++ In response to the news that Maryam Rajavi’s niece Narges Azadanlou will be named ‘Masoul-e Aval’ (Secretary General) of the MEK, Hamed Sarafpour has written a long detailed exposure of the history of the ‘Masoul-e Aval’ of the MEK and by going into more detail about Narges Azadanlou and the family relation, suggests that the MEK has now become a family cult.

++ Farsi commentary about the MEK’s 50th anniversary examines the cult’s attempt to whitewash its past. Several comments show that the MEK’s selective version of its own history only amounts to five out of the past fifty years. Forty five years are left out! Mohammad Razaghi says this is not the first time, the MEK always edits its past. He then gives the example that MEK leaders are even ashamed of using their own names and hide behind pseudonyms instead.

++ Mostafa Mohammadi and Soraya Abdolahi are the heads of two outspoken families of MEK victims. Last week both Mohammadi’s daughter Somayeh and Abdolahis’ son Amir Aslan Hasanzadeh were transferred to Albania. Many people congratulated them because Rajavi has bowed to pressure by the families and has had to remove them from Camp Liberty. Both families have published open letters saying that “whether they are in Camp Liberty or in Albania is not the issue, the problem is they are hostages of the MEK and the MEK still don’t want to allow us to meet them. That is still our minimum demand.” Both Somayeh and Amir are in quarantine in Tirana and not allowed contact with anyone. Other new arrivals are also being moved to quarantine in Tirana. But last week some internal critics and MEK members had gone to try to visit these newcomers. One of the MEK’s leaders Javad Khorasan (real name Mortezai, a notorious MEK thug) moved to stop them telling them they can’t come in and he will call the police (he’s the one who shows his ‘Pentagon ID card’). The visitors say they have family members among those newly arrived and the MEK has no right to keep them separate. In response the MEK leaders started to physically prevent them, fighting until the Albanian police had to intervene to separate them.

++ Nader Naderi addressing Maryam Rajavi refers to the Kababi California video made by defected members in Albania. He says the last nail in the Ideological coffin is to show that the people in the MEK are not doing what you demand willingly. The moment they come out this is what they do, they enjoy themselves, use their talents and are happy. When you are in charge of them they miserable. You were lying that they are willingly staying with you. All this time they couldn’t be themselves and as soon as they come out they become happy normal people and are simply who they really are. You prevented this. And that means the rest of them are like this – there is no such thing as a ‘Mojahed’ character.

++ Nader Naderi’s letter to the Head of French Security Services says “clearly you know what is going on in your country; the MEK are involved in beatings, knifing and other threatening activities. It is also known that recently a number of Saddam trained personnel led by Mojgan Parsai have been dispatched to follow and intimidate former members and critics, and that this network is expanding all over Europe.” Naderi says the latest information available to France is video of a female former member titled, ‘Iran’s intelligence agent Batul Soltani performs ‘wuzu’ (Muslim cleansing for prayer) in a church’. The video doesn’t show anything except Soltani sitting in a church in Dusseldorf. What it does show however is that the MEK has sent agents to covertly follow her from Cologne to Dusseldorf and film her in a church without her knowledge. Naderi demands of the security services, “Where were you?” Another Farsi writer challenges Massoud Rajavi’s mental health asking “in your mind, is it a sin to sit in a church?”

++ The last Farsi item of the week is humorous. A prominent Iranian writer claims on Facebook that the French are hanging on to the MEK in order to develop a vaccine against Daesh – LOL.

In English:

++ Ebrahim Khodabandeh, former MKO member and expert on destructive cults is writing a series of articles about what is going on inside the MKO based on emails he receives from group members who are willing to leave the cult but cannot do so due to the severe pressure they are exposed to. Khodabandeh’s latest post includes crucial points about the new agenda of the Rajavi Cult in Albania. He states that the focus is on members in Tirana base because they mostly include critics of the group’s acts and the leaders’ decisions and they have asked to leave the group. The MKO leaders see dissident members as ‘creditors’ who only want to make claims of the leader and not sacrifice anything for him.

According to Khodabandeh’s information, the MKO has bought a campus called Vitrina in the Albanian capital in order to build another concentration camp like Ashraf. This way they can manage their mind control system much better. “Cults need an isolated place where they can cut the contact between their followers and the outside world and they can absolutely control all aspects of a member’s life,” suggests Ebrahim Khodabandeh.

Members of the Rajavi Cult pose questions that leaders do not like to hear. As Khodabandeh has been informed, residents in Tirana have begun questioning the million-dollar expenses of Maryam Rajavi’s meetings in Paris and expensive payments for Western speakers of the group’s propaganda shows despite the urgent need of several members in Iraq for medical treatment.

“Someone has written to me that the group refuses to pay for medical treatment of an old member saying plainly that there is no money, but the parties and ceremonies of Maryam Rajavi are held non-stop,” Khodabandeh writes.

Criticism against the system and its leader has turned into a crisis in Albania to the extent that Maryam Rajavi was forced to hold a video conference for members accusing them of being rude, according to the article.

The process of defection from the MKO has been accelerated in Tirana. However, the leaders of the cult endeavour to maintain the same cult-like system of manipulation and indoctrination in Tirana as they had kept in Camp Liberty and Camp Ashraf, Iraq. They have enhanced their mind control cult jargon. Self-criticism sessions are held under various titles in the cult’s base in Albania. These sessions are aimed to distract the members’ minds from the controversial situation the group is stuck in.

++ Last week another group of families arrived in Baghdad to try to find their loved ones who are trapped in Camp Liberty. The families went to stand outside Camp Liberty holding placards with the names of their loved ones. The slogans they shout say that ‘meeting with our loved ones is our fundamental human right’. Many have been denied contact for decades because the Rajavi cult bans members from contacting their families.

++ Anne Khodabandeh wrote a synopsis of MEK activity in relation to the UK. Maryam Rajavi wants to escape France and take up residence in the UK to evade continuing judicial investigations into her criminal activities and human rights abuses. Rajavi remains persona non grata in the UK which refuses to grant her a visa. Rajavi’s frustration and anger is vented by attacking the BBC World Service Persian Programme, then attacking PM David Cameron, before settling on FM Philip Hammond as the focus of her ire. Khodabandeh points out this is a strange kind of diplomacy from somebody who wants a favour from the UK.

++ Nedaye Haghighat website reported that fifty five more residents of the temporary transit camp Liberty in Iraq have been transferred to Albania. This group included Somayeh Mohammadi and Amir Aslan Hasanzadeh whose families have been campaigning for years to have contact with them. Twenty individuals were named in the report.

++ Nejat Society reported that Ghorbanali Hosseinnejad and Mostafa Mohammadi along with his wife, Mahboubeh and his daughter Huriyeh met with the Mayor of Auvers-sur-Oise and her deputy on Tuesday September 8th. Expressing solidarity with the families of MKO hostages, the Mayor of Auvers said, ”We don’t want them [Maryam Rajavi’s Cult] to stay in our village… they try to pay some of the cities’ personalities and officials to be at the Cult’s service. … However we would ask them to come and reply your appeals and questions on the fate of your children. .. Here is a democratic state and the democracy principles require the issue to be resolved through negotiation… “

The families reiterated, ”Maryam Rajavi should personally come and answer our questions, because Maryam herself is responsible for kidnapping our daughters as minors and for endangering them by transferring them from France and Canada to military camps of the cult in Iraq. In the Cult camps they have been denied any family contacts as well as marital life.”

Municipal officials contacted the MKO asking them to reply to the families. However the Cult’s response was to insult and curse the suffering families. Cult officials didn’t attend the Town Hall but henchmen and thugs were stationed outside to report everything to their commanders.

The authorities then removed the MKO members to allow the families to hold a protest in front of the Town Hall. The families handed out leaflets and CDs to publicize their plight and to expose the Cult’s atrocities against them and their loved ones. The Rajavi Cult’s attempts to thwart the families’ activities to expose their crimes was futile.

The municipal and gendarmerie authorities demonstrated their support for the families’ public activities before escorting outside the city with seven cars in order to prevent the Cult thugs from chasing or harming the families as happened on previous occasions.

 September 11, 2015