Dariush Qanavati

A few months later, American forces let families of the MEK members enter Camp Ashraf. The group commanders could not prevent members from visiting their parents but they made efforts to brainwash members before they met their families. However, a group of members never got back to the MEK’s camp. Visiting families had awaken the emotions in the heart of members. “During a short time after the family visits, a large number of the group members escaped or defected the group gradually,” Daiush writes in his memoirs. “I was also seeking an opportunity to release myself from the hellish Cult of Rajavi.”

On March, 26, 2004, Dariush found it a good chance to escape the camp. He recounts, “It was Friday, 9 am. Commanders had gone to a meeting in another unit. I used the opportunity. I had already prepared myself. I got on my work clothes and went to the tomato farm. Then I went to the motor parking and from there I went behind the embankment and then I rushed to the fences.”

It was too dangerous, Dariush risked his life but it was worth getting liberated from the MEK. “A few American officers were patrolling there,” he recalls. “I called them and said ‘help me! I want to come with you.’ There were two MEK guarding stations a few hundred meters away so I was lying down on the ground. The American officer talked on his walkie talkie and reported to his superior. It took a few minutes but it was like forever to me. I was so frightened of getting arrested by the MEK agents.”

Dariush was lucky. The American officers took him to TIPF camp where other escapees of the MEK had been settled. “The moment I got on the US vehicle was the best moment of my life,” he writes. “I was so happy. The Americans took me to TIPF where other defectors of the group welcomed me warmly. Chanting ‘Down with Rajavi’, we hugged each other.”

In contrast with the group’s propaganda about TIPF the atmosphere of the camp was friendly. “We were friends sharing a past life ruined by Rajavi but we were hopeful about the future,” Dariush writes. After a few months, Dariush Qanavati got back to Iran and joined his family. He is now an active member of Nejat Society in the campaign to save other hostages of the Cult of Rajavi.

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Following the collapse of the MEK’s main military and financial sponsor, Saddam Hussein, the group was disarmed by the US army. Ali Ekrami was already fed up with dishonesty, violence and suppression he was witnessing in the MEK. He was determined to escape the group but he was terrified because of the group’s disinformation about defectors and escapees of Camp Ashraf.

Ali Ekrami

Nevertheless, he made his mind that night after reviewing his entire experience as an MEK member. “I was on my guarding post that night in one of the guard towers on the eastern side of Camp Ashraf when I came to a conclusion of my past life and I tried to find a way to break through that situation,” Ekrami writes in his autobiography, published a few months ago.

As Ekrami reviews his own involvement with the MEK, he also evaluates the MEK’s history including its armed struggle against Iranians, the escape of Massoud Rajavi from Iran, the marriage of Massoud and Maryam in Paris and their taking shelter under Saddam Hussein, the enemy at war with Iran. “It was like a nightmare,” he writes. “I had reached the point of complete hatred and disgust. I thought I did not have anything to do with the MEK any more. I was more determined to leave the group as any time I was before.”

Thus, he looked for an opportunity to escape the Cult of Rajavi. As a trusted member of the MEK, he was offered a new position. He was appointed as the MEK’s deputy to negotiate with Iraqi university professors. “I thought it would be a good opportunity to escape Camp Ashraf,” he writes. “I expressed my agreement, signed a form and got out to pack my bag.”

The next day, Ali Ekrami was supposed to move to the university. He got on the jeep that a friend of his was driving to go there. “In the way, I looked closely to find an American Hummer to surrender myself to them,” he says. “Luckily, I saw one in the street 100 of Camp Ashraf. This was the chance I have been looking for since months ago. I told my friend, ‘Stop the car! I feel nauseous and dizzy’.”

His friend stopped the car immediately and gave Ekrami a bottle of water. He took the bottle, splashed some water on his face and rushed to the American car. He recounts, “I knocked the wind shield. The American soldier opened the door. I told him, ‘I need help. I do not want to stay in the MEK. Help! Help!’ The black soldier and his commander took me on their car and drove fast to their camp. My friend was shocked staring at me getting far from him and Ashraf.”

Looking back, Ali Ekrami started shouting, “Damn Ashraf! Damn the Mujahedin_e Khalq! Down with Rajavi! Down with fraudulent Rajavi! You betrayed the hope and trust of a generation.”

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Mahmoud Odezadeh

“After the US invasion to Iraq and the group’s disarmament by the US military, the rank and file of the group were frustrated,” Mahmoud writes in his memoirs. “They were angry with Maryam Rajavi and her high-ranking members who had fled to Europe immediately after the war broke out. They had left the rank and file under bombs and had fled to France. In Iraq, the remaining commanders made us work hard to deviate our minds from thinking to such serious issues. Everyone was exhausted and desperate, seeking a way to escape the organization.”

The American camp outside Camp Ashraf opened a path to Mahmoud’s mind that was already obsessed with escaping the Cult of Rajavi. “I made my mind to reach the American camp in any possible way,” he recounts. “Under the pretext of health problems, I went to the Ashraf’s clinic several times to investigate the escape route. I had already discussed my plan with a friend who was also determined to escape.”

That was a night of July, 2004 when Mahmoud Odehzadeh and his friend accomplished their goal. He recounts: “When I got back from the clinic, I set with my friend that we would leave after dinner. Dinner was not done yet; we apparently took the dishes to wash. We got out of the building from the back door and rushed to the other side of the embankment. On our way, an MEK guard stopped us, I told him that my friend was not feeling well and I was taking him to the clinic. Then we rushed to the American camp.”

The US forces were not so friendly with them but Mahmoud and his friend did not want to get back to the MEK in any case. He was even ready to be killed rather than getting back to the MEK’s prison. “We told them that we had fled the MEK but they told us to get back to Ashraf,” He writes. “I got out a cutter from my pocket and put it on my throat. ‘We will die here but we will not get back to Ashraf’, I said. The US forces had a Tunisian interpreter, he said, ‘they leave you alone just do not kill yourself!’.”

The Americans took the two defectors of the Mujahedin-e Khalq to their camp and imprisoned them in a cell for a few days. Then, they interviewed with them and ask them why they fled the group. “We told them everything clarifying the truth of the MEK for them,” Mahmoud writes. “Then they took us to the place that other defectors of the MEK had been settled. We were about twenty people. The US forces treated us like slaves.”

Therefore, Mahmoud decided to escape the US camp too. He was looking for an opportunity. He discussed a plan with nine of his comrades in the camp. The other night, a dust storm aided them to fulfil their plan. They crossed the barbed wires. They reached a village and found some food and water and finally could manage to reach the road to Baghdad in the early morning. “A car took us to Baghdad,” he recounts. “He was an Iraqi POW in Iran so he could speak Persian. He was so kind that he took us to the Iranian embassy in Baghdad.”

They introduced themselves to the guard at the gate of the Iranian embassy. He continues: “A few minutes later, an authority came out and listened to our story. He invited us inside the building and received us warmly. Two days later, they transferred us to Tehran on a flight.”

As Rajavi had told them lies about maltreatments of the Iranian government against MEK defectors, Mahmoud and his peers were very frightened and nervous about the likely imprisonment and torture in Tehran. “To our surprise, the Iranian authorities welcomed us warmly and took us to a hotel,” he recalls.

Mahmoud and his friends were delivered to their families three days later. “In contrast to what Rajavi had told us –that families of defectors insult them because they have left the MEK—my family received me really warmly. They held parties and celebrations to congratulate me on my return. When I recounted my story for them, they began insulting Rajavi.”

Mahmoud asked his wife and children to forgive him. “Fortunately, they forgave me and I tried to build a new life,” he says.

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January 29th, 2013 was a landmark day in Zahra’s life. She was not only barred from the outside world by the barbed wire fences, but also, she was constantly surrounded by the MEK commanders and watched by one or two of her peers because she had previously tried to flee the group three times. “I was under severe mental and physical pressure because I resisted their lies, oppressions and brainwashing system,” she writes in her story. “I was banned from visiting my brother and sisters who were in the group too. A woman was supposed to watch me all the time and to report on what I was doing all day long.”

Zahra Mirbagheri showing the pendant that Rajavi gave to the women of the organization telling them that they were all connected to him and to no other man

Zahra was sick. Her ear was infected and she had pain in her neck and back. “After three failures in escaping and because of taking too much antibiotics I had become so weak,” she recounts. “I had a herniated cervical disk due to a blow to my neck but I was forbidden to have a doctor’s appointment.”

However, Zahra had made her decision. “I had promised myself to fight the authorities and to escape the Cult of Rajavi. I was determined to survive to reveal Rajavi’s inhumane and evil dogma,” she writes. On January 28th, the group held a meeting in which medical commander of the camp was supposed to justify the participants. Zahra was shocked to see there so many of her comrades who were not sick. The next day, when they went to the Iraqi hospital, she realized that those ones had been ordered to watch the sick members to prevent their likely escape.
The night before going to the medical center, Zahra prepared her military uniform. The next morning, she was dressed up. She was ordered to go to the eating place. Zohreh Qaemi (the then commander of Ashraf) came to the hall to speak once more. Zahra tried to pretend that every thing was normal — after her last unsuccessful attempt to escape, Zohreh Qaemi had conveyed the message of Maryam Rajavi to her, “We have decided that you will die!”.

Zahra and few of other sick members were taken to Iraqi hospital by the western side of Camp Ashraf. She was constantly watched by two female guards who were members of the MEK’s Elite Council. Families of the group’s members were calling on their loved ones who were isolated in the camp from other side of the camp fences. Zahra was ordered to pull her scarf on her face while crossing in front of the families.
“When we arrived in the hospital, I began to look around to find a way out,” she recalls. “I noticed some of the high-ranking commanders of the security unit of the MEK and I found out that I would have difficulties but again I promised my self not to give up.”

In the waiting room, Zahra found a kitchen, she looked for windows. All windows had been screened. The exit door was also closed and blocked with a big table. Zahra looked around to find a new escape route. “As I was looking around, my commander shouted at me, ‘what are you doing?’,” she recounts. “She ordered me to sit down next to her. I was not feeling well but I was really motivated to escape. So, I kept cool and sat down.”
Finally, she was examined by ENT specialist in the consulting room. The interpreter was also a member of the MEK. “The MEK had arranged everything to control members,” Zahra writes. “Nobody was allowed to stay alone with the doctors.” The specialist prescribed antibiotics for her ears so they had to go to the drugstore to take the medicines. In the drugstore, Zahra was still accompanied by her commander.

The next chance was the orthopedic specialist who was supposed to examine Zahra’s neck. Zahra recounts her escape adventure:

“Together with a few women, I was standing in front of the door of the doctor’s room. Ther was a long corridor. We were standing in the middle of it. I noticed another door behind myself. I did not know to where it opens. I looked at the commanders and security guards of the group who were walking through the corridor watching us. I recalled Massoud Rajavi’s words in his last speech, ‘It is better for a hundred of you to be killed than for one to flee’. My heart was pounding. I looked at those brainwashed women around me. ‘Do you have a doctor’s appointment too?’ I asked one of the. ‘It’s none of your business,’ she replied. I smiled and said, ‘No matter, just asked’. Just then, the woman told the others, ‘Let’s go!’.

“It was a landmark moment. I made my decision immediately after the women turned their back to me. I opened the door behind me and rushed though a hall that was for male patients. I turned left and opened another door to a hall that looked to be an eating place. The hall was empty. There was a widow at the end of it. It was covered by a flyscreen. I took out the cutter I had put under my clothes and cut the screen. Fortunately, the window had no glass. I got up to get out of the window and I was lucky that there was a staircase under the window at the foot of the wall. I stepped out and quickly rushed to my left. I reached a metal wall. I squeezed through a 20-centimeter gap in the wall. Again, I began to run. An Iraq soldier was praying before my eyes. He walked to me as soon as he saw me and took me to the commander’s office.

“When I entered the room, their walkie talkie was making too much noise about the escape of a female Mujahed. I could not contain my happiness. On my God! My dream came true. I could manage to escape.”

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Batul Soltani and her child

Following the so-called ideological revolution that coerced members to divorce their spouses, and after the smuggling of their children out of Iraq, Batul and other rank and file of the group, were kept busy doing difficult physical tasks around their military camp. “I became the commander of a unit of tanks in 1993,” Batul recounts. “I was so busy running eleven tank, each tank three forces. I had no time thinking of myself. I could sleep one or two hours a day.”

Batul Soltani at the MEk’s Camp Ashraf

Batul was gradually elevated in the cult’s hierarchy. She was charged with the security unit and then she was smuggled to Britain to learn using computers and ultimately, she was selected to become a member of Rajavi’s Elite Council. As a member of Rajavi’s close female forces she was coerced to attend Salvation Dance and then to Massoud Rajavi’s bed. Batul Soltani was the first female defector of the MEK who revealed Rajavi’s polygamy cult.
“In 2006, as a member of the Elite Council, I had become the topic of the meetings; I was under the focus of the superior rank,” Batul writes. “I was constantly asked why I looked depressed. Even Massoud Rajavi contacted me several times to understand what was wrong with me but I could not tell them about my anxieties. I had missed my children and my husband. Besides, I had a lot of unanswered questions about the group. I felt like losing my whole life for nothing.”

Batool Sultani, photographed in Paris in January 2020.
Photo: Matthew Cassell for The Intercept

What took place on that special day made her determined to leave the MEK. She had been ordered to fix Mozhgan Parsai’s computer network. She entered the network and she discovered a letter. “I ran into a report about myself that Mozhgan Parsai had prepared to send to Maryam Rajavi. All at once, my whole world came crashing down around me. She had written that the Elite Council was in trouble, that I was distracted by thinking about my kids and that I was morally corrupted. I was astonished to read those words.”

The very day, she packed her bag and made her decision to escape the group. Unaccompanied trafficking was prohibited in Camp Ashraf.

“Even if you wanted to go planting in the garden, you had to be accompanied by a peer as your responsible. They said that these rules were for guaranteeing the security of the group but I swear to God that it was because they did not trust anyone inside the organization.”

Thus, Batul found a way to pretend that she was not alone in her jeep: “I put the pack bag on the driver’s side seat,” she recounts her heroic escape. “I put a helmet on that and I tied a scarf around the helmet. When I reached the checkpoint, I told the guard that my comrade was asleep so I could cross the check point.”
It was late at night. The female guard knew that Batul Soltani was one of the commanders of the group so she did not scrutinize anymore. She drove toward the fences around the camp. “I left the car somewhere around the garrison and I escaped that prison”, she writes.

She cut the barbed wires crawled from under them. The guards in the watchtower did not notice her. She walked to the American camp that was settled by the side of Camp Ashraf for escapees from the Cult of Rajavi. And, she found herself free. She told the American authorities that she would not get back to the Mujahedin-e Khalq anymore.

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“When I entered Camp Ashraf, I felt like arriving in my dream promised land but after a year and a half I got to know the MEK deeply; I found out that I was wrong,” he says.
After half and a year, he began questioning the group’s attitudes against the rank and file. He wanted to leave the group but he was not allowed to. Instead, he was labeled as being agent of the Iranian government by the group commanders.

Ardeshir Darvishi

In 1994, he was jailed, interrogated and tortured violently in the group’s prison in Camp Ashraf. About 300 of other MEK members were also in Eskan prison, accused of working for the Iranian Intelligence because they had just criticized the group’s ruling system.
Ardeshir’s punishment period was done after a few weeks but again he was not permitted to leave the cult-like system of the MEK. He had to stay in the group for 10 more years.
In 2004, he was serving the group as a loader driver when he decided to escape Camp Ashraf. The group had been disarmed by the US army a year earlier so he was sure that he would not be shot dead by his commanders if he was noticed while escaping.

One day, he drove the loader toward the embankment around Camp Ashraf and opened his way out. He went to camp TIPF that the US army had founded to settle defectors and escapees from Camp Ashraf.
“I surrendered to the Americans who were located near Ashraf,” Ardeshir says. “Zhila Deiheem [an MEK commander] came to the American camp to convince me to get back to Camp Ashraf. Another commander named Hedayat came to warn me that I would be executed if I returned to Iran but I did not care. I returned home by the aid of the Red Cross.”

Ardeshir Deihimi got back to his family in his home town in Lorestan, Iran. He rebuilt his life; found a job, married and had children. However, he still regrets the 13 years he lost in the MEK. Last year he filed a petition against the leaders of the MEK in an Iranian court. His petition was eventually submitted to the International Court of the Hague.

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Goli, was a member of the Mujahedin Khalq Organization (MKO/ MEK/ PMOI/ Cult of Rajavi) for 23 years. In the spring of 2011, after he lost 36 of his comrades in the operation against Iraqi forces, he decided to leave the group. (On April 6th, Massoud Rajavi ordered his unarmed forces to attack the Iraqi armed forces who were supposed to enter Camp Ashraf to build a station. Members of the Cult of Rajavi had been coerced to stand as a human shield against Iraqi military vehicles. The clashes left the MEK’s rank and file with 36 people dead and hundreds injured.)

Mohamamd Reza Goli

“After the April 6th clashes, I got determined to leave the Cult of Rajavi”, Goli writes in his memoirs on his escape from the cult. It was not easy to break through the tall, highly guarded fences of Camp Ashraf. Together with a comrade, he started planning the escape but, in the cult-like atmosphere of the group it was not easy to talk to each other about the simplest issues either.

“We had to secretly discuss our plan in the way to go to the eating place or while eating meals there,” he states. “This way, we planned how to escape and we divided the tasks.”
They needed a ladder, to climb the fences around Camp Ashraf but it was not enough. The fences included three rows of circled barbed wires of which the width was about 1.5 meters. Thus, they needed a tool to put on top of the fences to move through it.

“We made it from wood and we found a ladder. We put them near the fences,” Goli explains how they prepared the equipment they needed for their prison break.

They chose Thursday night for their flee because that was the only time in the week that members were a little free to do sports or have gatherings in the eating place. The were under less control. Other times of the week they had to do the tasks they are ordered to and they had to attend self-confession and self-criticism meetings.
“On Thursday night I went to the eating place but I could not eat dinner,” he says. “I was not stressed out or scared but I felt guilty. I felt like a traitor to my 23 years background of struggle. However, the atmosphere of the group was so poisonous and negative that I was not able to stay.”

It was about nine o’clock when Goli and his friend went out from the door behind their unit to take the ladder and move it to the wall of the unit. They succeeded to cross the wall and now it was time to go to the Southern fence of Camp Ashraf.

The Southern side of the camp was guarded by three people. That night, Goli himself was supposed to take the post at ten o’clock. They waited in ambush for the other guard to leave. “We crawled to the fences carrying our pack backs, the ladder and the wooden board,” he writes. “We climbed up the ladder and threw our back backs on the other side of the fence and then we jumped down the fence.”

Goli and his friend could manage to escape the bars of the Cult of Rajavi. They had to submit themselves to Iraqi forces who were in charge of guarding camp Ashraf. “I told the Iraqi soldier that we had escaped Ashraf.” Goli writes. “He called his commanders to inform them that two people had left the camp.”
“While Waiting for Iraqi officers we were watching our ex-comrades on the other side of the fences inside Camp Ashraf,” Goli continues. “The guard noticed the ladder on the fence. He rushed to call the commanders. Fifteen people of forces of our unit came to the scene. Commanders came in their Land Cruisers. They were frightened. They looked confused. They were looking all around.”

The funny part of the story is that Goli and his friend wave to them to let them know that they had left the group in order that they stop looking for them but they kept on searching. “The idiots were so freaked out that they could not stop searching. They thought that they would find other escapees among the bush.”
Leaving the Cult of Rajavi is unforgivable. “They had no arms,” Goli says. “If they had had arms, they would have shot us undoubtedly.”

Eventually, Goli got back to his family in his home town, north of Iran. Today, he writes his account of years of living under the modern slavery of the personality cult of Massoud and Maryam Rajavi, in Persian.

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