Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO), have been busy seeking to raise the issue of human rights violations in Iran to gain the support of agencies and diplomatic bodies, such as the European Union, the European Parliament, the UN and others to consider it as a credible and real opposition group against
the IRI. The aim of MKO is to put pressure on IRI through international sanctions and also to gain support of these international organizations in order to show itself as a democratic replacement for Iranian government.
At the same time in a parallel move the group’s high-priced public relations and lobbying firms are hard at work trying to whitewash the MEK’s violent, vicious black trace. Years of lobbying and buying support got the MKO delisted in 2012. However, no longer being considered a terrorist group does not make the MKO democratic, as anyone who has ever studied their internal workers can attest.[1]
Elizabeth Rubin writer of the famous article” The Cult of Rajavi” who visited the Camp Ashraf in 2003 says:” despite its rhetoric, the Mujahedeen operates like any other dictatorship. .. As the historian Abrahamian told me, ”No one can criticize Rajavi.”[2]
Although the illegal multi-million dollar lobby of the group brought it about with some paid advocators, yet the MKO making use of the human rights issues bear no fruit for the group and the things doesn’t go as the group leaders wishes. The human rights issue resulted in the opposite of what they longed for.
US-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) published a report in 2005 on Human Rights abuses taking place within MKO Camps. The report was based on interviews with 12 former members of the group now living in Europe. They alleged abuses ranging from detention, solitary confinement, beatings and torture. [3]
In mid-2009, the Pentagon- Funded Rand Corporation also published a report titled ‘Mujahedin-e Khalq in Iraq: A Policy Conundrum’. The RAND report also reaffirmed the MKO as a cult that abuses its own members.[4]
Jeremiah Goulka who as an analyst with the RAND Corporation was sent to Iraq says: “… I also interviewed former MEK members. As Human Rights Watch also concluded, I saw that the MEK is a cult. It uses brainwashing, sleep deprivation, and forced labor to indoctrinate members.”[5]
The leaders and their supporters of course deny being a cult which abuses members accusing the critics to being either IRI agents or their dupes. However, many outsiders who eye witnessed the affairs of the MKO along with the groups’ former members testimonies evidently prove the harsh abuses MKO practice on its members.
U.N. envoy Martin Kobler several times accused the leaders of Mujahedin Khalq of human rights abuses.[6]
The UNAMI Half Yearly Report on Human Rights also reiterated continuing concerns about human rights abuses committed by the PMOI leadership within Camp Liberty against the residents.[7]
One senior State Department official (now retired), sent to Iraq to interview thousands of MEK members after the invasion, concluded that the organization was a cult; that the weirdly child-free Camp Ashraf was ‘a human tragedy’; that members were ‘misused and misled’ by the leadership; and that many had been tricked into joining[8]
The Rajavis couldn’t hide the true nature of their handmade destructive cult as continued evidences indicate that MKO commits abuses against its own members. The group former members recite their firsthand accounts of abuses taking place in MKO Camps.
More recently an Iraqi physician through a letter to Iraq Human Rights Ministry cited its experiences with the Camp Liberty hunger strikers. The Iraqi physician wrote in his letter the hunger strikers told him that they were forced by the group’s ringleaders to go on hunger strike. They also gave letters to the Iraqi medics to be submitted to due Human Rights bodies and stated their unwillingness to stay with the Cult.[9]
The MKO leaders see their so called organization on the verge of collapse .They have stuck in the limbo of Iraq. The recruitment tricks they applied before doesn’t work anymore and they have problem keeping members as they are fed up with the cult practices and the full of mendacity leaders. The Camp Liberty residents risk everything to escape the cult. The reports suggest the defection of about 70 out of 159 members of the organization who have been transferred to Albania.
So the Rajavis prefer to keep members in Iraq to save their cult rather than relocating them to other countries where they will lose members and consequently their handmade cult.
Besides, allying with the Iranian nation enemies didn’t bring anything good for the MKO as their time has reached the end for their western lords. The West prefer not to disrupt diplomacy with Iran by pleasing a broken cult.
The bitter reality which is difficult for the MKO to come along with is that it has been excluded from the international political spheres.
The cult leaders who are struggling hard to survive do not hesitate to victimize all its members. The international Human Rights bodies should take action, prevent a disaster and save the 3000+ individuals who are trapped behind the bars of a destructive cult of personality. They should also make the Cult leaders accountable for the crimes they have committed against their own members.
By: A. Sepinoud
References:
[1] Rubin, Michael, Yes-Mujahedin al Khalq is a dishonest cult, Commentary Magazine, July 07, 2013
[2] Rubin, Elizabeth, The Cult of Rajavi, The New York Times, July 13, 2003
[3] https://www.nejatngo.org/en/posts/79
[4] Goulka, Jeremiah, Hansell, Lydia, Wilke, Elizabeth, Larson, Judith, The Mujahedin-e Khalq in Iraq, A Policy Conundrum, RAND
[5] Jeremiah,Goulka, THE IRAN WAR HAWKS’ FAVORITE CULT GROUP, Salon.com, March 28, 2012
[6] Charbonneau, Louis, Iran dissidents in Iraq, accused of rights abuses, slam UN envoy, Reuters News, July16,2013
[7] UNAMI Half Yearly Report on Human Rights – January to June 2013
[8] Bennett-Jones, Owen, Terrorists? Us? , London review of books, December 2011
[9] Fars News , Mojahedin Khalq Members Fail to Escape Camp Liberty, January 28, 2014