MKO former members

A growing number of Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO) members are leaving the terrorist group as MKO ringleaders are busy with a compulsory relocation from the Northern Diyala province to a Baghdad camp where they are sheltered transiently before being expelled from Iraq, reports said on Tuesday.

A report by the Persian-language Neday-e Haqiqat (the Voice of Truth) website said that another MKO member took the opportunity provided by the group’s relocation from Camp Ashraf in Northern Iraq to Camp Liberty and escaped on Monday.

Alireza Khamoushi, the ninth MKO member to flee the group in just the last one month, had been imprisoned and tortured before fleeing the camp.

The defected members describe improper psychological conditions and strict cult rules and restrictions as their main reason for fleeing the terrorist group.

Some defected members of the group had earlier unveiled that MKO ringleaders are using every means within their reach, including execution, to prevent the members’ defection from the group.

The defected members revealed that the main ringleader of the group, Maryam Rajavi, issues the execution orders personally and condemns to death all the dissidents who refrain from obeying her orders and all those who plan to defect from the MKO.

According to the report, the MKO ringleaders have prevented the members of the group from meeting their relatives for the last two years in a bid to prevent their defection and escape from the camp.

Also in March 2011, another defected member of the MKO revealed that the female members of the group have been living under captivity for more than 25 years and are not even allowed to appear in public places alone.

"It can be firmly said that 95% of the women in Ashraf Camp (the terrorist group’s resort in Iraq) have not even been allowed to step in Iraq’s public and recreational places alone all throughout the last 25 years," the defected member said.

The former member of the MKO also revealed that nearly 70% of the female members of the terrorist group are single and have not been allowed to marry anyone in or outside the group.

And only a total 10% of the married members have been allowed to have children, he added.

Many of the MKO members abandoned the terrorist organization while most of those still remaining in the camp are said to be willing to quit but are under pressure and torture not to do so.

A May 2005 Human Rights Watch report accused the MKO of running prison camps in Iraq and committing human rights violations.

According to the Human Rights Watch report, the outlawed group puts defectors under torture and jail terms.

Numerous articles and letters posted on the Internet by family members of MKO recruits confirm reports of the horrific abuse that the group inflicts on its own members and the alluring recruitment methods it uses.

The most shocking of such stories includes accounts given by former British MKO member Ann Singleton and Mustafa Mohammadi – the father of an Iranian-Canadian girl who was drawn into the group during an MKO recruitment campaign in Canada.

Mohammadi recounts his desperate efforts to contact his daughter, who disappeared several years ago – a result of what the MKO called a ‘two-month tour’ of Camp Ashraf for teenagers.

He also explains how the group forces the families of its recruits to take part in pro-MKO demonstrations in Western countries by threatening to kill their loved ones.

Lacking a foothold in Iran, the terrorist group recruits ill-informed teens from Iranian immigrant communities in Western states and blocks their departure afterwards.

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

Before an overture by the EU, the MKO was on the European Union’s list of terrorist organizations subject to an EU-wide assets freeze. Yet, the MKO puppet leader, Maryam Rajavi, who has residency in France, regularly visited Brussels and despite the ban enjoyed full freedom in Europe.

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).