- A bizarre revolutionary army supported by British politicians
who want more "regime change" in the Middle East, has been accused
of torture and brainwashing.
-
- Evidence obtained by the Guardian backs a report by Human
Rights Watch. This makes detailed accusations of abuse, including deaths
under interrogation, against the "People's Mujahideen" of Iran
(MKO).
-
- The Mujahideen are a 4000-strong anti-Iranian dissident
army, currently under US protection in a camp in Iraq. They have a vociferous
public relations campaign in Britain and the backing of some Washington
neo-conservatives.
-
- The group, known as the "tank girls" because
of the preponderance of women in its ranks, has also won the support of
the Daily Telegraph, which wants it to help overthrow the mullahs in Tehran.
It says in a leader: "We should back the main resistance group, the
People's Mujahideen ... Give them the tools and they will finish the job".
-
- There is a growing right-wing campaign in parts of Washington
and London for regime change, citing Iran's nuclear ambitions. But leftwing
UK figures have also joined the campaign to legitimise the Mujahideen,
whom they see as freedom fighters.
-
- An advertisement by supporters in the Guardian last month
quoted Labour peer Lord (Robin) Corbett, as well as Liberal Lord (David)
Alton and Tory backbencher David Amess in support, along with human rights
lawyers Imran Khan and Geoffrey Bindman.
-
- However, the foreign secretary, Jack Straw, calls them
a "a nasty terrorist organisation" and British officials are
barred from contact. The Mujahideen are officially proscribed but their
British backers want the terrorist designation lifted.
-
- Refugees from the Mujahideen we traced in the Netherlands
include Ardeshir Pahrizkari, who walks on crutches. His back and feet were
broken, he told us, when he was punched, kicked and had chairs thrown at
him at a mass meeting to denounce him organised by his commander.
-
- His crime, he says, was to object to "self-criticism"
sessions and the beating up of internal dissidents. "They use Stalinist
methods to get rid of even a spark of opposition".
-
- At the time, the "tank girls" were being financed
by Saddam Hussein in camps in Iraq. The army was allocated illicit cash
from the UN oil-for-food programme, according to Iraqi ministry documents.
-
- Mr Pahrizkari says he was handed over to Saddam's secret
service, who took him to Abu Ghraib prison. There were continual beatings
there, he said. "When the Red Cross came round, we were told: 'Any
contact with them and we will break every bone in your hands and feet.'"
-
- His fellow refugee, Akbat Akbari, says he was tortured
extensively, and is still having psychological counselling, after three
years in Abu Ghraib.
-
- "The moment you arrived, you were beaten on the
soles of the feet. Prisoners were used to hoist your feet in the air with
ropes."
-
- Later, he says, his toenails were pulled out. Pepper
and salt were forced into his anus.
-
- He says he was falsely accused by the Mujahideen army
of being an Iranian spy. Eventually both men were handed over to their
enemies in Iran.
-
- They claim they escaped, and deny they are working for
the Iranian regime. "My father, brother and sister were imprisoned
for six months after I escaped," says Mr Akbari. "The regime
took their house."
-
- Mr Pahrizkari says: "I want to warn people33 not
to fall into this trap. If the Mujahideen are the next potential regime
in Iran, then that regime will be a dictatorship".
-
- The two men's testimony is supported by last week's New
York-based Human Rights Watch report. It says telephone interviews with
12 other former Mujahideen soldiers "paint a grim picture of how the
organisation treated its members". Witnesses alleged two cases of
deaths under interrogation.
-
- A former English soldier in the MKO, Anne Singleton,
now living in Leeds, talked to the Guardian last week. She said the MKO
was a brainwashing cult, which ordered its members alternately to divorce
and re-marry. As a "Tank girl", she says she wielded a Kalashnikov
in the Iraqi deserts with a battalion of women equipped with tanks and
revolutionary slogans. They are run by Maryam and Massoud Rajavi, who are
married.
-
- She believed she was joining a feminist marxist battle
group dedicated to the overthrow of Iran's misogynist clerics. But she
says she was deceived and is horrified UK politicians are backing dangerous
fanatics.
-
- Young supporters burned themselves to death in 2003,
one in London, in coordinated protests after the arrest of some leaders,
and the Mujahideen army is accused of numerous bombings inside Iran.
-
- The group raised up to £5m a year in Britain through
a charity called Iran Aid, until the Charity Commission closed it down
in 2001, saying it was unclear where the money was going.
-
- Lord Corbett's response to the Human Rights Watch report
is: "All the people they interviewed are agents of Iranian intelligence.
A bill is going through the US Senate allowing financial aid to opposition
groups in Iran. People are desperate to stop the Mujahideen getting any
of the money".
-
- He attacks the methodology of the report and accused
Ms Singleton of also "having links with the Iranian ministry of intelligence".
-
- Ms Singleton denies this, saying: "To claim that
every western government and humanitarian organisation which criticises
the Rajavi cult is somehow connected to the Iranian secret services shows
Lord Corbett's own refusal to take responsibility for supporting this terrorist
cult."
-
- Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited
2005
-
- http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1495712,00.html
|