The Friday remarks by Pierre Ryter, the head of the ICRC mission in Iran, comes against the backdrop of Iraq’s rejection of a UN appeal for the extension of the year-end deadline to shut down Camp Ashraf, saying that Baghdad cannot permit a criminal gang to remain in the country.

The ICRC official made reference to the cooperation between Iraq and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) for closure of Camp Ashraf, which houses some 3,400 MKO members in Iraq’s Diyala Province, and noted that the ICRC continues its rights efforts independently to provide assistance for Ashraf residents and their families.

At present, the ICRC provides healthcare services to the MKO members, helps them reunite with their families in other countries and visits those members of the group who have been in detention in Iraq, Ryter said.

The ICRC, however, is not involved in any process to relocate the MKO members to a third party country, he pointed out.

The terrorist group has carried out numerous acts of terror and violence against Iranian civilians and government officials after they fled to Iraq in 1986, where it enjoyed the support of Iraq’s executed dictator Saddam Hussein.

The terrorist group is also known to have collaborated with Saddam in the bloody repression of the 1991 Shia Muslims in southern Iraq and the massacre of Iraqi Kurds in the country’s north.

Iran has repeatedly called on the Iraqi government to expel the group, but the US has been blocking the expulsion by mounting pressure on the Iraqi government.

While the MKO is designated as a terrorist organization under the United States law, and has been described by State Department officials as a repressive cult, The New York Times recently reported that Washington is mulling over removing the MKO from its terrorist watch list and giving refuge to its members.

Last month, European Union foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, said she would urge EU member states to accept the residents of Camp Ashraf.

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ICRC spokeswoman Dibeh Fakhr told reporters the 260 had been repatriated between the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 and April 2008, after having asked to return to Iran. Two more Mujahedeen members have since also returned home.

“The committee has helped 260 members of the Mujahedeen Khalq (People’s Mujahedeen) to return to Iran, and we actually managed to take them back to their country,”she said.

The Mujahedeen, which seeks to overthrow Iran’s Islamic regime, is branded a terrorist organisation by the United States, while the European Union only removed it from its blacklist earlier this year.

It was founded in 1965 in opposition to the shah, but was sidelined by the rival clerical regime which took power in the 1979 Islamic revolution.

The group’s largest base in exile is in Ashraf, north of Baghdad. It was set up in the 1980s when Saddam Hussein was in power and at war with Iran as a base to operate against the Iranian government.

It is home to 3,500 Mujahedeen supporters and their families.

“Our role is purely humanitarian, and we have visited them to check their situation in the (Ashraf) camp,”the ICRC spokeswoman said.”During the visit, some of them expressed their desire to return to Iran.”

Since April 2008, the ICRC helped two more members of the Mujahedeen return to Iran around a week ago, said Patrick Yusef, who heads the ICRC in Iraq’s central provinces.

In March, Iraq’s National Security Advisor Muwafaq al-Rubaie said the Mujahedeen members who were based in the Ashraf camp should leave, describing them as”foreign terrorists”.

But the Mujahedeen said a forcible transfer would be illegal and that its supporters in the camp would never leave.

The post Red Cross repatriates 260 Iran rebels;MKO from Iraq appeared first on Nejat Society.

1. Undoubtedly, one of the tricks of the organization in recent years has been misusing humanitarian emotions of the world and evoking sympathy of outsiders toward Ashraf residents especially in the critical periods when the organization has been under pressure of law and international conventions. An instance is the hunger strike of MKO members in Auver-sur-Oise after the events of 17 June 2003 when the strikers pretended to be in a very bad condition in front of media reporters to win the sympathy of their audience. The claims of MKO can be evaluated as another instance of the old tactic of the organization.

In this regard, Mojahedin have made their utmost efforts to channel their propaganda war against Mowaffaq al-Rubaie and incite public emotions against him. It is also likely that Mojahedin accuse him of some accidental or organized deaths occurred inside Camp Ashraf to revenge on him. In a nutshell, the likely future events may give many subterfuges to Mojahedin for threatening Iraqi officials. Iraqi government is to take these issues into consideration not to be deceived and misused by Mojahedin.

2. MKO has a big hand at misusing all events for its own interests like the case of these patients declared by the organization. Disregarding its truth or falsehood, the authorities of Camp Ashraf have to answer the question what they have done so far for curing these patients and whether their family is aware of their illness or not? It seems that all their hurly-burly is just a matter of killing time and distracting the attention of Iraqi government from the main issue that is expulsion of Mojahedin from Iraq.

3. The next point is that Ashraf authorities have no problem in transferring their patients to Iraqi hospitals. However, they refrain to do so. If they are truthful in their claims, the conscience necessitates it to transfer their patients to Iraqi hospitals as soon as possible and put their responsibility on the shoulder of human rights organs and Red Cross. Not only the organization feels no blame if the condition of the ailing members get worse, but also they are regarded as precious tools of pressure on Iraqis and the public opinion to push forward.

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Some of the women, who are all dressed in pantsuits with long jackets and colorful headscarves tied under the chin, carry placards in Persian. A bright yellow banner shimmers in the mid-morning sun. "Ashraf is the city of peace," it says in Arabic.

Most of the time there’s nobody outside Camp Ashraf to hear the members of the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK), a fiercely anti-Tehran group who have been based here for the past two decades. That is, unless you count the Iraqi security forces who took over control of the perimeter of the 19-sq.-mile camp in February from U.S troops. The Americans had protected it since the 2003 invasion. But the Iraqi soldiers, like their government in Baghdad, don’t appear keen to listen to the chanting. The MEK should "understand that their days in Iraq are numbered," National Security Adviser Mowaffak al-Rubaie said recently. "We are literally counting them."

Saddam Hussein’s regime — no friend of the ayatollahs of Iran — welcomed the MEK in the mid-’80s, inviting them to set up a military camp and supplying them with hundreds of armored vehicles and other forms of support. Although in recent months Camp Ashraf’s residents have swapped their once-mandatory olive green military fatigues for civilian garb, both Iraq and the U.S State Department consider the MEK a terrorist group. In 2003, the U.S military disarmed Ashraf. (After a legal battle, the European Union removed the organization from its terrorist list in January; the United Kingdom did so in 2008).

The camp, which is more like a sprawling village with flower-filled parks and tree-lined avenues dotted with old-fashioned white lampposts, is home to 3,418 people, about a 1,000 of whom are dual citizens with non-Iranian travel documents issued by Western governments including the U.S, Canada, Australia, and the European Union. It has become an irritant to Baghdad’s increasingly close ties to Tehran. Iraq wants to close it, on the grounds that its residents are "terrorists" and "illegal foreigners." Still, deadlines for doing so have come and gone (the most recent was in late March). The stalemate continues: The MEK refuses to leave, and the Iraqi government has said it will not force them out.

"They want to physically purge everybody here," says Hossein Madani, an MEK spokesman and liaison to the Iraqi government. "There is an Iranian agenda that wants Ashraf residents out of Iraq." That may be, but government officials say the camp’s closure is also in Iraq’s national interest. "We do not want any friction with our neighbors," Rubaie says. The days when Iraq was used as a base to launch attacks against its neighbors, whether by the MEK along the eastern border with Iran, or by the Kurdish separatist PKK along the northern border with Turkey, are over, he says.
 
While the Iraqi government has made it clear it’s withdrawing the welcome mat extended to the MEK by Saddam Hussein, it has stopped short of saying how it will get them to leave. Despite its assurances against forced repatriation, especially if individuals may be harmed in their home country, MEK members fear they will be deported to Iran, where they say they will face imprisonment or execution. MEK representatives talk loudly of a potential humanitarian catastrophe.

While the MEK may question the veracity of Baghdad’s concerns, in recent years the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has helped more than 250 members enter Iran from across the Iranian border with little fanfare. "We are there as witnesses to make sure everything goes well," says Dorothea Krimitsas, ICRC spokesperson for the Middle East, adding that if allegations of ill treatment arose, the ICRC, would take them up with the authorities. Krimitsas says the ICRC hasn’t received any new requests for voluntary repatriation. But that’s only one way to leave. There are reports that in recent months defections from the camp have increased, although Ashraf leaders deny that anyone has left since January.

In the increasingly acrimonious debate about the future of Camp Ashraf, especially between Rubaie and MEK leaders, the quest for straight answers sometimes seems like a fool’s errand. It’s made more so by each side’s well-oiled PR machines that are adept at periodically sliding slippery claims and counter-claims into the media. For example, the MEK claims that Iraqis are withholding food and medical supplies and preventing doctors from entering the camp. That’s "baseless, it’s a pack of lies," Rubaie says. Similarly, Rubaie insists that the MEK is a cult, whose "brainwashed" members need to be separated from the 25 or so leaders and "detoxified" so they can resume normal lives. "Sheer lies," says Madani, the MEK spokesman.

Nevertheless, former members claim that the MEK is a cult, one that isolates adherents from their families, seeks to control them by limiting access to outside information, and prevents them from having sex. Indeed, there are no children at Camp Ashraf. The youngest residents are in their 20s, something MEK legal advisor Behzad Saffari says is because "military camps are not places for family life."

Yet when pressed for reasons why they should remain in Ashraf, given that they are not Iraqis and the new regime doesn’t want them, Saffari, Madani and several other MEK leaders as well as a number of residents, all bring up fervent, personal feelings. "We are not talking about different regimes, we are talking about personal lives," says Madani. "We have made a home here." He goes further. "We are not trying to have any impact on the Iranian regime. What does the Iranian regime want from us?"

The misunderstandings don’t stop there. An inter-agency task force including the CIA, FBI and other U.S bodies screened the residents of Ashraf in 2004 to determine if any were prosecutable under U.S law for alleged terrorist activities. The MEK insists that its members were all cleared. "The U.S. does not officially consider Ashraf residents as terrorists," says Madani. "MEK is something else." However, a U.S. official says that the residents of Ashraf who are members of the MEK are considered part of a terrorist organization. The official adds that non-member residents may also be considered to have provided material support to the organization. An MEK spokesman says all of the camp’s 3,418 residents are members of the group.

The MEK also insist its members still have the "protected persons status" issued by the U.S after the 2003 invasion. Madani pulls a photo ID out of his wallet that indicates that he is a protected person. "This is a permanent card," he says. "It has no time of expiration." The obligation to treat the MEK as protected persons under the law of war ended when the Coalition Provisional Authority handed over responsibility for governing Iraq to the Iraqi interim government in June 2004 which ended the occupation of Iraq. "Protected person status is never a permanent status as it applies only during circumstances of armed conflict or occupation," a Western official says.

The claims and counterclaims will no doubt continue to ricochet between Baghdad, Tehran, Washington and of course, Camp Ashraf. As two journalists head out of the camp in the early evening, past the segregated, one-story barracks-style dormitories and canteens, along paved streets lined by eucalyptus and palm trees and dotted with orange and yellow daisies, the faint echo of chanting protesters gradually gets louder. The people with the placards are still standing near the entrance, still staring out beyond the camp, still chanting. And there’s still nobody there to listen.  

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1890590,00.html 

Rania Abouzeid / Camp Ashraf

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US fostered sect as tool for regime change in Tehran

Iraq plans to close a camp for Iranian dissidents who used to cross into Iran to mount assassinations and sabotage – a decision that has sharpened political differences between Baghdad and Washington.

Camp Ashraf, about 80 miles north of Baghdad, came under Iraqi control yesterday in a broad security handover that forms part of the US withdrawal agreement concluded late last year.

Iraq’s national security adviser, Mowaffaq al-Rubaie, led a delegation of defence and interior ministry officials to the camp last weekend, warning its 2,500 male and 1,000 female inmates that "staying in Iraq is not an option". The Iraqi government said it "is keen to execute its plans to close the camp and send its inhabitants to their country or other countries in a non-forcible manner".

US troops disarmed the opposition group known as the Mojahedin-e-Khalq (MEK) after the 2003 invasion. They removed hundreds of armoured vehicles donated by Saddam Hussein but kept the camp intact because some Bush administration officials allegedly saw the MEK as a potential tool for regime change in Iran.

The Shia-led government in Baghdad has forged close relations with fellow Shias in Tehran and rejects such ambitions. It insisted that the US/Iraq security agreement contain a promise that Iraq would not be used for attacks on Iran or any other country.

Under the security deal Iraq yesterday took over the Green Zone and Saddam’s former presidential palace. The prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, declared a national holiday, saying it amounted to the moment when sovereignty was restored.

The MEK helped to bring the Shah’s overthrow but soon clashed with Ayatollah Khomeini and his drive to put clerics in charge of the country.

It now describes itself as "democratic and secular". Insisting the camp’s inmates have conducted no armed operations in Iran since 2001, Nasser Razii, a London spokesman for the group’s political arm, said: "Camp Ashraf provides hope to the Iranian nation and keeps the flame of resistance burning. We want to keep it on the doorstep of our homeland."

The US and EU placed the MEK on their lists of terrorist organisations after 9/11. Last year Europe’s court of first instance ruled it should be removed from the EU list on the grounds it had not carried out terrorist activities for years. Lord Corbett, a Labour peer who has long supported the movement, and other British parliamentarians last month signed a letter to the Iraqi government urging it not to close Camp Ashraf. MPs in other European countries have made similar appeals.

Former members claim the MEK is a cult that forces members to break ties with their families, orders married couples to separate and demands they devote themselves totally to the movement. Closing the camp will restore members’ human rights and allow them to decide whether to resume normal life, they say. But MEK members fear they will be deported to Iran, a fear Baghdad says is groundless.

Independent visitors to Camp Ashraf report that the inmates live in segregated barracks-style rooms. The International Committee for the Red Cross says several hundred former MEK members have left Camp Ashraf since 2003. The ICRC has helped more than 250 cross the border to Iran after conducting private interviews with each to ensure they are going voluntarily.

In spite of MEK claims that returnees face arrest and imprisonment or have been offered unfair inducements by the Iranian authorities, the ICRC is continuing the repatriation programme. "If we had any allegations of ill-treatment of people who have returned to Iran we would follow up with the authorities in Tehran," said Dorothea Krimitsas, ICRC spokesperson for the Middle East.

Jonathan Steele

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/02/camp-ashraf-closure-baghdad-iran

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According to the news received in the last few days by Iran-Ghalam (IRAN-PEN) association, the condition of disaffected members of Mojahedin Khalq Organisation who are now accommodated in the TIPF part of Ashraf Camp is critically dangerous. Some personalities have already raised concern not the least Mr. Mohammed Hasibi who has written an open letter today, 21 December 2007 raising his deep concern about the situation of these people. A copy of this letter is attached. You are aware that after the fall of the former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, and since September 2003, TIPF was established provisionally alongside Ashraf Camp. The purpose was to locate those who defect the organisation at the first instance interviews by the American Forces. In those days the total number of people confined within the Ashraf Camp was 3855 while today only 3450 are remaining there. From those defected members who managed to get themselves to TIPF, more that 350 have succeeded being sent to their own country (Iran) or some European countries with the help of various governments, the International Committee of the Red Cross, and the Iraqi ministry of human rights. But unfortunately it is more than a year now that the process of freeing from the Camp – the total number makes to around 200 so far – has been stopped or intensely slowed down. As you are aware, in various reports by the Human Rights Watch, the European Union, the British Government, the US State Department, the Canadian Foreign office, and many other sources as well as the worldwide media, the deeds and practices of the MKO and its leader Mas’ud Rajavi have been categorised as terrorist, cultic, and violating the bases of human rights. Some documentation is enclosed to this letter in this regards. Therefore, we urge you to pay attention to our concerns as well as those of the families of the MKO members for the destiny of our offspring, our siblings, our spouses, and our friends who are held in Ashraf Camp by a destructive cult. Those who have defected from the organisation and are held at the Temporary International Presence Facilities (TIPF), as well as those who for any reason have not been able to flee the MKO and are still kept in their base, must be protected by the ICRC and the World Declaration for Human Rights; and we urge you to help them by any means you can. It is also worth mentioning that the MKO is considering the freedom of its members and their departure from Iraq as a grave threat to its existence and consider it as an encouragement to the remaining members to defect this terrorist cult. It is essential to point out the fact that the Amnesty International (AI) has expressed its concern over the events carried out inside the Ashraf Camp. Also, the Human Rights Watch (HRW) has issued a report on 18 May 2005 which points out many cases of systematically violating human rights inside the MKO since 2002. The report done by the HRW is based on the former members’ testimonies now living in Europe. A copy of the report is enclosed. You are aware that self-immolations done by some members in European capitals after the arrest of their leader Maryam Rajavi in Paris on 17 June 2003, is one obvious example of the kind. Like all cults, this organisation needs a remote site to be able to isolate the members from the outside world. The residents of Ashraf Camp have no contact with the real world, not even with their relatives or old friends. The members are forced to participate in the daily ideological sessions called "the Current Operation". In these sessions members are systematically subject to peer pressure and coercion methods. According to articles 25 and 26 of the fourth convention of Geneva which had enabled the MKO’s presence in Iraq, the members could freely have contact with their families. But unfortunately, both the members and their worried and suffering families have been deprived from such benefits. Therefore, we insist that the pressure be mounted against the MKO to lift any obstacles. The Iranian Pen Club has become aware through its corresponding about the efforts made by the Iraqi ministry of human rights for preventing the violation of human rights within the MKO. We would be more that pleased to learn that we could benefit from your cooperation and assistance too. We are prepared to hand over the names and particulars of the discontented members and those who wish to defect from the organisation as well as necessary files and documents. We would be most pleased to have a meeting with you or your colleagues in the office of the ICRC in European countries and be able to present our stories and documents in person. The Iranian Pen Club has become aware through its corresponding about the efforts made by the Iraqi ministry of human rights for preventing the violation of human rights within the MKO. We would be more that pleased to learn that we could benefit from your cooperation and assistance too. With many thanks and regards The Iranian Pen Club 21.12.2007 Postfach 90 06 63 51116 Köln Germany info@iran-ghalam.de kanoon-ghalam@hotmail.de 00491759726840 00491639076911 Copy to: The Representative of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Iraq The United Nation’s General Secretary The Human Rights Watch The Minister of Human Rights of the Republic of Iraq The Representative of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Geneva

Iranian Pen Club, December 22, 2007 http://www.iran-ghalam.de/2Haupt/2198-Galam-En.21.8.12.07.HTM

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The defectors’ names:

Ahmad Rostamian

GholamReza Shirdom

Jamil Abdollahzade

AliReza Naghashzade

The above-named people will consequently state their comments on the disruptive atmosphere in Camp Ashraf.

Nejat Society

Tehran-July 30th 2007

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                                                                     P.O. Box 14395/679,                              

                                                                     Tehran, Iran

                                                                     Fax: 88 96 10 31

                                                                     info@nejatngo.org

                                                                     March 2007

France 24 TV

Immeuble Aphelion

5 Rue dos Natiousunies

92130 Issy-les-Mourineaux

Paris

Dear editor

We in the Nejat Society in Tehran learned through the website of the Mojahedin-e- Khalq Organization (MKO) called “hambastegimeli” that you have made interviews with Mr Afshin Alavi and Ms Farid Karimi, two well known members of the organization under the alias of the National Council of Resistance (NCR). We must draw your attention to the fact that the MKO terrorist cult is disguised as the NCR in its international relations. It is also worth mentioning that MKO has been in the list of proscribed terrorist groups issued by the council of the European Union since May 2002.

Nejat Society consists of those defected members of the MKO who have managed to rescue themselves from the boundaries of the Organisation. They do find themselves obliged to strive to help and rescue the members whom are still mentally or even physically captive inside a terrorist cult. We also would like to require your consideration on a matter concerning many families of members of the MKO residing in their base in Iraq called Ashraf camp.

Up to 500 ex-members of the MKO have managed to return home to their families since the overthrow of the former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. Nejat Society of course played a vital role with the help of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), the Iranian Red Crescent, and other international and domestic bodies as well as the families themselves to safeguard their homecoming.

Around 200 of those who have managed to flee the Organisation are kept in a nearby component under the supervision of “Temporary International Presence Facility (TIPF)”. And evidently there are some 3000 members still left in Ashraf Camp inside Iraq. These people need to be rescued out urgently.

The members and authorities of Nejat Society are well aware that they are facing a fierce tackle. The Mojahedin-e- Khalq Organization of course has adopted a hostile attitude against the Society and has never stopped its intense propaganda aggravation in order to stop the Society helping the MKO members.

All cults, typically try to intimidate their critics and opponents, particularly those who try to help the discontented members out. MKO is no exception. They have a long record of suppressing their despondent members and they have used all forms of mental and physical methods in order to make their followers yield.

On behalf of the anxious families of the members of the MKO we would like to invite you to come to Iran and make interviews with these families as well as the defected members and raise their voice in order to be heard by the international bodies as well as the organization’s leaders.

We are looking forward to seeing a reply from you as soon as possible.

With regards and many thanks

Nejat Society

www.nejatngo.org

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