Inside This Issue:
Download Pars Brief – Issue No. 88
Download Pars Brief – Issue No. 88
Defectors of the Mujahedin Khalq Organization (the MKO) held a meeting at Nejat Society Mashhad Office.
The meeting was held on August 9th, 2015. Nejat members welcomed Mr. Mahmoud Rahmani Shandiz who has recently returned home from Albania where he left the Cult of Rajavi.
Mr. Ali Mohammad Khatami also attended the meeting. He returned to Iran last year, after he escaped Camp Liberty, Iraq.
Other former members of the MKO expressed their happiness for the release of Mr. Rahmani and Mr. Khatami. They hoped for the salvation of all members taken as hostages in the Camps of the MKO Cult.
Mr. Rahmani was within the MKO Cult-like system until last winter. He defected the group after he was relocated in Tirana, Albania. He told about the disappointing, depressing atmosphere ruling the MKO Camps. He said that the rank and file of the MKO are seeking an opportunity to get rid of the Cult. According to Mr. Rahmani testimony, leaders of the Rajavi Cult are trying to deceive members with dollars and false promises.
Defectors of the MKO, confirmed that presence of families of Liberty residents in front of the Camp is very effective to motivate their escape from the Cult.
Besides, Nejat Society reported that a large number of families of Rajavi’s hostages have declared their readiness to join the families in front of Liberty gates.
Ex-members of the MKO also stated the contradictory reactions of the MKO propaganda about the nuclear agreement reached between Iran and P5+1. They suggested that the group leadership has been left empty-handed following the nuclear deal.
The attendees of the meeting discussed the MKO’s tricks to prolong the stay of their hostages inside the bars of the Cult.
Nejat Society wishes prosperity for all defectors of the Cult of Rajavi in their path to expose the undemocratic inhumane Cult of Rajavi.
Nejat Society Mashhad Office
Mr. Fereydoun Ebrahimi who had been enforced to stay within the Camps of Mujahedin- e Khalq Cult for 15 
years managed to escape the Cult Camp in 2014.
Mr. Ebrahimi who was residing in Camp Liberty, Iraq could reach the UN stand in the Camp and asked for help.
Fereydoun had no contact with his family from the time when he was recruited by the cult. He called his family as soon as he stepped back into the free world. Then he went to Turkey. In Turkey he succeeded to meet his mother and other family members after 15 years, though unfortunately his father was passed away.
Mr. Ebrahimi now lives a free life in Germany and is due to repatriate to his homeland to join his family.
MKO Cult leaders avoid any family contact and consider the family relations as their cult’s enemy. Based on the reports of defected members of the group, most of those residing in Camp Liberty are willing to leave the Cult.
Dear Mr. Presdient Heidar Alebadi,
We are a number of families from Ilam Province, Iran. Each family has a loved one taken as a hostage by the
Mujahdin Khalq Organization (the cult of Rajavi) for over twenty years. Our beloved children have not been allowed to even make a phone call to contact us. The Cult of Rajavi has kept them behind the bars of the cult against their will.
Your majesty and the international community have witnessed a lot of the MKO’s hostages fleeing Camp Ashraf and Camp Liberty. They escaped their life and went to Europe where they revealed the true face of the cult.
They write of mental and physical torture they tolerated in the Cult of Rajavi. They tell their stories but the international and human rights bodies keep silent. No one care for our loved ones who have not succeeded to escape the MKO Camps.
We have traveled to Iraq several times, waiting behind the tall walls of Ashraf, suffering the hot weather in the hope of visiting our loved ones for just a moment, even from far distance.
Your cooperation and understanding to aid us meet our loved ones will be greatly appreciated.
Respectfully Yours,
Akbar Cheraghi
Iraj Nasiri
Ne’mat Pirani
Yari Kuchaki
Ali Mahdawi
Morad Jalilian
Sattar Kheyri
Jahangir Khademi
Hamid Kheyri
Khalil Faryadras
Yusof Namdari
Ali Asghar Barani
Taher Gholamhosseini
As an ardent opponent of the nuclear deal between Iran and the West, the Mujahedin Khalq Organization (the MKO) is allegedly proposing a third option: democratic change in iran. The propaganda arm of the MKO, National Council of resistance, suggests that democratic change in Iran should be fulfilled by empowering the Iranian people to change the regime.
However, the reality behind the alleged third option is absolutely different. The MKO opposes any deal with Islamic Republic since it considers it as appeasement. The group apparently is not in favor of military action against Iran because they want to show their so called sympathy for Iranian people rather they only care for their own interest and survival.
Here we are going to discuss why the MKO is not being honest when they claim they are against the invasion of Iran. During the 8 year war between Iran and Iraq MKO was the private army of Saddam Hussein. The group was funded and trained by the former Ba’th regime. Besides, the group’s current attitude towards.The West and Iraq do not show any evidence that they are honest on what they claim.
The MKO has been lobbying in the US Congress for over a decade. Its multi-million dollar lobbying campaign to advocate its cause has become much harder after a deal between Iran and the West was reached. The complicated lobbying activities of the group is ultimately in line with with a minority of Zionist warmongers of US legislators and former military generals who are supported by the powerful Zionist lobby AIPAC.
Daniel Larison of the American Conservative describes how AIPAC and the MKO beat on war drums: “AIPAC has been lobbying against the nuclear deal as one would expect, and this week they are touting the opposition of a handful of former military officers to the agreement. The first one that they cite is Hugh Shelton, who recently penned an op-ed objecting to the deal while praising the virtues of the “former” terrorist group Mujahideen-e Khalq’s political umbrella organization, the so-called National Council of Resistance of Iran. It is telling that they edited the quote to leave out his reference to the latter, since they probably know it would discredit what Shelton says. “
Larison clarifies that supporters of the MKO are on a very wrong path. “Anyone that sides with this group is pushing a regime change agenda that is extremely unpopular among Iranians, and so shouldn’t be taken seriously on anything related to Iran,” he writes.
Larison’s assertion about the MKO’s unpopularity inside Iran verifies the invalidity of the group’s so-called third option. The alleged democratic change by supporting the MKO as the “main opposition” is only promising by the help of the same Iranians. Definitely, the Iranian nation never forgets the MKO traitors who sided with Saddam Hussein.
Larison criticizes the army general Hugh Shelton for his “plainly false” claim that the MKO is the “main opposition” against the Islamic republic. “The group is widely hated inside Iran and has almost no support in the Iranian diaspora,” he puts. “It is wildly unrepresentative of what most Iranians in Iran and elsewhere want for their country, and it is also at odds with what most Iranians think about the nuclear deal. “
Thus, on one hand, the so-called third option of Maryam Rajavi is not binding and on the other hand her lifelong strategy does not agree any deal with the Iranian government. The left option for the MKO is nothing but war. While, the majority of Iranian are advocating for peace all around the world, the MKO is beating on war drums harder.
By Mazda Parsi
Source:
**Larison, Daniel, The MEK and the Deal with Iran MKO, The American Conservative, August 13, 2015
Mostafa was visiting the headquarters of the Mujahedin Khalq Organization (the MKO) in Auvers sur d’Oise, Paris when he was beaten up by some of the thugs of the group. He was violently encountered because he was asking the group leader to allow him to meet with his daughter Somayeh. After travelling to the group’s camp in Iraq for several times, Mostafa, finally took his case to the group leader, Maryam Rajavi. Due to severe beating Mostafa was hospitalized overnight. He was accompanied with his other daughter Hooriyeh who was also injured by the MKO agents in Auver.
Somayeh is an example of many people captured in the cult of Rajavi (the MKO), separated from family, friends and society. “Family Survival Trust” that is a foundation formed by volunteers who are concerned for people, families, communities and societies who are abused by totalitarian cults. Some of the members of this foundation are volunteers whose children, parents, siblings, friends or colleagues were recruited by cults. Their task is very similar to ours at Nejat NGO that is specifically focused on the salvation of the victims of the MKO cult.
This article refers to Family Survival Trust as a reliable and informed source on the cults since they professionally deal with a large number of case studies being abused by different cults. FST’s website proposes, “What damaging cults have in common is their vindictive abusiveness and their dissociative totalitarianism”.
The above mentioned fact about destructive cults is definitely witnessed by a large number of members of the MKO (the Cult of Rajavi).
Ghorban Ali Hossein Nezhad is a former high-ranking member and interpreter of the group. He also has a daughter taken as a hostage in the MKO’s Camp Liberty, Iraq. As a disassociated member, he is not allowed to meet with his daughter Zeinab by the group leaders. “Cults are dissociative, separating members from families, friends and colleagues,” FST proposes.
The horrifying events that are happening inside the cults are the main reasons that the cults’ leaders are able to keep members out of reach for a long time. Ebrahim Khodabande, a former member of the MKO and cult expert describes how a cult victim is indoctrinated by the cult system:
“Cults have no unchangeable principal; they have only one fixed principal and that is: Everything must go around the leader’s interests and will. Maryam Rajavi told us:” You are not good enough unless you recognize Massoud’s interests and will and then you try to fulfill them”.
According to FST, Cults recruit members by various forms of enticement or deception, demanding total submission and adoption of the ideas by members. Free thinking is not allowed.
Khodabandeh’s testimony absolutely confirms the above characteristics of cults: “In cults, lying and deceiving is formulated and indoctrinated by the system. Everything is based on lie and deception. The hierarchy tells lies from top to bottom.”
He admits that he was deceived and then was recruited by the MKO. ”Then I was brainwashed under the mind-control system and I was manipulated to tell lies about the group’s cause as if it was a secular pro-western organization,” he says.
The MKO’s pro-West and pro-democracy gesture has an external function for the leaders. This way they can gain the support of western politicians, particularly Zionist warmongers of the US Congress. ”At the same time, to gain acceptance from wider society, cults lobby politicians and the public, using the same ideas of freedom of ex
In contrast with the MKO’s slogans for human rights and democracy, the Human Rights Watch report titled “No Exit” offers testimonies of numerous cases of human rights violations committed in the Cult of Rajavi. Besides, there are a lot more interviews and memoires of ex-members of the group who were victims of its cult-like structure (most of them are available at Nejat NGO website).
“Cults tend to be psychologically manipulative or abusive in order to exploit and control members commercially or sexually,” according to the FST’s description of cults. ”Some cults can also be physically abusive”. The No Exit report confirms that members of the Cult of Rajavi are mentally and physically tortured and at least in one case a man named Parvis Ahmadi was killed under torture in the group’s jail in Camp Ashraf. Parvis’s case was approved by some other defectors of the group.
Furthermore, as FST proposes, cults are abundant and deceptive and the reason for concern is clear. “The separation from loved ones, whose personalities may become unrecognisable after cultic recruitment, causes a great deal of grief and upset to families and friends,” the website says. “Seeing changes in, or hearing of the abuse suffered by, cult victims – or sometimes having to deal with an individual’s disappearance – can cause a great deal of stress, anger and upset in the home.”
The common grief of the two fathers Hossein nezhad and Mohhammadi made them to take an action near the MKO’s headquarters in Auver Sur D’Oise, Paris. They tried to inform citizens of Auver Sur d’Oise about the violent, cult-like nature of the MKO. They distributed flyers, brochure, images and CDs to inform the citizens that the cult has kidnapped their daughters.
Khodabandeh believes that it is essential for the family of the victims to be involved in order to speed up the process of liberation. He suggests that the salvation of the MKO hostages is possible if they are supported from outside of the cult, such as the family members and other philanthropists. “That’s why the cult leaders forbid and control any contact with families,” he says. All cult victims need help, no matter how they have been involved or harmed, according to FST.
By Mazda Parsi
Ebrahim Khodabandeh the famous former member of the Mujahedin Khalq Organization (the MKO) was arrested by the Syrian officials, in 2003. He was serving for the international relations committee of the MKO. After his arrest in Syria he was submitted to the Iranian government
In Iran, he was imprisoned in Evin prison where he began studying about cults. Khodabandeh has so far published articles and translated books and articles on the threat of destructive cults, particularly the MKO.
Esharat, an Iran-based journal is one of the numerous media that have interviewed him up to now. The following includes parts of the interview translated by Nejat Society.
– Having been motivated by Islamic and anti-imperialistic ideas you joined the MKO but practically you observed another face of the group. As you stated you yourself used to work hard to portrait a secular pro-Western image of the group for your Western audience, wasn’t it provocative for you?
Good question! Yes, I have witnessed a 180-degree turn in the MKO’s positions and interests since the Islamic Revolution. For example, Rajavi who once offered gifts to Yaser Arafat and said that the only way to liberate the Palestinian nation is the armed struggle against Israel, today is proud of the Israeli company for his group.
… Cults have no unchangeable principal; they have only one fixed principal and that is: Everything must go around the leader’s interests and will. Maryam Rajavi told us:” You are not good enough unless you recognize Massoud’s interests and will and then you try to fulfill them”…
– Does it mean that you officially told lies and deceived people?
In cults, lying and deceiving is formulated and indoctrinated by the system. Everything is based on lie and deception. The hierarchy tells lies from top to bottom.
I was deceived by the MKO so I was recruited by it. Then I was brainwashed under the mind-control system. I was manipulated to tell lies about the group’s cause as if it was a secular pro-western organization…
When you are a member of a destructive mind-control cult, you have no fixed and stable beliefs and thoughts. You are just asked to obey the absolute power of the leader. In a community where everyone thinks the same, in fact nobody thinks. The leaders thinks instead of everyone.
– Didn’t you find it paradoxical or contradictory? For example, you joined the group with your anti-imperialistic ideas to fight the US, and now the MKO was acting the opposite?
Of course, Yes. I was faced with contradictions. Other members also had paradoxes in their minds but the cults have trickeries to encounter such contradictions that occur every day. Contradiction means that the data you were given does not seem logic. However, your contradiction would not be solved by debate or arguments but it was faced with psychological techniques or in better words, with peer pressure and mental suppression. Once you enter a destructive mind control cult, you are kept and controlled by psychological techniques.
– If you were not arrested in Syria, would you stay in the MKO until now? And, didn’t you try to swallow a cyanide capsule after you were arrested?
Yes, I would have definitely been in the Cult of Rajavi in ignorance and under the mind-control manipulative system of the cult. I would have no way out to salvation…
In my mission to Syria, I didn’t have cyanide capsule. If I had one, I would eat it because being arrested alive and yeilded to the Iranian government was our red line.
– Do you really believe in the term salvation for your separation from the MKO?
Yes, exactly. Being released from the hands of a destructive mind control cult is in no way simple. This is possible if you are supported from outside of the cult, for example if you are aided by your family. That’s why the cult leaders forbid and control any contact with families.
– What happened in Evin prison that your beliefs and thoughts changed?
I should notify that members of mind-control destructive cults have no determined ideas. They are dedicated to their leader. Massoud Rajavi was officially presented as the ideological leader. Our ideas were those of Massoud’s. If he changed his words every day we would change our words every day. Cults do not practice ideologies; they do practice psychological methodologies that control people’s minds…
When I arrived in Evin prison, I still saw myself as a devoted Mujahed-e Khalq under the order of Massoud Rajavi . I was ready for torture and execution but gradually I was faced with reality. I thought about the attitudes and interests of the cult of Rajavi so I increasingly faced contradictions. I simply found that I was not able to defend the MKO’s approaches even in my own mind. Logically I had no point to defend Massoud Rajavi whom I used to worship …
About a year later, I started reading the book “Cults in our Midst” of Mrs. Margaret Tahler Singer. My brother Massoud Khodabandeh had sent it to me from England. It should be said that in the prison, I tried to keep myself behind the boundaries I allegedly had with the Islamic Republic. Even I did not want to read the Iranian books, newspapers and I avoided watching Iranian TV.
The book had nothing with the Iranian government nor the MKO but I was really moved by the book. Although, the writer had no idea of the MKO, the similarities between the MKO and the cults in the United States were so significant that you would think it was written about the MKO … For the first time after so many years, I let myself think freely and independently. Of-course, getting to this turning point took me two years in the prison.
– Suppose that you are told that you submitted to the Islamic Republic and turned against the organization you embraced for 23 years due to the pressure of imprisonment or the risk of execution or for the sake your suffering mother, what is your answer?
This question seems rational. In response, I should say that one may regret his past or repent of his past under pressure, one may give information about his past organization and condemn it under pressure of the imprisonment but he is not able to argue, discuss and prove his arguments. All I say about the MKO is based on scientific arguments and reasons that are confirmed by other defectors of the cult. I am ready to argue it with everyone everywhere to prove that the most basic human rights are being violated in the Cult of Rajavi. The cult uses destructive fraudulent manipulation techniques to control members’ minds. It is not what it pretends.
It is not hung up to any principals. This is all I have said to this point. If a force wants to fight the Islamic Republic it doesn’t have the right to abuse its own members and to mentally suppress them…
– Suppose that you are accused of having been brainwashed in Evin prison! What do you say?
I was liberated from the Cult of Rajavi over 12 years ago. During these years, I have been far from the atmosphere of the Cult and its indoctrination sessions and cult jargons. I have been studying the phenomenon known as “the threat of the third millennium”: Destructive Mind Control Cults. I have studied and translated and authored a lot of books and articles. In her book titled “Brainwashing”, Ms. Kathlyn Taylor specifically suggests that the main condition to become the target for brainwashing is to be unaware of its techniques. The MKO never permitted me to read something freely but in the Evin prison I read books. Regarding my studies and the information I got, there is no possibility to brainwash me now because I’m well aware of the techniques and tricks ….
Thus, it is very important to know about functions of destructive mind control cults…
Iraqi politics is affected by financial corruption of certain political parties.
According to Iraqi parliamentarian sources quoted by the Iraqi Newspaper “alMuraqib alIraqia”, “Some politicians fund ISIS with money stolen from Iraqi nation.”
The report adds that the money is originally paid to opposition figures such as Ayad Alavi by the Mujahedin Khalq Organization. Ayad Alavi is the president of Alqaemia Alvatania party that criticizes the Iraqi Shiite government. He is a vocal supporter of the MKO in Iraq.
alMuraqib alIraqia refers to the testimony of a former member of the MKO, GorbanAli Husseinnezhad who served as the Arabic interpreter of the group leader, Massoud Rajavi: “Iraqi political figures and media received large amounts of money from the MKO directly or indirectly.”
According to Hosseinnezhad some of the Iraqi officials who cooperated with the MKO were: Tariq alHashemi, Saleh Matlak, Ashvaq Aljaf, Faezeh Alabidi and Ala Talibani.
The report states that the corrupt money has succeeded to buy the support of satellite TV channels in Baghdad in order to obstruct Iraqi political processes and to expand political party disputes. Iraqi parliament speaker warns that the expansion of political disputes is only in agreement with the interests of terrorist groups like ISIS and the MKO.
Mujahedin-e Khalq group is moving 203 high ranking members to Tirana.
According to Nejat Society reporter among the transferees are members of leadership council, commanders and headquarters ranks.
In March 2013 the Albanian government announced its agreement to accommodate in Tirana a number of MKO members residing in Camp Liberty, Iraq. Several groups of Camp Liberty (TTL) has relocated in Tirana since then.
Mohammad Tarighat Monfared alias Yaser is a high ranking member of Mujahedin-e Khalq who commutes within Europe under the alias Lolakiyan.
He is from Tehran. In 1982 he escaped Iran. He now resides in Berlin, Germany. Tarighat Monfared is a veteran member of the MKO. From 1979 he has been the financial director of the group.
As the financial supervisor of the group, one of his most important operations has been receiving financial aids from Saudi Arabia, Israel and Saddam Hussein.
The Iraqi collapsed dictator; Saddam Hussein had allocated 3 million oil barrels per month to the Mujahedin-e Khalq. The MKO received the oil share in coupons which then were sent to Europe to be changed in to dollars and to be invested.
Tarighat Monfared was tasked with operating as Rajavi’s representative in receiving the monthly 3 million oil barrels coupons and supervising the finances.
In 2003 he left Iraq for Europe in accompany with Maryam Rajavi. From then on he lives in Germany and organizes the money laundering operations of the group.
Most recently three members of the MKO traveled to Germany from Albania under the command of Yaser (Tarighat Monfared). They were tasked with transferring a huge sum of money. The three members arrested by the Germany Police and imprisoned.
Based on the report of Hamidreza Bikas; former member of the group
