A wave of international outrage condemned the completely false, distorted, and discredited report issued in May 2005 by Human Rights Watch, against the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI). On February 15, 2006, after a nine-month delay, HRW issued a statement desperately trying to whitewash the scandal created by its manipulation of human rights for political purposes.
The new statement not only fails to present any evidence to prove the veracity of its original report, but, quite to the contrary, it further exposed the disregard for the most basic principals of impartiality and the malicious agenda behind the May 2005 report.
HRW’s detailed 2005 report was based solely on 12 hours of telephone interviews with 12 "witnesses," who were purportedly former members of the People’s Mojahedin. Documents and evidence on the affiliation of these individuals with the Iranian regime’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) have already been made public over the past few years. The five-page statement by HRW belatedly issued February 15 has left unanswered almost all of the hundreds of questions raised in the 93-page report by the European Parliament delegation, as well as hundreds of other protest letters and statements, directed at the 2005 report’s substantive and procedural flaws.
Although retracting some of its earlier allegations, HRW’s new statement at the same time attempts to show that claims made by MOIS operatives in their telephone interviews did not differ from what they said in the course of face-to-face interviews. The contradictions between this statement and the earlier report clearly show the bias of HRW’s report and the baselessness of its allegations. The allegations raised in the February 2006 statement have been disproved in previous statements and reports published by the Iranian Resistance and impartial sources, and so we refer to only a few points below:
1. The new statement is issued at a time when the execution of Mojahedin member Hojjat Zamani and threats against the lives of other political prisoners have aroused global abhorrence and condemnation of Iran’s clerical regime. Two weeks after Zamani was hanged and threats against other political prisoners have increased, HRW has yet to take a stand on these repressive measures. Similarly, HRW shows no concern with the persistent crackdown of popular uprisings and protests across Iran. As far as Iran is concerned, it appears that HRW’s main task is to confront the People’s Mojahedin, an organization that, friend and foe concur, is the main opposition and the mullahs’ archenemy. That political prisoners affiliated with the Mojahedin and other groups face death is of no consequence to this "human rights" organization.
2. In its recent statement, HRW stresses that all issues in its May 2005 report about "human rights abuses in Mojahedin camps" refer to the period before the Iraq war. It admits that no abuse has occurred in recent years. It is unclear why HRW did not acknowledge in its original report that the allegations are of a thing of the past or why it is retreating only now, after such enormous international outcry. If HRW were truly concerned about human rights abuses by the Mojahedin, why did it wait two-and-a-half years after such alleged abuses ended before preparing its report? This is of particular concern because HRW knew of the allegations by its so-called witnesses a long time ago, and it knew that they were not raised for the first time in 2005. Four of the witnesses have lived in Europe since mid-1990s and frequently repeated the same allegations, informing HRW about them as well. HRW representatives met with those "witnesses" in February 1997 in Cologne, Germany. MOIS sent other so-called witnesses abroad in early 2002 to raise exactly the same charges HRW has now repeated. It becomes clear, therefore, that the timing of the report’s publication was meant to aid the bankrupt policy of appeasing the Tehran regime and to stem the growing global consensus on the need for democratic change in Iran and the removal of the People’s Mojahedin of Iran from the terrorist list.
3. In its February 15 statement, HRW asserts, "A number of critics of the report claimed that Human Rights Watch was calling on the United States, Canada, and the European Union not to remove the MKO from their respective lists of groups identified as perpetrating or advocating acts of terrorism, in the face of a campaign by the MKO to have itself removed from such lists. Human Rights Watch in fact at no point, either in the report or in responses to media and other queries, took any position whatsoever on whether the MKO should be on such lists or removed from them." Despite this denial, the one-and-half-page statement issued in May 2005 by Joe Stork, Washington director of Human Rights Watch’s Middle East and North Africa division, that accompanied the report’s release clearly refers to the terrorism list and indicates HRW concern over the possibility of the removal of the PMOI from it. Joe Stork’s statement read, "In January, 40 members of parliaments across Europe, as well as the European Parliament, publicly called for the removal of MKO’s terrorist designation On April 14, several members of the U.S. Congress, both Republicans and Democrats, attended the National Convention for a Democratic, Secular Republic in Iran, an event that an MKO-backed organization held in Washington. Among other members of Congress, Rep. Tom Tancredo (R., Colo.) has called for removal of the MKO from the State Department’s list of foreign terrorist organizations. On February 10, a think-tank co-chaired by retired U.S. military officers, the Iran Policy Committee, called for the removal of the designation and for the U.S. government to actively support the group against the Iranian government. Joe Stork added, ‘The Iranian government has a dreadful record on human rights,’ said Stork. ‘But it would be a huge mistake to promote an opposition group that is responsible for serious human rights abuses,’ he added." Stork’s statement is nothing more than a call by HRW to keep the PMOI on the terrorist list.
4. The author of the HRW report is an Iranian named Hadi Ghaemi, whose animosity toward the Mojahedin is quite evident. He is on the advisory board of a group called the National Iranian American Council, whose main task is to prevent the Mojahedin’s removal from terrorist lists, which has called for maintaining the PMOI on such lists. Shortly after the publication of HRW report, this NIAC warned Members of US Congress in a letter that the PMOI is trying to get off the terrorist list and that it does not represent Iranian Americans. Human rights organizations should refrain, as a matter of principle, from assigning the task of writing reports to the nationals of the same country about which they want to investigate. Following release of the HRW report, a number of Iranians in different countries approached NCRI offices complaining that an Iranian was calling them on behalf of HRW. The caller told them that it was an opportune time to testify against the Mojahedin, but they had refused his overtures.
5. One day after HRW report was issued, Gary Sick, head of HRW Middle East Advisory Board sent an email to the Gulf 2000 mailing list exposing the true objective of the report. The email, originally written by William Beeman, stated, "The Human Rights Watch on MKO (MEK) abuse comes just in time for the consideration of H.R. 282/S. 333–The Iran Freedom Support act, sponsored by Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Florida) and Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pennsylvania). Aside from renewing the ineffective economic sanctions against Iran, Section 302 of the bill provides for support for groups opposing the current Iranian regime. Since Representative Ros-Lehtinen is one of the strongest supporters in Congress of the MKO/MEK, one assumes that this proposed appropriation is designed to go to them, at least in part. The Human Rights Watch report on the MKO/MEK would seem to disqualify them from funding under the provisions of the bill."
6. Since then, Gary Sick, whose two-decade record as an apologist for the medieval dictatorship ruling Iran is common knowledge, has lost no opportunity to voice support for the clerical regime and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. He told the state-run Fars news agency on June 17, "The trend of the presidential elections in Iran is healthy and surprising. In my view, the current Presidential election is being conducted very actively. Nominees are raising different issues relative to the past and I am following them carefully." He added, "Many issues raised in this election had not been raised previously, making this election very interesting."
7. The state-controlled daily, Kayhan, quoted Gary Sick on July 2, 2005 as saying, "Ahmadinejad has gathered a huge array of supporters around him who accord special value to religious and traditional values. He holds a Ph.D from a top-rated university. He has been the mayor of one of the largest cities in the world… It would be foolish if we underestimate Ahmadinejad or simply think he is a lucky man. Apparently, the expressions of support in many street interviews show that it would be a mistake to take these affirmations as fraud in the election. There are many indications that the man who won had the majority votes." Sick also criticized the US President’s charge that the regime is illegitimate and undemocratic. The state television quoted Sick as saying, "Bush’s speech about Iran’s election was extremely inappropriate. I was saddened that George Bush had chosen such a time for attacking Iran’s political and election structure. We witnessed real competition among the candidates and Bush should have spoken wisely and refrained from issuing premature statements." On November 18, 2005, the state-controlled website Baztab quoted Sick as saying, "Ahmadinejad has come forward with constructive plans. He is very proud, and understanding Iranian pride is very difficult for the West, especially for Americans."
8. HRW has in its February 15 statement denigrated its critics and tried to belittle the unprecedented tide of extensive criticism it received by appearing to respond to only “four members of European Parliament.” It is noteworthy that the four are Mr. Alejo Vidal Quadras, First Vice President of the European Parliament, Mr. Paulo Casaca, Head of the EP delegation to NATO, Mr. Struan Stevenson, Vice President of PPE, largest EP Parliamentary Group, and Mr. André Brie, senior member of EP’s Foreign Affairs Committee. HRW has conveniently forgotten that several hours after the publication of its scandalous report, seven members of the Friends of Free Iran (FOFI) group issued a strongly-worded statement describing the report as without any credibility and political in nature, and demanding that HRW retract the report. FOFI’s position was speedily and extensively supported in the European Parliament.
9. HRW still leaves unanswered the reasonable protests of hundreds of prestigious political, parliamentary, and human rights personalities, including the following:
– The Rt. Hon. Lord Slynn of Hadley, former judge of the European Court of Justice and former judge in the ordinary and Law Lord in the British House of Lords.
– Hon. Lord Avebury, former chairman and present vice-chairman of the British Parliamentary Human Rights Group, who wrote numerous letters and detailed his objections to HRW, but HRW never responded to any of Lord Avebury’s legitimate enquiries.
– Hon. Lord Corbett, Head the Parliamentary Labor Group in the British House of Lords.
– David Amess, British MP (Conservative Party).
– Andrew Mackinley, member of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the House of Commons.
– M. Cherif Bassiouni, a distinguished Research Professor of Law at DePaul University College of Law and President of the International Human Rights Law Institute.
– Ed Towns, Member of Congress from New York.
– William Lacy Clay, Member of Congress from Missouri.
– Professor Raymond Tanter, Visiting Professor at Georgetown University.
РDaniel Mitterrand, President of France Libert̩.
– Malcom Fowler, International Human Rights Committee and Law Reform Board, Law Society of England and Wales.
– Elizabeth Sydney, Chair, WAFE (Women Against Fundamentalism and for Equality).
– Wilfred Wong, Jubilee Campaign UK.
– Morton Hoglund, member of Norwegian Foreign Affairs Committee.
– Lars Rice, then member of Norwegian Foreign Affairs Committee. (Mr. Rice visited Ashraf and sent a detailed report to HRW, which failed to reply to any of his questions.)
– Col. David Philips, former commander of the US 89th MP Brigade, based in Camp Ashraf for one year.
– More than 500 persons formerly living in the Mojahedin’s bases for years and currently resident in Europe and North America. (Their statement was handed over to HRW by the signatories in Washington, DC, and in New York. These individuals’ statement noted that they are ready to present evidence and bear witness anywhere. HRW has not seen it fit to speak to or interview even one of them.)
– 3,437 residents of Ashraf City, who issued a statement and rejected HRW’s claims
– Iran Policy Committee in the United States, which issued an extensive refutation of HRW’s report.
10. HRW does not explain why it refrained from sending a representative to the many meetings that were convened to study HRW’s report in the European Parliament in September 2005, in the British Parliament in June 2005, in the Netherlands in December 2005, in Germany in December 2005, and in Sweden in January 2006. Why does HRW refuse to meet with and respond to all those who have challenged its report as false and politically motivated?
11. HRW asserts in its report that the EP delegation’s "document questioned Human Rights Watch’s methodology of conducting interviews with witnesses by phone. Human Rights Watch, like other organizations that conduct research and report on current affairs, sometimes relies on telephone interviews to gather information. Telephone interviews are a recognized and appropriate method of information gathering." This HRW assertion can best be described as obfuscation. The European Parliament delegation and Lord Avebury, the IPC report, and many other critics of HRW protested HRW’s methodology from numerous aspects, only a small part of which was the telephone interviews. The statement claims that telephone interviews are a recognized and appropriate method of information gathering. If HRW is sincere in its claim then perhaps it can show us other reports similar to the one it issued about the Mojahedin that were also solely based on telephone interviews. In particular, a direct and face to face meeting with the witnesses could not have been a problem, since they were in the Netherlands and Germany, not in a war zone or in a location that HRW would have political or security limitations in visiting. The report of the European Parliament delegation reviewed numerous HRW reports in the last ten years and reported that in not one of these reports was the present standard or method used. But, as appears from Joe Stork’s statement, HRW was in a rush to publish the report before the campaign to remove the Mojahedin from the terrorist list expanded and before the elections in Iran that Gary Sick praised were held. HRW believed it could dupe supporters of democracy and defenders of human rights. Now that HRW’s calculated move has backfired and its credibility has taken a hit, it has tried to explain it away the best it can. HRW, however, has again miscalculated, because the more it tries to explain away its disgraceful report that placed human rights at the service of politics, the more it will arouse public outcry and criticism.
12. The claim that the 12 so-called witnesses confirmed during face-to-face meetings what they had told HRW on the telephone does not prove the truth of their testimony. HRW has provided no documents or evidence to confirm these allegations. Significantly, the credibility of HRW and its reporter have now become suspect. They are not qualified to launch an investigation. It seems that HRW’s interviews of MOIS agents in Germany and the Netherlands was not a fact-finding mission, but an attempt to exonerate itself and regain lost credibility. Minimum standards of professionalism and sincerity require that HRW speak to those who had protested against this report and those who personally knew HRW witnesses. It should have interviewed some of those 500 who had spent time in Mojahedin camps and who now live in Western countries; they wrote to HRW to declare their readiness to testify about the substance of the report and the HRW witnesses. It should have interviewed those who had visited Ashraf Camp. It should have talked to US commanders whose duty it was to protect Ashraf, in order to determine the truth; it should have accepted criticism in order to save its professional reputation. The 12 so-called witnesses merely told HRW in face-to-face meetings the same lies they had been coached to tell by the MOIS during the telephone interviews. For its part, HRW has tried to whitewash the contradictions in their testimonies. Does HRW believe that the public can be duped into believing that one lie plus another lie makes a truth? HRW would have done better to reveal in truth and account to the public about how and why it chose those 12 persons as witnesses.
13. A sincere fact-finding mission by HRW would have asked for a medical examination of the 12 who claimed to have been tortured and abused by the PMOI and would have sought medical certificates for the so-called "torture victims." This is standard procedure common in human rights investigations. It is, therefore, of concern and puzzling why HRW did not seek a medical certificate for someone who claimed to have been tortured in PMOI detention for many years?
14. There remain many procedural questions which HRW has not yet answered. HRW’s only source was the MOIS agents whom it interviewed on the phone and, later, in person. For this reason, HRW has not replied to the most important procedural question: Why did HRW not contact the PMOI while preparing this report? This is such a serious omission that whenever HRW spokesmen have commented on it, they have contradicted themselves. After HRW report was published, Radio Farda asked Joe Stork why HRW did not take up the PMOI invitation to visit its camps. "This is the very first time I’ve heard of such a thing," said Stork (Radio Farda, May 19, 2005). Just 10 days later, when Stork could no longer deny repeated PMOI invitations to visit its camps in Iraq, he said HRW chose not to go to Iraq because it was under Saddam Hussein’s rule (Radio Farda, May 29, 2005). It appears that Mr. Stork had forgotten that on October 6, 1994, HRW had requested of Mr. Massoud Rajavi, President of the National Council of Resistance, permission to visit, and Mr. Rajavi had granted permission the same month. Mr. Stork’s response to Lord Avebury who asked in a letter dated June 1, 2005, why HRW did not visit PMOI camps after the fall of the former government of Iraq, is even more ridiculous: he claimed that the US military did not approve of such a visit. This is a sheer lie, and to date HRW has not been able to present a document that would corroborate its claim. While HRW was busy preparing its disgraceful report, it had other operatives and researchers in Iraq who were investigating other issues. It could have easily used them to contact the PMOI. What is more, HRW fails to mention that since it was unable to reach the PMOI through the US military, why it did not contact NCRI offices in Paris or other countries which were easily accessible? In truth, based on reports the Iranian Resistance received from inside Iran, in the course of preparing this bogus report, HRW did its best to keep the report a secret so that the cover on this malicious scheme would not be blown.
15. In its five-page statement, HRW claims that the EP delegation’s "document disputed the testimonies and challenged the credibility of the witnesses interviewed by Human Rights Watch, saying, among other things, that their allegations were ‘widely believed to be orchestrated by Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence.’ Neither FOFI nor any of the other critics of the Human Rights Watch report have provided any credible evidence to support this charge." The author of the statement seems to have forgotten that it was HRW which levied undocumented charges against the PMOI and now, after nine months, it has failed to provide a single credible document to prove the truth of those allegations. Genuine human rights advocates would have welcomed any credible evidence by HRW. The fact is that HRW has simply failed to provide any. Its statement made no mention of a plethora of evidence, documents, testimonies and details that were provided in the EP delegation report and others which questioned HRW’s report. These documents include a letter by 500 of those who previously lived in PMOI bases, and they testify to contacts between the HRW witnesses and the MOIS.
16. Obviously, HRW is the only party that refuses to accept that its so-called witnesses were in fact agents of the MOIS. After all, its politically motivated report was meant to promote the clerical regime. Otherwise, HRW would have replied to a simple question: Four of its witnesses have had no contact with the PMOI for the past 14 or 15 years. The other eight acknowledge that they had left Iran in 2002 to come to Europe. Some have claimed to have escaped from the regime’s prisons. Has HRW investigated how these people managed to escape from Iran and come to Europe? None of the eight had legal travel documents. How could they have managed to travel to Europe? For example, an internal document on the MOIS, dated February 20, 2002, was published in Mojahed, issue number 597, dated August 5, 2002. It quoted Ramin Darami, an MOIS operative inside Iran as writing to his handler in the Ministry, Haj Saeed: "Dear brother Haj Saeed, I, Ramin Darami, son of Abdol-Amin, born in 1969, holding birth certificate no. 1561, issued in Abadan, declare my full readiness to go on an assignment as proposed by the Intelligence Ministry of the Islamic Republic of Iran to a European country to expose the Mojahedin even further….After going through legal procedures in Iraq, I entered Iran on January 21, 2002 through Khosravi region. I was then welcomed by the brothers and received highly…We spent one night in Qasr-e Shirin and after completing our legal procedures, we were sent to Marmar hotel in Tehran. We were welcomed and given a high-level reception while we were in Marmar hotel…My supervisor was Brother Mohammad Hossein Sobhani and I along with Ali Ghashqavi, Taleb Jalilian and Ali Ashrafi were in the same team. The brothers from the Intelligence Ministry used to come to us everyday and resolved any problems we had. During this period I spoke to Haj Mahmoud. I stayed in the hotel for ten days, and when I was transferred to Ahwaz, some of the guys including Mohammad Hossein Sobhani and Hamid-Reza (Barhoun) remained in the hotel in order to see their families in Tehran…I stayed in Ahvaz for two days until my family came to pick me up which took place in an interesting ceremony. During my stay in hotel Marmar your proposed plans were reviewed several times by bother Mohammad Hossein Sobhani with us and we were briefed on them." Has HRW carried out any investigation into this document, which was at its disposal?
Not surprisingly, when HRW attempts to lend a helping hand to a moribund regime, its witnesses are none other than Karim Haqi, an MOIS operative whom Dutch security services interrogated because of his contacts and receipt of money from the Intelligence Ministry; Habib Khorrami, another MOIS agent, convicted in a Dutch court for abducting a child; Ali Ghashqavi, who acknowledged to having been a member of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps’ intelligence unit and who personally took part in raping women prisoners, amputating limbs of detainees and administering the coup des grace to the executed victims; and Mohammad Hossein Sobhani, an MOIS team leader.
17. In the past 11 years, the PMOI has published thousands of pages of documents, evidence, and reports containing detailed facts, many of them in these agents’ own handwriting, in its Farsi and English language publications. HRW most certainly had access to these documents because it has referred to them on many occasions. Many of these documents these agents wrote were prepared at a time when they were not with the PMOI. HRW cannot claim they were written under pressure. Some of these documents, which have exposed the nature of these so-called witnesses and laid bare their extensive contacts with the MOIS, include:
– Letter by Mahmoud Massoudi to then United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, summer 2002.
– Implications of Humanitarian Activities for The Enjoyment of Human Rights, written statement submitted by International Educational Development, United Nations Economic and Social Council, Commission on Human Rights, Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities, Forty-seventh session, Agenda item 19, E/CN.4/Sub.2/1995/NGO/55, August 22, 1995.
– Letter by Jamshid Tafrishi, a veteran MOIS operative to Prof. Maurice Danby Copithorne, then UH Human Rights Commission’s Special Representative on the Situation of Human Rights in Iran, December 13, 2000.
– Affidavit by Jamshid Tafrishi submitted to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, September 2001.
– Statement by Iran-Payvand Association, on Dutch police interrogating Karim Haqi, February 1, 2000.
– Iran: State of Terror, by British Parliamentary Human Rights Group, June 1996.
– Annual report by the office for the Protection of Constitution, Germany, BfV, 1999 to the present.
– Annual report by the Dutch General Security and Intelligence Department, AIVD, 1999 to the present.
– Mojahed weekly, nos. 380, March 12, 1998, 590, June 25, 2002, 592, July 2, 2002 and 597, August 8, 2002.
18. Aside from flaws in methodology, HRW has not responded to any of the substantive issues raised in the EP delegation report and other reports in question. It has simply ignored them. Those reports had investigated every single allegation raised by HRW against the PMOI and found them false. Contrary to HRW’s February statement, neither the EP delegation investigations, nor those of the Multi-National Force-Iraq, the MP Brigade Commander, and other impartial bodies, deal exclusively with the period after the war in Iraq. Most of them deal with the very period HRW has addressed.
19. In the five-page statement, HRW was compelled to acknowledge serious errors in its May 2005 report. These admissions are designed to whitewash the many contradictions the EP delegation report had highlighted. In May 2005, HRW reported Mohammad Hossein Sobhani’s claim that he had been kept in solitary confinement for eight-and-a -half years. In the February 2006 statement, HRW changed that allegation to five-and-a-half years in detention. It wrote, "In February 1998 the MKO leadership offered to transfer him to a better location and then to facilitate his transfer to Europe, where his daughter was living. Subsequently, the MKO moved Sobhani to another MKO camp near Baghdad, called Camp Parsian. He said he stayed there until June 1999, under circumstances that he described as ‘house arrest.'” It is not clear according to what rationale the PMOI leadership should send someone who was kept in solitary confinement to a better location and then facilitate his transfer to Europe? It is also not clear why, if the PMOI were planning to transfer him to Europe, he had escaped.
20. In another acknowledgment of error, although the May 2005 HRW report stated that Sadeghinejad had witnessed "the death of another prisoner, Ghorbanali Torabi, after Torabi was returned from an interrogation session to a prison cell that he shared with Sadeghinejad," its February 2006 statement admits, "Sadeghinejad acknowledged that Torabi may have died of a heart attack." Any impartial observer could recognize the dramatic difference between these two assertions. In its May 2005 report, HRW passed definitive judgment that the PMOI had killed a dissident member under torture. In its February reply, it has acknowledged that he may have died of a heart attack. In another example, HRW report in May stressed that "Yasser Ezati managed to escape Camp Ashraf." Following the details about this case in the EP delegation report, including comments by Hassan Ezati, Yasser’s father, HRW wrote in its February 15, 2006 statement quoted Ezati as saying he had found "the opportunity to leave" Ashraf. It is puzzling that HRW should fail to recognize the difference between escaping and leaving. Unfortunately, HRW still lacks the honesty to report that before leaving Ashraf, Yasser’s father had given him US$400 and 100,000 Iraqi dinars. Such blatant contradictions demonstrate the disgraceful nature of HRW’s flawed methodology and its political agenda. In a court of law, upon hearing such obvious contradictions, any judge and jury would immediately and without a shadow of doubt dismiss these allegations and condemn the witnesses for perjury.
The Foreign Affairs Committee of the National Council of Resistance of Iran calls on all conscientious individuals, human rights advocates, and all democratic and freedom-loving forces across the world, especially in Europe and United States, to pass judgment on the HRW report and its biased approach to Iran and the Iranian Mojahedin. At a time when the atrocities of the clerical regime inside Iran, its unrelenting sponsorship of terrorism, and its campaign to export Islamic fundamentalism, as well as its efforts to acquire nuclear weapons, have taken on greater dimensions, manipulating human rights to advance a particular political agenda has no purpose other than to aid and abet the Iranian regime in its crimes against the Iranian people and in its threat to peace and security in the region and the world.
Foreign Affairs Committee of the National Council of Resistance of Iran
February 20, 2006