Ann Singleton

Introducing Maryam Rajavi as a human rights activist is the wrong tool for the wrong job

Although Canada is not party to the P5+1 nuclear negotiations, the Canadian parliament’s all-party Iran Accountability Week aimed to put pressure on Iran over its human rights record. Instead, it degenerated

Introducing Maryam Rajavi as a human rights activist is the wrong tool for the wrong job into another crude attempt to fuel enmity and hatred and prevent any rapprochement between Iran and western powers, even a clumsy attempt to create conditions which would derail the negotiating process. The weeklong series of events backfired badly as Ali Gharib writing in The Nation revealed.

The inclusion of the Mojahedin Khalq’s notorious second in command, Maryam Rajavi, who describes herself as the ‘president-elect’ of a future Iran, was guaranteed to create controversy. The MEK itself has a well documented history of human rights violations. The group is hated by Iranians inside and outside the country.

Predictably, several participants pulled out of the event. Most notably Dr. Ahmed Shaheed, the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Iran.

Among the others there were divisions. Some indicated that the inclusion of Maryam Rajavi is not in the benefit of Israel, others clearly scorned her presence, as Ali Gharib reported: “One human rights advocate working on Iran, who asked 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.”

The result was that Maryam Rajavi’s backers were forced to get her to water down her speech, to narrow it down to talking about the MEK’s camps in Iraq and what is happening there and not to use the event as a platform for wider anti-Iranian attacks. Even then Rajavi had nothing but MEK propaganda, riddled with lies and misinformation, to tell the assembly.

The Skype appearance followed a failed attempt to get Rajavi a US visa during the P5+1 negotiations on May 8. It was known that Rajavi had also applied to visit Canada, but apparently she wasn’t welcome there either, and in the end Rajavi’s speech from her headquarters outside Paris had to be censored to render it bearable if not credible for real human rights advocates and activists who attended. Even then they felt they had been deceived and tricked into listening to someone contemptible.

The presence of Maryam Rajavi – an advocate of the Saddamists, Al Qaida and ISIS in Iraq – exposes the real agenda behind the so-called human rights advocates who invited her. While it is understandable that MOSSAD may use the MEK as a mercenary force to assassinate Iranian scientists or for information laundry, nobody will accept the MEK as humanitarian. This is simply the wrong tool for the wrong job.

Anne Khodabandeh (Singleton), Middle East Strategy Consultants,

May 17, 2014 0 comments

Maryam Rajavi

Rajavi’s visa application challenges America’s stance on terrorism

There are rumours that Mojahedin Khalq leader Massoud Rajavi is contemplating whether and where it would be safe for him to resurface after going to ground during the 2003 invasion of Iraq. But in Europe his wife, Maryam Rajavi, is herself keen to expand her reach. According to a source inside the organisation, Maryam Rajavi has recently been ‘encouraged’ to apply for a visa to the United States of America. Maryam is currently based in Auvers-sur-Oise just outside Paris, from where the MEK plans and supports its various acts of violence including aiding the insurgency in Iraq. From here she has been able to exploit the lack of effective oversight in the European Parliament in Brussels to join with anti-Iran politicians in their drive to prevent any rapprochement between western governments and Iran, and to support a level of violence and chaos in the region which benefits Israel. With no other tools at their disposal, neoconservatives and the Israeli lobby have spent years using the MEK – at arms length – to pursue their virulent, provocative campaign to keep the two sides apart. (Matched equally of course by former president Ahmadinejad’s calculated provocations; both sides playing the same game with different footballs.)

Maryam Rajavi’s application for a US visa is embedded in the context of this deliberate animosity.

Certainly because the European Parliament has no foreign policy teeth, Maryam Rajavi tried for over a decade to obtain a visa to visit the UK to promote this agenda; even unsuccessfully using private health treatment as an excuse. Either the system of border control in the UK is more rigorous than it is rumoured to be, or the UK government considers Maryam Rajavi persona non grata. Either way – or both – she has not been welcome in the UK.

But the efforts of MEK backers like MEP Struan Stevenson failed to make an impact. The successful P5+1 nuclear talks with Iran in November 2013 have put rapprochement, no matter how difficult, back on the agenda. Anti-Iran advocates and promoters have been forced to try a new tack – attack Iran’s record on human rights. Again, at the forefront of this push is the MEK. Preparations to use the MEK have been in train for some time. The group’s US presence has been carefully managed since 2009 when Iraq moved to expel the MEK from its terrorist base there. There has been a concerted, well funded campaign to whitewash the group’s past and pass it off as a democratic, feminist opposition group. Fortunately, only the MEK’s western backers have convinced themselves there is some truth to this assertion, and this comes at a price – speaking fees paid to them range from $25-60,000 each time.

In September 2012 Hillary Clinton, as Secretary of State, reached an accommodation with the MEK over its continued occupation of this base, Camp Ashraf, and removed the MEK from the US terrorism list. By early 2013 the MEK had opened an office in Washington and registered, under its pseudonym the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), as a lobbying group. Interestingly, registration as a lobby group includes a declaration that no money is provided by a foreign government, which raises the question as to where the MEK gets its money within the USA. Previous claims that wealthy Iranian expatriates have backed the MEK’s massive expenditure are unrealistic and in any case have never been backed by any evidence.

Instead, we can join up more than a few dots by considering the MEK’s current place in American foreign policy and linking this back to its previous position as described above. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, who is Chair of the House Subcommittee on the Middle East and North Africa has been a long time supporter of the MEK, and recently described ‘her friend’ Maryam Rajavi as a human rights advocate – a description which is nonsense to American-Iranians.

In pursuit of an agenda to prevent rapprochement, hardliners (I mean neoconservatives) in America surely aimed to slip Maryam Rajavi into Washington during the next round of nuclear negotiations next week (5-9 May). On the heels of the controversy over denial of a visa to Iran’s appointed head of mission at the United Nations in New York, this would indeed have been a poke in the eye to goad Iran with. But whatever incentives have been offered by Ros-Lehtinen to John Kerry to nod through this visa application, the US Secretary of State will no doubt have lent an ear to the voices of the other members of the P5+1 group. It would mean that, after Saddam Hussein, the United States would be the only government in the world which has directly supported the MEK. It would mean that the other members of this group would drift further and further away from the US agenda, and it would mean that Iran would make a net gain rather than the US. Fortunately this time the administration has not fallen into Ros-Lehtinen’s honey trap. But who knows what may happen in future.

Anne Khodabandeh (Singleton), Middle East Strategy Consultants,

May 3, 2014 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization's Propaganda System

MKO and Struan Stevenson: Another propaganda stunt, another failure

Officials in Iraq have spoken out critically following a Conference held in the European Parliament, on 19th February, organised and chaired by Struan Stevenson MEP, President of the European Parliament’s Delegation for Relations with Iraq.

Members of the Iraqi Council of Representatives’ Foreign Relations Committee have, on previous occasions, called for a boycott and non-cooperation with the Commission of the European Union and head of the Iraq Delegation Struan Stevenson because of the determinedly anti-Iraqi government agenda. Struan Stevenson and Alejo Vidal Quadras are known to Iraqis as MEPs who have been tasked to interfere with and push a particular agenda in Iraq. Stevenson is alleged to have been receiving funds and guidance from the Mojahedin Khalq terrorist organisation (MEK) to use his parliamentary position to attack the government of Iraq by falsifying facts and events, and inciting sectarian conflict.

The Secretary-General of the Knights of the Law’s Supporters (Farsan Ansar al-Ghanoon), Hassan al-Alwani, said that the Mojahedin Khalq represents Israeli interests in Iraq, and that there is a clear trace of the organisation’s history of involvement in the insurgency that has gripped Iraq.

According to several Iraqi officials, who have given interviews and made statements to Iraqi media, Stevenson was supporting Saddam and the MEK during the war. After the fall of Saddam, he and others became active in supporting the Saddamists (loyal remnants of Saddam Hussein’s regime) and the MEK in Iraq. Stevenson subsequently made several visits to Jordan and London to connect Saddam’s daughter and the Saddamists with the Israeli lobby in London; acting as a go-between and using the MEK and Saddamists’ networks in Iraq and Europe. After being re-elected to the 2009 session of the European Parliament, Stevenson transferred from the Iran Delegation to the Iraq Delegation of which he was made Chair. His colleague Alejo Vidal Quadras, also an advocate of the MEK, made the same transition. Now that Stevenson has announced that he will not be standing for the next European Parliament elections in May, it is timely to remember the fate of another MEP who supported the MEK, Paulo Casaca, who was exposed in his Portuguese constituency as a supporter of the MEK terrorist group and deselected.

Stevenson has persistently backed the Mojahedin Khalq’s determined efforts to remain in Iraq in spite of the fact the group is a designated terrorist group in that country, and in defiance of the government of Iraq and the Judiciary’s demands for the group’s removal under the terms of the country’s constitution. Although the MEK’s 3,000+ foreign presence in Iraq is tiny in relation to the massive numbers of Iraqi civilians being killed and is irrelevant to the complex social, civil, economic and security issues of the burgeoning democracy, the MEK has enjoyed extraordinarily disproportionate attention in the European Parliament because of the Israeli backing for the group.

The MEK’s continued presence in Iraq and the false narrative of their security is something Stevenson has used to disguise a determinedly anti-Maliki agenda. The European Parliament made every effort, using the MEK and Saddamists and Israeli influence, to prevent al Maliki’s re-election. Iraqi officials have pointed to the consequent increase in acts of terrorism and what amounted to an attempted coup d’etat at that time. These efforts failed, however, and ended in the arrest and prosecution of key players, such as al Hashemi. Although some individuals were arrested, others became fugitives in other countries. Over the next few years, Stevenson and the MEK brought some of these fugitives to speak in Brussels against the current government in order to influence events in Iraq. Since this apparently didn’t have the desired effect, this cohort have now embarked on buying people in Iraq who are well known to have connections with al Qaida and Daesh (SIRI). The European Parliament, and in particular the Iraq Delegation, has been used again to push an anti-Iraqi government agenda.

The European Parliament Conference on February 19th was said to include “some of the most prominent political and religious leaders in Iraq”, and was to focus on the issue of human rights. And certainly the participants are known to the people of Iraq. According to Habilian Association in Baghdad, the Iraqi Baath Party posted a statement on its official website announcing that it had invited the European Parliament to host the Conference. The statement continues with slogans against Iranians and Iraqis, but then praises the participants, especially those who support armed struggle in the al Anbar province, including the MEK who, it says, responded to the invitation and participated in the Conference [in spite of not actually representing anyone in Iraq themselves because they are a foreign terrorist group]. In a statement issued last week, Iraq’s Human Rights Ministry condemned the Conference, announcing that it had been orchestrated by terrorists and saying that in this way it acts directly against the human rights of the people of Iraq.

Among the most heinous effects of Stevenson’s anti-Maliki agenda is the terrible exploitation and suffering of the individuals being held hostage in the MEK’s camp in Iraq. UNAMI, which has been responsible for removing the MEK from Iraq since 2009, has made several clear and public statements about its concerns that not only are the MEK leaders obstructing any and every attempt to remove the individuals from the camp and transfer them to the safety of third countries, but the MEK leaders are also committing human rights abuses inside the camps against the residents. But more sinister than even this is the cynical programme to deliberately place the residents of Camps Ashraf and Liberty in the path of danger.

In the hopes of attracting the attention of Iraqis seeking revenge on the terrorist MEK, the MEK itself has hinted that their leader Massoud Rajavi is still in Iraq. The motive behind this is to provoke another attack on Camp Liberty by people who have been hurt by the MEK. The attack on Camp Ashraf on September 1st was an example of such a manufactured attack; although it is still unclear who was behind the killings, the hundred MEK had been spuriously left there by Rajavi in an extremely vulnerable situation. The MEK are so hated by many Iraqis who have been harmed by the group that it was almost inevitable they would come under attack at some time.

To counter this, Iraqi officials have announced that this is not true; they are unequivocal in stating that Massoud Rajavi is no longer in Iraq, and this rumour has been put out by the MEK and its lobbyists to create tension and to provoke a violent reaction. This is, says one ex member, another example of how Rajavi and his backers are living off the blood of the MEK’s hostages in Iraq.

Anne Khodabandeh (Singleton), Middle East Strategy Consultants

March 2, 2014 0 comments

Maryam Rajavi

EU must reassess risk after Rajavi orders MEK loyalists to kill critics

Maryam Rajavi has used a meeting at her headquarters near Paris to incite her followers to go ahead and kill individuals that she identifies as her enemies. Speaking to Mojahedin Khalq loyalists on the eve of the thirty fifth anniversary of the Iranian revolution, Rajavi drew a red line between her supporters and everyone else; at one point she lashes out at Iranian opposition groups outside Iran, calling their criticism of the MEK “the struggle of Khamenei’s Pasdars’ satanic attacks against the resistance”, (i.e. Rajavi). Her red line has a very clear definition; you are either totally for us or totally against us.

According to the MEK’s NCRI website, three hundred associations – essentially sub-sects of the Mojahedin Khalq – were in attendance, although the pictures do not reflect these numbers and the associations are not named anywhere in the report. These represent the core supporters of the MEK who are paid to perform the activities which the majority of actual MEK members are incapable of doing. To the extent they are loyal to Rajavi, they are at her command.

Rajavi began to motivate them by first claiming, without providing even anecdotal evidence and in spite of the recent popular election of President Rohani that, “the Iranian society stands ready to change this regime”. She then went on to define her red line: “we highlight the demarcation with the regime in its entirety and we also stress solidarity with all those true defenders of overthrowing the regime”.

To be absolutely clear about what she means by drawing this red line between ‘us and them’, she says, “the struggle of the participant organisations and associations in this convention against the Mullah’s intelligence ministry at this time is the most needed part of the struggle to topple the Mullah’s regime and bring about democracy and the rule of people in Iran. We announce that countering the agents of religious fascist rulers of Iran who are targeting the leadership of the resistance (i.e. Rajavi), is a nationalistic duty of every freedom lover Iranian irrelevant to their political and ideological belief”. [my emphasis]

By “agents of the religious fascist rulers of Iran”, Maryam Rajavi means anyone who criticises the MEK and in particular former members of the MEK who are by default, and “according to the rules of armed struggle [war], condemned to death”.

Since the vast majority of these critics and former members are resident in Europe and North America, ‘countering the agents’ who are ‘condemned to death’ can only be interpreted as instructing her loyal followers to kill these people wherever they reside in the west.

Of course this is never expressed in English, only on the Farsi sites was the threat published. Realising that, as a resident of France, Rajavi would be held personally responsible for incitement to murder, the MEK quickly removed the incriminating Farsi sections of her speech from the hambastegi meli website (a copy is available), and instead an MEK spokesman in Iraq was quoted issuing the same threat. This time more directly as he said, “since we are at war with Iran we will treat anyone who leaves us as someone who has changed sides and we will execute them”. In this context the specific delineation of the red line becomes highly significant as Rajavi is now able to label anybody who does not bow down to her as her enemy , as an “agent of the Iranian regime”. Even those who have escaped Camp Liberty after thirty years in isolation, and threaten them with elimination.

Try as they might the leaders of the MEK cannot for long disguise their total dependence on violence as a means to pursue the very existence of their group. Although posing for Western consumption as a democratic opposition group, the MEK operates as a cult and relies absolutely on instilling fear and dependency on its members. It is imperative that the leaders maintain this atmosphere among the members in order to keep them ‘on message’. As a result, any criticism or protest aimed at exposing the true nature of the group provokes an immediate deployment of intimidation and aggression, sometimes leading to actual physical attacks, even in the streets of western countries. In this way, members (and backers) are graphically reminded of their real role as a group.

The question is, how far will the MEK go to counter the exposures made by former members who are increasing in number and who remain undeterred in their efforts to help rescue those former colleagues who remain trapped in conditions of isolation and suffering daily abuses inside all the MEK’s bases, whether in Iraq or in Europe and North America?

Informed people are beginning to ask what Maryam Rajavi will ask of the members being kept in Iraq against their will. The MEK are trained to violence, to kill and be killed. That has been the MEK’s raison d’être for five decades. It is the reason warmongers and anti-Iran pundits back the group. Loyal members who are trained for assassination are known to already be in Europe. Will they be unleashed soon in an attempt to silence the MEK’s most effective critics? (In her recent speech Maryam Rajavi emphasises that her real enemies – former MEK members – are no more than a handful in every western countries, but she does not name them.)

Judging by past behaviour, the answer to this question is a resounding yes. On many occasions since the MEK established bases in western capitals, it has used violent attacks on its rivals and enemies; tactics from character assassination campaigns to knifings and attempted kidnaps have frequently been reported by victims. Unfortunately, because the MEK has powerful backers, these low level criminal activities have seldom been investigated or prosecuted, leaving the victims vulnerable, though undeterred.

This threat however must be taken seriously. The gruesome death of a former MEK member who had become incarcerated in Camp Ashraf is a vivid reminder of what the MEK is capable of. Massoud Dalili’s disfigured body was discovered among 52 other victims of a violent attack on the Camp which occurred on September 1st 2013. The victims had mostly been subjected to execution style killing. But Dalili’s face had been burned with acid to render him unidentifiable. Although it is still unclear who launched the attack – Iraqi investigators are unable to interview the 42 eyewitness because the MEK are holding them incommunicado inside Camp Liberty – the fact that Dalili was a former high ranking member who disappeared unaccountably from a hotel in Baghdad two years before has led experts on MEK behaviour to conclude that he was killed by the MEK themselves after being kidnapped or deceived into returning to Camp Ashraf. The MEK have simply blamed Iran for his death.

There are further indications that the MEK are actively mobilising to counter the inevitable exposures of former members about human rights abuses committed systematically inside all MEK camps and bases. Two MEK intelligence and security officers of the Mojahedin Khalq have been tracked travelling between Paris and Tirana in Albania. Tirana is now home to some 210 individuals who were recently transferred there from Camp Liberty. The MEK has made every effort to contain them and keep them under cult control, sending minders along with them from Iraq to maintain the control.

Since their arrival, 70 have separated from the MEK and begun to speak out against their treatment in the Iraqi camps. Now, Esmail Mortezaee (Javad Khorasan) and Hassan Nayb Aghad, have been reported bringing suitcases of money (well over a million dollars in cash) with them from Paris out of which they pay $500 per month to each person on condition that they do not talk to anyone, not even their families, about their experiences in the MEK camps, that they do not talk to the UNHCR, which is responsible for the individuals but pays only around $200 per month, and that they work for the MEK by updating social networks to promote the group. Some of these refugees have been threatened with violence and physical elimination. Interestingly, Esmail Mortazaee carries a card or pass which identifies him as working from the Pentagon office in Tirana. He shows this to the ex members as proof of his backing and power over them.

Such activities are not new and have gone on unchallenged for many years in Europe and North America. Many former members who are outspoken critics of the MEK have been, over the years, subjected to mental and physical intimidation carried out with impunity by loyal MEK members trained in security, intelligence and military skills. But importantly, not one of these trained killers will act without the order of their cult leaders, Massoud and Maryam Rajavi. It is incumbent on western security services to understand this dynamic and also acquaint themselves with the current change in risk following the transfer of defected MEK members from Iraq to Europe and in particular Maryam Rajavi’s speech in France blatantly giving her ‘permission’ (read order) to go ahead and kill her opponents.

Middle East Strategy Consultants,Author of “Saddam’s Private Army” and “The life of Camp Ashraf”

February 12, 2014 0 comments

Camp Liberty

MEK’s Western backers are complicit in their deaths

This is the second time head of the Mukhtar Army Wathiq al-Battat has claimed responsibility for attacks on the MEK. In February, in an interview with Al-Mada Press, al-Battat said he did not rule out the possibility of further attacks on Camp Liberty, and emphasized that they are waiting in MEK’s Western backers are complicit in their deaths ambush for the terrorist MEK until they leave Iraq. In a separate interview with the Associated Press, al-Battat said, “It is time for the people of the MEK to leave Iraq. We have demanded that the government kick the group out of the country, but the Iraqi government did not respond positively to our demand”.

In the past year over 8,000 people have died in violent incidents in Iraq. The problem is not that the MEK are being singled out for attack, the real problem is that nobody is allowed to get inside Camp Liberty to help rescue these people from their enforced captivity. Nobody is allowed to help them or to relocate them or save their lives. In spite of the diverse efforts of various parties, MEK leaders have refused to allow any party to help or rescue the residents first in Camp Ashraf and latterly in Camp Liberty.

Maryam Rajavi may be able to lie to and deceive the captive members and those supporters who have not the intellectual or moral capacity to question or challenge her script, but these are the facts:

· In 2003, the IRI offered an amnesty to rank and file members who renounced their membership of the terrorist group and other political activity can return home under the supervision of the Red Cross in Iran. To date this has been honoured.

· Iraq’s constitution, its polity and its judicial system will never allow the MEK terrorist organisation to remain in the country. To date the government and the security services have shown commendable restraint and compliance with international law, above the demands of national law, as embodied by the agency of UNAMI.

· Since 2009, America and European countries have offered to take several of the captives; initially those who have had previous connection with their countries or have family members there.

· The UN has instigated refugee determination interviews to assess the eligibility of all the captives. Some have been enabled to be transferred to Albania after such interviews.

· Individual families have travelled to Iraq on several occasions to try to reach their relatives. For three years families of residents held vigil outside Camp Ashraf demanding contact with their loved ones which the MEK leaders denied.

To date the Rajavis have refused to cooperate with all of these attempts to help and rescue the residents and take them to safety.

As a result, since 2003 there have been numerous deaths among the residents of Camp Ashraf and Camp Liberty: through rocket or missile attack (including this latest one), during interventions by the Iraqi military, untreated illness and disease, uninvestigated suicides or murders. Most of these could have been prevented. It is no longer acceptable that the Rajavis blame every other party to this crisis and refuse to acknowledge their part. Nobody will buy that any more. If there was even one iota of accountability in the totalitarian system of the MEK the leadership would have been expelled by now.

But is it ludicrous to imagine that one or even two people – whether Maryam and/or Massoud Rajavi – are capable of acting alone to prevent all this help from reaching the people in the camp. There are others who have a clear interest in keeping them locked away behind closed doors.

For years now the presence of the MEK in Iraq has had nothing to do with Iran. The MEK’s own policy of ‘regime change’ or ‘overthrow of the Iranian regime’ was abandoned several years ago, possibly as long ago as 2003. Since then the MEK has been taken up and used by western backers to interfere in the internal affairs of Iraq. This was made abundantly clear in the work of the European Parliament’s Iraq Delegation which shamelessly supported and promoted the MEK’s presence in Iraq in defiance of the government’s decision to expel the group and in spite of the constitutional requirement to remove them.

All the lobbying on behalf of the MEK is to do with preserving it as a terrorist organisation for its backers to use in pursuit of their anti-Iraq agenda. There is no intention on the part of those who use the group to have it dismantled, or to have the residents rescued. The group must either remain in Iraq or, if pushed, they must move altogether without anyone talking with them. Although it is glib to claim that MOSSAD and the CIA are the MEK’s main backers, we only have to look at a recent report from Sofia which reveals that during a visit to Romania, the US Secretary of State John Kerry and the Romanian Foreign Minister discussed the possibility of settling all 3000+ MEK members together near the city of Craiova. In other words, if this terrorist group must be moved, it must be moved as a whole. That such a discussion and plan could take place at this level is ample evidence that even at the highest levels of power there is no intention of dismantling the group and helping the individual members out of captivity. Instead there is a sense of ownership which clearly states ‘this is our terrorist group, we will do as we like with it and use it as we like’.

Such owners pay for the name of the MEK – and the 3000 members to pretend it is a viable group. They are playing with the lives of these people for their own agenda and as long as the MEK are useful in this way they won’t allow help to be given or anyone to go in to rescue them. While Maryam Rajavi lives with every convenience and comfort in Paris, the rest must remain in Iraq, targets for missile attacks. For the MEK leaders every one of them who dies is a martyr and every one of them who survives is a witness. It is clear what the outcome should be for the Rajavis. They will expend their blood in whatever way suits them to fulfil the agenda of their backers, but clearly they will end up killing all of them sooner or later. And those who use the MEK in any way and deny help to the individuals are complicit in this scenario.

Anne Khodabandeh (Singleton), Middle East Strategy Consultants

December 29, 2013 0 comments

Maryam Rajavi

Maryam Rajavi holds her followers in contempt – where is her compassion?

Those MEK supporters living in western countries who have recently distanced themselves from the organisation and publicly questioned the MEK’s activities, (most of whom would deny that they have Maryam Rajavi holds her followers in contempt – where is her compassion? separated completely), have been stunned by the vitriolic attacks the MEK launched against them. They truly believed while they were close to the MEK that these kinds of attack were justifiably targeting real agents of Iran. Now they have also come under attack themselves and it is slowly dawning on them that such accusations are not only unfounded but are meant deliberately to instill fear and provoke self-justification as a way to distract and silence such criticism. They will no doubt find the courage to challenge this behaviour and continue to seek the truth.

The Rajavis of course claim that anyone who speaks out against them, particularly the former members, has been recruited by the IRI and sent to destroy the MEK as part of a malicious, murderous plan. Yet where is the evidence of this?

The MEK’s critics have pointed out many times that the people who are hurting the MEK most are the cult’s leaders. It is they who order self-immolations, who withhold medical treatment, who place them in the line of danger of attack and, most recently, starve them by denying them food and calling this a hunger strike.

The critics demand help and rescue for the people still enthralled by these leaders and held captive by isolation and cultic manipulation, not only in Camp Liberty but in western bases also.

So, if the critics are acting out of humanitarian concern, the Rajavis must surely be aware of the mixed message this sends. Here’s the problem: if the Iranian regime is the evil, terrorist sponsoring entity which Rajavi has built her whole narrative on, what are we to make of the message of these so-called agents who display nothing but compassion for the people still trapped inside the MEK, at every level.

None are calling for the deaths of the members. Quite the opposite, we all wish to help them, to give them back their humanity, their dignity and their integrity which Maryam Rajavi has stolen or destroyed. Critics of the MEK leaders, Massoud and Maryam Rajavi, have campaigned for ten years and more to expose the appalling cruelty and corruption of their little dictatorship. For years they have endured the insults, beatings and attempts at character assassination flung at them at the instigation of these two wicked people.

Anyone involved in dealing with the MEK in any place and over any issue, who has met with the former members has expressed surprise at the simple, straightforward concern they have for their former colleagues and their families. There simply isn’t a hidden agenda.

The MEK demonise the Iranian government as evil and wicked. So, using the same MEK logic, outsiders need to ask the Rajavis where did all this compassion come from? Why is the Iranian intelligence ministry acting in such a charitable way? Have they become social workers!?

Think! Who, in the past ten years, has done more to harm the members than Massoud and Maryam Rajavi. The cruelty and corruption which govern the group’s internal relations are known intimately by those who suffered under that regime. Where is Maryam Rajavi’s compassion? Why does she show no sympathy or kindness toward her own people, yet lash out against those who do?

Rajavi says the demand of her forced hunger strike is the return of seven allegedly missing people. But she has still not produced any evidence to demonstrate whether they are alive or dead, or where they are or why there has never been any sign of them anywhere. The people who could give clues to solve this mystery are out of reach of UN and GOI investigators. These are the 42 survivors of the September 1st attack on Camp Ashraf in which 53 people were brutally killed by unknown assailants. These 42 were transferred to Camp Liberty where they are being held incommunicado by the MEK leadership cadre. Why? They certainly have information about what took place in the camp on that day.

Until the facts become known, the hunger strike is meaningless and causing unnecessary suffering for the participants. If there is no end-game how long do they go on? We are witness only to another graphic example of the cruelty and callous indifference of the Rajavis toward other human beings.

Anne Khodabandeh (Singleton), Middle East Strategy Consultants,Author of “Saddam’s Private Army” and “The life of Camp Ashraf”

December 10, 2013 0 comments

The cult of Rajavi

UK must rescue modern slaves from clutches of MKO in Iraq

The recent discovery of three modern slaves in a quiet area in London has echoes of the situation of the three thousand hostages in Camp Liberty in Iraq. In each case the victims were brought together thirty years ago to live collectively as part of a shared political ideology. In London, as in Iraq, this went wrong when the use of emotional and physical abuse was used to enslave the victims against their will.

Just as the three women in London have had traumatic and disturbing experiences, so the escapees from Camp Liberty have described the systematic use of psychological, emotional and physical abuses behind closed doors to keep them under the control of brutal, exploitative leaders.

As in London, the victims of the Mojahedin Khalq are left emotionally fragile and highly vulnerable. Their needs for a careful and compassionate process of recovery and rehabilitation are similar. This can only be achieved if they are protected from their former ‘owners’ who will try their utmost to collect them back up and return them to conditions of slavery.

Under the terms of an agreement struck between UNAMI and the government of Iraq in 2009 to remove the Mojahedin Khalq organisation from Iraqi territory in line with the country’s constitution, the United Nations High Commission for Refugees has asked the UK to re-admit 52 residents of Camp Ashraf who were previously settled in the UK but no longer have immigration status. Each individual will be assessed by the UNHCR to ensure they have not been complicit in acts of terrorism or other activities incompatible with refugee status.

When assessing these considerations it is vital that the UK government remember that these people are victims of modern slavery, and above all that their lives are in danger at the hands of their ‘owners’ Massoud and Maryam Rajavi. Several residents of Camp Liberty are already on enforced hunger strike over a spurious issue; their option to continue or not has been removed as they are being denied access to food. Other residents have already been killed through the deprivation of medical treatment, or having been placed in direct danger of attack as occurred in the 1st September incident at Camp Ashraf.

Just as the London victims were enslaved for thirty years, so the members of the Mojahedin Khalq have been isolated and abused behind closed doors for thirty years. The government of Iraq and UNAMI must act to open the doors of the camp and gain access to these residents. Western governments must make a genuine effort to undertake the rescue of these victims and give them refuge. Above all they must ensure that they are saved from further abuse when they arrive in their countries as, without safe and targeted support, the Mojahedin Khalq leaders – who operate openly and freely in western countries – will easily search them out and enthral them once again.

Anne Khodabandeh (Singleton), Middle East Strategy Consultants,Author of “Saddam’s Private Army” and “The life of Camp Ashraf”

November 25, 2013 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization members' families

Loving families offer security and a future for Liberty residents

As usual, when a crisis erupts among the Mojahedin Khalq in Iraq, the world and his dog are ready to jump in and use it as a platform to push their own agenda based on their own interpretation of events.

We have US lobbyists in Washington telling the UN – which is conducting an investigation on the ground – not only who perpetrated the attack but also what to do about it. We have Iran dancing with joy over the ‘elimination’ of its enemies, though more circumspectly adding that Iran itself will pursue vengeance through legal channels.

It’s easy to sit outside the country and talk. It’s easy to hold the Iraqis responsible for everything that happens in their country in disregard of the blatant interference from every side.

The long suffering government of Iraq – which is also conducting an investigation of its own – yet again reminds UNAMI and Western governments that the MEK cannot stay in their country. For thirty years the Mojahedin Khalq has been working there for the benefit of America and western interests; which paid a middleman called Massoud Rajavi for their services. The MEK consequently killed thousands of Iraqis. The country cannot now be expected to continue to play host to such a terrorist group.

But behind all the noise and squabbles of the various political bodies there echoes a profound silence. We never, ever get to hear from the people who are themselves directly involved, the MEK rank and file. Of course, on September 1st, the day of the attack on Camp Ashraf, the MEK leadership almost instantly broadcast its own ‘Hollywood Blockbuster’ version of events, with films of the assailants creeping up on the camp and graphic pictures of the aftermath; images replete with contradictions and inconsistencies.

But what of the victims, those survivors and injured who have now been taken to Camp Liberty? What of the people already in Camp Liberty? We never get to hear how they feel, nor about whether they are worried about being the next targets, nor about how they want their futures to unfold.

For American politicians and lobbyists these individuals are only pawns in a political game which they propose to win at all costs. For the Iranians and the Iraqis these are terrorists who do not deserve a voice. More importantly, as UNAMI officials can confirm, the people in Camp Liberty are being held incommunicado by the leaders of the cult. And as long as the MEK plays its valuable role as a brand on which to hang an advertising campaign then nobody is looking for a solution.

However, America has a moral duty toward these individuals who have done so much for them. America also has an international obligation to the government of a sovereign Iraq after ‘liberating’ the country from former American ally Saddam Hussein and killing hundreds of thousands of Iraqis in the process. America must put pressure on the MEK leaders to finally get out of Iraq, to open up the camp and allow the residents to leave as individuals and not as members of a terrorist group. This of course simply requires quiet, dignified co-operation with the UN and Iraqi officials who are there to oversee and facilitate exactly this occurrence. Even the MEK’s own Iranian supporters in the west are begging the leaders for such co-operation.

Once it is acknowledged that the residents of Camp Liberty are individuals and not pawns to be deployed or destroyed, and the MEK leaders are required to restore their basic freedoms, then solutions as to what can be done with them will not be difficult to find. First and foremost of these is to reunite them with their families. The 52 people who died in Camp Ashraf all had families. The remainder who have been transferred to Camp Liberty all have families, as do all the other residents there. Since 2003 many of these families have sought contact with their loved ones and been denied by the MEK leadership who are afraid of the compassionate influence their presence exerts over their loved ones. In 2009 a determined group of families set up a permanent picket outside Camp Ashraf resulting in the decision of several MEK to leave the camp and return to civilian life; this gradual process of attrition continues at Camp Liberty. Observers on the ground are in no doubt that had families still been permitted to remain there as a normalising presence, then the events of September 1st would not, could not have occurred.

When looking for a permanent solution for the residents, anybody with any sincerity must acknowledge that the involvement of these people’s families can offer the emotional, financial and mental security needed for them to return to normal life wherever they finally settle. Beyond this, the normalising presence of families at Camp Liberty will forestall the opportunity for further attacks.

Middle East Strategy Consultants,

September 18, 2013 0 comments

Maryam Rajavi

Ashamed of your Leader? Silencing the victims of MKO to promote Rajavi’s phoney feminism

International Women’s Day on 8 March is rooted in women’s demands for better working pay and conditions, and for voting rights, and has expanded to encompass women’s global struggle for equal rights and equal participation in social, political and economic processes.

In spite of considerable progress, continued vigilance and action are required to ensure that women’s equality is gained and maintained in all aspects of life all over the world.
In this context what are we to understand about Maryam Rajavi’s claim to feminist credentials?

Rather than take Maryam Rajavi’s words and image at face value, let us examine her actions and behaviour toward women in her own organisation. The best people to help in this respect are the women members of the Mojahedin. Understandably, current female MEK members cannot speak freely about their experience of being in this organisation because they must only iterate the MEK’s public stance.

However, those women who have recently left the MEK are certainly free to talk about the situation for women inside the MEK. Even so, their courage must be acknowledged. Not only is it difficult for women to break social taboos to talk about sexual abuse, but like whistleblowers everywhere, they are subjected to enormous pressure to keep quiet.

Indeed, just a glance at the difficulties faced by these women in recent months speaks volumes about the MEK’s real approach to women. Since making public statements in a conference held the Autumn of 2012 about sexual abuses committed by the MEK leaders, Massoud and Maryam Rajavi, against them and other women members, the following incidents have taken place against these women.

Batoul Soltani previously spoke out about the abuse of women in the MEK in both Baghdad and now in Europe where she lives. She was recently attacked in front of her house and her neighbours had to come to her rescue. The MEK have published indecipherable false documents on their websites alleging that while she was a member of the Mojahedin’s Leadership Council (the highest rank after the Rajavis), she was working for the Iranian Intelligence Ministry. Batoul joined the MEK with her husband and two month old baby when she was barely eighteen years old. She had been a member for over twenty years.

Nasrin Ebrahimi, who now lives in Switzerland, was fourteen years old when she was taken to the MEK’s Camp Ashraf in Iraq. She was only able to escape after the American army forced the MEK to disarm in 2003. Nasrin was invited to the European Parliament to testify about her experience as a woman in the Mojahedin. After that she suffered such severe harassment by the MEK that she changed country twice to escape them. Police have had to protect her for some time against the MEK. Recently she has again been approached and threatened in Switzerland for joining the group of women exposing the abuses.

Zahra Bagheri crawled combat-style over a kilometre for hours in the dark to escape Camp Ashraf. Her body was so lacerated and bleeding that the Iraqi soldiers who found her wept on seeing her injuries. She spent several weeks in hospital recovering from this ordeal. In addition she has had to undergo various operations in Germany because of neglect of her medical conditions while she was in Ashraf. She also joined the other women in the Autumn 2012 conference. The MEK are currently using her two sisters and her brother who remain in Camp Liberty to perform on their TV to swear at Zahra and their mother.

In the last two months, three more women have escaped from Camp Liberty. Seeing this treatment is it surprising that they are reluctant to talk to human rights investigators in Iraq even though privately they corroborate the experiences told by the women above.

They talk about Maryam Rajavi grooming young women and having them dance naked for her and Massoud. They say that after raping them Massoud gives them a medallion with his picture on it. There are 100 names, perhaps more, of women who have had hysterectomies; that is one in ten women in the MEK. They say this is done so that Rajavi can order them to sleep with him or any other man without fear of pregnancy.

It is public knowledge that the MEK instigated forced divorces long before the fall of Saddam so that for twenty years there have been no children in the MEK. In interviews with the BBC they proudly announced it and defended this policy. According to recent escapees, Rajavi has told the MEK the following: ‘According to Islamic rule, if a woman turns against her husband he has the right to kill her. According to the Internal Revolution you are all my wives. So if any of you betrays me and leaves the MEK I have the right to kill you under Islamic law.’ On the MEK websites they have published Massoud Rajavi’s threat: ‘I have evidence about everybody and if they leave I will expose them.’ It is thought he may have film of sexual acts.

(Women "rewarded" with pendants and robes after sexual ordeal)

The MEK have for decades used violence, intimidation and harassment to prevent former members from speaking publicly about the abuses taking place inside the organisation.

News of these activities is suppressed because some people think that terrorism is a useful tool. These women face a backlash of ‘power and money’ to stop them talking, while the same ‘power and money’ grooms the perpetrator, Maryam Rajavi, to talk about the rights of women and criticise marriage laws and say how they should be changed in the favour of women. ‘Power and money’ believe the MEK should not only be removed from terrorism lists but should be paraded in parliaments as exemplars of feminism. ‘Power and money’ are so dishonest that they cast the MEK in the role of victim while condemning the former women members as torturers, spies and agents.

No one expects ‘power and money’ to take the side of victims, but to turn the tables in this way is truly sickening.

Author of "Saddam’s Private Army" and "The life of Camp Ashraf"
http://www.camp-ashraf.com

March 7, 2013 0 comments

Camp Liberty

Investigate the MEK and its critics

Investigate the MEK and its critics – abuses at Camp Liberty cannot continue

A missile attack on Camp Liberty on 9th February resulted in the tragic deaths of seven residents. Seven more Temporary transit Location - Camp Liberty families have been plunged into grief and dismay over losing their loved ones. Their grief compounded by the fact that, whatever their wishes, they will have had no contact with this loved one for several years. And compounded by the fact there appears to be no acceptable explanation why they had to die at all but especially in such a tragically avoidable way.

The problem with the MEK in Iraq is not so much where they are, but that they are still there at all. Even the MEK’s own supporters understand this logic. Speaking to an MEK rally in the US, long time MEK advocate Rudi Giuliani said, "These people can all be removed within hours… Planes can be sent immediately. They can be here within a day. We have done far more difficult things than that. It’s only about 3,000 people".

Moves to relocate the MEK and send them to third countries started two years ago. Officials from the United Nations and the government of Iraq collaborated to undertake the calm and unhurried negotiation needed to achieve their peaceful relocation first out of Camp Ashraf to a temporary transit camp – Camp Liberty – and then on to third countries where they can rebuild their lives in safety and security. Their every effort has been met by obstruction and obfuscation by the MEK leadership. Two years on and the residents are still no closer to gaining their actual freedom. Even worse, many have died and will continue to die as long as they are unable to walk freely out of the camp and get the help that is available to them. (The Iraqi authorities have kept alternative accommodation available for two years for the individual residents.)

Describing the attack as “vicious and senseless”, US State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland said, “We call on [the Government of Iraq] to earnestly and fully carry out that investigation and to take all appropriate measures to enhance the security of the camp consistent with its commitment and obligation to the safety and security of the camp’s residents. The terrorists responsible for this attack must be brought to justice.”

It is essential that a thorough investigation be made into this latest attack and the perpetrators brought to justice. More than anything this is necessary for the families of the victims. They need the facts and they need justice. But above all else they need answers. Any family suffering the sudden and violent loss of a loved one will ask ‘Why?’ Why did they die in this way?

The only person preventing the residents in Camp Liberty from leaving and taking refuge in a safe place is the leader of the MEK, Massoud Rajavi. He is therefore the only person who can answer this question. Only he can explain to all the suffering families why their loved ones are still in the path of danger. Why, after ten years, they are still unable to walk freely from the camp and continue their lives in freedom and safety. Why is he still holding them hostage and what did these seven individuals die for?

While we wait for a reasoned, satisfactory answer – which will never be forthcoming – the focus must return to the living. While the Government of Iraq pursues its thorough, painstaking investigation into the deaths of these seven victims, international human rights investigators must likewise undertake a rigorous investigation into the never ending allegations of unbearable daily systematic abuses against all the residents of the camp, including the leadership cadre.

While the MEK persists in denying access to the relevant external agencies to freely enter Camp Liberty and talk to the residents without hindrance, this investigation can start with the recently escaped members. Many of them are now resident in Europe as well as in Iraq and Iran and are willing to give testimony to their experience of human rights abuse inside the MEK camps.

Human Rights Watch conducted a scrupulous and methodological investigation into allegations of human rights abuse resulting in the report ‘No Exit’ in 2005. Testimony from former members in Europe formed the basis of the report. HRW rigorously checked them, their background and their information. A similarly professional approach toward the more recent escapees will yield further evidence of abuse. One of the more controversial but easily verifiable allegations is that the MEK leader instigated a programme of spurious hysterectomy operations to ‘neutralise the gender’ of women members. Already the names of a hundred women victims have been compiled (out of around 800). Medical records and examination will verify the conditions surrounding these operations. Around thirty women who now live in Europe have declared themselves willing to participate in such an investigation. They want justice, for themselves and for the other women still trapped in Camp Liberty.

These women, the families and the former members challenge international human rights organisations to be fearless and determined. Every aspect of this sad debacle must be examined from every angle; the MEK itself and its critics. Such an investigation is long overdue and can only help to end the existing stalemate at Camp Liberty.

Anne Khodabandeh (Singleton), Middle East Strategy Consultants

February 18, 2013 0 comments

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