules and regulations, and we have called on European countries and others to resettle these peoples in their countries, for them to go on and continue their struggle. In Iraq, their presence is unacceptable.”

The Iraqi Foreign Minister said that his government’s decision to expel the group and set a deadline of the end of the year was “an Iraqi decision” while noting that the group was even “branded in the United States as a terrorist group, by the Department of State.”

“Those countries who care about the fate and human rights of this group’s action, should welcome them and they should resettle them in their countries. My government has requested such a thing from European countries and from other countries, to resettle members of the Ashraf camp in their countries.”

When asked where he saw the group’s members going, Zebari responded, “Wherever. Any country — in the northern countries, in Australia, in New Zealand, Canada, the United States, wherever.”

The PMOI is known by a number of different names including Mojahedin-e-Khalq Organization (MEK) or (MKO), The National Liberation Army of Iran (the group’s armed wing) and the National Council of Resistance of Iran, a front group for the PMOI.

In the 80s, the group joined forces with the invading of Saddam Hussein and developed an intimate relationship with the Iraqi dictator at a time when Iranians were struggling to liberate the occupied Iranian territories. Due to the MKO’s traitorous actions and its role in the massacre of Iraqi Kurds and Marsh Arabs, it has no political base inside Iran and no genuine support or credibility among ordinary Iranians.

Eurasia Review

April 23, 2011 0 comments

Former members of the MEK

Ex-MKO members recount ordeal in Iraq

Three defected members of the terrorist group Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO) have given an account of their ordeal during their stay at Camp Ashraf in Iraq.

The spokesperson of the Iraqi defense ministry, General Mohammed al-Askari, said in a Tuesday press conference in the Iraqi capital of Baghdad that the three former MKO members escaped from Camp Ashraf, the terrorist group’s headquarters in Iraq, and surrendered to the Iraqi security forces, a Press TV correspondent reported.

The official said that the defected members have provided the Iraqi government with the evidence required to shut down the camp according to the international laws.

The former members of the terrorist group say the residents of Camp Ashraf are completely cut off from the outside world, and are tortured and traumatized, but are also afraid to escape.

Having lived in misery and under pressure for many years, Maryam Sanjabi, one of the MKO deserters, surrendered herself to the Iraqi forces deployed near the camp last week.

“None of the residents of Camp Ashraf have the right to contact their families… The only thing that can separate a member from the MKO is death,” she said.

“The leaders of the camp have spent millions of dollars to train the residents of the camp how to launch attacks and even encounter the Iraqi security forces,” Sanjabi added.

Another former MKO member, Abdullatif Shadvari, who escaped from the camp two months ago, earlier said, “The punishment of those who try to escape from Camp Ashraf… is execution.”
On April 8, 34 people were reportedly killed in clashes between Iraqi security forces and MKO members residing in Camp Ashraf in Diyala province.

Iraqi forces say there is evidence that the people have been killed by the organization itself.
On April 11, Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said the cabinet is determined to shut down the camp.

The group fled to Iraq in 1986, where it enjoyed the support of Iraqi executed dictator Saddam Hussein, and set up Camp Ashraf in the eastern province of Diyala near the Iranian border.

More than 3,000 MKO members are residing at the camp. In addition, the MKO sends elements to Iran on spy and terrorist missions.

The organization is also known to have cooperated with Saddam in suppressing the 1991 uprisings in southern Iraq and the massacre of Iraqi Kurds.

Following the overthrow of Saddam in 2003, the Iraqi government has set numerous deadlines for the terrorist group to leave the country but MKO has managed to maintain its base due to US backing.

The MKO is listed as a terrorist organization by much of the international community, and is responsible for numerous terrorist acts against both Iranians and Iraqis.

Iran has repeatedly called on the Iraqi government to expel the group, but the US has been blocking its expulsion by pressuring the Iraqi government against such a move.
Download Ex-MKO members recount ordeal in Iraq

April 21, 2011 0 comments

MEK Camp Ashraf

Dozens of MKO Members Escape Camp Ashraf

Tens of the members of the terrorist Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO) escaped from the group’s main training camp, the Camp of New Iraq, in Northern Iraq, local media reported on Wednesday.

The Arabic-language Nahrainnet website said Iraq’s defense ministry has confirmed that scores of defectors have escaped the camp and sought Baghdad’s refuge.

The report pointed out that the move by the MKO fugitives would help further unveil the shocking secrets of the camp (formerly known as Camp Ashraf).

The website also stressed that the move by the MKO’s members also proves the Iranian officials’ righteous stance who had said earlier that a large number of MKO members wanted to exit the camp and return to Iran but they were incarcerated in the camp by the MKO ringleaders.

The MKO has been in Iraq’s Diyala province since the 1980s.

Iraqi security forces took control of the training base of the MKO at Camp Ashraf – about 60km (37 miles) north of Baghdad – in 2009 and detained dozens of the members of the terrorist group.

The Iraqi authority also changed the name of the military center from Camp Ashraf to the Camp of New Iraq.

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

A May 2005 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.

Numerous articles and letters posted on the Internet by family members of MKO recruits confirm reports of the horrific abuse that the group inflicts on its own members and the alluring recruitment methods it uses.

The most shocking of such stories includes accounts given by former British MKO member Ann Singleton and Mustafa Mohammadi — the father of an Iranian-Canadian girl who was drawn into the group during an MKO recruitment campaign in Canada.

Mohammadi recounts his desperate efforts to contact his daughter, who disappeared several years ago – a result of what the MKO called a ‘two-month tour’ of Camp Ashraf for teenagers.
He also explains how the group forces the families of its recruits to take part in pro-MKO demonstrations in Western countries by threatening to kill their loved ones.

Lacking a foothold in Iran, the terrorist group recruits ill-informed teens from Iranian immigrant communities in Western states and blocks their departure afterwards.

The MKO, whose main stronghold is in Iraq, is blacklisted by much of the international community, including the United States.

Before an overture by the EU, the MKO was on the European Union’s list of terrorist organizations subject to an EU-wide assets freeze. Yet, the MKO puppet leader, Maryam Rajavi, who has residency in France, regularly visited Brussels and despite the ban enjoyed full freedom in Europe.

The MKO is behind a slew of assassinations and bombings inside Iran, a number of EU parliamentarians said in a recent letter in which they slammed a British court decision to remove the MKO from the British terror list. The EU officials also added that the group has no public support within Iran because of their role in helping Saddam Hussein in the Iraqi imposed war on Iran (1980-1988).

Iraq had announced earlier this month that members of the terrorist group must leave by the end of 2011.

Earlier this week, the Baghdad government assured Iranian officials and people that it is determined to expel the terrorist organization from Iraq by the end of 2011.

"Expulsion of the MKO from Iraq’s soil and termination of its presence which has lasted for several years is a definite decision," Iraqi Government Spokesman Ali Al-Dabbaq told FNA, adding, "The MKO will be expelled from Iraq by the end of the current year."

"The only option for the members of the MKO is leaving Iraq and they have no other choice," he reiterated.

Reminding to the black record of the terrorist group and its crimes against the Iraqi people, Dabbaq said "collaboration with the former Iraqi dictator and massacre of thousands of our people is just part of their crimes".

April 21, 2011 0 comments

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