Personal Rights of Members in the MEK

MKO Ringleader Orders Execution of Defected Members

The ringleader of the terrorist Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO, also known as MEK, NCRI or PMOI), Maryam Rajavi, has issued an order for the assassination and execution of any member who intends to defect the group, media reports revealed on Saturday.

Rajavi in a message two weeks ago branded those MKO members trying to defect the group as enemy and also called for murdering them, informed sources disclosed to the Persian-language Ashraf News website.

She has asked the MKO ringleaders in Camp Liberty to gather intelligence and find out who intends to defect the group.

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

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

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

The MKO, founded in the 1960s, blended elements of Islamism and Stalinism and participated in the overthrow of the US-backed Shah of Iran in 1979. Ahead of the revolution, the MKO conducted attacks and assassinations against both Iranian and Western targets.

The group started assassination of the citizens and officials after the revolution in a bid to take control of the newly-established Islamic Republic. It killed several of Iran’s new leaders in the early years after the revolution, including the then President, Mohammad Ali Rajayee, Prime Minister, Mohammad Javad Bahonar and the Judiciary Chief, Mohammad Hossein Beheshti who were killed in bomb attacks by MKO members in 1981.

The group fled to Iraq in 1986, where it was protected by Saddam Hussein and where it helped the Iraqi dictator suppress Shiite and Kurd uprisings in the country.

The terrorist group joined Saddam’s army during the Iraqi imposed war on Iran (1980-1988) and helped Saddam and killed thousands of Iranian civilians and soldiers during the US-backed Iraqi imposed war on Iran.

Since the 2003 US invasion of Iraq, the group, which now adheres to a pro-free-market philosophy, has been strongly backed by neo-conservatives in the United States, who argued for the MKO to be taken off the US terror list.

In September 2012, the last groups of the MKO terrorists left Camp Ashraf, their main training center in Iraq’s Diyala province. They have been transferred to Camp Liberty transient facility near Baghdad.

May 4, 2014 0 comments

Human Rights Abuse in the MEK

Investigate human rights abuses in Mojahedin Khalq

Open letter to Ben Emmerson, QC

Dear Mr Ben Emmerson, QC

With all my best wishes.

My name is Mohammad Razaghi. I was a member of the Mojahedin Khalq Organisation (MKO, MEK, PMOI, NCRI,…) for over 20 years. I worked 24/7 for the cultish organisation of Rajavi in garrisons given to them by the late dictator Saddam Hussein. Most of my youth and the best years of my life was wasted in the mental and physical captivity of that terrorist/ Mafia organisation. During my stay in Iraq, I have been imprisoned and physically and mentally violently tortured on the direct order of Massoud Rajavi and Maryam Ghajar Azodanloo, (who how now lives in Europe under the pseudonym Maryam Rajavi). I have also witnessed the deaths of some of the disaffected members of the Mojahedin Khalq under the savage torture of Rajavi’s cult lieutenants in the infamous Camp Ashraf in Iraq. I am now living in France as a political refugee.

Dear Mr Emmerson,

I have been informed by some of my friends about your responsibly, activities and effective position as “the UNHCR’s special rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism”, and about your investigations into the abuse of human rights of the victims of violence. I decided to write to your good self to bring to your attention some small examples of the crimes Massoud Rajavi and Maryam Ghajar Azolanloo have been committing with the help of their lieutenants in the Mojahedin Khalq.

Massoud and Maryam Rajavi portray themselves to the cult members as saints who have never sinned and have no weaknesses and as the bridge between mankind and God. Hence there is no way anyone would be tolerated if they criticise them in any shape or form.

Massoud and Maryam Rajavi introduce themselves as “the leaders of the Mojahedin Khalq” but in reality they are cult leaders of the “Cult of Rajavi” with all the characteristics of cult leaders.

They get away with anything and everything as they write and rewrite their inhuman laws, as and when they wish. The main philosophy by which this is done is on the basis that “members have no right to live a normal life and in fact belong to the leadership to use for the progress and survival of the cult; i.e. Rajavi.

In Rajavi’s cult, marriage is forbidden. Contact with families is forbidden. Free contact with the outside world is forbidden. Having a home or a normal life is forbidden. Coming out of the garrison or the safe houses is forbidden. And any resistance to these rules is countered by mental and physical tortures. No one has the right to decide his or her own future. It is only the leader who has the right to decide for you. Normal interactions and human relations are forbidden. Listening to the radio and television is forbidden, except what is broadcast through the cult’s internal broadcasting network and internal TV networks. Having friends is strictly banned and no emotion should exist between other people. Writing letters, emails, telephone conversations with friends and family or internet connection is banned. There are compulsory daily sessions of brainwashing meetings under the name of “daily operations”, and weekly sessions under the name of “weekly cleansing” (members are forced to bring all their most intimate sexual thoughts including their possible dreams, write them down and read them to the others and hand their writing to their commanders). Anyone who dares to ask to leave the cult is automatically condemned to execution and death. They are imprisoned and tortured, and during the rule of Saddam they would be transferred to the notorious Abu Ghraib prison. Critics, ex members and survivors who have managed to get to European countries are subjected to character assassination. All these are being ordered directly by Massoud and Maryam Rajavi according to the overwhelming amount of documents and evidence and witnesses.

Forced labour for 14 hours a day is routine in the Mojahedin Khalq camps and is nothing short of slavery, again directly supervised by the leaders of the cult.

Massoud and Maryam Rajavi abuse the members by forcing them to participate in money laundry. I am personally a witness to the years when the Mojahedin Khalq forced members in Iraq to create false statements and letters in order to whitewash the activities of their money laundry and deception of the British public under the name of a so-called Charity, Iran Aid.

On top of all the inhuman atrocities committed by the leaders of the Rajavi Cult there is the specific case of the women. They are subjected to frequent rape by Massoud Rajavi who has made a harem for himself under the pretext of an “Ideological Right” of the “Ideological Leader”, so that all the women in the organisation belong to him. (The reason marriage is forbidden). There are now many surviving women who are ready to testify to their ordeals and the crimes committed by Massoud and Maryam Rajavi in this respect.

Dear Mr Emmerson,

I have also directly witnessed the collaboration between Massoud Rajavi and Saddam Hussein in the massacre of the Iraqi Kurds in 1991. I have witnessed the terrorist teams being sent to Iran to carry out acts of terror. Rajavi pretended these were his forces based inside Iran. In fact they were forces trained by the Republican Guard of Saddam Hussein and were sent by the Mojahedin Khalq and Saddam from Iraq. All the logistics, weapons, money and support and even the plan and the subject of attack was provided by Saddam’s intelligence officers to Massoud Rajavi.

After the fall of Saddam, a camp (TIPF) was arranged by the American military adjacent to Camp Ashraf where the disaffected members who managed to run away would be kept. Rajavi was paying some of the corrupt officers of this camp and as a result, for four years people were under severe mental and physical pressure. This resulted in over 500 of them being forced to choose to accept to go to Iran to rid themselves of the constant torture and pressure.

Dear Mr Emmerson,

I urge you to investigate the abuse of my human rights through forced labour of 14 to 16 hours a day. And the mental and physical torture directly ordered by Massoud and Maryam Rajavi in Camp Ashraf prisons, specifically in the year 1994; the physical and mental scars of which I still carry with me. The documentation of my ongoing treatment in France is available.

Dear Mr Emmerson,

These are only a small portion of the crimes committed by Massoud Rajavi and Maryam Ghajar Azodaloo and their henchmen which I have brought to your attention.

I hope you will give me and others the opportunity to meet you in person so that I, and my other surviving friends, would be able to explain what has been done to us in more detail.

Thanking you in advance.

Yours sincerely,

Mohammad Razaghi, Paris

April 5, 2014 0 comments

Open Letter to Mr. Ben Emmerson, the UN special rapporteur on human rights

Dear Mr. Emmerson,

I am Mehdi Sojoudi a victim of the the Iranian MEK/PMOI (Rajavi’s Cult). I had spent 20 years of my life in this organization before defecting to Europe, where I now live. I would like to ask you to investigate the grave violations of human rights in MEK/PMOI and at the same time help release the enslaved members of this cult in Camp Liberty in Baghdad, Iraq and dispatch these victims to third countries.

As a victim and surviving witness of this Cult, I’d like to bring to your attention some human rights abuse practiced in MEK/PMOI.

– For more than 2 decades marriage is forbidden and with orders from the cult’s leader, Masoud Rajavi, all married couples were forced to separate and divorce.

– The leader of the cult called “family as the heart of corruption” and thus, many Families and family life were disintegrated and young children were taken away from parents and dispatched abroad.

– Any direct or indirect communications with family members have been forbidden for many years and members are deprived of any means of communications such as phones, internet, etc.

– Due to imposed isolation by the leaders, members are not in touch with the outside world. There is a systematic censorship imposed. There is no access to news and media outlets such as TV or radio or internet.

– Members who try to question or oppose these inhuman conducts are harshly suppressed. During Sadam Hussain’s rule in Iraq, many opponents of Rajavi were tortured and even executed inside MEK camps.

– Despite propaganda made by the leaders of MEK/PMOI that they defend women’s rights and equality, ironically women in this cult have suffered the most. After forcing women members to get divorced, Rajavi made many women to marry him and in fact set up a Harem for himself in his cult.

– Inside Rajavi’s cult, children have been widely abused, too. For many years children and under 18s in MEK/PMOI have been given military and ideological training and have been used to carry out acts of terrorism.

– MEK/PMOI has a long bloody history of terrorism ranging from attacking innocent civilians inside Iran to killing Iraqi Kurds minorities during Sadam Hussain’s rule in Iraq.

– There is a systematic daily mind manipulation and brain washing program carried out by the cult’s hierarchy on members. These victims have neither the right of choice to decide their own destiny nor the right of freedom of expression.

– In many circumstances until very recently, members are forced to go through hunger strikes. These human beings are abused systematically and misused as tools by the leaders.

As a living witness and having mentioned some aspects of the widespread human rights violations inside this cult – that claims is fighting for freedom and human rights for Iran –

I call on you and your good office to do all you possibly can to help the victims of MEK /PMOI cult to be transferred to third countries so that they can enjoy a free life, away from the suppression and humiliation they are subjected to inside MEK/PMOI and away from the everyday bloodshed and threats in Iraq.

Finally, I would like to thank you for your humanitarian efforts for this cause and wish you success.

Best regards,

Mehdi Sojoudi

March 31, 2014 0 comments

Maryam Rajavi

Beware of Maryam Rajavi’s deception

open letter to Régine Deforge

Dear Ms Régine Deforge

I am Nasrin Ebrahemi a defected member of the People’s Mujahidin Organization of Iran (Rajavi Cult). Due to my decade long membership and work with this Cult, have a deep and thorough knowledge of them. I got to know you through your website and your news broadcasted on the Rajavi Cult’s websites.

Having read your comments about Mariyam Rajavi, who has many atrocities about the women inside her cult, was deeply moved and wondered how they could have deceived people like yourself by feeding them with false information and taking advantage of their humanitarian feelings.

Rajavi Cult is based on lies and deception from the day one. Rajavis even mislead and betray their own members. This is the only methodology that Maryam Rajavi and her Cult utilize to keep the Cult going. They never tell you about their horrific atrocities inside their Organization. They only use the nice western accepted terminologies that would move any human being. This is so especially when it is said about the women. About the 1000 women who have washed their hands off their life, beloved ones and whatever they have had to stay in the struggle. The stories that had deceived the same 1000 women who are now trapped in the Camp Liberty and can’t get out. This and other similar stories are what are used to lead others on with.

I am one of those 1000 women that Maryam Rajavi has been lying about them to yourself and the rest of world. The fabricate stories that these women have freely chosen to leave whatever they have had because of the love of freedom and willingly entered their Cult is a total lie.

Maryam Rajavi claims to be women supporter, were she and her organization breach basic rights of the women inside their Cult. This is whilst Masoud and Maryan Rajavi are married to each other, forced their members to divorce their spouse. They did not stop at this, and went further and brutally forced them to separate from their children. Some of whom were still being breast feeded. And the excuse was the war in Iraq.

Visiting your husband or wife was not only forbidden. The next step was to report to Rajavi if they missed their loved ones or even thought of them for a second. Never mind that any communication with outside Camp Ashraf was absolutely forbidden, and no one had the means of doing so. If any woman or any man thought of their ex-spouse or child and worried about their condition, would be taken to Ideological courts which would be frightened to death to make a lesson out of it for the future and for the others too.

Having a nice look was forbidden. In order to destroy and tendency towards life outside Camp Ashraf, Maryam Rajavi used to tell us, “I like your tanned faces, I don’t like you having nice complexion, your hands should bear the scars of hard work under the sun”, bearing in mind that we experienced horrific temperatures 50-60 degree centigrade in Iraqi hot climate.

By the way had you seen Maryam Rajavi’s her own complexion, or hands? She never experienced any sun, never mind Iraq sun.She did not stop at that. She forced some women to go under operation to be spayed. This was done to kill the sense of ever having a child. Maryam Rajavi recognizes the equality of man and woman in hard labor work. Some women were crippled under such hard labor in the Camp.

Did you know that leaving the Camp Ashraf was forbidden? If anybody wanted to leave the Camp, he or she would be eliminated. Alan Mohammedi was one of those women who wanted to leave the Camp. She was eliminated. She was only 16 years of age. Did Maryam Rajavi tell you that there are many women that commit suicide because they cannot take the situation in the Camp Asharf.

I remember when there was a guest from outside as like a reporter or women activists, a very tense security atmosphere was created. No visitor was taken to visit the men, since they were scared of them tell the horrific facts of inside the Camp. All those who were supposed to come in contact with the visitor were strictly chosen and briefed to watch what they say and only those who were selected were allowed to talk and say what they were dictated to say. While we were sitting at a far distance from the visitor wished that there was a drop of freedom to the guest about the hell we were in, and wished the visitor could take us out of it.

Dear Ms Régine Deforge

You believe in the Freedom of Women’s Dress. Have you ever asked Maryam Rajavi why is it that the dressing especially covering the head in Camp Ashraf is mandatory? Did you know that if a few of our hair was out of the mandatory scarf we were severely humiliated in the ideological courts. Did you know that we could not have any makeups what so ever? We could not have put on colored clothing.

Those women that you called them with dignity and their poise had gained your praise are starving for a drop of freedom inside the Cult of Maryam Rajavi, where everything has been taken away from them. They can’t have a normal life, can’t think of their loved ones, can’t visit their families, can’t contact them. Can’t have a child, can were whatever they wish like Maryam Rajavi.

I hope that Maryam Rajavi had told you the realities about the struggle of these women. She used to tell us that we all belong to Masoud Rajavi, her husband. Our soul and body must be for him. We were told that without Masoud, we women did not mean anything. You must be ready to sacrifice your lives for him whenever he wanted. He owns our souls, blood and breath. You will leave Masoud only in your coffin.

But as far as Rajavies were concerned, the struggle before the Iraqi dictator Saddam was toppled, meant, to work on the broken second world war tanks that Saddam gave as present to Rajavis with only 4000 members all over the world, which about 70% of them were over aged and retired, to topple a country with an army of 2 million or so personnel. (90% of the members of the Modjahedin were at their 20s or 30s when they broke with the Iran regime in 1980 and were forced to leave Iran.) On the other hand we had to be proud that we are the only women in the world that have access to tanks. This is the progress we have made. We were lead to believe so, and forced to do hard labor like cutting the grass by hand, displace heavy parts of Tanks, and armored vehicle, Kitchen works and you name it. But shortly we found that all we have been told to free our country is just a mirage. This has left us wishing to be freed from this hell we were in, and almost forgotten the Regime in Iran.

This is only one out of thousands that I could put in this letter to you. I beg you to investigate more about this cult, don’t let them play with your humanitarian feelings. Ask Maryam Rajavi to let only one of your books to be circulated within the cult. She will not even let the name of your books to be circulated never mind the book itself. This is the red line within the Cult. No information, no news no books no article … can circulate outside their very much censored information controlled by them to be circulated. I ask you to personally hand in your books within the members of her cult. And monitor the results. If you are successful there would be no body left for her in her cult. All the members are kept away from the normal life and news and the information of the real life. They are not allowed to watch TV even in Europe or anywhere outside Iraq.

Maryam Rajavi is scared to death if the people in camp Liberty come out to a third country and disclose the atrocities committed against the members. She prefers them to die in there and use it for propaganda purpose for her cult. The best result for her is, all members to be killed by the terrorists in the Camp Liberty. So she can make martyrs out of them to use it to play with the feelings of very humanitarian people like you.

I you permit me I can give you great deal of information about our lives in Camp Ashraf and all the pains that are being suffered in there due to the cult rules applied there.

Best regards

Nasrin Ebrahimi, Setaregan Association, Switzerland

March 27, 2014 0 comments

Human Rights Abuse in the MEK

Please help us stop Human Rights abuse in Mojahedin

Open Letter to Ben Emmerson, QC.

Dear Mr. Ben Emmerson, QC

My name is Mehdi Nikbakht, I am one of the survivors and ex members of Mojahedin Khalq (MKO, MEK, PMOI, Rajavi cult). I have first hand experience of the cultish relationships inside the MEK.

Your long term activities as a Human Rights advocate and your responsibilities as the UN special rapporteur on human rights has brought me to write this letter to your good self appealing for help. Me and many of my friends have been the direct subject of human rights abuse inside this organisation (cult). We need help to achieve justice.

I take this opportunity to bring to your attention some brief explanations.

The Mojahedin Khalq (MEK) tries to portray a democratic, freedom loving, pro-human rights and pro-women’s rights face in the west. The reality, and what we have seen from the inside of this organisation is 180 degrees contrary to this claim. We have never seen anything but suppression and injustice. The leaders of MEK harshly crush any voice of criticism and they go to extreme extents to silence the voice of the survivors and ex members. They constantly spend money and energy to character assassinate and intimidate the vocal critics and survivors by calling them mercenaries, agents, traitors, etc. they try to dismiss their testimonies about the reality of the crimes they have suffered themselves and/or have seen at the hands of MEK leaders.

Inside the MEK cult no one has the right to have a spouse or family and even thinking about it is a severely punished crime. Members are regularly forced to write and announce their most intimate thoughts in front of large audiences and the audience is to shout and swear at the person.

Inside the MEK no one has the right to contact their families in any shape or form. Even mothers and fathers who come to Iraq from Iran with all the risks and hardships are not given permission (by MEK leaders) to meet their children. Some of these people have not seen their families for over 25 years.

Inside the MEK harsh forced labour, together with a regime of inquisition, has taken away the critical minds of the members. They can no longer think properly and normally. Their every day life is confined to a restricted, forced, mental and physical circle. They no longer decide for themselves about anything. It is the leaders who decide for them.

Leaving the organisation (cult) is forbidden and no one is free to choose. Being inside the cult is forcefully compulsory.

And there are hundreds more similar cases.

Dear Mr. Ben Emmerson. You know more than anyone that each and every one of these cases specially in this day and age is in direct contradiction with the recognised freedoms of individual and is an abuse of their human rights. The same human rights you have been so passionate about and have, and are, working so hard for. The Mojahedin Khalq (MEK) have been keeping thousands of people trapped in their camps for decades. Before the fall of Saddam Hussein, they were able to imprison and torture people inside their camp for crimes as simple as asking to leave the organisation and return to normal societies. After the fall of Saddam, the MEK leaders insisted on not leaving Iraq to the point of deliberately sending some members to their deaths, which had no effect and still the Iraqi Government is adamant that they should leave. They have now been moved to Camp Liberty which has been attacked a few times by terrorist groups and in this camp some of the members have again been sacrificed for the unlawful demands of the cult leaders. The MEK leaders do not want the trapped people to be moved to third countries and deliberately resist any attempt to facilitate such a transfer. They see this as an end to their cultish organisation and more than that, are afraid of the people reaching European countries where they can start exposing the real nature of the organisation and what has happened to them. They are afraid of the truth coming out.

Dear Mr. Ben Emmerson,

What I have explained here is no more than a very brief example of what is happening. Our claims are certainly backed by a huge amount of documents and evidence, as well as the testimony of many of my friends who have managed to get themselves to European countries. Me and my friends are ready to meet in person and explain in detail and clarify any question in this regards.

I urge you to investigate the abuses of human rights, women’s rights, individuals’ freedom, etc. inside the MEK, and as I mentioned we are ready to provide the documents and evidence at any time and any place you wish. We need your expertise and we need your help to bring a condemnation against these practices and certainly to stop the continuation of it against the trapped hostages inside the MEK.

Yours Sincerely,

Mehdi Nikbakht

Switzerland,Setaregan association

March 25, 2014 0 comments

Albania

MKO high-rankings in Albania to keep relocated members under surveillance

Another 11 MKO members set foot in Albania

Another 11 members of the anti-Iran terrorist Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO) have been transferred to Albania from Iraq.

Informed sources at the UN office in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, said the group, comprised of 10 women and a man, had resided in Camp Liberty in Iraq before being transferred to Albania.

Meanwhile, three leaders of the terrorist organization have also arrived in the European country from France to keep relocated members under closer surveillance.

The MKO is listed as a terrorist organization by much of the international community and has committed numerous terrorist acts against Iranians and Iraqis.

The group fled Iran in 1986 for Iraq, where it received the support of Iraq’s executed dictator Saddam Hussein and set up Camp Ashraf near the Iranian border.

Out of the nearly 17,000 Iranians killed in terrorist attacks since the victory of the 1979 Islamic Revolution, 12,000 have fallen victim to the acts of terror carried out by the MKO. The group also sided with Saddam during Iraq’s eight-year war on the Islamic Republic.

In December 2011, the United Nations and Baghdad agreed to relocate some 3,000 MKO members from Camp New Iraq, formerly known as Camp Ashraf, to the former US-held Camp Liberty.

The last group of the MKO terrorists was evicted by the Iraqi government on September 11, 2013 to join the other members of the terrorist group at Camp Liberty and await potential relocation to other countries.

Last March, then Albanian Prime Minister Sali Berisha announced in a statement that the Albanian government is ready to accommodate 210 members of the MKO group in Tirana.

Nearly 160 MKO terrorists had been previously granted asylum by the Albanian government.

March 25, 2014 0 comments

Maryam Rajavi

My big sister, who I have never seen, is in Camp Liberty

Open letter to Maryam Rajavi from an Iranian woman who has not ever seen her sister

Mrs Maryam Rajavi,

After greeting, I am Mona Hussein Nejad – 31 years old. I was an infant aged only 10 days when I was taken from the bosom of my mother and her milk into tears and wailing and left in the bosom of my grandmother in Tehran. My father and mother with my older sister secretly fled Iran from the oppression of the Iranian regime with a large number of members of the PMOI thirty-one years ago. I am the youngest daughter of martyr Mojahed Farideh Karim Zadeh and the younger sister of Mojahed Zainab Hussein Nejad, one of the residents of Camp Al-Hurriyeh (Liberty), the headquarters of the PMOI in the proximity of Baghdad airport .

I cried during the lean years, eager to see my mother, looking for the intimacy of her embrace, the intimate lap of her tender motherhood, which I did not experience except for only ten days. So I stayed, sighing to see her for the first time in my life until I was 18 years of age, when I discovered that I had lost my mother a few years ago and my waiting will not end for seeing her.

But I ask will my waiting end up the same for seeing my sister Zainab, who I have not seen in my life? I remember that when I was a teenager I wished that my parents had taken me also with them and I tell myself: Blessed sister Zainab who lives with mama and papa. But I was not to know that she lived after the death of our mother under the care of individuals and families and it is not about us and them, that she also grew up under difficulties. But today I wish that they had not taken Zainab with them but they had left her here for us to live and grow old together and share our sorrows and joys and share each other’s concerns, and pain.

Mrs Rajavi,

I have not seen and held my sister Zainab in my life for more than thirty years now, and I have not heard news about her safety also, especially after the terrorist attacks on camp Ashraf and camp Al-Hurriyeh (Liberty) in Iraq, and I do not have information about her condition. I ask, cannot your Excellency, as the senior leadership of the People’s Mojahedin Organization, order her to relate me so that I hear her voice at least to make me sure of her safety and health? Or allow us to meet together and embrace each other for the first time in our lives even so I can smell the odour of our martyred mother because she has been grown and nurtured for many years in the bosom of our mother? I do not know whether the relentless struggle against the system of government established in Iran may have kept something in the heart of the emotions of motherhood and the love that binds sisters or not? If there has remained something of it, you can understand my feelings and my sense. I travelled to Baghdad a year ago and asked officials at the People’s Mojahedin Organization through the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, the United Nations and the Iraqi Human Rights Ministry to meet my sister Zainab, or at least see her, even from a distance, and so I went for this purpose to the door of Camp Al-Hurriyeh (Liberty), before taking off on the plane at Baghdad airport adjacent to the camp to return to Iran. But officials in the organization did not allow us to meet and see each other so I went back to my homeland with tearful eyes.

Mrs Rajavi,

I ask you:

1 – to provide the possibility for my sister Zainab Hussein Nejad one of the residents of Camp Al-Hurriyeh ( Liberty ) to call me even briefly about her safety and health.

2 – Do not allow me to wait all my life to see and hug my sister and do not let it go on, God forbid, as did my waiting to see my mother.

3 – Remove the restrictions and harassment from the residents of the camp toward contact with their families, to bring about an end of the concern of the families about the conditions of their children and their relatives.

With my thanks in advance to your Excellency.

Mona Hussein Nejad

February 4, 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

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