December 21, 2018
Beginning in 2013, more than 3,000 members of the Mojahedin-e Khalq were evacuated from Iraq and re-settled in Albania, where little has been heard of them. Now, a British supporter has visited them and reports they are building a brand new encampment they are calling Camp Ashraf 3.
The new compound is being constructed near the town of Manez in the Albanian province of Durres, about 22 kilometers (14 miles) from the capital of Tirana.
The visiting supporter is Struan Stevenson, a former member of the European Parliament from Scotland, who visited Albania along with some current members of the European Parliament. Stevenson wrote up a report of his visit that was carried by United Press International.
Stevenson said the Moja-hedin had been located in the city of Tirana for four years, but was forced to leave when UN funding ran out in September 2017.
He said the group bought some farmland near Manez and began the hurried construction of living accommodations. He said they hired more than 600 local Albanians, training them in building and construction skills.
The new compound is fenced in with security at the main entrance “to deter assassination attempts,” Stevenson writes. He denies the Mojahedin members are compelled to stay in the camp. They “are free to come and go as they please. Hundreds of them leave the compound daily on shopping and recreation trips.”
He said more than 700 Iranian families have visited their relatives in Ashraf 3, something they couldn’t do when they were in Iraq. Stevenson said journalists, politicians, lawyers and trades people are daily visitors.
“In only 12 months, these hard-working and resilient freedom fighters have constructed a small city, with shops, clinics, sports facilities, kitchens, bakeries, dormitory blocks, meeting halls, offices and studios. A comprehensive report of this visit will be published soon,” Stevenson said.
He decried as mere propaganda Iranian news reports that Ashraf 3 is a prison, where no one can leave without permission from the leadership. The Islamic Republic claims that “defectors are tortured and even murdered. It is an absurdity,” Stevenson wrote.
He said, “In a deceitful story that they repeat endlessly, they claim that a young woman, 38-year-old Somayeh Moham-madi, is being held captive against her will…. Together with2 the [EU] delegation, I met Somayeh on my visit to Ashraf 3. She was alone and unaccompanied by the ‘minders’ that her father claims always accompany her.
“She said that sadly she had disowned her father many years ago after he became a willing agent [of Iranian intelligence]. She told us that her father, who is a plumber in Canada, recently spent four months in Albania, staying in the luxury Plaza Hotel in Tirana, clearly paid for by the mullahs. She confirmed that she is free to come and go from Ashraf 3 whenever she wishes and that she could leave permanently if she wanted to. However, she said she is a proud and committed member of the MEK, who, unlike her father, has devoted her life to seeking freedom for the people of Iran.”
