According to several websites of the Albania based Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization (MEK, MKO), an open letter dated June 23, 2020 has been written by a number of organization members, who are based in the MEK camp in Manza, to some Albanian officials.
In this letter the coronavirus outbreak in Tehran and other parts of Iran was dramatized and then used as a conclusive excuse for dismissing the MEK members’ families’ applications for visas to travel to Albania to visit their loved ones who are trapped in the MEK camp. How is it that the outbreak of the virus has so far not been an obstacle to frequent visits by MEK officials between Albania, Italy, France, and other places?
The letter refers to the families’ petition with more than 11250 signatures “Urging Albanian government to let the families contact their loved ones in the MEK camp” and irrationally label their request a terrorist conspiracy. No one has yet discovered that the disease can spread through an audio or visual call with their family.
It should be mentioned that the families’ applying for visas to visit Albania goes back to at least two years before the outbreak of the corona pandemic. Some families actually managed to go to Tirana and approached the MEK residence, trying to learn about the situation of their loved ones, but they were harassed by the MEK guards and unfortunately the Albanian police did not support the families.
This letter was signed by:
Alireza Balali
Mahmood Saadat
Farzin Hashemi
Abbas Golrezan
Mehri Saadat
Parvaneh Rabiey Abbasi
Hamid Reza Noori
Mostafa Ghaedi
Jafar Mamlooki
Khalil Hajhoseini
Ali Asghar Eslami
Reza Salami
Sadegh Keyhan
Shokuh Ghasemi
Tayebeh Yeganeh
Mohamad Jafar Najafi
Nahid Saadat
Mohammad Hassan Bagherzadeh
Mohammad Reza Bagherzadeh
Mostafa Forooghi
Vahid Dowlatshahi Araghi
Gholamreza Ghadery
We immediately informed their families that some vital signs were finally observed from their loved ones, which made them very happy indeed. But they were puzzled by the idea that if they are allowed to write to the Albanian officials, why they are not permitted to write to their own families to relieve them of worry? Unfortunately we had no answer to that. We wished more names had been mentioned.
Over one thousand families have written to their loved ones and published these letters in cyberspace with photos and contact numbers with the hope that it would reach them. This has surely reached the MEK officials. The same could easily be done by the MEK members for their families and there was no need to trouble the Albanian officials.
This letter after saying a lot about everything and everywhere, which is not our concern at all, puts a suggestion as follows:
We have asked the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to send an international fact-finding mission to Iran in the presence of the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights situation on Iran and our representatives to meet with families in Iran and to publish its report for the knowledge of the public.
Nejat Society, on behalf of the suffering families of the MEK members in Albania, most warmly welcomes this proposal and would be more than happy to be the host of any person or organization wishing to meet the families in Iran and publish a report, provided they also be able to take the families’ letters to their loved ones and meet them in MEK camp in Albania and bring back their replies.
The good thing is that the MEK is not worried for the UN representatives traveling to Iran and visiting countless number of families in the prevalence of the coronavirus. Referring to the MEK proposal, would they be ready to let the suggested party into their camp accompanied with the old mothers and fathers?
Years ago we handed over a great number of letters from the families to the ICRC to be taken to Ashraf garrison in Iraq. This never happened and the letters were brought back after some months. The ICRC official finally said that he could manage take letters to Bagram prison in Afghanistan for al-Qaeda members, but he is so sorry that he could not take any letters to the inhabitants of the MEK camp.
