Articles

Mujahedin Khalq Organization's Propaganda System

The MKO Losing Lobbies?

It has been near two decades that the Mujahedin Khalq Organization (the MKO/ MEK/ the Cult of Rajavi) has been inflaming fears of a nuclear Iran to bolster its case in the international community. It has been constantly claiming that the Tehran government has an ongoing WMD program. The group and its supporters in the American warmonger think-tanks strived to call on the West for a war against Iran. However, the US, Europe and Iran ultimately reached an agreement over the Iranian nuclear program in 2015.

The American sponsors of the Cult of Rajavi such as John Bolton and Rudy Giuliani help to raise the profile and legitimize the aims of the group that will not bring democracy to Iran and has no popular support in the country. Bolton provides no good reason for a regime change in Iran after the P5+1 nuclear deal, insisting simply that it is a long-term solution in his view. The MKO supporters want to have the United States install the MKO as Iran’s new government. That would mean war although the MKO denies seeking violent regime change, but the only conceivable way it could become the next government in Tehran would be at the head of a U.S. military invasion.

After the election of Donald Trump, the MKO and its advocates increased their efforts to obstruct the nuke deal. However, it seems that the group is losing grounds in the US administration despite hefty investments on its lobbies. John Bolton, a former US ambassador to the UN who at one point was a candidate to lead the State Department, claimed in a National Review op-ed that his plan for the US to exit the Iran nuclear deal had to be presented publicly, because staff changes at the White House have made”presenting it to President Trump impossible.”

While the MKO’s propaganda website publishes John Bolton’s plan for “How to get out of the Iran nuclear deal”, it ignores the fact that its paid sponsor is barred from entering the White House. Donald Trump seems to be learning that bullying towards Iran and other signatories of the JCPOA does not work anymore.

Bolton was a promoter of the war in Iraq. As George W.Bush’s undersecretary of state in late 2002, he claimed that Saddam Hussein has hidden weapons of mass destruction and production facilities in Iraq, something that was never verified. He was allegedly seeking to build a democracy in Iraq. He is now dreaming of his so-called democracy for Iran.

“Bolton is hardly the only former official, retired officer, or ex-politician to do this, but for the last several years he has been a vocal cheerleader of the Mujahideen-e Khalq cult (and “former” terrorist group) and its political organization,” Daniel Larison of the American Conservative asserts. “He has been consistently misrepresenting a totalitarian cult as a “democratic” Iranian opposition group. When Bolton or someone else with this record talks about “vigorous American support for Iran’s opposition,” we can be fairly sure that he means that the U.S. should be backing the MEK in its quest for seizing power in Iran.”

Larison accurately concludes that Bolton’s judgment about the MKO is “extremely poor”. He also suggests that Iran hawks such as Bolton are really “oblivious to the political realities inside Iran”. “Once again we have a hawkish demand for U.S. support for an exile group that has absolutely no support in its own country in order to achieve regime change”, He writes. “Indeed, the group that Bolton has been helping to promote is widely loathed in Iran for good reason and has no credibility at all with the domestic political opposition. It is Bolton’s embrace of the MEK as much as anything else that ought to discredit his views on Iran policy.”

In fact, after the relocation in Albania, the MKO is facing major problems. First of all is the increasing rise in the number of members who wish to leave the group. Thus, the group leader has to spend too much energy to maintain its hegemony over members. According to reports from inside the cult, Maryam Rajavi has to hold private manipulation meetings in order to convince the rank and file to stay in the group. Besides, the MKO is also endeavoring to find a place in the political scene of the region receiving its paid sponsors including American Congressmen in Albania. But, seemingly, the views of the MKO sponsors are discredited in the US government. The MKO is fast losing its opportunities in the land of opportunities as well as in its own headquarters.

By Mazda Parsi

September 12, 2017 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization as a terrorist group

Iran remembers Rajaei and Bahonar Murdered by American backed MEK

This time some 36 years ago, the lives of President Mohammad Ali Rajaei and Prime Minister Mohammad Javad Bahonar were cut short in an explosion set by Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization, also known as MKO.

The bomb went off at the office of Islamic Republican Party in Tehran where a meeting was held. It also claimed lives of other officials.

Survivors said the bomb was set off when one of the victims opened a briefcase which was carried inside by Massoud Keshmiri, a security official at the Islamic Republican Party, to the meeting. The blast killed Rajaei, Bahonar and three other members of the Islamic Republican Party.

Subsequent investigations revealed that Massoud Kashmiri, who had brought the briefcase into the conference room, was an operative of the MKO disguised as a state security official.

39 days earlier, Rajaei had gained the votes of the majority of Iranians in an early election and had become the second president of the Islamic Republic of Iran, after Abol-Hasan Bani-Sadr, who had fled to Europe after being removed from his post by the parliament. Rajaei served as the prime minister under Bani-Sadr.

“Rajaei’s simple life-style, his popular policies, and his authority and effectiveness provoked the envy of the West-oriented President (Bani-Sadr) to the point where the latter would openly malign his prime minister on numerous occasions in an effort to drive him away from the government,” according to Kevin Barrett, a Arabist-Islamologist.

Rajaei and Bahonar, who knew each other for 20 years and were very active in the anti-Shah campaign, stood shoulder to shoulder after the victory of the Islamic Revolution.

The assassination took place when the government of Rajaei was only in office for 29 days and ever since the Government Week is observed in memory of those men beginning on August 23.

August 31, 2017 0 comments

Former members of the MEK

Iran has shown maximum mercy to MEK members

Ebrahim Khodabandeh, a former senior member of Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization who defected from the group in 2003, provided details of some less known aspects of the MEK in a speech delivered to scholars of Astan Qods Razavi endowment in Mashhad.

In the first part of his speech, Ebrahim Khodabandeh referred to the cultish nature of MEK and said cults like the MEK highlight real-life problems of people and recruit their members by presenting themselves as the solution to those problems.

He then stated that the MEK which once claimed to be fighting for independence from the United States, now invites and hosts the most extremist American warmongers, who are rejected even by liberals in the West, in its events and gatherings.

Khodabandeh went on to say that the main focus of MEK’s international activities was on Iranophobia. “This approach was in line with Western governments’ desires. We used to demonize Iran to terrify Western people. When they were terrified of Iran, we used to present ourselves as the alternative and asked for their support. This is how the MEK recruited some people and brought them into the group.” He said.

He then pointed out the criminal record of the group and stated: “As confessed in its own documents, the MEK has killed 12000 Iranians. We shall never allow these crimes to be forgotten. One of their best-known betrayals against Iranian people is their cooperation and siding with Iraq in their war against Iran. As Saddam was bombing Iranian cities, Rajavi and his group encouraged him and advised the Iraqi army on the location of their targets. Rajavi ordered MEK members to contact their families in Iran and gather intel about the hit targets under the pretext of greeting their family members.”

Khodabandeh also referred to Iran’s attitude towards MEK members and reiterated: “Nothing in the world is more important to humans than security. Let’s look at Iran’s situation back in the 80s. On one hand, a foreign country has invaded the Iranian soil. And on the other hand an Iranian group is conducting high treason by siding with the enemy in this invasion. Mersad operation is a clear example of MEK’s betrayal to Iran. During WWII in Britain, the sentence of robbery was execution. They used to justify it by saying as all security and Police forces are focused on an ongoing war, robbery is an act against the national security and in favor of the enemy at war. And the sentence of cooperation with the enemy during war is execution. Now going back to Iran in the 80s, all military and security forces of the country are engaged in war. Imam Khomeini issued the right Fatwa and saved the security of people. Many of those MEK members who were not executed in 1988 and release later, moved to Iraq and rejoined the MEK and participated in a direct military operation against the country (Mersad operation). After Mersad operation, MEK members who were still in prison were asked about their ties with the group, and some would still insist on supporting MEK’s activities. It has nothing to do with Islam. Do a research in a country like the U.S. and see what the sentence of high treason is. The Islamic Republic has shown the maximum mercy to an enemy group. I know more than 700 MEK members like myself who are freely living their lives. Many journalists who encountered us were surprised and wondered if it is possible.”

August 30, 2017 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization's Propaganda System

The MEK: Masters of Propaganda

There is a big mistake often made by certain American politicians: They allegedly are concerned about freedom of Iranian people but fail to understand the nature of a group which, in public, says good things about freedom and democracy but, actually it is committed to violence, human rights abuse and cult-like practices. Mujahedin Khalq (MKO, MEK, the Cult of Rajavi) are “skilled manipulators of public opinion”. In fact, the organization over which Maryam Rajavi and his disappeared husband have control avoids democracy and cuddles terrorism, dictatorship, and Maoism.

All the way in the corridors of the Capitol Hill, MKO agents tell Congressmen, their employees, and other officials what they want to hear: the MKO is the only opposition movement capable of changing the Iranian government and replacing it with a secular democratic government. They are hard workers to draw the attention of their targets to the so-called cause of their group; they are very sociable to lawmakers giving out Persian food, Christmas presents and their booklets and posters of misinformation about the life in Iran. Dressed up well, agents of MKO’s lobbying campaign get close to American journalists, politicians, and critics of the Islamic Republic.

Maryam Rajavi has increased totalitarian control over its members, particularly after the relocation of the group in Albania –where defection from the group is on the rise. While members reside in the West, the so-called cradle of democracy, the Cult authorities forbid the rank and file from access to any information from the outside world but its own TV channel and publications.

The MEK are “masters of propaganda”. Many of its supporters are unaware of its dark history and also what is going on inside the group now.

Warmonger think-tanks and conspiracy theorists have accelerated their run against Iranian government enabling the group to project a false image of popular support in Iran where none exist. Biased journalists such as Washington Post correspondents, repeat the fake story of the MKO as the viable alternative of the Islamic Republic, replacing their theories for fact. None of them can present the slightest evidence to prove that the MKO is a popular opposition group in Iran and none can assure the audience that the future Iran under the rule of the MKO is a democratic, non-nuclear one.

Yet, while the MKO has the support of a number of congressmen and a small number of analysts, it has no support in the power centers of Washington. Nevertheless, the group endeavors to demonstrate its claim of Western support by spending large amounts for luxurious trips of congressmen like John McCain to Europe.

Over a hundred years after the establishment of Iran’s Constitutional Revolution, to advocate for the undemocratic Cult o Rajavi and to feed Rajavi’s hunger for power sounds improper. However, many “monsters of the left” use the pro-democracy slogans to achieve their ambitions. Maryam Rajavi, and her cult of personality are not exception.

By Mazda Parsi

August 28, 2017 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization as a terrorist group

The MKO, the essence of North Korea

The tensions between North Korea and the United States have escalated in the past days. The United States is preparing for all options, including a “preemptive war,” to stop North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs. President Trump has stated that the US will not tolerate “North Korea being able to threaten the United States.” On the other side, North Korea says it will not give up on its nuclear deterrence unless Washington ends its hostile policy toward Pyongyang and dissolves the US-led UN command in South Korea. Thousands of US soldiers are stationed in South Korea and Japan. This preventative actions by the US government were taking place while some of its Congress senators were visiting with the leader of the Mujahedin Khalq (the MKO, MEK, the Cult of Rajavi) that is a small North Korea, itself.

The MKO, the essence of North Korea

The delegation, Senators Roy Blunt, Vice President of the Republican Conference, and member of the Appropriation, Select Intelligence, Rules and Administration, and Commerce, Science, and Transportation committees; John Cornyn, the Majority Whip, and a member of the Judiciary, Select Intelligence, and Finance committees; and Thom Tillis, a member of the Armed Services, Judiciary, Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs and Veterans’ Affairs committees held a meeting with the head of the MKO cult, Maryam Rajavi, in the Albanian capital, Tirana.

As a matter of fact, the MKO was first established on an intensely anti-American platform. The group has murdered several Americans and is considered by certain human rights and international bodies such as Human Rights Watch to be an anti-democratic cult. After joining Saddam in his war against Iran during the 1980s, what Iranians almost universally regard as an act of treason, the group lost essentially all its popular support. [1]

However, American supporters of the MKO rarely mention the group’s violent and anti-American past, and portray the group not as terrorists but as freedom fighters with values just like them, as republicans and warmongers of Trump administration are ready to serve as a vanguards of regime change in Iran. In addition, some of them acknowledge that they know little about the group before they were invited to its events or to their trips to France or Albania but the fee the MKO pays them is good enough to forget or ignore the entire anti-American and violent background of the group.

Definitely, American friends of Maryam Rajavi should be concerned about her as if they are concerned about Kim Jong Un. Camps of the MKO are run by an authoritarian cult-like system very similar to the one ruling North Korea. MKO members just like North Koreans are”raised to be soldiers”with the sole purpose of serving their great leader.

“Their lives were completely mapped out according to the great leader,”the journalist, Suki Kim — who spent six months undercover in North Korea in 2011– told CNN.”Any information from outside is forbidden and not shown to them in any way. It’s really a system of absolute control.”[2]

According to the CNN, Kim described how computer majors in the university didn’t even know the Internet existed and how her students had to attend weekly meetings to report on each other,”so there’s a surveillance system.”[3]

Actually, Suki Kim’s account of the life in North Korea recalls two articles authored by the New York Times journalist Elizabeth Rubin in July 2003 and August 2011 in which she describes her first-hand account of visiting Camp Ashraf, the MKO’s then headquarters in Iraq.

“When I arrived at Camp Ashraf, the base of the group’s operations, in April 2003, I thought I’d entered a fictional world of female worker bees,” Rubin writes. “Everywhere I saw women dressed exactly alike, in khaki uniforms and mud-colored head scarves, driving back and forth in white pickup trucks, staring ahead in a daze as if they were working at a factory in Maoist China. I met dozens of young women buried in the mouths of tanks, busily tinkering with the engines. One by one, the girls bounded up to me and my two minders to recite their transformations from human beings to acolytes of Ms. Rajavi. One said she had been suicidal in Iran until she found Ms. Rajavi on the Internet.” [4]

As Suki Kim describes North Korea as “a system set up solely to serve the country’s leader, in which citizens have access to only one newspaper and one television station dedicated to teaching them about their leader”, [5] Elizabeth Rubin describes the parallel system ruling Camp Ashraf where “3,400 members of the militant group reside in total isolation on a 14-square-mile tract of harsh desert land. Access to the Internet, phones and information about the outside world is prohibited. Posters of Ms. Rajavi and her smiling green eyes abound. Meanwhile, she lives in luxury in France; her husband has remained in hiding since the United States occupied Iraq in 2003.” [6]

Suki Kim believes that North Korea is “the saddest place in the world”. She asserts,”The country is nothing like we’ve seen before. It’s a nuclear power that is also absolutely enslaving its citizens for the sake of this really one-man nation.”[7]

It seems that Kim has not heard of the Cult of Rajavi, before; eventually she does not know that this cult advocates regime change in Iran and claims to be the alternative of the current Iranian government. The saddest place in the world is also seen in the world inside the MKO. “Friendships and all emotional relationships are forbidden,” reveals Rubin. “From the time they are toddlers, boys and girls are not allowed to speak to each other. Each day at Camp Ashraf you had to report your dreams and thoughts. If a man was turned on by the scent of a woman or a whiff of perfume, he had to confess. Members had to attend weekly ideological cleansings in which they publicly confessed their sexual desires. Members were even forced to divorce and take a vow of lifelong celibacy to ensure that all their energy and love would be directed toward Maryam and Massoud.” [8]

Therefore, who can promise that a future Iran ruled by Maryam Rajavi would not turn into a nuclear power? The existence of communities like the Cult of Rajavi and North Korea is indeed “devastating problem”. As North Korea is considered a threat by the US politic men, Rubin warns the MKO sponsors: “Mujahedeen Khalq is not only irrelevant to the cause of Iran’s democratic activists, but a totalitarian cult that will come back to haunt us.” [9]

Mazda Parsi

References:

[1] Human Right Watch, “No Exit”

[2] Mahtani, Melissa, North Korea is ‘a cult’ to Kim Jong Un, undercover reporter says, CNN,

August 12, 2017

[3] ibid

[4]Rubin, Elizabeth, An Iranian Cult and Its American Friends, The New York Times, August 13, 2017

[5] Mahtani, Melissa, North Korea is ‘a cult’ to Kim Jong Un, undercover reporter says, CNN,

August 12, 2017

[6] Rubin, Elizabeth, An Iranian Cult and Its American Friends, The New York Times, August 13, 2017

[7] Mahtani, Melissa, North Korea is ‘a cult’ to Kim Jong Un, undercover reporter says, CNN,

August 12, 2017

[8] Rubin, Elizabeth, An Iranian Cult and Its American Friends, The New York Times, August 13, 2017

[9]ibid

August 21, 2017 0 comments

Missions of Nejat Society

How can these lawmakers sleep at night and where is the media!

How can these lawmakers (Senator Roy Blunt, Brad Sherman, Joe Lieberman, Dana Rohrabacher, Ed Royce….) sleep at night and where is the media to expose them!

The Iraq War Resolution of 2002 was not only based on Saddam’s alleged possession of WMDs. The Resolution also claimed Saddam had links to terrorism and both Congress and President Bush named People’s Mujaheddin Of Iran (MEK) then based in Iraq as proof that Saddam was harboring terror groups (see photos1-2).

15 years later thousand of $$$ have been spent on lobbying by MEK and the same lawmakers (many now in the private sector) that voted for the Iraq Resolution (see photos 3-6) AND even “experts” that called for the vote that sent 6,000 US soldiers to their graves and over 30,000 inflicted with life long debilitating injuries are now actively promoting the same MEK as the “freedom fighters” US needs to install in Iran via regime change !

Who is looking out for America?

Doug Applegate

Congressman Joe Kennedy III

Congressman Jerry Nadler

Congresswoman Barbara Lee

Congressman Adam Schiff

U.S. Senator Kamala Harris

By Houman Fakhimi, Facebook page,

August 19, 2017 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization as a terrorist group

Warning about threats against the families and former MEK members

Ministria e Punëve të Brendshme

Dëshmorët e Kombit Boulevard, Tirana, Albania

Dear Mr Dritan Demiraj,

As you are aware, over 2,000 members of a terrorist cult known as the Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization (MEK, MKO, NCR, NLA …) are residing in your country as UN refugees. These individuals are subjected to all kinds of cultic abuses and restrictions, including deprivation of family contact and visits.

To date, some 100 individuals have separated from this cult. They remain in Albania, but under an agreement made between the UNHCR and the MEK leaders, their UN refugee allowances are still paid directly to the Rajavi cult instead of to them as individuals. This diversion of the funds meant to cover their living expenses means that they remain under the control of the cult.

In addition, inside the MEK there are also some 100 individuals who we know want to leave but who are prevented from doing so due to the extreme measures of control imposed on the members. Some of these individuals are even kept in solitary confinement inside the cult.

Recently, Maryam Rajavi – the de facto leader of the cult after Massoud Rajavi’s disappearance – again made a trip to Albania to try to prevent members from leaving. In a meeting, she implicitly threatened those who want to leave. We know that her arrival in and departure from Albania is arranged to avoid her undergoing passport control procedures at the airport. During Rajavi’s visit, Ms Elona Gjebrea, Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs responsible for anti-trafficking, participated in a cult meeting and expressed her full support for the terrorist group.

Lately an article was published in a website associated with the cult which threatens the families of members and the former members with death. Naturally, this caused a great deal of concern amongst them. In this article those who have left the organization and those who wish to visit their loved ones are defined as traitors and therefore, according to the cultic theories of this group, liable to summary execution. The Albanian government’s neglect and appeasement of this terrorist group has given them an open hand and has encouraged them to openly threaten people with death by assassination.

We also learned that the terrorist Rajavi cult has prepared facilities 27 kilometers outside Tirana so that it can move all the members to a remote and isolated place similar to Ashraf garrison in Iraq. There it is planned to hide them from external observation, inspection or intervention and deprive them of their liberty, basic human rights and prevent them from having any access to the outside world.

Unfortunately, we are also witness to brutal behavior by the Albanian government and police towards the families. The families come to Albania to visit their loved ones. Where on earth is visiting loved ones considered a crime so that in your country these suffering families have been interrogated by the police and been treated as criminals after being beaten up by the cult’s mobs?

The separated members of the Rajavi cult in Albania have complained to the Ministry of Internal Affairs and to the UNHCR many times about the misconduct and criminality of the cult toward themselves, the members and others. The response so far, however, is for each to hold the other body responsible for neglecting their legal duty.

Sahar Family Foundation warns against allowing death threats against the families and the separated members and will hold the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the police and security forces responsible for the deeds of the cult’s elements and reserves the right to pursue cases through legal assemblies and international organizations.

Respectfully Yours,

Sahar Family Foundation

August 15, 2017 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization's Propaganda System

The truth about the American fact-finding delegation’s visit to MEK terrorist camp in Tirana

Did the American delegation interrogate Maryam Rajavi in Tirana?

The US fact finding delegation visited the Mojahedin Khaq (MEK) camp in Albania.

Photo : Alireza Jafarzadeh sitting with Americans instead of Maryam RajaviAlireza Jafarzadeh (MEK commander) sitting opposite Maryam Rajavi. Is he with the Americans?

Four American Senators travelled to Albania and held meetings with the President, Governmental officials and opposition figures in that country. The American Embassy in Tirana describes their purpose of visit as “discussing security, defense and counterterrorism cooperation”.

The official Albanian News agency describes this visit as part of a “Fact finding mission in Balkan Countries”.

On the fringe of this “American delegation” fact finding mission they also visited the headquarters of the Mojahedin Khalq terrorist organisation (aka, MEK, Saddam’s private army, NCRI, Rajavi cult) where they spoke with Maryam Rajavi and others.

Contrary to the paid advertisements and propaganda issuing from the Mojahdein Khalq cult which tries to portray this visit as somehow in line with the anti-Iranian terrorist agenda of the group, the goal of the delegation has been to make sure that the arrangements put to place by the U.S. Government, United Nations and the Albanian Government has been executed properly and the group does not pose the threats it posed to people when they were stationed in Iraq.

The Mojahedin Khalq (Rajavi cult) had played the same kind of scenario when Senator John McCain visited Albania last March. Maryam Rajavi tried to pretend that he had been travelling to visit her in Tirana. But McCain had travelled to the Balkan country to meet government officials and according to the Albanian official News agency (ATA) he met with the President, PM, Defence Minister, Parliament speaker and the leader of the opposition.

Translated by Iran Interlink

August 14, 2017 0 comments

Maryam Rajavi

Maryam Rajavi MEK leader or Massoud’s front figure?

There are people out there who are leaders of cults of personality and they do destructive harm against their followers emotionally, psychologically, physically and financially. Actually there is no cult, without a charismatic leader who abuses people to obey him unquestionably.

The Mujahedin Khalq Organization meets all traits of a destructive cult of personality. The disappeared leader of the group Massoud Rajavi had complete control over his followers. He never answered questions on the decisions he made and he was never accountable to no one in his group, the MKO.

What was Maryam Rajavi’s role to establish Massoud’s cult of personality?

According to Dr. Alexandra stein, cult expert and sociologist, “the most inner circles around a cult leader protect him or her from the masses outside.” For Massoud Rajavi the most inner circle is called the “Elite Council” which is exclusively consisted of female members.

“Some cult leaders are surrounded by their immediate lieutenant, their wives “, writes Dr. Stein. “They are in charge of looking after his personal needs as well as leading the organization on a daily basis.”

Certain female defectors of the cult of Rajavi are living eye-witnesses of the existence of such a protective female wall around Massoud Rajavi. Batoul Soltani, who left the group a decade ago, revealed that Massoud Rajavi had married a number of higher layer members of the Elite Council.

She revealed Rajavi’s passion to have sexual relationship with his numerous wives. The surprising part of her testimony was that Massoud Rajavi was aided by his third wife Maryam Rajavi – the so-called president elect of the MKO – to gain his sexual ambitions. Batul clarified how Maryam managed the ceremonies called Salvation Dance to manipulate high ranking members of the Elite Council – of which she was a member too – into getting married and having sex with Massoud.

What made Maryam Rajavi act as a catalyst for her husband’s ambitions?

Based on Alex Stein’s research, Maryam Rajavi’s function was to “implement Massoud Rajavi’s wishes and serving as a proxy for him while his whereabouts remain secret. But, she, too, will likely be dispensable should he so desire.”

Wheather Massoud Rajavi is dead or has desired to dispense Maryam as his successor, Maryam is now the symbol of feminism and women’s rights in the masquerade shows the MKO launches. However, Rajavi’s “all-female leadership” also functions as a shield against any probable dissent by the side of male members of his cult of personality.

Dr. Stein notifies the MKO as a cult in which “Rajavi appoints authority figures in the hierarchy based not on expertise, but because of ideological rank.”

She then describes how the inner feminine circle was formed around Massoud Rajavi: “these rankings change on a dime, depending on Rajavi’s whim. All one point, in a major ideological move, men were removed from any leadership posts and an-all-female leadership replaced them (with the exception, of course, of Rajavi himself) – presumably in an effort to keep the men subservient and prevent the development of internal resistance to Rajavi. More recently seven members of Rajavi’s inner circle have disappeared and the MEK watches suspect they are likely to have been “eliminated” as no longer being of use and potentially dangerous “because of the information they carry.”

To maintain his hegemony over his cult members, Massoud Rajavi victimized hundreds of people and Maryam was his number one assistant to gain the utmost power of saint immortal leader. With the disappearance of Massoud, Maryam is endeavoring to preserve the same authority over the cult of Rajavi. Has she been successful, the process of defection from the group would stop.

By Mazda Parsi

August 12, 2017 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization

Iran’s Social Network Sites : We Hate Mojahedin-e Khalq

We Hate Mojahedin-e Khalq: SNS Respond to a Conference of the Iranian Opposition

In early July, Iran’s National Resistance Council, the political wing of the opposition group Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK), held its annual conference at the Villepinte Exhibition Center in a suburb of Paris. The conference sparked angry reactions and public criticism on Iran’s social networking sites (SNS). This anger was exacerbated by Saudi and US representation at the conference, which was seen as evidence of Saudi and American efforts to instigate political change in Iran through compromising support of a terrorist organization widely considered traitorous by Iranians.

MEK’s ideology combines Shi‘ite Islam with Marxism. During the early 1970s, the organization emerged in opposition to the Iranian monarchy. The United States and the European Union previously designated MEK as a terrorist organization due to its involvement in terrorist attacks in Iran, with several attacks against Western (including American and Israeli) targets. Shortly after the Islamic Revolution in 1979, MEK and the new regime fell into severe conflict, with the regime implementing strongly suppressive measures against MEK. As a result, the organization transferred most of its activities to Iraq, where it aligned itself with the Saddam Hussein regime. In the 1980s, during the Iran-Iraq War, MEK even participated in several Iraqi army operations against Iran. As a result, MEK was left with very little support in Iran proper, with many Iranians considering MEK activists traitors. In recent years, there has been no evidence of the organization’s involvement in terrorism. Instead, it focuses mainly on political activity in Europe and the United States aimed at enlisting support for regime change in Iran. Nonetheless, critics believe this political activity is merely a façade.

This year’s annual MEK conference was chaired by the organization’s leader, Maryam Rajavi, and attended by hundreds of participants from around the world, including Saudi Prince Turki al-Faisal, who formerly served as head of Saudi intelligence, as well as largely hawkish former US officials, including the former ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton, former US Senator Joseph Lieberman (Ind.-Conn.), and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani. In their speeches at the conference, these senior officials harshly criticized the Islamic republic, accused it of supporting terrorism, and called for regime change in Tehran.

The conference aroused strong reactions in Iran. Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, who ended an official visit to Paris on the eve of the conference, criticized France for permitting the opposition group to operate within its borders, saying that regional and European countries are well aware of MEK’s terrorist activities.[1] Ali Akbar Velayati, the Iranian Supreme Leader’s advisor on international affairs, emphasized that hosting terrorists would not contribute to regional or international peace.[2] On SNS, thousands of Iranian users mobilized a virtual campaign against the organization using the English and Persian hashtags “Iran hates MEK” and “No to MEK.”[3] The posts included insults and slurs against members of the organization accused of causing the death of thousands of Iranian citizens. Users contended that MEK is a terrorist organization entirely unrepresentative of the Iranian people, and devoid of popular support. They stressed that opposition to MEK unites Iranians, regardless of ideology or political outlook. As one user tweeted, “There is no difference between conservatives, reformists or independents! We all agree on hatred for Munafakin [a derogatory term for the MEK, meaning hypocrites or false Muslims].”[4]

Predictably, the main criticism of the organization was based on its alignment with the Iraqi regime during the Iran-Iraq war. Iranian users called MEK members “betrayers of the homeland” and “traitors,” accusing them of collaborating with the Ba‘ath regime’s chemical attack on the citizens of Iran during the summer of 1987. “When Iranian women and children trembled in fear of Iraqi missiles, the MEK drank faludeh [a cold Iranian beverage],” wrote one commenter.[5] Many users emphasized that the Iranian people would neither forget nor forgive the organization for its historic misalignment.

Along with expressions of hatred towards the opposition group, users also attacked its supporters in the West and Saudi Arabia. Many users compared MEK to ISIS, arguing that there was no difference between supporting the Iranian opposition group and supporting the Islamic terror organization. Western support for MEK, spearheaded by American politicians close to the current administration, was considered further proof of the West’s hypocrisy. Critics contended that while Western countries claim to defend democracy and human rights against terrorism, they perpetuate a terrorist organization responsible for thousands of innocent civilians’ deaths, and for serious human rights violations in internment camps it operated in Iraq. “Trump administration wants to back an Islamist terrorist cult (MEK) to bring democracy to Iran. What a sick joke,”[6] tweeted one user. Meanwhile, Saudi support for this opposition group reignited Iranian hostility towards Saudi Arabia, which has been the target of Iranian users’ hatred and racism for the past several years of worsening relations between the countries. “Saudi Arabia supports Maryam Rajavi as leader of Iran, but within Saudi Arabia women have no right to drive!” read one tweet.[7]

The angry reactions aroused by MEK’s conference in Paris attest to the intensity of the hostility towards the organization among Iranian citizens, including critics of the regime. Most of the Iranian public view the organization’s conduct since the Islamic revolution as a series of treacheries that climaxed with the organization’s support of the Saddam regime during the Iran-Iraq war, which remains a traumatic memory for Iranians. Therefore, Iranians consider any support for MEK to be an illegitimate offence against national pride. The Iranian public’s aversion to foreign interventions and allies of Iran’s enemies sporadically captivates SNS discourse,[8] as exhibited by the conference’s backlash.

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[1] “Iranian FM decries France green light to MKO activities,” Press TV, July 1, 2017.

[2] “Velayati Blasts France for Hosting MKO Terrorists,” Fars News Agency, July 3, 2017.

[3] #IranHatesMEK and-#No2MEK

[4] https://twitter.com/sadat0_7/status/881940592195796992.

[5] https://twitter.com/tousheh/status/881193724402962435.

[6] https://twitter.com/Atheist_Iran/status/881221824175984640.

[7] https://twitter.com/sepehrad2/status/881755804449349633.

[8] In this context, see Iranians’ responses to a letter in which Iranian activists in exile urged US President Trump to adopt an aggressive policy towards Iran .Raz Zimmt, “Critics or Traitors? Responses to Iranian Exiles’ Letter to Trump,” Beehive, 5(1), January 2017,

Dr. Raz Zimmt investigates Iranian social media responses to the annual conference of Mojahedin-e Khalq, an Iranian opposition group whose support for Iraq during the Iran-Iraq War remains a searing national trauma.

Dr. Raz Zimmt, The Moshe Dyan Center, Tel Aviv university,

August 9, 2017 0 comments

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