In the Tirana’s countryside, MEK has constructed a vast compound called Ashraf-3 where men and women lead segregated existences.
The gates are usually firmly closed, guarded by two sculpted lions atop stone pedestals and a large team of Albanian security guards. Unannounced visitors are not welcome at the fenced-off, secretive site, where more than 2,000 MEK members live, marks Shaun Walker.
Unable to see her son living in Mujahedin-e Khalq camp in Tirana, Albania called Camp Ashraf 3, the ailing, aged mother of Aliakbar Andalibi suffers a lot.
It is now for decades that Aliakbar is living at MEK camps and the cult leaders do not let him have any contact with his family.
Mostfa Foroughi left Iran for England to continue his studies in London, in 1980. He was in contact with his family during the first year that he was going to university there.
“The phone calls stopped after a year”, his brother Mohammadreza Foroughi says. “I was in Germany at the time. I tried to call his friends to get some news about him. A friend of his told me that Mostafa was not going to university anymore because he had been recruited by a group called Mujahedin Khalq.”
Mohammadreza was shocked when he realized that his brother was taken to Iraq by MEK. His mother had awfully missed Mostafa. “I could manage to pursue the case of my brother via international bodies but we just made sure that he was in Camp Ashraf, Iraq. We were not allowed to contact him,” Mohammadreza says.
Mohammadreza Foroughi
During the past years, the Foroughis have written several letters to human rights bodies and to Albanian authorities. They also write open letters and send videos for Mostafa to persuade him to leave the Cult of Rajavi. However, they have not been able to contact him for thirty years now. The bad news is that their mother died in 2015 while she was awaiting the release of her beloved son.
Today, Mohammadreza is still hopeful to see his brother someday. “Please liberate yourself! Live like a free man!” he writes in his recent letter to Mostafa.
last week, another propaganda show was launched by the Mujahedin Khalq (MKO/ MEK/ PMOI/ Cult of Rajavi) in their headquarters called Camp Ashraf 3 in Albania. It is considered a propaganda show because it was organized under the cultic system that Massoud Rajavi has built around his own personality. The show was magnified by huge screens before the dazed faces of uniformed MEK members who automatically clapped their hands or raised their fists to chant slogans to adore their smiling guru, Maryam Rajavi.
Based on numerous records, MEK is considered a cult-like group. “The MEK’s cultic system means that decisions are imposed from the top down,” assert Masoud and Ann Khodabandeh, former members of the group. “This means that those decisions are only as intelligent as the leadership.” [1]
In July 2018, Saeed Kamali Dehghan of the Guardian published an article to discuss the support of US warmongers such as John Bolton for MEK, “the extreme Iranian opposition group who was the target of a foiled bombing attack in France and was once a sworn enemy of the United States”. Reviewing the history of MEK, Kamali Dehghan states, “Today, it functions as a fringe exiled group with characteristics of a cult that works for regime change in Iran, though it has little visible support inside the country. It portrays itself as a democratic political institution although its own internal structure is anything but.” [2]
In 2019 when some photos were leaked from inside Camp Ashraf 3 showing members sitting in front of monitors in the group’s troll farm, the Khodabandehs wrote, “What Rajavi doesn’t understand is that these photos show beyond any words that the MEK doesn’t share our values. The leader is selling unthinking, unquestioning, obedient slaves, people who won’t act or speak unless ordered to do so. And that would only be ordered if it were productive for the MEK, regardless of the needs or desires of the worker.” [3]
Leaked photos showing MEK members at work
“What these images portray are conditions of modern slavery,” they continued. “These are elderly people who are unable to escape this cult and are coerced into performing work for which they receive no recompense. They exist on cruelly basic accommodation and sustenance, whereby even asking for new underwear puts the petitioner under question about their loyalty to the leader and the cause. They cannot leave because in Albania they have nowhere to go, no identity documents or work permits, no money, and they do not speak the local language.” [4]
To Download the video file click here
In March 2020, Murtaza Hussein and Mathew Cole of the Intercept, also suggested, “the MEK is a highly secretive organization”. They had interviewed five defectors of the group to support their assertion. “Five of them agreed to speak on the record about their experiences, which were broadly consistent and often confirmed aspects of other former members’ accounts,” they wrote. “Secret Iranian intelligence documents obtained by The Intercept also confirm several of their claims, including information that is not publicly known. Their testimonies reveal a brutal organization that, for decades, has held thousands in a state of physical and psychological slavery as it degenerated from a popular political movement to a freakish cult of personality under the absolute control of one all-powerful leader.” [5]
Thus, the so-called celebration that was recently hold in Camp Ashraf and other similar ones, are actually a demonstration of the modern slavery that is practiced inside the Cult of Rajavi every day.
By Mazda Parsi
References:
[1] Khodabandeh, Ann & Massoud, Nobody Can Be “Comfortable” with Regime Change Involving MEK, The lobelog, August 22, 2019.
[2] Kamali Dehghan, Saeed, Who is the Iranian group targeted by bombers and beloved of Trump allies?, The Gurdian, July 2nd, 2018.
[3] Khodabandeh, Ann & Massoud, Nobody Can Be “Comfortable” with Regime Change Involving MEK, The lobelog, August 22, 2019.
[4] ibid
[5] Hussein, Murtaza & Cole, Mathew, Defectors Tell of Torture and Forced Sterilization in Militant Iranian Cult, The Intercept, March 22nd, 2020.
Ms. Faride Parvaresh published a message on cyberspace to congratulate her brother’s birthday.
Ms. Parvaresh’s brother – Fereydoun is a hostage of the Mujahedin-e Khalq group and lives in the cult’s Tirana Camp called Camp Ashraf 3.
Faride Parvaresh
The MEK cult leaders do not allow members to contact their family members. Fereydoun is under the cult’s pressure because of his family’s efforts to free him.
Our brother; Ali Hossein Jamaati have been enslaved mentally and physically by the MEK leaders now for more than three decades, Mr. Sefatollah and Mr. Sabqatullah Jamaati said during a Nejat Society meeting in Zanjan province.
They emphasized that they will take all legal measures to visit their brother along with other families.
Letter of Morteza Valizade to his father; Seyyed Vali Mohammadzade who is taken hostage at the MEK Camp in Albania.
My beloved dad, I wish to say greetings to you after thirty-three years of being far away from each other.
The last time I saw you, I was a two-year old kid. I have no image of you in my mind except the photo I saw on the MEK cult website.
Seyyed Vali Mohammadzade, hostage of MEK cult
I am Morteza; your son. I grew up in loneliness and without the support of my father. Why did the MEK cult leaders separated us?!
I am still hopeful to see you and hug you once more. I love you my dear dad. I am waiting for you.
Love,
Your son, Morteza
My dear daughter I wish you contact your siblings and me freely. Shima,Ehsan,Arash and me live with your memories. We long to see you again.
My dear Azade I want you to decide your own fate and way of life without restrictions of cult affairs.
As you have had no contact with us during all these twenty-one years, and even have had no activity in social media, it seems that you are living under dehumanizing condition.
Your spouse; Kaveh, has separated the group and is living in Sweden. In his last call to his family, Kaveh said that he is still awaiting Azade’s return.
I am totally unaware of you and your health conditions. As the MEK cult leaders do not allow us to have any contact, I publish this letter to the cyber space in the hope that one day you get access to the internet and be able to read my letter.
Love,
Your mother
Underground protests have dramatically increased among members of the Mujahedin Khalq Organization, now based in the group’s headquarters in the region of Durres in Albania.
As long as the history of the Mujahedin Khalq as a cult of personality under the rule of Massoud Rajavi, clandestine dissent has been on going among the rank and file. According to former members of the Cult of Rajavi, disagreements and demands for defection from the cult-like system of the group, has enhanced since the group’s relocation in Albania.
Based on the news from the insiders, protesters who are afraid of voicing their dissent, write slogans against the group’s leaders on the walls of bathrooms where they are not under the supervision of commanders. This has happened on different occasions which indicates the rise in the number of dissident members who want to leave the group but they are intimidated by verbal and physical abuse on daily cult jargons.
A member of Mujahedin-e Khalgh walks in a street at the Ashraf-3 camp. Photo:Gent shkullaku/AFP
Although most members of MEK refuse to express their opinions openly because of fears of torture and abuse committed by the group commanders, the increase in the number of defections from the group since its arrival in Albania has been indicative of an increase of dissatisfaction.
According to unofficial data, since the resettlement of MEK in Albania, more than 400 people have left this group, regardless of those suspicious cases who have been killed mysteriously inside Camp Ashraf 3 in Manez, Durres, Albania.
The rise of protests in the Cult of Rajavi has plunged the leaders of the group into alternative ways to prevent the spread of protests among the rank and file, in addition to conventional methods of the organization, including solitary confinement and peer pressure. In this regard, all members of the group have been ordered to sign an engagement letter to stay in the group until the overthrow of the Iranian government –which according to the leaders of the group has been always close during the past forty years.
My dear brother, we all have missed you a lot. we have your love in our hearts. We long to see you and hear your voice. We review your memories over and over again. We are all worried about you, since we have had no contact with you for long years.
My dear Jaafar, I send you a photo of my brothers and mine to you.
Love,
Your brother Hossein Adibpur.
Jaafar Adibpur brothers
Amir badali ‘s sisters; Somaye and Nazila, celebrated their dear brother’s birthday without him.
Amir Badali is a MEK member living in the group’s Camp Ashraf 3 in Albania.
As a Mujahedin-e Khalq cult member, Amir is not allowed to contact his family.
Badali family have had no contact with their brother now for long years. They even have no information about his wellbeing and conditions.
