Mojahedin. WS

MKO’s Ideological Revolution, an Absolute Deviation

The Cult of Mojahedin; A Modern Cult of Personality – 3

The internal ideological revolution was the turning point that paved the way for the transformation of MKO to a cult of personality. Rajavi needed to construct a plot, regardless of the large cost, similar to that of the ideological drift in 1975 drafted by Taghi Shahram, who broke the seemingly Islamic ideology of the organization and officially announced it to be Marxism. Consequently, Shahram suppressed any protest and opposition and even plotted assassinations to liquidate opponents or as a method of silencing them.

Now ten years later, in 1985, Rajavi had faced a more complicated situation worse than before. The announced armed warfare with the heavy cost imposed both on regime and the organization had proved totally unproductive. Rajavi had come under harsh criticism and disapproval and blamed for his countless errors that had led to discredit what was being advertised as a revolutionary movement because of excessive use of unnecessary terror. And Rajavi was in urgent need of exploiting the intact huge potentiality of female insiders as motivators in inter-organizational relations and a prototype of a campaigning modern woman for tradition-bond Iranian women. The big change started itself with another error and scandal and the Rajavis, Massoud and Maryam, were the firsts to publicly break with Islamic and Iranian tradition; a wife’s infidelity misrepresented a sacred act and was considered as a turning point in the campaigns of the organization as well as a shocking strike against Islamic Republic regime! Any logical mind could anticipate what would be the outcome of a change started by challenging established traditions that Rajavi judged as impediments in the path of spurring innovations. MKO was the first in Iranian contemporary history to publicly legitimizing the unconventional remarriage of a woman immediately after her divorce.

Maryam was known to be the fruit of the so-called “ideological revolution” and who, consequently, paved the way for the other details of the revolution and was built a prototype for Iranian women. Mehdi Abrishamchi, a ranking aid to Rajavi and Maryam Rajavi’s late husband, was himself the one to make the first sacrifice for the revolution! and among the firsts to justify his wife’s divorce and her remarriage to Rajavi:

Maryam had to be either unquestionably promoted to a high status in the organization free from any [conjugal] obligation, just like Massoud, and be totally devoted to revolution or had to give it up. 1

According to Abrishamchi, since Maryam had to be promoted to a leadership status and every decision in the organization had to be made by Maryam and Massoud together, the matrimonial obligations and restrictions prevented Maryam to be in Massoud’s company all the time. She had to deny all her obligations and tear whatever bonded her except to Massoud and the revolution. As such, her divorce and remarriage before anything was instilled to be the accomplishment of a revolutionary obligation. Thus, the marriage was hailed as a great sacrifice made by Masoud and Maryam and all the members had to follow the steps to undertake their own revolution not in a similar line with the leaders but by identifying their personal shortcomings in later arranged self-criticism sessions. Immediately following the Rajavi’s marriage, the military command of the MKO issued a directive stating:

In order to carry out your organizational duties under the present circumstances, there is an urgent need to strengthen and deepen this ideological revolution. You must pay the necessary price by allocating sufficient time and resources for absorbing related teachings…Thus in your daily routines give priority to listening to radio messages and explanations provided by your commanders. Believe in the central committee’s proclamation that “this ideological revolution will enhance the Mojahedin’s capacities enormously; it will ever more unify and cleanse our ranks.”…Be certain that your deep belief in the novel leadership of the new democratic revolution of the heroic Iranian people, meaning Masoud and Maryam Rajavi, and by making a direct connection with this leadership and setting it as your example….you will be able to correct your work habits and be able to deal with and resolve personal, organizational, and military difficulties. 2

It was followed by another directive issued by the Social Division commanding the members to prove their revolutionary obedience by submitting to the initiated self-criticism tradition within the organization:

To understand this great revolution…is to understand and gain a deep insight into the greatness of our new leadership, meaning the leadership of Masoud and Maryam. It is to believe in them as well as to show ideological and revolutionary obedience of them…By correcting your old work habits and by criticizing your individual as well as collective shortcomings, we shall gain much awareness in confronting our enemies…Report to your commanders and superiors in a comprehensive manner your progress, its results and outcomes that you gain from promoting and strengthening this ideological revolution. 3

Consequently, protests were aborted and a cult of personality was provided for the leader and his wife to the sanctuary of where nobody was permitted either to enter or violate it. The experience taught Rajavi to apply this tactic to remove any obstacle and save the organization and him when facing a challenge. His Machiavellian inclinations and his seizing any opportunity to achieve his goals made the impossible possible for him. The members` crushed identity had made them undergo an amazing metamorphosis to follow the orders. The exploited coercive mental and physical approaches against the insiders developed into a counteraction against the ever-increasing criticisms and protests.

According to many MKO’s ex-members, in this phase, under the pretext of security considerations, many dissident members and critics were either imprisoned or killed suspiciously and the first consequences of settlement in Iraq was establishing prisons and exercising mental and physical pressures on prisoners. The worst was despicable justification by zealous devotees of Rajavies for such maltreatment and offenses which they called the inevitable consequence of the ideological revolution which they believed to be necessary for assessing the loyalty of members to leadership. In their opinion, themselves enjoying the abundant luxury of the post-revolution, blind obedience and submission to imprisonment, as well as suffering physical and mental tortures were indications of expressing absolute devotion and loyalty to the leadership.

Resources:

1. The delivered lecture by Mehdi Abrishamchi on the internal ideological revolution within MKO, [1985].
2. Mojahed, No. 241, April 4, 1985.
3. Mojahed, No. 242, April 12, 1985.

January 14, 2013 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization as a terrorist group

The Democracy on Mass Graves

Discovered mass graves are a miniature sample of MKO’s democracy in a greater world

Just after the downfall of Saddam, the Iraqi dictator, tens of mass graves were discovered around The Democracy on Mass Graves Iraq, where thousands of Iraqis had been buried after apparent mass executions. The discovered graves accounted for a plainly shocking fact that how Saddam got rid of his opponents with no sense of remorse or mercy. And now after the evacuation of Camp Ashraf, a bastion for his mercenary forces, additional dimensions of crimes committed by his mercenaries have been unearthed.

The latest reports endorse that the terrorist Mojahedin Khalq Organization (MKO/MEK/PMOI/NCR), known as witting accomplices in Saddam’s crimes, have been talented students of the late criminal master. As an Iraqi official says, several mass graves have been unearthed in Camp Ashraf. Reportedly stressed by Sadeq al-Husseini, the deputy chairman of Diyala’s provincial council, the Iraqi Ministry of Human Rights is in charge of determining the identities of the bodies and to whom they belong; Kurds, Arab local residents or else. Regardless of the bodies’ identities, they have been human beings either slaughtered by Saddam, MKO’s forces or in joint operations. In any case, the responsibility is on MKO as it has long been dwelling on the bones of these bodies concealed from the outside and the parents and relatives who never heard any news of them.

The huge controversial feature of the MKO was its decision in 1983 to ally itself with the former Iraqi regime of Saddam. Arriving at an agreement, Massoud Rajavi moved, along with his loyal ring-leaders and majority of his forces, to Baghdad in 1986. Forming the National Liberation Army there with Saddam’s aid, he dispatched his forces to fight alongside Iraqi forces against Iranian troops that led to further diminishing of MKO’s credibility inside Iran. Moreover, a number of Iraqi Shi’ites and Kurdish organizations have alleged that MKO forces played a role in the suppression of the so-called Safar Intifada of March 1991 against the former Iraqi regime.

MKO’s collaboration with Saddam against Iraqi people exerted a dramatic impact on the group’s internal relation that led to serious inter-organizational problems as well as external challenges. Several dozen members announced their defection and deserted Camp Ashraf protesting among other things the group’s complicity in the suppression of Kurdish and Shi’ite uprisings in the aftermath of the Kuwait war. The arrival of these former members in Europe and their organized attempts at spotlighting the alleged abuses and deviations of the organization, led MKO to intensify its character assassination campaigns against its former members and to label them as the agents working for Iranian regime.

A slew of detentions inside MKO camps and torture at the hands of senior members were also the harsh reaction against the protests. But soon the outside world came to be notified of what was going on within the group when a credible and high-profile human-rights organization for the first time revealed and verified the testimony of the detached members. The 28-page HRW report, “No Exit: Human Rights Abuses Inside the MKO Camps”, details how dissident members of the group were tortured, beaten and held in solitary confinement for years at military camps in Iraq after they criticized the group’s policies.

With the fall of Rajavi’s bastion, the world will see more of the democracy he has promised to establish. These mass graves are just a miniature sample of a future democracy in a greater world. Many facts have already come out and this is not the last one which follows.

January 6, 2013 0 comments

Former members of the MEK

MKO ex-members provide testimony to Kurd genocide

With the Swedish Parliament passing a resolution acknowledging the massacre of Kurdish people by Iraq in 1991, former Rajavi cult escaped members have sent a letter to Swedish Parliament Speaker, Per Westerberg to provide testimony to role played by MKO Kurd genocide.

“We, the writers of this letter, are from Iran and living in Europe, defectors from this Iranian group MEK led by Masoud Rajavi. The majority of us have each spent more than twenty years of physical and mental prison,” reads the letter.

“Recent humanitarian act by Swedish Parliament on condemning killing of Kurds by MEK members gives the impetus for us to provide witness to MEK crimes in Iraq in 1991,” says the letter. “We have been witness to Masoud Rajavi’s and Maryam Qajar Azdanlu’s order on killing Kurds. In those days of waging war against the Iraqi Kurds, Maryam Rajavi ordered the MEK armed forces to “run over the Kurds by tanks and save your bullets for killing of Iranian soldiers beyond borders”.

“We declare that it was Maryam Rajavi’s voice giving orders. In the brutal suppression of the Kurds, Masoud Rajavi told his followers in a meeting that Iraqi authorities hailed and thanked him for the killing of the Kurds and putting down their uprising in Kafra, Tuz Khormatu, Kara Teppe, Qasre Shirin, etc.,” claims the report.

Furthermore, the letter adds that we, the defectors, having escaped the organization lead by Masoud and Maryam Rajaviin and its formal and horrific atmosphere governing it, decided to expose the crimes by this cult, in an attempt to stop killings of individuals by the cult.

“Therefore; in order to shed light on Rajavi’s involvement in killings of the Kurds in Iraq during Saddam’s era, we are ready and willing to provide you with witnesses and documentation for this cause,” the letter continues.

January 5, 2013 0 comments

Maryam Rajavi

Rajavi’s Slip of Tongue

Rajavi means to say anti-human when she says anti-terrorist

Many might be taken aback to hear that a notorious terrorist cult takes a sudden step forward to announce it is “the most anti-terrorist movement in the world” after one or two countries decide to Rajavi means to say anti-human when she says anti-terrorist ignore their hot chants of combating terrorism just for political causes none of which serves the interests of their nations. It is bitter but, alas, we hear it from the mouth of a hallucinated terrorist ring-leader.

Maryam Rajavi, occupying the leading throne of Mojahedin Khalq Organization MKO/MEK/PMOI/NCR in the absence of her husband whose whereabouts are unknown for the present, in a statement just following MKO’s drop from Canada’s list of terrorist entities stated: “Labeling the PMOI a terrorist organization marked an enormous aberration in combating terrorism. The designation of the most anti-terrorist and anti-fundamentalist movement in the world only emboldened the real terrorists and the godfather of terrorism and fundamentalism, namely the dictatorship ruling Iran”.

Expect for a variety of speculations, there is no clear cut answer to the question of why advocates of combating terrorism have made a sudden U-turn to move against the current. But, there is an undeniable fact that MKO maintains the characteristics of a terrorist cult even if removed from any list. In a testimony before the US House Committee on Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations on July 7, 2011, Ray Takeyh says that MKO can neither abandon terrorism nor is commitment to democracy neither in deed nor word:

“Terror has always been a hallmark of MEK’s strategy for assuming power. Through much of its past, the party exulted violence as a heroic expression of legitimate dissent. One of the central precepts of the party is that a highly-dedicated group of militants could spark a mass revolution by bravely confronting superior power of the state and assaulting its authority. Once, the masses observe that the state is vulnerable to violence, than they will shed their inhibitions and join the protest, thus sparking the larger revolution. Thus, the most suitable means of affecting political change is necessarily violence. Although in its advocacy in Western capitals, the MEK emphasizes its commitment to democracy and free expression, in neither deed nor word has it forsworn it violent pedigree.”

Emboldened by the illogicality of decisions, a terrorist leader makes an easy step to announce that the world has been wrong so far to label an anti-terrorist group a terrorist one. However, to give a better interpretation of her phrase, many consider it Rajavi’s slip of tongue and read it as anti-human. That is to say, she means to say anti-human when she says anti-terrorist. The existing problem now is the destiny of the group’s members rather than its name on the list. The relevant fact overlooked is the fate of its members. The removal of MKO from any terrorist list in no way helps to end the plights of its members long enslaved against their will. If these countries that delist MKO really believe in the soundness of their decisions, then, the best complimentary deed to end a humanitarian task is to accept a few of the members living in limbo in a cult state and in Iraq.

December 25, 2012 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Mojahedin Khalq Trapped in a State of Limbo

The US and its European allies are responsible for MKO’s current state of living in limbo

In his briefing of November 29 to the Security Council, the Special Representative of the The US and its European allies are responsible for MKO’s current state of living in limbo Secretary-General (SRSG) for Iraq, Mr. Martin Kobler, stated: “I should like to take this opportunity to reiterate the Secretary-General’s appeal to Member States to offer resettlement opportunities to former residents of Camp Ashraf. Without such an undertaking, there can be no sustainable solution for the residents.”

The statement is clearly taken to imply that, despite unconfirmed rumors, no country has so far announced readiness to accept the members of Mojahedin Khalq Organization (MKO, MEK, PMOI, NCR) as refugees. The unanimous reluctance to receive MKO is in fact a negative response to the call for a durable and workable solution to the issue of residents’ resettlement. Although it has led the process to a standstill, at the first look it seems it is MKO that benefits the situation most of all as it never intended to leave Iraq and is doing its best, through a widespread propaganda, to grab at a chance of turning the transitory camp into a permanent camp of refugees. The consequence, however, might lead to a serious crisis hard to handle since the Iraqi government is decisive to banish the group. But the basic question that goes unanswered is why countries resist letting MKO on their soil?

For sure, there are sound reasons behind this universal unwillingness. A first group of these countries, including the US and European countries, make sure to keep in with MKO while withdraw to offer any refugee opportunities to have them on their soil. It is simplistic to think that their refusal is just for considering MKO a security threat, a fact that they never deny. But for a number of political justifications, these countries prefer to convince, and if possible force, the Iraqi government prolong group’s stay there. Having the military option still on the table, the US and its allies look at the group as a multi-purpose tool against Iran as used in Saddam’s era. However, MKO has already proved to be a working instrument where other imposed political solutions fail to work; MKO may play the role of one of many sticks for these countries’ resort to the policy of carrot-and-stick when engaging in talks to resolve Iran nuclear issue. The removal of MKO from the terrorist list by these countries has been in line with the same policy; for the designation of foreign terrorist organizations and their removal have become a highly politicized exercise in which some groups are just designated to be used as political approaches. In fact, there is really no change in the nature of the relations between MKO and these Western countries before and after its designation.

A second group of countries are concerned about the political consequences of letting MKO on their soil. Before allowing MKO as refugees, these countries should consider the advantages and disadvantages as there would possibly be a darkened and even a suspended diplomatic relation with the Islamic Republic. Of course, for a country like Israel it makes no difference but no doubt, it has to pay big prices for a direct and open alliance with the notorious group it has long tried to deny any collaboration. However, these countries political prescription for MKO is not different from the first group; MKO continue its living-in-limbo style residence in Iraq for the present.

The temporary accommodation is typically secure, suitable and affordable for MKO under the supervision and monitoring of the UN both for the relocation and the situation in the temporary camp around the clock. The UNHCR has a team at the camp to carry out the verifications for refugee status, a futile attempt so far since no third country has offered a suggestion. Within its set framework of responsibility, UN can do nothing beyond urging the Iraqi government to tolerate the current situation to find the “sustainable solution for the residents”.

The fact is that neither the UN nor its Secretary-General’s Special Representative in Iraq anticipated such a stalemate in the issue of MKO and Ashraf residents. At first presumed to be a decisive solution to resettlement of residents in third countries, the relocation remains a difficult challenge itself. No effort will be productive to tackle with the challenge unless the US and its European allies make a small change in their political perspective for humanitarian causes.

December 19, 2012 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization's Propaganda System

MKO Dismisses to Admit Errors

MKO leaders are making more mistakes by holding onto cult practices inside

There is always another chance for those who make mistakes, even serious ones, but the fatal MKO leaders are making more mistakes by holding onto cult practices inside one to make is to avoid admitting them. Of the recent expressions which best describes the terrorist MKO is the one stated by Alan Berger, a Boston Globe editorial writer expert on foreign policy and security issues. In his article entitled Iranian exiles and international blunders, he points to his last year’s interview with MKO’s leader, Maryam Rajavi, and the group’s members he talked to and concluded that “People caught up in a blood feud are not inclined to dwell on their past errors”. As a matter of fact, MKO has been pursuing a never-ending and long lasted vendetta against the Islamic Republic regime for many bloods the group’s own past errors themselves have been the main cause to shed. And MKO laid the cornerstone of all errors when it concluded the inevitability and necessity of initiating armed struggle and violent acts in 1981, a rebellion which was supposed to speed up the collapse of the regime just for a change of power rather than for the accomplishment of democratic and civil causes.

But did MKO ever admit the fatal error the leaders made? Never. Just after a year of engaging in a massive terrorist bloodshed and killing hundreds of personalities and innocent civilians, in an analysis of the year-long armed struggle, Rajavi made another mistake by openly admitting that armed struggle was the spirit of the organization without which it failed to survive: “In essence, we owe our existence and survival before anything to the widespread armed combat of the Iranian Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization”.

Despite MKO is removed from the US terror list, today most of parliamentarians and politicians, with whom Maryam Rajavi attempts to show is in alliance with, are aware of the terrorist nature and record of her group. And of course, the group’s leaders never stop emphasizing the strategy of terror and violence whenever grabbing at a chance. The number of casualties and those killed in the course of a pseudo-democratic struggle have never been important for MKO and its leaders since their natures are not familiar with humane passion and mercy. What is important for them is achieving cultic goals with the Rajavis at the lead, human beings are just tools.

Being a devotee of Masoud Rajavi as well as being his wife, Maryam Qajar Azdanlou, was sent from Iraq to France in 1993 as an elected future transitional President to undertake her tactical and organizational mission of filling the gap of a political campaign out of the cult. But in none of her messages delivered to the military branch based in Iraq she ceased to emphasize that “everything at the end is bomb, bullet and gun”. However, her first task there has been to advertise a different side of the mother terrorist group, to demonstrate a pro-democratic alias on struggle that outwardly outweighs disadvantages of engaging in terrorist acts in order to take advantage of the European support. But in fact, she is still the very devoted member faithful to the principles of the mother group.

It is deceit that makes hypocrisy what it is and Maryam Rajavi has proved to be a real prototype. The West and the group’s advocates there are deceived by her democratic manners and maneuvers and, of course, her extravagance. The errors of MKO are beyond any calculation atop of which stand its rampant terrorist deeds and crimes following committing the fatal error of advocating an armed struggle policy to regain a lost struggle. Thus, greatly hailing a philosophy of “ends justify the means”, violence became the opt means to achieve no democratic and human cause but the power. Expelled from Iran as a rebellious group, it vowed as an archenemy of Iranian people and has so far swum against the current. In fact, the serious errors have been its ideological drift and political misconduct that led it afield of a conventional political group and the world came to develop an idea of recognizing it not only a terrorist group but also a highly destructive cult evolving its own mind control techniques and sharing common properties with other dangerous cults. Still MKO leaders dismiss to admit the grave errors that could halt deflection of a group that could continue on a democratic, non-violent path. And still they are making more mistakes by holding onto cultic practices inside but portraying a democratic organization outside.

Rosa Kaviani,

December 15, 2012 0 comments

The cult of Rajavi

The Cult of Mojahedin; A Modern Cult of Personality – 2

The transformation of MKO to a pseudo-religious cult occurred through a lengthy process

For sure, as many experts on the subject believe, there are certain similarities between cults and The transformation of MKO to a pseudo-religious cult occurred through a lengthy process terrorist groups in the way each uses sophisticated psychological techniques to indoctrinate their devoted members. As a matter of fact, there exists a high potentiality in a terrorist group to actually change into a dangerous cult as it possesses cult features, because any group that challenges adopted norms that advocates moving against the current for sure it avails backdrop of a cult. In the same way, any cult has the potential to be a terrorist group. in the case of MKO it is not an exception.

But still there is a question to put that how and when it happened that MKO transformed from a Marxist-oriented political group with a fundamental ideology of advocating armed warfare to what is today known as a total cult of personality. Speculations fueled by a considerable bulk of studies as well as assertions by detached and former MKO members center on the fact that it was not an overnight transformation but a plot that hatched gradually through some lengthy process of guilefully outlined stages. Ali Akbar Rastgoo, an ex-member, firmly believes that MKO had some cult-like features even from the beginning but due to some reasons, they did not break the surface:

The transformation of MKO to a dangerous pseudo-religious cult occurred through a lengthy process. It has to be pointed out that it was a potentiality existing from the very beginning in the organization’s Islamic-Marxist eclectic ideology. If it failed to be manifested in those first years of its formation, it was because it was impossible to build up the current relations at that time. [1]

There are more than enough evidences to prove that Massoud Rajavi had a personal ambition of establishing a cult of personality after a complete failure in armed warfare and facing an overall political stalemate that led his group into total isolation from the masses. Even before the initiation of the military phase and declaring armed struggle against the regime in 1980, some eminent political figures well acquainted with MKO envisaged it would turn into a cult sooner or later. And Rajavi needed some information before taking the first step. Ali Ferasati, an ex-member, discloses that in 1984 while in Paris, Rajavi ordered the information bureau of umbrella groups and associations to do comprehensive studies about the structure of cults in the West:

In 1984, the information bureau of associations was asked to conduct a study into the Western religious cults. The reason was said to be since the imperialists were pushing policies ahead through religious cults, the organization needed to find out what the cults were doing and under what mechanism. … At the time I got to the bottom that Massoud [Rajavi] was aware of the fact that the organization was getting disintegrated and thus, he wanted to see how the western cults operated so he could follow their model. [2]

It may seem hard to believe that the first seeds of MKO’s transition to a cult of personality were sown in the heart of the Western democratic and free soil following the shocking initiation of a heretic inter-organizational revolution within MKO. In fact, before MKO relocation to Iraq to execute cultic relations in Camp Ashraf as its main cult bastion, the cult thought had passed beyond its embryo stage at Auvers-Sur-Oise in Paris. The four-year settlement of MKO in France and a great accumulation of members made them engaged in a routine bureaucracy that caused a staff crisis. Many other factors such as daily-life problems, lack of a clear strategy in 1981 to 1985, critical detachment and separation of members and lack of motivation as a result of long residence in France, attractions of life and beauties of European countries all and all caused the organization suffer acute crises. Besides, Rajavi was receiving formal messages and invitations from Saddam Hussein for a complete transfer of the organization to Iraq. The group had been caught in a difficult dilemma since Iraq was at war with Iran and Saddam was the most hated man in the eyes of Iranian. As a matter of fact, move to Iraq was equal to involving in an unforgivable conspiracy against a nation for whom the group had promised freedom and democracy.

Knowing the problem and hearing murmurs of protest from the ranking members against his goals and plans, Massoud Rajavi came to a conclusion to make a basic change in the already adopted conventional model of the Leadership Council for steering his group. On the other hand, the very existence of the Leadership Council had to be dissolved as it was an obstacle and threat to his authoritative leadership and he needed a plan to dissolve it. To find a way around all these problems and to pave the way to break any probable resistance, it required a very wise, deep plan which should also support a kind of revolutionary move. Besides, Rajavi was already embroiled in the scandal of having intimate and amorous relations with his office secretary, Maryam Qajar Azodanlu, the wife of Mehdi Abrishamchi at the time. The relation uncovered, it could cause a serious crash against the structure of the group that claimed to highly value moral principles in its campaign.

References:

1. Ra’isi and et al. Ravand-e Jodaee (originally in Persian) “The process of separation”. 1979. Samadie publication. p.164.
2. Massoud Jabani; Ravanshenasi Khoshunat va Terror (originally in Persian) “A psychology of aggression and terror” , Khavaran publication. p.127.

December 15, 2012 0 comments

The cult of Rajavi

The Cult of Mojahedin: A Modern Cult of Personality

At the present, Mojahedin Cult is notoriously reputed and referred to as the sole political-terrorist cult of personality

The inside and outside members
At the present, Mojahedin Cult is notoriously reputed and referred to as the sole political-terrorist cult of personality
Masud Rajavi complements his authoritarian leadership by fostering a personality cult that revolves primarily around himself and secondarily around his wife, Maryam. (The US State Department Report, Nov. 1992)

Cults are feverishly active all over the world and a grave feature of their menace is the deceit with which they distort the truth to trap the unwary. Cults generally tend to function in isolation and are usually remote from the society and keep away to have direct contact with people. However, for some purposes cults need to make contact with the outside world, that is, recruiting new members, fundraising and more. Sending the members to live among the free society is even more crucial when the cult comes to be a hypocritically political one that needs the society as the wheels to push the cult forth.

Although cults cut members off from easy and tete-a-tete contact with outsiders, there are a number of members in certain cults that live out of the cult among the ordinary people to fulfill the mentioned purposes. It does not mean that these outside members can escape tense, thought reform processes worked within the cult. These members seemingly living outside separate from the cult are also under direct and strict cult controls and undergo the same mechanisms that are used against the insiders:

In most live-in cults, every detail of life comes under group scrutiny. For example, there are dress codes, food restrictions, and enforced marriages or relationships. In such cults, the members generally live together at the headquarters or at specified locations around the country or over, seas and work for cult-owned enterprises. However, there are also cults whose devotees appear to remain active in quite a few major aspects of the outside world, earning a living outside the cult. But for all practical purposes these individuals also live under rules governing such crucial features of their personal life as the people with whom they associate, what happens to their money, whether they raise their own children, and where they live.

At the present, Mojahedin Khalq Organization (MKO/MEK/PMOI/NCR), or Mojahedin Cult/Cult of Mojahedin as it is notoriously reputed and referred to, may be the sole political-terrorist cult of personality that avails big number of live-in and live-out members. The group’s main bastion was once located in Camp Ashraf, located some 60 kilometers north of Baghdad in Iraq, but the majority of insiders have been relocated to a temporary transit location (TTL) near Baghdad’s airport. However, its headquarters are situated in Auvers-Sur-Oise in Paris under the name of National Council of Resistance (NCR), an officially recognized alias for MKO. But there are many countless umbrella and front groups aiding the cult in fundraising activities, recruitment, propaganda blitz, organizing rallies and so forth.

To the list of front groups can be added numerous political, social, charity, art and much more groups and societies wherein hardly you can trace them back to the mother group. They all function according to the taste and culture of the societies among whom the insiders live and mostly propagate under democratic standards. For instance, the women and girls officially active as ring members of MKO are forced to wear outfits covering all their body parts and the head. Even Maryam Rajavi herself in spite of dressing in colorful non-transparent outfit never shows bareheaded in the public. But there are many occasions in which women sympathizers, under the command and direction of the commanding members in charge, engage in activities in extravagant western fashions on behalf of MKO. It has to be also mentioned that many of these sympathizers are unaware of the real nature of MKO and work as propaganda tools to beguile the Westerners. As soon as they are recruited as the formal members, they have to embrace cult principles including the clothing codes.

Before September 28, when MKO was removed from the State Department’s list of FTO, it was a designated terrorist group and therefore the US persons and firms were generally prohibited from engaging in transactions with or providing services to the group. The key responsibility was thus on the US based umbrella groups active in making contracts with American firms as part of a lobbying campaign, hiring speakers and paying speaking fees, making arrangements for encouraging and hiring Iranian and non-Iranian masses for rallies, fund-raising and collecting donations, and more. Here is a few of these active front groups to name just in the US:

The Iranian-American Community of North Texas

Iranian-American Community of Northern California

California Society for Democracy in Iran

The Iranian American Cultural Association of Missouri (IACAM)

The International Solidarity for Democratic Change in Iran (ISDCI)

The Global Initiative for Democracy

U.S. Committee for Camp Ashraf Residents

The National Coalition of Pro-Democracy Advocates

References:

1. Thaler Singer, Margaret; Cults in Our Midst: The Continuing Fight Against Their Hidden Menace, p. 11.

Mojahedin.ws

November 27, 2012

November 28, 2012 0 comments

The cult of Rajavi

MKO, a Cult Rebuilt in a New Bastion

MKO has turned TTL into another cult milieu just under the eyes of the world

It is a common belief that the structure and organization of cults are complex, but the terrible truth about many of them is that they can easily and immediately adapt, recover and rebuild their organizational setup, rather than withering away, if partly disintegrated or broken into smaller groups. That is mainly because order structure and the authoritatively established system of hierarchy within the organization of cults can guarantee the replacement of a leader and guru in his or her absence and demise. But there are solutions for certain to get rid of a cult and to push it to the edge of abyss and precipice of dissolution; the most working is the one that leads to wither in membership and accelerates the process of decline in the number of the insiders and members.

Of the most dangerous cults whose threats never diminish and continue to spread the shadow of their nightmare over the modern world are the terrorist ones. And among them to name one in particular, and which is still active as a peculiar and the most dangerous one, is Mojahedin Khalq Organization (MKO/MEK/PMOI/NCR). Generally recognized as a terrorist group with at least some forty year-long record of violence and bloodshed, MKO “began to be transformed into something more sinister during the mid-1980s after the group’s leaders and many of its members had relocated to Paris”, according to RAND’s A Policy Conundrum. Following its alliance with Iraq’s fallen dictator Saddam Hussein in 1986, MKO leaders and majority of its combating cadres moved to Iraq where it was provided with protection, money, weapons and expropriated lands which the group turned into military bastions as well as a closed milieu for cultic practices just in the middle of Iraq’s deserts.

Unwelcome in Iraq and facing a crisis of being forced to leave its main military-cultic stronghold, Camp Ashraf, which Iraqi Government was decisive to close permanently, all the camp’s insiders had to be relocated, according to a MoU signed by the Iraqi Government, UN and MKO, to a Temporary Transit Location TTL near Baghdad’s airport to be processed within a few months to be transferred to third countries. Around 3400 residents of the camp were scheduled to be transferred in groups of 400 that lasted months beyond of the given deadline. Was it for promises by the State Department to be removed from the FTO’s list or other incentives, MKO reluctantly submitted to resume halted process of the relocation and the last group of the insiders, but for a small number, were transferred on September 16, 2012.

But the story of MKO is a never-ending one since it has been mostly dealt with as a terrorist group rather than a cult and that is where the problem fails to be circumvented. Although now de-listed as a terrorist group for certain political causes, MKO preserves its formidable reputation as a dangerous cult of personality run by the husband-wife Rajavies. In contrast to the speculations that the relocation of the insiders would lead to diminish the imposed cultic practices, the current situation and condition of the insiders in TTL uncovers intensified instances of tough cultic practices even in the absence of the chief leaders.

To survive and also to recover, a cult and its leader/s need to isolate his/her followers from outsiders to ensure that the followers will only hear the cult’s propaganda. The isolation from outside influences and provocations protects the cult’s internalized belief system and keeps them away from the outside critical thinking that threatens the cult’s integrity. And MKO has turned TTL into another cult milieu just under the eyes of the world to continue the heavily controlled physical and psychological exercises. A member of the group, Majid Mohammadi, recently escaped from the TTL, in an interview disclosed that MKO plans to turn TTL into another cult bastion like Ashraf:

… The organizational control and cult-like practices exercised by the Rajavis, at Camp Liberty [TTL] was worse than those applied at Camp Ashraf. MKO leaders knew that Liberty is not like Ashraf. It’s not an isolated, closed location with no access to the outside world so they enhanced the organizational control in Liberty to prevent defection and eventually the collapse of the cult. From the beginning of our arrival at TTL, one of the criminal commanders of the MKO, named Abbas Davari, who had been previously sent there, started holding meetings for members. He said: ”The difference between Liberty and Ashraf is that the former was completely under our control, no one was able to interfere in the organization relations but here at Liberty we are dependent on the outside world and Iraqi forces. We should work hard to maintain this Camp and change it to another Ashraf.

It is difficult to tolerate the recovery and reorganization of a seemingly dismantled cult. However, those familiar with the characteristics of cults will easily spot one when they encounter it or are exposed to the bitter experiences that the escaped members, rather than separated members, impart. The intensified exertion of control and pressure on the insiders in TTL is an attempt to stop the escape and separation of them, both physically and mentally, because the leaders are heedful that the fall and decline in the number of the insiders and members is tantamount to gradual dissolution and demise of the cult. Thus, a unanimous consensus is needed to deracinate MKO from the long list of dangerous cults. But there exists a problem that has so far made many indeterminate in making a decisive decision against MKO; they are uncertain whether to recognize MKO a cult or not!

Let’s start a study to corroborate findings and testimonies that MKO is a cult for certain.

November 26, 2012 0 comments

Human Rights Abuse in the MEK

MKO members fate as the victims continue to remain unsolved

The Humanitarian Cause Remaining Unsolved
Mojahedin Khalq is de-listed but the fate of its members as the victims continue to remain unsolved

In its November 2012 edition, Afrique Asie wrote; “The State Department bowed to the judicial The Humanitarian Cause Remaining Unsolved court ruling obligating it to a revisal of the PMOI designation. It was a historic victory for the Iranian Resistance at the end of a legal and political journey in Europe and then the US, with many ups and downs. Justice provided a positive answer everywhere to the PMOI’s demands”. It appears there are still agencies misinformed as to the true cause of a terrorist group’s removal from the list. The real story is in direct contradiction to the group’s diffusion of disinformation propaganda.

A US appeals court had ordered Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to decide within four months by October 1, whether to remove the designated terrorist Mojahedin Khalq Organization MKO/MEK/PMOI from the US FTO’s blacklist. Ambassador Daniel Benjamin, coordinator for counter-terrorism, had told reporters earlier in a conference that the group had misunderstood a recent court order that required the US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to decide whether to remove the MEK from the terror list. According to the judges’ order, the Secretary of State had to make her decision by October 1 to keep the group on the list or remove it, but the order “did not mandate any particular result.”

The decision, however, was taken on the ground of a humanitarian move and MKO appears to have totally forgotten that in the process of its years-long lobbying efforts almost majority of the American former officials on the group’s payroll urged for removal of the group for the humanitarian cause of the people of Camp Ashraf and then Camp Liberty as a top agenda to facilitate their resettlement in third countries as soon as possible. Michael Mukasey, the former Attorney General, speaking in a Washington meeting arranged to urge delisting of MKO stated:

“The point of this move, of course, is to make it easier for the residents to be relocated outside Iraq. That’s the goal, as we all know. And that goal cannot be achieved so long as the State Department continues to make the United States the only country in the civilized world to designate the MeK as a terrorist organization. … it’s time to end this. The continued listing of MeK is the main obstacle to resettlement… .”

In a message sent by General James Jones to the same Washington Symposium, he stressed that “The right thing to do, the humanitarian thing to do, is for the United States to remove the terrorist listing currently ascribed to the people of Camp Ashraf and Camp Liberty, and to champion a program of third country repatriation as soon as possible”.

Or when Dennis Hastert, another former Congressman, tried to make a logical argument for delisting MKO at the same meeting, he said:

“But when there’s liberty and life of human beings at stake we have to make that the exceptional focus on what is their well-being and what is the right thing to do. And to try to sacrifice a group of people’s well-being, their life, their ability to have a decent life, a humanitarian existence, should not be stopped by some political considerations in trying to massage a political or diplomatic situation.”

And MKO was removed from the list. But did it change the fate of Ashraf and Liberty’s residents to be sent and resettled in other countries? Absolutely not. The residents are now placed in a humanitarian plight that can be condemned as inhumane and practiced only in cultic settlements. And of course, the brag and show of those meetings in which American advocates lauded delisting of MKO as initiative to end the agony of its members has come an end; their mission is fulfilled, the cashes paid, and they have no obligation to feel any sense of responsibility towards these enslaved people.

Maybe these officials are also amazed to see that how MKO has managed to promote a humanitarian cause overnight to be demonstrated a historic victory for its propaganda machine and the humanitarian move of the State Department as a bow to its demands. They were paid their share in a massive campaign to abuse human rights for unjust political causes. However, it is not all the story. Sometimes it is the US that decides which group is terrorist depending on how that group suits national and political interests. And of course, the only thing nobody cares about is the fate, agony and plights of who under the pretext of human rights issues continue to be abused and remain the real victims.

November 20, 2012 0 comments

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