Social psychologist Alexandra Stein, Ph.D., specializes in cult phenomena and teaches courses at several universities in London. Her article, “Mothers in Cults: The Influence of Cults on the Relationship of Mothers to Their Children,” examines the impact of the cult experience on the mother-child bond. Dr. Stein notes that this bond is controlled in multiple ways:

mothers are often discouraged from having a special bond with the child;

mothers may spend very little or no time with their children because of the demands of the cult;

the child is physically taken from the parents; and

mothers’ behavior toward their children is carefully monitored.

Stein writes: “Doing ‘the right thing’ (for God, the Revolution, one’s personal growth, whatever) becomes synonymous with obeying the leader. To go against the leader’s directive is to go against God himself. The mother becomes psychologically trapped: she wants to be a good person, but the definition of goodness resides entirely in the cult’s domain.

In 1991 around one thousand children of Mujahed couples were separated from their parents and smuggled to Europe and North America under the order of Massoud Rajavi. More than 3 hundred of the smuggled children were later, at the ages of 14 to 19, sent back to Iraq to receive military trainings at the MEK camps.

Amir Yaghmai is one of these former child soldiers who managed to leave the MEK fighting the group leaders as well as his own leader.

He wrote and published his memoirs of being born in a Mujahed family, grown up at camp Ashraf until his 5 year-old age, smuggled to Sweden, recruited as a child soldier at the age of fourteen.

His mother is still in the MEK’s cult-like structure. She resides in the group’s headquarters in Albania. She denies that Amir is her son because as Dr. Stein expresses, she is psychologically trapped; She wants to be a good person by the definition of goodness that Massoud and Rajavi define for MEK members.

At his forties, Amir Yaghmai is a father of two girls but he is still impressed by the behaviors of his brainwashed mother trying to shed light on the nature of the MEK as a destructive terrorist cult. Here is a short memoir Amir has recently published on his X account sharing a photo of him and his mother:

1994. I am around 10 years old.

My mother is in Sweden – on behalf of the organization.

For a few days she lives in their office.

On the last day we meet in Guldfynd in the center of Kista.

She asks what I wish for.

I choose a bronze Thor’s hammer.

She buys it for me.

I think it is a farewell between mother and son.

At the last moment, just before she says goodbye, she says:

“Amir, I didn’t come here to see you.

I am here on behalf of the organization.”

The world stops.

Everything goes in slow motion.

I remember every sensory impression –

how my breath evaporates in the chilly air,

exactly where I am standing on the uphill slope,

and above all how my heart breaks.

I wanted to feel needed.

After several years of absence, I thought she came for me.

But instead I was told that I was worth less than the organization.

A feeling that was confirmed over and over again during my upbringing.

Mazda Parsi

The post To his mom, he was worth less than the MEK appeared first on Nejat Society.

On the eve of the American invasion to Iraq in 2003, Massoud Rajavi, called all members of Camp Ashraf to gather in a large hall. “He began by describing the sensitive political situation at the time and the serious threat posed by the United States against Iraq,” Amir Yaghmai writes in his memoirs. “He then said that in these circumstances, MEK members must maintain their focus and no longer be involved in the issue of defection or “cutting off” of individuals. Therefore, each member must sign a new contract in which he undertakes not to ask for leaving the group for the next two years.”

Amir was shocked. He had wanted to leave the MEK for years but hadn’t been able to. “Each time I had been forced to sign different contracts for different reasons,” he writes. However, this time, the matter was more serious than ever. Massoud Rajavi was officially ordering members to stay in the isolated Camp Ashraf. “You were supposed to keep your mouth shut for two years, not to express a single doubt.”

Amir told himself: “I won’t sign! They can do whatever they want! Take me to a confession session, quarantine me for two years, send me to Abu Ghraib prison, or hand me over to the regime! It doesn’t matter! I can’t take it anymore.”

This was also his response to his commander when he asked Amir to sign the contract. Consequently, Amir entered a traumatic cycle of bribery, threat, intimidation and humiliation.

First, the MEK leaders tried to bribe him promising to allow him to have a home in Baghdad, and to get married –the possessions that are forbidden for MEK members. This was a promise made by Maryam Rajavi, Massoud Rajavi’s third wife but it was presented to Amir by Mohammad, the son of Massoud who was also a child soldier and a friend of Amir’s.

Nevertheless, Amir replied Mohammad Rajavi: “I want to be free, to go for a walk without a barbed wire or a guard tower in front of me. To love. To sing. To wear the clothes I want. To see the world. I won’t go and regret the unseen. Not just to get married.”

When the first tactic did not work for the cult commanders, they tried to threat Amir and pressure him by intermediating an emotional tool: his mother.

“In a large room, around an oval-shaped conference table, the high-ranking commanders of the MEK were sitting: Ahmad Waqef, Mahmoud Ata’i, Fereshteh Yeganeh, Mahvash Sepehri, Mohammad Rajavi… and my mother!”, he pens.

Nasrin (Mahvash Sepehri) told Amir: “When you joined, your mother guaranteed that you would never leave us. Now she has to come with you, go into quarantine for two years, and then be sent to Iran with you. Then, she has to find a way back—if she gets arrested, she has to commit suicide.”

Amir shouted at them shouted: “You have no right to make my mother the victim of my decision! I am responsible for my own choices. I am twenty years old!”

Fereshteh Yeganeh opened a folder and showed him. His mother’s signature, and all the oaths he had been forced to sign over the years. Amir protested that all of this was by force. “If my mother is leaving with me, I am not leaving at all!” Amir told them. Nasrin replied emotionlessly, “If you want to stay, you have to defend your choice. We are not convinced yet.”

They kept Amir and his mother in the room for over 9 hours, until the dawn. During the entire hours, the commanders were insulting Amir, calling him “traitor”, spitting on his face and his mother was watching him with weeping eyes.

The next morning, Amir had been coerced to sign a new contract. “I signed a new contract which had nothing for me except humiliation,” he writes.

This is how he describes that night: “The night at Camp Ashraf, when just because I wanted to leave the organization, they made me go under the most severe stress, threat, insult, and humiliation. Worst of all, my mother, who was an old member, was also tortured before my eyes in order to force me to confess that I was wrong. Seeing tears and sufferings of my mother was one of the most painful moments of my life.”

The post The darkest night for an MEK child soldier appeared first on Nejat Society.

Amir Yaghmai, a former child soldier of the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK), was one of the first children of this group who spoke out to expose its leaders. 5 years ago, when he went to meet his mother in front of the MEK’s camp in Albania, he was not allowed by the group leaders to meet her. Then, he started publicly criticizing the leaders of the MEK, and in return, he was accused and defamed by the MEK that claimed that Amir is the agent of the Iranian Intelligence.

Amir is one of the 1000 children of the MEK, whose Mujahed parents offered them to Masoud Rajavi when they were children. He is one of the 4 children who participated in the documentary “Children of Camp Ashraf” directed by Sara Moin, and after the release of this documentary, he was hated by the MEK more than before.
In response to the attacks of the MEK’s insults, he has increased his activity on social networks more than before. He, who is always accused of being a mercenary for the government of Iran by supporters of MEK, addressed them in one of his posts on the X social network and promised that he would share more stories from his past time inside the MEK in response to each accusation.

Thus, his account on X is full of photos and videos that show the painful history of helpless children of the MEK in its brainwashing system. Some of these children, such as Amir, have been involved in the issues of this terrorist cult since birth or at a very young age. Some of these children were able to distance themselves from the group, some have managed to leave it, and some are still trapped by it.

Amir is a child of Iranian parents, but he was born in France. He is the son of Ismail Vafa Yaghmai, a former member of the MEK. His father, who was once a member of the National Council of Resistance and a poet of the group, managed to leave the organization when Amir was young. His mother Akram Habib Khani, who is still trapped behind the bars of the Cult of Rajavi, has taken strong positions against Amir and his father in recent years under organizational pressure.

After enduring a long and difficult process, Amir Yaghmai managed to leave Camp Ashraf and join the temporary camp of the American army in the neighborhood of Camp Ashraf, and after 8 years of being a child soldier and living in the modern slavery structure of the MEK, he made his way to the free world. In 2005, he managed to return to Sweden.

This article is supposed to republish some of the photos and notes shared by Amir Yaghmai in his account on the X social network, in the order of the time of occurrence, from his childhood to today. Your attention is drawn to a few images from the story of a child who was a victim of the totalitarian and extremist cult of Masoud and Maryam Rajavi at least until he was 19 years old, translated by Nejat Society:

Amir Yaghmaei and his mother Akram Habibkhani

Amir Yaghmai’s post on X, May 5th, 2024

5 years ago, I and one of my friends went to Ashraf 3 in Albania, hoping to meet our mothers. At that time, I had not contacted my mother for about 16 years, and my only intention was to inform my mother that she would have a grandchild in a few months. MEK responded negatively to the meeting request.

Amir Yaghmaei in his childhood

His post on X, May 28th, 2024
This is a photo of me when I was 5 years old in the area of “Skan” or MEK’s housing complex in Badiezadegan camp near Baghdad. I was with my family one day a week and then I would go back to the overnight boarding house. We were used to missing our parents. Sometimes I think I dreamed everything…

His post on X, June 1st, 2024
The first year after I left Iraq and came to Sweden. Wherever I went, the photo of the two “ideological prophets” of the MEK was above my head.

Amir Yaghmaei in Sweden

His post on X, May 9th, 2024
Here at the base of the Zayerian in the suburb of Paris and me at the front, at the age of 4. We are singing the songs of the MEK. The brainwashing of MEK children started from this age. Pay attention to the letter board “A is like a revolution, G is like a gun, W is like war, K is like Khomeini…

the base of the Zayerian in the suburb of Paris

His post on X, May 10th, 2024
About 1 year before we were sent back to Iraq, I met Maryam Rajavi during a trip to Paris. She gave me a gold necklace. The necklace that she gave to all the children of MEK. 1 year after that, I left for the hell in Iraq and the exit doors were completely closed on me.

Amir Yaghmaei and Maryam Rajavi

His post on X, May 10th, 2024
A photo of “Auver”, the main base of MEK in the suburbs of Paris in 1998. The underage children in this photo were all sent to Iraq and Camp Ashraf. They were brought from Germany during the school holidays to be brainwashed and recruited by the MEK. I’m in the middle with a red shirt.

A photo of Auver

His post on X, May 11th, 2024
The MEK claims that there were on child soldiers in the group. This is a picture of me at the age of 14 in a military uniform in Camp Ashraf. After 1 year of active brainwashing by the authorities, I was transferred from Paris to Iraq in 1998, and this captivity lasted for 6 years until the arrival of the American forces.

Amir Yaghmaei at Camp Ashraf-Iraq

His post on X, May 31st, 2024
This is at Alavi’s border camp. I was transferred here from Faeze camp because I was a “non-organizational” person and did not follow the MEK’s rules. I had told myself that now that I was forced to be a prisoner here, I will be “childish” and I will not let them steal this time from me. I am the second person standing from the right in a white T-shirt.

MEK child soldiers

His post on X, June 7th, 2024
I am in Camp Ashraf. Smiles do not always express the truth.

Amir Yaghmaei

His post on X, May 16th, 2024
Dr. Jones, colonel dentist who took me under his wing after I was released from Ashraf prison and taught me the lesson of humanity. He trained me as his assistant in the dental office and paid me, he provided me with connection with the Swedish embassy and helped me in all the steps forward.

Dr. Jones, colonel dentist

His post on X, May 12th, 2024
Birthday celebrations were forbidden in MEK. Sometimes people who secretly have a friendly relationship with each other put a secret gift such as syrup powder or a handwritten greeting in each other’s closet. If it was revealed, you would be severely punished. But in the American camp, that “foreign imperialist” force, celebrated my birthday after 6 years.

Amir Yaghmaei’s birthday at the American Camp

His post on X, May 26th, 2024
In the end, it was the American forces who took me by helicopter to the Baghdad airport on October 2, 2005, to take me to the Swedish embassy in Jordan and finally return to Sweden. At the moment of the helicopter flight, the female colonel told the pilot to fly one round over Ashraf so that Amir would see this hell for the last time.

Yaghmaei at Camp TIPF

His post on X, June 6th, 2024
One of my first photos after returning to Sweden after 8 years in the hell of Iraq. I fell behind in everything, in education, social relations, even how to buy goods and train tickets. Someone told me, “Your fate is not strange, your parents were Mujahids and you ended up with Ashraf”. Does that mean we didn’t have the right to choose?

Amir Yaghmaei in Sweden

His post on X, May 6th, 2024
When I tried to meet my mother, the supporters of the MEK mockingly said, “A 40-year-old child is looking for his mother”, not knowing that in a free society, especially in Iranian culture, children have a relationship with their parents until the end of their lives. But my biggest regret is that my daughters have not seen their grandmother until today.

Amir Yaghmaei

Today, Amir Yaghmai is an environmental scientist and lives in Sweden. He is married and has two children. He believes that authenticity is with truth. Although in the middle of his content, he introduces himself as an atheist and against the government of Iran, he is well aware that the truth of the MEK must be acknowledged, and efforts must be made to end violation of human rights of the members of this violent cult.

By Mazda Parsi

The post Amir Yaghmai: Didn’t we have the right to choose? appeared first on Nejat Society.

According to Yaghmai, it took the film makers about six years to make the film. He states that the documents related to the budget for making the film and the necessary legal permits are available in Sweden.

Amir Vafa Yaghmai, is in his early forties, married and has two children. He is an environmental expert and a citizen of Sweden. Among the 4 people whose lives have been documented in the Children of Camp Ashraf, Amir is a person who, like many other children of the MEK, was sent back to Iraq as a child soldier at the age of 14 and served in the so-called National Liberation Army of the group. In this video, he talks about friends who, like him, were sent back to Camp Ashraf in Iraq while they were under legal age and eventually, they were killed there.

Amir Vafa Yaghmaei, a former child soldier of the Mujahedin-e Khalq

According to Amir, he and others involved in the film expected the hostile reaction of the MEK to the release of the film, but the reaction of Rajavi’s organization was more aggressive than what they expected, particularly because this “astonishing” reaction occurred before watching the content of the film. In his opinion, the fear and terror that leaders of the MEK feel is originated from the truths that the former children of Camp Ashraf have testified in this documentary. This indicates an important point: the organization’s approach to freedom of expression.

Amir Vafa Yaghmai believes that the smuggling of the MEK children to Europe and North America was part of the project of family separation in Rajavi’s Cult, which had previously been started with forced divorces, and the first Gulf War provided Rajavi with a golden opportunity to complete his project.

This former child soldier provides thought-provoking details about people who protested against the screening of the film in front of the movie theater and inside it. For example, the person who spoke as a speaker for the crowd of protesters is Mohsen Rezaei, with the organizational nickname of Habib. He is the very person who is responsible for persuading him and other child soldiers to return to Camp Ashraf in Iraq to perform their “historical duty” and to continue the path of their parents. Amir considers this person a criminal who deserves to be tried in a court.

Amir Yaghmai gives other information about the signatories of the so-called letter against the filmmakers, which shows that each of these people has a dark background in the organization, and due to their scandalous cases, they were forced to obey the organization’s orders. For example, he mentions Hossein Razavi, who was accused of sexually assaulting boys in Camp Ashraf.

Also, Amir knows two former child soldiers who shout in the movie theater and introduce themselves as children of Ashraf and consider the content of the film as a lie made by the Iranian government; He considers them as his comrades, who are victims of the deceitful structure and slanderous conditions of the MEK.

Based on Yaghmai’s testimonies, he and three other people whose lives have been documented in this movie, according to the contract they signed with the producers, they did not receive any money for appearing in the movie.

He expresses his happiness that the issue of child soldiers of the MEK has been brought up in European societies hoping that in the future, foreign audiences will be more aware of the facts of inside the MEK and the bitter stories of the children who survived this cult. He considers it as his responsibility to talk about the suffering that has happened to the children of the MEK, both among the sympathizer families abroad and in Camp Ashraf. He declares his readiness to spread awareness about this as much as possible.

The post This film is a proof against the MEK lies about Ashraf children appeared first on Nejat Society.

Barnen från Camp Ashraf is the Swedish title of the film which has documented the lives of Amir Yaghmai, Parvin Hossein Nia, Hanif Bali and Atefeh Sebdani as 4 examples of about 120 children of the MEK parents who were resettled in Sweden. The number of MEK children who were smuggled from Camp Ashraf, Iraq to European and North American countries mounts to over 700.

Amir Yaghmai was smuggled back to Iraq when he was 14 years old and he was immediately given a military uniform and recruited as a child soldier of the group’s so-called National Liberation Army.
Amir has so far revealed facts on difficulties, segregation and mental pressure he suffered during his stay in the cult-like structure of the MEK.

Today, Amir has a PhD degree in Eco-logy, working as an environmental scientist. He lives in Sweden with his family.

The documentary, which partly develops on Amir’s testimony of what it is like to escape from a destructive cult, will premiere on January 31st at the Gothenburg International Film Festival and on March 4 at the Tempo Documentary Festival.

The post Amir Yaghmai in the documentary, Children of Camp Ashraf appeared first on Nejat Society.

Amir is one of the first former child soldiers of the MEK who spoke out about his experience of living under the abusive system of the Cult of Rajavi. Very soon, a picture of his ID card was published on the MEK-run websites labeling him as the agent f the Iranian Intelligence. In 2021, two other MEK-born children who are now in their thirties spoke out.

Amir Vafa Yaghmaee

Hanif Azizi, a Swedish policeman now, published his autobiography, “Suburban snout” in Swedish recounting his childhood in the MEK’s military camps. Amin Golmaryami was the third child soldier who was officially brought to the lime light of the Western media. He was interviewed by the German newspaper Die Zeit. Their revelations on the horrific life of children in the Cult of Rajavi were eventually translated to Persian. The expectable consequence for both of them was the label of being mercenaries of the Iranian intelligence by the MEK propaganda.

The unreceptive response of the MEK leaders to their own children seeing them in the side of their enemy created a movement among other former child soldiers to speak out. In two sessions of speaking in a Club House room hosted by Amir Yaghmai, a large number of MEK’s former child soldiers confirmed the testimonies made by Amir Yaghmai, Hanif Azizi and Amin Golmaryami. This time all of the speakers of the room were labeled as the agents of the Iranian Intelligence by the MEK!

In an action to inform more people about the truth, Amir Yaghmai published the audio files of ten hours of spoken testimonies made by former child soldiers of the MEK in his You Tube channel. In the caption, he stated, “our accounts of living in the MEK go back to 15 to 20 years ago but this does not diminish the responsibility for the crimes of the group committed against us, former child soldiers.”

It is just a matter of time. Amir Yaghmai refers to worldwide examples like Irmgard Furchner, a 96-year-old former Nazi concentration camp secretary, who in September 2021 was accused by a German court of contributing to the murder of more than 11000 people through her work at the Stutthof concentration camp between 1943 and 1945. Prosecutors argued that she was part of the apparatus that helped the Nazi camp function more than 75 years ago.

“We want the leaders of the MEK, Massoud Rajavi who is 73 years old and his wife Maryam Rajavi who is 68 now, to be tried in an international justice court for the rights of ours that they violated.” Amir states.
As MEK’s child soldiers, Amir and his friends are witnesses and victims of the atrocities and harassments committed by the group commanders. “We experienced a lot of hardship during our childhood in the MEK,” he writes. “A large number of us were sexually abused by the group members. We will present all of our testimonies in a proper place as two of my friends courageously testified, in the previous room in Club House, how they were sexually harassed at Camp Ashraf.”

The post Former child soldier: Maryam and Massoud Rajavi must be tried appeared first on Nejat Society.