Those female members of the anti-Iran terrorist Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO also known as the MEK, PMOI and NCR) who were residing in Camp Ashraf, the former training center
According to a report by Ashraf News website, Zahra Sadat Mir-Baqeri, one of the defected leaders of the MKO, said that she has some information about the sexual abuse of female members by the main ringleader of the terrorist group, Massoud Rajavi.
"Rajavi abused women in the Camp Ashraf sexually and there is a list of 100 young girls and women who had gone under surgical operations to be raped by Rajavi," she said.
Mir-Baqeri said that the surgical operations were carried out to take out the victims’ wombs so that they would not be pregnant after being raped by Rajavi. This is while they were falsely told that they needed surgical operations for being infected with anemia or kidney problems.
Earlier, a human rights group expressed deep concerns about the deteriorating conditions of over 3,000 members of the MKO who are under torture and harassment by the leaders of the group in Camp Ashraf in Northern Iraq.
In March 2011, another defected member of the MKO revealed that the female members of the group have been living under captivity for more than 25 years and are not even allowed to appear in public places alone.
"It can be firmly said that 95% of the women in Ashraf Camp (the terrorist group’s resort in Iraq) have not even been allowed to step in Iraq’s public and recreational places alone all throughout the last 25 years," the defected member said.
Many of the MKO members abandoned the terrorist organization while most of those still remaining in the grouplet are said to be willing to quit but are under pressure and torture not to do so.
A May 2005 Human Rights Watch report accused the MKO of running prison camps in Iraq and committing human rights violations.
According to the Human Rights Watch report, the outlawed group puts defectors under torture and jail terms.
The group, founded in the 1960s, blended elements of Islamism and Stalinism and participated in the overthrow of the US-backed Shah of Iran in 1979. Ahead of the revolution, the MKO conducted attacks and assassinations against both Iranian and Western targets.
The group started assassination of the citizens and officials after the revolution in a bid to take control of the newly-established Islamic Republic. It killed several of Iran’s new leaders in the early years after the revolution, including the then President, Mohammad Ali Rajayee, Prime Minister, Mohammad Javad Bahonar and the Judiciary Chief, Mohammad Hossein Beheshti who were killed in bomb attacks by MKO members in 1981.
The group fled to Iraq in 1986, where it was protected by Saddam Hussein and where it helped the Iraqi dictator suppress Shiite and Kurd uprisings in the country.
The terrorist group joined Saddam’s army during the Iraqi imposed war on Iran (1980-1988) and helped Saddam and killed thousands of Iranian civilians and soldiers during the US-backed Iraqi imposed war on Iran.
Since the 2003 US invasion of Iraq, the group, which now adheres to a pro-free-market philosophy, has been strongly backed by neo-conservatives in the United States, who argued for the MKO to be taken off the US terror list.
The US formally removed the MKO from its list of terror organizations in early September, one week after Secretary of State Hillary Clinton sent the US Congress a classified communication about the move. The decision made by Clinton enabled the group to have its assets under US jurisdiction unfrozen and do business with American entities, the State Department said in a statement at the time.
In September 2012, the last groups of the MKO terrorists left Camp Ashraf, their main training center in Iraq’s Diyala province. They have been transferred to Camp Liberty which lies Northeast of the Baghdad International Airport.
Camp Liberty is a transient settlement facility and a last station for the MKO in Iraq.