Unable to see her son living in Mujahedin-e Khalq camp in Tirana, Albania called Camp Ashraf 3, the ailing, aged mother of Aliakbar Andalibi suffers a lot.
It is now for decades that Aliakbar is living at MEK camps and the cult leaders do not let him have any contact with his family.
Mohammad-Reza Kolahi was a member of the People’s Mujahedin of Iran (MEK) that was responsible for planting a bomb at the headquarters of the Islamic Republican Party (IRP) Party in Tehran in which 72 high-ranking politicians and party members were killed in 1981.
In 2015, in the Netherlands, Mohamad Reza Kolahi was killed by a criminal gang on the order of MEK. Two Amsterdam criminals have been jailed for the 2015 murder of Kolahi Samadi, who lived in the Netherlands hiding behind the false name of Ali Motamed.
Massoud Khodabande writes his experience with Kolahi as:” I knew Kolahi personally. I received him in Kurdistan when he ran away from Iran. (I had transferred a 10 KW radio transmitter and other American made transceivers from Munich to MEK bases just outside Sardasht city and was there to undertake the assembly and commissioning). He worked with me for the next two years (he was an undergraduate Electronics Engineering student) and was then moved to maintenance work at Rajavi’s Camp Ashraf (Saddam’s private army) near Baghdad.
I knew then that he was not a member of MEK or even remotely connected to their ideology when he came to me, and I knew later in Iraq that he could never accept the cultish teachings of Rajavi thereafter (the Ideological Revolution, divorces …), and would remain an outcast with nowhere to go. And this is what happened. Whether he was fooled by MEK to carry out this terrorist act, or whether he was pushed directly by other intelligence agencies which pulled MEK wires in Tehran at that time is a mystery to me. But what is clear is that although he was not a person close to MEK, the task of taking him out of Iran and saving him (and at the same time confining him) was the job assigned to the MEK.
It is inconceivable that Kolahi, with the information that he had, and the danger he could pose to the MEK and their variety of masters if brought in front of a camera, would go to the Netherlands, get married, get a job and start a new life without the help and the blessing of the MEK (Maryam Rajavi). It is also inconceivable that the MEK (or their masters) would have not have a 24/7 control of every aspect of his life (including every telephone conversation) and simply let him go unmonitored.”
Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), also called Hashd al-Shaabi, held a parade in Camp Ashraf, the longtime headquarters of the Mujahedin Khalq Organization (MKO/ MEK/ PMOI/ Cult of Rajvi) in Iraq.
Camp Ashraf in northwest of Baghdad was donated to MEK by Saddam Hussein the group’s major financial and military sponsor. It was the group’s main base in the eight years of the war Saddam Hussein imposed on Iran. And, it was there that Massoud Rajavi built his cult of personality, practiced cut-like activities, trained terrorist forces, launched attacks against Iranian country fellowmen and punished his own dissident members.
After the collapse of the Iraqi dictator in 2003, the US army surrounded the camp and disarmed MEK forces. The camp was officially closed after the last 280 residents were flown to Albania, in 2016.
Hashd al-Shaabi parade in Camp Ashraf
The parade that was held by Hashd al-Shaabi on Saturday morning to celebrate the seventh anniversary of the founding of PMF was in the presence of Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi, who is also commander-in-chief of the armed forces.
Numerous PMF brigades marched in the parade, including Shiite, Christian, and Yazidi, according to images and video shared by the PMF-linked media sources. An image of Abu Madhi al-Muhandis, the PMF commander killed alongside Iran’s General Qasem Soleimani in a US drone strike in Baghdad in January 2020, was carried in the parade.
Camp Ashraf was a symbolic container for the ideology of MEK. The group leaders still glorify the name so as they named their headquarters in Albania as Camp Ashraf Three.
Shahram Nasiri is allegedly a former member of the Mujahedin Khalq Organization (MEK/ MKO/ PMOI/ Cult of Rajavi) who has always been caught between being a loyal MEK’s former member who spies for the group and a defector who is a mercenary of the Iranian intelligence ministry!
Shahram was jailed in the prisons of Camp Ashraf, Iraq, in 1994, when the MEK leaders decided to punish one forth of the group members under the allegations of working for the Iranian Intelligence! The jailed members were interrogated, tortured and even killed by MEK torturers in the absence of true facts on their relationship with the Iranian government.
Shahram continued to stay in MEK until it was relocated in Albania. He allegedly left the group after the relocation in Albania. “I have twice noticed him filming me in the streets,” Siamak Naderi, a defector of MEK writes about Shahram asserting that he spies on former members in Albania, on behalf of MEK.
“Shahram Nasiri is one of the spies of MEK leaders in Tirana,” Mohammad Karami, another defector writes. “His mission is to gather information on what is going in the UNHCR’s office in charge of former members in order to sell to MEK.”
However, in December 2020, MEK websites published a letter allegedly signed by Shahram in which he had promised to be loyal to the MEK cause denouncing other defectors who give testimonies against the group. It seemed curious that he, as a former member, had to confirm his loyalty to the MEK leaders while a lot of former members live freely in the outside world.
The case of Shahram Nasiri became more complicated when, a few weeks ago, MEK published a statement signed by Hassan Nayebagha, as the representative of the inhabitants of Camp Ashraf three. The statement says that MEK has cut off financial aids to Shahram Nasiri because he did not fulfill his commitments to the group. According to the statement, Shahram is accused of socializing with other defectors of MEK —called as agents of the Islamic Republic by MEK!
It is worth to know that the alleged financial aid claimed by MEK, is actually the monthly payment that the UNHCR was supposed to donate each MEK member as a refugee after their relocation in Albania. Regrettably, the money is not paid to them individually but it is paid in sum to the group leaders so they can simply confiscate it.
Mostfa Foroughi left Iran for England to continue his studies in London, in 1980. He was in contact with his family during the first year that he was going to university there.
“The phone calls stopped after a year”, his brother Mohammadreza Foroughi says. “I was in Germany at the time. I tried to call his friends to get some news about him. A friend of his told me that Mostafa was not going to university anymore because he had been recruited by a group called Mujahedin Khalq.”
Mohammadreza was shocked when he realized that his brother was taken to Iraq by MEK. His mother had awfully missed Mostafa. “I could manage to pursue the case of my brother via international bodies but we just made sure that he was in Camp Ashraf, Iraq. We were not allowed to contact him,” Mohammadreza says.
Mohammadreza Foroughi
During the past years, the Foroughis have written several letters to human rights bodies and to Albanian authorities. They also write open letters and send videos for Mostafa to persuade him to leave the Cult of Rajavi. However, they have not been able to contact him for thirty years now. The bad news is that their mother died in 2015 while she was awaiting the release of her beloved son.
Today, Mohammadreza is still hopeful to see his brother someday. “Please liberate yourself! Live like a free man!” he writes in his recent letter to Mostafa.
Although supporters of Ayatollah Khomeini had never sympathized with MEK elements, MEK’s enmity with the newly established government in Iran became acute when the head of this group was banned from running for presidential elections, which was followed by a heavy MEK loss at parliamentary elections in 1981. It was then that MEK started its terrorist activities in Iran; they bombed the headquarters of the Islamic Republic Party, which had won both the presidency and the parliament in landslide victories. The bomb killed Mohammad Beheshti, Head of Iran’s Judicial System who was also the party leader, as well as four cabinet ministers, plus 24 members of Parliament along with 43 other government officials and party members.
the MEK bombed the headquarters of the Islamic Republic Party in 1981
The MKO – listed as a terrorist organization by much of the international community – fled Iran in 1986 for Iraq and was given a camp by former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.
They fought on the side of Saddam during the Iraqi imposed war on Iran (1980-88). They were also involved in the bloody repression of Shiite Muslims in southern Iraq in 1991 and the massacre of Iraqi Kurds.
The notorious group is also responsible for killing thousands of Iranian civilians and officials after the victory of the Islamic revolution in 1979.
More than 17,000 Iranians, many of them civilians, have been killed at the hands of the MKO in different acts of terrorism including bombings in public places, and targeted killings.
The MKO also had a hand in the massacre of Kurds following the crushing of a 1991 uprising by Shiites in Iraq’s south and Kurds in the north, which was one of the most brutal acts of repression under Saddam Hussein.
last week, another propaganda show was launched by the Mujahedin Khalq (MKO/ MEK/ PMOI/ Cult of Rajavi) in their headquarters called Camp Ashraf 3 in Albania. It is considered a propaganda show because it was organized under the cultic system that Massoud Rajavi has built around his own personality. The show was magnified by huge screens before the dazed faces of uniformed MEK members who automatically clapped their hands or raised their fists to chant slogans to adore their smiling guru, Maryam Rajavi.
Based on numerous records, MEK is considered a cult-like group. “The MEK’s cultic system means that decisions are imposed from the top down,” assert Masoud and Ann Khodabandeh, former members of the group. “This means that those decisions are only as intelligent as the leadership.” [1]
In July 2018, Saeed Kamali Dehghan of the Guardian published an article to discuss the support of US warmongers such as John Bolton for MEK, “the extreme Iranian opposition group who was the target of a foiled bombing attack in France and was once a sworn enemy of the United States”. Reviewing the history of MEK, Kamali Dehghan states, “Today, it functions as a fringe exiled group with characteristics of a cult that works for regime change in Iran, though it has little visible support inside the country. It portrays itself as a democratic political institution although its own internal structure is anything but.” [2]
In 2019 when some photos were leaked from inside Camp Ashraf 3 showing members sitting in front of monitors in the group’s troll farm, the Khodabandehs wrote, “What Rajavi doesn’t understand is that these photos show beyond any words that the MEK doesn’t share our values. The leader is selling unthinking, unquestioning, obedient slaves, people who won’t act or speak unless ordered to do so. And that would only be ordered if it were productive for the MEK, regardless of the needs or desires of the worker.” [3]
Leaked photos showing MEK members at work
“What these images portray are conditions of modern slavery,” they continued. “These are elderly people who are unable to escape this cult and are coerced into performing work for which they receive no recompense. They exist on cruelly basic accommodation and sustenance, whereby even asking for new underwear puts the petitioner under question about their loyalty to the leader and the cause. They cannot leave because in Albania they have nowhere to go, no identity documents or work permits, no money, and they do not speak the local language.” [4]
To Download the video file click here
In March 2020, Murtaza Hussein and Mathew Cole of the Intercept, also suggested, “the MEK is a highly secretive organization”. They had interviewed five defectors of the group to support their assertion. “Five of them agreed to speak on the record about their experiences, which were broadly consistent and often confirmed aspects of other former members’ accounts,” they wrote. “Secret Iranian intelligence documents obtained by The Intercept also confirm several of their claims, including information that is not publicly known. Their testimonies reveal a brutal organization that, for decades, has held thousands in a state of physical and psychological slavery as it degenerated from a popular political movement to a freakish cult of personality under the absolute control of one all-powerful leader.” [5]
Thus, the so-called celebration that was recently hold in Camp Ashraf and other similar ones, are actually a demonstration of the modern slavery that is practiced inside the Cult of Rajavi every day.
By Mazda Parsi
References:
[1] Khodabandeh, Ann & Massoud, Nobody Can Be “Comfortable” with Regime Change Involving MEK, The lobelog, August 22, 2019.
[2] Kamali Dehghan, Saeed, Who is the Iranian group targeted by bombers and beloved of Trump allies?, The Gurdian, July 2nd, 2018.
[3] Khodabandeh, Ann & Massoud, Nobody Can Be “Comfortable” with Regime Change Involving MEK, The lobelog, August 22, 2019.
[4] ibid
[5] Hussein, Murtaza & Cole, Mathew, Defectors Tell of Torture and Forced Sterilization in Militant Iranian Cult, The Intercept, March 22nd, 2020.
Forty years ago, on 20 June 1981, the Mujahedin Khalq Organization (MKO/ MEK/ PMOI/ Cult of Rajavi) organized a mass protest of allegedly half a million people –mostly young untrained students– in Tehran, with the aim of triggering a second revolution. They had been ordered by the group leader, Massoud Rajavi to physically clash with any so-called agent of the Islamic Republic. This was actually the start of MEK’s armed struggle against not only the Iranian government but also the Iranian people.
Since the date, MEK has carried out a large number of terror attacks and assassinations in Iran, including one in 1981 that killed 70, among them, Iran’s president and premier. Only from 26 August 1981 to December 1982, the MEK conducted 336 terrorist attacks against civilian targets or government officials in Iran.
Actually, the group firstly tried to make social and political space inside Iran but it failed to obtain any success. So, they changed the orientation to the terrorist acts against Iranian nation. Over the following months and years, the violence escalated.
However, MEK has always glorified the date, during the past years. This year, Maryam Rajavi launched a huge propaganda show in her headquarters in Albania to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the start of a nationwide violence and bloodshed against her own country fellowmen.
Four Saudis who participated in the 2018 killing of the Arab journalist Jamal Khashoggi received paramilitary training in the United States the previous year under a contract approved by the State Department, the New York Times reported on Tuesday, June 23, 2021. The news is a reminder of a very similar story about the agents of the Mujahedin Khalq Organization (MKO/ MEK/ PMOI/ Cult of Rajavi) that was revealed by Seymour M. Hersh of the New Yorker, in April, 2012.
Hersh reported that the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) of the US military conducted training, beginning in 2005, for members of the Mujahideen-e-Khalq, a dissident Iranian opposition group known in the West as the M.E.K. in the terrain of the Department of Energy’s Nevada National Security Site, with its arid high plains and remote mountain peaks, has the look of northwest Iran. The site, some sixty-five miles northwest of Las Vegas.
According to the investigated report of the New Yorker, the training of MEK operatives ended sometime before President Obama took office, the former official said. A retired four-star general, who has advised the Bush and Obama Administrations on national-security issues, told Hersh that “he had been privately briefed in 2005 about the training of Iranians associated with the M.E.K. in Nevada by an American involved in the program”. They got “the standard training,” he said, “in commo, crypto [cryptography], small-unit tactics, and weaponry—that went on for six months,” the retired general said. “They were kept in little pods.”
According to Hersh, directly or indirectly, the MEK ended up with resources like arms and intelligence. “Some American-supported covert operations continue in Iran today, according to past and present intelligence officials and military consultants,” he added.
While the objective of regime change in Iran has been seemingly firm since the Mujahedin Khalq Organization (MKO/ MEK/ PMOI/ Cult of Rajavi) came into conflict with the newly established Iranian government in the early 1980s, the strategy to achieve the objective has changed from time to time based on the circumstances.
Having been disarmed by the US army in 2003 –after the collapse of the MEK’s former sponsor Saddam Hussein– the propaganda campaign of the group became comprehensive. Today, various events including gatherings and demonstrations, publications and media are considered as the group’s most important strategic weapons. Meanwhile, social media has helped it with more intensive activity. However, it has not been so simple for the group to run its propaganda machine.
Having been described as a terrorist organization, MEK has endured efforts to change the world community’s view of them. They have worked vigorously to make connections with Western politicians, and organize press conferences, rallies and demonstrations in North America and Europe. Maryam Rajavi has hosted the so-called NCRI conferences in Washington DC, Paris, Brussels and now in Tirana, Albania.
The offensive multi-million-dollar lobbying campaign of the group has yielded some results. The campaign has offered them support from some American and European politicians. For the United States’ part, it allegedly includes representatives, senators, ex-generals, former ambassadors and current policymakers of all political stripes including former United States security adviser John Bolton and Donald Trump’s lawyer Rudi Giuliani.
MEK also pays its guests large sums to speak at its rallies. It has been said that the group receives financial support from Saudi Arabia. Saudi speakers have participated in the group’s rallies, for instance Prince Turki al-Faisal, who is a former intelligence chief and diplomat attended and spoke in the group’s gathering in 2016.
The group also organizes demonstrations against Iran in several countries including Scandinavia. In the so-called demonstrations –that hardly ever comprise a dozen of participants– the group calls the West to isolate and put more pressure on the Iranian government through sanctions and even military actions.
In fact, the very famous proverb “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” is often used to understand the support of Western politicians for MEK. It is suggested that this is easiest way to irritate and pressure Tehran, and not necessarily an expression of a real belief that MEK is an alternative to the Iranian government.
