Freedom Aspiration
Mujahedin Khalq and Human Rights
Maryam Rajavi’s arrest and imprisonment in France on 17 June 2003, not talking of its prejudicial impact to her political character, made Mojahedin face a new challenge. The challenge was the outcome of an encounter of Western democracy and civility vis-à-vis the dominant social anarchism and wild adventurism in Mojahedin organization that attempted to forge legitimacy by comparing itself to one of the most prime anti-fascism resistances in the Europe.
Maryam Rajavi’s arrest and its aftermath gave the states and the public opinion the opportunity to see behind the pseudo-democratic face of Mojahedin. Accused of terrorist activities, association with a terrorist organization and financing terrorist operations, the French Police raided the office of MKO at Auvers-sur-Oise and arrested 164 suspected Mojahedin cadres as well as Maryam Rajavi. Immediately after the arrests, a number of the group’s insiders immolated themselves in public in a series of premeditated missions as leverages of pressure to buy Maryam Rajavi’s freedom. The human tragedy ended with two deaths; according to the group’s own reports, two women, Sediqeh Mojaveri and Neda Hassani died because of the self-immolation injuries. One more was paralyzed forever.
These acts of self-destruction reveal the covert violent mien of the group’s ideology which is brought to surface and fully practiced whenever the circumstances deem it just. It is not wrong to say that the acts of self-immolations imposed Mojahedin’s demands on the French judges and courts to take a moderate position to stop further agitation of the public opinion.
Violence is rebuked for its transparent contradiction with social and conventional codes. Utilization of violence for whatever objectives never justifies it as a theorized instrument practiced by opportunists to accomplish the ends. The practitioners of violence, whether from a potential military standpoint or frustrated political stance, resort to what is most regarded a reactionary approach. Legalization of violence terminates the rational ways of furthering dialogue to a democratic solution and its utilization as leverage of pressure, a threatening method, and even as a moving element to stir sympathy never justifies its application.
Appalling, sect-like self-immolations once more endorsed Mojahedin’s restoring to complexities of a cult. The ideology does not necessarily suggest application of violence against others since teachings of some cult decree self-destruction practices as the most influential approach. Overt practices of violence against other individuals spread psychological terror among a society while acts of self-destruction, besides spreading psychological terror, endanger emotional and social health. In other words, when someone consents to commit self-destruction in so appalling a way, no doubt he is capable of wiping out masses in cool-blood.
There are many instances of known cult decreed self or collective destructions. So impressed are the insiders by the violent approaches of a cult that they may volunteer to commit suicide before they receive orders to do so. Following the same cult codes, Mojahedin owns a prearranged, deliberate list of registrants volunteered for self-immolation wherever and whenever the organization deems it appropriate. Alireza Jafarzadeh, a Mojahedin’s media spokesman, in a letter published in one of Mojahedin’s newsletters, prior to his demands to be registered as a volunteer of self-burning, stated:
Truly, the ignorant have not fully made out the sharpness, shrewdness and decisiveness of a Mojahed Khalq element more because they have failed to acknowledge Massoud. They are too narrow minded to know what a storm Rajavi’s order might give rise to, and that this generation’s will might leave them in a dark world of absolute desperation. [1]
His words indicate that he is fully under the influence of the group’s non-peaceful teachings as a strategic approach. He does believe in what he is saying and the history of the organization approves him.
Mojahedin’s past history contains a broad practice of violence against the agents of Shah’s regime and, furthermore, against the working Americans in Iran in 1970s to prove they were on a right path of struggle; it is an aspect of its utilizing violence against others. Later on, during the mass trials of the members arrested by Shah’s security system SAVAK, the arrested members decided to commit self-destruction to stir sympathy among people. To achieve the goal, they decided to take a harsh attitude in their speeches made at court defense sessions to incite the military judges to deal harshly with the defendants. Their tactic of self-destruction worked well and most of the leading figures but Massoud Rajavi were executed by the regime. Talking of the method of self-destruction at the time, Massoud Rajavi said:
We had to do our outmost to be executed by Shah. Then, our movement overpowered the proceedings. He [Shah] had to give an answer and we could not let him evade. [2]
First, by utilizing an armed struggle strategy and then by throwing themselves before the fire squads, Mojahedin furthered an overall method of violence. They were thoroughly devoted to a ferocious style of struggle against Shah and nothing but death could stop the move. Hanifnezhad, one of the first founders of Mojahedin, received a life imprisonment by the Shah’s court but his colleagues in prison coerced him, and even threatened him of being given an organizationally decreed revolutionary execution, to move on a self-destruction path so the organization could condemn the regime of his death. He was put before the fire squad, however.
Mojahedin can never think of peaceful ways when seeking for solution to an issue. In the course of Iran’s nuclear file, for instance, they resort to violent proposals or incite other parts to take a hostile attitude towards Iran. Violence is integrated in Mojahedin’s literature and it can be classified as:
– Transparent violence: armed struggle and terrorist operation.
– Advocating violence: inciting others to resort to violent ways to solve a problem.
– Provoking violence: coercing others to take violent reactions.
– Utilizing violence: self-destruction as a leverage of pressure or a moving element to stir sympathy.
The 17 June and its aftermath crystallize terrorism and violence in their full term. The case has to be studied in full details.
Notes
[1]. Alireza Jafarzadeh’ letter; Newsletter of the Union of the Muslim Student Associations Abroad, No. 127, 11.
[2]. The Founders, 96, Mojahedin Khalq publication.
Three years ago, on Tuesday, 17 June 2003, over 1200 police officers carried out a huge raid in a Paris suburb. The target was a large complex of houses in Auvers-sur-Oise which had been turned into the international headquarters of the Mojahedin-e Khalq organisation (aka National Council of Resistance of Iran or NCRI). Up until March-April 2003, the Mojahedin/NCRI command centre had been in Iraq. It moved from there with the outbreak of war. Mojahedin co-leader Maryam Rajavi and about 160 of her closest aides were arrested during the raid.
In taking this action, France became the first Western country to take seriously the danger posed by the Mojahedin organization (aka PMOI, MEK or MKO). The operation was aimed, according to the French Interior Ministry, above all,“at the leaders of an organisation which threatened public order and is planning or preparing
to finance terrorist acts”. Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin declared that the police operations were aimed,“at the central nervous system of a terrorist organisation”.
He made clear that, “it is in our national interest to make sure that all structures sheltering terrorists on our soil be dismantled.” During an international meeting at the Prime Minister’s office, Nicolas Sarkozy, Minister of the Interior, emphasised that the materials seized at Auvers-sur-Oise justified the operation.
Immediately the MKO mobilised its supporters throughout Europe. They set off a well rehearsed series of actions which deeply shocked a European public opinion with little exposure to such extreme methods. French Government spokesperson, Jean- rancois Copé,characterised the self immolations as “obviously, extremely dramatic”. He added,“Alas! It also tells us a great deal about the mindset of their leadership”. The protests showed that the outright fanaticism of the MKO was true: that the denunciations of former Mojahedin who had escaped the organisation’s clutches were reliable.These men and women had been speaking out for years about the internal practises of the MKO, yet they had been stigmatised by the leadership and their sympathisers as Tehran’s agents.
Massoud Rajavi, the Spiritual Leader of the Mojahedin-e Khalq organisation, the Chairman of the National Council of Resistance (NCR),and the Commander-in-Chief of the National Liberation Army (NLA) found refuge first in France (1981) and then in Iraq (1986). He owes everything to Saddam Hussein: the funding of the NLA, arms and their training camps in Iraq, including their Headquarters in Camp Ashraf. The three to five thousand Iranian militants in the NLA operating from Iraqi territory, helped maintain a high level of tension with Iran. While no one is certain as to the whereabouts of Mojahedin leader Massoud Rajavi, his wife Maryam is the acting leader and practically the successor to her husband. This charismatic figure of the organization has been named “Future President of Iran” by the MKO.
Classified as a terrorist group by the State Department of the United States of America and by the British Government as well as by the Council of the European
Union (since May 2002), the MKO is largely discredited today. It was based in Iraq since 1986 and suffered the full impact of Saddam Hussein’s fall from power. Reality shows that the western governments were right all along. The accusation of terrorism is now accepted at the most authoritative international levels. “The People’s Mojahedin Organisation of Iran (PMOI or MKO) planned to attack Iranian diplomatic missions in Europe”,stated the Director of French Counter-Terrorism during a press conference. According to information gathered by this service (the DST), the Mojahedin organisation "was preparing for murder attacks outside Iran, including in Europe", stated the Director, Pierre de Bousquet de Florian. During the police search at Auvers-sur-Oise, "eight to nine million dollars in cash" was found, added the DST Director, before going on to state that the full accounting was still underway.
M. Bousquet de Florian confirmed that many MKO leaders had returned to France since the American intervention in Iraq, including Maryam Rajavi. "They had turned Auvers-sur-Oise into an operational headquarters for terrorism", he stated. The US intervention had "taken away the MKO’s Baghdad Headquarters" as well as the financial support of Saddam’s regime. The DST chief underscored how dangerous the MKO was. It was more like a sect, a cult of personality for Massoud Rajavi and his wife Maryam. In 2001, the MKO had claimed responsibility for more than 195 terrorist attacks on Iran from its base in Auvers-sur-Oise.
As Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the NLA, Maryam Rajavi had no hesitation in ordering armed attacks on Iran
* * * * *
Three years after her arrest, Maryam Rajavi and her companions, out of jail and on bail at present, are still awaiting their trial in Paris.The French judicial system alleges that they planned and funded terrorist operations. To understand the French case, we should review the organisation’s misdeeds over the years in the process of its socalled
struggle against the ruling system in Iran. Clearly, this case is not the sort that could easily be neglected. It must be dealt with thoroughly and carefully. The reasons are as follows:
1. The internal relationships of the organization and its cult status:
– The self-appointed, irremovable, lifetime leadership has unlimited power on decision making on every aspect of the organisational affairs including the most intimate personal matters concerning the members.
– The internal structure of the organization is based on absolute totalitarianism. The spiritual leadership stays well above all, and is not to be criticised by anyone under any circumstances.
– An ongoing process of brainwashing, psychological coercion, and thought reform has been widely practiced inside the organisation under the direct supervision of Massoud and Maryam Rajavi. A range of very sophisticated physiological and psychological persuasive techniques have been used to engage the followers in conspiracy and fraud as well as the most bizarre acts such as self-immolation.
– Many people have been harmed and their rights have been abused by the organisation. Small children have been separated from their parents, families have been torn apart, and the possessions of the followers have been taken away. There are many psychological casualties still under treatment from the organisation’s malfunctioning.
– The intimidation and harassment of critics inside (as well as outside) the organization have become a common habit to silence dissenters. Defectors in particular have continuously been the subject of threats and character assassination.
2. The military, financial, and political relationship between the MKO and the deposed dictator of Iraq, Saddam Hussein:
– Video tapes acquired after the fall of Saddam Hussein clearly reveal that the MKO leaders and principally Massoud Rajavi received huge boxes of money from the Iraqi officials, specifically the Security Services Chief Jaleel Tahir Habush, along with assassination orders to be carried out inside Iran.
– The National Liberation Army (the military wing of the organisation based in Iraq) has been financed, trained,facilitated, armed, and supplied with intelligence and ammunition by the Iraqi Army to counter the Iranian Armed Forces throughout the war between the two countries.
– Many ex-members of the NLA have given full statements bearing witness to how the organisation’s military forces entered into the internal conflicts in Iraq; in particular suppressing the Kurds in the north and the Shiites in the south in 1991.
– According to many members of the organisation arrested inside Iran, they have been trained, facilitated and helped to cross the border by the Iraqi Armed Forces and Security Services to carry out assassinations and terrorist activities inside major cities in Iran.
– It is worth considering that apart from being listed in various international terrorist lists, and being hated by the vast majority of the Iranian people for their cooperation with the enemy during the war, no government has ever supported the organisation in any form except for the Iraqi regime under Saddam Hussein. Of course the organisation has managed to gain the signatures of many members of parliaments (that is, the most uninformed politicians, especially in foreign affairs issues) in western countries on its petitions due to their lack of knowledge of the terrorist nature of MKO.
– According to many undeniable documents, the money collected in the USA and in Europe in the name of so-called charity and humanitarian institutes has been sent to Iraq (after its traces have been disguised by money laundering) to be used for the NLA on arms and military facilities.
3. The systematic contact between the organisation’s HQ in Paris (the establishment formed in Auvers-sur-Oise under cover of the NCRI) and the NLA bases in Iraq:
– According to the DST press releases and statements as well as the French authorities’ press conferences referring to the materials found inside the Organisation’s Paris HQ, the two bases in France and Iraq have been closely and continuously linked using very sophisticates devices.
– Documents clearly show that there is no distinction between the different establishments of the organisation and they are all run under the close leadership of the Rajavis.
– It is also clear that all activities in Western Europe and Northern America, including the political, publicity, and financial performance of the organization have been directly guided from Iraq.
4. Establishing fake societies and associations to cover the organisation’s illegal financial and other acts and money laundering in western countries:
– The members of the organisation are clearly and directly told that the money collected in western countries for the cause of homeless and orphaned children is destined to be used for arms and other expenditures of the organisation.
– The organisation has many institutions that do not reveal their nature and their dependence on the MKO, but they are all directed and instructed in their activities directly by Maryam Rajavi.
– In particular, it should be taken into consideration that the MKO (PMOI), the NCRI, and the NLA are alias establishments and cannot and should not be dealt with separately. They all have the same terrorist nature which is well theorized and justified for the participants.
Bearing in mind the above mentioned facts which are only briefly highlighted, it is now worth asking where the people of western countries stand
on this case. Should it be their concern at all? Today even the most rigorous opposition to the ruling Islamic system in Iran does not approve the methods and manners imposed by the MKO.The Iranian opposition as a whole truly believes that the organisation’s so-called struggle has severely damaged their own efforts to restore democracy and freedom in Iran.
The truth is that many offences have been committed behind the legal presence of the MKO in western countries. These could have been prevented if the case had been dealt with sooner when many members – who had been under enormous physical and psychological pressure from the organisation – ruptured from it and warned western authorities about the subject. Many have been harmed by and suffered from the organisation’s actions throughout the world. Victims of the Rajavis can be found everywhere, both inside and outside Iran. And the international community certainly bears some responsibility for that.
The organisation claims that all assassinations and sabotage activities had taken place inside Iran during their armed struggle against the Islamic Republic of Iran. In this way they aim to discard the terrorist charges. They argue that they have never used arms inside western countries where they have been proscribed as a terrorist group. But in reality the MKO is surely a terrorist organisation by nature, and, without doubt, believes in using violence for achieving political purposes. According to the Mojahedin’s beliefs, the end justifies the means.
So they have no limitation, as they have shown through the years, against committing any sort of crime to reach their goals. It should also be considered that the mastermind of the organisation has always been situated either in Iraq or in Paris and all activities inside Iran have been directed from these two places over the past two decades.
Much has been said about the crimes and misdeeds of the Mojahedin and all its related institutes. Now it is time for a small amount of action to be taken in order to show that the authorities, particularly in France, have taken the matter seriously. Any person who was assassinated inside Iran, any combatant who was self-eliminated by pulling the trigger of a hand grenade or taking a cyanide pill, or any youngster who was self-immolated, are all similar victims of this notorious cultic organisation which is led directly by unaccountable, irremovable leaders who were based in Iraq and have now moved to France. World public opinion, the many victims of the organisation, and the Iranian opposition want to see everything justly put to rights. They want to see an end to this situation which has been ongoing now for so many years
Ebrahim Khodabandeh/ Survivors’ Report
Three years ago this month the world was turned upside down for this month’s lead contributor. It was in June 2003 that Ebrahim Khodabandeh and his Mojahedin colleague Jamil Bassam were extradited from Syria – following their arrest on smuggling charges – and imprisoned in Iran’s Evin. For their families it was a time both of distress and of a strange relief. At least now they knew where the men were.
They were not in the Mojahedin’s Iraqi camps under bombardment, nor were they in Europe being ordered to set fire to themselves to protest the arrest of MKO leader, Maryam Rajavi. Although Rajavi’s own arrest is the focus of Ebrahim’s article, his and Jamil’s situation is interesting in itself. For three years they have been in prison for acting on the orders of the Mojahedin cult and now, with their trial underway, a verdict is expected shortly.
Conversely, Maryam Rajavi and her leading cohorts are still awaiting trial in France on terrorism charges. After three years the two stories could not have more different outcomes. Ebrahim, beyond the reach of the organisation’s system of thought control, has become an outspoken critic of the Rajavi leadership.
Maryam Rajavi on the other hand still refuses to renounce violence as the only means at her disposal to achieve political power. Yet in spite of this, she continues to beg for the Mojahedin to be removed from global terrorism lists. Is she asleep? Is she dreaming? Or is she – as Maryam Khoshnevis describes Massoud Rajavi in her article ‘Sleep- Stricken’ – only pretending to be asleep so as not to be awoken from her dream of power.
Ebrahim worked in the Mojahedin’s ‘diplomacy’ section and is known to many MPs in Britain and in Europe. Similarly, Massoud Banisadr will be known to many legislators in the USA. His interview with Mahan Abedin is one of the most revealing to have come out from a former member who once stalked the corridors of power on behalf of the Mojahedin.
When Rosemary Hollis of the Royal Institute of International Affairs, visited Iran, she spoke about western support for the organisation: "They have managed to get a very few irresponsible people, being MPs or others, to go along with them. These are very dangerous and ruthless people."
But while western supporters of the Mojahedin are certainly irresponsible, I don’t believe this is sufficient to describe their support. Surely we want to know how and why, in defiance of all the documented evidence as well as the thoroughly researched assessments of their own governments, they come to support so obviously unsavoury a group.
While it might be possible to allege that some of the Mojahedin’s supporters are ‘paid’ in some way, or it may be possible to conjure up some private or sponsored agenda behind their support, these arguments, again, are not sufficient. When all the world is agreed, why do a handful of individuals, who are not notable as rebels, turn their face away from all the available evidence, even the evidence of their own senses, and speak glowingly about a known terrorist organisation?
If we listen to former members, no matter what their role was inside the Mojahedin, one thing they agree upon unanimously; the Mojahedin operates as a cult. As it is known that one of the main characteristic of cults is that they employ known methods of psychological manipulation and thought reform, then it is reasonable to add to Dr Rosemary Hollis’ description something from Ian Haworth’s excellent introduction to cults, ‘Cults, a practical guide’; "Too often rational people say, "It could never happen to me. I could never be recruited into a cult.”They do not realise that people do not ‘join’ cults, but are instead actively recruited” anyone can be recruited by a cult if they are not able to recognize the cult in advance and have the strength to walk away from it." Why would members of parliament suspect that for years a dangerous cult has been able to openly and actively recruit in the very buildings where they make laws to protect the citizens of their countries? But Massoud Banisadr was just one of those recruiters “ whether he was aware of it or not. And it would surely be naive to think that members of parliament cannot be recruited just by dint of their job. Indeed, because of their position, they are more likely to be targets for recruitment. As well as the core members which they use as dispensable slaves, a cult also needs recruits who can perform other activities on its behalf, people in positions of power, whether they be fundraising celebrities or legislating politicians.
Unlikely as it may seem, ‘it really could be you’.
SurvivorsReport.org – June 2006
As expected the terrorist Mojahedin-e-Khalq showed a knee-jerk reaction to Mahan Abedin’s interview with Masoud Banisadr at iranefshagar website.
Here is Mr. Abedin’s comment on the MEK reaction:
There can be no dialogue with people who reduce everything to such slanderous and libellous gesture politics! FYI Masoud Banisadr translated the unedited version of the interview into Persian and displayed it on his website:
http://banisadr.info/
But in regards to the MEK’s Iran-efshagar website , it may interest you to know that this forum is controlled from Germany by the organisation’s intelligence section. The core mission of this website is to use existing members to attack former members.
The ultimate objective is to make it difficult for existing dissident members to defect. Therefore every character that appears on that website is considered to be "dissident" or "potentially dissident" by the organisation. By forcing them to attack their former comrades the organisation hopes to maintain a degree of ideological and organisational cohesion. Yet another Stalinist policy by an organisation that was branded a serious abuser of human rights by the New York based Human Rights watch in May 2005. You can access my article on that designation: A recent report by the New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) that documents and condemns serious human-rights abuses by the Iraqi-based and formerly armed Iranian opposition group Mujahideen-e-Khalq (MEK) came as welcome relief to dozens of former members of this controversial organization who have consistently complained of gross human-rights abuses in MEK camps in Iraq since 1991.
The MEK insists that it should lead a US-backed effort to bring what it has termed democratic rule to Iran. Last month it organized a rally, attended by several powerful Republican lawmakers and billed as the "2005 National Convention for a Democratic, Secular Republic in Iran", at Washington’s historic Constitution Hall.
Since the March 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq, where the MEK had been based since 1986, the group has tried to persuade Washington that it holds the key to overthrowing the Islamic republic next door. It has been backed in this quest by right-wing lawmakers, a group of hardline neo-conservatives and retired military officers called the Iran Policy Committee, and some US officials – particularly in the Pentagon – who believe the MEK could be used to help destabilize the Iranian regime, if not eventually overthrow it in conjunction with US military strikes against selected targets.
While the group’s supporters in the Pentagon so far have succeeded in protecting the several thousand MEK militants based at Camp Ashraf near the Iranian border from being dispersed or deported, they have failed to persuade the US State Department to take the group off its terrorist list, to which it was added in 1997 based on its attacks during the 1970s against US military contractors and its participation in the 1979 seizure of the US Embassy in Teheran. The European Union also cites the MEK as a terrorist organization.
After a year-long tug-of-war between the two US agencies, a truce between the State Department and the Pentagon was apparently worked out. MEK members at Camp Ashraf were designated "protected persons" under the Geneva Conventions. Since then, the Pentagon has recruited individual members of the MEK to infiltrate Iran as part of an effort to locate secret nuclear installations, according to recent articles published in The New Yorker and Newsweek magazines. At the same time, nearly 300 members have taken advantage of an amnesty in Iran to return home, leaving a total of 3,534 MEK members inside Camp Ashraf as of mid-March, according to the HRW report.
Given that the HRW report is a major strategic setback for the MEK, it is not altogether surprising that this controversial organization and its Western backers have started a major propaganda campaign, accusing former members of maintaining ties with Iranian intelligence services. It is important to review both sides of the argument to understand the full significance and the implications of the HRW report.
A controversial organization
By all accounts, the MEK is a controversial organization. The group emerged in the mid 1960s as a splinter faction from the Freedom Movement of Iran (itself a splinter group from the National Front). In the 1970s, the MEK gained notoriety by assassinating five US military technicians in Iran. The organization enthusiastically welcomed the Islamic revolution of 1979 and was even more enthusiastic about the seizure of the US Embassy later that year. However, the organization’s inability to penetrate the inner sanctums of power, coupled with the misgivings of the revolutionary regime toward this quixotic group, eventually propelled them into conflict with Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
From 1981-83, the MEK prosecuted a serious campaign of violence against the Islamic republic; in the process, eliminating many of its top officials and ideologues. But this came at a terrible cost to the organization, which lost more than 8,000 of its members in executions and street battles with revolutionary guards. Indeed, by late 1983 the MEK network had been completely eliminated inside Iran. The group’s entire leadership and more than 90% of the remaining members took refuge in Paris, where the group underwent a series of bizarre transformations in the mid-1980s.
Always a quixotic and perplexing organization, the MEK promoted an ideology based on Marxism-Leninism and Shi’ite theology. However, in January 1985 Massoud Rajavi – keen to consolidate his dominance over the organization – married the wife of his right-hand man and set in motion an "ideological revolution" that was theoretically designed to turn the MEK into the antithesis of the Islamic regime. The result was the wholesale "feminization" of the organization and the placing of females – irrespective of competence – in all top positions.
Consequently, the MEK banned all relationships within the group and commanded their members to fully eschew their individualism and devote all their energies to the cause. Given the extremity of these transformations, even sympathetic observers could not dismiss the notion that the MEK had become an isolated cult. But to the MEK, these changes were necessary to maintain the unity of the organization in the face of the Islamic republic’s relentless security and propaganda onslaughts.
Another hugely controversial feature of the MEK was its decision in 1983 to ally itself with the former Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein. Massoud Rajavi moved to Baghdad in 1986, and the following year announced the formation of the National Liberation Army. The NLA fought alongside Iraqi forces against Iranian troops, thus completely destroying the organization’s rapidly diminishing credibility inside Iran. Moreover, a number of Iraqi Shi’ites and Kurdish organizations have alleged that MEK forces played a role in the suppression of the so-called Safar Intifada of March 1991 against the former Iraqi regime. In a remarkable reversal of fortunes, the same forces that the MEK allegedly helped suppress in 1991 are today in power in Baghdad and thus – at the very least – anxious to expel them from Iraqi territory.
MEK and its dissidents
Historically, the MEK has had major problems with internal dissidence. In the mid-1970s, the organization was almost destroyed as a result of an internal "Marxist" coup. The root cause of the problem was the organization’s awkward mixture of Marxism-Leninism with Islam. In the mid-1980s, another wave of dissenters caused a major crisis inside the organization. This time the dissenters, led by Parviz Yaaghoubi, were objecting to Rajavi’s "ideological revolution" and his increasingly bizarre personality cult.
Anxious to suppress any signs of internal dissidence, the MEK labeled all dissenters as either "quitters" or "agents". The former category applied to those former members who left the MEK quietly and did not raise their objections publicly, thus saving the organization from embarrassment. The latter – and far more sinister – category was applied to those former members who chose to publicize their differences with the organization. As a highly centralized, disciplined and overly pretentious organization with impeccable authoritarian instincts, the MEK is unable to accept criticism from any quarter, let alone criticism from those formerly in its ranks, whom it sees as lacking the quality and stamina to continue the fight against what it anachronistically calls the "Khomeini regime".
The MEK’s problems with its dissidents became much more serious following the ending of the Persian Gulf War of 1991, which saw its Ba’athist hosts being decisively defeated and driven out of Kuwait by an international coalition led by the United States. Several dozen members and active sympathizers deserted its Ashraf base, northeast of Baghdad, protesting, among other things, the MEK’s complicity in the suppression of Kurdish and Shi’ite rebels in the aftermath of the Kuwait war. The arrival of these former members in Europe and their organized attempts at spotlighting the alleged abuses and deviations of the organization, led the MEK to intensify its character assassination campaigns against its former members. The organization even coined a new term, borideh-mozdoor (quitter-mercenary) to denounce its former members. This term had a simple logic; the former members were quitters simply for leaving the organization and they were mercenaries because their disclosures – irrespective of accuracy – coincided with the propaganda of the Iranian government.
The MEK went even further and accused the active former members of having been "bribed" and effectively recruited by the Iranian intelligence services. These accusations had worked well against one former senior member, Saeed Shahsavandi, who had been captured by Iranian forces during the MEK’s ill-fated "Eternal Light" operation at the end of the Iran-Iraq war. Shahsavandi spent nearly two years in Iranian prisons before he was released and allowed to leave for Europe. Having settled in Germany, Shahsavandi began to outline his perspective on why things had gone so badly wrong with the MEK. Not surprisingly, the MEK started a merciless character assassination campaign against Shahsavandi, not only accusing him of having been sent to Europe at the behest of the Iranian intelligence services, but also of having taken part in executions of imprisoned MEK members. The accusation of complicity in executions was particularly outrageous, but it had the desired effect; Shahsavandi was forced into silence. Nearly 15 years after the events, it has turned out that accusations that Shahsavandi had Iranian intelligence links were completely unfounded. Indeed, it was revealed earlier this year that certain personalities inside the MEK, including veteran member Mohsen Rezai (better known as "Habib") had maintained a relationship with Shahsavandi throughout these years.
HRW report and MEK dissidents
The 28-page HRW report, "No Exit: Human Rights Abuses Inside the MKO Camps", details how dissident members of the MEK were tortured, beaten and held in solitary confinement for years at military camps in Iraq after they criticized the group’s policies or indicated that they planned to leave the organization. The report is based on the direct testimonies of a dozen former MEK members, including five who were turned over to Iraqi security forces and held in Abu Ghraib prison under Saddam’s government. The witnesses also reported two cases of deaths under interrogation by MEK operatives.
Disclosures on detentions inside MEK camps and torture at the hands of senior members are nothing new and date back from as early as April 1991. However, this is the first time that a credible and high-profile human-rights organization has verified the testimony of former members and thus given a major boost to a wide spectrum of people who want the MEK to admit to their abuses and correct their behavior accordingly.
It is not only former members who have been putting pressure on the organization in the past several years, but a wide array of Iranian organizations and personalities, including the hugely respected Iranian human-rights lawyer and activist Karim Lahiji and Farah Karimi, a Dutch member of parliament of Iranian origin. But true to form, the MEK prefers to label its critics as "agents" and "apologists" of the Islamic republic rather than address the very serious and altogether credible allegations that have been made against it in the past 15 years.
In the bizarre ideological cosmos of the MEK, Human Rights Watch, by lending credence to the disclosures of MEK dissenters, has become an agent of the "Khomeini regime". Historically, the MEK has never seen the virtue of being open with the public that it is trying to address. The fate of the MEK’s "ideological leader", Massoud Rajavi, is a case in point. More than two years after the downfall of Saddam, not a word has been heard from Rajavi, who is believed to be hiding in the Ashraf camp, in Iraq’s eastern Diyala province.
But what of the MEK allegations that the most active and vocal former members are disinformation agents at the behest of the Iranian intelligence services? First and foremost it is important to note that not a single shred of credible evidence has ever been presented to establish a relationship between any former member and Iranian intelligence. Instead, the MEK has relied on "confessions" from former members before they are "expelled" from the organization. But more than anything else, these signed confessions point toward the existence of torture and aggressive interrogations at MEK camps. The MEK also issue reports from their "sources" inside the Iranian government, which strangely coincide with their own propaganda. Not surprisingly, these "confidential" reports have all the trappings of disinformation and propaganda in its most amateurish forms.
Consider, for instance, how the MEK has tried to tarnish the reputation of one former member, Mohammad Hossein Sobhnai, who spent eight years in solitary confinement in a MEK prison and whose testimony to HRW was particularly damning. The MEK claimed that its sources in Iran had secured an internal memorandum of the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence (VEVAK) containing the following information:
In an internal VEVAK report dated February 20, 2002, Ramin Darami, a member of the Sobhani ring, wrote to Haj Saeed, his new handler, "After we entered Iran through legal channels [from Iraq], we were sent to Marmar Hotel in Teheran and were given a high-level reception. While we were in Marmar Hotel, the head of our team was brother Mohammad Hossein Sobhani and others in our group were Ali Qashqavi and Taleb Jalilian. Our brothers from the Ministry of Intelligence paid us daily visits and resolved all our problems, and during this period I spoke to Haj Mahmoud … My stay in the hotel lasted 10 days … During the period we stayed in Marmar Hotel, your proposed plans were reviewed several times by brother Mohammad Hossein Sobhani within our team and we were briefed on it."
While these so-called "disclosures" are only intended for a select audience (namely the MEK’s sympathizers), it is unlikely that even the most hardcore of MEK supporters could really believe such puerile concoctions.
In fact, it has been claimed that the MEK’s relentless efforts at branding active former members as Iranian intelligence agents has made it easier for the "real" agents to operate covertly inside the organization. Indeed, by all accounts the MEK has been heavily penetrated by Iranian intelligence. The organization has on occasion accepted this and published lists of alleged infiltrators. One of the most successful infiltrators was Mohammad Edalatian, whose entire family was connected to the MEK (and whose brothers were executed in Iranian prisons). While in Iranian detention (on charges of MEK activity), Edalatian was recruited by Iranian intelligence and on his release from prison was tasked with penetrating the MEK organization in Iraq. On completing his mission, Edalatian killed three MEK operatives on the Iran-Iraq border and subsequently returned to his handlers. At first the MEK reported that Edalatian had been "martyred" alongside his other three comrades, but several months later Edalatian turned up on Iranian TV and disclosed his mission.
Broadly speaking, the pattern of Iranian intelligence activity against the MEK over the past 24 years has been more geared toward penetration and subversion, rather than elaborate disinformation campaigns. There is a good reason for this: the MEK suffers from a severe credibility problem inside Iran and among Western political and media elites. In other words, there is no real need to tarnish the image of an organization that has no presence inside Iran and which has no serious widespread Western audience.
Conclusion
Even if we accept at face value the MEK accusation that its former members are working at the behest of Iranian intelligence, this still does not absolve them of their human-rights abuses, for surely even agents have human rights too. The signs of torture and mistreatment are all over the bodies of the former members who have consistently lobbied human-rights organizations for the past 15 years to get the MEK officially listed as a serious abuser of the human rights of those closest to it.
The HRW report has tremendous long-term consequences for the MEK, and at the very least deprives it of yet another propaganda plank. For as critics of the organization have pointed out, a group that is a serious human-rights abuser cannot effectively protest at the human-rights abuses of the Iranian government. More broadly, the HRW report complements US government reports of 1994 and 1997 that branded the MEK as undemocratic and terrorist, respectively. The combination of these official listings means that no matter how hard the MEK and its handful of Western supporters try to win the group a measure of respectability, they are likely to be thwarted time and time again.
Mahan Abedin is the editor of Terrorism Monitor, which is published by the Jamestown Foundation, a non-profit organization specializing in research and analysis on conflict and instability in Eurasia. The views expressed here are his own.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/GF08Ak02.html
Iranian exile group strikes back
By Mahan Abedin
Mario Lana, head of Italy’s Lawyers Union for Human Rights, in an article published on 29 April penned in support of the MKO refuted the crimes and allegations attributed to the organization claiming that “he who struggles for democracy, cannot be a terrorist”.
Mr. Lana’s comment can be regarded from both simplistic and realistic angles. Simplistic because, from a historical point of view, almost all political struggles, at least in their mottos and sketches of their political objectives, chanted democratic slogans and represented the paradigms of a democratic society as a requisite to encourage supporters and to recruit parties. Atop of all the currents dazzles the Left movement. History tells us that the outcome was the most atrocious model of dictatorship that ever fought under the banner of emancipating man from class and political totalitarian systems.
Stalinism evolved into one of the most influential liberation movements in half of the world. Contemporary world history recognizes Stalinism as a paradigm for all practiced forms of stabilizing an authoritarian party. It theorized and exercised imprisonment, execution, political assassination, terror, and … in many ideologically justifiable forms, not only against dissidents but also against insiders. In fact, the chief victims were the movement’s linchpins rather than the foes of democracy and freedom.
Stalin exiled Trotsky, who rose to power alongside Lenin after the Russian Revolution and was in charge of foreign affairs, and then had him assassinated because of his opposition to Lenin and Stalin, a line followed by most parties and currents that were inspired by Marxism or had faith in its strategy and ideology. The true expenses of Stalinism were exposed only after its fall; no one denies Stalin’s role as the most fervent patriot fighting against the Nazism invasion, yet, he is indisputably the most tyrannical dictator recorded in history. This paradox is the essence of a theorized ideology evolved with the wear of freedom and democracy. That is to say, the thought dealing with freedom and democracy emerged out of a counter-democratic ideology, a criterion to conduct the extent of internal and external violence. It is the ideology that legalizes the conduct and recognizes its innate terrorism as a blessed act; adherents become devotees of a cause constructed on pillars of freedom and democracy.
There is good historical evidence to prove Mr, Lana’s comment can be attributed as simplistic. The discrepancy between chanted mottos and the actual practice of democracy is a product of disapproving democracy itself. To bring off democracy, the mottos should tally with real practices. The Mojahedin’s past modus operandi depict clearly that the group had taken a wrong direction for the cause of democracy. The autocratic structure of its leadership has depreciated it to a kind of Stalinist dictatorship. Thus, how can the Mojahedin guarantee that it doesn’t adapt its claims of democracy for the practice of autocracy?
It is precisely correct to say that ‘those who struggle for democracy cannot be a terrorists’, because democracy absolutely discards any form of violence. The Mojahedin’s favoured democracy, if borrowed from the West, should be defined as “a system of government in which power is vested in the people, who rule either directly or through freely elected representatives”. Can the Mojahedin really tolerate such a system? That is to say, does the group respect dissidents, recognize peoples’ rights, and draw no limitation for its assumed democracy? Even now, far away from assuming any political power, the NCRI intimidates the critics and dissident parties.
Violence has been an innately distinguishable feature of the Mojahedin from the beginning. The key solution to accomplish its organizational and ideological achievements was through the practice of violence. It believes the Iranian peoples’ uprising in 1978 was a total failure because it lacked absolute bloodshed and violence. The Mojahedin’s ideology is in no way identifiable with democracy.
Mr. Lana’s comment is dearly accepted, but the Mojahedin’s past is a negation of its claims to be struggling for democracy. The mere claims fail to endorse the group wholeheartedly as pro-democrats and the Mojahedin has proved to be anti-democratic in practice. Mr. Lana’s comment can be paraphrased as “no terrorist struggles for democracy” and the Mojahedin, knowing this fact, seek legal excuses to justify its terrorist and violent acts by referring to them as “legitimate defence”.
Mr. Lana fails to remember that the Mojahedin is at the crossroads of a critical juncture and in need of applicable instruments to survive. That is why the group takes advantage of the anxieties, well-founded or groundless, sweeping over the West in order to legitimize its political being. The great challenge the world faces today is terrorism and the Mojahedin has to be dealt with in some way; it is clever enough to realize it is walking on the verge of a slippery slope.
In representing definitions of democracy, the Mojahedin oversteps those of the West. By drilling its exaggeratedly theorized democracy into the West, the group reminds the West that it has a rather more enormous capacity to overshoot the Western adopted democracy. At the same time, it has not the least respect for democracy so as to practice it, not even in its primitive form, inside the organization. Nowhere can you find so ruthless methods of brainwashing put into practice under the cover of democracy. Mr. Lana is under the illusion that the embrace of democracy by Mojahedin defies a terrorist nature. An unbiased, realistic look would explain everything.
Mr. Lana should be reminded that his refutation of terrorism changes nothing. The fact is that the Mojahedin is innately a terrorist group and its keeping hold of the democracy motto never washes its hands of its past crimes. Democracy is a no laughing matter and a terrorist group’s struggle under the clothing of democracy, is a viper in your bosom. The supporters of terrorism must keep in mind that they too share the blame if the terrorists betray their trust.
By Omid Pouya – 10 May 2006
Human rights in the Ashraf refugee camp in Iraq are being violated on a daily basis, an escapee told media.
Mujahideen leaders in the camp still have power over the rest of the people there, Mohzen Abbaslou has told private Darik radio. "I had no future in this camp, that’s why I escaped," Abbaslou says.
People were often beaten, forced to work for the leaders, although it wasn’t their responsibility, the escapee explains. He claims that most of the people did not want to stay in the camp, and those who disobeyed orders were beaten constantly and yelled at a lot.
There was no one to turn to when all this happened, Abbaslou said, because the only troops guarding the camp were stationed outside of it. Americans do control the outside and they let no outer threats reach the population of the camp, but there is no one to help with the violence inside, the man explains.
Although he confirms that camp refugees have been long ago stripped of all weapons, Abbaslou says that claims that there hadn’t been an accident in the camp for three years are false. "I myself was severely beaten by the leaders of the Mujahideen organization within the camp nine months after the American troops took guard," he says.
Bulgarian Radio, Darik
http://www.darik.net/?p=article&tid=10&id=51312
Mojahedin is recently pushing forward Mr. Paulo Casaca, MEP from Portugal, to decorate its terrorist mafia face and to denounce the realities of torture and imprisonment in the MKO.
Mojahedin has claimed that "EU’s delegation reviewed all forged accusation against MKO under the name of "Violation of Human Rights" and after studying the history of Mullah’s longstanding efforts in this regard concluded that their investigation revealed that allegations against MKO in Human Rights Watch report are nothing new."
However, they ignore the fact that a few days ago, the Human Rights Watch stressed the accuracy of its "No Exit" report and announced that:
"Because Human Rights Watch places a high premium on the accuracy of our reporting and public statements, the organization took these allegations seriously. We went back to our sources to review and reevaluate the credibility of their allegations.In October 2005 Human Rights Watch researchers met in person with all twelve witnesses quoted in the No Exit report. The researchers conducted interviews lasting several hours with each witness, individually and privately. All interviews were conducted in Germany and the Netherlands, where the witnesses now live.
All of the witnesses recounted in extensive detail their experiences inside the MKO camps from the 1991-2003 period, and how MKO officials subjected them to various forms of physical and psychological abuses once they made known their wishes to leave the organization. Human Rights Watch researchers questioned the witnesses at great length about the circumstances under which these abuses allegedly took place. The researchers also asked the witnesses to respond to the specific issues raised in the FOFI document with regard to their testimonies. The witnesses provided detailed and credible responses to these challenges that were consistent with their earlier testimony as recounted in No Exit and are detailed in the appendix to this statement."
As far as it concerns the imprisonment and torture in MKO, former members have credible evidences to prove their claims and they have presented these evidences and documents to the representatives of Human Rights Watch, otherwise Human Rights Watch that is an independent international body wouldn’t accept such claims. HRW investigators’ citation to tortured former members and their information indicates an unrevealed truth, which has reflected only a small part of crimes inside the MKO.
Therefore, MKO tries to link these people to Islamic Republic only in order to deceive public opinion in Europe and elsewhere. With advancing MKO’s aims, this group’s lobbies from Belgium to, express nothing else in political scenes. In fact, they are going to fight with the truth with artificial weapons!
Indeed, this proves former members’ ability and their rightness in disclosing the crimes of MKO. This is what annoys MKO the most and makes them more untrustworthy in the eyes of people.
Javad Firouzmand
As I passed through the gates of the notorious Abu Ghraib prison, I could not believe that this was really me, standing at the edge of where the world finishes.
Abu Ghraib prison, a name that sent shivers down the back of any Iraqi, was in front of me and I, with over twenty one years history of serving the Mojahedin organization, had to start a new existence in this prison and wait for the leadership of the organization, especially Maryam, the sensual wife of Massoud Rajavi, to decide in what way they will eliminate me.
Looking back I clearly remember that even while I was entering the prison I had not understood or recognized the true nature of this barbaric couple. I did not know exactly how they had been surviving on the consumption of the blood of the children of my country.
It is reminiscent of the ancient story of Zahak whose shoulders were kissed by the devil whereupon two voracious snakes grew, one on each shoulder. Then the devil, posing as a doctor, came to his bedside and told him ‘if you feed these snakes a human brain each every day for some time, they will die’. So year in, year out without end, Zahak killed the children of the people of Iran and fed the brains to the snakes on his shoulders. And now this same story is being repeated by Rajavi and his wife who, for getting a grip on power – and what a dirty way of achieving power – are killing the best children of this country. They are selling them in bunches to the likes of Aghid Hashem and Naghib Mohammed [two agents of Saddam’s Secret Services]. I clearly remember my last day in Ashraf camp when they were going to hand me over to the Security Services of Saddam. On that day, a well known dirty and corrupted woman called Mahvash Sepehri together with Batool Rajaie and Javad Khorasan from the so called officials of the organization, along with some of the well known torturers of the organization including Farhad Olfat, came to me and asked me to put my head down and by accepting the rank of deputy of section, go back to my work. After a year of imprisonment and torture in solitary confinement I had only one answer and that was to spit on the floor at their feet.
After a few days in Abu Ghraib prison, I discovered what ‘Falgheh’ meant. But I had no idea that I would become famous in Abu Ghraib together with Abass Yazdani as a ‘loyalist’ of the Falgheh. The Falgheh was a specially made machine for torturing the prisoners. Every Iranian prisoner and in particular every ex member of the Mojahedin had to be tied to this equipment. The so called ‘deposits’ of Rajavi, were informed by our torturers, that we had to feel the machine in such a way that we would understand more deeply Rajavi’s sacrifices, and we would witness with our whole being that our Mojahed leader is paying the highest price by accepting the torture of his ex members.
It did not take long for me to experience this machine. In one of those hot Iraqi afternoons my name was suddenly shouted out by one of the prison guards. I reported to him and without a word he started to beat me with a big wooden club. My head was broken and blood poured from several places on my body. He did not stop and a few moments later two other guards joined him. Nothing was said. Only severe beating. I was loosing my strength very quickly and then I don’t know what happened.
There was some unfamiliar sound and then I was up. At first I thought that I must be dreaming, but the pain was so real that I forgot what I was thinking about. I was covered in blood.
My jaw was dislocated. Lying me on the floor they started again and I could feel their boots kicking every part of my body while I was screaming.
In that situation the one thing I did not know was that I would be spending the next three months living in a toilet.
The guards made me stand on my legs. Only at that time was I informed that I was accused of trying to escape the prison and that there were others who had allegedly been trying to help me and that I would not tell their names! They were beating me up to tell them the names of people who did not exist.
It was clear that the real reason for my torture was that I had been trying to give hope to the other prisoners and had been trying to convince them that one day they would be freed and so we should not give in to the demands of the torturers to go back to Rajavi.
They had found out about this. The laughable accusation of trying to escape was something they would routinely use to cover whatever real purpose they had to beat people up.
Naturally there were people who were unable to put up resistance and under torture would start saying anybody’s name in the vain hope that they would reduce the torture. I would not co-operate in this charade and would not give any names. I could not even bring myself to give the names of the people that I knew had been the cause of my situation.
That was why I had to be tortured to the end. Every torturer and every prisoner knew that these were false allegations but again, everybody knew also that the system of torture and beating had to continue.
My name had come up and in the end they moved me to ‘Mahjaz’. This was a toilet with no water where they would not give you clothes, food or anything else. There was no light in it either. For three months in the worst heat of Iraq I had only 3 glasses of water per day for all my needs. I had no food for the first four days and then I received one piece of bread per day. I had to sleep by the side of the same toilet bowl which had been used over and over and had never been cleaned. The concrete floor was not big enough to stretch out my legs while lying down to sleep.
Living in this condition for three months was barely possible, but every day too after counting the prisoners, the guards would come and in groups of three to five would beat me up and haul me off to the prison yard. There in front of others, they would tie me to the ‘Falgheh’ and beat me on my feet with a very thick wooden club and I would scream and shout. After a while, it became a routine. Every morning I had to run into the yard with a guard beating me on my back. I had to lie down in the middle of the yard so that the chosen prisoners of the day could tie my feet onto the ‘Falgheh’ and keep them up so that the guards could beat my severely injured feet with their special clubs. Seeing me under torture had become a normal thing even for my friends. It was just another routine among hundreds of other scenes in Abu Ghraib. But it was very different for me. For me it was constant torture and constant fear of the next torture session. Many times I could see that while I was under torture the other prisoners were talking to each other and laughing. I could not blame them as I could remember that before me, it had been the turn of Abass Yazdani, and I used to go and watch even though I did not want to. And now it was my turn.
On one of these regular torture days, my foot broke and I passed out. When I came round I saw that they had bandaged my foot. They had not touched my other wounds. But breaking my foot and losing my nails meant the torture was stopped for some time. I spent about three years in Abu Ghraib prison on the direct order of Massoud Rajavi, during which for only three months was I exempted from torture.
All these barbaric activities were taking place because Rajavi had decided that he no longer wants to have any ex members.
Today Rajavi is serving the Americans in rebuilding the Secret Services of Iraq. He is also serving shoulder to shoulder with the new torturers in Abu Ghraib prison. Both Saddam and Bush know that Rajavi, who does not have any mother country, would do any dirty work to please his masters and that is why his sell by date can always be renewed. He resembles an infamous torturer during Iran’s Safavid Empire [1501 – 1722].
This man remained in his position after the attack by Ashraf Afghan and went on to serve in Nader Shah’s court. One day on his way to work he saw the head of Nader Shah on a spike. He approached the people whom he was to kill that day – the ones who killed Nader Shah the night before – and asked them to give him fresh orders for the new victims to be beheaded. He stayed in his job even after the death of Nader Shah.
Similarly, Massoud Rajavi will always have some customers up to the last day of his life. That is, of course, unless someone does not bring him to justice sooner.
Akbar Akbari Sharbaf
Date: 2004/09/05
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