Articles

MEK has turned Camp Liberty into a prison

Mrs.Maryam Sanjabi has written a new valuable article on the situation in Camp liberty [Temporary Transit Location] where the last remaining members of MEK reside. Sanjabi`s review is important in regards to evaluating the situation of MEK members. She was an important and trusted figure in MEK and since decided to leave the cult like terrorist group, has remained active to help others inside. She has established a great contact with those who have managed to escape the camp and applied asylum from UN. In her article Sanjabi describes how MEK chain of command has made life in camp liberty as a concentration camp for people inside. She says that each individual has to get up at 5 am and follow a daily ordered program that is already set for them. The program consists of aimless labor till noon and from noon to night people are forced to attend ideological meeting.

She adds that MEK leaders have ordered a kind of separation and segregation. Every 3-4 residential building in the camp are set for a group of members and they have to spend their time inside the isolated section. "They are using some sort of curtains to cover each section. People have to stay inside this area even for eating. So the only things they can see are a few others and the sky.", She Says. Sanjabi believes that such efforts is to limit contacts between MEK members.

It was long mentioned that MEK keeps its members isolated and there is no means of communication with the outside world. But it seems that new efforts include preventing cult members from contacting each other.

Earlier this month there was a report indicating that an MEK member set himself on fire due to pressures he received from MEK commanders. Fortunately he was saved by Iraqi officials and survived.

November 26, 2012 0 comments

The cult of Rajavi

MKO, a Cult Rebuilt in a New Bastion

MKO has turned TTL into another cult milieu just under the eyes of the world

It is a common belief that the structure and organization of cults are complex, but the terrible truth about many of them is that they can easily and immediately adapt, recover and rebuild their organizational setup, rather than withering away, if partly disintegrated or broken into smaller groups. That is mainly because order structure and the authoritatively established system of hierarchy within the organization of cults can guarantee the replacement of a leader and guru in his or her absence and demise. But there are solutions for certain to get rid of a cult and to push it to the edge of abyss and precipice of dissolution; the most working is the one that leads to wither in membership and accelerates the process of decline in the number of the insiders and members.

Of the most dangerous cults whose threats never diminish and continue to spread the shadow of their nightmare over the modern world are the terrorist ones. And among them to name one in particular, and which is still active as a peculiar and the most dangerous one, is Mojahedin Khalq Organization (MKO/MEK/PMOI/NCR). Generally recognized as a terrorist group with at least some forty year-long record of violence and bloodshed, MKO “began to be transformed into something more sinister during the mid-1980s after the group’s leaders and many of its members had relocated to Paris”, according to RAND’s A Policy Conundrum. Following its alliance with Iraq’s fallen dictator Saddam Hussein in 1986, MKO leaders and majority of its combating cadres moved to Iraq where it was provided with protection, money, weapons and expropriated lands which the group turned into military bastions as well as a closed milieu for cultic practices just in the middle of Iraq’s deserts.

Unwelcome in Iraq and facing a crisis of being forced to leave its main military-cultic stronghold, Camp Ashraf, which Iraqi Government was decisive to close permanently, all the camp’s insiders had to be relocated, according to a MoU signed by the Iraqi Government, UN and MKO, to a Temporary Transit Location TTL near Baghdad’s airport to be processed within a few months to be transferred to third countries. Around 3400 residents of the camp were scheduled to be transferred in groups of 400 that lasted months beyond of the given deadline. Was it for promises by the State Department to be removed from the FTO’s list or other incentives, MKO reluctantly submitted to resume halted process of the relocation and the last group of the insiders, but for a small number, were transferred on September 16, 2012.

But the story of MKO is a never-ending one since it has been mostly dealt with as a terrorist group rather than a cult and that is where the problem fails to be circumvented. Although now de-listed as a terrorist group for certain political causes, MKO preserves its formidable reputation as a dangerous cult of personality run by the husband-wife Rajavies. In contrast to the speculations that the relocation of the insiders would lead to diminish the imposed cultic practices, the current situation and condition of the insiders in TTL uncovers intensified instances of tough cultic practices even in the absence of the chief leaders.

To survive and also to recover, a cult and its leader/s need to isolate his/her followers from outsiders to ensure that the followers will only hear the cult’s propaganda. The isolation from outside influences and provocations protects the cult’s internalized belief system and keeps them away from the outside critical thinking that threatens the cult’s integrity. And MKO has turned TTL into another cult milieu just under the eyes of the world to continue the heavily controlled physical and psychological exercises. A member of the group, Majid Mohammadi, recently escaped from the TTL, in an interview disclosed that MKO plans to turn TTL into another cult bastion like Ashraf:

… The organizational control and cult-like practices exercised by the Rajavis, at Camp Liberty [TTL] was worse than those applied at Camp Ashraf. MKO leaders knew that Liberty is not like Ashraf. It’s not an isolated, closed location with no access to the outside world so they enhanced the organizational control in Liberty to prevent defection and eventually the collapse of the cult. From the beginning of our arrival at TTL, one of the criminal commanders of the MKO, named Abbas Davari, who had been previously sent there, started holding meetings for members. He said: ”The difference between Liberty and Ashraf is that the former was completely under our control, no one was able to interfere in the organization relations but here at Liberty we are dependent on the outside world and Iraqi forces. We should work hard to maintain this Camp and change it to another Ashraf.

It is difficult to tolerate the recovery and reorganization of a seemingly dismantled cult. However, those familiar with the characteristics of cults will easily spot one when they encounter it or are exposed to the bitter experiences that the escaped members, rather than separated members, impart. The intensified exertion of control and pressure on the insiders in TTL is an attempt to stop the escape and separation of them, both physically and mentally, because the leaders are heedful that the fall and decline in the number of the insiders and members is tantamount to gradual dissolution and demise of the cult. Thus, a unanimous consensus is needed to deracinate MKO from the long list of dangerous cults. But there exists a problem that has so far made many indeterminate in making a decisive decision against MKO; they are uncertain whether to recognize MKO a cult or not!

Let’s start a study to corroborate findings and testimonies that MKO is a cult for certain.

November 26, 2012 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization's Propaganda System

Camp Liberty resembles a prison?

MKO’s well funded disinformation campaign is seeking support in minor European capitals. The group’s lobbying efforts in Britain, France, Belgium,… is nothing new and to some extent they Camp Liberty resembles a prison? have won the support of a number of unaware or narrow-minded authorities of Europe. The most important success was the removal of the MKO from the terrorist list of European Union following long term lobbying activities in 2009.

In her recent act of disinformation, Maryam Rajavi addressed Estonian Parliament calling for support for the so called resistance of the Iranian people (!) against Islamic Republic. She dares to represent herself as Iranians’ attorney, while she doesn’t comply with the most basic human rights within her own camps either in Iraq or France.
Rajavi claims that the conditions of Camp Liberty (Temporary Transit Location which was previously Saddam’s Palace and then was turned into a camp for American troops) resemble the conditions of a prison and it does not meet humanitarian and human rights standard. However, defectors of the group who recently fled TTL describe an entirely opposite condition of the camp.

Majid Mohammadi, former member of the MKO fled Camp Liberty earlier this year. In an interview with Nejat Society, he explains how they were disappointed after moving to the new camp,”When the idea of moving to Liberty was proposed, the majority of guys thought that they would finally go to another place in which they would no more be limited and controlled and they would be able to have access to the outside world…but, we didn’t know that the Rajavis intended to build another Ashraf in Liberty.”

Mohamamdi reveals that “Organizational control and cultic practices were exercised much more severe than those in Camp Ashraf.”

The former member of the cult of Rajavi notifies that the daily mind control meetings at TTL last for twelve hours a day.”

Regarding facilities and equipments at Camp Liberty Mr. Mohammadi says:
” Residents live in Conexes. Each Conex is resided by 7 people. It is worth to mention that, according to arrangement made by UNHCR’s supervisor, each Conex was supposed to be resided by two people but the cult leaders placed 7 people, instead. They wanted to prevent private meetings and to have more strict control over members.”
The rest of Conexes were allocated to offices of commandants and mind control meetings including Current Operation (a self-criticism daily meeting in which members have to confess their thoughts during the day) and Weekly Cleansing (held once a week in which members have to submit oral and written reports on their thoughts, dreams… during the whole week), based on Mr. Mohammadi’s evidences.

UN representative on Camp Ashraf affairs in Iraq, Martin Kober previously stated that Camp Liberty “meets acceptable humanitarian standards “as a Temporary Transit Location.
Besides, Ambassador Daniel Fried, Special representative of the State Department said,” the conditions at Camp Liberty is not nearly as bad as described by the MEK.”

In contrary to the reports on normal humanitarian standards in Camp Liberty, the MKO propaganda still runs petitions and lobbying campaigns to call on UN to recognize the camp as a Refugee Camp in Iraqi territory where the people and the government oppose the presence of foreign forces particularly Saddam Hussein’s mercenaries who have the blood of Iraqi Kurds and Shiits in their hands, the MKO.

Majid Mohammadi describes the equipments of TTL –once used by US soldiers – and how MKO members were barred from using them. The leaders of the cult confiscated any equipment that gives members the joy of a normal life. Here’s Mr. Mohammadi’s testimony:

“Based on the agreement signed by Iraqi government and the UN authorities, each Conex should be equipped with TV, air conditioner and telephone…until the two –supposedly two- residents are granted asylum and leave the camp. But, the leaders of the cult confiscated all telephones.

"The TVs had no antenna. We were just allowed to watch MKO channel in the eating place at specific times.”

The former member of the cult of Rajavi recalls that they even were not allowed to use the gym – highly equipped for American troops. They were told,” If we open the gym, members want to build their body and this is definitely for their desire to have wife and a normal life. So suggesting the idea of using the gym is kind of opportunistic act.”

He notifies that the commanders of the MKO did not permit members to use the exercise mats. “They have the smell of life, they shouldn’t be used,” they said!

It is obvious that the leaders of the MKO do not want a normal life for their members. They urge UN to recognize their Camp as a refugee Camp because in that case they can simply prolong their stay in Iraq and eventually maintain their Cult structure. To achieve such an objective, "Rajavi doesn’t hesitate to make a thousand people die,” Mohammadi said.

European parliamentarians should watch out. They should be benefactors to stop human rights abuses committed by MKO leaders against TTL residents.

By Mazda Parsi

November 20, 2012 0 comments

Human Rights Abuse in the MEK

MKO members fate as the victims continue to remain unsolved

The Humanitarian Cause Remaining Unsolved
Mojahedin Khalq is de-listed but the fate of its members as the victims continue to remain unsolved

In its November 2012 edition, Afrique Asie wrote; “The State Department bowed to the judicial The Humanitarian Cause Remaining Unsolved court ruling obligating it to a revisal of the PMOI designation. It was a historic victory for the Iranian Resistance at the end of a legal and political journey in Europe and then the US, with many ups and downs. Justice provided a positive answer everywhere to the PMOI’s demands”. It appears there are still agencies misinformed as to the true cause of a terrorist group’s removal from the list. The real story is in direct contradiction to the group’s diffusion of disinformation propaganda.

A US appeals court had ordered Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to decide within four months by October 1, whether to remove the designated terrorist Mojahedin Khalq Organization MKO/MEK/PMOI from the US FTO’s blacklist. Ambassador Daniel Benjamin, coordinator for counter-terrorism, had told reporters earlier in a conference that the group had misunderstood a recent court order that required the US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to decide whether to remove the MEK from the terror list. According to the judges’ order, the Secretary of State had to make her decision by October 1 to keep the group on the list or remove it, but the order “did not mandate any particular result.”

The decision, however, was taken on the ground of a humanitarian move and MKO appears to have totally forgotten that in the process of its years-long lobbying efforts almost majority of the American former officials on the group’s payroll urged for removal of the group for the humanitarian cause of the people of Camp Ashraf and then Camp Liberty as a top agenda to facilitate their resettlement in third countries as soon as possible. Michael Mukasey, the former Attorney General, speaking in a Washington meeting arranged to urge delisting of MKO stated:

“The point of this move, of course, is to make it easier for the residents to be relocated outside Iraq. That’s the goal, as we all know. And that goal cannot be achieved so long as the State Department continues to make the United States the only country in the civilized world to designate the MeK as a terrorist organization. … it’s time to end this. The continued listing of MeK is the main obstacle to resettlement… .”

In a message sent by General James Jones to the same Washington Symposium, he stressed that “The right thing to do, the humanitarian thing to do, is for the United States to remove the terrorist listing currently ascribed to the people of Camp Ashraf and Camp Liberty, and to champion a program of third country repatriation as soon as possible”.

Or when Dennis Hastert, another former Congressman, tried to make a logical argument for delisting MKO at the same meeting, he said:

“But when there’s liberty and life of human beings at stake we have to make that the exceptional focus on what is their well-being and what is the right thing to do. And to try to sacrifice a group of people’s well-being, their life, their ability to have a decent life, a humanitarian existence, should not be stopped by some political considerations in trying to massage a political or diplomatic situation.”

And MKO was removed from the list. But did it change the fate of Ashraf and Liberty’s residents to be sent and resettled in other countries? Absolutely not. The residents are now placed in a humanitarian plight that can be condemned as inhumane and practiced only in cultic settlements. And of course, the brag and show of those meetings in which American advocates lauded delisting of MKO as initiative to end the agony of its members has come an end; their mission is fulfilled, the cashes paid, and they have no obligation to feel any sense of responsibility towards these enslaved people.

Maybe these officials are also amazed to see that how MKO has managed to promote a humanitarian cause overnight to be demonstrated a historic victory for its propaganda machine and the humanitarian move of the State Department as a bow to its demands. They were paid their share in a massive campaign to abuse human rights for unjust political causes. However, it is not all the story. Sometimes it is the US that decides which group is terrorist depending on how that group suits national and political interests. And of course, the only thing nobody cares about is the fate, agony and plights of who under the pretext of human rights issues continue to be abused and remain the real victims.

November 20, 2012 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Mojahedin Khalq , a Tool for Political Games

MKO has no explanation for explicitly glorifying machine-gunning American citizens

The undeniable fact in the removal of Mojahedin Khalq Organization MKO/MEK/PMOI/NCR from the State Department’s list of FTOs is that the decision is entirely a political move and has nothing to do neither with the worldwide coalition against terrorism nor with the reasons by which the group was put on the list. In its last issued statement on July 31, 2012, just two months prior to delisting MKO, the State Department’s Office of the Coordinator for Counter-terrorism concerning to MKO’s activities states:

The group’s worldwide campaign against the Iranian government uses propaganda and terrorism to achieve its objectives. During the 1970s, the MEK staged terrorist attacks inside Iran and killed several U.S. military personnel and civilians working on defense projects in Tehran. In 1972, the MEK set off bombs in Tehran at the U.S. Information Service office (part of the U.S. Embassy), the Iran-American Society, and the offices of several U.S. companies to protest the visit of President Nixon to Iran. In 1973, the MEK assassinated the deputy chief of the U.S. Military Mission in Tehran and bombed several businesses, including Shell Oil. In 1974, the MEK set off bombs in Tehran at the offices of U.S. companies to protest the visit of then U.S. Secretary of State Kissinger. In 1975, the MEK assassinated two U.S. military officers who were members of the U.S. Military Assistance Advisory Group in Tehran. In 1976, the MEK assassinated two U.S. citizens who were employees of Rockwell International in Tehran. In 1979, the group claimed responsibility for the murder of an American Texaco executive. Although denied by the MEK, analysis based on eyewitness accounts and MEK documents demonstrates that MEK members participated in and supported the 1979 takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and that the MEK later argued against the early release of the American hostages. The MEK also provided personnel to guard and defend the site of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, following the takeover of the Embassy.

These have been the recognized reasons of perpetrating terrorist deeds just against the US interests and citizens that justified the maintaining of MKO on the list for 15 years, regardless of many more thousands of terrorist atrocities against Iranian people and then against Iraqi people when taking safe haven there. If we accept, and that is the fact, that these above mentioned anti-American terrorist operations have been considered the actual involvement in terrorist activities against the US, the fact is reaffirmed in The Secretary of State’s media note details when announcing the MKO’s delisting:

With today’s actions, the Department does not overlook or forget the MEK’s past acts of terrorism, including its involvement in the killing of U.S. citizens in Iran in the 1970s and an attack on U.S. soil in 1992.

However, neither has MKO ever renounced its anti-American stances nor has apologized the US government and the families of the assassinated. Instead, MKO devoted considerable efforts to deny what it named the accusations of “assassinating six American citizens in the 1970s” and to put the blame and responsibility on “a group (that) took advantage of the situation and expropriated the Mojahedin name” (Democracy Betrayed, 1995).

But what the group publicized in its papers published in Farsi was altogether different and approves the veracity of American’s claims and facts stated in the published reports and findings. In Mojahed No. 18 dated 8 January 1980, under an article entitled “Under the reign of repression and dictatorship, the fire of whose machine-guns targeted the American hirelings and attache?” we read:

The criminal Americans themselves have no doubt about the organization’s anti-imperialist stances because from the very beginning years of the organization’s armed operations (from 1970 onward), they have experienced the fire of Mojahedin Khalq machine-guns shot through the hearts of their hirelings and attaches. … From the very beginning of the occupation of America’s spy-den, the organization willingly mobilized all its forces to protect the move.

Then, has MKO any justifiable explanation for what it has explicitly stated and glorifying about machine-gunning American citizens and supporting the takeover of the US Embassy in Tehran? Unless it totally denies its gazette and the contents and makes another effort to attribute all to a different group! Although it is removed from the terror list and allowed some privileges to be utilized as another possible bullying force in a political game, as it is a truth that MKO is a fierce militant and dictatorial group maintaining high terrorist potentialities, MKO is never trusted with anything on the US soil as the reports and findings are still in effect.

Mojahedin.ws, November 15, 2012
http://www.mojahedin.ws/en/?p=16795

November 18, 2012 0 comments

Human Rights Abuse in the MEK

The sole victims of MKO cult are its members and their families

Human rights are known to be the basic rights and freedoms to which all people as humans are considered entitled: the right to life, liberty, freedom of thought and expression, and equal treatment before the law, among others. Such rights are said to be natural rights which means that they are not earned and cannot be denied on the basis of race, creed, ethnicity or gender and are often advanced as legal rights and protected by the rule of law. These basic, natural rights cannot be violated under any circumstances and they have been interpreted and set forth in international human rights documents such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

To protect human rights is to ensure that people receive some degree of decent, humane treatment. Despite what resembles a widespread consensus on the importance of human rights and the expansion of international treaties on such matters, the protection of human rights still fails to be fully accomplished. Many conflicts are sparked by a failure to protect human rights, and the trauma that results from severe human rights violations often leads to new human rights violations. However, it is evident that human rights abuses and violations continue to occur in different parts of the world, but the worst occurs when the natural rights of people are violated under the claims of being defenders and condemning others for violating human rights.

Reportedly, Maryam Rajavi, the leader of the cult of Mojahedin, held a recent first-time lobbying meeting with a few members of Estonia Parliament’s human rights support group to discuss human rights violations in Iran and to elicit their support for its struggle. It seems that the Estonian MPs are actually unaware of the members of her group’s harsh conditions and their deprivation of the very basic and natural rights in Iraq. Long enslaved in Camp Ashraf and now located in a temporary transit location near Baghdad, the members of MKO are denied of the right to life and liberty and are kept against their will. They are not allowed to have any form of contact to the world outside and even with their family members many of whom have long requested and are waiting at the gates of the camp to see their children and relatives.

Against speculations that the Iraqi government may have created bureaucratic obstructions and hindrances for the Iranian family members that have deprived them of visiting the camp and its members, it is the group’s insular cultic views and regulations that prevents and prohibits contact with outsiders unless for organizational causes and interests and only arranged for certain trusted ranking members. Noteworthy, in some cases a session of meeting with families is arranged but it is supervised by the ranks and commanders from the group and the families are not left alone with the members to have a free conversation.

Have the Estonian MPs ever asked Rajavi how she can talk of struggling for the freedom of a nation when her group fails to recognize and respect the very natural rights of the members as the humans? Now the sole victims of the cult in need of help are its members and their families play a key role in setting them free. But the cult leaders at the order of Rajavi are insisting on keeping the members in isolation from the outside world and particularly from their families; the cultic relations and internal mind manipulation is still severely practiced within the cult. To prove their good will, the least Estonia MPs may ask from Rajavi is to first recognize and respect the natural rights of her group’s members before condemning others and demonizing them for violation of rights. Otherwise, it is considered another meeting to sacrifice human rights for inhuman political causes.

November 17, 2012 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization as a terrorist group

Post Delisting, What Are the Mojahedin-e Khalq Up to Now?

Freed from the pretended constraints of being listed as a terrorist entity in the USA, the Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK) has stepped up its financial and money laundering activities in Western countries. The MEK have launched a ‘basij’ (all-out campaign) in their financial section. Firstly, all members and supporters have been instructed to make supervised contact with their family inside or outside Iran to try to get money from them (a tactic exposed by Al Jazeera’s Cult of the Chameleon documentary in 2007.)
In the ‘charity’ street collections in Western countries (called mali-ejtemai), the theme is Camp Liberty. The public is approached and the camp in Iraq is described as a refugee camp whose inhabitants have no access to food or medicine. The public are told that around 1000 women, mostly mothers, must be urgently transferred with their children to Europe. The money donated will be used to rescue the women and children first before then rescuing the men. (Of course, since enforced celibacy was imposed in 1989 there are no children in the MEK.) Sometimes the donor is told of cases in which refugees have been killed or maimed because of the lack of law and order in Iraq. Conveniently ignoring the fact that the MEK are confined to the camp by their own leaders.
It is no secret that the MEK have been funded for years via these bogus charities as large checks and even thousands in cash have been handed over to street collectors from mystery donors. An unusually high proportion of these donors are solicitors. MEK insiders have always known that this money is coming from other benefactors.
In addition to these activities, the MEK have also tasked as many of their supporters in the West who are able to do so to open a company or create spurious associations or societies claiming to support Iranian refugees or promote Iranian culture, etc. The aim of these groups is to target charities and local councils to get money under false pretenses. Again there is an element of money laundering as this is just one more way for MEK paymasters to dive under the radar to fund the terrorist group.
A more sinister activity is the expansion of information gathering and recruitment practices among the Iranian communities. Concerned Iranians in Europe who contacted me directly report that the MEK have opened two Persian language schools in London and Paris which they say is to target the children of Iranian refugees. Through such deceptive activities the MEK gathers lists of names and addresses to demonstrate support, and also to claim that these Iranians are making financial donations. The deeper purpose is to deceptively recruit new members and also — now that the campaign to be delisted has ended — to keep the supporters busy with new activities. It must not be forgotten that as a cult, the MEK thrives on the unpaid ‘slave’ labor of its followers.
Significantly, Massoud Rajavi, the beneficiary of all the MEK’s wealth, has for three decades kept his financial dealings in the hands of only a few trusted individuals. In the atmosphere of defections and disturbing questioning which currently govern internal relations in the MEK, the unexpected death of one of Rajavi’s key financial personnel in the West sparks deep suspicions among experts in the MEK. This is compounded when we discover that another accidental death has taken place in Paris of one of Maryam Rajavi’s inner circle. (After some high ranking defectors exposed the cult nature of the MEK, Massoud Rajavi declared that such defections would never be allowed to happen again).
In Iraq, the situation has scarcely changed for the members except they have changed location to a UN temporary transit camp Liberty — a move which both the Government of Iraq and UNAMI had worked for to improve their conditions. Camp Ashraf itself is finished, closed, gone, although just under 100 MEK remain there, confined to Section 209 by the Iraqi army which is now in charge of the territory. Rajavi has declared they will not move until enough money is paid — basically the last bit of ransom he can extract from the camp.
There continue on a weekly basis to be a small number of individuals who escape Liberty, either during the UNHCR interview process or by other means, and renounce any further involvement with the MEK. Last week two men escaped, each had spent over 20 years with the MEK (one being a former POW from the Iran-Iraq war). They describe a desperate situation inside Liberty as it is being recreated in the image of Ashraf. All the cult aspects are there — isolation, indoctrination, manipulation, fear, punishments, etc — in addition, barriers are built to separate the bungalows (ironically, the stretchers originally demanded for medical use are being used to move earth to build dykes). ‘Visas’ are issued to people if they need to move between separated locations. The Iraqis are not allowed inside the camp and again have no jurisdiction there. The MEK use every opportunity to try to provoke hostility in the Iraqis by throwing stones and swearing at them, and now the UN and other neutral bodies are suffering provocation as the MEK swear at them and insult them, too.
Although the MEK’s advocates and lobbyists crassly claim that Liberty is no better than a "concentration camp" — a description which seriously riles the German born UNAMI chief Martin Kobler — the situation is not easy for the residents, but not for the reasons they state. There is no shortage of food or water or medicine — let us remind ourselves this is a camp created by and supervised by the UN. In a country where a 24 hour electricity and water supply are not guaranteed to normal citizens, the MEK enjoy both these facilities. What is not being said is that Massoud Rajavi has decreed that the residents must work for these ‘privileges.’ Inside Camp Liberty anyone who needs medicine or has other requirements must work for it, that is, they must submit and do as they are told or else they will be punished by having medicine, etc refused or withheld. Again, the MEK don’t let the Iraqis approach the people inside the camp to ascertain their welfare or needs.
Since the beginning of 2012 a disturbingly disproportionate number of residents have died because Rajavi has year on year denied them proper or timely medical treatment.
Rajavi’s veteran translator Ghorban Ali Hossein Nejad escaped Camp Liberty two months ago. He is now in Baghdad and has exposed the relationship between Rajavi and the Saddam regime. He is also helping UN, EU, U.S. and Iraqi officials by exposing the lies which the MEK are telling them. He has two daughters, one in Iran and one still in Camp Liberty. Neither he nor anyone else has been able to contact his daughter in Liberty without the presence of MEK minders. (He reports that while he was inside the MEK, he had not seen his daughter anyway for twenty years due to the enforced separation of families and friends.) Instead, the MEK brought her on their television channel to swear at him and her sister, claiming they are agents of the Iranian regime. Given the sensitivity of the information being passed to the officials it is possible her life is in danger. (MEK experts have observed that ‘accidents’ happen to dissidents in Iraq and Europe on a fairly regular basis.)
In spite of rumors that Massoud Rajavi is dead, he is very much alive and keeping tight control over his cult on a daily basis. High ranking escapees say they have seen him in the leadership compound in Camp Ashraf until very recently. According to deserters, Rajavi frequently communicates his indoctrination and messages via audio — no visuals. But it is clear he has not been stationed in Iraq since the U.S. army handed over responsibility for the MEK in 2009. Instead, based on unconfirmed reports, I belief he moves between safe houses in Jordan associated with Saddam’s family and loyal Baathists, without the express permission of the Jordanian government. From his hideout, Rajavi issues his orders. He has told the people in Iraq they should only agree to talk to members of the UN or ICRC on condition that Camp Liberty is designated as a refugee camp (it is actually a UN temporary transit camp). Rajavi has said ‘if we work on it we can be accepted to move to Europe collectively, but if not we will ever leave Iraq.’
Rajavi has told everyone that ‘the Americans will back us to the end because they need us’. However, Rajavi also said to every member that armed struggle is an unchangeable part of the MEK ideology and every Mojahed’s belief system and that this, and the logo, will never change. (In other words, don’t be worried or concerned by our external propaganda, inside we will never change).
As though to prove this point, the Iraqi authorities report that the MEK are desperate to have greater connections with al Qaeda and Saddamists in Iraq and beyond. The MEK especially want new connections, since their main backer was convicted of terrorism charges and escaped Iraq. The MEK leaders are demanding greater freedom of movement to come and go and to bring people into the camp. But then the Iraqis knew all about their former connections with these groups while they were protected by the U.S., and this was why they curtailed their activities after 2009. It remains to be seen whether the delisting of this known terrorist group in the USA will have the necessary reach to reverse for its backers what appears to be the rapid and inevitable demise of the group as its members are being rescued by humanitarian agencies.

Massoud Khodabandeh

November 10, 2012 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization as a terrorist group

Q&A: what is the MEK and why did the US call it a terrorist organisation?

The MEK cut a ‘swath of terror’ in the Middle East, but leaders have worked hard to convince the west they are peaceful now

Why did the US designate the MEK a terrorist organisation in 1997?
The MEK’s supporters say it was banned as a move by the Clinton administration to appease the what is the MEK and why did the US call it a terrorist organisation? Iranian government. The US state department, which decides which groups to include on the list of designated terrorist organisations, points to a long and bloody history.

The MEK ran a bombing campaign inside Iran against the Shah’s regime the 1970s. The targets were sometimes American, including the US information office, Pepsi Cola, PanAm and General Motors. The group routinely denounced Zionism and "racist Israel", and called for "death to America".

A state department report in 1992 identified the MEK as responsible for the killing of six Americans in Iran during the 1970s. They included three military officers and three men working for Rockwell International, a conglomerate specialising in aerospace including weapons, who were murdered in retaliation for the arrest of MEK members over the killings of the US military officers.

The MEK was an enthusiastic supporter of the seizure of the US embassy in Tehran following the Iranian revolution. It called the eventual release of the American hostages a "surrender".

After falling out with Iran’s new rulers, led by Ayatollah Khomeini, the MEK launched a bomb campaign against the Islamic government. In 1981, it attacked the headquarters of the Islamic Republic Party, killing 74 senior officials including the party leader and 27 members of parliament. A few months later it bombed a meeting of Iran’s national security council, killing Iran’s president and the prime minister.

The state department described the MEK as cutting a "swath of terror" across the country in the following years and of "violent attacks in Iran that victimise civilians".

"Since 1981 the [MEK] have claimed responsibility for murdering thousands of Iranians they describe as agents of the regime," the report said.

The bombings continued into the 1990s including one at [Ayatollah]Khomeini’s tomb and against oil refineries.

Who supported the MEK?
After the MEK leadership fell out with the Islamic regime it fled first to Paris. France expelled the MEK leader, Masud Rajavi, in 1986. The group then ran into the arms of Iran’s enemy, the Iraqi dictator, Saddam Hussein. Iraq helped arm the MEK’s thousands of fighters with artillery, guns and tanks and housed them in three camps near Baghdad and along the border with Iran. Baghdad also supplied money.

The MEK’s armed wing, the National Liberation Army (NLA), conducted raids into Iran during the last stages of the Iran-Iraq war. It also became a tool of Saddam Hussein’s campaign of internal oppression.

"The NLA’s last major offensive reportedly was conducted against Iraqi Kurds in 1991 when it joined Saddam Hussein’s brutal repression of the Kurdish rebellion," the state department report said.

The last major act of violence committed by the MEK in the west was in 1992 when it stormed Iranian diplomatic missions in the US, Britain, Canada, Germany, France and Switzerland. The assault was in response to an Iranian air force bombing raid on an MEK base in Iraq.

Wouldn’t the killing of Americans, calls for the destruction of Israel and supporting Saddam Hussein be enough to scare off any American politician from ever supporting the MEK?
The US invasion of Iraq in 2003 changed everything for the MEK. Its fighters at Camp Ashraf, near the Iranian border, and other sites near Baghdad were disarmed by the Americans. The MEK leadership moved swiftly to distance itself from Saddam Hussein, emphasising its opposition to the Islamic government in Tehran and casting its supporters as selfless and long suffering supporters of freedom and democracy. From then on the MEK reinvented itself in American eyes.

Until the 1990s it was known as the People’s Holy Warriors of Iran, but that’s not the kind of name to win support in the west these days so it tweaked the name.

Two decades ago, the state department identified the MEK as running what it called "a determined lobbying effort among western parliamentarians".

"To conduct its propaganda campaign the group has established offices through western Europe, the United States, Canada, Australia and the Middle East," it said. "Through such efforts, the (MEK) attempt to transform western opprobrium for the government of Iran into expressions of support for themselves".

The MEK leadership has played on opposition to the present Iranian leadership, which is in part bound up with concerns among US politicians over Tehran’s nuclear programme and fears for Israel’s security, to bury its past by portraying itself as a democratic and popular alternative to the Islamic regime.

"Exploiting western opprobrium of the behaviour of the current government of Iran, the (MEK) posit themselves as the alternative. To achieve that goal, they claim they have the support of a majority of Iranians. This claim is much disputed by academics and other specialists on Iran, who assert that in fact the MEK have little support among Iranians," it said.

The state department report quotes an American journalist as saying of the MEK: "They hope to transform their public image in America from terrorists to freedom fighters".

It appears to have been largely successful in that. Few of the MEK’s American backers appear to know the detail of its past, particularly the scale of its killing and the depth of its hostility to the US and Israel. Instead it described as a loyal and useful ally. Supporters say that it was the MEK that first provided the US with information about Iran’s nuclear programme.

Has the MEK changed?
It has certainly abandoned violence, at least for now. But that is in part because it was forcibly disarmed by the US army in Iraq. It also recognises that since 9/11, bombing attacks by a mostly Muslim organisation are not likely to win it friends in the west.

In exile, the MEK leadership established the National Council of Resistance which has evolved into what the group calls a parliament in exile.

But the MEK is far from democratic. It is autocratically run by a husband and wife, Masud and Maryam Rajavi, who the state department say have "fostered a cult of personality".

In its 1992 report on the MEK, the state department said the group’s leadership "never practices democracy within their organisation".

"Many Iranians who have dealt with MEK members assert that the [MEK] suppress dissent, often with force, and do not tolerate different viewpoints. The [MEK’s] credibility is also undermined by the fact that they deny or distort sections of their history, such as the use of violence or opposition to Zionism. It is difficult to accept at face value promises of future conduct when an organisation fails to acknowledge its past," the report said.

So what is the likelihood of the MEK being unbanned?
As part of their campaign, the MEK’s supporters have won a federal court order requiring the state department to make a decision on whether the group should remain on the designated terrorist list by October 1.

Some pro-MEK activists have interpreted that as a foregone conclusion that the state department will have to delist the organisation. They have been bolstered by its unbanning in Europe.

The MEK’s well financed and organised lobbying campaign has placed enormous pressure on the state department to delist the group. But the state department has warned the MEKthat its status will in part be decided over whether it obeys a demand to leave its main camp in Iraq. Its refusal, so far, to move remaining supporters from Camp Ashraf – where it used to train its paramilitary fighters – to a former US military base near Baghdad is said by the state department to be a significant obstacle to delisting the group.

The MEK has moved 2,000 of the 3,200 people who were living in Camp Ashraf but refuses to shift the rest. The MEK has portrayed the issue as a humanitarian one to its sympathisers in Washington, saying that all that remains in Camp Ashraf are families and that conditions in the Baghdad camp are inadequate. They say it is effectively a prison – even going so far as to call it a concentration camp – and alleged they will be vulnerable to violence from the Iraqi government and forces.

Some US officials say that those refusing to leave shows that the MEK has not really abandoned its past.

By Chris McGreal in Washington

November 8, 2012 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

MKO’s position in the policies against Iran

As Noam Chomsky has stressed, “the escalation to attack undefended civilian targets is just a ‎classic illustration of terrorism” and “the United States happens to be the only state in the world ‎that has been condemned by the World Court for international terrorism”.‎

Supporting a resistance, legal or illegal, against any outside threat or invasion is one thing, but ‎backing and organizing a terrorist army for imperious purposes and political interests is a ‎different thing. Why has the US government, which denounces other governments’ involvement ‎with terrorism, been supporting MKO (Mojahedin Khalq Organization) and removed it from its ‎list of the designated FTO? How the US chooses to use the group’s violent and terroristic ‎capacity, especially when it still has a historical falling out with Washington and has won ‎nobody’s trust because America and capitalism have historically been the organization’s primary ‎enemies?‎

Possibly, it’s because MKO is regarded an enemy of the current Iranian regime and can be ‎utilized in the most horrific and possible way of foreign intervention, that is, to wage wars ‎against those who oppose the US. Many believe that the US is using the MKO to disrupt Iran’s ‎nuclear program and it is quite possible, however, that the MKO is also being used to set the ‎stage for, or even to effect, the regime change. Although at the first look it sounds so simplistic, ‎but it is an undeniable fact that the US cannot overlook MKO as a possible political lever of ‎pressure against Iranian regime whatever the consequences might be.‎

What the US policy makers have been inattentive to in their decision makings against the Iranian ‎regime is the people themselves. Any wrong step further deepens the already wide gap between ‎the two countries, as the imposed sanctions has so far proved ineffective to change a national ‎perspective on the opponents and oppositions. In relation to MKO, its delisting doesn’t help the ‎US to recreate a different image of the group within Iran; in contrast, the move has negative ‎ramifications since MKO is long despised inside Iran. Paul Pillar, a former top CIA analyst who ‎served as the National Intelligence Officer for the Near East and South Asia asserts that: ‎‎“Delisting will be seen not only by the Iranian regime, but also by most Iranian citizens, as a ‎hostile act by the United States. The MEK has almost no popular support within Iran, where it is ‎despised as a group of traitors, especially given its history of joining forces with Saddam Hussein ‎during the Iran-Iraq War.”‎

Regardless of the unwritten agreements about the West’s manipulation of the group’s ‎potentialities, MKO leaders insist to take its delisting to be a victory over the US in a legal and ‎universal battle that proves rightness and veracity of its historical, organizational, ideological and ‎political positions. The claim implicitly suggests that the group desists to be used by the US in ‎any plan against Iran. However, neither the US covert support for MKO since at least ‎‏2008‏‎ nor ‎the group’s renunciation of its role as a possible proxy have authenticated a behind the curtain ‎plot in any form against Iranian regime.‎

The time is not still ripe for either to speak up of what they have up their sleeves and there is no ‎evidence of reckoning on MKO in any options against Iran. But one thing is for certain at the ‎moment; MKO fiercely embraces, circulates and glorifies the terrorist deeds and operations of ‎Syrian insurgents who are disturbing the country to end Assad’s rule. If the US plans to draw a ‎pattern seen repeated in Libya and most recently in Syria, that is to say, arm, train and support ‎terrorist insurgents in pursuit of regime change, that is a second fatal mistake. It is so naïve to ‎think that a group of armed terrorists deployed against Iran can possibly change a nation’s ‎perspective even if they are wrangling over internal problems.‎

By N. Morgan

November 7, 2012 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq 's Function

MeK Efforts to chain members in Liberty

Based on information obtained, the MeK leadership is seeking to Stop and disturb UNHCR’s individual interview with the walled members in Camp Liberty. MeK Efforts to chain members in Liberty

Maryam Rajavi has told camp administrators that "even if one desperate goes out, all the organization’s efforts and political measures at outside would be foiled."

Remnants of Rajavi simultaneously have put two steps on agenda in order to inhibit detachment of members:

* Enlightening members that any interview invitation should be subjected to declaration of Liberty as a refugee camp that, as they allege, would be the only way to obtain mass asylum

* Resuming lobbying efforts in the US to pressure the UNHCR and haggle with the American side in order to declare Liberty as a refugee camp

According to the MeK leadership, declaration of Liberty as a refugee camp would provide their long-term presence in Iraq and they would have a chance to discourage the UNHCR officials in perusing file of transfer the group members out of this country.

If such an assumption realized, members, who become tools for developing this trick hoping to obtain mass asylum, will be told that the UNHCR due to political obstacles is not doing its job.

An important point here is Rajavi’s gang sensitivity about defectors and those who get able to leave the camp at this point. That the MeK treat them as disturbers of political actions of group abroad, especially in case of the US, is an alarm indicating that the group leaders will not suffice only to these tricks, but with the continued separation of members, they will increase pressure on protesters who demand breakaway; on the other hand, leaders of the MeK in every possible way with all kinds of excuses will struggle to limit powers of the UNHCR in order to avoid legal interference in the determination of members.

So, in these circumstances, any of those who manage to get out of the hellish organization of Mujahedeen, more than ever before, should embark on enlightenment and should inform the world of the MeK.

November 6, 2012 0 comments

Newer Posts

Older Posts