Some MKO defectors recall a common amazing memory: After the US disarmed the MKO and realized that most of MKO members want to leave the Organization, they established a camp near Camp Ashraf and settled defectors-whether those who had escaped MKO or had left it with the assistance of Americans- in that camp. MKO, entangled in a crisis, resorted to dirty tricks to stop members from leaving. For instance, Americans’ interpreter in interviews was a woman called “Paria”. MKO bribed her with gold and jewelry and asked her to change the translation of defectors’ words (that is, to distort the reality) so that Americans open an unreal file for them. Defectors were not aware of this since they didn’t know English. But the time came for a former member who had lived in the US for years and had come to Iraq (MKO) from the US. During the interview, American general (State Department’s interviewer) asked if he was tortured by the MKO. He realized that “Paria” changed his words and said: “MKO treated me very well but I want to go to my own life”! He became angry by this distortion of reality by her and started himself to tell the truth in English. Americans fired her as soon as they found that she was not honest and employed another interpreter called “Fatima” (apparently from Afghanistan). It’s been said that Paria had not even a gold ring when she came but after a while, she wore several bracelets. Even the former members asked her about this. “Ms. Paria! You’re dressed with gold!!!??,” they said to her ironically. Indeed, why the MKO is so much afraid of realities regarding former members, being interpreted? If they have acted according to the criteria of human communities, and if they have observed democratic factors in their organization, why should they bribe an interpreter with gold and jewelry?! Isn’t it that they wanted to prevent the publication of realities?! But, these defectors and former members will finally cry out to the world and Rajavi won’t be able to silence these cries anymore.
Personal Rights of Members in the MEK
With regards and thanks,
I read the long overdue, very brief but nevertheless justice seeking report on the inhuman behaviour of the People’s Mojahedin Organisation (MKO) after it was published. I preferred to wait to see the consequences of the report as well as the reaction which would follow before writing this letter.
Any crime can have four distinguishing characteristics. The first is totally related to the criminals and the others are based on that. The second is related to the victim of the criminals, the third relates to the defenders of human rights who have taken on the task and duty of exposing the crimes of these criminals, and the fourth relates to international public opinion and the international conscience to judge according to the findings and the reports produced by the defenders of these victims of crimes. The politicians and the men in power do not usually have a pivotal role in this part as their interests always come before their logic.
For years the MKO committed crimes on the regional level (Iran and Iraq) under the authority of Saddam Hussein. On the internal level also the MKO changed the organisation into an ‘ideological military cult’ using brainwashing techniques, and practiced a range of crimes to the extent that by putting every one under it’s sword, it tried to achieve a situation in which "no one would be left unless they have passed the process of internal revolution". On the international level, the MKO did not spare any action to get support and logistics for its crimes and to legitimise it for its forces, it called this "bridging".
In September 1995, when a number of survivors of the Mojahedin cult got together in Geneva to put their complains against Mr. and Mrs. Rajavi to the United Nation’s Special Rapporter to Iran, the MKO in a hysterical offensive, which revealed its anger at facing exposure of its crimes, shouted that the international and humanitarian bodies are all employed by the "mullahs’ regime" working against the "Iranian Resistance" and started a coordinated offensive against them. (Iran Zamin, [Mojahedin newspaper] number 9.)
Since then, whoever takes an stance against the Mojahedin, will first be categorised as being part of the ruling regime in Iran and then subjected to all sorts of attacks. This practice of course comes from the way of thinking that believes: "if you are not with us, you are against us, and if you are against us, you are with the Iranian regime, and to shed the blood of whoever is with the regime is of course legitimate".
Human Rights Watch, in a researched report about the MKO, has only looked at the crimes which have been committed against the members after they have distanced themselves from the organisation and maybe this is why the report has been titled "No Exit". But if we look at the psychological operations carried out by the MKO on its forces with a critical eye to the extent that the organisation is forced to stop using these psychological methods, it is clear that no one except a handful of losers would not stay there. Therefore it may be logical to ask you as an international body with the respected credibility that you have, to investigate into the brainwashing techniques used by the organisation and perhaps produce a second report in line with informing the victims as well as their families. In the next stage, it would be appropriate that all the victims of MKO terrorism, and the survivors of the MKO’s operations, and the families of the ones who have lost their lives, as well as the ones who have been disabled for life, would be invited to produce a report so that the few people in some parliaments who still insist on supporting this cult know the degree of crimes they are willing to ignore. Crimes as evident as firing mortars in the streets of Iran and publishing the reports of their disgusting activities in their newspapers.
And the third subject on which Human Rights Watch could perhaps work and produce a report, would be an investigation and a report about the systematic and planned crimes with the logistical, intelligence and military backing of the toppled Iraqi regime against Iranian soldiers, as well as the forces of the National Liberation Army of the Mojahedin which by any standard would be considered as war crimes.
The few backers and the huge number of critics of the MKO should know that respecting the human rights of every individual, irrelevant of their way of life, thoughts and political beliefs, is a basic which should not be allowed to be influenced by these offensive measures employed by the Mojahedin and we should not allow them to wear democratic clothing to hide their cult nature.
Maryam Khoshnevis
Ex member of MKO
3rd July 2005
cc:
Human Rights Committee in European Parliament
International Committee of the Red Cross
Amnesty International
Summary The Mojahedin Khalq Organization (MKO) is an armed Iranian opposition group that was formed in 1965. An urban guerrilla group fighting against the government of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, it was an active participant in the anti-monarchy struggle that resulted in the 1979 Iranian revolution.
After the revolution, the MKO expanded its organizational infrastructure and recruited many new members. However it was excluded from participating in power sharing arrangements, and the new revolutionary government under the leadership of Ayatollah Khomeini forced it underground after it instigated an armed uprising against the government in June 1981. The majority of its top cadres went into exile in France. In France, the MKO continued its active opposition to Iran’s government. In 1986, under pressure from the French authorities, the MKO relocated to Iraq. There it established a number of military camps under the banner of the National Liberation Army and maintained an armed presence inside Iraq until the fall of Saddam Hussein’s government in 2003.
During the Iran-Iraq war, the MKO fighters made regular incursions into Iranian territory and fought against Iranian government forces. After the end of Iran-Iraq war, the group’s armed activities decreased substantially as Saddam Hussein’s government curtailed the MKO’s ability to launch attacks inside Iranian territory.
The fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime in April 2003 put an end to Iraqi financial and logistical support of the MKO. The MKO fighters remained neutral during the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. After the occupation of Iraq, the U.S. military disarmed the MKO fighters and confined them inside their main camp known as Camp Ashraf.2 U.S. military sources told Human Rights Watch that as of March 10, 2005, there were 3,534 MKO members inside Camp Ashraf.3
Some MKO fighters took advantage of an amnesty offer by the Iranian government. Since October 2004, 273 MKO members have returned to Iran.4 The U.S. military has recognized the MKO fighters in Iraq as Protected Persons under the Geneva Conventions.5 Their fate remains uncertain; the Iraqi government and the U.S. military appear not to have reached a decision regarding their future.
During Saddam Hussein’s last year in power, some Iranians held in Abu Ghraib prison were repatriated to Iran in exchange for Iraqi prisoners of war (POWs). These were dissident members of the MKO who had been sent by the organization for “safekeeping” in Abu Ghraib.6 The release of these prisoners in 2002-2003 provided a direct window into conditions inside the MKO camps that was previously inaccessible to the outside world.
Human Rights Watch interviewed five of these former MKO members who were held in Abu Ghraib prison. Their testimonies, together with testimonies collected from seven other former MKO members, paint a grim picture of how the organization treated its members, particularly those who held dissenting opinions or expressed an intent to leave the organization.
The former MKO members reported abuses ranging from detention and persecution of ordinary members wishing to leave the organization, to lengthy solitary confinements, severe beatings, and torture of dissident members. The MKO held political dissidents in its internal prisons during the 1990s and later turned over many of them to Iraqi authorities, who held them in Abu Ghraib. In one case, Mohammad Hussein Sobhani was held in solitary confinement for eight-and-a-half years inside the MKO camps, from September 1992 to January 2001.
The witnesses reported two cases of deaths under interrogation. Three dissident members—Abbas Sadeghinejad, Ali Ghashghavi, and Alireza Mir Asgari—witnessed the death of a fellow dissident, Parviz Ahmadi, inside their prison cell in Camp Ashraf. Abbas Sadeghinejad told Human Rights Watch that he also witnessed the death of another prisoner, Ghorbanali Torabi, after Torabi was returned from an interrogation session to a prison cell that he shared with Sadeghinejad.
The MKO’s leadership consists of the husband and wife team of Masoud and Maryam Rajavi. Their marriage in 1985 was hailed by the organization as the beginning of a permanent “ideological revolution.”7 Various phases of this “revolution” include: divorce by decree of married couples, regular writings of self-criticism reports, renunciation of sexuality, and absolute mental and physical dedication to the leadership.8 The level of devotion expected of members was in stark display in 2003 when the French police arrested Maryam Rajavi in Paris. In protest, ten MKO members and sympathizers set themselves on fire in various European cities; two of them subsequently died.9 Former members cite the implementation of the “ideological revolution” as a major source of the psychological and physical abuses committed against the group’s members.
At present, the MKO is listed as a terrorist organization by the U.S. State Department and several European governments. The MKO’s leadership is engaged in an extensive campaign aimed at winning support from Western politicians in order to have the designation of a terrorist organization removed.
Ali Moradi had been a sergeant in the Iranian army at the outbreak of the Iran-Iraq war. He was captured early on and spent nine years as a POW in Ramadi camp. He was among a group of Iranian POWs recruited into the Mojahedin shortly after the ceasefire by promises of marriage and paid work. This is an extract from a longer interview conducted after his return to Iran. After Maryam returned to Iraq in 1997 the Rajavis imposed more radical changes to combat what Maryam called our bourgeois mind-set. Under the new rules, a gender apartheid was introduced so that men and women were physically separated. Now there were only all male units and all female units both of which had 3 or 4 women commanders. All were completely separate. A man and woman were no longer allowed to be alone in the same room. We were not allowed to speak to women unless authorized for work purposes. In the autumn of 2002 when the US stepped up its threats against Iraq, Massoud and Maryam held a meeting for all the combatants. They analyzed that in 2005 the Khatami government would be toppled by a popular uprising and we must ready ourselves for a final operation.
Just about everybody had questions at that point. What would we do if the Americans attack us? The answer came, ‘We will attack Iran’ with everything we have’, said Massoud.
Now I have to say that most members don’t actually expect to die, but Massoud Rajavi boasted that we would go like Ashura (marking the martyrdom of Imam Hossein with his followers). This was the Black Phase and it was clearly a suicide mission for the whole organization.
The next news we had from the leadership was that Mohammad Mohaddessin had written to the UK Foreign Office and the US Department of State and had announced our neutrality.
In another meeting, Rajavi read a message to us which said that the US and UK had agreed not to attack our camps. Within a month two of our camps had been attacked by the coalition forces and around fifty combatants had been killed. According to Rajavi’s orders the NLA should now launch its final all-out attack on Iran. But they did not move. Most people, I can say 95% of people felt devastated then. Everyone had the same thoughts in their minds. ‘I gave my life to this struggle, what has happened to my aims now?’
Worse was to come when Hossein Abrishamchi, (brother of Mehdi Abrishamchi who is subject to the French judicial investigation into the MEK’s terrorist activities in France) and Mojgan Parsii (nominal head of the MEK in Iraq) negotiated first a ceasefire then total disarmament with General Ordinero of the US army. Within a week the MEK’s armour and weapons was collected and the US surrounded Camp Ashraf to where all the MEK’s combatants were rounded up and sent. (A cache of weapons had been hidden by the MEK, but US air forces soon discovered it.) Again, the combatants felt devastated. Everyone began questioning what had happened to the organization, what was the future, what about the aims I had given my life to, what about the overthrow of the regime. Remember too that at this point we still had no idea that around 250 leading members had escaped Iraq and fled to Europe, including Maryam Rajavi.
In the chaos which followed the US and coalition invasion of Iraq, the combatants enjoyed a little freedom, and we began to talk and discuss the event and the possible outcome for the organization. After the American forces rounded everyone up into Camp Ashraf they began to interview everyone. The first interview was to establish the name, origin and other basic information so that an ID card could be issued. The second interviews were held to collect DNA information from each resident of the camp. The third interviews were held by representatives of the US Department of State. They were asking everyone for information. One thing that we were asked in every interview was ‘where is Massoud Rajavi’, it was a question for all of us as much as for the Americans. In the third interview we were asked where we would like to go once we left Iraq. The MEK had told everyone to answer that they want to stay in Iraq, but most people disregarded this and insisted they wanted to go to another country. The MEK had told everyone that if you go to Iran they will torture you and hang you and that you can’t go to Europe because they won’t accept you. In spite of this, during the first interviews around 115 asked directly for help from the US forces to get out of the camp. These were taken to the North of the camp where the US army had it barracks.
To date, over 600 MEK resident of Camp Ashraf have taken refuge with the US forces in the North camp. From these, over 250 have been repatriated to Iran and the others remain. The only reason it had been possible for these people to escape to the North camp was because MEK commanders do not have guns and cannot stop them.
People want to leave, but they are afraid of the unknown. They don’t have any real information. No one has told them where they can go, that they have alternatives. The Mojahedin told us that it would not allow the Red Cross to visit our camp.
Hossein Madani told me personally that ‘we have tried everything we can, including lobbying them intensively in Switzerland, so they will not come to our camp’. It was a deliberate policy to prevent people from asking to leave. But I had a PoW card from the Red Cross, so I was able to go to the North camp and ask for refuge with the Americans. I had nothing left to keep me there. I had no family, I had lost my aims, and worst of all was the deception of the MKO which I could now clearly see.
I would say that right now around sixty to eighty percent of the people in the camp are dissatisfied and would leave if they could. The conditions inside Camp Ashraf are really severe. The control over the members has become even more rigid after the protected persons status was given.
You are not allowed to talk to one another. If two people get together and start talking, suddenly someone will pop up and start interrogating them and accusing them, ‘what are you talking about, you are undermining the leader …’ There is no news from the outside world. We have no real information and now I know that all the news they gave us about Iran is wrong. I mean ALL of it. In the camp if anyone expresses any questions about anything they are taken into a group of about twenty people who talk to that one person to convince them. They have confiscated everyone’s documents too to make it hard to get out. The US army haven’t been very helpful either. In the north camp they told us they had to make sure people wouldn’t be a terrorist threat if they go to Europe, but how do you want to prove that. But people still escape, and the MKO commanders have no guns so they can’t stop them. I know several of the top people have run away; Said Jamali, Khalil Ramazanpour and Alireza Ahad are all in the North camp. Davoud Baghervand came back with my group and is now in Iran.
I think that everyone in the MKO has questions about their future, even the leaders. Many want to leave but they have nowhere to go. Around 80% of those who had the courage to leave did so after they had been visited by their families. That’s why the MKO is so afraid to let the families in the camp.
When it comes to the point that they can’t deny a family visit, they take you aside and
have an intensive meeting to prepare you. I met with Fereshte Yegahni for one and a half hours before a visit from my brother. She told me, ‘your brother will tell you lies. The Iranian government has sent him. Be very careful as this is a political activity by the regime. Don’t see him as your brother, you must believe that you are talking to the regime. Don’t cry, and don’t let him persuade you to leave.’ This was unacceptable to me. I saw my brother and shortly after that
meeting I went to the North camp, determined to get home. I wrote to Colonel Georgis and the Red Cross and told them I want to leave and go back to Iran. Conditions in the North camp are very difficult, they gave us non-halal meat, pig meat, and there is no air conditioning. In every twenty four hours we have to line up five times on parade. We weren’t able to have contact with our families because the Americans told us that letters would be censored by the country receiving them, which in our case was Iran, so people were afraid to write, though we did get letters. When I finally got to go home I remember looking down from the airplane window as we took off, at the flat ground of Iraq. When we flew over the border and I saw the mountains of Iran with the snow on them, I was so happy I just wanted to jump
straight out of the plane and land in the snow of my homeland. At the airport in Tehran I expected hostility, but people came forward to greet us and welcomed us warmly. For two days I was really fearful. I thought this had just been for propaganda. But as the kindness continued for five and six days, only then did I believe it. I am now home with my family. I have had no problems since I came back to Iran. They have tried to help us here as much as possible. But in the end I have wasted years of my life with that organization. I have no wife, no children, I have no job and no wealth.
I have nothing. And now I know I lost all my life for the selfish ambition of one man. When I was in Camp Ashraf everyone in the camp was asking the same question ‘Where is Massoud Rajavi?’ The last time I saw him was the day before the US invasion of Iraq. He has not been seen or heard from since that time. That’s over two years. For his followers at all levels of the MEK hierarchy, this has become the major issue. When anyone asks, Rajavi’s commanders say it’s for security reasons. But no one accepts that. A leader should be at the front of his forces, not run away at the first sign of danger. Rajavi always boasted ‘I am the leader and I am the first in line for sacrifice’. But the combatants are now comparing him with Sattar Khan, Mirza Kuchik Khan, Mousa Khiabani and other rebel leaders who died fighting alongside their forces. Rajavi’s commanders say his disappearance is for security reasons, but no one has
any doubt that Rajavi has just run away to save his own skin. People in the camp feel totally betrayed. This has been the worst betrayal, no one can trust anything anymore. Morale is so low in the camp that that even if Rajavi should reappear before them tomorrow, the vast majority of forces in Ashraf Camp will refuse to follow him. Everyone now has questions only about their own future.
Our forces returned to the garrison and were disarmed. The US forces freed the people of Iraq and for a while we kind of felt saved too. The atmosphere in the camp opened up a little and we had some freedom. At this time a lot of people abandoned the garrison and went to the US camp and didn’t return.
Soon after the disarmament the organization closed the atmosphere again.
Even though they didn’t have guns, the commanders kept the organization intact using Rajavi’s methods of fear and intimidation. We all saw how we had lost everything, our whole struggle had come to nothing and morale was very low.
The most important thing that happened during these two years has been the visits of families. The organization was severely opposed to contact with our families. Even a phone call was not allowed. I tricked them and said I would ring my family and ask for money – the organization is always desperate to get money. I called my brother and he convinced me to come home. The organization described the family visits as an emotional war. They said our families had been sent by the regime to destroy us. They told us the Iranian Intelligence Ministry had motivated our families to come to Iraq. For this reason, many people were afraid to speak to their own families.
One of the things that gave us courage to leave and go to the American camp was that we had been given recognition
as people. I’m not talking about the protected persons status, I mean that the Americans interviewed us and wrote down our names and gave us an identity. Now we could not just disappear. In the beginning the Americans were not good with us, but after the protected persons status their relations with us improved. When we went for interviews the MKO told us, ‘don’t tell the US that you want to leave, defend the MKO in front of the Americans.’ But in our hearts we all wanted to leave. A month after the protected persons status was granted, the MKO set about destroying all its documents. Particularly those relating to the relations with the Iraqis and with the US. We destroyed all our military schedules and destroyed the books and songs which were against the USA.
More than anything else, Massoud Rajavi’s disappearance destroyed morale in the organization. We were all thinking that if he’s the leader why has he left. We felt betrayed. We watched the video of Ebrahim Zakeri’s [Rajavi’s former head of MKO intelligence] funeral in Paris. We showed no reaction, but in our hearts we were all stunned to see the organization’s top people all there in Paris. They had all run away.
Rumours started that Massoud must also be hiding in Europe. No one knew what to think, but no one dared discuss it. Only, everyone knows in all our hearts that the organization is finished. When the families started coming to visit, the MKO told us they are the representatives of imperialism and we must destroy them. The families became our new enemy rather than the Islamic Republic. They told us stories about the US camp. They said the Americans had killed two of our people and thrown the bodies away. They said they would make us immoral if we went there. People stay because of this. And because they don’t have any place to go. The Americans said we had four options, to stay in Iraq, to go to Iran, to apply for asylum in another country or to leave through international organizations.
We were always asking, ‘where are the international organizations, where is the Red Cross?’ But the MKO wouldn’t let them come into the camp. They told us we have to stay there. They tried to make the members forget about the other three options.
Even so, the men have the courage to escape now the leaders don’t have guns. They can apply to leave and go to the north camp. But the situation for women is desperate beyond description. In the time I was there I only saw three women who had dared to come to the north camp. That’s out of over six hundred people. What they told us was really shocking. Even these women who escaped did so believing that they would be raped by the Americans when they got to the north camp. That’s how bad things are. The younger women are controlled by the older women and they are under observation all the time. There is strict gender separation in Camp Ashraf. Men and women are not allowed to speak to one another. They have separate vehicles. Let me tell you how absurd and at the same time shocking this is.
When they want to put petrol in their vehicles the men and women have separate times. The men go between 8 and 9 am. Then there is a gap of twenty minutes before the women can visit the petrol pumps from 9.20 to 10.20 am. The reason for the gap is so there is absolutely no possibility that men and women meet one another at the station. That is how the situation is.
The Mojahedin really has two faces. In spite of all their external propaganda, the situation of women in the organization is really worse than anything you can imagine. I saw Maryam Rajavi in the last Women’s Day celebration. She released a symbolic white dove. In my mind when I imagine her, I see this dove in one hand and her other hand is like a claw grasping my neck and viciously strangling me. In the end, Rajavi crossed the boundary and tortured his own people. He killed and tortured his own people and he exploited women. I can never forgive him for this.