Page 90 – Nejat Society

Mujahedin Khalq Organization as a terrorist group

How did the MEK choose its targets?

41 years ago, with the entry of the MKO into the armed phase, they manifested certain actions which were quite similar to those of the ISIS in recent years. In this report, we address part of this group’s strategy in creating terror.

The last days of June 1981 (first days of Tir 1360 according to Persian calendar) were some of the most inflammatory days in the political history of Iran. The day before the ouster of Bani Sadr from the presidency by the Islamic Consultative Assembly, the MKO set off an armed revolt, conducting a series of assassinations and civil war, namely “the armed phase of resistance”. After the declaration of Abolhassan Banisadr’s incompetence for presidency, the group called on its forces to hold large-scale violent demonstrations.

Harbored in team-houses, the MKO leaders and its central cadres triggered the armed phase which was initially limited to assassination of the government leaders or, in their words, “the top of the pyramid”. Examples of these great tragedies include bombing in the Islamic Republic Party Headquarters on June 28, 1981 and Prime Minister’s Office Bombing on August 30.

Female soldiers of the National Liberation Army of Iran stand in formation at a training camp east of Baghdad, Iraq. Women make up nearly half of the NLA, the armed wing of the MEK.
Photo: Jacques Pavlovsky/Sygma via Getty Images

After September 27, 1981 (which was the anniversary of the armed demonstrations), there was not any sign of neither the social element that the MKO wished to force into the scene nor that revolutionary potential they thought existed. They assumed wrongly that by coming to streets and breaking this oppressive climate, this potential within people would be activated. As a result, the MKO faced failure and once again felt frustrated and this caused them to take revenge for the failure of their analyses on the mass of people and start assassinating them in the streets. Since the country was involved in war and a major part of the military and intelligence power was focused on the fronts and also because members of the MKO lived in secret, it was difficult to distinguish them from ordinary people. After September 27, they started bombing public places and carrying out targeted and blind assassinations.

Nonetheless, with focus of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Intelligence Unit on MKO’s activities and detection of their team-houses along with the September 10 strike and death of Mousa Khiabani, the group’s potencey to conduct terrorist activities inside the country was diminished. Thus, the MKO members gradually moved abroad and by allying with Saddam Hussein, provided Ba’athist regime in Iraq with intelligence.

Establishment of telecommunication interception units along the front lines of war with Iraq, interception of radio communications of Iranian forces, wiretapping and monitoring telephone conversations, putting the captives under pressure and using them for the purpose of propaganda, tampering with the captives’ letters, recruitment of those who were weary of fighting, and finally invading Iran in an operation called Eternal Light (Forough-e Javidan in Persian), which led to slaughter of many people in western cities of Iran, were among their services to Saddam.

Simultaneously with the invasion of Iran, the remnants of the MKO in prisons revolted in the hope of joining them in case they succeeded in reaching important cities.

In this report, through citing confessions of captured members of the MKO, we intend to examine how they assassinated people on the streets and review different phases of their revenge against the nation.

Throwing Molotov cocktails and grenades at shops and houses

Sepehri, under the name of Maziyar, joined the MKO in the summer of 1980 and began mounting a propaganda campaign. When captured in one of the team-houses outside the city in November 1981, he was the commander of a military unit.

Pointing to, in his confession, some of his experiences in throwing cocktails and grenades at houses and shops, he says, “I was directly involved in such operations and carried out the instructions dictated by the superiors. Once, for instance, I threw a cocktail at a house located in Ghar Square in Tehran with the justification that the house proprietor was an adherent of the government’s ideology and had been cooperating with the revolutionary organs. We went to the location by a motorbike at about 6:30 AM, threw a cocktail at the door and window. They caught fire, and we fled”.

He mentions another example of throwing a grenade at a chandelier shop on Hafez Street in Tehran again with the justification that the shop owner was ideologically in line with the government and was possibly exposing the group’s members. He says, “we approached the shop and noticed that, to our surprise, too many people were there given that it was 2 PM and supposedly the least crowded time of day. We thought to ourselves that ordinary people were likely to get injured and martyred. We, therefore, returned and put forward this matter with our commander. He reacted furiously and said, ‘That is not a big deal. Go back. Even if four ordinary people are killed in that shop, it does not matter. Let them get killed on the way of revolution’. So, we went back and threw a grenade at the chandelier shop which resulted in the martyrdom of 4 people”.

Hussein Sheikh al-Hokama had been a member of the MKO since early 1979. At first, he was in charge of the student section of one of the central-east districts and later on, the Military Security Department of the boys’ Student Union of Tehran. After June 20, 1981, he became the military commander of the student section of the central-east districts and eventually, the military commander and in charge of the eastern region. He was arrested in early 1982.

Regarding the group’s justification for murdering innocent people and customers of shops, Sheikh al-Hokama, after being arrested, says in a TV interview, “A customer has no right to purchase items from a Falange! Therefore, all people ranging from those who carry photos of Imam Khomeini and signs of the Islamic Republic and are, in one way or another, supporter of the government to those who have different viewpoints, have to be assassinated. This is what the MKO would dictate”.

After the strikes of February 8 against the MKO and the death of Mousa Khiabani and Ashraf Rabiee, and also the strikes on May 2, 1983 which was followed by the death of 50 high-ranking cadres, remnants of the MKO inside the country disregarded all human standards and values and to prove that the MKO still exists, began taking revenge on ordinary people on the streets. From this point onwards, members gradually started abandoning the group and the rate of assassinations decreased. Yet, the variety of people from different classes who were assassinated increased. They showed no mercy to anyone whom they felt was, even a bit, revolutionary and pro-government.

Mohammad Kalantari, under the name of Manouchehr, was the MKO’s commander of the special terrorist teams. He came into contact with the group in October 1980 and began his activity in the university section. After Nowruz (Persian new year) of 1981, he was transferred to the teachers’ section and was a member of the propaganda team of teachers until June 1960. Next, he became the leader of the propaganda teams and after the strike on May 2 1982, he was transferred to the military unit and became the commander of the special terrorist teams of the MKO.

With respect to the armed phase after the strikes against the MKO such as the May 2 strike, the August 1 strike on the MKO’s intermediaries, and the death of Mousa Khiabani, he explains: “The MKO officials provided us with an analysis in which the circumstances and the instructions to be followed were explained. According to the analysis, the group was in a life-and-death situation and its existence was at jeopardy. The possibility existed that, with another strike, all members would have been lost. Therefore, it was necessary that each two people form a unit, patrol the streets and carry out at least one terrorist operation each day. The reason provided for that matter was that those terrorist activities would create panic among people and cause them not to cooperate with the Islamic Republic anymore. Targets of these operations included houses, shops, automobiles with pictures of the officials of the Islamic Republic, anyone with a beard who looked like a pro-government, those who would ride a Honda 125cc motorbike, any location in which there were suspicious communications or locations where suspects for collaborating with the government would visit, anyone who showed resistance against the terrorist activities and vehicle theft and as I said earlier, anyone who looked like a pro-government”.

Committing murder and arson in case of carrying photos of Imam Khomeini and martyrs!

Kalantari, in his confession about assassination methods, adds: “The units would patrol the street and open fire on houses, shops and cars with pictures of the officials (Imam Khomeini, Martyr Beheshti and Martyr Ayatollah) or they entered shops which they suspected, asked the owner to take down the photo and then, assassinated him.

Mohammad Kalantari continues and mentions some examples of the MKO’s quasi-ISIS operations in the early years of the revolution: “The first example is that a worker at a dry-cleaner’s was murdered. It was carried out by Nasrollah Mahmoudi’s unit on the morning of August 16 on Dampezeshki Street in Tehran. Two members of this unit who were under our authority namely Mousa and Ali, after stealing a motorbike in that vicinity, patrolled the area and identified a dry-cleaner’s which had a number of photos of the Islamic Republic officials. They parked and went into the shop. Mousa told the shopkeeper to take down Imam Khomeini’s photo. Being at gun point, he took down Imam’s photo and tore it. Then Ali asked him to do the same with martyr Ayat’s photo hanging on the other corner. He procrastinated and they shot him and martyred him and then ran away on their motorbike.”

The second example is the assassination of an old shoemaker next to the Islamic Unity Square on the morning of August 18. Here, again, Nasrollah Mahmoudi’s unit, patrolled the area, stole a motorcycle, identified a shoemaker’s shop which had photos of the Islamic Republic’s officials, asked the owner to take them down and then shot him and martyred him. However, due to the atmosphere of the area, they could not set fire to the shop and had to flee! Another terrorist attack similar to previous ones was again carried out by Mousa and Ali on Shoush Street, this time under Mohammad Saeb’s authority, in which workers of a motorbike repair shop were assassinated and martyred.

Next phase: Assassinate all suspects!

Explaining the group’s third line of terrorist attacks, Hussein Sheikh al-Hokama says: “We were told to assassinate those who visited suspicious houses and shops, those who had a beard and resembled a pro-government and those who had military uniforms on. In addition, the locations had to be demolished. In summary, owners of shops with photos, pro-government looking individuals, those who are talking in gatherings and looking religious all have to be murdered and the locations have to be destroyed as well”.
Mohammad Kalantari, whose position in the MKO was mentioned earlier, regarding these operations explains, “The unit’s members namely Keyvan and Javad, entered a grocery store at the intersection of Azerbaijan and Karun streets in Tehran and after stealing the shop owner’s property, martyred him. On their way out to the second target location which was a car exhibit, they noticed 9 people coming out of the exhibit toward them. Keyvan started firing his Uzi submachine gun and murdered 6 of them and left the other 3 injured”. This is merely one out many terrorist attacks which the MKO units launched against people, houses, and shops they suspected.

If he does not surrender his motorbike, murder him!

These murders were not limited to suspicious people who had pictures of Imam and the martyrs with them, but in the next phase, the MKO instructed their forces tpeopo assassinate those who refused to surrender their vehicles in case they did not cooperate after 3 times of verbal warning.

In the organization’s instructional booklet, it was stated that “If the vehicle owner says a word, you ought to shoot him with a pistol and silence him and if he refuses to surrender his vehicle, you have to shoot him decisively as experience has shown that those who resist are agents of the government”.

It was written in another part of the booklet, “Beware of the vehicle owner taking the switch and escaping and in case this happens, first shoot your guns into the air and if he did not stop, fire your guns at him, stop him and seize the switch”.

Abdul Karim Moazzez started his activity in the early July of 982 and became a member of the Special Terrorist Unit of the MKO. With respect to these types of attacks, he mentions “In Ahangaran Alley in Pamenar region of Tehran, we stopped a man, who was in his early twenties, and asked him to get off his motorbike without resistance. He said, ‘The motorbike is not mine, but I will take you wherever you want’. We did not accept. My superior officer put a gun to his head and said the he would count to 3 and if he did not surrender, he would shoot. He refused to cooperate and my superior officer fired at him and martyred him. We then, took his motorbike and disappeared. It needs to be said that some people in that alley left the place when the saw the shooting and some whose houses were in that alley, watched the incident through their doors!”.

In another MKO member’s confession, it is stated, “We asked a motorcyclist with a beard, who was highly likely to be a worker, to get off his motorbike without resistance and stand against the wall. He replied, ‘I’m merely a worker and this motorbike is all I have. Please let me go’. But since we needed his motorcycle for an assassination, we did not listen to his words. We asked him to get off and he did. But when we ordered him to stand against the wall, he resisted. So, we fired at him, took his motorcycle and fled the scene!”.

These activities constitute only a minor part of the MKO’s quasi-ISIS terrorist attacks for taking revenge on innocent people who turned into their assassination targets just because they did not cooperate with them. In the future, we will review other terrorist activities of the MKO in the 1980’s.

March 29, 2022 0 comments

Former members of the MEK

Persian New Year, bright future on the horizon for MEK survivors

As all Iranians around the world celebrate Nowruz, the Persian New Year, there are a few thousands of Iranians taken as hostages by the Mujahedin Khalq Organization (the MKO/ MEK/ PMOI/ Cult of Rajavi) in Albania. However, recent developments regarding the MEK hostages indicate a potential positive perspective. As the Cult of Rajavi gets older, the number of members gets fewer and the fate of the cult gets darker as well.

New Year wishes for MEK hostages
Following the beginning of the Persian New Year on March 20th, on the spring equinox, families of the MEK members –hostages—who have been longing to contact them for years, sent video messages of New Year wishes to their loved ones in the MEK’s Camp Ashraf 3, near Tirana. Although the MEK commanders have banned their members from the outside world, families publish their messages in the hope that their loved ones might see them sometime.

There are also a group of former members of the MEK residing in Albania who have established ASILA (Association for the Support of the Iranians Living in Albania. Their mission is to aid MEK defectors to cope with the new challenges of getting deradicalized and living a normal life in the free world. Members of ASILA set the ancient traditional Nowruz table, Sofreh Haftsin in their office in Tirana. In separate video messages, they addressed their former comrades in the MEK wishing them a blessed new year that brings them freedom from the bars of the Cult of Rajavi.

Sarfaraz and Arisa Rahimi

ASILA members are supported and accompanied by Albanian citizens. Among the video messages, the one of Sarfaraz Rahimi (MEK defector) and his Albanian wife is probably the most significant one. Arisa Rahimi who speaks Persian quite fluently tries to assure MEK hostages that the Albanian community will welcome them warmly if they leave the group. “Guys! You are not alone here, in Albania,” she says. “We are here. Iranians are here. We are a big family here.” (Sarfaraz Rahimi left the MEK cult a few years ago. He then married Arisa. They have a four year old son now.)

Optimistic perspectives for MEK hostages
By the rise of defections from the MEK after its relocation in Albania in 2015, the number of the group members have been declining during the past years. Besides, a dozen of members of the group including commanders have passed away during just last year. Also, there have been no birth since 1989 when Massoud Rajavi forced members to divorce and engage in mandatory celibacy. And, the group’s recruiters have not been able to recruit new members in the neighboring countries of Iran because their fraudulent tactics to deceive people have been exposed to the Iranian diaspora.

Thus, by the start of new year, the Cult of Rajavi gets one year older and eventually smaller in size and power. In contrast, the Iranian community in Albania who enjoy free world outside the MEK’s camp is getting bigger and bigger. Everyday, more Albanian citizens join ASILA as honorary members and therefore social, cultural and family links develop between the two nations. As the result, Albanians become aware of the threat of an extremist cult with a record of terrorist activities in their territory.

Although the MEK leaders are skillful manipulators of their bribed western sponsors who run their multi-million dollar lobbying campaigns, they do not seem to be able to deceive the Albanian public opinion who just live around them and are in direct contact with defectors of the group.

By Mazda Parsi

March 28, 2022 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Expecting Iranians to support the MeK is absurd

Ukraine’s resistance should end calls for ‘regime change’ in Iran by Israel and the pro-Israel lobby

Ukrainian President Zelenskyy addresses Congress, introduced by Nancy Pelosi to standing ovation, March 16, 2022. Screenshot from C-SPAN.

The inspiring Ukrainian resistance to Russia’s invasion already has one positive consequence a thousand miles to the southeast — it should end, once and for all, the dangerous calls in Israel and by the U.S. Israel lobby to step up attacks on Iran to change the regime there.

Vladimir Putin apparently expected that Ukrainian resistance would collapse quickly, and that the Russian invaders would have a cakewalk into Kiev. Instead, Ukrainians rallied around their government, and president Zelinsky’s popularity shot up overnight. A month later, their ferocious defiance is once again proving a central truth; even people who don’t like their rulers won’t accept foreigners who try to dictate to them at gunpoint.

The unhinged calls to overthrow Iran’s government are not confined to the fever swamps of the far right. Just last December, 7 former U.S. government foreign policy hawks, including General David Petraeus and Leon Panetta, who headed both the Defense Department and the CIA, publicly called on the U.S. to threaten to attack Iran. They said:

We believe it is vital to restore to restore Iran’s fear that its current nuclear path will trigger the use of force against it by the United States.

Earlier, a 2020 Washington Post opinion article, also written by members in good standing of the Washington, D.C. foreign policy establishment, was entitled: “Regime change in Iran shouldn’t be a taboo.” Its tortured logic ended with:

Seeking regime change isn’t rude. It is pragmatic, cost-sensitive, humane and — in the best sense of the word — liberal.

Putin’s view that the Ukrainians would not resist the Russian military was not entirely an illusion. Ukraine has long-standing political and cultural ties to Russia; a significant proportion of its people are actually Russian-speaking; the country has only been independent for 30 years.

By contrast, Iran is a nation with a powerful, long-standing identity. John Ghazvinian notes in his recent, magisterial history of U.S.-Iranian relations that:

. . . Iran is one of the world’s oldest, proudest and most enduring civilizations. . . Iran has had 3000 years of (mostly) continuous nationhood. . . Iran is one of the very few nation-states that can legitimately claim to have existed more or less continuously since antiquity. . . Cultural, historically and politically, Iran has an extraordinarily strong sense of its identity and its regional significance.

For years now, Israel, apparently with at least some U.S. acquiescence, has been conducting a terror campaign inside Iran. The distinguished Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that this campaign has included “assassinations of nuclear scientists, explosions at nuclear sites, cyberattacks, attacks on Iranian ships, extensive airstrikes against pro-Iranian militias in Syria. . .”

The prevailing theory is that at least some of these attacks in Iran are carried out by the Mujahedin-e-Khalq (MeK), an extremist opposition group. (The cult-like group has ties, probably including financial links, to top Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani and to former national security adviser John Bolton.) Expecting Iranians to support the MeK is absurd, not least because the cult fought alongside Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein’s army during his 8-year war against Iran in the 1980s.

Meanwhile, Israel and the pro-Israel lobby have an immediate fear; the talks in Vienna to restore the Iran nuclear deal are apparently going well and nearing an agreement. The Biden administration is preoccupied with the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and the last thing it wants is another crisis in the Middle East. What’s more, Israel’s refusal to stand squarely with the U.S., NATO and the Ukrainian government has not gone unnoticed. The pro-Israel lobby is surely already working overtime at damage control.

By James North, mondoweiss.net

March 26, 2022 0 comments

The cult of Rajavi

The MEK and Children – Reza Gooran

In September 2002, Reza was five years old when his mother Farokh Farhangian took him across the Kurdistan border to join the Mujahedin Khalq (MKO/ MEK/ PMOI/ Cult of Rajavi) in Iraq.

At the time, there was almost no child in the group’s Camp Ashraf, except the child soldiers who have been smuggled from Europe to Iraq in their teen age. The child soldiers of Mujahed parents had been sent to Europe and North America under the order of Massoud Rajavi who did not want any family relationships in his cult of personality.

Reza Gooran

The very young Reza Gooran was considered as an obstacle against his mother’s activities in the cult. Therefore, the leaders of the MEK decided to smuggle Reza back to Iran. They separated him from his mother just like what they did in 1991 when they separated 700 MEK children from their parents in Camp Ashraf.
Eventually, In the summer of 2003, Reza was handed over to human smugglers who left him at the door of his grandmother in Kurdistan, Iran. Since then, Reza was grown by his father and his grandmother. Nevertheless, his father died when Reza was twelve years old.

Farokh Farhangian, Reza’s mother is still in the MEK. She was relocated in Albania in 2016. She is residing in Camp Ashraf 3, in Manza village, north of Tirana. She has not contacted her son for over 18 years. Reza and his grandmother’s efforts in order to contact Farokh have been unsuccessful.

However, life goes on for Reza. He got married last year. His mother was not informed about Reza’s wedding. She was not able to accompany her son on the memorable night of his life.
Reza is still hopeful that he will see his mother again someday.

March 19, 2022 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization as a terrorist group

Biden Dilemma: Iranians Saw Trump As A Mad Man But Blame America For Their Woes

After enduring four years of President Trump’s hostile and belligerent policies and actions – the Muslim travel ban, extreme sanctions, incitement to violence, support for terrorist groups, assassinations of nuclear scientists and of general Qasem Soleimani – the Iranian people are entitled to conclude that America is waging a war against them. And Iran has responded; maximum pressure resulted only in maximum resistance. The sanctions, unfortunate as they have been for Iran’s economy, have not destroyed it. Indeed, evidence is emerging that Iran’s resistance culture itself has led to an entrepreneurial response to overcome the restrictions. Iran’s military opened a trade and security corridor through Syria and Lebanon to the Mediterranean coast. A dedicated port is under construction. The U.S. can no longer control Iran’s finances since it is no longer limited to trading through Dubai. The only way to stop that is using bombs; an actual declaration of war, which puts Israel at risk.

Biden Dilemma Iranians Blame America

Trump and his allies spent four years trying to crush Iran, to force regime change and failing that, threats to bomb the country back fifty years. They failed. The unintended consequence of that failure has been the militarisation of Iran. The Revolutionary Guards have become stronger and their power embedded in the wider region with allies in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon. Commemorations to mark the January 3rd anniversary of the assassinations of Iranian general Qasem Soleimani and Iraqi Commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis were titled ‘Martyrs Without Borders’ signifying their wider relevance. Although Iraq is in step with Iran to eject American forces from the region, the Trump administration failed to understand that Ayatollah Khamenei’s ‘harsh revenge’ could be achieved as much through regional soft power and international law as military strikes.

Furthermore, the assassination of Soleimani unified Iran in a way that no internal politics could have hoped to achieve as Iranians rallied round their flag. Back in 2016, Iran’s leaders were almost equally divided between western leaning moderates and revolutionary hardliners. Now we hear president Rohani echoing the speeches of Ayatollah Khamenei, and foreign minister Javad Zarif amplifying the role of the Quds Force in Iran’s foreign policy. National unity against the perceived external threat of America has now created grounds for military officials to be allowed to run for president in June’s elections. If the military prevail, it will make conflict more likely, not less. Iran says its missile program is defensive, that it does not want war, but with missiles in Iran and Lebanon trained on U.S. interests in the region, Israel is clearly less safe than before.

President Joe Biden will only have months to make a difference if he wants to pursue a diplomatic route. He must demonstrate through policies and actions that Trump was a hiccup, not the way things will be. Trump was not America. If Biden wants to start talking with Iran he must accept where Iran is now, not what it used to be. Confrontation and containment cannot be the starting point for negotiations; there will have to be more carrots.

Iran experts are focused on re-joining the JCPOA. But this will not be enough on its own to recalibrate relations between the two countries. Not only will Iran expect sanctions to be lifted but will feel entitled to demand compensation for the financial losses suffered under extreme sanctions. People were denied medicine. Iranians saw Trump as a mad man, but they blame America for their woes. The damage done by Trump will take years to redress, but there is no reason why trust building cannot begin straight away. To start with Biden must treat Iran with respect. Acknowledge that assassinations and incitement to violence and terrorism are not how civilized countries behave.

Of course, the new presidency will be hampered by America’s internal problems. Biden inherits a deeply divided country. Yet, the decades long problem of Iran could very well offer a route to a new bipartisan consensus on a way forward. Although Trump has gone, the Adelson family, Neocons and Fox News will still be there; war is still on the agenda. Theirs is not a battle between Democrats and Republicans, but between warmongers and peacemakers. Their agenda doesn’t depend on who is the president. They want to defeat Iran. If Trump couldn’t do it, they will force the Democrats to do it. They want a war at any price. If Biden cannot prevent war, they will have won.

In this respect, this expert would advocate a much easier, cheaper and effective course of action to start with. Biden should immediately restore the Obama administration’s plan to deradicalize the Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK) terrorist cult in Albania. The MEK are, of course, the darlings of both the anti-Iran cabal in the US, Israel and Saudi Arabia, and the hardliners in Iran. Both sides have used the MEK to destroy Iran’s indigenous opposition movement and to control the prevailing narrative on Iran in international politics.

By dismantling and deradicalizing the MEK, Biden can score easy wins in a variety of arenas. In Albania it would free around two thousand members from conditions of modern slavery, allowing them to reintegrate into normal society and be reunited with their families. It would relieve the Albanian government and security services of the headache caused by MEK crime, corruption and impunity in their country. For Iranians who universally regard the MEK with loathing as traitors and cultists, it would send a clear message that America will not tolerate terrorism or human rights abuses in pursuit of its foreign policy aims. Iran’s people would view dismantling this terrorist group as a goodwill gesture; building a modicum of trust that may sway some voters in June to have faith in the efficacy of diplomacy with the west.

But the most significant win for Biden would be to start tackling the corruption inside America which facilitated Trump’s belligerent agenda and that of his backers. Dismantling the MEK would stem one of the hidden conduits for the flow of foreign money and false narratives into America.

The MEK paid thousands of dollars for the likes of Rudi Giuliani and John Bolton to attend their rallies in Paris and Tirana to peddle the false narrative that the only way to deal with Iran is confrontation, regime change and war. The Heshmat Alavi scandal which exposed an industry of fake social media messages and accounts and a click farm in Albania, revealed that what had previously been covert activity had, under Trump, become mainstream.

In America, Professor Raymond Tanter has been tasked with creating a bi-partisan group to undermine the work of the new Biden administration. Funding for this project relies on the kind of corruption that has become embedded in the body politic. The example of MEK funding for the extreme right Vox Party in Spain reveals how the MEK use individual and fake association accounts to channel foreign funds into anti-Iran projects.

It is incumbent on the Biden administration to approach relations with Iran on a new page. Purging the old regime need not be as difficult as it first appears. The costs of erasing any traces of the MEK from that page are low, the benefits are great and many.

By Anne and Massoud Khodabandeh,

March 17, 2022 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization members' families

Let me contact my brother after 41 years of slavery in the MEK

Khoram Ramazani was taken as a war prisoner in September 1980, in the early days of the Iran-Iraq war. He was in contact with his family through letters and photos that he used to send via the international office of the Red Cross in Iraq but after he joined the Mujahedin Khalq Organization , he stopped contacting his family.

His family have not seen Khoram for 41 years. They traveled to Iraq when the group was located in Camp Ashraf but the cult of Rajavi commanders did not allow them to visit Khoram. “I was behind the closed gates of Camp Ashraf three times, they did not let us see our children,” Khoram’s deceased mother said in a video message last summer to the Albanian President, a few months before her death. “Instead, they insulted us and threw rocks at us.” Weeping tears, she asked Edi Rama to aid her to visit her son in the Albanian territory.

https://dla.nejatngo.org/Media/Nejat/Alborz/Ramazani-Khorram-sis-202203.mp4

To download the vide file click here

Today, Khoram’s sister, Mahnaz Ramazani once more asks the Albanian authorities to pave the way for the release of her brother from the Cult of Rajavi. Showing a photo of the then young brother, she seeks to contact him in any way possible after 40 years.

March 16, 2022 0 comments

Former members of the MEK

The Scarlet Wednesday and Summer Day celebrated by ASILA

Members of ASILA celebrated the Albanian” Dita e Veres” and the Iranian “Chaharshanbe Suri” together with their Albanian friends and neighbors.
ASILA, the association for the support of Iranians living in Albania was established five months ago by a group of defectors of the Mujahedin Khalq Organization (MKO/ MEK/ PMOI/ Cult of Rajavi). The association was registered as a legal institute to support those who defect the Cult of Rajavi in Albania. It supports defectors of the cult in order to enjoy their civil rights, find a job, deal with their legal issues and have a family in Albania. As defection from the MEK has been on the rise since the group’s relocation in Albania in 2015, the founders of ASILA seek to develop cultural relationships between the two nations.

https://dla.nejatngo.org/Media/Defectors/ASILA-Albania-202203.mp4

To download the video file click here

Dita e Veres (Summer Day) is an annual public holiday in Albania and is held on March 14th every year. The holiday marks the rebirth of nature following the end of winter. Bonfires are traditionally lit in yards elsewhere in Albania with the function to drive away the darkness of the winter season and for the strengthening of the Sun. fires are the symbol of the sun’s purity and strength. This is very similar to the Iranian ancient celebration called Chaharshnbeh Suri (the Scarlet Wednesday) which is held on the last Tuesday night of the Iranian calendar before Nowruz (the beginning of spring).
Celebrating the two ancient celebration at the same time, ASILA members indicate that they are willing and determined to grow more links with hosting society. Lighting bonfires and setting a table with colored eggs and sugar cookies on it, they created a fun and happy night.

March 15, 2022 0 comments

Massoud Rajavi

Massoud Rajavi offered his own gun to the 14-year-old Zohair

Zohair was only fourteen when he was armed by Massoud Rajavi in person

Zohair Zakeri was born in 1976. When in 1991 Massoud Rajavi ordered to separate the children form their Mujahed parents and smuggle them to Europe and North America, Zohair refused to leave Camp Ashraf; he allegedly wanted to be a fighter of the MEK’s army, the so-called National Liberation army. Eventually, Massoud Rajavi gave his colt to him as a gift!
His father, Ebrahim Zakeri was a high-ranking member of the Mujahedin Khalq Organization (the MKO/ MEK/ PMOI/ Cult of Rajavi). His mother who disagreed with the MEK had divorced before they came to Camp Ashraf, Iraq.

Zohair zakeri next to his father

Ozra Alavi Taleghani the second wife of Ebrahim Zaker was Zohair’s stepmother. Both parents were commanders in the MEK and busy working for the group. So, Zohair did not enjoy a normal family life. Before the separation from their parents and the eventual forced divorce of married members, children of the Mujahedin could visit their parents in the weekends but Zohair was even deprived from these short-time family life.
Persuaded by Massoud Rajavi, the 14-year-old Zohair became a child soldier of the Cult of Rajavi. He did not go to school or university. Instead, he was under the constant manipulation system of the cult. He was trained as a devotee of Massoud Rajavi. According to the MEK’s website, Zohair wrote a letter to Rajavi after he watched the videos of his speech addressing him, “Brother! You break a record again but what should we do with your love?” This was the result of the education system of the Cult of Rajavi.

Zohair Zakeri

When Zohair was 19, he was an official member of the MEK’s army. Radicalized by Massoud Rajavi’s trainings he was ready to act under his absolute power. Consequently, years later when he was ordered to lie down in front of the military vehicles of Iraqi army to prevent them from entering Camp Ashraf, he was manipulated (or perhaps intimated) enough to get killed for the cause of Rajavi.
Zohair was 35 when he was killed in the clashes between Iraqi forces and the MEK members in May 2011. The MEK propaganda media broadcast all kinds of content to glorify the “martyrdom” of Zohair, a young man who never enjoyed childhood in the Cult of Rajavi and lost his life under the order of the cult leader.

March 15, 2022 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

A Cult in Heart of Republic, a book on France’s ties to MKO terrorists

Iran has unveiled the Persian copy of a French book that reviews the grisly crimes committed by the notorious anti-Iran terror group, Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization.

A Cult in the Heart of the Republic is the title of the book written by a member of the French Senate, Nathalie Goulet. In her book, she shines a light into the formidable anti-Iran terror group, known as Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization, or simply the MKO.

The author tries to warn her fellow Senate members that a full-scale terror group exists in the heart of the French Republic.

A Cult in Heart of Republic, a book on France’s ties to MKO terrorists

In Iran’s city of Qom, political thinkers and activists have gathered to unveil the first Persian translation of the French book.

Iran says the MKO has killed over 12,000 Iranian civilians and statesmen, including former President Mohammal Ali Rajaei and Prime Minister Mohammad Javad Bahonar in 1981. The group also fought alongside Iraqi forces against Iran during the eight-year Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s.

In 2012, the US and Europe delisted the group as a terror organization. The MKO was then relocated from an American military base in Iraq to Albania and France. Since then, the US and Europe have been taking part in the MKO’s annual summits in Paris.

Nathalie Goulet’s book tries to highlight the criminal track record of the MKO, while warning France that it’s making a big mistake by supporting the terror group.

In 1988, Iran executed the remnants of the terror grouping in Iran. The MKO is currently led by 68-year-old Maryam Rajavi, who is facing pressure from French human rights entities as a “smear” on France’s record of human rights advocacy.

Aside from warning France of the security threats posed to the country by the MKO, the French author says capitalizing on the terror group is a waste of time and money. She argues that the MKO is viewed as an obsolete killing machine in the minds of Iranians and has no place in Iran’s sociopolitical structure.

Yusef Jalali

March 15, 2022 0 comments

Massoud Rajavi

Massoud Rajavi beat and kicked Mehri to force her to stay in his cult

Mehri Musavi a female member of the Mujahedin Khalq Organization was killed in 2003 after she asked to leave the group.

Born in 1961 Mehri Musavi was a student in her twenties studying in a university in the United States when she decided to join the MEK in Iraq. There, she worked for the group’s political unit as a translator and interpreter. Eventually, she was raised in the hierarchy of the cult of Rajavi and was nominated for membership in the group’s Elite Council which included only female members.

To remain a member of the Elite Council, Mehri had to stay in Iraq. She was not allowed to leave Iraqi territory according to the regulations of the Rajavi Cult. She had to promise that she would stay in the group for her whole life and Mehri could not admit such a harsh ruling. Thus, she asked for leaving the group.

Mehri Musavi’s grave

Mehri’s determination to leave the MEK was faced with a process of suppressive sessions. The main session was a trial for Mehri which was held by Massoud Rajavi, himself. Maryam Sanjabi, former member of the MEK, worked in the same unit as Mehri did. In her testimony about the killing of Mehri Musavi, she writes about the trial:
“Massoud Rajavi called on her to speak. Mehri repeated her request for leaving the group calmly and courageously. Instigated by Massoud Rajavi, the whole audience started shouting at her as if she had committed the most terrible crimes! Rajavi who was mad with her told her, ‘You can kill yourself swallowing your cyanide capsule!’…He explicitly told her that as a nominee of the Elite Council she was sentenced to death penalty because she wanted to leave.”

The meeting did not end by Rajavi’s ultimatum. Female commanders and peers of Mehri also tried their best to show off their obedience to Massoud by humiliating, insulting and threatening Mehri to death. Eventually, Mehri was asked if she had changed her mind. Her answer was “No”. “I never forget what happened then,” Maryam Sanjabi writes. “It was a new act of violence and cruelty played by Rajavi.”

Sanjabi describes the scene:
“Very irritated and nervous, Rajavi asked Mehri to come up to the stage to talk to her in person. Immediately after Mehri went to the stage, he, Maryam Rajavi and a few of high-ranking commanders took Mehri to the corridor behind the stage. A few minutes later, there were terrible screams and cries. About an hour later, Mehri was brought back to the hall. She had been terribly beaten. Her whole body was bruised. Her hair was messy and pulled out.”

It is said that Maryam Rajavi had pulled Mehri out of under the Massoud Rajavi’s fist and kick. She had talked to Mehri trying to persuade her to retract her words, at least in front of the audience. Sanjabi recalls, “Having a lump in her throat Mehri finally addressed the audience, ‘I was wrong. I will stay.’ “
After the trial session, Mehri was no more employed in political unit. She was sent to kitchen. “This was a systematic punishment in the MEK,” Sanjabi says.

“Mehri Musavi was ultimately forced to swallow her cyanide capsule in May 2003,” Sanjabi writes. “It was after the invasion of the US forces to Iraq.” The MEK leaders told members that Mehri had killed herself to protest the entrance of the American forced to Camp Ashraf. “She asked for permission and we allowed her to kill herself so we name her a martyr”. This was read by a commander in a meeting for the Elite Council.

Nobody could believe such an argument for the death of a dissident member. Maryam Sanjabi worked in the personnel department of the organization, at the time. Some time later, she came across with a classified document. It was an order issued and signed by Massoud Rajavi. “Regarding the presence of the American forces at Camp Ashraf and regarding Mehri Musavi’s fluency in English and her problematic organizational conditions, Rajavi had stated that her being alive is troubling and she had to be eliminated,” Sanjabi writes. “This was a fact to prove Rajavi’s crimes and treasons against his own members.”

March 14, 2022 0 comments

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