that the presence of an Iranian opposition group in Iraqi territory is in contradiction to the terms of the Iraqi constitution and most political communities, but that some in the United Nations and the European Union and U.S. forces are demanding the survival of the organization and provide support and stability to it.”After clashes earlier between Iraqi security forces and members of the Mojahedin-e Khalq (aka PMOI) ..
The current debate over delisting seems premature to most experts, but it presents an important opportunity to restore the rights of hundreds of individuals trapped at Camp Ashraf. Removing the MEK from the U.S. terrorist list would do nothing to end the human rights violations faced by MEK members. Only by dismantling the camp, disarming the group, separating the leadership from the rank and file, and providing low-level members rehabilitation support can the human rights situation be resolved.
The New York Times also recently noted that the Obama administration — far from abandoning the MEK members in Iraq — has been engaged in active diplomacy to get them out of harm’s way, eventually hoping to relocate them to a third country outside Iran (where they’re also likely to face persecution) or Iraq. However, the diplomacy, reported the Times, has thus far hit a dead end because “the residents are refusing to leave, and no countries have come forward to welcome them.”
.. a number of Iraqi officials and ordinary people came together in capital Baghdad to talk about the MKO presence in Iraq . he attendees stated that the brutality of the MKO members against the Iraqis in the 1991remind them of the bloody era of the dictator Saddam which lasted more than thirty five years. The organizers said that the Iraqi government has decided to give the MKO members six months time to leave the country. Many others showed frustration toward the intervention of the US …
The 3,000+ inhabitants there face a serious threat by the Iraqi government which has carried out deadly raids against them. But Rajavi refuses to allow human rights organizations full access to the inhabitants so they can assess the situation clearly. She also won’t allow the members to accept refugee status so they can be relocated elsewhere. Once armed to the teeth by Saddam Hussein’s regime, the inhabitants are now living in a country that does not want them, near the border of a government that they have been at war with for most of their existence. They are in a political no man’s land,to conflate this issue with the decidedly political question of delisting may only exacerbate the already fragile US-Iran relations.
… Bahari, speaking at a conference in Washington on Thursday sponsored by the National Iranian American Council, a non-partisan group that advocates for Iranian Americans and opposes the MEK, expressed sympathy for MEK members but said it would be a mistake to take the group off the State Department list at this time. Jasmin Ramsey wrote a long article on the push to de-list the MEK, and she explains why it is wrong to link the issues of de-listing …
… Sheikh Ali al-Zahiri, head of the support council of the Iraqi city of Khalis, said on Tuesday that the Diyala Province court has ordered the terrorist group to return 5,000 hectares of land located inside Camp Ashraf, where the MKO terrorists are located, to the Iraqi owners, IRIB reported. The outlawed MKO fled to Iraq in the 1980s, where it enjoyed the support of executed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein and set up Camp Ashraf in the northeastern town of Khalis, Diyala. The court ruling also required the MKO to pay compensation to 150 Iraqi families for the terrorist group’s illegitimate use of the land over the past three decades …
After a half-dozen such sessions, he has made little progress in getting the group [MKO/MEK/PMOI] to agree to leave the camp before Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki’s government follows through on its promise to shut it down by the end of the year.Adding to his difficulties, the group has a formidable and well-financed communications machine. It has attracted political figures like Howard Dean and Wesley K. Clark, the retired Army general, by paying them to make speeches in support of the group…
… Rajavi said the US was responsible to protect MKO members in Camp Ashraf and called for the formation of a permanent monitoring team backed by the United States and the European Union to ensure the safety of the terrorist group. In April, the MKO members clashed with the Iraqi security forces who were involved in an operation to reclaim land from the camp and return it to local farmers. The MKO claimed that the Iraqi forces killed 34 of its members in the clashes. But Iraqi officials refuted the allegation, saying the camp residents were killed by the MKO organization itself …
… The problem is not the name of Camp Ashraf or the name MEK. The Rajavi’s cannot simply re-name, re-brand or even relocate their group for political expediency and expect the ‘members’ to continue as their slaves. To solve this problem (before the question of whether they want to work for or against anyone) the residents must be given access to the outside world, to their families, to media, communications, get paid for their work and have access to the post office, cinema, marriage registry, birth registry, police station, legal aid, courts and legal bodies of the country they are living in etc. Nine years after the fall of Saddam …