PMOI’s Ideological Revolution

Why the MEK separated children from their families

After the defeat of Operation Forough Javidan (aka the Eternal Light and/or Mersad) (August 3-7, 1988), Massoud Rajavi, who was in charge of the operation, instead of accepting responsibility and responding to his erroneous analyses, held a series of meetings for the failure of the operation in the spring and summer of 1989, in which he laid the blame on the warriors of the so called “National Liberation Army” and members of the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK/MKO). His point was that “you”, the warriors, thought of your spouses, instead of fighting the enemy with all “your” might. Even if you did not have a spouse, you were thinking of your imaginary spouse. Therefore, you did not give your whole existence to me. The cause of that failure is you! And solution?! “Eternal divorce of men and women”; both in practice and in mind”! Without making the issue of ideological divorces public, with the announcement of Maryam Rajavi becoming the first person in charge on October 17, 1989, the ideological revolution (second stage) was officially announced.

The inner world of the Mujahedin, if examined at all, is still a mystery to Western observers, and it is the Mujahedin’s deliberate policy that sustains it. For this reason, little importance has been given to this aspect of their organization. However, cult culture is one of the most dangerous forms of society. Firstly, because the most basic human rights deprive members of even the right to think. The Mujahedin have carried out forced marriages and later forced divorces, separated children from their parents, and placed them under the care of their supporters in various countries.

The MEK children

The sacrifices that each member of the group had to make were expressed in a series of “ideological revolutions” led by the group’s leader (Massoud Rajavi). The leadership called on members to disassociate themselves from any physical or emotional attachment in order to increase their “fighting capacity.” In the case of married couples, this stage of the “ideological revolution” required them to divorce their emotional ties with their spouses. Massoud Bani-Sadr reports on how this process took place .

during the “ideological meeting of” high-ranking and executive members “after the defeat of the Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization in Iran:

The first thing I had to do in Baghdad was watching the videotape of an ideological meeting for “executive and high-ranking members.” The meeting, called “Imam Zaman”, began with a simple question: “To whom do we owe all our achievements and everything we have?”. Rajavi did not claim to be the Imam of our time as I thought, but only said that we owe everything to the Imam of our time… The aim was to show that if there is more unity, we can reach Tehran. Our leader, as he was with the Imam of Time and God; He was willing to sacrifice everything he had (which was all of us!) To God, claiming that all he had in mind was to do what God wanted him to do. We were expected to conclude that there was no barrier between Rajavi and Imam Zaman. However, there was a barrier between us and him [Rajavi]… Which prevented us from seeing him clearly. This “barrier” was our weakness. If we recognized our weakness, we would see why and how we failed in Operation Forough Javidan (Mersad) and elsewhere.

Massoud and Maryam [Rajavi] had no doubt that the guardian in all our cases is our current wife.
The organization’s order for “mass divorce” caused a great deal of psychological distress and confusion. Massoud Bani-Sadr describes the atmosphere inside Camp Ashraf during this period:

The atmosphere of the camp was completely different… The misery was unceasing… Everyone seemed to be in the new phase of the “ideological revolution.” The only legitimate discussion was about the revolution and the exchange of relevant experiences.

Nothing else mattered. There was no outside world. . . Even poor single people had to divorce their weaknesses, without knowing what those weaknesses meant. Apparently, the answer was to divorce all the women or men they loved. Only later did I realize that the MEK was seeking not only a legal divorce but also an emotional or “ideological” divorce. In my heart, I had to divorce Anna [his wife], and in fact, I had to learn to hate her as a barrier between our leader and myself.
Rajavi announced at that meeting that as our “ideological leader” he had ordered the mass divorce of our spouses. He asked everyone to hand over their rings. It was the strangest and most disgusting meeting I had ever attended. It lasted almost a week.

Rajavi told his followers that the defeat of the Forough Javidan (Mersad Operation) was not a military mistake, but was rooted in the members’ thoughts about their spouses. Their love had weakened their will to fight. In 1990, all the women in the camp were ordered to get a divorce – and the women replaced their wedding rings with pendants on which Massoud’s face was engraved. The couples separated and their children were sent to “to be adopted” by MEK supporters in Europe.
In essence, the next phase of the MEK’s ideological revolution was one year after the divorce of the families to destroy family bonds completely. Under the pretext of the war in Iraq, Massoud Rajavi ordered that all children be sent from Iraq to Europe, the United States, and other countries. About 800 children were sent from Iraq to other countries and handed over to Mujahedin supporters in those countries.

Manuchehr Abdi

MEK commanders called on all members to expose sexual misconduct publicly. Manouchehr Abdi, 55, who also left the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK/MKO) in Albania, said, confessionals were held every morning. He says that even the feelings of love and friendship were illegal. “I have to admit that I missed my daughter,” she says. They would shout at me, they humiliated me, they said that my family was the enemy and that nostalgia for them was to strengthen the hands of the mullahs in Tehran.

Batool Soltani joined the Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization in 1986 with her husband and infant daughter. At first, her family was able to live together, but in 1990, she says, she was forced to divorce and she abandoned her five-year-old daughter and new-born son, who had been sent abroad to be brought up by MEK supporters. Soltani claims that she has been forced to have sex with Massoud Rajavi several times since 1999.

In fact, the Ideological Revolution turned the Mujahedin into unusual and confusing creatures. The idea that made the MEK a cult stems from internal developments in 1985. Whatever the outcome of these issues, it is clear that the Mujahedin is not a normal organization.

Elizabeth Rubin, an American journalist, gave mysterious reports during her visit to the Mujahedin camp. She describes entering the camp, which was mostly made up of women:
You feel like you have entered the imaginary world of female worker bees. Of course, there are men around. About 50% of the soldiers are men. But as I turned around, I saw women dressed in khaki clothes and flowery scarves walking back and forth along the streets in white vans or army green trucks, staring forward, a little dazed or sometimes purposeful.
“The MEK is the only army in the world whose command corps is made up mainly of women,” said Elizabeth Rubin.
Many analysts, including Rubin, describe the MEK as a cult and point to the group’s loyalty to the Rajavis. Older women were reportedly forced to divorce their husbands in the late 1980s, and younger girls could not marry or have children.
“Rajavi liked to have women around him and reformed the command structure to replace men with women, this time calling it the ‘Constitutional Revolution,’” she said. He [Massoud Rajavi] was also politically savvy, adding a fascinating flavor to their public relations in the West.

In an interview with Elizabeth Rubin, 19-year-old Sahar says: “My mother was pregnant at the time of her arrest, and I was born in 1983 in Evin Prison. When I was one year old, my father was executed for supporting the Mujahedin. Now I drive a Cascavel (a Brazilian armored car). My mother is at another camp. This was one of the reasons I decided to join the army.
“Most of the girls I met grew up in Mujahedin Ashraf schools, where they lived apart from their parents,” Rubin said. Family visits were allowed on Thursday and Friday nights. When Iraq invaded Kuwait, many of these girls were deported to Jordan and then smuggled to various countries – Germany, France, Canada, Denmark, the United Kingdom, and the United States, where they were taken care of by Mujahedin supporters. When they were 18 or 19 years old, many of them decided to return to Iraq and fill the ranks of the youngest generation of Mujahedin. “Decided” is probably not the right word, though, because from the day they were born, these girls and boys were not taught to think for themselves, but to blindly follow their leaders. Nadereh Afshari, a former MEK member, told me, “every morning and night, children between the ages of 1 and 2 had to stand in front of a poster of Massoud and Maryam, greeting them and praising them.” Afshari, who was based in Germany and was responsible for receiving MEK members’ children during the Persian Gulf War, said that the MEK members did not accept her when the German government tried to attract MEK’s children to its education system. Many children were sent to Mujahedin schools, especially in France. Afshari continued: The Rajavis saw these children as soldiers of the next generation. They wanted to brainwash them and control them. This may explain the pattern of their story and life: a journey to power and enlightenment in the way of self-sacrifice inspired by the light and wisdom of Maryam and Massoud.

Amin Golmaryami

Amin Golmaryami is one of the children who was a victim of the ideological revolution in the Mujahedin and one of those who was separated from his family and sent to Europe.
In an interview with Amin Golmaryami, the German magazine “Dit” acknowledged that five pieces of evidence against the MEK had been upheld in a German court.

The court confirmed that what the MEK claimed to justify the smuggling of MEK children from Iraq to Europe in 1991 was not true. In fact, the group leaders did not want to save the children’s lives, but their goal was to destroy the family structure. The court found this to be perfectly acceptable, based on investigations and analyses by the journalist.
The court confirmed that Amin Golmaryami was a child soldier who was taken to Iraq by MEK agents, where he received military training based on available documents and the testimony of other former child soldiers.

The court confirmed that Amin Golmaryami did not visit his mother immediately after entering the Iraqi MEK camp (Camp Ashraf). It took him two weeks to meet with his mother in the presence of other female members who were watching them.
In fact, MEK agents promised Amin that they would take him to Iraq to stay with his mother for a short time and then they would return to Europe, but according to Amin and other child soldiers, they were not allowed to visit their parents for more than once a year in Camp Ashraf.

Amin Golmaryami came to Germany as a child. He says that when he was 15, he was taken from Cologne to Iraq with many other young people _ to a military camp run by an Iranian group called the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK/MKO). He is the first victim of this political cult to make his story public in his own name.

He rarely speaks German with an accent, yet occasionally uses words in his native language, Persian. They are not difficult to translate, they are more difficult to explain: Almaas-e Ensaani, for example, means “human diamond”. This is one of the main ideological concepts of the MEK that he fell into as a child, says Golmaryami: “The idea behind this is that everyone has a diamond inside them that has been damaged.” It is the person himself who is to blame for his desires – like the love for the family.

All this must be ignored. Only through loyalty to a leader can one be “cleansed.” This explanation is also recounted by other witnesses.

Amin Golmaryami was born in 1985 in the city of Abadan in southwestern Iran. His parents were former MEK members. In 1979, they and other opposition groups overthrew the Shah of Iran. However, the subsequent Islamic government did not allow the Mujahedin-e Khalq to have a share in the government and persecuted them. The MEK then carried out attacks on government employees and eventually fled into exile, most of whom fled to Iraq.

When a US-led alliance invaded Iraq in 1991 during the Second Gulf War, the MEK used the flow of refugees to send hundreds of children abroad. Today, the MEK says they did it to save them from bombs and war, but it was also to break the family structure and strengthen the fighting spirit. Amin Golmaryami and his two brothers Alireza and Hanif were there.
Amin Golmaryami remembers the journey in pieces. “My mother stood in front of the bus for a long time, crying and waving,” he said. They were taken to Germany. He and about 150 other children came to Cologne. Golmaryami was housed in a place in the Meschenich region, he recalls it as a dilapidated half-finished house. The children were there as young asylum seekers unaccompanied and under the care of Mujahedin-e Khalq staff and trustees. Ten of them slept in one room. Golmaryami says: I missed my mother very much. Some were beaten, and many had nothing to eat. Amin went to school and quickly learned German.

Most of the Iranian children were older than him and attended Martin Luther King Jr. High School in Cologne-Wieden. One of the teachers at the time recalled: The children were “happy and hardworking”. But there was also something fanatical about them. Some worshiped the leader Massoud Rajavi and his wife Maryam “like gods.”
He once stayed with a German school friend and was surprised that his parents both kissed him goodnight. “It was then that I realized my life was very different”, he says.

From the mid-1990s, some teachers noticed that the MEK children had suddenly disappeared from Cologne. 14-, 15-, and 16-year-olds suddenly did not show up for classes.

Amin Golmaryami says that in 1999, his 18-year-old brother Hanif also disappeared. Hanif ordered Amin and their third brother Alireza to go to a secret meeting point in Westfriedhof, Cologne, to say goodbye to each other. Hanif said: I am going to Iraq. His destination was the headquarters of the Mujahedin-e Khalq, a military camp called Ashraf. The cadres had promised him that he would meet with his mother there. Amin Golmaryami says that he was shocked and shed tears when he heard these words.

Hanif Golmaryami, who now lives in Canada, says he missed her mother badly at the time and longed for motherly advice and hugs. The MEK cadres had assured him that if he did not like Iraq, he could return in a few weeks, and he believed them.
Amin once again saw his brother Hanif in a propaganda video shown to him and other children by the cadres: Hanif was marching in a parade Iraq. Eventually, he was convinced that he should follow the same path as his brother Hanif, and eventually he and his older brother, Alireza, went to Iraq.

Amin was afraid that his whole family and all his friends would gradually leave him. To be forced to stay alone in Germany. He envisioned Iraq as a large holiday camp. He was originally a minor, and he says, “they manipulated me.”
Upon entering the camp, he decided to leave, but his brother stopped him. Little by little he adapted to the situation, woke up at 4 in the morning, marched, and learned to shoot and drive a tank. And two weeks later he met his mother while the women accompanying him were spying on him.

After that, he only had the opportunity to meet his mother once a year, and he gradually hated his mother. He says he still feels the consequences of not having a normal family.

Other children who were separated from their families in the MEK’s camp include Hanif Azizi. He grew up in a military camp in the Iraqi desert. His parents were soldiers of the Mujahedin-e Khalq Revolutionary Movement in Iran. After his father was killed in the war, Hanif, who was nine years old, was sent to Sweden with his brother. He is having a hard time adapting to the new country. For the first two years, they were with a family of Mujahedin supporters, but due to domestic violence and lack of love, the Department of Children and Adolescents removed them from the family and gave them custody to a Swedish family. As a teenager, he was in contact with the Mujahedin insurgent movement again. Eager to socialize and meet his mother, he went to Iraq to join the MEK. There he was brainwashed and decided to join the Mujahedin. But he was allowed to return to Sweden to settle some issues and to bring his younger brother back to the Mujahedin. As he waited to return to Iraq with the Mujahedin, talking to different people and thinking about what had happened to him, he realized that his decision to return to the Mujahedin in Iraq was not his own, but influenced by them. This is how he changed his mind and decided to stay in Sweden. He is now a police officer in Sweden.

The Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MEK/MKO) is accused of separating hundreds of children living in the MEK’s camps in Iraq from their parents and sending them from Iraq to various countries between 1990 and the beginning of the 1970s. The number of these children is estimated between 700 and 900 people. By doing so, the Mujahedin deprived the children of their parents and destroyed the family structure. The Mujahedin Organization has never published any report on the fate of these children and the situation of many of them is unknown.

The Mujahedin is also accused of illegally returning dozens of the same children from various European countries to Iraq for several years by deceiving them and promising that these children could go to Iraq to see their parents. Their departure from Iraq has forced them into the army. Some of those children in the military now talk about what happened to them through interviews or memoirs.

Conclusion: About 700 to 900 children under the age of 1 to 17 were separated from their families under the pretext of the war in Iraq and the protection of children in the Mujahedin Organization and were sent to European countries and other countries.

During the distant years, many of the parents of these children lost their lives and were never able to see their children again.

Some of these children, wishing to see their parents again and being deceived by Mujahedin supporters, returned to the Mujahedin camp after many years and underwent special care and brainwashing. Some of them also saved themselves and turned their backs on this dreadful organization forever. The fate of some of these children is unknown. Although “liberation and equality of women’s rights” was both a political goal and a strategy in the MEK, it forbade women and mothers from their most natural right, namely motherhood and love, and for many years forbade women, children, and, of course, fathers. He tortured them with brainwashing and sheer obedience and gained the will and decision-making power.

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November 22, 2023 0 comment

The cult of Rajavi

The MEK’s Ideological Revolution

The ideological marriage of Maryam and Massoud [1984] and intra-organizational obligatory divorces [1988] constitute the strategic hallmarks of the ideological revolution within Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization [MKO] or the Mojahedin Cult as notoriously entitled. Although there is a five-year interval between the two events, ideological divorces are a complementary step to the marriage of Maryam and Massoud that deteriorated the status of family life in MKO. Mehdi Abrishamchi, Maryam Rajavi’s late husband, justifies the act of Maryam’s divorce from him and her remarriage to Massoud as removing the problem of family as a barrier in the way of Maryam and Massoud. It is the first time the structure of family life is put into challenge. He says:

Maryam had to be either unquestionably promoted to a high status in the organization released of any [conjugal] obligation, just like Massoud, and be totally devoted to revolution or had to give it up. Here, the simple issue of family was creating an incongruity.

https://dlb.nejatngo.org/Media/Documentary/MEK-Ideo-Rev-1.mp4

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Another possibility that led the organization to mastermind and theatricalize such a show was to open a passage out of the encountered strategic cul-de-sac following the organization’s failure in overthrowing the Iranian regime on the one hand and to deter the possibility of any organizational split or demise on the other hand.

A larger number of MKO’s separated members especially in recent years have exclusively focused on the ideological revolution and the internal objectives Rajavi sought. In his review, Hadi Shams Haeri writes:

The so-called ideological revolution in 1985 that was much a cover for the strategic failure of the organization and a move aimed at averting accusations posed against Rajavi could not achieve all its objectives and acquit Rajavi completely. Therefore, it deemed necessary to find a scapegoat for the organizational failures and the strategic impasse. The plotted conspiracy against [Ali] Zarkesh was the continuation of the conspired [ideological] revolution in 1985. As such, we come to the conclusion that the other consequent ideological revolutions were in fact conspiracies in order to overcome the challenges at hand in every stage. [6]

A number of other former MKO members also evaluate the ideological revolution in the same way and believe that the ideological revolution was based on the mechanism of externalizing the internal contradictions within the organization and delineating a new line of relation based on an all-encompassing and blind obedience to Rajavi.

It is worth noting that nearly two years before the development of the ideological revolution and obligatory divorces, Rajavi held a completely different idea on intra-organizational marriages and the concept of family. Believing to be modeling on some legal, Islamic ideological creeds, he encouraged marriage and foundation of family as a revolutionary act. In summarizing his one-year struggle in armed phase, Rajavi has said:

In organizational reports, there are cases in which those members who have lost their wives or husbands in armed operations are so emotionally depressed that have declared they prefer to remain single for ever… But this is not a perfect and revolutionary idea since the Prophet, Islamic Imams and also all the reformers and revolutionary leaders of the world have denounced it. Therefore, the organization advises such members, and also the unmarried, to get married to anybody they will if possible. According to the Holy Quran and the doctrines of our ideological leaders, we have to consider the marriage as a part of our struggle not something to be thrown away.

November 7, 2023 0 comment

The cult of Rajavi

Deconstructing the Couple within the MEK

“Family, I hate you”. This citation from André Gide, the French author and 1947 Nobel Laureate can be described, with no exaggeration at all, as Massoud Rajavi’s motto. After all, the People’s Mojahedin sacrificed everything for their revolution.
In order for the individual to give himself up body and soul to the cause, the MEK intervened directly in its militants’ daily lives. This was to enforce the arbitrary decisions of the ‘Great Teacher’.
As Figaro reported:
“Founded on the cult of its spiritual leader, Massoud Rajavi and his wife, Maryam, the Mojahedin organisation has often been compared to a sect by former members, forced to divorce and break with their family to join the ranks of fighters”.

Mitra Yusefi , her husband and children

Mitra Yusufi, a long term member of the MEK, and a victim of this policy of enforced divorce, breaks the silence:
“I traveled a long road. I underwent a real brainwashing and I have to be alert all the time. The Iranian people detest Rajavi and I hate him. My story is simple. I was a young newlywed when it all started. My husband was a popular man; since he had played for the Iranian National Football team. This was the team that qualified for the World Championship in 1978 and played in Argentina. We were living in England when the revolution happened.
We returned to Iran before going to the United States. In the Eighties, we had heard bad news about things that happened to our friends. In fact, at the time, we were very cut off from the realities of Iranian society. Rajavi wanted to use my husband’s name. We agreed and we were moved to Greece to organize the movement. When Rajavi, after his divorce from Banisadr’s daughter married his comrade’s wife, Maryam, we were shocked. My husband then took a strong position, saying that you cannot take another’s wife. Two days later, though, they convinced us of the opposite.We were such fools…”.

Nadereh Afshari

Nadere Afshari also lived inside the Mojahedin. She knows the reality:
“Rajavi used the family institution as an instrument at the service of his own power. To keep the men in the organisation, he forced them to marry. To do this, he used women as bait and ‘gave’ them to his most docile servants. Yet, at the slightest sign of disobedience, he took away their wives. Women were, therefore, objects passed from hand to hand.

Thus, a docile woman like Atefeh, who had the rank of Major, was forced to divorce four times, on the personal orders of Rajavi. Her comrade, Mahboubeh Jamshidi, divorced and remarried at least three times.
Rajavi considers the family as an integral cell in his organisation. He, therefore, feels free to intervene in the marital relations of members against their own will. The truth is that he dislikes the family which always posed a problem for his ‘regime’. This was for a very good reason: it is very difficult to keep ‘the light of love for the Leader’ burning bright.
From 1991 on, marriage changed its meaning. It became a barrier which kept the organisation’s members from loving their Leader”.

A third defector states:
“At this time, Rajavi also imposed on the leadership a fixed ceremony at the beginning of meetings: everyone had to place his hands on the table to make sure that no one was wearing a wedding ring, which he called ‘a slave ring’.”

Deconstructing the Family Of course, the MEK defended itself. The impact of these statements on its internal practices on international public opinion created a very negative impression. The National Resistance Council wrote, in its response to the American accusations:
“Further on, they claim that the Mojahedin had forced couples in Iraq to divorce and send their children to Europe and the United States. Here, it must be taken into account that the individuals who wrote this report were repeating, word for word, the allegations used by the Iranian regime and by the survivors of the Shah regime.
The National Liberation Army of Iran is based in the territory of a country where family-Iife in the camps became impossible during the unprecedented bombardments of the Gulf War and thereafter, because of the international embargo.

During the bombings, families, voluntarily and sometimes in writing, asked the organization for assistance in sending their children to Europe and the United States to live with their parents or our supporters. Despite many obstacles and risks, the movement spent millions of dollars to move these children to safe places. The alternative would have been accepting the possibility of numerous victims among them “.

The MEK children

The facts, however, are stubborn and the eyewitness reports are very precise:
‘in the terms of the ‘Second Ideological Revolution’, children had to be separated from their families and sent abroad. Rajavi made sure personally that this order was carried out case by case, finding militants or family members living in Europe or the United States who could take the children in. In the absence of family abroad, the children were sent to orphanages or special schools established by the Mojahedin in Germany and the Netherlands. More than 500 children were sent abroad this way: they were handed over to the organization during a special ceremony in which the parents recited a text affirming: ‘I give my child to Massoud and Maryam’.”

Yet the MEK justified itself by comparison with others:
“Moreover, this policy is not without precedent. During the Second World War, children were separated from their families and sent outside London during the bombings. If this way of doing things is unacceptable, the State Department should have published a declaration criticising Winston Churchill “. (219)
The People’s Mojahedin Organisation of Iran could have cited two other 20Ih Century precedents, ones more troubling indeed.

During 1936-37, the evacuation of the children of Spanish Republicans fighting Franco’s Nationalists is one. To protect them from the bombings which struck some cities very hard, especially Madrid, young girls and boys were sent by convoy to the Soviet Union. But once the Popular Front Government was swept aside and taken over by the Communists, these kids stayed in the USSR for an orthodox MarxistLeninist education.
The same scenario took place a few years later in Greece, during the civil war that immediately followed World War ii. There again, children kidnapped for the stated motive of putting them out of harm’s way remained in the USSR.

Kidnapping could also take place at home. The Hitler youth stole the minds and loyalties of children, turning them against their teachers and even their parents. The “Racially pure” S.S. breeding facilities were only a continuation of kidnap, but with the result of bringing thousands of parentless children into post-war Germany. Uprooted, far from their country and cut off from their culture, these children became wanderers without identity. They only had that given them by the movement or the organisation which took them in hand and led them where they wanted to for their own purposes.

For more than 20 years we know exactly how the MEK has used these kids: easier to lead, because they are more docile than adults who have developed their critical faculties. This included abandoning them to their fate when times went bad:
“In Evin, the model prison of Iran, built by the ex-Shah, one section is completely devoted to the ‘curables’, who undergo a reeducation programme. There, we find a certain number of inmates who discarded their former masters, like Banisadr’s embody guard. But the overwhelming majority are children. They are the ones the Mojahedin threw into the street fighting, without any military or political training at all. These kids (13-15 year olds) cracked, naturally. They turned against themselves”.

From the book: Autopsy of an Ideological Drift by Antoine Gessler, translated by Thomas R. Forstenszer

June 14, 2022 0 comment

The cult of Rajavi

Cults use ideology as a cover for controlling members

Cults look fairly attractive from the outside since their colorful attractions prevent you from understanding the nature of the “cult”. But when we delve too deeply into them, we will discover the unseen aspects that the cults do not want to be known. Cult leaders seek deceptive recruitment techniques and seek to take control all aspects of members’ lives. Cults utilize sophisticated brainwashing and recruitment techniques, which have become highly advanced after the spread of social networks.

Most people who are attracted to cults are almost unaware of the nature of the group they are trying to join or think that they can be safe from the cults’ strict and conventional controls. However, it has been proved to be a failed experience, to the extent that most cult members do not even discern that they are involved in cultish relations. They do not understand their position and the internal relations of cults are designed in such a way that it is impossible to escape.

To remove the attractive shell of cults, it is necessary to know how they operate and what techniques they use. In most cults, “ideology” is used as a cover for control techniques. One of the cults known to the Iranian people is the Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization, which presents itself as a political opposition group but is in fact a terrorist group that acts as a cult in organizing and recruiting individuals. The terrorist cult uses Islam as a cover and Shiism as a tool to maintain its framework and structure as its origin is a Muslim country (Iran) and most of its members were formerly Shiites.

Mandatory organizational clothes for controlling members

One of the principles of Islam and Shiism is the hijab and head covering of women, but the MEK uses this tactic as a means of controlling individuals.

In a free society, people can believe in whatever they want, say whatever they think, and wear whatever clothes and color they want, but this is not the case in cults. The women at the headquarters of this group must wear uniforms with a specific color and even the fabric had been specified by the leaders of the group. Outside this framework, they were out of choice.

“Women who entered the cult were told very openly: The headscarf is the official (i.e., mandatory) form of this organization,” said Zahra Sadat Mirbagheri; a dissident member of the MEK.

Majid Mohammadi, a current member of the MEK says, “The red color of the headscarf in the MEK’s uniform is borrowed from Marxism. The green uniform also belonged to the Castro and Che Guevara wars in Cuba. The hijab of MEK women, although a part of Shari’a, is merely a declaration of allegiance to the religion of the masses.”

“In this cult, hijab is limited to headscarf, women are not allowed to use other types of clothing such as shawls or hats, etc. Khaki was allowed only in certain places, and if someone wanted to wear a red or khaki scarf outside the MEK propaganda gatherings, he would be given a reprimand,” Zahra Sadat Mirbagheri said.

According to the memoirs of MEK defectors in the 1960s, a number of girls and boys lived and worked side by side in the group’s “team houses”. Sexual relations in these buildings indicate a lack of practical and systematic belief in Islamic principles in the group. However, in public, members have never been allowed to remove the hijab or have never had the right to choose its color.

In the following years, after the relocation of MEK members to Europe (France; Auvers-Sur-Oise), then Iraq (Camp Ashraf and Camp Liberty and other camps), and finally Albania (Camp Manez) and the establishment of organizational camps to maintain and deepen relationships, none of the female members of the group, even in all women’s environments, dormitories, and restaurants, are allowed to remove their hijab. While there have been several cases of Massoud Rajavi’s non-compliance with the basic principles as hijab and other moral issues, such as raping female members of the leadership council. This has been narrated many times in various forms by MEK defectors.

Creating guilt and mind control by character assassination

Leaders of the terrorist cult hold daily, weekly, and occasional ideological cleansing sessions to strictly control the individuals’ feelings and emotions and their performance. This was designed also to continuously evaluate members and take away the slightest time for thinking and provide the ground for their absolute obedience by destroying their human dignity and personality and creating a personality vacuum.

the MEK members in an confession session

“In Rajavi’s organization, women have no right to remove headscarves. If women expose their hair a little, they would receive warnings at first, and then they would receive insulting labels,” Zahra Sadat Mirbagheri said.

Self-immolation of members

One of the most blatant examples of the group’s cultish behavior is several self-immolations by its deceived members in European countries in protest of Maryam Rajavi the group leader’s arrest, in 2003. Several people were killed and wounded, and the European media has long analyzed the cultish behavior.

All that has been said, along with other cultish tactics, such as forced and organizational marriages, coerced sterilizations, bans on love and marriage, bans on family relationships, fear, and intimidation, mind and information control, planning for round-the-clock work, and holding glorious gatherings has turned the organization into a cult with a terrorist function that is far more dangerous than a normal terrorist group.

by Mohammad Mahdi Mirzaei – Quds Online – Translated by Habilian Association

May 10, 2022 0 comment

The cult of Rajavi

Mohtaram was among the young girls chosen by Rajavi to commit suicide

Mohtaram Babaei is another woman whose fate was tied up with the Mujahedin Khalq Organization (MKO, MEK, PMOI, Cult of Rajavi) at her early age. She eventually became a victim of the cult. While she was only 17, she was seduced by the group’s propaganda. She was led to join the group in Camp Ashraf, Iraq.

Mohtaram was among the young girls chosen by Rajavi to commit suicide in the disastrous cross border operation against Iran “Eternal Light”, but she survived the battle and returned to Camp Ashraf while she was severely wounded in the face.

She had married to one of her comrades before the so-called “ideological revolution”. After the ideological revolution, she raised against Massoud Rajavi’s order and refused to divorce her husband, Karim Haqi. The same issue made her one of the problematic members for the group leaders.

Moreover, she had another crime based on the organizational rulings, and that was having a baby. While she was pregnant, she was jailed for resisting the ideological demands of the organization in the ideological revolution. According to the testimonies of certain defectors of the group, including Mitra Yusefi and Karim Haqi, Mohtaram was under severe psychological pressure in the prison to accept the ideological revolution and divorce her husband.

Meanwhile, her husband, Karim, was also held in jail at Camp Ashraf until the baby was born. The birth of her child in the MEK jail was supposed to bring a new spirit to Mohtaram Babaei’s life, but the leaders of the organization used the child to oppress her parents so that they would embrace the ideological revolution.
Avoiding to feed milk powder to the baby and restricting the baby’s diet went so far that other inmates at the time said the baby had become so thin and slim.

The daughter of Karim and Mohtaram was named “Maral” and was only 27 days old when she was flown to her father’s cell to break the Karim’s resistance, which again was futile.

She spent a year and a half in Rajavi’s prison and raised her child with suffer until her release. Then, she spent some time in MEK’s team houses in Baghdad and later she was sent to Europe. It took her a long time to get rid of the group.

Mohtaram Babaei eventually succeeded to leave the MEK cult-like structure but the traumatic experiences of living in the MEK led her to commit suicide in Netherlands while she was only 28 years old.

May 6, 2021 0 comment

The cult of Rajavi

Kamran loved his wife

Kamran Bayati was born in 1963. He was a young boy when he joined the Mujahedin Khalq Organization (the MKO/ MEK/ PMOI/ Cult of Rajavi). In 1998, he was mysteriously killed in the group’s headquarter in Iraq, Camp Ashraf.

Ex-members of the MEK, GhorbanAli Hosseinnezhad, Foad Basri, Mohammad Karami and Iraj Salehi approve Kamran’s bitter fate as the result of the group’s cult-like suppressive ruling.

Divorce

Mohammad Karami had organizational cooperation with Kamran when they were both in Iran. In Camp Ashraf, they were close friends too. Karami remembers that Kamran had married a woman named Fatemeh just a month before Massoud Rajavi ordered members to divorce their spouses. Based on a cult jargon, called Ideological Revolution, the entire members of the MEK had to divorce their spouses.

Kamran was not able to get along with forced divorce. He was in love with his ex-wife. He was sad and depressed but he worked hard. “I work hard to forget my grieves”, he told Mohammad Karami. Therefore, Kamran was under severe supervision by the commanders. He was forced to attend long brainwashing meetings. His commanders, Afsaneh Shahrokhi and Fahimeh Mahuzi and etc. put horrible mental pressure to coerce him into the cult regulations.

“Why don’t you leave the group?” Mohammad asked Kamran. “If I say I am out, I will no more be alive. They will restrict and control me more and more, that will be like death to me.” Kamran told his friend.

The last day of his life, he was supposed to attend a meeting again. “Mahimeh Mahuzi went mad and began shouting at him,” Mohammad Karami recalls. “At night we went to the eating place for dinner but Kamran didn’t come. Nobody knew where he was.”

“We were ordered to look after him in the armors parking,” Iraj Salehi writes in an article about Kamran’s death. “We found him dead in the corner of a room there”.

His comrades think that Kamran had swallowed a cyanide capsule but the group authorities declared that he had a heart attack because of too much smoking!

April 28, 2021 0 comment

The cult of Rajavi

Maryam Rajavi & Mehdi Abrishamchi

Maryam QajarAzdanlou was 26 years old when she married Mehdi Abrishamchi, 32, in 1979. Mehdi was a high-ranking member of the Mujahedin Khalq Organization (the MKO, MEK, PMOI, Cult of Rajavi) and Maryam was an ordinary member. The first years of their marriage was coincident with the group’s violent acts in the streets of Iran and the escape of the group’s leader Massoud Rajavi to France.

The newly-weds lived in safe houses of the group together with other members. A former member of the MEK who lived with Maryam and Mehdi and their little girl Ashraf, recalls the quarrels between the couple about joining Massoud Rajavi in France. Maryam urged her then-husband to move to France as soon as possible.

Abrishamchi and his wives

Finally, the family fled to France where Maryam became Massoud’s office manager. Former security official of the MEK in Paris, Massoud Khodabandeh states that he witnessed that Maryam was once taken to hospital by Saleh Rajavi, Massoud’s brother in order to have an abortion.”She had Masoud Rajavi’s baby,”says Khodabandeh.

It did not take Massoud Rajavi a long time to declare his third marriage with Maryam QajarAzdanlou. The controversial marriage that took place in 1985 was called by the leader as”The novel ideological revolution”. The so-called marriage was the start of the eventual bizarre actions in the group.

Mehdi Abrishamchi and Maryam Rajavi divorced under the order of Massoud Rajavi and soon Rajavi married Maryam. The luxurious wedding ceremony of Massoud and Maryam was held in Paris. Maryam took off the wedding ring of Mehdi and immediately put on the ring offered by Massoud Rajavi. She was called”Maryam Rajavi”since the novel ideological marriage.

Mehdi Abrishamchi shook hands with Massoud Rajavi and congratulated his ex-wife’s marriage with the leader Massoud Rajavi. He then addressed the audience in the hall:”As a Mujahed Khalq and as a child of the Khalq (people), I congratulate Massoud and Maryam with each and every cells of my body and I am full of ideological happiness.”

Therefore, Ashraf Abrishamchi, the three-year-old daughter of Mehdi and Maryam was the first child left behind the ideological divorce. Later, Mehdi married the seventeen-year-old Mina Khiabani, under the leadership order. Mina was the sister of Musa Khiabani, a high ranking member of the group killed in a clash with the Iranian government.

The outcome of the novel ideological revolution were ideological divorces. Consequently, hundreds of Mujahed families collapsed. Normally Mehdi and Mina divorced too. The only marriage that survived the alleged revolution was that of Massoud and Maryam Rajavi. Furthermore, it was developed and expanded by the mass marriages of Massoud Rajavi with women of the MEK’s Elite Council.

Mazda Parsi

March 2, 2021 0 comment

The cult of Rajavi

MKO’s Ideological Revolution, an Absolute Deviation

The Cult of Mojahedin; A Modern Cult of Personality – 3

The internal ideological revolution was the turning point that paved the way for the transformation of MKO to a cult of personality. Rajavi needed to construct a plot, regardless of the large cost, similar to that of the ideological drift in 1975 drafted by Taghi Shahram, who broke the seemingly Islamic ideology of the organization and officially announced it to be Marxism. Consequently, Shahram suppressed any protest and opposition and even plotted assassinations to liquidate opponents or as a method of silencing them.

Now ten years later, in 1985, Rajavi had faced a more complicated situation worse than before. The announced armed warfare with the heavy cost imposed both on regime and the organization had proved totally unproductive. Rajavi had come under harsh criticism and disapproval and blamed for his countless errors that had led to discredit what was being advertised as a revolutionary movement because of excessive use of unnecessary terror. And Rajavi was in urgent need of exploiting the intact huge potentiality of female insiders as motivators in inter-organizational relations and a prototype of a campaigning modern woman for tradition-bond Iranian women. The big change started itself with another error and scandal and the Rajavis, Massoud and Maryam, were the firsts to publicly break with Islamic and Iranian tradition; a wife’s infidelity misrepresented a sacred act and was considered as a turning point in the campaigns of the organization as well as a shocking strike against Islamic Republic regime! Any logical mind could anticipate what would be the outcome of a change started by challenging established traditions that Rajavi judged as impediments in the path of spurring innovations. MKO was the first in Iranian contemporary history to publicly legitimizing the unconventional remarriage of a woman immediately after her divorce.

Maryam was known to be the fruit of the so-called “ideological revolution” and who, consequently, paved the way for the other details of the revolution and was built a prototype for Iranian women. Mehdi Abrishamchi, a ranking aid to Rajavi and Maryam Rajavi’s late husband, was himself the one to make the first sacrifice for the revolution! and among the firsts to justify his wife’s divorce and her remarriage to Rajavi:

Maryam had to be either unquestionably promoted to a high status in the organization free from any [conjugal] obligation, just like Massoud, and be totally devoted to revolution or had to give it up. 1

According to Abrishamchi, since Maryam had to be promoted to a leadership status and every decision in the organization had to be made by Maryam and Massoud together, the matrimonial obligations and restrictions prevented Maryam to be in Massoud’s company all the time. She had to deny all her obligations and tear whatever bonded her except to Massoud and the revolution. As such, her divorce and remarriage before anything was instilled to be the accomplishment of a revolutionary obligation. Thus, the marriage was hailed as a great sacrifice made by Masoud and Maryam and all the members had to follow the steps to undertake their own revolution not in a similar line with the leaders but by identifying their personal shortcomings in later arranged self-criticism sessions. Immediately following the Rajavi’s marriage, the military command of the MKO issued a directive stating:

In order to carry out your organizational duties under the present circumstances, there is an urgent need to strengthen and deepen this ideological revolution. You must pay the necessary price by allocating sufficient time and resources for absorbing related teachings…Thus in your daily routines give priority to listening to radio messages and explanations provided by your commanders. Believe in the central committee’s proclamation that “this ideological revolution will enhance the Mojahedin’s capacities enormously; it will ever more unify and cleanse our ranks.”…Be certain that your deep belief in the novel leadership of the new democratic revolution of the heroic Iranian people, meaning Masoud and Maryam Rajavi, and by making a direct connection with this leadership and setting it as your example….you will be able to correct your work habits and be able to deal with and resolve personal, organizational, and military difficulties. 2

It was followed by another directive issued by the Social Division commanding the members to prove their revolutionary obedience by submitting to the initiated self-criticism tradition within the organization:

To understand this great revolution…is to understand and gain a deep insight into the greatness of our new leadership, meaning the leadership of Masoud and Maryam. It is to believe in them as well as to show ideological and revolutionary obedience of them…By correcting your old work habits and by criticizing your individual as well as collective shortcomings, we shall gain much awareness in confronting our enemies…Report to your commanders and superiors in a comprehensive manner your progress, its results and outcomes that you gain from promoting and strengthening this ideological revolution. 3

Consequently, protests were aborted and a cult of personality was provided for the leader and his wife to the sanctuary of where nobody was permitted either to enter or violate it. The experience taught Rajavi to apply this tactic to remove any obstacle and save the organization and him when facing a challenge. His Machiavellian inclinations and his seizing any opportunity to achieve his goals made the impossible possible for him. The members` crushed identity had made them undergo an amazing metamorphosis to follow the orders. The exploited coercive mental and physical approaches against the insiders developed into a counteraction against the ever-increasing criticisms and protests.

According to many MKO’s ex-members, in this phase, under the pretext of security considerations, many dissident members and critics were either imprisoned or killed suspiciously and the first consequences of settlement in Iraq was establishing prisons and exercising mental and physical pressures on prisoners. The worst was despicable justification by zealous devotees of Rajavies for such maltreatment and offenses which they called the inevitable consequence of the ideological revolution which they believed to be necessary for assessing the loyalty of members to leadership. In their opinion, themselves enjoying the abundant luxury of the post-revolution, blind obedience and submission to imprisonment, as well as suffering physical and mental tortures were indications of expressing absolute devotion and loyalty to the leadership.

Resources:

1. The delivered lecture by Mehdi Abrishamchi on the internal ideological revolution within MKO, [1985].
2. Mojahed, No. 241, April 4, 1985.
3. Mojahed, No. 242, April 12, 1985.

January 14, 2013 0 comment

Former members of the MEK

Ali Einakian;Joining and leaving Mujahedin

The Memoirs of Ali Einakian – Part1

I was 16 years old when the Islamic Revolution overthrew the Monarchy in Iran. Like other Iranian youths I was involved with the revolution wishing for a better future for my fellow countrymen.

I was interested in MKO regarding its background of struggle against shah. I used to read their journals so I was familiar with their opinions to some extent but I always felt uncomfortable about their organizational system. I knew that once I was a member of the organization, I would no more have free will. An organizational member had to obey the organization absolutely. Thus I never got involved in their activities and I just followed them from afar.

After a few months of membership in MKO, family love was replaced by Rajavi in my heart

You may wonder how I was recruited by MKO while I had such a view about it. In 1985 I left Iran for Germany, hoping to find a better future. I wanted to continue my education; to live a good life and consequently to help my family live a more comfortable life. I could settle down in Stuttgart.

I was only 24 and home sick. I missed my parents and I felt lonesome when a friend of mine made me acquainted with MKO. I was warmly welcomed by an MKO recruiter called Faraj (who then defected the group and now lives in Germany). His warm behavior attracted me as a lonely person in terrible spirit situation.

…I became a professional organizational member who dedicated himself to the group whole-heartedly. I moved to the group’s base in Frankfurt where I used to work from 6:00 am until the next day 01:00 am. At the time Iran and Iraq were fighting and the organization was involved in border clashes so it launched an extensive propaganda in Europe in order to recruit members. In the base where I was working a number of members applied for moving to Iraq. Impressed by the atmosphere, I also asked for moving to Iraq, although I was preoccupied by some internal contradictions; I didn’t know if I was doing the right job but I was totally captivated by my emotions so I made an emotional decision and went to Iraq.

After a few months of membership in MKO, family love was replaced by Rajavi in my heart. I entered Iraq in 1986. I was transferred to an MKO camp where I received military training. Eventually I attended Eternal Light Operation against my fellow country-men. After the operation I doubted about the battle we attended against the soldiers who were our compatriots but I didn’t dare to express my doubts …

Following the eternal light operation, the group held meetings where Massoud Rajavi blamed us for our ideological inefficiency during the war.

After the ceasefire was announced between Iran and Iraq, Rajavi could see no more future for his group. He was looking for a way out of that cul-de-sac. He wanted to keep his forces amused in order to bar their defection. He found a new way to expand his further control over members. He could no more maintain the organization with his male members whose obedience was limited and who resisted Rajavi’s absolute power.

I was in hospital because of an injury from the war when the group announced Maryam Rajavi as the first official of the organization. Thus Massoud forced the members to accept the hegemony of female members. The most picketing days of my life were those days when the meetings of ideological revolution were held. The members’ minds were totally captivated with those arguments so they were not able to realize where the group was going.

The revolution included the divorce of your ex-spouse and the ideological marriage with Massoud Rajavi (Women had to see themselves Massoud’s wives). The members were not allowed to see women as women but they were supposed to see them as the leader’s sanctuary. This way Rajavi could maintain his organization. The members were told that the objective of the revolution was freedom of men and women not the overthrow of Islamic Republic.

Since 1990, the organizations haven’t allowed dissident member to leave the group. Before the fall of Saddam Hussein, MKO leaders used to submit the defectors to Iraqi regime that then would send them to Abu Quraib prison. If a member tried to escape the camp, security forces of Ba’ath regime would submit him to the organization. So there was no possibility for escape.
The only way for salvation was paved when the control of Camp Ashraf was handed over to Iraqi forces. The Iraqi government granted facilities to escapees from the camp (after their runaway) although nobody in Ashraf was aware of that.

At last, I should notify that everyone must release his mind before releasing his body so that he can find determination for salvation before it’s too late.
Translated by Nejat Society

December 23, 2010 0 comment

Massoud Rajavi

The Roots of immorality molded in leader of MKO

The echo of the statements made by Ms. Batool Soltani disclosing facts about the sexual abuse and relations of Massoud Rajavi, the leader of Mojahedin Khalq cult, with the female members had the shocking impact of a bomb explosion among the public. She made the testimony in a meeting held in support of the victims of Rajavi’s castle, Camp Ashraf. Although she did not go into very details, her direct avowal did not take the audience in abroad by surprise since, as the organization is commonly referred to as a cult of personality, the prevalence of the sexual exploitation of women in cults is an undeniable fact that may only take different forms.

Surely, the truth of such claim made by one of the ranking members of the organization and one of the closest layers to Rajavi’s private relations cannot be denied but analyzed. Of course, the question of sexual relations within the armed, underground establishment of the organization was a challenge it was facing from its very days of formation and at time it had to adopt different solution to overcome the problem. Although it is in no way considered a problem among the Marxist-oriented groups, at time it turned into a crisis in Mojahedin Khalq Organization (MKO,MEK, PMOI) because it acted under the guise of a non-secular and religious organization. The instances of illicit relations and sexual scandals in the organization’s split Marxist branch, headed by Taqi Shahram, are undeniable facts confessed by many ex-members and recorded in the files of those Marxist-biased arrested by SAVAK, Pahlavi regime’s notorious security and information apparatus.

Needless to say that Ms. Soltani’s disclosure does not necessarily mean to question morality of many old members of the organization who were devoted, honest Muslims, but to dig into the roots of deviations that has led to the broad scandal. What did really happen that after the execution of the early founders of the organization by the Pahlavi’s court-martials, Rajavi seized the power in their absence, and through an enforced ideological revolution, glamorized an illicit marriage with Maryam Azodanloo? And it became the beginning of a process of female domination promoting women to the ranking, key positions of the organization. The enforcement of the compulsory divorces granted Rajavi the hegemonic monopoly right of exploiting women as his property while he totally deprived other rank and files of their natural right. Sexual control was, and is, seen as the final step taken by Rajavi’s system to objectify members similar to other members of the cults; it took the form of controls of sexuality and sex lives of members through daily and weekly sessions of confession and repentance.

It has become a cult routine inside MKO that requires members to keep daily records of their thoughts and nighttime dreams, particularly sexual thoughts and desires (which are, of course, forbidden), as well as observations about their fellow members. They must submit their journals to their supervisors. During large meetings, members often are forced to read their reports aloud and to make self-critical statements. It is a process going on while Rajavi is unveiled to have been engaged in a rampant, lustful and scandalous relation with female members observing them both as easily controlled subservience and objects of his harem.

It was commonly believed, or instilled into the insiders, that Massoud and Maryam were not married for the sexual purposes as many would think since Massoud, before the initiation of the ideological revolution, had overcome sexual bonds and had made a revolution within himself to bury all lustful bends for the cause of struggle. However, the disclosures about Rajavi’s indecent relations with the female insiders indicate that sexual acting out of all sorts is frequent among cult leaders and can be primarily regarded as a control and power issue. But how Rajavi came to put his feet on the very same road is a question to be studied with great care and scrutiny.

July 13, 2010 0 comment

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