Yaser Akbari Nasab was the son of Morteza Akbari Nasab, one of the high-ranking members of the MEK. He lost his mother in the MEK’s cross-border military operation against Iran, Forough Javidan. Yasser was smuggled to Europe in 1991 along with his brother Musa, his sister Fatemeh and near a thousand of children of the MEK.

A few years later, the 17-year-old Yaser and the 14-year-old Musa were again trafficked to Camp Ashraf in Iraq as child soldiers. Organizational pressures and restrictions, military and ideological training made Yasser complain against the group’s ruling system. Finally, in 2006, he was burned in a fire that it is not known whether he lit it himself or someone lit it for him. Many consider his death a suicide.

Amir Yaghmai published a photo of Yaser and Musa on his account on the X social network and wrote:
“Two brothers, former and close friends of mine who joined Ashraf and the MEK from Germany. Yasser Akbari on the left, poured gasoline on himself and burned himself and died in Ashraf. Then the organization called him a traitor. His brother Musa returned back to Germany after many years and became mentally ill. These were the organization’s own children.”

Yaser & Musa Akbarinasab

Hamid Orafa was also one of the children of the organization. With his disfigured face after self-immolation, he is still a child of the organization and is used in the organization’s propaganda activities. The MEK considers him a “burning torch” that “burned the curtain of the reactionary-colonial conspiracy of June 17th and reduced it to ashes.” He was one of the 23 supporters and members MEK who set themselves on fire in June 2003 in protest against the arrest of Maryam Rajavi by the French police.

Hamid orafa

In an interview attributed to Hamid Orafa published on the website of the MEK in 2013, he admits that in the years after the self-immolation, he has undergone numerous surgeries, and of course and he literally speaks of the depth of the collective and peer pressure in the MEK cult that led him to get brainwashed.

So, It is not surprising that he seems happy and satisfied with 56 surgeries on his face: “Until today, there have been 56 surgeries, which of course I must say here that I don’t think that any human being, even Mujahid, can endure this number of surgeries. But what was it that made this situation bearable for me? The answer is the Mujahedin’s crowd. There is a group of Mujaheds who made this bearable for me and helped me. Brothers and sisters who did everything for me. It was because of this that I was able to perform this number of operations in 10 years.”
In the caption of a photo of Hamid Arafa and two other people who self-immolated during the arrest of Maryam Rajavi, Amir Yaghmai writes:

“Hamid Arafa, the middle one in the photo, his parents defected the MEK and were called traitors by the group, but their son Hamid wanted to go to Iraq after he was manipulated by the MEK. His parents did not agree and said that they will complain to the court. During the arrest of Maryam Rajavi in 2003, the MEK encouraged Hamid to set himself on fire, thus taking revenge on his parents.”

The child soldiers of the MEK have been at risk of suicide both inside the group such as Alan Mohammadi, Yaser Akbari Nasab and Faizeh Akbarian who committed suicide to protest Maryam Rajavi’s despotic ruling, and outside the MEK such as Hamid Orafa and Neda Hassani who were brainwashed to commit suicide to protest against the arrest of their cult leader, Maryam Rajavi.

The child soldiers have always been at risk of being victimized. The Rajavi cult uses all these sufferings to increase the number of its so-called martyrs and fuel its propaganda machine. There are still a large number of child soldiers who are still taken as hostages inside the group’s camp in Manez, Albania. They are mostly in their forties now. The international human rights bodies must take action to give them the opportunity to choose for their life with their own free will.

Mazda Parsi

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That morning, Mostafa received a call from the group. “They told me that Maryam Rajavi was arrested and members had to commit suicide in front of French embassies to protest her arrest,” Mostafa recalls. It was a serious problem. Mostafa’s two children were in the group and he had to obey what they coerced him to do. Their life was at risk.

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The world was shocked by the scenes of self-immolations of MEK members in western cities. Western journalist had been already present on the scene. They had been informed about the incidents by MEK agents!
Mostafa got ready to set himself o fire in front of French embassy in Ottawa. He poured petrol all over his body but a journalist snatched the lighter from his hand and a police officer stopped him. Other MEK sympathizers on the scene, wearing yellow jackets with the image of Maryam Rajavi on them, were just watching him. Watch the clip here.

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‘Two Iranians suspected of preventing the intervention of rescuers while a woman was immolating herself in front of DST headquarters in Paris on Wednesday will be brought before an instructional magistrate for their a criminal investigation, judicial sources made known on Friday.

The prosecutor’s office stated that very day a criminal enquiry possible ‘obstruction of rescue services’ and ‘provocation to suicide’. It will soon demand an arrest warrant. The crime of obstructing rescue efforts can be punished with up to 7 years in prison.

The two prisoners bought 8 litres of petrol in a service station in rue Nelaton, near the DST HQ. They then provided it to an Iranian woman who died yesterday in the specialized military hospital for burns, Percy, in Clamart (Hauts-de-Seine), the same source added. One of them was an obstacle to rescue workers when they tried save the 44 year old victim, while the other was in possession of the victim’s blouse and papers, judicial sources emphasized.

The two Iranians were questioned by police Tuesday morning during the operation against the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran. They were released during the evening, the judicial sources said.
One Iranian woman, arrested and questioned on Wednesday was in possession of gasoline-filled bottles and a letter explaining her intention to commit suicide. She was freed, she stated”.

photo: The raid of the MEK’s Paris compound in 2003, which prompted acts of self-immolation by some of its members.

This is the point to begin asking some difficult questions. For many years, specialists on international terrorism, like the experts on post-revolutionary Iran, have been aware of the sectarian and violent nature of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran. Numerous journalists have had a bone to pick with their propaganda. Those who gave space to the Movement’s “deserters” or who expressed the slightest criticism were violently denounced as agents of Teheran, bought by the regime. But, in that Summer of 2003, reality hit.
Tom Heneghan of the British press agency, Reuters, asked himself if he was watching a sect in full collapse:
“The images of men and women spraying themselves with petrol before setting themselves on fire in the streets of several European capitals, has shed dramatic light on the last days of the main armed opposition to the Teheran regime.

Since Tuesday, several supporters of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI) have tried to immolate themselves in Paris, London, Rome and Berne.
A woman in her forties has succumbed to her wounds Thursday night in the Paris region after immolating herself the previous day to denounce the intervention of French police against Maryam Rajavi — the person whom the Iranian opposition want one day to become President of Iran.

Successive student demonstrations in the streets of Teheran and the growing pressure of the American authorities on the Iranian regime, summoned to explain its nuclear programme, could have led the Mojahedin to believe that the time had come to overthrow the authorities they have been fighting for thirty years.
However in just a few weeks, the organization has seen its military installations dismantled in Iraq, its arsenal seized by the Americans and its HIQ in Auvers-sur- Oise, North of Paris, searched and closed down by the French police.

For many specialists on Iran, these images of men and women in flames, writhing in pain have shown the true nature of the PMOI: a sect based on the cult of personality of Maryam Rajavi and her husband, Massoud, one of the movement’s founders.

‘It’s a sect,’ says Ali Ansari, expert on Iranian affairs at Britain’s Durham University.
‘Their militants are strangely, passionately loyal to this couple. The now realise who they are,’ he adds.
‘My only hope, is that, in the event of a revolution, we won’t have the People’s Mojahedin in their place,’ confides a young Iranian interviewed in Teheran: ‘They’re worse than the mullahs’.

From the book: Autopsy of an ideological drift

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Arash was interviewed by Siamak Naderi an MEK ex-member who makes contents to denounce the group in order to illuminate the Iranian diaspora. During the recent interview, Arash testifies about various cases of human rights violations that the MEK leaders committed against him and other rank and file of the group. He was an eye-witness of the self-immolation of Mohammad Reza Babakhanloo.

Jaber Taee Semiromi and siamak Naderi

Mohammad Reza and Arash both joined the MEK in Iraq in 1997 but not in the same way. Arash was an ardent 19-year-old supporter of the group’s cause and was dedicated to fight the Iranian government while Mohammad Reza was a 16-year-old teenager who had no idea about the Mujahedin and their cause. He was just a poor peasant who was looking for a job to make a living and to treat his sick father.

According to Arash, Mohammad Reza had been recruited by an MEK commander, named Mahmood Zarif. He had promised Mohammad Reza to grant him job and payment in order to provide his parents and in particular his father’s treatment. In contrast, Mohammad Reza was forced to wear military uniform and receive military trainings at Camp Ashraf.

He was kept in the entrance section of the camp and was coerced to attend brainwashing and self-criticism sessions. “I recall that day, he had been beaten by Zabeti and Zarif (his commanders),” Arash says. “I saw him rushing to the commanders’ office with a gallon of oil. He set himself on fire. Nasser Kiomarsian was crying, Hassan Nazari was trying to put out the fire.”

Arash believes that the MEK leaders did not give enough medical care to the burned boy and he simply passed away. “Mahvash Sepehri just announced his death as saying he died and we buried him!”, Arash recalls.

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Following the arrest of Maryam Rajavi, the group commanders coerced members to protest against the act of French government against their leader. The excessive part of the protests was played by a dozen of members of the group who set themselves on fire to demonstrate their devotion to their arrested leader. 21 people set themselves on fire between June 17th to June 21st. Eventually, two of them were killed.

Neda Hassani and Sedighe Mojaveri who brainwashed by the MEK leaders into immolating themselves

Neda Hassani, 27, and Sedigheh Mojaveri 44 were the two ones who committed self-immolation to pressure French Judiciary to release Maryam Rajavi and did not survive their violent act against themselves. Their names were added to the list of the MEK’s martyrs. A number of other MEK members such as Marzieh Babakhani, Hamid Orafa and Nader Sani survived but are still suffering the wounds of that organizational order. They are always glorified as role models for other members of the MEK, by the group leaders.

Marziyeh Babakhani

To stop those horrific scenes in European cities, the French Police freed Maryam Rajavi. Since that time, the incidents of June 2003, have been celebrated by the MEK as a victory. In its numerous annual events, the group’s propaganda machine overvalues its victory to liberate Maryam Rajavi from French jail. However, important lessons have been learned by sensible entities since June 17th, 2003.

The cult-like violent nature of the MEK

Suicide and its intimate partner violence are both major notions that characterize destructive cults. They both show an extreme tendency towards an ideology. For half a century, violence of the MEK has been changing from one form to another. It started with homicide of the American military advisors in Iran during the 1970s, it went on in the post-revolutionary years in Iran by detonating bombs in public places killing civilians, it continued in the anti-national war, by the side of Saddam Hussein and the cross border terrorist operation and it has been working against the group’s own rank and file, either to suppress dissent or to coerce the brainwashed members to set themselves ablaze.

Money Laundering for terrorist activities

On 16 June 2003 the French well-known anti-terrorist judge Jean Louis Bruguiere and his team, following a 14 hours interrogation that had started at 15.30 local time on 16 June 2003, issued a detention order accusing the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), the umbrella group of the MEK, at the time blacklisted as a terrorist group by the US, the EU of “terrorist activities, association with a terrorist organization and financing terrorist operations”. Shortly after 6 am on 17 June 2003 more than 1200 police forces launched a large operation to raid 13 MKO-run offices in Val-d’Oise and Yvelines, two quarters of the Parisian suburb. The main target was the office of the MEK at Auvers-sur-Oise. The Police arrested 164 suspected Mujahedin authorities as well as Maryam Rajavi, the NCRI’s self-nominated president-elect.

on 17 June 2003 more than 1200 police forces launched a large operation to raid 13 MKO-run offices in Val-d’Oise and Yvelines, two quarters of the Parisian suburb

The French Government said it was trying to stop the group from expanding its operations in France. Nicolas Sarkozy, the then French Interior Minister, said that the order to crackdown on the MEK was decided following two years of investigations on the network. He said that MEK “recently wanted to make France its support base, notably after the intervention in Iraq. We cannot accept that”. The head of France’s domestic intelligence service, Pierre de Bousquet de Florian, said the group was “transforming its Val d’Oise base … into an international terrorist base”.

The Police discovered and confiscated more than a million US dollars in 100 banknotes, 100.000 Euros, sophisticated communication equipment and computers. The sources of French Interior Ministry later reported that more than 8 million dollars in cash had been found in various offices of the MEK as well in the houses of its high-ranking officials throughout France.

MEK leaders and its high-ranking members fled Iraq after US invasion

In March 2003, following the collapse of the MEK’s main financial and military sponsor Saddam Hussein called by the MEK as Landlord, the group’s leaders and a lot of high-ranking commanders had secretly fled Iraq and settled in France within a few months. Thus, the news of the arrest of Maryam Rajavi and her comrades was shocking for members of the group in Camp Ashraf, Iraq. They could not believe their ears that Maryam and other commanders had left them behind, under the bombs of coalition forces. Maryam had departed Iraq even before the collapse of the landlord. Seemingly, she was looking for a new landlord.

Massoud Rajavi has disappeared since the date

June 17th, 2003 is the beginning of the two-decade absence of Massoud Rajavi. He has been never seen in public since then. Inside the group, nobody is allowed to ask about his whereabouts and outside the group, the journalists and researchers’ questions on Massoud Rajavi’s location or his being dead or alive will not be answered. The disappearance of Massoud Rajavi has amplified the aura of holiness around him, for the manipulated minds residing inside his Cult of personality. However, for those hostages of the group who endeavor to release themselves from the mind control system of the Cult of Rajavi, Rajavi’s absence has increased criticism and questions on his rulings and strategy.

Mazda Parsi

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Marziyeh Babakhani

Marzieh was one of the ten MEK members who set themselves on fire to protest the arrest of the third wife of their disappeared leader, Massoud Rajavi. Two MEK female members, Neda Hassani and Sedigheh Mojaveri were killed in fire.

“I set myself on fire not to kill myself but for the freedom of my people,” Marzieh said. “Dear Maryam, you have several times told me that you disagreed what I did but as a human being I chose and I decided to do it because I think the Police raid on June 17th was a raid to terminate a legitimate resistance.”

In contrary to Marzieh’s claims, the MEK was not a legitimate entity. It was on the list of terrorist organizations of the European Union at the time and Maryam Rajavi had been arrested under terrorism charges. About nine million dollars were discovered by the French Police in Maryam Rajavi’s headquarters in Auver Sur d’Oise
There are a lot of evidences to prove that the Mujaheds who self-immolated after the arrest of Maryam Rajavi were coerced by the group to do so. “According to an organizational ruling issued by Massoud Rajavi, members of the MEK had been asked to set themselves on fire in France and other European countries,” Javad Firouzmand, a defector of the MEK writes. “This way, the group wanted to put pressure on France to release Maryam Rajavi.”
In an organized act, ten members of the MEK set themselves ablaze before the eyes of the citizens in France, Switzerland, Britain and Canada. Marzieh Babakhani set herself on fire in the morning of June 19th in front of the building of French intelligence and security department (DST).

photo: The raid of the MEK’s Paris compound in 2003, which prompted acts of self-immolation by some of its members.

On the proper day, the French newspaper, Le Parisien, stated that the spokesperson of the foreign committee of the National Council of Resistance (NCR) had called cellphones of some of its journalists to announce the name of the self-immolator. The same newspaper also reported, “After the fire was extinguished, one of the Mujaheds offered a journalist better and nicer photos of the self-immolation ceremony!”

Marzieh Babakhani is a victim of a manipulative system that coerced its members to commit what it wants. The French author, Nathalie Goulet states evidences of on such a system in her book:
“In October 2007, two Iranians Mahmoud Alami (55) and Hossein Amini Gholipour (51) were charged in a court in Paris, for encouraging Sedigheh Mojaveri to set herself on fire on June 18th 2003. The two men were members of the MEK who had been arrested in a protest run by the group in front of the DST headquarters. The two men were filmed while they were buying a gallon of petrol in a gas station. They eventually handed the gallon to Sedigheh Mojaveri.” (Goulet, Nathalie, “PMOI: How a political cult transformed to a democratic party”, page 32)
About Marzieh Babakhani, the case seems to be the same. Moreover, Marzieh was security guard for protecting Maryam Rajavi. She was always by the side of Maryam carrying a colt to protect her. Alef Abbasi, an MEK defector says, “After the arrest of Maryam Rajavi, Marzieh was under too much pressure by the group. ‘Sister Maryam is in Jail and you are still beathing,’ she was constantly told. She was continuously asked by the Cult of Rajavi: ‘What should have you done to prevent the arrest of Sister Maryam?’ “

She finally had no way out except to “decide” to pour petrol on her body and light the fire in order to stop the arrest of Sister Maryam or at least to stop the organizational pressure on herself.

The self-immolations committed by MEK members in Western capitals, are those of the darkest points in the history of the group. In western academic and political circles, self-immolations are regularly referred to in order to authenticate that the MEK has cult-like characteristics. Therefore, the MEK propaganda has to call on Marzieh Babakhani and other survivors of June 2003 to show up and declare that they tried to kill themselves with their own free will. However, every one agrees that free will is unheard of in destructive cults such as PMOI.

By Mazda Parsi

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He was freed in 1992 after he served his ten-year-long sentence. “He was looking for a job after he was released,” Alireza’s sister told Nejat Society. “Because of his criminal record, it was too difficult for him to find a job so he traveled to Turkey to find a good job.”

Alireza Taherloo

In Turkey, Alireza was once more recruited by the MEK’s active recruiters there. “He was no more interested in working with the MEK but they deceived him and took him to Iraq,” his sister said.
Alireza arrived in Camp Ashraf, Iraq, in 1993 but only one year later, he was jailed in Camp Ashraf under the accusation of being the agent of the Iranian government. At the time, a large number of MEK members had been accused of such allegations. They were imprisoned, violently interrogated and tortured by their own commanders in Ashraf.

Nasir Heidari who was one of the suspected members of the group recalls: “They took Alireza Taherloo to our cell. He had been terribly tortured. His mental and physical conditions were not normal. We all had to sign a paper to confess that we had come to Ashraf to kill Massoud Rajavi otherwise tortures would be continued.”
After months of imprisonment and torture, Alireza was released but he was not mentally balanced. He was kept in isolation because he usually opposed commanders’ orders.

On April 8th, 2011, when Massoud Rajavi ordered his disarmed members to attack Iraqi forces who were supposed to build a station in Camp Ashraf, Alireza was coerced to commit suicide.

Alireza Taherloo

Khodabakhsh Miri, MEK defector who witnessed the deadly clashes in the morning of April 8th, testifies about Alireza Taherloo’s killing: ‘’He was in a car sitting next to his commander, Kianoush Salahpour. The car stopped. Alireza was listening to the commander. He took off the car and went towards Iraqi forces and set himself on fire.” Alireza burned alive before the eyes of Iraqi forces and his commander.

On April 8th, 2011, Massoud Rajavi ordered his members to scarify themselves to stop Iraqi forces from entering Camp Ashraf. Thirty-six members of the MEK were killed and hundreds were injured in the clashes between the MEK’s rank and file and Iraqi army. Iraqi police were supposed to return the lands in north of Camp Ashraf to their original owners, Iraqi farmers of the region. The lands have been confiscated from the farmers and donated to Massoud Rajavi by Iraqi’s former dictator, Saddam Hussein.

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On June 17, 2003, French counter-intelligence forces stormed the MEK’s headquarters in Paris, seizing over $8 million in cash and detaining 159 people, including Maryam Rajavi, the group’s ringleader.

Neda Hassani and Sedighe Mojaveri who brainwashed by the MEK leaders into immolating themselves

Following the arrest, a number of brainwashed members of the group were forced to set themselves on fire in public. MEK members mobilized throughout Europe in order to hold demonstrations and then the victims carry out a series of forced self-immolations. The self-immolations had been staged publicly by 16 members of the group one after the other in Paris, Rome, Berne, London, Ottawa, Athens, and Nicosia.

Among the victims of the forced self-immolations, the names of three women stand out: Seddiqeh Mojaveri, 40, Neda Hassani, 26, and Marzieh Babakhani. The first two lost their lives and Babakhani was severely burned.

The poor women were used as a tool to pressure the French public opinion and legal system to free Maryam Rajavi. They may have been told that there was no cause to worry and the firemen would intervene to extinguish the fire soon after they set themselves ablaze. But they were duped and burned to death before the TV cameras to influence the court’s ruling. MEK leaders got their wish and the court, concerned that the immolations might be repeated, ordered Maryam Rajavi’s release on bail.

photo: The raid of the MEK’s Paris compound in 2003, which prompted acts of self-immolation by some of its members.

Following the awkward incident and the media reaction to it, the French officials highlighted various aspects and dimensions of the cult-like activities of the MEK. French Government spokesperson, Jean-Francois Cope, considered these self-immolations as “obviously, extremely dramatic”. He added, “Alas! It also tells us a great deal about the mindset of their leadership”.

The self-immolations were so unexpected for the French officials that they barred all the MEK gatherings “until further orders” and police banned the sale, transport and use of all inflammable products in certain parts of central Paris.

These are the women who are to be burned in the cult of MEK to save the life of the group’s leader and be used for further political leverage and to show their absolute loyalty to public opinion.

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Although the Mujahedin Khalq Organization (MEK/ MKO/ PMOI/ Cult of Rajavi) takes the gesture of a pro-democracy political movement to replace the Iranian government, it has been acting like a cult during its half-a-century existence, according to the above-mentioned criteria.
The MEK has all the trappings of a totalitarian cult. The 1994 State Department report on the group documented how Massoud Rajavi the charismatic leader of the MEK “fostered a cult of personality around himself” which had “alienated most Iranian expatriates, who assert they do not want to replace one objectionable regime for another.”

However, the self-immolations that took place after the arrest of Maryam Rajavi by the French Police in June, 2003, was the tip of the iceberg of what Massoud Rajavi has done to his followers. The MEK is no longer a political movement in any case, but just a cult in which members and sympathizers worship the Rajavis and their minds are so manipulated that they cannot even think about right and wrong. The leaders think for them.

On June 17, 2003, Maryam Rajavi was arrested by the French counter-terrorism force, together with 165 MKO members in 13 offices. The police also confiscated $3 million in cash in her residence in Auver sur d’Oise, a Parisian suburb. Through the next days, a dozen of MEK members set themselves on fire in European capitals to protest the arrest. Two of them, two women, died of her burns, Neda Hassani and Sedigheh Mojaveri.
These acts of MEK members are akin to what followers of Hassan ibn Sabbah or devotees of David Koresh’s Branch Davidian did. They all qualify to be considered as destructive cults.

When the MEK first started as a political movement, it took arms and launched several acts of terror against the Governments of Shah and Islamic Republic in Iran. A large number of civilians were killed in the attacks. As a destructive cult, the MEK is responsible for the death of even more people including its own members and sympathizers including those who were killed under torture and cult-like pressure and those who were convinced by the leaders to commit suicide and self-immolation.
While violence has been so widespread in the group’s practices, it is not considered a political movement, it is literally a terrorist cult of personality.

Mazda Parsi

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