Human Rights Abuse in the MEK

Press TV to air documentary on MKO leader’s sexual exploitation of female members

Three women speak about their dark secret past;

They are former members of the Mujahedin-e-Khalq Organization (MKO) who have revealed shocking stories about the leaders of the terrorist cult. According to these women, all female members of the MKO were sexually abused by MKO leader Masoud Rajavi. “Comrades in Arms” is the title of a documentary which is to be aired soon on Press TV. The film that was debuted in the presence of Iranian filmmakers as well as former MKO members, investigates the sexual slavery of women and the unlawful affairs of Masouj Rajavi with female members of the cult. According to this documentary, anyone who refused Rajavi’s sexual demands would be killed. Also the three former female members narrate how couple members were forced to divorce only to be accepted into Rajavi’s circle of comrades. The MKO fled Iran in 1986 for Iraq, where it received the backing of Iraq’s executed dictator Saddam Hussein and set up a camp near the Iranian border. The terrorist group also sided with Saddam during Iraq’s eight-year imposed war on the Islamic Republic in 1980-1988 and the massacre of Shiites and Kurds during Iraq’s uprising in 1991. The MKO is listed as a terrorist organization by much of the international community but there is no end in sight for its terrorist operations against the Iranian nation.

Saman Kojouri,

August 9, 2014 0 comments

Human Rights Abuse in the MEK

The Int. Community and Human Rights Record of the Cult of Rajavi

"The prison door opened, and a prisoner was thrown into the cell. He fell on his face. At first we didn’t recognize him. He was beaten up severely. We turned him around; it was Parviz Ahmadi taken for interrogations just a few hours before."
Parvis Ahmadi’s case is one of many cases of human rights violations taking place in the Mujahedin Khalq Organization’s camps that were investigated by Human Rights Watch in May 2005. The famous HRW report on the MKO titled No Exit revealed several cases of basic human rights abuses , based on former members’ testimonies, committed by the MKO authorities. Parviz Ahmadi died after a few minutes before the eyes of his comrades who were present in the secret cells of Camp Ashraf. He was then listed as an MKO “martyr” killed by Iranian intelligence agents, according to a former member of the MKO interviewed by HRW. [1]

Human rights abuses carried out by MKO leaders against dissident members ranged from prolonged incommunicado and solitary confinement to beatings, verbal and psychological abuse, coerced confessions, threats of execution, and torture that in two cases led to death, according to No Exit report. [2]

As a matter of fact, the world’s enlightened human rights activists were shocked to see Maryam Rajavi the guru of the MKO cult of personality addressed the so-called Iran Accountability Week, a program of hearings at the Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on International Human Rights organized by Canadian parliament. She was introduced by the main organizer of the event Liberal MP Irwin Cotler –interviewed by Ali Gharib of the Nation — as a person only to give “issue-specific testimony”, specifically the alleged killings of MEK members by Iraqi security forces. [3]

Saeed Kamali Dehghan of the Guardian describes Maryam Rajavi as "the leader of the radical exiled group MEK, which was listed as terrorist organization by the US and the UK until recently". "The MEK, characterized by many observers as a cult-like group, has been repeatedly slammed by the United Nation because of mistreating its own members”, he adds. [4]

As Michael Rubin prominent American Journalist asked for the shutdown of concentration Camps under totalitarian regimes like North Korea, he listed the MKO camps as such abusive locations. “While MKO spokesmen may castigate the Iraqi government and the Iranian regime, the real victims of the MKO lay within the group itself," he wrote in December 2013. "Camp Liberty—the successor to Camp Ashraf—exists as much if not more to keep MKO members insulated from the real world and under the control of MKO leader Maryam Rajavi’s commissars than as a means of protection for group members."[5]

Furthermore, one human rights advocate working on Iran, who asked the Nation correspondent not to be named, raised the issue of other advocates’ sharing a platform with the head of the MEK, which the activist called “toxic and irrelevant” — a view widely held among Iranians of all political stripes, save members of the MEK itself. This way she clarified why the UN Sp Rapporteur Ahmed Shaheed cancelled his speech at the Spotlight on Iran in the Canadian Parliament. [6]

Dr. Shaheed’s assistant explained to Ali Gharib that Shaheed felt the event’s framing “made it feel less like a briefing and more of something that encroached upon what he believes is his independence on the issue” of human rights in Iran.[7]

It is noteworthy that a delegation from Nejat Society including former MKO members and family members of those who are still taken as hostages in the MKO camps visited Dr. Ahmed Shaheed in Geneva last year. Nejat delegation had a thirty-minute private meeting with Ahmed Shaheed. The delegation submitted the demand of families from International Community and Dr. Shaheed. [8]

Moreover, Nejat Society Family members wrote several letters calling on Human Rights bodies and the international Community to facilitate the departure of residents from camp Liberty so that they would be able to make phone calls, visits and to have access to news of their loved ones. [9]

Considering the illuminating activities by families and ex-members, Dr. Shaheed’s approach towards the presence of the MKO officials in the so-called Iran Accountability Week does not seem bizarre. "In addition to its history of violence, the MEK has, notably, been accused of its own human rights abuses," Ali Gharib stated. [10]

Ann Singleton, former member of the group criticizes Canadian backers of the group who base the allegations about human rights in Iran on the testimony of Maryam Rajavi who "had nothing but MEK propaganda, riddled with lies and misinformation, to tell the assembly". "The MEK itself has a well documented history of human rights violations," She writes. "The group is hated by Iranians inside and outside the country."[11]

Actually, the MKO has intensified its propaganda on the alleged human rights abuses in Iran rather than its nuclear program because it sees itself more vulnerable in human rights violation cases. It sounds to be projecting its own dark background on the Iranian government.

Mazda Parsi

References:

[1]Human Rights Watch, No Exit Human Rights Abuses Inside the Mojahedin Khalq Camps, May 2005

[2] ibid

[3] Gharib, Ali, Controversial Iranian Exile Shakes Up Canadian Parliament’s Human Rights Program, The Nation, May 14 2014

[4] Kamali Dehghan, Saeed, Why Canada is getting it wrong on Iran, The Guardian, May 15, 2014

[5] Rubin, Michael, It’s Time to Close the Camps, Commentary Magazine, December 18 2013

[6] Gharib, Ali, Controversial Iranian Exile Shakes Up Canadian Parliament’s Human Rights Program, The Nation, May 14 2014

[7] ibid

[8] https://www.nejatngo.org/en/posts/5208

[9] https://www.nejatngo.org/en/topic/mujahedin-khalq-organization-members-families

[10] Gharib, Ali, Controversial Iranian Exile Shakes Up Canadian Parliament’s Human Rights Program, The Nation, May 14 2014

[11]Singleton Ann, Introducing Maryam Rajavi as a human rights activist is the wrong tool for the wrong job, Iran Interlink, May 17, 2014

May 25, 2014 0 comments

Human Rights Abuse in the MEK

Investigate human rights abuses in Mojahedin Khalq

Open letter to Ben Emmerson, QC

Dear Mr Ben Emmerson, QC

With all my best wishes.

My name is Mohammad Razaghi. I was a member of the Mojahedin Khalq Organisation (MKO, MEK, PMOI, NCRI,…) for over 20 years. I worked 24/7 for the cultish organisation of Rajavi in garrisons given to them by the late dictator Saddam Hussein. Most of my youth and the best years of my life was wasted in the mental and physical captivity of that terrorist/ Mafia organisation. During my stay in Iraq, I have been imprisoned and physically and mentally violently tortured on the direct order of Massoud Rajavi and Maryam Ghajar Azodanloo, (who how now lives in Europe under the pseudonym Maryam Rajavi). I have also witnessed the deaths of some of the disaffected members of the Mojahedin Khalq under the savage torture of Rajavi’s cult lieutenants in the infamous Camp Ashraf in Iraq. I am now living in France as a political refugee.

Dear Mr Emmerson,

I have been informed by some of my friends about your responsibly, activities and effective position as “the UNHCR’s special rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism”, and about your investigations into the abuse of human rights of the victims of violence. I decided to write to your good self to bring to your attention some small examples of the crimes Massoud Rajavi and Maryam Ghajar Azolanloo have been committing with the help of their lieutenants in the Mojahedin Khalq.

Massoud and Maryam Rajavi portray themselves to the cult members as saints who have never sinned and have no weaknesses and as the bridge between mankind and God. Hence there is no way anyone would be tolerated if they criticise them in any shape or form.

Massoud and Maryam Rajavi introduce themselves as “the leaders of the Mojahedin Khalq” but in reality they are cult leaders of the “Cult of Rajavi” with all the characteristics of cult leaders.

They get away with anything and everything as they write and rewrite their inhuman laws, as and when they wish. The main philosophy by which this is done is on the basis that “members have no right to live a normal life and in fact belong to the leadership to use for the progress and survival of the cult; i.e. Rajavi.

In Rajavi’s cult, marriage is forbidden. Contact with families is forbidden. Free contact with the outside world is forbidden. Having a home or a normal life is forbidden. Coming out of the garrison or the safe houses is forbidden. And any resistance to these rules is countered by mental and physical tortures. No one has the right to decide his or her own future. It is only the leader who has the right to decide for you. Normal interactions and human relations are forbidden. Listening to the radio and television is forbidden, except what is broadcast through the cult’s internal broadcasting network and internal TV networks. Having friends is strictly banned and no emotion should exist between other people. Writing letters, emails, telephone conversations with friends and family or internet connection is banned. There are compulsory daily sessions of brainwashing meetings under the name of “daily operations”, and weekly sessions under the name of “weekly cleansing” (members are forced to bring all their most intimate sexual thoughts including their possible dreams, write them down and read them to the others and hand their writing to their commanders). Anyone who dares to ask to leave the cult is automatically condemned to execution and death. They are imprisoned and tortured, and during the rule of Saddam they would be transferred to the notorious Abu Ghraib prison. Critics, ex members and survivors who have managed to get to European countries are subjected to character assassination. All these are being ordered directly by Massoud and Maryam Rajavi according to the overwhelming amount of documents and evidence and witnesses.

Forced labour for 14 hours a day is routine in the Mojahedin Khalq camps and is nothing short of slavery, again directly supervised by the leaders of the cult.

Massoud and Maryam Rajavi abuse the members by forcing them to participate in money laundry. I am personally a witness to the years when the Mojahedin Khalq forced members in Iraq to create false statements and letters in order to whitewash the activities of their money laundry and deception of the British public under the name of a so-called Charity, Iran Aid.

On top of all the inhuman atrocities committed by the leaders of the Rajavi Cult there is the specific case of the women. They are subjected to frequent rape by Massoud Rajavi who has made a harem for himself under the pretext of an “Ideological Right” of the “Ideological Leader”, so that all the women in the organisation belong to him. (The reason marriage is forbidden). There are now many surviving women who are ready to testify to their ordeals and the crimes committed by Massoud and Maryam Rajavi in this respect.

Dear Mr Emmerson,

I have also directly witnessed the collaboration between Massoud Rajavi and Saddam Hussein in the massacre of the Iraqi Kurds in 1991. I have witnessed the terrorist teams being sent to Iran to carry out acts of terror. Rajavi pretended these were his forces based inside Iran. In fact they were forces trained by the Republican Guard of Saddam Hussein and were sent by the Mojahedin Khalq and Saddam from Iraq. All the logistics, weapons, money and support and even the plan and the subject of attack was provided by Saddam’s intelligence officers to Massoud Rajavi.

After the fall of Saddam, a camp (TIPF) was arranged by the American military adjacent to Camp Ashraf where the disaffected members who managed to run away would be kept. Rajavi was paying some of the corrupt officers of this camp and as a result, for four years people were under severe mental and physical pressure. This resulted in over 500 of them being forced to choose to accept to go to Iran to rid themselves of the constant torture and pressure.

Dear Mr Emmerson,

I urge you to investigate the abuse of my human rights through forced labour of 14 to 16 hours a day. And the mental and physical torture directly ordered by Massoud and Maryam Rajavi in Camp Ashraf prisons, specifically in the year 1994; the physical and mental scars of which I still carry with me. The documentation of my ongoing treatment in France is available.

Dear Mr Emmerson,

These are only a small portion of the crimes committed by Massoud Rajavi and Maryam Ghajar Azodaloo and their henchmen which I have brought to your attention.

I hope you will give me and others the opportunity to meet you in person so that I, and my other surviving friends, would be able to explain what has been done to us in more detail.

Thanking you in advance.

Yours sincerely,

Mohammad Razaghi, Paris

April 5, 2014 0 comments

Human Rights Abuse in the MEK

Please help us stop Human Rights abuse in Mojahedin

Open Letter to Ben Emmerson, QC.

Dear Mr. Ben Emmerson, QC

My name is Mehdi Nikbakht, I am one of the survivors and ex members of Mojahedin Khalq (MKO, MEK, PMOI, Rajavi cult). I have first hand experience of the cultish relationships inside the MEK.

Your long term activities as a Human Rights advocate and your responsibilities as the UN special rapporteur on human rights has brought me to write this letter to your good self appealing for help. Me and many of my friends have been the direct subject of human rights abuse inside this organisation (cult). We need help to achieve justice.

I take this opportunity to bring to your attention some brief explanations.

The Mojahedin Khalq (MEK) tries to portray a democratic, freedom loving, pro-human rights and pro-women’s rights face in the west. The reality, and what we have seen from the inside of this organisation is 180 degrees contrary to this claim. We have never seen anything but suppression and injustice. The leaders of MEK harshly crush any voice of criticism and they go to extreme extents to silence the voice of the survivors and ex members. They constantly spend money and energy to character assassinate and intimidate the vocal critics and survivors by calling them mercenaries, agents, traitors, etc. they try to dismiss their testimonies about the reality of the crimes they have suffered themselves and/or have seen at the hands of MEK leaders.

Inside the MEK cult no one has the right to have a spouse or family and even thinking about it is a severely punished crime. Members are regularly forced to write and announce their most intimate thoughts in front of large audiences and the audience is to shout and swear at the person.

Inside the MEK no one has the right to contact their families in any shape or form. Even mothers and fathers who come to Iraq from Iran with all the risks and hardships are not given permission (by MEK leaders) to meet their children. Some of these people have not seen their families for over 25 years.

Inside the MEK harsh forced labour, together with a regime of inquisition, has taken away the critical minds of the members. They can no longer think properly and normally. Their every day life is confined to a restricted, forced, mental and physical circle. They no longer decide for themselves about anything. It is the leaders who decide for them.

Leaving the organisation (cult) is forbidden and no one is free to choose. Being inside the cult is forcefully compulsory.

And there are hundreds more similar cases.

Dear Mr. Ben Emmerson. You know more than anyone that each and every one of these cases specially in this day and age is in direct contradiction with the recognised freedoms of individual and is an abuse of their human rights. The same human rights you have been so passionate about and have, and are, working so hard for. The Mojahedin Khalq (MEK) have been keeping thousands of people trapped in their camps for decades. Before the fall of Saddam Hussein, they were able to imprison and torture people inside their camp for crimes as simple as asking to leave the organisation and return to normal societies. After the fall of Saddam, the MEK leaders insisted on not leaving Iraq to the point of deliberately sending some members to their deaths, which had no effect and still the Iraqi Government is adamant that they should leave. They have now been moved to Camp Liberty which has been attacked a few times by terrorist groups and in this camp some of the members have again been sacrificed for the unlawful demands of the cult leaders. The MEK leaders do not want the trapped people to be moved to third countries and deliberately resist any attempt to facilitate such a transfer. They see this as an end to their cultish organisation and more than that, are afraid of the people reaching European countries where they can start exposing the real nature of the organisation and what has happened to them. They are afraid of the truth coming out.

Dear Mr. Ben Emmerson,

What I have explained here is no more than a very brief example of what is happening. Our claims are certainly backed by a huge amount of documents and evidence, as well as the testimony of many of my friends who have managed to get themselves to European countries. Me and my friends are ready to meet in person and explain in detail and clarify any question in this regards.

I urge you to investigate the abuses of human rights, women’s rights, individuals’ freedom, etc. inside the MEK, and as I mentioned we are ready to provide the documents and evidence at any time and any place you wish. We need your expertise and we need your help to bring a condemnation against these practices and certainly to stop the continuation of it against the trapped hostages inside the MEK.

Yours Sincerely,

Mehdi Nikbakht

Switzerland,Setaregan association

March 25, 2014 0 comments

Human Rights Abuse in the MEK

Gross abuses continue in Mujahedin Khalq Camp

Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO), have been busy seeking to raise the issue of human rights violations in Iran to gain the support of agencies and diplomatic bodies, such as the European Union, the European Parliament, the UN and others to consider it as a credible and real opposition group against

Gross abuses continue in Mujahedin Khalq Camp the IRI. The aim of MKO is to put pressure on IRI through international sanctions and also to gain support of these international organizations in order to show itself as a democratic replacement for Iranian government.

At the same time in a parallel move the group’s high-priced public relations and lobbying firms are hard at work trying to whitewash the MEK’s violent, vicious black trace. Years of lobbying and buying support got the MKO delisted in 2012. However, no longer being considered a terrorist group does not make the MKO democratic, as anyone who has ever studied their internal workers can attest.[1]

Elizabeth Rubin writer of the famous article” The Cult of Rajavi” who visited the Camp Ashraf in 2003 says:” despite its rhetoric, the Mujahedeen operates like any other dictatorship. .. As the historian Abrahamian told me, ”No one can criticize Rajavi.”[2]

Although the illegal multi-million dollar lobby of the group brought it about with some paid advocators, yet the MKO making use of the human rights issues bear no fruit for the group and the things doesn’t go as the group leaders wishes. The human rights issue resulted in the opposite of what they longed for.

US-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) published a report in 2005 on Human Rights abuses taking place within MKO Camps. The report was based on interviews with 12 former members of the group now living in Europe. They alleged abuses ranging from detention, solitary confinement, beatings and torture. [3]

In mid-2009, the Pentagon- Funded Rand Corporation also published a report titled ‘Mujahedin-e Khalq in Iraq: A Policy Conundrum’. The RAND report also reaffirmed the MKO as a cult that abuses its own members.[4]

Jeremiah Goulka who as an analyst with the RAND Corporation was sent to Iraq says: “… I also interviewed former MEK members. As Human Rights Watch also concluded, I saw that the MEK is a cult. It uses brainwashing, sleep deprivation, and forced labor to indoctrinate members.”[5]

The leaders and their supporters of course deny being a cult which abuses members accusing the critics to being either IRI agents or their dupes. However, many outsiders who eye witnessed the affairs of the MKO along with the groups’ former members testimonies evidently prove the harsh abuses MKO practice on its members.

U.N. envoy Martin Kobler several times accused the leaders of Mujahedin Khalq of human rights abuses.[6]

The UNAMI Half Yearly Report on Human Rights also reiterated continuing concerns about human rights abuses committed by the PMOI leadership within Camp Liberty against the residents.[7]

One senior State Department official (now retired), sent to Iraq to interview thousands of MEK members after the invasion, concluded that the organization was a cult; that the weirdly child-free Camp Ashraf was ‘a human tragedy’; that members were ‘misused and misled’ by the leadership; and that many had been tricked into joining[8]

The Rajavis couldn’t hide the true nature of their handmade destructive cult as continued evidences indicate that MKO commits abuses against its own members. The group former members recite their firsthand accounts of abuses taking place in MKO Camps.

More recently an Iraqi physician through a letter to Iraq Human Rights Ministry cited its experiences with the Camp Liberty hunger strikers. The Iraqi physician wrote in his letter the hunger strikers told him that they were forced by the group’s ringleaders to go on hunger strike. They also gave letters to the Iraqi medics to be submitted to due Human Rights bodies and stated their unwillingness to stay with the Cult.[9]

The MKO leaders see their so called organization on the verge of collapse .They have stuck in the limbo of Iraq. The recruitment tricks they applied before doesn’t work anymore and they have problem keeping members as they are fed up with the cult practices and the full of mendacity leaders. The Camp Liberty residents risk everything to escape the cult. The reports suggest the defection of about 70 out of 159 members of the organization who have been transferred to Albania.

So the Rajavis prefer to keep members in Iraq to save their cult rather than relocating them to other countries where they will lose members and consequently their handmade cult.

Besides, allying with the Iranian nation enemies didn’t bring anything good for the MKO as their time has reached the end for their western lords. The West prefer not to disrupt diplomacy with Iran by pleasing a broken cult.

The bitter reality which is difficult for the MKO to come along with is that it has been excluded from the international political spheres.

The cult leaders who are struggling hard to survive do not hesitate to victimize all its members. The international Human Rights bodies should take action, prevent a disaster and save the 3000+ individuals who are trapped behind the bars of a destructive cult of personality. They should also make the Cult leaders accountable for the crimes they have committed against their own members.

By: A. Sepinoud

References:

[1] Rubin, Michael, Yes-Mujahedin al Khalq is a dishonest cult, Commentary Magazine, July 07, 2013

[2] Rubin, Elizabeth, The Cult of Rajavi, The New York Times, July 13, 2003

[3] https://www.nejatngo.org/en/posts/79

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

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

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

[7] UNAMI Half Yearly Report on Human Rights – January to June 2013

[8] Bennett-Jones, Owen, Terrorists? Us? , London review of books, December 2011

[9] Fars News , Mojahedin Khalq Members Fail to Escape Camp Liberty, January 28, 2014

February 3, 2014 0 comments

Human Rights Abuse in the MEK

Firsthand accounts on the MKO camps in Iraq

The United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq and the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights released the Half Yearly Report on Human Rights, covering the period from January to June 2013. The report states, "UNAMI has continuing concerns about human rights abuses committed by the PMOI/MeK leadership within Camp Hurriya against the residents."[1]

It was about a decade ago when the New York Times contributor Elizabeth Rubin first wrote her firsthand experience of visiting "the Cult of Rajavi" in Camp Ashraf Iraq. Her illuminating article revealed the inside world of the Mujahedin Khalq Organization (the MKO) to the western audience. [2]

There have also been numerous reports based on testimonies of former members of the group including the Human Rights Watch report titled "NO Exit" that was published in 2005. Researchers of "No Exit" visited the twelve eyewitnesses quoted in the report and inspected the "Human Rights Abuses Inside the Mojahedin Khalq Camps". [3] However, the interviewees were claimed to be the spies of the IRI by the MKO.

As a matter of fact, Rubin was not the only western visitor to the MKO camps who exposed the true facts about the inside world of the cult — she described as she had "entered a fictional world of female worker bees". [4] Jeremiah Goulka was a lawyer in the Bush Justice Department and a co-author of the the RAND report of the US Defense Department who confirmed that the MKO was a cult-like group after he visited Camp Ashraf in 2009.[5]

Goulka puts, "Along with almost all of my interviewees and Human Rights Watch, I concluded that the MEK is a cult.” He refers to cult like practices the MKO leadership uses to manipulate members including "mandated celibacy and divorce, thought control, sleep deprivation, and forced labor". [6]

UNAMI monitors complete the firsthand experiences of Rubin and Goulka and evidences made by ex-members. "UNHCR has continued to work towards identifying individuals in need of international protection and durable solutions for the residents of Camp Hurriya," UNAMI report reads. "However, UNHCR’s efforts to find durable solutions for the residents have been hindered by the non-cooperation of residents, such as the boycotting of UNHCR interviews."[7]

The UN report notifies that the leaders’ reluctance to cooperate with UN officials. It is now about 9 month past the offer by Albanian government but the relocation process to transfer 210 residents of Camp Liberty has not been completed because "the PMOI/MeK refused the names accepted by the Government of Albania, and insisted that it should decide who should be resettled there."! [8]

As it is pointed out in the first hand account by UN monitors, the MKO members’ will and determination to leave the camp do not matter to the cult leaders. "The PMOI/MeK, which has a hierarchical and authoritarian structure, imposes a number of severe restrictions on the residents’ rights, including the right of freedom of movement within the Camp and the right to leave the organization, the free right of association, along with restrictions on contacts with family members (including those residing in Camp Hurriya), on access to basic communications, and on access to medical care and treatment…". [9]

While the UN monitors and other eyewitnesses of the MKO camps confirm violations of human rights taken place inside the MKO camps, the group’s propaganda uproars about what it calls "increasing human rights violation in Iran". Elizabeth Rubin properly states that despite Maryam Rajavi’s rhetoric to advocate a secular democratic government in Iran," Mujahedeen operates like any other dictatorship". She quotes the Iranian-American Historian Irvand Abrahamian, ”No one can criticize Rajavi." [10]

Rubin wrote another article on the MKO cult in 2011 following the group’s extensive lobbying effort to get delisted. The article was appropriately titled "An Iranian Cult and Its American Friends". Once again she recited her record of visiting of "a factory in Maoist China" to warn the US politicians on the risk of supporting Maryam Rajavi who " lives in luxury in France" but in her followers’ camps, "access to the Internet, phones and information about the outside world is prohibited." [11]

She reminded the audience of the interviews she had, in 2003, with some of the escapees from the cult, "They recounted how people were locked up if they disagreed with the leadership or tried to escape; some were even killed." [12]

Considering the UN official report and many other reliable accounts on what is really going on inside the MKO camps, urgent action is needed to help release the group residents who are under constant pressure of the cult tyranny. The UN should mobilize the international community to save the lives and minds of over 3000 individuals taken as hostages in Camp Liberty.

By Mazda Parsi

References:

[1] https://www.nejatngo.org/en/posts/5569

[2]Rubin, Elizabeth, The Cult of Rajavi, The New York Times, July 13, 2003

[3]https://www.nejatngo.org/en/posts/79

[4]Rubin, Elizabeth, The Cult of Rajavi, The New York Times, July 13, 2003

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

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

[7]https://www.nejatngo.org/en/posts/5569

[8]ibid

[9]ibid

[10]Rubin, Elizabeth, The Cult of Rajavi, The New York Times, July 13, 2003

[11]Rubin, Elizabeth, An Iranian Cult and Its American Friends, the New York Times, August 13, 2011

[12] ibid

February 1, 2014 0 comments

Human Rights Abuse in the MEK

UNAMI: continued concerns about abuses committed by PMOI

UNAMI Half Yearly Report on Human Rights – January to June 2013

The United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq and the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights released the Half Yearly Report on Human Rights, covering the period from January to June 2013.

Extract from the report (PDF file) by Iran Interlink:

[…]

11.1 Camp New Iraq (Camp Ashraf)/ Camp Hurriya (Camp Liberty)

In accordance with the memorandum of understanding signed with the Government of Iraq in December 2011, UNAMI continued to conduct daily monitoring visits to Camp Hurriya, where more than 3,000 members of the People’s Mujahedin Organization of Iran/Mujahedin-e-Khalq (PMOI/MeK) – an organisation formally listed by a number of States as a terrorist organisation – are currently based.

On 9 February and 15 June Camp Hurriya was subjected to rocket attacks. In the first attack, eight residents were killed and, according to staff at the Government-run clinic in the Camp, a further 71 were injured. As a result of the second incident, two residents lost their lives. The SRSG publicly condemned both attacks and called on the Government of Iraq to take appropriate measures to ensure the protection and safety of the residents. In the aftermath of the February attack the residents’ leadership demanded, inter alia, to return to Camp Ashraf and that they be provided with large T walls for all accommodation blocs and amenities (totalling some 17,000 large T walls), personal protective equipment (PPE) for each resident, and 380 bunkers in addition to the 120 already present in the camp. By the end of the reporting period, the Government of Iraq had provided 296 bunkers and 591 small T-walls but had refused the residents’ leaders request for a return to Camp Ashraf, for personal protective equipment and for large T walls.

UNHCR has continued to work towards identifying individuals in need of international protection and durable solutions for the residents of Camp Hurriya. As of 30 June 2013, 1,604 individuals had been identified as requiring international protection. However, UNHCR’s efforts to find durable solutions for the residents have been hindered by the non-cooperation of residents, such as the boycotting of UNHCR interviews. In March, the Government of Albania offered to accept up to 210 residents for resettlement.

However, the PMOI/MeK refused the names accepted by the Government of Albania, and insisted that it should decide who should be resettled there. As a result by the end of June, UNHCR had facilitated the resettlement of 71 residents only. Similarly, in April the Government of Germany decided to accept up to 100 residents for resettlement. At the time of writing, preparations were underway to relocate the first group some time in July.

UNAMI has continuing concerns about human rights abuses committed by the PMOI/MeK leadership within Camp Hurriya against the residents. These claims have been made to United Nations Monitors during interviews with residents who had managed to leave Camp Hurriya, as well as in a number of private discussions with residents who still reside in the Camp – despite the leadership’s attempts to prevent such discussions. The PMOI/MeK, which has a hierarchical and authoritarian structure, imposes a number of severe restrictions on the residents’ rights, including the right of freedom of movement within the Camp and the right to leave the organization, the free right of association, along with restrictions on contacts with family members (including those residing in Camp Hurriya), on access to basic communications, and on access to medical care and treatment.

[…]

January 25, 2014 0 comments

Human Rights Abuse in the MEK

Rajavi’s absurd claim of equality !

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mazda Parsi

January 14, 2014 0 comments

Human Rights Abuse in the MEK

Human Rights Declaration; MKO Version

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Yet according to Human Rights watch report the former MKO members reported abuses ranging from detention and persecution of ordinary members wishing to leave the organization, to lengthy solitary confinements, severe beatings, and torture of dissident members.[6]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

By: A.Sepinoud

References:

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

[2] Universal Declaration of Human Rights ,Wikipedia

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

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

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

[6]Human Rights Watch, NO Exit, May2005

[7]ibid

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

[9]ibid

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

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

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

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

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

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

[16] ibid

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

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

December 18, 2013 0 comments

Human Rights Abuse in the MEK

It’s Time to Close the Camps

The last quarter century has been a time of great change across the globe, much of which has been for the better. The number of electoral democracies has grown from 69 in 1989 to 118 today. Despite

Michael Rubin Russia’s resurgence, the instability wrought by the Arab Spring, and the dangers posed by rogue regimes, the world remains far freer now than at any point in history.

How tragic it is, then, that so many tens of thousands remain effectively imprisoned in political concentration camps. North Korea, of course, is the world’s worst violator. According to the Guardian, the left’s flagship paper, up to 200,000 North Koreans remain imprisoned. CNN has detailed some of the ongoing horror in the six camps, and any report from the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea is worth reading. The Hermit Kingdom is not alone, though.

For decades, China has also maintained a series of “re-education through labor” [laojiao] camps. And while the Chinese government has recently promised to dismantle its network, actions ultimately speak louder than words.

The United States might have little leverage over China and North Korea, but low-hanging fruit which could be resolved with American diplomatic pressure does exist. The Mujahedin al-Khalq (MKO) is correct to castigate those who believe that the Iranian government or its militia proxies should enjoy an open season on group members. Opposing massacres is not synonymous with support for the group, however; it may no longer be a U.S.-designated terror group, but remains just as much an authoritarian cult. And while MKO spokesmen may castigate the Iraqi government and the Iranian regime, the real victims of the MKO lay within the group itself. Camp Liberty—the successor to Camp Ashraf—exists as much if not more to keep MKO members insulated from the real world and under the control of MKO leader Maryam Rajavi’s commissars than as a means of protection for group members.

Other camps exist in the Tindouf province of southwestern Algeria. Here, perhaps 40,000 residents of southern Morocco, Algeria, western Mali, and northern Mauritania languish in camps controlled by the once-Marxist Polisario Front, largely kept from returning home by the group’s political commissars and the Algerian government. During a recent visit to Dakhla, in Western Sahara, I had the opportunity to speak to former members who described not only their own escape from the camps, but the attempts by others who were forcibly returned to the camps, where Polisario authorities punished them for the audacity of seeking to return home rather than languish in camps 22 years after the war between Morocco and Algeria ended. Simply put, Polisario realizes that if the camps close, the gravy train of international assistance would end and the Polisario would lose its raison d’être.

The Polisario is not the only Cold War remnant stubbornly holding hostages. The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Columbia also engages in the practice, holding some prisoners for more than a decade. While some journalists parachute in and whitewash just what happens in FARC camps, it is hard to see “cultural programming” as anything other than an attempt at ideological re-education.

The Obama administration came into office seemingly committed to prioritizing human rights, never mind the debates about how best to guarantee rights, freedom, and liberty. The State Department became a revolving door not only for journalists, but for human-rights advocates, most notably Human Rights Watch’s Tom Malinowski and writer Samantha Power. Increasingly, however, it seems such figures are either window dressing for an administration so disinterested in human rights that it is willing to sanction political concentration and re-education camps or, worse yet, that these figures are so permeated by moral equivalency and skewed in their understanding of what universal human rights are that they are willing to normalize with the regimes, sponsors, and groups which engage in such practices.

Concentration camps and slavery (discussed in a previous post) are two phenomena that simply should not exist in the 21st century. That they do is a sad testament to the reality of regimes like North Korea’s, China’s, Algeria’s, Venezuela’s, and Cuba’s, and the choices which successive U.S. administrations–both Democrat and Republican–have made to not let such issues be stumbling blocks to engaging with the United States on other issues.

Michael Rubin, Commentary Magazine

December 18, 2013 0 comments

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