On April 15th,2008, a report was published on Boston.com, according to which “ Texas officials took 416 children from a polygamist retreat into state custody …
” These children were taken from the cult due to the risk of abuse. Marissa Conzales spokeswoman for the State children ‘s Protective Services agency said: ” it is not the normal practice to allow parents to accompany the child when an abuse allegation is made.” According to Jenniffer Donaber and Michael Graczyk, the Associated Press correspondents, the state is accusing the sect of physically and sexually abusing the youngsters and wants to strip their parents of custody. 
The parents in the sect are accused of being manipulated as it is normal in all sects such as MKO where after the Ideological Revolution the spouses were indoctrinated manipulated and eventually forced to divorce and in 1990 during the first Gulf War, they were forced to leave their children under the care of the organization. But there is no protective service agency to care for MEK members’ children who were transferred to Europe where they live in group houses in a very poor condition, and every morning they should hail to Uncle Masud and Aunt Maryam ( since they do not have any idea of Mother, Father and Family) As Elizabeth Rubin quoted from Nadereh Afshari MKO’s former member in her article ‘’ the Cult of Rajavi’’: ”Every morning and night, the kids, beginning as young as 1 and 2, had to stand before a poster of Massoud and Maryam, salute them and shout praises to them… They saw these kids as the next generation’s soldiers. They wanted to brainwash them and control them.” Where are the judges, juries, attorneys and lawyers to defend the case of MKO members’ children whose parents have no idea of where they live. The children are forced to participate in fund raising propaganda of the organization soliciting European citizens with their poor appearance. Is it a normal practice to see children living a difficult life in the modern European cities. The democratic cover of MKO activities have hidden their anti – human behavior towards their members especially children who are considered as the future militia by MKO. So what is called children’s rights abuse? Isn’t it the abuse of a child’s life to prevent him from living a normal life within his family, enjoying education in a free school of a free country? Batul Soltani is a mother whose children were taken of her in the organization. Now that she has left MKO, she is looking for her beloved children whose photos were hidden in her clothes during the dark years of living behind the bars of Rajavi’s cult. She will hopefully find her children someday but who can return those grieving years of missing her children? The years when she was not even allowed to think about them.
Children are the most vulnerable victims to cults’ abuses and even in this modern world and in the heart of countries enthusiastically battling for the revival of the human rights we witness instances of children’s abuses by cults freely acting before the eyes and even protection of the law. It was only yesterday that the news came out with the reports of the removal of an additional 85 children from a polygamist remote compound Ranch of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, a breakaway Mormon sect, bringing the total to 137 survivors. Officially released, State troopers, Texas Rangers and investigators from Child Protective Services raided the ranch on Thursday night to serve search and arrest warrants after a 16-year-old girl complained of sexual and physical abuse within the cult. It is not the first and will not be the last report of the children being abused by a cult. Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization (a.k.a. MKO, MEK, PMOI, NCRI), a globally blacklisted terrorist cult, has long abused children and has separated them from their parents sending them to many countries far from their parents to live with foster-parents or in orphanages in an attempt to force their parents stay with the organization. In fact, in this form of manipulation, children were abused as hostages whose destiny is now unknown even to their parents. Batul Soltani, an ex-member, was a member of the Leadership Council of the MKO who left the organization in 2006. She is the mother of two children taken away from her long ago. In an interview with SFF, she briefly talked of what has happened to her and her children: My name is Batul Soltani daughter of Morteza. I was born in 1965 in Iran and at the moment I live in Baghdad. I married Mr Hosein Moradi in Iran in 1986 and then we moved to Pakistan the same year. There we were recruited into the MKO and the next year, which is 1987, we were ordered to go to Iraq. In 1991 we were separated by the order of the organisation and yet again by their order our children were taken away from us and sent to Europe. My husband and I initially resisted these orders and did not wish to either be separated from each other, nor to abandon our children, but we were put under enormous psychological pressure and we were forced to submit to their demands. My daughter Hajar Moradi was born in Pakistan in 1987 and my son Mi’ad was born in Iraq in 1991. In the year 1991 while Hajar was 5 years old and Mi’ad was 6 months old, they were separated from us – after we were forcibly separated from each other – and they were sent to Europe. They did not allow us to have any contact with them at all. I still remember my daughter crying hard as she was leaving me. And the innocent face of my six months’ old son is always before my eyes. Many years later I found out that my daughter had been given to a family in the south of Sweden with the fake name of Setareh Khabbazan, and she is now studying in a university in the north of that country. My son was taken to Holland by a family and later moved to another family and eventually was left in an orphanage and now he lives in a care centre for youth in Holland. I do not have any further trace of them and do not even know if they know me at all. The MKO would not give me any addresses and I have no means to contact my children. Has any child protective organization ever investigated MKO for countless instances of child abuses and unknown destiny and whereabouts of about 800 taken apart children? Not talking of many sons and girls whose parents are impatiently looking over the walls of Camp Ashraf, located in a remote desert in Iraq, to see them unbound. Being known as a destructive terrorist cult, MKO is a big threat for the global peace and its own insiders. It is a responsibility on humanitarian bodies to intervene before it is too late.
Mojahedin.ws,
Al-Araghiya TV documnetary on Rajavi’s Canadian Hostage Alaraghiay TV broadcasted a documentary about two Canadian sitizens, Mostafa and Mahboobeh Mohammady, who have gone to Iraq in an attempt to rescue their daughter from Mojahedin Khalq Organisation terrorist cult currently under protection of US army in Ashraf camp North of Baghdad.
The full translation of this film will be posted shortly.
Download Al-Araghiah TV documentary on Rajavi’s Canadian Hostage
A family torn apart by Mojahedin Khalq Organisation – Rajavi cult
A tale of a family torn apart by lies, deception, and government bureaucracy, “Breaking the Ties That Bind” is a true story of the Mohammady family and their tangled history with the Iranian resistance force known as the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK).
By:neha gandhi, CBC Television,
About Somayeh Mohamadi
Somayeh was only 17 when she met the recruiters of the Iranian opposition group Mojahedin-e Khalagh (MEK) in Toronto. Born into a family with sympathies towards the group and having already lost her favorite aunt in guerrilla fights against Islamic Republic of Iran, Somayeh decided to drop out of her grade 10 high school class at Etobicoke Collegiate Institute and attend a MEK camp in Iraq for a month. Most of all, she was thankful to MEK for offering to pay for her expanses to visit her aunt’s grave. On February, 1998 Somayeh left Toronto to spend a month in what later on turned to be a guerrilla compound called Camp Ashraf, the headquarters of the Organization of the Freedom Fighters of the Iranian People. Somayeh is a now a 25 year old, still living under harsh conditions of Ashraf, despite her parents restless tries to bring her back home. Somayeh is one of the many Canadian and American teenagers who were deceitfully recruited by MEK and send to Camp Ashraf, where they were trained for guerilla fights and forced to stay inevitably. In an independent letter sent to the Canadian embassy in Jordan, Somayeh asks for the Canadian government’s help to get her back to Toronto. Later however, she was forced by MEK in a court hearing to denounce her family and state that she wants to stay with MEK “holy worriers’, now a banned terrorist organization under Canadian law since 2005.
Somayeh’s life has been in great danger in the past 10 years and she is defiantly threatened to comply with MEK’ rules. Her story is very damaging to MEK and as a result the organization does not allow Somayeh to leave camp Ashraf in order to contact or meet with the Canadian Officials in private or in a 3rd party country. This has further complicated her case, as she officially told an immigration judge over satellite phone that she does not wish to return to Canada. Her family and friends know this to be a testimony made under pressure and therefore devoid of any truth. Somayeh is kept like a hostage at Camp Ashraf and must be treated like one.
Family and Friends of Somayeh Mohammadi :
We are Family and Friends of Somayeh Mohammadi who are deeply concerned about her safety as she has been forcefully kept by Mojahedin-e Khalagh (MEK), Iranian guerrilla fighters in Iraq, for the past ten years. Somayeh is one of the many Canadian and American youth who were recruited to monthly camps when they were teenagers, only to be kept like hostages at the headquarters of the Organization of the Freedom Fighters of the Iranian People, Camp Ashraf, Iraq. This website is to raise awareness about Somayeh’s case and help us organize our campaign to save Somayeh.
Mojahedin-e Khalq’s internal revolutions, known as ideological revolutions, surfaced the group’s latent capacity to transform into a cult. Gradually and through cleverly developed phases, the Rajavies established a cult of personality that shared characteristics with other previously established similar cults. In the same way, the Mojahedin cult is manipulating cult techniques and undemocratic modus operandi to exploit the insiders under the pretext of campaign for the accomplishment of freedom and democracy in Iran. Forced marriages within the organization resulted in inescapable birth of children although some recruits were spouses with children.
1- Mojahedin have exploited children for collecting money under the disguise of charity work in European countries and many charity institutions were duped by the group’s sham-charity activities.
2- Children have been forcefully separated from their parents and deprived of the warm bosom of the family.
3- Children have been abused by Mojahedin-run propaganda machine to win political and social support.
4- The children of dissatisfied members have been taken as hostages within the organization to prevent the parents’ detachment.
5- Children have gone through hideous cult techniques and brainwashing methods and inspired with hate and enmity as well as receiving military training and ideological teachings.
6- Children have been imprisoned along with their parents who were accused of vague organizational allegations.
There are much more instances of child abuse to discuss, all of which disclose the variety of manipulated cult techniques. Amazingly, the techniques are nearly shared in most cults; children are sent into the public places in organized teams to collect funds under the guise of charities and foundations that foster homeless, orphan and abandoned children. Elaborating on one of the instances of exploiting children for illegal fund-raising activities Thaler Singer, the author of Cults in Our Midst, states:
In another case, a woman objected to her fund-raising team leader that it would be lying to people to say cult members were collecting money for a children’s home when they knew the money went to the leader’s headquarters. She was told, "That’s evidence of your degraded mentality. You are restoring to our leader what’s rightfully his, that’s all! [1]
Those who are familiar with MKO to some scale are shocked to see the awful similarity in justifying the abuses. The difference is that while the leaders of some cults are brought before the tribunal for harsh maltreatment of children and forced cult abuses that are plain violation of their rights, MKO’s leader have so far escaped trial for political causes:
In 1986, William A. Lewis, sixty-three-year-old leader of the Black Hebrew House of Judah in Michigan, was convicted of conspiracy to enslave children and causing the 1983 beating death of twelve-year-old John Yarbough in an act of discipline. In 1988, fifty-three children were removed by law enforcement officials from a group called Ecclesia Athletic Association, following the beating death of eight-year-old Dayna Lorae Broussard. The children raised in the group could not read and but knew the Book of Romans by heart. Children aged three to eighteen were forced to run long distances and perform drills and exercises to earn money. The dead girl’s father, who was the group’s leader, and seven other members pleaded guilty to a federal charge of a conspiracy to deny civil rights. Earlier, four Ecclesia followers were convicted of manslaughter in the case of the young girl’s death. [2]
Many defectors are unanimous that victimization of children by the parents was enforced on the members following the ideological revolution. Elaborating on the process of dehumanizing the members Shams-e Haeri writes:
Rajavi’s thesis for emancipation of women codified the spouses’ divorce and annihilation of family foundation and human fleeing. The women not only were enforced by Rajavi to divorce the husbands, but also deserted their children and killed their love in their hearts and committed them to the foster-houses run in Western countries to be disciplined enough to be recruited into the leadership council. [3]
In many instances, when the parents rejected to surrender their children, the children’s daily needs such as milk and nutriment rations were halted to force parents submit to the wills of the leadership:
They had allocated one of POW’s camps in Iraq to defected members. It was called Debs and located near Kirkuk. At the time the number of defectors reached 600 or so among whom were families and children. To torment and harass them, the organization cut the food ration into half and cut off the children’s milk. [4]
Furthermore, as one of the defectors claims, Rajavi’s crimes done against families and children cannot be categorized as political but rather as social:
Rajavi’s crimes are not political in essence. Because of displacing children and separating them from their parents for illegal political abuse, force divorces, imprisonment and psychological-physical tortures, plotting to destabilize familial relations, employing club-wielders, and outraging human values, Rajavi is a felon. [5]
And what the organization sought when its agents battered the parents before the eyes of children:
For instance, Mohssen Rezai severely battered a father called Farhang before the eyes of his two five and seven children in hostel E; the children cried “oh, daddy, daddy” while a number of other families were watching the scene. [6]
In some cases, the children of dissatisfied members were taken as hostages within the organization as a leverage of pressure on the parents to submit:
None of the recruits were told from the beginning that if they joined, their familial independence would be violated, or had to write daily reports of what they did and dreamed, or had to divorce their wives. They were never told that if one day they decided to leave the organization, their children would be taken as hostages and they were deprived of seeing them. [7]
Referring to different dimensions of child abuse in MKO, Anne Singleton writes:
In Germany, the government uncovered the Mojahedin’s financial activities. After a two year investigation, the German High Court on 21st December 2001 closed the Mojahedin ‘shop’ – twenty-five houses and bases – after evidence was found of misuse of Social Security and fraud. Disturbingly, the Mojahedin had used the members’ children who had been evacuated during the Gulf War of 1991. These children, whilst they lived in the Mojahedin’s bases in Germany, were required to undertake work in the base and take part in fund-raising activities, collecting money in the street. At the same time, the Mojahedin were abusing every possible avenue of Social Security in Germany in order to claim benefits for these children. Documents in Germany showed that ten to twelve million Marks had been used by the Mojahedin to buy weapons. Considering that a Social Security claim of 130 – 260 Marks could be made per child per day, this is a conservative figure of the amount that the Mojahedin collected on account of these children. [8]
The children in MKO are deprived of their slightest rights. They suffer institutional child abuse and are exposed to imminent danger through the most harsh and pitiless trainings they underwent in unsuitable conditions:
In Mojahedin’s ideology, the children are the most neglected individuals since they fail to be regarded as the appropriate means to help fulfilment of Rajavi’s power-seeking ambitions. They have no clear future and are deprived of their most natural rights of living with warm-hearted parents. The Camp Ashraf’s school much resembled that of a foster-house rather than an ordinary school while the organization, availing big sums of funds, could provide the best educational and fun facilities for the children. Unlike other child-care centres, headmasters and preceptors in charge had no pedagogical experiences and their appointment was the result of a punishment because of their organizational inefficiency. The children reaching the age of thirteen were immediately pulled out of the school and drafted into the organization. They were exploited physically and were not cognizant of their rights. [9]
Shams-e Haeri sees a very close resemblance between the cult relations of MKO in the contemporary political milieu and that of Stalin’s Communist reign over the Soviet Union:
Under the manipulation of Stalinist and psychological methods as well as creating an atmosphere of intimidation and offense, the members were afraid of receiving degrading labels and thus the mothers were silenced. At the present, hundreds of children are kept under the state-run foster-houses or the guardianship of Iranian families residing in European countries for five years apart from their parents; they are suffering emotional and mental pressures and have no memory of their parents. They are so drawn and depressed that one is shocked by so much imposed brutality. In Germany alone hundreds of these children are exploited in a variety of illegal fashions. They are brought into the streets as demonstrating mobs or as fund collecting orphans. The older ones have to sit up till late and do laborious tasks of the organization and, consequently most of them are sleepy at the classes in the school. Their cloths are in poor condition and they have no fun, even not permitted to watch the German TV. The girls above twelve have to wear scarves and are thus depressed and in a permanent argument with the ranks in charge. Two of these girls have deliberately burned themselves by hot irons and some other have escaped to live with their relatives residing in other countries or sought protection of German government and were granted separate lodgings. [10]
Primary health care, providing provision of adequate nutritious foods and clothing as well an atmosphere of love and happiness are the least essentialities that the guardians have to take into consideration to foster children. As described by defectors, children lived in exceptionally difficult conditions in MKO’s prison-like child care houses:
The hostels where the children are lodged are too cramped and dark and like prisons; 10 children have to sleep close to each other in a single room. The children have to abide in two culturally different milieus; the German schools and the organization’s training abodes. The incompatibility of the two contexts had caused children develop dual personality. At least two children have died of the custodian’s maltreatment in France and Netherland and a girl has been sexually abused by her American foster parent. Some are addicts to drugs. Rajavi in one of his speeches announced that “a Mojahed woman is not the mother of her child as a Mojahed man is not the father, and a Mojahed woman is not her husband’s wife”. He called upon all members to submit to him and abandon all life and human attachments. [11]
The mentioned instances that disclose blatant ignorance of children rights in MKO and their exposure to perils of oppression, exploitation and abuse, makes it an urgent responsibility for the organizations protecting human and child rights to investigate children’s violated rights within MKO. Mojahedin leaders for certain have to stand trial for the terrible crimes done against children and their deprivation of being grown up in the family environment. Instead, we see that Maryam Rajavi announced her group’s preparedness to take care of 1000 Iraqi orphans. The described condition of MKO’s children might be the horrendous destiny awaiting Iraqi children if the global community continues to turn a blind eye to the plights of Iraqi orphans.
Sources:
1- Thaler Singer, Margaret; Cults in Our Midst: The Continuing Fight Against Their Hidden Menace, 68.
2- Ibid, 87.
3- Shams-e Haeri, Hdi; Mordab (originally in Persian), 55.
4- Ibid, 59.
5- Ibid, 60.
6- Ibid, 62.
7- Ibid, 66.
8- Singleton, Anne; Saddam’s Private Army, Iran-Interlink, 2003.
9- Shams-e Haeri, Hdi; Mordab (originally in Persian), 71.
10- Ibid, 71.
11- Ibid, 74.
Bahar Irani – Mojahedin.ws – August 12, 2007
It was earlier discussed that Maryam Rajavi’s announced readiness to take care of 1,000 Iraqi orphans and pay for all their expenses in Camp Ashraf is supposed to be a bid to attain certain political interests and especially to strengthen her group’s foothold in Iraqi soil. Hardly can it be considered a humanitarian move since Mojahedin’s phased ideological revolution had already targeted destabilizing relative emotional attachments of the insiders and conceptualizing the idea that the leadership is the focal point of absolute love and devotion. Conjugal attachments and familial affections had to be sacrificed for the leader; the outcome was forced ideological divorce of the spouses and separation of children from their parents.
Suppose that MKO’s suggestion is for a good and humanitarian cause. There are globally adopted minimum standards that had to be met for children foster care and guardianship is subject to certain rules. According to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, “States Parties shall ensure that the institutions, services and facilities responsible for the care or protection of children shall conform with the standards established by competent authorities, particularly in the areas of safety, health, in the number and suitability of their staff, as well as competent supervision”. Thus, any individual or organization that intends to take care of children has to meet required benchmarks according to adopted laws of a country concerning child care and welfare.
Although in some details different because of the regional, cultural, and religious considerations, countries in their jurisdiction consider sever qualifying regulations for the guardians and custodians. There is a unanimous agreement that they have to be subject to no limitation and entitled to no especial protection and assistance. Moreover, they should be liable to no prosecution for charges against them and accused of no criminal acts and abuse particularly done against children. Above all, they should be financially eligible and it has to be ensured that the guardianship does not result in improper financial gain for those involved in it.
Considering the least qualifications for the custody of children, now the question is that are Mojahedin qualified enough to take care of Iraqi children? First, they have to be subject to no limitation and entitled to no especial protection and assistance. It is broadly known that Mojahedin’s members are restricted in Camp Ashraf that is regarded as a military camp rather than a residential complex. At the present, no child lives in the camp and all children have been already evacuated to Western countries and most of the members are held against their will. Even their stay at the camp is transient since the Iraqi government is determined to expel all the members who are under the supervision of Coalition Forces that designated the members as “protected persons” under the Geneva Convention and posted guards at their bases since 2003.
In respect of criminal acts and charges, regardless of many instances of inter-organizational liquidations, MKO has committed many hundreds of assassinations and political killings as well as shedding blood of many innocent children and civilians according to its own officially issued military communiqué. Its globally proscription as a terrorist group by the State Department, the EU’s country members and some other countries is a telling evidence of its countless perpetrated atrocities. There are also evidences of the members’ children receiving ideological and cult educations and harsh military trainings in MKO-run hostels and basis scattered in Western countries.
Is MKO eligible financially to foster Iraqi orphans? According to the State Department’s report, “Before Operation Iraqi Freedom began in 2003, the MEK received all of its military assistance and most of its financial support from Saddam Hussein. The fall of Saddam’s regime has led MEK to increasingly rely on front organizations to solicit contributions from expatriate Iranian communities”. French prosecutor general had earlier on March 19 requested the anti-terror court to add new charges against MKO and the leader of the group Maryam Rajavi. The new charges are reported to be money laundering and fraud charges added to the previous case which includes connection with terrorism and saboteur groups. In Germany, the government investigations uncovered Mojahedin’s illegal financial activities where it abused the members’ children, who had been evacuated during the first Gulf War, to beg in the streets. In general, the group’s funds are the pile of no clean money.
Now, does MKO meet minimum standards that are required to qualify it for the custody of Iraqi children? Where the MKO members’ children were illegally deprived of their rights and even their identity and freedom, for which the leaders have to stand trial, how the cult’s leader presumptuously announces readiness to take care of innocent Iraqi orphans? Of course, that is clear that the Iraqis never consent to see their orphans out of frying pan into the fire.
Bahar Irani – Mojahedin.ws – August 8, 2007
In her speech made on 30 June in Paris, Maryam Rajavi, Mojahedin’s cult she-guru, announced her group’s readiness to look after of 1,000 Iraqi orphans. The unexpected demand might be considered a humanitarian move unless you are familiar with MKO’s terrorist and cult nature. But those familiar with the group’s internal relation presuppose differently. Before going any further, it seems essential to reconsider the following issues:
*. Surveying the issue of family in Mojahedin’s organizational relations from the beginning until the ideological revolution.
*. Surveying condition of children in Mojahedin’s organizational relations from the beginning until the ideological revolution
It is not wrong to say that the family has been an issue of dispute in MKO that has challenged it from its very beginning. For Mojahedin, the legitimacy of any phenomenon is appraised according to its degree of accordance with the ideological and political ends of the organization. Since the family in itself necessitates certain responsibilities, then, any enforced responsibility out of the organizational command is deemed to be an impending element. In the history of the organization, we encounter countless instances of forced organizational marriage and divorce and in many cases, the group plotted tricks to debilitate the emotional attachments between the couples that resulted in divorce.
Unlike what is sought in conventional marriages, Mojahedin’s organizational marriages were prudent policies for the accomplishment of political objectives. In fact, none of these marriages rested on love and emotional infrastructure and the leaders weighed it as an appropriate means to gratify sexual needs of the members to expedite the fulfilment of the organization’s policies. Consequently, unbidden fruits of these marriages, namely the children, will have no better destiny than their parents.
Thus, looking at family and children as instruments to achieve power and political goals, MKO leader’s shedding crocodile tears for Iraqi children is supposed to be a bid to attain certain interests. Here are suppositions that prove Maryam Rajavi’s demand is a suspicious political tactic rather than a humanitarian move.
At the present, MKO has an unstable and unbearable position in Iraq. The Iraqi government is determined to expel the group as a terrorist group that is conspiring with insurgent dissidents against the Iraqi legal government. To frustrate terrorists’ plots, the Iraqi police are debarring Iraqis from visiting Camp Ashraf known as the den of conspiracy. Maryam Rajavi’s suggestion at such a critical juncture is a countermeasure tactic. In case the international humanitarian organizations welcome the offer for the wellbeing of the innocent children, and if we are cautiously optimistic of a good-will-prone offer, MKO’s expulsion from Iraq will be postponed.
MKO continue to maintain on the State Department and the EU terror list that has greatly undermined MKO’s political manoeuvre and has jammed it in a political cul-de-sac. In fact, it is big strategic failure for MKO that advertise to pose as an alternative for Iranian regime. Maryam Rajavi’s offer, supported by the group’s advocates that lobby Western parliaments, contributes to augment propagandistic pressures in an attempt to remove the terrorist label.
The Human Rights Watch report concerning human rights abuse within MKO and the group’s cult-like practices against the insiders is pressing the group to provide justifiable reasons for the insider and outsider critics. Maryam Rajavi’s offer is a futile struggle that implicitly challenges the HRW’s report and rebuts the critics.
The US State Department’s released list of designated terrorist organizations on April 30 highlighted unprecedented facts about MKO and announced that “In addition to its terrorist credentials, the MEK has also displayed cult-like characteristics”. It also asserted that MKO’s members are required to undertake a vow of "eternal divorce" and that children are reportedly separated from parents at a young age. MKO has so far dodged explaining away such allegations and Maryam Rajavi’s publicized proposal, if gains public acclaim, might partly challenge the accusations.
Maryam Rajavi’s offer that justifiably depicts the painful plight of Iraqi children draws support of many human rights activists to welcome the seemingly humanitarian move. It would be relatively a success for the group both in political stage and fundraising activities. Exploiting children for fundraising has its own long history in MKO. After separating children from their parents, these innocent children were sent to Western countries to take part in the street fund-raising activities under false pretences of being homeless Iranian children whose parents were executed by Iranian regime. For years Mojahedin were active in illegal fundraising activities through charities like Iran Aid in England; the funds were then spent in purchase of the arms. Possibly, the group seeks to establish a similar Iraq Aid charity in Iraq to cover the expenses of its terrorist and cult activities.
The ex-members’ increased counter-MKO activities to bring further secrets of manipulating cult-like techniques of the group into light has much frustrated the organization. The group’s manner of confronting the dissidents is typically violent. In his recent message issued from his hideout, Massoud Rajavi plainly threatened the dissidents and critics of the group. The harsh reaction provides cult-proven and undemocratic attitudes of MKO. Any positive reaction to Maryam Rajavi’s offer questions the accuracy of the ex-members’ disclosures and decreases the consequent psychological pressures exerted on MKO.
Inactivity and passiveness are dominating Camp Ashraf as a result of great disappointment of an uncertain destiny in Iraq. It has debilitated the morale of the forces in Camp Asharf to a great extent especially following the redesignation of the group as a terrorist group that works an inevitable impediment to seek asylum in any country. If Maryam Rajavi’s suggestion catches a global attention, it will give the forces encouragement of reconsidering their detachment and leave of Camp Ashraf.
The ex-member activists in European countries and especially in Iran centralized under Nejat Assossiation, established by the ex-members and the families of the members still held in MKO, is a big challenge for the group. The emotional impact of the families on the members who have been deprived of all emotional relations are inevitable. The families visit and contact with members in Camp Ashraf has jeopardised the group’s security and contribute to unveil what the organization prefers to remain concealed.
Thus, the real intention of MKO terrorist cult weighs on a globally acclaimed humanitarian move and proposal. That is enough to see children being victimized in a cult that respects not the least for their rights. Ideologically controlled context of MKO hardly leaves a suitable room for children to grow up and, frankly speaking, MKO lacks any standard concerning children, their rights, and even how to take care of them in the same way as the world outside. The process of mutation in Mojahedin cult is extraordinary; a lamb entering the cult comes out as a tiger.
Bahar Irani – Mojahedin.ws – August 5, 2007
Coming to pass MKO-run media bureaus in the Europe and also among the member residents of Camp Ashraf we encounter young people that hardly you can see any relative correspondence between their age and the atmosphere wherein they are exhausting their juvenile vigorousness. These youths, who can be well denominated as the fourth generation of Mojahedin, represent the same enthusiast and decisiveness of their previous generation. Furthermore, their amazing authority over organizational doctrines and teachings is in no way a deniable fact nor a media display to attract attentions. Many may ask, then, who are they and how they have been so experienced, being so young, in organizational, political and ideological issues.
In the history of political movements, Mojahedin are believed to be the sole organization that the impact of their activities has imposed heavy costs on whoever is in the reach of its surroundings. In the same way, the tragic destiny of children in MKO, before and after the ideological revolution, has not been investigated sufficiently. Political, fundraising as well as emotional exploitation of children by Mojahedin is one of the cases reported by many former MKO members as instances of human rights abuses in MKO.
The general consensus of opinion is that children should enjoy complete immunity from any form of manipulation and abuse. Human rights institutions and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights have repeatedly confirmed that children are entitled to special care and assistance and that especial measures have to be taken to protect children from all forms of physical and mental abuse, maltreatment and exploitation.
After the ideological revolution, Mojahedin concluded to separate children from their parents in an attempt to destabilize the foundation of family which the group believed to be a strategic impediment. The U.S first invasion to Iraq was a good alibi to accomplish the goal. The evacuation of children to other countries under the pretext of providing safety and security for them not only guarantied the accomplishment of the ideological objective but also paved the way to upbring and discipline the organization’s future combat force. Now, after two decades, the various dimensions of such an action have been fully revealed. Mojahedin’s attempt to undertake the guardianship of the children whose parents have separated from the organization signifies Mojahedin’s exploitative nature concerning the children. A number of former members of MKO have elaborated on the various dimensions of the group’s inhuman practices. Ann Singleton in her “Saddam’s private army” well refers to the process of separating babies from their parents as part of speeding up the application of the Internal Revolution:
More cynically still, Rajavi used the Gulf War as a pretext to have all the children removed from the bases in Iraq. The children had acted as a brake on the application of the Internal Revolution. Whilst the children were around, it provided an excuse for spouses to meet up in a family context. There was the possibility for ‘divorced’ couples to continue a covert relationship. Rajavi wanted the total devotion of everyone with no rivals. For him, the children represented his most dangerous rivals for their parents’ affections and loyalties. So on the pretext of having them evacuated to safety during the allied bombing, he had children even as young as two months old, sent abroad where they were adopted by Iranian families or kept in dormitories. (1)
However, that is not the full dimension of the oppression suffered by children at the hands of Mojahedin. The potential and practical European laws and regulations concerning the children granted Mojahedin an opportunity to exploit the European governments as well as citizens. The Europe provided MKO the best milieu to educate children for its cult-like purposes. But under drastic measures and vigilance of related state-run institutions the real intention of MKO is exposed for the public:
In Germany, the government uncovered the Mojahedin’s financial activities. After a two year investigation, the German High Court on 21st December 2001 closed the Mojahedin ‘shop’ – twenty-five houses and bases – after evidence was found of misuse of Social Security and fraud. Disturbingly, the Mojahedin had used the members’ children who had been evacuated during the Gulf War of 1991. These children, whilst they lived in the Mojahedin’s bases in Germany, were required to undertake work in the base and take part in fund-raising activities, collecting money in the street. At the same time, the Mojahedin were abusing every possible avenue of Social Security in Germany in order to claim benefits for these children. Documents in Germany showed that ten to twelve million Marks had been used by the Mojahedin to buy weapons. Considering that a Social Security claim of 130 – 260 Marks could be made per child per day, this is a conservative figure of the amount that the Mojahedin collected on account of these children. (2)
Further appalling aspects of MKO’s abuse of children include application of brainwashing techniques to indoctrinate them with subversive organizational ideologies to be later recruited into NLA based in Camp Ashraf. The two instances of self-immolation by Neda Hassani in England and Yaser Mohammadi in Camp Ashraf can be mentioned as explicit consequences of children trained according to mentioned techniques. The low age of these two young victims confirms the terrible process the children have gone through in the European and Iraqi camps. Of course, any raised objection was neutralized by a variety of tricks. According to Ann Singleton, Mojahedin shaped the destiny of these young victims by means of preplanned ideological, political, military, as well as terrorist schemes:
Some of the older children soon returned to Iraq and though still under-age, became members of the NLA. They were expected to ‘reject’ their parents as part of the new ideology. In other cases, a parent bravely refused to be separated and decided to accompany their children abroad. As usual, although the Mojahedin denounced these people as defectors, as weak and useless people, they did all they could to keep hold of them and have them work in their bases in the West. In all, the losses were few and Rajavi consolidated his hold over the members’ minds, hearts and lives. (3)
Bijan Niyabati, a left activist of NCRI, has made open confessions regarding emotional and organizational misuse of children within MKO. He has elaborated on such events far beyond what other former MKO members have stated. He confesses openly that Mojahedin indoctrinate children in such a way to make them highly vengeful and aggressive. He also maintains that these innocent children are implanted by ideological relations and principles of their adoptive parents:
On the other hand, there are innocent children whose only sins are to be born in a family engaged in revolutionary struggle without considering the children’s opinion for the sacrifice of majority. Hundreds of such children have to undergo an awful fate. You have to be yourself a child and have experienced such a destiny to develop a full comprehension of such a human tragedy. You have to have been separated from your mother and have been raised by a foster mother to feel the pain of worry and rage suffered by these children. Then you can make a dagger of your tears and sigh and a bullet of your wrath to hit the heart and head of the agents who are responsible for all these human tragedies. So you may have no doubt for unquestionable necessity of overthrowing the regime of whip and gallows. (4)
He acknowledges the fact that the process of separating children from their parents, at the command of the leader of MKO, aims at making children bear the grudge against MKO enemies; a fact referred to by many former MKO members as the most anti-human aspect of ideological revolution. Mojahedin, however, deny the accusation. According to Niyabati, the innocent children are inspired with violence and trained where to surface it while they do not know why they have to do so. The statements made by Niyabati surfaces the hidden dimensions of the awful process taking place inside MKO and they are even more telling than what other MKO’s ex-members expose. He refers to the hegemony and cultist relations onto which children are exposed and these statements work as verified evidences for any international human activist and organization, evidences which unveil the truth about the abuse and exploitation of defenseless children by Mojahedin-e Khalq.
References
1. Singleton, Ann; “Saddam’s private army”, Iran-Interlink.
2. Ibid
3. Ibid
4. Niyabati, Bijan; A different look at the ideological revolution within MKO, Khavaran Publication, p.100.
Bahar Irani – Mojahedin.ws – August , 2007
It’s not easy for aspiring filmmakers to get their feet wet in the industry, but Erin Mills resident Simon Chang has done just that.
Chang and his Sheridan College classmate were recently honoured with a prestigious award from the U.S. International Film and Video Festival, one of the largest film events in the world. Staged in California, the festival recognizes documentaries and business, educational and entertainment productions.
Writer/narrator Chang and his Toronto producer/researcher, Neha Gandhi, were recipients of the student award in the public issues and concerns category. They won for their documentary, Breaking the Ties that Bind.
“It felt good getting recognition on an international level,” says Chang.
Gandhi said it’s a good start for the young filmmakers, students in Sheridan’s Media Arts program.
“(The festival) was about meeting a lot of filmmakers around the world. It’s a step in the door,” says Gandhi.
Breaking the Ties that Bind is about terrorist organization Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK). The film focuses on an Iranian family’s attempt to rescue their daughter from an MEK camp in Iraq. Almost a decade ago, Somayeh Mohammady left Toronto to go to Iraq to learn about her family history. Instead, she was forced to stay at Camp Ashraf, a terrorist camp. She remains there, brainwashed.
Breaking the Ties that Bind features an emotional interview with Mustafa Mohammady, Somayeh’s father.
“(The film has) been compared to professional news programs, like 20/20,” says Chang, a former University of Toronto Mississauga (UTM) student.
Gandhi believes their film, one of 115 student entries, won because they touched on a topic that’s impossible to ignore.
“What’s really important for people to know is that other women and children have been brainwashed (by MEK). Today, it’s Somayeh. Tomorrow, it could be anyone else. It’s not an issue that can be overlooked,” explains Gandhi.
The film began as a class project and took six weeks to complete. It was an unforgettable experience for the filmmakers.
“You get so caught up in the story, you have to remind yourself to be objective (as a filmmaker),” says Chang.
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for more information:
somayeh.org
Mississauga News
Children are the most despised creatures inside MKO as you can find no child living with the group in Camp Ashraf at the present. Human Rights Watch report’s No Exit; Human Rights Abuses inside the MKO Camps released in 2005 explicitly refers to instances of children’s abuses inside MKO:
[Yasser] Ezati moved to Iraq with his family at the age of three and grew up inside the MKO military camps. During the 1991 Gulf war, Ezati and other children inside the camps were separated from their parents and sent outside Iraq. During the next three years, Ezati lived with three different families in Canada. These families were MKO sympathizers. In the summer of 1994, the MKO moved Ezati to Cologne, Germany, where he lived in a group-house for the MKO children. The organization recruited Ezati for military training when he was seventeen years old and sent him to Iraq in June 1997.
Besides being mistreated and abused for military purposes, children were exploited as fundraising tools in Western countries. That is the way the Mojahedin cult looks upon children. Now, at the time when the Iraqi government intends to expel MKO, its leader is playing another trick to hide the group’s terrorist intentions behind a humanitarian mask. Maryam Rajavi in her speech made on 30 June in a Paris rally surprised many people who are familiar with the group’s cult-like and counter-children moves and practices when she announced her group’s readiness to look after 1000 Iraqi children:
We announce our readiness to the United Nations to use every means at our disposal to look after a number of Iraqi orphans. Specifically, I announce that the Iranian Resistance is prepared to take care of 1,000 Iraqi orphans and pay for all their expenses in Ashraf City under the supervision of UNICEF and in accordance with its guidelines. This offer is made purely on humanitarian grounds and is devoid of any political or public relations considerations. We will inform the Iraqi embassy in Paris and expect that the current Iraqi government would agree to such a humanitarian initiative.
Iraqi children have no need of terrorists to take care of them. If MKO really intends to show respect for humanitarian moves devoid of any political considerations as it claims, it can show its good-will by letting humanitarian organizations visit and watch over the condition of the Group’s own insiders forcefully held within Camp Ashraf.
Mojahedin.ws – July 5, 2007