A few days after the attack, the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK) avoided taking any clear position on September 11. Instead, the intense meetings continued – filled with humiliation, personal attacks and both mental and physical abuse.
In the midst of this, we were once again called to a grand meeting in the large hall.
The leader stepped onto the stage with heavy, determined steps. On either side of the stairs stood armed guards, motionless as statues. Further back, like a second wall, stood additional bodyguards. The security was massive, suffocating.
He stopped in the middle of the stage. His gaze swept over us.
The hall was filled – a sea of green uniforms, broken by perfect, symmetrical blocks of red from the women’s headscarves. Everything was orderly. Controlled. Almost militarily beautiful. And completely lifeless.
He opened his mouth: “As part of Maryam’s ideological revolution, I have a gift for all of you…”
A gift. The word echoed strangely in my head.
“You have given me everything. But you have kept the most personal. Something that has prevented you from fully uniting with me and the struggle. Your sexual fantasies.”
He paused.
“From now on, we will introduce the weekly ablution. You will write down every private, every sexual thought you have during the week. And at the end of the week, you will read it out loud to others. The other members will attack your dirty thoughts… and you will be purified.”
Silence. Not an ordinary silence – but a total, suffocating stillness. Ten thousand people in the same room… and yet there was barely a breath. It felt as if time had stopped. As if the air had frozen. A pin could have been heard to drop.
How is this a gift?
Thoughts raced through my mind. This was not a gift. It was a demand. A demand for the last thing that was mine.
We had already lost everything – our lives, our choices, our relationships. We had no contact with the opposite sex. But thoughts… Thoughts were the last thing anyone could take away from us.
I thought.
Now they too would be gone. What is left of a self when even your innermost thoughts belong to someone else?
Maybe that was exactly the point. To wipe out the self. To replace it with something else. Something that fit into their world.
That was exactly what they had taught us about the ideological revolution.
I remembered the videotapes from the late 80s. Our parents had been in these meetings. We were children then. In the films, the leader spoke with a different voice – softer, almost convincing. He spoke of sacrifice.
How they had left everything behind: their lives in Iran, their careers, their lives in the West. But he also said they hadn’t sacrificed everything.
“Why fight halfheartedly?” he asked. “Why not take the final step?” He put his hand in his pocket. “You’re hiding something from me.”
He took out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter and placed them on the table. “What do you have in your pockets that you don’t want to give up?”
The private. The hidden. What was still theirs. “Give it to me.” Then it was about spouses and children.
Now, almost fifteen years later, that wasn’t enough anymore. Now even the thoughts would go away.
Fear crept into my body in a way I had never felt before. Not even the missile attacks had scared me this much. The air was electric. Tense to the point of breaking. As if a single spark could blow everything up.
Why did everyone react like this? And why… didn’t I feel anything?
Women in the MEK: Trapped, tortured, and silenced
Brainwashed by Brother Massoud
A young man pushed his way forward. I recognized him immediately. Reza Chavoshi. The MEK’s kid from Germany. The one who used to listen to Ice Cube and gangster rap.
Now he stood there with a wild look and shouted: “Thank you, Brother Massoud! You have freed us from our inner devil! I was the devil!”
I stared at him. What the hell…? How could he change so completely?
It was as if all these people had been missing something. A final piece of the puzzle. A key.
And now the leader had given it to them. And their reactions exploded.
One by one, those who had been sitting still stood up. They lined up. The lines wound all the way to the back of the hall.
Finally, I saw it. I was the only one left sitting. Either they really believed this. Or they didn’t dare do otherwise. But I couldn’t get up. I couldn’t. How could I, at seventeen, feel that something was wrong?
while an elderly man from the United States – a man who had lived in a democratic society, had received an education, lived with freedom – stood there shouting that he had been freed from his “invisible shackles”?
One by one they came forward and thanked him.
Psychological pressure by Massoud’s devotees
Then a short, gray-haired man came up to the microphone. His name was also Massoud. He had lived in London. His voice trembled: “I’m sorry, brother Massoud… but I don’t think I can handle this…”
He couldn’t take it anymore. A roar erupted. Protests. Loud, aggressive. Growing. Then, as if on command, the entire hall began to shout: “Gomsho Pasdar! Gomsho Pasdar!” [in persain] meaning: “Go to hell, you Revolutionary Guard!”
Ten thousand voices. Like a wave.
The gray-haired man covered his ears. He collapsed. Started to cry.
I had seen people attacked in smaller meetings before. But this… This was something completely different. It was brutal. Crushing. And even though I wasn’t the target… I could feel the pressure. The psychological weight.
The leader paced back and forth on the stage. He smiled. He looked at the man. Then he said, almost calmly: “I’m not saying anything. It’s the congregation that takes a stand against you. And the congregation is always right.”
Amir Yaghmai
Taken from Amir Yaghmai’s X account, Translated by Nejat Society Website