Families of the MEK hostages denied of their rights

Mujahedin Khalq Organization members' families

Camp Ashraf Families of Mojahedin Cult Offered Solidarity by Paris Conference

A conference in Paris on Saturday asked international human rights organisations to be more involved in rescuing victims trapped in a violent cult in Iraq. Families and ex-members of the Iranian Mojahedin-e Khalq (MKO, MEK, Rajavi cult) linked up from Paris with the families who have camped outside Camp Ashraf in the Diyala province of Iraq for over four months. In Iraq, tens of journalists and local tribe leaders joined the families, while in Paris, Swiss author Anton Gessler, Dutch journalist Nelly Tomasini and MKO expert Massoud Khodabandeh analysed the group.

The families’ only demand is unrestricted visits with relatives outside the camp. In a telephone link up with Iraq, Soraya Abdollahi, speaking for the families, thanked supporters, saying, "We have no choice but to stay and insist on our and our children’s’ minimum rights." Camp Ashraf (now Camp New Iraq) has housed Mojahedin-e Khalq members for thirty four years. Once allies of Saddam Hussein, the leaders disarmed in 2003 when American forces attacked their bases. But Mojahedin leaders, Massoud and Maryam Rajavi refused to surrender to the allied forces or Iraqi authorities and for seven years have held their followers hostage inside the camp. Members have no access to outside information and are subjected to a daily regime of indoctrination and hard labour.

Iman Yeganeh, who escaped the camp in April 2010 after 22 years of captivity, described the situation for people inside the MKO as despairing. He said, "People are being told the Iraqis will kill them if they leave. Knowing about Saddam’s security services, when I left I believed I would be killed. Even then I had to plan carefully how to finally get out." In Iraq, victims and their families are helped by Sahar Family Foundation; established in 2008 by ex-members and families with support from Iraq’s authorities who also want to see a swift end to the self-imposed MKO siege. From Iraq, the website www.SaharNGO.com was announced, providing up-to-date information about the camp.

The conference, attended by people from Europe and North America, produced a statement stressing that more must be done to challenge the stalemate at the camp where 3400 people are imprisoned by cult leaders. The statement also forms the basis of a cooperative working document for the next year between the Camp Ashraf families and the conference delegates.

June 22, 2010 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization members' families

Meeting in Paris – Gathering in front of Ashraf garrison

Simultaneously with the meeting in Paris:
Gathering in front of Ashraf garrison in Iraq

On 19 June 2010, a large hall in Paris was a place of a meeting of more than 200 former members of MKO (Rajavi cult), families of present members trapped inside the cult in Iraq, and a number of reporters and human rights activists.

In this meeting titled “rejecting violence, terrorism and cultic behavior, as well as aiding the families of the victims of Rajavi cult in Ashraf garrison in Iraq”, dozens of foreign personalities, reporters and camera men from various organizations and media were present.

In this meeting Iranian and non-Iranian speakers provided reports about the latest developments related to the MKO situation in Iraq and urged the leaders of the cult to let the families who have been waiting outside Ashraf garrison for more than 4 months in the worst psychological and physical situation, to be allowed to visit their loved ones.

Simultaneously, families in front of Ashraf garrison in Iraq made a gathering which many Iraqi officials and personalities and the representatives of various media as well as Iraqi citizens and the chief of tribes of Diyala province and international and humanitarian activists participated. A number of families in this gathering including Mr. Iman Yeganeh made a direct contact with the meeting in Paris and let the participants and reporters present in Paris meeting learn about their demands.

Families in front of the main gate of Ashraf garrison let everyone present know that it is nearly 5 months since they have been waiting there and their only demand is to visit their loved ones freely and without any interference, which the leaders of MKO (Rajavi cult) have denied it. They also emphasized that if the Europeans wish to support Rajavi cult why they do not take them to their own countries and why do they impose them to the nation and government of Iraq. Families welcomed any action to move the inhabitants of Ashraf camp to Europe and vigorously demanded it.

Additional images and reports of this gathering would follow in the coming days.

June 21, 2010 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization members' families

The courageous that need encouragement

Families outside Camp Ashraf The US forces are at last preparing to abandon the soil they once occupied to bring down Saddam. The time has come to gradually hand over the control of the war-torn country to the rival Parties that are conferring to reach a consensus to form a potential government hopped to well govern Iraq after the coalition forces have left. But in an area less than an hour’s drive from Baghdad is located the base which has turned into Mojahedin Khalq Organization’s purgatory, Camp Ashraf. It has turned to a bad time for anybody to be a pro-MKO in Iraq or in abroad since 2003 since the US is no longer offering its promised protection and has openly announced that its forces will relinquish control of the camp next month. And it has disappointed the leaders of the organization more than any time since they see the camp is to be abandoned at a time when they are in desperate need of protection.

Long suppressing the insider dissidents and opponents through the granted aid of Saddam’s notorious suppressive measures and systems, an out-let was set before these dissenters to get rid of the clutches of the terrorist cult just the day after Saddam’s fall and so far about six hundred have succeeded, by the help of humanitarian organization and the ICRC, to return home or take refuge in other countries as they willed. But the process actually came to a halt by the close cooperation of the US forces and other propaganda measures and disinformation activities when Rajavi began renewing his promises of imminent overthrow of the Iranian regime. However, all these ploys and granted protections have proved unproductive and the enslaved seem to be anxiously in search of an exit to escape the purgatory.

Besides Iraqi Government’s determination as well as the US forces’ decision to close down the Camp, which for sure leads the organization to the worst ever faced condition, a four-month long protest of the families whose children and relative are in the camp corroborate the granted opportunity for those who have made their mind to reclaim their identity as the free men. The indomitable courage of the families, who have established a small camp of their own to out-wait the organization’s obstinate refusal to comply with their request of visiting their children, is in fact summoning the global attention and waking the human conscience to have a hand in the salvation of the beguiled victims before the organization hit its doomed destiny. One thing is for certain that the organization will not survive in Iraq, but what is forgotten altogether is the fate of its members there. While it is being drawn to the precipice of its demise along with the majority of its victimized members suffering the harshest conditions of the hot Iraqi deserts, the real criminals and leaders are enjoying their luxurious, secure life in the pleasant suburbs of Paris.

Hardly any organization and delegation from any country has intervened so far to end the plight of the families and their entrapped children whose only separating barrier is a gate. That is simply because the cult leaders refuse to allow members to have any contact with the outside world and will not negotiate with external bodies. Although the Government of Iraq is responsible for the camp, officials have repeatedly stated that their hands are tied because the organization is being supported by American forces who have so far intervened on behalf of the MKO to stop the entrance of the families. Earlier, in a letter addressed to the US Ambassador to Iraq, Christopher Hill, the families asked for his help in negotiating with MKO to give visiting rights. In a part they wrote: "Your government successfully arranged for the mothers of U.S. detainees in Iran to visit their children on compassionate grounds… But, if America can negotiate this with Iran,

we certainly expect that you can negotiate with this small terrorist group so that its members can meet freely with their families".
But how can they be called humans and protectors of the human rights and freedom those who see these scenes and are deaf to the purest humane demands. The organization’s advocates have raised concern about the US departure from the area and the camp and that, it might lead to a humanitarian catastrophe. Looking at it from the angle that the organization is a terrorist cult capable of creating a human catastrophe, as it did when sent members ablaze onto the streets of European countries, yes they are right. And the families have gathered to prevent perish of their children. But is there anybody else to stand in their support?

June 16, 2010 0 comments

Human Rights Abuse in the MEK

Mojahedin Khalq and contradictory positions!

Do U.S. families have greater rights to visit children than Iranian families?

I read in a number of newspapers, that the Iranian government decided to approve the visas for three American families to visit their children, who had been arrested inside Iranian territory on charges of illegal entry.

Demanding a simple visit to his captive son

… The dialogue that took place between Iranian and U.S. sides which resulted in the Iranians’ approval to allow these families to visit their three children must, for those following this story, focus attention on facts and issues that are linked to each other. Among the most important thing being that the charges levelled at the regime of Iran by the Americans are that it is a totalitarian dictatorial regime which is, as well, doing all in its power to covertly possess nuclear capability, and that Iran is a state sponsor of terrorism. I am not, here, …dwelling on the charges made against Iran. In addition I am not obliged to defend this country. But the truth must be stated within the framework of logic and objectivity. When we talk about rights and subject them to evaluation, we are going to find that what distinguishes this man from the other one is based on their proximity to the hearts of the people. And this is undoubtedly true of Iran and its neighbours. The relationship of Iran to its credit is that while Iraq was still going through many crises, what will determine the nature of their relationship in the future, is the position as to whether they [Iraqis] were Arabs or Muslims, or human beings.

It is known that the MKO, which is notorious in the international community as a terrorist organization, is now outside the authority of the Iraqi government. And this strengthens the view of those whose voices have grown to hold them accountable for activities and crimes committed against our people…

But the Iraqi government has not succeeded yet in its demand that the group leave Iraqi territory, despite the fact that what would achieve justice is that the criminals in the organisation, whose hands are stained with the blood of our people, be held accountable before leaving Iraqi land.

What is happening inside this organization is that those …whose conscience urges them to want to meet their families and loved ones, who are led to rise up in a revolt against their leaders and try to break free from the group’s values and objectives which are based on a desperate fascist hatred, are arrested and imprisoned and suffer woe and destruction.
And when I tried to visit these people, following a large body of news about the suffering of its people under the penalty of the dictatorship of the Mojahedin, my visit was met by the face dark and abusive behaviour of the Mojahedin leaders at the Camp Ashraf garrison, and the families, facing the walls of humiliation and shame and confusion created by them, failed to achieve their goal, which was to see their children.

These families staged a sit-in four months ago, in front of the notorious camp in Diyala province. They have asked the United States Ambassador Christopher Hill to intervene and pressure the leaders of the organization and its officials to end their suffering and find a solution meeting their children.

This reinforces the fact that the Iraqi government does not have the resolution to rein in the Mojahedin, and this has directed these families to writing an open letter to Hill, urging him to speed up the intervention and end this suffering.

The United States of America… asked for American citizens to visit their children who were arrested inside Iran on charges of illegal entry, and Iran allowed them to do so. The U.S. is called upon today to take a humanistic counterpart to the situation of Iran and to get the Mojahedin organization to lift the injustice against those who are detained inside the garrison and let their families and meet with them. But, how far is the one situation from the other?

Kazem Sami Farag,Baghdad

June 13, 2010 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization members' families

Families need assistance to stop victimization of their children

Although they are suffering under the hot and scorching winds of the Iraqi deserts, a dozen or so of family members of the residents to Camp Ashraf are settled in front of the main gate of the Camp in a hope to see their children and relatives enslaved by a terrorist cult. Obviously, the only way to overpower the resistance of the organization in refusing to let them meet with their The families’ persistence appears to have had its effects on the residents as well relatives is what they are doing. And it has proved to be since the organization is doing its best, by arranging scattered rallies of trifle numbers in a variety of European countries and as well as the aid of some advocates, to disperses the gathering of the families accusing them to be the agents of the regime and branding them with other names. However, the letters of the families addressed to a variety of humanitarian and peace-seeker organization has left no doubt that they are really families concerned about the destiny of their children.

The families’ persistence appears to have had its effects on the residents as well. What the organization and its advocates call a Psychological warfare employed against MKO sounds to have acted as a waking bell that has already frustrated the overriding cult influences that has developed a family-phobia in members. The increased number of escapes since the settlement of the families indicates that the victimized are being convinced that the best and most secure opportunity to be freed from their chain of slavery is provided and set before them by the families in front of the camp.

Nothing is known about what is just happening inside of the camp, but the leaders’ desperate reaction and their calls to be supported against the peaceful picketing of the families that has blockaded the easy access and traffic to Ashraf presumes a widespread dissatisfaction among the insiders and a possible revolt. The power achieved over the minds of the insiders through inducing them to accept without question is fading away and replaced by the encouragement of the families many of whom they have come to know by name. When they remind themselves whom the people at the gate are and what has brought them from their cool and secure homes to such a dry and scorching desert with the least essential accommodations, for sure something moves within them even if the families have been demonized by the organization. Although MKO has succeeded, to some degrees, to demonstrate as the only embodiment of reason and reality and a legitimate freedom-fighter to bring about the mind-set in the insiders that their highest value has been to become its members, the long years of living under coercive measures and cult-like procedures has proved different and they are being persuaded that the real angels of salvation are the parents bravely withstanding round-the-clock.

So far, MKO has deprived the insiders of their rights to visit the families and has refused the same demand by the families. It has even announced, by providing forged signatures, that the members whose families are at the gate are not willing to see their parents. This is in turn another evidence that indirectly affirms the identity of the families as who they really are and disapproves the made accusations against them. Of course, if the relevant organizations and bodies the families have appealed to intervene and press to have an interview with the members in a milieu uncontrolled by the organization’s rankings, they will assist not only the families but also the enslaved. Will they take any pain to relieve them both? We hope so.

June 13, 2010 0 comments

Human Rights Abuse in the MEK

Whose right is being violated?

It seems that the four month-long gathering of the families who have been asking to meet with their relatives held in Camp Ashraf has paralyzed the organization as the leaders never anticipated the prolongation of the gathering. The families’ established camp just in front of The families are determined to rescue their enslaved children and relatives from the mouth and claws of the terrorist fiends Ashraf, regardless of the harsh condition they are facing, indicates that they are determined to rescue their enslaved children and relatives from the mouth and claws of the terrorist fiends. But the orchestrated propaganda blitz by MKO appears to have beguiled some unaware world organizations whose only source of information is the organization itself.

Released by MKO’s media, the World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT) has announced its concern about the residents in Camp Ashraf on June 3. In some part it reads “In recent months, its residents have reportedly been subjected to orchestrated harassment carried out jointly by Iraqi authorities and the Iranian regime. Since February 2010, dozens of individuals, purporting to be family members of the residents have been assembled at the Camp’s main gate, where they have been shouting profanities and threatening another violent attack”.

As a globally known terrorist cult that respects no ethics in its political and social demeanor, MKO has a repute of having problem with conventional values and whatever secures the coherence of human relations and hardly one can encounter and hear terms like family, father, mother, wife, husband, son and daughter in its lexicon as they are all dangerous threats to its integrity. While it brainwashes members that they have to sacrifice them all to reach higher goals and to fulfill the organization’s greater aimed causes, it offers no answer to the question that what is the good of a human society totally devoid of love, passion, attachment and whatever human values that differentiate him from animals.

The mere chanted slogans of defending women’s right, although it is another ploy to be recognized a pro-democratic campaigner, does not signify that it believes in what it chants. What are really the rights of women it tries to defend? Is it their right to be deprived of the greatest responsibility the nature has endowed them? What happens to the world if there are organizations like MKO that just consumes the young males of a generation? Even Adolf Hitler that sent millions of people to their death did not ignore women and the pivotal role they play to preserve man’s race: “The sacrifices which the man makes in the struggle of his nation, the woman makes in the preservation of that nation. What the man gives in courage on the battlefield, the woman gives in eternal self-sacrifice, in eternal pain and suffering. Every child that a woman brings into the world is a battle, a battle waged for the existence of her people”. And what has been the reaction of the leaders and some certain organization and advocates of MKO to the cries of the mothers gathered before the gates of Ashraf demanding to see the ones they have brought into the life? It is not so hard a task to identify if the gathered “individuals” are “purporting to be family members of the residents”.

The families are doing what they have to as their duty towards their children, but more has to be done. It is also a responsibility on the concerned humanitarian organizations that are watching the predicament surrounding the families, a number of whom are old, in front of Ashraf. Their only demand is to be granted their rights, the heavenly endowed rights that men have arrogated.

June 10, 2010 0 comments

Former members of the MEK

Shahab Husseini escaped Camp Ashraf

Families vow to stop the use of their children as Rajavi’s human torches

On Saturday 5 June Shahab Husseini son of Mohammad Hussein born in Tehran, escaped from Camp Ashraf. Shahob Husseini had been with the Mojahedin-e Khalq for twenty four years. Since the Government of Iraq took responsibility for the camp in 2009, a steady stream of MKO members have successfully managed to overcome the immense difficulties imposed on them by the cult leaders and have managed to leave.

Two days earlier the families encamped outside Camp Ashraf waiting for news of their children celebrated Iranian Mothers’ Day. The fact they are separated from not only their long-lost children who are being held hostage inside the camp by MKO leader Massoud Rajavi, but are also far away from their other family members back home, did not deter them from having a good time. They remain cheerful and optimistic. They will succeed eventually in their aims.

The families have warned Rajavi and his Western backers that they will not allow their children to be used as human sacrifices as other MKO members have in the past. Pictures of the self-immolations ordered after the arrest in Paris in 2003 of Maryam Rajavi were raised above the gates of Camp Ashraf to remind the world of the crimes of the Rajavi cult against their own members.

To view the photos click here

June 7, 2010 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization members' families

Families of Mojahedin Khalq captives at gates of Camp Ashraf remain cheerful

Families of Mojahedin Khalq captives at gates of Camp Ashraf remain cheerful and optimistic

Charkh bar ham zanam ar gheire moradam gardad

For the past four months the families have been asking to meet with their relatives who remain captive inside the camp. The families have established a small camp of their own to out-wait the Mojahedin’s stubborn refusal to comply with their simple request.

The families are cheerful and optimistic. They are being encouraged and facilitated by the Iraqi authorities, who also want the Mojahedin to comply with demands of the Iraqi Government.

The Mojahedin have accused these families of being ‘agents of the Iranian Intelligence Ministry’ who have come to kill them. Rajavi has indoctrinated his followers with fear and loathing of their own mothers and fathers.

Of course, the work of dissolving a mind-control cult is not easy. Cult experts would agree that the two groups of people who most threaten the leaders’ control over members’ minds are the ex-members and the families of current members. This is no different in the case of the Mojahedin-e Khalq. Having been pushed into a corner by the revelations of the ex-members, the cult now faces the absolute determination of these families to achieve their aim. The families will stay at Camp Ashraf until they have freed their children.

May 31, 2010 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization members' families

Picketing families in front of Camp Ashraf appeal to the Red Cross

International Committee of Red Cross (ICRC)

Dear Sir/Madam

With respect,
We the families of the people taken hostage inside Ashraf Garrison have been picketing outside the gates of the camp for the last four months in a bid to have free and unfettered access to our children. Unfortunately, the leaders of Mojahedin Khalq do not cooperate in any way and resist allowing us to meet our children. They have now started issuing false claims in the Iraqi and international media claiming that we are a threat to their security and that we mean to harm our own children! This is absurd. Would sick and elderly mothers and desperate pensioner fathers or brothers and sisters who are worried about their siblings have any bad intention against their own loved ones?
We only want to meet our children in a free environment and ask them about their situation and perhaps be of some comfort to their deep wounds.
Anyone who has a child may understand the pain and suffering of the people in both sides of this garrison.
Dear Sir/Madam,

Do you know that many of these captives are POWs from the time of Iran-Iraq war who have been literally sold by Saddam to this organisation? Do you know that many of these captives have been deceived and brought against their will to this Dark Ages garrison? Do you know what has happened to the innocent children in this organisation when they forced them to leave their parents and have been brought up in other countries and now have been transferred back to the camp? Do you know that many are seriously ill and don’t you think it is better for them to get medical help through their families now? Do you know that some of these detainees have suffered some kind of imprisonment for about 30 years? Whether Saddam’s prisons like Abu Ghraib prison or the prisons inside camp Ashraf? Do you know some have not even had telephone contact with their families for the last twenty odd years? And do you know that some of the families did not even know that their children are alive until now that they have found out that their loved ones were not allowed to contact them? These are some examples of the suffering which needs much more than a letter to explain.

We are begging your humanitarian organisation to help us visit our loved ones outside this garrison so that some fathers who have been now abandoned by doctors (having not got a long time to live) could see their children for the last time.

May God help you, us and our long suffering children.

Families picketing in front of Camp Ashraf, Iraq, May30, 2010
original letter (persian):

Picketing families in front of Camp Ashraf appeal to the Red Cross

May 31, 2010 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization members' families

Al adala reports on appeal of families at Camp Ashraf

… Iranian families who have been picketing in front of the military base Ashraf – home to the Mojahedin Khalq organisation in Diyala province – for the last 4 months, asked Christopher Hill, the US ambassador in Baghdad, for his help in negotiating with the Mojahedin-e Khalq Organisation (aka Rajavi cult, MEK, MKO, PMOI, NCRI) to give visiting rights to the detainees in Camp Ashraf …

Iraqi media reports on appeal of families at Camp Ashraf

Al adala, Baghdad, May 29, 2010

May 31, 2010 0 comments

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