The four-and-a-half-year-long process of relocating members of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI or MEK) to countries of safety was successfully completed on September 9, 2016 when the last 280 Camp Liberty residents left Iraq for Albania.
The achievement is not without cost, however. The residents left Iraq dispossessed of both personal and collective property, and have had to met the costs of resettlement themselves.
The Iranian regime had devoted huge resources to achieving the MEK’s surrender, arrest or annihilation so the resettlement of residents of Liberty to European countries is a huge victory for the group and its supporters. Already under domestic and international pressure for the 1988 massacre of political prisoners, this success represents another blow for the embattled regime.
Besieged for eight years, the residents were also subjected to constant harassment as well as a range of attacks by the regime’s proxies which left 177 dead and many injured. The regime also used fake arrest warrants to try to prevent the departures and issued red notices to Interpol to harass them further once in Europe.
The National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) celebrated the unstinting work of its President-elect, Maryam Rajavi, as well as those of distinguished American, European and Arab figures, particularly in Congress and in European parliaments, in safeguarding Liberty’s residents.