In correspondence sent to former Prime Minister Sali Berisha in 2012, Albania’s former Ambassador to the United Nations, Sedje Qerimaj, suggests that Albania would do better to provide financial assistance than accommodate members of the Iranian Mojahedin Khalq terrorist group.
In a copy of this correspondence provided to Panorama, the UN Ambassador informs former Prime Minister Berisha about two meetings held in Geneva as part of the effort to find a solution for the residents of Camp Ashraf in Iraq. According to this correspondence, on March 15, 2012, Ambassador Qerimaj held a meeting with Volker Türk, director of the Department of International Protection at the High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), in which Albania was asked to take a group of refugees, to accept their placement in a temporary base, and to give financial assistance to the UNHCR project.
In another meeting organized on March 23, 2012 by the UNHCR and attended by representatives of 30 countries of the world, Albania’s ambassador to the UN, stressed in his speech that the country was considering all options for making a contribution to finding a final solution to this problem.
At the conclusion of the correspondence, Ambassador Former Prime Minister Berisha Qerimaj suggests that the grant of even a modest financial contribution would suffice as Albania’s contribution to efforts to find a final solution to this problem. Despite this, former Prime Minister Berisha, after consultations with the USA agreed to give refuge in our country to the Iranian Mojahedin Khalq terrorist group.
FULL LETTER OF ALBANIA’S UN AMBASSADOR TO PM BERISHA
Nr.Prot.143 Geneva on March 26, 2012
Re: On the issue of Iranian dissidents, residents of Camp Ashraf
To: SH.T.Z. Sali Berisha Prime Minister of Albania
Dear Mr. Prime Minister,
Let me inform you of the outcome of the two meetings held in Geneva, as part of the effort to find a solution for the residents of Camp Ashraf in Iraq*.
(* Clarification: In June 2008, the Iraqi government decided to close Camp Ashraf, where about 3200 Iranian dissidents had lived since the 1980s. In 2011 the Iraqi government decided to extend the closure of the camp until April 30, 2012. In September 2011, after UNHCR intervention, there followed around 3246 applications for refugee status from residents in Camp Ashraf. The camp is in the process of relocating to the Airport area of Baghdad, to a former US military base, as the last stage of finding a final solution outside Iraq.)
First, on March 15, 2012, our ambassador at the UN Office in Geneva met Mr. Volker Türk, director of the Department of International Protection at the High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), at his request. Director Türk expressed his gratitude for Albania’s continued assistance to the UNCHR (he cited the case of receipt of those released from Gitmo) and urged considering the possibility that the Albanian 1. accept a refugee group,
2. accept the establishment of an interim distribution base,
3. grant financial assistance for the UNHCR project,
Ambassador Qerimaj assured Mr. Türk that he will convey to the Albanian authorities the UNCHR’s requirements and that the government of our country would examine all possibilities to take part in finding a final solution to this problem.
Second, on March 23, 2012, our Ambassador at the UN, Mr. Sedje Qerimaj attended the meeting held by the UNHCR to find strategies for solving the problem of Camp Ashraf in Iraq. This meeting, which was attended by Ms. Erika Feller, Assistant High Commissioner – Protection, Mr. Martin Kobler, Special Representative of the UN Secretary General for Iraq, as well as ambassadorial representatives of 30 countries invited by the High Commissioner for Refugees, Mr. Antonio Gutierrez, was held to discuss finding a solution for the residents of Camp Ashraf.
Our Ambassador, Mr. Qerimaj, took the floor at the meeting and said that the Albanian government will consider all opportunities to contribute to finding a final solution to this problem. Only two out of 30 country representatives and humanitarian organizations participating in the meeting promised concrete support: the representative of the United States, Mr. Dan Fried pledged the assistance of 7m USD, while Italy promised aid of 300,000 Euros for the project.
In the end, Mrs. Erika Feller, Assistant High Commissioner – Protection and Mr. Martin Kobler, Special Representative of the UN Secretary General for Iraq, thanked the representatives of the United States, Italy and Albania for expressing their willingness to help find a solution for the project to relocate the residents of Camp Ashraf.
In our opinion, very few countries have expressed any desire to receive refugees from this group. This is due to their previous activity, which had led to the inclusion of this group on various lists of terrorist groups.
The granting of financial assistance, even modestly, would suffice as Albania’s contribution in its efforts to find a final solution to this problem.
Thanks for your cooperation,
Ambassador Sedje Qerimaj
Panorama
Translated by Iran Interlink
In March, Westminster became the focus of Kurdish activities. The respected Centre for Kurdish Progress organized a packed event in Westminster to celebrate Norouz. (The Iranian New Year fell on 20 March this year.)
March 16 however marks the anniversary of the day in 1988 when Iraqi war planes and artillery pounded the Kurdish town of Halabja in northern Iraq with mustard gas and the deadly nerve agent sarin. Some 5,000 people – mainly women and children – died on the day, and up to 12,000 have lost their lives since. A packed rally in Westminster allowed Kurds and sympathisers to remember this tragedy inflicted on them by Saddam Hussein.
Both events were attended by leading politicians, Jeremy Corbyn, Jason McCartney, Hilary Benn and Middle East minister, Tobias Ellwood.
Those familiar with these issues will be aware of the role of the Mojahedin Khalq in supporting and facilitating Saddam Hussein’s genocidal attacks on Iraq’s Kurdish population. The MEK’s Morvarid [Pearl] Operation in March 1991 targeted and killed thousands of Kurdish civilians in an attempt to crush their uprising following Gulf War I.
In spite of this history, the MEK rallied its lobbyists to try to push the name of Maryam Rajavi under the nose of parliament. In an act of astounding chutzpah, Labour MP for Brent Central Dawn Butler eagerly submitted a written question on March 15: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, if he will invite Maryam Rajavi to visit Parliament and the UK.
As Middle East minister, Tobias Ellwood, with Halabja no doubt fresh in his mind, gave a short, definitive reply on March 23: Maryam Rajavi remains excluded from the UK and Her Majesty’s Government has no plans to invite her to visit the UK.
Dawn Butler needs to perform a little more fact checking if she is to retain any credibility.
On the occasion of the International Women’s Day, the Mujahedin Khalq Organization ( the MKO) held a so-called conference “to advocate for better social and political treatment for women in Iran and across the world”, while the condition of women inside the MKO is disastrous.
The MKO considers “the political and cultural landscape for Iranian women as incredibly poor” while female defectors of the group everyday reveal new dimensions of women’s rights abuses committed in the cult-like system of the group.
Meanwhile, on another part of Europe, a meeting was held by former members of the group in Koln, Germany. They succeeded to organize the conference to criticize the destructive cult of Rajavi despite efforts made by the MKO’s agents to frustrate the event. According to the organizers of the meeting, the MKO agents had contacted the department that had rented the hall to the defectors, giving misinformation to obstruct their meeting. Ultimately their efforts were futile. Former members including Women Association succeeded to hold the meeting in which Ms. Batoul Soltani, Ms. Zahra Moeini and Ms. Homeyra Mohammad Nezhad denounced the Cult of Rajavi and warned the world about its threat of sectarianism and violence.
Conversely, the MKO authorities were not allowed to hold their alleged conference on women’s rights in public halls. The Albanian government cancelled the group’s event in the Central Orthodox Church of Tirana and the French authorities also did not allow the Cult to organize its conference in the Grand Arche’ La Defence which is a governmental building in the suburb of Paris.
This indicates that the MKO is not a reliable entity in Europe. Particularly in Albania, the mainstream media has turned against the group. Following the release of certain TV shows, news reports and an interview with the group’s defector Ehsan Bidi with the Abanian newspaper Dita, the Albanian government sounds to become more cautious about the threat of the Rajavi’s Cult.
France and Albanian states should be enough vigilant regarding the MKO in their territory. In both countries, the group has built its bases. More crucial issue is that Rajavi is trying to build a new Camp Ashraf in Tirana.
Today, the world is seeking new achievements for women in their way towards equality and freedom but the MKO has enslaved women. Women in the Cult of Rajavi are deprived from the most basic human rights. They can never love or be loved. They must be single forever; they cannot be mothers anymore; hysterectomy surgery is an order from leader. Those in the group who had children have been separated from children. They are not free to choose their clothes, they have to wear uniforms. Hijab is mandatory in the MKO.
Therefore, western audience of the MKO should get to know that female members of the MKO endure severe mental and physical tortures under the destructive mind control system of the cult. Maryam Rajavi’s “Ten Point Plan for Women’s Rights in tomorrow’s Iran” is absurd. It is only a well-furnished title to cover up the most horrific human rights violations against women in the cult of Rajavi.
By Mazda Parsi
International Women’s Day is annually held on March 8 to celebrate women’s achievements throughout history and across nations. It is also known as the United Nations Day for Women’s Rights and International Peace. However, this day is a time for certain opportunists who abuse the term “Women’s Rights” despite their long history of atrocities against women. Leaders of the Mujahedin Khalq Organization – who apparently seek equal rights for women- are actually huge abusers of women’s rights.
There are numerous reports and testimonies on human rights violations committed in the MKO. The most recent one is published in a book by Ms. Maryam Sanjabi. She writes her firsthand account on grieves of living in the Cult of Rajavi in her book “The Mirage of Freedom”.
Maryam Sanjabi joined the MKO in 1986 after her brother — also an MKO member – was executed by the Islamic Republic. Maryam was promoted to a high-ranking member in the MKO’s hierarchy until authorities suspected her of being the agent of the IR. “in 1994, after 8 years of working 18 hours a day for the organization, I could never imagine I was suspected by the leaders,” she writes.
When she was summoned to Camp Ashraf for interrogation, she was not worried because she thought that it was a misunderstanding and eventually it would be resolved but nothing went on as she expected.
“After the iron gates of Camp Ashraf was closed behind me, they took me off the car while beating me and insulting me,” she narrates her gloomy story.
They closed her eyes and tied her hands and threw her to a room where five other women were jailed. Maryam was shocked, she could not think of anything and do anything except crying. ”I could not believe that the organization that I had chosen with love as my ideal was treating me like this”, she writes.
She was then interrogated by Fatemeh Kheradmand who accused her of being the Iranian government’s agent. Sanjabi protested against the unjust accusation but she was punished physically. She was jailed in solitary confinement. She was lashed on her hands and feet until she passed out… She spent a dozen days under the harshest tortures.
“They made me bow in front of a wall for hours, until I felt nauseous, I vomited and again they forced me to bow”, she describes the tortures she endured in the MKO’s prison.
Maryam’s body was awfully wounded, blued and swollen when the MKO authorities took her to Baghdad. There, she was treated rather normally. This was the start of a new indoctrination process. They showed her new films of Maryam Rajavi’s speeches in Paris on a new devious titled “individuality”. Based on the new program, all members had to allegedly confess all their problems and secrets before joining the organization. They had to criticize themselves for their so-called dishonesty.
New meetings were held for the lately planned manipulation system. ”I realized that meetings were held in a violent atmosphere in which all members were humiliated by verbal and physical attacks from the peers,” she writes. Self–criticism meetings were planned to terrorize members’ individuality and personality.
By the way, Maryam Sanjabi was then taken to Massoud Rajavi’s residence. This was a trial for her. According to Massoud Rajavi, Maryam Sanjabi’s charge was spying for Iranian government. Following Sanjabi’s protest against the accusation, Massoud Rajavi told her, “You may be right but you might have been deceived by your brother so we will search to find out if you are a spy or not”!
After a few months, Rajavi talked to the accused member by phone and said,” Congratulations! We got sure that you were not a spy”!
This story was the story of human rights in the cult of Rajavi. In this destructive cuklt, the process of trial is vice versa. First you are punished, then you are sent to prison and torture, then you are charged with your accusation and then you are proved to be innocent!
It may seem ridiculous but it is definitely a dark comedy. According to Ms. Sanjabi at least 100 women and 500 men in the MKO suffered the same process she endured just under the false pretext of being Iranian agent. “During the days of my imprisonment in the first jail, I could always hear sisters’ [female comrades] cries of pain calling for help,” She reveals.
Therefore, the International Women’s Day is an opportunity to hear the calls of help from inside the camps of the Mujahedin Khalq, in Iraq, France and Albania. It’s time to bring Massoud Rajavi – the fugitive leader of the cult – and his wife Maryam Rajavi to justice for the crimes they committed against humanity particularly against their female members. The International Community should beware of Maryam Rajavi’s propaganda about women’s rights!
Mazda Parsi
Can Albania Meet its Obligations and De-radicalize an Influx of Terrorists into Europe?
Situated on the east of Europe, Albania applied for membership of the European Union in 2009. As the poorest country in Europe and designated the most corrupt, there is a lot of work to be done before this country of 3 
million people is accepted into the Union. A recent visit by US Secretary of State John Kerry does indicate that this work is well underway. But Albania’s efforts to reform and strengthen its political, security, judicial and civic institutions after years of dictatorship, could be drastically undermined if the country ignores or underestimates the threat posed by the arrival of the Mojahedin Khalq (MEK) from Iraq.
Albania is the target location for the transfer of the notorious terrorist organization Mojahedin Khalq into Europe. Currently based in Iraq, the MEK is now being transferred to Albania under a deal struck with America in 2013.
Since the 1980s the MEK were paid and trained in terrorism by Saddam Hussein to effect regime change in Iran. After his ouster in 2003 the MEK aligned itself variously with the US army – during Senator Kerry’s visit to Albania, the MEK was described as “a group that has supported the US in military operations in the Middle East and in its fight against terrorism” – as well as former Saddamists headed by Ezzat Ibrahim and more recently Al Qaida insurgents and Daesh in Iraq. Each successive government of the newly sovereign Iraq tried repeatedly to evict the group from their country, but the MEK leader Massoud Rajavi – himself a fugitive from justice – ordered his followers to put up violent resistance.
Even if they would agree to go willingly, the United Nations refugee agency has struggled to find third countries to take them in. It seems that, although Western countries have benefitted openly from the MEK’s sometimes violent anti-Iran activities, and found the group particularly useful as a thorn in Iran’s side through the period of nuclear negotiations, the MEK is deemed too dirty for them to willingly host any of them even as refugees.
In an attempt to encourage other countries to take some of the MEK, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton persuaded the then Albanian Prime Minister Sali Berisha in 2013 to take just over 200 MEK members on humanitarian grounds. That process got underway, but in 2016 Albania is now expected to take up to 3,000 MEK after the President of Romania, Traian Basescu, refused to take them in 2014.
This agreement has attracted surprisingly little attention from either inside Albania or even from a world media sensitive to terrorism and organized crime. The reason is partly because the transfers are taking place in small groups of around twenty at a time in a piecemeal fashion as the UNHCR is forced to defer to Massoud Rajavi’s demands in order to circumvent threats of violence. Rajavi hand-picks the members he allows to be transferred, many using false identities. He ensures that each group of ordinary MEK members is accompanied by minders and enforcers to keep them under control and prevent them breaking loose. In order to accomplish their mandate to remove the MEK from Iraq, UN officials have had to accede to transferring the refugees under such conditions even though it reinforces the concept that the members belong to the MEK in conditions of modern slavery.
Once they arrive in Albania, the MEK leadership takes charge of the transferees. Although the US made a donation of $20 million to the UN refugee agency to help resettle the MEK, and according to a State Department official the US has provided the Albanian government with “security and economic development assistance, to help the country build up its physical capacity to house the refugees”, none of this benefits the individual refugees. In Tirana the MEK has purchased an abandoned university campus into which it has corralled the new arrivals and recreated the conditions of isolation and cultic control which have always prevailed for the membership. What started out as a humanitarian gesture has turned into the mass relocation of a terrorist group to Europe. The MEK has created a de facto enclave in Albania which is outside the law, just as they did in Iraq.
This has put the refugees out of the reach of the Albanian authorities and because they are not free to mingle with Albania’s citizenry, the influx of over a thousand trained terrorists has cleverly avoided detection and therefore controversy.
However, even though it appears that the MEK are somehow quietly contained, the citizens of Albania are entitled to ask whether the new refugees pose any actual threat to their civic life, to their security and to their ambitions to accede to membership of the European Union.
To answer this, we must ask why the Iraqi government is so desperate to expel them and why other Western countries are so extremely reluctant to accept them.
As a violent criminal organization, the MEK thrives where the rule of law is weak – in countries like Iraq and Albania which are emerging from past turmoil and troubles. In such conditions the MEK can be dangerous through criminal activity and violence.
As expert propagandists and manipulative persuaders, the MEK leaders have no problem making connections with and bribing government officials, power brokers and media types – let’s be clear, the MEK has always been well financed. Former MEK have also reported that the MEK leaders are already vigorously pursuing links with Albania’s mafia-like gangs. The MEK will work with these gangs for mutual benefit as they did with Saddam Hussein’s regime. In the long run, if the MEK organization does become established Albania – with the quiet collusion of political circles who benefit from the cult’s track record of terrorism – they will be better placed to do from Tirana what they can’t do from Paris.
The CIA characterizes Albanian corruption as a ‘transnational’ problem involving drugs, money laundering and illegal aliens. In this sense it is the very location of the country which makes it attractive to international criminal organizations and thereby creates huge problems for law enforcement agencies. Albania essentially acts as a gateway into Europe from the rest of the world.
Now, while the various routes to Turkey, Syria and Iraq are under stringent scrutiny, terrorist commanders from any mercenary group can slip beneath the radar and seek training and logistical support in Tirana. What better location to establish a clandestine terrorist training camp than in Albania? It is in Europe, but not in the EU and therefore not so open to scrutiny by the international community.
With the changed political mood following the nuclear deal between Iran and the P5+1, the MEK is looking for new friends and benefactors. The group has already aligned itself with the Syrian Free Army and has offered to help the Saudis fight against the Shias in Yemen. The MEK has over forty years of experience in terrorist activities. The real danger posed by this group is not only that they can re-arm themselves in Albania, but they can invite other groups in for training.
The worry is that the MEK has branched out and is open to do business with any terrorist group.
It is impossible to ignore the fact that MEK members are radicalized to the core. They are not ordinary refugees. Enough of them have been trained in Iraq by the former Saddam regime for terrorist activities as well as forgery, intelligence, military operations and even torture methods, to make them extremely dangerous. Above all, the nature of the MEK leadership style is cultic. This means the followers are not able to resist the orders of the leaders even if they wanted out. So there is a danger they will be used for a variety of criminal activities without their real consent. There are already examples of people trafficked by the MEK from Albania to Western Europe and used for money laundry activities in Germany.
However, the refugees could also be described as extremely vulnerable. Another reason they have not attracted attention is that the MEK can easily be dismissed as a defunct fighting force; the average age of its fighters is sixty years old and many of them are ailing with mental and physical disease after years of punishing training in the Iraqi deserts. But while this is true of the majority, there are still many among them who are expert terrorist recruiters and trainers, people who know how to train others for suicide missions; strangely transferrable skills in today’s world of global terrorism.
Not all the members who arrive in Albania do stay with the MEK. There is a growing community of formers – around two hundred to date – who have turned their back on the group and want to return to their families and to normal life. Interestingly, it is from this pool of former members that the US has carefully selected a quota of eighty individuals to be given asylum in America. They have undergone rigorous interviews to ascertain that they have completely rejected the MEK and so no longer pose any danger. Some others have been accepted by other European countries under the same conditions but the rest remain in Albania under conditions of hardship.
With the stakes set very high, Albania’s authorities will need to stop this organization from covertly establishing a terrorist base in Europe. The first step would be to remove the MEK members from the source of their radicalization. If this doesn’t happen, the problem will simply have been moved instead of being solved.
The authorities in Tirana can ensure that all the newly arrived refugees are treated as individuals, not as belongings of the MEK leader. They should be given protection and helped with accommodation and financial support as people entitled to determine their own future paths. Experience in Iraq has already shown that once these people are physically removed from the coercive atmosphere imposed by the MEK leaders and reinforced by their peers, they very quickly find that their commitment to terrorism evaporates and the de-radicalization process can begin.
De-radicalization is greatly helped when they have contact with their families. There are numerous examples of former MEK who managed to leave the cult and establish new and successful lives. Some now live in various western European countries because they have family there who have been able to help them. Some have returned to Iran – even though Iran doesn’t want them back – where they have been granted amnesty and lead normal lives under the supervision of the UN and ICRC. Some others now live in Iraqi Kurdistan and have transferred their family assets there from Iran there so they can set up in business.
Once they are out of the ‘pressure-cooker’ of the cult their lives can be sorted out through humanitarian organizations. As a Red Cross official told the authors, ‘As individuals, three thousand is nothing, we sort out millions every year. But as a group, neither us nor any other organization can deal with or help them.’ It is a choice the Albanian government cannot ignore, for to do nothing is to risk everything.
Massoud & Anne Khodabandeh
Co-authored by Anne Khodabandeh
PCG Mentioning the Mojahedin-e-Khalq
In 1994 Gerald Flurry, leader of the Philadelphia Church of God, proclaimed Iran to be the King of the South. Ever since PCG has continuously demonized Iran. But PCG has been so hostile to Iran that they have failed to alert their readers about the controversies and disturbing authoritarian behavior of one group opposed to the current governmental in Iran, namely the Mojahedin-e-Khalq.
The Mojahedin-e-Khalq (MEK) was established in Iran as a left wing party dedicated to overthrowing the Shah in 1965. But following the overthrow of the Shah and the rise of Ayatollah Khomeini to power the Mojahedin-e-Khalq, led by Masoud Rajavi and his wife Maryam Rajavi, proceeded to wage an armed insurgency against Iran from 1981 onward. According to Iran’s Press TV the Mojahedin-e-Khalq killed 12,000 people during the course of their armed insurgency to overthrow the government.
Over time the organization also became well known for authoritarian behavior imposed upon their members causing many observers to describe them as being like a cult. Noted anti-cult author Steven Hassan mentions the Mojahedin-e-Khalq on his website. According to one ex-member in 1990 Masoud Rajavi ordered MEK members to divorce their spouses.
The US State Department regarded the Mojahedin-e-Khalq as a terrorist organization from October 8, 1997 till September 28, 2012.
These unsavory facts about MEK are not to be found in PCG’s writings aside from one vague reference to them as a "radical group" dating from 2014 that does not mention any of the specific troubling facts surrounding MEK.
Below we see PCG mentioning the Mojahedin-e-Khalq. It is described as an "opposition party". In one September 13, 2008 article it is even mentioned that Iran regards MEK as a terrorist organization and it is not mentioned that at that time the US State Department also listed MEK as a terrorist organization. With just one unusual exception MEK tends to be portrayed quite favorably by PCG’s leaders.
***[..]
On September 28, 2012 US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton removed the US State Department’s designation of the Mojahedin-e-Khalq as a terrorist organization. Since then the Mojahedin-e-Khalq is no longer viewed by the US State Department in that way. But PCG has never mentioned that it was ever viewed that way by the US government in their writings. [..]
But while PCG tended to portray the Mojahedin-e-Khalq sympathetically and sometimes even as an authority that can be trusted regarding Iran’s alleged moves in August 2014 PCG’s Robert Morley mentioned MEK in an unflattering way as a "radical group" and compared them with "Hamas, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, ISIS, Tamil Tigers [and] Babbar Khalsa". He mentioned them while scare mongering about protests in Canada concerning the war in Gaza in 2014.
“How long before Hamas, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, ISIS, Tamil Tigers, Babbar Khalsa, Mojahedin-e-Khalq and other radical groups’ family members introduce jihad to Canada? (Robert Morley, ‘Kill the Jews’ in Canada, August 7, 2014.)”
And so it may be seen that PCG has tended to portray the Mojahedin-e-Khalq quite favorably. PCG’s readers are ill served by not being informed of the facts surrounding this organization.
Living Armstrongism weblog, Posted by Redfox712,
On the Occasion of Mayam Rajavi of Women Show on Feb 27, in Paris
While Maryan Rajavi the leader of the Mujahedin Khalq Organization (the MKO/ Rajavi’s Cult), is about to hold conference on the occasion of Women’s Day on Feb 27, 2016 in Paris, France to allegedly defend the right of Iranian women, one should ask her who is to save the women entangled in your cult in Camp Liberty Iraq. The entanglement that transfered the women to modern slaves that would set themselves a flame when the slaver orders them to do so as Maryam Rajavi did in 2003 when she was arrested by French Judiciary for terrorism and human trafficking and money laundry. [No to terrorism -cults,]
Urgent action is needed to save women from Mojahedin Khalq camps
International Women’s Day (8 March) is a global day celebrating the economic, political and social achievements of women. As the UN suggest, this is the time to uphold women’s achievements, recognize challenges, and focus greater attention on women’s rights and gender equality to mobilize all people to do their part.
While the leader of the Mujahedin Khalq Organization (the MKO/ Rajavi’s Cult), Maryam Rajavi holds conference on the occasion of Women’s Day in Paris, France to allegedly defend the right of Iranian women, one should ask her to present a proposal about the economic, political and social achievements of women in her own camps both in France and Iraq.
Evidences of former members of the Cult of Rajavi, international reports and news reports on the life inside the MKO camps, reveal that women of the MKO gain no economic, political and social achievements. They are just kept in cessation atmosphere, isolated in the cult-like system of the group.
About economic attainments, it should be noted that no woman in the MKO earns money or runs her own business.
Women in the MKO are completely separated from men. Even women are not allowed to associate with their same sex comrades as friends. Friendship is forbidden. Celibacy is obligatory and a lot of other facts that prove that female members of the MKO enjoy no social achievements.
They are not given the slightest opportunity to learn social skills. Most of them have no idea how to use a cellphone.
About political achievements of the MKO female members, it is enough to mention that the group has no significant role in the political scene of Iran. The group is highly unpopular among the Iranian society.
Former members of the Mujahedin Khalq Organization are truly motivated to do their part in order to liberate their ex-comrades held as hostages in the group camps.
Elimination Projects in the MKO – Mehdi Eftekhari
“Stalin killed over fifty members of the soviet communist party who opposed his plans for reform in one night and nothing happened,” asserted Massoud Rajavi in a public meeting inside the Mujahedin Khalq. This way, he justifies the removal of each and every person who disagrees with him.
Mehdi Eftekhari (commandant Fathollah) was one of the key members of the MKO’s central committee and its political office. He was the group’s top military commandant who operated certain terrorist acts of the MKO against the Islamic Republic. He was the one who managed Rajavi’s flight to flee Iran for Paris but three decades later, he was demoted to growing vegetables in a his small garden in the corner of Camp Ashraf. Rajavi eliminated all those high-ranking members of the MKO with whom he shared his rank. Since then, he became the absolute power of the cult.
Mehdi Eftekhari was an active member of the MKO who lost his first wife in the group’s disastrous operation against Iran, the “Eternal Light”. Then, Massoud Rajavi ordered him to marry another female member of the group but not so long after the second marriage, he was forced to divorce his wife. This was an organizational order to the entire members of the group, who according to Massoud were not enough dedicated to the group’s cause and because of that they were responsible for the failure of the Eternal Light! Through his so-called Ideological Revolutuon, Massouid forbid marriage and made celibacy mandatory. Practically he turned the group into a cult.
According to a defector’s weblog, bandrajavi.blogfa, Massoud Rajavi made all members sign a bond under this title “we have no exit”. In the meeting, Massoud threatened his rank and file, “those who want to leave will be faced with the iron fist!”. However, Mehdi Eftehkhari expressed his determination to leave the group. “I want to leave the organization, what should I do?” he asked Massoud Rajavi. Eventually, Mehdi was summoned to the scene by Rajavi who was awfully angry with him. Rajavi humiliated him in front of his lower ranks in the hall severely.
Based on several articles and testimonies of MKO defectors, he was then under the sever peer pressure in the group’s meetings. Certain defectors remember a meeting in 1991, in which Massoud Rajavi suppressed Eftekhari accusing him of different charges, verbally abusing him…but Mehdi’s reaction was silence!
Since then Commandant Fathollah turned into a depressed and isolated walking dead! He suffered the constant suppression and peer pressure in the group’s indoctrination sessions. He was diagnosed with cancer but he did not receive proper medical treatment. He died in Camp Ashraf in 2011.
The second part of the series on the assassinations committed by the MKO authorities, contains the elimination of another high-ranking member of the group named “Mehdi Katiraei” whose pseudonym was “commandant Sasan”.
Former member of the MKO, Mohammad Karami introduced Mehdi Katiraei in his interview with Mardom TV: “He was the deputy commandant of the June 20th protest which marks the start of the MKO’s armed struggle against Islamic Republic. He was then in charge of training partisans in Iraqi Kurdistan.”
After the so-called ideological revolution that turned the MKO into a destructive cult, Katiraei was a member of the group’s political office. Like Ali Zarkesh, he was opposed to the establishment of the National Liberation Army. “He was strictly against the establishment of the NLA so Massoud Rajavi was very angry with him,” says Mohammad Karami.” Because of his critics against the group’s strategy, he was demoted to rank and files.”
Then, Mehdi was brought to trial and sentenced to death by Massoud. He was imprisoned in the SouthWestern side of Camp Ashraf. Later, Massoud Rajavi launched his Eternal Light operation against Iran. It was a great opportunity for him to get rid of dissatisfied members such as Ali Zarkesh, Majid Hariri, Mehdi Katiraei and many others.
During that catastrophic operation, Mehdi was shot to death from behind.
In a dictatorship maintaining of absolute power requires one important action: elimination of opponents. As a totalitarian cult of personality, the Mujahedin Khalq Organizaion (the MKO) could not survive for over three decades without eliminating the opponents and critics inside the group. According to various reports and testimonies, there have been numerous cases of assassination of dissident members of the Cult of Rajavi. Some of these assassinations were then reported by the group’s media as suicide or even martyrdom.
These series of editorials will cover certain cases of internal eliminations in the MKO which are more significant in the group’s history and have been confirmed by several witnesses although there must be many more secret murders in the cult that few people might know about them.
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| Ali Zarkesh Yazdi in prison before revolutions |
Ali Zarkesh might be the most important figure in the MKO whose removal from the group has been very controversial. Ali Zarkesh was the second person of the MKO and actually Massoud Rajavi’s rival. In 1986 Zarkesh was sentenced to death penalty by Massoud and Maryam Rajavi.
. Mohammad Hossein Sobhani, former member of the MKO, wrote a book on his life in the MKO, titled “Dark Days of Baghdad” in which he recounts the case of Ali Zarkesh in details. According to the book, Zarkesh’s death sentence was then reduced to imprisonment.
As Massoud Rajavi wrote in a letter to one of the group’s high-ranking member, Saeed Shahsavandi, Zarkesh was punished because he had “repositioned”! What kind of repositioning deserves death punishment?
Based on the testimonies of former members the answer was never revealed. But again based on facts witnessed by former members, Zarkesh criticizes Massoud Rajavi’s armed struggle policy for it doesnot result in the overthrow of the Islamic Republic. He is against the establishment of the so-called National Liberation Army (Saddam’s Private Army) because he sees it as a mistaken failed strategy.
Despite his opposition against military invasion, Ali Zarkesh is treated as an ordinary soldier in the MKO’s military operation across Iranian borders “Eternal Light” (Forough Javidan). He is simply killed in that disastrous operation in which a large number of the group forces were sent to death.