Families of the MEK hostages denied of their rights

Mujahedin Khalq Organization members' families

MKO deprived families from visiting their beloveds

After ten days of a stand-off, a small group of Iranian families have staged a sit-in outside the gates of Camp Ashraf in Diyala province in Iraq. The families’ simple, straightforward and only demand is that they be able to meet with their relatives who are trapped inside the camp. Camp Ashraf still houses around 3500 members of the terrorist Mojahedin-e Khalq organisation which the Government of Iraq plans to remove from the country.

From the start, Iraqi security forces who guard Camp Ashraf would not allow the families to enter the camp because they could not guarantee their safety. Instead, the Iraqis told the MKO to release the handful of individuals concerned to meet with their families before returning to the camp.

So far the Mojahedin leaders are not cooperating. The MKO’s immediate reaction to the family visits was to state that “agents of the clerical regime’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security are being dispatched to Camp Ashraf under the cover of family members of Ashraf residents, the Iraqi committee responsible for suppression of the residents, under the instructions of Nouri al-Maliki, has intensified cruel and inhumane siege on Ashraf”.

Download MKO deprived families from visiting their beloveds

February 24, 2010 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization members' families

Mojahedin Khalq refuses family visits

Iraqis urged to help relatives outside Camp Ashraf

After ten days of a stand-off, a small group of Iranian families have staged a sit-in outside the

After ten days of a stand-off, a small group of Iranian families have staged a sit-in outside the gates of Camp Ashraf in Diyala province in Iraq

gates of Camp Ashraf in Diyala province in Iraq. The families’ simple, straightforward and only demand is that they be able to meet with their relatives who are trapped inside the camp. Camp Ashraf still houses around 3500 members of the terrorist Mojahedin-e Khalq organisation which the Government of Iraq plans to remove from the country. From the start, Iraqi security forces who guard Camp Ashraf would not allow the families to enter the camp because they could not guarantee their safety. Instead, the Iraqis told the MKO to release the handful of individuals concerned to meet with their families before returning to the camp.

A quote from Massoud Rajavi stated that members were not allowed to visit with their families even if an MKO minder was present.

The MKO’s advocates in Britain and America also joined the fray and demanded of their respective governments to intervene to stop the Iraqis harassing them and to ‘protect the human rights of Camp Ashraf’s residents’. But, in all these cries for help, no mention was made that it was the MKO leaders who were not allowing the members to leave the camp and visit with their families outside the camp.

Although responsibility for Camp Ashraf was transferred to the Government of Iraq on January 1 2009, America still maintains a unit of 25 soldiers inside the camp to protect the MKO – which is on the US terrorism list. However, in this latest episode of family visits, the Americans refused to challenge Iraqi jurisdiction. Iraqi soldiers have not allowed the families to go inside the camp, but nor have they attempted to prevent their sit-in.

Finally, two days ago on the 19th February, the MKO admitted in their website Iran Efshaa’gar that

“up until now we didn’t want to make a fuss. We believed that if we avoided any publicity or confrontation, the MKO would co-operate out of humanity. Now we have stayed a week and they don’t let us visit so we will sit here until we find out what happened to our children. We demand that Iraqis do something to help us.”

the families and not ‘agents of the Iranian regime’ were the real problem and that the MKO itself was refusing to let the members have contact with their families.

A quote from Massoud Rajavi stated that members were not allowed to visit with their families even if an MKO minder was present. This is a new development. In previous attempts to have family visits, the MKO would not allow members out because of the fear they would run away. Now, the leaders have ruled that families are not even allowed to come inside the camp under supervision.

One of the relatives waiting outside Camp Ashraf told Iran-Interlink’s representative in Baghdad, “up until now we didn’t want to make a fuss. We believed that if we avoided any publicity or confrontation, the MKO would co-operate out of humanity. Now we have stayed a week and they don’t let us visit so we will sit here until we find out what happened to our children. We demand that Iraqis do something to help us.”

The simple demand of these families is to know if their relatives inside Camp Ashraf are alive or dead, healthy or ill; in what state are they living if they are not allowed to visit their mothers or fathers.

Ultimately, the MKO leaders have no legal jurisdiction over Camp Ashraf or its residents. It is the Americans who still have 25 soldiers inside camp to protect them and the Government of Iraqi who are responsible to answer these families concerns. The families have begun meeting with human rights groups and journalists to explain their dilemma. With all the problems which Iraq faces, it is hoped that the Government will be able quickly to resolve this minor situation to the satisfaction of all the responsible parties.

February 22, 2010 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization members' families

Iranian families sit-in outside Camp Ashraf

The MKO’s immediate reaction to the family visits was to state that “agents of the clerical regime’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security are being dispatched to Camp Ashraf under the cover of family members of Ashraf residents…

A quote from Massoud Rajavi stated that members were not allowed to visit with their families even if an MKO minder was present. Mojahedin Khalq refuses family visits

February 22, 2010 0 comments

Former members of the MEK

On the return of Mr. Mahmoud Dashtestani

On Monday, January 18, 2010, Nejat Society Shiraz Branch proudly received another defector of Rajavi’s destructive cult.

Mr. Mahmoud Dashtestani succeeded to release himself from the bars of Rajavis’ Cult and returned to his homeland and joined his family.

Mr. Dashtestani became prisoner of war in 1980 during Iran- Iraq War. In 1989 Mujahedin deceived Mr. Dasahtestani into recruiting him and sent him to Camp Ashraf, Iraq. He had been a member of the so called National Liberation Army for about 20 years.

January 21, 2010 0 comments

Duplicity of the MEK nature

What MKO leaders fear?

Any individual, group or organization that is not approved by MKO leader, would be considered as the “agent, spy or mercenary “of Islamic Republic, according to MKO’s dialectic; anyone who criticizes MKO’s ideology and activities, is demonized as the most atrocious enemy, by the organization’s propaganda system.

MKO uses the terms like democracy and human rights as tools to crush those who believe in other ideologies than that of MKO. However, the news of families’ visit to Ashraf where their children are captivated by MKOand MKO leaders do not allow them to meet their beloved ones, exactly represents the contradictory behavior of Rajavi’s cult toward human rights. The families who are now awaiting at Camp Ashraf gate, on hunger strike, have not seen their children for more than twenty years. The reason for this anticipation is the same old excuse:”families are gathered by IRI’s agents and sent to Iraq.”

Given that the families are sent by IRI, it is not even fair to deprive some elderly parents who have not been able to contact their children by phone for long years, from visiting them. What kind of human rights do MKO leaders believe in?

At the time of Iraqi dictator, Saddam Hussein who was MKO’s land lord, Massoud Rajavi ordered to stop all family relationships under the title of “Ideological Revolution”. The parents were separated from their kids; the couples were forced to divorce …

After the fall of Saddam Hussein, the way was paved for families in Iran to come to Ashraf. They could pass various obstacles in the occupied, critical Iraqi territory in order to be able to visit their children for a few hours. The visits were definitely a heavy coup for the organization because the process of defection was accelerated since then. Thus Maryam Rajavi issued her order from her base in Auver Sur d’Oise, Paris to stop the families visiting Ashraf residents.

She didn’t hesitate to say:

– Do not accept to visit your family, if they come to Ashraf.
– If you were forced to visit them, you should face them in a way that they would understand you were not happy with visiting them. If needed, you should slap them.
– Never accept a family visiting for a second time …

Having seen the outcome of family visits at Ashraf, Maryam Rajavi is terrified of further visits, she is well aware that family visits revive the feelings and emotions among captured residents of Camp Ashraf. The visits create new questions in residents’ minds on why they are in the organization.

The family visits will spark a light in the hearts of Ashraf captives and make them distanced from the cult of Rajavi and this is what the cult leaders panic.

By Mazda Parsi

November 12, 2009 0 comments

MEK Camp Ashraf

Tensions in Iranian Exile Camp Ashraf in Iraq

CAMP ASHRAF, Iraq — There seems, as with many problems in Iraq, no good answer for Camp Ashraf, as tensions here rise and American soldiers get closer to leaving: what to do with the few thousand Iranian dissidents here trained in explosives and proficient with tanks and machine guns who have sworn to overthrow the government in Tehran?

(Giti Zardestian, with a portrait of her son, and Reza Nawrozi, right, both from Iran, said that they had been waiting nine days to see relatives at Camp Ashraf)

The group that lives here, the People’s Mujahedeen, has had a long and winding history. It killed Americans, supported the takeover of the United States Embassy in Iran during the 1970s and was given sanctuary in Iraq by Saddam Hussein. But after the American invasion of Iraq in 2003, the group was protected by the United States after supplying information about Iran’s nuclear program. Still, the United States regards it as a terrorist organization.

The Iraqi government, allied with the group’s enemy, Iran, is now losing patience: In July, the Iraqi Army launched a raid on the camp with the purpose of establishing a police station there. Police officers and soldiers opened fire and ran over people with military vehicles, killing 11 and wounding more than 500. The government wants to throw the group out of Iraq.

“That’s our goal, to get them out of the country,” Ali al-Alak, an adviser to Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, said in a recent interview. “We have enough to worry about.”

A standoff has been in place since the deaths in July, though both Iraqis and members of Camp Ashraf worry about a new round of violence if a solution is not found soon.

Among other complaints, members of the camp say that the Iraqi Army intermittently blocks fuel and food from reaching them and prevents them from coming and going.
Iraq has prohibited news organizations and most humanitarian groups from entering Camp Ashraf since the July raid, but the government allowed a reporter and photographer inside the camp last week to interview its members and their relatives.

During the visit, the tension between the group and Iraqi security forces was conspicuous. The Iraqi police and army units said they generally stayed in a police station set up after the raid and had little contact with the camp for fear of being attacked.

Large sections of the 14-square-mile camp were patrolled by unarmed camp members. United States soldiers were also seen at the camp.

While Ashraf’s residents said that Iraqi forces had been doing the bidding of Iran, Iraqi Army officers described the members of the People’s Mujahedeen as being in a cultlike thrall to their leaders, too frightened to leave or to speak to Iraqi police officers and soldiers.

“It is not a civil society,” said Col. Saadi Habib al-Duleimi, who oversees the camp. “It is a complex political-military system. Personal opinion is not important. Decisions are not up to the individual. If a leader at the camp tells you to die, you will die.”

The camp resembles a small military town — only neater. It has an artificial lake, sports fields, a shopping mall, a hospital and rows of poplars. Some structures, including a mosque, are replicas of buildings in Iran.

In one of Ashraf’s parks there is a set of large swings but not a child in sight. Camp leaders say the children were moved out years ago because of the military nature of the group, which in the past has launched attacks into Iran, has assassinated Iranian officials and has come under fire from Iranian rockets.

Since the raid, the camp has been in limbo.

The United Nations and Iraq have been seeking countries willing to accept Ashraf’s residents, but they have had a difficult time persuading governments. Most residents say being returned to Iran, where most of them have citizenship, is out of the question because they would be executed.

But residents also say that life at the camp since the raid has become intolerable.

“The situation has deteriorated; people are in a constant worry,” said Hossein Moradi, 46, an electrical engineer who has lived in the camp for 22 years. “We need a guarantee that Ashraf will not be attacked again.”

In a recent statement, the United Nations said that “efforts are now needed on all sides to reduce tension and look for solutions,” calling on “the international community to provide all possible assistance in this regard, including resettlement to third countries.”

During the visit to Ashraf, a group of families had been waiting for days outside the camp’s gates to see relatives. The Iraqi Army would not allow them, and the residents refused to go to the camp’s entrance.

The accounts of the family and of the camp members were remarkable in their dissimilarity: While the relatives said their loved ones had been kidnapped or tricked into joining, Ashraf residents said they were there willingly.

Nisreen Lufti Zada, 60, said she had been waiting at the camp for nine days to visit her daughter, Susan Banihashimi, 45. “She had nothing to do with politics or activities against the Iranian government,” Mrs. Zada said. “I have no idea why she came here.”

During a visit five years ago, she said, her daughter “had been afraid of everything — even the walls around her.”

But on this day, Ms. Banihashimi was a picture of poise. Some of her responses, as well as those of other Ashraf residents, sounded mechanical. “I voluntarily left Iran,” Ms. Banihashimi said. “I was on the verge of being executed because of my activities.”

Asked why she had refused to see her mother, Ms. Banihashimi said her mother had been compelled by the Iranian intelligence service to come so it would appear that Ms. Banihashimi was being held against her will.

“It is better I don’t see her, although I would love to see her, because then the Iranian regime would then put even more pressure on her,” she said.

Mrs. Zada had said that her daughter had been gang raped by Ashraf leaders and that similar acts happened to other women there. But Ms. Banihashimi said no such thing had happened.

“Their allegations are not new,” she said. “It is one of the dirty plots of the Iranian regime to try to break the will of women.”

Two days later, mother and daughter met, but Ms. Banihashimi said the reunion had been tense.

“Once she realized I wasn’t ready to come back, she insulted me and slapped me in the face,” she said. They did not decide on whether to meet again.

Reporting was contributed by Riyadh Mohammed and Mohammed Hussein from Baghdad, and Sa’ad Izzi and an Iraqi employee of The New York Times from Diyala Province.

TIMOTHY WILLIAMS

November 11, 2009 0 comments

Human Rights Abuse in the MEK

Fear and Slavery in the Mojahedin-e Khalq cult

Foreword

The families in Iraq announced on Friday 6th that they had finally been able to meet with their relatives, but were far from satisfied with the circumstances. They said that when the MKO PMOI leaders’ hysteria over eight family members knocking at the camp gate asking to see their relatives leaders discovered that they were coming to the camp accompanied by several Iraqi and American reporters, they accepted to negotiate. The MKO agreed that the families could meet with their relatives for a few hours on condition that they do not talk to the media. The families accepted and held meetings.

However the families also said that their loved ones told them not to pursue the issue any further and said they must cut all further contact with them otherwise they will come under severe pressure from the cult leaders.

The families have now decided to pursue the issue of the camp with the Human Rights Ministry of Iraq in private.

* * *
Fear and Slavery in the Mojahedin-e Khalq cult

For those still interested enough to follow the dwindling fortunes of the foreign terrorist cult, Mojahedin-e Khalq, isn’t there something faintly ludicrous in the group’s desperate denunciation of anyone and everyone who does not fall on their side of a red line, drawn excruciatingly tightly around the organisation and its backers, as “agents of the Iranian Intelligence Ministry”? Is it really a case of ‘us few against the rest of the world’?

An examination of the current crisis the MKO is facing reveals that it is not involved in a pitched battle to overthrow the Iranian regime – or has that aim been abandoned without them telling anyone – but the arrival at the doors of its camp in Iraq of eight elderly Iranian folk seeking contact with close relatives – sons, daughters, husbands –inside the camp, who they have not seen for many, many years and with whom they wish to meet. All eight have been denounced by the MKO leaders as “agents of the Iranian secret services” who have been deliberately sent to dismantle the camp and take its residents back to Iran.

Really?

These eight – and the other small groups and individuals who have arrived at the camp over the past six years – are terrifying agents capable of destroying Rajavi’s dedicated, self-sacrificing, totally committed force of Mojaheds? Surprising then that they have not come armed with dynamite and bulldozers, but instead come with kindness, warmth and words filled with both love and sorrow. They come with news and messages from family and friends, about births, deaths, marriages and all the little minutiae of ordinary life.

How interesting. How revealing. What a sad admission of the fragility and nihilism of the Rajavi cult that they are truly terrified by this.

Are we to believe that Iran’s “main opposition” – to quote its own self-publicity – which purports to be able to overthrow the Iranian regime in its entirety and establish a democracy in its place, is full of individuals terrified that their Mum or Dad will come along and pull their ear and make them go home? (And we must not forget that these are individuals with an average age of around 50 years.) Is it really that easy to turn a dedicated individual away from their struggle?

Isn’t the only rational interpretation of the MKO’s current hysteria that Massoud and Maryam Rajavi can only keep hold of their followers through deception and coercion and that the visit of these families will threaten to undermine that.

The fundamental, unavoidable fact behind all this is that the MKO is a dangerous, destructive mind control cult which holds its members in a state of modern slavery.

And the significance of this is far greater than the story of these eight families and involves the geopolitical future of Iraq and the region.

In brief, the MKO is described as a dangerous cult because it believes in using violence to achieve its stated aims. It is destructive because it destroys the lives, minds and spirits of its membership. The majority of the members are held incommunicado, with no access at all to the outside world. Within this isolation they are subjected to a systematic daily regime of psychological manipulation and coercion.

One of the most potent tools used by cult leaders to control their members is through the inculcation of irrational fears, or phobias, in the minds of cult members. Every cult has its own version of phobia. But all will be focused on creating an irrational fear in a cult member of critics and opponents of the cult, especially former members and family members; who of course are best placed to understand the cult mindset and be able to penetrate it. The member will become fearful anytime the phobia is activated. In the case of the MKO, the ‘code’ which activates the phobia is the tag ‘agent of the Iranian Intelligence Ministry’. No empirical evidence is required as the phrase works exactly to arouse irrational, not real, fear.

Members of the MKO live in a state of almost perpetual fear. It is through fear that the MKO not only enthrals its members but deceives uninformed politicians and media persons. The use of the word terror in this article is not for the sake of exaggeration. It describes the employment of irrational fears to ‘terrorise’ the subject. Western parliaments, media and humanitarian agencies are being ‘terrorised’ by a sophisticated campaign of psychological manipulation in which MKO lobbyists arouse a subtle level of irrational fear of spurious, deceptive spectres (usually these will be tagged ‘agents of the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence’) facing the “main Iranian opposition movement”, the MKO.

Ironically this unarmed ‘terrorist’ campaign is waged by the MKO to avoid exposure and activation of the real existential threat hanging over the group. This threat does not come from outside agencies, but arises directly from the cult nature of the organisation itself; hence the MKO leaders’ hysteria over eight family members knocking at the camp gate asking to see their relatives.

But, those still interested enough to keep on following the dwindling fortunes of the foreign terrorist cult Mojahedin-e Khalq, will already know that this is not the whole story. Not even the real story. And those who may squirm at seeing see the emperor’s nakedness should look away now.

For six years the American Army provided protection for the MKO in Iraq, a group which both the U.S. and Iraq designate as a foreign terrorist entity. The RAND National Defense Research Institute report ‘The Mujahedin-e Khalq in Iraq – A Policy Conundrum’ published in August 2009 describes the U.S.’ failure to deal decisively with the group; to dismantle it as should have happened, as successive Iraqi governments since December 2003 required should happen.

According to the report, “Approximately 14 U.S. soldiers were killed and 60 wounded as they provided security for convoys escorting MeK [MKO] members to Baghdad to purchase supplies.

Thus, it was often unclear just who was in charge of Camp Ashraf”. According to the report, the order to protect this useful little mercenary terrorist cult came from the very top, from former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

Why?

Just as the MKO leaders denied families access to their relatives inside the camp, the firmly closed doors of the camp against this existential threat proved an extremely convenient location to reassemble members of the former Saddam Hussein’s regime. Over six years the MKO has played host to supporters and officials of the former Iraqi dictator’s regime. Insurgent violence in the Diyala province has been coordinated from the MKO camp under U.S. protection.

So, when eight family members arrive at the gates of the MKO camp, it is not only the MKO leaders who fear the existential threat to the cult, but the group’s western backers. For over two decades, the Mojahedin-e Khalq has been promoted by western interests as Saddam Hussein’s private army. Since 2003, the group’s Zionist and neoconservative backers, fronted by Lord Corbett in the U.K., Straun Stevenson and Alejo Vidal-Quadras in the European Parliament, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen in the U.S. Congress, and U.S. lobbyist Raymond Tanter, have not been supporting the MKO for humanitarian reasons (otherwise they would surely support these family visits). They are protecting and promoting the group as a proxy for reintroducing Saddamists into Iraqi politics.

Those terrorised into believing they support the MKO for humanitarian reasons to protect them from destruction by the Government of Iran need to summon a little energy and a little courage to look beyond this false, superficial reasoning and really examine the facts. In doing so they will be faced with a stark choice: support the MKO as a proxy for the re-emergence of pro-western Saddamists in Iraq, or support the elected Government of Iraq as an independent, sovereign government.

That is clearly a political choice. But in the meantime, remember, the real victims of the MKO’s terrorism are the cult’s own members who are enslaved by fear.

November 8, 2009 0 comments

Human Rights Abuse in the MEK

Why is Rajavi afraid of the aged meeting with their children?

According to the news coming from Camp Ashraf in Iraq, Leaders of Molahedin Khalq Organization (MKO) have refused to allow the reunions of Iranian families coming from Iran to meet with their children. It happened while the visits were to be conducted under the auspice of the international and human rights defender organizations as a humanitarian initiative that could well pave the way for the freedom of the residents of the camp.

The banning is an explicit violation of the rights by the leaders and particularly by Maryam and Masoud Rajavi who are enthusiastically these days advertizing to be its defender and indicates Leaders of Molahedin Khalq Organization (MKO) have refused to allow the reunions of Iranian families that the leaders believe in the observation of human rights only as a political lever to delude public opinion and the advocates in the West to advance the organizational ends. Besides, there are other facts held responsible for the inhuman deed that needs to be considered in details.

1. It seems that the responsible officials in Camp Ashraf are justifying their deed by putting the blame all on Iranian regime of having intrigued against the Camp Ashraf. Suppose they are right, but can anybody doubt the pure feelings and emotions of the families who had suffered the pains of a long journey just to be disappointed to visit the loved ones they had longed to see? Naturally, families who care about their children and are eager to see them assent to the demands and surveillance of the Islamic Republic through the course of a journey arranged to reunion them with their beloved ones. Looking at it from this angle, it is in no way justifiable to deprive them of a most primal human right.

2. Furthermore, majority of these visitors are mostly aged, weak and some crippled father and mothers that need help of others rather than be the agents for others. Suppose there are agents amongst them, is not it possible to single out old fathers and mothers or sisters and brothers to grant them a last opportunity to see their beloved before they meet their death? How disappointing as there have been many parents who hit their last days failing to meet their children because of the ambitions of the organization’s leaders with the Rajavis at the head.

3. Above all, what all these claims mean when the meetings are run under the auspices of the majority of these visitors are mostly aged, weak and some crippled father and mothers that need help of others rather than be the agents for others International Committee of the Red Cross and international human rights organization. A point to notice, the organization has repeatedly asserted that all the attempts of the Islamic Republic during the past years to abuse the emotions of the members’ families to agitate and perturb the Camp Ashraf had proved unproductive. But the assertions also prove that the organization’s manipulated cultic approaches have influentially acted beyond familial bonds and attachments. What is the organization really concerned about and what is possibly disturbing the leaders?

4. It happens just following the president elections in Iran during which Mojahedin advertised the presence of a strongly built bridge between Ashraf and the uprising Iranian mob. So confident were Mojahedin in their claims that they announced their readiness to return to Iran to join the uprising Iranians. Naturally, any visitor from Iran could be a precious opportunity to establish a direct contact with families as members of a greater society and whose children are on the frontline of the struggle. Why are the leaders of Ashraf banning such a direct contact that, according to Rajavi’s analysis, will in the first place avail the organization of the opportunity?

However, they know well that none of such fraudulent claims but the visits of the families may play any effective role in the destiny of the camp residents kept in limbo. Subsequently, the leaders prefer not to risk anything since they believe the consequences of the banning is much easier to handle than undergoing irreparable damage that the visits will possibly impose.

5. Although an ongoing process after the fall of Saddam, the banning of visits and contacts between the members and their families, belonging to the outside world, has become an organizational decree in force so far implemented. Simultaneous with Iran’s post-election events that forced Rajavi into a strategic retreat in contrast to his previous daring position takings, the leaders of Ashraf are well aware of the fact that any visitor from Iran can broaden the vision of the members against the baseless claims of the imminent collapse of the regime. If Rajavi really believes in his analyses of inside Iran and accepts to return to Iran on any cause, naturally he has to be convinced that the return of Ashraf residents have to be motivated and persuaded enough.

6. Regardless of all, the refusal of the officials of the organization to allow families to meet with members of the organization indicates that the control of Camp Ashraf is still in the hands of the organization itself. It is actually in total contradiction with Mojahedin’s vociferated ado that American forces have completely surrendered the control of Ashraf to Iraqi Government that is fully exerting its influence on the camp.

November 7, 2009 0 comments

Human Rights Abuse in the MEK

MKO leaders refused to let Iranian families meet their children in Camp Ashraf

Despite the humanitarian efforts of the Iraqi Government, MKO leaders refused to let Iranian families meet their children in Camp Ashraf

Leaders of the Organization refused to allow the reunions of Iranian families coming from Iran to Iraq to meet with their children who are members of the organization in Camp Ashraf, although they have undergone long separations.

This news came during a visit by a number of Iranian families with the consent and support of the Iraqi government to Camp Ashraf in Diyala province on Saturday to meet their children who are from the organization’s members. The families were disappointed when officials of the organization refused to allow them to meet with members of the organization for fear that these members will leave and return to their homeland and their families.

For its part, the Government of Iraq has asked the American side and a delegation from the United Nations and International Committee of the Red Cross and international human rights organization to hold direct negotiations with the leaders of the organization for continued long hours to convince them of the need to deal with this situation in a humane and approved way and for the Iranian families to meet with their children instead of the organisation publishing statements which accuse the Iraqi government of violating human rights laws.

Ultimately the negotiations failed as a result of the absolute rejection by the leaders of the organization of this humanitarian initiative. To achieve their aims the families have begun a sit-in at Camp Ashraf to demand that the Iraqi government and international community intervene to pressure the leaders of the organization in Camp Ashraf to give their children complete freedom to make personal decisions in response to their emotions and their sentiments.

Meanwhile the Iranian families stressed the amount of suffering and pain they face at the moment and over the years as a result separation from their children. The families said that the main objective of the existence of Iranian families in Iraq is to help their children and return them to Iran to live with us in peace.

Translated by Iran Interlink

November 5, 2009 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization members' families

Families on hunger strike to protest American support for MKO terrorist group

Families on hunger strike to protest American support for terrorist group which holds their loved ones hostage ..American Army established a check point to prevent families release their loved ones from a terrorist cult

Iran Interlink update on Camp Ashraf

Al Khalis, Iraq, November 04, 2009 – Eight families (named below) travelled to Iraq from Iran this week to find and meet with their relatives who are trapped in a terrorist cult. Once again American soldiers, apparently acting as lackeys for the MKO leaders in Camp Ashraf, have blocked all attempts of these families to meet their loved ones.

Efforts by the Iraqi authorities, U.N. representatives, the ICRC and others to facilitate the humanitarian move have been blocked by the Americans.

Although Iraqi police have established a base inside Camp Ashraf in an effort to enforce Iraqi law among the residents there, the American soldiers have established a further buffer checkpoint which effectively prevents them from carrying out this duty.

Families who arrived at the camp on Saturday 31 October were able to pass through the Iraqi checkpoints to the camp, but were blocked at the final checkpoint which is manned by U.S. military personnel.

The families are now staying at the first check point and an Iraqi officer is acting as liaison between them and the camp. The US army is apparently resisting the requests of the families and insists that the Iraqis should ask permission from the MKO leaders to let families see their loved ones. The MKO is not only an illegal foreign terrorist group in Iraq but has since 1997 been on the U.S. terrorism list.

The families are living in temporary container units. They say they are grateful to the Iraqi military for accommodating them at the first check point and providing security as well as attempting to organise meetings between the families and their loved ones. It is now four days that the families are living in the military check point with the obvious lack of facilities.

From November 2 the families began a hunger strike. They demand that the Iraqi government as the only responsible body in Iraq must take charge and allow the freedom of their children.

The Iraqi government’s attempts to dismantle the terrorist camp and release the victims has been facing strong resistance from the Israeli lobby and neocons who support the return of Saddamists to Iraq. The Mojahedin Khalq Organisation has acted as their proxy in Iraq with Camp Ashraf being used as the base for gathering and coordinating the Saddamists after the American Invasion of Iraq in 2003. By order of the Pentagon, the camp was protected and held together by the U.S. until their retreat in 2008. Americans left a unit at the camp to make sure the terrorist HQ is not dismantled by the new Iraqi government.

The MKO leaders, with the backing of the U.S. army, refuse to accept families meeting their children. They say the families are “agents of the Iranian secret services” and have refused even to hand over the letters the families have written to their children.

Names of the families currently visiting Camp Ashraf:

1- Mr. Jahanshir Sassani – looking for his son Mohammad Ali Sassani . Mohammad Ali was a P.O.W. during the time of Saddam’s war with Iran. He was handed over to the MKO during the war in defiance of international law. He has been in Iraq for 21 years. This is Mr. Sassani’s fourth visit to Iraq to try to meet with his son.

2- Mr. Reza Noroozi – looking for his son Abdolmajid Nooozi. Abdolmajid was a P.O.W. during the time of Saddam’s war with Iran. He was handed over to the MKO during the war in defiance of international law. He has been in Iraq for 22 years.

3- Mr. Akbar Moradi Rizi – looking for his brother Hossein Moradi Rizi. Hossien has been in cult isolation for the past 30 years.

4- Mrs. Nasreen Lotfizadeh – looking for her daughter Soosan Banihashemi. Soosan has been in cult isolation for the past 21 years.

5- Mrs. Parvin Saberi – looking for her brother Aghil Saberi. Aghil has been in cult isolation for the past 16 years.

6- Mrs. Giti Zartoshtnia – looking for her son Roozbeh Attaee (aka: Ali Mahdavi). Roozbeh has been in cult isolation for the past 10 years.

7- Mrs. Masoumeh Mahboob – looking for her husband Arzil Dialeh and sons Mohsen and Peyman Dialeh. They have been in cult isolation for the past 7 years.

8- (…)

November 5, 2009 0 comments

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