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.