Radio Free Europe

Camp Ashraf Escapee Says MKO Bans Marriage, Radio, Internet

Iraq’s Defense Ministry has announced that several residents of Camp Ashraf have fled the camp and appealed to Iraqi military forces for help.

Camp Ashraf, which is located some 60 kilometers from Baghdad and 100 kilometers from the border with Iran, is home to some 3,500 members of the Iranian opposition group Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO, aka People’s Mujahedin of Iran). Iran has banned the group, and like the United States, considers it a terrorist organization. Iraq has said the camp must go.

Last week, 34 camp residents were killed during a raid by Iraqi forces under circumstances that are not clear.

The MKO says camp residents were killed by Iraqi forces. The Iraqi government, however, says it believes about 30 people were shot dead by guards at the camp.

The UN and rights groups have called for an independent investigation into the deaths.

Amnesty International has said that video clips of the April 8 clashes that the MKO has uploaded to YouTube appear to show Iraqi soldiers indiscriminately firing into the crowds and using vehicles to try and run others down.

Iraq’s Defense Ministry said that three MKO leaders were among the camp residents who escaped.

On April 19, Defense Ministry spokesman Muhammad al-Askari reportedly told a press conference in Baghdad that "three leaders of the People’s Mujahedin of Iran managed to escape Camp Ashraf." He named them as "senior leader Maryam Sinjari, leader Abdul Latif Shardouri [Abdollatif Shadvari], and leader Ibrat Kikhai."

I interviewed Shadvari last week. He told me he escaped from Camp Ashraf two months ago and turned himself in to Iraqi forces. He also said some of the other residents of the camp were being held there against their will.

Former MKO members have described the group as a cult that promotes celibacy and martyrdom, takes away members’ children, and uses psychological methods to pressure members and force them to remain obedient and follow orders.

The MKO has rejected the claims and accuses former members of being tools of Tehran.
Shadvari, who spoke to me from Baghdad where he said he’s staying at a hotel, said he joined the MKO when he was 15 years old. Here’s some of our conversation: Abdollatif Shadvari

Persian Letters: Can you tell me something about yourself and describe how you came to join the Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization?

Abdollatif Shadvari: My name is Abdollatif Shadvari, I’m from Baluchistan. I’ve been with this organization for 25 years. I joined the MKO from Pakistan and through a friend who has been martyred.
I haven’t had any contact with my family during the [past] 25 years because there was no possibility of contacting them. My family thought I was dead. Using the telephone, mobile phone, Internet, and even listening to radio is forbidden in the organization.
During these 25 years I was under a lot of pressure and I decided to hand myself over to Iraqi forces. I did that two months ago and now I’m at a hotel. I’ve been in touch with the Red Cross and also with the Iraqi government. I hope to go to another country.

Persian Letters: Do you know which country you might go to? What will be your situation once you get there?

Shadvari: I’m supposed to discuss it with the Red Cross and the United Nations. The issue is, as [MKO leader Massoud] Rajavi has said many times, whoever wants to escape from Ashraf will be punished with death and execution. Not only me, but many of my friends who are now in Ashraf don’t have the possibility to leave the camp. Escape is the only way.
Escaping from there requires two or three months of preparation. I thought a lot about it and planned it so I could finally escape. [MKO leaders] always tell us: "You can’t enter any [other] country. Ashraf is the only place you have."

Persian Letters: Are you saying that some people are held in Ashraf against their will? They’re forced to stay there?

Shadvari: Yes, many are under pressure. They’re worried about their future; they don’t know what will be with them. I call on the Red Cross and international organizations to talk with each of the camp residents individually. This issue must be solved and the bloodshed must be stopped.

Persian Letters: Why do you think the MKO wants to keep people in Camp Ashraf? Why don’t they let those who don’t want to be there go?

Shadvari: It’s obvious. If people [leave Ashraf], the organization will fall apart, there won’t be any Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization anymore.

Persian Letters: Are you married?

Shadvari: No. I was 15 when I joined the organization. Now I’m 40.

Persian Letters: Why didn’t you get married? Was it your choice?

Shadvari: Getting married is banned in Camp Ashraf. Not only getting married, but talking to women is banned.

Golnaz Esfandiari, Persian letters, Radio Free Europe

April 24, 2011 0 comment

Iraqi Authorities' stance on the MEK

Iraqi Foreign Minister Says Camp Ashraf Must Go

On April 8, 2011, the Iraqi military launched a raid on Camp Ashraf, 60 kilometers north of Baghdad. The camp is the headquarters of the Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (aka People’s Mujahedin of Iran), an organization opposed to the current government of Iran. According to the United Nations, some 34 people were killed in the raid and hundreds more injured.

The group was founded as a Marxist terrorist organization and was given sanctuary in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq in the 1980s. Today, Camp Ashraf is home to 3,500 members of the organization and their families.

During a visit to RFE/RL’s Prague headquarters, Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari spoke to correspondent Joseph Hammond about Camp Ashraf, the pending U.S. military withdraw from the country, the tense situation around the ethnically mixed city of Kirkuk, and the transformative politics sweeping the Arab world.

RFER/RL: The United States is scheduled to withdraw its troops from Iraq by the end of this year. But U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates recently said that the United States could extend its role beyond that date. Does Iraq want U.S. troops to remain and, if so, in what role?

Hoshyar Zebari: Well, first of all, I think the agreement for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq ends at the end of 2011. And there are no plans to extend that agreement or to postpone the withdrawal. This is an issue that both the United States and the government of Iraq are committed to implement.
But it doesn’t mean that [the] American presence in Iraq will end. There will be a presence through the embassy, through the consulate, and also through the implementation of the Strategic Framework Agreement for Cooperation and Friendship between Iraq and the United States, which was concurrently signed with the [Status of Forces] agreement.
So we need some implementing tools for that agreement, in terms of training, in terms of advisers, in terms of capacity-building. But this would not be through a new agreement. This would be done bilaterally between the Iraqi ministers and its counterpart in the United States on various issues. This is how we approach the time beyond 2011.

RFE/RL: Will the Iraqi military and the Kurdish peshmerga militia be able maintain security in these tense regions after the United States withdraws?

Zebari: Well, the U.S. troops currently are not only in the north, actually. They are in different parts of the country. This is first. Secondly, I think that Iraqi security forces are capable of standing on [their] own. Of course, they will still need backup and support, but they are capable of maintaining law and order and internal security. That’s why, yes, after the withdrawal I think there has been plans to fill that vacuum, led by the United States forces. And the Iraqi military forces have some working mechanisms with the peshmerga forces in the north in order to avoid any misunderstandings or clashes in the disputed territories.

RFE/RL: What is the likelihood that the status of Kirkuk will be determined in the near future?

Zebari: This is a constitutional matter. Despite all the skeptics, all the people who raised the alarms that Kirkuk is the powder keg, it will blow up Iraq, since 2003 up to now it has not gone off. OK? Yes, there are disputed areas, claims, problems, but it has not led, really, to any all-out conflict or violence whatsoever.
This is a constitutional matter. There are procedures to address [and] resolve these issues. The new government was voted into power to implement this constitutional article, which is 140, which calls for the normalization of the situation in Kirkuk and other disputed territories. So it’s an obligation on this government.
Camp Ashraf Conflict

RFE/RL: Earlier this month, the Iraqi Army raided Camp Ashraf, home of the People’s Mujahedin Organization of Iran, which seeks to overthrow Iran’s leaders. The United Nations says 34 people were killed in this raid. The Iraqi government denies this and accuses guards in the camp of being responsible.

Zebari: 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-e 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 organizations to them, like the United Nation missions, ICRC [International Committee of the Red Cross], and so on. Yes, what happened was very unfortunate, really, but the aim was not to expel the members of the Ashraf camp to Iran.
This was a military operation intended to take control of part of the territory. Ashraf camp is not a small camp; it is 50 [square] kilometers large. The Iraqi military extended its authority over about 20 kilometers of the camp.
No country in the world will tolerate any organization 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.

RFE/RL: The U.S. government originally controlled Camp Ashraf following the 2003 invasion of Iraq. They disarmed the Mujahedin-e Khalq and transferred control of the camp to the Iraqi government in 2009. Has the United States government been kept abreast of developments at Camp Ashraf? The Iraqi government has called for the expulsion of this group and set a deadline of the end of the year.

Zebari: This is an Iraqi decision. This group is branded in the United States as a terrorist group, by the Department of State, and it was in Europe up until very recently, when it was lifted. Those countries who care about the fate and human rights of this group’s action, they 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.

RFE/RL: Where do you see the Iranians going?

Zebari: Wherever. Any country — in the northern countries, in Australia, in New Zealand, Canada, the United States, wherever.

RFE/RL: Right now, we’re seeing tremendous upheaval across the Arab world — revolutions in Tunisia, in Egypt, and uprisings in Yemen and elsewhere. What can other Arab countries learn from Iraq’s political experience?

Zebari: I think what the people of these Arab countries are calling for is basic rights, basic democratic rights, basic freedoms, representative government, elections, and being part of the decision-making. And Iraq has done this through the hard way, through a difficult, arduous road to building democracy. It hasn’t been easy with the foreign occupation, with the sectarian war, with the terrorism, with the regional interventions. But Iraq has passed the test.
Because what the Arab peoples in all these countries are demanding is what we have achieved. We don’t want to be the crown or the example, but I think Iraq draws a great deal of admiration [from] many, many people on the streets of Sanaa or Tripoli or Damascus or Cairo.

April 20, 2011 0 comment

Mujahedin Khalq Organization's Propaganda System

U.S. Official Casts Doubt On Iran Opposition Group’s Nuclear Claim

Alireza Jafarzadeh, the president of Strategic Policy Consulting, points to a monitor reportedly showing tunnels to a nuclear site during a press conference to present information on Iran’s new "major secret" nuclear site, Washington, D.C., on September 9 September 10, 2010

News agencies have quoted a U.S. official as casting doubt on claims by Iranian opposition members that their contacts have discovered a new secret nuclear site in Iran.

Alireza Jafarzadeh, a spokesman for the dissidents, told a press conference on September 9 in Washington that the site was intended as a facility to enrich uranium and was located underground in mountains about 120 kilometers west of the Iranian capital, Tehran.

Jafarzadeh described the facility as part a secret Iranian nuclear weapons program.

The information about the site is reported to have come from sources inside Iran affiliated with the exiled opposition groups the National Council of Resistance of Iran and the People’s Mujahedin Organization of Iran, which is considered a terrorist group by the U.S. government.
News agencies quoted a U.S. official as saying the U.S. had known about the facility for years and had no reason at the current time to believe it was being used for nuclear purposes.

The United States has led efforts to impose UN sanctions against Iran over the Islamic republic’s refusal to halt uranium-enrichment work, which could be diverted toward an atomic weapon.

compiled from agency reports

September 12, 2010 0 comment

Mujahedin Khalq Organization as a terrorist group

MKO’s Removal From EU Terror List Draws Mixed Reactions

A former member of the Islamic Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO) has welcomed the European Union’s decision to take the MKO off the EU’s list of terrorist organizations.
Massud Khodabandeh said the ruling will give thousands of MKO members "the right to return to their families," RFE/RL’s Radio Farda reports.
Khodabandeh said the ruling will "save some of those individuals from the situation they’re facing in Iraq," where they number some 3,000.
The MKO seeks the overthrow of the Iranian government, and the EU decision has prompted sharp words from Tehran.
Organizations such as Human Rights Watch have accused the MKO of subjecting dissident members to torture.
It is still considered a terrorist group by the United States.

January 29, 2009 0 comment

Mujahedin Khalq Organization as a terrorist group

EU Takes Iranian Group Off Terror List, But Status Still Disputed

At its monthly meeting of foreign ministers, the European Union has decided to remove the Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO) from its list of terrorist organizations. EU Takes Iranian Group Off Terror List, But Status Still Disputed
The decision marks the first time the EU has "de-listed" an organization from its terrorist index, and could free the MKO, also known as the People’s Mujahedin Organization of Iran, to expand its activities in Europe. It is also likely to further strain Tehran’s already damaged relations with the West.
Formed in the 1960s to fight the shah’s regime, the Islamic-socialist MKO joined the 1979 Islamic revolution that overthrew him, but later fell out with the new clerical regime and fought with Saddam Hussein during Iraq’s 1980-88 war with Iran. Major attacks by the MKO against Tehran ceased by the early 1990s and the group renounced violence in 2001, but Tehran continues to seek MKO members’ extradition.
Maryam Rajavi, the France-based leader of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), the political branch of the MKO that has been active in Europe in recent years, characterized the EU move as a "stinging defeat for Europe’s policy of appeasement" of Tehran.
And Said Mahmudi, a professor of international law at the University of Stockholm, says it will end the MKO’s difficulties in raising funds in Europe.
"Even though they had the possibility to contact different political organizations, there were some groups and bodies — particularly some individuals — who, because of the terrorist branding of the group, avoided it and didn’t give it public backing," Mahmudi says.
"Now that the MKO has been removed from the EU terror list, all the groups that are sympathetic to the MKO will be able to support them publicly and help them without any problem," he adds.
Shahin Gobadi, a spokesman for the group, says that $9 million had been frozen in France alone, with "tens of millions of dollars" worth of assets also locked away in other EU countries.

History Of Opposition
The development marks a striking turnaround for an organization that remains on the United States’ terrorism list, while remaining a fierce enemy of Tehran.
After its founding in 1965, members of the group took up arms against the Iranian shah and were involved in the killings of several U.S. citizens working in Iran in the 1970s. The group initially supported the 1979 revolution, but then went underground when an uprising against the newly established Islamic regime went awry.
Iranian protesting the decision outside the French Embassy in Tehran Within years of the revolution, many MKO members were jailed, some were executed, and others fled Iran and went into exile.
The MKO later helped orchestrate a number of attacks against Iran’s leaders, including a 1981 bombing in which Iran’s prime minister and president were killed. In 1986, in the midst of the Iran-Iraq War, the organization’s leaders and members relocated to Iraq, where Saddam Hussein granted them refuge.
The MKO’s support for Iraq in the 1980-88 war is today seen by observers as the main reason for its limited support among Iranians. It is also accused by critics of collaborating with Saddam during his bloody campaign against the Kurds, charges that the MKO denies.
But the militant group renounced violence in 2001 and has not kept arms since 2003. It has also long sought to be removed from the EU and U.S. terror lists as Tehran continued its efforts to oust the group from Iraq.

Renouncing Violence
Iran’s largest opposition group in exile, the MKO follows an ideology that combines Islam and Marxism and says it is the best hope for establishing democracy in Iran. In 2002, the MKO exposed Iran’s covert nuclear activities.
But critics cast doubt on its effectiveness in opposing the Iranian regime, while organizations such as Human Rights Watch (in a 2005 report) have accused it of subjecting dissident members to torture and prolonged solitary confinement.
Massoud Khodabandeh, a former MKO member who currently works as an analyst with the French Center for the Study of Terrorism and an adviser to Iraq’s government, describes the MKO as a personality cult obsessed with celibacy.
"I witnessed forced divorces amid cries and shouts. I witnessed how 150 children under the age of 7 — the youngest was only two months old — were separated from their mothers and sent to other countries because the MKO leader had said [the children] are disrupting my relations with you," Khodabandeh says.
MKO leaders have in the past rejected similar charges, but the reputation that precedes the group has opened questions about whether Brussels’s move fits with its efforts to promote human rights and to fight terrorism.
"If a group makes a pronouncement that it is abandoning violence, then I think we should be able to give them the chance to prove the case, so I think that’s what the European policy on these matters should be," says professor John Wilkinson, chairman of the Center for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence at the University of St. Andrews.
"Let us find political pathways away from violence where we can," he continues. "If a group proves that it has not lived up to its claim to abandon violence then, of course, we must revert to using the instruments of criminal justice and law enforcement to deal with it."

Future Of The People’s Mujahedin
Some 3,000 MKO members are currently based at Camp Ashraf in Iraq. Their presence there has led to increased concern over their fate since the Iraqi government took over responsibility for the camp from U.S. forces earlier this month.
Washington, while keeping the MKO on its list of terrorist organizations, has given members of the group who stay at Ashraf the status of "protected persons" under the Geneva Conventions.
Iraqi officials have made it clear that the group "is not wanted" on Iraqi territory, and have called on MKO members to leave voluntarily.
Khodabandeh believes that the EU decision could mean a way out for those MKO members who are willing to leave Ashraf, including a number of his "friends."
"I hope that the removal of MKO from the EU terror list will enable some of those individuals to be saved from the situation they’re facing in Iraq," he says. "About 1,000 of them were based in [Europe] before; they should be given the right to return to their families."
It’s not clear whether the EU decision will have an impact on Washington’s designation of the group as a foreign terrorist organization. The NCRI’s Rajavi, for one, urges the United States to follow the EU’s example.
The former U.S. administration reaffirmed its designation of the MKO as a foreign terrorist organization on January 7.
But Iran, which has said that nothing has changed "in the terrorist nature" of the group, can be expected to take some sort of action against the EU ruling.
In a possible hint at what might come, the head of the National Security Committee of the Iranian parliament on January 25 warned the EU against making a "mistake."
"There is no reason for Iran to continue tens of billions of euros in economic and trade ties with the EU in this case," Alaeddin Borujerdi said, adding that Iran has "many options" for new partners.
The Iranian parliament is expected on January 27 to discuss a draft bill "to authorize the government and the judiciary to bring those MKO members who have committed crimes to justice."

By Golnaz Esfandiari
http://www.rferl.org/content/

EU_Takes_Iranian_Group_Off_Terror_List_But_Status_Still_Disputed/1374990.html

January 28, 2009 0 comment

The cult of Rajavi

DUTCH AUTHOR CALLS IRANIAN OPPOSITION ‘DANGEROUS’

Judit Neurink was interviewed about her book "Misleide Martelaren" (Misled Martyrs), which covers the 40-year history of the Iranian opposition group known as the Mujahedin Khalq Organization (MEK), Radio Farda reported on 7 November.

Neurink told Radio Farda she got interested in the subject about two years earlier, when MEK members immolated themselves after their leader, Maryam Rajavi, was arrested in France. Neurink asked herself why people would do such a thing, and said "My book tells a story that many don’t know — about brainwashing, about the imprisonment of friends and comrades, about torture, and about persuading people to go to Iran and kill civilians." Neurink said she interviewed MEK members, but experience showed her that this is like listening to a recorded message when the needle is stuck. Neurink described MEK as "dangerous." Radio Farda said Neurink’s book will be translated into English and Persian.

November 28, 2005 0 comment

The MEK; Baath Party Accomplice

Iraqi Kurds want Iranian opposition leader tried

Iraqi Kurds want Masud Rajavi, leader of an Iranian opposition organization based in Iraq, to be arrested and tried, Radio Farda reported on 20 October. Rajavi’s group, the Mujahedin Khalq Organization (MEK), settled in Iraq in the 1980s, where it received assistance from and cooperated with former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. The Kurds say they want Rajavi to be tried because of the role his organization played in their repression by the Hussein regime.

Mohammad Tofiq Rahim, an official with the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, said in an interview with Radio Farda that his organization has documentary evidence of Rajavi’s role. He said that when the Kurds seized control of northern parts of Iraq with U.S. assistance at the end of the Gulf War in 1991, the MEK cooperated with the Iraqi Army in retaking control of the city of Kirkuk. In the process, he charged, hundreds of the city’s residents were killed by the MEK.

"Everyone in Iraqi Kurdistan knows that Masud Rajavi cooperated with the Mukhaberat [intelligence] and security forces of Saddam Hussein not only in the suppression of the Kurds, but all the opponents of the regime of Saddam," Rahim added.

Radio Free Europe – By Bill Samii – 10.29.2005

November 16, 2005 0 comment

Mujahedin Khalq Organization as a terrorist group

NOOSE TIGHTENS ON TERRORISTS

Tehran frequently complains that Western states accuse it of terrorism, but at the same time they allegedly shelter the Mujahedin Khalq Organization (MKO or MEK) and even encourage its activities, which include mortar attacks and bombings in Iranian cities and assassinations of Iranian officials. Recent moves by the U.S., U.K., and Germany against the MKO may be a signal to Tehran of sensitivity to its complaints. In the U.S. case, the actual arrest of MKO fund-raisers may be a call for reciprocity in the investigation of the 1996 bombing in Saudi Arabia.

Seven people were arrested at Los Angeles’ international airport on 27 February on charges of raising over $1 million for the MKO. In a tactic common to MKO operatives, they posed as charity workers and solicited funds for orphans while displaying photos of alleged Iranian atrocities. Federal Bureau of Investigation Special Agent James DeSarno explained at a 28 February press conference that "[t]his cell of the MEK raised funds on behalf of a charity front known as the Committee for Human Rights or the CHR in Iran. The CHR purported to use the money for humanitarian aid. This investigation has revealed that the money was really used to support terrorist actions"

DeSarno explained that the funds were transferred to bank accounts in Turkey. From there, in at least one case, the money was transferred to a used auto parts store in Dubai. Eventually, DeSarno said, "It is believed that the money was used to buy arms such as mortars and rocket-propelled grenades, or RPGs."

The operation was initiated by the German Bundeskriminalamt (BKA), which informed the FBI that MKO members in Los Angeles were involved in money laundering.

In the U.K., meanwhile, the MKO was identified in a list of 21 terrorist groups under a new anti-terrorism law that aims to curtail their funding and support in Great Britain. The list, lumps the MKO with Osama Bin Laden’s Al-Qaeda, Lebanese Hizballah, HAMAS, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Abu Nidal, and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, as well as Algerian, Basque, Egyptian, Kashmiri, Sikh, and Sri Lankan groups.

he MKO, which operates under a variety of cover names (National Liberation Army of Iran, the People’s Mujahedin of Iran, Organization of the People’s Holy Warriors of Iran, National Council of Resistance, Muslim Iranian Student’s Society), is designated as a terrorist organization in the State Department’s annual "Patterns of Global Terrorism" report. In May 2000 the U.S. Supreme Court refused to change the MKO’s terrorist designation. MKO operatives disrupted an April 2000 conference in Berlin, and two of them attempted to disrupt the November 2000 conference of the Middle East Studies Association in Orlando. Many Iranians view the MKO, under all its guises, with revulsion because it fought on the side of Iraq during the 1980-1988 war. During the 1970s, the group assassinated American officials and it conducted terrorist activities against the shah’s regime.

Bill Samii

July 2, 2005 0 comment

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