Zhina (Zeinab) Hosseinnejad, a former child soldier of the MEK who spent her childhood and youth in the organization. Although she is now a staunch opponent of the Islamic Republic, she tries to inform Iranian public opinion about the nature of the destructive MEK cult by occasionally publishing accounts of her experience as a member of the group.

Zhina is one of the former child soldiers of the MEK who testified against the MEK in the Hamburg court in Amin Gol Maryami’s case. She was also interviewed by some journalists and filmmakers in Europe. This is her account on gender separation inside the MEK camps that she has recently published on the Facebook in Persian:
In 1995, I was about seventeen years old when I was discharged from the reception unit at Camp Ashraf and transferred to army units. At that time, army divisions and centers were mixed, only the workrooms, dormitories, sports, the distance between dining tables, and the rows of chairs in classrooms and meetings were gender-segregated.
After a while, perhaps only a few months, all the women were called to the Badi Zadeh camp near Baghdad for an important meeting. The meeting was held by one of the high-ranking officials named Nasrin (Mahvash Sepehri). She told everyone: “A woman has betrayed the ideological revolution. She had an affair with a man. They were seen behind a car. She was arrested and she will be soon punished.”

Then she lectured for hours and days against male-female relationships. And she made all the women write down their thoughts and confess that if they even thought about someone in their minds; this was considered a form of betrayal and they had to confess.
Out of curiosity, I was looking for someone who was absent and probably the same absentee was under punishment. When I noticed the absence of a woman, I secretly asked my comrades and some of them confirmed that it was her. She had been missing for a long time. Even when the meetings were over and we returned to Camp Ashraf, she was not there. She was probably a prisoner.

Gender segregation laws

When we returned, they imposed new regulations called “Revolutionary Laws,” such as the followings:
– Women were prohibited from leaving the center alone
– Talking to men alone was prohibited
– Men and women were prohibited from riding in the same car
– Men were prohibited from smoking in front of women
– Laughing loudly and joking was prohibited
Meetings between men and women who were relatives and acquaintances were also considered anti-value and had to be determined from higher ranks based on necessities, such as illness, etc. I may have forgotten some other rules.

Walls raised between men and women of Ashraf

After a while, about a few months later, we were called again to a larger meeting, in which the center and the special women’s division were announced to everyone as “a progress” and a celebration was held in this regard.
After that, separate centers and headquarters for women were established, which were a long desert distance from the men. Only a few older women who were officials and their offices remained in the men’s centers. No young women were allowed to stay in the men’s headquarters.

From then on, we could only see men from a distance once or twice a year, during major ceremonies such as Nowruz and Eid al-Fitr. During meetings known as “To’meh”, anyone who kept even a memento of their former lover or fiancé, or had the slightest emotional relationship with another woman, was severely tried. The description of those days needs too many details.

After that, all the men of Ashraf were transferred to border camps, such as Basra in southern Iraq, Kut and Jalula, etc., except for a few sick old men and a few elderly repairmen. All the protection of the great Ashraf was the responsibility of women. No birds flew and the silence of the desert was noisy.

We did not see a single man for a long time. No longer could a girl secretly make eye contact with her lover from a distance even once a year during ceremonies– to be filled with energy from that. Therefore, emotional relationships between women with each other became many, and trials and forced separations even between some women became intense.

In 2003, after the end of the American invasion to Iraq and the fall of Saddam, the men returned tired and wounded from the border camps, some had been killed, some had escaped and surrendered to American camps. Weapons and tanks were surrendered to them in the siege of the American army. Therefore, from now on, artistic, political and cultural ceremonies increased.

Some women, who were now older and more specialized, were transferred to the headquarters and were in the same headquarters with the men. Again, a few secret relationships between men and women occurred, which made the authorities regret very much. All female members were sent to women’s units again.

One of the most famous trials of that time was the trial of “Marjan Akbarian”, which led to her heartbreaking suicide. I previously published her photo in the Ashraf guidance boarding school when we were little.

Rebellion and madness

Sometimes a woman would rebel or go crazy, for example, she would run away from the women’s quarters at night with a backpack and go to the men’s quarters, take off her hijab and shout: “Catch me if you can!”
Or a woman who had fallen in love with another woman or had a forbidden friendship and emotional relationship. They were tried and one of them was dragged on the ground befire the eyes of everyone, and she would shout: “Finally, one day the whole of Ashraf will rebel against you.”

The leaders told members that they were psychotic. I remember three women in particular whose faces were unusually puffy and who had become strangely quiet and calm, and were not as rebellious as before. Later I found out that they were being injected with drugs.

Secret trials were also held in a cell, where people were imprisoned and forced to confess and repent. And if someone tried to escape, they were severely beaten. By the time we reached Camp Liberty next to Baghdad airport, although the imprisonment and beatings had decreased due to the UN’s visit to the camp. But for example, there was a woman who was not allowed to leave the women’s headquarters and was assigned to guard shifts, and even with a visa and under the supervision of other women, she was not allowed to leave, except in a medical emergency with a senior commander.

I inquired about this during those days and found out that she was secretly writing letters to a man among the bricks and blocks of the camp. When we arrived in Albania, along with other more serious criticisms and protests, I asked one of the officials about her, whether writing letters was a sufficient reason to imprison her in the headquarters? She replied: “Did you forget Camp Ashraf, what worse trials such betrayals had? We only gave her such a lenient trial because of the UN visit.” Another official replied to me: “If she had become pregnant, who would have responded? It starts with a letter and ends with pregnancy, and we had an example.”

I was shocked by this answer. I had never heard of it. Even the word “pregnancy” was taboo, and no one was allowed to use this word, let alone have it happen in her body. I had no other answer or question. Because my brain was not yet ready for words. My lips fell silent… and there I learned for the first time that one of the women who had been tried in Ashraf for a serious love affair was pregnant. She committed suicide after the trial.