Inside This Issue:
Families of Mujahedin-e Khalq Cult hostages in Iraq and Albania wrote several letters to United Nations High Commissioners for refugees. The suffering families seek the UNHCR support in realizing their basic human right which is the right to visit or contact or even have a news of their beloveds.
One of the letters signed by 50 families reads:
Dear UNHCR in Iraq,
We, a number of families of Camp Liberty captives, would like to inform you that our beloved ones are captivated by MKO for years. During all these years, we have come to Iraq several times to meet them, but MKO members do not allow us. We have been deprived of visiting our dear family members. This cult is based in Iraq at the moment. We kindly ask you and demand to provide an opportunity for us to visit our beloved ones under supervision of you and the Iraqi government without the presence of MKO members.
Your due consideration in this regard would be highly appreciated,
Friday, February 5, 2016
Peyvand-e Rahayee Website reported
The relocation process of Camp Liberty residents which was due to be proceeded weekly had been stopped for 40 days due to the Christmas holidays. The MKO Cult leaders also clogged the process under different ploys.
Eventually under the pressure of UNHCR and UNAMI office in Iraq, the cult leaders forced to comply and the relocation process resumed at February4th, 2016. So as a group of 22 residents of Temporary Transit Location (Camp Liberty) transferred to Albania, Peyvand-e Rahayee Website reported.
Though in all groups , some of the names of those transferred were supposed to be aliases the names of this last group are more likely to be fake since some high ranking members of the group who are among the “most wanted” by Interpol, were to be moved under fake identities:
Three of “most wanted” high ranking members of the Mujahedin Khalq Organization (the MKO) seek to escape from Camp Liberty.
Iraqi informed sources declared that an
other group of 20 to 30 residents of Camp Liberty including three high ranking members are supposed to be relocated in Albania, according to the FNA.
“Fatemeh Vatankhah Rahmani under the pseudonym “Sima Vatankhah is a responsible of Masosud Rajavi’s guarding team, “Zhaleh Mahram Nia, member of Rajavi’s office and “Roqaieh Abbasi” called “Raana” are the three reported people.
The three female members who intend to leave Camp Liberty for Albania under fake identities are wanted by the Interpol.
The bottom line is that the three women were members of Massoud Rajavi’s guarding team. It seems that the MKO leaders seek to prepare their new camp in Tirana. Previously, some other high ranking members like Javad Khorasan and Mohammad Shaabani were relocated in Albania.
++One of the founding members of the MEK,Torab Haqshenas, died this week. When the MEK the split in mid 1970s Haqshenas led the Communist leaning side. Farsi comments following his death acknowledge his assertion that the MEK was founded as an Islamic-Marxist group. After later realising that this mix didn’t work he chose to struggle just as a Marxist.
++ The MEK inside Camp Liberty took to shouting against the families gathered at the gate and filming them. What caused most interest among Farsi commentators was the fact they covered their faces. If they are swearing at their mothers and fathers, then why, they ask, cover their faces? Are they ashamed. Is it because they have been forced to do this and they are ashamed. In fact, why are they filming the families at all? Perhaps they weren’t even linked to the families in any way. Commentators familiar with the MEK point out that as a cult, the actions of the MEK are not understandable from the outside. Cult behaviour doesn’t make sense to the outside world. This would have been used as a control mechanism targeted at specific personnel inside the cult to enforce cultic indoctrination.
++ Ebrahim Khodabandeh writes a comment about Massoud Rajavi claiming “I haven’t done anything wrong” and using others to claim this too. Khodabandeh merely gives the Headlines for some of Rajavi’s mistakes. First, starting armed struggle in 1981 just after the revolution and then running away while leaving so many others to die. Second, the Internal Revolution when Rajavi declared himself life-long sole leader and then had to suppress dissent; thinking he could control everyone but he couldn’t. Third, going to Iraq in 1986; at which point Rajavi and the MEK lost all legitimacy among the Iranian people. After this Rajavi’s history is like a roller-coaster of mistakes and failure – taking POWs and trying to make MEK fighters out of them, torturing and killing dissenters in Camp Ashraf and Abu Ghraib, abducting ‘recruits’ among economic migrants by deception and coercion, immediately after the loss of benefactor Saddam Hussein jumping into the hands of Saudi Arabia and Israel begging them to use the MEK as a tool to disrupt the nuclear deal, and now, the moment Daesh and Syrian rebels appear, Rajavi lines up with them. Then Rajavi says ‘I did nothing wrong’. He is so dirty no wonder nobody wants to be near him. Since 2003, 1300 MEK have run away and announced their separation. The rest of them are simply waiting for an opportunity to run away the moment they can.
In English:
++ Nejat Society is supporting the efforts of families in their efforts to make contact with their long estranged loved ones trapped in Camp Liberty by Massoud and Maryam Rajavi.
++ The MEK’s efforts to insert themselves into the field of genuine human rights advocates during President Rouhani’s visit to Europe failed miserably. It is known to everybody, Iranian and non-Iranian alike, that the MEK is a terrorist cult and that it is backed by Saudi Arabia. Social media commentators of all stripes and nationalities gave vent to this sentiment whenever pictures of fake MEK protests were posted. Even the KSA itself has realised that it cannot use the MEK in the field of human rights as this reflects negatively on them.
February 5, 2016
Morgan-Davies, daughter of the cult leader, said she wanted to escape from being the “non-person”. She was under her father who “was just obsessed about control”. Morgan was the “slave” daughter of the Maoist cult leader Aravindan Balakrishnan who jailed her for 23 years for her imprisonment and repeated sex attacks on two followers, according to the Guardian.[1]
Every day, the world comes across revelations about abusive cults that indicate how much the world is exposed to the threat of cults. The most crucial characteristic of a destructive cult is its power to isolate people from the free world. In the isolated atmosphere of the cult, leaders have the opportunity to commit the most horrific abuses against their victims.
The No Exit report of the Human Rights Watch on the human rights abuses committed in the Mujahedin Khalq Organization, published in 2005, presents various examples of violation of human rights under a strict cult-like control. 2[]
Prior to the HRW’s report, Elizabeth Rubin visited the group’s then headquarters in Iraq Camp Ashraf in 2003. Eventually, she wrote a detailed report for the New York Times under the specific title “The Cult of Rajavi”. She described the camp as “a fictional world of female worker bees” and “a factory in Maoist China”. [3]
The above mentioned reports and many other reports and evidences on the life inside the MKO point out common features of cult leaders that aid them abuse their victims. As Morgan Davis told reporters about her father, “The people he looked up to were people like Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot and Saddam Hussein.” [4]
One of the victims of years of sexual abuse by Balakrishnan, also said she was “traumatized, shocked and horrified at what he habituated me to and against which I had no defense. I will live with this torment for the rest of my life.” [5]
The other rape victim described Balakrishnan as “such an evil force” and said she suffered fear and nightmares. “He wreaked havoc on every part of my life before and after I left,” she said. “He literally shattered my life.” She said she had never managed to fully rebuild her family relationships. [6]
This is the very characteristic of the leader of the MKO too. Although Massoud Rajavi tries to cover the abusive nature of his cult under the mask of a pro-democracy political organization, he is usually symbolized by dictators including Polpot and Saddam Hussein. Professor Paul Sheldon Foote from California State University writes: “the During the American hostage crisis, the MEK participated and called for the executions of the Americans. Rajavi is anti-American, anti-imperialist, and anti-capitalist. His aim is to become the Pol Pot of Iran, even if the MEK must become a tool of the American government to achieve his aim.” [7]
Massoud Rajavi’s similarities with other dictators originates from his cultic attitude towards his followers. Thus, his character can also be compared with that of Aravindan Balakrishnan and other cult leaders like Ziona who is another example of such cult leaders whose greed for women is endless. He rules a polygamous cult in India.
Ziona, 70, is the head of a local Christian religious sect”Chana”, which allows polygamy and was founded by his father Chana on June 12, 1942. The sect believes it will soon be ruling the world with Christ and has a membership of around 400 families. Ziona has 39 wives, 94 children, 33 grandchildren and 14 daughters-in-law. Ziona is feared and worshiped by all in the village. What’s even more strange is that Ziona’s followers firmly believe that he will one day rule the earth with Jesus. [8]
Now, let’s get back to Massoud Rajavi. He runs a polygamous cult, according to the testimonies of former female members of the MKO. Batoul Soltani is one of the female victims of Massoud Rajavi whose revelations about abuses committed in the cult has become a credited source for cult experts. . This is Wikipedia’s account about this victim of the Cult of Rajavi:
“Batul Soltani (born in 1965) is an Iranian politician who is former member of the leadership council of the People’s Mujahedin of Iran (PMOI. Soltani is a political activist and critic and a former twenty-year member of the Mujahedin leadership council. In December 2006, she escaped from the Camp Ashraf. In interviews regarding the Rajavi cult as an example of cultic behavior and mind manipulation. she has spoken about the sexual exploitation of the women in this cult after the her escape. She continued by pointing to numerous cases of Rajavi’s exploitation of the women of this cult and said: “Massoud Rajavi was using many of the divorced women in this cult, who had been forced to separate from their husbands to satisfy his sexual desires.” [9]
Batoul’s shocking revelations about what is going on inside the MKO camps is available on Nejatngo website in details. Her bitter experience of living in the Cult of Rajavi is confirmed by other female defectors of the group including Zahra Mirbagheri and Nasrin Ebrahimi who also left the group in the past decade.[10]
Isolated from the outside world, Massoud Rajavi tries to keep his victims as non-persons whose rights and even whose existence are ignored. The news of violation of human rights, sex abuse, child abuse, manipulative control and etc. in cults, as recent as 2016, is a warning for the world community that the threat of cults is not over. More than three decades after the tragic ending of the cults in Jonestown, Guyana and the Waco, Texas the authorities of countries should still beware of such a menace. They should be even more cautious than before because these cult members who have been under severe mental abuse have the potential to simply turn into extremist terrorists like Al Qaeda and ISIS.
Mazda Parsi
References:
[1] Booth, Robert, Maoist cult leader jailed for 23 years as ‘slave’ daughter goes public, The Guardian, 29 January 2016
[2] https://www.nejatngo.org/en/posts/79
[3] Rubin, Elizabeth, The Cult of rajavi, the New York Times Magazine, July 13, 2003
[4] Booth, Robert, Maoist cult leader jailed for 23 years as ‘slave’ daughter goes public, The Guardian, 29 January 2016
[5] ibid
[6] ibid
[7] Sheldon Foote, Paul, American Demons, paulsheldonfoote.blogspot.com, November 13, 2011
[8] ZeddMonsang, Strange polygamous Christian Cult, The More the Merrier!, The Zephyr Diaries
September 29, 2012
[9] Wikipedia
[10]https://www.nejatngo.org/en/tag/womens-rights-abuse-by-mujahel
The suffering sisters of two Camp Liberty residents ask human right bodies to help them have a short visit with their beloved brothers; Mohammadreza and Ahmadreza.
Ahmadreza and Mohammadreza Iranpour, traveled to Turkey in 2002. They wanted to immigrate to a European
country to make a better life there.
Unfortunately, in Turkey the MKO recruiters tricked them into joining the group. They were then transferred to Camp Ashraf, Iraq. For a long time the Iranpour family had no news of them until they were informed of Mohammadreza and Ahmadreza whereabouts through some defectors of the MKO cult.
In January 2004 they succeeded to meet their beloved brothers at Camp Ashraf. 20 MKO members accompanied Mohammadreza and Ahmadreza in the meeting in order the meeting not to be private.
From then on the Iranpour family have traveled to MKO Camps in Iraq several times to have a visit with their beloved brothers or at least get a news of them, still they were not allowed.
The Iranpour family – the same as many other families of MKO hostages – have written several letters to human right bodies to help them contact their beloveds. However they have received no reply. In their recent complaint open letter to UNHCR in Iraq they write:
“We are Mahmonir and Raheleh Iranpour. Our brothers; Ahmadreza and Mohammadreza are imprisoned at Camp Liberty. We have several times sent you letters. However you didn’t reply us. We traveled to Iraq but you ignored us. Not only didn’t you facilitate our visit with our brothers, but also you didn’t let us meet yourselves. You even didn’t accept our letters.
You deprived us of our basic right which is to visit our family memebrs … we now have a demand … it is now 13 years that we have not visited our beloved Mohammadreza and Ahmadreza. ..
Now that based on the Rajavis wishes you don’t let us meet our beloveds, please send us a new photo of them at least to see their faces after such a long time…”
It is worth mentioning that the third group of MKO hostages’ families have traveled to Camp Liberty, trying to get help to be allowed to visit their loved ones.
The families have lodged official complaints with UN and Iraqi government officials which include documents showing that Rajavi is paying bribes to some individuals in the UN office so that they will stop anyone running away from the camp”, Iraninterlink website reported.
Following the recent trip of the third group of Liberty residents’ families to Iraq, the Iraqi mass media widely covered the news of the event.
Iraqi newspapers and websites published reports on grieves of families of residents, who are not allowed to visit their loved ones taken as hostages by leaders of the Mujahedin Khalq Organization (the MKO/the cult of Rajavi).
Iraqi official newspapers such as Kul al Akhbar and news websites like Babil News, Ketabat fil Mizan and Wikileaks Baghdad published letters written by the families and reported on their efforts to visit their loved ones in Camp Liberty.
In a full-page report, Kul al Akhbar reported on the activities of the picketing families in front of Camp Liberty, interviewing some of them. The report included photos of the picketing families under the title: “A number of Iranian families told Kul al Akhbar the tragic story of their grieving children.”
“Parents who are awaiting the visit of their dear ones despite all troubles”, the report describes the families. “Who help their desires come true?”
The newspaper calls Iraqi Government, the United Nations and all human rights bodies to pressure the MKO leaders to evacuate Camp Liberty.
Kul al Akhbar reported that in Camp Liberty human rights are violated; people are terribly deprived of freedom. Hostages are not allowed to contact their families and families – who come from different towns of Iran- are not permitted to meet their children even for an hour. Instead, families are verbally abused and attacked by the brainwashed members of the group.
The two brothers managed to release themselves after 27 years of imprisonment within the MKO bases.
Bahadori brothers were recruited by the MKO in 2002 in Baku Azarbayjan where the older one was working. The MKO recruiters promised to provide them with European refuge.
Although they were promised a better life in Europe, they found themselves in Turkey and then Iraqi Camp Ashraf where they were immediately separated from each other. They were not allowed to meet each other for years. They were not told about their family who had several times come to visit them in Camp Ashraf, Iraq. The brothers made efforts to meet each other for eight years. Whenever they asked for a visit they were punished by the group leaders.
After their relocation from Camp Ashraf to Camp Liberty, they succeeded to meet each other randomly and eventually they managed to escape from the cult of Rajavi after the recent rocket attack on Camp Liberty in November.
Then, they were aided by the UN and Iraqi human rights bodies and the Iranian embassy in Baghdad in order to return to their country.
One of the brothers told Nejat Society that a large number of members of the group are thinking of leaving the group but they are kept busy in computer classes- without the Internet – because leaders claim that they will be sent to Europe after finishing their alleged computer training course.
Cult leaders keep members in a state of hesitation and passiveness by threatening them that leaving the MKO ends with death and destruction.
++ Families at Camp Liberty are still trying to get help. They have lodged official complaints with UN and Iraqi government officials which include documents showing that Rajavi is paying bribes to some individuals in the UN office so that they will stop anyone running away from the camp. Various petitions by hundreds of families and ex members, both inside Iran and elsewhere, have been compiled. Each one is asking, after twelve years, for families to be allowed to visit their loved ones. There have been tens of reports in Iraqi media on this issue. A few Farsi comments have asked “why is Rajavi more afraid of families than anything else on earth?” Most connect this to the being a cult and exerting total control over the members lives.
++ During President Rouhani’s visit to France, various opposition groups gathered together on the 27th in protest. According to an eyewitness account by former MEK member Ghorban Ali Hossein Nejad, MEK operatives attacked these demonstrators, in particular members of the Iranian Workers’ Communist Party, and injured one of them. On the 28th, the MEK held a separate demonstration. Instead of joining with Iranians, the MEK, with its usual ‘rent-a-crowd’ of paid refugees, joined with Syrian rebels in a Saudi and Israeli backed event. Interestingly, although Syrian flags were plentiful, the MEK did not display their logo. Only a few pictures of Massoud and Maryam were visible for a photo opportunity. Some analysts believe the MEK’s backers were warned not to allow known terrorists to parade on French streets as this would be embarrassing for the French government. Others said that the MEK, knowing its reputation as an unpopular terrorist cult, were afraid there would be no coverage and therefore toned down their presence. The demonstration was carefully choreographed and staged in such a way that it couldn’t be photographed or filmed at ground level except from the fronts so that nobody could see the non-Iranians there. According to people inside the MEK, coaches coming from London were stopped and two people were detained as illegals. On the return journey, one more person was detained after border checks. Although there were perhaps fewer numbers than the previous day’s turnout, the MEK demonstration was the more colourful and therefore did attract media coverage from outlets pursuing balanced reporting, like the BBC – none mentioned the MEK by name. The MEK websites claimed ‘hundreds’ of demonstrators while other paid coverage claimed there were ‘thousands’ – a strange discrepancy. This coverage however spelled disaster for genuine human rights advocacy since President Rouhani can now claim that the people demonstrating against him were terrorists.
++ Majid Rouhi, among others, has written about the disaster that has befallen the MEK now that serious rapprochement between Iran and the West has begun. Tensions have eased to the point that Iran has requested the extradition of Massoud and Maryam Rajavi from France. In his article titled ‘Mr Rajavi, how much shall we pay you not to analyse anything again?’ Majid Rouhi has examined all the political analyses Massoud Rajavi created from the time he left Iran until now, and has shown that not one analysis held true and in some cases the situation turned out opposite to Rajavi’s predictions. Rouhi talks about Rajavi’s favourite trick of presenting two or three scenarios to his followers and talking them into accepting his preferred version. Even in this case, says Rouhi, not only did Rajavi’s choice not materialise, but none of them came true.
++ In this week’s interview of Dr Alireza Nourizadeh by former high ranking MEK member Mr Davoud Arshad on Iran-e Farda TV, they talked about Hassan Jazayeri and how Massoud Rajavi sent him to his death. Nourizadeh explained that Hassan’s father, the highly respected doctor Shamsadin Jazayeri, while he was working in the hospital “took my hand and asked for my help to save his son. I tried to talk to Hassan before he was dispatched to Iraq, but by then he was already fully brainwashed.” Arshad, who had known Hassan in London, went on to describe how Hassan died in Iraq of an exacerbated heart problem on the training ground. For the past three decades the MEK has insisted that Hassan Jazayeri had been killed by the Iranian regime. In London the notorious Azam Mollahassan Kohneh Farahani – aka Leila Jazayeri – exploits his relationship as her former husband to feed misinformation to local news outlets in London by falsely claiming he was murdered by Iran.
In English:
++ Iran Interlink reports from Iraq: After 12 years, families of Rajavi cult hostages in Camp Liberty demand UNAMI action. “Today over 30 families from different provinces in Iran have arrived at the gates of Camp Liberty. They want simply to have the right to visit their loved ones. They are asking the UNHCR and UNAMI as well as Ms Jane Holl Lute, the UN Special Adviser for Relocation of Camp Liberty Residents to Outside Iraq, why is it that 12 years after the fall of Saddam Hussein (the benefactor of fugitive terrorist leader Massoud Rajavi), there is still no sign that the terrorists’ camp will close and the residents held hostage by the MEK leaders will be rescued and taken to safety. Why, after twelve years do the families of Camp Liberty residents still not have access to their loved ones? What is preventing anyone from helping these people and what power lies behind supporting the hostage taker to the point that all the affairs of the camp are still in the hands of the criminal Massoud Rajavi and his henchmen?”
++ Sahar Family Foundation in Baghdad sent a letter to Mr. Filippo Grandi, the new UN High Commissioner for Refugees, simultaneous to the presence of the families in front of the gates of Camp Liberty in Iraq.
++ As the US Presidential Candidate campaigning carries on apace, Lee Fang writing in The Intercept has a go at Howard Dean, former presidential candidate and current supporter of Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. Although Dean asserts that he is not a Lobbyist, Fang says “He sure acts like one”. Fang cites Dean’s association with the MEK as evidence of his new lobbying career: “Though known for his anti-war rhetoric in 2004, Dean has accepted money from Mojahedin-e Khalq, an extremist group seeking regime change in Iran and has criticized President Obama’s negotiations with Iran.”
++ Massoud Khodabandeh published a blog piece in Huffington Post titled ‘Will President Rouhani meet genuine human rights advocates halfway?’ The blog notes two kinds of human rights activists. Genuine activists regard peace, dialogue and economic growth as the precursors for a strengthened civil society, something President Rouhani has said he wants to develop. On the other hand, some activists have simply switched from the nuclear issue to human rights as a way to threaten violent regime change. The MEK, which ostensibly leads this anti-Iran campaign, is backed by Saudi Arabia and the Syrian Free Army whose agenda toward Iran is certainly not to improve human rights there.
++ Mazda Parsi writes a thought provoking article in Nejat Bloggers ‘Many faces of Massoud Rajavi and his supporters’. Parsi references the article by Lee Fang (above). In his piece he talks about the self-serving changes of image and policy by the MEK, and says “it is not surprising that those well-paid politicians who embrace the MKO have at least one characteristic in common with the group: they both change many faces just to run their goals. For them, the ends justifies the means. Howard Dean sounds to be one example of these politic men whose ‘ends’ include the money he receives from different lobbies.”
January 29, 2016
