Office of Catherine Ashton, European Union, March 21 2013: ... The High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Vice President of the Commission issued the following statement today: "I welcome the decision by the Government of Albania to resettle 210 former residents of Camp Ashraf, now temporarily located in Camp Hurriya. I have followed this issue very closely, lending my full support to the work of the United ations Assistance Mission for Iraq, and in particular the Secretary General’s Special Representative Martin Kobler, towards a peaceful and durable solution to this humanitarian issue. Permanent resettlement outside Iraq is the only such solution ...more...
UN News center, March 19 2013: ... The statement added that Mr. Ban “unequivocally supports” the efforts of his Special Representative for Iraq, Martin Kobler, “to courageously and creatively, in exceptionally difficult circumstances, help resolve this situation.” In his report, Mr. Ban urges those who express support for the residents of Camp Hurriya and the remaining residents of another camp, New Iraq, to stop spreading insults and falsehoods about Mr. Kobler, who heads the UN Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI), and instead help to promote a durable solution. He adds that the significant funds evidently spent on high-profile lobbying could be more usefully utilized to improve aspects of the humanitarian conditions often cited in media and lobbying campaigns ... more...
Ashish Kumar Sen, Washington Times, March 18 2013: ... The U.S. wants the MeK leadership to “accept the government of Albania’s humanitarian offer immediately, and urges the residents of Camp [Liberty] to resume participation in resettlement interviews to ensure that individuals avail themselves of safe and secure relocation opportunities outside Iraq,” said State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland. The dissidents are housed at Camp Liberty, a temporary location near Baghdad's international airport. “We further urge the MeK leadership to place the highest priority on the safety and security of the former residents of [Camp] Ashraf through full and unconditional cooperation ... more...
UNHCR, Press Releases, March 18 2013: ... "I am very grateful that the Albanian Government has offered solutions for 210 people from Camp Hurriya," said Mr Guterres. "The residents of Camp Hurriya urgently need solutions to relocate out of Iraq. We hope they welcome this offer and cooperate to ensure the departure of this important number of people." The camp has seen a recent deterioration of the security situation of its residents, with a mortar attack on the camp on February 9th killing eight and wounding dozens with subsequent threats made against the residents."This generous offer is an demonstration of international solidarity and burden sharing for a vulnerable population", said Mr Guterres ... more...
Nasrin Ebrahimi, Nim Negah, Switzerland, March 18 2013: ... That night I decided to stay up and listen to music but I had to wait until everyone would fall asleep. I waited until 1 am. When I made sure that everyone was asleep, I started listening to music under the blanket …suddenly the person next to me asked, “Are you listening to music?” I was so terrified that I couldn’t answer her. I turned it off… I couldn’t sleep all night long. The next morning I tried to be nice with the person who had found out that I was listening to music. I tried to ask her to forget the case. If she criticized me in the brainwashing sessions, I would be left into a big trouble; I had to explain why I had granted the right of listening to music to myself! ... more...
Press TV, March 18 2013: ... In the background of this Albania has said it is ready to take in some 200 members of the MKO or MEK (Mojahedin-e-Khalq) organization currently residing in US Camp Liberty in Iraq after the Iraqi government requested strongly that the US find another place for them. Albania claims it has accepted the MKO group on ‘humanitarian’ reasons. For years the MKO has been listed as a terrorist group that targets Iran most notably and has been credited with killing some 17,000 Iranians and countless Iraqis. But in 2012 there was a strong push by Western NATO countries to have them de-listed as terrorists even though they have ... more...
Washington Post, Associated Press, March 17 2013: ... Iraq’s government is eager to have Mujahedeen-e-Khalq out of the country. The group opposes Iran’s clerical regime and carried out assassinations and bombings in Iran until renouncing violence in 2001. It fought in the 1980s alongside Saddam Hussein’s forces in the Iran-Iraq war. The refugee camp is located on a former American military base known as Camp Liberty. It is meant to be a temporary way station while the United Nations works to relocate the exiles abroad.MEK members reluctantly began moving to Camp Liberty last year. They previously lived in a compound known as Camp Ashraf in northeastern Iraq ... more...
Faryad Azadi, Paris, March 16 2013: ... The leaders of Mojahedin Khalq (Rajavi cult) want to keep the members as hostages whether they are in Camp Liberty or return to Camp Ashraf. Maryam Rajavi along with other commanders of the MEK in France has ordered the leaders in the camp to stop all interviews which the UNHCR was trying to carry out with the individuals. She claims to be the representative of these people. She has asked the commanders to put pressure on the residents to stop immediately any contact with any international organisation in or outside the camp. If this is not proof that this is a cult, then what could be the proof? It is now clear ... more...
Robert Windrem, NBC News, March 16 2013: ... That wasn't the only reason for the Bush administration's reluctance, said the former official. "There were interests in the Pentagon, (neo-conservative members of the Bush administration) who thought the MEK could be the vehicle that would overthrow the government of Iran," the former official said, adding sarcastically, "the same way they had such great success with Ahmad Chalabi in Iraq." Over CIA objections, Pentagon officials had fostered a relationship with Chalabi in hopes that he could establish himself as a leader of Iraqi dissidents in post-Saddam Iraq . Chalabi, however, was unable to deliver on his promises to unite the many dissident factions ... more...
Sahar Family Foundation, Baghdad, March 15 2013: ... While the cult leader Massoud Rajavi calls the genuine families ‘spies of the Iranian services’, he has gathered some paid individuals outside the UN office in Geneva under the guise of families. Rajavi claims that the so-called families in Geneva demand the rescue of their relatives in Iraq; whilst Rajavi is the sole body threatening their safety. He does not let them out to determine their own destiny. He is using the excuse of ‘going back to Ashraf camp’ to disguise their real plight as his hostages. Nowadays the cult’s lobbyists approach politicians and even ordinary people and paint a dreadful picture of the situation in Iraq by showing materials and then demand funds for ... more...
Jamal Abdi, Huffington Post, March 15 2013: ... Senator Sessions recently addressed an audience on Capitol Hill at an event organized by affiliates of the Mujahedin-e Khalq, a radical Iranian exile group that was considered a terrorist organization by the U.S. until late last year. Sessions told the audience that, if President Obama took military action against Iran, "he would have great support in the Congress." He received not one but two standing ovations for his remarks. What he didn't mention was that military officials believe a war to end Iran's nuclear program would means "tens of years" of occupation and would make Iraq look like a cakewalk in comparison ... more...
Sahar Family Foundation, Baghdad, March 13 2013: ... Struan Stevenson, Conservative member of the European Parliament (MEP) from Scotland and lobbyist of the terrorist Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO) in Europe, has recently addressed Ambassador György Busztin, Martin Kobler’s deputy in Iraq, and claimed that the missile and mortar attack against Camp Liberty on Saturday, February 9, 2013 was directed by the Iranian regime.To prove his claim he has stated that the leader of Jaysh-Al-Mukhtar, i.e. Wathiq Al-Musawi Al-Batat, has accepted responsibility for the attack in an interview with the Al-Sharqiyya network and has emphasized that this sort of action will continue ... more...
Nejat Bloggers, March 12 2013: ... Bombs were the Mojahedin's weapon of choice, which they frequently employed against American targets. On the occasion of President Nixon's visit to Iran in 1972, for example, the MKO exploded time bombs at more than a dozen sites throughout Tehran, including the Iran-American Society, the U.S. information office, and the offices of Pepsi Cola and General Motors. From 1972-75, when an internal MKO upheaval and more regime arrests temporarily slowed down their activities; the Mojahedin continued their campaign of bombings, damaging such targets as the offices of Pan-American Airlines, Shell Oil Company, and British organizations ... more...
Mazda Parsi, Nejat Society, March 12 2013: ... "A few years ago, one of the producers of CBS’s 60 Minutes asked me to arrange for the networks interview with Maryam Rajavi, a leader of Iran’s Mujahidin Khalq Organization (MKO). I told him then that I thought it was not possible to do this, to which he replied, “If the interview is going to be with a non-Iranian network, the response will certainly be different.”"I then recruited the assistance of a person affiliated with the MKO. A few days later he provided me with an email address to contact. When I did, I was given a telephone number to contact, which in all honesty made me feel embarrassed for my initial assumption which ... more...
RICHARD R. SCHOEBERL, UPI Outside View Commentator: ... the report states that "MOIS recruited former members of the (People's Mujahedin of Iran) in Europe and used them to launch a disinformation campaign against (PMOI)." Among those named in the report are Massoud Khodabandeh and his British wife, Anne. The Pentagon report details how these two individuals, formerly affiliated with the PMOI, were recruited by the MOIS in mid-1990s and used as assets against the opposition. The couple has spearheaded several campaigns to demonize the PMOI. The report points to the couple's development of the website "Iran-interlink" explicitly on Tehran's orders ... more...
... The problem for Rajavi is that this didn’t happen. The report was leaked to the press as planned, but there was no media fest. Instead the report was pulled back "for revision" when the Library of Congress realised the shoddy piece of work was ripe for investigation: how was it possible for a group like the MEK to infiltrate its disinformation into the ‘Irregular Warfare Support’ office of the Combating Terrorism Technical Support Office in the Pentagon? The investigation has even gone as far as Brussels where Members of the European Parliament are now being questioned about their use of this unpublished, un-attributed report to interfere in the asylum process for Iranian refugees ... more...
Camp-Ashraf.com, October 2011: The fascinating story of the controversial life of Camp Ashraf in Iraq from its foundation in 1986 to the present day is told in this book. Originally created to accommodate the Iranian opposition group Mojahedin-e Khalq (aka MEK, MKO, PMOI, Rajavi cult) and its leader Massoud Rajavi for coordinating the violent overthrow of the regime in Iran, Camp Ashraf became the MEK’s main military and ideological training base. The MEK later became known as Saddam’s Private Army as it became an integral element in the Iraqi dictator’s repressive apparatus.
But, even years after the fall of Saddam the MEK still has the support and backing of many in the West and is therefore able to resist opening its doors to the outside world. It is the hidden life inside Camp Ashraf which renders it so controversial ... more...
Iran Interlink, Baghdad, April 17, 2011: ... It is not known how many of the 3400 residents at the camp continue as members of the terrorist group. Singleton visited the camp at the start of a week of meetings with Iraqi officials to demand that the organisational infrastructure of the group be dismantled, and that the leaders are prosecuted under Iraqi and international law. The remaining residents should be enabled to determine their own futures without pressure from the MEK leaders. Their families should be involved to help in this process. Over 1000 Camp New Iraq (Formerly Ashraf) residents have residency or citizenship rights in Europe and North America ... more...
... One young woman weeps for her lost father. He has been, she explains, in Camp Ashraf for23 years. He was captured as a POW in Iraq 25 years ago and after two years was among those transferred to the Mojahedin Khalq (MKO, MEK, Rajavi cult) camp Ashraf where he has been ever since. She hasn’t seen him for 25 years. She wants him to come home with her, and, she says, she will not leave until she can take him out of the camp. Still the families wait and call out to their long-lost relatives in the hope of reaching them. Although the gates of Camp Ashraf are now open, there is still no access to the people held hostage inside. The MEK have simply withdrawn into a smaller circle ... more...
Iran Interlink, November 06, 2010: ... Massoud Rajavi was on the stage and while he had his hands on his waist he began a war cry against the USA, and in his admiration for Osama Ben Laden and his organization, Al Qaeda, he said, ”This was fanatical Islam which trembled and shacked the basis of US Imperialism. What will happen to the USA if revolutionary Islam with our Ideology and Maryam’s leadership comes to power, then this paper tiger (the USA) will be ... more...
Reuters, July 11, 2010:... "An arrest warrant has been issued against 39 leaders and members of the organisation including the PMOI's head Massoud Rajavi, due to evidence that confirms they committed crimes against humanity," said Judge Mohammed Abdul-Sahib, a spokesman of the Iraqi High Tribunal. Rajavi's wife Maryam, leader of the French-based National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), the PMOI's political wing, was also included in the warrant, Abdul Sahib added ...more...
Hadi Shams Haeri, March 17, 2010:... At least some have been released temporarily even though with hefty bail to spend Norooz with their families. But on the side of the Mojahedin Khalq who claim to be the 'National Liberation Army' (that is, to liberate people) we do not even see this minimum ... more...
Reuters, September 22, 2009:... Massoud Khodabandeh made several recommendations in his report. The Government of Iraq should remove around seventy MKO leaders in order to protect the rank and file members from human rights abuses and coercion. The camp must be thoroughly searched -- something the U.S. Army failed to do since 2003...more...
RAND, August 05, 2009:... An examination of MeK activities establishes its cultic practices and its deceptive recruitment and public relations strategies. A series of coalition decisions served to facilitate the MeK leadership's control over its members. The government of Iraq wants to expel the group, but no country other than Iran will accept it ... more...
UK Parliament, April 20-21 2009:... In the case of occupied territory, the Convention continues to apply for a year after the general close of military operations, and partially thereafter if the occupying power continues to exercise the functions of government. The occupation of Iraq formally ended on 30 June 2004... more...
Reuters, April 06, 2009:... Asked what can the UK , European and other western governments do to help resettle the MEK, Dr. al Rubaie replied, "These governments can agree to allow their citizens and others who have status in their country to return." ...more...
The Hill, December 11, 2008:... Nejat [Rescue] Society, an Iranian NGO, has sent a delegation to London to brief policy and decision makers, human rights organisations and media on the US army handover of the Mojahedin-e Khalq's (MKO, MeK, NCRI, PMOI) military base, Camp Ashraf ... more...
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