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self immolation of MEK members
Former members of the MEK

MEK member: In despair a comrade burned himself to death

Siamak is one of the ex-members of the Mujahedin Khalq Organization (MKO/ MEK/ PMOI/ Cult of Rajavi) who were interviewed by Victor Charbonnier in the book on the group, in 2004. The book is titled “The People’s Mojahedin of Iran: A struggle for what?”
Siamak who refused to give his full name to the author due to his fear from the group’s agents, was 20 when he joined the MEK in 1979. But, why did he join the group?

“I joined the organization because it was fighting for the freedom of the Iranian people and for women’s liberation,” He answered the author. “That at least is what its leaders said and wrote in the publications I devoured in my revolutionary zeal. It took me quite some time to discover that, in reality, things were very different.”
Siamak speaks of gradual change in the attitudes of Massoud Rajavi as the survived one of the early leaders of MEK. “Bit by bit, Rajavi succeeded in imposing his own leadership, his authoritarian method and his dictatorship,” he says.

Massoud Rajavi

When he arrived in the MEK camps in Iraq in the middle of the 1980s, the group commanders started giving him trainings on how to use a variety of weapons. The trainings were necessary for the cross-border attacks against Siamak’s own country. “During the Iran Iraq war, we carried out attacks on targets inside Iranian territory,” he recounts. “Hundreds of Mojahedin were killed or wounded during these operations. Some used them as a chance to run away.”
However, after the war ended, keeping members in the camps became difficult for the leaders of MEK. “Many members of MEK began to get tired of the living conditions in the camps,” Siamak says. “…Most members have only one goal: escape. But those who openly express their desire to go home to Iran, were executed, starved and put in solitary confinement.”

Siamak himself was subject to imprisonment in MEK because he “dared to criticize certain of the organization’s dogmas: the banning of marriage, which contradicts the Islamic beliefs and the link with Iraq”.
“Mojahedin are forced to submit daily written or oral reports in which they confess their doubts or denounce those of their comrades,” Siamak says about the cult-like manipulative techniques of MEK leaders to control members. “Spying on others is a common practice in the group. A feeling of suspicion is everywhere.”

Alan Mohammadi

Alan Mohammadi

Based on his testimony, the suppressive atmosphere ruling MEK drove several members to commit suicide. “There have been several cases of suicide including that of an 18-year-old girl”, he asserts. “In 1999, she came to Camp Ashraf to visit her parents. Prevented from going home, she killed herself. Rajavi claimed in a meeting that her death was an accident.”
According to the testimonies of other defectors of MEK, the murdered girl is probably “Alan Mohammadi”.

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MEK Cult manipulation techniques
The cult of Rajavi

The MEK use the same techniques of psychological manipulation used by Pol Pot

Dr. Ghaffour Mousavi is a psychiatrist, now 68 years old. He joined the Mujahedin Khalq Organization (MKO/ MEK/ PMOI/ Cult of Rajavi) in 1974. This shows that he was one of the early members of the group who joined it before the 1979 revolution. As a medicine, he served the group until 1982 and then he defected.
Dr. Mousavi was interviewed by two French authors of a book titled “Les Moujahidins du Peuple Iranien: Un Combat Douteux”, published in 2003. One of the authors of the book is a journalist and the other is a TV correspondent. In order to probe the reality behind the MEK, they interviewed dozens of witnesses including former members and victims of the group.

The peoples Mujahidin of Iran: A Struggle for what

In the interview Dr. Mousavi analyzes how young people were easily seduced by the MEK. He describes what he observed in those years of membership in the group. “They have ideological training sessions,” he states. “They are permitted no time to think deeply or ask themselves any questions about the organization’s aims. They have no access to the normal news media. They have no right to read newspapers, magazines or books… They are limited to the movement’s own publications. Anyone who dares to break these rules is punished.”
As a professor of psychiatry who has published many scholar articles, Dr Mousavi believes that MEK commanders kill the critical capacities, individuality and identities of their members. This is how “they become completely submissive, obedient and manipulable at will”.

According to Dr. Mousavi, The MEK leaders use well known techniques to enforce discipline, including brainwashing. “The mojahedin’s trainers adopted the psychological control techniques once used by Pol Pot, the Cambodian dictator”, he asserts. “They study each Mojahed’s reactions, his psychological condition, facial expressions, turns of phrase, tone of voice when he confesses his dreams or anxieties.”

MEK Cult current operation - one of the groups self criticism sessions

The process in which the isolated, humiliated and brainwashed Mojahed is prepared to carry the orders of the leaders, from terror attacks to self-immolations, is heartbreaking. The leaders destroy the moral sensibilities of members. “They continually quote Koranic Surahs and passages from Imam Ali’s book to rationalize their criticisms against members”, Dr. Mousavi explains. “Using the idea of Tawhid, unity and loyalty to the organization, they reinforce their psychological techniques. Defenseless, isolated and weakened, the Mojahedin ends up becoming unquestioningly obedient to their orders.”

Same history and analysis heave been so far described and told by numerous eyewitnesses. Members of MEK still suffer from loneliness, physical and emotional pains because they cannot find their way out of the group. The international community must be aware of the crimes that are still committed by leaders of the MEK so many years after the era of Pol Pot.

Mazda Parsi
Source: Charbonnier, Victor, Les Moujahidins du Peuple Iranien: Un Combat Douteux, L’Harmattan, Paris, 2003.

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Mujahedin Khalq Organization

Misled Martyrs

Synopsis                         

How Iranian terrorists became America’s best friends

Prologue

A burning sacrifice for the leader

An Iranian woman sets herself alight outside of the French embassy in London. She sacrifices her life for the freedom of her leader, Maryam Rajavi, after her arrest by the French police on terrorism and fraud charges. She is one of at least ten members of Rajavi’s Iranian resistance group, the Mujahedin Khalq, who set themselves on fire in protest at the treatment of their adored leader.

These events made me wonder how people reach the point where they believe that giving up their lives will benefit their leader. How did the political organization of God’s Fighters of the People become a sect? What happened to the members for them to allow this to happen? Since there has not been much independently published on the group, I spoke to former members, visited their meetings and tried to find out how a political organization changes into a cult.

Chapter 1

Those who are not with us are against us
Yasser Ezati was born into the Mujahedin Khalq. He lived through most of the history of the organization. Taken away from his parents during the Gulf War in 1991, he lived with foster parents and in children’s homes. He returned to become part of the Mujahedin Army in Iraq, and was imprisoned by the organization when he refused to conform to their rules – with his father as his jailer.

His father must have been attracted to the Mujahedin Khalq when it was a resistance group of young Iranians against the Shah. The Mujahedin combined a Marxist vision with an Islamic one and had great followers amongst the young. The Shah arrested most of its leaders and executed many of them, except for Massoud Rajavi, who became the main, and eventually its sole leader. When the revolution came in 1979, the organization was well disposed towards Khomeini. But soon there was a struggle between Ayatollah Khomeini and Rajavi. The leadership of the Mujahedin fled to France, establishing the new MKO headquarters in Paris. Members who stayed behind in Iran returned to their original role in a resistance group.

Massoud Rajavi then joined forces with Saddam Hussein – who was fighting Iran in a bloody war – and eventually moved his group to a military camp in Iraq.

Chapter 2

Saddam Hussein’s private army

Yasser Ezati draws a map of the Ashraf Camp, the main camp of the Mujahedin Khalq in Iraq, and recalls daily life there. In the first few years in Iraq Rajavi wanted to train his people for attacks in Iran which were meant to persuade the Iranians to rise up against Ayatollah Khomeini. But from 1986 onwards the policy changed, and the Mujahedin army increasingly became Saddam’s Special Forces. They were of great importance in the Iraqi war against Iran, and were later essential in ending the Kurdish uprising in 1991.
And meanwhile, Rajavi planned his invasion to Iran, to get the support of the people to start a revolution. In 1988, when the war between Iran and Iraq ended, this operation led to the deaths of thousands of its members.

Rajavi had to survive and manage to keep his group together. He demanded total loyalty to the organization from members. Married couples were forced to divorce, brothers and sisters were separated into different camps or units, and later the children were sent away to Europe. Those who resisted were subject to group meetings and intimidation, and were often sent to jail.

Rajavi then took his friend’s wife, Maryam, as his own wife, and made her a member of the leadership. The political organization was changing into a sect.

Chapter 3

The Rajavi Doctrine-divide and conquer
Yasser Ezati could not really draw a complete map of the Ashraf Camp, as no one really had an overall picture of it. In the Mujahedin information was power, an important part of the Rajavi Doctrine. Rajavi placed himself above his members as a religious leader. He convinced them in the course of long, tiring meetings to conform to his wishes, to go through ‘revolutions’, losing more and more of their own identity. Massoud Khodabandeh was his former security man, and after leaving the organization he did extensive research into the methods Rajavi used for his indoctrination of members, his use of their hatred against the regime in Iran to keep them together, and their sentiments about the hardship there to force them to accept their own situation. And even to accept Rajavi’s adaptation of Islam to serve his own needs.

Chapter 4

Torturing for Rajavi
Yasser Ezati knew her well, as he had lived with her family in Canada for a year – Neda Hassani, the young woman who turned herself into a torch outside the French embassy in London. She was sweet, clever, but also very fundamentalist, he says. Neda went to the Mujahedin in Iraq to fight in their army, to fight for the freedom of her people, and in the end, gave her own life for the cause.

Marjan Malek was recruited as an asylum seeker in the Netherlands, and changed from a non-political person into a soldier for Rajavi. She went to Tehran for an attack on an army barracks. Marjan was caught, as was Arash Sameti Pour. Recruited as a teenager in the United States, he was trained in the Ashraf Camp for an attack in Iran. He too was ready to die for the organization, and lost his arm when he tried to kill himself with a grenade after being caught. ‘I almost died, because Rajavi needs martyrs,’ he says, ‘he needs martyrs to prove his case and to attract new members. My life was not important to him.’

Chapter 5

The great theft of the children
Yasser Ezati was ten-years-old when he was taken away from his parents – together with hundreds of other Mujahedin children. Some went to live with members in the West, and some in children’s homes. Yasser went to both: he spent three years with three different families in Canada, and afterwards stayed in three different children’s homes in Germany.

Subsequently he, like many other Mujahedin teenagers, was persuaded to join the Mujahedin army in Iraq.

For many people the theft of their children was the last straw and led them to leave the organization. Sometimes they spent years relocating their children. Like Habib Khorami, who eventually found his son Bahador in Canada. But after they were reunited, the judge accused Habib of kidnapping his own son. Bahador now lives in Iran with his grandparents to keep him safe from the Mujahedin recruiters, but he longs to live with his father. Marjan Malek’s daughters grew up in the Netherlands, with a female member of the organization. One day they were told that their mother had been killed, and now was a martyr. Then Marjan phoned them from Iran, and visited them. She then asked them to come and live with her again. The girls were torn between two mothers, and their conflicting ideologies.

Chapter 6

Europe as a trap and escape route
As a child Yasser Ezati often stood in the shopping center of Cologne with the pictures of victims in Iran, collecting money for the Mujahedin Khalq. Many members in Europe worked like this, until the governments discovered that the funds did not go to aid organizations, but to buy weapons.

The Mujahedin helped Marjan Malek in 1994, after her application for asylum in the Netherlands was refused. The organization found her a new lawyer, and a new life story for the asylum procedure. They took her to live in one of their group accommodations. She felt she had no choice after she was filmed at a mass meeting of the Mujahedin in The Hague. Europe is important for recruitment, but also serves as an escape route. Massoud Khodabandeh came to Paris with Maryam Rajavi, to help put the organization on the political map in Europe. But the indoctrination was less strict, and his eyes were opened: he was not at all working for Iran, but only for the good of Massoud Rajavi. Like Khodabandeh, many people left the organization after being sent to Europe.

Chapter 7

Chocolate or bruises
The Mujahedin jailed Yasser Ezati when he protested against the life in Ashraf Camp, and the treatment from the sexually starved men in his group. His father was his jailer, and would not talk to him because he was angry about his son’s behavior.

For a long time the organization kept the jails a secret from its members, but many people who could not agree with the ‘revolutions’ and the changes were jailed. They could hardly believe their own comrades did this to them. They were beaten into false confessions, and were then treated to chocolates after signed the false documents.

And many who would not back down were given to Saddam Hussein and jailed in prisons like Abu Ghoraib, and were eventually sent to Iran as part of a prisoner-of-war exchange for captured Iraqis.

Chapter 8

From robot back to human being
Yasser Ezati has only just left the Mujahedin Khalq and still has a long way to go. He does not understand it yet, but it will take many years to get the organization out of his system.

‘The hardest thing is to regain your own identity,’ says Massoud Khodabandeh. But former members must also learn how to handle money, how to make even the simplest of decisions, like which shirt to buy. Stepping out of the Mujahedin Khalq is like quitting a heroin habit – it is a complete change of lifestyle. They have lost part of their past, and their comrades are no longer their friends, while new friends are hard to come by when you do not trust people easily.

On the other hand the organization does not leave them in peace, as they are now considered to be enemies. They are called spies by the organization, and sometimes they fall victim to revenge. The most active former members are threatened with violence.
Some turn around completely and now use the emotion they once felt for the Mujahedin against them. Women in Iran, among them Marjan Malek, have formed their own organization, Nejat, that uses more or less the same propaganda methods as the Mujahedin Khalq. They organize bus trips for family members to the last Mujahedin camp in Iraq, to show the members they are still alive and their information is not correct. But for many Nejat is an Iranian government organization, and the members are spies.

Chapter 9

Young and easy to recruit
He does not understand how it happened, but it took only a few hours for Yasser Ezati to be talked into joining the Mujahedin army in Iraq, even though he was one of the most critical of the boys in his home in Cologne. Recruitment for the Mujahedin Khalq is carried out in a clever and aggressive way – much like the radical Muslims recruit their new members. This chapter looks at the methods used in groups like the Al-Qaida network, and compares them with the way the Mujahedin Khalq recruits their members.

Teenagers are easy prey. Like Arash Sameti Pour, who at his American computer course fell in love with an Iranian girl who wanted to join the Mujahedin army in Iraq. He went with her, believing he would be fighting to help his people. Even though he knew the situation in Iran was much different from what the Mujahedin told him, it took just six months to indoctrinate him onto wanting to save the Iranian people.

Chapter 10

The terror of good and evil
The day after September 11, 2001 the Mujahedin Khalq was celebrating, says Yasser Ezati. ‘I have seen the planes fly into those towers a thousand times.’ That day Massoud Rajavi showed his real face. ‘Look what a conservative man from the mountains can do against the United States,’ he said to his army, ‘and we, with all of our equipment cannot do anything against Iran!’ This chapter looks at terrorism; are the Mujahedin Khalq a terrorist group, how do they compare with the groups in the Al-Qaida network, why do people think they need violence and terror to assist their case, how can believers, obsessed with good and evil, become murderers? And also: how can Rajavi, after showing his joy at the attack on the United States, still agree to work with the Americans after they conquered Iraq and the Mujahedin camps? Was he working with them, while he served Saddam? How can the American neo-conservatives believe they can use the blatantly anti-American Mujahedin towards a regime change in Iran?

Final

The enemy of my enemy is my friend
Yasser Ezati remembers how months before the American invasion in Iraq Massoud Rajavi spoke to his people. When the American conquer Iraq, most of the region will be under their command, except for Iran, he said. Ezati understood from this meeting that the Americans would help the Mujahedin to free the Iranian people.

Looking at what happened after the invasion, it seems the Americans went easy on the Mujahedin Khalq. They controlled the entrance to Ashraf Camp, protecting hundreds of members who wanted to leave, but left Rajavi’s command in place. Mujahedin could still travel, and the contact between Europe and the camp was close. American journalists report about CIA-plans for missions inside Iran to find nuclear sites and destroy them-and so it will became clear the Mujahedin were meant to be involved in this.

Rajavi, who has been silent in Ashraf Camp since the invasion, seems to have found a new friend – or to be more precise: an enemy of Iran whom he found to be a useful friend.

By Judith NeurinkDownload Misled Martyrs
Download Misled Martyrs

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Former members of the MEK

Memoires of a Member of PMOI’s leadership Council

Ms. Batoul Soltani former member of the leadership Council of People’s Mujahedin of Iran (PMOI, MKO, MEK) was released after two decades of being captive in the cult of Rajavi …during those years she lost her kids and her warm family center. The life of Ms. Batoul Soltani is mostly like a tragic drama that seems like an incredible fate. She is now stepping in a way to rejoin her missing husband and children.

Ms. Batoul Soltani former member of the leadership Council of People’s Mujahedin of Iran was released after two decades of being captive in the cult of Rajavi

 

 

To Be A Mujahed

 

I am Batoul Soltani. I was born in 1965 in Isfahan where I graduated from high school. I was accepted for the university but I didn’t go there and instead I married a man who had just been released from the prison.

In 1986 we got married and then one of my husband’s friends, who had joined the organization, introduced him to MKO. He had told them that we are opposed to the Islamic Republic. So the MKO’s men came to Isfahan to look for us.

My husband told me about leaving Iran. I had some social problems so I was ready to leave Iran. I said:”It is so good. We will leave Iran to look for our happiness and life.” The same year when I was pregnant (about eight months after our marriage) we left Iran through Iran-Pakistan border by the help of a smuggler who worked for MKO.

We were on the way for a few days. I remember the difficulties I had on the way. When we arrived in Pakistan, I told my husband that I wanted to continue my studies and have a free life. We asked the UNHCR for the refugee card. Due to my physical status, pregnancy, they soon granted refugee to us. I gave birth to my first kid in Pakistan.

 Later MKO came to my husband. He insisted on going to Iraq and I disagreed but my husband said:”It is very good to live in Iraq. They have a very good situation there. We will have a comfortable life. If we don’t want to live there, we can go to a European country.”

But from the other side the MKO’s representative said:

” everyone cannot step in this way. It is so hard. “

But my husband said:

”No, it’s not like that. They say these words to everyone who wants to join MKO, but it is not actually as what he says. They have a very relaxing life. They want to know how loyal the members are and such things.”

 He said these things to convince me to be satisfied and tolerate any difficulty.

Therefore, in 1987 we came to Iraq with our two-month old baby. They received us in the best hotels of Baghdad and settled us in a 5-starred hotel. After a period of residence in the hotel they told me that I can leave my kid to the nursery and work in their school. I remember that they took our passport and refugee card when we arrived at the airport and we couldn’t understand that they were blocking all the way back.

 When I got their base, I left my baby to the nursery and started working as a teacher in their school. We were practically gotten involved in the organization’s relations.

The process continued until they told us that they wanted to send the children to Europe. This was a plan after the Gulf War. They used the opportunity and said:

”We are not able to keep children here anymore and we must send them to Europe. “

They held indoctrination meetings and various factors convinced us to send the children to Europe. I talked with my husband. He said:

”we have no way out of Organization’s relations and no appropriate facilities and means to live our life in Iraq without MKO. We cannot return Iran because we will be arrested and executed there. Besides we have no money and the organization keeps our documents.”

"Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-themecolor: text1″>Actually he was gotten stuck within the Organization’s relations so he wanted to continue as before.”

So he convinced me to let our children go for their own sake in the hope that they will be lucky and happy there and we will be loyal to each other here and soon we will also go abroad. Or we will go to Iran after victory. He seriously emphasized that the regime of Iran would overthrow in 6 or 7 months and we would go to Iran.

After that I remember that I was so sad and I missed my children. I cried under the blanket at nights because we shouldn’t show our emotions. If they found out that I had missed my children, they would punish me. They said:

” what’s wrong with you? You are a revolutionary avant-garde. You are here to liberate your country.”

So I tried to hide my feelings. Then the promotions began in the organization. They held special programs to allegedly liberate the women in revolutionary phases, heightening the scene of responsibility of the weakened women.

Thus every day I was promoted in my ranks and duties. After the departure of my children, I received military trainings and soon, in 1993, I was the commandant of a unit.

In 1991, the mandatory divorces were ordered. They said:

”Anyone who wants to stay and continue the way must divorce from her husband. “

Therefore in an artificial atmosphere, anyone wanted to take off her ring and declared her divorce to show that she is superior and more liberated.

This was Masud and Maryam’s plan to separate the spouses. [..]

After the divorces, the control was heightened to keep the men and women away from each other. If even the members thought about their spouses or asked any question about them, they would be punished seriously.

Later the group forced the men to give their hegemony following giving their wives to the organization and under the revolutionary titles they handed their duties to the women gradually.

I remember that I was the commandant of a unit with 11 tanks, each one with 3 service-men. It was a big responsibility and I had no free time. I could relax only two hours a day. Then I received computer training for 4 years after I went to Britain with a false passport. At the time the systems of the computers in MKO was Appel and the group wanted to promote them to PC so I was chosen for some new trainings.

During the war I learned the site systems and designed websites.  I only for a short time worked in the recruitment section to recruit new forces. In 2007, I was promoted to the Leadership Council.

 I attended the meetings of the Leadership Council which were held once a week. We held several meetings when Masud and Maryam were in Iraq and later, as the layer of the leadership council we had the meetings every day.

 In 2006,I was the subject  of the meetings for a long time. They asked me why I’m not relaxed. Why I’m depressed or thoughtful. They constantly put me under questions until I got several phone calls from Masud Rajavi.

I‘m a woman escaped from MKO camp

 

In his phone calls, Masud Rajavi tried to know why I was upset by making jokes and having fun. He wanted to know what my problem was. I didn’t tell him what my problem was. I was very sad. I had many questions on the organization. I felt that I have lost all my life, wasting my lifetime for looking for nothing. I even saw that the organization didn’t obey its own principles. For example, at that time, we claimed to be anti-Imperialism so much, but I saw how they spread red carpet for the Americans in Camp Ashraf welcoming them warmly. They named the cooperation with Americans as the struggle with the main enemy which is Islamic Republic, saying that

“It doesn’t matter to negotiate with the US to fight the main enemy.”

Sometimes, I asked them:

” why do you make the youth miserable by bringing them to the organization? Why haven’t we overthrown the regime yet after two decades? Or why are we struggling at all?”

However I was stuck in vain, this was not a factor to make me escape or leave the organization until the day I was working on the computer and I entered the private network of Mozhgan Parsaie. In fact I was supposed to fix their network. In one of their rooms, I entered Mozhgan Parsaie’s network where she had prepared a report which was supposed to be sent to Maryam Rajavi. I read the report and I saw what she had written about me. I got shocked extremely wondering what the reason of all respects they had for me was and what this report is. I felt they are so hypocrite and the word hypocrite really deserves them. They had back-bitted about me writing anything they could write about me although I was a member of Leadership Council. For instance they had written that I have moral problems or I have problems with children etc…. they had stated that my situation was so crucial. So I got very upset since they had wasted my life. I was looking for a way to carry out my decision and soon I was able to pack my bag and escape from the camp. We were seriously controlled.

We couldn’t walk around the camp alone. The low-ranking members were told:

“You may be arrested or kidnapped by the others who traffic the camp.”

 The members do not trust anybody. They are always monitoring each other. I was in the Leadership Council, so I know that they falsely say that

 “We do not allow the women to walk alone due to lack of security in the camp.“

In fact they want to cover the reality of their jobs.

The women were controlled in a particular way, so strictly, that Rajavi had soon sworn that

“We have no female defector”,

The control over the women members were more sever because he wanted to prove his claim.

Since I couldn’t get out alone, I planned a way to escape. At the sunset time, I put a back bag on the front seat of my jeep and I put a cap and a scarf on the pack bag to make the figure of a woman. Therefore I could pass the control station. I told them that my colleague is taking a nap on the front seat. So I could get out until I reached the street around the camp where I parked the car and walked out of the prison I had spent so many years  of my life: Two decades of my life, from the moment I was recruited by the cult until the time I could run away by a complex plan. When I was escaping from the camp, I didn’t intend to go to TIPF (the American camp). I had some tools such as a wire cutter to cut the barbed wires and walk out of the camp. I knew that there are some hungry dogs wondering around the camp. I brought some food to give them in case of the risk of their attack. When I entered the deserts around the camp and I was walking towards the cast, I encountered the dogs. So I gave the food and water to them. They became my friends and escorted me.

But when I got to the barbed wires I found out that I had lost my wire cutter when I was trying to feed the dogs. So I changed my plan and decided to go to American camp. I came towards the American camp and tried to draw the soldiers’ attention to myself, but they couldn’t hear me because they were listening to music by their headsets. I tried to shout, using my English. I told them that

 “I am a woman who escaped from MKO camp and I don’t want the organization learns about me.”

Finally I could get in the camp of American forces.

In the camp, MKO tried to contact me, in many ways. They sent me letters, messages,.. They even called me on the cell phones which were held secretly in the American camp. They wanted me to get back to Ashraf promising me to do anything I want such as going to Europe or giving financial aids. Then they launched a large attempt to attract me by my children. They knew that I was looking for my children. They particularly wanted to bring my daughter to camp Ashraf so as I would get back. They even had her supervisor, in Europe, call me so that they can control me out of Camp Ashraf and even abroad. But I never let them get close to me. They had taken my daughter as a hostage; she wasn’t allowed to call me. She was told a lot of nonsense about me. They had even told her to have an interview against me but she hadn’t accepted because she was busy with her studies and her personal life.

I stayed in TIPF for a period of time. Americans suggested working for them. I did their computer works about storage of their goods listing them in the computer and I was paid 2.5 dollars an hour.

Meanwhile I had some contacts with my family. I was sometimes afraid of my future life. I was afraid of making mistake. I didn’t know what was waiting for me. Sometimes I got disappointed. The organization was also trying hard to have me back with promises of money or a free life in Europe but I was sure that I would have no way out with MKO except that same isolated cult.

We had many difficulties in TIPF. The Americans didn’t help us; instead they aided the organization to become more stable, for example they recognized Mozjgan Parsaie but not the separated members of the cult. The organization used the opportunity and expanded its control and hegemony over the members more and more. The pressure of the meetings was increased.

In the meetings, about 300 people were shouting at an individual asking him or her:

” what is in your mind? Why do you want to leave the camp? Why do you think about your children or husband?”

When I just remember these memories, I get terrified. So I didn’t think about any of their suggestions. In my contacts with my family, they couldn’t help me so much they wanted to help me in their own way offering their emotions and sympathy.

Behind the smiles of the captives in Ashraf

 

Out of Ashraf, there was another world. I found the opportunity to meet my family who had come to Iraq. It was so bizarre. The family is a spiritual gift: mother, father, brothers and sisters who are full of emotions and feelings. I realized how badly I had behaved to them, how much they had suffered because of me. I found out that my father had died due to a heart attack, and my mother had suffered a lot of grieves. So I had much motive to help the other families because I have seen that the organization is still capturing the youth of our country by various methods even deception and abuse of emotional relationships. If anyone wants to leave the group, they ruin his future so as he will have no future out of the group, forcing him to stay in the organization for his whole life.

After the defection, I could have had a normal life but I had enough motivation to stay in Iraq to help my ex-friends and those who are likely to be captured by MKO; the ones who are like me and who do not know what is waiting for them in the cult despite their deceitful smile and green lights. I know what is behind the smiles of the captives in Ashraf. They are very tired but they are afraid of complaining because they would be marked. They have no idea what to do. Even those members, who could leave MKO, have their own problems because the organization has functioned so violently that no one accepts the defectors either.

I learned about a foundation called Sahar, I contacted them and I was willing to help them. Then I became a member of Sahar Family Foundation and now I am a spokeswoman of that. My activities included a trip to Turkey to contact some of the defectors who had legal and financial problems there, we had some jobs and interviews there, with Mr. Masud Khodabandeh who is the founder of SFF.

We are trying to pave the way for MKO defectors to be able to live a normal life in a free society. Mr. Khodabandeh and I also had a trip to Karkul,Irbil,Soleimanieh and Dahouk, and we visited various defectors in these cities. I had recently a trip to the North of Iraq to help those ex-comrades. I could have some meetings with the deputies of Kurdish parties and some journals and international communities to provide the conditions to aid the defectors of MKO. I met and talked to many of them, I got acquainted with their life, problems and grieves. Now I am doing my best to aid SFF in order to help the defectors of MEK.

I had to help my husband; it was my responsibility to save him. I know what happened to him finally and what his motive at the beginning was. I asked his family for help inviting them to Iraq. They came to Iraq after some time, we went to camp Ashraf. I will explain the way the organization treated us in detailed in another part. The scenario they had designed was so significant that needs to be discussed carefully in a separate program.

My activities are partly based on my human feelings. I know my children are hostages in MKO where they are manipulated. I got to know that my daughter Setareh has been forced to come to Iraq. I know she didn’t want to come to Iraq at all.

They were so eager to bring Setare to Iraq before I leaved TIPF or Iraq. Unfortunately I got into some troubles and I couldn’t get in touch with my daughter. Later I figured out that they had convinced her to come to Iraq to visit her father. They brought her to Iraq last March and told her to stay there. She was told:”your mother has psychological problems and she wants to take you to Iran.” She was also told other lies to keep her in the camp as long as they can and of-course to manipulate her more and more. The first step has been the interviews against me but my daughter has resisted and hasn’t done it. But they have terrified her so terribly that she doesn’t answer my phone calls turning off her cell phone. Then she was taken to Ashraf to visit her father who has treated her so unkindly- He has not been in a normal condition- Then she was taken to their indoctrination system. They have manipulated her so seriously that she is completely mixed up now; she is in Netherland where my son is living. She was taken there to work on her brother, Miaad who is totally confused now.

Miaad says:” How is it possible? I am sixteen now, and I haven’t had any idea that I have a sister, mother or father. I don’t know what’s happened that now I have a father and I am repeatedly invited to go to Iraq to visit him or now I have founded my sister after years, in another European country.”

"Verdana","sans-serif"; >I mean the organization had never told them that they have a brother or a sister. But now that their benefits require controlling them against me, they have brought my daughter to influence her brother. My son chatted with me on internet regularly but now has given it up and doesn’t answer his cell phone or telephone. They are doing all these things to exhaust me. They want me to keep quiet and not to aid the other defectors. I try to tell the realities, the truth to my children but it’s up to them to choose where they like to live. At least I should denounce what the organization is indoctrinating to them.

"Verdana","sans-serif"; >One of my tasks is to go to a European country to pursue the case legally to be able to visit my children after 16 years. My son was 6 months old when the organization separated him from me. I haven’t seen them for 16 years. I missed them a lot. I’d really love to see them but what shall I do that the terrorist cult of Rajavi commits any crime against the defectors.                                                                                           

Unsaid stories on a castle called Ashraf

I was actually in the MEK for two decades so I know about the MEK’s internal relations very well. When in 1986 I entered the organization, the most convenient houses and hotel were dedicated to the families. It was the time when Masud and Maryam Rajavi came to Iraq from France. The MEK had used all its strength to recruit members and all IRI opponents from all over the world. There was a tension among supporters in abroad. Rajavi was using his entire wisdom to get the supporters out of their normal life and bring them to the organization and of-course the prison of Ashraf. They used any practice to bring the people to the cult in Iraq. For example they managed to send smugglers, financing them, to take the people out of their families and bring them to Iraq.

The other activity they were also busy of, was to found National Liberation Army and the deals with Iraqi Regime like the meetings with Iraqi ministries or deputies and then with Saddam Hussein who offered them bases, weapons, military trainings. The focus was on recruiting members for the so called NLA. At that time the Iraqi military organs were launching intelligence operations together with the MEK elements to succeed their attacks against Iran. The MEK was taking care of such affairs. Everyday there was a new crisis, a new adventure. So the supporters were busy enough.

After some time they spoke of NLA and military uniform and boots and things like that. Later in 1989 the second phase of Ideological Revolution (after the first phase which was operated in 1985 when the couples were forced to divorce.) was started by MEK that claimed that the first phase was not completed and the divorces should be perfect for ever; this time the divorces should be real and there is no return and anyone who wants to enter the organization must divorce. Since that time divorce became a condition for membership in the MKO.

They named this revolution as “whirl-wind” in which they filtered the devotees from the opponents. Several meetings were arranged by Masud and Maryam Rajavi who brought members group by group there; where they set the situation so artificially that the members became obliged to take out their wedding rings and divorce their spouses. I was in the last group of MKO members who divorced.

They held the meeting for a group of members. From the beginning moments the members were so worried of being called, then they called a person who went to deliver all his responsibilities… then we saw Maryam and Masud cheering made an atmosphere and asked the person:” Ok, now what must you give?” Or “what have you hidden?” they pressured the member mentally and at the end he was prepared for divorce. The person had to write and sign the feature of his dependence on his spouse, his problems and thoughts. Then he had continual meetings so as he can ideologically divorce the marriage in his mind. Thus the leaders could have a better control on the members’ emotions and feelings. The next step was to cut the remaining emotional point: children.

I remember they used the opportunity of war in 1991 and said: “Due to the war, we can not keep the kids here”, so they arranged another chantage and separated the children from their families. That was a treacherous plan that was executed. They even said themselves:” That’s a good pretext to get rid of children.”

The evil Masud had calculated everything; he knew that the presence of children would take a lot of energy. Now they had members who were completely and professionally at Masud‘s service. They sent the children to places, they know themselves, and for example they sent my son to a country and my daughter to another one and I had no idea of where they were.

I couldn’t ask, in any case, where my kids are. They would punish me using their manipulation techniques …

Then, they determined a criterion which was ‘’Maryam ‘’who divorced from her husband for Masud’s sake, married him ideologically and her whole existence has become Masud! In a new scenario, she came said:” I leave all my organizational duties” and Masud said the same thing and introduced Maryam as the first authority of the organization because she was the only one who was joined to Masud and all the others had to be dissolved in and dedicated to Maryam, if not they were called anti-woman, non-revolutionary … this was their new story to seize the members soles and minds.

The bottom line of the story is that Masud is only the ideological leader. If you want to analyze the MEK, you should work one two dimensions; one: the strategic and military dimension and two: the ideological and organizational dimension. The strategic aspect included the departure from France and arrival to Iraq to from NLA. The ideological aspect began with the ideological revolution in 1984. Following the defeat in the “Eternal Light” operation, they concluded that the failure happened because the ideological revolution hasn’t performed perfectly so the fighters haven’t fought well. The discussions on the ideological revolution ended with the divorces saying that the emotions are illegal.

 

After Maryam Rajavi became the first authority of MEK, Masud left all his organizational responsibilities. They wanted to open their way to European countries, so they established “Presidential Offices” in European countries. A new series of stories began with the name of “President Elect” ( Maryam Rajavi),calling for opposition groups to come under MEK’s hegemony and form National Council of Resistance to abuse them.

Then they continued with equipping their NLA by Saddam Hussein’s aid. Rajavi always was proud of the gifts granted to him by Saddam Hussein. For any operation they launched inside Iran, Saddam praised them with his offered weapons and tanks.

Mujahedin’s Machiavellian approach towards the US administration today and the US administration of 1970s

 

When the US government was fighting with Saddam Hussein the MKO planned its strategy on sending Maryam Rajavi and a few hundreds of the group’s officials to Europe in order to guarantee the future of the organization in the West and the group could be directed by Maryam and her aides. Therefore when the war started, Maryam was residing in Europe and Masud Rajavi was apparently out of sight and the control of Camp Ashraf was granted to Mozhgan Parsaiee. In 2003, after the fall of Saddam, I remember the day the American forces surrounded the camp and they shot at the camp on some occasions.

When the American forces came, we were shocked to notice that the Organization called all the members and sent the women to the gates of the camp to welcome the American soldiers who were surprised wondering what was the MKO up to?

Suddenly the organization changed its strategy and sat at the negotiation table with the US officers. The US general who had come to seize Ashraf, ordered to cease-fire to the American tanks and helicopters, he called his high officials and then the warfare scene turned into the negotiation table. The MKO used its tricks to function the hegemony on the members. Then Mozhgan came happily and said:”we won”. The leadership council had told them that “the MKO’s rank and files are like Indians and they didn’t shoot a bullet when the Americans were bombing their camps.” 

We pretended to have enough control on our members and the Americans accepted saying that:”Ok, you deal with your own forces and we deal with you.”

Therefore the leadership council could maintain its control on the camp and then Masud sent a message saying “Ashraf is our strategic location.”

The forces considered the message as serious saying that if Ashraf resists the world will resist. Then they launched a new process to use Ashraf as an instrument that they claimed to be the centre and heart of MKO in order to gain more and more supports in Europe and also to maintain Ashraf as their headquarters. Since then they have spent large amounts of money to receive the Iraqi tribal leaders who had financial problems. I swear to God that some of them who came to Ashraf base were only promised a lunch in Ashraf; MKO abused them politically as much as they could.  

The situation in Iraq is not secure nowadays. There are financial problems; the youth are out of job, so the MKO has misused the opportunity recruiting the Iraqi youth, training them as its mercenary forces. The organization is exploiting the post war, critical situation of Iraqi Society. I remember they bought a gold necklace for a doctor to recruit her so as they can enter the Iraqi society and use their maximum exploitation from the Iraqi community. This was the status which was created after the fall of Saddam. Now the members who reside in Camp Ashraf are just like babies who are in their mothers’ womb and have no idea of the outside world to which they have no contact. They listen to no news except that of the Resistance TV or Freedom TV [MKO channels].

In order to respond the allegations on the lack of MKO members’ access to the news, the organization used a funny trick; they filtered some news of Aljazeera and CNN and recorded to show in MKO’s eating places. In fact, Ashraf residents listen to no news expect to those filtered by the group. It’s definitely forbidden to have a compact radio otherwise you would be interrogated in so many meetings. The members’ minds are blocked by a pretext: security. But they panic their own functions.

Now, imagine that these members find a possibility to open their eyes to the outside world. They find out that their Master who has always disgusted the Imperialism and even after the explosion of the Twin Towers on September 11th cheered saying “this was the reactionary Islam, Now lets see what the revolutionary Islam will do?! You have a lot of potential inside you and you should release it” now is negotiating with the Americans. But for how long can they tell their lies to deceive people? 

I remember when a member had committed suicide, I heard myself that Masud Rajavi said: "in case of any attack against us, we will go towards Iranian borders.” The question is that: why didn’t we go towards the borders after the invasion of Americans when they attacked, bombed, shot at MKO bases including Jalula, Ashraf …? This means that MKO’s baseless strategy is based on deception which results in contradictions that caused a lot of defections after the fall of Saddam Hussein. The defections among women members were less than men due to the high level control on women. Once Masud Rajavi said “we have no female defector” so the control over women is very crucial and serious. Also, the public, health and organizational considerations on women are more serious to prevent their defection. I know all tricks they use still a lot of women succeeded to leave the group. They are either in the way to return to Iran or wandering in Iraq; and in Sahar Family Foundation we are looking for them to help them. A part of MKO forces count on European helps especially the French government. They are expending billions of dollars to European parliament members to remove the MKO from the list of terrorist organizations. They have good lobbies in European parliaments; however Maryam Rajavi’s base in Auvers-sur-Oise was raided on June 17, 2003 and she was arrested. Then, the self-immolations began. The bizarre point is that the members must set themselves on fire for the organization’s benefits. I remember how they were proud of the self-immolations. But how can they justify the fact that a person kills herself for Maryam Rajavi’s cause. When the Rajavis’ benefits are in danger, suicide is acceptable; the terror teams should chew cyanide pills in case of being arrested!

The SYSTEMATIC CONTROL within MKO

 

I believe if you have not been a member of the MKO cult, it is too hard to understand what the “systematic control” is. I will mention some aspects of it which I myself used to control members with. I name them one by one:

Current Operations Sessions: that is to speak out mind contradictions and to do self-criticism in front of a large gathering. In these sessions one has to severely self-criticize oneself and be harshly humiliated by others. This a technique used for mind manipulation of the members.

Group Works: contacting families with the presence of a third person; working on the internet in groups of two or more; scheduled work plan without any spare moment; the minimum sleeping time; hard physical works, and so on.

Divinity: the guru and the members of the leadership council and some elements close to the leader have a divine kind of ruling authority and a powerful mental influence over the ordinary members. The first rule is to express mind contradictions. That is the individual is persuaded to approach and express the contradictions of his thoughts compared with the instructions of the organization.

What do they mean by “Contradictions”? In the first phase of a person entering into the MKO or during a period of time after that, they indoctrinate the person to know what the criterion of each period is. For example, they indoctrinate that the “criterion of this era is to divorce the spouses”. So the member who enters the organization and its internal relations is supposed to describe the moments when he or she faces contradictions against the valuable phenomenon [divorce] in the ideology of the organization. Or in another example: suppose that the value in the MKO is that the men should keep away from the women. If an individual views a contradiction in such a value, he is encouraged to write them and hand them over to the officials. For instance if he saw a film and liked a woman in it or if he saw a woman in a gathering in Iraq and the woman recalled his wife to him; or if a woman saw a man and she thought of her husband, they would confess them all as their thought contradictions.

They convince the individual that expressing the contradictions is something that might cost any price. They talk about “any price” because the individual should expect insults and maltreatments following expressing his contradictions. A lot of time and effort is used for this issue.

They say that the principals of our doctrine are devotion and honesty. You should be so honest that you should confess all the moments of your feelings contradictory to the organizations’ values although they result to a disaster for you, or in the organizational terms: “You should pay any price” for being honest to the organization.

They want to control the members at any time during the day. They say that being a “Mojahed” is a valuable object. If a person, in one moment, thinks of family or social life or wishing to have a wife and home …, he or she should tell all the thoughts to the officials of the cult so they will be aware for the threat they feel from the side of that person and he/she will be under a higher control after that.

In the organizational hierarchy when an official who is responsible to control a low ranking member, doesn’t notice his problematic situation which ends him defecting or escaping from the group, that official will be deposed from his rank.

The worst punishments are enforced on the officials who are not aware of the problems of their forces who are about to defect. Rajavi even expressed in his message to the Leadership Council that: “It is much better to have two defectors everyday rather than having a runaway every year.”

See, how crucial it is for them. Now, what is the difference between a person who runs away and a person who comes to the groups’ leader asking to leave them? There is a big difference: Someone who escapes had so many contradictions in his mind that he eventually leaves the cult. He costs a high political price for the MKO. On the other hand, allegedly the future of this person has not been burned and he will be used by the enemy. Therefore it is very important for the leaders that if you want to leave, you should come and say so. They can find out when the member expresses his contradictions. They will focus on him. They put too much mental pressure on him in order to manipulate him, torturing him mentally, so as he might admit his regret and show his willingness to remain. If the person is a woman, they will bother her so much that she says “I was wrong”. If the person is a man and they finally find out that they can not keep him in, they will operate the process of “Burning future.”

It means that they have the defector to sign some engagements to allegedly burn his future. I remember a woman (whom I don’t want to tell her name) who wanted to leave the MKO, the officials told her “You want to go to cooperate with Iranian regime, to become a revolutionary guard, a torturer.” She said “No”. They said: “so if you do not want to be used by the regime you should be interviewed.”

They told her that the organization had helped her a lot and she must say it in the interview otherwise they wouldn’t let her go away.

They had dictated her interview. She had said “I am in complete health. The organization has helped me a lot. It struggles for its people’s freedom. It is so good …”

For the MKO leaders, it is not important what the defector wants to do. The only crucial thing is whether she will or won’t talk against the MKO. Only her silence matters. They want the defectors to leave, keep quiet and die… 

 

What is Current Operation?

There is a practice within MKO’s internal relations called “nil-nil” (a cult type jargon) wherein everyday the members are supposed to allegedly demoralize themselves because they say that anyone who demoralizes himself and releases his energies will reach higher degrees. So they order the members to criticize each other daily and then listen to the others criticizing them. This is called “nil-nil” “criticizing others and being criticized".

There is another internal phenomenon called “Current Operation” (another jargon). This has been practiced in MKO cult since 1994. At the beginning it was oral. I mean that the members moved forward and spoke; but later it became written. In this way the member had to write anything he or she wanted to say and then read it inside the group. Masud Rajavi made too much noise calling the current operation as “Spiritual Jihad” as and even “higher than martyrdom”. Therefore, the members must confess all the sins they commit and they should expect any reaction from their colleagues.

For example, the member who attends the “Current Operation”, reads his confessions saying “Today I saw something precious on my superior’s desk and I took it” or “when I saw my superior this morning I suddenly imagined that she really looks like a torturer” or “when today I was supposed to work from 8 to 12, I just worked until 9 and then I went to the dorm and relaxed.” While the member is reading the facts, the others in the group insult him or her with an abusive language using terms like lumpish, idiot, . . . and punishing him or her orally and put the blames on him or her like “how do you want to liberate Iran while you don’t do your duties just right”

The “Current Operation” includes a stage called “cleansing” (cult jargon) that for the women in the leadership council should be practiced every moment and for the rest of women it is daily and for the men it is weekly. In these meetings the members must confess their sexual problems or thoughts. For Leadership Council the instruction was that if a female sees a male recalling her fiancé, she would have to confess her thoughts instantly and do the so-called “nil-nil” practice.

For ordinary female members this has to be practiced at the end of each day. For male members, the cleansing meeting is done every week on Fridays. They didn’t want to open up the relations between male and female members so the weekly meetings of men were held only by men (all meetings are generally held by women). As I noted in the previous session, there are some male members who are considered as the pins (jargon) of the organization and their responsibility is to control the members of each section. Their duties include holding the weekly meetings for the men and dealing with the problems between the male members and their female superiors. So the brother who was the pin of the organization in that section holds the meetings.

The women’s meetings are held by a member of Leadership Council and the meetings for a Leadership Council’s member are held by high-ranking members of the Council. If a member of the Leadership Council has a contradiction in mind, she has to declare it and do the so-called “nil-nil” practice. Then if it is found out through the reports, that person will be encountered and taken under more control. In fact, they have a goal. For example, the member thinks “I wish I could do something” or he thinks “How that woman looks like my ex-fiancé”. These are the moments, the moments wherein the member thinks about the outside world. But if she liked a boy (a teenager) and in a moment she liked to kiss him, she has to confess it immediately, this is a functional fact and as soon as the report of this confession is on hand, the situation of the both sides changes. A lot of efforts, in the MKO, are spent for cases such as who you have relations with and who you like.

One of the levers of the organizational control in MKO is the joint movements of female members which I mentioned in the first part of my memoirs. They said:”we order you to move jointly for your own sake. But everybody knows that this claim is baseless. Everybody knows that it’s because everyone should watch the others not to escape. They even force the most high-ranking officials to move jointly . They said that there shouldn’t be any exclusion, because exceptions in the regulations would discredit them.

Thus everyone has to obey the regulations and execute them in order to control the lower ranks.

 

Imposing maximum pressure for laboring, in order to leave no time for thinking

 

To follow the previous issue, I’d say that the organizational control includes a group working (peer pressure) which is very important .That is they see it so bad to work individually. They never let you work on your own. When you want to do gardening or even watch something, you should do it together with a colleague.

The two individuals who work together are divided into one major and one minor, because the two members working together shouldn’t have the same ranking. That is done with the intention of preventing friendly relationships. According to the MKO leaders any emotional and friendly relations is basically forbidden. The only relationship allowed is the organizational supervising relations.

 I would like to note another organizational control system called the "order" (cult jargon). They interpret the friendly relations as being very disgusting. So they label any person talking to another one as someone who holds an "order”. The term "order" is considered as a branch of the Iranian revolutionary guard (meaning the enemy) by MKO. Thus they control each two persons working together so seriously that they would never make a friendly relationship. If they know that two members have emotional relations, they will never let them work together again. The two members in a group should only have organizational relations (one major and one minor).

 Another trick that is used to heighten the organizational control over members – and since the fall of Saddam has turned into a rule in MKO – is that the family visits should also be taken place in the presence of a third person. In other words a companion should escort you in your visit with your family, allegedly to help you be more comfortable! Generally the organization doesn’t like the families to come to Camp Ashraf. They do not welcome the families. They try their best to prevent members from contacting their families and if the families call the camp, they won’t let the members know about it. For example when my brother had come to Italy and contacted the offices of MKO and had tried to visit me, they didn’t let me know; or they gave my father’s letter to me so late. When they were assured that my brother had left Italy, they gave his letter to me. The organization works very cautiously to stop the members thinking about normal life like getting married or having children. So it is very difficult or even impossible to contact the families to gain money or financial support; but even this sort of contact should be made under the control of a third person. There is a rule for members who work with the internet for marketing, searching or free down loads. They have no right to sit alone in a room or at a desk with a computer which is connected to the internet. There must be a second person who is not busy supervising your clicks and the websites you search in. There is a rule for the arrangement of the computer rooms; the monitors shouldn’t face the walls so that the controller of the room can always see the screens. Such a high control is applied because MKO doesn’t want the members to have any access to the outside world except to what the organization wants.

I’d like to talk about another case of organizational control:

In the early days after the Revolution, when the organization was in the so called political phase and marriage was not totally forbidden, the man or woman who wanted to get married had to do it in the manner of the organization, so marriage was an organizational prearranged issue with no normal emotional base.

 Another example is the process of sending the children out of Iraq. There arises a question: why did the MKO do so?

First they wanted to totally cut the mother-child relationship and secondly the MKO took the children to various corners of Europe and America as hostages.

That is how they exactly treated me. As soon as I left the group, they looked for my daughter and brought her to Iraq to visit her father in Ashraf and it is something strange that they never brought her to Iraq during the very long time I was living there. They took my daughter from Sweden to Holland to talk to my son and convince him not to reply my communications. Therefore the organization applies too much efforts to restrict the former members as well as to control the current members.

Any official must arrange the schedules of the personnel under his or her responsibility with maximum working hours. Masud Rajavi had even said: ”I assigned your sisters as leadership council members to make the guys of the organization work so hard that they become very thin.”

 Or he said: "Blade, axe and pistol should always be over the members’ head”, they should be under the maximum working pressure in order not to find any time to think. 

Saints of MKO Leadership Council

 

Following the previous parts I’d like to start this part with a particular memory. I remember when Nasrin (Mahvash Sepehri, the third high-ranking leader after the Rajavis) said in a meeting of Leadership Council:”you should act in a way that when your Minor goes to bed, he or she should be like a dead body who has been beheaded. I mean that one should be so exhausted that one could not think of anything at all.” The working schedule of the members should be so tight that when they go to bed, they are like dead bodies; otherwise they might think of their spouse, their children or their families in their free time. And if they think of such things, they will criticize the organization and start complaining and finally join the other dissidents. Every Superior had to check her Minors’ schedules everyday to remove every free hour. Sleeping time must be at least. They say that: "the members should never sleep enough” because if they do so, the next night they will have enough energy to think before falling asleep. Thinking alone is dangerous for the organization. 

You cannot imagine the dimensions of the organizational control inside MKO. There is another issue called “physical working time for the members”. It means that beside those hours you are working on a computer, you should also have some physical working time. Your job shouldn’t be sitting and working on a computer only. The job shouldn’t be absolutely mental. You should at least have two hours of physical working time a day. For example if your job is working on a computer, they will assign you an intensive working time in the kitchen too.

To extend their organizational control, they have inspired the members that the Leadership Council is very sacred. It is so saintly that no one can doubt its foundation or criticize it. Anything ordered by the Council must be obeyed. There are also some other elements called as Pins (cult jargon) including high-ranking members like Rahman (Abbas Davari) or Javad Baraiee or Reza Moradi.

They were the officials of men’s section. Everyone has to obey them. They were the equivalent of the Leadership Council.

Today I believe that this is the reason why MKO does not take any position against me despite the fact that I have had many interviews and done a lot of activities for Sahar Family Foundation. It’s so simple for the MKO to make some false documents accusing me for any crime but they do not do anything against me. Why? Because they don’t want to expose the truth that one of the saints of their leadership Council has escaped from the cult. Therefore they never take a position against me. If they say anything against me in their website, the twenty to twenty-five members of the Leadership Council who run the sites will realize the fact and that’s what the organization doesn’t want. 

I’d like to discuss an issue: cutting off with the normal world and the art of remaining revolutionary. This is a principal very similar to that of other cults around the world. The primary principal of such an art (the art of remaining revolutionary) is to leave the family. It means that you should take distance from your family and friends. Particularly after the Ideological revolution you should pass a phase called ideological divorce, whether you are married or single or if you have any children you should pass over them emotionally and abandon them and then enter the organization. After you entered the organization you couldn’t even have a pocket radio because it links you to the outside world. You cannot use any mass media except that of MKO. They never let the news of the other Media broadcast in the hall. Sometime they even record, edit and censure the news and then show them, just to claim that they broadcast the news of CNN or Al Jazeera. They are very careful about the relationships between the members and the people of the outside society such as the Iraqis who come to the camp. They care about the relations because they don’t want to risk the art of remaining Revolutionary. They say:” becoming Revolutionary is not an art but remaining Revolutionary is an art.” They say that they help to remain Revolutionary. How do they help? They send your children far away to make you free and consequently they solve your contradiction. Here, you see the highest deception. However this is how the organization acts for its own survival, but they make you think that you owe them because they help you!

Another example is that you should submit all your photos or souvenirs to MKO. Love and friendship is forbidden. They have created a world of violence without any emotions.

They also confiscate the members’ ID cards and passports to cut them off their identities. They have a theory called: " in contradiction with the society”. When one enters MKO where one is always criticized, one finds the life so hard. They say that the art of remaining Revolutionary means that you must solve the contradiction with the group. They make you consider the life in the group as a value. Thus, the member is gradually departed from his or her world and becomes a puppet that acts in the same way the organization wants.

The so called point of outer self

 

The most important matter within MKO is the way members have to make their relationships with their outer self or the so called point of outer self (cult jargon).

To define this issue, you should first discuss the leadership in MKO. I mean that they consider the relationships of a member limited to his relationships with the leadership only. In fact, the position of the leadership is so special that everything is defined or formed on that base. The first paragraph of the manifesto of the ideological revolution says: "there is an obstacle between each member and the leader" which should be removed. For example Rajavi officially questioned that: "who is in the bottom of your heart?", and then declared that "I want Maryam to be there instead." 

It is definitely funny to fill the bottom of our hearts with someone else (other than Masud). When Masud says that he doesn’t want anyone – parents, relatives, spouses … – to be in the bottom of our heart except Maryam, he means that the members should only be with him. "Maryam" is the nickname for Masud. This is also a deceit because they indirectly say that the substitute for parents, children, and spouses … is Maryam. Maryam, is just a puppet who must praise Masud every day. They have set a structure that her daily job is to lead the members, canalize them and control them for the time Masud wants to launch an operation and achieve his goals.

For Example, they clearly declared that every individual resembles a mathematical fraction. It means that everyone consists of a numerator and a denominator. They say that the numerator is Maryam and the denominator is Masud, Where the numerator equals breath and the denominator equals blood. It means that so long as the member is alive and is breathing, he must work for Maryam and whenever Masud desires, he must sacrifice his blood . Therefore, they own the individuality of the member. And this was the reason for Maryam’s election as a co-leader. Masud chose a woman who was in fact his comrade’s wife. He sought after her. Then they married and their story began: Maryam became the first person in charge of MKO (after Masud who was the spiritual leader) and they carried on until Maryam said: "every member of the organization should follow my path.” This was defined  differently for men and women. Basically in this way, they elected the first group of leadership council : they chose the female members who acted as  Masud desired. They had to perform exactly what Masud commanded . They left aside the male members. Why? Because they didn’t want to make the changes Masud wanted. Women fit in the system founded by Masud more easily than men. The women members didn’t do anything by themselves; they executed Masud’s orders more according to his wishes. There are so many male members in MKO who are more knowledgeable, more intelligent and even more skillful than Masud. In that system of controlling, Masud could make all of them to obey his orders. The women were taught how to control the men. In order to prevent men complaining, they gave some of them titles such as "Pins", "Columns" … (cult jargons) and used them in some tasks which are typically men’s work. But actually, the most private problems of men were studied by the women members of the Leadership Council. The worst one was Nasrin (Mahvash Sepehri) who encountered them in the meetings.

Of course, the leadership Council often had arguments that Rajavi had to come and solve the problems personally. I remember when in 1995 the members of the Leadership Council were passive and disappointed, Masud Rajavi held lengthy meetings (15 to 30 days) called the Second Constitutors to convince them. However, Rajavi had the ability to do so. For example he is told that someone has a problem. Rajavi calls him to the microphone and starts up a conversation with him, and after convincing him they finally conciliate. Rajavi is already informed of what kind of personality that member has or what his problem is because his monitoring system has fed him with all information. For example, he knows that the member’s child is dead. He says to him: "well, Reza do you think about your kid?” and poor Reza wonders "what a smart leader he is! He knows everything about me!" therefore Rajavi convinces him that the leader is an extraordinary person who has good relations with all members and remembers all their private issues. Sometimes, they hold some primary meetings before the main meetings. During a primary meeting, they start admiring Masud, describing his abilities and different dimensions of his life, his personality, his activities and the high-quality of his revolution and the short hours of his sleep.  Then, they say "you should join such an eternal origin".

Maryam made too much effort to praise Masud. Even she said: "I’m not able to acquaint Masud". I mean Maryam had planned to convince the members that Masud is an extra-ordinary person. She tried her best to convince the members that Masud is superior to his era .

She has silly strategies saying that "we will enter Iran, we will overthrow the regime" but those who are skillful in politics know that this is quite impossible, yet Maryam told the hesitators: "You can’t understand this because what Masud says happens after a few years.

She tried to give him significant characteristics saying that he is linked with an eternal origin.

Sometimes Masud did the same for Maryam. He began to admire her and Maryam apparently complained against his compliments. This was a game between them.  These disgusting relations makes the people outside the organization believe that MKO is a cult of personality. All authorities have to submit their members’ reports to Masud. And Masud reads them all.

Every year, on New Year’s Day they give some gifts to the Leadership Council members to affect them emotionally. The gifts include sister Maryam’s watches or necklaces … or gold medallions with Masud’s portrait on them.

To convince the members to attempt self-immolations or suicide bombing operations, Masud visited them and had a party with them and clearly told them "You shouldn’t get arrested alive, in case of being arrested you have to kill yourselves immediately. "They falsified all religious Hadith (quotations of the Prophet), and even Quran was interpreted in their own way to legitimize the suicide bombing attacks.

Besides, Maryam Rajavi was considered superior to a normal leader. Rajavi’s ambitions are to make Maryam a leader like Masud, an avant-garde of revolutionaries who can replace Masud in his absence. She meets Lords, deputies and MPs. She creates an atmosphere to present a false picture of Masud, herself and MKO.

 

 

Mujahedin’s struggle principals

 

In this session, I would like to describe the struggle that today MKO insists on its principals. They say that their struggle is their main investment. I want to talk about MKO fighters, to learn how their fight and their principals were at the beginning, in what stage of their struggle they are now, and how much they have been loyal to their primary principals of their struggle.

Since 1964, I mean when the founders of MKO established the group, they determined a definition for Right and Wrong. Their definition was somehow new at that time. They defined Right and Wrong as “exploiter” and “exploited”. The objective example for the Wrong was US-backed dictatorship of Shah. Along with these principals, they decided to launch an armed struggle against Shah and US military officials, advisors and economic or cultural authorities.

 

They continued their struggle, even after the mass arrests of the group’s members in 1970, fighting to overthrow Shah’s monarchy. They were killed either inside or outside the prison. It is good to know that at that time Masud Rajavi’s organizational comrades including Badi’ Zadegan, Hanif Nejad and even some others who were at lower ranks comparing Masud, were executed in the prison, but Masud Rajavi survived. Although MKO has always justified this fact by some nonsense, there are a lot of accusations against Masud Rajavi who could manage to survive among so many comrades who were executed. I’d rather explain the process Rajavi headed after the Islamic Revolution; I want to evaluate the way he acted far from those primary principals.

When Masud Rajavi was released from Evin prison, he addressed some speeches in Amjadiyeh stadium and other places. The criterion that can prove Rajavi’s disentitlement for MKO’s leadership was his eagerness to claim himself as the leader of the group immediately after he was released from the prison. He was extremely enthusiastic to introduce himself as the leader of the movement and the revolution and he tried to make others to recognize his self-assigned position. He did not want any other post except that of a leader. He didn’t recognize any other person as the leader.

When his true face was shown, the main problem of MKO was brought about. He showed his hostility toward many individuals. I mean, he was looking for a leadership role when the Iranians had all focused on Ayatollah Khomeini’s leadership as the only legitimate leader. In fact, Rajavi’s extreme jealousy and hostility was coming up. When he couldn’t get the first position as the leader of Iran, he tried to get the president’s office but he was not allowed to be a presidential candidate because he hadn’t voted for the constitution he was supposed to prosecute. All these things pushed him to an open opposition against the Iranian Revolution.

After a short period of time, on June 20th, 1981 he declared armed struggle against Islamic Republic. I think since then the organization’s circle of power has completely changed. Indeed, Rajavi himself insists on this change. But the change was in a way that the organization distanced from a popular organization. Actually, he declared armed struggle in that disturbing situation in the society after too much bloodshed, only to achieve his personally lost objectives. It was just for his personality in his cult. Therefore, he did his best to endanger social security.

At the time, I was in grade one at high school. I remember how MKO misused the tiniest complaints or protests in schools for its own cause. As a student, I didn’t know anything about the organization.

Just sometimes I protested against the conditions and MKO took the benefit of my adventurous, immature protests and recruited me. As the first step, once you joined the group, you had to leave your family and go to the group’s safe houses to “fight the Islamic Republic”. MKO members were quite active at schools and they could influence those who had the potentiality and opposed the regime. For example, some students protested against mass praying, they didn’t like to participate it, or they had complaints about veil (hijab). These people were the same ones who fell in MKO’s trap more easily. The group recruiters worked on the students in order to absorb them gradually. Then they used to ask the new recruits to give financial helps. They focused on those who were passionately revolutionary. They continued with the new recruited ones to bring more students to the organization’s net.

I remember that they arranged mountain climbing tours to recruit new students. So gradually I was recruited by MKO without having any information about the group and its cause.

When MKO declared armed struggle, they trapped a group of young people who had no way but to stay in MKO’s safe houses. They were supposed to launch operations. But I didn’t know this at that time. I could only read about it later. I was too young for politics or Rajavi’s theories, but I saw some active, devotee youth who worked for the group.

 

Finally, the organization was outlawed by the Islamic Republic because of its armed struggle against the regime, the state and the authorities. Some of its members were arrested. Masud Rajavi fled Iran along with Banisadr and survived, although his wife Ashraf was killed in Iran. Masud had no pity for his wife and never tried to get her out of Iran.  

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Mujahedin Khalq Organization as a terrorist group

Atlas of Radical Islam

The following is extracted of the book:”Atlas of Radical Islam” which was written under the supervision of Mr. Khavier Raufer.  The book was published by Cnrs edistion, in Paris, in 2007. According to the author, the objective ofMr. Xavier Rauf the publication of the book is to represent a useful solution to the lack of information on radical Islam. The book includes descriptions on all Islamic extremist and terrorist groups such as Al-Qaida and Mujahidin Khalq. There is also analysis on radical Islamic groups whether Sunnite or Shiite, their doctrine or theory, their networks and supporters and their history and activities.

In pages 335 to 340, a short report on MKO’s activities, background and ideology is presented so as a lot of realities are not told about the group.

Martial Condition

Muajhedin—e-Khalq organization was one of the most known opposition groups which fought Shah of Iran and had an eight-year experience in armed struggle against the regime. It could penetrate the government system and play an important part in overthrowing the monarchist government using the modern propaganda techniques.

Atlas of Radical IslamFollowing the February, 1979, Masud Rajavi asked his hundreds of young, passionate supporters to stop their manifestations and enter the governmental structure of Islamic regime in a covered way. Therefore, after the dismissal of Bani Sadr from presidential position, on June 20th,1981,Mujahedin set out for armed struggle once more, entering a new phase of struggle.

Muajhedin-e-Khalq Organization launched deadly attacks against Islamic Republic in less than a week. But it couldn’t take any advantage of such an action.  Later Mr. Rafsanjani confessed that after the attempt against Ayatollah Khomeini on June 27th1981 in Mosque Abuzar, Tehran, the regime was totally wondering for a  few days. The following day, on June 28th,1981, a bomb exploded in the office of Islamic Republic Party that ended with the death of 10 ministers and  vice-ministers, 20 parliament members and 44 other people of high-ranking officials. Mujahedin had really pretended in the high political  gathering so as two months later ,they could easily take a baggage to the administration building ,to burn up Muhammad Javad Bahonar-Prime Minister- and Mohammad Ali Rajaiee, the President. 

–        April 23rd 2001, they attached the headquarters of police in Shemiran, North of Tehran, while the commandants of the region were having a meeting on the recent attacks of MKO. There is no available estimate on  the measures of damages.

–        September 11th, 2001, MKO didn’t announce any statement on its performed operations in order not to be condemned of terrorism.

Meanwhile, the organization asked its supporters to get in the streets for protest, then they filmed them to use the films in the propaganda. At the same time some groups were investigating the mental and psychological conditions of MKO members and supporters to select those who were ready to launch suicide operations and then to prepare them with complicated trainings. For launching a terrorist operation the members should be so skillful that they can manage everything up to the end. 

Thus, the group started astonishing actions to create a psychological warfare within the Regime; for instance it could penetrate the closest supporters of the leader and could find out that a clandestine council had been founded to choose a successor for the leader that if he was killed in a terrorist operation, another person could be replaced. A number of young guys launched the suicide operations tying explosives around their waist and body. When the Intelligence Service became stronger, MKO made the 15-16 year-old girls involved in the operations.

 

Suicide Operations

Three months before the suicide operation in Beirut, MKO launched the first suicide operation of the Middle East, in Tabriz, against ayatollah Madani – the spiritual leader of Tabriz-on September 11th 1981. Later, the organization launched an attack against Abdul Hussein Dastgheib – the spiritual leader of Shiraz- on December. 11th,1981. And on July 2nd,1982, MKO  operated  another suicide and assassinated ayatollah Sadughi in Yazd and also on October  15th 1992,they had a terrorist operation to kill Ayatollah Ashrafi Isfahani- the spiritual leader and the supreme leader’s representative – in Kermanshah.

The Mujahedin-e-Khalq Organization did the series of operations through the years and finally in February 2006, it decided to give up armed struggle. The Islamic Republic didn’t ignore their activities and executed thousands of MKO members including Musa Khiabani who was executed on February   8th, 1982 along with 22 other leaders of the organization.

In 1983, while the zenith of Iran-Iraq war, MKO set out for cooperation with Saddam Hussein’s regime.

Masud Rajavi who had been expelled from France, joined Iraq on June 7th 1996. MKO was equipped with all kinds of arms by the help of Saddam Hussein and thus the National Liberation Army was established.

In July 1988,three days after the end of Iran-Iraq war, the executive council of MKO started the “ Eternal Light” operation “ to liberate Iran” but the NLA, under the command of Mahin Rezaiee, Ali Zarkesh, Mohamamd Maasumi, Asghar ZamanVaziri, Mohsen Tadayoni and Reza Pourgel, passed a few Kurdish villages in its way and  was stopped  and could never reach Tehran. A few days later the army was totally demolished and nothing survived.

The confrontations between Iran and MKO lasted 13 more years but the more they lasted, the more MKO was discredited. The European countries realized how dangerous MKO is, having found out its terrorist and cult-like behavior and they do not believe MKO’s statements of victory any more. Since 1991, MKO has held various press conferences in European capitals in order to present the news on Iran and also to “denounce”, trying to interpret any thing for its own benefit. MKO has been designated as a terrorist organization by the US, since 1997.In 2001 the other front organizations attached to MKO were also listed. In 2003, the group was forced to give up its military camp in Iraq and at the present time it is seriously controlled by most of the European governments. Therefore the organization does its best to use its information to take advantages from western governments. The “denunciation” made by MKO was not considered as important until 2002 when other reports told of tormenting advancement of Iranian nuclear program and the presence of a clandestine nuclear site in Natanz.

In fact, Iran’s nuclear program has never been clandestine or secret. The program, originally started in 1973 when the oil income of the country increased five times as before and some questions formed in the minds of the authorities, on the future of their nation after the oil sources would be finished.

Thus in 1974 the Iranian government commanded three companies: Framatome, Alsthome, spie-batignolle, to build two nuclear sites. Then the French Prime Minister Jacque Chirac who had been in Iran for a three –day visit, signed the related contracts and a number of Iranian experts then nuclear scientists went to France.

The Iranian nuclear program was restarted while the Iran-Iraq war and the presidential era of Sayed Ali Khameneie.

When the problem of the purchase of ground to ground missiles was presented in the Iranian administration, naturally the problem of the fuel of the missiles was also crucial and the case of nuclear fuel was mentioned.

These efforts ,after 15 years ,on July 22nd 1998, were ended with launching of Shahab 3 missile which boarded 1300 kms. Since that time, the military engineers of the Revolutionary Guard promoted the power of the missile and its board is now 2000 km.

A number of terrorist operations of MKO’s military branch:

-June 27th 1981, Hojatol Eslam Ali Husseini Khameneiee who was the leader’s representative in the Supreme Council of Defense, was the objective of a terrorist attempt while addressing in Abuzar Mosque and his right hand became disabled. The bomb had been put in a tape recorder.

– June 28th   1981, a bomb exploded in the meeting of Islamic Republic Party where Beheshti and 73 other people including 4 ministers, 6 vice-ministers and 20 parliament members were assassinated. There were some other people who were killed in the bombing like; Muhammad Montazeri, the son of  Ayatollah Montazeri, Abbas Ali  Nateq Nouri, Sadeq Eslami, Ali Darakhshan, Dr. Abbas pour and Sarhaddi

– August 30th,1981, a bomb exploded in a bag that ended with the death of the president Muhammad Ali Rajaiee and the Prime Minister  Muhammad Javad Bahonar, Colonel Vahid Dastjerdi and a number of the Cabinet                  members.

– Septebmer 5th1981 a terrorist operation was launched against Ali Qodusi, Tehran Attorney General and Brigador General Dastjerdi the general commandant  of gendarmerie.

September 11th1981, a terrorist operation was  launched against Ayatollah Sayed Asad Allah Madani, the spiritual leader of Tabriz ,he got the title “ First Martyr of Altar”

–        September 29th 1981, a terror operation was launched against Hojatol Eslam Abdul Karim Hasheminezhad, Ayatollah Khomeini’s deputy in Mashad.

–        October 5th,1981, terror of Hasan Ayat, one of the leaders of Republic Party and former member of Iran’s Labour Party.

–        December 11th 1981, a terror suicide operation against ayatollah Abdul Hassan Dastgheib, the spiritual leader and Leaders’ representative in Shiraz, they called him “the second Martyr of Altar”.

–        July 2nd1982 a terror operation against Ayatollah Saduqi, Leader’s representative and spiritual leader in Yazd, he was then called “The Third Martyr of Altar.”

–        August 12th,1982, three revolutionary  guards were assassinated .

–        October 15th,1982 a terrorist operation was launched against  ayatollah Ashrafi Isfahani, the leader’s deputy and the spiritual leader of Kermanshah, he got the title of” The Fourth Martyr of Altar”

–        April 1992, MKO’s operations against 13 Iranian Embassies.

–        1993 operations against oil pipelines near Abadan.

–        1993,bombing in the Shrine of Imam  Reza.

–        June 2nd,1998,the deadly operation was launched against  Haj Hassan Salehi, one of the founders of Sepah Pasdaran, who then started  working at the Revolution  Court  and was involved in the execution of hundreds of MKO members in the summer of 1988. In this operation that happened by a bomb explosion in a baggage that was put at the office of Attorney general of Revolution Court in Tehran, three other people,an Armenian and two kids were killed and 22 people were wounded. In 2000, Hojat Zamani who was accused of launching this operation, was arrested. His two brothers were also executed in 2001 and a few months later his father died but he fled to Turkey where he was arrested by the police. And submitted to Iranian government. On July 17th,2004 he was sentenced to death and on February 7th,2006 the ruling was executed in Gohardasht Prison.

–        June 2nd,1998 , a number of mortar attacks were launched at Sepah headquarters in Shemiran. A base in Vanak and also the Defense Industrial Centre in the North of Tehran were the objectives of mortar attacks. There is no available information on the casualties. Rafsanjani told IRNA: “if the Americans do really believe in condemning terrorism, they should restrict MKO’s activities in their territory.”

–        The following day, the American administration issued a statement and condemned the attack. On July 15, the Canadian foreign affairs Minister condemned terrorism in any form and also condemned MKO’s act declaring that the known members of the group were not allowed to enter Canadian soil.

–        August 23 rd, 1998, Asad Allah Lajvardi, Asghar Esmaielie and two other anonymous employees of Defense Ministry  were assassinated.

–        September 13,1998, the unsuccessful attempt against Mohsen Rafiq Dust the former commandant of Sepah and the director of “ Mustazafan Foundation”. The bullet was shot from the hill across from his office.

–        January 6th1999, the unsuccessful terror of Ali Razini, who has had various responsibilities in Revolution Court. Due to the attack, one passenger was killed and 4 other were wounded. The reformist newspaper of Tehran had accused him of taking 100 million dollars from the governmental accounts and settled in his personal account to spend for Ansar Hezbollah and their journal “Shalamche”.

–        January 6th1999, the terror of Ali Sayad Shirazi

–        , a high ranking commandant of the Army and the leader’s military advisor. He was killed by the shot of a MKO’s commando while he was taking his son to school. The commando was disguised as a sanitation worker. The operation which was called “ Dawn” was launched in order to revenge the death of six NLA’s commandants in the operation “ Eternal Light”

–        February 15th,2000, a number of mortars was shot towards Presidential Palace at 14:30’ . Khatami was not in his office, but a worker and 5 other people were killed.

–        March 13th, several mortars were launched against Sepah’s headquarters in the northern part of Vanak Square. Apparently ,Safavi, Sepah’s  commandants, and  Zolqadr, his successor, who was responsible for the cross border operations against MKO, were the objectives of this operation. Some of the bullets hit the residential complex of Nour. The quantity of casualties is not bases of Sepah 120 times, since last year.

–        March 14th,2000, a  number of mortars were launched against the common headquarters  of armed forces, Ashura base and Baqeri base in Dushan Tappe’. The casualties are not known.

–        April 21st 2001,the unsuccessful attempt on the life of Farhad Nazari, the former commandant  of the police in the Great Tehran.   Mr. Khavier Raufer

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USA

Bush,Iran and Bomb

  Research on a Programmed War –  Chapter 13 

To fight the Iranian Regime, the Bush administration decided to not only sit at a table with the evil but also to invite itself to evil ‘s table, allying with a group that has been designated as a foreign terror organization by the State Department since 1997. In fact the position taken by the group and its ideology are perfectly opposite to those of the United Stated as well as the Islamic Republics ideas, but its leaders impudent manipulators, animated by a logic of existence ,are making alliance with the worst enemies of the Islamic Regime to prolong their existence. Michael Rubin qualifies the MEK (Mujahedin-e-Kalq) as “monsters of the left”, a lable that perfectly characterizes this cult-like group which has mixed terrorism, autocracy, Islamism and Marxism since its creation.   Born on the vestige of a reformist movement formed in 1960’s by Mehdi Bazargan, MEK was created by a group of students of whom Masud Rajavi supposes that God not only created the world but he leads it to a historical evolution that ends to a society without classes, omitting the capitalistic inequalities. Their theory is a strange “syncretism” where Marxism and Islam coexist and reject the conservative clerics. According to them, the Shiite clerics as well as the Sunnites failed to understand the real essence of Quran and its dynamism. Masud Rajavi who affirms himself as the only leader, interpret religion to justify terrorism. In his opinion, a person who dies while a terror operation is equal to martyr and in his interpretation of Shiite, he  has the glorification of a martyr. 

A dictator who never had power MEK, engaged in armed struggle without kindness against Shah multiply the assassination and attempts against American interests in Iran.   In 1979, the movement was one of the elements who supported the hostage taking of American diplomats in Tehran. Meanwhile, the group supported the Soviet invasion to Afqanistan and opposed the resistance of Afghan Mujahedin. Reorganized by Rajavi, MEK functioned as a communist party inspired by Trotskyite, with its central committee and political office and youth and propaganda organizations to recruit new members.  Rajavi, with his Stalinist mustache, has not invented a democratic system but a tyranny and rigorous hierarchy that put him on the head with the absolute power. For Muajhedin’s leader, Khomeini’s reaching power, means the victory of conservative clerics to which he has always opposed. On the other hand, the revolution’s leader views the mix of Marxism and Islam as intolerable. At the head of a delegation, on the early days after the revolution, Rajavi was received by Ayatollah Khomeini in Qom but the leader of the revolution refuses his offers frigidly presenting a lesson on what the true Islam is. The gap between the two sides deepened everyday so as Khomeini’s supporters call Mujahedin “hypocrites” or “infidels”, the verbal oppression increased and reached a physical phase that is forgotten today. The MKO’s partisans who were called,” God’s enemies “ were executed in large numbers. And of course MKO respond by the assassinations and attempts which mounted to 10000 victims during 1981 to 1982.  On July 29th, 1981, Rajavi accompanied by Bani Sadr, the ex-president of Islamic Republic, fled Iran on a military aircraft that landed on military base of Evreux. Rajavi found refugee in Auver-sur-Oise where his medicine brother resided, a few meters from Ravoux motel in which Vincent van Gohg died, Rajavi installed his general base and changed it to a camp which still exists there.  In order to continue his existence, this dictator who has never had power, rules a weakened group, serves the worst enemy of his country: Saddam Hussein.  Mujahedin became the supplementary army for Iraqis in the bloody war between Iran and Iraq. Today all Iranians with any opinion share one idea: the betrayal and hatred towards Mujahedin as a group of “traitors” and” terrorists”.   Murder with Tanks In 1991, following the defeat of Saddam Hussein, the future of Iraq is the subject of discussions among a small group of advisors of Bush father. Robert Gates has already prepared a lot of scenarios. One of them considers the creation of a mini-state in Southern Iraq dominated by Shiites. Gates was supposed to create an army similar to that of South of Lebanon which is Israelis’ agent. Washington repeatedly calls the Shiites and Kurds for uprising. These calculations were due to the Americans’ assurance of Saddam’s heavy failure. They were sure that he could not oppress the internal uprisings.  On the first occasion, a message of support was sent to Iranian Kurds, however it was so vague that the Kurds couldn’t confirm or deny it. At the same time, the American military experts crossed Turkey borders and arrived in Kurdistan.  Bush and his partisans were shocked when Saddam Hussein oppressed Kurdish and Shiites uprisings violently. “They had no plan any more” told me a collaborator of Dick Cheney at that time. “I remember that we asked our intelligence Service: how could the Revolutionary Guard of President oppress the uprisings. They were not able to give any answer.” And the reason: “ the soldiers who were wearing the uniforms of revolutionary Guard , Saddam’s favorite force, and assassinated Kurdish civilians and Shiites opponents in Basra were all MEK members. The son of Jalal Talibani, Iraqi Kurds’ leader, says: “Until the fall of Saddam’s Regime, it (MKO) was a part of Iraqi army that played an important role in oppressing Kurdish uprisings in 1991.”  New York Times published the testimony, on these events, of a former member of MEK who was the body guard of Masud Rajavi and his second wife Maryam. He says:” they told us that if these rebels succeed to overthrow saddam Hussien, it would be the end to our movement too”¦ Maryam Rajavi advised us to take them under the tanks and keep our bullets for the other  operations.”

Unique Manipulators There are evil states” out there but some allegedly “Revolutionary” movements are also evil, including FARC in Colombia and MEK.  Masud Rajavi and his second wife Maryam control their movement with despotism: the members are not allowed to read anything except that of MEK, living collectively ,they must remain single ,deprived of any sexual relations, attend regular meetings of auto-criticizing.   In 1985, Maryam and Masud got married, believing that their marriage is the beginner of an ideological revolution in the organization, forced the few married couples of MKO to divorce in order to devote themselves  physically and mentally to the cult  of personality that they created. These qualified manipulators know well how naive and oblivious the democratic governments of the world are. Therefore, in 1986 they set out for lobbying in European parliaments especially in that of France they succeed to collect the signatures and 3000 parliamentarians on a petition. In 1992 they repeated the same operation in the United States and could collect the signatures of 1500 of members and collaborators of American congress to “support National Council of Resistance of Iran as a democratic alternative to Khomeini’s regime in Iran.” They also sent some delegations to meet British Workers Party, communist Party of Italy and Greece, attracting the welcome of several human rights organization and famous scholars. They all had forgotten that enemy of an enemy is not necessarily their friend. Michael Rubin, the specialist of Iran in American Enterprise Institute who is however close to neo-conservatives, speaks of a real aversion for the movement: “Within the United States, MKO members tell Congressmen, their staffs, and other policymakers what they want to hear: That the MKO is the only opposition movement capable of ousting the unpopular and repressive Islamic Republic. They are slick. Friendly lawmakers and commentators get Christmas baskets full of nuts and sweets. Well-dressed and well-spoken representatives of MKO front organizations approach American writers, politicians, and pundits who are critical of the regime.’’

Four points that are not negotiable. Tehran has repeatedly asked Paris for the extradition of MKO leaders and the halt of their activities in French soil. According to the research on relations between Iran and France, published in 2006: “”¦ Iran has decided to put pressure on France to accept the expulsion of MKO’s chief and organize the content of Eurodif.” For the cause, the hostage takings in Lebanon and several attempts were organized by Iran. “At beginning of December 1985” write Dominique Lorentz “the Iranians awaken President Mitterrand with two operations. On December 7th two bombs exploded simultaneously in Galeries Lafayette and Printemp.” I visited Ronald Dumas in his house in Paris, he told me of his first visit in Iran:” it was 1951, I was working for a small newspaper and I had a skin problem that made me have beard. Mossadeqh was on power at that time and had sympathy for me.” Having finished his nostalgic memories, Duma talked of four points that are not negotiable according to Mitterrand, in Iran-France relations: Refusing to pay ransom for the release of detained hostages, to discuss the military contracts with Iraq or to deliver arms to Iran. The last point: he refused the expulsion of Iranian political refugees including Masud Rajavi and former president Bani Sadr.”

The Queen of Bees

A few months later Masud Rajavi was extradited to Iraq by Jacque Chirac who had just come to the head of federal government. The Iranian authorities pleased of such decision were definitely wrong. Rajavi became the ally of their worst enemy and the executor of Saddam’s dirtiest deals. Rajavi possessed an army included of 7000 to 8000 men, heavily armed that  its main mission was the oppression of internal uprisings for Baath regime in Iraqi territory and launching sabotage operations and assassinations in Iran.  In 1987, the Interior Minister, Charles  Pasqua, announced the expulsion of Iranian opponents, especially the Mujahedin. The decision causes a wave of protests. High Commissioner for Refugees declares its concern and Human Rights League protests.  Jack Lang claims:” Shame on Pasqua. Shame on Chirac’s government for  this inappropriate act means the denial of  refugees’ rights and alliance with Khomeini’s dictatorship .” Lionel Jospin names it “brutal expulsion.” Charles Pasqua’ s response is  both ironic and exact:” you are free to have sympathy for Muajhedin-e-Khalq that today, fight the regime of Khomeini as well as yesterday that they helped him to reach the power. You will fail to represent them as democratic and you can not imagine what kind of regime will they establish in Iran if they take the power.” The only problem was that a few months later, Pasqua signed a text of support for MEK” The movement which has a little interest in democracy starts a large campaign of protestation all over Europe and America in July 1985, with the blind help of Western newspapers. The pressures succeed finally. Paris accepts the return of seven of the extradited people.  On June 17th, 2003, 1300 policemen raided the organization’s headquarter in Auver-Sur-Oise . One hundred sixty-five members and responsible were arrested including their president Maryam Rajavi. In a protest gesture, ten of Mujahedin self- immolated; two of them died. Maryam Rajavi, wearing her Chanel jacket and the scarf always on her head, was released.   According to the study made by “ journal of study on eastern Mediterranean and the  Turkish-Iranian world” , “ this operation can mark a new step in Iran-European relations, characterized, on one hand, by the pressure Europe put on Iran due to its nuclear program, not to give a pretext to the Americans who are seeking a regime change in Iran if the later refuses to cooperate with AIEA; from the other hand, European union, following its approaches on Iran including the support for “ reformists” , wants to omit the  options that  could lead to the destabilization of the political scene in Iran. In this perspective, considering that People’s Muajhedin as a well-organized organization can play a role in destabilization of Islamic Republic French government launched the operation to limit MKO’s action on French soil [“¦]. In order to justify the operation, the interior minister Nicolas Sarkozy explains:” Mujahedin wanted to make a protection base of France and we can not accept it.”

The explanation was a little short. The movement has used France as a support base for years. And, in Auver-Sur-Oise, behind the walls and towers that protect her headquarter, Maryam Rajavi continue to control her organization like a queen of bees in her beehive. 2003 was an excellent year for MEK. The fall of Saddam served them with another supporter: The United Stated. 

Chapter14 In March 2003,the American troops surrounded camp Ashraf ,the principal military base of Mujahedin in Iraqi territory ,located on the West of Iranian border at a hundred kilometers North of  Bagdad. It contained 3850 men, armed with heavy arms including tanks and artilleries. They are disarmed and detained in the camp.  Tehran sent a message to White House, by its intermediate Javad Zarif, its ambassador in United Nations. Iran proposed to exchange the Al-Qiada high-ranking members who had been detained in Iran, following the September 11th, for the 3850 men of MEK. “Your terrorists instead of ours” mentioned Zarif.  The suggestion that was made in the middle of March became the subject of a meeting between Bush and his top advisors. As always, Cheney was sitting on the right side of the president ,in the Situation Room. This conference room , especially decorated ,is located in the basement of the White House. A lot of rooms surround it, with large maps of different regions of the world on the walls. The information that is transmitted every morning to the White House by the secret services are reproduced on these maps. The Situation Room is also equipped with extra ordinarily sophisticated computers that let the authorities in the room contact instantly with any part of the world.  Bush, who had had the war on terror and particularly the elimination of terrorists, should have been satisfied with this suggestion. Besides, the deal was good to Iran because if they could have reached the [MKO] leaders, they could have used their intelligence to prohibit the emergence of possible attacks.  But, finally the Americans refused the suggestion that Cheney resumed declaring:”we preserve all the options.” 

“This group loves the United States”  For Washington, MEK is not only an “option”, but also a reality; it has an office in the very official building of National Press, a high place of the whole American Press in American Capital.  On April 8th, 2003, Ileana Rose-Lehtinen, republican from Florida, president  of the sub-committee on international relations for Near-East  and Central Asia declared about Mujahedin:” this group loves the United States. They are assisting us in war on terrorism they’re pro-US . This group has not fought  against the US. It’s simply not true. .”  In Washington, numerous figures including Paul Wolfowitz and Dauglas Feith are reviewing MEK as an ideal instrument for the politics they would like to take against Iran. The grouplet also tries to seem credible. Its spokesman in Washington, AliReza Jaafar zade, who took distance from the MKO in 2003, fed the Americans with the revelations on Iranian nuclear program.  On May 10th,2003 general Ray Odierno, commandant of the forth infantry division installed in Iraq. declared:”I would say that any organization that has given up its equipment to the coalition clearly is cooperating with us, and I believe that it  should be reviewed whether  they are  still a terrorist organization or not.”  A declaration that is a little thought of, shows the spiritual status of many military officials. Michael Ledeen has well said:” I’m not the man to get closer that 300 kilometers to MEK, these men are not supported, they have no legality.” He knows well that it is a lie. Mujahidin were received at least by the United States that became their really political sponsor.

“A terrorist group is not necessarily illegal” Just after the reelection of George W.Bush, the Vice-president Cheney declared on January 20th, 2005 on CBS:” if you provide a list of potential zones of problem, Iran is on the top.“ At the same time, he asked the director of CIA to think of using MKO forces for sabotage operations inside Iran.  Maryam Rajavi and her movement who assassinated in the past several Americans and served Saddam Hussein as supplemetary force, became an arm in the hands of American president and his advisors. The only obstacle against an open cooperation between MEK and the American administration: the organization has figured on the list of foreign terrorist organizations of the State Department since 1997. A designation that curiously didn’t forbid it from having an office and activities in American capital. John Ashcroft, the ultra-conservative minister of Justice, supports the group actively and one of his collaborators explains this juridical ambiguity:”the simple designation of a group as a foreign terrorist organization doesn’t make it necessarily illegal.” The organization is recorded by the Justice Department as a lobbyist foundation, an activity that they are skilled in.  In January 2005, a former collaborator of Ronald Reagan, Raymond Tanter, created Iran Policy Committee, composed of “former officials of White House, State Department and Pentagon, The Intelligence Agencies, the research centers and universities.” And, he fails to mention the several important representatives of arm industries. According to members of IPC “Iran poses the main treat against the United States and its allies.” Since its creation, the committee put pressure on the Administration to remove MEK from the terrorist list and “to put these freedom fighters on the top of the strategy for regime change in Iran.” During a conference, on November 21st 2005, Taner declared :” one of the military options is the ‘ Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator [ a nuclear bomb tactic in large measure] that could have the capacity to destruct the tunnels profoundly undergrounded and sub terrain installations.” After, this radical introduction, he adds: “the international community should realize that there is only one group that can terrify the regime of Tehran: the People’s Mujahedin and National Council Resistance of Iran, the political coalition that MEK belongs to. [..] They are not only the best sources of Intelligence on the potential violation of the rules of non-proliferation, by Iran; but also they are possible allies of the West to bring regime change in Tehran.”  

“The Increasing quarrel of  the civilizations” Tanter’s innovation was supported by Tom Tancerdo, the Representative of Colorado in house of Representatives. The man whose reputation is due to his plan for the deport of clandestine workers on American territory, the construction of a wall throughout the borders of the country and the necessity for the United States to engage in the “The Increasing quarrel of  the civilizations’’. “ I think” he says, “we are not fighting only a small group who took religion as hostage, but a civilization that is determined to destruct us: radical Islam. Radical Islam has been the enemy of Christians since centuries ago. ‘’ In 2005, he also founded “the Assembly for Democracy and the League for Human Rights in Iran.” He described Maryam Rajavi as “very charismatic; she believes in the women’s rights, she believes in democracy in Iran. I support her efforts. I know that the US has qualified it as a terrorist organization, but you have to know that they were designated after the Clinton Administration was seeking to achieve a relation with Iran and with Mullahs; these ones wanted to formulate an only exigency: that the Mujahedin be listed as a terrorist organization and the designation was made due to political reasons and it doesn’t mean that they pose a threat to the United States. “ 

“Thanks, sister Maryam”  On the early days of May 2005, MEK organized a large demonstration in Washington, at Constitution Hall, to represent itself as the legitimate representative of resistance .A lot of members of Congress were present. A number of lecturer were there too. One of them was Captain Vivian Gembara of the fourth infantry division, a jurist who negotiated the disarmement of Mujahedin in Iraq. She is the daughter of an officer of special forces that was a really legend during the Vietnam War:”It’s just simply imprudent” she said “ to continue the exclusion of MEK, since we have to  face a much more important threat in Iran.”  On October 20th,2005, Maryam Rajavi addressed the congress. The self-proclaimed President of Iran attended the Capitol by video satellite directly from Auver-Sur-d’Oise . The 51 year-old woman received the cheers of the audience with a humble smile. At the end of her speeches, the democrat representative of Texas, Sheila Jackson said emotionally:” thanks, sister Maryam.”  The title “Freedom Fighter” is an appropriate title for any political rebel … At their eras, Jonas Savimbi in Angola and Masud in Afghanistan practiced it successfully, having received financial and military support.  Maryam Rajavi promises exactly what her sympathizers like to hear. In January 2005, she engaged in organizing the free elections in six months following the regime change and to form a constituent assembly in order to lead the affairs by the representatives elected by people.” The admirable declarations that were contradicted by the report published Human Rights Watch at the same time. Twenty–eight onerous pages with the appropriate title:” No Exit: Human Rights abuses inside the MEK Camp.” According to Joe Stork the director of Middle East branch of HRW, in Washington: ”The Iranian government  has a shameful record on human rights, but it will be a big mistake to support a dissident group that is responsible of a lot of cases of human rights violations.”  The reports are based on the evidences of twelve former Mujahedin who were interviewed from February to May, 2005. They explained the use of torture, maltreatment and solidarity confinement after they had criticized the undemocratic methods of the movement and declared their willingness to leave the organization.  Two of them declared that they had witnessed the death of two prisoners during the interrogations. “The MEK” they said “ has installed special prisons in its Iraqi Camps where the dissidents are detained.” One of the eyewitnesses explained that he had been imprisoned for eight and a half years, the other one,  for five years.The four other defectors, accused of having opinions, affirmed of having been severely tortured and forced to sign false confessions in which they are recognized of having links with the agents of Iranians Intelligence Service.  Three former Mujahedin witnessed the death of Parviz Ahmadi, the commander of a unit. He died in February 1995 after he was beaten violently. It lasted three years for the MEK to announce his death, in the organization journal, Mojahed, as a “martyr” assassinated by the Iranian Intelligence Service.  All these testimonies, finally describe the very evidence that ” People’s Mujahedin is not a political movement but a cult devoted to the personality of the couple leaders.’’ The report was not considered as important by the media.  It should be said that nowadays in Washington the tensions are on the rise as well as 2002-2003 while the American invasion to Iraq.

” CIA attracts too much lightening”  In the fall 2004,while George Bush was campaigning for his reelection , declared in an interview by Fox NEWS network that feeds him with a pleasant support:” Iran will never be allowed to achieve nuclear weapons”  In February 2005, in his annual lecture on state of Union , he spoke a long speech on Iran that “ is the principal state sponsor of terrorism that seeks the program of the development of nuclear weapons, depriving its own people of liberty […]” . A few days before that, in January 2005 , “ Iran  Freedom Support Act” , intended to support a transition toward democracy in Iran, was introduced in the Chamber of Representatives. A month later it would be adopted by Senate. The act permits financing the opposition groups. At the head is the MEK which the only one that has an operational structure.  In the unrevealed scene of American politics, including the State Department and the Pentagon, MEK is a source of confrontations.  A testimony of this iron arm summarizes the situation:” the militarists consider them as their comrades and the diplomats consider them as terrorists” Condi Rice reproaches Rumsfeld for using MEK secretly for the clandestine operations. The information of the State Secretary is exact. They have become the “counter Iranian”, used in a totally illegal way, by the pentagon and DIA, the secret military services for the guerilla’s activity inside Iran. CIA is totally put away,” because it attracts too much complaints against the administration“ said to me, one of the officials of CIA. 

“Our policy has not changed”  There is not any presidential directive to permit such operations. The thing that, allows, at least in theory, to short-circuit  the eventual investigations of Senate and home of Representatives. The camps, controlled by the Special Forces and located in the deserts around Iran – Iraq border, have been used for the formation and military training of Mujahedin for their sabotage operations inside Iran.   An only man who knows everything on these clandestine operations is the sub-secretary of Defense, Stephen Combone, and a neo-conservative that a lot of people consider him as the real arm of Rumsfeld. A man “in shadow”, according to one of his collaborators, he is literally fascinated by the potentiality of MEK: about the intelligence on the Iranian nuclear program, but also because it is the only group that has the power to launch terrorist operations to   make  the Iranian leaders anxious. Cambone has also negotiated with the Pakistani authorities and gained the agreement of President Parvis Musharaf so as the Mujahedin could use the Baluchistan Province to launch their operations.  Interviewed by a reporter, the spokesman of the White House, Scott Mc Clellan, denies the intervention of the Administration.  “ – a lot of reports” asks a journalist,” reveal the operations launched in Iran, from three different areas. PKK on Iraqi border, MEK on the Southern border and also some operations from Baluchistan. Does the United- States have any policy? There are also some reports on the possible operations launched by the Special Forces in Iran.”  “- our policies towards these organization haven’t changed” replied the spokesman of White house. […] “We still consider them as terrorist organizations.”  “ – and we have never cooperated with them, I mean ….?”  “Our policies haven’t changed” repeated Mc Clellan. Auver-Sur-Oise, April 2007. The man who joins us in the garden of this property, located at 200 meters from Mairie Place, is a close collaborator of Maryam Rajavi … in his forties, fine moustache, imposing glasses, he oppose my questions as well as the spokesman of the White House :’ we have no contact with the United States and we don’t launch ,with their help , any operation inside Iran.” To any question he gives the same smile. “No, we don’t receive any financial aid from Washington.” an American military operation against Iran? His fingers touch the edge of the cup of coffee: “our position is very clear. We oppose any foreign intervention.”

Translation: Nejat Society   

     

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Former members of the MEK

Masoud: Memoirs of an Iranian Rebel

REVIEW: Masoud Banisadr, Masoud: Memoirs of an Iranian Rebel Memoirs of an Iranian Rebel (London: Saqi Books, 2004).

Memories of Iranian Rebel

The Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO), or the People’s Combatants Organization, was established in 1965 as an armed, underground group opposed to the Pahlavi regime and seeking to establish a "monotheistic classless society." Fus­ing aspects of Marxism-Leninism and political Islam, the MKO played an important role in mobilizing urban, educated Iranians during the Islamic Revolution, yet quickly fell out with Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and his inner circle in the post-revolution­ary period. Driven out of Iran, Masoud Rajavi and the Central Committee moved the MKO’s headquarters to Western Europe and then after 1986 to Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. Aside from its of­ficial history, little has been written in English about the inner workings of this highly secretive group.

The memoir of Masoud Banisadr, until 1996 a US and Eu­ropean representative of the National Council for Resistance (NCR), the MKO’s nominally independent political wing, helps present a picture of the organization as it functioned from the late 1970s. Masoud is especially timely, since the MKO, though deemed a "terrorist organization" by the State Department and several European governments, has been identified by neo-conser­vatives Daniel Pipes and Patrick Clawson as a candidate to bring "the tide of freedom" to Iran. The book seriously challenges such assumptions. In fact, Banisadr’s detailed life story corroborates a recent Human Rights Watch report, which describes the MKO’s systematic abuse and torture of members who challenge the Cen­tral Committee or seek to defect.

Banisadr, a cousin of the first popularly elected president of the Islamic Republic, and his wife were postgraduate students in Britain during the 1979 revolution. They became involved with the MKO and its affiliates after the fall of the Shah. A self-described "social democrat" at the time of the revolution, Banisadr was attracted to an ideology that "seemed indistinguishable from [Ali] Shariati’s," the thinker he had read and admired while still in Iran. Interestingly, he acknowledges that many MKO supporters did not "know much about the Mojahedin ideology, especially as it differed from that of other Muslims and Marxists." For him, "it was enough to know that they supported democracy, independence and progress."

At almost 500 pages, Masoud is a meticulous, but often me­andering and disjointed, book. Yet, for the patient reader, it is crammed with poignant details of how the MKO has maintained organizational unity despite external hostility and the many unsa­vory practices described by Banisadr. He tells us how the various "bases" scattered across Europe created a combination of complex, opaque hierarchy and communal living arrangements, how songs and military drills were used as rituals to develop a sense of soli­darity among middle-class college graduates, and how in order to raise funds the MKO established businesses, such as a stand that "introduced the joys of kebabs" to Durham.

But what will receive the most attention are the disturbing psy­chological techniques employed to force members to relinquish all sense of individual identity, to monitor each other and to disavow feelings for all people other than the married couple who make up the ideological and spiritual leadership of the MKO, Masoud and Maryam Rajavi. From the outset, the MKO encouraged members to distance themselves from their families, unless they could support the cause monetarily or through activities in Iran. The detachment from greater society, however, reached new levels after 1985 when the Rajavis announced various stages of the "ideo­logical revolution," whereby the MKO sought to reposition itself against the more consolidated regime in Iran. This "revolution" was initiated by the "marriage of the century," in which Rajavi wed Maryam Azodanlu, who had been married to another lead­ing member until shortly beforehand. All MKO members were expected to go through their own "ideological revolutions" in order to become true Mojahedin and demonstrate their loyalty. This was done at regular group confessionals ("cooking pots") in which Mojahedin would admonish themselves and each other, as well as through writing reports on one’s weaknesses, burn­ing "bourgeois" luxury items, limiting and even ending relations between the sexes, and divorcing one’s spouse to prevent "con­tradictions." The latter step was said to remove the main "buffer" preventing true understanding of the revolution, embodied in "the ideological mother" Maryam Rajavi, the only bridge to her husband. The meetings, taped sermons by the Rajavis and limits on outside sources of information created what Banisadr calls the "mystical efficacy of drip-fed propaganda."

This politico-theological apparatus surely helped to create some devoted followers, as demonstrated when several Mojahedin set themselves on fire when France briefly arrested Maryam Rajavi in 2003. Yet Banisadr describes how this psychologically abusive atmosphere, combined with growing doubts about the MKO’s military capability and political skill, led many other members to question the leadership and eventually quit. Banisadr’s suggestions and criticisms were met with indifference and public personal con­demnation, so much so that he began to doubt his own character. Unlike others who ended up attempting suicide or in Abu Ghraib prison for their criticisms, Banisadr was able to leave with relative ease, because he spent much of his time abroad and still had an extended family, including his ex-wife, living in Britain.

Masoud does not fully explain why Banisadr joined the MKO, as opposed to another political party, or why he left when he did. Nor does it offer an alternative politics to the one offered by the MKO. Like many autobiographies, it is too self-reflective to take these analytical steps or challenge the teleology of the narrative. Instead, Banisadr paints a picture of an organization that, over time, corrupted its members’ idealistic vigor and organizing acu­men into a means for self-abnegation with the only relationship of any significance being that between the individual member and the two-headed Rajavi beloved. After reading Masoud, it is difficult to imagine, as Pipes and Clawson apparently do, that the MKO will be able to mobilize its small, psychologically frag­ile membership or recruit more Iranians in order to overthrow the Islamic Republic, let alone establish a transparent political regime and foster a pluralistic society.


Reviewed by Arang Keshavarzian

MIDDLE EAST REPORT No:237

http://www.banisadr.info/MER.htm

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The MEK; Baath Party Accomplice

MEK and KURDS SUPPRESSION

Morvarid Operation (Killing generations of Kurds) Morvarid (pearl) is the name of a chain of mountains in a frontier region in Kermanshah province of Iran and Kurdistan of Iraq, where suppressing operation and massacre of Kurds took place.”Morvarid Operation”is a given name by Rajavi’s cult.  An American journal wrote:”the only and main invasion of NLA during the last six years happened in 1991 right in the aftermath of Gulf War while Saddam Hussein ordered Rajavi to help him with suppressing Kurds’ uprising in the north of Iraq.”

To cover their crimes against Kurds, Mujahedin claimed that they repelled the attack of Iranian forces to their bases and called the alleged anti – attack,”Pearl Operation”.

The MKO’s leader, chief and members of the council, commandant and the army general staff disappointed of a new war between Iraq and Iran, who observed the return of Iraqi government from Kuwait in the fall of 1990, after a chain of staff meetings, held a public meeting to determine their strategy in which they investigated rotation of the affairs in the region. Since the cult can’t consider any reality except the atmosphere ruling its own situation, it was obvious that they choose the war and then they loose it.

To compensate this loss, Rajavi used his entire mercenary forces to keep and maintain their main sponsor – Saddam Regime – and they set out to rescue the dictator from falling in that period of time. Thus they started their dreadful crimes …

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MKO Terrorist Operations
Missions of Nejat Society

MKO Terrorist Operations

The Bulletin indicates the mortar attacks and bombings of Iranian cities resulted in the injury a of innocent civilians and damage to their property. MKO claimed the responsibility for those operations by issuing press releases following the incidents.

This bulletin as an illustrated, documentary evidence of MKO atrocities, works well to illuminate facts on the terrorist nature of MKO and the cause for its proscription as a terrorist organization.

MKO Terrorist Operation

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Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

MKO and AIPAC Relations

– According to reports, AIPAC " American Israeli Public Affairs Committee’’, theMKO And AIPAC relations strongest lobbying group in Congress, has a great weight among neo conservatives who are seeking the option of regime change in Iran. Also, the neocon senators and representatives including Ilenea Ros-Lehtinen, Bob Filner … support the regime change in Iran sponsoring Mujahedin-Khalq as a viable alternative for clerical regime of Iran. In an interview with Masud BaniSadr, a former member of MEK, on May 19th 2006, ‘’Dissident and defection: An Iranian confession" Mahan Abedin the Middle East analyst at Asia Times asked about the likely relation between AIPAC and MEK: Dissent and defection: An Iranian confession By Mahan Abedin, 19 May 2006 (source: Asia Times) …Mahan Abedin: Explain the dynamics in the MEK-Israel lobby relationship. Masud Banisadr: If there is an anti-Iran petition on the table in the Congress, the two lobbies would work hand-in-hand to promote it, without necessarily communicating directly. MA: Are the two lobbies organizationally linked? MB: To give you an example, we knew which members of Congress were influenced by AIPAC [American Israel Public Affairs Committee], so when we needed signatures we’d go to these congressmen first. AIPAC has a lot of weight in Congress, and without having to communicate with them directly, we benefited enormously from their deep influence. We also copied their lobbying techniques. Consequently the Mujahideen’s lobby in the US is organizationally strong but it lacks the two core elements I outlined earlier, namely numbers and money. They have a tiny constituency among Iranian-Americans, and even with the addition of imaginary names and addresses they cannot deliver votes or similar political advantages to congressmen. It also lacks an independent financial base. Much of its funding came from the former Iraqi regime. MA: Your claim that there were no direct contacts between the MEK and the pro-Israel lobby is undermined by the organization’s intensive and very direct cooperation with the "Iran Policy Committee", which seems to be a spin off of AIPAC. There are also regular media reports alluding to direct MEK-Israel ties. MB: I would not be surprised if these links existed. As I said earlier, the MEK is exclusively motivated by the interests of the cult, and as such it will cooperate with any constituency. If there is any hesitation in collaboration, it stems from Israeli reluctance, since the Mujahideen, because of its close relationship with the PLO [Palestine Liberation Organization], is not fully trusted by the Israelis. On the other hand, from an Israeli perspective, the MEK is the only viable tool against Iran. Monarchists are deeply divided and lack organization. However, Western and Israeli intelligence are well aware of the MEK’s limitations. They are perfectly aware of the cult nature of the organization and know that it has – at most – around 5,000 members and active sympathizers (most of whom are stranded in the Ashraf camp in Iraq) and are in no position to seriously threaten the Iranian government. This factor – coupled with the organization’s cult-like and totalitarian ideology – dissuades the US State Department from working with them. To put it simply, the Americans do not trust Mujahideen-e-Khalq, for they know they have no principles, save the interests of the cult. This is why, despite all the efforts of the organization in the past quarter-century, they have not been able to pass a single substantial resolution in support of the organization in Congress. Note also that the US government regards the Mujahideen as a terrorist organization and does not want to create another al-Qaeda… – As Professor Juan Cole at Antiwar Website explains in his article titled " AIPAC’s Overt and Covert Ops", he brings into question the key role of Israel to lead US policy toward Iran fomenting a second war against Iran:   AIPAC’s Overt and Covert Ops

 August 30, 2004

by Juan Cole Antiwar.com

..The neoconservatives have some sort of shadowy relationship with the Mujahadeen-e Khalq Organization, or MEK. Presumably its leaders have secretly promised to recognize Israel if they ever succeed in overthrowing the ayatollahs in Iran. When the U.S. recently categorized the MEK as a terrorist organization, there were howls of outrage from "scholars" associated with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, such as ex-Trotskyite Patrick Clawson and Daniel Pipes. MEK is a terrorist organization by any definition of the term, having blown up innocent people in the course of its struggle against the Khomeini government. (MEK is a cult-like mixture of Marx and Islam). The MEK had allied with Saddam, who gave them bases in Iraq from which to hit Iran. When the U.S. overthrew Saddam, it raised the question of what to do with the MEK. The pro-Likud faction in the Pentagon wanted to go on developing their relationship with the MEK and using it against Tehran. So it transpires that the Iranians were willing to give up 5 key al-Qaeda operatives, whom they had captured, in return for MEK members. Franklin, Rhode and Ledeen conspired with Ghorbanifar and SISMI to stop that trade. It would have led to better U.S.-Iran relations, which they wanted to forestall, and it would have damaged their protégés, the MEK. Since high al-Qaeda operatives like Saif al-Adil and possibly even Saad bin Laden might know about future operations, or the whereabouts of bin Laden, for Franklin and Rhode to stop the trade grossly endangered the United States. The FBI has evidence that Franklin passed a draft presidential directive on Iran to AIPAC, which then passed it to the Israelis. The FBI is construing these actions as espionage or something close to it. But that is like getting Al Capone on tax evasion. Franklin was not giving the directive to AIPAC in order to provide them with information. He was almost certainly seeking feedback from them on elements of it. He was asking, "Do you like this? Should it be changed in any way?" And, he might also have been prepping AIPAC for the lobbying campaign scheduled for early in 2005, when Congress will have to be convinced to authorize military action, or at least covert special operations, against Iran. AIPAC probably passed the directive over to Israel for the same reason – not to inform, but to seek input. That is, AIPAC and Israel were helping write U.S. policy toward Iran, just as they had played a key role in fomenting the Iraq war…  – The spying role of Americans for Israel, was sought in an article published at UPI written by Richard Sale. His documented research presents the focus of FBI on a meeting in Paris, attended by Rhode (a member of Near East/ Sauth asia Office)Larry Franklin ( US air force reserve colone ),Gerechet ( a former CIA Operative) with the MEK: DOD spy’s arrest imminent By Richard Sale UPI Intelligence Correspondent …Stephen Green, author of two books on U.S.-Israeli relations and former CIA counter-terrorism chief, alleges that in March 1983 Feith was fired from the National Security Council by Judge William Clark after Feith was discovered to be the object of an FBI probe alleging that he had passed classified information to Israel. Former CIA counter-terrorism chief Vince Cannistraro confirmed to UPI the firing of Feith in the 1980s. Feith did not return repeated phone calls. According to a federal law enforcement official, other Pentagon officials of initial interest included Bill Luti, a former Navy captain who ran the day-to-day office operations of OSP, and Harold Rhode, a prominent member of the Near East/South Asia office, a sister office of OSP. According to sources who have been briefed on the case, the focus of the FBI probe finally settled on a meeting in Rome in December 2001, attended by Rhode and Franklin who met with an Iranian, Mansur Ghorbanifar, the notorious Iranian middleman in Oliver North’s 1980s scheme to craft an arms-for-hostages deal, later named Iran Contra. The head of Italy’s military intelligence also attended, according to these sources. At that meeting, Ghorbanifar offered to put the Bush administration in touch with "elements in Tehran who could mount a coup with U.S. help," one source close to the case said. The meeting was brokered by Michael Ledeen, a major figure in the Iran-Contra scandal of the mid-1980s, according to a source with close knowledge of the case. The meeting allegedly took place with the knowledge of the White House, but White House officials denied that they had known Ghorbanifar was to be there, according to a recent Los Angeles Times account. Other sources briefed on the case, however, said another meeting occurred in Paris in June 2002 when Rhode "accidentally" bumped into Ghorbanifar, a meeting attended by Franklin, Rhode and Ruel Marc Gerecht, a former CIA operative, now a scholar with the American Enterprise Institute, and an assistant to Richard Perle, a former senior Defense Department official during the Reagan administration. Sources close to the case also said that the meeting "was prearranged" and involved representatives of the Mujahedin al-Kahlq, an Iranian group of exiles, to discuss assistance to the MEK for the purpose of destabilizing the current government of Iran. "According to a congressional investigative memo, these meetings were arranged by Gerecht and Ledeen. Ledeen denies this. "The only meeting I knew about was the December meeting," he said. "I don’t know about the others, if they in fact existed."

Ledeen denounced the Franklin case as "total bullshit and lies."

Gerecht did not return phone calls. One source with close knowledge of the case said that the Franklin-Rhode- Gerecht meetings with the MEK, which is on the State Department’s list of terrorist organizations was "served to undermine (Secretary of State) Colin Powell’s effort to sustain dialogue with moderate elements within the Iranian government." The MEK is still listed on the State Department’s list of terrorist groups because they have killed American officials, according to a State Department official. When questioned by congressional investigators, Luti "and other senior Defense officials denied that there was any serious consideration of using the MEK terrorists to destabilize the Iran regime," according to a source briefed on the case…  – While Raymond Tanter, one of the cheer leaders of supporting MEK who has founded IPC (Iran Policy Committee ) works closely with AIPAC, seeking the removal of MEK’s terrorist label, Kenneth Timmerman,the executive director of the foundation for Democracy in Iran, asks How MEK a terrorist designated organization can operate in the US so freely: Iran Freedom and Regime Change Politics

ALARAB ONLINE

By Tom Barry*

…The American Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) is the most prominent lobbying group pressing for congressional approval of the Iran Freedom Support Act. After the House’s approval of the bill, AIPAC told its members and supporters: “Please thank your Representative for voting for the bill and urge your Senators to co-sponsor S.333.” On its website, AIPAC lists the 58 senators who have already agreed to support the companion bill when it comes to the Senate. The Senate bill counts on such Democrats as Barbara Boxer, Maria Cantwell, Dianne Feinstein, and Barbara Mikulski as well as such conservative Democrats as Joe Lieberman and Mary Landrieu. While AIPAC is the most powerful group advocating a tougher U.S. policy toward Iran, numerous other pressure groups calling for regime change in Iran have emerged over the past several years. One of the earliest, the Coalition for Democracy in Iran (CDI), formed in late 2002, ceased functioning in mid-2005. Operating out of the office of Morris Amitay, the former director of AIPAC, CDI worked closely with AIPAC to encourage Congress to pass resolutions condemning Iran. The CDI principals continue their efforts to promote regime change in Iran through other organizations, including the Foundation for Democracy in Iran, Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, Committee on the Present Danger, and the American Enterprise Institute. Raymond Tanter, one of the original members of the Coalition for Democracy in Iran, founded the Iran Policy Committee (IPC) in January 2005. Tanter, who was a senior staff member of the National Security Council during the Reagan administration, is also associated with several other right-wing policy organizations, including the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Middle East Institute, and the Committee on the Present Danger. Since its founding the Iran Policy Committee has sponsored conferences and policy briefings on the Hill, and has also published four policy papers—a common theme being that the U.S. government should declassify the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) as an international terrorist organization and recognize it as being the “indisputably largest and most organized Iranian opposition group.” According to Kenneth Timmerman, executive director of the Foundation for Democracy in Iran, the MEK (Mujahedin-e Khalq) is shifting its militant rhetoric and is now claiming to be a nonviolent, pro-democracy group. The MEK, which is characterized as a terrorist group, operates a political front organization called the National Council of Resistance of Iran, which is sponsoring conferences in Paris and Washington during the last week of May on regime change in Iran. The Paris conference, according to Timmerman, is being organized by the London-based Gulf Intelligence Monitor. Timmerman reports that the “five American participants—Ray Tanter, Maj. Gen. (ret.) Paul Vallely, Lt. Gen. (ret.) Thomas McInerney, Navy Capt. (ret) Chuck Nash, and Lt. Col. (ret). Bill Cowan—are all members of the Iran Policy Committe e, an organization set up by Tanter and by former CIA officer Clare Lopez in early 2005.” According to Timmerman, “The group has published a number of ‘white papers’—all of which have one thing in common: they urge the Bush administration to take the MEK and its various front organizations off the State Department list of international terrorist organizations.” Timmerman asks where the MEK is getting the money to finance the conferences and why the FBI is allowing an international terrorist organization to operate openly in the United States. Clare Lopez, the executive director of the Iran Policy Committee, is, like Tanter, a resident scholar at the Middle East Institute. Another leading member of IPC is Bruce McColm, who is the president of the Institute for Democratic Strategies and the former president of the International Republican Institute. Most of the other principals of IPC are retired military officers. The U.S. government has committed at least $75 million for projects that directly or indirectly support a regime change strategy in Iran. Over the last couple of years, several million dollars in U.S. democracy assistance aid for Iran has been distributed to an array of organizations, including Freedom House, a neocon led organization in Washington. New funding would also be channeled to Iranian dissidents, mostly expatriates, although groups like IPC would like to see the MEK, which has bases in Iraq, benefit from U.S. “democracy building” funding…

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