Page 675 – Nejat Society

Massoud and Maryam were the mainspring of operations

An interview with Batool Soltani on MKO self-immolations – Part 37

Sahar Family Foundation: One of the interesting points you referred to was the organization’s insistence on regular confession sessions of cleansing even in the course of the missions. I am interested to know how they justified it when on a mission.

Batool Soltani: Any operation team was composed of two or three depending on the nature of the operations. One was in charge and he was the one to arrange and run the cleansing sessions. Even in his/her absence, other members had to sit by themselves to conduct it. They insisted on its performance since it was much necessary when members were out on mission in a free world among people and just a few steps away from the adversaries.

In the camp there were no enemy and consequently no fear. But out of the camp there always existed a potential threat that could lead to an influential demoralization. When among the society that the members were long away from, the felt nostalgia could obsess them with the thought of craving to be with their family and starting a warm, pleasant life just like other people. The temptation could easily erode their confidence in the organization to encounter it. That is where they needed to be cleansed of such temptations that could diminish their fighting morale. I think we have already talked enough about the issue.

SFF: Did Massoud have any contact with the teams while in isolation?

BS: before their departure, they would once meet with him which worked as a factor of encouragement. He would talk to them on the phone or received them individually in the presence of Maryam where they gave their pledge of loyalty to the red-line and the organizational principles and that the enemy would never succeed to have access to anything out of them. The emphasis was on Ahmad Rezai as the archetype they had to follow. Then he would say, ‘now move to show what you will give to the enemy and what you’ll take’. These meeting were really instrumental and some looked at it as their unforgettable memories and a matter of honor.

The impact of the meeting was enough to encourage and motivate them to the end and to risk their life for the accomplishment of the mission and the will of leader. The head-team of Lajevardi’s assassination, for instance, had a meeting with Maryam where he, Ali-Akbar Akbari, promised her to shot him just between his eyes. It was Massoud’s skill to instigate and provoke members and there were times when they would kneel before him crying and begging to be sent for the operations. He knew how to prepare them psychologically and if you could listen to his speech delivered before the operation Eternal Light, you would feel his charismatic influence in provoking three-four thousand forces, as he could well justify the failure of the operation.

SFF: Was the age of members of any importance in selecting them for the operations?

BS: Not very much. The average age of the members was 40 or younger. However, it was physical readiness rather than the age that could be counted. A physical test well indicated the degree of members’ readiness.

SFF: In this phase of operation we encounter the arrest of Marjan Malek and the organization’s contradictory reactions. Do you have anything more to add?

BS: At first, the organization thought she had been killed. So it began praising and glorifying her daring deed in its official gazette, Mojahed. Then it was surfaced that she was alive and arrested and it was brought into the Leadership Council to start advertising her collaboration with the regime’s information system. It was immediately put into action and her pictures were removed from the gazette. To justify her published disclosures about the organization, the organization tried to convince the lower cadres that she had failed to stand and resist the regime’s pressures and so had surrendered. Interestingly, the organization never mentioned her team-mate, Akbari, and evaded questions concerning him.

SFF: How successful was the organization in its ‘operations of ultimate’?

BS: They proclaimed them successful because of their wrong evaluation of Iran’s internal climate. They were under illusion of having people’s support which led them reckon on a 90 percent success. It was what they said to the teams to ensure them that they would certainly return to the camp. Actually, less than ten percent would return.

SFF: Why it was so?

BS: It was clear from the very beginning that they wouldn’t because there are reasons to justify. Imagine, how is it possible for a team going to a crowded bazaar to retreat while it is surrounded by crowds of people and police forces? Actually, the organization never reckoned on their return but on their demise; martyrs that benefited the organization for propaganda.

SFF: How they evaluated Iran’s social and security atmosphere?

BS: Their appraisal of Iran’s security and police apparatus was not realistic. Unlike the organization’s cautious considerations about the past regime’s security and police apparatus advertised to be highly cunning and sophisticated, it underestimated the capacity and potentialities of the present regime. While the organization was well aware of the fact that no sophisticated apparatus was needed to hunt one or two penetrated teams and that a simple but exact inspection and scrutiny by the police could lead to betray the teams. It was just what happened to Malek and her team-mate. Furthermore, the organization insisted on the social backing and inspirited the teams that they could reckon on people’s widespread protective umbrella to hit and escape; it was what it would say to lower ranks and operation teams but it was clear for higher layers and the Leadership Council that the teams would never return.

SFF: How they broached the issue of human shield in Auvers-sur-Oise?

BS: In Auvers, they have to abide by the rules of the host country but they run underground establishment. Their surface political struggle necessitates it to be organized and it acts according to legal regulations unless the red-lines are broken, that is to say, the sanctuary of the leadership is violated. The consequence will be something like the 17 June immolations. However, as I was not in Auvers lately, I cannot tell what approaches they are focusing on at the present. But, be sure that such activities never cease within Ashraf; the pass of time will show how they will put them into action in European countries.

Link to previous parts

November 9, 2009 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization members' families

MKO members’ families met ICRC representative – Orumiyah

Following the invitation made by the office of Nejat Society in Western Azarbayjan, the honorable representative of ICRC visited that office on November 5th and 6th, 2009. During the two days, he met some members of families whose relatives are captured in Camp Ashraf under the rule of MKO leaders. He received their only request which is contacting their beloved ones in Camp Ashraf under the rule of MKO leaders. MKO members families met ICRC representative - Orumiyah

November 8, 2009 0 comments

Human Rights Abuse in the MEK

Fear and Slavery in the Mojahedin-e Khalq cult

Foreword

The families in Iraq announced on Friday 6th that they had finally been able to meet with their relatives, but were far from satisfied with the circumstances. They said that when the MKO PMOI leaders’ hysteria over eight family members knocking at the camp gate asking to see their relatives leaders discovered that they were coming to the camp accompanied by several Iraqi and American reporters, they accepted to negotiate. The MKO agreed that the families could meet with their relatives for a few hours on condition that they do not talk to the media. The families accepted and held meetings.

However the families also said that their loved ones told them not to pursue the issue any further and said they must cut all further contact with them otherwise they will come under severe pressure from the cult leaders.

The families have now decided to pursue the issue of the camp with the Human Rights Ministry of Iraq in private.

* * *
Fear and Slavery in the Mojahedin-e Khalq cult

For those still interested enough to follow the dwindling fortunes of the foreign terrorist cult, Mojahedin-e Khalq, isn’t there something faintly ludicrous in the group’s desperate denunciation of anyone and everyone who does not fall on their side of a red line, drawn excruciatingly tightly around the organisation and its backers, as “agents of the Iranian Intelligence Ministry”? Is it really a case of ‘us few against the rest of the world’?

An examination of the current crisis the MKO is facing reveals that it is not involved in a pitched battle to overthrow the Iranian regime – or has that aim been abandoned without them telling anyone – but the arrival at the doors of its camp in Iraq of eight elderly Iranian folk seeking contact with close relatives – sons, daughters, husbands –inside the camp, who they have not seen for many, many years and with whom they wish to meet. All eight have been denounced by the MKO leaders as “agents of the Iranian secret services” who have been deliberately sent to dismantle the camp and take its residents back to Iran.

Really?

These eight – and the other small groups and individuals who have arrived at the camp over the past six years – are terrifying agents capable of destroying Rajavi’s dedicated, self-sacrificing, totally committed force of Mojaheds? Surprising then that they have not come armed with dynamite and bulldozers, but instead come with kindness, warmth and words filled with both love and sorrow. They come with news and messages from family and friends, about births, deaths, marriages and all the little minutiae of ordinary life.

How interesting. How revealing. What a sad admission of the fragility and nihilism of the Rajavi cult that they are truly terrified by this.

Are we to believe that Iran’s “main opposition” – to quote its own self-publicity – which purports to be able to overthrow the Iranian regime in its entirety and establish a democracy in its place, is full of individuals terrified that their Mum or Dad will come along and pull their ear and make them go home? (And we must not forget that these are individuals with an average age of around 50 years.) Is it really that easy to turn a dedicated individual away from their struggle?

Isn’t the only rational interpretation of the MKO’s current hysteria that Massoud and Maryam Rajavi can only keep hold of their followers through deception and coercion and that the visit of these families will threaten to undermine that.

The fundamental, unavoidable fact behind all this is that the MKO is a dangerous, destructive mind control cult which holds its members in a state of modern slavery.

And the significance of this is far greater than the story of these eight families and involves the geopolitical future of Iraq and the region.

In brief, the MKO is described as a dangerous cult because it believes in using violence to achieve its stated aims. It is destructive because it destroys the lives, minds and spirits of its membership. The majority of the members are held incommunicado, with no access at all to the outside world. Within this isolation they are subjected to a systematic daily regime of psychological manipulation and coercion.

One of the most potent tools used by cult leaders to control their members is through the inculcation of irrational fears, or phobias, in the minds of cult members. Every cult has its own version of phobia. But all will be focused on creating an irrational fear in a cult member of critics and opponents of the cult, especially former members and family members; who of course are best placed to understand the cult mindset and be able to penetrate it. The member will become fearful anytime the phobia is activated. In the case of the MKO, the ‘code’ which activates the phobia is the tag ‘agent of the Iranian Intelligence Ministry’. No empirical evidence is required as the phrase works exactly to arouse irrational, not real, fear.

Members of the MKO live in a state of almost perpetual fear. It is through fear that the MKO not only enthrals its members but deceives uninformed politicians and media persons. The use of the word terror in this article is not for the sake of exaggeration. It describes the employment of irrational fears to ‘terrorise’ the subject. Western parliaments, media and humanitarian agencies are being ‘terrorised’ by a sophisticated campaign of psychological manipulation in which MKO lobbyists arouse a subtle level of irrational fear of spurious, deceptive spectres (usually these will be tagged ‘agents of the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence’) facing the “main Iranian opposition movement”, the MKO.

Ironically this unarmed ‘terrorist’ campaign is waged by the MKO to avoid exposure and activation of the real existential threat hanging over the group. This threat does not come from outside agencies, but arises directly from the cult nature of the organisation itself; hence the MKO leaders’ hysteria over eight family members knocking at the camp gate asking to see their relatives.

But, those still interested enough to keep on following the dwindling fortunes of the foreign terrorist cult Mojahedin-e Khalq, will already know that this is not the whole story. Not even the real story. And those who may squirm at seeing see the emperor’s nakedness should look away now.

For six years the American Army provided protection for the MKO in Iraq, a group which both the U.S. and Iraq designate as a foreign terrorist entity. The RAND National Defense Research Institute report ‘The Mujahedin-e Khalq in Iraq – A Policy Conundrum’ published in August 2009 describes the U.S.’ failure to deal decisively with the group; to dismantle it as should have happened, as successive Iraqi governments since December 2003 required should happen.

According to the report, “Approximately 14 U.S. soldiers were killed and 60 wounded as they provided security for convoys escorting MeK [MKO] members to Baghdad to purchase supplies.

Thus, it was often unclear just who was in charge of Camp Ashraf”. According to the report, the order to protect this useful little mercenary terrorist cult came from the very top, from former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

Why?

Just as the MKO leaders denied families access to their relatives inside the camp, the firmly closed doors of the camp against this existential threat proved an extremely convenient location to reassemble members of the former Saddam Hussein’s regime. Over six years the MKO has played host to supporters and officials of the former Iraqi dictator’s regime. Insurgent violence in the Diyala province has been coordinated from the MKO camp under U.S. protection.

So, when eight family members arrive at the gates of the MKO camp, it is not only the MKO leaders who fear the existential threat to the cult, but the group’s western backers. For over two decades, the Mojahedin-e Khalq has been promoted by western interests as Saddam Hussein’s private army. Since 2003, the group’s Zionist and neoconservative backers, fronted by Lord Corbett in the U.K., Straun Stevenson and Alejo Vidal-Quadras in the European Parliament, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen in the U.S. Congress, and U.S. lobbyist Raymond Tanter, have not been supporting the MKO for humanitarian reasons (otherwise they would surely support these family visits). They are protecting and promoting the group as a proxy for reintroducing Saddamists into Iraqi politics.

Those terrorised into believing they support the MKO for humanitarian reasons to protect them from destruction by the Government of Iran need to summon a little energy and a little courage to look beyond this false, superficial reasoning and really examine the facts. In doing so they will be faced with a stark choice: support the MKO as a proxy for the re-emergence of pro-western Saddamists in Iraq, or support the elected Government of Iraq as an independent, sovereign government.

That is clearly a political choice. But in the meantime, remember, the real victims of the MKO’s terrorism are the cult’s own members who are enslaved by fear.

November 8, 2009 0 comments

Human Rights Abuse in the MEK

Why is Rajavi afraid of the aged meeting with their children?

According to the news coming from Camp Ashraf in Iraq, Leaders of Molahedin Khalq Organization (MKO) have refused to allow the reunions of Iranian families coming from Iran to meet with their children. It happened while the visits were to be conducted under the auspice of the international and human rights defender organizations as a humanitarian initiative that could well pave the way for the freedom of the residents of the camp.

The banning is an explicit violation of the rights by the leaders and particularly by Maryam and Masoud Rajavi who are enthusiastically these days advertizing to be its defender and indicates Leaders of Molahedin Khalq Organization (MKO) have refused to allow the reunions of Iranian families that the leaders believe in the observation of human rights only as a political lever to delude public opinion and the advocates in the West to advance the organizational ends. Besides, there are other facts held responsible for the inhuman deed that needs to be considered in details.

1. It seems that the responsible officials in Camp Ashraf are justifying their deed by putting the blame all on Iranian regime of having intrigued against the Camp Ashraf. Suppose they are right, but can anybody doubt the pure feelings and emotions of the families who had suffered the pains of a long journey just to be disappointed to visit the loved ones they had longed to see? Naturally, families who care about their children and are eager to see them assent to the demands and surveillance of the Islamic Republic through the course of a journey arranged to reunion them with their beloved ones. Looking at it from this angle, it is in no way justifiable to deprive them of a most primal human right.

2. Furthermore, majority of these visitors are mostly aged, weak and some crippled father and mothers that need help of others rather than be the agents for others. Suppose there are agents amongst them, is not it possible to single out old fathers and mothers or sisters and brothers to grant them a last opportunity to see their beloved before they meet their death? How disappointing as there have been many parents who hit their last days failing to meet their children because of the ambitions of the organization’s leaders with the Rajavis at the head.

3. Above all, what all these claims mean when the meetings are run under the auspices of the majority of these visitors are mostly aged, weak and some crippled father and mothers that need help of others rather than be the agents for others International Committee of the Red Cross and international human rights organization. A point to notice, the organization has repeatedly asserted that all the attempts of the Islamic Republic during the past years to abuse the emotions of the members’ families to agitate and perturb the Camp Ashraf had proved unproductive. But the assertions also prove that the organization’s manipulated cultic approaches have influentially acted beyond familial bonds and attachments. What is the organization really concerned about and what is possibly disturbing the leaders?

4. It happens just following the president elections in Iran during which Mojahedin advertised the presence of a strongly built bridge between Ashraf and the uprising Iranian mob. So confident were Mojahedin in their claims that they announced their readiness to return to Iran to join the uprising Iranians. Naturally, any visitor from Iran could be a precious opportunity to establish a direct contact with families as members of a greater society and whose children are on the frontline of the struggle. Why are the leaders of Ashraf banning such a direct contact that, according to Rajavi’s analysis, will in the first place avail the organization of the opportunity?

However, they know well that none of such fraudulent claims but the visits of the families may play any effective role in the destiny of the camp residents kept in limbo. Subsequently, the leaders prefer not to risk anything since they believe the consequences of the banning is much easier to handle than undergoing irreparable damage that the visits will possibly impose.

5. Although an ongoing process after the fall of Saddam, the banning of visits and contacts between the members and their families, belonging to the outside world, has become an organizational decree in force so far implemented. Simultaneous with Iran’s post-election events that forced Rajavi into a strategic retreat in contrast to his previous daring position takings, the leaders of Ashraf are well aware of the fact that any visitor from Iran can broaden the vision of the members against the baseless claims of the imminent collapse of the regime. If Rajavi really believes in his analyses of inside Iran and accepts to return to Iran on any cause, naturally he has to be convinced that the return of Ashraf residents have to be motivated and persuaded enough.

6. Regardless of all, the refusal of the officials of the organization to allow families to meet with members of the organization indicates that the control of Camp Ashraf is still in the hands of the organization itself. It is actually in total contradiction with Mojahedin’s vociferated ado that American forces have completely surrendered the control of Ashraf to Iraqi Government that is fully exerting its influence on the camp.

November 7, 2009 0 comments

Iraq

No country willing to accept MKO terrorists on its soil

Second deputy speaker of Iraqi Parliament:
No country willing to accept MKO terrorists on its soil

Underlining the Iraqi government’s official position regarding MKO terrorist group Aref Tayfour said: So far, no country has expressed willingness to accept them in its soil. Second deputy speaker of Iraqi Parliament:No country willing to accept MKO terrorists on its soil

In a meeting with Iranian parliament speaker on Wednesday and referring to Larijani’s remarks about MKO parasitical presence in Iraq Aref Tayfour also said: The Iraqi government is determined and is doing its best to displace and expel MKO from Iraq but until now no country has been ready to accept this terrorist group.

The Iraqi official also clarified: the Iraqi government is trying to relocate MKO to somewhere away from Iran’s border with Iraq so as to prevent them from infiltrating to Iran from Iraq’s soil.

Second vice president to the Iraqi parliament then referred to the Islamic republic of Iran support for the Iraqi Kurds and said: The Iraqi Kurds nation always regards Iran as its safe heaven.

November 7, 2009 0 comments

Iraq

Iraq to expel Washington Backed Mojahedin Khalq

Iraq to expel Washington Backed Mojahedin Khalq Despite American desperate support for terrorists

Larijani warns of plots to cause Iran-Iraq rift

Iran’s top lawmaker says efforts are underway to create a rift between Tehran and Baghdad, but stresses that all such efforts are in vain.
Second Deputy Speaker of the Iraqi parliament, Aref Tayfour, said MKO/MEK/PMOI members must be transferred to a third country
"Iran and Iraq have great potential for economic cooperation. That is why serious attempts are made to prevent them from establishing deep ties," Iranian Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani said during a Wednesday meeting with Iraqi lawmakers in Baghdad.

Larijani, who is in the Iraqi capital for a four-day visit, did not specify which parties oppose close ties between the two countries, but went on to criticize the United States for its ‘extremist’ behavior in the region.

He held Washington responsible for the rise in terrorist activities in Iraq and accused it of trying to spread ‘modern barbarism’ in the world.

Larijani also attacked Washington for encouraging the former Iraqi dictator, Saddam Hussein, to wage a devastating eight-year war against Iran in the 1980s.

Moving to the issue of the Mujahedeen Khalq Organization (MKO), Larijani asked the lawmakers to expedite the process of expelling members of the terror group from Iraqi soil.

After the meeting with Larijani, an Iraqi lawmaker described the Iranian parliament speaker’s comments about the MKO as very important and said that Baghdad was doing its best to expel the group, but added that no country was willing to accept them.

Second Deputy Speaker of the Iraqi parliament, Aref Tayfour, said MKO members must be transferred to a third country far from Iraq and Iran to be unable to infiltrate the borders of the two countries.

Late in July, Iraqi security forces stormed Camp Ashraf in Iraq’s Diyala province near the Iranian border and shut it down. Camp Ashraf had been housing some 3,500 members of the terrorist group for years.

The MKO, listed as a terrorist group in Iran, Iraq, Canada, and the US, has claimed responsibility for numerous deadly attacks against Iranian government officials and civilians over the past 30 years.

The attacks include the assassination of the late president Mohammad-Ali Rajaei, prime minister Mohammad-Javad Bahonar and judiciary chief Ayatollah Mohammad Beheshti.
The MKO is also known to have cooperated with former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hossein in suppressing the 1991 uprisings in southern Iraq and the massacre of Iraqi Kurds.

The organization is also notorious for using cult-like tactics against its own members and for torturing and murdering its defectors.

November 7, 2009 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization members' families

Leaders of MKO terrorist cult prevent the families of its members visit their beloveds

Eight families travelled to Iraq from Iran on 31th October,2009 to find and meet with their relatives who are trapped in a terrorist cult. Once again American soldiers, apparently acting as lackeys for the MKO leaders in Camp Ashraf, have blocked all attempts of these families to meet their loved ones…Despite the humanitarian efforts of the Iraqi Government, MKO leaders refused to let Iranian families meet their children in Camp Ashraf Leaders of MKO terrorist cult prevent the families of its members visit their beloveds

November 5, 2009 0 comments

Iraq

European countries urged to host PMOI

BAGHDAD- The Iraqi cabinet’s secretary general on Wednesday revealed attempts by the Iraqi government to convince European countries to host the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI), which is currently based in Iraq.

“Iran has called on Iraq to hand over the PMOI’s members, but the (Iraqi) government does not want to force them to go to a country against their wishes, just as it does not want them to stay in Iraq,” Ali al-Allaq said in an exclusive statement to Aswat al-Iraq news agency.

“There is no justification for the organization’s members to remain in Iraq,” Allaq added.
The official explained that it is not possible for the Iraqi government to look after the PMOI’s members, who are taking refuge in the country, at a time it declares security and reconstruction as its top priorities.

The PMOI, also known by the abbreviations MKO and MEK, is a militant socialist organization that advocates the overthrow of Iran’s current government. Founded in 1965, the PMOI was originally devoted to armed struggle against the Shah of Iran, capitalism and Western imperialism.

The group officially renounced violence in 2001 and today it is the main organization in the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), an “umbrella coalition” parliament-in-exile that claims to be dedicated to a democratic, secular and coalition government in Iran.

November 5, 2009 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization members' families

Relatives of MKO captives Urgent Appeal to Iraq’s Minister of Human Rights

Urgent Appeal to Wijdan Mikhail Salim, Minister of Human Rights of Iraq
From eight Iranian relatives of MKO captives in Camp New Iraq (Camp Ashraf)

We have travelled a long way to Iraq to visit our family members. Some of us have not seen these close relatives – sons, daughters, husbands – for over twenty years. Now that we have arrived we have found that we have been banned from seeing our families by the Mojahedin-e Khalq leaders. Who is in charge of what happens in this country?

Iranian relatives, Outside Camp "New Iraq", November 4, 2009

We came here because we believed that the Iraqi government had finally taken control of the camp and its inhabitants and would be able to help us. This is not so.

We are grateful for the support and accommodation provided by the Iraqi authorities at the checkpoint leading to the Camp of New Iraq which was renamed from Camp Ashraf. Even this re-naming led us to believe that the Iraqi government was in control of the camp.

Sadly, we have discovered that a terrorist cult is still calling the shots in your country and that it is because of them that we cannot see those dear relatives whom we have travelled so far, and waited so long to see. Really, what harm can the eight of us do?

As Minster of Human Rights we hold you responsible for the situation in which our relatives are kept captured. We do not believe that they are free to decide for themselves whether to meet with us or not. They are being held incommunicado and subjected to cruel and inhuman treatment which forces them to deny their natural feelings. The MKO is a cult and deliberately mistreats its members.

If they are really free to choose then why don’t the MKO leaders give them permission to come out of the camp and see us and then they can choose freely to return to their struggle without any further delay or comment from us.

Eight visiting Iranians are waiting for your answer; guests in your country. Although we are elderly and weak we have gone on hunger strike. We cannot do this for long. But we hope that you understand the strength of our feelings and the desperation of our actions and that our appeal to you to intervene on our behalf is answered by your kindest efforts to help us.

November 5, 2009 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization members' families

Families on hunger strike to protest American support for MKO terrorist group

Families on hunger strike to protest American support for terrorist group which holds their loved ones hostage ..American Army established a check point to prevent families release their loved ones from a terrorist cult

Iran Interlink update on Camp Ashraf

Al Khalis, Iraq, November 04, 2009 – Eight families (named below) travelled to Iraq from Iran this week to find and meet with their relatives who are trapped in a terrorist cult. Once again American soldiers, apparently acting as lackeys for the MKO leaders in Camp Ashraf, have blocked all attempts of these families to meet their loved ones.

Efforts by the Iraqi authorities, U.N. representatives, the ICRC and others to facilitate the humanitarian move have been blocked by the Americans.

Although Iraqi police have established a base inside Camp Ashraf in an effort to enforce Iraqi law among the residents there, the American soldiers have established a further buffer checkpoint which effectively prevents them from carrying out this duty.

Families who arrived at the camp on Saturday 31 October were able to pass through the Iraqi checkpoints to the camp, but were blocked at the final checkpoint which is manned by U.S. military personnel.

The families are now staying at the first check point and an Iraqi officer is acting as liaison between them and the camp. The US army is apparently resisting the requests of the families and insists that the Iraqis should ask permission from the MKO leaders to let families see their loved ones. The MKO is not only an illegal foreign terrorist group in Iraq but has since 1997 been on the U.S. terrorism list.

The families are living in temporary container units. They say they are grateful to the Iraqi military for accommodating them at the first check point and providing security as well as attempting to organise meetings between the families and their loved ones. It is now four days that the families are living in the military check point with the obvious lack of facilities.

From November 2 the families began a hunger strike. They demand that the Iraqi government as the only responsible body in Iraq must take charge and allow the freedom of their children.

The Iraqi government’s attempts to dismantle the terrorist camp and release the victims has been facing strong resistance from the Israeli lobby and neocons who support the return of Saddamists to Iraq. The Mojahedin Khalq Organisation has acted as their proxy in Iraq with Camp Ashraf being used as the base for gathering and coordinating the Saddamists after the American Invasion of Iraq in 2003. By order of the Pentagon, the camp was protected and held together by the U.S. until their retreat in 2008. Americans left a unit at the camp to make sure the terrorist HQ is not dismantled by the new Iraqi government.

The MKO leaders, with the backing of the U.S. army, refuse to accept families meeting their children. They say the families are “agents of the Iranian secret services” and have refused even to hand over the letters the families have written to their children.

Names of the families currently visiting Camp Ashraf:

1- Mr. Jahanshir Sassani – looking for his son Mohammad Ali Sassani . Mohammad Ali was a P.O.W. during the time of Saddam’s war with Iran. He was handed over to the MKO during the war in defiance of international law. He has been in Iraq for 21 years. This is Mr. Sassani’s fourth visit to Iraq to try to meet with his son.

2- Mr. Reza Noroozi – looking for his son Abdolmajid Nooozi. Abdolmajid was a P.O.W. during the time of Saddam’s war with Iran. He was handed over to the MKO during the war in defiance of international law. He has been in Iraq for 22 years.

3- Mr. Akbar Moradi Rizi – looking for his brother Hossein Moradi Rizi. Hossien has been in cult isolation for the past 30 years.

4- Mrs. Nasreen Lotfizadeh – looking for her daughter Soosan Banihashemi. Soosan has been in cult isolation for the past 21 years.

5- Mrs. Parvin Saberi – looking for her brother Aghil Saberi. Aghil has been in cult isolation for the past 16 years.

6- Mrs. Giti Zartoshtnia – looking for her son Roozbeh Attaee (aka: Ali Mahdavi). Roozbeh has been in cult isolation for the past 10 years.

7- Mrs. Masoumeh Mahboob – looking for her husband Arzil Dialeh and sons Mohsen and Peyman Dialeh. They have been in cult isolation for the past 7 years.

8- (…)

November 5, 2009 0 comments

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