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MKO nature according to Western sources

“MKO has a very visible public profile, but is not a transparent organization”, according to Landinfo report of Norway.
Landinfo is a Norwegian Institute that published a 45-page study on the Mujahedin Khalq Organization (MKO/ MEK/ PMOI/ Cult of Rajavi) in April 2021. The paper which is seemingly prepared for the Norwegian Immigration Authorities is based on various sources. However, the authors assert that they tried to choose the most reliable independent sources on the topic. “What is MKO’s inner character is a controversial question”, they write. “It has therefore been important to build the presentation of this topic as independently as possible. The information on internal matters in MKO is partly based on reports published by human rights organizations and Western media, and partly on observations from various sources in MKO’s camp in Iraq”.

Therefore, the paper lists certain sources as the references on what is really going on in the MKO:

• In 2005, Human Rights Watch published the report “No Exit. Human Rights Abuses Inside the MKO Camps », based on interviews with twelve former MKO members who then resided in European countries (HRW 2005).
• A large number of media have interviewed defectors who are in Europe – for example The Guardian (Merat 2018), New York Times (Kingsley 2019), BBC News (Pressly & Kasapi 2019), The Intercept (Hussain & Cole 2020b) and Dagens Næringsliv (Engdal 2019a & b).
• The UN operation in Iraq, UNAMI, had access to the camps in Iraq after Saddam Hussein’s regime was overthrown in 2003. UNAMI had a monitoring and broker role, and have reported on what they observed in human rights reports for Iraq (UNAMI 2013, 2011 and 2009).
• At the request of the US government, the think tank RAND Corporations prepared a report on MKO in 2009. The report is based on interviews in MKO’s Camp Ashraf in Iraq (Goulka et al. 2009).
• In 2003 and 2020, the New York Times received permission to visit MKO’s camps in Iraq (Rubin 2003) and Albania (Kingsley 2020), respectively.
Based on the above-mentioned sources, in a part subtitled “Nature of the organization”, Landinfo describes the MKO with the characteristics of “an authoritarian, cult-like organization, which strictly controls its members”. These characteristics are enumerated by the authors as the followings:

Requirements for self-sacrifice and submission
members must sign a contract where they commit to sacrifice everything in the battle to defeat the enemy. That means that they must do whatever the organization requires them to do.

Person worship
It is claimed that the ideology centers around a cult of personality, in which the members must show leaders unreserved devotion and submission, almost a form for religious worship. The informal title Imam Zaman should have been used for Massoud Rajavi, and the actual membership ceremony continues allegedly in taking an oath of allegiance to the leaders.

Ideological indoctrination
The indoctrination allegedly takes place through a mixture of propaganda and fear tactics. It is pointed out that the members must regularly study MKO’s ideology and see recordings of Massoud Rajavi’s speeches and various street demonstrations in Europe.

Sexual control and emotional isolation
Some of the things that members have to give up are family life and romance relationships. The camps are gender segregated, and married couples have reportedly had to divorce and live apart in complete celibacy. Personal friendships should also be strongly discouraged. The love of the members shall, instead, be channeled towards MKO’s leaders

Degrading confessions of unwanted thoughts and feelings
To check the members’ dedication to the movement, it is claimed that men and women must attend ritual self-examination meetings. Here they must openly confess and apologize impure thoughts, personal dreams, disloyal tendencies and character flaws.

Physical abuse, deprivation of liberty
Those who have asked to leave the group must have been put on isolation for long periods, and have been subjected to mental and / or physical abuse. Other unfair and unacceptable behavior that must also have been punished by the leaders are: expressing or encourage disagreement with MKO’s strategy, listening to foreign radio stations, sharing individual political views with other members, or making private phone calls.

Hard work and sleep deprivation
At MKO’s camps, residents often have to work 16-17 hours a day, with one limited number of hours of sleep. Continuous construction projects are implemented to maintain a high work intensity, in addition to military training.

Martyrdom has a central role
The members and sympathizers who have lost their lives in the fight against the Iranian government, honored as martyrs. MKO even claims that it is about 120,000 persons. The worship of martyrdom and the degree of devotion of some members to MKO leadership, became visible to the world in 2003, when French police arrested Maryam Rajavi in Paris. In protest, ten MKO members and sympathizers set themselves on fire in different European cities, and two of them died. It was also arranged hunger strikes. Pictures of people who had sewn together their eyes and lips was published in western media.

Recruitment on false premises
The movement that managed to mobilize half a million people for mass protests in June 1981, has had a deficit of volunteer recruits since the end of the Iran-Iraq war. This should have led the group to recruit new members with dishonest premises. Iranians were allegedly lured to Iraq with false promises of property, work, marriage and help to seek asylum in the West. Recruitment agents must have sought out Iranian dissidents in particular, but also addressed economic migrants in countries such as Turkey and the United Arab Emirates. Others reported methods were to smuggle family members out of Iran to visit relatives in the camps, or pay human traffickers to redirect people who were on the run, to Iraq.

by Mazda Parsi

June 15, 2021 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization members' families

To my brother, Yahya Moradpour who is enslaved at MEK camp

Yahya Moradpour, was captured by the Iraqi Ba’athist army in 1980, at the beginning of Iran-Iraq war.
In 1989, he was handed over to the Mujahedin-e Khalq cult by the Baath Party and transferred to the group’s camp called Camp Ashraf. From then on, Yahya’s family have had no news of him. They did not even know if the fog was alive or dead.
During all these years his parents passed away. In 2016, the family learned that their brother was alive and well and that he had been sent to Albania.They got the information through two newly defectors of the group who attended in a Nejat Society meeting.

Ms. Nahid Moradpour; Yahya’s sister follows her brother’s conditions and liberty since then. She recently wrote a letter and published it on cyber space in the hope her dear brother may see and read her letter.

June 15, 2021 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization members' families

A Letter to my father after 33 years

Letter of Morteza Valizade to his father; Seyyed Vali Mohammadzade who is taken hostage at the MEK Camp in Albania.

My beloved dad, I wish to say greetings to you after thirty-three years of being far away from each other.
The last time I saw you, I was a two-year old kid. I have no image of you in my mind except the photo I saw on the MEK cult website.

Seyyed Vali Mohammadzade, hostage of MEK cult

I am Morteza; your son. I grew up in loneliness and without the support of my father. Why did the MEK cult leaders separated us?!

I am still hopeful to see you and hug you once more. I love you my dear dad. I am waiting for you.
Love,
Your son, Morteza

June 14, 2021 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq as an Opposition Group

Norwegian institute: MKO hardly ever has support in Iran

A Norwegian institute published a paper on the Mujahedin Khalq Organization (the MKO/ MEK/ PMOI/ Cult of Rajavi).
Landinfo, the Norwegian Institute published a 45-page study on the MKO as “a left-wing opposition group established in 1965, that has been fighting the Iranian Islamic Republic since shortly after the revolution”.
Landinfo is an institute that publishes detailed and unbiased documents on immigrants from Africa, Asia, Balkans and Eastern Europe, Latin America, Middle east and Turkey, Russia and Former Soviet Republics. The publications are prepared for the Norwegian Immigration Authorities.

According to the abstract of the paper the MKO “has undergone significant changes, both in terms of organization and strategic approach, but has stuck to its main goal of regime change in Iran”.

Giving a thorough record of the group’s background, the report asserts that the group carried out a series of armed attacks in Iran in the past and today it seems “to have concentrated its efforts on influencing public opinion and on gaining international support as a viable alternative to the current regime. The organization runs comprehensive PR and lobbying campaigns”
However, the paper assets that Although the MKO claims to represent the Iranian people and emphasize their role in popular riots in recent years, there is little indication that they have significant support in Iran”.

June 13, 2021 0 comments

Massoud Rajavi

Massoud Rajavi killed the human inside me

Ali Shirzad was young and enthusiastic to bring freedom to his nation when he left Iran to join the Mujahedin Khalq Organization (MKO/ MEK/ PMOI/ Cult of Rajavi). He walked through Iran-Turkey border for eight days to go to the group’s headquarters in Iraq via Turkey, in the Fall of 1987.
As a knowledgeable educated and artistic man, he dreamed of the MEK camp as the ideal world where he would be able to read more books and to have more thoughtful discussions for his personal growth and for the growth of his society. But, soon, he realized his dream would never come true in MEK.

“As I arrived in Iraq, I was shocked to see that there was no time left for studying and thinking,” he writes in his detailed memoirs of living in MEK. “I was deprived of thinking in any way.”

Ali Shirzad

According to Ali Shirzad, MEK leaders admire two types of members, the ideologic ones and the trusted one. The former are those who ideologically are close to the leaders Massoud and Maryam Rajavi, the later are those who are always trusted because they never question the orders; they just obey the leaders.
“What happened to me in the Cult of Rajavi?”, Shirzad wonders. “Not only I did not learn anything, but also I forgot everything I knew. When I left MEK my brain had no Gray Cortex!”

Despite his passion for poetry, arts and music he was not able to go for them for some time after his defection. “I was not in the mood for them”, he writes. “I found myself a shallow person without soul and emotions.”
That was why he did not contact his family until a few months after his departure from the cult-like system of MEK. “I had to wait to rebuild my personality and to cope with my animal nature”, he asserts. “That disaster had been caused by Massoud Rajavi. He had killed the human inside me.”
Ali Shirzad believes that if a person even has a supernatural wisdom, he will turn into an idiot under the ruling system of the Rajavis.

June 13, 2021 0 comments

Iran Interlink Weekly Digest

Iran Interlink Weekly Digest – 289

++ Iran-Interlink posted in Farsi about the cooperation between Rajavi and the Saudis in discouraging Iranians from voting in the upcoming presidential election. This week the MEK fronted a man called Ahmad Afshar, (who has changed his name to Mussa Afshar). Afshar was the go between for Rajavi and the Iraqi intelligence and security services. He features in the videos taken by Iraq’s Mokhaberat of the meetings between the MEK and Iraqi services. These show Afshari as the MEK translator as they are bargaining about the price of the assassinations that the Iraqi security services gave to Rajavi to perform, and show the bundles of cash being handed over to the MEK in these meetings. assassinations they were given by security services of Iraq they were talking about it and getting bundles of money etc. Afshar has now surfaced in Saudi media, this time on channel 24. He says that if the people of Iran don’t vote, particularly Arabic speakers – who should be separate anyway along with the Balouchis and Turks and etc, who are forced to be part of Iran – if they stop voting then, as Massoud Rajavi has always said, we can put this separatist demand on the table and get backing to creating disturbances inside Iran. “We [the MEK] are on the same side as the Saudis and we should be doing these things.” Massoud Khodabandeh on Twitter indirectly referred to this performance and pointed out that the last time there was an election in Saudi was 1400 years ago when they decided to ‘elect’ someone to kill prophet Mohammad in his sleep.
Last time some in #SaudiArabia witnessed #Ellections was 1400 years ago when they decided to “choose” someone to kill prophet Mohammad (PBUH) in his sleep.
He was ultimately saved by migrating at night from Mecca to Medina (Hence the start of Islamic Hejri calendar) pic.twitter.com/7opDiGadV1

— Massoud khodabandeh (@ma_khodabandeh) June 8, 2021

++ Zahra Moini in Germany posted about the election and the MEK. She goes from the disqualification of Massoud Rajavi in 1980 who wanted to be president but wouldn’t accept the constitution. Moini relates one disqualification after another over the intervening years to the present time. She points out that Massoud Rajavi is now trying to support one of the disqualified candidates, while at the same time insisting that nobody should vote.

In English:

++ A piece by Nejat Society titled ‘MEK’s efforts for more sanctions against Iranians’ examines the MEK’s current situation as mercenaries for Israel and the US. Since the US cannot use military power against Iran, it relies on sanctions and the MEK make every effort to exacerbate the effects of these sanctions on the Iranian people through their intelligence and propaganda activities. “Spying on governmental, semi-governmental and private-economic institutions and organizations in Iran, as well as attempts to influence Iran’s economic networks with other countries, are the actions that MEK agents have taken to discover Iranian systems to circumvent sanctions. Also, MEK seeks to find the areas in which the Iranian government has had some progress in domestic production that directly eliminated the effects of sanctions.
“Foreign companies under the contract of the Islamic Republic of Iran are other targets of MEK operatives to discover Iran’s business relations with other countries, which seek to explore possible ways to circumvent the sanctions. The agents of the MKO in this area are generally seeking intelligence on Iranian parties by contacting law offices, shipping companies, insurance companies and brokers.” This work is a major source of income for the group.

++ Robert Fantina writing in Core Middle East takes the lid off the fabricated bomb plot against the MEK in 2018. Fantina simply applies a little logic and rationality to the arrest of Iranian diplomat in Austria, Assadollah Asadi, in joint operation by German, French and Belgian police for procuring explosives and a detonator which he allegedly handed over to an Iranian couple from Belgium in a restaurant in Luxembourg. “Initially, Belgium authorities hacked his email, and found one inviting him to a conference in Germany. It is somewhat interesting that the most ‘incriminating’ email they found was this invitation. How unusual is it, one might ask, for a foreign diplomat to be invited to an international conference?

“But that was what was needed. Going to Germany for the conference, Asadi allegedly met a Belgium couple of Iranian origin at a restaurant in Luxembourg. Here is where things get a bit foggy. This couple reported receiving a package from Asadi, without knowing what it contained. At some point, they were arrested with a package and – lo and behold! – it contained a bomb.” Fantina points out that it makes no sense that Iran would blow up the extremely unpopular MEK in France creating carnage, while Iran was enjoying worldwide sympathy following President Trump’s withdrawal from the JCPOA. The piece concludes that the US government will be disappointed that Asadi’s imprisonment will not lead to regime change. The questions may remain unanswered but it is reasonable to conclude that this is “yet another attempt by the U.S. and its minions to marginalize, ostracize and demonize Iran.”

++ Nejat Society reports that the covert protests and dissatisfaction among the rank and file of the MEK – which has been on going for a long time – is increasing. Scrawling messages on the bathroom walls and other places where they are not supervised by the camp commanders indicates that more and more members want to leave the group but are intimidated by daily cultic abuse; verbal and physical attacks. Since arriving in Albania over 400 members have escaped the cult. Rajavi has ordered that members sign a ‘letter of engagement’ swearing an oath to stay in the MEK until the overthrow of the Iranian government.

Jun 11, 2021

June 13, 2021 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization members' families

A letter for my daughter; Azade Sabour

My dear daughter I wish you contact your siblings and me freely. Shima,Ehsan,Arash and me live with your memories. We long to see you again.

My dear Azade I want you to decide your own fate and way of life without restrictions of cult affairs.
As you have had no contact with us during all these twenty-one years, and even have had no activity in social media, it seems that you are living under dehumanizing condition.
Your spouse; Kaveh, has separated the group and is living in Sweden. In his last call to his family, Kaveh said that he is still awaiting Azade’s return.

I am totally unaware of you and your health conditions. As the MEK cult leaders do not allow us to have any contact, I publish this letter to the cyber space in the hope that one day you get access to the internet and be able to read my letter.
Love,
Your mother

June 12, 2021 0 comments

Mujahedin-e-khalq Organization Members

Clandestine protests in the MEK camps

Underground protests have ‎dramatically increased among members of the Mujahedin Khalq Organization, now based in the group’s headquarters in the region of Durres in Albania.
As long as the history of the Mujahedin Khalq as a cult of personality under the rule of Massoud Rajavi, clandestine dissent has been on going among the rank and file. According to former members of the Cult of Rajavi, disagreements and demands for defection from the cult-like system of the group, has enhanced since the group’s relocation in Albania.

Based on the news from the insiders, protesters who are afraid of voicing their dissent, write slogans against the group’s leaders on the walls of bathrooms where they are not under the supervision of commanders. This has happened on different occasions which indicates the rise in the number of dissident members who want to leave the group but they are intimidated by verbal and physical abuse on daily cult jargons.

A member of Mujahedin-e Khalgh walks in a street at the Ashraf-3 camp. Photo:Gent shkullaku/AFP

Although most members of MEK refuse to express their opinions openly because of fears of torture and abuse committed by the group commanders, the increase in the number of defections from the group since its arrival in Albania has been indicative of an increase of dissatisfaction.
According to unofficial data, since the resettlement of MEK in Albania, more than 400 people have left this group, regardless of those suspicious cases who have been killed mysteriously inside Camp Ashraf 3 in Manez, Durres, Albania.
The rise of protests in the Cult of Rajavi has plunged the leaders of the group into alternative ways to prevent the spread of protests among the rank and file, in addition to conventional methods of the organization, including solitary confinement and peer pressure. In this regard, all members of the group have been ordered to sign an engagement letter to stay in the group until the overthrow of the Iranian government –which according to the leaders of the group has been always close during the past forty years.

June 10, 2021 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization's Propaganda System

Terrorists of MEK in the corridors of Human Rights Buildings

It seems quite normal that human rights activists from all over the world participate in forums on human rights, in form of NGOs, semi-governmental organizations and government representatives. Human rights institutions are actually an area for those who are trying to use the human rights literature and its components to defend the rights of groups of people who have been in some way victims of human rights violations.

Meanwhile, sometimes there are participants, who have nothing to do with diplomatic and legal mechanisms. The groups that used to speak with the language of weapons and violence, today participate in human rights events to advocate for human rights while their capacity and determination for terrorist acts still persist!
The Mujahedin Khalq Organization (MKO/ MEK/ PMOI/ Cult of Rajavi) is one of those groups whose operatives go to the various housings of the United Nations Human Rights Council’s corridors and rooms each day. What do these formerly designated terrorists with a long history of terror and violence want in this environment?
After being expelled from Iraqi territory, MEK lost many of its capabilities, most notably in the field of armed action, and now it is inevitable to escape from the collapse of their cult-like system. So, they have to play in other areas.

Front Organizations
The relation between the group’s name and terrorist and armed activities has made it impossible for them to enter the Human Rights Council with the original name and, also, to escape from their records, which is precisely the opposite of human rights action, while maintaining in coverage to be present on the meetings. These people usually have no record of association with MEK and its leaders on the Internet. They even deny their association with the cult.

Recruiting people who have no idea about the MEK
The MKO leaders, both in terms of better preservation of the coverage and lack of enough forces, benefit from fugitive Europeans in need in Europe to work on behalf of them. Some of these people have been spending too little time hiring NGOs and are trained to promote the organization’s goals within the targeted event. These people are generally chosen from underprivileged refugee seekers. They have no record of dealing with MEK and its cause.

Manipulating journalists and politicians
One of the most important skills of MEK agents is their power of rapprochement. By approaching the assistants and associates, official reporters, journalists and even politicians they try to identify themselves as a reliable source of news, documents and information on human rights in Iran. As an example, since Ahmad Shaheed was elected as Iran’s Special Reporter, agents of MEK tried to establish close and even non-affiliated ties with the reporter’s assistants. Buying gifts or even paying bribes to his assistants was one of the common ways for the group to approach them.

Another example was recently reported by the Independent. According to the report, Jennifer Carroll MacNeill apologized for delivering an address to a “cult-like” Iranian dissident organization that has been linked to terrorism. Carroll MacNeill had addressed an online event hosted by MEK on March 8 to mark International Women’s Day. Speaking to the Sunday Independent, Carroll MacNeill said she had been asked by a constituent to speak at an online parliamentary conference to celebrate IWD.
“The event was attended by many other European parliamentarians and was in recognition of Iranian women’s fight for gender equality,” she said. “The invitation and correspondence I received in relation to the event did not make any reference to the [MEK], nor was I ever aware or made aware of any link between the event and this organization.”

Launching propaganda against Iran
The agents of MEK have to attend the events from the first minutes of the beginning until the last few seconds, and they also have duties to engage with other NGOs from other countries, meet with journalists and officials to communicate and to gather news and information on panels.
In addition, MEK agents, in the course of leading their paid associates inside Iran, try to lead them to commit more radical acts and eventually get heavier judicial sentences! This will work better for the group’s propaganda against Islamic Republic.

Activities in areas irrelevant to Iran
During the past few years, the MEK agents have been active in certain unrelated issues with the Islamic Republic of Iran. For instance, agents of the group take part in all human rights panels in Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Syria. They take actions for linking themselves to the interests of these states

Show-off protests
One of the permanent actions of MEK during any human is holding protests with very few people of their sympathizers or rented crowds. Mobilizing their uneducated and unusable forces inside in front of the buildings, they sometimes organize them for a month to set up a rally there.

The gatherings are organized with MEK’s own logo and name, and in fact it is similar to other gatherings of the group to show off that they still have supporters. This section of the group that has been active for many years in the UN office in Geneva, Switzerland and in New York, the United States, has several times been banned by the authorities who have been noticed about the violent past of the group.

June 10, 2021 0 comments

Former members of the MEK

The MEK forced me to take up arms against my own countrymen

Honorable UN Representative in Tehran
Your Excellency,

According to the Geneva Convention relative to the treatment of the POWs
I am Torab Ali Ne’mati. I was arrested during Iran-Iraq war by the Mujahedin-e Khalq forces who were fighting on the side of Saddam Hussein. I was imprisoned in the group prisoners for about 8 months. Then they forced me to participate in their operation against Iran called Eternal Light and so as to take up arms against my own countrymen.

After long years I managed to free myself from the group. I have complaint against the cult leaders as they violated the 3rd Geneva convention relative to the treatment of the POWs. They did this to me and other POWs. They should be prosecuted as I injured physically and mentally.

Sincerely,
Torab Ali Ne’mati
Zanjan Province, Iran

June 9, 2021 0 comments

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