The proscribed terrorist cult, Mojahedin Khalq, has once again accused all those people and organisations which criticize its behaviour of ‘working for the Iranian government’; an accusation which is punishable by death according to their public announcements over the past 25 years. And this is the worrying part which has prompted me to write this letter.
You have mentioned in your interview that the reason behind the proscription of the Mojahedin Khalq Organisation in Britain and other places is purely political and was made in relation to the interests of the Iranian Regime. This might be true, but what I would like to know is why the Mojahedin Khalq Organisation is still being kept on the lists of terrorist entities in almost every western country when these countries are engaged in a serious confrontation with the Islamic Republic of Iran?
Since he left, the Mojahedin have been misusing his name over the past years in every possible way, publishing articles on their websites (Iranfocus, Iranterror and PauloCasaca.net) which are their version of his views, but never publishing any direct response from him. In this way the MKO has variously claimed that Tafrishi ‘admitted’ working for the Iranian Intelligence Ministry …
Reported by Time on December 14 to confirm the EU’s stance on the ruling of the Court of First Instance, Jesus Carmona, spokesman for the European Union’s anti-terrorism authority, enunciated that”we’re going to comply with the court and publicly state the reasons for any group or individual on it”. For sure, the EU proscribed MKO on sound reasons, but we consider it our responsibility to give some details on the terrorist nature of MKO.
And: “that it [MKO] has expressly renounced all military activity since June 2001”. The Mojahedin Khalq and its leaders Massoud and Maryam Rajavi have never at any time announced that the MKO has renounced violence. It has been revealed, however, that a statement indicating that it had renounced violence had been made privately by the MKO to the Court through its lawyers. The Court of First Instance apparently took this statement at face value.
We appreciate the humanitarian move as many of these defectors were shown a smooth outlet out of a hell of anguish and agony to a world wherein they could live as human beings. The last year’s publication of Human Rights Watch report entitled “No Exit” with details on human rights abuses inside MKO was only an iota of the group’s atrocities against the enslaved insiders.
Several members of MKO have left their families and relatives many years ago to join the MKO ranks with the hope of bringing prosperity and welfare to the Iranians. But on the contrary they were themselves caught up with a dreadful cult that managed to control their minds and lives all together through the years in the boundaries of Ashraf Camp in Iraq.
Ms. Somayeh Mohammadi, an Iranian-Canadian student was taken from Canada on a false pretension of, a month long, educational trip to Iraq in 1998 and was kept there since. The devastated Mohammadi family has been trying since to return their beloved child back to Canada. Their efforts included but not limited to over five trips to the dangerous and war torn Iraq.
I criticised what was apparent about the special relations between the organisation and Saddam Hussein, the ousted dictator of Iraq. I was imprisoned for a few months in solitary confinement inside Ashraf camp and over all spent about 8 years in different prisons. I was captured once when I tried to escape prison and reach the office of the UN in Baghdad in August 1999. This resulted in capture in a joint operation involving Mojahedin and secret services of Iraq and I ended up again in solitary confinement.
After that we witnessed the intensification of the war between Iraq and Iran and the desperate need of Saddam Hussein for the Mojahedin Khalq so that he gave them overt unlimited logistical and financial support. In reality you can say that the war was a God sent opportunity for the Mojahedin to reorganise themselves in Iraq and over time change themselves from an organisation with some support into a cult totally dependent on wars and crisis.