Talk:Camp Ashraf

RFC: section created

Should this article have a section on alleged sexual abuses (see text below the text in blue), or is a mention in the article enough? Ypatch (talk) 07:14, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

Journalist Jason Rezaeian remarked in his detailing the connections between John Bolton and the MEK that "the few who were able to escape" were "cut off from their loved ones, forced into arranged marriages, brainwashed, sexually abused, and tortured." Members who defected from the MEK and some experts say that these Mao-style self-criticism sessions are intended to enforce control over sex and marriage in the organization as a total institution. Batoul Soltani, one of three women to claim to have escaped from Ashraf Camp, alleged that Massoud Rajavi sexually assaulted her multiple times over the span of a number of years. However, the MEK and Col. Leo McCloskey (former JIATF commander at Camp Ashraf) have denied these claims saying they are part of a misinformation campaign by the Iranian regime. Zahra Moini, another former female member who served as a bodyguard for Maryam Rajavi said that women were disappeared if they refused to "marry" Massoud. She also accused Maryam of being complicit in this practice. Fereshteh Hedayati, another defector, says that she avoided being "sexually abused", though her subsequent allegations involve her suffering physical and psychological torture which included a forced hysterectomy. Ypatch (talk) 07:14, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

• No, the article already has the sexual allegations summarised. Per WP:SOAPBOX ("Scandal mongering, promoting things "heard through the grapevine" or gossiping.") and per WP:ADVOCACY ("Wikipedia is first and foremost an encyclopedia which aims to create a breadth of high-quality, neutral, verifiable articles and to become a serious, respected reference work"). We use Wikipedia to summarise facts, not expand allegations. The text can be summarised as "Some people that defected from the MEK have made allegations of sexual assault. However, the MEK and Col. Leo McCloskey (former JIATF commander at Camp Ashraf) have denied these claims saying they are part of a misinformation campaign by the Iranian regime.", and that is already in the article. I’m open to further tweaking the text but there is no reason to expand this in to a section. Ypatch (talk) 07:14, 18 January 2022 (UTC)
  • Your proposed summary is WP:FALSEBALANCE. You give equal (actually more) weight to MEK's denial of abuse than the allegations of abuse, even though the allegations of abuse are covered far more frequently in RS than MEK's denial. Your summary is also misleading when you say "Some people that defected from the MEK". These allegations are not just made by MEK defectors, but also scholarly sources, government commissioned reports and journalists.VR _talk 20:46, 27 January 2022 (UTC)
  • To further highlight the policy violation, lets consider the sources for your 2nd sentence "However, the MEK and Col. Leo McCloskey (former JIATF commander at Camp Ashraf) have denied these claims saying they are part of a misinformation campaign by the Iranian regime". The first is this report. Who is the author? And where does it say that human rights abuses didn't take place at Camp Ashraf? Since it was published in 2012, it can't possibly be denying allegations made by The Guardian in 2018[5]. This is a WP:V violation. The second source[6] is publication by "International Committee in Search of Justice". The group is lead by Alejo Vidal-Quadras, who was a lobbyist for the MEK and whose party was partially funded the MEK.[7] How on earth is that a WP:RS? VR _talk 21:26, 27 January 2022 (UTC)
• @Ypatch:; Above, you were told by two users that this text has been in the article for 2.5 years and that the user who added the content was not banned at that time. The fact is that the removal of this longstanding text requires building consensus. But you deleted this twice without reaching a consensus. This RFC is the same type of RFC that tries to railroad the other side. My suggestion is to go back to what was 2.5 years ago in the article and create an RFC to delete it. Otherwise, your behavior can be reported to arbcom. Ali Ahwazi (talk) 08:57, 21 January 2022 (UTC)
• No. This sort of thrashing content, coming from the group's participants, deserve a mention at most, not a whole section. Bahar1397 (talk) 11:17, 21 January 2022 (UTC)
  • If you see below, these allegations come from reputable newspapers and scholarly sources which are WP:RS.VR _talk 20:46, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

If you see the allegations themselves, they come from MEK members and previous members, not from experts or academia. Like Ypatch already said: "We use Wikipedia to summarise facts, not expand allegations". Bahar1397 (talk) 20:21, 9 February 2022 (UTC)

• @Ypatch: what is your brief and neutral statement? At over 3,600 bytes, the statement above (from the {{rfc}} tag to the next timestamp) is far too long for Legobot (talk · contribs) to handle, and so it is not being shown correctly at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Politics, government, and law. The RfC may also not be publicised through WP:FRS until a shorter statement is provided. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:14, 24 January 2022 (UTC)

  @Redrose64: the dispute has been about whether this content (highlighted in blue) should be in the article. What other way can the RFC be laid out correctly while showing the content in dispute? Ypatch (talk) 05:38, 26 January 2022 (UTC)

  We have guidance at WP:RFCBRIEF for various reasons. One of them is that this is all the publicity that Legobot will provide until a much shorter statement is provided. Look at the others on that page: none of them have an excessive amount of text and none have references - some of them are no more than one sentence. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 23:52, 26 January 2022 (UTC)

  That fixes it, thanks. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 20:59, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

• Human rights abuses (including sexual assaults) at Camp Ashraf by MEK must be covered per WP:DUE. A 2009 RAND report (prepared for the US government) alleged that MEK operated a cult and abused human rights at Camp Ashraf. A 2005 report by Human Rights Watch, who interviewed former residents at Camp Ashraf, also made allegations of human rights violations by MEK there. These allegations have also been made independently by journalists like Elizabeth Rubin and Patrick Kingsley (journalist) who either visited the camp themselves or interviewed officials from it. These allegations have been quoted in many RS: Associated Press[8], ABC News[9], BBC News[10], The Guardian[11], SBS World News[12], Financial Times[13], France24[14], Christian Science Monitor[15], NBC News[16], Foreign Policy[17], Washington Post[18]. Below I have proposed summarizing the content in just 5 sentences (3.7% of the entire article's current size). WP:WEIGHT requires "all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in the published, reliable sources." Given the large number of sources citing these allegations, 3.7% is justified. The article covers in excruciating detail abuses by Iraqi govt, so not giving space for abuses by MEK is violation of WP:UNDUE? VR _talk 20:46, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

What is wrong with the summary of these allegations that's already in the article? NMasiha (talk) 15:21, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

I have explained this 3 times on this talk page already. For the 4th time, the text added by TheDreamBoat/Ypatch/Bahar violates several policies: it misrepresents the allegations made (WP:V), it relies on unreliable sources to rebut the allegations (WP:RS), it gives equal weight to allegations and counter allegations even though the former is much more frequent in RS (WP:DUE), and it is suppresses even the most basic details of the allegations.VR _talk 02:18, 25 February 2022 (UTC)

• Yes, with modifications. The content is due, even if it can be improved. I'd suggest using VR's proposal below, and improve from there if needed. MarioGom (talk) 18:04, 31 January 2022 (UTC)
• No. VR's proposal uses opinion pieces and repeats sources to bulk up POVish material, so I suggest using Bahar1397's proposal as a start, and develop from then onwards. Starting small is better idea than starting big and then trying to shorten. NMasiha (talk) 21:57, 20 February 2022 (UTC)

You do know its rather common for a wikipedia article to cite a source more than once, right? And my proposal takes up just 3.7% of the article, how on earth is that bulky? VR _talk 02:18, 25 February 2022 (UTC)

• Yes to Vice Regent's proposal. This proposal provides a complete but concise set of outstanding theories in authoritative sources. Ali Ahwazi (talk) 11:27, 19 March 2022 (UTC)
• No because the allegations are coming from MEK defectors. A sentence or two are enough for this kind of content (something like Bahar1397's proposal). Alex-h (talk) 14:14, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

VR's proposal

To cover these MEK's alleged human rights abuses and sexual abuses, I propose the following summary:

A 2009 US-government commissioned report, based on interviews within Camp Ashraf, stated that the MEK had characteristics of a "cult" and had controlled its members (including sexual control), confiscated their assets, subjected them to forced labour, sleep deprivation and physical abuse, and limited their ability to leave. Similar allegations were made by Human Rights Watch (based on interviews with former members), Elizabeth Rubin (who visited Camp Ashraf in 2003), and Jason Rezaian. The MEK rejects these claims as Iranian propaganda.

The Guardian interviewed women who escaped from Camp Ashraf who alleged being coerced into sexual relationships by Masoud Rajavi, sometimes with Maryam Rajavi complicit in these sexual assaults. They also alleged being forced to undergo hysterectomies at Camp Ashraf hospital.

VR _talk 20:46, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

References

There are several problems with VR's proposal. Some sources are repeated, some up to 4 times, which is really unnecessary since we are summarizing. VR is using opinion pieces like this article [19], and there are many opposing opinion pieces, like this one for example [20]:

"In October 2017, the International Committee in Search of Justice (ISJ) published a detailed report about these characters, including Batoul Soltani, who left Camp Ashraf in December 2006 and went to the U.S. forces stationed in TIPF: During her time in TIPF, she was gradually recruited by the Iranian intelligence ministry (MOIS). Soltani was finally transferred from Iraq to Iran on 14 Jan 2008 under International Red Cross supervision. Astonishingly, only three weeks later, she was able to get an Iranian passport and entered Baghdad airport on 10 Feb. 2008. (A copy of her passport has been posted online.) Former U.S. Colonel Leo McCloskey, who was the JIATF Commander at Camp Ashraf in 2008, later testified about Soltani’s connection with Iran’s terrorist Quds force (a branch of Islamic Revolutionary Guards – IRGC),” the ISJ report wrote. McCloskey has also exposed other Intelligence Ministry operatives involved in the demonization campaign against the MEK and quoted by Merat in his piece. The preposterous statements by the female agents of the regime whom Merat interviewed reflect the Iranian regime’s rage at the role of MEK women in the struggle. The women whom I have met in Camp Ashraf in Iraq, Albania, France, Belgium, Germany and many other countries, and the hundreds at various ranks within the Resistance to whom I have privately spoken, are remarkable embodiments of courage, patriotism and responsibility. In my adult life, as a professor, as a party leader and as the vice president of the European Parliament, I have never seen such a collection of women with such cohesiveness and dignity."

Then the Rubin and Human Rights Watch articles don't seem to be saying what VR is insinuating. The sources that are reliable say previous MEK members allege mistreatment. And then there are some counter-views that are not considered in VR’s proposal, for example:

"In addition to extensive research, a delegation of MEPs visited Camp Ashraf in Iraq, held face-to-face private interviews with PMOI members and officials. It also conducted impromptu inspections of the sites of alleged abuses. We found the allegations contained in HRW report unfounded and devoid of any truth. We also came to the conclusion that HRW report was procedurally flawed and substantively inaccurate. Moreover, in the course of our study we became aware of an elaborate and complex misinformation campaign by Iranʹs Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS), against PMOI."

"the regime’s focus on advancing terror plots as well as a massive disinformation campaign against the MEK in general, and MEK members residing in Albania in particular, have grown in almost direct proportion. Virtually identical, one-sided stories and reports in MSNBC, UK Channel 4 News, The Independent, Al Jazeera English, and The Guardian have become a predictable staple with newsrooms advancing reporting that is often, one-sided, full of unsubstantiated claims, and strikingly similar to claims espoused by the regime itself. The same individuals are quoted in each of the articles and questionable evidence that demonstrates a clearly pro-regime bias is used to source the so-called facts."

"In many cases I personally led inspection teams on unannounced visits to the MEK facilities where the alleged abuses were reported to occur. At no time over the 12 month period did we ever discover any credible evidence supporting the allegations raised in your recent report." "Each report of torture, kidnapping and psychological depravation turned out to be unsubstantiated"

I cannot access this book by Yonah Alexander, but in the People's Mojahedin of Iran article it is used for this content:

"Yonah Alexander has stated that Ministry of Intelligence (MOIS) agents have conducted "intelligence gathering, disinformation, and subversive operations against individual regime opponents and opposition governments. [...] According to European intelligence and security services, current and former MEK members, and other dissidents, these intelligence networks shadow, harass, threaten, and ultimately, attempt to lure opposition figures and their families back to Iran for prosecution". According to him, Human Rights Watch was deceived when its 2005 report that accused the MEK of human rights abuses was based on testimonies of former MEK members working for Iran's Ministry of Intelligence."

Then there are sources like this here [21] that speak of organized groups “featuring a few MEK defectors” run by the Islamic Republic government.

So this proposal misses several marks. I will provide a new proposal to hopefully balance and summarize these points better. Bahar1397 (talk) 22:00, 11 February 2022 (UTC)

You mentioned several sources, and they all have problems. In order:

• The first source you cite[22] is The Daily Caller which is deprecated source (see WP:RSP).
• The second source[23] shows no evidence of reliability, and was authored by politicians, one of whom (Alejo Vidal-Quadras Roca) has financial ties to the MEK.
• The third source[24] says nothing about Camp Ashraf, but asserts that The Guardian is not a reliable source. That's a ridiculous claim and we can take this to WP:RSN if you again assert that The Guardian is not a reliable source.
• The "Boumedra, Tahar" source is published by "New Generation Publishing", which states on its website that it does "self-publishing"[25]. Obviously, not a reliable source either.
• Finally, you cite something that you admit you haven't read. Please only cite sources you have actually read.VR _talk 04:11, 12 February 2022 (UTC)

References

Bahar1397's proposal

In order to sum up this controversial content neutrally, I propose the following summary:

Some people that defected from the MEK have made allegations of sexual assault, while other sources have denied or dismissed such allegations as part of a misinformation campaign by the Iranian regime.

Bahar1397 (talk) 17:57, 18 February 2022 (UTC)

This is almost the same text inserted by TheDreamBoat[26] and Ypatch, and thus has the same problems that have been pointed out. Once again...

• The sources for "while other sources have denied or dismissed such allegations as part of a misinformation campaign by the Iranian regime" are either unreliable or cherrypicked. ISJ is unreliable; Boumedra's book was published by New Generation Publishing - a self-publishing company. The "Camp Ashraf: Iraqi Obligations and State Department Accountability" seems like testimonies, hence not a WP:SECONDARY source. And who is the author? Without that we can't ascertain reliability. The HRW source you have cherrypicked, it actually says: "The MKO has similarly alleged that Human Rights Watch’s witnesses, and dissident former members generally, are in fact agents of Iranian intelligence. Neither FOFI nor any of the other critics of the Human Rights Watch report have provided any credible evidence to support this charge."
• "Some people that defected from the MEK have made allegations of sexual assault" is also problematic. The allegations are not just coming from MEK defectors, but journalists, scholarly sources, and independent investigations done by HRW and RAND corporation. Secondly, they have alleged a lot more than sexual assault (all of this is detailed in my proposal above).
• Then there is the issue of WP:FALSEBALANCE. Above I provided 11 reliable WP:SECONDARY sources that covered the alleged human rights abuses at Camp Ashraf. Very few RS say these allegations are "part of a misinformation campaign by the Iranian regime". Yet your proposal gives equal weight to both.
• Finally, there's the issue of minimizing MEK abuses at Camp Ashraf even though post-2003 Iraqi abuses are covered in great detail. This is also a violation of WP:WEIGHT. Above I proposed giving MEK abuses just 3.7% of space in the article - given the sheer amount of coverage these allegations received, 3.7% seems justified.VR _talk 03:35, 19 February 2022 (UTC)

• This is not “almost the same text”. I removed McCloskey’s name, which you objected to a few times.
• I was going to ask at RSN if ISJ is in fact unreliable, but saw this was already said to be reliable there [27]. Your objection to "Camp Ashraf: Iraqi Obligations and State Department Accountability" seems to be WP:IDONTLIKEIT. The HRW source also says The FOFI 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.” and so I don't see anything wrong with presenting both sides.
• The allegations are coming primarily from MEK participants, not journalists. If “sexual allegation” does not cover the accusations, then maybe “mistreatment allegations” or “abuse allegations” are better terms. I am open to making that change.
• I have already analyzed what you call “11 reliable WP:SECONDARY sources” and explained the problems with some of them[28].
• Finally, there are many more sources covering the 2009, 2011, and 2013 attacks on camp Ashraf. These are not abuse allegations by some MEK participants but verified attacks by Iraq and Iranian regime soldiers on the camp. Very different content. But if you think those attacks should be summarized then make a proposal to summarize them. Bahar1397 (talk) 17:43, 19 February 2022 (UTC)

• An uninvolved user[29] agreed that ISJ source is not reliable.
• You didn't answer my question: who is the author of "Camp Ashraf: Iraqi Obligations and State Department Accountability"? You seem to think it is a book, when clearly its not, its just an appendix of documents.
  • Regarding HRW, you did not present both sides. You cherrypicked that source to just present one side, omitting the fact that HRW clearly says that the counter-allegations were without substance.
• You claimed that the 11 reliable secondary sources were "repeated up to 4 times". Which of the 11 sources did I repeat?
• Given that the article is no where near violating WP:SIZE guidelines, your attempt to remove just a couple of sentences of content that you don't like comes across as a violation of WP:NOTCENSORED. VR _talk 02:27, 25 February 2022 (UTC)

References