United Nations Committee on Enforced Disappearances (CED)
Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights
United Nations Office in Geneva
1211 Geneva 10, Switzerland
November 9, 2020
We, the family of Rahim Kiukan, including his wife Behjat Seddiqi and his children Mozhgan, Mehran, Mohsen, and Leila Kiukan and his grandchildren (a total of 12 individuals), want to lodge a complaint against the Albanian government under the United Nations International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance of which the Albanian government is a signatory.
Rahim Kiukan left Iran in 1981 to join the Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization (MEK, MKO) in Iraq. We were unaware of this for years until those who left the organization and came back to Iran informed us that he was at Camp Ashraf in Iraq. We have not had any contact with him or any information about his condition for nearly 40 years now.
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Years later, we were informed that all the members of this organization, who were in Camp Ashraf and then Camp Liberty in Iraq, had been transferred to Albania to a closed and remote camp where the residents could not be reached under any circumstances. Some former members have reported the presence of Rahim Kiukan in the camp.
We wrote letters to the Prime Minister and other Albanian authorities, as well as European officials, asking for information about Rahim Kiukan. We also signed a petition with other families addressed to the Albanian government requesting contact with our relatives at the MEK camp in Albania. This petition had more than 11,000 signatures. Unfortunately, there was no reaction from the Albanian government.
We also prepared letters and video clips addressed to Rahim Kiukan and published them in cyberspace so that he might see or hear them and give news about himself to his family after four decades, but unfortunately there was no news. We are aware that MEK members in their camp in Albania have no access to the outside world.
During this time, we have faced many legal problems regarding the properties of Rahim Kiukan, which can only be resolved with power of attorney from him.
We request the relevant international body to address this issue. We would like to find Rahim Kiukan, who has been missing for four decades, and connect him to his elderly and ailing wife and his children.
Family of Rahim Kiukan
Tehran, Iran