German HRC Calls on MKO Leaders to Forego Violence on Camp Residents

http://english.farsnews.com/newstext.php?nn=9002051140

"I appeal to the leaders of Camp Ashraf to forego violence and to grant an independent investigation commission full access to the camp. The leaders of Camp Ashraf must enable all of the injured to receive medical care, and must ensure full protection of the rights of the camp's inhabitants. This includes the right to leave the camp," Markus Loning, the Federal Government Commissioner for Human Rights Policy and Humanitarian Aid at the Federal Foreign Office, said in a statement.

Some 3500 members of the MKO and their family members currently live in Camp Ashraf. During the Iran-Iraq War, the MKO fought under Saddam Hussein against Iran. They are viewed as a strictly hierarchical organization which has never distanced itself from terrorist violence. It has often been reported that inhabitants of the camp have been prevented by their leaders from leaving Camp Ashraf.

Tens of the members of the terrorist Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO) escaped from the group's main training camp, the Camp of New Iraq, in Northern Iraq last Wednesday. The Arabic-language Nahrainnet website said Iraq's defense ministry has confirmed that scores of defectors have escaped the camp and sought Baghdad's refuge. The report pointed out that the move by the MKO fugitives would help further unveil the shocking secrets of the camp (formerly known as Camp Ashraf).

The website also stressed that the move by the MKO's members also proves the Iranian officials' righteous stance who had said earlier that a large number of MKO members wanted to exit the camp and return to Iran but they were incarcerated in the camp by the MKO ringleaders.

The MKO has been in Iraq's Diyala province since the 1980s.

Iraqi security forces took control of the training base of the MKO at Camp Ashraf - about 60km (37 miles) north of Baghdad - in 2009 and detained dozens of the members of the terrorist group. The Iraqi authority also changed the name of the military center from Camp Ashraf to the Camp of New Iraq.

A defected member of the anti-Iran terrorist Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization unveiled earlier in April that MKO ringleaders are using every means within their reach to control their dissident members, including their humiliation. According to a report by Al-Javar news website, Mohammad Hossein Sobhani, a defected leader of the MKO said that ringleaders of the terrorist cult have forced their members to present a daily report of their sexual status.

He added that the MKO leaders are seeking to humiliate members, especially dissidents, through such reports in a bid to control them. Sobhani added that MKO leaders aimed to clean members' organizational, political and strategic questions and opposition through diverting their attention to sexual problems and paradox as well as other private issues.

Sobhani was jailed and tortured in Camp Ashraf (now the Camp of New Iraq) for 8 years after he criticized the cult's order for compulsory divorce among members, or what is known by the MKO ringleaders as "revolutionary divorce".  Also in March, 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.

The former member of the MKO also revealed that nearly 70% of the female members of the terrorist group are single and have not been allowed to marry anyone in or outside the group.  And only a total 10% of the married members have been allowed to have children, he added. Also earlier reports from inside the MKO's Ashraf Camp said MKO ringleaders have started brainwashing members to persuade them to commit suicide in a bid to prevent their possible defection in quest for better living conditions.

Earlier reports had revealed that a large number of MKO members are struggling against killing diseases like cancer, while the group's leaders have blocked their access to the outside world in a bid to prevent their possible defection.

According to a report by the Habilian Association, an Iran-based human rights group, the MKO ringleaders allege that their brainwashing plans are aimed at increasing the costs of the camp's sealing and incarceration by the Iraqi security forces for the Baghdad government.

After intense and repeated requests by the Iraqi people, groups, parties and parliament members, the country's security forces took control of the training base of the MKO at Camp Ashraf in 2009 and detained dozens of the members of the terrorist group. The Iraqi authority also changed the name of the military center from Camp Ashraf to the Camp of New Iraq.

The report said that the new measure came after protests remarkably increased inside the group. Right groups are gravely concerned that a large number of MKO members may lose their lives soon if UN, human rights and Iraqi officials do not force the group leaders to end their tortures and pressures against the dissident members.

Leaders of the Rajavi cult (MKO) have cut contacts between the group members and their relatives and family members even in the Camp hospital in a bid to prevent possible defection of the members, which has been on the increase in recent months.

Earlier reports had revealed that under the direct order of MKO's Ringleader Maryam Rajavi, leaders of the terrorist group allow their members to receive medical aids, healthcare and other services only in return for given levels of cooperation. Based on the order, dissident members are deprived of medicine and other medical services or, at least, face much hardship and difficulty in procuring their necessary medicines, a report by the Habilian Association said in November.

According to a report by Iraqi daily Motamar, also published by Edalat (Justice) Society web site - an organ of the families of the Iranian victims of terrorism - Iraq's right groups have sent serious warnings to civil society and human rights bodies as well as the Iraqi government about the ongoing humanitarian disaster in the MKO's main training camp in Northern Iraq.

Also, Sahar Family Foundation reported that the MKO's ringleaders are forcing the dissident members of the group to commit suicide, and if they refuse to do so, the leaders massacre defectors themselves.

The right group called on the Iraqi judiciary system, international court of justice and all international human rights bodies as well as the Iraqi and international media to take urgent action to stop the human catastrophe in the camp which, they said, now looks more like a slaughterhouse.

The MKO ringleaders have long been reported to be using torture and pressure on their own dissident members, barring the dissident members from leaving the organization and joining their families. Also late in 2010, an Iraq-based right group unveiled that ringleaders of the MKO have resorted to various forms of mass killing in a bid to bring the group out of the current impasse in Iraq.

In relevant development, a report revealed in November that Ahmad Razzani, a veteran member of the MKO, had been killed inside the Camp. Reports also said that all exit and entry doors have been locked and none of the members, even those suffering from acute diseases and illnesses, are allowed to leave the camp.

MKO ringleaders have ordered the camp guards to stage snap inspections of the group's members and their personal belongings under the pretext of finding the lost weapons. Such behaviors have sparked discontent among a number of MKO members and made them escape the camp and return to their anguished families.

A large number of Iranian and Iraqi families staged a massive protest outside the camp in December 2010, and called for the freedom of their relatives and children who are under various types of torture and pressure by their ringleaders inside the camp.

The protestors demanded the Iraqi government and all human rights groups and organizations to provide the ground for the freedom of their children from the notorious Camp Ashraf, and urged closure of the terrorist hub. Among the demonstrators were families of the MKO members, who say their loved ones are being held inside the camp against their will. The MKO, whose main stronghold has been in Iraq's Diyala province since the 1980s, is blacklisted by much of the international community, including the United States.

Before an overture by the EU, the MKO was on the European Union's list of terrorist organizations subject to an EU-wide assets freeze. Yet, the MKO puppet leader, Maryam Rajavi, who has residency in France, regularly visited Brussels and despite the ban enjoyed full freedom in Europe.

The MKO is behind a slew of assassinations and bombings inside Iran, a number of EU parliamentarians said in a recent letter in which they slammed a British court decision to remove the MKO from the British terror list. The EU officials also added that the group has no public support within Iran because of their role in helping Saddam Hussein in the Iraqi imposed war on Iran (1980-1988).

Many of the MKO members abandoned the terrorist organization while most of those still remaining in the camp are said to be willing to quit but are under pressure and torture not to do so, the report by the EU parliamentarians added.

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 also argue for the MKO to be taken off the US terror list.