Rajavis and Cult Leadership

The MeK New Front: messages, and consequences

Rajavi’s wrecked band goes into the abyss

The MeK New Front: messages, and consequences

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

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

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

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

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

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

February 23, 2014 0 comments

Maryam Rajavi

EU must reassess risk after Rajavi orders MEK loyalists to kill critics

Maryam Rajavi has used a meeting at her headquarters near Paris to incite her followers to go ahead and kill individuals that she identifies as her enemies. Speaking to Mojahedin Khalq loyalists on the eve of the thirty fifth anniversary of the Iranian revolution, Rajavi drew a red line between her supporters and everyone else; at one point she lashes out at Iranian opposition groups outside Iran, calling their criticism of the MEK “the struggle of Khamenei’s Pasdars’ satanic attacks against the resistance”, (i.e. Rajavi). Her red line has a very clear definition; you are either totally for us or totally against us.

According to the MEK’s NCRI website, three hundred associations – essentially sub-sects of the Mojahedin Khalq – were in attendance, although the pictures do not reflect these numbers and the associations are not named anywhere in the report. These represent the core supporters of the MEK who are paid to perform the activities which the majority of actual MEK members are incapable of doing. To the extent they are loyal to Rajavi, they are at her command.

Rajavi began to motivate them by first claiming, without providing even anecdotal evidence and in spite of the recent popular election of President Rohani that, “the Iranian society stands ready to change this regime”. She then went on to define her red line: “we highlight the demarcation with the regime in its entirety and we also stress solidarity with all those true defenders of overthrowing the regime”.

To be absolutely clear about what she means by drawing this red line between ‘us and them’, she says, “the struggle of the participant organisations and associations in this convention against the Mullah’s intelligence ministry at this time is the most needed part of the struggle to topple the Mullah’s regime and bring about democracy and the rule of people in Iran. We announce that countering the agents of religious fascist rulers of Iran who are targeting the leadership of the resistance (i.e. Rajavi), is a nationalistic duty of every freedom lover Iranian irrelevant to their political and ideological belief”. [my emphasis]

By “agents of the religious fascist rulers of Iran”, Maryam Rajavi means anyone who criticises the MEK and in particular former members of the MEK who are by default, and “according to the rules of armed struggle [war], condemned to death”.

Since the vast majority of these critics and former members are resident in Europe and North America, ‘countering the agents’ who are ‘condemned to death’ can only be interpreted as instructing her loyal followers to kill these people wherever they reside in the west.

Of course this is never expressed in English, only on the Farsi sites was the threat published. Realising that, as a resident of France, Rajavi would be held personally responsible for incitement to murder, the MEK quickly removed the incriminating Farsi sections of her speech from the hambastegi meli website (a copy is available), and instead an MEK spokesman in Iraq was quoted issuing the same threat. This time more directly as he said, “since we are at war with Iran we will treat anyone who leaves us as someone who has changed sides and we will execute them”. In this context the specific delineation of the red line becomes highly significant as Rajavi is now able to label anybody who does not bow down to her as her enemy , as an “agent of the Iranian regime”. Even those who have escaped Camp Liberty after thirty years in isolation, and threaten them with elimination.

Try as they might the leaders of the MEK cannot for long disguise their total dependence on violence as a means to pursue the very existence of their group. Although posing for Western consumption as a democratic opposition group, the MEK operates as a cult and relies absolutely on instilling fear and dependency on its members. It is imperative that the leaders maintain this atmosphere among the members in order to keep them ‘on message’. As a result, any criticism or protest aimed at exposing the true nature of the group provokes an immediate deployment of intimidation and aggression, sometimes leading to actual physical attacks, even in the streets of western countries. In this way, members (and backers) are graphically reminded of their real role as a group.

The question is, how far will the MEK go to counter the exposures made by former members who are increasing in number and who remain undeterred in their efforts to help rescue those former colleagues who remain trapped in conditions of isolation and suffering daily abuses inside all the MEK’s bases, whether in Iraq or in Europe and North America?

Informed people are beginning to ask what Maryam Rajavi will ask of the members being kept in Iraq against their will. The MEK are trained to violence, to kill and be killed. That has been the MEK’s raison d’être for five decades. It is the reason warmongers and anti-Iran pundits back the group. Loyal members who are trained for assassination are known to already be in Europe. Will they be unleashed soon in an attempt to silence the MEK’s most effective critics? (In her recent speech Maryam Rajavi emphasises that her real enemies – former MEK members – are no more than a handful in every western countries, but she does not name them.)

Judging by past behaviour, the answer to this question is a resounding yes. On many occasions since the MEK established bases in western capitals, it has used violent attacks on its rivals and enemies; tactics from character assassination campaigns to knifings and attempted kidnaps have frequently been reported by victims. Unfortunately, because the MEK has powerful backers, these low level criminal activities have seldom been investigated or prosecuted, leaving the victims vulnerable, though undeterred.

This threat however must be taken seriously. The gruesome death of a former MEK member who had become incarcerated in Camp Ashraf is a vivid reminder of what the MEK is capable of. Massoud Dalili’s disfigured body was discovered among 52 other victims of a violent attack on the Camp which occurred on September 1st 2013. The victims had mostly been subjected to execution style killing. But Dalili’s face had been burned with acid to render him unidentifiable. Although it is still unclear who launched the attack – Iraqi investigators are unable to interview the 42 eyewitness because the MEK are holding them incommunicado inside Camp Liberty – the fact that Dalili was a former high ranking member who disappeared unaccountably from a hotel in Baghdad two years before has led experts on MEK behaviour to conclude that he was killed by the MEK themselves after being kidnapped or deceived into returning to Camp Ashraf. The MEK have simply blamed Iran for his death.

There are further indications that the MEK are actively mobilising to counter the inevitable exposures of former members about human rights abuses committed systematically inside all MEK camps and bases. Two MEK intelligence and security officers of the Mojahedin Khalq have been tracked travelling between Paris and Tirana in Albania. Tirana is now home to some 210 individuals who were recently transferred there from Camp Liberty. The MEK has made every effort to contain them and keep them under cult control, sending minders along with them from Iraq to maintain the control.

Since their arrival, 70 have separated from the MEK and begun to speak out against their treatment in the Iraqi camps. Now, Esmail Mortezaee (Javad Khorasan) and Hassan Nayb Aghad, have been reported bringing suitcases of money (well over a million dollars in cash) with them from Paris out of which they pay $500 per month to each person on condition that they do not talk to anyone, not even their families, about their experiences in the MEK camps, that they do not talk to the UNHCR, which is responsible for the individuals but pays only around $200 per month, and that they work for the MEK by updating social networks to promote the group. Some of these refugees have been threatened with violence and physical elimination. Interestingly, Esmail Mortazaee carries a card or pass which identifies him as working from the Pentagon office in Tirana. He shows this to the ex members as proof of his backing and power over them.

Such activities are not new and have gone on unchallenged for many years in Europe and North America. Many former members who are outspoken critics of the MEK have been, over the years, subjected to mental and physical intimidation carried out with impunity by loyal MEK members trained in security, intelligence and military skills. But importantly, not one of these trained killers will act without the order of their cult leaders, Massoud and Maryam Rajavi. It is incumbent on western security services to understand this dynamic and also acquaint themselves with the current change in risk following the transfer of defected MEK members from Iraq to Europe and in particular Maryam Rajavi’s speech in France blatantly giving her ‘permission’ (read order) to go ahead and kill her opponents.

Middle East Strategy Consultants,Author of “Saddam’s Private Army” and “The life of Camp Ashraf”

February 12, 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

UN High Commissioner for Refugees

Letter to Guterres from former MKO members

Letter to António Guterres UNHCR from former members in Eastern Azarbaijan province in Iran

Honorable António Guterres UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Geneva

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

The PMOI has published the names and photographs of the killed, but not the names of the wounded.

We, the undersigned, as a group of former members of PMOI in Eastern Azarbijan province (Northwest of Iran), express our support for the request of the families of the residents of Camp Liberty to ask your honor, as UN High Commissioner for Refugees and international authority are responsible to solve this issue, as well as the competent international bodies, especially the International Committee of the Red Cross and its office in Iraq to obligate the leadership of the PMOI to announce the names of the wounded residents in this incident by any appropriate means, such as informing the families or to allow the wounded to contact or meet their families because according to international humanitarian laws and basic principles of human rights, they are worried about the health and status of their relatives residing in the refugee camp.

We believe that lifting the cultic and organizational restrictions are the basic and fundamental way to liberate captive members in Iraq, from an organization that has known as a reactionary cult with dictatorial internal relations, as has been emphasized in recent UNAMI report for the first half year of 2013, where indicates: “UNAMI continuing concerns about human rights abuses committed by the PMOI/MeK leadership within Camp Hurriya against the residents….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.”

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

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

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

a group of former members of PMOI in Eastern Azarbijan province (Northwest of Iran)

27 January 2014

Signatories:

1. Sirous Ghazanfari

2. Maseoud Taghipouryan

3. Mohammadreza Mobin

4. Akbar khabare

5. Hosen Hemati

6. Ahmad Hosenzade

7. Ahad Rsolpour

8. Karam Kheiri

9. Ali Ghanbarzade

10. Abdolahe Nikbakht tabrizi

11. Ali Amani

12. Alah Verdi Rsolzade

13. Shahryar Samade

14. Saeid pakdel

15. Hedar Abolhasani

16. Nader Chap Chap

17. Alireza Moghadami chbcghloei

18. Hamid Rastegari

19. Jaefar Fraj pour andbili

20. Akbar Dolt negad

21. Jelal Salmani

22. Habibe Monesi ghramlki

23. Jamshid Nazari

24. Mohammad javad Asadi

25. Esmaeil Aghapour

26. Mehdi Pourghasem

27. Reza Shams

A copy to:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

– The International Committee of the Red Cross

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

– Office of the Prime Minister of Iraq

– Iraqi Ministry of Human Rights

– Amnesty International

– Human Rights

Community of Independent Bloggers,

January 28, 2014 0 comments

Open letter to Mrs. Jane Holl Lute

Dear Mrs Holl Lute, Special Adviser to the UN Secretary General for the Relocation of Camp Hurriya (aka Liberty) Residents Outside of Iraq, please accept our warm greetings as former members of the PMOI.

Mrs Holl Lute We hope that you complete your mission successfully and very quickly because of the hardship and misery which each one of us tolerated and endured in the PMOI and for the sake of our friends who are still trapped and stuck in this notorious organization.

We, separated members and critics, know very well that because of the egoism of the PMOI leadership and by invoking the fanatical principles of their ideology, the PMOI leadership will try its best to keep those miserable and trapped members in Iraq until they die, and that, as a matter of fact, the leadership welcomes their deaths because they know that the majority of PMOI members, especially the rank and file of this organization, will become their critics as soon as they reach the free world. For that reason we would like to help you in your mission as much as possible.

Mrs Holl Lute, breaking the cult-like and organizational barriers is the basis and fundamental prelude to the release, rescue and exit of those stranded and trapped members in Iraq. The PMOI leadership has robbed them of their ability to think for themselves and make decisions on their own behalf.

Your interlocutors for the rescue mission from Iraq should rightly be the individual members and not the organization and its self-appointed representatives, but because of the problems and obstacles which we would like to discuss with you, any discussion individually with those trapped members may be out of reach at present because all those members are made to obey their leaders’ orders regarding this matter.

We would like to share our experiences with you regarding this subject and how you might best approach this problem.

We wish you every success in your humanitarian mission and we eagerly follow your endeavours and activities in this regard.

Separated members and critics of the PMOI.

21 January 2014

Signatories:

1.Mohammad Karami

2. Hassan Piransar

3. Batul Soltani

4. Saba Shekar Beyghi

5. Mohsen Mahdavi

6. M. Barazandeh

7. Hamid Sistani

8. Mahmoud Sepahi

9. Mehrdad Sagharchi

10. Ghorbanali Hossein nejad

11. Hassan Azizi

12. Seyed Amir movasaghi

13. Alireza Mirasghari

14. Edward Termado

15. Behzad Alishahi

16. Toraj Amiri

17. Massoud Khodabandeh

18. Shirzad Jalili

19. Majid Rohi

20. Niaz Salimi

21. Shamim Rabiee

22. Anne Singelton

23. Bahiee Jeylani

24. Nasrin Ebrahimi

25. Zahra Al Sadat Mirbagheri

26. Homeyra Mohammad Nejad

27. Mahtab Alipour

28. Zahra Moini

29. Mona Hossein Nejad

30. B- Amiri

31. Visha Madej

32. Ahmad Mohammadi

33. Arash Sameti pour

34. Ali Khatami

35. Saeed Soltanpour

36. Ali Ghashghavi

37. Ali Jahani

38. Hamid Dehdar

39. Ehsan Bidi

40. Mehdi Khoshhal

41. Hassan Khalag

42. Jafar Ebrahimi

43. Hamid Yosefi

44. Vahid Saidi

45. Adel Azami

46. Ali akbar Rastgo

47. Mitra Yousefi

48. Massoud Jabani

49. Mohammadreza Najarian kermani

50 . Homayon Kahzadi

51 . Mirbagher Sedaghi

52 .Ghafour Fatahyian

53-Reza Fani Yazdi

54. kobra Kobra

55. Mehdi Sajoudi

56. Ronak Eyazi

57. Hamed Shirmardi

58 . Mehdi Nikbakht

59.Shahrouz Tajbakhsh

Copies to

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

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

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

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

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

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

– The International Committee of the Red Cross

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

– Office of the Prime Minister of Iraq

– The Iraqi Ministry of Human Rights

– Amnesty International

-Human Rights Watch

Faryade Azadi, Paris

January 22, 2014 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization members' families

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

Honourable António Guterres UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Geneva

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

16 January 2014

Signatories:

1.Mohammad Karami

2. Hassan Piransar

3. Batul Soltani

4. Saba Shekar Beyghi

5. Mohsen Mahdavi

6. M. Barazandeh

7. Hamid Sistani

8. Mahmoud Sepahi

9. Mehrdad Sagharchi

10. Ghorbanali Hossein nejad

11. Hassan Azizi

12. Seyed Amir movasaghi

13. Alireza Mirasghari

14. Edward Termado

15. Behzad Alishahi

16. Toraj Amiri

17. Massoud Khodabandeh

18. Shirzad Jalili

19. Majid Rohi

20. Niaz Salimi

21. Shahin Rabiee

22. Anne Singleton

23. Bahiee Jeylani

24. Nasrin Ebrahimi

25. Zahra Al Sadat Mirbagheri

26. Homeyra Mohammad Nejad

27. Mahtab Alipour

28. Zahra Moini

29. Mona Hossein Nejad

30. B- Amiri

31. Visha Madej

32. Ahmad Mohammadi

33. Arash Sameti pour

34. Ali Khatami

35. Saeed Soltanpour

36. Ali Ghashghavi

37. Ali Jahani

38. Hamid Dehdar

39. Ehsan Bidi

40. Mehdi Khoshhal

41. Hassan Khalag

42. Jafar Ebrahimi

43. Hamid Yosefi

44. Vahid Saidi

45. Adel Azami

46. Ali akbar Rastgo

47. Mitra Yousefi

48. Massoud Jabani

49. Mohammadreza Najarian kermani

50 . Homayon Kahzadi

51 . Mirbagher Sedaghi

52 .Ghafour Fatahyian

53 – Reza Fani Yazdi

Copies to:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

– The International Committee of the Red Cross

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

– Office of the Prime Minister of Iraq

– The Iraqi Ministry of Human Rights

– Amnesty International

– Human Rights Watch

Mohammad Karami blog, Paris

January 18, 2014 0 comments

UN High Commissioner for Refugees

Families demand UNHCR name injured MEK members

Families demand UNHCR name injured MEK members from Camp Liberty missile attack

Honorable António Guterres UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Geneva

As your Excellency are aware, Camp Liberty in Baghdad, the temporary camp for nearly three thousand members of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI) subjected Thursday night 26 December 2013 to a terrorist attack by rockets and mortars. According to PMOI this attack caused death of three of the camp residents and wounding 71 others, many of them in critical condition, while 4 were taken to the hospitals in Baghdad.

The PMOI has published the names and photographs of the killed, but not the names of the wounded. We are members of the families of the residents of Camp Liberty, are deeply concerned about the safety and security of our relatives who live in the Camp, so according to the most basic international laws of human rights and humanitarian principles, have the right to know about the fate of our relatives after such a bloody event.

So, we urge your honor, as UN High Commissioner for Refugees and international authority are responsible to solve this issue, as well as the competent international bodies, especially the International Committee of the Red Cross and its office in Iraq to obligate the leadership of the PMOI to announce the names of the wounded residents in this incident by any appropriate means, such as informing the families or to allow the wounded to contact or meet their families.

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

We call international bodies, especially the UN High Commissioner for Refugees to put their utmost efforts to urge the member states towards resettling the residents to the third countries as soon as possible.

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

A group of families of the residents of Camp Liberty , in Baghdad

29 December 2013

Ghorban Ali Hussein Nejad a resident of France and father of Zainab Hussein Nejad a resident of Camp Liberty and a former refugee in France.

Mona Hussein Nejad, an Iranian citizen and sister of Zainab Hussain Nejad a resident of Camp Liberty and a former refugee in France.

Shamim Rabiey an Iranian citizen and sister of Said Rabiey a resident of Camp Liberty.

Masuma Rezaiy an Iranian citizen and mother of Said Sayyed Farajollah Hosseini a resident of Camp Liberty.

Hassan Karbalaiey Sabbaq an Iranian citizen and father of Ali Reza Karbalaiey Sabbaq a resident of Camp Liberty.

Ali Aloofete an Iranian citizen and father of Hadi Aloofete a resident of Camp Liberty

Homeyra Mohammad Nejad a resident of Germany and cousin of Bahman Mohammad Nejad a resident of Camp Liberty.

Murtaza Hamzaluiyjan a resident of France and brother of Mohsen Hamzaluiyjan a resident of Camp Liberty and a former refugee in France.

Jokar family residing in Britain and brothers of Abdolreza Jokar a resident of Camp Liberty former refugee in the United States.

Family Ghafoorian: Asia and Asefe and Ehsan Ghafoorian residing in France sons of sister of Jawad Zaerian a resident of camp Liberty.

A copy to:

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

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

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

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

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

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

– The International Committee of the Red Cross

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

– The Iraqi Ministry of Human Rights

Hossein Nejad weblog

January 16, 2014 0 comments

Human Rights Abuse in the MEK

Rajavi’s absurd claim of equality !

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mazda Parsi

January 14, 2014 0 comments

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