An Urgent Appeal, for Actions and Initiatives on behalf of Iranians in limbo in Iraq; in Defense of Human Rights and the Right to Asylum … perhaps no story is more tragic than that of the former members of the Iranian Mojahedin Khalq Organization (MKO), who wish to leave their state of limbo in war ravaged Iraq, can not return to Iran and hope for safety, and have not yet managed to gain asylum to any other corner of this earth …
eight survivors of the Rajavi cult, who have managed to get themselves out of Iraq and into Europe, attended a meeting in the US embassy in Paris and presented a letter in support of the people who are left back in Camp Ashraf in Iraq…We are representing people who want to leave Camp Ashraf, individuals like ourselves who are desperate to get out of the MeK as a terrorist organisation. We have now reached the safety of Europe after enduring a difficult struggle to get here. We are disappointed that while American forces did nothing to hinder our eventual freedom, nothing was done in any way to help us get to safety and return to normal life
Recent reports say that the number of those splitting up with the MKO has been on the increase and the terrorist group’s leaders have, thus, tightened up members’ access to the media and information and banned meetings with family members in a bid to reduce the number of defectors through their intensified brainwashing efforts. The number of defectors of the MKO has been on the increase, specially after the 2003 US invasion of Iraq.
… Here we must question the western backers of the Mojahedin, and especially Lord Corbett who likes to present a nice democratic mask, about the situation of this organisation: Is it not true that the leaders of this organization have promised their members that they will pay their airfare if your country gives them asylum? …
Like Batul Soltani and thousands of others, Arash Sametipour could’ve been trapped in Camp Ashraf all these years. He joined the MEK in the 1990s, and in 2001 he was sent from Iraq into Iran to assassinate an Iranian general. The plot failed, he lost his right hand in a grenade explosion and was imprisoned in Iran.
As you know there are more than 3000 members of MKO stationed in Iraq on an isolated location called Camp Ashraf (or Ashraf City as is also known). Here they have been imprisoned since 2003 after the fall of Saddam Hussein.As relations between the governments of Iran and Iraq got better, some attempts were made by families of MKO members in camp Ashraf …
Reported by BBC originally in Persian, a group of Mojahedin-e Khalq’s detached members arrived in France. It is the first of a number of groups that managed to leave Iraq for a Western country. In the past months, groups of separated members have struggled to get to Western countries through neighboring countries
At a press conference in Paris on April 5, 2008, the first series of survivors of the Mojahedin-e Khalq Organisation, aka the Rajavi cult or Saddam’s private army, announced their escape from Camp Ashraf in Iraq and their arrival in Europe. The Mojahedin, which is proscribed as a foreign terrorist entity in the US, UK, EU and Canada, was bombarded and disarmed by the US army
I was acquainted with the Mojahedin-e Khalq Organisation (MKO) in the university. They spoke about freedom and justice and also Islam and recruited me into their organisation. The same year, that is December 1987, I was sent to Iraq for a short visit and I returned back to Turkey. The following year I was asked to go to Turkey for a short visit again and I accepted. But this time my passport was taken away from me and they did not let me go back to Turkey.
Hoshiar Esmail says the biggest mistake of his life was to leave his safe exile in Switzerland and to return to the Mojahedin-e Khalgh (Volksmujahedin). In 1998, he went to Iraq, where the armed Iranian opposition group, equipped with weapons and money from the former Iraqi regime, led the struggle against the mullahs’ regime. But since then the political situation in Iraq has changed fundamentally. The Shiite and Kurdish-dominated government is pursuing a course of rapprochement with the former enemy Iran, which culminated in the recent visit of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.