Iran Interlink reporting from Baghdad.
Video shows families of Camp Liberty residents demanding meetings with their loved ones.
MEK leaders are holding them hostage. MEK leader Massoud Rajavi has reacted hysterically claiming the families shown in the film have come to destroy the camp and kill the residents.
An Iranian group shows that as long as you stop being violent, it’s possible to gain supporters in the U.S. government and get removed from the Foreign Terrorist Organizations list — especially if your end-game is to overthrow the current Iran regime and take over.
Transcript:
WASHINGTON — While the world’s eyes are focused on ISIS [the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria] and rising tensions in the Middle East, a former terrorist group from Iran is tromping through the halls of Congress, and garnering support from some of America’s most powerful and prominent politicians and officials.
Speaker: “Howard Dean, Ed Rendell, Patrick Kennedy, and many others.”
The group is the People’s Mujahedeen of Iran, or the MEK, in its Persian acronym. It was taken off of the State Department’s Foreign Terrorist Organizations list [in 2012] after demonstrating that it had not been engaged in terrorist activities for the last 10 years.
The group is led by Massoud Rajavi, who has been in hiding since 2003, when the United States and Britain invaded Iraq, and Maryam Rajavi, who acts as the president-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, the group’s political wing.
According to the FBI, the MEK murdered American citizens in Iran during the 1970s, allied with the ayatollahs to help overthrow the Iranian government, participated in the American embassy hostage crisis in 1979, and teamed up with Saddam Hussein to fight their own countrymen during the Iran-Iraq War.
They are responsible for the deaths of thousands of Iranians and a campaign of bombings, assassinations, and military attacks, as well as collusion with Iraq.
The goal of the group now is to overthrow the current Iranian regime and take power for themselves.
So how does a group go from being one of the most dangerous terrorist organizations in the world to having an office on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C., with backing from the likes of the former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. John Bolton and former Director of Homeland Security Tom Ridge, among many others?
CNN: “There’s been a lot of pressure in the United States both from the group and from its supporters in Congress, and very high-paid former officials speaking on their behalf to delist the group.”
In 2011, groups around the country acting as front organizations for the MEK — including the Iranian American Community of Northern California — hired lobbyists to help remove the MEK from the Foreign Terrorist Organizations list.
They recruited the likes of Howard Dean, who is a former Democratic presidential candidate; Michael Hayden, the former CIA director; Newt Gingrich, who is the former Speaker of the House; and the lobbying firm Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, among many others. They [MEK] often paid five-figure speaker fees to individuals, and six figures to the firms lobbying on their behalf.
Jeremiah Goulka: “They’re just thorough PR jobs, that do a very good job of making lawyer-like arguments based on taking very nit-picky looks at wording.”
That’s Jeremiah Goulka, the author of “The Mujahedin-e Khalq in Iraq: A Policy Conundrum,” a report published by the Rand Corporation in 2009 that assesses the status of the MEK at a camp called Ashraf in Iraq.
Goulka: “I was asked to join the Rand Research Team. … Who are the MEK? Why are they there in Iraq? What should the detainee operations command do, if anything?”
However, following publication, the Rand report came under fire by the MEK and its paid lobbyists in Washington.
Lincoln P. Bloomfield: “Well, I’m a former policy official and one of my roles is as a consultant to a law firm in Washington. An American citizens group hired the law firm to help them advocate to remove the MEK from the terrorism list.”
That’s Ambassador Lincoln P. Bloomfield, the former deputy assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern Affairs from 1992 to 1993. He wrote a book, entitled “The Mujahedin-e Khalq, MEK: Shackled by a Twisted History,” that posits that the MEK has been severely misunderstood over time.
Bloomfield: “I found out that there’s a gap between what everyone was saying about the MEK and what the information seemed to show, that there was a gap, something was amiss. So that really piqued my curiosity and I just kept digging for the next two years.”
Ambassador Bloomfield’s law firm, Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, was reportedly paid $620,000 dollars by a group supportive of the MEK during those two years, according to the Senate Office of Public Records.
But are his claims — which match those of the MEK — true?
Bloomfield: “As I began to examine what think tanks were saying, what the press was saying, a very consistent set of allegations arose: that they’d killed Americans in the 1970s in Iran, that they had helped with the embassy hostage takeover during the revolution in 1979, that they were a violent, left-wing, Marxist group that was speaking about democracy but didn’t really mean it, and that they’d engaged in a whole series of violent actions, and that they were also human rights abusers in their own midst.”
In June 1973, Lt. Col. Lewis Hawkins of the U.S. Army was the first American assassinated by the MEK, as he walked near his home in Tehran, according to The Associated Press.
Ambassador Bloomfield claims that Hawkins was murdered by a man named Vahid Afrakhteh, citing two Washington Post articles from 1976.
This is significant because the MEK narrative has attempted to gain credibility in the United States by separating itself from the killing of Americans.
Bloomfield: “Other activists who were impatient with the MEK took the Mujahedeen name and weren’t interested in Islam, and they wanted a secular Marxist, violent revolution, and they were the ones who killed the Americans. They were caught. I have put The Washington Post articles from those days in my report.”
The Washington Post articles are referenced as proof that a U.S. State Department report on the MEK is problematic — and possibly untrue — because it says Reza Rezai, not Afrakhteh, “was arrested and executed by the Shah’s government for the murder of Colonel Hawkins.”
The MEK and its supporters are trying to separate Rezai from the killing of Lt. Col.
Hawkins because even though he is dead, he is still idolized by the current MEK as a hero.
However, while it may be true that Afrakhteh committed the actual murder of Hawkins, two separate reports from The Associated Press in 1973, obtained by MintPress News, named Reza Rezai as the “man alleged to have planned the murder of… Lieutenant Colonel Lewis Hawkins” and as the leader of the group. One of the reports says, “The gunman who killed Hawkins still is at large.”
That person who was “still at large” very well could have been Afrakhteh, so the fact he is named as the actual gunman does not in any way absolve Rezai from responsibility for the murder, nor does it contradict the State Department report.
The MEK also claims, as does Ambassador Bloomfield, that it is separated from the murder of the seven Americans, including Lt. Col. Hawkins, because there was a schism in the group between a Marxist-leaning faction, and the Muslim faction led by Massoud Rajavi.
Bloomfield: “There was blood between the two factions. The one that wanted Islam is the one that we see today, and for their commitment to Islam a couple of people were gunned down by these leftist revolutionaries, who were using the name Mujahedin.”
However, that schism did not happen until 1975, according to Ervand Abrahamian, author of “The Iranian Mojahedin,” and one of the foremost scholars of the group. Therefore, in the words of Muhammad Sahimi, “Hawkins’ assassination, at least, was irrefutably the work of the original” MEK.
Another problem with the narrative of the MEK not being involved with the killings of Americans is that the group bragged about those murders in its very own newspaper called “Mojahed,” seen here.
The text states:
“It was the Mujahedin-e Khalq that killed with guns American Generals and also blew up nests of spies, like America’s information office… ”
[Mojahed – Number 77, Page 2]
The MEK and its supporters also claim that the group was not involved with the U.S. Embassy hostage crisis and that it did not support it in any way.
Bloomfield: “This one is very black and white, and misunderstood. And, frankly, allegations that the MEK were behind the embassy takeover, and were promoting keeping the Americans hostage only surfaced in detail a few years ago.”
The problem with this statement is that the MEK clearly promoted the 1979 embassy takeover in its newspaper.
The headline to the article in this issue of “Mojahed” says:
“We are happy that this time they targeted the real Shah, which is America’s imperialism; The nest of the spies has been seized!”
[Mojahed – Number 10, Front page, November 12, 1979]
Further, despite an intense campaign to expunge the MEK’s troubled history toward the safety and well-being of American citizens and the way it treats its own members, the State Department, the FBI, Human Rights Watch, and the Rand Corporation have not changed their stance on any of these issues.
So, what is the MEK? The aforementioned organizations claim that not only is it an opposition group to the current Iranian regime, but it is a kind of cult.
Goulka: “At the MEK camps, there’s a whole set of practices that are all textbook out of cult theory – sleep deprivation, make-work projects, which is one of the reasons why Camp Ashraf has all this — surprisingly, it’s pretty. I mean there’s all of these beautification projects there. There’s fountains and there’s gardens, and there are all of these statues and memorials to things. Make-work projects. Sometimes food limitation. But one of the big things I didn’t know about them, the stuff that gets at people, um: 1) forced celibacy; 2) forced divorce; 3) gender segregation. They will claim that the divorce was not forced. One of their representatives told me that, I don’t remember his exact words, but that in the desert, it just doesn’t support family life. And I’m sure that Iraqi families feel just the same way.”
Masoud Banisadr was an MEK member for 20 years and served as the group’s representative to the United Nations and the United States during that time. He now ardently denounces the group. His account of what it’s like on the inside supports Goulka’s claims.
Masoud Banisadr: “Not only me, all members were forced to divorce their spouses, and later they have to send their children abroad to Europe and United States to be adopted by supporters and other members. The final stage was self-divorce, which meant that you have to divorce your own personality, your own individuality. You had to prove to the group that your whole individuality and personality before you become member of the group were devilish and wrong and corrupt and so-on.”
The MEK and its supporters claim that the group is not a cult, though, and that former members have been coerced into saying that it is a cult by Iran’s intelligence services.
Goulka: “This is what’s important to remember: Even if there are Iranian efforts to paint the MEK as terrible, which there are — I mean, the Iranian regime is always trying to make the MEK look terrible. But, it’s easy to make the MEK look terrible because the MEK looks terrible.”
Part of Goulka’s job in Iraq when assessing the MEK camp was to interview members of the group.
Goulka: “I mean, I interviewed loads of people, and, I mean, were they all agents? I doubt it. Were they Iranian agents, were they sneaking into the locked-off refugee camp off of F.O.B. [Forward Operating Base] Grizzly, and planting information to somehow feed me when they did not know I was coming?”
In response to the MEK’s claims, Human Rights Watch even went back and re-assessed their reporting and re-interviewed the original people from their report.
The second time around, they made the same claims that the organization is a cult and that they [members of the group] were tortured and abused by MEK’s leaders.
Human Rights Watch found no evidence of influence by Iranian intelligence services.
Despite all the documented history behind the group’s nefarious claims, it still came off the [Foreign Terrorist Organizations] list. And that’s because the single most important thing it did was end all acts of violence. And on this point, both Goulka and Ambassador Bloomfield agree.
Bloomfield: “In September of 2012, when Secretary of State Clinton removed the MEK from the U.S. terrorism list, the announcement said that the MEK had conducted no acts of violence for at least 10 years.”
Goulka: “I was actually thinking they should come off the list. I don’t think the U.S. made the decision for the right reasons, but I think they made the right decision. I think they needed to come off the list because I think the list, as written — I mean, the statute as written — they no longer really satisfied. And I think it’s important that there be some kind of incentive to terrorist groups in the world to say, ‘You know, if you stop being violent, we will take you off the list.”
So now that the MEK is no longer officially considered a terrorist group, what is it? How are they any different from other Iranian opposition groups, such as the National Front, or supporters of the previous monarchy?
Banisadr: “This is the problem which they are facing. I mean, the kind of questions that they face from ordinary Iranians outside of Iran, or their supporters outside of Iran is: How do you want to go back to Iran? How do you want to overthrow this government? The only answer which they have is that, ‘We are lobbying the United States. We are lobbying Western countries to fight against the Iranian government. First to put sanctions, put hardship on Iranian government so they cannot solve the problems of [the] Iranian people. And this might create some resistance on the opposition within Iran, and create an environment of revolution, perhaps, inside of Iran. At the same time, we are inviting Western countries, especially [the] United States to attack Iran because of [the] nuclear issue, because of [the] Israeli issue, and so on. So, when [the] United States attacks Iran the only the only people that can govern the country are us. There is nobody else.’”
Goulka agrees with Banisadr’s assessment of the group. He echoed his remarks about the MEK trying to grab power in Iran through pressuring the American government, but from a perspective rooted in the shame behind the horrors of America’s invasion of Iraq in 2003.
Goulka: “We’re always trying to make it sound like Iran is so super powerful as a military force. And it’s nothing compared to Israel, which is nothing compared to us. Yet we’re going to get ourselves up into a lather where the only, the only end result of that, the only logical end result if you let it keep going, is that we get violent with Iran. And that doesn’t suit anybody’s interests, without even questioning the actual morality of it. I mean, do I support the Iranian regime? No. But when you look at what we did to Iraq, where now people in the media constantly talk about 100,000 civilians dying as if that’s something we should accept. And most evidence suggests that’s like one-tenth of the people that actually died. And that’s death — that’s not the number of people who are just displaced, or injured, or had their lives ruined. The millions of people who were displaced and had to leave the country, or just displaced in the country – I mean, we wrecked that country because some people here wanted to do it, and you had fools like Ahmed Chalabi saying that they could go in and take over the place, and our fools who followed it. And the number of deaths for our people, too, and the way we’ve ruined lives here, and the way we’ve, you know, the money we’ve spent on it. Why would we repeat that in Iran? I mean, it’s insane. But, of course, insanity is the whole notion, you know, thinking you can do it again right this time. And it’s just frightening to watch us go down that path if we keep listening to the MEK.”
For MintPress News in Washington, this is Sean Nevins.
Parliamentarians (Lord Carlile and others) lose Maryam Rajavi court battle
Maryam Rajavi is one of the leaders of the anti-Iran terrorist group Mujahedin Khalq, or the MKO. The terrorist group has assassinated many Iranian officials and killed many other Iranian citizens since the victory of the Islamic Revolution in 1979.
The MKO also joined forces with former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein during his war against Iran in the 1980s and also helped Saddam in his domestic campaigns of repression in Iraq. Until 2008 it was on Europe’s terror list. But since then there’s been efforts to bring the group in from the cold. Rajavi has been banned from entering the UK. But Lord Carlile, who’s an influential member of the House of Lords, has been trying to get the ban lifted at the Supreme Court. Home Secretary Theresa May says Rajavi’s entry to the UK would not be conducive to the public good for reasons of foreign policy and in light of the need to take a firm stance against terrorism. Lawyers linked to the terrorist organization say Home Secretary’s reasons are irrelevant. But that argument has unanimously been rejected by Supreme Court judges. Critics have slammed attempts to downplay the actions of the MKO and put them forward as a democratic opposition. Critics have also accused the House of Lords of committing an illegal act by having been engaged with the terrorist organization The US, the UK and several European countries have been accused of helping and sheltring the terrorist organization. But for now, the latest attempt to get Maryam Rajavi in to Britain has failed.
Download MKO Leader loses appeal at Supreme Court to get entry into UK
Comrades in Arms, Cases of sexual abuse by MEK Leader Massoud Rajavi in Camp Ashraf
Synopsis:
People’s Mujahedin of Iran or the MEK is a terror entity responsible for thousands of civilian death in post revolution Iran. See how this group has been more of a dark CULT fraught with corruption and harassment.
to view the video file click here
“Comrades in Arms” unfolds the story of those women who fell for deceptive slogans of the MEK. Looking for a brighter future these women ended up in Camp Ashraf, where a fate worse than death awaited them. Masoud Rajavi, the leader of the organization had come up with a new idea about marital life; it was detrimental to the future of the organization. For him, marital love was a shackle that could impede the progress of his plan.
Therefore, Rajavi called for a compulsory divorce according to which all MEK members had to get divorce. But that was not the end of the story. While he forbade his men from having sexual relations with their wives, he decided to take their place. As a result, he turned Camp Ashraf into a big harem where he could have his female comrades in arms night and day. Risking their lives, however, some of the sexual victims managed to escape from the camp to show the true colors of Rajavi, once their spiritual leader and now the most lecherous man in the world they know.
Transcript:
Batoul Soltani:
I’m Batoul Soltani, a resident of Germany. I was born in Isfahan. I’ve been living in Germany for more than four years. Before that, I was in the MEK for 20 years and before that I was in Iran for 20 years.
We were pursuing more ambitious goals and looking for a better tomorrow thinking that they – according to their slogans – would bring people more democracy or a brighter future. Looking for such ideals, we fell for their slogans and joined their organization. We had passed the point of no return.
What I saw in this organization was that women were merely tools in every level I witnessed. After all, 20 years is not a short period of time. And what we witnessed from the beginning – though my marriage conformed to social norms and was not an organizational marriage – I encountered women who were devoid of emotional involvement with their husbands but the organization had made them marry. For the first time, I saw compulsory marriages in the organization. It’s very difficult to love someone by force. I think that it’s very difficult for a woman to do so.
Zahra Goini :
I’m Zahra Goini. I was born in Tehran in 1968. In November 1986 I got married. On March, 25, 1987 I left Tehran for my honeymoon till now that I’m abroad.
It was the New Year, 1987. He said that we were going on our honeymoon. I told my family, “Look! He says that he has decided to go.” He said, “No, Zahra is lying. I don’t want to go. We are going on our honeymoon. Look! This is my ticket to the south and then we’ll make a pilgrimage to Mashhad, God willing.” As we arrived in Shiraz he told me that we might not return. We arrived in Pakistan, I think a few weeks later. It was a long journey. It took us a while to get there. We were taken to the MEK’s base. All of a sudden, an official there came and said – when my husband talked to him – my husband said, “You can return to Iran.” I was stunned, “Seriously, shall I return to Iran? Why have I come here? You’re my husband. I’ve come with you. Where shall I go alone? What shall I say? No, I’ll stay; even if you go to hell I will be with you.” Meanwhile, the organization had taken all of our money and gold. Anyway, we gave the money and two days later they told us that we would go to Iraq, albeit with new passports.
Batoul Soltani:
When we arrived in Iraq we were taken to the smartest hotels the organization was using as its bases and there was not the least sign of war there. We didn’t feel the war because Saddam had given the best hotels to the organization and the organization was using one of them as a school, one as a place for taking care of children, and one as a residential place for couples to see each other. At that time, organizational marriages were on the rise for four to five years. Of course the organization would not allow raw or junior recruits but those who were at least commanders of divisions to marry women. Everything was obligatory there: organizational obligations, organizational do’s and don’ts, organizational rules, and relations that would become tense and tenser every minute.
Nasrin Ebrahimi :
I’m Nasrin Ebrahimi. I’m 31 years old. I live in Switzerland. I’ve been living here for about eight years. Before that, I lost ten years that could have been the best years of my life in Iraq, in the Mojahedin-e-Khalq, an organization which was very easy to enter and very difficult to exit from.
As for Camp Ashraf, it’s very painful to talk about it. It’s like to be in the Guantanamo Bay detention camp for years and experience the sufferings and then talk about it.
Well, at that time he completely separated men and women from each other. We women moved to another center. We would never see a man, unless in our only street called 100 Street where we would see a man in the distance or in meetings held by Masoud Rajavi or Maryam Rajavi but we were not allowed to see them. They would sit on one side and we on the other side. If we looked at them we had to explain why. That’s why when walking we had to hold our head up or down. Our eyes shouldn’t meet a comrade’s eyes.
Zahra:
Suddenly, they said that Iran’s government had accepted UNSC resolution 598. Soon after, we had to prepare ourselves. Many forces joined us from abroad. What for? We wanted to go to Tehran. “Yesterday Mehran, today Tehran” became their slogan.
Not only weren’t the women prepared but also the men were not as well. They pushed all in Operation Eternal Light by force.
In Operation Eternal Light I was hit in the arm by shrapnel and since it was wrapped up badly – they said that you would see the doctor in ten minutes and he would unwrap it – my arm went blue because it wasn’t treated on time. After the operation, the doctor came up to me and said, “Look! They had sent a letter about you saying that this arm had to be cut off and we had to have your signature. I feel sorry for you who are a young woman to have your arm cut. It’s no problem if you were a man. But you are a young woman. I don’t know why they think so. You’ll have children in the future and have to carry your children in your arms. With one arm, it’s difficult for you. I didn’t cut your arm. I did the operation on my own initiative. You have only a three-day chance of recovery.”
It used to be much bigger. In an operation in Frankfurt they made it small. They performed a skin transplant as big as this and here they had sewn this way to here. My arm was always like this.
They threw us into Operation Eternal Light by force. They forced us to get divorced. Masoud used to say, “You who got stuck behind Charzevar Canyon, you woman or you man what were you thinking about? When you got stuck in the canyon you were thinking about the opposite sex. You as a woman were thinking about your husband and you as a man were thinking about your wife. That’s why you couldn’t advance towards Tehran. Now you must divorce all including your children.”
Masoud Rajavi:
I’m well aware. You brothers, what were you thinking about? Huh? Everyone must know well. And you sisters? We asked around hundreds – am I right, Maryam? – those who were in Operation Eternal Light in person and listened to them. Let’s remove all the obstacles in the way. This is a lesson of union and unity.
Batoul:
It was a very difficult process for me as it was a mental torture for me. I was with a group of people who kept talking about divorce and hate children and mutual life. It was not accepted for them to have children. It was a sin for the people I was with to sleep with their spouses. Divorces had begun from the upper echelons of the organization. The officials were divorcing their wives according to the plan formulated by Masoud Rajavi. The first one was Maryam Rajavi who had divorced Mehdi Abrishamchi and married Masoud Rajavi. They were expanding the scope of the plan into other women and men started from the leadership to other members.
Mehdi Abrishamchi:
In the name of God; in the name of Masoud and Maryam.
As an MEK member, as a little child of the MEK I have nothing to say except to congratulate Masoud and Maryam with all my heart and soul and that I’m brimming with ideological joys.
Batoul:
Suddenly, I saw my commander come up to me and said, “Well, this sister has charge of you.” I asked, “Sister, won’t my husband come here to see his baby?” She answered, “No, your husband has got divorced and he won’t come here. Don’t ask about him anymore.” Close to tear, I asked, “Divorce?! So what about me? So what about this baby? Why …?” She interrupted me, “No why, in the army you cannot ask why.”
Nasrin:
Is it possible not to think about love?! There used to be sessions in which we talked about love, affection, husband, wife, the past, which were called “era and weekly ablution”. When people talked you could realized that they thought about those issues. Personally speaking, I had a hair clip my boyfriend had given me in Iran. I had kept the hair clip and I held it dear. One may say that a hair clip is no big deal. But for me it was so valuable that even when I was to flee Ashraf Camp the first thing I took with me was the hair clip he had given to me. And when I got Tifu, he was the first person I called.
Masoud Rajavi:
This Maryam I’m writing equals the first in charge, which equals a full payment criterion, which in turn means 100 on 100. We chose her as a role model for you, which equals the connecting ring between you and what I want.
Batoul:
At this point, Maryam Rajavi would tell us, “You women, after divorcing your husbands, you should marry Masoud.” And we always considered her words as an ideological thesis. I could never imagine that her words would be put into practice some day and I would have to sleep with Masoud. I really thought that it was merely an ideological discourse. As for Maryam Rajavi herself, I couldn’t imagine that Masoud had sexual relationship with her. I couldn’t imagine it.
Maryam Rajavi:
Let me draw it in this diagram. Look, this is a diagram for every individual with gender on top and individuality immediately below it. I’ll explain it. Immediately individuality. This diagram has a dividing line with gender on one side and individuality on the other side. Here is the highest point of individuality. Below it there are all personal problems lined up.
Nasrin:
Maryam Rajavi used to hold many meetings for us, very long meetings. She would hold many meetings especially for women. She said, “We women all have only one husband who is Masoud Rajavi.” She even said, “You have the most handsome and the best man in the world. So what’s wrong with you?”
Maryam Rajavi:
… Here, the highest value is melting into the leadership, which means a perfect union whose fruit is getting rid of all personal shackles.
Nasrin:
She said, “Since women have mostly emotional problems you consider him as your husband.” But her words cut no ice with me. Not at all. For me it was just a talk. That’s all.
Batoul:
One day a ceremony was held – it was the wedding ceremony – in which Masoud Rajavi performed the marriage ceremony and the women stood up one by one saying, “Yes.” Before the ceremony, they had insisted that everybody should be clean and tidy and take a bath etc. Their insistence on being clean aroused my suspicions that what all that insistence was for; that why we had to have a clean, hairless body. “Are we supposed to strip naked in front of someone,” I ask myself. She even told us to perform our ablutions and be clean and tidy and wear our best, new clothes and clean socks. Before the ceremony once more they told us, “Anybody who is not clean enough or haven’t taken a bath or need to wash herself go and make herself clean.”
We were in Badizadegn Camp when informed of a pool meeting exclusively for the leadership council. At that time, I was a member of the leadership council. We attended the meeting and listen to music playing there. All of a sudden, Masoud and Maryam entered the hall. Masoud was in leisure clothes; he was wearing a T-shirt and Maryam had a soft, pink, silk dress on with her hair brushed. They entered the hall. Maryam stood behind Masoud. She didn’t sit down beside him. Masoud took a look at us and said, “Maryam, why have you brought them here again?” and that moment I realized that it was not something new. Maryam answered, “They’ve come here to unite you. They are your wives. They’ve tied the knot with you and want to be united with you. And these empty seats are for them.” I asked, “Sister Maryam, why don’t you take a seat there?” She said, “This is for each and every Masoud’s wife.” I wondered what was going on. When she said so I found some women with their headscarves fallen on the ground or some with no headscarves at all. I wondered why they had taken off their headscarves in front of brother Masoud. I told one of them about her headscarf. She said, “No problem! Who’s my nearest man than Masoud? “I love him so much. There’s no one nearer to me than Masoud.” I can remember all these scenes clearly.
Zahra:
One of the women stood at the podium saying, “Ladies, feel at home. Take your headscarves off. You dance for the leader.” I said, “We dance for the leader?! I used to be reproach for letting my hair out of the headscarf. Now you tell me to take my headscarf off and put on those clothes?!” That very woman, Batouleh Rajaee told me, “Haven’t you got divorced? You gave your hand to Masoud via Maryam. Now put Maryam aside and give your hand directly to Masoud. Now you must do your best dance for him.”
Nasrin:
They would give us freedom on purpose and encourage us to dance with music when played. The commanders would say, “Be at home! He’s your brother. Don’t you call him brother? Show your love and affection towards him.” They even liked us to kiss him. They prompted us to kiss Rajavi.
Zahra:
At first, we danced in uniform. Just two days later, that is the day we were supposed to dance – no one knew – they brought us silk fabrics. Now we had to see how those fabrics would go with our faces. Could the color brighten the complexion? After all, I was one of the candidates for dancing.
Batoul:
I suddenly realized that the senior members of the leadership council began to take their dresses off. When about 25 senior members of the leadership council began to take off their dresses and stripped naked other women who were of my rank followed suit and Maryam Rajavi and others were encouraging, “This is your pool. You should dive into it. Common on! Get undressed in front of the leader.” The meeting went on this way; for about three to four hours they were dancing. Masoud, though at first pretended to be discontent over our presence there, sat comfortably eyeing up us all.
Nasrin:
I can remember that Masoud Rajavi was staring me in the eyes. I didn’t know what I had to do at that moment. I began looking at somewhere else. That’s while we were told to say something to Masoud when he would look at us; something like “I love you” and to make a fuss over him. “The brother doesn’t look everybody in the eye.”
Rajavi would choose those who were pretty. That was overt. One could see that. It was not covert. He wasn’t even-handed with all. He would really handpick certain women, chat with them in front of other women. He would talk to them to go to him.
Batoul:
Masoud would hold the so-called “liberty dance session” with the help of Maryam reasoning that, “When you see Masoud and another woman making love it will cleanse you of jealousy. It will prevent you from being jealous for other women.”
Nasrin:
Rajavi would make us a gift of underclothes and towels. Maryam Rajavi used to stand beside him. We would pass by … At that moment you had to show how much you loved your leader or husband as Marayam Rajavi used to say. He would blow into our faces making some gestures. He would stare somebody in the eye. He did such things. Most of the time, he himself gave us underclothes or things like combs, towels and suchlike. Sometimes, Maryam Rajavi would rub them to her face and then gave them to Masoud and he gave them to us.
To get closer, he would come to our dormitories. We women were located in three separate units. To stimulate us he would say, “I’m going to unit 14 to stay the night there.” And commanders would make us ask him to come to our dormitories and be with us. “Oh brother, come and sleep with us for God’s sake. Don’t go there.” It was a childish thing; the scene was disgusting for a viewer from outside. But since we were involved in it we couldn’t realize its ugliness.
Zahra:
This was his old slogan that women were open to exploitation but we were exploited most in the organization. “You are women?”, “Yes”. “The same as men?”, “Yes”. “Men clean tanks, why don’t you women?” They sexually exploited us. We women were subjected to the worst kinds of exploitation under the name of giving women independence. They claimed that they were after equality for women and whatever they were deprived of through history.
Maryam Rajavi:
Yes, we believe that women and men are equal. We even believe that an exploited woman has more potential than an exploited man to progress and can achieved competence like him, but not haphazardly.
Batoul:
When I went to the place where Masoud’s bedroom was located in … it was a building in Badizadegan Camp the first time I went there. It was in the leadership’s residence. There was a room which was Masoud’s bedroom with a double bed in it and everything was ready for … but Masoud was not there then. I was there waiting from 8 p.m. until midnight when Masoud came. It was the first night we were together until morning. That night I saw another exploitative relations and an act that I could never imagine Masoud Rajavi doing.
It used to be done in Parsian Camp until the fall of Saddam. We would even go for a swim with Masoud and do anything. After the fall of Saddam, Parsian Camp closed down. I couldn’t imagine that such a thing would continue. I was stunned thinking that such a huge number of people were killed in the war … He made me sick. That was one thing. The other thing was that I always thought that he only had such a relationship with me. I never knew that he had the same relationship with many other women. It was after the fall of Saddam that I was informed by some women that he had had the same relationship with other women.
When Maryam Rajavi called me to see Masoud at night it didn’t mean that I was in love with Masoud waiting with bated breath to see him or that I had an overwhelming urge since I had no husband. No, that was not the case. The only reason was that I couldn’t stand up against the organization when I was there. I knew that if I had fought them they would have done away with me. I couldn’t fight with them. I thought, “If I say no to them, what would happen next? Would they leave me alone? No. and this is not a subject to be discussed in the leadership council.” Then it would come to my mind that such and such a member of the leadership council who had disappeared mysteriously might have been killed or whatever. Later on, I had no doubt that they would kill anyone who disagrees with them in the leadership council. So I decided to let him do whatever he wanted waiting for a moment to save my body. There was some Naghmeh Hakami. She wasn’t ill or whatsoever. She died all of a sudden when there was a talk about melting in the ideological leader those years. There was another woman called Seddigheh. She died too. We wondered why she died since she was healthy. Zahrah Fayyaz died. Just like that. Zahra Nouri died. At that moment I thought, “Suppose Batoul Soltani died.” By dying I mean being martyred. They even exploited corpses.
Well, he plays God. I could see Rajavi’s true colors when I looked in astonishment at what he was doing. I wondered why marriage and sexual satisfaction was banned for all men while he exempted himself. The moments I was looking at him he found me bewildered and said, “You eyeballs are sexy.”
Nasrin:
It appears that Masoud Rajavi slept every night with numerous women – at least as far as I know- with numerous, different women. On average, I would go every month or every two months to his bedroom.
It makes me sick when I hear the phrase “pure Mujahedins’ relations” because we saw the reality, because we know how a blatant lie it is. There are no pure relations in the organization. I haven’t seen relations so filthy as in the organization than in everywhere else. Isolated communities always have the filthiest relations. The more isolated, the filthier.
I attempted suicide because I had lost my hope completely. I made many pleas to them to let me leave the organization but they didn’t accept. I left no stone unturned but it was not possible. That’s why I attempted suicide. I liked to die because I couldn’t stand anymore. It was a difficult moment and my whole body was trembling when I was doing it. When I took the knife … I still can hear the sound of the knife when I put it on my wrist. I put the knife on my wrist and cut it and drop the knife. I had tied on an apron. My apron became soaked with blood. Because I was frightened and had lost a lot of blood I felt faint and fell on the ground. I had locked the door … I was terribly disappointed. I had locked the door but I didn’t know that the place I was in had another door from the street’s side and that door was open so a sister – as they used to say – called Shamsi came in and as she saw the scene she began screaming and others came in and took me to hospital by car.
After I survived the attempted suicide I felt as if I had been given another hope and had a new lease of life. I guess that I fled less than 20 days after my suicide. I fled immediately.
Batoul:
To be honest, the thought of escaping struck me the day I saw Masoud doing that in 2000. Before that, I thought that Masoud wouldn’t do that – even if he was under pressure from Maryam Rajavi, as he claimed – but that night, that is the first night I went to Masoud’s bedroom and saw that the organization was not the matter and what mattered was sex and nothing else. I made my final decision to escape there.
It was November 2006. The next month that is in December I feigned a headache and illness and slept in the dormitory and didn’t go to work saying that I felt sick and had a headache etc. and then I could make my escape. I threw caution to the wind saying that either I would be caught, taken and killed or I would escape sound and safe. I couldn’t stand being there anymore.
Right now, he’s paying the hush money to those who have left him. Therefore, it’s so important for him to protect his reputation that he’s prepared to pay the highest price to keep his former people silent. I’ve seen many of them over these recent years and I know.
– By the way, what happened that we accepted what they said? The divorce thing, the separation from our children …
– Operation Eternal Light while untrained …
– Yes.
– I think the main reason was that we were cut off from the outer world. We were not in touch with our families, friends. We were not even allowed to love each other. We had learned to accept what the organization would say without objection. But poor are those who are still there.
– That’s right. I’m thinking about that because when I told Hajar, that is Kobra Tahmasebi that I would like to experience the life outside here she asked me, “Do you know what awaits you?” I answered, “I don’t care what awaits me. I want to go outside to know how much the sexuality you’re talking about is true. I want to check whatever you talk about. I want to see if a woman including myself goes out of here will pursue a simple life or … you say that I’ll be lead astray. You know, when I left there I realized that no, it depends on how one wants to live.
– How are you?
– Are you fine?
– Yes, thanks.
– Have you brought tea?
Zahra:
I’ve got two children; one daughter, one son. I’m happy and I try to have the best for my children and give them the best not because they are my children but because I want them to learn to be honest. I teach my children to draw the line at any oppression; I teach my children to be as they are before they want to be for others. Every life has its ups and downs but I’m content with them all.
Nasrin:
Since I left the MEK I haven’t just been pursuing my personal life. The guys loom large in my mind; those who we know how got stuck there and we know that none of them wants to stay there. That’s why we have been trying to help them half of our lives. We’ve talked to members of Parliament in Europe and influential figures to show them the real face of the organization.
They appear good, happy and beautiful in public but they are rotten to the core. Only we who were there know their real characters and therefore hate their appearances. It makes us sick when Maryam Rajavi delivers a speech. It taxes our patience to listen to her speech word by words because we know that she’s lying through her teeth. It makes us puke when she talks about women.
There are some people in Auvers-sur-Oise, Paris, France which is the cradle of freedom, who haven’t take one step outside Auvers-sur-Oise for 25 years and the only thing they do is cooking. There are such women here. How can we stand Maraym Rajavi when she appears in public putting on beautiful dresses and uttering beautiful words?! It’s really disgusting for us when we know the other side of the story. We told the French, “You whose country is the cradle of freedom host a cult whose members haven’t come outside this castle, this very small place for 25 years and you don’t know what’s going on inside.”
Batoul:
That’s right that I have planned for my life and I’m living my own life and work or trying to earn good income to overcome my economic problems but as part of my job or what motivates me and I’d like to have it on my list of priorities and pursue it is that I want to be the voice of those friends and help them know the realities about the leader of the MEK, Masoud Rajavi who betrayed the trust of each and every member of the organization including my own husband, a person who himself may not know what has happened to him or that Rajavi has betrayed him but it’s my duty and the duty of those like me who left the organization. I’ve designed a website and try to make my voice and other women’s heard by the members or the public and let them know what we have gone through.
The French Foreign Ministry has strongly condemned the anti-Iran terrorist Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO) for its acts of violence.
On Friday, French Foreign Ministry spokesman Romain Nadal criticized the MKO for “its violent and non-democratic inspirations,” its “cult nature,” and its “intense campaign of influence and disinformation.”
Paris also warned about the growing lobbying and disinformation campaign being conducted by the MKO.
France hosted the MKO for many years until the European Union declared it a terrorist organization which eventually forced Paris to ban the group.
However, the EU removed the MKO from its list of terrorist organizations in 2009 after the group filed a petition against the blacklisting in 2008.
The MKO fled Iran in 1986 for Iraq, where it received the backing of Iraq’s executed dictator Saddam Hussein and set up a camp near the Iranian border. The terrorist group also sided with Saddam during Iraq’s eight-year imposed war on the Islamic Republic in 1980-1988.
Out of the nearly 17,000 Iranians killed in terrorist attacks since the victory of Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution, 12,000 have fallen victim to the acts of terror carried out by the MKO.
In December 2011, the United Nations and Baghdad agreed to relocate some 3,000 MKO members from Camp New Iraq, formerly known as Camp Ashraf, to the former US-held Camp.
Download France condemns anti-Iran MKO terrorists
Download France condemns anti-Iran MKO terrorists
An Iraqi source revealed that a large number of victims in a recent attack on the camp of the terrorist Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO) were killed by their own colleagues, namely members of the terrorist group.
A well-informed Iraqi source, which spoke on the condition of anonymity, told Tasnim on Wednesday that the released video of recent clashes in the MKO’s training camp reveal that “most of the dead were actually killed by their own fellows at the camp.”
The terrorist group said that dozens of its members died in a raid on September 1 and blamed the Iraqi security forces for the deaths. Iraqi officials, however, strongly denied the allegations, and said that a preliminary investigation suggested they died as a result of infighting among camp residents.
“In the released video of the recent clashes in Camp Ashraf, footages of the victims of the group showed that most of them had been killed execution style,” the source added.
“Given its track record in liquidating certain members, MKO took advantage of the incident for more bloodshed and killed its members for propaganda purposes and to play the victim,” the source said.
On September 1, 52 MKO terrorists, including some top commanders, were killed in clashes in MKO’s Camp Ashraf in Iraq’s eastern Diyala province.
The MKO is considered a terrorist group since it has been behind many cases of bombings and assassinations against the Iranian officials and people.
The group also fought alongside the regime of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein during the 8-year Iraqi-imposed war on Iran in 1980s.
January 27, 2013 will probably be remembered decades from now as a new starting point in relations between Argentina and Iran.
That date the governments of both countries decided to turn the page of a history besmirched by accusations that have not served to find the truth about the 1994 bombing of the AMIA Jewish community center in the Argentine capital city.
The Memorandum of Understanding signed between Buenos Aires and Tehran earlier this year has been praised by many here, from ruling party MPs and experts to social, political and religious leaders who have long-battled foreign interests’ interference in the investigation.
But the MoU has also found strong resistance that has hindered efforts to know the one thing that matters: Who is truly responsible for the killing of 85 Argentineans?
AMIA special prosecutor Alberto Nisman blamed Tehran and issued arrest warrants for top Iranian officials in 2006. But what did he base his certainty on?
According to the recently released arrest warrant document, Nisman solely listened to the testimonies of members of Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization, which is an anti-Iran terrorist group.
The MKO-with a history of bombings in Iran and which has been paradoxically removed from the US State Department’s list of terrorist groups- seems to have convinced Nisman regarding AMIA center killing.
Did they convince him? Or are there other players in this case?
The MoU sets the creation of a Truth Commission and will allow Argentine judicial officials to question the alleged suspects targeted by prosecutor Nisman. The MoU has been approved by both the Congress of Argentina and the government of Iran.
Despite the information revealed by the intelligence document, a 500-page report released by Argentine prosecutor Alberto Nisman claims that Iran is increasing its influence in Latin America. This has provided pro-Israel lobbies with a new pretext to continue their condemnation of the AMIA Memorandum.
Download Document proves role of MKO in AMIA case accusations
Seventy-one members of Mujahedin Khalq Organization have been relocated to Albania.
The resettlement is due to protracted efforts by the UN to move the around 3,000 members of the former rebel People’s Mujahedeen at Camp Liberty, on Baghdad’s outskirts, outside of Iraq.
The Video File is one of several reports published by Albanian Media on the resettlement of these 71 MEK members in Tirana Refugee Camp .
The MKO – listed as a terrorist organization by much of the international community – fled Iran in 1986 to Iraq, where it received the support of Iraq’s executed dictator Saddam Hussein, and set up its camp near the Iranian border.”
“What I saw and endured at the MKO’s Camp Ashraf is opposite of what they say here in Europe. There is no freedom for women. They cannot talk to men, wear make-up and are even forced to have abortions… I wanted to leave there for a long time and finally escaped,” said Nasrin Ebrahimi, a former MKO member, in the French capital, Paris.
The MKO – listed as a terrorist organization by much of the international community – fled Iran in 1986 to Iraq, where it received the support of Iraq’s executed dictator Saddam Hussein, and set up its camp near the Iranian border.
The Iraqi government later transferred MKO terrorists from Camp New Iraq, formerly known as Camp Ashraf, to Camp Liberty, located at the north of Baghdad. They are currently being relocated to other countries such as Albania.
The group is notorious for carrying out numerous acts of terror against Iranian civilians and officials and the massacre of Iraqi Kurds in the country’s north under Saddam.
Edward Termado, another former member, said, “We did not have [access to] internet, we did not have [access to] news, news was under their control. When I came out [of Camp], I did not know what a mobile is… in 2001.”
He added that the MKO leaders “do not understand democracy… they are dictators, and I call her [an MKO leader Maryam Rajavi] small dictator.”
Jahangir Shadanlou, a social worker for former MKO members, said executed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein paid the terrorist group USD 30 million dollars a month to attack and spy on Iran.
“They made a lot of foreign investments with this money. The MKO is a group of Fifth columnists, which has spied and fought against the Iranian people in hopes that one day foreign powers would reward them by putting them in charge of Iran,” Shadanlou added.
In the past few years, MKO and its sympathizers have invested considerable financial resources to bring high-profile speakers to rallies and gatherings in the United States and Europe to back the terrorist group.
In 2012, the US Treasury Department investigated former Pennsylvania Governor Edward Rendell for receiving USD 150,000 or 160,000 from the MKO in return for his speeches in favor of the group.
Rendell was among a group of former US officials who accepted money to deliver speeches calling for the removal of the MKO from the State Department’s list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations.
The group included former FBI Director Louis Freeh; two former CIA directors James Woolsey and Porter Goss; former attorney general Michael B. Mukasey; President George W. Bush’s first homeland security secretary Tom Ridge and President Obama’s first national security adviser Gen. James L. Jones as well as prominent Republicans, including Rudolph W. Giuliani, the former New York City mayor, and Democrats like Howard Dean, a former governor of Vermont.
According to a report by New York Times, these officials received fees of USD 10,000 to USD 50,000 for speeches on behalf of the Iranian group.
The MKO was taken off the State Department’s blacklist on September 28, 2012.
Hassan says there are ways to help prevent recruitment to cults or extremist groups.![Masoud Banisadr, a former Iranian MEK [Mojahedin-e-Khalq] cult member](https://st.nejatngo.org/Image/Persons/Bani_Sadr/Banisadr_Masud_4_jpg.jpg)
“Masoud Banisadr, a former Iranian MEK [Mojahedin-e-Khalq] cult member came up with this idea – he said after a civil trial, there should be a sharia trial. An Islamic cleric should come in and basically try the person and say, ‘You’re going to hell, because the Koran explicitly states you should not harm women, children, elderly,’” Hassan said. “And I’d like to see ex-jihadists come and give lectures on campuses, at mosques and such. I’d like to see more people taught about how social influence works.”
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