Camp Ashraf Inhabitants

Rajavi asset strips Camp Ashraf

Mojahedin-e Khalq may attack Iraqi and Iranian Embassies across the west

Only a few months ago there were 3400 residents in Camp Ashraf. Today there are 3200, and the missing 200 people are now surfacing in western countries. Mojahedin-e Khalq may attack Iraqi and Iranian Embassies across the west

Three weeks ago, nine MEK loyalists were sent to Canada where they have citizenship rights. The move was carried out with cooperation between Canada, UNAMI and Massoud Rajavi and his commanders in the camp. There are almost a hundred more residents in Camp Ashraf with links to Canada, but Massoud Rajavi has not released them at this stage.

Shortly after their arrival it was clear why they had been sent; Canadian political opinion had been manipulated by a propaganda campaign to misrepresent the situation at the camp with these MEK members as ‘witnesses’. On 16 December four of these MEK members from Camp Ashraf filed complaints against the Iraqi authorities in a Washington court while the Iraqis have opened cases against the MEK for violence in the camp long ago. It is now clear that the Obama administration could not prevent the CIA from bringing these MEK members from Canada, and they will not be able to stop others from coming. In the same way, France will not be able to prevent the MEK who are now in Washington from travelling to the MEK’s second base in Paris. Informed sources believe that their transfer via Frankfurt is due next week.

The MEK have been transferring members illegally around the world for three decades, there is nothing to suggest they cannot continue now. Indeed, with a little careful scrutiny we can now see what happened to every one of the missing 200 and why.

Three other MEK loyalists have recently left Camp Ashraf and are now somewhere in Europe. The significance of this is that these three individuals are the MEK’s top explosives experts, trained by Saddam Hussein’s army. The three were tracked from Camp Ashraf until they reached Europe where the trail went cold. They are presumably now in one of the MEK’s many European bases. It is known that Massoud Rajavi is still considering whether to launch last ditch attacks on Iraqi and/or Iranian embassies worldwide.

Massoud Rajavi is stuck in the bowels of Camp Ashraf. He is being forced to confront the probability that his plan to maintain Camp Ashraf against all odds will fail and he will, sooner rather than later, be forced to evacuate the camp.

In preparation for this second – and far more likely scenario – he has held indoctrination meetings with selected residents of Camp Ashraf. These in the main are the older, veteran members, the sick and the disaffected. He has told them that if the Iraqis “attack” the camp to remove them, they will be either massacred or, if they survive, sent to Iran and executed, therefore they must do all they can to resist such an outcome, even to die in the attempt to save him and the MEK. He has callously and cynically prepared them for martyrdom over a false cause. Of course they have no way of checking the reality of what Rajavi has told them.

So what of the other residents of Camp Ashraf who are not being indoctrinated for martyrdom? Quite simply they are part of a process of asset stripping the camp. Anyone for whom Rajavi has any use whatsoever, of any rank or any ability, will be removed from the camp and sent to Europe and North America. Indeed, this process has already begun. This is why 200 are missing. They have already been smuggled out of the camp.

Some of those sent to the west are people who can make problems if they get arrested in Iraq. MEK loyalists like Keshmiri and Kolahi who were responsible for exploding the Hizb-e Jomhouri HQ and the Prime Minister’s office in the early 1980s. Both have been seen recently in the suburbs of Cologne in Germany.

More will be coming as Rajavi asset strips the camp before handover.

An agreement was struck during the last week between the US and the Iraqi secret services to remove Massoud Rajavi from Camp Ashraf so the Iraqi plan to close the camp can start. The only place Rajavi will be safe is in the MEK’s second base at Auvers sur Oise near Paris. The Americans will facilitate his transfer and then surface him as a signal to begin the closure of the camp.

Preparations are underway to re-launch Massoud Rajavi after nearly nine years in hiding. One plan which is being considered right now in Paris is to coordinate attacks on Iraqi and Iranian embassies as elements in America are really hurt by Iraq’s refusal to grant US citizens immunity from prosecution, and by Iran’s refusal to compromise its nuclear programme – not to mention the downing of a CIA drone plane. It would appear that the CIA backed mission to transfer Camp Ashraf residents to Canada, America and Europe is only a preliminary to further activities.
Then will it be clear how rewarding Rajavi’s asset stripping will be to the MEK’s backers.

December 18, 2011 0 comment

USA

U.S. officials warn that MEK is obstructing humanitarian solution in Ashraf

Washington, DC – According to top U.S. officials, Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK) leadership is blocking efforts to protect residents at the organization’s encampment at Camp Ashraf in Iraq.
U.S. officials warn that MEK is obstructing humanitarian solution in Ashraf
A December 31st deadline set by the Iraqi government to close the camp is being leveraged by pro-MEK advocates in their campaign to have the group removed from the U.S. list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations. They say that residents of Camp Ashraf could face a “massacre” at the hands of Iraqi security forces and that the terrorist designation only increases this risk.

But U.S. officials testified before the House Foreign Affairs Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee last week that efforts to peacefully resolve the standoff are being rebuffed by MEK leadership. U.S. Special Adviser on Camp Ashraf Daniel Fried said MEK leadership has impeded a refugee resettlement process and interfered with the UN’s ability to conduct interviews with individuals at the encampment.

Fried told Congress that the Administration’s efforts have been met “intransigence by Camp Ashraf leadership to agree to any relocation plan other than en masse relocation outside Iraq.” The MEK’s leadership has demanded that the group be relocated only as a single unit, rather than allowing residents to relocate individually.

According to leaked diplomatic cables, Iraqi President Nouri Al Maliki is under pressure from Iran to close Camp Ashraf, which straddles the Iranian border. Moving the residents away from the border has been proposed as a means to defuse Iranian pressure while allowing individuals at Camp Ashraf to seek resettlement elsewhere through the United Nations.

But the UN refugee relocation process, in order to be successfully completed, requires unmonitored interviews between residents of Camp Ashraf. MEK blocked this process, demanding that their leadership be present during the process, until September of this year when they announced they would allow interviews to go forward.

Immediately after that announcement, however, MEK advocates argued that the group should be allowed to stay at Ashraf beyond the December 31 Iraqi deadline to allow time for the process to go forward. And now, U.S. officials indicate MEK is obstructing the process, suggesting that the leadership may be attempting to delay the camp’s closure indefinitely.

“The U.S. government is taking every responsible action possible, working with the government of Iraq, the United Nations, and our allies and partners, and in contact with the residents of Camp Ashraf and those who speak for them, to assure that any relocation …is done humanely,” said Ambassador Fried.

But lawmakers at the hearing placed the onus on the United States rather than the MEK. Congressman Ted Poe (R-TX) said the MEK are “freedom fighters” not terrorists. Dana Rohrbacher (R-CA) implied that the MEK’s designation as a terrorist group was the main stumbling block in preventing a resolution to the Ashraf situation. The MEK’s supporters have engaged in a massive public relations and lobbying campaign to pressure lawmakers to support the group’s bid to be taken off the Foreign Terrorist Organizations list.

Rohrbacher challenged the sincerity of the administration, saying the MEK is “a secular opposition group…a peaceful community of political refugees which do not deserve a terrorist label.” He warned that if violence broke at Camp Ashraf, “The blood in the sand will stain the Gucci shoes of those in the State Department.”

Also testifying was Ambassador Lincoln P. Bloomfield, who works on behalf of Akin Gump, a group retained by pro-MEK Iranian American Community of Northern California to lobby for the organization’s removal from the terror list. Bloomfield said the MEK is not a terrorist group.

Ambassador Fried challenged such assertions, and summarized what he said is the long history of MEK involvement in terrorism. For instance, said Fried, “in April 1992, the MEK became one of the few groups to attempt an attack on U.S. soil when it launched near-simultaneous attacks in thirteen countries, including against the Iranian mission to the United Nations in New York.”

Co-director of the Brookings Institute Elizabeth Farris testified that a resolution needs the involvement of the international community. “Given the extraordinary politicization of Camp Ashraf, if durable situations are to be found, the situation needs to be depoliticized by relying on multilateral actors applying internationally-recognized standards and practices.” During his closing statement, representative Rohrabacher acknowledged that the MEK leadership can be more helpful in reaching a resolution.

Despite the complexity of the situation, Fried said “a humane and relocation is possible, but it will take intense and serious efforts by all parties.”

“The leaders of Ashraf…we encourage them to step forward…so that there can be a mutually agreed arrangement rather than something that is unilateral. Unilateral doesn’t work.”

By Ardavon Naimi

December 17, 2011 0 comment

MEK Camp Ashraf

A U.S. plan to save MEK members who remain in Iraq

TO SOME, including the U.S. government, the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK) is a terrorist organization that is responsible for the deaths of hundreds, if not thousands, of civilians, including Americans in Tehran in the 1970s. To others, it is the voice of democratic Iranian opposition. A U.S. plan to save MEK members who remain in Iraq

This debate, fueled in part by the group’s handsomely paid stable of former U.S. officials who act as advocates, should be put aside to focus on a much more immediate and potentially explosive problem.

Come Dec. 31, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has ordered the closure of Camp Ashraf, an encampment 35 miles north of Baghdad that has been home for 25 years to members of the MEK. The camp currently houses some 3,400 people. The MEK fled Iran in the mid-1980s and took up arms with Saddam Hussein in the fight against Iran; the group has also been linked to Hussein’s violent suppression of Iraqi Shiites and Kurds, according to the Council on Foreign Relations. Incidents of terrorism attributed to MEK have significantly declined since 2001, but hostility to the group still runs high and was evident in the April massacre of dozens of Camp Ashraf residents by Iraqi forces.

The bloodshed could be even worse if the remaining residents are not moved out of the camp by Mr. Maliki’s deadline, which coincides with the pullout of U.S. troops. Some fear that Mr. Maliki could turn a blind eye to violence at Camp Ashraf or forcibly send to Iran MEK members, who fear persecution.

The Obama administration has won Iraqi agreement for a plan that could avoid these outcomes. Overseen by Martin Kobler, the U.N. envoy to Iraq, it calls for the MEK members to be moved to the United States’ former Camp Liberty base, near Baghdad’s international airport, where they would be interviewed and processed by the United Nations’ refugee agency. Interviews would be done individually, allowing each person to state his or her wishes for relocation without intimidation from the group’s leaders. The United Nations would monitor the process to protect against abuses. Officials say none of the MEK members would be returned to Iran against their will.

This is a decent solution to a thorny problem. The sticking point is the MEK’s Paris-based leadership, which is demanding that U.S. troops or U.N. peacekeeping forces provide security at the new camp. With the last U.S. soldiers on the way out and U.N. peacekeepers nowhere in sight, which is a condition that can’t and won’t be met. It’s time for the MEK — and its American mouthpieces — to drop unrealistic demands and accept a plan that offers the best chance to safeguard its members.

December 14, 2011 0 comment

MEK Camp Ashraf

ICRI: situation remains uncertain for residents of Camp Ashraf

Camp Ashraf, 80 km north-east of Baghdad, is home to over 3,000 Iranian nationals who belong to the People’s Mujaheddin Organization of Iran. In recent months, the Iraqi authorities have repeatedly said that they intend to close the camp at the end of 2011. Beat Schweizer, head of the ICRC delegation in Iraq, explains the ICRC’s role and response.

The Iraqi authorities have said they will close the camp at the end of 2011. What is the ICRC’s view on this?

The ICRC welcomes the Iraqi authorities’ commitment not to transfer Camp Ashraf residents to Iran against their will, and will continue to monitor the situation, to ensure that the Iraqi authorities fulfil this commitment. The ICRC will also continue to insist that the authorities meet their obligation to preserve the dignity, physical well-being and mental well-being of the camp’s residents. While it is true that the residents of camp Ashraf must comply with Iraqi laws and regulations, it is also true that the Iraqi authorities must ensure ICRC respect for these people’s fundamental rights, just as they would for anyone else on Iraqi territory. Furthermore, the Iraqi authorities must ensure that the residents of Camp Ashraf have access to such basic services as food, water and medical care, under all circumstances.

I must emphasize that the ICRC is not part of any mechanism to close down the camp or transfer its residents, and we are not going to be.

What will the ICRC do if force is used to transfer Camp Ashraf’s residents?

The ICRC will continue to call on all concerned to exercise restraint and to comply with applicable law. One legal requirement is that any use of force be in accordance with internationally-recognised principles governing law-enforcement operations. And respect for human dignity must be maintained whatever happens.

What will the ICRC do if residents are arrested?

The ICRC is prepared to visit anyone from Camp Ashraf whom the Iraqi authorities may detain. We would assess their conditions of detention and treatment, and would help them restore contact with their relatives, through Red Cross messages for instance. The ICRC is already making regular visits to detainees in Iraq, and we would assist any detained persons from Ashraf Camp in the same way.

In 2009, the ICRC visited 36 Ashraf residents detained by the Iraqi authorities. In April 2011, the ICRC visited six people arrested in relation with clashes between Iraqi security forces and residents of the camp. The authorities released those six people shortly after detaining them.

What is the ICRC doing for residents of Camp Ashraf who are seeking asylum and want to be resettled in a third country?

We have been facilitating the repatriation of former residents of Camp Ashraf who wish to go back to Iran. Since 2003, the ICRC has arranged for the repatriation of over 250 Camp Ashraf residents to their home country, in cooperation with its delegation in Tehran. The ICRC has helped repatriate seven former residents in 2011 so far, with the most recent repatriation taking place in August.

The ICRC is prepared to continue helping repatriate residents of Camp Ashraf to Iran at the request of the people concerned, with their full consent, and in agreement with both the Iraqi and the Iranian authorities. If residents of the camp want to seek asylum or resettlement in a third country, the ICRC will refer them to UNHCR. We may offer direct help in certain cases, for instance by issuing travel documents once the authorities of a particular country have agreed to take a person. The ICRC can also facilitate contact with relatives abroad.

What was the ICRC’s response to last April’s clashes between Iraqi forces and residents of the camp?

The ICRC maintained constant dialogue with the Iraqi authorities, in an effort to ensure that the use of force by law-enforcement personnel conformed to the standards that govern law-enforcement operations. We also dispatched kits of dressing material to Baquba Hospital, where casualties obtained treatment, and visited six residents arrested by the Iraqi authorities during the clashes.

What is the current situation in Camp Ashraf?

The ICRC has not made any visits to Camp Ashraf recently. The situation there is being monitored by the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq.

The ICRC remains committed to providing independent, humanitarian assistance to the residents and their families. While we have no precise figures, the population of the camp is estimated at over 3,200.

December 14, 2011 0 comment

MEK Camp Ashraf

Camp Ashraf victims prayed for their torturer forgiveness

The MEK cemetery was previously inaccessible as it lay inside the former boundaries of Camp Ashraf. Following the Iraqi military operation to reclaim illegally held land from the MEK in April 2011, the cemetery is now open to view and to independent investigation.

Families and former MEK members arriving at the cemetery led by Mr Hassan Azizi a veteran former member. He spent years struggling to get himself and his children out. Still later his wife also managed to escape. The family now live in the Netherlands. Mr. Azizi was part of the European delegation recently visiting Iraq and the Camp.

This is a memorial to the MEK who died in the MEK’s Operation Pearl in Iraqi Kurdistan in which Rajavi took orders from Saddam to massacre Kurdish villagers. Maryam Rajavi famously ordered her forces to run over the victims with their tanks so as not to waste bullets unnecessarily. The MEK, acting as Saddam’s Private Army, were used to viciously quell the Kurdish uprisings in the north.

memorial to three of the top MEK commanders killed by the people of Karbala during the Shiite uprising

In the south in 1991 the MEK were also used to suppress Shiite uprisings. This picture is a memorial to three of the top MEK commanders killed by the people of Karbala during the Shiite uprising when they took over Saddam’s Secret services HQ in the province. The bodies were never recovered. The three central graves are flanked by the graves of Neda Hassani and Sediqeh Mojaveri who died as a result of self-immolation ordered by Maryam Rajavi to protest her arrest by French anti-terrorism police at Auvers-sur-Oise in 2003.

Before the Iraqis gained control of the cemetery Rajavi had ordered that the pictures of the graves in the whole graveyard be mixed up so they do not correspond to the names on the graves. Perhaps only Rajavi can explain his motive for such a bizarre act.

The Iraqis have reported however that some of the graves have been found to contain more bodies than the single named person indicated on the headstones.

Ex members identified many graves of people who have been killed in the hands of the leaders of the organisation.

Among the graves they also found the grave of Nader Rafi’ee Nejad

The grave of Nader Rafi’ee Nejad

Nader Rafi’ee Nejad acted as a torturer for the Mojahedin-e Khalq leader Massoud Rajavi. He was a veteran member of the MEK who, along with Reza Khaksar (later killed during an armed clash in 1981) and Hassan Mohassel (a former police officer and later a guard in the MEK’s prisons in Iraq), served with the Revolutionary Court in Evin prison after the Iranian revolution.
Rafi’ee Nejad interrogated and tortured former officials of the ousted regime of Shah. Due to the MEK’s pursuit of its own radical policies after 1980, Rafi’ee Nejad, Mohassel and Khaksar were later dismissed from the Revolutionary Court by the government of the Islamic Republic at that time.

After the armed struggle began in 1981, Rafi’ee Nejad fled to Europe and was appointed to the MEK’s foreign relations department. In 1985, he was introduced as a leading member and in 1991 as deputy to an executive board in the MEK. In 1990, he shed his ‘diplomatic’ suit and donned the uniform for jailors of the MEK in Iraq.

In that year, he attended a course with Iraq’s intelligence and security service to undergo classic training by Iraqi interrogators.

He was involved in torturing Mohammed Hussein Sobhani and also the killing of Parviz Ahmadi who died under torture.

In recent years after the fall of Saddam, Nader Rafi’ee Nejad frequently appeared on the clandestine satellite TV station of the organisation pretending to be a legal expert, promoting the punishment of the ex-members wherever they could be found. He always referred to the cult leader’s fatwa that ‘the people who have managed to run away from the cult have to be killed…’
Two of the victims who have been directly tortured by Nader Rafi’ee Nejad are Mohammad Hussein Sobhani and Ali Ghashghavi. In the picture above, they are standing beside the grave of their former torturer. Both men were sent to Abu Ghraib political prison by Massoud Rajavi after extensive imprisonment, isolation and torture inside the MEK’s own prisons failed to force them to submit to Rajavi. Rafi’ee Nejad frequently visited them even when they were in Abu Ghraib. They were released during the fall of Saddam in 2003. There were over 50 registered ex-MEK prisoners in Abu Ghraib at that time labelled as a group as ”Mojahedin Deposits”.

Remembering the brutality of Rajavi’s torturers and prisons, both victims of Rajavi and Saddam prayed for forgiveness for their torturer.

December 12, 2011 0 comment

Iraqi Authorities' stance on the MEK

Iraqi PM: No Legal Basis to Keep MKO in Iraq

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki underlined Baghdad’s determination to end the presence of the terrorist Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO) on his country soil.

In the article "building a stable Iraq" published by US daily Washington Post, Nouri al-Maliki pointed to the presence of thousands of MKO terrorists in the main training camp in the country’s Diyala province, and said, "The residents of Camp Ashraf (the Camp of New Iraq) have caused a great deal of controversy here (Iraq) and in the United States. I would like to see this complex issue resolved peacefully and with the help of the United Nations."

"The camp’s residents are classified as a terrorist organization by many countries and thus have no legal basis to remain in Iraq," Maliki added.

He reiterated the terrorist nature of the group, and added, "No country would accept the presence of foreign insurgents on its soil, but we will work hard to find a peaceful solution that upholds the international values of human rights."

The MKO, whose main stronghold is in Iraq, is blacklisted by much of the international community, including the United States.

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).

The group started assassination of the citizens and officials after the revolution 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 the 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.

Since the 2003 US invasion of Iraq, the group, which now adheres to a pro-free-market philosophy, has been strongly backed by neo-conservatives in the United States, who also argue for the MKO to be taken off the US terror list.

Since the beginning of this year, the Baghdad government has repeatedly assured Iranian officials and people that it is determined to expel the MKO from Iraq by the end of 2011.

December 11, 2011 0 comment

The MEK Expulsion from Iraq

Azerbaijan to take in MKO members

The Iraqi ambassador to Iran says Azerbaijan and a number of other countries have agreed to Iraqi Ambassador to Tehran, Mohammad Majeed al-Sheikh receive nearly 900 members of the terrorist group of Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO).

“Necessary measures are being taken through the cooperation of the Red Cross and Iraqi officials to transfer these individuals,” Mohammad Majid al-Sheikh told ISNA on Tuesday.

“The decision to expel MKO from Iraq has been taken by the government and this decision is irreversible, and non-extendable,” the Iraqi envoy added.

Commenting on some of the European states’ protest to Iraq’s decision, al-Sheikh said Baghdad has no problem with other countries accepting MKO members.

“Unfortunately countries that support these people do not take serious measures to take them in,” he noted.

The Iraqi government has made its plans clear for closing down Camp Ashraf, which harbors about 3,500 MKO terrorists at a location about 120 kilometers (74 miles) west of the border with Iran, before the US troops pull out of the Middle Eastern country by the end of 2011.

MKO members fled to Iraq in 1986, where they enjoyed the support of the slain Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, and set up Camp Ashraf in Diyala province near the Iranian border.

The group is known to have cooperated with Saddam in suppressing the 1991 uprisings in southern Iraq and the massacre of Iraqi Kurds.

Iran has announced that all the residents of the Camp Ashraf except those who have criminal records can return to the country.

December 10, 2011 0 comment

Former members of the MEK

Three Ashraf Residents Escape the Cult of Rajavi

On Friday December 2nd, 2011, three residents of Ashraf Garrison escaped their headquarters and submitted to Iraqi forces. They then joined the families picketing in front of Camp Ashraf, in Azadi installation. Family members of one of the defectors were among the picketing families.
He said that he had heard his sister’s voice via loudspeakers and had recognized her. Thus he was encouraged to endanger his life and ran away.

“Thank God, I could release myself” he said. He hugged and kissed his brother and sister. The three escapees were warmly welcomed by the families who had tears of happiness in their eyes.

The defectors said that a lot of Ashraf residents are waiting for an opportunity to flee the camp and set themselves free.

The names of the new separated members will be soon published if they are willing to.

Translated by Nejat Society

December 4, 2011 0 comment

MEK Camp Ashraf

Iraq & Mojahedin-e Khalq : Cooperate With UN

Iraq/Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization: Cooperate With UN
Provide Safe Location to Assess Camp Ashraf Refugee Claims

With each tick of the clock, the danger to camp residents grows. The best way forward for the Iraq/Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization: Cooperate With UN Provide Safe Location to Assess Camp Ashraf Refugee Claims safety of the Camp Ashraf residents is to give them the chance to press their individual claims for refugee status with the UN in a safe location.
Bill Frelick, refugee program director

(New York) – Both the leadership of the exiled Iranian opposition group Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization and the Iraqi government should fully cooperate with the UN refugee agency, Human Rights Watch said today.

Both sides should allow the more than 3,200 Iranians at Camp Ashraf, in Iraq, to move to a protected location under UN supervision before the Iraqi government’s December 31, 2011 deadline for closing the camp, Human Rights Watch said. And both should allow the UN refugee agency sufficient time to conduct private and confidential interviews with each person to assess their refugee claims.

“With each tick of the clock, the danger to camp residents grows,” said Bill Frelick, refugee program director at Human Rights Watch. “The best way forward for the safety of the Camp

Ashraf residents is to give them the chance to press their individual claims for refugee status with the UN in a safe location.”

Camp Ashraf, recently renamed Camp New Iraq, has already been the site of two bloody confrontations between Iraqi security forces and camp residents. Most recently, on April 8, 2011, 36 camp residents were killed. On July 29, 2009, 9 were killed. After these incidents Human Rights Watch called on the Iraqi authorities to protect camp residents and open transparent investigations into the killings.

Both the Iraqi security forces and the leadership of Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK/PMOI) should avoid bloodshed and allow residents to leave Camp Ashraf and meet privately with the UN refugee agency without fear of harm from either camp leaders or the Iraqi authorities, Human Rights Watch said.

The UN has offered to monitor the entire process when residents leave Camp Ashraf and to be present with them in a safe transit location. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has also agreed to assess refugee claims among camp residents who seek asylum and to seek durable solutions for refugees among them.

Human Rights Watch has documented abuses by the leadershipof the MEK in Camp Ashraf against camp residents who questioned their authority.

Human Rights Watch called on the Iraqi government to allow former Camp Ashraf residents who qualify as refugees to stay in Iraq subject to Iraqi law and respect for their basic human rights, until a durable solution can be found on their behalf.

The Iranian government should agree to the voluntary repatriation of those former residents from Camp Ashraf who wish to return in safety and dignity, Human Rights Watch said. The camp residents should not, for example, be subjected to televised confessions, and the government should ensure their freedom of movement, including the right to leave Iran. Iran’s government should also allow independent international organizations full access to monitor their return.

Because some former Camp Ashraf residents will not be able safely to stay in Iraq or return to Iran, Human Rights Watch also called on other governments to respond favorably and promptly to UNHCR referrals of former Ashraf residents for resettlement or for governments to allow Ashraf residents to whom they had previously issued passports to return to those countries.

The Iraqi government should ensure that any MEK members accused of crimes in Iraq or for whom extradition requests have been issued receive all procedural rights in open and fair proceedings and ensure that none are subjected to torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment in either Iraq or Iran.

The MEK was founded in 1965 as an armed group to challenge the Shah of Iran’s government. In 1981, two years after the Iranian revolution, the group went underground after trying to foment an armed uprising against Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. After a period of exile in France, most of the group’s leaders relocated to Iraq in 1986, although its top leadership remains in France.

In 1997, the United States State Department designated the group a foreign terrorist organization and it remains on the State Department’s list of foreign terrorist organizations. The European Union also listed the group as a foreign terrorist organization, but has removed it from the list. Many Iraqis also have alleged that the group’s members actively participated in campaigns against opponents of Saddam Hussein’s government. The fall of Hussein’s government in April 2003 put an end to Iraqi financial and logistical support to the group.

December 1, 2011 0 comment

Former members of the MEK

Conference Speech on the book ‘The Life of Camp Ashraf’

Conference Speech at Baghdad University to introduce the book

‘The Life of Camp Ashraf – Mojahedin-e Khalq Victims of Many Masters’
by Anne Singleton and Massoud Khodabandeh

Massoud Khodabandeh, from Middle East Strategy Consultants introduced the book ‘The Life of Conference Speech at Baghdad University to introduce the book Camp Ashraf – Mojahedin-e Khalq Victims of Many Masters’ to the Conference. The book places the MEK in the context of its foreign ownership and concludes that these owners have invested heavily in the MEK’s ability to commit acts of violence and terrorism, and that this is the reason for western resistance to closing the camp. The book particularly highlights the MEK’s refusal to allow residents of the camp to have contact with their immediate families as a fundamental human rights abuse of every person in the camp.

The book was written primarily to give a voice to the people trapped inside Camp Ashraf and to their families who are camped outside waiting to find them and help them.
Why these families are there at all is the big question and one which is fairly easy to answer.

What is harder to answer is how to help them.

The Mojahedin as a terrorist group is not a new problem for Iraq. The MEK collaborated with Saddam Hussein to kill thousands of Iranians and Iraqi citizens.

Unfortunately, after the invasion of 2003, the Americans failed to dismantle the camp and remove this terrorist entity from the country.

So, the nation of Iraq is entitled to ask how did we end up here, nearing the end of the US military presence, but the terrorist cult they protected is still here?
And the families of people trapped inside Camp Ashraf who are still outside the locked gates of the camp, desperate to find their loved ones, they are entitled to ask, why can we not meet with our relatives in peace and freedom after all these years?

After 2003 there were some half-hearted efforts to deal with the MEK in the international political arena. For example, in Germany, Canada and Australia where action was taken by various state agencies to curtail the group’s illegal activities. In France Maryam Rajavi was arrested in 2003 along with 150 others by counter-terrorism police.
But when Maryam ordered her people to set fire to themselves the French Government gave in to the pressure and Rajavi is now free to continue promoting the European Union’s anti-Iran and anti-Iraq agenda.

The covert Western political support for the terrorist MEK, which had been in place even before the fall of Saddam Hussein became overt after the 2003 invasion. In 2004 America deliberately protected Massoud Rajavi when then Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld misapplied – against all logic – the UN Fourth Geneva Convention to the group. Designed to protect foreign civilians – the MEK were foreign but were certainly not civilians – the designation gave the MEK a free hand to continue its illegal and violent activities in Iraq on behalf of Rajavi’s Western masters, this time protected by American servicemen and women. America wanted and still wants to keep the MEK in spite of the facts. These facts were clearly described in both the 2005 Human Rights Watch report and the 2009 RAND Report.

In 2009 the Americans were obliged under the terms of the Status of Forces Agreement to hand over control of Camp Ashraf and the people inside it to the democratically elected government of Iraq. It should have been possible at this stage to begin to deal properly with the group from a legal and moral point of view. Certainly, the Iraqi constitution does not allow the group to stay. Nor will Iraq allow the MEK to enjoy refugee status in the country because of the crimes committed against Iraqi citizens. The Iraqi Judiciary has confirmed it has grounds to prosecute at least 150 MEK members for such crimes.

At the same time, the Government of Iraq has been clear that as well as being a terrorist organisation the MEK operates as a pernicious mind-control cult. Because of this, all the Iraqi agencies and NGOs involved have been vehement in declaring that the human rights of Camp Ashraf residents must be protected and that Iraq will not repatriate anyone who does not wish to return home to Iran.

But even after 2009, Rajavi was still refusing to obey Iraqi and international law.

Iraq has been extremely patient and reasonable in the face of extreme provocation; what must be described as pre-planned and coordinated suicidal and violent resistance.

Today the residents of Camp Ashraf find themselves with no protection and no refugee status and are also designated as terrorists in Iraq and America.

So, if the MEK is so unwanted, why is it so difficult to get rid of them?
There are two reasons. One is the nature of the MEK itself, and the other is the role of external agencies in preventing Iraq from expelling the group.
First let us look at the MEK itself.
On both occasions when Iraqi security forces attempted to impose law on the camp, Rajavi ordered his followers to kill themselves in his defence. Some victims were shot by the MEK, some threw themselves under Iraqi vehicles. The message from Rajavi was clear – come near the camp and I will kill everyone in it.

The book ‘The Life of Camp Ashraf’ explains with detailed evidence that this is no ordinary group. It is a dangerous, destructive mind control cult. Without getting too deep into explaining what this means, basically they brainwash and exploit the members to the point they have no will of their own and will obey the leader without question, even if this means killing themselves to order.

Rajavi has trapped the members inside the camp – physically and mentally.
The gates to the camp are locked from inside. The perimeter fence is reinforced from inside.

Residents are made to believe they will be killed by Iraqi soldiers if they try to escape or if they survive they will be sent to Iran to be tortured and executed.
Iraq’s government understands what it is dealing with. Iraq’s problem is that other external parties do not see the group in the same way.
The international community (US and EU) have clearly sided with the cult leader for their own political gains.

The biggest favour Iraq could do for America and Europe now is to become involved in the mass deaths of the MEK. That way the West would be rid of the problem and could still point the finger at Iraq and say ‘what savages, how inhuman you people are’.

But Iraq will not fall for that trick.

Clearly, it is the unwarranted western political support for the MEK leaders which prevents the rescue of the camp’s residents.
In a meeting of the Iraq Delegation on November 22, what did the European Parliament chose to talk about in relation to Iraq? While Iraq has all kinds of issues, trade links, reconstruction, security, health, social and religious issues which could be discussed, the only item on the agenda was the MEK and how to protect them.
The MEK killed 25,000 Iraqis. What is there to talk about?

Two major questions remain – how to get in and who should go in?
The United Nations High Commission for Refugees has agreed to go into the camp to interview residents individually for refugee status.
So far they have not succeeded.

Unfortunately, if external agencies don’t understand the cult nature of the MEK they will fall into the trap of manipulative lies and deception.
Certainly, the biggest deception must be exposed.

Rajavi does not represent the hostages. He is the hostage taker – therefore neither he nor his minions are able to negotiate on behalf of the 3500 people trapped inside. Until it is possible to go into the camp and speak individually to the residents without MEK oversight it is not possible to say what should happen to them. At this moment, nobody knows how many of the residents remain loyal to Rajavi. From the testimonies of recent escapees – from all levels of the organisation – we can estimate that only five or ten percent of the residents in the camp are loyal to Rajavi. This means that everyone else is being kept there against their will. For this reason Iraq’s Human Rights Ministry has been insistent that it is necessary to get inside the camp to protect the residents against the abuses of those leaders.

Once this simple fact has been recognised it will become clear that the key to opening the gate of Camp Ashraf is to involve the families of the people inside.
Why? Because this is Rajavi’s greatest fear. How do we know this? Rajavi has deliberately separated the MEK from all relationships with mother, father, sister, brother, husband or wife or child.

Rajavi knows that once a member re-discovers the love and affection of their family and friends, they will abandon him forever.
A wonderful example of this is Mahmoud Rostami who escaped the camp two months ago.

Rostami was a Prisoner of War in Iraq and was deceived into joining the MEK.
He had not seen his family for twenty two years.

Rostami’s mother visited Camp Ashraf three times.

Hearing his mother’s voice over the loudspeakers finally brought Rostami back to reality.

When Rostami also heard the other family members crying out to their loved ones his humanity was re-awakened.

After months of planning Rostami escaped and met with his mother and father after two decades of forced separation.

There can be no legitimate or moral objections to opening the gate of Camp Ashraf to allow people to go inside; whether family members or humanitarian agencies. This has nothing to do with the Iraqi timetable to evacuate Camp Ashraf. It is a purely humanitarian gesture. The only barrier is the leader Massoud Rajavi and his second-in-command Maryam Rajavi who refuse to do the right thing.

Of course, there must be a proper framework if those inside are to be accorded effective help.

United Nations interviews should be supplemented by visits from cult experts and family members or representatives of the families of residents.

Each person interviewed must be given information about their rights and their possible future steps.

The families have no political agenda, they come in a spirit of love and concern to rescue their loved ones. They are there to help the residents.

Families are the key to opening the locked gates of Camp Ashraf and opening the locked hearts of the imprisoned residents. The families are the solution, not the problem.

December 1, 2011 0 comment

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