Child Soldiers

Four decades of human rights abuse by the MEK leaders

Leaders of the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK), have been violating the rights of their own members for over 4 decades. Violation of human rights in the group was the result of its cult-like attitudes. The MEK, under the rule of Massoud Rajavi was no more a political group. Rajavi has turned it to a destructive cult of personality since he came to power in the MEK.

Forced Celibacy

Human rights abuses began from the very days after the bizarre marriage of Massoud with Maryam Qajar Azdanloo –later called Maryam Rajavi. Maryam was married to Mehdi Abrishamchi, a high-ranking member of the group but her husband handed her over to the leader as a sign of loyalty. This was the start of a series of human rights violations in the MEK which came one after the other.

During the 1984 and 1985, following the so-called ideological marriage, all married members of the MEK were coerced to divorce. Male members had to surrender their wives to the group leader. Female members were manipulated to consider Massoud as the only man of their life. Celibacy became mandatory in the Cult of Rajavi. Any disobedience to the command would lead to punishment including interrogation, imprisonment, torture and even death.

Self Criticism

Punishments were along with a brainwashing system that worked through the hierarchy of the cult. Mind manipulation process was amplified. Self-criticism sessions, daily reports on personal thoughts and actions led to suppression by the commanders and pressure by peers.

Isolation

Members were isolated from the outside world. Mental and physical bars were formed around the group. News was filtered. Contacts to family and friends were forbidden. The entire members had to focus on the group’s leader. His words were considered a holy book.

Child abuse

The brainwashing system of Massoud Rajavi kept on destroying the entire family center. In 1991, after the first Gulf War, Rajavi ordered parents to surrender their children to the group. Around 7 hundred children of Mujahed parents, from two months old to 15 years old, were smuggled from Iraq to Europe and North America where they were left in team houses, foster families or orphanages. The number of heartbreaking stories of MEK children mounts to the number of the smuggled ones.

Child Soldiers

About 3 hundred of these children were smuggled back to the MEK’s camp in Iraq. They were recruited by the MEK as child soldiers of the group’s so-called National Liberation Army. Child soldiers of the MEK were coerced to wear uniforms and receive military trainings. Several of them could later escape the group and reveal what they endured in the Cult of Rajavi. The stories of former child soldiers of the MEK became viral in the social media.

In addition, a lot of former members of the group published their revelations about human rights abuses inside the MEK. Their personal accounts of living in the MEK destructive cult were covered by media and human rights bodies such as Human Rights Watch.

Today, 4 decades after the ruling of Massoud and Maryam Rajavi over the MEK, the group members are still under constant human rights violations. Forced hijab, forced labor, forced celibacy are only a few examples. Brainwashing sessions are still held every night at Ashraf 3. Members are not allowed to contact their families outside the group. Even if they have family members inside the group, they are not able to have routine visits of normal family members.

The international human brights bodies and the Albanian authorities must take proper actions in order to stop human rights abuse in the Cult of Rajavi.

Mazda Parsi

September 4, 2023 0 comment

The cult of Rajavi

Former child soldier of the MEK slam Maryam Rajavi

Mohammad Reza (Ray) Torabi former child soldier of the Mujahedin-e Khalq, slammed Maryam Rajavi over the likely victimization of his relatives in the group’s camp. The MEK’s headquarters in Albania was raided by the Police over charges of fraud, organized crimes and human rights abuse.
Ray Torabi whose father was also a member of the MEK and was killed by the group’s torturers is now concerned over the life of his mother and aunts who are still taken as hostages in the group, under the rule of Maryam Rajavi.

During the raid by the anti-terrorism and anti-corruption Police of Albania on Camp Ashraf 3 on June 20th 2023, camp residents clashed with police forces. Albanian state police entered the camp in accordance with the warrant of investigation issued by the Albanian Judiciary. They seized dozens of computers throughout the raid although they were violently confronted by the residents.
Following the clashes that led to injuries for both sides, Ray Torabi posted a video on social media to warn about the threat by the side of the MEK leaders and commanders against their own members. He criticized those who consider the Police’s legal action as human rights violation. “Exactly because it is a human rights case, MEK supporters should stop advocating this group,” he said.

As a former member of the MEK, Ray is completely aware of the atmosphere of the group’s camps. “The Mujaheds have no image of the outside world,” he says. “They are coerced to stand against the Police. This is what happened in Iraq too. The group commanders sent us to clash with Police forces. The pushed us toward Iraqi soldiers. We told them, ‘They are shooting us!’, but they replied, ‘they are practice bullets.’” In July 2009 and in April 2011, dozens of MEK members were killed, paralyzed and wounded because of the same scenario.
Ray asserts that he is more worried over the health of Ashraf residents than anyone else because his mother and his aunts (a sister of his mother and two sisters of his deceased father) are in the camp. “I feel pity for them very much because I know what is going on inside the camp.”

He declares that he wants to be the voice of MEK members against commanders and leaders of the group. “Maryam Rajavi! I consider you responsible for the blood and the life of Mujahedin!” he addresses the leader of the MEK.

He also warns the MEK’s sympathizers. He tells them, “Come to your senses! The scene is the same scene. The country and the continent have changed but the MEK is the same MEK as it was in Iraq. It is the same MEK with the same rotten ideology, with the same leaders and commanders who do not value the lives of their members.”
“They even seek more blood and bloodshed in order to find a bargaining chip at their negotiation table with the West,” former child soldier of the MEK states.

June 28, 2023 0 comment

The cult of Rajavi

Ray Torabi: Happy father’s day to the father I never had

Children of the Mujahedin Khalq (MEK/ PMOI) are victims of enormous traumas. Six years after his defection, Mohammad Reza (Ray) Torabi, a defector of the group and the son of GhorbanAli Torabi, a victim of the group lives in Germany. On May 18th, on the occasion of Father’s Day in Germany, Mohammad Reza published a post on his Facebook account and recounted his heart-breaking memoirs about his father who died under torture by the MEK commanders.

Mohammad Reza Torabi never got to know his father, Ghorban, while he was still alive. “Destiny separated me from him at a very young age,” he writes. “When I was 1 month old, my parents were arrested and imprisoned by the Islamic republic for opposing the regime and trying to flee Iran.”

He did not see his father during the first 7 years of his life but after the release of his father from prison a long period of separation started again, this time in the very organization that his parents were fighting for. He writes, “My parents decided to leave Iran and go to Iraq and join the MEK (a religious cult that then portrayed itself as an Iranian opposition organization fighting the regime).”

Mohammad Reza Torabi

Although Mohammad Reza has understandably strong feelings against the government of Iran, he confirms that he and his family are victims of the destructive Cult of Rajavi in which they experienced cult-like violence, military life and destruction of their family center.

“After the first 6 months in MEK camps in Iraq, where I only saw my parents on the weekends, the cult leader ordered all couples to divorce,” He recalls. “From then on, I never saw my parents together again. Once every couple of weeks I would visit Baba’s military unit and he’d show me around the tanks and artillery.”

Ghorbanali Torabi

This is the journey of the young Mohammad Reza under the rule of “criminal” Massoud Rajavi, in the MEK:
“When the first Gulf War began in 1991, Rajavi, the cult leader, ordered all the parents to send their kids away. The last memory I have of Baba is the last night we spent together alone without any electricity and under a candle light. (I love candle lights. To this day, I can stare into one for hours and get lost in my mind and memories). Neither of us knew it would be our last night together. Maybe he guessed it. But I thought I was going on a trip with the other kids and coming back.

“The last image of Baba in my mind is of him with a fake smile waving goodbye to the bus I was sitting in while tears were running down his face. I know now it was a fake smile because over the years I also learned to wear the same fake smile on my face.

“I was sent to Canada and for the first 2 years, Baba wrote me one letter every year. But then the letters stopped. Deep down I knew he was gone. I just felt it. I asked the foster family I was living with many times about news of him but each time received different answers. “Baba’s in a secret mission in Iran and he can’t write you letters”, they told me.
“But the truth was that in 1995, the MEK arrested Baba, my mom and around 200 other members of its own cult and accused them of spying for the regime. It interrogated and tortured them to sign a confession statement. Baba never gave in. For a week straight they took Baba every night for interrogations and tortured him until morning hours. His cellmates say that the last morning they brought him back to the cell, his face wasn’t recognizable from the bruises and swelling and his body was covered with blood. That day Baba hanged himself with a blanket in the shower of their cell so that he wouldn’t have to bear the torture anymore. After all, he was trapped in a MEK camp in the middle of a desert in Iraq and no one could hear his voice. MEK cowards took his body and buried him in an unknown location without a tombstone. He was 39 years old. 2 years younger than me now.

“Baba suffered a lot of pain and hardships throughout his short life. But he left something behind that will carry on his name and legacy. Me. People who knew him tell me how much I resemble him. And the more I get to know him, the more I realize how much I’m like him in character as well.

“Until the day I’m alive, Baba’s legacy will live on. I too, like Baba will fight for the freedom of my country Iran. But I will also fight for justice. Those within the MEK responsible for his death will one day face justice in a criminal court. I will not forgive, and I will not forget.

“There’s still a lot that I don’t know about my Baba. But one thing I’m certain of is that he was a great man with a beautiful heart that I’m incredibly proud of.”

Mohammad Reza Torabi is only one of the hundreds of MEK children who lost their parent, family life and eventually family support due to Rajavi’s criminal cult. There are also a large number of former child soldiers and young orphans whose parents are still alive but isolated in the MEK’s camp in Albania. They are not allowed by the group leaders to contact their parents. Besides, parents will be punished by the group leaders if they try to contact them. There are also dozens of children of Mujahed parents who are taken as hostages inside the Cult of Rajavi. Unlike Mohammad Reza, they have not succeeded to leave the group.

Human rights organizations should notice the stories of these children. They are victims of violence of the Cult of Rajavi. Violation of human rights should be stopped in Camp Ashraf 3 in the village of Manez, Albania.

May 29, 2023 0 comment

The cult of Rajavi

Kids imprisoned in the MEK, former member testify

Former member of the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK) speaks of imprisonment of children in the group. He writes about kids who were in custody in the MEK’s prisons because their parents wanted to defect the group.

Samad Nazari was a former member of the MEK who defected the group more than three decades ago. He returned to Iran and then he became one of the founders of Nejat NGO. His auto biography titled “Footprint of the Evil” was focused on the years of his membership and imprisonment in the MEK and defection from the MEK. Nazari passed away in the Fall of 2014.
In 1991, at the time of the first Gulf war, Samad Nazari was jailed in solitary confinement in the MEK’s Debes prison (Askarizadeh camp) near Kirkuk, Iraq. He was punished for his decision to leave the Cult of Rajavi!

Samad Nazari

In two parts of his memoirs of custody inside the MEK, he notifies that women and children were also imprisoned in Debes prison.
He was jailed in his dark and dirty cell in Askarizadeh when the coalition forces bombarded the camp. “I heard the loud noise of 5 bombs that hit the area,” he writes in his book. “A thick suffocating dust entered my cell which was in the basement. I could hear the cries of women and children from the upper floors of the camp. I realized that there were other guests in that prison, those who were willing to leave the group.”

In other part of his horrific memoirs of solitary confinement and torture under Massoud Rajavi’s ruling, Nazari writes:
“In my new cell, there were words written in a child-like handwriting: Mom died, Dad is in jail.” Nazari was curious to know that whose child was in prison. Later, a friend who had been imprisoned in the same cell, told him about the poor child. “The handwriting belonged to the kids of a man called Farhang. He wanted to defect the group in the summer of 1991. Soraya Shahraki, a commander of the group beat Farhang and jailed him. His two kids who were primary students were taqken from school and delivered to him in the cell. Their mother had been killed in the MEK’s cross border operation against Iran, Forough Javidan.”

This was only one of the testimonies of MEK defectors about violation of human rights against children in the MEK. There are numerous cases of children rights abuse in the MEK. The followings are just some of them:

– Nadereh Afshari, former member of the MEK writes in her book of new-borns who had been separated from their parents and had been smuggled to Europe. They were maltreated by a female Mujahed, named Azam who worked in the group’s team house in Coln.

– Mother Esmat, former member testifies about her younger daughter, Jennifer, whose knee was injured because of the military trainings inside the MEK school. Jennifer’s ponytail hair was also cut by the teacher because she had not wear hijab.

– Amin Golmaryami and Amir Yaghmai, former child soldiers testified about sexual harassments they experienced inside the MEK camps.

– Hundreds of child soldiers endured heavy military trainings and even were coerced to launch terrorist operations.

– Many child soldiers were killed in the group’s operations. Maryam Qeitani was only 15 years old when she was killed in Forough Javidan. Having been grown up in the MEK’s bases Asieh Rakhshani was in her twenties when she was killed by Iraqi armed forces because Massoud Rajavi had ordered his unarmed members to clash with Iraqi army.

– Alan Mohammadi and Yaser Akbarinasab were two teenagers who could not stand the dictatorship of the Cult of Rajavi and committed suicide.

To the list, add hundreds of children who were orphaned by the MEK leaders, left in foster families across Europe and North America and were never able to find their parents again.

May 3, 2023 0 comment

The cult of Rajavi

How MKO indoctrinated refugees in Germany to be ‘child soldiers’ against Iran

Luisa Hommerich, a Berlin-based investigative journalist with the German weekly newspaper Die Zeit, couldn’t hide her joy and thrill on February 10 as she triumphantly announced the end of a protracted legal battle against a terrorist cult.

Hamburg district court had a few days ago dismissed a lawsuit filed by the German branch of the dreaded West-backed terrorist group, Mujahedin -e-Khalq Organization (MKO), after a legal fight that lasted more than ten months.

The lawsuit, in particular, took umbrage to an investigative report published in Zeit Magazine on October 28, 2021, which laid bare how the anti-Iran terrorist cult, with overt and covert support from German authorities, trained refugee children from the city of Cologne as “soldiers” in a military camp in Iraq’s Diyala Governorate in the 1990s.

Hommerich, who painstakingly worked for months on the explosive story, took to Twitter to declare that the MKO had been “unsuccessful” in the legal battle, and hastened to add that the original article was removed from the paywall “to celebrate”.

Around 3,500 MKO members, many of them child soldiers, were living at the notorious Camp Ashraf, 40 miles north of Baghdad, when the Iran-Iraq War ended in 1988. (File Photo)

MKO, she explained in one of her tweets, was “once on terror lists (of Western governments)”, but “are today engaged in lobbying work and maintain contact with (Western) politicians”, pointing to the collusion between the terrorist cult and Western states.

Lawsuit ‘rejected’

In a press statement released on February 23, Zeit publishing group said the lawsuit filed by the MKO terrorist cult had been “rejected” by the Hamburg court, paving way for the re-distribution of the October 2021 report “in its original form”.

The default judgment in the case was issued on January 28 and delivered to the publishing group on February 7, which announced it through a press statement on February 9, which editors at the publishing group shared with the Press TV website.

The statement said the Albania-based terrorist cult and its local branch in Germany were “supported by some members of the Bundestag”, referring to the German federal parliament.

The lawsuit filed by the MKO, in particular, took exception to “eight passages” in the Zeit Magazin article and pressed for their removal. The magazine stood its ground, triggering a long-drawn-out legal battle that ended earlier this month.

In a preliminary verdict on January 19, the Hamburg court found most passages “lawful” and “rejected the request for an injunction”, the Zeit statement noted, adding that the main protagonist of the story, Amin Golmaryami, an Iranian-German national, was indeed recruited as a “child soldier” by the terrorist cult.

The court battle kicked off in April 2022, almost six months after the article was first published. In a Twitter post on April 22, Hommerich said she had reported about Golmaryami being “smuggled into Iraq” by MKO sleuths and was ready to “defend the investigation” before the Hamburg district court.

Later that day, after appearing in the court, the Die Zeit journalist said Golmaryami and five other victims of the terrorist cult had turned up to “testify as witnesses” but “were not heard”.

“One of them demonstrated in front of the courthouse, and in front of about 30 MKO supporters brought by the other side,” she wrote, sharing pictures of a person holding a placard that read “I was a child soldier, I demand justice”.

Anti-MKO protesters at a court in Hamburg in April 2021. (Twitter)

Key protagonist

The report, originally published in Zeit Magazin on October 27, revolved around Golmaryami, who came to Germany as a refugee child in the early 1980s.

At the tender age of 15, he and many other young Iranian refugee children in Cologne were forcibly taken to Iraq to be trained as “child soldiers” against the Islamic Republic.

While other victims chose not to narrate their harrowing ordeal in the captivity of the MKO terrorist cult due to safety concerns, Golmaryami decided to break his silence.

“Blame the man himself with his wishes – and the family. You have to renounce all of that. Only through devotion to a leader can one become “pure”,” the Zeit Magazin report cited Golmaryami as saying, recalling how he and his compatriots were indoctrinated by the Maryam Rajavi-led extremist cult.

The investigation revealed that at least 40 children and young people, who had come to Cologne as refugees without their parents, were smuggled into Iraq in the mid-1990s.

Golmaryami, born in southwestern Iran’s Abadan city, was one of them who spent at least 12 years at Camp Ashraf, the notorious headquarters of the terrorist cult at the time.

The camp has since been closed and shifted to Albania on southeastern Europe’s Balkan peninsula, where among others, Golmaryami’s mother also lives.

She was “brainwashed”, her son exclaims, distraught and helpless.

Golmaryami was allowed to see his mother last time in the summer of 2019, in a restaurant in Tirana. When he offered to help her escape the camp, she became aggressive.

German magazine Die Zeit’s article about the former MKO child soldier, Amin Golmaryami, published in October 2021. (Die Zeit)

“Only traitors and agents of the Iranian regime say things like that,” she yelled at him, the report noted. “He no longer hopes to be able to save her.”

The report quoted Golmaryami as saying that he “internally resisted being brainwashed” by the MKO. “Only rarely did he express his true thoughts. That’s how he kept a clear head.”

“Most of the 40 minors who are believed to have been smuggled into Iraq from Cologne (by the MKO) have reportedly gotten out in the meantime. Many are said to be living in Cologne again,” the report stated.

“At least 10, however, are said to be with the People’s Mujahideen (MKO terrorist cult) somewhere in the world. Some are said to have died in attacks in Iraq.”

MKO’s German wing

In a follow-up article for Zeit Online in November 2021, reproduced by other news outlets, Hommerich said Golmaryami and others like him were “manipulated and detained” by MKO agents using “psychological techniques”, “mind control”, and “brainwashing”.

Based on months-long research, archive material and internal documents, Zeit Online revealed that the terror cult operates in Europe and the US under the label of the ‘National Council of Resistance Iran’, with German headquarters in a posh neighborhood of Berlin.

The group enjoys the support of the German Solidarity Committee for a Free Iran (DSFI), which has, among others, former Bundestag President Rita Süssmuth on its advisory board.

German lawmakers – including Thomas Erndl (Christian Social Union), Lukas Köhler (Free Democratic Party), and Bernhard Daldrup (Social Democratic Party) – have often participated in the events organized by the MKO and DSFI.

Norbert Lammert, who served as the 12th President of the German Bundestag (federal parliament) from 2005 to 2017, has also been seen attending events hosted by Rajavi.

Norbert Lammert, the former President of the German Bundestag, addressing an MKO rally in front of the German Parliament, in October 2020.

Zeit Online report, citing anonymous sources, revealed that senior German politicians like Süssmuth worked with the DSFI to take many of these young refugees after they left Camp Ashraf in Iraq, and most of them ended up in a villa in Berlin-Wilmersdorf after their arrival.

“We thought we were coming to Europe, to freedom,” one of them was quoted as saying in the report. “But in Berlin, the organization’s officials continued to monitor us mentally, emotionally, socially, and financially.”

Task cut out

They had their day’s task cut out: wake up at seven o’clock and started working, including collecting donations on the street. In the evenings, they would attend “ideological meetings” wherein they had to reveal their forbidden thoughts – including about their own family.

These helpless MKO cadres were also subject to “sleep deprivation” as political meetings sometimes continued throughout the night, from around 10 p.m. to 4 a.m.

“Destruction of social ties” was another diabolic technique used by the cult. They were not allowed to contact family, friends or even fellow cadres. The “mission” was what mattered.

They were also shielded from any outside information and barred from reading newspapers and magazines or listening to the radio or music. Internet available was heavily censored.

This manipulation and mind control, the report cited “dissidents” as saying, was designed to have “cheap workers” who would work for the terror cult’s goals – propaganda against Iran.

“Some would have looked for politicians or kept the German-language websites of the organization up to date. Others organized demonstrations,” the report stated.

Most of these people were also required to collect donations for the terror cult, by standing in pedestrian zones and showing doctored pictures of “victims of torture and starving children”.

This practice also extended to stealth ‘clubs’ that were run from the Berlin villa. Some of these ‘clubs’ are still functional, operating under the names of ‘Aid for Human Rights in Iran’, the ‘Association for People and Freedom’, or the ‘Association for Hope of the Future’.

Lobbying and donations

A former MKO member was cited as saying that all they require for lobbying is “one or two famous names,” shower them with attention and compliments and dole out gifts. In the next step, the person is asked to form an association that campaigns for the MKO.

“It’s a psychological trick: when you ask someone a favor after so much flattery, people think they owe you something and they can hardly say no,” the person asserted.

Donald Trump’s former security advisor, John Bolton, according to award-winning MSNBC journalist Richard Engel, received upwards of $180,000 for speaking at MEK events over the years.

NEW YORK, NY – SEPTEMBER 24: Former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani (2nd L) and Former U.N Ambassador John Bolton (L) stand in front of portraits of deceased members of the Iranian dissident group Mujahedeen-e-Khalq (MEK), whose members say 52 were killed September 1 in Camp Ashraf, Iraq, during a rally against the Iranian regime’s new president Hassan Rouhani outside the United Nations General Assembly on September 24, 2013 in New York City. The MEK is opposed to the Rouhani regime. The pro-democracy rally also included Syrian pro-democracy supporters. (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images)

A report in The Guardian in July 2018 said Bolton’s ascent as Trump’s security advisor “reinvigorated the group”, and helped it “bury its murky past and portray itself as a democratic and popular alternative to the Islamic Republic”.

Rudy Giuliani, Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, has also regularly featured in MEK rallies. Engel says Giuliani “doesn’t remember how much money they paid him over the years”, and believes the group’s past designation as a foreign terrorist organization was “a mistake”.

The terror organization has also been involved in party donations. The far-right group Vox, which is the third-largest bloc inside the Spanish parliament with 52 lawmakers, was created in 2013 with around €1 million funded by the MKO, as reported by El Pais newspaper in January 2020.

Two lawmakers for the far-right political group, Santiago Abascal and Iván Espinosa de los Monteros, received party salaries for eight months from MEK donations, around €65,000 in total.

This political lobbying has helped the group, which was on the US list of terrorist organizations until 2012, escape scrutiny for years, with even courts coming to its rescue on several occasions.

In March 2019, a German court ordered the weekly magazine Der Spiegel to delete passages from an article that accused the MKO of engaging in “torture” and “psycho terror”.

The court in its ruling said it would fine the German magazine 250,000 euros (about $282,000) if the passages about a MEK “psycho terror” camp in Albania weren’t removed.

Die Zeit’s significant legal victory against the terror group, however, could be the beginning of the end of its criminal activities in Germany and other European countries.

By Syed Zafar Mehdi

Syed Zafar Mehdi is a Tehran-based journalist, political commentator and author. He has reported for more than 13 years from India, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Kashmir and West Asia for leading publications worldwide.

April 15, 2023 0 comment

The cult of Rajavi

Comparing the MEK cult with Children of God cult

In June 2018, BBC Scotland News published a story on a survivor of a notorious cult: Children of God. The report is based on testimonies of a 38-year-old woman says who was abused from the age of four by members of the Children of God cult, including her own father. Born to the cult Verity Carter escaped it when she was 15. What she experienced in the cult that she describes “hell on earth” is similar to the accounts of former child soldiers of the Mujahedin Khalq Organization.

Although the MEK is not considered a sex cult as the Children of God is, there are numerous testimonies about child abuse and unlawful sexual relationships published by former child soldiers and other defectors of the group. However, there are many other common characteristics that destructive cults share. This article is focused on a comparative study on what Verity Carter endured in the COG and what former child soldiers of the MEK suffered in the group.

Threat of Cults

The facts are based on testimonies of former child soldiers of the group including Amin Golmaryami and Ray (Mohammad Reza) Torabi. The testimonies of former child soldiers of the MEK are available on their personal accounts on the social media, on club house, Nejat society website and other contents created by MEK defectors.
The Children of God began in the United States in the late 1960s. Its founder, David Berg, told members that God was love and love was sex, so there should be no limits, regardless of age or relationship. “It actively encouraged sexual activities among minors as young as two or three years old,” Verity told BBC.

The Cult of Rajavi began in Iraq in the 1980 around the personality of Massoud Rajavi after he took control over the Mujahedin Khalq Organization that had been established in 1965 by some communist Islamist students to fight against the Shah of Iran. Rajavi developed his ruling over his cult of personality by forcing members to divorce their spouses and to smuggle their children to European and American countries. He banned family life in his commune in Iraq called Camp Ashraf. However, this does not mean that the children of Mujahedin were safe. They mostly would live in team houses in which they were held under the most sever cult-like practices. A large number of the children were then smuggled back to Iraq, in their teen years, to serve as child soldiers of Rajavi’s army.

a photo of Children of God Cult

Helpless children in cults

Verity says she was repeatedly beaten and whipped for the smallest of transgressions. “It became hell on earth for anyone born into it,” she says. Ray Torabi who left the MEK 5 years ago, spoke out about his childhood in the MEK in Club House on December 20th, 2021. “I was there for 18 years,” Ray said. “I was recruited by Sedighe Hosseini in Canada. I am an eye witness of the story of child soldiers… this is my right to tell my story to the world.”

“We had no contact with the outside world,” Verity says. “We did not have music or television or culture. We had no idea how the world worked.” The same suppressive atmosphere ruled the life of Amin Golmaryami and his peers in the MEK. In his interview with the German newspaper Der Zeit, he revealed horrifying facts about his sufferings under the Cult of Rajavi. According to the interview, published on October 27th, 2021, the MEK commanders banned the children from education. At least 40 cases of MEK children who resided in the group’s team house in Cologne were transferred to Iraq with the promise of visiting their parents and eventually they were unable to continue their education during the next years that they were forced to serve as child soldiers in the group’s camps in Iraq.

The article reads, “From the mid-1990s, some of their former teachers remembered that People’s Mojahedin children suddenly disappeared from Cologne. They suddenly stopped showing up in their classes, 14-, 15-, 16-year-old teenagers.” Amin was taken to Iraq when he was only 13.

The MEK’s child soldiers had no contact with the outside world until they could manage to leave the group’s camp years later. At the age of 16, the MEK agents promised Ray to take him to Iraq to visit his parents. However, he was made sign a recruitment form to join the MEK’s army in Iraq. Unlike his father, Ray Torabi survived an 18-year-long membership in the group and could manage to leave it 5 years ago. However, he got to know about his father’s murder by the MEK torturers only after he left the group.

Like Verity’s mother who is still in Children of God, Ray’s mother, Zahra Seraj, is still under the MEK’s brainwashing structure. She denies him as her son because, as she says, “he is a traitor to the organization”.

The MEK children

Children, fund-raisers of the cult

Verity’s mother and father claimed to be Christian missionaries as a cover for their activities, Verity says, and she was forced on to the streets to trick people into donating money. In the MEK’s regulations, this method of fund raising is title as “financial-social work”. On the weekends, the MEK children had to work for the group from early in the morning until late in the evening in cities across Germany. Nadereh Afshar, former member of the MEK who worked as a supervisor and teacher of the smuggled MEK children in Germany, wrote about how the group exploited children in financial-social work. Her book on the MEK titled “Love Forbidden” gives a first-hand account on the sufferings of children in the Cult of Rajavi no matter where they had been settled after they had been smuggled from Iraq to Europe.

In May, 2009, Los Angeles Times published a report on an appeal court held to try seven MEK members who were guilty to raising funds for the group. In court the defendants admitted that they knowingly raised funds to support the activities of Mujahedin-e-Khalq by collecting money from MEK supporters and soliciting money from unwitting donors at public locations, including the airport. Donors were told they were supporting a charity called the Committee for Human Rights.

Sexual abuse of children

Verity Carter says Children of God encouraged sexual contact between adults and children. She was abused from the age of four by members of the cult, including her own father.
Ray Torabi said in Club House, “It was a terrible life there. I was in Ashraf until I was eight or nine. In Camp Ashraf or in the MEK’s bases in the West, I was sexually abused by the MEK sympathizers and members. I was then given to a family that was very bad. I was constantly beaten by them. I was mentally abused.”
Many of the MEK children were abused sexually, harassed and raped. Amin Golmaryami and Saeed also testified in two Club House sessions that they were sexually harassed by male Mujaheds several times when they were teenage soldiers at Camp Ashraf.

While Verity Carter and her siblings could manage to escape the cult of David Berg in their teen years, the MEK’s former child soldiers were kept under the cult of Massoud Rajavi for their whole child hood and teen years. Most of them were not able to leave the group before their thirties. There are still a large number of those children, in their forties now, under mental and physical abuse in the group’s base, Camp Ashraf 3, Albania. The pressures on children of the Cult of Rajavi led to committing suicide in some cases, such as Alan Mohammedi, Yasser Akbarinasab.

Mazda Parsi

November 15, 2022 0 comment

The cult of Rajavi

Mohammad Mohammadi’s testimony on sexual abuse in the MEK

When in December 2021, former child soldiers of the Mujahedin Khalq spoke out about the abuses they endured inside the group camps and team houses, most people thought it was the first time to reveal facts on sexual abuse of children in the MEK. However, Mostafa Mohammadi might have been the first father who documented the testimonies of his son, Mohammad, on sexual assaults Mujaheds committed against him when he was in Camp Ashraf, Iraq.

Mostafa Mohammadi whose other child, his daughter, Somayeh is still taken as a hostage in the Cult of Rajavi, has the valuable habit to film many moments of his family life. The films he had taken became the basis of a documentary on the involvement of his family especially his daughter in the MEK: “An unfinished film for my daughter”.

https://dla.nejatngo.org/Media/Documentary/mohammadi-rape.mp4

to download the video file click here.

As a sympathizer of the MEK living in Canada, Mostafa admitted to send Mohammad and Somayeh to Iraq to stay with the MEK for a six-month training. Long after the end of the six-month period, the group leaders did not respond to Mostafa’s repeated requests to send back his children to Canada.

In 2003, after his unsuccessful self-immolation– which he did under coercion by the MEK– to protest the arrest of Maryam Rajavi by the French Police, the group leaders granted him the permission to travel to Iraq to visit his children at Camp Ashraf. He had shown his loyalty to Rajavi’s cult of personality and so he was given a gift.
During the short visit, Mostafa held a birthday party for his son, Mohammad who was in his early twenties. That was when Mohammad spoke of his determination to leave the group. He told his father about the reasons of his decision and the father was smart enough to record by his camera what his son recounted. He handed the camera to Somayeh and sat by the side of Mohammad in order to listen to the horrific facts his son was recounting about his life at Camp Ashraf.

In the film, Mohammad tries to speak vaguely about what he endured at nights of Camp Ashraf having difficulty to overcome his embarrassing feelings but his supportive father is there to help him talk in front of the camera in the hands of his sixteen-year-old sister.

Mohammad testified that he complained about the sexual harassments by male members of the group but the commanders did not care at all. Ultimately, Mohammad had decided not to sleep at nights!

Mohammad was a Canadian citizen so he could manage to return home but Somayeh did not succeed to get back in spite of writing letters to the government of Canada. Besides, the efforts of Mostafa and his wife to rescue their daughter was unproductive due to the obstructions the group made for them.

The next time that they went to Iraq, Somayeh had been totally brainwashed and apparently not willing to get back home. She is still in the MEK’s headquarters in Albania. Her parents were attacked by the MEK agents when they traveled to Tirana frustrating to visit Somayeh. They are still looking forward to seeing their beloved daughter who is in her thirties now.

November 7, 2022 0 comment

The cult of Rajavi

Mujahedin Khalq and Children – Mohammad Koohestani

Mohammad Koohestani was born in 1982 when his parents had a clandestine life in Iran. His father Mostafa Koohestani had married his mother Zahra Farahnak three years earlier because the Mujahedin Khalq organization had ordered them to do so. Mohammad was the fruit of an organizational marriage.

After a while, Mohammad and his family were disappeared. The Farahnaks (the family of his mother) do not know exactly when Zahra, her husband and son left Iran to join the MEK in Iraq. It is estimated that they were smuggled across the Iran-Iraq border to relocate in the group’s Camp Ashraf in Iraq, in 1983 or 1984.

Mohammad Koohestani

In 1988, Mohammad’s father, Morteza was killed in the MEK’s cross border operation against Iran, “Eternal Light” (Forough Javidan). And, Mohammad had to stay in a group life with other MEK children at Camp Ashraf. In 1990, when he was only eight years old, Mohammad was smuggled to Europe together with 700 other MEK children, under the order of Massoud Rajavi.

Eight years later, he was among those MEK children who were recruited as child soldiers by the group and sent back to Iraq. At Camp Ashraf he was got to wear military uniform and to receive military trainings. He served as the MEK’s army soldier in Iraqi deserts until the group was disarmed by the US army in 2003.

On July 28th 2009, Iraqi army decided to set a station inside Camp Ashraf. Massoud Rajavi leader of the MEK, ordered the rank and file to build a human shield against the Iraqi forces to stop them from entering the Camp. The clashes were sparked by the coerced members of the MEK and ended with the killing of 11 members. 35 more including Mohammad Koohestani were injured. He was hit in head.

Since then, Mohammad has been suffering severe headaches. He is 40 years old residing in the group’s camp in Manza, Albania right now. He still suffers headache and takes painkillers and sedative pills, according to the group defectors.

Although Mohammad and his mother live in the same camp, they do not have regular communications unless once or twice a year on special occasions. Family relationship is forbidden in the MEK. They do not have any contact with their relatives in Iran, either.

August 24, 2022 0 comment

The cult of Rajavi

The Fate of Child Victims of Mujahed Parents in the MEK

Political ideologies can easily influence people’s daily lives. In the contemporary history of Iran, the topic of politics has been constantly remained trending both in the news and in daily conversations of people and eventually their lives. With parents as their kid’s role models, they hold the biggest impact in their children’s lives. Children show a tendency of picking up behaviors, words and phrases that they hear from people around them. Since kids are easily influenced by their parents, they are likely to repeat what their parents say and believe. As an extremist violent movement, the Mujahedin_e Khalq has worked in such a way that its children have been more involved in their parents’ political activities than any other political movement.

No opportunity for MEK children to learn

Experts believe that children should not be restricted from learning and exploring different political beliefs on their own. However, children of Mujahed parents grew up in the MEK’s headquarters in Camp Ashraf, Iraq where they were not exposed to any political and ideological belief except that of Rajavi’s Cult. Living in dormitories under the command of Mujahed teachers (or trainers) who ordered them to bow to the photos of Massoud and Maryam Rajavi chanting songs to glorify them.
People typically should spend a lot of time researching and educating themselves on political principles before they decide which party and beliefs they want to be identified with. When it comes to young children, they aren’t old enough to understand the importance of this process. In the MEK, this process was simply omitted. The children were just thrown in the ideological trap made by Massoud Rajavi.
Some of these children were never allowed to think twice about the beliefs their parents hold and the MEK commanders want them to hold. On the other hand, there have been some MEK-born children who managed to find an opportunity to explore different political ideologies. The children of Massoud and Maryam Rajavi the leaders of the group symbolize these two groups.

Ashraf Abrishamchi and Mohammad Rajavi, two opposite fates

Mohammad Rajavi the son of Massoud Rajavi could find his way to the world outside his father’s cult of personality but Ashraf Abrishamchi, the daughter of Maryam Rajavi is still in the MEK’s system in her early forties. As a gift to her devotion to the group, she has been elevated in the group’s cult-like hierarchy. She has recently been entitled as the deputy assistant of the MEK secretary general.

Social media is likely one of the first ways children are exposed to the world of politics. While there certainly is biased media, children are able to learn and understand more about political issues through various platforms. That’s why Mohammad Rajavi started speaking out against the MEK a few years after he left the group.
Nevertheless, Ashraf Abrishamchi seemingly has never been allowed to access the outside world. She is the daughter of a father (Mehdi Abrishamchi) who handed his wife (Maryam Qajar) to Massoud Rajavi in order to marry him as the ideological husband! The parents of Ashraf were themselves so manipulated by Massoud Rajavi that they could never teach their daughter different political opinions and give her the opportunity to form her own opinions, rather than forcing their political beliefs onto her.

Vahideh Nabavi (34) Shiva Mameqani (40) Maryam Rezaei (30) Zahra Merikhi (62) Sepideh Pourtaqi (40) Azar Akbarzadegan (39) Ashraf Abrishamchi (39)

Like her parents, Ashraf was manipulated by the cult of Rajavi too. Like many other child victims of the MEK, she became a child soldier of the MEK’s army. She was coerced to wear military uniform when she was a teenager; she was trained to use arms and military vehicles and she was taught bombing and grenade launching techniques.

Mohammad Rajavi alias Mostafa

Mohammad and many former child soldiers of the MEK finally got determined to leave the MEK and to choose for their future. They began to state their political views years after they left the group. Politics is such a wide subject and can be difficult to understand, which is why children deserve to be taught about politics in an unbiased manner. Today there are a lot of former child soldiers of the MEK who live across the world holding different political views although they began to think and choose for their political views in their late thirties or forties but it is never too late.

The right to choose for you own, unprecedented in the MEK

Indeed, children of the MEK were allowed to choose for their place of residence, their clothing, their hair model, their field of education, their job etc., only after they left the MEK. Adolescents deserve the opportunity to follow what they personally believe in but former child soldiers of the MEK paid a huge price to gain such a freedom to choose for their own.

Normally, Children should not be expected to inherit their parents’ political expectations, nor should they be disregarded for having their own ideas. Parents should be loving and accepting despite whatever beliefs their children take on, even if it doesn’t align with their own but most of the MEK’s child soldiers were labeled as traitors by their own parents just because they said no to the Massoud Rajavi.

To sum up, politics is a growing topic in the world around us. People of every age deserve the opportunity to formulate their own beliefs, and hold back their own opinions without being forced to follow specific ideologies. However, in the Cult of Rajavi, not only children, but also their parents are not permitted to question the group’s attitudes. Criticizing the group’s ideology just launches you to the opposite side, the enemy. As soon as you start questioning, you are regarded in the side of the Iranian government even though you have been living your whole life inside the group’s camps.

Mazda Parsi

June 22, 2022 0 comment

The cult of Rajavi

Ray Torabi’s message on the occasion of his 40th birthday

Ray (Mohammad Reza) Torabi, former child soldier of the Mojahedin-e Khalq shared a post on his Facebook account on the occasion of his 40th birthday:

Mohammad Reza Torabi

“When I was 17, after 8 years of separation from my parents, I finally met my biological mother. Unfortunately, the condition of our meeting was that I had to leave Canada and go to Iraq to meet her, where she was a member of an Iranian opposition organization (turned out to be a religious cult). She told me that my father had passed away some years before as a result of a heart attack, which he suffered in his sleep. He was 39 at the time of his death.
I ended up staying in this organization for many years, and oh the stories…
But in all those years, I always believed that I, like my father, would one day die of a heart problem while in my bed. Although I was literally in the middle of war with so many life-threatening situations, nothing scared me quite like the idea of dying in my bed before even turning 40.
I wouldn’t be lying if I said that I thought about it hundreds of times over the years.
But the years went by and as is the rule of life, the truth surfaced and I realized that my biological mother had lied to me regarding the facts surrounding my father’s death and that he didn’t die of a heart attack and that he was murdered by the same organization he sacrificed his life for. That’s a story for another day.
But I turned 40 today. A year older than my father. And although life hasn’t been so kind to me, I’m grateful for every day of it. With all its ups and downs, sweet and bitter moments, pains and sufferings and the challenges that turned me into the resilient, humble, compassionate, forgiving, kind… Human that I am.”

Mohammad Reza Torabi in his youth

Mohammad Reza, nicknamed Ray, is a former child soldier of the MEK who left the group four years ago after 18 years of enduring the cult-like system of Massoud and Maryam Rajavi. He did not know that his father was a victim of torture in that very organization until he left the group. Ray Torabi is one of the several former child soldiers of the MEK who are speaking out against the group’s brainwashing structure. In response to Ray’s questions about the death of his father, the MEK propaganda made his biological mother and his aunt write against him labeling him as agent of the Iranian government. However, Ray did not give up and continued speaking out about his experience of involvement with the Cult of Rajavi.

Amir Vafa Yaghmaee

His Facebook post on the occasion of his birthday was warmly welcomed by his audience. He was widely encouraged by former members of the MEK and his current friends to bravely share his stories. Amir Yaghmai, another former child soldier of Rajavi’s army addressed Ray by writing:
You are one of the most humble guys I’ve met. Our background could have turned us into strange personalities with the lack of social adaptation. Fortunately, most of us made it quite well and we became good souls.

Amir Nematollahi

Among the numerous comments on Ray’s post, the one from Amir Nematollahi, former operative agent of the MEK is also remarkable:
Life has thrown its fair share of obstacles in your way from a young age, before our paths even crossed, and I have only been able to witness the strength you carry for a short amount of time. But in those three years, you have managed to inspire more than any quote, self-help book, or words of wisdom could ever do, because you get out of bed every morning, face life and all of its challenges head on, while still managing to keep your head up, and live life to the fullest. I am truly grateful to know you and your life story inspired me in many ways stay strong and I assure you that your father would have been so proud of what you become and who you are…by the way happy birthday.

May 28, 2022 0 comment

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