Anne Singleton became involved with the Iranian Mojahedin when she was at University in the late 1970s. Initially offering practical and political support she eventually became so immersed in the group she went to a military training camp in Iraq for 3 months. Eventually she became disillusioned and struggled to leave.
So how did a girl from Sheffield get involved in a radical group from Iran? Anne talks to Jenni about her experiences.
President George W. Bush employed two major pretexts to dupe Americans into supporting the Iraq War: (1) extend the war on terror to Iraq, a major sponsor of terrorist organizations such as the MEK (2) find and destroy weapons of mass destruction….The New York Times and the International Herald Tribune have published claims contrary to American government reports.
One side of the opposition spectrum is represented by the Mujahedin Khalq Organization (MKO or MEK) which the U.S. State Department designated a”foreign terrorist organization”in 1997. Still identified as a terrorist organization, …From its Iraqi exile the MKO attacked the Iranian regime’s leadership: a 1981 bombing killed President Mohammad-Ali Rajai and Prime Minister Mohammad-Javad Bahonar, in 1992 it attacked 13 Iranian embassies, and it is behind other mortar attacks and assassination attempts in Iran. Former President Saddam Hussein granted the MKO refuge in Iraq,
A controversial exile movement cited by President George W. Bush as a source of information on Iran’s nuclear ambitions is condemned for psychologically and physically abusing its own members in a new report by Human Rights Watch….former MEK/PMOI members told Human Rights Watch that when they protested MEK policies or tried to leave the organization, they were arrested, in some cases violently abused and in other instances imprisoned.
The group, based at Camp Ashraf, near Baghdad, was under the protection of Saddam Hussein, and is under US guard while Washington decides on its strategy….The MEK aka PMOI has been declared a terrorist group by the state department, but a former Farsi-speaking CIA officer said he had been asked by neo-conservatives in the Pentagon to travel to Iraq to oversee ‘MEK cross-border operations’.
One of the terrorist organizations that the U.S. accused Iraq of supporting during the run-up to the war, the Mujahedin Khalq (MEK) aka PMOI/NCRI/MKO or the”People’s Combatants”, has been lobbying House Republicans and Democrats.
More than 300 U.S. legislators from both parties have at one time or other signed petitions in support of the MEK since the invasion of Iraq in March 2003, and MEK spokesmen say they have offered the sect’s services to the United States.
…we have restricted the MKO and we have called them terrorist and there’s no terrorist activity against Iran and other countries from British soil…
The US treats all terrorist groups and prisoners in the same manner. For instance, after the US invasion on Iraq, the US took the control of the MKO/PMOI which has been listed as a terrorist organization since 1997. The US disarmed the group and restricted its members into Camp Ashraf near Baghdad. ..Terrorist attacks around the world have created international unity in the field of fighting terrorism and have forced the nations to cooperate and exchange intelligence and information. The threat is serious so that the US has even asked its old enemy, Iran, for help and active presence on the issue.
The outcome of the meeting of Iraqi neighbors’ interior ministers in Istanbul was in favor of Iraqi government and was conducted for fighting terrorism and preventing terrorist elements from penetrating the region. What can be viewed easily in the meeting was the clarity of the decisions. Turkey’s positive position attracted the attention of all attendants…..Armed groups such as PKK, Ansar Al-Islam, Al-Qaeda and Mojahedin-e khalq and have chosen Iraq as a terrorist land for themselves and use religious, Islamic and Jihadi slogans to hide their own terrorism, violence
Any crime can have four distinguishing characteristics. The first is totally related to the criminals and the others are based on that. The second is related to the victim of the criminals, the third relates to the defenders of human rights who have taken on the task and duty of exposing the crimes of these criminals, and the fourth relates to international public opinion and the international conscience to judge according to the findings and the reports produced by the defenders of these victims of crimes.