… Iranian families who have been picketing in front of the military base Ashraf – home to the Mojahedin Khalq organisation in Diyala province – for the last 4 months, asked Christopher Hill, the US ambassador in Baghdad, for his help in negotiating with the Mojahedin-e Khalq Organisation (aka Rajavi cult, MEK, MKO, PMOI, NCRI) to give visiting rights to the detainees in Camp Ashraf …
Iranian families called on U.S. officials in Baghdad to broker visitation rights to Iranian dissidents encamped in their Diyala province enclave.
Members of the dissident People’s Mujahedin of Iran are lodged in their Camp Ashraf enclave in Diyala province.
The PMOI opposes the clerical regime in Iran. Washington lists the group as a terrorist organization for its violent methods of opposition, though the group surrendered its weapons in 2003.
Iranian family members of Camp Ashraf residents called on U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Christopher Hill to award them the same rights that U.S. family members have with American hikers detained in Iran since July.
Family members of the hikers are expected Wednesday in Tehran.
The PMOI family members say their relatives are held captive in Camp Ashraf, adding if Washington can broker an agreement with Iran, similar arrangements are possible with the PMOI.
"If America can negotiate this with Iran, we certainly expect that you can negotiate with this small terrorist group so that its members can meet freely with their families," the families said.
The PMOI is included in the Iranian opposition movement the National Council of Resistance to Iran, a French-based group that considers itself the Iranian Parliament in exile. It denies the cult and terrorist categorization, claiming its policy is based on peaceful dissent.
Families of MEK Victims in Camp Ashraf, Iraq Want Same Visiting Rights as U.S. Detainee Families in Iran
A group of Iranian families today asked the U.S. Ambassador to Iraq, Christopher Hill, for his help in negotiating with the Mojahedin-e Khalq Organisation (aka Rajavi cult, MEK, MKO, PMOI, NCRI) to give visiting rights to the detainees in Camp Ashraf in Diyala province.
The parents of captives in Camp Ashraf were responding to news that the mothers of three young Americans detained in Iran, Shane Bauer, Sarah Shourd and Josh Fattal, are on their way to visit their children in prison there.
They said, "We are so happy for these families that negotiations with Iran have resulted in allowing these visits on compassionate grounds. Everyone in the world knows the strength of the bond between parent and child. We hope they will achieve their wishes in Iran."
For nearly four months the families have been encamped outside the camp which houses members of the Mojahedin-e Khalq terrorist cult. The cult leaders refuse to allow ordinary members to have any contact with the outside world and will not negotiate with external bodies. Some members have been trapped inside the camp for over twenty years.
Although the Government of Iraq is responsible for the camp, officials say their hands are tied because the MEK have powerful backers in Washington, even though it is on the U.S.’s own terrorism list. The families told Mr. Hill, "We witnessed ourselves that American soldiers intervened on behalf of the MEK leaders when Iraqi soldiers tried to help us get inside the camp."
Urging Mr. Hill to intervene on their behalf with the leaders of the MEK the families said, "Your government successfully arranged for the mothers of U.S. detainees in Iran to visit their children on compassionate grounds… But, if America can negotiate this with Iran, we certainly expect that you can negotiate with this small terrorist group so that its members can meet freely with their families."
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Open Letter to the U.S. Ambassador to Iraq, Mr Christopher R. Hill
Dear Ambassador,
We are Iranian families who have travelled to Iraq to find relatives enslaved by the Mojahedin-e Khalq organisation (aka Rajavi cult, MEK, MKO, PMOI, NCRI) in Camp Ashraf. We families have been encamped outside the gates of Camp Ashraf for nearly four months now, and still not been helped enough to meet with our relatives.
We now have news that the mothers of three young Americans, Shane Bauer, Sarah Shourd and Josh Fattal, detained in Iran are flying over there to visit them in prison.
We are so happy for these families that negotiations with Iran have resulted in allowing these visits on compassionate grounds. Everyone in the world knows the strength of the bond between parent and child. We hope they will achieve their wishes in Iran. We share the same anguish as these three mothers, with the difference that our children have been held captive in Camp Ashraf for over twenty years, not by the Iraqi government but by the very leaders of the group they are with. And conditions inside Camp Ashraf are worse than any prison; our children are not allowed to telephone or even to write to their families, they have been enslaved.
Up until 2003 we could not approach the camp where our children live because the Mojahedin-e Khalq were armed. We became hopeful when U.S. Forces disarmed the group and rounded them up into one place. At last there was hope of visiting. But the U.S. Army failed to get the group to surrender, even though it is on the U.S.’s own terrorism list as well as being a foreign terrorist group in Iraq. Even when we travelled to Iraq to find our children, the U.S. Army did not help us. Those few members who were lucky enough to meet their families always had MKO minders with them to prevent them from escaping.
When the Government of Iraq took control of the camp in January 2009 we again had hope that we could visit our children. But the MEK leaders refuse to cooperate and have not only kept the gate locked but threatened us with violence if we don’t leave. Now the Iraqi government is doing what it can to help us, but for almost four months we are still stuck at the entrance gate without news.
Over these four months we have talked to everyone we can; UNAMI, the Red Cross, human rights groups, Diyala tribal leaders, Iraqi and foreign press, Iraqi government officials and the military personnel responsible for the camp. In private we have been told over and over again that the Iraqi government cannot do more to help us because the Mojahedin-e Khalq has powerful backing in America (where it is on the U.S. terrorism list). We witnessed ourselves that American soldiers intervened on behalf of the MEK leaders when Iraqi soldiers tried to help us get inside the camp.
Now we are finally convinced that no one but America has control over this group – and even then we see that the tail is wagging the dog.
Your government successfully arranged for the mothers of U.S. detainees in Iran to visit their children on compassionate grounds and we wish them every joy that such a meeting must bring. But, if America can negotiate this with Iran, we certainly expect that you can negotiate with this small terrorist group so that its members can meet freely with their families.
We ask you as a matter of urgency, as Ambassador of the USA to Iraq, to use the considerable influence that you have to force the Mojahedin-e Khalq in Camp Ashraf to allow, on compassionate grounds, for our children to meet freely with us
The families of MEK members in Camp Ashraf, Iraq
The new, preposterous form of propaganda by MKO’s leaders aimed to frustrate the gathering of members’ families who insist to meet their children and relatives enslaved in Camp Ashraf is of great significance to consider. The families’ gathering has entered its fourth month and the organization has already started to get desperate as it has actually churned the internal relations and caused commotion and has made the organization vulnerable to many separations and escapes, as we have witnessed recently. Before, the organization would refer to the families’ gathering as propaganda show staged by the Iranian regime’s Intelligence Ministry, but now it has started a new form of offense against the families to damage their morale and to break their encampment in front of Ashraf.
The families’ adamant resistance against MKO’s systematic measures of waging psychological war indicates that, in spite of suffering great discomfort and distress before the gates of Ashraf, they will persist beyond every physical and psychological stunt and barrier plotted by the organization. MKO’s new psychological war has aimed at the families heart and emotions referring to them as step father and mothers rather than the real parents of the members.
In the newly staged show, a number of the ranking members are acting a scenario before the TV cameras as interviewees by claiming that those calling themselves their parents before the Ashraf gate are none but their step father and mothers provoked by the Iranian regime.
“They have brought some, including my mother, of course my step mother, before Ashraf to damage my morale”, one of the members said. “I told from the very beginning that whoever walks with regime’s intelligence will be a hireling. This stepfather of mine once came to Ashraf in 2003 and stayed for three days”, another member is heard to claim. And we can also see another one saying, “We Mojahedin announce that we have no father and mother nor children until the regime will collapse”.
How it is possible that some families became step parents overnight is a matter to ponder. In any struggle, the campaigners have families and attachments and nothing may break the pure, human emotional ties that sometimes act as factors of encouragement. It is only in a cultic milieu that these lofty and highly respected attachments and emotions are rendered valueless and Rajavi has already vacated the hearts of his followers from whatever attaches them to the outside world of free men. And the newly made shows are the last strikes by Rajavi’s apostles to square it all with the families and to demonstrate the organization’s inhuman potentialities to challenge them against the continuation of persisting in their demands.
But can cultic brainwashing actually overcome the parental and familial attachments that remain important to one’s emotional and identity development and the cause for life? For sure, nothing in the world, even psychological propaganda of a terrorist cult, can thoroughly cut the deeply rooted emotional and psychological attachments between parents and children and vice versa. What is actually separating them is an enforced barrier of intimidation as well as walls and bars. If Rajavi and his associates believe in the sincerity of their claims and that Mojahedin have cut all familial attachments for a greater cause, then, why are they afraid to let these veterans with such high morale meet with their families? It is really abominable to disregard rights of some old parents, wives and children who are tolerating all kinds of suffering to meet their sons, husbands and fathers enslaved, rather than being volunteer fighters, within a closed military camp. No doubt, what Rajavi losses in this inhuman form of blitz will be much more than what he has aimed to gain as the public opinion has well developed an understanding that such allegations are void of credibility.
The repeated demand of Iranian families to meet with their relatives who are held captive inside Camp Ashraf by the leaders of the Mojahedein-e Khalq cult has had devastating effects on the group. Unable to answer the families and unable to get support in the international community, the MKO leaders have resorted to their normal pattern of reaction to external problems – bloodshed; threatened and actual.
The group has no future in Iraq and is trying to turn a humanitarian issue – family meetings – into a security issue by invoking the bogeyman of Iran’s Intelligence services (forgetting, of course, that cult phobias only work on cult members). This will be the excuse to order MKO members to start shedding blood – whether their own or that of others. And, if they cannot do this in Iraq (which they cannot because the Iraqi government is fully in control of the situation), then they will do it in Europe – as they did in 2003.
Unfortunately, Western governments, because of their reluctance to take any action to curtail the activities of this terrorist cult in their own countries, are placing their citizens’ lives and their own reputations under threat.
The following statement issued by the MKO (aka NCRI) is indicative of this diversion from the real issue of having family members sitting outside the camp gates for over 100 days asking to meet with their children.
Iranian regime and Iraqi PM?s committee force defectors from Ashraf to return to Iran
Saturday, 15 May 2010
http://ncr-iran.org/content/view/8153/1/
"Iranian regime intelligence agents and Iraqi PM’s committee of suppression of Ashraf force defectors from Ashraf to return to Iran despite earlier promises of sending them to Europe
NCRI – According to credible reports obtained from inside the Iranian regime, after the 2008 closure of the Temporary International Presence Facility (TIPF), which was controlled by the American forces, and following the transfer of Camp Ashraf’s protection to the Iraqi forces in early 2009, the Iranian regime’s Intelligence Ministry is seriously pressuring those who defected from Ashraf with earlier promises of traveling to Europe to return to Iran instead.
….."
Mujahedin Khalq Organization was founded in 1960’s, to overthrow the US-backed regime of the Shah of Iran but it took it 45 years to turn in to a religious cult of personality.
Once mujahedin chanted the slogans for "Liberation of Iranian Heroic People", and viewed people as their main resource, its leaders, on top position Massoud Rajavi deviated in order to stand against those very people including families of Ashraf residents.
Why is Rajavi so terrified of families visiting with their children? Why does he enter the course personally to insult the families as "regime’s chained dogs"?
If MKO’s members, according to Rajavi, chose the struggle willingly, why would he fear visiting their parents?
The true fact that Rajavi tries to deny is that the motivations on which MKO war based in 1965s, are no more existing.
In his message of April 29th, Rajavi speaks of the so-called heroic people and the ransom they should dedicate:"How simply we can speak of paying for freedom of people and country but it is too hard to act".
Indeed, the treasons the Rajavis committed against their compatriots have left nothing for MKO. Once they chanted the motto "Without Iran, I don’t want life, today they hang the slogan "Without Ashraf, I don’t want life" on Camp Ashraf gates! Today MKO leaders are resisting against Iranian people.
Massoud Rajavi points the flesh of his attacks on families, why? The answer is laid in MKO’s cult like practices. Maryam and Massoud Rajavi have turned the members into robots who have no free will and no individuality.
Some time ago their love to country meant taking weapons and chanting slogans, according to them but today their love is limited to the piece of land denoted to them by Saddam Hussein. Their love to parents and family have replaced by love to Massoud and Maryam Rajavi. All this defines a "cult of personality".
MKO members have been living in a bubble called Camp Ashraf. They have been manipulated and deprived from emotions and affections for more than two decades.
Massoud Rajavi knows that the spell of his cult’s amputation is family and normal social relationship. Once a member is among his family, far from the cult’s propaganda, the bubble is ruined and the member’s eyes will open to a new world full of love and affections.
Ali Reza Mir Asgari
Please give your support
Support for parents who have not seen their children for more than twenty years
Three months now parents are waiting before the closed gates of camp Ahsraf of the Mujahedin sect in Irak, still it’s not possible to see their children. Most of the parents are old people now, they’re crying and shouting the names of their children, whom they didn’t see for over more than twenty years. Their children were recruited by the Mujahedin when they were young and were isolated in camp Ahsraf. Now they’re middle-aged and senior-aged men and women.
The leaders of the Mujahedin-sect have always forbidden every form of contact between members and family. Their members are kept in total isolation and it’s not allowed to have any contact outside the camp. Members who want to leave this sect are withhold by the leaders.
Up to now it has never been possible for their families to come near the camp of the armed Mujahedin. But after the fall of Saddam Hoessein the situation of Ahsraf changed. The camp came under the supervision of soldiers of the new government of Iraq. After more than twenty years the parents get new hope to see their children.
They travelled to the camp and lined up in front of the gates, where they are waiting for three months now, without any result. Although the Iraqian soldiers supervise the camp, they are afraid to let the parents enter the sect, because they cannot guarantee their safety. Inside the camp are over 3000 sect-members and even after the fall of Saddam Hoessein the Mujahedin-leaders want to keep their members in the same situation and forbid family-contact. They deceive their brainwashed members and scare them by telling them that the people at the gates are supporters of the Iranian Governement, a government that tortures and executes opponents. Some fanatic members started attacking the parents.
But these parents have nothing to do with the regime of Iran, which is rejected by everyone who respects the human rights. They just want to see their children, who they had to miss for so many years.
Every parent has the right to see his/her children and every child has the right to see his parents, no matter what kind of religion or vision they have. If this is withhold, it’s important that organisations can help to accomplish the contact. The words of Saadi, a Persian poet, should be in our minds:
“If one limb of the body suffers
All the others too will feel the pain…”
All human beings are connected with each other, like the organs in a body. We are responsible for those ones who cannot help themselves. That is why we ask you to sign this paper, so that we are able to bring these parents, under the protections of the Red Cross and Amnesty International, and in the presence of independent media, in contact with their children
More information you will find at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J96_IeD2bt0
On behalf of the parents: thank you very much
Names:
1- mohammad hossein sobhani
2- soheila behboudi
3-nasrin behboudi
4-kazem hoseini
5-batoul soltani
6- ali jahani
7- Batoul maleki
8- Mehrdad sagharchi
9- Mehdi sojoodi
10- Mehdi khoshal
11- Hadi shamshaeri
12-Farideh barati
13-Mahboube Brati
14-Zhra Mohammadi
15-Milaad Aryai
16-Aliakbar Rastgou
17- Masoud Djabani
18- Osmaan.Aboesaad
19-Javad Firozmand
20- gholaml Shirali
21- Behzad Alishahi
22- Hbib Khorami
23- Robabeh Shahrokhi
24- Batoul Ahmadi
25- Masoud Khodabandeh
26-n.Amiri
27- Mowasaghi amir
28- Ghashghavi ali
29- Termado dward
30- Charlangi jamshid
31- Marzeeh gonjeshki
32- Dijabani.Saeedeh
33- konaar Jasem Ali
34-Narmin Jasem Ali
35-hamid tavana
36-Ali shabani
37-mohammade Harati
38-bahmane Parsa
39-Tol mollavie
40-Jaan Benek
41-H.krigoriyaan
42-maals Tapel
43-Abdalghadir.Ghader
44- mohammad.Allami
45-khaled.zahra
46-Asma . zahra
47-mohammad. zahra
48-Emaad. zahra
49-Yeganeh.Barati
50-hsan Barati
51-Aazam Mohammadi
52-Akram mohammadi
53-Hamid.Balfal
54-Maryam.jahanfrd
55,Vartaan.Babakhani
56-zaghik.babakhani
57-Aroutin.Babakhani
To add you name, please contact
payamerahai@gmail.com
Payame Rahai, Netherlands, May 14, 2010
Another group of MKO members’ families who were mobilized by Nejat Society Khuzestan branch traveled to Iraq where they are hopeful to visit their beloved ones captured by Rajavi’s destructive cult.
A number of families have already gone to Ashraf gates since two months ago, but they were prevented from visiting their children by MKO authorities.
The families who are members of Nejat Society Khuzestan branch joined the other families at Ashraf gates, awaiting for visit with their dear ones.
After ten days of a stand-off, a small group of Iranian families have staged a sit-in outside the
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| After ten days of a stand-off, a small group of Iranian families have staged a sit-in outside the gates of Camp Ashraf in Diyala province in Iraq |
gates of Camp Ashraf in Diyala province in Iraq. The families’ simple, straightforward and only demand is that they be able to meet with their relatives who are trapped inside the camp. Camp Ashraf still houses around 3500 members of the terrorist Mojahedin-e Khalq organisation which the Government of Iraq plans to remove from the country. From the start, Iraqi security forces who guard Camp Ashraf would not allow the families to enter the camp because they could not guarantee their safety. Instead, the Iraqis told the MKO to release the handful of individuals concerned to meet with their families before returning to the camp.
So far the Mojahedin leaders are not cooperating. The MKO’s immediate reaction to the family visits was to state that “agents of the clerical regime’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security are being dispatched to Camp Ashraf under the cover of family members of Ashraf residents, the Iraqi committee responsible for suppression of the residents, under the instructions of Nouri al-Maliki, has intensified cruel and inhumane siege on Ashraf”.
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| A quote from Massoud Rajavi stated that members were not allowed to visit with their families even if an MKO minder was present. |
The MKO’s advocates in Britain and America also joined the fray and demanded of their respective governments to intervene to stop the Iraqis harassing them and to ‘protect the human rights of Camp Ashraf’s residents’. But, in all these cries for help, no mention was made that it was the MKO leaders who were not allowing the members to leave the camp and visit with their families outside the camp.
Although responsibility for Camp Ashraf was transferred to the Government of Iraq on January 1 2009, America still maintains a unit of 25 soldiers inside the camp to protect the MKO – which is on the US terrorism list. However, in this latest episode of family visits, the Americans refused to challenge Iraqi jurisdiction. Iraqi soldiers have not allowed the families to go inside the camp, but nor have they attempted to prevent their sit-in.
Finally, two days ago on the 19th February, the MKO admitted in their website Iran Efshaa’gar that
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| “up until now we didn’t want to make a fuss. We believed that if we avoided any publicity or confrontation, the MKO would co-operate out of humanity. Now we have stayed a week and they don’t let us visit so we will sit here until we find out what happened to our children. We demand that Iraqis do something to help us.” |
the families and not ‘agents of the Iranian regime’ were the real problem and that the MKO itself was refusing to let the members have contact with their families.
A quote from Massoud Rajavi stated that members were not allowed to visit with their families even if an MKO minder was present. This is a new development. In previous attempts to have family visits, the MKO would not allow members out because of the fear they would run away. Now, the leaders have ruled that families are not even allowed to come inside the camp under supervision.
One of the relatives waiting outside Camp Ashraf told Iran-Interlink’s representative in Baghdad, “up until now we didn’t want to make a fuss. We believed that if we avoided any publicity or confrontation, the MKO would co-operate out of humanity. Now we have stayed a week and they don’t let us visit so we will sit here until we find out what happened to our children. We demand that Iraqis do something to help us.”
The simple demand of these families is to know if their relatives inside Camp Ashraf are alive or dead, healthy or ill; in what state are they living if they are not allowed to visit their mothers or fathers.
Ultimately, the MKO leaders have no legal jurisdiction over Camp Ashraf or its residents. It is the Americans who still have 25 soldiers inside camp to protect them and the Government of Iraqi who are responsible to answer these families concerns. The families have begun meeting with human rights groups and journalists to explain their dilemma. With all the problems which Iraq faces, it is hoped that the Government will be able quickly to resolve this minor situation to the satisfaction of all the responsible parties.
Urgent Appeal to Wijdan Mikhail Salim, Minister of Human Rights of Iraq
From eight Iranian relatives of MKO captives in Camp New Iraq (Camp Ashraf)
We have travelled a long way to Iraq to visit our family members. Some of us have not seen these close relatives – sons, daughters, husbands – for over twenty years. Now that we have arrived we have found that we have been banned from seeing our families by the Mojahedin-e Khalq leaders. Who is in charge of what happens in this country?
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| Iranian relatives, Outside Camp "New Iraq", November 4, 2009 |
We came here because we believed that the Iraqi government had finally taken control of the camp and its inhabitants and would be able to help us. This is not so.
We are grateful for the support and accommodation provided by the Iraqi authorities at the checkpoint leading to the Camp of New Iraq which was renamed from Camp Ashraf. Even this re-naming led us to believe that the Iraqi government was in control of the camp.
Sadly, we have discovered that a terrorist cult is still calling the shots in your country and that it is because of them that we cannot see those dear relatives whom we have travelled so far, and waited so long to see. Really, what harm can the eight of us do?
As Minster of Human Rights we hold you responsible for the situation in which our relatives are kept captured. We do not believe that they are free to decide for themselves whether to meet with us or not. They are being held incommunicado and subjected to cruel and inhuman treatment which forces them to deny their natural feelings. The MKO is a cult and deliberately mistreats its members.
If they are really free to choose then why don’t the MKO leaders give them permission to come out of the camp and see us and then they can choose freely to return to their struggle without any further delay or comment from us.
Eight visiting Iranians are waiting for your answer; guests in your country. Although we are elderly and weak we have gone on hunger strike. We cannot do this for long. But we hope that you understand the strength of our feelings and the desperation of our actions and that our appeal to you to intervene on our behalf is answered by your kindest efforts to help us.
