NCRI – Circa TV reported how musicians at Camp Liberty, home to unarmed members of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI or MEK) in Iraq, responded to attacks which killed their comrades.
Elizabeth Hagedorn for Circa said on Sunday, August 14, that last October “an Iran-backed Shia militia took credit for a rocket attack that killed over 20 Camp Liberty residents. Three days later, a group of musicians calling themselves “Music Ashraf” responded with a music video they wrote, performed and produced.”
“The moment I realized how horrific the missile barrage was and how many of my friends had been killed, I conceived the idea of writing and performing this song,” Rouzbeh Emadzadeh, lead singer, remembered.
Camp Ashraf, where the PMOI (MEK) had been based before moving to Camp Liberty in Baghdad, had been attacked previously, with loss of life, on July 28-29, 2009 and on April 8 2011. Having got out of the bunker after the October 2015 bombardment, Rouzbeh went to the trailer where he worked to find it full of dust but with a working laptop, Circa reported.
With other musicians, who had had exactly the same reaction, Rouzbeh worked for 23 hours non-stop to create “Day of Reckoning.” Deciding to perform and record the song in the ruins left by the missiles, Rouzbeh recalled that, as the musicians began, they were cheered by others searching the wreckage for their belongings.
Rouzbeh told Circa that life at Camp Liberty was difficult, not least because, “Those who are supposed to protect us, the Iraqi security forces, are singularly focused on eliminating us.”
The Iraqi security services prevent fuel, vital for all power in the Camp and thus for survival in 110 degree Fahrenheit heat, from entering the camp, the report said. “They also impede our access to medical treatment and bring agents of the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence and Security to the gates to threaten us,” Rouzbeh said. “And, of course, the threat of another missile attack lingers, as was the case in July 2016 when another 50 missiles hit Liberty,” he continued.
The residents at Camp Liberty had survived “so far” because of international support, “especially in Congress,” Rouzbeh said. The MEK and Maryam Rajavi, President-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), had worked hard on their behalf to create that support, he pointed out.
“Harassment continues,” he said, but that was the price the MEK was willing to pay to bring freedom to Iran. “This regime, like other totalitarian regimes which oppress their own people, is doomed,” Rouzbeh declared. “I am confident that all the sacrifice has not been in vain.”
