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.
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 
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?”
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 ex
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 ex
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
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 
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
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 
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.
The Mujahedin khalq Organization (the MKO) is a destructive cult by any criteria. It is a cult because of 
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
Those MEK supporters living in western countries who have recently distanced themselves from the organisation and publicly questioned the MEK’s activities, (most of whom would deny that they have 
separated completely), have been stunned by the vitriolic attacks the MEK launched against them. They truly believed while they were close to the MEK that these kinds of attack were justifiably targeting real agents of Iran. Now they have also come under attack themselves and it is slowly dawning on them that such accusations are not only unfounded but are meant deliberately to instill fear and provoke self-justification as a way to distract and silence such criticism. They will no doubt find the courage to challenge this behaviour and continue to seek the truth.
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. Yet where is the evidence of this?
The MEK’s critics have pointed out many times that the people who are hurting the MEK most are the cult’s leaders. It is they who order self-immolations, who withhold medical treatment, who place them in the line of danger of attack and, most recently, starve them by denying them food and calling this a hunger strike.
The critics demand help and rescue for the people still enthralled by these leaders and held captive by isolation and cultic manipulation, not only in Camp Liberty but in western bases also.
So, if the critics are acting out of humanitarian concern, the Rajavis must surely be aware of the mixed message this sends. Here’s the problem: if the Iranian regime is the evil, terrorist sponsoring entity which Rajavi has built her whole narrative on, what are we to make of the message of these so-called agents who display nothing but compassion for the people still trapped inside the MEK, at every level.
None are calling for the deaths of the members. Quite the opposite, we all wish to help them, to give them back their humanity, their dignity and their integrity which Maryam Rajavi has stolen or destroyed. Critics of the MEK leaders, Massoud and Maryam Rajavi, have campaigned for ten years and more to expose the appalling cruelty and corruption of their little dictatorship. For years they have endured the insults, beatings and attempts at character assassination flung at them at the instigation of these two wicked people.
Anyone involved in dealing with the MEK in any place and over any issue, who has met with the former members has expressed surprise at the simple, straightforward concern they have for their former colleagues and their families. There simply isn’t a hidden agenda.
The MEK demonise the Iranian government as evil and wicked. So, using the same MEK logic, outsiders need to ask the Rajavis where did all this compassion come from? Why is the Iranian intelligence ministry acting in such a charitable way? Have they become social workers!?
Think! Who, in the past ten years, has done more to harm the members than Massoud and Maryam Rajavi. The cruelty and corruption which govern the group’s internal relations are known intimately by those who suffered under that regime. Where is Maryam Rajavi’s compassion? Why does she show no sympathy or kindness toward her own people, yet lash out against those who do?
Rajavi says the demand of her forced hunger strike is the return of seven allegedly missing people. But she has still not produced any evidence to demonstrate whether they are alive or dead, or where they are or why there has never been any sign of them anywhere. The people who could give clues to solve this mystery are out of reach of UN and GOI investigators. These are the 42 survivors of the September 1st attack on Camp Ashraf in which 53 people were brutally killed by unknown assailants. These 42 were transferred to Camp Liberty where they are being held incommunicado by the MEK leadership cadre. Why? They certainly have information about what took place in the camp on that day.
Until the facts become known, the hunger strike is meaningless and causing unnecessary suffering for the participants. If there is no end-game how long do they go on? We are witness only to another graphic example of the cruelty and callous indifference of the Rajavis toward other human beings.
Anne Khodabandeh (Singleton), Middle East Strategy Consultants,Author of “Saddam’s Private Army” and “The life of Camp Ashraf”
A day before the resumption of negotiations in Geneva on the Iran nuclear issue, the head of security Department of Geneva ordered the Mujahedin Khalq who were on hunger strike to evacuate the Place des Nations.[1]
The negotiations went on and resulted in an agreement between Iran and the 6 world powers. All sides hailed the deal calling it the first proper move towards the peace.
Police spokesman talked about the day that the hunger strikers were asked to comply with the laws and authorities.
“Shortly after the arrival of the press, a striker got sick. An ambulance was called. A policeman boarded to check the identity of the patient, who was yelling. His comrades were then rushed to the police shouting "fascist!" And two men jostled. Another striker suddenly dropped himself on the road on purpose paralyzing traffic. “[2]
The sight indicates the show of brainwashed members of a broken cult-like group who fell out of favor from international community and are ready to hunt an opportunity for a big show-off.
Hunger strike is among the MKO cult leaders’ tactics to get itself on the scene. In different phases and under different pretexts Rajavi ordered members to go on hunger strike for its political gain and its hidden agenda and to launch its propaganda campaign.
This latest hunger strike is being held under the pretext of saving the lives of the seven allegedly missed residents of Camp Ashraf, who the organization claims to be detained during the Camp Ashraf September clashes and hold by the Iraqi security forces somewhere in Baghdad.
Iraqi authorities have repeatedly denied involvement in the attack, in which camp residents also went missing.[3]
The question here is that if the lives of members are really important for the cult leaders why do they order hundreds of members to put their lives in danger? Whoever is familiar with the cult practices and whoever has the experience of living within the group knows well that the members are not allowed to do anything without the approval of its leader.
A number of former members of MKO condemned the forced hunger strike through a statement and hold Rajavi accountable for the lives of the imprisoned Camp Liberty residents. 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,” [4]
Although the 95 days of hunger strike with no death report seems weird to the outside audiences as the critics notify it a propagandistic show in which the participants attend in turns to be filmed and photographed, yet the victimization of a number of the group’s dissidents and rank and files is not far from possible to make it believable.
Based on the reports of the group’s website several members have reached the point of no return. Maryam Rajavi through a fabricated statement asked” friends of Camp Ashraf and PMOI members imprisoned in Camp Liberty, who are in a critical condition and close to death in the cities of Geneva, Berlin, Ottawa and Melbourne, to end their hunger strikes…”, yet she didn’t mention the Liberty residents – who are the main participants of the strike to end their fasting. This shows the real intention of the cult leaders to use members as fuel for their propaganda machine. [5]
Rajavi as a leader of a destructive cult who is being ignored by its masters may make more dangerous decisions to victimize more of its followers.
This is the real threat of a cult and a human rights disaster that is being ignored by the west.
It is another example of the double standards within the US political stands. Just as terrorism, human rights is also a matter of geography, and even more so, of political interests.
The US has a legacy of saving the whole world through their so called humanitarian efforts; they did that in Korea, China, Guatemala, Indonesia, Cuba, Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, Grenada, Lebanon, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Panama, Libya and Iraq and more recently in Syria under the pretext of which it pushes its warmongering efforts and justify its military actions. [6]
Considering the concrete evidences of human rights abuses within the destructive cult of MKO reported by RAND and HRW and the testimonies of several former members of the cult who managed to escape the group, along with the deteriorating conditions of the Liberty residents, why don’t the US put forth and save these individuals’ lives who are under the threat of being attacked from outside or being victimized by the cult leaders’ themselves. If the US is capable to save nations why doesn’t it save the roughly 3000 enslaved members – striving for a free life of a bankrupt, desperate cult?!
By: A. Sepinoud
References:
[1] Gabus, Laure, Barazzone déplace les dénonciateurs du camp d’Achraf à l’Ariana, Tribune de Geneva, November19, 2013
[2]ibid
[3] al-Salhy, Suadad, Iraq says no success tracing killers of Iranian dissidents,Reuters, November26,2013
[4] https://www.nejatngo.org/en/posts/5504
[5] 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.
[6] Jacob, Anthony, After Iraq, US plans to save Syria!, PressTV, September 4, 2013
A number of former members of the Mujahedin Khalq Organization issued a statement to seriously condemn “forced and useless hunger strike” in Temporary Transit Location; Camp Liberty. They considerMaryam and Massoud Rajavi- leaders of the group as responsible for the lives of imprisoned residents of the Camp.
Former members of the MKO notify that in the MKO no activity is done unless it is ordered by the group leaders. “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,” the signatories of the statement reveal.
These defectors of the cult of Rajavi who base their allegation on what they witnessed and experienced in the MKO warned about the seriously poisonous atmosphere of the organization where members are deprived from their basic rights and even their power of thought and freewill.
They emphasized that the forced hunger strike in the MKO is “a significant example of violation of human rights” thus; they urged the international community to take action against the authorities of the MKO in order to prevent a human disaster in Camp Liberty. They also asked political activists and Iranian nation to condemn the atrocities of the MKO leaders asking,” Why Massoud and Maryam Rajavi do not go on hunger strike?”
Nejat Society
According to news coming from inside the Mojahedin Khalq terrorist cult HQ in France, after the recent
exposures and revelations by the survivors of the cult, in particular after Dr. Karim Ghasim, Dr. Mohammad Reza Rohani left the National Council of Resistance (NCRI, another name for Mojahedin Khalq) and the recent revelations made by Hadi Afshar (Saeed Jamali), Iraj Mesdaghi and others, the Leadership of the MEK have held a meeting chaired by Maryam Rajavi (Joint leader of the cult with her husband Massoud Rajavi) in which they have been discussing the effects of the revelations as well as deciding a line of action for damage limitation to the cult.
At the end of this meeting they decided the following lines of action to counter the effects of the revelations made by survivors of the cult and by political personalities as well as criticisms made by some of the nearest people to the organisation who now demand explanations:
– to create a false negative impression of the ex members and critics in their places of residence and among their social circles, and to start gathering signatures against them in these place;
– to collect some signatures and then make petitions and increase the number by adding false names (as they usually do) and then send these en-mass to all the relevant local places including town halls, churches, Party HQs etc and introduce these critics as terrorists who are in direct contact with Iran and the secret services of that country and therefore a danger to their society;
– to commission their paid lobbyists in parliaments, paid MPs and other bought, known people (working or retired) to create false documents against the critics of the terrorist organisation and send them to the foreign ministries of the relevant countries and other places;
– to gather factual information about the individuals, add false information between the lines, and produce documents against them. Then send their paid lobbyists to meet with judicial channels, police, politicians etc and produce damaging reports against these critics.
One such example is Amrollah Ebrahimi, a paid agent of the Mojahedin Khalq (NCRI,MKO ,MEK, Rajavi cult) who is tasked to gather and organise lobbyists among Netherlands’s Members of Parliament. Another part of his job is to employ character assassination against given targets on the internet to portray them as corrupt by falsifying stories about them.
It is noticeable that up to this point there has not been any evidence that this expensive line of action and tactic has worked as the only people who have been listening to this disinformation are the cult members.
Mohammad Karami, Paris ,Translated by Iran Interlink