Mujahedin Khalq as a Destructive Cult

Breaking borders into insanity

Massoud Khodabandeh is chartered engineer of electronics from Leeds University, UK. While he was studying in Newcastle to gain engineering diploma, joined groups of students opposing the Shah’s regime. In 1978, Mr. Khodabandeh co-founded the Society for Iranian Muslim Students in Newcastle Polytechnic, which included MeK members and sympathizers. He notes that nearly all persons who joined the MeK after the revolution were either pupils or technical students.

“I was first introduced to politics in Iran, but became more interested in the various opposition groups while a student in Newcastle. I joined groups of students opposing the Shah’s regime, and in the last years of my stay in Newcastle became more and more interested in the so-called ‘revolutionary groups’, one of which was the Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization of Iran (MKO).” Massoud Khodabandeh describes that period. “In those days the Mojahedin comprised no more than a group of martyred or imprisoned young people who were [considered] as followers of Ayatollah Khomeini.”

In 1981, Mr. Khodabandeh in Paris joined Massoud Rajavi and the other Mojahedin, who had fled Iran following the MeK failed revolt on June 20. With fluent English and a little French, Massoud Khodabandeh was assigned to a team specifically taking care of Rajavi’s personal affairs. He travelled to Baghdad a few weeks before the arrival of Massoud Rajavi from Paris.

During the years of staying in Iraq, Mr. Khodabandeh participated in many joint projects with the Iraqi army. These included electrical and Telecom training to the Republican Guards of Saddam Hussein. During these years, he also escorted Maryam Rajavi on her holidays to European as well as Arab countries across the world.

Up to 1996, Massoud Khodabandeh was a high ranking commander of the National Liberation Army in charge of the security of the leadership. He was also member of the Executive Committee of the MeK a member of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, the so called political wing of the Mojahedin. On that year, he seceded from the Rajavi’s clult. According to Mr. Khodabandeh, from year before, he was disagree with “un-diplomatic, un-political, and in many cases inhumane conducts” of Rajavis. In 1996, he left the organization to London and presented himself to the British authorities (and later the French authorities. )

Currently, Massoud Khodabandeh is director of Middle East Strategy Consultants and engages in helping the authorities in Iraq to bring about a peaceful solution to the impasse at Camp Liberty and help rescue other victims of the MeK cult.

Maryam Sanjabi of Call of Truth has interviewed Massoud Khodabandeh about untold story of the MeK. What follows is an excerpt of the interview:

• The MeK ideology which is mixture of Marxism and Islam could not hide its contradictions within itself forever. On the other, only a person with abilities, motivations, and psycho complexes of Rajavi could bring the MeK to the current point.

• There would be disputation over causes of this disaster (the MeK), but no one doubts that it is a real disaster. Today, all agree that this group has all the specifications of a cult. But a cult that pretend being an organization.

• “Organization” has distinctive feature, as “cult” has. It is not possible that a group for 30 years has a self-styled leader at the head, and his wife, with repugnant obscenity, calls herself “president”, at the same time has not one page of Statutes, regulations, laws, and methods. Furthermore, which organization every day shifts its policy and strategy and tactics?

• The MeK has all the features of a cult. The Cult Information Center, based in London, provides a definition for cults that most specialists and psychiatrists verify it. It says that a cult or sect is a group that has all five characters below:

1. Apply psychological coercion to recruit, retain and control members.

(In case of Rajavi’s cult, it is enough to refer to brainwashing sessions, ideological revolution, the so-called boiler meetings and daily reports)

2. Constitutes a totalitarian society.

3. The founder or leader is self-appointed, dogmatic, messianic, unpredictable, and charismatic.

4. Believes that “the ends justify the means”.

5. Cult’s wealth does not benefit its members or society.

• Under Saddam, Rajavi used to receive capita per the number of members. The higher the numbers, the more earnings. That is why he gets people into Iraq and keeps them there.

• Since 1382 (2003), more than 1,000 members have defected Rajavi’s gang.

• Out of 210 members who entered Albania, 75 of them upon arrival announced defection and even refused to stay with the others one night.

• Rajavi, best of all, knows that the main threat to his organization neither is IRIG nor is Iraqi army. His threats are those who have been deceived for three decades to work without pay. Masoud and Maryam have repeatedly said that someday one of those people will kill them.

• This week ago in Paris, Maryam Rajavi explicitly ordered physical elimination of survivors and dissidents of the cult…. Rajavis have announced that overthrow of the Islamic Republic requires elimination of critics and dissidents.”

• Preparing food and other daily necessities of Maryam and Masoud Rajavi was at the hand of Hosein Dalili, brother of Bijan Rahimi (Khosro Itelaat). As you know, Hosein Dalili recently died in Iraq due to cancer and Rajavi until the last day refused to send him out.

• Masoud Dalili, senior commander of Rajavi’s escort team, two years ago escaped from the MeK. But they could kidnap him from the Baghdad Hotel, and return to the Camp Ashraf. There, after two years of torture, they killed Dalili and burned his face so maybe the Iraqi forces not discover his identity.

• In meetings with the chief of Iraqi intelligence, Dr. Barak, Rajavi used to obligate me to buy a special Cuban cigar that its maintenance needed to a box made in Cuba that with its special equipment kept constant temperature and humidity. Similarly, when Baghdad was under bombardment of US army, I was required to purchase several dozen types of specific French cheeses for Tariq Aziz who was stationed on the last floor of Rashid Hotel (the site was partially protected from air attack due to the presence of reporters).

• Rajavi is not a normal man. He is a different person and knowing him is a different job. Rajavi’s illness is odd and very dangerous. For myself, I’ve seen different persons at all levels but I dare to say that I’ve never seen anyone like him who has no boundaries in no field except self-preservation. I think that anybody has a boundary that eventually stops over it. Ordinary persons no way can break boundaries into infinity. It requires madness; an exceptional madness that Rajavi has it. He is the only one who still hunts for new boundaries to burst it and be satisfied.

• Maryam Rajavi has another type of madness. But even she is motivated by Masoud. Maryam Rajavi’s pugnacity, tyranny, ignorance and crime are engine by her husband.

March 6, 2014 0 comments

The cult of Rajavi

The MeK New Front: messages, and consequences

Rajavi’s wrecked band goes into the abyss

The MeK New Front: messages, and consequences

Rajavi’s decision to apparent fighting with the dissidents and his entrance to stage of full-scale clash with protestors, whatever the reason, has important messages and consequences. Rajavi's wrecked band goes into the abyss

The most important message of Rajavi’s recent move is that despite the continuous efforts of his cult members for demonization of dissidents as poltroons and deserters, their revelations about Rajavi’s character and true nature of relationships in the MeK has had the desired effect. Dissidents’ disclosure has so shaken the pillars of Rajavi’s organization and challenged his fantasy grandeur that he has no choice but declaring fight against them.

In this regard, Rajavi has said openly: "By early 1392 (Persian Calendar), the regime has spent millions of dollars to employ mercenaries and political underdogs in order to scheme against the Mujahideen, the National Council of Resistance, and, especially, Mr. Massoud Rajavi, the MeK Leadership."

The fact is, In addition to the slander and character assassination of dissidents, Rajavi remnants were attempting to trade with anyone who has seceded from the group in order to silence him by allure and despite their relative achievement in previous years, Rajavi’s new approach reveals that the MeK has failed in this field, too.

The new statement of MeK’s leadership and the meeting they held recently indicates that the terrorist group has no choice but to fight against dissidents physically. Undoubtedly any adventure in this field will have immediate consequences for security of the MeK. Actually, any thuggish action in western countries is intolerable and they will be faced with overwhelming response!

This statement once again reveals that the MeK which one day used to claim overthrow of Iranian government, now is involved in internal conflicts and his main concern is survival of his organization at any price.

February 23, 2014 0 comments

Duplicity of the MEK nature

The MKO’s double standards over democracy and terrorism

Over the past weeks the Iranian society have been concerned over two different issues: The kidnapping of five Iranian border guards by Jaish-ul-Adl terrorist group and the alleged offensive dialogue in the TV serial that caused complaint of the Iranian Bakhtiari tribe. Departed from the authentic Iranian community, the Mujahedin Khalq Organization (the MKO) has taken a much different approach regarding these two facts.

The Sunni terrorist group Jaish ul-Adl of Iran (“Army of Justice of Iran”), the apparent successor to Jundullah, took responsibility for abducting the Iranian soldiers. Reportedly, the Takfiri group confirmed on its twitter account that it has kidnapped them. While the Iranian community all over the world condemned the Taliban-like kidnapping of the young Iranian hostages, the MKO has kept a tactical silence because it has always supported Al-Qaida-linked separatist groups. The MKO has been a supporter of the ex- leader of the terrorist Judullah, Abdulmalek Rigi openly calling him the leader of a democratic movement.

The MKO’s meaningful silence over the life of the Iranian soldiers who are at risk of being slaughtered by radical extremists evokes the violent anti-Iranian substance of the Cult of Rajavi. While online social networks are overwhelmed with waves of Iranians’ solidarity for kidnapped border guards, the MKO websites exaggeratedly focus on what they call "Bakhtiari Uprising" in Iran.

Using fake and true photos of Bakhtiari demonstrations in some Iranian provinces the MKO opportunists make efforts to trouble the waters of a democratic protest which may happen in any democratic society. The democratically stated demand of the Bakhtiari Iranians was met. The officials of the state-run Iranian TV stopped showing the TV serial. They also apologized to Bhakhtiari fellowmen for the alleged offensive language used in the serial. However the MKO propaganda tried to reflect the act of TV authorities as "retreat before Bakhtiari popular uprising"!

As a matter of fact, apology is a healing icon of democracy. The role of accountability, apology, and forgiveness in a democratic community is really helpful, very opposite to the uncivil discourse in the cult-like MKO which is based on hurling words at members, turning pain outward and projecting it on other people who are ideologically opposite–or at least perceived to be. When we reflect on our own behavior and apologize to those who we have hurt–even unintentionally– we create a space for light to break in. Space for a real conversation and for renewal and healing. A secure space that member trapped in the MKO structure absolutely lack.

According to numerous international reports and testimonies of former members of the MKO, inside the group, dissident voice is harshly suppressed by the leaders. Critics of the group are all labeled as "the agent of the Regime" so they are deserved to be extremely punished. No protest is allowed in the MKO. No space for light to break in.

By Mazda Parsi

February 20, 2014 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization members' families

Families demanding, relocate the bodies to Iran

Mojahedin Monitor has learned that there are negotiation going on, on behalf of the families of late MEK and the Iraqi government. The goal of the negotiation is to return the bodies and remaining of dead MEK Families demanding, relocate the bodies to Iran members from Camp New Iraq formerly known as Ashraf military base of MEK.

Sources close to the families of foot MEK say that they are demanding the return of bodies and remaining of the group members into Iran .Ex Mek members believe that some 100 bodies are left Inside the camp in its graveyard and elsewhere.

This is the first time that MEK family members who have lost a loved one in Iraq are demanding the return of the body. One family member who lives in Iraq has told us, we were not there when he was injured and died. Now we want our son`s body back and that is our legal right. We are going to pay for any expenses.

In recent years families of many MEK members have traveled to Iraq and demanded visit with their children who are still in kept by MEK. Although according to the rules of MEK any family visit is taboo and is prohibited. MEK leaders not only didn’t allow their members to visit their families but also had some of their high rankings to throw stones to these families and call them spy.

Another family member of a late MEK from North America has told Mojahedin Monitor, We don’t know how our lovely brother was killed. We never received any official documents or truth about it. An MEK Official called us and just told us that he was killed during the bombings of Iraq. Now we don’t want his remaining body to be in Iraq where before was camp Ashraf. We want his body to be returned to Iran and to be close to our family where we can visit him. I don’t think that he rests in peace in Iraq.

According to ex members of the group some members of MEK are killed under torture or disappeared because they were not agreed with the policies of the leaders of the cult like group. Whereabouts of their graves and more information about their cause of death demands cooperation of Iraqi government with the families.

February 17, 2014 0 comments

Human Rights Abuse in the MEK

Gross abuses continue in Mujahedin Khalq Camp

Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO), have been busy seeking to raise the issue of human rights violations in Iran to gain the support of agencies and diplomatic bodies, such as the European Union, the European Parliament, the UN and others to consider it as a credible and real opposition group against

Gross abuses continue in Mujahedin Khalq Camp the IRI. The aim of MKO is to put pressure on IRI through international sanctions and also to gain support of these international organizations in order to show itself as a democratic replacement for Iranian government.

At the same time in a parallel move the group’s high-priced public relations and lobbying firms are hard at work trying to whitewash the MEK’s violent, vicious black trace. Years of lobbying and buying support got the MKO delisted in 2012. However, no longer being considered a terrorist group does not make the MKO democratic, as anyone who has ever studied their internal workers can attest.[1]

Elizabeth Rubin writer of the famous article” The Cult of Rajavi” who visited the Camp Ashraf in 2003 says:” despite its rhetoric, the Mujahedeen operates like any other dictatorship. .. As the historian Abrahamian told me, ”No one can criticize Rajavi.”[2]

Although the illegal multi-million dollar lobby of the group brought it about with some paid advocators, yet the MKO making use of the human rights issues bear no fruit for the group and the things doesn’t go as the group leaders wishes. The human rights issue resulted in the opposite of what they longed for.

US-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) published a report in 2005 on Human Rights abuses taking place within MKO Camps. The report was based on interviews with 12 former members of the group now living in Europe. They alleged abuses ranging from detention, solitary confinement, beatings and torture. [3]

In mid-2009, the Pentagon- Funded Rand Corporation also published a report titled ‘Mujahedin-e Khalq in Iraq: A Policy Conundrum’. The RAND report also reaffirmed the MKO as a cult that abuses its own members.[4]

Jeremiah Goulka who as an analyst with the RAND Corporation was sent to Iraq says: “… I also interviewed former MEK members. As Human Rights Watch also concluded, I saw that the MEK is a cult. It uses brainwashing, sleep deprivation, and forced labor to indoctrinate members.”[5]

The leaders and their supporters of course deny being a cult which abuses members accusing the critics to being either IRI agents or their dupes. However, many outsiders who eye witnessed the affairs of the MKO along with the groups’ former members testimonies evidently prove the harsh abuses MKO practice on its members.

U.N. envoy Martin Kobler several times accused the leaders of Mujahedin Khalq of human rights abuses.[6]

The UNAMI Half Yearly Report on Human Rights also reiterated continuing concerns about human rights abuses committed by the PMOI leadership within Camp Liberty against the residents.[7]

One senior State Department official (now retired), sent to Iraq to interview thousands of MEK members after the invasion, concluded that the organization was a cult; that the weirdly child-free Camp Ashraf was ‘a human tragedy’; that members were ‘misused and misled’ by the leadership; and that many had been tricked into joining[8]

The Rajavis couldn’t hide the true nature of their handmade destructive cult as continued evidences indicate that MKO commits abuses against its own members. The group former members recite their firsthand accounts of abuses taking place in MKO Camps.

More recently an Iraqi physician through a letter to Iraq Human Rights Ministry cited its experiences with the Camp Liberty hunger strikers. The Iraqi physician wrote in his letter the hunger strikers told him that they were forced by the group’s ringleaders to go on hunger strike. They also gave letters to the Iraqi medics to be submitted to due Human Rights bodies and stated their unwillingness to stay with the Cult.[9]

The MKO leaders see their so called organization on the verge of collapse .They have stuck in the limbo of Iraq. The recruitment tricks they applied before doesn’t work anymore and they have problem keeping members as they are fed up with the cult practices and the full of mendacity leaders. The Camp Liberty residents risk everything to escape the cult. The reports suggest the defection of about 70 out of 159 members of the organization who have been transferred to Albania.

So the Rajavis prefer to keep members in Iraq to save their cult rather than relocating them to other countries where they will lose members and consequently their handmade cult.

Besides, allying with the Iranian nation enemies didn’t bring anything good for the MKO as their time has reached the end for their western lords. The West prefer not to disrupt diplomacy with Iran by pleasing a broken cult.

The bitter reality which is difficult for the MKO to come along with is that it has been excluded from the international political spheres.

The cult leaders who are struggling hard to survive do not hesitate to victimize all its members. The international Human Rights bodies should take action, prevent a disaster and save the 3000+ individuals who are trapped behind the bars of a destructive cult of personality. They should also make the Cult leaders accountable for the crimes they have committed against their own members.

By: A. Sepinoud

References:

[1] Rubin, Michael, Yes-Mujahedin al Khalq is a dishonest cult, Commentary Magazine, July 07, 2013

[2] Rubin, Elizabeth, The Cult of Rajavi, The New York Times, July 13, 2003

[3] https://www.nejatngo.org/en/posts/79

[4] Goulka, Jeremiah, Hansell, Lydia, Wilke, Elizabeth, Larson, Judith, The Mujahedin-e Khalq in Iraq, A Policy Conundrum, RAND

[5] Jeremiah,Goulka, THE IRAN WAR HAWKS’ FAVORITE CULT GROUP, Salon.com, March 28, 2012

[6] Charbonneau, Louis, Iran dissidents in Iraq, accused of rights abuses, slam UN envoy, Reuters News, July16,2013

[7] UNAMI Half Yearly Report on Human Rights – January to June 2013

[8] Bennett-Jones, Owen, Terrorists? Us? , London review of books, December 2011

[9] Fars News , Mojahedin Khalq Members Fail to Escape Camp Liberty, January 28, 2014

February 3, 2014 0 comments

Human Rights Abuse in the MEK

Firsthand accounts on the MKO camps in Iraq

The United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq and the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights released the Half Yearly Report on Human Rights, covering the period from January to June 2013. The report states, "UNAMI has continuing concerns about human rights abuses committed by the PMOI/MeK leadership within Camp Hurriya against the residents."[1]

It was about a decade ago when the New York Times contributor Elizabeth Rubin first wrote her firsthand experience of visiting "the Cult of Rajavi" in Camp Ashraf Iraq. Her illuminating article revealed the inside world of the Mujahedin Khalq Organization (the MKO) to the western audience. [2]

There have also been numerous reports based on testimonies of former members of the group including the Human Rights Watch report titled "NO Exit" that was published in 2005. Researchers of "No Exit" visited the twelve eyewitnesses quoted in the report and inspected the "Human Rights Abuses Inside the Mojahedin Khalq Camps". [3] However, the interviewees were claimed to be the spies of the IRI by the MKO.

As a matter of fact, Rubin was not the only western visitor to the MKO camps who exposed the true facts about the inside world of the cult — she described as she had "entered a fictional world of female worker bees". [4] Jeremiah Goulka was a lawyer in the Bush Justice Department and a co-author of the the RAND report of the US Defense Department who confirmed that the MKO was a cult-like group after he visited Camp Ashraf in 2009.[5]

Goulka puts, "Along with almost all of my interviewees and Human Rights Watch, I concluded that the MEK is a cult.” He refers to cult like practices the MKO leadership uses to manipulate members including "mandated celibacy and divorce, thought control, sleep deprivation, and forced labor". [6]

UNAMI monitors complete the firsthand experiences of Rubin and Goulka and evidences made by ex-members. "UNHCR has continued to work towards identifying individuals in need of international protection and durable solutions for the residents of Camp Hurriya," UNAMI report reads. "However, UNHCR’s efforts to find durable solutions for the residents have been hindered by the non-cooperation of residents, such as the boycotting of UNHCR interviews."[7]

The UN report notifies that the leaders’ reluctance to cooperate with UN officials. It is now about 9 month past the offer by Albanian government but the relocation process to transfer 210 residents of Camp Liberty has not been completed because "the PMOI/MeK refused the names accepted by the Government of Albania, and insisted that it should decide who should be resettled there."! [8]

As it is pointed out in the first hand account by UN monitors, the MKO members’ will and determination to leave the camp do not matter to the cult leaders. "The PMOI/MeK, which has a hierarchical and authoritarian structure, imposes a number of severe restrictions on the residents’ rights, including the right of freedom of movement within the Camp and the right to leave the organization, the free right of association, along with restrictions on contacts with family members (including those residing in Camp Hurriya), on access to basic communications, and on access to medical care and treatment…". [9]

While the UN monitors and other eyewitnesses of the MKO camps confirm violations of human rights taken place inside the MKO camps, the group’s propaganda uproars about what it calls "increasing human rights violation in Iran". Elizabeth Rubin properly states that despite Maryam Rajavi’s rhetoric to advocate a secular democratic government in Iran," Mujahedeen operates like any other dictatorship". She quotes the Iranian-American Historian Irvand Abrahamian, ”No one can criticize Rajavi." [10]

Rubin wrote another article on the MKO cult in 2011 following the group’s extensive lobbying effort to get delisted. The article was appropriately titled "An Iranian Cult and Its American Friends". Once again she recited her record of visiting of "a factory in Maoist China" to warn the US politicians on the risk of supporting Maryam Rajavi who " lives in luxury in France" but in her followers’ camps, "access to the Internet, phones and information about the outside world is prohibited." [11]

She reminded the audience of the interviews she had, in 2003, with some of the escapees from the cult, "They recounted how people were locked up if they disagreed with the leadership or tried to escape; some were even killed." [12]

Considering the UN official report and many other reliable accounts on what is really going on inside the MKO camps, urgent action is needed to help release the group residents who are under constant pressure of the cult tyranny. The UN should mobilize the international community to save the lives and minds of over 3000 individuals taken as hostages in Camp Liberty.

By Mazda Parsi

References:

[1] https://www.nejatngo.org/en/posts/5569

[2]Rubin, Elizabeth, The Cult of Rajavi, The New York Times, July 13, 2003

[3]https://www.nejatngo.org/en/posts/79

[4]Rubin, Elizabeth, The Cult of Rajavi, The New York Times, July 13, 2003

[5] Goulka, Jeremiah, Hansell, Lydia, Wilke, Elizabeth, Larson, Judith, The Mujahedin-e Khalq in Iraq, A Policy Conundrum, RAND

[6]Goulka, Jeremiah, INVESTIGATIONS BEGIN INTO MEK SUPPORTERS UP, Salon.com, March 28, 2012

[7]https://www.nejatngo.org/en/posts/5569

[8]ibid

[9]ibid

[10]Rubin, Elizabeth, The Cult of Rajavi, The New York Times, July 13, 2003

[11]Rubin, Elizabeth, An Iranian Cult and Its American Friends, the New York Times, August 13, 2011

[12] ibid

February 1, 2014 0 comments

Former members of the MEK

Former MKO member: They armed me by my Mom’s fake will

Yaser Ezzati, a former member of the Mujahedin Khalq Organization was interviewed by Mehr News Agency. Below is an excerpt of the interview.

Yaser was considered as a member of the MKO militia because his parents were also old members of the group; Yaser grew up in the MKO camps in Iraq.

Yaser was sent to Canada under the pretext of the group’s so-called policy to save children.

Yaser was returned to the MKO in Germany where he attended fundraising gatherings.”In 1997 the MKO gave me a fake will allegedly of my mother who was killed in Mersad Operation [Eternal Light],” Yaser said.”It was written:”You must take gun and follow my path”. I was impressed.” Thus, he was sent to Iraq where the group was rebuilding its forces after the horrific failure of the Eternal Light.

…Yaser Ezzati was mobilized to Iranian border to launch cross border mortar attacks.

“After I attended four operations, I declared that I gave up because I had no idea of what and who we were attacking,” he said. “I was told that I was a child of the group and I shouldn’t have disgraced the group.”

Ultimately, the MKO officials accepted his defection on the condition that he went on a six-month solitary confinement and then he would be sent to Iran.

Yaser who was so scared of getting back to Iran – that was terribly demonized by the MKO – stayed in Camp Ashraf until he was fed up with the brainwashing meetings that he had to attend every week.”Weekly Cleansing” was a cult jargon in which members had to confess all their private thoughts and dreams.” I could no more tolerate the condition”. Therefore, he was imprisoned in solitary confinement. He was brought on trial and accused of being the agent of Iranian Intelligence Ministry!

“Again they brought in my Mother’s will; I had no way out.”

The former member of the MKO Cult states that his father is known to be a torturer in the MKO.”He even beat me several times after I declared defection.”!

. Whenever I missed my parents my father would receive me by beating and kicking me.”

He continued,”some children in the MKO went crazy. I remember a person who committed suicide.”

He notifies that the militias are kept in the organization by recruiting them and paying them. They are offered free trips to attend the group rallies.

“I have not forgotten my past yet because an important part of my life, my childhood, my adolescence were lost for the misguided goal of the MKO”, he uttered.

January 30, 2014 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization members' families

53 signatories to Guterres – Families need the names of wounded residents

Honourable António Guterres UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Geneva

As your Excellency is aware, Camp Liberty in Baghdad, the temporary camp for nearly three thousand members of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI) was subjected Thursday night 26 53 signatories to Guterres – Families need the names of wounded residents December 2013 to a terrorist attack by rockets and mortars. According to the PMOI this attack caused the death of 4 of the camp residents and the wounding of 71 others, many of whom are in a critical condition.

The PMOI published the names and photographs of those killed, but not the names of the wounded. We, the undersigned, as a group of Iranian critics of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI), as well as former members of the organization, express our support for the request of the families of the residents of Camp Liberty to speed up the transfer of the residents from Iraq to third countries.

So, we urge your honour, as UN High Commissioner for Refugees and international authority who is responsible for solving this issue, as well as the competent international bodies, especially the International Committee of the Red Cross and its office in Iraq, to oblige the leadership of the PMOI to announce the names of the wounded residents from this incident by any appropriate means, such as informing the families or by allowing the wounded to directly contact or meet their families.

We consider the request of the families to conform to the rights and requirements of international humanitarian laws and basic principles of human rights, including the right of families to know the fate of their relatives in such events because of their family relation, of course, and by virtue of emotions and natural humanity and they are worried about the health and status of their relatives residing in the refugee camp.

We also announce our support for the request of a group of families of the residents of Camp Liberty to speed up the transfer of the residents from Iraq, where there are daily killings of many innocent people in terrorist incidents or in bloody sectarian clashes, to the third countries, while nearly a third of them have documents of residency or asylum in European countries or North America.

We join these families to call on international bodies, especially the UN High Commissioner for Refugees to put their utmost efforts into urging the member states towards resettling the residents in third countries as soon as possible.

We would like to express our deep appreciation and gratitude in advance for your efforts in this regard, and for informing the families about the fate and status of their relatives in Camp Liberty.

A group of Iranian critics of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI) and former members of the Organization

16 January 2014

Signatories:

1.Mohammad Karami

2. Hassan Piransar

3. Batul Soltani

4. Saba Shekar Beyghi

5. Mohsen Mahdavi

6. M. Barazandeh

7. Hamid Sistani

8. Mahmoud Sepahi

9. Mehrdad Sagharchi

10. Ghorbanali Hossein nejad

11. Hassan Azizi

12. Seyed Amir movasaghi

13. Alireza Mirasghari

14. Edward Termado

15. Behzad Alishahi

16. Toraj Amiri

17. Massoud Khodabandeh

18. Shirzad Jalili

19. Majid Rohi

20. Niaz Salimi

21. Shahin Rabiee

22. Anne Singleton

23. Bahiee Jeylani

24. Nasrin Ebrahimi

25. Zahra Al Sadat Mirbagheri

26. Homeyra Mohammad Nejad

27. Mahtab Alipour

28. Zahra Moini

29. Mona Hossein Nejad

30. B- Amiri

31. Visha Madej

32. Ahmad Mohammadi

33. Arash Sameti pour

34. Ali Khatami

35. Saeed Soltanpour

36. Ali Ghashghavi

37. Ali Jahani

38. Hamid Dehdar

39. Ehsan Bidi

40. Mehdi Khoshhal

41. Hassan Khalag

42. Jafar Ebrahimi

43. Hamid Yosefi

44. Vahid Saidi

45. Adel Azami

46. Ali akbar Rastgo

47. Mitra Yousefi

48. Massoud Jabani

49. Mohammadreza Najarian kermani

50 . Homayon Kahzadi

51 . Mirbagher Sedaghi

52 .Ghafour Fatahyian

53 – Reza Fani Yazdi

Copies to:

– Secretary General of the United Nations, Mr. Ban Ki-moon – New York

– Mrs Jane Holl Lute UNSG adviser for relocation of Camp Liberty residents to third countries

– UN High Commissioner for Human Rights at the United Nations, Ms Nawi Pillay – Geneva

– Special Representative of the Secretary General of the United Nations in Iraq, Mr Nikola Mladenov

– Chairman of the human rights monitoring in the UNAMI in Iraq, Mr Ashouri

– Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, the United Nations in Iraq

– Ashraf-Liberty Project Office in the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, the United Nations in Camp Liberty – Mr Ahmed Al-Tamimi

– The International Committee of the Red Cross

– Office of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Baghdad

– Office of the Prime Minister of Iraq

– The Iraqi Ministry of Human Rights

– Amnesty International

– Human Rights Watch

Mohammad Karami blog, Paris

January 18, 2014 0 comments

Human Rights Abuse in the MEK

Rajavi’s absurd claim of equality !

Maryam Rajavi’s claim for promotion of equality in her cult is absurd and ludicrous.

Many argue that the hijab is oppressive to women and removing it would enhance women’s equality and freedom. They argue that veiling prevents and limits women’s activities in public. On the other hand, Muslim believers of hijab argue that It not only makes a woman feel confident and liberated, but encourages society not to see women as sex objects. They believe that Islam promotes sexual equality, and Hijab allows women to be an instrumental part of the society without being discriminated and looked down. Hijab can also prevent men from ogling look. What about Maryam Rajavi, the leader of the Mujahedin Khalq Organization, the MKO as an Islamic Marxist group? What is her stance about hijab?

Actually, Maryam Rajavi’s idea about hijab is very controversial. She claims in her so-called “ten point plan for future of Iran” that women “will enjoy the right to freely choose their clothing”. However, evidences on what is really going on inside her group indicates that there is no freedom of clothing in the MKO camps.

Perhaps, Elizabeth Rubin the New York Times correspondent, was the first to reveal the cult-like atmosphere ruling the MKO camps including uniform clothing of members, in 2003 after she visited Camp Ashraf. Rubin titled the MKO as “The Cult of Rajavi”. “As you pass the checkpoints and dragons’-teeth tire crunchers into the tidy military town, you feel you’ve entered a fictional world of female worker bees. Of course, there are men around; about 50 percent of the soldiers are male”, she recounts. “But everywhere I turned, I saw women dressed in khaki uniforms and mud-colored head scarves, driving back and forth along the avenues in white pickups or army-green trucks, staring ahead, slightly dazed, or walking purposefully, a slight march to their gaits as at a factory in Maoist China.”

Following the collapse of Iraqi dictatorship and the main financial supporter of the MKO in 2003, the US forces disarmed the MKO. Camp Ashraf was since then guarded by the American army. Having been disarmed and guarded by the MKO’s former enemy the US, members started doubting the group’s ideology. Moreover, the group’s leader Masssoud Rajavi was disappeared. The process of defection of members began.

Disassociated members of the MKO –hundreds of individuals—including female members disclosed shocking realities about the life inside MKO camps. They revealed cult-like and suppressive practices of the MKO authorities. The testimonies of women who had left the group exposed cases of forced divorce, forced celibacy, forced hysterectomy surgeries to make female members barren and particularly sexual abuse by Massoud Rajavi.

Among such abusive treatment against female members of the MKO, forced clothing might be very trivial but it certainly proves the invalidity of Maryam Rajavi’s claims about freedom of choosing clothes in future of Iran. Zahra Sadat Mirbaqeri is a defector of the group who was a member of the second layer of the group’s Elite Council. She was a candidate to marry Massoud Rajavi. She was given the famous necklace with the portrait of Massoud. Fortunately she managed to escape the Cult of Rajavi before she was raped by Massoud.

Mirbaqer challenges Maryam Rajavi’s promise to let Iranian women “enjoy the right to freely choose their clothing’’. She recites her firsthand account of living under regulations and obligations of Rajavi’s cult of personality:

“I was a member of this destructive cult for 23 years. I was not allowed to wear any clothes except the khaki uniform and the green head scarf. Forced hijab was ruled everywhere even in places that only belonged to female members…

“In the cult, women are not allowed to use any kind of hijab except green, khaki and red scarves. However, red and khaki scarves are allowed only for special occasions. You would be punished if you wore your red or khaki scarf in occasions other than the group’s propaganda ceremonies and marches.”

Zahra Sadat Mirbaqeri criticizes Maryam Rajavi’s propaganda for freedom of women quoting a renowned sentence that female rank and files of the MKO were always told:” Scarf is the official uniform of the organization.”

Mazda Parsi

January 14, 2014 0 comments

MEK Camp Ashraf

Who killed ex MEK member Massoud Dalili?

Pentagon must release the key to the UN investigation
One of the more curious aspects of the September 1 attack on Camp Ashraf was that the MEK filmed so much of what happened that day, not only the aftermath but also some film of balaclava clad assailants creeping into the camp to attack. Unless the MEK are routinely filming the perimeter of the camp it is almost as though they were forewarned and had the cameras ready. These pictures are in the public domain because within hours of the attack the MEK had contacted every western media outlet to present their version of what happened and attribute blame to the Iraqi government and call themselves victims. This is so typical of MEK behaviour that it warrants no further comment.
At that time, the MEK announced that 52 of its members had been killed. They published photographs of the victims along with their biographies and claimed that Iran had given the order to attack the camp and that Iraq had carried it out. Both governments denied any involvement and no evidence has been offered to contradict this. Weeks later Iraq announced that the death toll was 53, not 52 as previously claimed by the MEK. The revised figure was due to the fact that the 53rd victim had had his face so badly burned that it took a while to identify him as one of the MEK and not one of the attackers and to discover his true identity. Following this revelation the MEK published a documentary about the 53 in which a picture of Massoud Dalili was shown along with a sample of his handwriting in which he declares that he will never surrender to the enemy, the Iranian regime. In this documentary the MEK refer to them as martyrs.
Since every person who remained in Camp Ashraf after the main body of residents were transferred to Camp Liberty was registered with the office of the United Nations in Iraq, this raises the question why the MEK had not announced that 53 members had been killed immediately after the attack, especially since they had so carefully documented the whole scenario?
Then from yesterday, after the Iraqi authorities named the 53rd victim as Massoud Dalili, the MEK suddenly changed their tune and embarked on the line that Dalili was an Iranian agent and as a person who knew what is where inside Camp Ashraf, the IRI and Iraqis had used him to plan and launch the September 1st attack, and when they finished the job they have killed him there and then burned his face so he would not be recognised. (As a adjunct to this new position toward Dalili it is significant that the MEK propaganda machine is on overdrive to say that Massoud Rajavi has been too lenient with the ex members and that the MEK commanders are complaining he hasn’t allowed them to kill these traitors, and now this is the price they have had to pay. If we had killed ex members, they claim, we would not have all these casualties. In answer Rajavi has used the new version of how Dalili died to introduce a new explanation; that the regime is killing its own agents. In this way Rajavi is giving permission for his followers to kill ex members and blame Iran.)
At this point it is necessary to explain a little about Massoud Dalili’s background. Dalili escaped from the MEK more than a year ago. He took refuge with the Iraqi authorities who took him to Hotel Mohajer in Baghdad. He stayed there for some time and was registered by UN officials and interviewed by several agencies including various UNAMI officials and the ICRC. After some time Dalili said he didn’t want to stay in the same hotel as the other ex members and requested a change of place. The Iraqi authorities obliged and he was given a room in another hotel, Hotel Mansour. Some time later he went out and didn’t return. He was announced missing and the Iraqi authorities assumed he had returned to the MEK. However, during the period of time that he was missing Massoud Rajavi announced in an audio message to his followers that Dalili had run away from the MEK and was denounced as a traitor.
How Dalili ended up back in Camp Ashraf is open to question. Did he return willingly or was he abducted and taken by force? Certainly in every other case when a defector has willingly returned to the MEK, the group has made a big propaganda show of their victory. In the case of Dalili nothing was said of his return or his whereabouts after he disappeared from Hotel Mansour. This suggests that he had been abducted in Baghdad and imprisoned in Camp Ashraf clandestinely and that when the majority of MEK were transferred to Camp Liberty (aka camp Hurriya) Dalili was kept there with around one hundred others, but without the knowledge of the UN officials.
It is critical at this point to explain the significance of Massoud Dalili for the MEK. He had been one of the highest ranking members and was one of the personal security personnel for Massoud Rajavi. He had undergone training with Saddam’s Republican Guards and the MEK’s own specialist training. He not only had a lot of information about Rajavi but was one of only a small handful of people in the MEK who knew of the existence of Rajavi’s underground nuclear bunker which was his hideout. Certainly he was an individual who could have done a lot of damage to the MEK had he been allowed to leave Iraq.
This bunker and the probability that Rajavi was still hiding there explains why the MEK refused to fully evacuate Camp Ashraf when the majority were transferred to Camp Liberty. The MEK made the excuse that they were protecting and selling off their assets, and were assisted in this sham by announcing that a British company was willing to buy the stuff. But this never came about and local Iraqi officials in the Diyala province went through court procedures to have the land returned to the rightful owners. This in itself distracted from the MEK’s own position and provided a welcome battle to wills to justify their continued presence at the camp. The real reason was that Rajavi was still there right up to September 1st when he was forced to escape with seven of his loyal bodyguards through a tunnel leading to the outskirts of the camp.
What happened on that day is still not known. Who killed Dalili and then tried to destroy his identity is not known. Why did the MEK suddenly after the Iraqi authorities named him last week reverse their announcement that he was one of their martyrs and now claim that he entered the camp with the attackers and led them to the various places in the camp to capture and kill the MEK residents. In the fourth part of the MEK’s documentary series on the attacks Dalili’s mangled and disfigured body is shown for the first time with Iranian money strewn over it. The MEK say he was an Iranian agent and that when the attack was completed his handlers killed him there and then. But why then, since they had taken the film on September 1st had the MEK not said anything before now, and had in fact said he was one of their martyrs? If Dalili had been an agent surely he would have been much more valuable for the MEK’s enemies if he were alive, especially since he had so much sensitive information. Also why would they kill and maim him in the camp and not take him elsewhere to kill him clandestinely?
The investigation into this event is far from over. Indeed this new revelation only points to how important it is for the investigators to have access to the forty two survivors of the attack who are currently being held incommunicado by the MEK in Camp Liberty. Even residents of the camp have not had sight or word of them since their arrival on September 11.
It is impossible to discount their testimony. As a matter of urgency they must be brought forward and removed from the camp to a place of safety where each one can be cross examined to establish what they witnessed that day.
Unfortunately the Iraqi authorities who have been tasked by the UN to investigate this incident are obliged to rely on the UN to facilitate access to these forty two people. The UN in turn is beholden to the Pentagon in its treatment of the MEK. The Pentagon of course has a ten year history of supporting and protecting the MEK in Iraq, starting with then Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s personal granting of Fourth Geneva Convention Protection which made a complete nonsense of the previously declared position that the US had invaded Iraq partly because Saddam Hussein harboured terrorist groups such as the MEK. Since then the Pentagon has blocked any attempt to dismantle the group or rescue its members. American soldiers refused to help those families who had tried to contact their loved ones inside Camp Ashraf and in cooperation with orders from MEK commanders turned them away. Those who escaped the MEK and were housed in the TIPF adjacent to Camp Ashraf informed the American soldiers of widespread abuses taking place behind closed doors. They said that the MEK commanders were armed with small arms and kept control through fear and threats. One ex member says that he saw Afsaneh Vatankhah, the bodyguard of Mojgan Parsai, openly wearing a holster with a colt and magazine clip. He believes that it is not unlikely that what happened in Camp Ashraf was the result of an internal fight. He reminds us that during the last two decades we have regularly heard about people getting shot in the camp and it being announced as a suicide or that people died under the American bombardment or that unintentional shootings had occurred, etc. None of this was investigated or stopped by the UN army in the six years they were in charge of the camp.
Currently the Pentagon does not allow the UN or the authorities of the sovereign state of Iraq to enter Camp Liberty and offer succour to the residents there. The Iraqi investigators as well as government officials widely acknowledge that their hands are tied by the UN and ultimately by the Americans who have deliberately foisted the MEK on them without giving them any chance to remove them or bring the criminal elements to justice.
Unless the UN discovers the courage and ability to stand up to the Americans over this issue, it is clear that more and more residents of Camp Liberty will be killed.

January 1, 2014 0 comments

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