Page 676 – Nejat Society

MKO leaders refused to let Iranian families meet their children in Camp Ashraf

Despite the humanitarian efforts of the Iraqi Government, MKO leaders refused to let Iranian families meet their children in Camp Ashraf

Leaders of the Organization refused to allow the reunions of Iranian families coming from Iran to Iraq to meet with their children who are members of the organization in Camp Ashraf, although they have undergone long separations.

This news came during a visit by a number of Iranian families with the consent and support of the Iraqi government to Camp Ashraf in Diyala province on Saturday to meet their children who are from the organization’s members. The families were disappointed when officials of the organization refused to allow them to meet with members of the organization for fear that these members will leave and return to their homeland and their families.

For its part, the Government of Iraq has asked the American side and a delegation from the United Nations and International Committee of the Red Cross and international human rights organization to hold direct negotiations with the leaders of the organization for continued long hours to convince them of the need to deal with this situation in a humane and approved way and for the Iranian families to meet with their children instead of the organisation publishing statements which accuse the Iraqi government of violating human rights laws.

Ultimately the negotiations failed as a result of the absolute rejection by the leaders of the organization of this humanitarian initiative. To achieve their aims the families have begun a sit-in at Camp Ashraf to demand that the Iraqi government and international community intervene to pressure the leaders of the organization in Camp Ashraf to give their children complete freedom to make personal decisions in response to their emotions and their sentiments.

Meanwhile the Iranian families stressed the amount of suffering and pain they face at the moment and over the years as a result separation from their children. The families said that the main objective of the existence of Iranian families in Iraq is to help their children and return them to Iran to live with us in peace.

Translated by Iran Interlink

November 5, 2009 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization

Dissident Iranians Live In Limbo In Iraq

Iraq: We treat Mojahedin Khalq have no status

Listen to the Story (4min, 27Sec)
An old Middle East aphorism says "the enemy of my enemy is my friend." With the United States and Iran at odds, it should mean warm relations between the United States and the opponents of Tehran.

But a group of 3,400 Iranian dissidents, currently living north of Baghdad, has posed a dilemma for the U.S. government.

They were given U.S. military protection in 2003 after the American-led invasion of Iraq, but now the Iraqi government wants them out. The trouble is that they don’t want to leave.

The Mujahedeen-e Khalq organization, known as MEK, was part of the alliance that overthrew the Shah of Iran in 1979. But it quickly ran afoul of the Islamic revolution. The organization moved to Iraq in the 1980s. Since then, the dissidents have lived as refugees at Camp Ashraf, north of Baghdad.

Refuge in Iraq came at a price, though. Saddam Hussein put them to work against their own country during the Iran-Iraq war. And he had other jobs for them, as well.
Ali al-Zuhairi, an Iraqi tribal sheik in the town of Khalis, near Camp Ashraf, recalls bitterly how the MEK helped Saddam put down the Shiite and Kurdish uprisings in 1991. Zuhairi claims the MEK killed rebel Iraqis and left their bodies in the street. He calls them "terrorists."

Officially, the U.S. government agrees, and designates the MEK as a foreign terrorist organization. But on the ground in Iraq, the U.S. treats the group differently, says Mohammad al-Shemari, another resident of Khalis.

Quil Lawrence, National Public Radio

November 4, 2009 0 comments

MEK Camp Ashraf

Washington backed MKO terrorist cult Bars Family Meetings with Members in Iraq Camp

Leaders of the anti-Iran terror group, the Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO), have barred the group members incarcerated in a military base – about 60km (37 miles) north of Baghdad – form visiting their family members and relatives, fearing their defection, informed sources said on Monday.

According to the Habilian website (run by the family members of Iranian terror martyrs), a number of MKO members’ families, including their mothers, fathers and relatives on Saturday went to Camp of the New Iraq (formerly known as Camp Ashraf) to meet their sons and daughters but the guards at the camp didn’t allow them to do so and reciprocated their demands with harsh and insulting behavior.

The Camp guards also disrespected representatives of the international human rights bodies dispatched to the area to accompany the families.

Statements made by the MKO leaders in response indicated that they would not allow such meetings for the fear that families might encourage their beloved offspring to defect the terrorist group.

Iraqi security forces took control of the training base of the MKO at Camp Ashraf – about 60km (37 miles) north of Baghdad – in July and detained dozens of the members of the terrorist group.
The Iraqi authority then changed the name of the military center from Camp Ashraf to the Camp of New Iraq.

The MKO has been in Iraq’s Diyala province since the 1980s. The Iraqi government and parliament have announced that they would not tolerate the group anymore and that they are seeking to expel the group from the country in the near future.

The anti-Iran terror group has been blacklisted as a terrorist organization by many international entities and countries.

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).

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.
The group started assassination of the citizens and officials after the Islamic Revolution in Iran 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 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.

The MKO was put on the US terror list in 1997 by the then President, Bill Clinton, but since the 2003 US invasion of Iraq, the group has been strongly backed by the Washington Neocons, who also argue for the MKO to be taken off the US terror list.

November 3, 2009 0 comments

France

The Iranian Pen Club letter to the French Ambassador in Germany

Mr. Bernard de Montferrand,The French Ambassador in the Federal Republic of Germany

Respectfully, we would like to acknowledge that the Iranian Pen Club is consisted of those ex-members of the MKO who managed to free themselves from the mental and even physical barriers of the Organisation. Hence, We would like to notify you about the venture presence of such cult in your country because we have all experienced their cruelty and savagery with our own flesh and bone during our captivity in that notorious cult.

Because As you know that peoples Mojahedin organization ( PMOI/MKO) which has been residing in your country for decades, had cooperated and participated in many crimes against humanity in Iraq during Saddam Hussein’s reign and they have been taking advantage of the democracy and freedom in European countries specially in your motherland, France.

The people’s Mojahedin organization which has cultic relations among its members, has been utilizing inhumane methods in its internal relations among its rank and file such as brainwashing, religious indoctrinations, and the like to further its cultic objectives and ends in European countries and France in particular. Your country has experienced the ablaze human torches who were desperate and inculcated members of this cult in 2003 in Paris. Self immolation and self burning, which are deprecated and abominable actions , are one of the horrible things that they have potentiality to do so.

Also, I would like to remind you that cults do need an isolated remote place with tall walls in order to impose their brainwashing techniques over their followers and the Ashraf garrison in Iraq and Auvers-Sur-Oise garrison in France have provided such facilities for many years for the MKO.

Hence, We would like to repeat for you about the venture presence of such cult in your country.

With many thanks and regards

The Iranian Pen Club
29.10.2009
Postfach 90 06 63
51116 Köln
Germany
00491756391365
info@iran-ghalam.de
iran-ghalam@hotmail.de

November 3, 2009 0 comments

Former members of the MEK

Preparedness for suicide, a prerequisite for MKO operations

An interview with Batool Soltani on MKO self-immolations – a précis of parts 35-36

Sahar Family Foundation: Let’s continue with the suicide operations carried out following the In general, any thought of compromise was a taboo within MKO; there was no alternate but to kill or be killed. inauguration of a new phase, ‘operations of ultimate’, since the organization began a successive launch of operation in this phase mainly stressing on a strike and escape tactic. Please furnish further explanation in this respect.

Batool Soltani: You know, before the beginning of the mentioned phase which began with the end of Iraq-Iran war, in years after 1987 the organization would dispatch its military teams across the Iranian borders, of course supported by Iraqi forces, for hit and run operations. Then it became bold to carry out bigger operations like that of Aftab, Chelcheragh, and Eternal Light as the last. Soon after the ceasefire, the organization began masterminding ‘operations of ultimate’; the best instances of these operations that ceased just before fall of Saddam are assassination of Sayyad Shirazi, Lajevardi, and widespread mortar attacks. Remarkable in these operations was the score of casualties from among the civilians. I remember that the family of the victims filled complains against the organization in international courts and the organization tried to acquit itself of the charges.

But your concern in these operations is where they tie with the suicide operation. The first important thing about the members of the teams dispatched for the operations was their readiness to venture their life. In fact, they had to prove their readiness to commit suicide to stymie the risk of being arrested alive. Unlike other overt military operations, they were covert operations that had a red-line to consider and no concrete evidence had to be left by the teams to be used against the organization. As a matter of fact, the teams had to pass a test to ensure they would not fail to observe the delineated red-line.

In contrast to regular military operations that the forces had the chance of retreating to their bases back into Iraq, in these operations that the teams penetrated deep into the Iranian soil the risk of capture was very high and retreat was actually impossible if they happened to be traced. The red-line to observe was to frustrate the hope of the regime’s forces to capture teams alive by committing suicide through swallowing cyanides or any other possible means at hand. Thus, the perquisite for the dispatched teams was the degree of their preparedness for committing suicide and they were supposed martyrs before setting off for the operations.

The means of suicide had to be necessarily checked as the first priorities along with other weapons needed for the operations. They were cyanides, hand-grenades, and guns and the teams received special trainings to use them in critical situations. Of course, they received other psychological and security trainings to counteract after-arrest tortures and pressures if they failed to commit suicide and fell into the hands of the regime’s forces. In general, any thought of compromise was a taboo; there was no alternate but to kill or be killed.

They in the organization would say the arrested members had to suffer under the tortures which were one hundred times worse than being killed for once since one might fail to tolerate pressures and would surrender which was equal to an attached stigma. Then they would bring examples of those who had easily assented to cooperate with the regime to be relieved of sufferings and tortures. Thus, the teams became resolute to commit suicide when facing a serious situation that increased the risk of arrest and even the team-mates had orders of killing each other when they would reach an impasse to escape. Here, it was not important who was at the charge, regardless of any organizational ranking, any member of the team had the responsibility of judging the right time for the action, to kill himself/herself or the other mates.

SFF: How long did it take to prepare a member for the operations? Your reference to the nature of trainings indicates that it could take a longer process than the ordinary ones to prepare them.

BS: Naturally, the operation teams were different. One of the factors they deemed necessary for the ‘operations of ultimate’ was not to select the team members from among the old members. Second, the team members had to have nursed a grudge and hatred against the target/s they were dispatched to hit. In fact, the feelings that rose within them had to be spurred on by sheer personal hatred of the targets and thus, the competency and organizational ranking had the second priority. Such motivated teams were much trusted for committing suicide and I can tell you that the one they chose for the assassination of Lajevardi had hardly finished his two years of preliminary training to be accepted as a joined member and to become a veteran. What had motivated him from the very beginning to join the organization was his grudge against Lajevardi and eventually succeeded to convince the organization to be enlisted in the operation team dispatched for his assassination. In fact, the organization was thinking of exploiting new recruits who knew little and so could impart little if arrested alive.

That was one of the reasons behind the policy of replacing new recruits for the old, experienced members in the operation teams; the organization was reluctant to risk the life of the older members for the time and needed them for the influential role they could play. Besides, the confessions of these older members after their arrest could disclose what the organization strived to conceal from the lower ranks to stop them having a low opinion of the organization that could influentially affect their fighting morale.

SFF: What happened in the interim between the teams arrange and their departure?

BS: As soon as the teams were selected and arranged, the members would be lodged in isolation totally cut off from other members and received no more organizational information. In fact, they had no more contact with others and reached a zero point of no updated information. Second, they would form a new profile just like ordinary people with grown beards. There were other physical, medical and psychological tests as well as recurrently going through the details of their operation and practiced them. And then, they came to the stage of going over the methods of committing suicide; how to break and swallow cyanide capsules, use hand-grenades or guns.

They reached the mastery point when they did all things blindfolded. They also sat watching thriller and military movies that kept them morally high and motivated; the hostage-taking movies were appropriate training classes that instilled in them a working solution that could help them get out of the critical situations. Other trainings included the ways of smuggling the weapons and ammunition over the border and past the sensitive points and stations as well as drawing the outlines of camouflages that allowed them to advance without alerting the guards and police forces. One thing the organization insisted on even during the operations was regular confession sessions of cleansing; the teams had to arrange sessions among themselves regularly with the imbued belief that their success or failure all depended on the constancy of the organizational tradition.

SFF: What was the information they were kept away from while in isolation?

BS: From the time they were put in isolation, they would take part in no general meeting with the presence of Massoud and Maryam and no ranking member had the permission to contact them. As there was no new information, the old ones became outdated and thus, their latest information was limited to what they knew about four months ago. In fact, isolation washed their brains of any latest information that could be of any challenge to the organization if they happened to be arrested and talk.

Link to the previous parts

November 3, 2009 0 comments

Former members of the MEK

Ms. Maleki letter to Mrs. Berta Cabral ,Mayor of Ponta Delgada

Mrs. Berta Cabral ,Mayor of Ponta Delgada

Respectfully, I would like to introduce myself before anything else. I am an ex member of Ms. Maleki on the right is an ex member of Mojahedin Khalq Organisation (MKO). she is an outspoken critic of what is known as the "forced divorces" and special relations between the organisation and Saddam Hussein Mojahedin Khalq Organisation (MKO). In 1990 I became an outspoken critic of what is known as the "forced divorces" and special relations between the organisation and Saddam Hussein, the ousted dictator of Iraq. I was imprisoned for a few months in solitary confinement inside camps of Mojahedin Khalq Organisation in Iraq. I am living in Switzerland now.

Me and my colleagues would like to begin this letter by congratulating you on your victory in the election for the position of Mayor of Ponta Delgada against Mr. Paolo Casaca, we would like to bring to your attention a point that has had its own effect on the previous elections among the people of Portugal. The negative opinion of the people of Portugal against Mr. Casaca has undoubtedly been the result of his overt and covert relationships with the Iranian terrorist cult called Mojahedin Khalq Organisation. The group has been in close cooperation with the crimes committed by the Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein as well as participating in human rights abuses against its own members.

I would like to inform your Excellency that MR. Paulo Casaca visited from Camp of Ashraf in Iraq many times for more help to this terrorist cult last years. But without any human rights organisation representative accompanying his good self., He visited the camp of terrorist cult without even investigating the allegations as to what is really going on behind its closed doors and he did not notice that the camp has no children inside. MR. Paulo Casaca did not think that this is because the cult leader has banned marriage and family relations?

About this news and his visiting to camp of terrorist cult in Iraq, Mr.Casaca himself admitted to the Socialist Party [and they] rejected his remaining as a candidate [for MEP] after news of the Express in the court of Ponta Delgada. ( RTP TV, Portugal, July 15, 2009 )

I am extremely pleased to announce that public opinion in Portugal and other parts of European Union is sensitive to the violent nature of cults like Mojahedin Khalq Organisation and Public opinion will certainly give its verdict against terrorism, violence and its supporters.

I wish you and your colleagues all the best for the future. like people of Portugal.

Sincerely
Batoul Maleki – 01.11.2009

November 3, 2009 0 comments

Argentina

Argentine Diplomat: MKO Testimony to AMIA Case Unacceptable

TEHRAN (FNA)- Argentina’s Charge D’affaires in Tehran Mario Enrique Quinteros blasted the western media for using the testimonies given by the anti-Iran terrorist Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO) to the case of a 1994 bombing of a Jewish cultural center in Buenos Aires.

Argentine Diplomat: MKO (Washington backed Mojahedin Khalq) Testimony to AMIA Case Unacceptable

Western and Israeli media reports claimed that a number of Iranian officials are wanted by Interpol in connection with the AMIA case, which left 85 dead and wounded more than 300 others.

Iran has strongly denied the allegations, saying Alberto Nisman, the prosecutor of the case, has received huge sums of money from Jewish lobby groups in Argentina to accuse Tehran of the bombing.

"It is a question to me why a large number of international media have based their reports on the remarks and testimonies of a number of the members of this group, and why certain countries have used these testimonies to ruin Iran’s face," Quinteros said in a meeting with Hasheminejad, Secretary General of Habilian Association.

Habilian is an association formed of the families of martyrs of terror attacks.

During the meeting, Hasheminejad termed the documents presented by the MKO members in the AMIA case "fake", and said, "Whenever the MKO feels there is tension between Iran and other countries, it misuses the opportunity and does its best to impair the relations between Tehran and that given country."

He further presented a number of documents on MKO’s involvement in terrorist attacks in Iran which were well received by the Argentinean diplomat.

The MKO has been blacklisted as a terrorist organization by many international entities and countries.

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 MKO was put on the US terror list in 1997 by the then President, Bill Clinton, but since the 2003 US invasion of Iraq, the group has been strongly backed by the Washington Neocons.

November 3, 2009 0 comments

European Union

Ancient Iran Association Letter to Mr. Vidal Quadras Roca

MR. Alejo Vidal Quadras Roca, The honorable Vice President of European Parliament

The Ancient Iran, Glorious Future which comprises of separated members and oppressed victims of notorious Rajavi’s cult , knows its humane task to notify all European parliamentarians and you in particular who are a humanitarian parliamentarian, of deception and trickery which this inhumane cult use to magnetize honorable European politicians with a glamorous slogans such as freedom, democracy ,peace and the like, because this religious cult had been at Saddam Hussein (dictator of Iraq) disposal for decades in suppression and slaying of Iraqi Kurd citizens in 1990-1991 uprisings thus , on the one hand the Iraqi people hate and loathe them because of their atrocities and savagery against Iraqi people and on the other hand as a result of violent and armed deeds and blind terrorism on Iran’s soil, are subjected to hatred and blame of Iranian people so they have been isolated and secluded in Iranian community and society.

This cult has even had no mercy upon its own members and these members for variety of reasons are imposed and coerced to set themselves on fire or hunger strike to death to safeguard and preserve the cult’s interests and its leaders. MR. Alejo Vidal Quadras Roca, The honorable Vice President of European Parliament

This cult fundamentally does not believe in democracy and freedom so that the slightest criticism to this inhumane cult causes outpour and flowing out a variety of labels and scandals and even in some cases it has led to beating of dissident members who dared to criticize them.

Mr. Quadras, as you are informed that Mr. Paulo Casaca , former Portuguese politician from Portugal socialist party in European parliament who was backing and supporting this notorious cult up for years lost his seat in the European parliament as well as being defeated in his struggle to become the Mayer of Ponta Delgada in the Azores vis a vis his rival Mrs. Berta Maria Cabral in municipality election in Ponta Delgada so that he lost his popularity among his own people for his support of PMOI which led him to egregious defeat and fiasco vis a vis his rival.

We the victims of this cult , urge all the European politicians specially the politicians who have been deceived and fallen in pmoi’s ambush by their glamorous slogans which are devoid of any real content to revise their support of this notorious and dishonorable cult( Rajavi’s cult) and instead , question and inquire them for the numerous crimes which are perpetrated and carried out by them against the people of Iraq and Iran and suppression and slaying of its own dissidents .

Best Regard

Ancient Iran, Glorious Future Association, Paris

November 2, 2009 0 comments

Iran

Iran sees less threat in exiled MKO militants

– Gholam Reza Sadeghi felt certain of his fate if he ever returned to Iran: torture and execution, given his years as a member of the antiregime Mujahideen-e Khalq, or "People’s Holy Warriors."

But stuck in a crowded camp in Iraq with 3,400 other members of the MKO under US military guard, Mr. Sadeghi finally had had enough. He wanted out, and to see his son. So he came back to the Islamic Republic, which imprisoned him for five years in the 1980s for participating in a group labeled "terrorist" by both Washington and Tehran. Yet some American officials view the MKO – disarmed but still intact – as a possible tool of regime change against Iran. And the MKO’s continued presence in Iraq aggravates US-Iran tensions.

What Sadeghi found was a soft-touch amnesty that he had never been told of in the MKO camp. His case could resonate with the 100 or so other Iranian militants who have been allowed to leave the camp in recent weeks, afraid to return to Iran and running into trouble in Kurdish northern Iraq and upon entering Turkey. "Because I had been in prison, I expected to go back to prison, torture, and execution," says Sadeghi, who was detained for a week and then let go. "They said [the MKO] is not a threat. [They said,] ‘We know you were a victim yourself, who thought you were doing something good for your country but were deceived by a cult.’ " The MKO (or MEK) in 2002 tipped off the world to Iran’s secret uranium-enrichment program – with the help of Israel, many analysts have concluded. It now says the recent findings of a US National Intelligence Estimate were wrong and that Iran restarted a nuclear- weapons program in 2004. UN inspectors, however, say that much of the information the UN has received from the group in recent years has a political purpose and has been wrong.

No nation has taken the militants who left Camp Ashraf, north of Baghdad, some of them carrying US military letters for travel to Turkey. Documents of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees show that at one point in their saga nearly two weeks ago, 19 were turned back to Iraq by Turkey, dozens were picked up in Kurdish northern Iraq and some forced to return to the dangers of central Iraq, and 26 were missing.

The situation highlights the sensitivity of Camp Ashraf, which has been virtually off-limits to journalists since the fall of Saddam Hussein. According to some of the 340 former MKO members who have returned to Iran with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), the MKO controls all aspects of life in the camp. Numbers have dropped: Only 12 returned to Iran in all of 2007, and three more in mid-January.

"We don’t have the impression that these people are harassed or bothered, … mainly because the families and the [Iranian] authorities want them to come back," says Andreas Schweizer, until recently the ICRC protection officer in Tehran.

"We haven’t heard of any problems so far."

Indeed, in 2005, when the Monitor followed up privately on the story of one returnee, his mother complained about the lack official reintegration help. There had been no government interference either, she said. The MKO’s checkered and violent history has kept it on the US and European terrorist list. The MKO killed several American military advisers and civilians in Iran in the 1970s, played a key role in Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution, and supported the US Embassy seizure before breaking away and launching attacks that have killed scores of senior Iranian officials.

Exiled first to France and then expelled in 1986, the MKO was given safe haven, weapons, and cash from Saddam Hussein. Though he used it to fight Iran during the Iran-Iraq war – an act that soured most Iranians toward the group – and to help quell local uprisings in 1991, the MKO today portrays itself as a democratic Iranian government-in-waiting. MKO coleader Maryam Rajavi, as quoted recently in the Opinion pages of the Monitor, claims substantial underground support in Iran, and said US labeling of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist group is a "clear testament and an indispensable prelude to democratic change in Iran." But analysts dispute claims of broad support.

"They are so discredited in Iran that I can’t imagine they have any social basis," says Ervand Abrahamian, an Iran historian at the City University of New York and author of "The Iranian Mojahedin," a study of the MKO. "I think you would find the current President [Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad more democratic than the Mujahideen," says Mr. Abrahamian. "Even in the early 1970s, it had turned into a cult organization…. The remaining members … will do whatever [MKO leader Massoud] Rajavi tells them." The State Department’s terrorism report last year said the MKO maintains "the capacity and will to commit terrorist acts in Europe, the Middle East, the United States, Canada and beyond." The report notes the MKO’s "cult-like characteristics," such that "new members are indoctrinated in MEK ideology and revisionist Iranian history [and] required to … participate in weekly ‘ideological cleansings.’ " Children are separated from their parents, it adds, and Mrs. Rajavi "has established a ‘cult of personality.’.

The US rejected a secret 2003 Iranian offer to exchange top MKO leaders for several Al Qaeda personalities now held in Iran. "The Islamic Republic’s policy toward the MKO is very clear – there is nothing hidden," says a foreign ministry official who asked not to be named. "In our opinion they are a terrorist cult. When it comes to cults, only the leaders are responsible, and the rest are all victims themselves." The MKO and some in Congress and the Pentagon have challenged the terrorist label. Senior Iranian officers have accused US forces in Iraq of using the MKO during interrogations of Iranians detained in Iraq. Western news reports also suggest that some MKO operatives may be conducting cross-border operations into Iran on behalf the US. Indeed, such action seemed to be on offer to Sadeghi when US federal agents first questioned him in Camp Ashraf in 2003. After release from prison in Iran in the 1980s, he had fled to Canada in the 1980s, where the MKO found him and gave him a letter from leader Rajavi.

"The letter said: ‘You were one of us, and suffered in prison," recounts Sadeghi. "Now you are in Toronto living the good life. You forgot your brothers and sisters, you forgot freedom and democracy.’"

Sadeghi left his Canadian wife, broke custody rules by letting the MKO ship his son to his parents in Iran, and was moved by the MKO to Los Angeles. His visit to Iraq was meant to be short-term, but the MKO took his US passport and said they destroyed it, he says. After US forces disarmed the group in 2003, the FBI met with each member. Sadeghi says he was told that the US planned to topple Iran’s regime, that they wanted his help, and that they would ensure his return to the US. Sticking with the MKO would mean "never seeing the US again." "I didn’t believe [the FBI agent] was going to send me back to the US, or I would have jumped on it," says Sadeghi. Tired of daily MKO self-criticism sessions, he finally told the Americans he wanted to go to Iran. He had not seen his parents for 22 years; his son was 16 and full of resentment. "He asked me: ‘Where were you? For 10 years, no call, no postcard,’ " says Sadeghi, adding that his life was broken by the MKO. "For that, he hates me." ——————–

* Familiar Faces: Staff writer Scott Peterson has written several stories about Iran’s largest opposition group in exile, the Mujahideen-e Khalq (the MKO or MEK). But this time when he checked up on those who had been trickling back to Iran from Iraq , he found a surprise at the offices of the Nejat or Rescue group that helps former MKO members reintegrate into civilian life in Iran. Nejat is run by former MKO militants. Among them, Scott recognized Arash Sametipour, an English-speaker who had conducted a failed assassination attempt and then blown off his right hand while trying to kill himself to avoid capture. "The last time I saw him, he was wearing a prison uniform in a Tehran jail," says Scott, who had interviewed Mr. Sametipour along with several other MKO prisoners. "Today he is the main liaison between Nejat and the Red Cross. He is now trying to find a home for those 100 or so MKO members who recently left Camp Ashraf in Iraq." – David Clark Scott, World editor

Scott Peterson Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor – 11 February 2008

November 2, 2009 0 comments

Habilian Foundation

“Iran: A Victim of Terrorism”in Mashhad

"Iran: A Victim of Terrorism" exhibition was held by Habilian Association (families of 16000 Iranian terror victims) in Mashhad, north east of Iran. Highly welcomed by the visitors, the exhibition was held in order for various groups of school teachers to become familiar with the background and crimes of the Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO).

As a sideline of the 1st regional course for political training teachers in Mashhad, Habilian Association held the exhibition in order to reveal the crimes of the MKO. The exhibition was highly welcomed by hundreds of school teachers from Sistan-Balouchestan, Kerman, Yazd, Golestan, Khorasan-e-Razavi, Khorasan-e-Shomali and Khorasan-e-Jonoubi provinces.

Documents on MKO crimes were on the show Documents on scandals of MKO leaders, forced divorces and violating women rights within the MKO, the cult’s tricks to attract Iranian youth, documents on MKO frauds, MKO’s vast assassination attempts against Iranian people, the cult’s contributions to Saddam Hussein during the Iran-Iraq war against Iran as well as against Iraqi Shias and Kurds and documents on Iranian victims assassinated by the MKO were on show.

Several software and multimedia products on crimes of the MKO produced by Habilian Association were also introduced to the visitors. Showing documentaries on MKO crimes was also highly welcomed.

The following are only few of the visitors’ positive comments who signed the exhibition’s Documents on MKO crimes were on the show guestbook:

• Well done! Thank you very much for your great work. It reveals the crimes of terrorist groups to the youth. Please hold the exhibition in other cities if possible.

• Since protecting the Islamic Revolution necessitates holding such exhibitions, I suggest you to hold this in regions close to the frontier, where is more endangered by foreign agents.

• I was always wondering about terror attempts in the post-Revolution Iran and wishing to view a full collection of terrorist groups’ activities against Iran. Now I found my wish fulfilled. I think this should be held in other cities also.

• To me the exhibition was an innovation; that is I had never seen such a full-detailed and informative collection on crimes of the MKO. Thank you very much for all your efforts.

• Thank you very much for this. I suggest you to hold this in schools so that crimes of the MKO will be revealed to the Iranian young generation.

November 1, 2009 0 comments

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