I’m very excited and pleased to introduce today’s guest poster, Danny Postel, who comes to us with some absolutely chilling revelations about the bad faith of the neoconservatives’ supposed dedication to”freedom”(I know, I know: you’re shocked). Danny is the author of Reading “Legitimation Crisis” in Tehran: Iran and the Future of Liberalism and is co-coordinator of the Committee for Academic and Intellectual Freedom of the International Society for Iranian Studies. —Rick Perlstein By Danny Postel During the week of October 22-26, an official announcement effuses, “The nation will be rocked by the biggest conservative campus protest ever – Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week, a wake-up call for Americans on 200 university and college campuses.” Ringmastered by David Horowitz, this circus will be performing under the tent of something called the”Terrorism Awareness Project.” The purpose of this ballyhoolooza, we are told, is to confront the “Big Lies” of the Left regarding terrorism and militant Islam. Worthy subjects, to be sure. Indeed I would like to help the sponsors of the “wake-up call” promote awareness of them. Toward this end, let’s consider the American Right’s “special relationship” with one group of terrorists. The U.S. State Department officially considers the Mujahedeen-e Khalq (MEK) a Foreign Terrorist Organization. While those honors date back to 1994, they’ve been renewed during the Bush years. Indeed in 2003 Foggy Bottom went further, including the National Council of Resistance of Iran — an MEK alias — under the terrorist designation. (The MEK is also known as the People’s Mujahedeen.) To make a long and bizarre story short, the MEK got its start in early 1960s Iran, helped overthrow the Shah in 1979, but quickly turned on the revolutionary government it helped bring to power. Employing an ideological blend of Stalinism and Islamism, the tactics of a paramilitary guerilla faction, and the organizational structure of a cult, the group went into exile, eventually making their home in Iraq in the mid-1980s. Not only did Saddam give the organization cover: he armed, funded, and utilized them for a variety of ends over two decades. The group’s wicked political brew was on spectacular display on the old MEK flag (see below; since abandoned) [editor, Iran-Interlink – this is still the official MEK logo], with its sickle and Kalashnikov positioned atop ofbeneath a Koranic verse. (Not — to state the obvious — that the mere presence of a Koranic verse in and of itself implies Islamist political commitments, but in this case the shoe very much fits.) Here you have virtually everything the Right claims to oppose all rolled into one: Islamism, Marxism, terrorism, and Saddam. Naturally, then, neoconservatives would utterly deplore the MEK and everything it stands for, right? The MEK would in fact make an ideal target for Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week and Terrorism Awareness efforts, no? Well, no. At least one of the carnival’s acts, it turns out, is rather fond of the Islamo-Stalinist-terrorist cult group, and has repeatedly argued for the removal of the MEK from the State Department’s list of terrorist groups and indeed urged the U.S. government to embrace it. Daniel Pipes, who will be speaking at Tufts on October 24th as part of the Horowitz high jinks, has made the MEK a recurring theme in his writings going back several years. Pipes has also gone to bat for the MEK right in the pages of Horowitz’s house organ. But Pipes is far from alone on the Right in championing the MEK. He co-authored the first piece linked to above with Patrick Clawson of the right-wing Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Right-wing commentator Max Boot has argued not merely for the removal of the MEK from the terrorist list but for funding and unleashing it to do battle with Iranian forces — this while casually acknowledging that it is a “political cult.” (More on Boot’s disfigured views .) In some cases the MEK plays a stealth role in the media machinery of the American Right. What the FOX News Channel tells viewers about Alireza Jafarzadeh when he appears on its airwaves is that he is an “FNC Foreign Affairs Analyst.” What you have to go to the FOX News website to discover, however, is that Jafarzadeh served “for a dozen years as the chief congressional liaison and media spokesman for the U.S. representative office of Iran’s parliament in exile, the National Council of Resistance of Iran.” But it is scarcely known that the sonorous-sounding National Council of Resistance of Iran is in fact a front name for the MEK. Now, it’s true that Jafarzadeh discontinued his post with the National Council of Resistance of Iran—but only when (and only because) its Washington office was forced to close in 2003 as a result of the State Department decision about it being a front for the MEK. It’s not like he had a change of heart. If you attend an “Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week” event, you might want to ask the speakers about this terrorist cult and whether they condemn it. Some of them might — not all neoconservatives agree on the MEK. But the fact that several prominent American conservatives have cozied up to an Islamist-Stalinist cult that was on Saddam’s payroll and the State Department considers a terrorist organization — this raises serious questions (to put it mildly) about the Right’s bedfellows and the calculus that determines them. It suggests the need for a little more terrorism awareness. CRIMES AND CORRUPTION OF THE NEW WORLD ORDER NEWS –infowars.net
The MEK and the Iranian People
The Libertarian Party seems to know how to get its own message out to a politically sensitized electorate who are really fed up with Bush’s irrationality and seek for something better. Bush is said to deliver his annual State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress next week and Libertarian Steve Kubby delivered his own version directly to the American people via Internet video in advance.
In part of his speech that he referred to as offering “an assessment of our nation’s situation and answers to the question, Steve Kubby said he had a pretty good idea of what Bush was going to say and leave many things untold. In respect to Iran and financing terrorist groups like MKO he said:
President Bush is going to tell you that IRAN represents yet another military challenge to US power and that “all options remain on the table” for dealing with that threat. What he’s not going to tell you is that neither the International Atomic Energy Agency nor our government’s very own intelligence services agree with his claim that Iran is actively seeking to develop nuclear weapons. Nor is he going to tell you that enmity between Iran and the US is and always has been almost entirely a function of US intervention in the Middle East, including financing the bombing and murder campaigns of terror groups like the MEK within Iran’s borders.
President Bush will tell you none of these things, because telling you those things might lead you to ask yourself what the hell you were thinking when you consented to allow him, his party, and those who pretend to be his opponents in Congress, to exercise power over yourself, your family, your friends and your neighbors in the first place.
January 26, 2008
For the reasons discussed, relocation of MKO to France, and also other European countries, after its expulsion from Iraq is out of the question. The next option, then, might be the United State of America. In spite of telltales that the organization benefits from a number of supporters inside the Congress and other lobbying bodies, for many reasons, including ideological and strategic challenges, MKO is barred to inter the US territories, let alone to be accepted as political settlers.
It is a well proven fact that MKO ideologically antagonizes the capitalist camp characterized as deterring man’s evolution. In MKO ‘s early ideological texts, the group’s anti-capitalist ideas and its ambition to implement a radical redistribution of wealth as well as to inaugurate a classless society are fundamentally sanctioned principles. In contrast to their strongly claimed pro-democratic conducts especially in the past few years, there is no close affinity between MKO’s ideology and liberalism. In many critical situations that the organization has considered as turning-points, and particularly in the course of its ideological revolution, MKO has reiterated the significance of its ideology, even compared with those of Marxist groups, as extremely antagonizing capitalism and especially that of the America’s. Unlike terrorist groups like al-Qaeda whose antagonism with America is rooted in their reactionary and historical positions, MKO’s contradiction is generated out of a scientific comprehension and socio-historical dynamism. Giving further clarification about MKO’s ideological revolution, Mehdi Abrishamch has stated:
Mojahedin’s ideological grasp, in contrast to others, has distinctively and quantitatively historical and social inclinations. Nowhere else can you possibly find the world explained as in MKO and chiefly by Rajavi. [1]
That is MKO’s last achievement revealed particularly following the ideological revolution, which is exactly concurrent with the publication of the State Department’s genuine report on MKO. Although some five months after the publication of the State Department’s report, and in a hasty response to the report, the organization published a book entitled The Democracy Betrayed, the report itself and the later registration of MKO as a FTO proved that the US has developed a deep understanding of MKO and its dual nature and that, it would no longer be duped by the group’s fallacious mottos and claims. The latest report of the State Department Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism released on April 30 discloses even a deeper appreciation of the organization by stating that the group’s leader has established a”cult of personality”. Thus, the US is well aware of the group’s left ideological drift that in circumstances shifts tactics in pro-democratic disguise.
The support MKO claims is receiving from a number of neocons, by the means of which it might practice the proposed “third option”, proves to be nothing above a political ploy regarding the group as cost-effective instrument against Iran. Even in some instances MKO is looked upon as a worthless implement since Americans have no doubt that advertised publicity of MKO among Iranians ends to the gates of a castle in the air.
It seems that the existing US-Iran tensions can be an alibi to grant MKO a temporal settlement in the US soil. However, MKO’s terrorist tag and the US determination to combat terrorism on the one hand and MKO’s insistence on preserving its militarist structure that indicates its tenacity of resorting to armed struggle strategy on the other hand disillusions Americans to trust and endure presence of the organization on their soil. The capacity of MKO as a terrorist organization to conduct terrorist operation anywhere in the world is a truth Americans fail to come to terms with as stated in the State Department’s latest report:
MEK leadership and members across the world maintain the capacity and will to commit terrorist acts in Europe, the Middle East, the United State, Canada, and beyond. [2]
Americans believe that MKO has the capacity to conduct its terrorist feats under an idealistic cult structure throughout the world. The self-immolation and suicide operations are known to be the most practical stratagem and revolutionary deeds advocated by the leaders:
Many members and sympathizers of Mojahedin, residing in military camps as combatants against the regime or scattered in different countries, are urging to commit self-immolation or other self-sacrifice deeds to advance Iranian modern revolution. [3]
Of course, Americans admit that in spite of MKO’s open manipulation of propaganda and terrorist approaches to achieve its objective in its campaign against the Iranian government, it has never been tried for its crimes:
The group’s worldwide campaign against the Iranian government uses propaganda and terrorism to achieve its objectives and has been supported by reprehensible regimes, including that of Saddam Hussein. During the 1970s, the MEK assassinated several U.S. military personnel and U.S. civilians working on defense projects in Tehran and supported the violent takeover in 1979 of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran. Despite U.S. efforts, MEK members have never been brought to justice for the group’s role in these illegal acts. [4]
The cause is not malfunctioning of judiciary systems but MKO’s capacity of adaptation strengthened through other complicated ideological and cultist teachings. MKO’s inherent tendency toward Machiavellianism frustrates having any trust in its promises and Americans are well aware of the fact that even the group’s surrendering of weapons following the invasion of the coalition forces to Iraq was a tactic to prevent its complete demise. Stated in the State Department’s report:
Following an initial Coalition bombardment of the MEK’s facilities in Iraq at the outset of Operation Iraqi Freedom, MEK leadership negotiated a cease-fire with Coalition Forces and voluntarily surrendered their heavy-arms to Coalition control. [5]
MKO has the potentiality of perpetrating terrorist operations in the US far beyond the menaces of al-Qaeda. Even much above the terrorist threats, MKO’s cultist deeds, like self-immolations in some European countries, are perpetration of unspeakable cultist prejudice and violence which Americans can never tolerate because they have had enough of these deeds by destructive cults that have shaken the country only in the past few years. Thus, MKO’s presence in the US will impose irreparable damages both on the country’s policy making and the nation. The American citizens never consent to live next-door with the terrorists and the cultists.
References:
[1]. Lecture delivered by Mehdi Abrishamchi on the ideological revolution within MKO.
[2]. The State Department Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism, the report released on April 30.
[3]. Mojahed, No. 253: Massoud Rajavi’s speech made in the first open session of the ideological revolution in Paris.
[4]. The State Department Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism, the report released on April 30.
[5]. Ibid.
In June 1981, Iran’s Supreme Leader Grand Ayatollah Khamenei, then Tehran’s Friday Prayer Leader, survived an assassination attempt at Abudhar mosque, which left him permanently disabled in his right arm.
The group responsible were the Mujahideen Khalq Organization (MKO), who are responsible for the deaths of 16,000 victims, including a president, a prime minister, 80 parliamentarians, but more importantly, 80% of their victims were innocent civillians.
Although barely reported in the West this month: an English court ruled the British government’s decision to put this terrorist group on the proscribed organisations list was perverse; the Iraqi Attorney General Jafar al-Mousavi, has appointed a judge and prosecutor to bring the leadership of the Mujahedin Khalq Organization to justice for their role in war crimes and crimes against humanity under Saddam; and Members of European Parliament met with Members of Justice Advocacy Group (an Iranian victims NGO) in Tehran, to express European commitment to keep the group on the EU proscribed organisations list.
A representative of the Members of Justice Advocacy Group told the MEPs:
If the MKO which embarked on terrorism as its tactic, strategy and ideology, are used as tools, be sure that they would use this opportunity to launch terrorist operations against the European citizens too, because, terrorism is the innate nature of the group
Prime Minister Gordon Brown agrees, he refused to reverse the decision to put the anti Iranian MKO on the terror list, pointing out that it had been involved in terrorism before and there was “no evidence” that the organisation had changed, and Home Office Minister Tony McNulty said ”I am disappointed at this judgement. We don’t accept it and we intend to appeal,” adding the list will remain on the MKO would remain on the list during the appeal.
So why would a British court decide that it was “perverse” to put this terrorist organisation that has tried to assassinate a serving head of state and religious leader? Is the judge a terrorist sympathiser or raging Iranophobe, like some of the terror cult’s supporters in the Houses of Parliament?
I doubt it, it’s probably because the Government didn’t make its case, it declined to say that it knows full well the cult is still actively involved in terrorism in Iraq, because it does it with the full knowledge and assistance of the American occupation army, whose custody the MKO in Iraq is supposed to be in. America won’t hand over these terrorists to the Iraqi government, even though there is Interpol arrest warrants out for them.
But then Britain is sponsoring terrorist attacks in Iran’s Khuzestan province, through neo-fascist, Anti Iranian, Arab supremacists, including the Al-Ahwaz Liberation Front. Lord Lamont of Lerwick asked whether the Government will ”proscribe the Al-Ahwaz Liberation Front on the ground that it is a terrorist organisation” — to date they’ve refused, which is worth bearing in mind the next time Britain accuses Iran of being a state sponsor of terrorism, a charge which Britain is both overtly and tacitly guilty of.
Stephiblog.wordpress.com
Many of us remember the Iraqi exile groups whose tall tales the Administration used to justify the invasion of their country in 2003. Fewer people are aware that similar groups from other Middle Eastern countries frequent the halls of Congress and editorial board rooms carrying their frightening ghost-written books with guidance from pro-war think tanks. The organized challenge against the 2007 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) summary on Iran this month included such a group, which for years cried wolf about Iran.
The NIE’s critics are complaining that it falsely weakens the Bush administration’s campaign against Iran. Trusting that Iran is not developing nuclear weapons is suicidal, warn the neoconservatives who prompted the invasion of Iraq in search of imaginary banned weapons. As in the period that preceded the Iraq War, the hawks are now validated by an exile entity dedicated to violent regime change. The Iranian enabler group that has replaced the old Iraqi National Congress is the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI). In cooperation with leading neoconservative figures, NCRI has for over a decade spared no effort to destroy any chance of a U.S.-Iranian détente.
Eight days after the NIE summary assured the world that Iran is not developing nuclear weapons at this time international media reported that NCRI dismissed the report’s findings. No other Iranian opposition group has actively challenged the new NIE’s credibility.
Going even farther, NCRI’s Washington spokesman, Alireza Jafarzadeh, claimed that Iran’s nuclear program is managed by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corp’s (IRGC) scientists during a Fox News interview. As the most trusted branch of Iran’s armed forces, the IRGC was late this year designated by the White House as a sponsor of international terrorism. The exile group has also echoed the Washington war party’s claims that Iran is arming Iraqi resistance groups with advanced weapons resulting in U.S. casualties.
NCRI’s scare campaign against Iran is an attempt to overcome its own infamy. The”Council”is a front group based in Paris for the Mojahedin-e Khalgh Organization (known also as MEK, MKO, or PMOI), according to the U.S. State Department, which bans both as a single terrorist organization. MEK’s pariah status makes it entirely dependent on the goodwill of the U.S. military, which has since the spring of 2003 sheltered its 3,500-plus fighters in northern Iraq after they disarmed.
The militia has for a quarter-century topped Tehran’s”most wanted”terrorist list and is now sought by Iraq’s government for atrocities it allegedly committed in Saddam’s service. It fled Iran in the mid 1980s and fought on the Iraqi side during the Iran-Iraq war, hoping to overthrow the young Islamic Republic. Its campaign to deepen Western distrust of Iran is motivated primarily by the real possibility that its key figures will face capital crimes charges in Iraq and Iran if a U.S. accommodation with Iran ends the militia’s utility to U.S. strategists as a bargaining chip. The latest sign of MEK’s vulnerability emerged December 16 when Iran asked that the next round of U.S.-Iran negotiations in Baghdad address MEK’s status.
Like the old Iraqi National Congress headed by Ahmad Chalabi, the MEK has powerful conservative backers in Western capitals that promote it as a democratic alternative. In Washington, these have included John Ashcroft, Dick Armey, Richard Perle, and members of Congress Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Tom Tancredo, all of whom were and remain advocates of the Iraq invasion. Among officially designated foreign terrorist organizations, MEK is the only one that can obtain street demonstration permits in Washington through its thinly disguised front operations. Poster-size portraits of the husband and wife team that have headed MEK for a generation are in abundance at such rallies, including one held on the grounds of U.S. Congress in 2004.
The surest way for the MEK to stay in business appears to be just the path they are following. They need to make themselves indispensable to the warmongers in the United States by helping subvert accommodation with Iran. (In this, they share the predicament of their neocon masters, who will be out of a job if peace prevails for too long.)
If Washington decides against an all out war on Iran and opts instead for a”low intensity conflict,”as Ronald Reagan’s wars of attrition in Central America came to be known, the MEK can well be the core of a Contra-style mercenary force. Claiming the mantle of the”Reagan Revolution,”the neoconservatives would certainly welcome that as the next best thing to the war that they want badly even after the NIE largely vindicated Iran. There have been persistent rumors over the past year that American military or intelligence agencies have trained selected MEK operatives for clandestine missions in Iran, after having them renounce terrorism and swear allegiance to”democracy.”
If, on the other hand, the Bush administration or its successor chooses sustained dialog instead of confrontation with Iran, the future of the MEK will never be far from the minds of Iranian negotiators. The White House has stressed its twin objectives of strengthening the government of”liberated”Iraq and limiting Tehran’s influence there. Iranian leaders see an inherent contradiction in that policy. They are anxious to find out whether the U.S. will continue to shelter the MEK as an irritant to Iran or will transfer custody of the militia to Iran’s trusted Iraqi authorities as an affirmation of Iraqi sovereignty. As Washington prepares for its next round of talks on Iraqi security with Iran in January, a sure way it can build confidence would be to agree to discuss this sensitive matter.
Rostam Pourzal, Alternet.org, December 28, 2007
In Yossi Melman’s article, published in Israeli newspaper Haaretz, part of the records of Raymond Tanter- as the main supporter of MKO in the U.S.- has been exposed:
"Tanter, 67, is considered a genius in international relations. At the age of 25, he completed his doctorate at the University of Indiana. He belongs to the school that introduced the use of mathematical models and quantitative studies in international relations. He has taught at top American universities, and in 1974 he spent his sabbatical at Hebrew University’s Institute for International Relations (in the interest of proper disclosure, I was his student at the time.)
Between one academic job and the next, Tanter filled several positions in the White House and the Pentagon, mainly during Ronald Reagan’s presidency. For two years (1981-1982) he was a member of the National Security Council, in charge of Libya and Lebanon (among his other assignments, Tanter followed Israeli policy which led to the invasion at the time.) He is identified with the Republican Party and has for the most part held conservative opinions. In his opinion, however, President George W. Bush’s administration is not sufficiently conservative."
This much of his records, and his support for the terrorist organization of MKO, is enough to understand how anti-people the MKO is.
For more information, we can point to his mission on using the Contras (similar to his opinions on using the MKO).
However, the most important issue in his case is that despite all Melman’s complements about him, Tanter is so discredited that he’s currently acting as an agent of the MKO.
Irandidban – 2006/12/25
Two days ago, I saw a report by NCRI stating that the Rt Hon the Lord Fraser of Carmyllie QC, speaking to a conference at the British Houses of Parliament on December 7, had stressed de-proscription of MKO. He was quoted to have started by saying:
Some time ago, earlier this year, I had the privilege and the pleasure of going over to Paris to meet with Mrs. Rajavi and if anyone here has not met her, I entirely agree with the assessment of her, that she is one of the most charismatic leaders in the world and if you haven’t met her, it is time people took the opportunity to try and see her.
I do not know whether Lord Fraser was beguiled by Maryam Rajavi’s ceremonial and stylish manner of conduct of the husband nominated president and naïve of her past terrorist conducts when he assessed her as a charismatic leader of the world or he believes in the same policy she does. I have tried convincing myself that Lord Fraser, a nice man expressing deep concern about Iranian people’s suffering, has never heard Maryam Rajavi’s expression, a military commander active in Iraq under Saddam, that all girls and women under her command were ready to fight shoulder to shoulder with Iraqi forces to die for the great leader Saddam Hussein as she did.
Maryam Rajavi, traveled from Iraq to France in 1993 as the conductor of deception strategy to fill the political campaign gap out of the cult. In all her messages from Paris to the military system based in Iraq, she emphasized that “everything at the end is bomb, bullet and gun.” Her disguise as a pro-democrat does not imply she has quit terrorist acts forever, but temporarily in order to dupe a few unaware parliamentarians.
Karim Haghi, a defected member once serving as a bodyguard of the Rajavis, in an interview confirmed that "Mrs. Rajavi told us to kill them [Kurds] with tanks and try to preserve our bullets for other operations. We were forced to kill both Kurds and Shiites, and I said I didn’t come here to kill other people."
Lord Fraser’s concluding words does indicate that he is fully aware of what he intends:
Mr. Chairman, as you well you know, I am strongly supportive of all the endeavours of this group to achieve its aims and the first thing we must do is the de-proscription of the PMOI.
It is so regrettable to see that at a time when the world is distressed by the nightmare of a terrorism domination and has initiated a unanimous battle to thwart its threat, some people representing as the defenders of their nation’s rights vow to be defenders of globally blacklisted terrorists who have betrayed their own nation.
To whom it may concern, Since August 2007, I have received telephone calls and emails from individuals, who are among a group of 200 Iranians being detained for the past five years in an American military camp in Iraq. The following summary is based solely on these telephone calls and e-mails. These emails are available upon request. Year 2002 The United States State Department interviewed all the members of the organization of the People Mojahedin of Iran, PMOI (Mojahedin-e Khalgh Organization). A group of 200 individuals, who had been in disagreement with Mojahedin for some times, informed the US officials that they wanted to leave the PMOI. This group was later taken to a camp called Temporary International Presence Facility (TIPE) in Khalis city in Diyala province The United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) assigned refugee status to these individuals, promising that all the necessary arrangements would be made in near future and they would be sent to another country. These 200 individuals were detained against their will in TIPF. Lt. Col. Amy F. Turluck was the American director of the camp. Year 2006 150 individuals started a peaceful vigil. Their main request was to leave the camp. This vigil was suppressed by 150 anti-insurgent US guards who used pepper spray and guns. The guards arrested all the representative of the group, in addition to some individuals. The arrested individuals were then sent to solitary confinement for several months and were later transported to a smaller camp. Year 2007 July The Iraqi government issued Laissez Passers for these refugees and informed them that with these Laissez Passers they could leave the TIPF camp and Iraq. The Laissez passers and the money of theses refugees were confiscated by Lt. Col Turluck and they were told that they could not leave the camp or Iraq. On many occasions the refugees asked Colonel Turluck to return their Laissez Passers and money so that they could leave the camp, but to no avail. The American military authorities also told them that the Iraqi government would not allow them to leave the country and that they would need visas for leaving Iraq. The relatives of these refugees went to the Iraqi Embassy in Tehran to inquire about the situation. They were told that the Iraqi government had already issued the Laissez Passers and that these refugees were free to leave the camp, acquire visa from a country and leave Iraq. These relatives also approached the Turkish Embassy in Tehran to find out if the Turkish government would issue visas to these refugees. They were informed that Turkey via its embassy in Iraq was prepared to grant visas to these 200 refugees if they applied in person. The refugees, however, were constantly told by the camp authorities that they have only the following two options. 1. To rejoin the PMOI (even though the PMOI is on the black list, i.e. it is considered to be a terrorist organization by both the United States and the European Union). 2. To go back to Iran (even though they could be executed by the Iranian regime). September · Twenty individuals started another peaceful vigil. This time Col. Turluck threatened to suppress the vigil once again if they did not stop it. Five of these individuals went on a hunger strike and as a result were placed in solitary confinement. They could not have any visitors and could not call their families. October · On October 8th, one individual was taken to the camp hospital and nobody was allowed to visit him. By October 12, after being on hunger strike for 29 days, he was told by the American authorities that if he would not break his hunger strike they would take him to Booka prison, cut his stomach open and would then force feed him. This individual was later transported to Krapeh hospital prison, which is usually used for members of Alghaedeh. · On October 8th, the other four individuals had been on hunger strike for 15 days, 12 days, 11 days and 9 days. One individual who was kept in the hospital of the camp had internal bleeding and had vomited blood. Col. Turluck visited these individual in their cells and told them that they should write their will and indicate where they wanted to be buried. These individuals were constantly being harassed by the American authorities to end their strike. · On October 13 Colonel Turluck announced that the Laissez Passers would be returned to all the refugees. While visiting the refugees on hunger strike in the solitary confinement, she promised them that if they broke their strike, their Laissez Passers would be retuned and they would be taken to Mousel. The refugees on hunger strike ended their strike and returned to the camp. · Colonel Turluck had promised that the voluntary project of re-location to Musel would be finalized by the end of October. · On October 22nd, these refugees were informed that due to the security reasons, they would not be allowed to use the phone. · By the end of October it became evident that the project of re-location to Musel was not going to materialize. November · By early November as the lies about re-location to Musel became evident, those who had broken their hunger strike started another hunger strike. · By November 20th, one of these individuals had been on hunger strike for 9 days. · On November 18 th , sometimes during the night, five of these individuals, who were on hunger strike, were taken out of the camp and were left on a nearby road. · Before leaving the camp, the camp authorities videotaped these individuals. In these videotapes they were asked to state that they were leaving the camp on their own free will. · Few days later five more individuals were taken out of the camp at night and were abandoned on the nearby road. · By now 20 individuals have been taken out of the camp in the dark of the night and have been dropped off somewhere close to the camp. · These abandoned individuals are in danger any time they come across an American checkpoint, the head hunters of the Iranian regime and the dangerous gangs and individuals in Iraq. · By November, the previous director of the camp, Col. Turluck, was replaced by Officer Harmon. December · On December 17 two individuals who had left the camp and were residing in a hotel, left their friend in the hotel for an outing. They have not been heard from since then and no one has any information of their whereabouts. · On December 18 six more individuals were taken out of the camp and were left on a nearby road. No one has heard from these individuals since then. Conditions at the camp: · No access to outside/denied to see a lawyer · No access to the internet · The limited letters, e-mails and phone calls are censored and monitored. If the refugees talk about their condition in the camp on the phone, the American authorities threaten them with losing the right to use the phone. Some emails were never sent and the complaints remain unanswered. · Limited medical services in the camp · No medical services outside the camp · A prisoner, who is going blind and needs immediate surgery, is not allowed to go to Baghdad for the operation. · Water shortage- no water on some days and on other days 3-4 hours at most, for months at a time · The refugees live in tents.
.Constant mal-treatment and torture – In one occasion, these refugees denied entry to their tents to an American soldier who refused to remove his boots. (They pray in the tents and therefore everybody must remove their shoes prior to entering the tent). The angry soldier beat them up and broke the shoulder of one of them. Needles to say, the broken shoulder was never treated medically. · There have been fifty incidents such as this resulting in the batter and injury of these refugees. · When these refugees go on hunger strike, they are immediately moved into solitary confinement and they lose all their privileges such as visits by their friends or contacting their families by phone. · There is evidence of cooperation between American authorities and PMOI. Once in a while some members of the PMOI are brought into the camp. They mingle with the refugees and try to get as much information as possible. They then pass the information to the American authorities and leave the camp. Two of these PMOI spies are presently living in Germany. Mohammad Hassibi Tel: 512-349-7899 hassibi@chebayadkard.com
Mohammad Hassibi, December 20, 2007 http://www.chebayadkard.org/chebayadkard/sokhan/20071217/maghaleh306.pdf