Rajavis and Cult Leadership

Mujahedin Khalq Organization as a terrorist group

Open letter to Mrs. Dana M Popa, Romania

Ali Akbar Rastgou

Dear Mrs Popa,

by your home page – www.freeiran-romania.org -, we took notice of the „Comitetul Parlamentarilor Romani Pentru Iranul Liber“. As an Iranian-exile-association from Germany, we also campaign for human rights and democracy in Iran.

However it is conspicuous, that the statements and reports on your home page nearly exclusively deal with the well known claims and demands of the Mojahedin-e Khalq Organisation (MEK/MKO/PMOI).

The MEK has no political significance inside Iran and is not the right way forward to get involved with a free and democratic Iran.

Similar to the other European support-organizations, like the „Deutsch Solidaritätskommitee für einen freien Iran (DSFI)“, „The British Parliamentary Committee for Iran Freedom“ – http://iran-freedom.org/ – or „Friends of a Free Iran“ in the European Parliament, the „Comitetul Parlamentarilor Romani Pentru Iranul Liber“ seem to be just another lobby-organization and mouthpiece of the MEK.

Such a commitment only aids the MEK and not the people inside Iran.

A first step showing real humanitarian commitment could be, urging the Romanian government to take some refugees from Camp Liberty and save them from further attacks.

In contrast the MEK at any cost tries to keep their members together, to easier indoctrinate and control them. At the moment the Liberty-residents pay the price of permanent fear of further attacks and deaths.

The fact, that again and again European politicians feel up to disseminate those contradictory and escapist demands of the MEK without reflecting about seem to militate for the PR and lobbying of the MEK.

With such a blind commitment you run the risk of losing your political credibility as some European politicians hat to learn already.

For much background information about the lobbying of the MEK, please contact us.

With best regards,

AAWA Association e.V.

Dipl. Ing. Ali Akbar Rastgou

(Chairman)

Cc:

-1 ‌Romeo Florin Nicoara

2-Maria Grecea

3-Titus Pasca

4-Elena -Ramona Uioreanu

5 -Ben-Oni Ardelean

6-Rozalia Ibilya Brio

7-Mario-Ovidio Oprea

8-Ovidiu-Ioan Dumitru

Ali Akbar Rastgou, Aawa Association, Germany

January 12, 2014 0 comments

Iraqi Authorities' stance on the MEK

MKO leaders liable for members’ killings in Iraq

An Iraqi political analyst has said the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK, a.k.a. MKO and NCRI) is responsible for the murder of its members in Iraq.

MKO leaders liable for members’ killings in Iraq Referring to the missile attack to the transient residence of the MKO members near Baghdad International Airport, Ibrahim al-Seraji said in an interview with Habilian Association that the attack was an obvious reason for the Iraqis’ reluctance over their stay in the country.

Camp Liberty, former US military base near Baghdad International Airport, which now houses some 2900 members of the terrorist MKO group came under attacks on December 27, 2013.

Al-Mukhtar Army militia has claimed responsibility for the attack. Wathiq al-Batat, commander of the militia, told Reuters his group had fired 20 Katyusha rockets and mortar rounds at the camp. “We’ve asked (the government) to expel them from the country many times, but they are still here,” he said.

Al-Seraji cited the MKO leaders’ disrespect for the UN’s decisions regarding their relocation outside Iraq as the reason for their being responsible for the killing of their members.

He added that Iraqi people want the “maintenance of good relations with Iran,” but the suspicious presence of the group in Iraq cause tension between the two countries.

“We’ve expected the Iraqi government to deal with the lawsuits filed against the MKO,” the Iraqi analyst further added.

January 8, 2014 0 comments

Camp Liberty

Who is to blame for the killing of Liberty residents ?

Iraq has experienced countless religiously or politically motivated attacks since Saddam Hussein was toppled in 2003. The country has witnessed numerous bloody days. The United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) says that more than 5,200 people were killed between April and the end of September this year. The escalating violence caused Iraq to be an insecure region for the residents. The Mujahedin Khalq members as unwanted guests are no exception.
Camp Liberty, the temporary transit location of Mujahedin Khalq was hit by rockets on Thursday December 26, with three people dead and several others seriously injured, Reuters cited the camp’s spokesperson as saying.
This is the fourth rocket attack this year against the camp where 3000 members of Mujahedin reside.
Mujahedin Khalq is the Iraqi dictator’s accomplice in suppressing Shiite and Kurds uprisings who after the fall of Saddam continued its provocative practices. The Iraqi people have deep seated hatred towards the MKO since their hands stained with the blood of their countrymen and beloved ones. Iraqi authorities have issued 148 arrest warrants for MEK members for crimes against Iraqis since 1991 but none have been arrested, according to officials.
Reuters reports that Wathiq al-Batat, the commander of the al-Mukhtar Army militia, took responsibility for the attack on the MKO camp accusing the group of communicating with Sunni and Shi’ite politicians he said were linked to al Qaeda.Al-Batat said :” “We’ve asked (the government) to expel them from the country many times, but they are still here,”
So the Iraqi soil is no more safe for the Mujahedin members.
After the attack on Camp Liberty EU, US, UN and some other International bodies condemned the attack in strong terms as it claimed the lives of Camp residents and urged the Iraqi government to step up security measures around the Camp and called on Iraq to launch investigation into the incident.
The Iraqi authorities have repeatedly reiterated that they have problem in providing security for their own people let alone for the members of an unwanted terrorist organization.
This process has been the case after each attack on both Camps Ashraf and Liberty, bearing no fruit.
Every time Iraq reiterates its unwillingness to let MKO stay on their soil, International bodies’ duty seems to be just condemning the attacks. The cult leaders on their turn try to take advantage of the incidents and shedding of members’ bloods.
The leaders and high ranking members of the organization who are residing in safe places do not care about the safety and well being of the rank and file members being trapped in the cul de sac of Iraq.
The Cult leaders won’t put into danger their cultic structure by letting members out individually, rather they want to relocate members as a unit. They strive to survive their cult by putting its members under missiles and bullets. The power-thirsty leaders of the group just look at the members as tools to promote their ambitions.
Still the only voiceless victims of the incidents are Camp residents who are both ignored by international society as well as their own leaders. Liberty residents are the plaything of political equations between their leaders and the leaders’ masters .
Really, who is to be blamed and who is to be making accountable for the lives of the 3000+ trapped residents of the Temporary Transit Location ?!
A. Sepinoud

January 4, 2014 0 comments

Massoud Rajavi

UN must investigate Rajavi’s role in the deaths of 53 MEK victims

Open Letter to Ban Ki Moon, UN Secretary General

The impunity given to Rajavi by Western governments from the start of his stay in Iraq in 1986 until now

Door leading to Massoud Rajavi’s hideout in Camp Ashraf

has given him such latitude that he is able to kill his own people and blame the Iraqi authorities for it without any fear of investigation or recrimination.

The events which took place at Camp Ashraf on September 1st became controversial immediately following the attack by unknown assailants when the Mojahedin Khalq inundated Western media with their own films and pictures of the event. Why were the MEK filming these events if they had been taken by surprise?

Now a week after the Iraqi investigating team published the name of a 53rd victim, the MEK have hastily cobbled together a documentary made up of short, unconnected clips of film with the clear intention of creating a specific scenario. In this documentary the body of the 53rd victim, Massoud Dalili, is shown without a shirt and with Iranian money scattered around his body, which, it is claimed, was taken from his pocket. His face has been burned beyond recognition. The MEK explanation of this scenario is that because Massoud Dalili knew about the nuclear bunkers underneath Massoud Rajavi’s compound in Camp Ashraf he has led agents of the Iraqi government there to attack that specific place.

The nuclear bunker was built over three years; starting a year before the First Gulf War, continued during the war and finished a year after. It is a prototype of a Swedish anti-nuclear bunker. All the equipment, from additives to strengthen the concrete, the air conditioning, generators, doors and gaskets, shock absorber springs, anti-shatter toilets, mirrors etc were all imported through Orly and Frankfurt airports and then through Jordan, with the knowledge and consent of the Jordanian government (during the sanctions regime imposed on Iraq), and with the endorsement of the Pentagon. This was done by a joint team of purchasers headed by Ala’adin Touran who was the MEK’s representative in Jordan in those days and who worked from the MEK office in Amman. During the First Gulf War the Pentagon instructed the MEK through Mohammad Mohaddessin to place identifying flags and signs on top of this half completed building so they would not bomb it.

This bunker was visited by agents of the Pentagon and other US agencies when the US army first gained access to Camp Ashraf in 2003. It was then handed back to the leadership of the MEK with the promise that other MEK members would not be told about it. During the transfer of responsibility of Camp Ashraf to the Government of Iraq in 2009 information about this compound and the nuclear bunkers was given to the Iraqis. Of the two dozen or so MEK members who knew about the bunker because, like myself, they were involved in its construction, several have left the MEK and made this information public. Descriptions and satellite images of the exact location and configuration of the nuclear bunker can be found in two books: Saddam’s Private Army published in 2003 and The Life of Camp Ashraf published in 2011.

It is ludicrous to assert that an attacking force would need to rely on Dalili as a guide two years after he left the organisation when this information was already in the public domain, and ludicrous they would take him along as he was over 50 years old. It is ludicrous that an attacking force would take acid with them to deliberately burn the face of one of their party. It is ludicrous that the Iranian money scattered over his body is not enough to even pay for a taxi ride In Iran, never mind in Iraq. Why would anyone take this kind of foreign currency on a mission like this?

For me, and for anyone who has had any dealings with the MEK, it is absolutely clear that this person, who was registered with the UN in Baghdad as an escapee and who suddenly went missing one day has been forcefully or deceitfully taken back by the MEK to Camp Ashraf, (numerous ex members have complained about near kidnappings in Iraq and in Europe, including Massoud Banisadr in London and Batoul Soltani in Baquba, Iraq), and has been kept there clandestinely and when they realised they would have to get rid of him they tried to destroy the evidence of his presence there. As soon as the Iraqis identified him as someone the MEK had not admitted to being at the camp, they tried to create a Hollywood style film to whitewash their crime. Ironically the documentary’s narrator is Hassan Nezamalmolki who is a well known torturer of the time of Saddam and who is wanted by the Iraqi Judiciary to face criminal charges.

One mistake Dalili made was that after escaping the MEK he refused to remain in Hotel Mohajer with the other ex members under the protection of the Iraqi security forces. He ignored efforts to persuade him to make use of the protection offered by this circumstance, and insisted on being moved to a different hotel where he was in fact more vulnerable.

There is extremely strong evidence, not least the MEK’s own panicky and slipshod reaction, to indicate that Dalili has been killed by the MEK themselves. And the circumstances surrounding the deaths of the other 52 victims are so bizarre and inexplicable that it is highly likely that the MEK had a hand in those deaths also. It is imperative that this incident be thoroughly investigated as a matter of urgency.

UN officials tasked the Government of Iraq to carry out an investigation on its behalf and then denied them any opportunity to do this. The Iraqis know, and UNAMI knows that the Pentagon will not allow this to be investigated. There are 42 surviving members who were moved from Camp Ashraf to Camp Liberty who are eye witnesses to what happened that day. They would all have known Massoud Dalili. Nobody has seen or heard from them since the time they were handed back to the MEK commanders in Camp Liberty. The MEK’s past behaviour and the impunity Massoud Rajavi clearly enjoys to imprison and kill his own followers strongly suggests that many of them and others in the camp are being mistreated behind closed doors. How many more deaths will there be?

We – ex members and families of residents in Camp Liberty – earnestly request that you use your office as Secretary General of the United Nations to stand up to the Pentagon and force this investigation to move forward to conclusion by demanding access to these 42 survivors and others who can help get to the bottom of what actually happened in Camp Ashraf on 1st September 2013.

camp ashraf

Satellite image of Rajavi’s compound and explanations from the book “The Life of Camp Ashraf” published 2011

Iranian.com

January 4, 2014 0 comments

MEK Camp Ashraf

Who killed ex MEK member Massoud Dalili?

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

January 1, 2014 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq 's Function

Rajavi orders the end of the fake hunger strikes

Now, a couple of months after Maryam Rajavi claimed the MKO members’ hunger strike was voluntarily, she is urging them to end their strike, apparently because of a Spanish court’s ruling against the Iraqi Rajavi orders the end of the fake hunger strikes Prime Minister’s Advisor.

Mujahedin e-khalq organization has been recognized by many credible western sources as a cult-like organization. In mid-2009, the Rand Corporation published a report titled ‘Mujahedin-e Khalq in Iraq: A Policy Conundrum’. The report was written by a team of four who worked for 15 months in the US and Iraq to produce the most thorough analysis to date of the group’s cultish aspects. MKO is referred to as a cult 88 times in this report. It is stated in the report that ‘an examination of MKO activities establishes its cultic practices and its deceptive recruitment and public relations strategies.’ Over time, the MKO was imbued with many of the typical characteristics of a cult, such as authoritarian control, confiscation of assets, sexual control (including mandatory divorce and celibacy), emotional isolation, forced labor, sleep deprivation, physical abuse, and limited exit options.’

In May 2005, Human Rights Watch issued a report describing prison camps within Iraq run by the MKO and severe human rights violations committed by the group against former members. The report described how the MKO was held under tight control of the husband and wife team of Massoud and Maryam Rajavi and has a history of cult-like practices that include forcing members to divorce their spouses and to engage in extended self-criticism sessions.

A 2011 declassified U.S. State Department cable from the U.S. embassy in Baghdad, details interviews with MKO members who managed to escape from Camp Ashraf. The escapees – referred to as defectors in the cable “reaffirmed existing perceptions of the MKO as a cult-like organization that thrives on maintaining control of its members and those lured to Ashraf under false pretenses.”

Although the MKO has always denied its cultic nature, the terrorist group has once more proved unconsciously that these documents are thoroughly accurate.

MKO members at Camp Liberty were forced by their leader, Maryam Rajavi, to go on a hunger strike after an unknown group of people attacked Camp Ashraf on September 1, 2013 and 7 MKO members allegedly disappeared. After MKO was criticized by some former members as a cult which forces its members to go on hunger strike, Maryam Rajavi tried to cover the whole story up in a conference held in Paris by saying: “On the basis of many requests by you, I have appealed to the residents at Liberty to end their strike. But they have said that the only way they can convey their protest with respect to the 7 hostages and the issue of protection at Liberty to everyone else is to make sacrifices with their own bodies.” Critics continued blaming MKO leadership regardless of Rajavi’s claims. As reported by NEJAT Society, a group of former MKO members issued a statement to condemn “forced and useless hunger strike” in Camp Liberty. A part of the statement reads: “In fact, all political and propaganda affairs including self-immolations and hunger strikes are basically organized acts and actually under the order of the leadership and members are due to execute them”.

Now, a couple of months after Maryam Rajavi claimed the MKO members’ hunger strike was voluntarily, she is urging them to end their strike, apparently because of a vote against Faleh Fayad, the Iraqi Prime Minister’s Advisor, by a Spanish court. MKO leader has issued the order without even achieving the announced goals of the hunger strike. Maryam Rajavi seems to be forced to finish the whole show mainly due to the increasing pressure on the cult’s leaders following the forced hunger strike.

Now a question is raised here: “How can the West, including the United States, trust such a cult whose members are fully brainwashed and potentially capable of doing anything if ordered by their leaders? What if MKO leader had ordered the cult’s members to wear explosive belts and blow themselves up in European cities? A similar case has occurred when Maryam Rajavi was arrested by the French Police in 2003. As a protest action following Rajavi’s arrest, 10 MKO members immolated themselves in Paris. The organization has also a long record of using suicide terrorism to take out Iranian political or religious elite. How can the European Union and the United States justify their support for such a cult and still claim to be the pioneers of promoting Human Rights throughout the world?”

December 21, 2013 0 comments

Human Rights Abuse in the MEK

Human Rights Declaration; MKO Version

The Mujahedin Khalq ringleaders are desperate to use any means possible to gain the support and favor of the West. They stage rallies, hold conferences and events and hire prominent political figures as paid speakers to speak out on their behalf.

The latest show of MKO was held on the eve of Human Rights Day in Paris, in which Maryam Rajavi marked the Human Rights Day and also tried to link its group to Nelson Mandela as his funeral and commemoration of his life and legacy was coincided with the HR Day. Needless to say that Mandela was a global symbol for the struggle for Human Rights.

The sight of Maryam Rajavi offering condolences for the passing away of Nelson Mandela was disturbing, considering that her husband as the fugitive leader of her group actively opposed and criticized Mandela’s legacy.

Unlike Mandela, who earned profound international respect, Rajavis cannot claim that they have sought to establish policy and practice in order to protect fundamental Human Rights.

Despite concrete evidences and most shocking examples of the group’s callous disregard for Human Rights, the deceitful cult leaders claim charming support for democracy and Human Rights.

On MKO website under the title of “NCRI position on Human rights” the third Agenda is: [the NCRI] “Promotes and adheres to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights”. [1]

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) is a declaration adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on 10 December 1948 at Palais de Chaillot, Paris. The Declaration represents the first global expression of rights to which all human beings are inherently entitled. [2]

This UDHR is proclaimed as a common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations, to the end that every individual and every organ of society, keeping this Declaration constantly in mind, shall strive to promote respect for the rights and freedoms entitled and enlisted in the 30 articles of the declaration.[3]

Based on the agenda inserted on its website, the Mujahedin Khalq Organization aka MKO/MEK/NCRI has obliged itself to respect the Human Rights declaration. Thus the group should implement it within its own organization as a sample society of the bigger it wishes to create and govern. Yet the group doesn’t apply even one out of 30 articles of the Declaration. U.N. envoy Martin Kobler accused the leaders of Mujahedin Khalq of human rights abuses. Kobler told the Security Council:" Of increasing concern are the human rights abuses in Camp Hurriya itself by the camp leadership,…Hundreds of daily monitoring reports suggest that the lives of Camp Hurriya members are tightly controlled."[4]

A glance at the Declaration’s articles shows that none of them are being applied by the group.

To name some; the third article of the HR declaration reads: “Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.” The forth articles reads:” No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms.” And the fifth Article reads:”No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.”[5]

Yet according to Human Rights watch report 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.[6]

The MKO violates the Article 9, which urges no unfair detainment.

According to Human Rights Watch report the MKO held dissidents in its internal prisons during the 1990s and later turned over many of them to Iraqi authorities, who held them in Abu Quraib. One of the former MKO members interviewed, according to the report, recalled that during the mid-1990s a prisoner died after an intense beating. Two other former MEK members said they were held in solitary confinement for extensive periods of time, one for five years, and the other for eight and a half years.[7]

The MKO violates the article 12, which insists on the right to privacy. Nonetheless, authoritarian control, confiscation of assets, sexual control (including mandatory divorce and celibacy), emotional isolation, forced labor, sleep deprivation, physical abuse, and limited exit options are examples of the group’s leaders abusing the followers. [8]

The MKO violates the Article13, which urges the freedom to move and take residency.

According to the RAND report, to prevent MEK/MKO members from departing the camps, almost all MEK/MKO recruits were obliged to turn over their identity documents to the MKO for “safekeeping”. By bringing members into Iraq illegally and then confiscating their identity documents, the MKO was able to trap them. [9] Among the numerous references to the Mujahaddin e-Khalq (MEK) revealed by Wikileaks were cases of forced detention at Ashraf:"The MEK was also violating human rights by holding residents at Ashraf against their will." [10]

The MKO violates the Article 14, which asserts the right to seek a safe place to live.

The deadly incidents in Camp Ashraf and Camp Liberty caused all concerned individuals to be worried about the fate and life of MKO members to be worried about their fate. All parties concerned have reached to the consensus that the only way to resolve situation of Camp Liberty residents is to relocate them somewhere out of Iraq. António Guterres, UNHCR chief insisted: “The residents of Camp Hurriya urgently need solutions to relocate out of Iraq".[11] Still the leaders of the group are reluctant to let members relocate to third countries as this way they will lost their cultic hegemony on members.

Martin Kobler, the former Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Iraq, several times deplored the lack of cooperation of the residents and of their leadership with the UNHCR and UN monitors. In an interview with The Associated Press in Baghdad Kobler said that “residents of an Iranian dissident camp are denied freedom of movement by the exile group.”[12]

Wendy Sherman, the Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs also noted that the MEK’s leadership in Paris was obstructing the process to resettle MEK members.[13]

The MKO violates the article 16 which avows the right of marriage and family.

Cult leaders instructed members not just to move into gender-segregated housing but also to divorce their spouses, maintain complete celibacy, and even cut off communication with friends and family, both within and beyond MeK compounds. Love for the Rajavis was to replace love for spouses and family. Martin Kobler former UN envoy in Iraq addressing the UN Security Council on July 2013 said that Camp Liberty residents are not free to “contact family members outside Iraq, or to have contact with other relatives even within the camp itself “ [14]

The MKO violates the article 18 which insists on the freedom of thought.

MKO members are required to keep daily records of their thoughts and nighttime dreams, as well as observations about their fellow members. They must submit their journals to their supervisors. The leadership requires members to study MKO ideology and to participate in indoctrination sessions that are characterized by a mix of propaganda and fear tactics. Group members are required to watch films of the Rajavis’ speeches. They are allowed to listen and watch only the group’s own broadcasts. The members are allowed to read only internal reports and Bulletins. Violators are punished. [15] The increasing number of defections and those willing to leave the Camp Liberty has caused the leaders to push more pressure on members implementing constant bombardment of indoctrination and manipulation cult methods.

The MKO violates the article 19 which avers the freedom of expression.

Former MKO members say that punishment is frequently meted out for such offenses as expressing or fomenting disagreement with the political or military strategy of the MeK or sharing individual political views with other members.[16]

All mentioned above are just instances of harsh human rights abuses taking place within the affairs of the Mujahedin Khalq Cult. This is why the people being trapped within the double prison of MKO camp risk everything to run away. In one case for example, Zahra Bagheri crawled combat-style over a kilometer for hours in the dark to escape Camp Ashraf. Her body was so lacerated and bleeding that the Iraqi soldiers who found her were shocked and shed tears by seeing her deplorable condition.[17]

The defectors testimonies point to deteriorating Human Rights conditions in Camp Liberty. Still the Camp residents have no voice. Nobody takes care about their fates and their sufferings. The MKO Cult leaders on their turn have been “actively obstructive, indeed provocative, toward those wishing to investigate and alleviate this suffering” as Ann Singleton put it correctly. [18]

By: A.Sepinoud

References:

[1] Nejat bloggers are either former MKO members or have a family member who is currently held in Camp Ashraf. They have suffered deeply because of Massoud Rajavi’s crimes. While the Nejat Bloggers recognize that citing sources of information is essential ,we, as a society feel so strongly against the MKO that we have agreed to not include the group’s websites or links in our articles because we consider it as kind of publicity for the cult.

[2] Universal Declaration of Human Rights ,Wikipedia

[3] The Universal Declaration of Human Rights,UN.org,

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

[5] The Universal Declaration of Human Rights,UN.org,

[6]Human Rights Watch, NO Exit, May2005

[7]ibid

[8] Goulka, Jeremiah, Hansell, Lydia, Wilke, Elizabeth, Larson, Judith, The Mujahedin-e Khalq in Iraq, A Policy Conundrum, RAND, August2009

[9]ibid

[10] WikiLeaks Releases involving Mujahaddin e-Khalq (MEK) , National Iranian American Council (NIAC),September 9,2011

[11] Bobb, Donn, UNHCR welcomes Albanian offer to Hurriya residents, unmultimedia.org, March 2013

[12] SCHRECK, ADAM, AP Interview: UN Iraq rep Martin Kobler urges exile cooperation, Associated Press, June 27, 2013

[13] NIAC, MEK leader in Paris obstructing the process to resettle members, October 4, 2013

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

[15] Goulka, Jeremiah, Hansell, Lydia, Wilke, Elizabeth, Larson, Judith, The Mujahedin-e Khalq in Iraq, A Policy Conundrum, RAND, August2009

[16] ibid

[17]Singleton,Ann, Silencing the victims of the MeK to promote Maryam Rajavi’s phoney feminism,March7,2013

[18] Singleton, Anne & Khodabandeh ,Massoud, The Life of Camp Ashraf – Mojahedin-e Khalq, Victims of Many Masters, September 2011

December 18, 2013 0 comments

The cult of Rajavi

Where are the 42 missing Mojahedin Khalq eye witnesses from Camp Ashraf?

Forty two eye witnesses to the attack on Camp Ashraf on September 1st 2013 have mysteriously disappeared after they were transferred to Camp Liberty on September 11th. Officials from the Where are the 42 missing Mojahedin Khalq eye witnesses from Camp Ashraf? Government of Iraq (GOI), which has been tasked by the United Nations to investigate the attack in which fifty three people died, have been unable to contact the survivors since they were relocated under UNAMI supervision, and Camp Ashraf was finally closed.

At the time the attack took place, the Mojahedin Khalq had maintained a symbolic force of around one hundred loyalists at Camp Ashraf, ostensibly to sell off MEK assets although this never happened. Fifty three residents were killed in brutal execution style during the attack by unknown assailants, but afterwards MEK leaders refused to fully cooperate with teams of concerned visitors and investigators from the UN, the US embassy and the GOI.

Deputy Special Representative of the United Nations Secretary-General (DSRSG), Mr Gyorgy Busztin visited the camp on September 3rd and tasked the Iraqi government to “ensure that a thorough, impartial and transparent investigation into this atrocious crime is conducted without delay and that the results of the investigation are made public”. After extensive searches inside Camp Ashraf and widespread enquiries in the immediate vicinity and beyond, Iraqi investigators are still unable to say who perpetrated the attack, nor what actually took place inside the camp. It did not help that the MEK have refused to hand over many films and photographs which they took themselves just before, during and in the aftermath of the attack. It soon became clear however that the MEK had interfered with the scene by moving several bodies to create visual scenarios for propaganda purposes and had also destroyed key evidence before investigators were able to get inside the camp.

Speaking on the day Camp Ashraf was finally evacuated and closed, one Iraqi official claimed that videos of the clashes at the camp released by the MEK reveal that “most of the dead were actually killed by their own fellows at the camp.” However, the forty two individuals who were in the camp during the attack have not subsequently been produced to help with enquiries. The official again complained about the refusal of MEK commanders to cooperate with the investigators.

The MEK claimed that seven of its named members went missing from Camp Ashraf after the attack and, in what experts on MEK behaviour regard as a diversionary tactic, alleged, “they were taken hostage by Iraqi forces and flown to Amara province to be extradited to Iran”. Both the GOI and the Iranian government have denied any involvement in the attack and say they have no knowledge as to the whereabouts of the seven named persons who were Massoud Rajavi’s closest cohort inside Iraq. Rajavi himself has been in hiding for ten years and is therefore unavailable for comment.

Rajavi and his wife, Maryam, ordered their followers to go on a hunger strike – which has now incredibly passed one hundred days – to demand the return of the seven, who, like Rajavi himself, have apparently disappeared without trace. Because it is not known where the seven are being held nor by whom, or indeed whether they are still alive, the hunger strike is awkwardly open ended as it addresses no party known to be able to ‘hand them over’. Commentators have pointed out anyway that the logic behind the hunger strikers’ demand does not tally with the accusation that those who brutally murdered fifty three people are now holding the missing seven. Wouldn’t such people actually be glad if more MEK members starve to death?

Western media sympathetic to the MEK’s role in Iraq have recently reported that unknown ‘independent UN experts’ want the GOI to speed up its investigation into this specific issue. According to Reuters, the UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances said in a statement, “We call upon the Government of Iraq to speed up the investigations in order to disclose the fate and whereabouts of the [seven] individuals.”

The working group added that “the impunity with which these crimes have been committed is particularly flagrant given the severity of the offences and the alleged evidence of engagement by Iraqi forces in the commission of these crimes.”

A UN Special Rapporteur – this time on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions – Christof Heyns, said “international law clearly requires governments to ensure that all allegations of killings are investigated in a prompt, effective and impartial manner, irrespective of who the perpetrator is.”

But while Rajavi used these media reports to justify continuing the hunger strike, Iraqi investigators have stressed that even though this statement empowers Iraq to interview the forty two individual eye witnesses to the events at Camp Ashraf, until now the UN has failed to produce them and has instead allowed them to be swallowed up by the Rajavi cult’s camp commanders at Camp Liberty, to which neither the UN nor the GOI has access. This is in spite of the fact that these are key witnesses and without their testimony the investigation cannot be completed.

MEK experts working with the GOI on this issue, have warned United Nations human rights officials responsible for the camp of their grave concerns for the wellbeing of the forty two as well as the hunger strikers in Camp Liberty. News leaked from inside the camp by dissident members still held there, indicates that the forty two are being held incommunicado and that nobody has seen or heard of them since their arrival there. It is evident that the forty two hold vital information which the MEK leaders do not want to be made public. There can be no doubt they are under severe pressure to conceal the truth about what happened at Camp Ashraf. The concern is that, if they do not succumb to this pressure they may be killed. The United Nations Special Rapporteur should demand immediate and unmediated access to these missing persons to ascertain their wellbeing. As it is also alleged that the MEK commanders are deliberately withholding food from the hunger strikers in Camp Liberty, and this abuse should also be investigated as a matter of urgency.

The GOI has said on several occasions it would like to be more assertive in finding ways to get inside the camp and have free and unfettered access to all the individuals residing there, and to be able to separate those who would like to leave voluntarily. They are, however, severely hampered by obedience to UNAMI and what Iraqi MP, Rafe’ Abdul Jabbar, described as “the glacial pace in the relocation process of the MEK members to third countries. He said, “Baghdad is obeying the UN in this regard and this organization is obeying the US. We should admit that Iraq’s independence is still far away”.

Iranian.com

December 17, 2013 0 comments

Human Rights Abuse in the MEK

Psychological pressure and violation of human rights in Rajavi’s cult

We have informed our readers in previous articles that discontent amongst the members of Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization (MEK or MKO), stationed in Camp Liberty near Baghdad in Iraq, is escalating and Why do the international organizations close their eyes? more and more individuals seek to leave Rajavi’s cult. The situation is so tense that the commanders of the cult have openly declared a state of alert. The main task of the officials of the cult is to identify discontented members, place them under scrutiny and to employ their inhumane psychological techniques against them. The commanders have been warned that if any of the members under their command escapes, they will be severely punished.

In order to bring the members under tighter control and make them forget about escaping, the officials of the cult have increased the peer pressure in the sessions named “current operation” and, as they say, have heated them up. In these sessions the person who is the subject is put under severe harassment by others using insults and accusations. This is done to break down the subject mentally. The situation is so hard that after the session they closely watch the subject so they do not commit suicide.

In these sessions for instance they tell the subject that he or she has become a vampire sucking the blood of the organization. This is related to an address by the cult leader Massoud Rajavi to his followers in which he warned them against sucking the blood of the organization. Rajavi, like all cult leaders, instead of being responsible toward his followers for leading the organization into catastrophe is claiming that they are sucking the blood out of his cult.

Other examples are calling the subject ‘empty minded’ or a ‘stinky inhumane body’. They make the subject confess that all these years they were busy sucking the blood of the organization and have betrayed the leader. They make the subject feel ashamed of being alive.

In these sessions they ultimately, after shattering the subject mentally, accuse the person of still having ties with their family in their heart and that they must cut out these reactionary ties. What the person must do practically is to confess this and then publicly denounce all his or her loved ones.

One interesting issue is that the cult keeps calling the officials of the UN and the ICRC spies and elements of the enemy, and has announced that approaching them is passing a red line. Approaching these people or asking for them and even talking about them is equivalent to betraying the organization and the consequence is to become the subject of these devastating daily sessions. In each meeting Rajavi and other leaders of the cult talk against the UN and the ICRC in relation to Camp Liberty and call them the agents of Iran and Iraq. All the cult officials think about is how to prevent the members from escaping.

The way the cult treats its followers in the big prison called Camp Liberty under the absolute rule of Massoud Rajavi is an obvious violation of human rights. The treatment and conditions of the captives in the camp is most certainly inhumane. The international organizations are fully aware of these things but for some political interests close their eyes and remain silent. Such behavior is not acceptable under any standard but unfortunately the victims of Rajavi have no voice.

We have repeatedly announced that the lives and psychological health of Rajavi’s captives are in danger, and that the international officials who deliberately do not fulfill their duties and have given Rajavi an open hand, and do not ever openly say what they see with their own eyes, are responsible.

Sahar Family Foundation once again repeats previous warnings that appeasing Massoud Rajavi, the cult leader of MKO, is against the interests of his captives in Camp Liberty and makes him even more impudent and will have no benefit for anyone.

December 16, 2013 0 comments

The cult of Rajavi

MKO: Don’t criticize us or you are IRI’s agent!

The Mujahedin khalq Organization (the MKO) is a destructive cult by any criteria. It is a cult because of MKO: Don't criticize us or you are IRI's agent! many reasons. One of the most significant reasons is that it cannot handle criticism. However, criticism is regularly applied inside the cult –to keep members brainwashed — but not against the cult leaders. In fact, self-criticism and confession are part of the methodology of the destructive cults including the MKO.

Members of the group are tasked with reporting all their 24/7 thoughts, emotions and dreams to their senior officials, they have to criticize themselves or their peers for any natural thought that might –according to the cult regulations – distract them from the aim of the group but they are never allowed to criticize or question their superior ones. Criticizing the leaders of the group makes you the most disgusting creature in the cult that deserves the most horrific punishments.

Javad Firouzmand, a former member of the MKO revealed parts of suppressive conduct by the group senior officials against members in the MKO camps who were willing to leave the group or had declared their defection from the group. He described the way Mehdi Abrishamchi –the so-called chairman of the Peace Commission of the National Council of Resistance— treated the 400 cult members who were not willing to stay in the group any more. The entire 400 dissident members were accused of being”the spies of the regime”, as Mr. Firouzmand reminds.”He [Abrishamchi] definitely remembers the time he handed a number of defectors and dissidents of the group to Saddam Hussein forces. They were then imprisoned in AbuQuraib where they would be tortured and die and no one would know about their fate,”Firouzmand wrote. [1]

He also notes the MKO’s dreadful ability to fabricate documents against critic members. He recalls the night when Abrishamchi came to his cell in Ashraf prison and asked him to sign a paper or he would be put to death. The document was supposed to prove that he had been arrested by the MKO forces in front of Iranian embassy in Baghdad a few hours after he had escaped the camp. As Firouzmand states he had never gone to Iranian embassy but actually he had been arrested by Iraqi security forces in the house of an Iraqi merchant! He was threatened to death when he didn’t accept to sign the paper. Later he was forced to sign some documents just in order to survive!

The waves of dissent among MKO supporters outside the camps and rank and file inside the camps who are constantly offended by the mind controlling, oppressive and cult-like system of the group, flooded by the group’s propaganda, deprived from their most basic human rights, have amplified the bankruptcy of the group. Indeed, in recent years the group has struggled hard to survive rather than struggling to allegedly overthrow the Islamic Republic.

Ann Singleton is another former member of the group, Middle East Strategy Consultants, Author of “Saddam’s Private Army” and “The life of Camp Ashraf”. She notifies the MKO’s undemocratic weird attitude toward any criticism. As Mrs. Singleton puts those who recently distanced themselves from the group by tenderly criticizing some of the leaders’ functions”have been stunned by the vitriolic attacks the MEK launched against them”. [2]

“The Rajavis of course claim that anyone who speaks out against them, particularly the former members, has been recruited by the IRI and sent to destroy the MEK as part of a malicious, murderous plan.”Singleton writes.”Yet where is the evidence of this?”, she asks.[3]

The cult-like substance of the MKO undermines any efforts by the group to get the gesture of a democratic alternative to Iranian government. Jeremia Goulka who is one of the co- authors of the RAND report on the MKO, suggests that the MEK vigorously denies that it is a cult, accusing critics of working for the Iranian regime or performing inadequate research. “However, I studied the MEK in depth and over a period of many months for the U.S. military,”he writes. He describes his experience of visiting Camp Ashraf:

“I visited Camp Ashraf, the MEK facility 40 miles north of Baghdad, and interviewed MEK members, former MEK members, and dozens of military and civilian officials. Along with almost all of my interviewees and Human Rights Watch, I concluded that the MEK is a cult. It employs many common cult practices: mandated celibacy and divorce, thought control, sleep deprivation, and forced labor. It segregates men from women, separates families and friends – who must seek permission just to converse – and even tells family members back home that the members are dead.”[4]

“While its propaganda arm espouses Western values to Western audiences, the MEK continues to force-feed its doctrine to members who may not criticize the Rajavis and are not free to leave the Ashraf compound,”he notes. [5] Referring to Maryam Rajavi’s propaganda against the Iranian nuclear program, Goulka warns Western supporters of the group about the risk of advocating a group that he absolutely sees a cult.

By Mazda Parsi

References:

[1] https://www.nejatngo.org/fa/posts/15172

[2] https://www.nejatngo.org/en/posts/5513

[3] ibid

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

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

December 14, 2013 0 comments

Newer Posts

Older Posts