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EspañolPEOPLE'S MUJAHEDIN OF IRAN
MKO Logo
The 'People's Mujahedin of Iran' (PMOI, also MEK, MKO) (Persian: سازمان مجاهدين خلق ايران ''sazmaan-e mujahedin-e khalq-e Iran'') (and referred to by the Islamic Republic of Iran as "گروهک تروریستی منافقین") is an Islamic Socialist organization that advocates the overthrow of Iran's current government.
The PMOI is the main organization in the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), which describes itself as a umbrella coalition. However this claim has been criticised by the FBI,[1] and individuals including Michael Axworthy, a senior public servant in the United Kingdom[2] that believe NCRI is merely a front group for the PMOI. The PMOI's armed wing is called the ''National Liberation Army of Iran'' (NLA). The Iranian government officially refers to the organization as the ''Monafeqin'' (i.e., "''Hypocrites''").[3]
The PMOI and the NCRI were the first entities that revealed Iran's clandestine nuclear activities in 2002, which has turned to be a major concern of the intenational community today .
The PMOI is designated as a terrorist organization by the United States, Canada, European Union, and Iran.[4][5] Although the European Court of Justice has overturned this designation in December 2006,[6] the Council of the EU declared on 30 January 2007 that it would maintain the organization on the blacklist.[7][8] ''(See: #Designation as a terrorist organization)''
Other names
The People's Mujahedin of Iran is known by a variety of names including:
★ 'Mojahedin-e-Khalq Organization' (MEK)
★ The National Liberation Army of Iran
★ ''(Disputed)'' 'National Council of Resistance of Iran' (NCRI) - the PMOI is the founding member of the NCRI, which describes itself as a coalition of resistance organisations while others including the U.S. FBI claims that the NCRI is either an "alias" for or a front group for the PMOI.12
★ 'Monafiqeen-e-Khalq' (MKO) - the Iranian government consistently refers to the People's Mujahedin with this name, meaning "hypocrites of the people."
''Note: the MEK alias is often used when the PMOI is referenced in the media, or by national governments around the world. The term MEK and PMOI are therefore interchangeable throughout this article.''
Membership
The PMOI claims to have a 30,000 – 50,000 strong armed guerrilla force, based in Iraq, but a membership of between 15,000 – 20,000 is considered more likely.[9] In 2005 the US think-tank, Council on Foreign Relations, believed that the PMOI had 10,000 members, one-third to one-half of whom were fighters. The think-tank claims PMOI membership has dwindled, the organization has had little success attracting new recruits.[10] According to a 2003 article by the ''New York Times'', the PMOI would be composed of 5,000 — many of them female — fighters based in Iraq.[11] A recent census of Ashraf, where the aging population of "fighters" is located, has a little more than 3500 member with less than 900 women there.
History
The People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran was founded by middle-class students at Tehran University, Mohammad Hanifnejad, Saied Mohsen and Ali-Asghar Badizadegan in 1965. The PMOI opposed the rule of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, considering him corrupt and oppressive. In its first five years, the group primarily engaged in ideological work, combining both fundamentalist interpretations of Islam and Marxist philosophy. Before the PMOI had carryied out any military operations against the Shah's government, a raid by the Shah's secret police, SAVAK, arrested the entire leadership and 90 percent of its cadres. All but one of its leaders were executed. Other members remained incarcerated for many years, with the last group, including Massoud Rajavi, being released just before Khomeini arrived in Tehran in January 1979.
The PMOI conducted anti-Western attacks prior to the Islamic Revolution. Since then, it has conducted militant attacks against the interests of the cleric-dominated governmental system in Iran and abroad.5 According the U.S. Department of State and the presentation of the MEK by the Foreign Affairs group of the Australian Parliament, the group has been accused of conducting several assassinations of U.S. military personnel and civilians working in Iran during the 1970s and of having actively supported the U.S. embassy takover in Tehran in 1979.9
Ideology: before and after the 1979 Iranian Revolution
The PMOI's ideology is based on a progressive interpretation of Islam, according to which elections and public suffrage are the sole indicators of political legitimacy. According to their publications, the Word of God and Islam are meaningless without freedom and respect for individual volition and choice. Their interpretation of Islam the Quran says that the most important characteristic distinguishing man from animals is his free will. It is on this basis that human beings are held accountable. Without freedom, no society can develop or progress. There has been an impression that the MKO's ideology is based on a syncretic amalgamation of Marxist and Islamic ideas,and that the MKO was subject to a number of rapid ideological shifts and has developed a strong sense of veneration for its leading couple, Masoud Rajavi and Maryam Rajavi, which some have described as a personality cult. Although its leaders presents themselves as Muslims, the MKO describes itself as a secular organization: "The National Council of Resistance believes in the separation of Church and State."[12]
According to the U.S. Department of State' presentation of the MKO, the philosophy of the MKO is a combination of Marxism, Nationalism and Islam.5
In more recent years under the guidance of Maryam Rajavi the organization has adopted strong feminist principles. Women have now assumed the most senior positions of responsibility within the ranks of the MEK and although women make up only a third of fighters, two-thirds of its commanders are women. Rajavi ultimately believes that women should enjoy equal rights with men.[13]
To bring the opposition to the Iranian government under one umbrella organization, the PMOI formed the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI). The MKO claims that in the past 25 years, the NCRI has evolved into a 540-member parliament-in-exile, with a specific platform that emphasizes free elections, gender equality and equal rights for ethnic and religious minorities. The MKO claims that it also advocates a free-market economy and supports peace in the Middle East. The FBI claims that the NCRI "is not a separate organization, but is instead, and has been, an integral part of the MKO at all relevant times" and that the NCRI is "the political branch" of the MKO, rather than vice versa. Although the PMOI is today the main organization of the NCRI, the latter previously hosted other organizations, such as the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran.1
Repression under the Islamic government
After playing a key role in the 1979 Iranian Revolution because of its Muslim identity and the ability to mobilize hundreds of thousands of workers, students, and most importantly, many younger army officers, the PMOI emerged as the largest opposition group in the country. Its daily publication, ''Mojahed'', had a circulation of 600,000 copies. The newly established government of Ayatollah Khomeini in Iran began to feel threatened by the PMOI militant activities and started to launch a fierce campaign to crush it. Hundreds of PMOI supporters and members were killed from 1979 to 1981, and some 3,000 were arrested [2]. Ultimately, the organization called for a massive demonstration on June 20 1981, to protest against the new leadership under the banner of Islam. Khomeini ordered the guards to open fire on the protesters. Hundreds were killed and many more wounded. That night, hundreds were summarily executed in Evin Prison and elsewhere, some without their identities ever being established. This was considered one of the most severe human-rights violations in the history of the Islamic Republic.
In 28 June 1981, two years after the Islamic Revolution of Iran, the MKO detonated bombs in the headquarters of the now-dissolved Islamic Republic Party. Around 70 high ranking officials, including Chief Justice Mohammad Beheshti (who was the second figure after Ayatollah Khomeini at the time), cabinet members, and members of parliament, were killed.[14] . Two months later, the MKO detonated another bomb in the office of the president, killing President Rajai and Premier Mohammad Javad Bahonar. These are considered the most important attacks in the history of the MKO against the Iranian government.
Eventually, PMOI relocated to France, where it operated until 1986, date of the problems arising between Paris and Tehran concerning the Eurodif nuclear stake and the French hostages crisis in Lebanon. From then on, the PMOI resided in Iraq, protected by Saddam Hussein who had been at war with Tehran since 1981.
Over 30,000 political prisoners from the MEK, and also from other opposition groups,[15] were executed during in 1988, following Operation Mersad.[16].[17][18][19][20] Dissident Ayatollah Montazeri has written in his memoirs that this massacre, deemed a crime against humanity, was ordered by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and carried out by several high-ranking members of Iran's current government. Ahmad Khomeini, whom Montazeri accused of collaboration in the killings, has died mysteriously during the Chain Murders of Iran.
Relations with France in the mid-1980s
In 1986, after French Prime Minister Jacques Chirac struck a deal with Tehran for the release of French hostages held prisoners by the Hezbollah in Lebanon, the PMOI was forced to leave France and relocated in Iraq. Investigative journalist Dominique Lorentz has related the 1986 capture of French hostages to an alleged blackmail of France by Tehran concerning the nuclear program[21]
Relations with Iraq under Saddam Hussein and the Iranian government
The MKO transferred its headquarters to Iraq in 1986. At that time Iraq was in war with Iran. According to the US State Department, the MKO received all of its military support and most of its financial assistance from Saddam's government until the 2003 Invasion of Iraq. But the MKO denies these accusations and insists that it had always remained independent of Iraq. The MKO also has used front organizations to solicit contributions from expatriate Iranian communities.
Near the end of the 1980-1988 war with Iran, Baghdad armed the MKO with military equipment and sent it into action against Iranian forces. The MKO's decision to move its headquarters to Iraq in the middle of the war, caused the MKO to lose most of its supporters in Iran, regardless of their views towards the Iranian government.[22] [23] A report by the Foreign Affairs group of the Australian Parliament states ''"[The MKO] is believed to have lost much of its popular support within Iran since siding with Iraq"''.9 The MKO claims it has always maintained its independence from its Iraqi host and denies "siding with Iraq" during the Iran-Iraq War.
According to presentations of the MKO by the U.S. Department of State and the Foreign Affairs group of the Australian Parliament, the PMOI are also accused of having assisted the Iraqi Republican Guard in suppressing the Kurdish and Shiite uprisings in Iraq after the 1991 Persian Gulf War.9 Maryam Rajavi, who assumed the leadership role of the MKO after a series of years as co-leader alongside her husband Massoud Rajavi, had the following to say during a moral-boosting speech to an audience of MKO troops: "Take the Kurds under your tanks, and save your bullets for the Iranian Revolutionary Guards."[11] This has been formally denied by the PMOI.
In the following years the MKO conducted several assassinations of political and military figures of the Islamic Republic, including deputy chief of the Iranian Armed Forces General Staff, Brigadier General Ali Sayyaad Shirazi, who was assassinated on the doorsteps of his house on April 10 1999.
After the 2003 invasion of Iraq
Main articles: Monafiqeen-e-Khalq Surrender (2003)
After the 2003 invasion of Iraq, MEK camps were bombed by coalition forces because of its alliance with Saddam Hussein. On April 15, the leaders of the MEK entered into a ceasefire agreement with the coalition after the attack. Each compound surrendered without hostilities. [25][26][27] In the operation, the US reportedly captured 6,000 MEK fighters and over 2,000 pieces of military equipment.[28][29]
After a four-month investigation by several U.S. agencies, including the State Department, only a handful of charges under U.S. criminal law were brought against MEK members, all American citizens. The PMOI remains listed as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) by the Department of State. [3] Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld declared MEK personnel in Ashraf protected persons under the Fourth Geneva Convention. They are currently under the guard of US Military. Defectors from this group are housed separately in a refugee camp within Camp Ashraf, and protected by the Bulgarian Army. [4] [5]
2003 French raid
In June 2003 French police raided the PMOI's properties, including its base in Auvers-sur-Oise, under the orders of anti-terrorist magistrate Jean-Louis Bruguière, after suspicions that it was trying to shift its base of operations there. 160 suspected MKO members were then arrested. In response, 40 supporters began hunger strikes to protest the arrests, and ten immolated themselves in various European capitals. French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy (Union for a Popular Movement) declared that the MKO "recently wanted to make France its support base, notably after the intervention in Iraq," while Pierre de Bousquet de Florian, head of France's domestic intelligence service, claimed that the group was "transforming its Val d'Oise centre [near Paris]... into an international terrorist base".[30]
U.S. Senator Sam Brownback, Republican of Kansas and chairman of the Foreign Relations subcommittee on South Asia, then accused the French of doing "the Iranian government's dirty work". Along with other members of Congress, he wrote a letter of protest to President Jacques Chirac, while longtime PMOI supporters such as Sheila Jackson-Lee, Democrat of Texas, criticized Maryam Radjavi's arrest.[11] However, the MKO members were quickly released.
A "bargaining chip" between Tehran and Washington?
The same year that the French police raided the PMOI's properties in France, Tehran attempted to negotiate with Washington DC, proposing to withdraw military backing for Hamas and Hezbollah as well as give open access to their nuclear facilities in return for Western action in disbanding the PMOI, which was revealed by ''Newsnight'', a BBC current affairs programme, in 2007. The BBC uncovered a letter written after the invasion of Iraq in 2003 where Tehran made this offer[32][33] The proposition was done in a secret letter given to Washington through Switzerland's help. According to the BBC and to what had been understood by the US State Department, the letter had received authorization from the highest levels of the Iranian government. According to Lawrence Wilkerson, former chief of staff of State secretary Colin Powell, interviewed by the BBC, the State Dept would first have positively considered the offer. But it would ultimately have been rejected by the office of Vice-President Dick Cheney.[34]
Designation as a terrorist organization
The PMOI has been designated as a terrorist organization by the United States since 1997, Canada, and Iran.[4]5 According to Wall Street Journal[36] "senior diplomats in the Clinton administration say the PMOI figured prominently as a bargaining chip in a bridge-building effort with Tehran." The PMOI is also on the European Union's blacklist of terrorist organizations, which lists 28 organizations, since 2002.[37] The enlistments included: Foreign Terrorist Organization by the United States in 1997 under the Immigration and Nationality Act, and again in 2001 pursuant to section 1(b) of Executive Order 13224; as well as by the European Union (EU) in 2002.[38] Its bank accounts were frozen in 2002 after the September 11, 2001 attacks and a call by the EU to block terrorist organizations' funding. However, the European Court of Justice has overturned this in December 2006 and has criticized the lack of "transparency" with which the blacklist is composed.[6] However, the Council of the EU declared on 30 January 2007 that it would maintain the organization on the blacklist.[40][41] The EU-freezing of funds was lifted on December 12 2006 by the European Court of First Instance.[42] In 2003 the US State Department included the NCRI on the blacklist, under Executive Order 13224.[43]
According to a 2003 article by the New York Times, the US 1997 proscription of the group on the terrorist blacklist was done as "a goodwill gesture toward Iran's newly elected reform-minded president, Mohammad Khatami" (succeeded in 2005 by more conservative Mahmoud Ahmadinejad).[11] In 2002, 150 members of the United States Congress signed a letter calling for the lifting of this designation. The MEK have also tried to have the designation removed through several court cases in the U.S. The MEK has now lost three appeals (1999, 2001 and 2003) to the US government to be removed from the list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations, and its terrorist status was reaffirmed each time. The MEK has continued to protest worldwide against its listing, with the overt support of some US political figures.9 [45]
Past supporters have included Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-CO), Rep. Bob Filner, (D-CA), and Sen. Kit Bond (R-MO), and former Attorney General John Ashcroft, "who became involved with the MKO while a Republican senator from Missouri."[46][47] In 2000, 200 U.S. Congress members signed a statement endorsing the organization's cause.[48]
PMOI operatives were and are – legally or at least well tolerated – active in Germany, Denmark and many other countries of the European Union. The NCRI maintained an Information Office in Washington DC, USA until August 2002, when US Secretary of State Colin Powell issued an order to shut down the offices.[49]
In April 2007, CNN reported that the US military and the International Committee of the Red Cross was continuing to protect the group, with the US army regularly escorting MEK supply runs between Baghdad and its base, Camp Ashraf.[50]
Alleged human rights abuses
In May 2005, Human Rights Watch reported the PMOI were running prison camps within Iraq and were committing severe human rights violations.[51] The report described the PMOI as a cult held under the tight control of Maryam Rajavi. The report prompted a response by the PMOI and friendly MEPs (European MPs), who published a counter-report in September 2005.[52] They underlined that HRW had "relied only on 12 hours interviews with 12 suspicious individuals," and claimed that "a delegation of MEPs visited Camp Ashraf in Iraq" and "conducted impromptu inspections of the sites of alleged abuses." First Vice-President of the European Parliament, Alejo Vidal-Quadras Roca (PP), thus introduced the report:
''We came to the conclusion that HRW report was procedurally flawed and substantively inaccurate. Moreover, in the course of our study we became aware of an elaborate and complex misinformation campaign by Iran's Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) against PMOI.''52
However, no evidence has been provided to support this charge.
Prompted by the FOFI document, Human Rights Watch re-interviewed all 12 of the original witnesses, conducting private and personal interviews lasting several hours with each of them in Germany and the Netherlands, where the witnesses now live. All of the witnesses recounted in extensive detail their experiences inside the MKO camps from the 1991-2003 period, and how MKO officials subjected them to various forms of physical and psychological abuses once they made known their wishes to leave the organization.[53]
Videotape of Massoud Rajavi's secret meeting with Saddam Hussein
Saddam Hussein used to secretly tape everything and this videotape was captured by the Americans after they took control of Saddam's possessions. The tape was later "leaked out" as evidence of Saddam's connections to terrorist groups.
:
★ The video in Realaudio format.
:
★ The video in Windows Media Player format.
See also
★ 1988 Massacre of Iranian Prisoners
★ Arms sales to Iraq 1973-1990
★ Iran-Iraq War
★ Massoud Rajavi
★ Maryam Rajavi
★ Camp Ashraf
★ Masoud Banisadr
★ MEK Compound (Fallujah, Iraq)
★ Richard Perle
★ Saddam's Trial and Iran-Iraq War
References
1. DC Court of Appeals Rules Against NCRI Petition for Review of "Foreign Terrorist Organization" Designation, July 9, 2004, United States Court of Appeals, District of Columbia
2. Resistance group claims evidence of Iranian bomb ambitions
3.
4. COUNCIL COMMON POSITION 2005/847/CFSP, , , , Official Journal of the European Union, 2005
5.
6. Terrorisme: la justice européenne appelle l'UE à justifier sa liste noire, ''Radio France International'', December 12, 2006
7. EU’s Ministers of Economic and Financial Affairs’ Council violates the verdict by the European Court, NCRI website, February 1, 2007.
8. European Council is not above the law, NCRI website, February 2, 2007
9.
10.
11. The Cult of Rajavi
12. National Council of Resistance of Iran
13. [1]
14. Cooperative Research
15. Iranian party demands end to repression
16. 1988 massacre
17. 1988 massacre
18. Memories of a slaughter in Iran
19. Nasrin Alavi (2005), We Are Iran.
20. Khomeini fatwa 'led to killing of 30,000 in Iran', ''The Telegraph'', February 2, 2001
21. Lorentz, Dominique and Carr-Brown, David, ''La République atomique'' ("The Atomic Republic"), diffused on November 14, 2001 on Arte TV
22. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3TYC6LGNCE8&mode=related&search=
23.
24. The Cult of Rajavi
25. Labeled terrorist group turns over weapons to U.S. ; Members of MEK -- backed by Saddam Hussein -- also agree to be interviewed by intelligence officials.; Eric Slater / The Los Angeles Times. The Grand Rapids Press. Grand Rapids, Mich.: May 12, 2003. pg. A.3
26. U.S. gets Iranian rebels in Iraq to disarm; [Chicago Final Edition] EA Torriero, Tribune staff reporter Tribune news services contributed to this report. Chicago Tribune. Chicago, Ill.: May 11, 2003. pg. 8
27. Agreement disbands Iranian exile force; [Final Edition] Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Milwaukee, Wis.: May 11, 2003. pg. 14.A
28. Armed Iranian exiles surrender ; 6,000-member unit accepts U.S. terms; JOHN SULLIVAN, Knight Ridder Newspapers. The Record. Bergen County, N.J.: May 11, 2003. pg. A.17
29. US DOD: DoD News Briefing M2 Presswire. Coventry: Jun 19, 2003. pg. 1
30. France investigates Iran exiles
31. The Cult of Rajavi
32. BBC Newsnight article
33. Youtube video
34.
35. COUNCIL COMMON POSITION 2005/847/CFSP, , , , Official Journal of the European Union, 2005
36.
37. Défense des Moudjahidines du peuple, Yves Bonnet, former director of the French RG intelligence agency
38. Council Decision, Council of the European Union, December 21, 2005
39. Terrorisme: la justice européenne appelle l'UE à justifier sa liste noire, ''Radio France International'', December 12, 2006
40. EU’s Ministers of Economic and Financial Affairs’ Council violates the verdict by the European Court, NCRI website, February 1, 2007.
41. European Council is not above the law, NCRI website, February 2, 2007
42. [6]
43. US State Dept press statement by Tom Casey, Acting Spokesman, August 15, 2003
44. The Cult of Rajavi
45. [7]
46. Michael Isikoff, "Ashcroft's Baghdad Connection: Why the attorney general and others in Washington have backed a terror group with ties to Iraq," ''Newsweek'' (26 September 2002).
47.
48.
49.
50.
51. Human Rights Abuses in the MKO camps
52.
53.
External links
★ Official website (Farsi)
★ Website of the National Council for Resistance (NCR)
★ National Council of Resistance of Iran - Foreign Affairs Committee
★ Information on Mujahedin-e Khalg (MEK/MKO/NCR)
★ News and Information on Mujahedin-e Khalg (MEK/MKO/NCR
★ U.S. Department of State: MEK Profile
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