European citizens where shocked to see MEK supporters set themselves ablaze as a form of protest to their leader’s arrest. This was considered by the MEK as an act of martyrdom. Since then, the two above-mentioned women are glorified as martyrs of the group and the others who were paralyzed by the fire they set on themselves, are over-valued as role models for the entire members of the group. What it suggests about the MEK?

The most striking feature is the intensity of personal loyalty to the leadership. In ordinary political movements, arrests trigger petitions, rallies, legal defense funds, or strikes. Self-immolation is something else: it suggests an environment where followers saw the leader’s detention not merely as a political setback but as an existential, sacred crisis.

That does not prove that leaders directly ordered anyone to die. But it does strongly suggest an organizational culture capable of producing self-destructive acts in defense of leadership. When members are socialized to treat obedience, sacrifice, and total commitment as moral duties, the boundary between “voluntary protest” and psychological coercion gets blurry. In case of the MEK, members had been coerced to do so according to the testimonies of former members.

Signs of a destructive cult

Therefore, many critics call the MEK cult-like. Calling a group a cult is often imprecise, but in this case, critics point to recognizable features:

-Charismatic, centralized leadership focused heavily on Massoud and Maryam Rajavi.

-Demand for total commitment, where personal identity becomes subordinate to the organization.

-Emotional absolutism, dividing the world into pure supporters and evil enemies.

-Readiness for self-sacrifice framed as proof of sincerity and loyalty.

-Suppression of internal dissent, reported by many former members over the years.

The 2003 self-immolations became one of the strongest public signs supporting that critique, because they looked less like spontaneous democratic activism and more like leader-fixated martyrdom.

Neda Hassani and Sediqeh Mojaveri

The deaths of the two women matter not just as isolated tragedies but as evidence of how vulnerable adherents can become inside highly controlling movements. Several layers are worth separating to interpret the deaths of the two women.

Individual agency: the women physically carried out the act themselves.

Organizational responsibility: if a movement creates intense pressure, glorifies sacrifice, and equates devotion with suffering, it bears moral responsibility even without issuing explicit instructions.

Symbolic messaging: self-immolation is designed to shock witnesses and force attention. In this case, it also signaled that Rajavi’s supporters understood her detention as worth dying for.

So, the deaths can be analyzed as both political communication and human exploitation.

The outcome of self-immolations for the MEK

Politically, the tactic was counterproductive outside the committed base. For sympathizers already deeply attached to the MEK, it may have reinforced solidarity. But to broader European audiences, it confirmed fears that the organization had fanatical or cultic tendencies. A movement trying to present itself as a democratic alternative usually benefits from showing discipline, public legitimacy, and respect for life. Supporting self-immolations do the opposite.

Ethically, this is hard to view as a legitimate form of protest in any positive sense. Self-immolation can sometimes be framed historically as a desperate act against overwhelming oppression. But here the trigger was the arrest of a political organization’s leader in a democratic country with legal procedures available. That makes the act look less like the “voice of the voiceless” and more like extreme leader worship under conditions of ideological control.

The key moral point is this: when people die for a leader’s prestige or freedom rather than for their own immediate survival, one should examine the structure of influence around them, not romanticize the sacrifice.

The 2003 self-immolations indicate that the MEK had, an intensely authoritarian internal culture with the power to drive followers toward lethal acts of devotion. The two deaths are best seen as tragic outcomes of manipulation, autocratic ideology, and leader-centered mobilization, not as healthy political resistance.

This event is one of the clearest cases critics use when arguing that the MEK functioned less like a normal opposition movement and more like a high-control organization built around the Rajavis, a cult of personality with a past record of acts of violence.

Mazda Parsi

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Women’s rights abuse is one of the main focus of the MKO cover-up on human rights claims against Iran.
Time and again the cult hold meetings on the issue of women’s rights and invites or better to say hires a number of women speakers from the generally fabricated associations and NGOs of the organization themselves from European countries have participated in these meetings, and on women’s rights with praise from the MKO introduced Maryam Rajavi as a model for women’s resistance!

But the interesting thing about these meetings is that there is also the propaganda of the MKO of women in many organizations, all of whom are clear examples of the unique violation of women’s rights and human rights in this terrorist group. Women who have been forced into divorce and separation from their children to military parades in the scorching desert of Iraq have been forced to have a uterus to prevent pregnancy and even the rape of the MKO leaders.

A look at the story of some of the women in the organization who lost their lives in this terrorist sect is in fact a narrative of the reality of the women’s rights affair.

Neda Hassani, along with her brother Alireza, joined the MKO. While living under deceptive propaganda, she lived in Canada and studied informatics at Carlton University in Ottawa. She abandoned her education organization with negative publicity and was transferred to the Camp Ashraf in Iraq under the pretext of a six-month training course.

Neda Hassani’s transfer to the Ashraf garrison took place in 1997, but it took five years, instead of six months, instead of 6 months, against the promises of MKO leaders. By the end of 2002, when the US invaded Iraq, Neda Hassani, along with some 300 other English-speaking members of the organization, had moved to Europe and, specifically, to France’s headquarters.

This transfer was almost simultaneous with the arrest of Maryam Rajavi on June 17, 2003 in Faraniyah for money laundering. Leaders of the organization to release Maryam Rajavi and pressurize the French government forced their members to self-immolate in the streets of Paris and other French cities. Meanwhile, Neda Hassani, who was only 26 at the time, was forced to die!

Although the organization claims that self-immolation was voluntary and by the decision of the forces themselves, there are several reasons to prove that they were forced to self-immolate.

A definitive document relates to the announcement of the names of the individuals before the self-immolation by the heads of the organization, indicating that members were selected by the organization for self-immolation. Before and after the self-immolation, several reporters had been contacted by mobile phones and the National Council of Foreign Relations spokesman Mohammad Mohadesin had announced the name of the self-immolator.
Maryam Rajavi, against the media criticize for forced self-immolation, after being released claimed that Neda had done it on her own and that no one in the organization was aware of it

26-year-old Neda Hassani’s self-immolation Despite three previous self-immolations, no one was present for help, and it was too late when some French people sought help and Neda Hassani died.

This 26-year-old girl is a clear example of the unique way of the MKO in women rights violation, sometimes in the form of sexual abuse, and sometimes demanding the lives of these people. There was a memorial to Neda Hosseini at Camp Ashraf to commemorate her as a model of revolutionary behavior in the organization, but the fact is that neither Neda Hosseini nor the other members of the organization had any choice in any of their actions; otherwise they won’t change studying in Canada with self-immolation in Paris.

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