POWs, Taken Hostage by MKO
 

Reports indicate that early in June this year, General Miller (commander of coalition forces in Iraq) sent a letter the MKO and said that Iraqi government wanted to interview nearly 400 Iran-Iraq war prisoners who were in the MKO.

In the letter, General Miller said that these POWs should be under coalition control for 10 days to be asked, without the presence of MKO agents, why they had stayed in Iraq and whether it was voluntarily or not.

After receiving this letter, Mozhgan Parsayee and Mehdi Barayee gathered all POWs and by brainwashing forced them to sign petitions addressing Human Rights Watch and International Red Cross.

These petitions, which had been prepared before, say that "Iraqi government wants to put us under pressure to get political information and intelligence about the MKO from us. The war between Iran and Iraq finished several years ago and the issue of POWs has been solved earlier in interview with Red Cross and remaining POWs have remained willingly.

In response to this petition, Red Cross sent a letter to coalition forces. Reminding coalition forces of the 1992 interview with these people, Red Cross asked the forces to interview them in the framework of Geneva Convention and that there shouldn't be any political questions about Mojahedin.

Coalition accepted this condition and asked the MKO to bring the members but Mojahedin opposed and said that then these members would be forced to leave the group.

Coalition has even accepted this condition and has asked that these POWs be brought for interview in stated hours and on daily basis.

In the end, Mojahedin have accepted this issue. They have allocated the building of transportation unit (at the entrance of Ashraf Camp) to this case.

Then, in an insolent tactic, MKO leaders and commanders have sent women to visit POWs before the interviews to influence them by acting emotionally and asking the men "not to leave them"!!!

Anyway, the interviews have started since the July 9, 2005 and each day a number of POWs go to the interview room while they are brainwashed by the MKO. Unfortunately, as before, these obscene methods of the MKO lead to incorrect interview.

However, despite all these efforts of the MKO, several POWs ask each day to leave this terrorist group and reports indicate that several people have entered US-run camp.

It should be noted in 1992 when the Red Cross wanted to interview POWs, Mehdi Abrishamchi said that if they want to leave they'd better not to tell that to the Red Cross because there'll be political problems for the organization. He asked them to tell the officials of MKO if they want to leave and the MKO would pave the way for their travel to Europe and would support them wherever they are!! But after the interviews by Red Cross, those who expressed their desire to leave were labeled as "quitter", "saboteur" and "mercenary". They were put to jail and the MKO has taken advantage of them for years.