Editorial

A non-Iranian friend of mine who has had contact with the Mojahedin for over twenty years, said to me that whenever she met with them, no matter how friendly or benign the meeting first appeared, she was always left with a profound sense of unease afterward and that her recent experience of being in their company was like 'being struck by a hit-and-run driver'… 'I was left reeling and in pain but I never knew from where I had been struck or how.'

This woman had only minimal contact with the Mojahedin organization and they treated her with – what was for them – great respect and care.

Imagine then how it must have felt to have been a devoted member for many years, but then because you had criticized some aspect of the organization or other and asked to leave, you ended up in the hell of Abu Ghraib prison.

The new Human Rights Watch report is a valuable starting point for what must become a thorough and unflinching international investigation into the sinister activities of the Mojahedin organization.

The MKO states that HRW has never visited Camp Ashraf. But Joe Stork admitted that plans to visit the camp ten years ago were only put off because of controls imposed by the Iraqi regime which supported the MKO. This means that even ten years ago HRW had sufficient concerns about the repeated and consistent reporting of human rights abuses in MKO camps from former members to warrant a visit. It is a shame that it has taken the removal of Saddam Hussein to allow access to this highly secretive and suppressive organization. That access however is still extremely limited. The witnesses in the report were fortunate to have survived Abu Ghraib prison and to have escaped Iraq. But over three thousand cult members remain imprisoned in Camp Ashraf by the Rajavis under US protection.

Until those victims are released, the true depth of human rights abuses in the MKO cult will not be exposed. Interviews in this edition with two residents who recently fled the camp and returned to Iran will hopefully give a glimpse into the desperate conditions endured by all the residents. More investigation needs to be urgently undertaken to ascertain exactly what is happening in Camp Ashraf. It is because of the limited nature of the HRW report that former members are demanding a thorough investigation into the total organizational practices, and not just highlighting the treatment of dissenters.

The primary and most straightforward request by those who were interviewed by HRW and other media about the human rights abuses they experienced inside the MKO is that those who support the cult – whether politicians or lawyers or other individuals – also take the trouble to speak to the victims about their experiences rather than simply repeating the MKO's specious mantra that they are all agents of the Iranian regime. Such undeviating repetitions of the official MKO line throw greater suspicion back on the MKO's apologists than on those who are offering actual evidence of abuse.

Unfortunately the MKO's hubris encourages it to emulate the actions and words of governments. But whereas Jack Straw's short description of the MKO as a 'nasty terrorist organisation' is backed by years of painstaking research and reams of evidence of its activities, the MKO's own unsubstantiated description of each and every one of its critics as 'agents of the Islamic Republic' rings somewhat hollow.

One of the individuals cited in the HRW report, Mohammad Hossein Sobhani, has challenged UK parliamentarian Lord Avebury – who sits on the Human Rights Committee – after he questioned the inclusion of Sobhani as a witness. Mr Sobhani pointed out that Lord Avebury has based his judgement solely on the MKO's own words and asks Lord Avebury to meet with him and the other victims in person and thereby have access to the same evidence which HRW and others have taken the trouble to discover. He also points out that if HRW had investigated the MKO ten years ago as it had planned, then he and hundreds like him would have been saved from years of suffering in the MKO and Iraqi prisons.

The time for prevarication is over. True supporters of human rights must now have the courage and integrity to instigate proper and thorough investigations and cut through the political and propaganda smokescreens erected by the MKO to hide its crimes.