Page 85 – Nejat Society

Mujahedin Khalq Organization's Propaganda System

Annual Meeting of the Mujahedin-e Khalq: Rental Audiences

The propaganda meeting of the terrorist group of Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK/MKO) known as the Kahkeshan meetings (meaning Galaxy), led by Maryam Rajavi, is held every year in June or July, with false statistics of the fake Iranian fans who support this group. Most Iranian political observers, meanwhile, say the MEK has the least support in Iran and has been widely hated for its use of violence and its close ties to Israeli intelligence. As it is clear from the Western media coverage of the previous conferences of the group, the terrorist group of MEK, in order to pretend that a large number of Iranians support them, try to attract a large number of needy foreign students and asylum seekers every year with different nationalities by widespread invitations, and even attracting homeless people with the promise of free travel to Europe and free meals and even paying money, encourage them to attend these conferences.

MEK rally with rented audiences

The images and information of these gatherings show that people with significant populations and non-Iranian citizenship participate in these conferences as supporters of the MEK who are unaware of the goals of these programs. Due to unemployment and poverty, these people are said to be hired by the MEK cult to make a living by participating in these gatherings, so displaced people, asylum seekers from African countries and the gypsies are brought to the gatherings to fill vacant seats. “Most of those present at the MEK’s rally in Berlin were brought to Berlin by a group of schools from Poland and the Czech Republic to fill the seats in the hall,” the Associated Press reported. According to the report, some of the participants in the gathering also told the Associated Press reporter that they had come to that place with the promise of traveling to Berlin and staying in a hotel. Also, the videos released from these gatherings show that non-Iranians have a significant population compared to Iranian participants (MEK members).

News agencies have previously released a video showing that the vast majority of participants are non-Iranians and, as separatists say, are supplicants collected from some African, Asian and some European countries, and came to the ceremony with the promise of “a few hot meals” and “some financial aid”.

Alina Alimkova is a Kyrgyz girl who attended a MEK conference in Paris

The French newspaper Le Monde published a report in which several participants in a conference of the MEK were interviewed. Alina Alimkova is a Kyrgyz girl who attended a MEK conference in Paris. This person also says that she does not know a single Persian word and does not know much about issues related to Iran, but she decides to travel to Paris with a good offer to attend a conference for a few days sightseeing in Paris. She says all the passengers on the eight buses from Prague to Paris with him are young, and most of them are students and all of them, she says, somehow hired via the internet. According to the Kyrgyz student, no one knew exactly what the purpose of the trip was.

Of course, the MEK acted a little more selectively and in the following years, and instead of the people of color who were found in the ceremonies every year, they turned to people with faces from East Asia, West Asian Arabs, and Afghans and Pakistanis to make more ordinary faces for the ceremonies.

MEK rally

The group of MEK is known for paying very high prices. Details released so far from the meeting indicate that each refugee will receive around € 30 to € 50 a day plus food, and that each person who can bring 20 to 30 people to the meeting will receive around € 1,500.

In the most optimistic case, if we consider half of the participants in these meetings to be people of Iranian nationality, according to the Guardian in connection with one of these meetings, the other half of them include a set of Poles, Czechs, Slovaks, Germans and Syrians were impatient to respond to the Facebook campaign that promised travel, food and accommodation in Paris for only 25 euros. Hundreds of Syrian refugees based in Germany also attended the meeting. Many of these people were napping under the trees during the ceremonies.

“We saw the deal on Facebook and agreed to go on holiday,” said a young Syrian mother with her two young children, sitting on the conference floor. I have never seen Paris and I do not know anything about the MEK.

In the last year of the meeting before the Covid-19 epidemic, with a fake scenario they accused an Iranian diplomat for bombing the meeting and despite the Corona epidemic, in previous years the meeting was held online, which due to the display of duplicate images on the screen It can be said that very few members of the MEK were present at these meetings. However, if this conference is online, you can see new duplicate images of members who have been forced to attend the event, or if the event is held in person due to coronavirus vaccines, perhaps we will see rented spectators and same repetitive speakers of previous years with the same stereotype themes again.

Just as the MEK, despite their enmity with the United States and even the killing of a number of Americans, forgot their long-standing enmity with the United States after the fall of Saddam and turned to what was doubly beneficial to them (during a large meeting in the camp Ashraf in Iraq After the fall of Saddam, Rajavi announced that the owner of our house had changed and we had to adjust to the new owner and we had to go with the tide). The United States has shown again and again that it is not a trustworthy country. For the United States, every group, organization, country, and even political authority is supported only as long as it benefits the country and then will be replaced very quickly and all US obligations to that group or country will be severed. As we have seen in previous year, the United States, in a shocking move in fighting the Taliban, left Afghanistan very quickly after 20 years at a cost of $ 1 trillion, left this country and its defenseless people alone. The Afghan army, which was under the direct training of the US military and had all kinds of military equipment, could not even resist the Taliban, who had simple military equipment, for two weeks, and suffered defeat.

Although the group has paid large sums of money to remove the organization from the list of American terrorist organizations (FTO), as well as for the presence of political speakers from this country in the meetings of the MEK, but it will definitely be supported as long as it serves their interests.

“I wonder why the United States works with organizations like the Mojahedin, because they are local and they are ready to work for us, we used to call them a terrorist organization, and of course they are still a terrorist organization! However, they are our terrorists now! and we do not hesitate to send them to Iran for routine intelligence activities, to monitor Iran’s nuclear program, to triangle targets for air strikes, and perhaps to set up secret camps to control military locations in Iran, as well as a bit of sabotage” Ray McGovern, a former CIA operative, spoke about the MEK. Also, Karen Kwiatkowski, a former member of Ministry of Defense: “The MEK is ready to do things that we are ashamed of and try to keep quiet about. But we will use them for such tasks!”

The presence of various terrorist groups in Albania and the recent acceptance that Albania has given the green light to accept Afghan refugees from Afghanistan in this country, indicates the presence of new forces instead of the group of MEK, that due to the old age, the members of this terrorist group, have lost their military effectiveness, and this issue can explain the significant reduction in the presence of political officials at their previous annual gathering, and also the closure of the MEK’s virtual accounts for propaganda and provocative activities against Iran by Facebook, an American company under the auspices of the US government, it represents that the bases for the United States to cut ties with the MEK in the near future is getting ready.

On the other hand, the financial and arms support of the Saudi intelligence service to most of the anti-Iranian terrorists have led to a sharp divide between these opposition groups instead of converging. In fact, a closer look at the organizational levels and the way these groups operate reveals that their lives are tied to be the opposition to the Islamic Republic. These groups receive money from Saudi Arabia and countries opposed to Iran in order to speak against Iran and inwardly they have no interest in harming the Islamic Republic one day, because then they will have no financial support anymore and why a group want to stop receiving these financial aids. The MEK are in the same situation, they consider themselves superior to other opposition groups and introduce other groups as elements of the Iranian government, which certainly even a child does not imagine that if one day in an imagination or an American dream the United States conquers Iran, it is impossible to hand it over to the elderly of the Rajavi cult. In fact, this cult has only tools and propaganda use for the United States.

If we take a closer look at the MEK group, we will see that this cult is alive only with the millions of dollars it receives from the Saudi Arabia and the United States, and it does not like to return to the military world again and they just limit themselves to put up a poster on a deserted street in one of Iran’s sparsely populated cities, or by giving money, it causes 20 people in Iran to march in a secluded park and chant anti-government slogans which no one can hear them.

The MEK are now safe inside their troll farm in the camp Ashraf, Albania, where they spend US-Saudi dollars in isolation and hold an annual propaganda campaign to mention that they are still alive, and are jeering at their financial suppliers and spend the last hours of their lives in the peace of a country in Eastern Europe, while they are going toward the dustbin of history.

by Global Times

June 12, 2022 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization

June 17th, landmark date exposing the Cult of Rajavi

June 17th, 2003 is a landmark date in the history of the Mujahedin-e Khalq that exposes it as a cult of personality rather than an opposition group. The arrest of the she-guru of the Cult of Rajavi by the French Police created heart-breaking but at the same time enlightening scenes by which the world was able to observe the true substance of the MEK.

self immolation

Following the arrest of Maryam Rajavi, the group commanders coerced members to protest against the act of French government against their leader. The excessive part of the protests was played by a dozen of members of the group who set themselves on fire to demonstrate their devotion to their arrested leader. 21 people set themselves on fire between June 17th to June 21st. Eventually, two of them were killed.

Neda Hassani and Sedighe Mojaveri who brainwashed by the MEK leaders into immolating themselves

Neda Hassani, 27, and Sedigheh Mojaveri 44 were the two ones who committed self-immolation to pressure French Judiciary to release Maryam Rajavi and did not survive their violent act against themselves. Their names were added to the list of the MEK’s martyrs. A number of other MEK members such as Marzieh Babakhani, Hamid Orafa and Nader Sani survived but are still suffering the wounds of that organizational order. They are always glorified as role models for other members of the MEK, by the group leaders.

Marziyeh Babakhani

To stop those horrific scenes in European cities, the French Police freed Maryam Rajavi. Since that time, the incidents of June 2003, have been celebrated by the MEK as a victory. In its numerous annual events, the group’s propaganda machine overvalues its victory to liberate Maryam Rajavi from French jail. However, important lessons have been learned by sensible entities since June 17th, 2003.

The cult-like violent nature of the MEK

Suicide and its intimate partner violence are both major notions that characterize destructive cults. They both show an extreme tendency towards an ideology. For half a century, violence of the MEK has been changing from one form to another. It started with homicide of the American military advisors in Iran during the 1970s, it went on in the post-revolutionary years in Iran by detonating bombs in public places killing civilians, it continued in the anti-national war, by the side of Saddam Hussein and the cross border terrorist operation and it has been working against the group’s own rank and file, either to suppress dissent or to coerce the brainwashed members to set themselves ablaze.

Money Laundering for terrorist activities

On 16 June 2003 the French well-known anti-terrorist judge Jean Louis Bruguiere and his team, following a 14 hours interrogation that had started at 15.30 local time on 16 June 2003, issued a detention order accusing the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), the umbrella group of the MEK, at the time blacklisted as a terrorist group by the US, the EU of “terrorist activities, association with a terrorist organization and financing terrorist operations”. Shortly after 6 am on 17 June 2003 more than 1200 police forces launched a large operation to raid 13 MKO-run offices in Val-d’Oise and Yvelines, two quarters of the Parisian suburb. The main target was the office of the MEK at Auvers-sur-Oise. The Police arrested 164 suspected Mujahedin authorities as well as Maryam Rajavi, the NCRI’s self-nominated president-elect.

on 17 June 2003 more than 1200 police forces launched a large operation to raid 13 MKO-run offices in Val-d’Oise and Yvelines, two quarters of the Parisian suburb

French police arrested MEK members in France

The French Government said it was trying to stop the group from expanding its operations in France. Nicolas Sarkozy, the then French Interior Minister, said that the order to crackdown on the MEK was decided following two years of investigations on the network. He said that MEK “recently wanted to make France its support base, notably after the intervention in Iraq. We cannot accept that”. The head of France’s domestic intelligence service, Pierre de Bousquet de Florian, said the group was “transforming its Val d’Oise base … into an international terrorist base”.

The Police discovered and confiscated more than a million US dollars in 100 banknotes, 100.000 Euros, sophisticated communication equipment and computers. The sources of French Interior Ministry later reported that more than 8 million dollars in cash had been found in various offices of the MEK as well in the houses of its high-ranking officials throughout France.

MEK leaders and its high-ranking members fled Iraq after US invasion

In March 2003, following the collapse of the MEK’s main financial and military sponsor Saddam Hussein called by the MEK as Landlord, the group’s leaders and a lot of high-ranking commanders had secretly fled Iraq and settled in France within a few months. Thus, the news of the arrest of Maryam Rajavi and her comrades was shocking for members of the group in Camp Ashraf, Iraq. They could not believe their ears that Maryam and other commanders had left them behind, under the bombs of coalition forces. Maryam had departed Iraq even before the collapse of the landlord. Seemingly, she was looking for a new landlord.

Massoud Rajavi has disappeared since the date

June 17th, 2003 is the beginning of the two-decade absence of Massoud Rajavi. He has been never seen in public since then. Inside the group, nobody is allowed to ask about his whereabouts and outside the group, the journalists and researchers’ questions on Massoud Rajavi’s location or his being dead or alive will not be answered. The disappearance of Massoud Rajavi has amplified the aura of holiness around him, for the manipulated minds residing inside his Cult of personality. However, for those hostages of the group who endeavor to release themselves from the mind control system of the Cult of Rajavi, Rajavi’s absence has increased criticism and questions on his rulings and strategy.

Mazda Parsi

June 8, 2022 0 comments

Former members of the MEK

Mahmoud Odehzadeh’s Prison Break, an account of escaping Camp Ashraf

Mahmoud Odehzadeh escaped the Mujahedin Khalq Organization after years of imprisonment in Camp Ashraf, Iraq. He had been recruited by the group in 1993 when he was a teenager. He had left his family, his young wife and kids because the MEK’s recruiter had promised him a happy life and money in Europe.
However, Mahmoud turned out to be captured in the MEK’s destructive cult in Iraqi deserts, for eleven years. In 2004, after the group was disarmed by the US army, he could manage to escape Camp Ashraf and to join the US camp located by the side of Ashraf. The story of his escape seems to be inspiring for those who are still taken as hostages in the group’s camp in Albania.

Mahmoud Odezadeh

“After the US invasion to Iraq and the group’s disarmament by the US military, the rank and file of the group were frustrated,” Mahmoud writes in his memoirs. “They were angry with Maryam Rajavi and her high-ranking members who had fled to Europe immediately after the war broke out. They had left the rank and file under bombs and had fled to France. In Iraq, the remaining commanders made us work hard to deviate our minds from thinking to such serious issues. Everyone was exhausted and desperate, seeking a way to escape the organization.”

The American camp outside Camp Ashraf opened a path to Mahmoud’s mind that was already obsessed with escaping the Cult of Rajavi. “I made my mind to reach the American camp in any possible way,” he recounts. “Under the pretext of health problems, I went to the Ashraf’s clinic several times to investigate the escape route. I had already discussed my plan with a friend who was also determined to escape.”

That was a night of July, 2004 when Mahmoud Odehzadeh and his friend accomplished their goal. He recounts: “When I got back from the clinic, I set with my friend that we would leave after dinner. Dinner was not done yet; we apparently took the dishes to wash. We got out of the building from the back door and rushed to the other side of the embankment. On our way, an MEK guard stopped us, I told him that my friend was not feeling well and I was taking him to the clinic. Then we rushed to the American camp.”

The US forces were not so friendly with them but Mahmoud and his friend did not want to get back to the MEK in any case. He was even ready to be killed rather than getting back to the MEK’s prison. “We told them that we had fled the MEK but they told us to get back to Ashraf,” He writes. “I got out a cutter from my pocket and put it on my throat. ‘We will die here but we will not get back to Ashraf’, I said. The US forces had a Tunisian interpreter, he said, ‘they leave you alone just do not kill yourself!’.”

The Americans took the two defectors of the Mujahedin-e Khalq to their camp and imprisoned them in a cell for a few days. Then, they interviewed with them and ask them why they fled the group. “We told them everything clarifying the truth of the MEK for them,” Mahmoud writes. “Then they took us to the place that other defectors of the MEK had been settled. We were about twenty people. The US forces treated us like slaves.”

Therefore, Mahmoud decided to escape the US camp too. He was looking for an opportunity. He discussed a plan with nine of his comrades in the camp. The other night, a dust storm aided them to fulfil their plan. They crossed the barbed wires. They reached a village and found some food and water and finally could manage to reach the road to Baghdad in the early morning. “A car took us to Baghdad,” he recounts. “He was an Iraqi POW in Iran so he could speak Persian. He was so kind that he took us to the Iranian embassy in Baghdad.”

They introduced themselves to the guard at the gate of the Iranian embassy. He continues: “A few minutes later, an authority came out and listened to our story. He invited us inside the building and received us warmly. Two days later, they transferred us to Tehran on a flight.”

As Rajavi had told them lies about maltreatments of the Iranian government against MEK defectors, Mahmoud and his peers were very frightened and nervous about the likely imprisonment and torture in Tehran. “To our surprise, the Iranian authorities welcomed us warmly and took us to a hotel,” he recalls.

Mahmoud and his friends were delivered to their families three days later. “In contrast to what Rajavi had told us –that families of defectors insult them because they have left the MEK—my family received me really warmly. They held parties and celebrations to congratulate me on my return. When I recounted my story for them, they began insulting Rajavi.”

Mahmoud asked his wife and children to forgive him. “Fortunately, they forgave me and I tried to build a new life,” he says.

June 7, 2022 0 comments

Albania

Letter from the CEO of Nejat Society to the Albania PM

Following the hacking of Tehran’s municipal systems and disruption of “My Tehran” and surveillance camera networks, the source of which was reported after an investigation to be in Albania, the CEO of the Nejat Society wrote a letter to the Prime Minister of the Albanian government in this regard. The text of the letter is as follows:

Mr. Edi Rama
Prime Minister of the Republic of Albania

On behalf of the families of the members trapped in the Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK) camp in Albania, I have written many times to you and other officials of the Republic of Albania, asking to have the right to communicate with their loved ones after decades of separation and not knowing their status. But unfortunately I have not received any response so far.

The Government and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Albania have unfortunately taken hostile positions towards the awaiting families and refused to issue visas to them, even to the families of those members of the MEK who have separated from this cult and are living in a free world.

The level of influence of the MEK in the Albanian government, which was brought to your country from the beginning apparently for humanitarian reasons, is inconceivable and apparently is not limited to refusing visas to Iranians, but also sabotaging acts against the interests of the Iranian people.
Hacking of Tehran municipal systems is the latest of such cases. In the past, similar cases have been observed regarding gas stations and etc. against the interests of Iranians, the source of all of which, after conducting the necessary research, has been reported to be in Albania.

It is clear that such actions from within your country, which are clearly carried out by the MEK, are considered an obvious enmity with the Iranian nation, and it is very unfortunate that the hostile work of your government, influenced by the presence of the MEK, have gone beyond the family of the captives in the Rajavi Cult and extended to the entire Iranian people.

The authorities of the Republic of Albania may have considered interests and seen benefits in this work, but certainly this way of coming under the domination and influence of a foreign terrorist group, which is claimed to have been brought to Albania with humanitarian intentions, will not gain prestige and dignity for Albania, which desires to join the European Union.

The friendly advice of the families to the Albanian government is to announce, in order to show goodwill to the Iranian people, that the issuance of visas to Iranian citizens to visit their relatives in Albania, of whom they have been unaware for years, is unimpeded and thus determine their non-affiliation with a terrorist group that is hated by all Iranians.

Ebrahim Khodabandeh,
Nejat Society CEO
Tehran Iran

Copy to:
Minister of Interior of Albania
Albanian Foreign Minister
ASILA (Association for Supporting Iranians Living in Albania)
The Media

June 6, 2022 0 comments

Nejat Publications

Nejat Newsletter No. 94

Inside this issue:

– Mahmoud Dehghan escaped the MEK
Mahmoud Dehghan, a hostage of the Mujahedin Khalq Organization could manage to escape the group’s camp. He left the bars of the cult-like system of Rajavi’s group located in Manez, in north of the Albanian capital…

– Goli’s Prison Break, an account of escaping Camp Ashraf
Goli, was a member of the Mujahedin Khalq Organization for 23 years. In the spring of 2011, after he lost 36 of his comrades in the operation..

– Mohammad Gamoosh was hanged in the MEK
Born in 1968, Mohammad Gamoosh was from Zanjan, Iran. He was a soldier in the Iran-Iraq war serving in division 46 Orumieh. He was taken as a war prisoner in a joint operation launched by Iraqi and MEK forces against Iranians in Hajomran region. Mohammad Gamoosh had just finished his army service and had planned to get back home but the tide turned. . .

– Ray Torabi’s message on the occasion of his 40th birthday
When I was 17, after 8 years of separation from my parents, I finally met my biological mother.
Unfortunately, the condition of our meeting was that I had to leave Canada and go to Iraq to meet her, where she was a member of an Iranian opposition organization (MEK-turned out to be a religious cult) . .

– Yusof Laskani return home
Yusof Laskani was released from the MEK in 2016, after 17 years of imprisonment in the cult-like system of the group. He enjoyed his life in the free world in Albania and Germany for

– Hamzeh Rahimi was tortured then disappeared
Hamzeh Rahimi a member of Mojahedin-e Khalq was killed under torture when he was imprisoned in the group’s Camp Ashraf. He was an officer of the Iranian army taken as a Ms. Mohabbati: help me visit my daughter …

– Darvishi witnessed Parviz Ahmadi’s killing under torture
Ardeshir Darvishi, 63, was a sympathizer of the Mujahedin Khalq Organization while he was an army officer of the Iranian army. He left the army in 1991 and joined the group in Camp Ashraf, Iraq, The MEK

– Ex-member: We were remote controlled MEK former member: Rajavi is an Iranian Bin-Laden
Ali Qashqaei spent five years (1995-1998) in the organization’s camps in Iraq: “I was in a difficult financial situation. I thought the organization could help me to get out of it. I was also attracted by the
leaders’ message.

– They May Day, a standard to bring the MEK leaders to trial
Under the impression that she was joining a movement to free the Iranian people, Zahra Mirbagheri found herself in the deserts of Iraq, running carrying heavy pack bags full of rocks. “Viva Rajavi”, she heard herself chanting in the headquarters of the Mujahedin Khalq Organization.

To view the pdf file click here

June 6, 2022 0 comments

Massoud Rajavi

Documents to Expose Rajavi’s Violence against Dissident Members

A recently published document from inside the Mujahedin-e Khalq proves that Massoud Rajavi has used the most horrific tactics to suppress dissident members. Former child soldiers of the MEK revealed the cover and some pages of a pamphlet that demonstrates how critics against the MEK’s strategy will end with imprisonment, torture, elimination and even murder of the criticizing person.

The pamphlet which is titled “Organizational Ideological Argument” is actually the abstract of thousands of manipulation sessions run by Massoud and Maryam Rajavi in Camp Bagherzadeh, Iraq in 2001. The heart-breaking memoir of these sessions are always part of the difficult experiences of every former member of MEK. All of the confirm the content of the recently published document. According to the contents of this booklet, the MEK leaders forbid any kind of dissent and criticism in their cult-like organization.

Organizational Ideological Argument

The pamphlet which is titled “Organizational Ideological Argument

guidelines to push the dissident members to the hands of the Iranian Government or the Saddam Hussein’s Intelligence Service

Zhina and Amir, the two former child soldiers of the MEK published two pages of the document that contains a dozen of guidelines to push the dissident members to the hands of the Iranian Government or the Saddam Hussein’s Intelligence Service (Estekhbarat). The document which is dated September 2001, clearly argues that defection is forbidden:

“There is no such a person as defector. A defector who wants to leave the organization to enjoy a normal life should confess in front of the cameras. His place is not in the organization; he will be sent to Iran without cyanide capsule and arm.” This way, the MEK leaders plan to threaten their dissident members that they will certainly be arrested and executed by Iranian government and the group actually pushes them to this dark fate.
According to the document, no dissident member is allowed to go to Europe to take refuge. Instead, he or she will be handed to the then Iraqi government that was called by the MEK as the landlord.

“If we do not smuggle the defector into Iran, we will hand him to the landlord who will deal with him in accordance with their laws. Explanation: unlike European countries, Iraqi government does not deal with individuals and does not grant refuge. Iraq deals with the organization as a whole. It has accepted members based on the organization’s credit. Therefore, people who are attached with the organization are not questioned and do not have to fill out forms while arriving or leaving the country. Consequently, once the organization does not admit the responsibility of an individual, he will be treated as an illegal person.”

The content of this document is nothing new for former members of the MEK. We have already seen the testimonies of numerous defectors of the group who were victims of such a horrific punishment by the Cult of Rajavi. However, this booklet can be considered as a legal document to prove the inhumane attitude of the MEK leaders towards their own members in order to bring them to justice in a fair international trial.

June 2, 2022 0 comments

Former members of the MEK

I come from the land of pain and suffering – Part six

This number, however, reached 80 by the winter of 2003[1380]. These people were sold at different periods to the Iraqis in groups of three and four. The Red Cross visited Abu-Quraib Prison twice during my one-year stay there. Prior to each visit, the prison authorities would visibly and violently torture some of the prisoners in front of others in order to instill fear in everyone’s heart. They would separate those of us former MKO members and would threaten us so as to discourage us from speaking to the Red Cross officials. The Red Cross inspectors were surrounded by two groups at all-time preventing us from getting close to them. Following cooperation between the intelligence and security forces of MKO, Islamic Republic of Iran and Iraqi regime, an agreement was reached among them involving the exchange of 50 former MKO members with 650 Iraqi prisoners of war. [..]

In an event, towards the end of January 2002 [Dey 1380], Abu-Seyf visited Abu-Quraib Prison speaking to me and four other former MKO members. When I confronted him with his false promises and lies, he once more swear that we would be exchanged in the near future. I voiced my protest and said that, under no circumstances, I wish to go back to Iran. I said that I wanted to join my daughter in Denmark. He told me that at the time of exchange, I would be able to tell the Red Cross that I didn’t wish to be returned to Iran. At that time he said, the Red Cross would transfer you to the City of Al-Ramadi first and later sent you to Denmark. The long time prisoners at Abu-Quraib also confirmed that the Red Cross was present during the prisoners of war exchange between Iran and Iraq in 1998 and 1999. They said those who didn’t wish to go to Iran were placed under UN protection.

Mohammd Hussein Sobhani

After two years of being at virtually no contact, Iraqi regime and the Islamic Republic of Iran held meetings on political and security issues in January 2002 [Dey 1380] news of which received widespread coverage in both countries marked a turning point in relations between them. Towards the end of January 2002 [ Dey 1380] ,Iraqi TV announced that 650 prisoners of war were going to be exchanged with 50 Iranian prisoners the following week. They also announced that the Red Cross would be present at the exchange. Our hopes were raised considerably when we heard that the Red Cross was going to be present at the exchange. We, however, didn’t know that the 50 prisoners were former MKO members [dissidents].

On either 18 or 19 January 2002 [28 or 29 of Dey 1380], a voice on the prison loudspeakers asked the prisoners who had been kept in the so-called “protective custody” to gather in the yard. The warden read 50 names who were Mr. Rajavi’s prisoners kept in “protective custody”. My name was among them. The warden asked who wished to return to Iran and who did not? He separated those who wished to be returned to Iran from those who did not. Around 23 or 24 people said that they did not wish to go back to Iran. The warden threatened them telling the prisoners that they had to go back to Iran otherwise they would remain in Abu-Quraib forever. He then began to intimate us by shouting and beating us. A number of the prisoners changed their minds until the number of those not wishing to return to Iran was reduced to 12. A number of my friends, who were former MKO members, and I coordinated our efforts and asked to see the Red Cross and UN officials. The warden spoke to each one of us separately trying first through conciliatory and sympathetic approach, to convince us to go back to Iran. And when that failed, he threatened and ordered us to write a letter stating that we would wish to spend the rest of our lives in Abu-Quraib Prison. He asked me first to write the letter. I refused and told him that I neither wanted to go to Iran nor did I wish to remain in Abu-Quraib Prison in Iraq. I said that I wanted to speak to the UN and the Red Cross. The warden threatened me again telling me that I should write what he dictated to me. I still refused and wrote what I wanted to say. The other 12 people did the same thing, more or less. Finally through the coordinated efforts among MKO representative, Mehdi Abrishamchi and Abbas Davari [in charge of National Resistance Council’s labor committee] and Abu-Seyf, the decision was made to video tape all the prisoners, in which they were supped to express their desire to return to Iran. A number of people, fearing that their names might be taken out of the prisoner exchange list, agreed to be videotaped.

To be continued

June 1, 2022 0 comments

Former members of the MEK

Mahmoud Dehghan escape the MEK’s camp in Albania

Mahmoud Dehghan, a hostage of the Mujahedin Khalq Organization could manage to escape the group’s camp. He left the bars of the cult-like system of Rajavi’s group located in Manez, in north of the Albanian capital.

Mahmoud Dehghan was a soldier of the Iranian army when he was taken as a hostage in a joint operation by Saddam Hussein’s and Rajavi’s forces in the border area of Mehran. The MEK agents took him to their notorious Camp Ashraf. He was then relocated in Albania together with the group. Thus, his mental and physical imprisonment behind the bars of the Cult of Rajavi lasted for 34 years.

Mahmoud Dehghan

Mahmoud succeeded to escape the cult after more that three decades. During the long years of separation, his family took several actions calling for release of their beloved Mahmoud. They sent open letters to the international and Albanian authorities, published text and video messages to ask Mahmoud to contact them. Today, they can enjoy contacting and visiting Mahmoud in the free world.

May 30, 2022 0 comments

The cult of Rajavi

Mohammad Gamoosh was hanged in the MEK Camp Ashraf

Born in 1968, Mohammad Gamoosh was from Zanjan, Iran. He was a soldier in the Iran-Iraq war serving in division 46 Orumieh. He was taken as a war prisoner in a joint operation launched by Iraqi and MEK forces against Iranians in Hajomran region. Mohammad Gamoosh had just finished his army service and had planned to get back home but the tide turned.

The MEK forces transferred Mohammad and other POWs to Debes prison near Kirkuk, Iraq. From the first moment Mohammad tried to convince the MEK agents that his army service had finished and his parents had awaited his return but he was totally ignored. Instead, Sadat Darbandi (called Kak Adel), the notorious MEK’s commander humiliated and threatened him. Mohammad did not stop complaining. He was known among POWs for his dissent against MEK commanders.

Eventually, in a cold morning of the winter of 1987, his body was found hanged behind the prison building. A number of members of the Mujahedin Khalq saw Mohammad Gamoosh’s body hanged.

The MEK agents did not allow anyone to ask a question about Mohammad’s fate. A group of 20 to 30 MEK agents came to take his body, suppressing other prisoners violently. They put his body in a jeep, took him out of Debes prison and buried him immediately.

May 29, 2022 0 comments

The cult of Rajavi

Ray Torabi’s message on the occasion of his 40th birthday

Ray (Mohammad Reza) Torabi, former child soldier of the Mojahedin-e Khalq shared a post on his Facebook account on the occasion of his 40th birthday:

Mohammad Reza Torabi

“When I was 17, after 8 years of separation from my parents, I finally met my biological mother. Unfortunately, the condition of our meeting was that I had to leave Canada and go to Iraq to meet her, where she was a member of an Iranian opposition organization (turned out to be a religious cult). She told me that my father had passed away some years before as a result of a heart attack, which he suffered in his sleep. He was 39 at the time of his death.
I ended up staying in this organization for many years, and oh the stories…
But in all those years, I always believed that I, like my father, would one day die of a heart problem while in my bed. Although I was literally in the middle of war with so many life-threatening situations, nothing scared me quite like the idea of dying in my bed before even turning 40.
I wouldn’t be lying if I said that I thought about it hundreds of times over the years.
But the years went by and as is the rule of life, the truth surfaced and I realized that my biological mother had lied to me regarding the facts surrounding my father’s death and that he didn’t die of a heart attack and that he was murdered by the same organization he sacrificed his life for. That’s a story for another day.
But I turned 40 today. A year older than my father. And although life hasn’t been so kind to me, I’m grateful for every day of it. With all its ups and downs, sweet and bitter moments, pains and sufferings and the challenges that turned me into the resilient, humble, compassionate, forgiving, kind… Human that I am.”

Mohammad Reza Torabi in his youth

Mohammad Reza, nicknamed Ray, is a former child soldier of the MEK who left the group four years ago after 18 years of enduring the cult-like system of Massoud and Maryam Rajavi. He did not know that his father was a victim of torture in that very organization until he left the group. Ray Torabi is one of the several former child soldiers of the MEK who are speaking out against the group’s brainwashing structure. In response to Ray’s questions about the death of his father, the MEK propaganda made his biological mother and his aunt write against him labeling him as agent of the Iranian government. However, Ray did not give up and continued speaking out about his experience of involvement with the Cult of Rajavi.

Amir Vafa Yaghmaee

His Facebook post on the occasion of his birthday was warmly welcomed by his audience. He was widely encouraged by former members of the MEK and his current friends to bravely share his stories. Amir Yaghmai, another former child soldier of Rajavi’s army addressed Ray by writing:
You are one of the most humble guys I’ve met. Our background could have turned us into strange personalities with the lack of social adaptation. Fortunately, most of us made it quite well and we became good souls.

Amir Nematollahi

Among the numerous comments on Ray’s post, the one from Amir Nematollahi, former operative agent of the MEK is also remarkable:
Life has thrown its fair share of obstacles in your way from a young age, before our paths even crossed, and I have only been able to witness the strength you carry for a short amount of time. But in those three years, you have managed to inspire more than any quote, self-help book, or words of wisdom could ever do, because you get out of bed every morning, face life and all of its challenges head on, while still managing to keep your head up, and live life to the fullest. I am truly grateful to know you and your life story inspired me in many ways stay strong and I assure you that your father would have been so proud of what you become and who you are…by the way happy birthday.

May 28, 2022 0 comments

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