Rajavis and Cult Leadership

Memoirs of Nasrin Ebrahimi, MKO ex- member_Part1

Nasrin Ebrahimi is a former member of the Mujahedin Khalq Organization, who fled the group in 2006. She was one of the first survivors of the Cult-like MKO who dared to reveal the corruption of the leaders of the group. She was the first person to speak of the “Summit Operation” which was a cult jargon through which a large number of female members of the group became infertile by Hysterectomy surgery.
Nim Negah Website is publishing series of interviews with Ms. Ebrahimi. Nejat society translated excerpts of her memoirs of the sufferings of living in the MKO cult.

Collapse of Dream!

… I was attracted by the MKO when I was 13 and I joined the group in Iraq a year after. As I lived in a town near Iraqi border where the MKO TV Channel was available, I was absorbed by the group propaganda. I decided to join it. I was fourteen when I took some money from home and paid a human–smuggler to pass me through Iraqi border.
As a teenager, I had no correct information on either the Iranian government or the MKO. I had no idea of politics.

From the first days of my residence in Camp Ashraf, I realized Rajavi’s version of democracy, freedom, equality and human rights.

…. In a short time Rajavi found out that female members of the group can better run his plans. This way, women would think that they were promoted in the cult hierarchy and they would feel superior over their male comrades…Massoud Rajavi made women feel that they owe their position to him …

I remember Maryam Rajavi saying in a meeting for women:”Without Massoud, you are nothing so for your own promotion and your own growth you must blindly obey Massoud”! … Thus women in Ashraf were living in an illusion world that was built by the Rajavis. They were stranger to their inner self.

… Women in Ashraf had no freedom to choose their clothing; otherwise they would be oppressed by the worst methods. Cosmetics were forbidden in Ashraf. Women were not allowed to tide up otherwise they would be interrogated; they would be asked about what they had in their mind.

This was the “freedom of clothing” the MKO claims.

… We were not permitted to look at men and were constantly supervised by our superior officials. We had to confess all our thoughts; For example, if we had recalled a man, our husband or our boyfriend, we had to confess it in the meeting. We had to verbally abuse ourselves before others because we had betrayed Rajavi. We shouldn’t let our mind think of any other person except Massoud Rajavi who, was as we were told, our possessor.

Do you know any other place where women are so ruthlessly suppressed ? Even in Saudi Arabia the rules are not as anti-woman as it is in the MKO.

A Typical Day in Camp Ashraf

Camp Ashraf is like a prison in or in better words like Nazis Forced Labour Camps.

We were woken up by a dreadful march-like sound every morning at 5 or 5:30. A quarter later we had to go to the eating place for breakfast. After a quarter, we were supposed to do our public task, in public places until 6 o’clock. Then from 6 am until 13 pm, we were horribly forced to do exhausting labors including cleaning up the streets, pulling weeds in Iraqi arid desserts, moving goods from one place to another. We were regularly supposed to carry objects to a new place and again we had to move them to another location after a few weeks. This was just a way to keep us busy and exhausted. We had to clean and grind a set of old artillery that hardly ever could go more than a few Kilometers…

13:00 was lunch time. The food was so bad… after the US army was settled in Ashraf, the food became a little better because the group leaders wanted to pretend that everything was fine there…

After lunch, sometimes we had an hour to relax and again we had to start working until night. After dinner, we had to attend meetings such as Current Operation and Daily Cleansing (Two cult jargons practiced regularly in the MKO). Both sessions were like a court in which you had to report your thoughts during the day; others would humiliate you and abuse you verbally …

At 12:00 we had to go to bed. In the middle of night, we had to get up and get on guarding posts for 3 or 4 hours…Regarding such an awful condition don’t Iwe have the right to compare ourselves with Nazi forced labourers?

to be continued

February 25, 2013 0 comments

Camp Liberty

Inhabitants of Liberty do not enjoy the minimum of security

Urgent call
Inhabitants of Camp Liberty do not enjoy the minimum of security under Rajavi

It is 10 years now since the Baghdad dictator, the only state sponsor of MKO terrorist cult up to now, has been toppled, but the members are still both mentally and physically captive in the hands of Rajavi. As far as the suffering families whose loved ones remain confined by the MKO are concerned, the fall of Saddam Hussein did not improve their situation and did not lead to their safety. On the contrary it ended in greater threat and suffering. The families are shocked by the passivism of international organizations, in particular the UN in the face of this situation.

The process of the past 10 years, particularly the past 3 years during which the families have remained in Iraq with the hope of learning about their loved ones’ wellbeing, shows that the only party who doesn’t want to lift the burden of the MKO from the shoulders of the oppressed Iraqi nation is Massoud Rajavi. It is obvious that the burden of the MKO – the legacy of Saddam Hussein and a threat to national security – under pressure from the occupying forces, is still a problem for the Iraqis.

Previously we revealed reports from inside Camp Liberty that the top officials of the MKO were instructed to demonstrate that living conditions in Liberty are very difficult in order to feed the organization’s propaganda machine which in turn tries to put pressure on the UN and the government of Iraq, and follows the line of “getting back to Ashraf”.

News which has emerged following the hand-made missile attack on the camp which resulted several casualties, reveals that the officials of the MKO tried to impose every kind of obstacle to prevent the wounded being taken to hospitals in Baghdad in order to add to the loses. This attack, considering the atmosphere of revenge within some Iraqi forces that know the MKO as collaborators with Saddam Hussein in suppressing the Iraqi people, could easily have been predicted and the same threat still remains.

It is routine in the Rajavi cult to create martyrs and Rajavi calls it “opening a nut with blood”. In his previous speeches about the incident of April 8, 2011 which led to the deaths of 36 individuals, Rajavi had said that ‘with this amount of martyrs we managed to inspire the world and managed to delay evacuating Ashraf garrison’.

It is worth mentioning that in that incident some individuals died because the MKO prevented them from being taken to hospital immediately. Rajavi’s policy is to make the number of martyrs as high as possible for propaganda purposes. Now that Rajavi is following the path of “returning to Ashraf”, he strives to increase the number of dead in Liberty.

We know that the Iraqis did all in their capacity to help the wounded and gave every sort of aid to transfer them to hospitals in Baghdad and even managed to take some and have them treated. But the MKO officials of the camp deliberately tried to prevent this in order to increase the number of dead for propaganda use.

Rajavi tries to control both internal and external opposition and protest by claiming that he is struggling against the Islamic Republic of Iran and is giving so much blood for this struggle. He always pushes such claims at his critics instead of answering their sincere queries. He tries to legitimize his actions by claiming to have more martyrs than others.

Why does Rajavi insist on going back to Ashraf?

Considering the ongoing security status of Iraq, which is one of the worst in the world, it is obvious that the deceived followers of Rajavi residing in Camp Liberty do not enjoy any security. But the question is: if these people do not feel safe just outside Baghdad in an American base, how would they be safer nearer to the Iranian border and far away from Baghdad? If Rajavi is honest and his real concern is his followers’ security he should have asked for them to be transferred out of Iraq to a third country or at least to the west of Iraq further from the Iranian border.

The truth is that Liberty is much smaller than Ashraf and Rajavi’s cultic apartheid cannot be enforced in it so easily; gossip spreads quicker amongst the people and therefore cultic control is much harder. What has no place in Rajavi’s scheming is the life of the members of his cult and he even prefers to have more casualties for using in his propaganda campaign.

It must be mentioned that returning to Ashraf would be the clearest indication that the organization is to be restored for terrorist activities. This would make the present situation even more complicated and in consequence both the national security of Iraq and the security of the residents of the camp would be at greater risk.

Sahar Family Foundation which represents the families of the trapped members of the MKO in Iraq wishes to draw the attention of all international and humanitarian organizations worldwide, in particular the UN and UNAMI and the SGSR Mr Martin Kobler to the fact that while the residents of Camp Liberty are under the cultic rule of Rajavi they will not enjoy the least bit of security.

We urge all western countries and humanitarian organizations, despite all the obstacles created by Massoud Rajavi, to do all in their capacity to transfer the MKO members in Iraq to a third country and let their families be gratified.

February 17, 2013 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization's Propaganda System

Idolizing the Dead, MKO’s Survival Desideratum

MKO needs flow of fresh blood to sustain its structure and accomplishment of its causes

Hardly may you encounter an organization struggling for a political, social, or any other cause to be highly Idolizing the Dead, MKO’s Survival Desideratum dependent on the blood of its devoted members, calling them martyrs. The terrorist cult of Mojahedin Khalq (aka. MKO, MEK, PMOI, NCR, NLA) is just one among a handful. And what is the necessity of such ever-growing dependence? The reason is simple; MKO needs flow of fresh blood to sustain its structure; it needs more and more martyrs to keep the whole enterprise going; it is a necessary means for the accomplishment of its causes, survival, and keeping its impressive propaganda machine going. As a vindication of its rightness in its struggle path, the group has always boasted about the counts of its members killed, injured and disabled as well as imprisoned members who are believed to substantiate its hegemonic legitimacy over all other opposition groups antagonizing the Iranian regime.

Blood, shed from its own members or those in opposite front, builds the cornerstone of MKO. The Rajavis, the husband-wife leaders of the group, are of the opinion that the rightness of any ideology is maintained by the number of its casualties and martyrs; included in their political and ideological framework, the life and death of man is so simple an issue like drinking water. Ask any defected member and they would promptly enumerate plain examples of the glorification of violence and death-seeking attitude within the organization, an experience that can better than any other theoretical sources of ideology lead you to fathom why the organization delights in victimization of its own members. And open a MKO-run webpage and you will see highlighted reports of Maryam Rajavi’s attending some ceremony to pay homage to the victims of some incident or glorification of the casualties of a certain attack or clash.

Due to the internal demand for constant indoctrination, the MKO cannot hold back from advertising its martyrs, better to say people who die for Rajavi. In fact, MKO longs and prays for a frequent bloody raid and aggression by any outsider against its insiders and in many cases, plots instigation of violent reaction. For instance, once in Camp Ashraf, before residents’ relocation to Temporary Transit Location TTL, the residents had the strict order to provoke a bloody clash since the group needed fresh blood and a few martyrs and wounded people to feed its new round of propaganda against the Iraqi government to maintain its gripe on the camp. As a result, at least twice in 2011 insiders provoked harsh clashes that led to many casualties from the both sides. MKO uncompromisingly refused to cooperate in transferring the insiders to TTL and the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Iraq, Martin Kobler, had repeatedly expressed his concern about the possible eruption of violent clashes between the sides.

MKO’s settlement in TTL has totally gone against its expectation as the group never expected such indefinite prolongation of being kept in limbo. As the group was sinking into a political oblivion and there was an increasing number of members demanding to defect and there were instances of escapes, new blood was an urgent necessity. Just on February 9, rockets hit TTL leading 7 to their death and leaving many more injured. The media coverage presume MKO has received an awful shock and busy mourning for the killed, condemning the attacks and accusing this and that for committing what they call an appalling human tragedy. But in the heart the leaders are jubilant and behind the closed doors they are celebrating the bloody incident; they wish and hope the injuries hasten the injured to their death to make more martyrs.

The attacks carried out by any party have provided excellent excuses for MKO to display an exhibition of martyrs long victimized within the cult themselves. They could be free people like those escaped or defected and MKO is not uninterested to make all residents martyrs to demonize the Iraqi and Iranian governments as well as securing a much more extended period of stay in Iraq with all needed sympathy directed in its own favor. The world should be concerned about any plotted violence from the side of terrorist MKO that threatens the life of the insiders. The only words instilled into them are those that connote death and violence. They need to hear murmurs of love and life.

February 14, 2013 0 comments

MEK Camp Ashraf

Camp Ashraf, Rajavi’s Cult Milieu

Camp Ashraf was Rajavi’s ideal and practical milieu for thought reform techniques

As one among many of the psychological techniques used to control the minds of the insiders under the tag of ideology, MKO inaugurated the ideological revolution to introduce a charismatic authoritarian leader to exert control over every aspect of his adherents’ life and to establishing a totalitarian pyramidal structure where the chosen devoted commanders would act as the leader’s deputies in his absence. But the leader needed certain facilities to implement the newly devised mind control. The most important prerequisite was of course a remote place isolated from the outside world to disconnect the contact of their followers from the outside world, particularly from their families and friends and even from their past. To phrase it in technical terms, MKO was desperately in need of a cultic milieu, the most central in creating the thought reform environment as depicted by Robert Jay Lifton:

“The most basic feature of the thought reform environment, the psychological current upon which all else depends, is the control of human communication. Through this milieu control the totalist environment seeks to establish domain over not only the individual’s communication with the outside (all that he sees and hears, reads or writes, experiences, and expresses), but also – in its penetration of his inner life – over what we may speak of as his communication with himself. It creates an atmosphere uncomfortably reminiscent of George Orwell’s 1984.”

Initially, a place had to be found to meet Rajavi’s needed features for the thought reform environment, a place totally cut and isolated from the modern world. But Rajavi had already made his decision on the place even before the initiation of the ideological revolution when he met with Iraq’s Foreign Minister, Tariq Aziz, on 9 January 1983 in France. Consequently, grabbing at the granted opportunity to enhance close relations with Saddam and Iraq’s Baath Party, Rajavi made his flight to Iraq after the French government pressed the organization to leave the country’s soil. To justify his relocation to Iraq, Rajavi reportedly announced that he had decided to settle in Iraq as it was a strategic site to carry out operations aimed to overthrow Iranian regime.

He moved to Iraq at a time when the Iraqi forces had many kilometers of Iranian lands under their boots, a move that none of the opposition could tolerate. No doubt, MKO was empty handed when it arrived in Iraq in 1986 and in need of aid. Rajavi’s consequent meeting with Saddam and then with other Iraqi ranking officials followed with dollar allocations as well as granted military camps and logistics boosted a broad collaboration that lasted until the fall of Saddam. Settled in Iraq, the members were forced to stay on military compounds, the biggest one being Camp Ashraf.

In fact, when Saddam in 1986 granted Camp Ashraf to MKO, it was nothing more than a piece of wasteland as it is geographically the case with other parts of the region. But Saddam’s granted huge sums of money cut from the pocket of the Iraqi people, and Rajavi’s physical and psychological exploitation of his cult’s victims, turned the scorched piece of land into an oasis that none of the people around it had the right to enter nor to use. Nobody knows the many secrets behind this forbidden land; nobody knows the whereabouts of those who entered the mysterious stronghold and never came out; it is full of souls who are claimed to have died of unknown causes, suicides, heart or brain stroke, cancers and self-immolation. Under any brick and stone you can come upon scores of men’s lost lives, wills and wishes. And nobody forgets many instances of the confirmed unearthed mass graves reflected in the Iraqi media.

Once Dr. Ali Shariati, the late Iranian thinker, in one of his books entitled “Ye Brother, That’s The Way it Was” written soon after his return from Egypt, related the sad history of how the Great Pyramids had been built. He regretted that what people appreciated as wonders were the product of many victimized, oppressed people who had been brutally exploited by the pharaohs to build the wonders. Neither Rajavi is to be compared with the Pharaohs nor the Pyramids with the Ashraf nor the latter’s victims with the former’s. But, it is rather a shame to witness such things happening just in the modern third millennium. And the history is repeated just in the heart of Iraqi deserts where “the pearl of the desert”, as some locals call Ashraf, emerged out of some land hardly you can chance upon green life. It has been repeatedly stated that Rajavi is the one who has openly raised the slavery flag over his bastion with no clear objection to it. His victims are the laborers who are enslaved physically and psychologically; they have to work for him and worship him as well.

Besides providing an ideological bastion for cultic practices and total disconnection of the insiders from the outside world, MKO needed a strategic bastion as it was an armed organization at war with Iranian regime. Strategically, MKO needed a military base close to Iranian borders for training and a military depot for substantial munitions especially after the formation of the so-called National Liberation Army (NLA). And from a political point of view, MKO regarded Ashraf as the symbol of power and resistance in its propaganda campaign for certain reasons, to impress Iranian and non-Iranian supporters and western politicians and also to recruit new members by a superficial depiction of a utopia.

January 30, 2013 0 comments

The cult of Rajavi

Defectors bugging the Rajavis

Cult leaders often tend to claim that they are so spiritually elevated that they know the “absolute Defectors bugging the Rajavis truth” for the well-being of their followers. In this way, they apply various bizarre practices to blind the followers from observing the reality of maltreatments against them. In the cult, they are constantly kept under a sever mind control manipulative system that they cannot see their leaders abusive acts.

Once the member defects from the cult whether mentally or both mentally and physically, he realizes what has gone to him during the period of his engagement with the cult. He seriously gets motivated to denounce the cult and its leaders.

The majority of former members of the cult of Rajavi (the Mujahedin Khalq Organization/ the MKO/ MEK) are determined to reveal what they once thought as normal in the cult because of the responsibility they feel regarding the threat of the cult for both their former friends in the MKO and the humane community. Overwhelmed with feeling of anger and vengeance against Massoud and Maryam Rajavi, defectors of the MKO can help keeping silent over the human rights abuses they witnessed in the cult. Unsurprisingly, they are labeled by the cult as “agent of the Iranian regime” which is according to Mrs. Ann Singleton (a defector of the cult) a “one size fits all used to designate the victims” of the MKO [1]

Mrs. Singleton and his husband Massoud Khodabande and his brother-in-law Ebrahim are even mentioned as agents of the Iranian intelligence in the recent Pentagon report on Iranian intelligence. The misleading Pentagon report was noticeably run by the MKO’s agents in the US government. Iran Interlink offers evidences on the allegation:

The report is characterized by its mixture of allegation, assertion and allusion, much of which is not substantiated by evidence. The report blends fact and fiction in a manner intended to deceive and mislead. As such, this document is not an attack, it is a defensive act, it is a play on words intended to prevent informed discussion and stop important people being listened to. Indeed, the gratuitous mention of two specific individuals, Anne Singleton and Massoud Khodabandeh, who have consistently exposed the aspects of the Mojahedin Khalq which it most wants to hide – cult nature, human rights violations, mercenary relation to foreign agents – is the strongest possible indication of the provenance of this report.
The other indication is that the source of this specific misinformation is Rabbi Daniel M. Zucker. In a footnote the article “Disinformation Campaign in Overdrive: Iran’s VEVAK in High-Gear” is sourced at Global Politician, September 3, 2007, http://www.globalpolitician.com/23386-vevak-iran (accessed April 17, 2012). Interestingly, this website can no longer be accessed. [2]

However, the whole deceitful report –which was highly propagandized by the MKO – did not disturb the Khodabandehs. On January17, a few days after the report published Massoud Khodabandeh posted this status on his face book profile:

“I told my Mum that the Khodabandeh family was being attacked by the MEK in Washington and that she had been mentioned too. She said – I’m sure you three are more than enough for Rajavi and his cult, but if not, I’ll be happy to personally sort out Rajavi.”

For defectors denunciation of the violence committed in the MKO is kind of delightful job that helps enlighten the world community and release of their ex-comrades.

Ann singleton was among the first defectors to write about her experience with Rajavi’s Cult. She is the author of a book titled “Saddam’s Private Army”[3]. This is a sentence the review of the book published by Amazon.com:

”Told by a western woman who for twenty years had unique access to the secret inner world of the Mojahedin.”[4]

As you read on the book cover, "Saddam’s Private Army” gives a very detailed account and analysis on “How Rajavi changed Iran’s Mojahedin from armed revolutionaries to an armed cult."[5]

Regarding recently published testimonies of female former members about sexual abuse and women’s rights violations in the cult of Rajavi, Singleton’s book is perhaps the first document on the corrupt world created by Maryam and Massoud Rajavi. Singleton describes how Maryam’s ambitions lead her to promote herself in the MKO until she becomes Rajavi’s “personal assistant”. In 1984, Massoud who had been married to Firouzeh Banisadr – daughter of his then ally — divorced from her,” in this respect it is widely believed that she began a sexual relationship with Rajavi even before he divorced from Firouzeh in 1984. Singleton writes, ”She had been appointed head of Rajavi’s office and she worked closely with him in his office often not returning home at night for days. Before their marriage on 8th February 1985 Maryam hadn’t returned home to her husband Abrishamchi for several months. In this time. She had also attended a hospital in Paris for what is believed to have been a termination of pregnancy.”[6]

It took us just a few years more to learn about further violations of human rights in the MKO. Batoul Soltani, is a former member of the MKO’s so-called elite called “Leadership Council”. She bravely revealed horrifying facts about sexual abuse by Massoud Rajavi although she said that recalling those memoires is “awfully difficult” for her.[7]

Mrs. Soltani exposed a cultic ceremony in the MKO, called “Salvation Dance” (nude dancing) in which women of the “Leadership Council” were made remove their clothes in front of Massoud Rajavi and dance before him.”Get close to Massoud and unite with him”, Maryam said to dancing women.[8]

The former member of the Mojahedin Leadership Council added “They had portrayed the issue of having [sexual] relations with Massoud Rajavi in such a way that it appeared to us as the most sacred task. Mas’ud Rajavi also used verses from the Koran to justify his behavior.”[9]

A few months ago, Soltani together with two other former members, Zahra Mirbaqeri and Nasrin Ebrahimi once again denounced the MKO by receiving a list of 100 female members of the group who have gone under hysterectomy to be sexually abused by the Cult leader, Massoud Rajavi.[10]

Nasrin Ebrahimi had previously revealed that Rajavi had entitled the operation to remove women’s womb as “Summit”[11] referring to women’s extreme devotion to their leader. They lose their final sign of sexuality and motherhood, or as Mrs. Singleton says” to neutralize their sexuality”.[12]

Mir Baqeri said that the surgical operations were carried out to take out the victims’ wombs so that they would not be pregnant after being raped by Rajavi.[13]

Women of the Leadership Council were given a necklace on which Massoud’s portrait was graved earlier than they were made married with him. Zahra Mir Baqeri has one of the necklaces to show those who are concerned.

“Maryam Rajavi invented rituals such as being washed by other women members so as to ‘spiritually purify’ them, followed by the instruction to dance naked before both the Rajavis to prove they had ‘broken the physical and mental barriers’ to their total submission to Massoud. After these coercive practices, he would choose a bedmate for sex. The women have said that they did not agree to sex with Rajavi out of free will but because they had been coerced through deception into submitting to what they later came to recognize as rape.”, Ann singleton notifies.[14]

As she suggests:
“The facts are easily verifiable. The physical evidence of hysterectomy can be found in the women’s bodies. It is a matter of fact, not opinion. And if those who managed to escape the cult have evidence consistent with their accusations, does it not behove those people actually responsible for their welfare to conduct an investigation into the condition of the other named women in the MEK who are trapped incommunicado in (the ironically named) Camp Liberty.”[15]

There may be a much longer list of abuses committed in the Cult of Rajavi, as some of them were already reported by Human Rights Watch in 2005. This is what terribly disturbs the leaders of the MKO. To defend themselves they have no way except using their old tactic, labeling them “agent of regime”. Such reaction cheers defectors up as they see that they’ve been successful to bug the cult leaders.

By Mazda Parsi

References:
[1]Singleton, Ann, Do not Disturb – Criminals at work in Camp Liberty, IranInterlink, January 5, 2013
[2]Iran Interlink, More smoke and mirror from the MEK propaganda factory, January &, 2013
[3]Singleton, A, SADDAM’S PRIVATE ARMY: How Rajavi Changed Iran’s Mojahedin from Armed Revolutionaries to an Armed Cult, IRAN INTERLINK, 2003, ISBN 0-9545009-0-3
[4]http://www.amazon.co.uk/Saddams-Private-Army-Mojahedin-Revolutionaries/dp/0954500903
[5] Singleton, A, SADDAM’S PRIVATE ARMY: How Rajavi Changed Iran’s Mojahedin from Armed Revolutionaries to an Armed Cult, IRAN INTERLINK, 2003, ISBN 0-9545009-0-3
[6]ibid. Page 57
[7] https://www.nejatngo.org/en/posts/3261
[8]ibid
[9] BBC Monitoring, Massoud Rajavi accused of "sexual exploitation" of women, September 22 2010
[10]Fars News Agency, MKO Ringleaders Abuse Female Memoires Sexually, December 25, 2012
[11]Fars News Agency, The Ideal Summit Mujahedin Khalq makes women unfertile, October 15, 2008
[12] Singleton, Ann, Do not Disturb – Criminals at work in Camp Liberty, IranInterlink, January 5, 2013
[13] Fars News Agency, MKO Ringleaders Abuse Female Memoires Sexually, December 25, 2012
[14] Singleton, Ann, Do not Disturb – Criminals at work in Camp Liberty, IranInterlink, January 5, 2013
[15]ibid

January 22, 2013 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization's Propaganda System

MKO’s Trick of Concentrating upon a Single Foe

It is natural to see defected members being demonized as the paid agents of Iranian regime

Pretty remarkable in MKO-run propaganda machine is a strange paradox. It highlights anti-Iranian regime sentiments and demonizes whoever is attached to it and minimizes whatever might cause MKO fall into disrepute of being represented as an undemocratic terrorist cult. It It is natural to see defected members being demonized as the paid agents of Iranian regime fuels global rage against Iranian regime but praises the group and its leaders as pro-democratic unity devoted to peaceful campaign against all cruelties and violations of human rights! MKO is not the first in history clinging to such a paradox but following the footsteps of countless bullies who were determined to shift the focus of public attention and rage away from their own devious intention and plans to a hateful image of a “single adversary”.

For example, Stalin‘s collective label for his foe was the bourgeoisie or exploiter and Hitler aimed his propaganda at a similar enemy, mainly Jews. As Hitler wrote in Mein Kampf:

“The art of all truly great national leaders at all times consists…primarily in not dividing the attention of a people, but in concentrating it upon a single foe…. It belongs to the genius of a great leader to make even adversaries far removed from one another seem to belong to a single category.”

Learning his lessons from the dictators and leaders of the personality cults rather than the great men of peace, Rajavi, as the leader of a terrorist cult, came to grasp that the first rule in any struggling movement is to have an enemy to challenge and overcome. Thus, a particularly important place in the struggle matrix of MKO was assigned to Iranian regime as the sole adversary along with those it accused them to be siding with it. In fact, MKO requires the existence of enemies, internal and external, all associated with the single adversary at all times because too many enemies arouse suspicions and questioning. That is exactly outlined by Hitler for MKO to adhere to:

“Once the wavering mass sees itself in a struggle against too many enemies, objectivity will put in an appearance, throwing open the question whether all others are really wrong and only their own movement are in the right. And this brings about the first paralysis of their own power. Hence a multiplicity of different adversaries must always be combined so that in the eyes of one’s own supporters the struggle is directed against only one enemy.”

And all roads in MKO’ propaganda blitz end to demonizing an opponent and critic as a hand joined with and paid by Iranian regime. Inflicted as a harsh psychological punishment, the insiders stand on the verge of being suspected agents of the enemy in case of making protests, just as any detached and escaped member is accused to be. Indeed, the threatening omnipresence of the enemy acts like a Damocles Sword that protects MKO against the internal threats. As Eric Hoffer depicts in his The True Believer:

“Suspicion is given a sharp edge by associating all opposition within the ranks with the enemy threatening the movement from without. This enemy-the indispensable devil of every mass movement-is omnipresent. He plots both outside and inside the ranks of the faithful. It is his voice that speaks through the mouth of the dissenter, and the deviationists are his stooges. If anything goes wrong within the movement, it is his doing. It is the sacred duty of the true believer to be suspicious. He must be constantly on the lookout for saboteurs, spies and traitors”.

Asserted by majority of defected members, any suspected dissidence and defiance of leaders or taken decisions within the group would be harshly repressed. Unfortunately, there exist no tangible evidences to prove anti-human practices within MKO but the confessions made by the defected members themselves whose confessions MKO tries to misrepresent as untrustworthy voice of the enemy that speaks through the mouth of the dissident.

That is how suddenly three defected ranking members of the group, Massoud Khodabandeh, a high-ranking and highly trusted member working as a computer expert and deeply involved in intelligence activities as well as providing security for the group’s leadership, and his later wife Ann Singleton, an English born veteran who defected MKO, and Ibrahim Khodabandeh, Massoud’s brother, also a ranking member highly trusted by MKO for illegal acts and international smuggling programs, turn to be agents of Iranian regime after starting to talk and exposing against MKO. And there more to name whom MKO has so far refrained to mention.

For sure, the most reliable information one can have access to concerning cultic and atrocious practices inside MKO are those revealed by the active defected members like Khodabandeh brothers who were the closest to the group’s leading echelon. And of course it is natural to see them being demonized as the paid agents of Iranian regime while they are enjoying their free life and feeling a responsibility to do their best to help rescue more enslaved victims out of the cult.

January 21, 2013 0 comments

The cult of Rajavi

European intellectual views on the Cult of Rajavi – Part2

Dena Peace and Freedom Association interviewed a European intellectual on the Cult of Rajavi(MKO/MEK). Ms. Shemeltz who is an expert and scholar on psychotherapy, has personal and scientific experience about cults.

As the representative of Dena Peace and Freedom Association, Mr. Mohsen Abbasslou talked with the honorable expert, Ms. Shemeltz.

Abbasslou: Ms. Shemeltz, many people can hardly believe that an organization or an individual could be able to keep and control thousands of people under the name of struggle in one place for about three decades. Do you think that Rajavi has used an especial formula and method to control members’ minds and bodies?

Ms.Shemeltz: in the MKO, they use an apparently simple but very dangerous formula. Everyone is in the group is told: “You are like brothers and sisters for each other and you should call each other “Brother” or “Sister”.

The other day I saw a sentence on the wall of a mosque. It was written “if your spiritual brother or sister tells you that you are wrong about something, you shouldn’t get upset but you should try to correct your mistake and then thank your brother or sister for the notice."

In a glance, the slogan is a positive one but if you deeply think about it you’ll find out that the slogan is implying that you should supervise your spiritual brother or sister to seek for his or her mistakes. According to the science of behavior such an instruction is considered good for reforming a society but in a particular organization or group especially a religious one, with special goals, it can be very dangerous.

In the Rajavi’s establishment, exactly the same instruction is used in safety measures. Members are told, ”If your brother or sister tells you something or monitors you, you shouldn’t turn sour but you should confirm what you’re told because this is good for your promotion in the organization.”

They are told or they in fact are responsible to watch the comrade next to themselves.
Rajavi has efficiently used the formula. Everyone should watch his comrade. Everyone is monitored by many eyes in everywhere. You are controlled by your organizational brothers and sisters all the time and in all places so the risk of committing organizational mistakes decreases. The organizational formula in the MKO is: to control one person by the one next to him. The formula has been so efficient in the MKO. To the mentioned formula, you should add suppression and violation of private and public space of members by the cult leaders.

The controlling formula is supported by organizational punishment.

Rajavi is an intelligent person on the ground of using contrasts in inhuman way. Using political contrasts in the past and present time, he could build places like Ashraf or Ouver Sur d’Oise to control individuals.

He well recognized political splits and used the challenges and clashes in politics to maintain the structure of his cult. He knows whom to contact with in the world of politics using opportunist and venal politicians.

In my opinion, the leader of Mujahedin cult has recruited a team of these opportunists, venal politicians. He makes deals with them to achieve his organizational and political objectives. It is not difficult to find such sort of people in Europe and the West. Nowadays, such people are numerous.

Translated by Nejat Society

January 17, 2013 0 comments

Terrorist groups and the MEK

Unearthed Mass Graves Prove MKO-Al Qaeda Collaboration

The mass graves which have recently been unearthed near the main training camp of the terrorist Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization in Iraq’s Diyala province unveiled a strong bond between the MKO and the Al Qaeda terrorist group. Unearthed Mass Graves Prove MKO-Al Qaeda Collaboration

Speaking to FNA on Sunday, Udai al-Khadran, the governor of the city of Khalis in Diyala province, said Al Qadea and the MKO members cooperated to intensify unrests in Khalis.

He added that the MKO members are involved in Al Qaeda bombing plots and kidnappings in Diyala.

Khadran added that there exist documents substantiating that some Iraqi officials are collaborating with terrorists and have taken bribes to the very same end.

Earlier in January, an Iraqi official said several mass graves have been unearthed in Camp New Iraq, formerly known as Camp Ashraf, in Iraq’s Diyala Province, which was the headquarters of the terrorist MKO.

Sadeq al-Husseini, the deputy chairman of Diyala’s provincial council said that the Iraqi Ministry of Human Rights was in charge of determining the identities of the bodies and whether they were Kurds, the residents of southern provinces or from the town of Khalis in Diyala Province.

He said that the bodies were being examined in medical laboratories in Arbil Province, adding that human rights violations in the camp did not seem improbable.

Later a report by the website of the Habilian Association, a human rights NGO formed of the families of 17000 Iranian terror victims, said that the MKO executed a number of disobedient members and buried them in a mass grave in Camp Ashraf before leaving the place.

The report added that Seyed Taleb Mohammad Hassan, the head of Diyala provincial council, was quoted by Iraqi Kurdistan Navkho news agency as saying that "relevant bodies have investigated the corpses in the mass grave and found out that some of those buried in there had been executed by the MKO".

Further investigations showed that these murdered individuals "have been killed for criticizing or opposing the MKO", he added.

January 14, 2013 0 comments

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 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization as a terrorist group

MKO and the Demonizing Campaign

Nobody is immune from the threatening, anti-human, cultic practices of MKO

Everybody is curious as to why any defected member and escapee from MKO happen to be an Nobody is immune from the threatening, anti-human, cultic practices of MKO agent of Iranian regime whenever the organization ever publicizes the news of some defection itself. The announcement does not appear just after the escape or defection but months and even years later and after the group fails to come to terms with the defected to stop him/her talking out. The stigma, MKO believes, on the one hand will possibly neutralize the disclosures and on the other, hand will boost a propaganda battle to talk big of its intelligence potentiality in detecting the infiltrated agents. Thus, it may appear to many as a never-ending battle between MKO and Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and security; and of course the more secretive and sophisticated the ministry is depicted the more capable its rival can be proclaimed.

But there are other reasons for MKO to enter a demonizing campaign against the regime’s security apparatus. Majority of the ranking members who leave MKO have been aware of hypocrisy and corruption within the group and majority are victims of cultic abuses themselves. However, as they have maintained an element of independence and some connection with their old values, they consider it a responsibility to become a volunteer to disclose facts long concealed from the public under a variety of pseudo social and democratic activities. Naturally, unable to provide justifiable responses to what MKO claims allegations against it, the group directs countless hateful attacks and attempts at character assassination of the defected members. The smear and character assassination campaign against dissidents further ensures that the exposé continues with full force.

That is why MKO was among the firsts to publicize the report by the Library of Congress report on Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security and to translate its parts, particularly those concerning MKO and ex-members, into other languages to be circulated in a variety of affiliated web-sites and blogs. Although the report itself blends fact and fiction, a look at the given references leaves no doubt that either MKO has been tasked with the responsibility to prepare the report or has acted as a close consultant in preparation. Typically, whenever a disclosure is made by some defected member, MKO call it a slander against the group and a work of individuals who officially work with the regime. To look at it through the eyes of MKO and its leaders, anybody who is against the group is an agent of Iranian regime, that is to say all Iranian people but the group’s members and sympathizers. They include even the families who insist to see their relatives and children held against their will by the group.

To have a real understanding of the intra-organizational behaviors and principles within MKO in relation with the defection of members, the split and runaway of a member, and the ranking members in particular, is considered an unforgivable sin since the escapes have always faced the group with serious challenges. That is mainly because they make the closed group vulnerable to outsiders’ scrutiny. As a rule, the members are organized into teams and units each headed and controlled by a loyal ranking who is directly responsible for the deeds of his subordinates and their defections and escapes since they impose considerable political costs on the organization due to the fact that it would be hard to figure how much information is disclosed by the defected and to whom. Even the rank-and-files are under tight control if they turn to be willing to leave. To tell the truth, neither the insiders nor the ex-members as the outsiders are immune from the threatening, anti-human, cultic practices of MKO. It is a global threat and problem to be dealt with.

January 13, 2013 0 comments

Newer Posts

Older Posts