Iran-Interlink
February 15, 2005
Urgent Action Needed to Prevent Slavery
In July 2004, the United States designated Mojahedin-e Khalq (MKO) members captured in Iraq as Protected Persons under the Fourth Geneva Convention. This did not affect the group's status as a terrorist entity.
The ICRC is currently processing the individuals in the MKO's Ashraf camp with a view to either voluntary repatriation to Iran or re-settlement in third countries. So far, two groups of 28 and 13 persons, (to date 10OCT05 over 300) including one woman, have been voluntarily repatriated to Iran where they are reunited with their families. Reports state that around a thousand individuals have already expressed their desire to separate from the organization. More are expected to separate once they are interviewed away from the coercion imposed by the Mojahedin's command structure.
Many MKO members have existing links with western countries – through family or previous residence. This means of course, that over the coming months tens if not hundreds of individuals from the Mojahedin will be settled in Europe, Scandinavia, Canada, Australia, the USA and other countries.
The Mojahedin operatives who are already active in these countries – usually under the name of National Council of Resistance of Iran – will be waiting to receive these people back into the MKO as they arrive from Iraq. Even those who expressed their desire to separate will be re-recruited using known techniques of psychological manipulation, blackmail and coercion.
It is vitally important for all the agencies involved to keep at the forefront of their dealings with these vulnerable people that they do not 'belong' to the MKO. The MKO has no claim to these people in order to take over their welfare once they arrive in third countries. To suggest that they do is to accept that they are slaves.
It is assumed that, as former soldiers in a terrorist organization, these individuals will not be left to roam freely in western countries and will be subject to levels of supervision and accountability commensurate with the requirements for prevention of terrorism of each national government which hosts them.
Some of them will be loyal members and some will be dissenters who have left the MKO. We are alerting immigration, Home Office and welfare officials that the MKO will try to re-recruit the people who have chosen to separate. For that reason they may need extra protection and help. Certainly, the MKO will establish and use bogus charities which claim to help these people (as a step to re-recruiting them). The MKO typically uses governmental resources and tells the 'victims' that the organization has provided their food, shelter, clothes etc, and refugee status. The 'victims' are told that the only way to avoid deportation to Iran and to survive in the West is to put themselves in the hands of that particular (bogus) charity.
We recommend that people arriving from Iraq are given direct government help, or at least given help only by well-known and established national charities and agencies rather than 'specialised' Iranian charities, and for their own safety that they are settled away from areas and cities in which MKO operatives are active.
The aim is not to prevent these people from rejoining the MKO, but to respect their human rights and to offer them real freedom of choice. Real freedom of choice comes only to those who enjoy a viable and independent lifestyle – that is, adequate housing, adequate income - whether from social security or from work, adequate social and cultural support, and adequate levels of physical, mental and emotional health. Without these in place a person cannot be expected to choose freely and to resist the highly sophisticated and relentless pressures which will be brought to bear upon them by the cult to resume their life of slavery.