MEK Camp Ashraf - Nejat Society

Defector of the MKO reopen the black Box of Camp Ashraf Massacre

Nejat Society — Sat, 09 Apr 2016 13:48:18 +0000

Ali Ardalani left the Mujahedin Khalq Organization (the MKO) in 2013 after 25 years of membership in the group. He is an eyewitness of the deadly clashes in Camp Ashraf on April 8th, 2011. He writes his memoires of that specific day:

Before April 8th, the Iraqi Government had several times warned the MKO to allow Iraqi security forces to enter Camp Ashraf in order to settle a police station there but the MKO did not cooperate with the police at all.

In the morning of April 8th, Iraqi security forces began their run to penetrate the camp. During the first clashes some of male members of the group were killed but no female was killed until noon.

Women had formed a human wall against the base “forty nine” to resist Iraqi forces. (Base 49 was Rajavi’s headquarters where his high ranking commandants were located. Formerly, the base was Massoud Rajavi’s safe house. Of course on that day, Rajavi was not there. It was just a symbolic act to pretend the importance of the base.)

The human wall was formed by young women. They wanted to pretend that Rajavi was in the base ignoring his disappearance since years ago. They cried so badly that the poor rank and file would believe that Massoud Rajavi was really there. This was another fraudulent show by Rajavi to give the false impression that he was in Iraq together with his rank and file!

Among these women, certain men were placed. They had archeries and Molotov cocktails. Surprisingly, the archeries and Molotov cocktails had been prepared two days ago. They targeted Iraqi soldiers out of the female human wall. They had been previously told that Iraqi forces would not attack women so they could simply throw their fire bombs against Iraqi forces.

This way, an Iraqi young soldier was killed. The forces who had so far avoided clash with females, began attacking them…therefore, at noon of several female members of the MKO were killed. The women’s names – mostly youngsters who were newcomers or problematic members- are Saba Haftbaradaran, Marziyeh Pourtaqi, Fatemeh Masih, Mahdiyeh Madadzadeh , Ensieh Rakhshaei, Shahnaz Pahlavani, Faezeh Rajabi and Nastaran Azimi. No high-ranking member was among the killed ones.

Male members were then interrogated in the meetings that were held in the following days. They were asked why they did not resist Iraqi forces, why they escaped the clashes. When the commandants were replied that the rank and file were empty-handed, they blamed them,” you should have resisted, more people should have been killed,” I even heard that they said: “Even if 500 people had been killed on April 8th, we would have won the battle. It was worth. The martyrs we offered on April8th helped us achieve the insurance card for Camp Ashraf. Not the Iraqi State nor any other person can look down on us at Ashraf. “

However, the world witnessed the shutdown of Camp Ashraf about a year and a half later. Members were expelled from the camp, humiliated and despised. Fifty-four members including high ranking members and commandants were killed after the closure of Camp Ashraf. Consequently, Camp Ashraf turned into the dustbin of history…

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MKO Camps Visa!

Nejat Society — Mon, 29 Sep 2014 13:34:14 +0000

The document released by some dispatched members of the Mujahedin Khalq Organization reveals that the members had to go through strict procedures in order to go out of camp Ashraf and even commuting between different parts of the Camp. they had to fill out a form requiring their name, destination, time it takes for he/she to be out , reason of his/her exit along with signature and approval from his/her superior. The prescribed rules for those who wanted to go outside the Camp Ashraf had been more complicated as the members where required to get the approval of different parts of the organization such as security, personnel and intelligence commands.

The second form on top of which is written “Visa for internal places “had been issued for the members commute between different parts of the Camp Ashraf i.e. going to hospital, masque, cemetery or different bases within the Camp.

According to former members who could managed to release themselves from Camp Liberty such firm rules are run in Camp Liberty as well.

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MKO defector reveals mass graves near Camp Ashraf

Nejat Society — Sat, 04 Jan 2014 09:41:31 +0000

A defected member of the terrorist group Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO) has located several mass graves near the group’s former headquarters of Camp Ashraf, in Iraq’s Diyala Province.

The former member of the terrorist groups said on Monday that one of the graves is located near the Khan Qarafeh village on the Versateh hill, which is about five kilometers from Camp Ashraf.

He said that the MKO leaders are claiming that the people buried in these mass graves are victims of ethnic cleansing in Iraq.

The former MKO member, however, said the victims in the graves come from different racial backgrounds including Iranian, Kurdish and Arabs, adding that some of the victims were eliminated for opposing the MKO leader’s views.

He also said that some of the bodies in the graves belong to Iranian border guards who were captured during terrorist operations by the group near the two countries’ border.

The MKO is listed as a terrorist organization by much of the international community and has committed numerous terrorist acts against Iranians and Iraqis.

The group fled Iran in 1986 for Iraq, where it received the support of Iraq’s former dictator Saddam Hussein and set up camp near the Iranian border.

In December 2011, the United Nations and Baghdad agreed to relocate some 3,000 MKO members from Camp New Iraq, formerly known as Camp Ashraf, to Camp Liberty. The last group of MKO terrorists was evicted by the Iraqi government on September 11 to join the other members of the terrorist group at Camp Liberty near Baghdad International Airport and await relocation to other countries.

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Who killed ex MEK member Massoud Dalili?

Nejat Society — Wed, 01 Jan 2014 12:05:09 +0000

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.

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Reporters explore Rajavi’s hideout in Camp Ashraf

Nejat Society — Sat, 21 Dec 2013 08:36:19 +0000

Iraqi Security Advisor, Faleh Al-Fayad, and Martin Kobler, Head of UNAMI hold a Press Conference in February 2012 to extend the deadline for the relocation and expulsion of the Mojahedin Khalq from Iraq. The residents were transferred to the temporary transit Camp Liberty during 2013, consequently the camp was opened to reporters in December 2013.

The second film shows reporters exploring Rajavi’s hideout and the nuclear bunker at Camp Ashraf in Iraq. The camp was home to the Saddam backed Mojahedin Khalq, a terrorist cult, for three decades.

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UNHCR urges states to relocate former residents of Camp Ashraf

Nejat Society — Sun, 24 Nov 2013 13:32:45 +0000

Press Releases, 19 November 2013

The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) calls for renewed efforts from states to relocate former Camp Ashraf residents, also known as Camp New Iraq.

Since the 1 September 2013 attack on Camp New Iraq where 52 residents died, there has been limited progress in moving the remaining residents to a third country. UNHCR encourages all Member States to share in the international efforts, admit residents and offer them a long-term solution.

UNHCR and the United Nations Assistance Mission in Iraq (UNAMI) also call upon the Government of Iraq to take all possible measures to ensure the safety of the residents. UNHCR and UNAMI remain gravely concerned about the fate of seven missing individuals formerly residing in Camp New Iraq who disappeared on 1 September and call on the authorities to locate them, ensure their wellbeing and safeguard them against any forcible return.

Since 2011, UNHCR, together with UNAMI, has been engaged in an effort to find relocation opportunities outside Iraq for some 3,200 former residents of Camp New Iraq. In total, UNHCR has so far been able to secure the relocation to third countries of 300 residents.

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Monuments in Camp Ashraf to the memory of al-Qaeda terrorists

Nejat Society — Sat, 26 Oct 2013 10:57:49 +0000

Head of the Diyala Province’s Foundation of Martyrs said the Mujahedin-e Khalq organization (MKO, a.k.a. MEK) was the first perpetrator of terrorist acts in Iraq after the fall of Saddam.

“After Saddam’s downfall, leaders of this terrorist group held meetings with some Iraqi sheiks and those who have been affected in some kind of the fall of Saddam at their garrisons,” Mohammed Saleh al-Shammari told Habilian Association.

He added that they saw monuments at Camp Ashraf built to the memory of the al-Qaeda terrorists who had been executed by Iraqi government, when they entered the military headquarters of the terrorist group three years ago.

Al-Shammari added that the MKO elements assassinated Iraqi people before and after the fall of Ba’ath regime.

Diyala province, residence of MKO members, was the first province in which terrorist and suicide attacks took place and the terrorist operations subsequently occurred in Iraq was like the methods of MKO.

Earlier in January, Head of the Security Committee of Diyala province Meysam al-Tamimi said a number of al-Qaeda operatives have been trained in the main training camp of the terrorist Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization in Iraq’s Diyala province (Camp Ashraf) to carry out terrorist attacks against the Iraqi people.

He added that a large amount of money and weapons were also funneled through Camp Ashraf to al-Qaeda and Salafist extremist groups to help them target Iraqis in acts of terror.

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UK Govt: Iraq will publish findings of investigations into Camp Ashraf deaths

Nejat Society — Sat, 12 Oct 2013 12:01:37 +0000

The Bishop of Coventry (Bishop)

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what response they have received from the government of Iraq to their representation requesting an investigation into the violence at Camp Ashraf on 1 September.

Baroness Warsi (Conservative)

The Government of Iraq has told our Embassy in Baghdad that a committee will conduct a full and open investigation into the attack on Camp Ashraf on 1 September, and that its findings will be made public.

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Iraq evacuates Camp Ashraf; the MKO symbol of resistance

Nejat Society — Sun, 06 Oct 2013 13:51:10 +0000

Iraq evacuates Camp Ashraf; the MKO symbol of resistance

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Last 100 Ashraf residents relocate to Camp Liberty

Nejat Society — Thu, 03 Oct 2013 13:05:14 +0000

The remaining members of the Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization aka MKO have been evicted from Camp Ashraf in Iraq’s eastern Diyala Province and been moved to Camp Liberty ,a base near the capital, Baghdad on September 11,2013 .

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