Today, families are the closest icons of the free world to the hostages kept in Camp Liberty. On the other side, the authorities of the MKO know well that family is the biggest obstacle in the way to keep their absolute control over members. Therefore, the group propaganda works hard to demonize family for members but the warmness of the hand that succeeded to take the hand of a Liberty prisoner through the gap in the curtain will never leave his mind…
The fifth trip of families of members of the Mujahedin Khalq Organization (the MKO/the Cult of Rajavi) to Camp Liberty near Baghdad, Iraq, ended with a dramatic clash between the families and a few of residents of the camp who were seemingly guarding the camp. At the first place, the alleged guards of Liberty countered the families’ kind and fair treatment and their offer of candies by swearing and intimidating. However, families kept cool and tried to offer sympathy to them for they were aware that cult members do not act based on their own logic, they just repeat what they have been indoctrinated for years.
When one of the family members of a Liberty resident tries to squeeze his hand through a hole in the curtain to take the hand of her brother’s comrade, the cult members get so terrified that they cannot control their vehement reaction. Although their faces are covered with masks or scarves, panic is evidently seen in their behavior.
Reasonably, a dozen of men and women in normal clothes of normal citizens with no weapons, behind a wooden gate secured by Iraqi police do not sound dangerous but the members of the Cult of Rajavi get really nervous and confused when they find themselves face to face to the people behind the torn curtains. Their anxiety comes from their fear of the outside world.
Having been isolated from the free life, fed by the huge propaganda of the cult that makes efforts to label families as agents of the Iranian Intelligence ministry, residents of camp liberty may have had a normal reaction to the collapsed wall that had separated them from the families –in their minds framed as agents of the Iranian Intelligence!
Members of the Cult of Rajavi are manipulated to maintain loyalty and obedience to the cult leaders Massoud and Maryam Rajavi. They found themselves threatened by the slightest ‘negative’ thought, word or deed. They fear thinking independently, the outside world, the illusory enemies and eventually they fear leaving the group.
These fears have been created by the MKO leaders through many years of mind control under a very destructive methodology. The methodology teaches the members to fear the outside world. This is used to deliberately scare members in order to gain their attention and make them susceptible to mind control. Families are forbidden to contact because they cause a crack in the huge wall that Massoud Rajavi has built around the minds of his members for over three decades.
Families who picket outside the doors of liberty have accurately realized that in order to help their loved ones leave the cult they should break the news to the camp. Families try to tell them the truth of the free world crying that many other members of the MKO have previously left the group and they are living a normal life in the free world now. They name a list of former members loudly. They give out some photos of the defectors of the MKO –although the guards of the group tear the photos mulishly and throw them back. Mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters of Liberty residents call their names assuring them that no danger threatens them outside the cult of Rajavi.
Actually, members of the MKO cult need assistance from the outside world. Today, families are the closest icons of the free world to the hostages kept in Camp Liberty. On the other side, the authorities of the MKO know well that family is the biggest obstacle in the way to keep their absolute control over members. Therefore, the group propaganda works hard to demonize family for members but the warmness of the hand that succeeded to take the hand of a Liberty prisoner through the gap in the curtain will never leave his mind…
By Mazda Parsi
The fifth series of families this year arrived in Iraq on Saturday and today was their third visit to Camp Liberty. On each day they have taken sweets to offer the residents as a friendly gesture. They have tried to talk with the residents to explain why they are there.
the families only demand is to have a visit with their loved ones inside the Camp Liberty. the MKO leaders however bar their visit.
Iraj Mesdaghi ; author of "Neither Living Nor Death" and the internal critic of the Mujahedin e- Khalq 
Organization who has several times criticized by the group for exposing Massoud Rajavi as the group leader published an interview with a former SAVAK(Pahlavi regime’s security and intelligence organization) officer.
The interview was basically about the arrest and killing of “Hamid Ashraf” ; a leader of Feda’yan Khalq ( martyrs for the masses) by SAVAK. During the interview the former SAVAK officer; Parvis Motamed declares that Massoud Rajavi worked with them against the founding members.
Parvis Motamed said:” …I took Massoud Rajavi to show me the addresses. He disclosed the address of Mohamamd Hanifnejad and Mohammad Hayati [ who lives in Liberty Camp].I can remember the exact color of the home door . I was involved in the arrest of Hanifnejad. Such cooperations along with SAVAK authorities’ attempts led to reduce of Rajavi’s punishment [death penalty] ..”
Documentary evidences has been published on the Rajavi’s cooperation with SAVAK in detecting the activities of a number of MEK members. The evidences include handwritten notes and sketches by Massoud Rajavi identifying the whereabouts of other members such as Mohammad Hanifnejad. The evidences also include the praise letter of SAVAK official for Massoud Rajavi’ cooperating with them as a prisoner.
++ The fifth series of families this year arrived in Iraq on Saturday and today was their third visit to Camp Liberty. On each day they have taken sweets to offer the residents as a friendly gesture. They have tried to talk with the residents to explain why they are there. Inside the camp, the MEK have positioned around fifteen freshly radicalised members – most with their faces hidden – primed to throw stones and viciously swear at the families outside. The families don’t understand cult mentality and can’t fathom the strange and unproductive behaviour of the small band in front of them. These families have been able to penetrate past the concrete crash barriers in their attempt to make contact with their loved ones. In response, the MEK have now erected fabric barriers, with banners proclaiming what translates as Death to ‘that bit of the Iranian constitution which mentions the Velayat-e Faghi’! One mother said, “I passed one of them a picture of myself and my family and asked him to take it to my son. He tore it up! But then immediately started taking pictures of me with his own camera. Why? What was that for?” Others are bewildered why the MEK place fabric barriers in front of themselves even though their faces are hidden, but they then bring ladders to stand above the barrier to film the families. Again, why? Even the soldiers and police who are posted at the camp don’t get it. In films taken at the scene, we can see a look of amusement mingled with contempt for the MEK on their faces. These are people who are supposedly going to ‘topple the Iranian regime’ but who can’t even deal with the families.
++ The families at Camp Liberty say they are concerned because they know there are around two thousand people living in the camp, but they are all hidden and it is not clear whether they are hiding themselves, or are forced to keep away. They have written to Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi asking him to help them get visits with their loved ones. Around 80 former MEK members have also contacted the Iraqi PM to make the same request. The families are very worried about the welfare of the residents, particularly about their security – only kilometres to the north lies Falujah where Iraqi security forces are fighting to take back the city from ISIS mercenaries.
++ This week, eighty more Camp Liberty residents have been transferred, in four groups of twenty, to Albania. Their names have been published by Nejat Society to inform their estranged families.
++ There has been much Farsi commentary about the case of Behzad Alishahi. He was acquitted of false charges and Rajavi has been left out in the cold again, unable to achieve the petty criminal activities he tried for. Alishahi published a note thanking everyone for their support over all this time. He said that ‘Although I will pursue Rajavi and the lobbyists who created falsifications for money, that is not the main issue. It’s not about me but about criminality in the Iranian community which should be stopped. As the MEK have no place among Iranians in Iran, and as the Iraqis are also trying to expel them from Iraq, we now have to put an end to Rajavi’s criminal activities in the West, and to expose those lobbyists who misuse their names and positions for his dirty money.’
++ A few letters and articles appeared talking about counter-terrorism in Europe and Maryam Rajavi’s apparent freedom to glorify MEK violence in her annual rally at Villepinte in Paris. Rajavi’s impunity to invite paid speakers from Washington to celebrate MEK terrorism and self-immolation drew criticism about how the West is handling the roots of terrorism.
++ This week marks the anniversary of the execution of the founders of the MEK. Among those writing about it is internal critic Iraj Mesdaghi. He draws on interviews with former SAVAK officers who admit that Massoud Rajavi worked with them against the founding members. Documentary evidence from that time which has been re-published includes handwritten notes and sketches by Massoud Rajavi about other MEK members, in particular identifying the whereabouts of Mohammad Hanif Nejad which led to his arrest.
In English:
++ Mazda Parsi in Nejat Bloggers writes about the strange case in Britain in which several young women have been psychologically manipulated by a self-styled “spiritual healer”, Anne Craige to turn their backs on their families. Parsi compares this with Rajavi’s treatment of children: “Children in destructive cults belong to the leader, with all members of the group considered their ‘family’, and the leader, their father or mother. The Mujahedin Khalq Organization is a notoriously known example of such destructive cults that indoctrinate children to leave their parents behind and to yield themselves to the leaders’ ambitions.” Parsi concludes: “As a matter of fact, cult indoctrination and psychological manipulation and its perils are not restricted to British boundaries and British families. Definitely, the UN and other international human rights bodies should also be considerate enough to listen to many families who have been suffering grievously since their children were abducted by the Cult of Rajavi.”
++ Sahar Family Foundation in Iraq has written a report on the families currently visiting Iraq in the hopes of getting contact with their loved ones in Camp Liberty.
++ Former MEK member Anne Khodabandeh has written a blog piece for Huffington Post titled ‘From Attraction to Action – How Young People are Radicalized’. Drawing on forty years of experience and knowledge, Khodabandeh explains the methodology of radicalisation, including the use of deceptive recruitment and psychological manipulation. She concludes: “To our eyes, the overt horror of terrorism and extremist violence appears a crude instrument. But recruiters are involved in a highly sophisticated game of mind control which we ignore at our peril. If we don’t take seriously the methodology behind the bloodied images, then we will continue to allow our young people and even whole families to be deceptively stolen away from their normal lives and put on a conveyor belt toward death and destruction.”
May 27, 2016
80 more MKO members residing in Camp Liberty, Iraq moved to Tirana, Albania. The Camp Liberty residents relocated in 4 groups of 20 individuals each on May26, 2016, Neday-e Haqiqat Website reported.
A total number of 214 individuals relocated in Tirana in the last 10 groups of relocations since January 2016.
The first group:
The second Group:
The Third Group:
The Fourth Group:
48 people including families of Ashraf residents traveled to Baghdad , Iraq from Fars, Khuzestan, Lorestan, Kermanshah, Qazvin and Tehran on Saturday May21st, 2016. They went to gate of Camp Liberty the next morning and launched their campaign to call on their loved ones in the Camp who have had no contact with them for years now. The families have had no information on the physical and mental conditions of their children since they were recruited by the MKO. The group has kept members in isolation under a sever manipulation system.
Suffering parents, brothers and sisters of the MKO members have one main demand; a free visit with their beloved ones.
In the search for ‘what makes young people vulnerable to radicalization’, there are many push pull factors we can consider: home life, culture, politics, religion, criminality, social ills and the very children themselves – what 
on earth is wrong with them?!
A different approach is to focus instead on the actual process of radicalization. Who and what is it that changes an ordinary young person into a monster?
When I left a terrorist organization twenty years ago, I discovered that the number of reasons why people got involved in my group was exactly equal to the number of members. In other words, we all took our individual paths into the group. But once inside, we were all subjected to the same controlling methodology, we were all subjected to abuse. And for those who managed to get out, we all suffered the same emotional and mental difficulties toward recovery.
I also learned that this devastating and traumatizing experience was the same for people involved in other cultic groups and that academics and scientists have described and explained this process in detail. This is important because by understanding the harm that the process of radicalization does to its victims, we can recognize it as abuse. We can then better understand it, identify it and try to prevent it. We can give this abuse a specific name: cultic abuse.
For most people the word cult conjures up weird religious groups which suck in vulnerable people. But sticking a label on groups does not explain the harm they do. Instead we can explain cultic abuse, like any other form of abuse, not from the point of view of the beliefs but by looking at their behaviours – what they actually do.
To explain the very real harm that cultic abuse does we should begin by looking at the outcome. We know what grooming for child sexual exploitation (CSE) is for. We know what coercive control in domestic violence (DV) is for. What is cultic abuse for?
The ultimate aim of any form of cultic abuse is to enslave so-called followers, to produce people who are: controllable, exploitable, deployable and disposable. Somebody who will act to order, even when that is against their own and their society’s best interests. Now we can see how this would be of interest to groups pursuing violent and criminal agendas. Interestingly, a defining feature of cultic abuse is the no exit principle. As a slave, you are not supposed to leave. There is no exit.
Our next question is – who wants slaves and why?
Terrorism and extremist violence doesn’t simply spring up on its own. The driving force behind this kind of behaviour will be a charismatic narcissist – it’s all about them! – they are self-appointed, unaccountable and totalitarian leaders and they are motivated by power, sex and money. Usually all three, but notice, religion is not one of them.
In order to recruit followers, they begin by creating a deceptive recruiting script based on a genuine grievance which reflects their own personal philosophical concerns and which may appeal to a particular audience. The script essentially acts as bait to attract potential recruits to the cause. The ideas it expresses are exclusive – ‘you must believe this and nothing else for only we have the answers’ – and simplistic, with black and white thinking – ‘they are wrong, we are right, there is no room for questions’. This script is essentially fictitious. What matters is that you believe in it. This is what we on the outside refer to as a group’s ideology.
Of course, getting people to fall for this dodgy script which aims only to enslave them requires the kind manipulative recruitment methods used in hard sales – foot in the door, soft sales, hard closure. Using their charismatic style to preach their ideology, such leaders will find other intuitive manipulative persuaders who can literally con people into believing. The kind of people who can sell snake oil and other miraculous cures to just about anyone. Thus the process begins with deceptive recruitment.
Victims who have resisted or escaped radicalization often talk about the relentless nature of the assault on their minds and hearts. This is, of course, a deliberate act. Here’s why. Simply put, there is a world of difference between getting somebody to believe in extremist ideas and actually getting them to act on them. Getting ordinary people to take part in extremist violence requires them to make a radical break with their past values and beliefs and relationships. They must be isolated from their normal forms of support and stability and security – their family and friends – in order for the process of coercion to begin which will change their emotional and moral response to outrageous acts, which will literally ‘change their minds’.
For this reason, cultic abuse involves the systematic and sustained application of recognized methods of psychological manipulation. Relentlessly swamping the victim with stress in this way suppresses critical thinking. Once this is achieved, new beliefs can be indoctrinated into the unprotected mind of the victim.
The success of cultic abuse rests on the end product – if the recruiter is successful and the radicalization has claimed its victim they can then be deployed according to the whims of the leader.
The radicalized person will never recognize their own predicament. They sincerely believe their group and their relationships are righteous and no amount of logic will persuade them otherwise. They weren’t converted by logic so you can’t argue them out of it by logic.
To our eyes, the overt horror of terrorism and extremist violence appears a crude instrument. But recruiters are involved in a highly sophisticated game of mind control which we ignore at our peril. If we don’t take seriously the methodology behind the bloodied images, then we will continue to allow our young people and even whole families to be deceptively stolen away from their normal lives and put on a conveyor belt toward death and destruction.
Follow Massoud Khodabandeh on Twitter: www.twitter.com/ma_khodabandeh
Anne Khodabandeh (Co-authored by Massoud Khodabandeh),
Mr. Ali Asghar Babapour joined his family after 27 years of captivity within the destructive cult of Mujahedin-e Khalq.
Babapour family as well as cult defectors and families of MKO hostages welcomed Aliasghar at Nejat Society office, Mazandaran.
Mr. Babapour said: "I should thank my family who came to Camps Ashraf and Liberty several times to visit me. I am very joyful that I managed to liberate myself from the damned Cult of Rajavi and returned to my family. I also thank you accepting me within Nejat Society families’ meeting. I wish to see all hostages of Rajavis’ criminal Cult, being free."
A number of families of residents of Camp Liberty picketed in front of the camp advocating the release of their loved ones taken as hostages by the leaders of the Mujahedin Khalq.
48 people including families of Ashraf residents traveled to Baghdad , Iraq from Fars, Khuzestan, Lorestan, Kermanshah, Qazvin and Tehran on Saturday May21st, 2016. They went to gate of Camp Liberty the next morning and launched their campaign to call on their loved ones in the Camp who have had no contact with them for years now. The families have had no information on the physical and mental conditions of their children since they were recruited by the MKO. The group has kept members in isolation under a sever manipulation system.
Suffering parents, brothers and sisters of the MKO members have one main demand; a free visit with their beloved ones. However, families were faced with harsh behavior of the guards of the camp who had covered their faces. They were filming families carrying cameras while insulting them from time to time.
But families offered them, flowers and candies and told them about their real request which was getting some information about their loved ones but an MKO guard hit the candy container and offended them.
Nevertheless, picketing people kept calm and repeated their demand. A grieving brother tried to give them some photos of former members who previously left the group — to encourage them to leave the camp– but the guard threw back the photos torn!
On the other side of the walls and curtains some residents of the camp were seen from a narrow split between the wall and curtain. They looked sad and depressed regretting the free world. Eventually the split was covered by a cloth.
This is the fifth time that families of MKO hostages go to the gate of Camp Liberty and they do not succeed to visit their beloveds. Although, they know that the MKO leaders will not allow them to see their children, they repeat their campaign because no other way is left for them.
Unfortunately, Rajavi still has an absolute rule over his members exploiting and abusing them and there are still authorities who ignore the sever violation of human rights that takes place in the cult-like MKO under the rule of Massoud Rajavi.
Translated by Nejat Society,
