blogs%WP_TITLE_SEP%Radio Free Europe

Camp Ashraf Escapee Says MKO Bans Marriage, Radio, Internet

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.. Persian Letters: Why do you think the MKO wants to keep people in Camp Ashraf? Why don’t they let those who don’t want to be there go? Shadvari: It’s obvious. If people [leave Ashraf], the organization will fall apart, there won’t be any Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization anymore. Persian Letters: Are you married? Shadvari: No. I was 15 when I joined the organization. Now I’m 40. Persian Letters: Why didn’t you get married? Was it your choice? Shadvari: Getting married is banned in Camp Ashraf. Not only getting married, but talking to women is banned …

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Iraqi Foreign Minister Says Camp Ashraf Must Go

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… The Iraqi Constitution prohibits the presence of mujahedin or any other militia groups from neighboring countries, whether it’s the PKK [Kurdistan Workers Party], whether it’s the PJAK [Party for a Free Life in Kurdistan], or whoever to have presence on Iraqi territory and to launch attacks against our neighbors. Constitutionally, this is not allowed and the mujahedin or the MEK/MKO/PMOI member [Mujahedin-e Khalq] of the Ashraf camp have to respect Iraqi law..

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U.S. Official Casts Doubt On Iran Opposition Group’s Nuclear Claim

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… Alireza Jafarzadeh, a spokesman for the dissidents, told a press conference on September 9 in Washington that the site was intended as a facility to enrich uranium and was located underground in mountains about 120 kilometers west of the Iranian capital, Tehran. Jafarzadeh described the facility as part a secret Iranian nuclear weapons program. News agencies quoted a U.S. official as saying the U.S. had known about the facility for years and had no reason at the current time to believe it was being used for nuclear purposes …

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MKO’s Removal From EU Terror List Draws Mixed Reactions

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A former member of the Islamic Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO) has welcomed the European Union’s decision to take the MKO off the EU’s list of terrorist organizations. Massud Khodabandeh said the ruling will give thousands of MKO members”the right to return to their families,”RFE/RL’s Radio Farda reports. Khodabandeh said the ruling will”save some of those individuals from the situation they’re facing in Iraq,”where they number some 3,000.

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EU Takes Iranian Group Off Terror List, But Status Still Disputed

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a professor of international law at the University of Stockholm, says it will end the MKO’s difficulties in raising funds in Europe.”Even though they had the possibility to contact different political organizations, there were some groups and bodies — particularly some individuals — who, because of the terrorist branding of the group, avoided it and didn’t give it public backing,”Mahmudi says.”Now that the MKO has been removed from the EU terror list, all the groups that are sympathetic to the MKO will be able to support them publicly and help them without any problem,”he adds. Shahin Gobadi, a spokesman for the group, says that $9 million had been frozen in France alone, with”tens of millions of dollars”worth of assets also locked away in other EU countries.

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DUTCH AUTHOR CALLS IRANIAN OPPOSITION ‘DANGEROUS’

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Neurink told Radio Farda she got interested in the subject about two years earlier, when MEK members immolated themselves after their leader, Maryam Rajavi, was arrested in France. Neurink asked herself why people would do such a thing, and said”My book tells a story that many don’t know — about brainwashing, about the imprisonment of friends and comrades, about torture, and about persuading people to go to Iran and kill civilians.”

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Iraqi Kurds want Iranian opposition leader tried

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The Kurds say they want Rajavi to be tried because of the role his organization played in their repression by the Hussein regime.
Mohammad Tofiq Rahim, an official with the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, said in an interview with Radio Farda that his organization has documentary evidence of Rajavi’s role.

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NOOSE TIGHTENS ON TERRORISTS

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Seven people were arrested at Los Angeles’ international airport on 27 February on charges of raising over $1 million for the MKO/PMOI. In a tactic common to MKO operatives, they posed as charity workers and solicited funds for orphans…This investigation has revealed that the money was really used to support terrorist actions..The operation was initiated by the German Bundeskriminalamt (BKA), which informed the FBI

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