Tortur and Harasment in Mujahedin Khalq

Khodam Golmohammadi collapsed under suppression of Rajavi’s cult

Khodam Golmohammadi was from Azarbaijan, Iran. He was taken as a war prisoner in the Iran-Iraq war in which he was a soldier of the Iranian army. The Mujahedin-e Khalq recruiters in Iraqi POW camps succeeded to convince Khodam to join the group. However, the suppressive cult-like system of the group made him regret his decision after a short time but he had no way out.

In 1995, Massoud Rajavi declared that “exit is forbidden”, so Khodam and many other dissident members had to stay in the Cult of Rajavi. In 1999, he was injured in a clash between the Iranian border guards and the MEK forces. He was hospitalized for about a year. When he got back to his unit, he was not able to walk well. He was under too much physical pressure in the Katyusha unit. Thus, in 2001, he asked the group leaders to allow him to leave.

His demand was not only ignored but also, he was repressed for his willingness to leave the MEK. “His direct superior, Hamid Adham, even did not accept Khodam’s written request for exit,” Iraj Salehi, former member of the MEK writes.

Once he declared his demand, the organizational and peer pressure began against him. He became the subject the manipulation meetings where his commanders and peers shouted at him, humiliated and insulted him. Mohammad Reza Goli witnessed two of these suppression meetings. “He was awfully under tyranny,” Goli writes. “His commanders and some of his comrades were constantly insulting him, when I arrived in the eating place… The scene was so bad that I could not stand watching and I left the hall.”

The whole day, Mohammad Reza Goli was preoccupied with the scene he had seen. The next day he observed a similar act. “I heard a noise from the dormitory,” he recalls. “I got curious to know what was going on. I saw Khodam circled by a group of members who were bullying him. He just asked, ‘Is it a blasphemy that I want to leave?’ The scene was so heart-breaking.”

It did not take so long for members of the MEK to hear that Khodam set himself on fire in the parking of Camp Ashraf. “If I had not seen those sessions, I would not believe that Khodam committed suicide,” Goli writes. “I just believed his bitter fate when I recalled those scenes of mental torture.”

Iraj Salehi recounts the incident: “We got the news that some one was on fire in the parking. We rushed there for help. The MEK commanders, in particular Mashood Dianat, called Siamak, prevented us from getting close to the scene. He ordered us to get back and to keep silent about the incident.”

Khodam was taken to a hospital in Baghdad and he was not seen in the MEK, anymore. Years later, the rank and file of the MEK came to know that Khodam died in Baghdad. The location of his grave is not known. “Whether he was killed by the MEK agents or he killed himself, the Rajavis are responsible for Khodam’s death,” Salehi states.

June 18, 2022 0 comment

The cult of Rajavi

The day I realized MEK tortured my little daughter

Esmat Vatanparast called mother Esmat, defected the Mujahedin Khalq after she realized that the group agents tortured her small daughter. Mother Esmat was an active member of the MEK. She lost several members of her family for the group’s cause but once she found out that the group’s leaders are dishonest, she defected.
Jennifer, the youngest child of mother Esmat was a teenager when she was separated from her mother, kept in Camp Ashraf, Iraq where she was forced to obey the rules of the cult-like military system of the Mujahedin. “In the MEK’s school, my daughter faced a thousand issues,” Mother Esmat says in an interview with Siamak Naderi.

Esmat Vatanparast

The MEK’s school in Camp Ashraf was a place to train hundreds of children of Mujahed parents under the ideology of Massoud Rajavi before they were separated from their parents and smuggled to Europe. Jennifer and her peers were under the horrendous training of a couple, Soheila and Rashid. “Jennifer still sees nightmares of Soheila and Rashid,” mother Esmat says. “They cut her ponytail with her scarf on it… She was beaten several times just because she had told her commander that she did not want to be a Mujahed.”

“Soheila threw pepper in the face of Jennifer because she was not able to fabricate lies about seeing Imam Ali in his dreams,” mother Esmat testifies about what her daughter endured in the MEK’s religious extremist cult. “If the kids said that they had seen Imam Ali in their dreams, teachers would give them a necklace as a gift!”

Mother Esmat was not informed about what was happening to her child and other children of the MEK until she heard some of them opening up. “When I was in Sweden, I was still active supporting the MEK,” she recalls. “That day, I had invited seven children of MEK parents, friends of my daughter. I went out for shopping and when I got back, I overheard them talking about their horrific memoirs under the rule of the MEK.”

Mother Esmat was shocked to hear those heart-breaking stories of teenagers whose parents had dedicated their whole life to Massoud and Maryam Rajavi. “Oh my God! What beasts we served! I asked myself,” she recounts. “They oppressed our own children this way.”

That teen party made Mother Esmat determined to defect the MEK completely. She stopped serving the group. Today, she blames Massoud and Maryam Rajavi as the main accountable personalities for her family’s misery.

June 15, 2022 0 comment

Former members of the MEK

I come from the land of pain and suffering – Part six

This number, however, reached 80 by the winter of 2003[1380]. These people were sold at different periods to the Iraqis in groups of three and four. The Red Cross visited Abu-Quraib Prison twice during my one-year stay there. Prior to each visit, the prison authorities would visibly and violently torture some of the prisoners in front of others in order to instill fear in everyone’s heart. They would separate those of us former MKO members and would threaten us so as to discourage us from speaking to the Red Cross officials. The Red Cross inspectors were surrounded by two groups at all-time preventing us from getting close to them. Following cooperation between the intelligence and security forces of MKO, Islamic Republic of Iran and Iraqi regime, an agreement was reached among them involving the exchange of 50 former MKO members with 650 Iraqi prisoners of war. [..]

In an event, towards the end of January 2002 [Dey 1380], Abu-Seyf visited Abu-Quraib Prison speaking to me and four other former MKO members. When I confronted him with his false promises and lies, he once more swear that we would be exchanged in the near future. I voiced my protest and said that, under no circumstances, I wish to go back to Iran. I said that I wanted to join my daughter in Denmark. He told me that at the time of exchange, I would be able to tell the Red Cross that I didn’t wish to be returned to Iran. At that time he said, the Red Cross would transfer you to the City of Al-Ramadi first and later sent you to Denmark. The long time prisoners at Abu-Quraib also confirmed that the Red Cross was present during the prisoners of war exchange between Iran and Iraq in 1998 and 1999. They said those who didn’t wish to go to Iran were placed under UN protection.

Mohammd Hussein Sobhani

After two years of being at virtually no contact, Iraqi regime and the Islamic Republic of Iran held meetings on political and security issues in January 2002 [Dey 1380] news of which received widespread coverage in both countries marked a turning point in relations between them. Towards the end of January 2002 [ Dey 1380] ,Iraqi TV announced that 650 prisoners of war were going to be exchanged with 50 Iranian prisoners the following week. They also announced that the Red Cross would be present at the exchange. Our hopes were raised considerably when we heard that the Red Cross was going to be present at the exchange. We, however, didn’t know that the 50 prisoners were former MKO members [dissidents].

On either 18 or 19 January 2002 [28 or 29 of Dey 1380], a voice on the prison loudspeakers asked the prisoners who had been kept in the so-called “protective custody” to gather in the yard. The warden read 50 names who were Mr. Rajavi’s prisoners kept in “protective custody”. My name was among them. The warden asked who wished to return to Iran and who did not? He separated those who wished to be returned to Iran from those who did not. Around 23 or 24 people said that they did not wish to go back to Iran. The warden threatened them telling the prisoners that they had to go back to Iran otherwise they would remain in Abu-Quraib forever. He then began to intimate us by shouting and beating us. A number of the prisoners changed their minds until the number of those not wishing to return to Iran was reduced to 12. A number of my friends, who were former MKO members, and I coordinated our efforts and asked to see the Red Cross and UN officials. The warden spoke to each one of us separately trying first through conciliatory and sympathetic approach, to convince us to go back to Iran. And when that failed, he threatened and ordered us to write a letter stating that we would wish to spend the rest of our lives in Abu-Quraib Prison. He asked me first to write the letter. I refused and told him that I neither wanted to go to Iran nor did I wish to remain in Abu-Quraib Prison in Iraq. I said that I wanted to speak to the UN and the Red Cross. The warden threatened me again telling me that I should write what he dictated to me. I still refused and wrote what I wanted to say. The other 12 people did the same thing, more or less. Finally through the coordinated efforts among MKO representative, Mehdi Abrishamchi and Abbas Davari [in charge of National Resistance Council’s labor committee] and Abu-Seyf, the decision was made to video tape all the prisoners, in which they were supped to express their desire to return to Iran. A number of people, fearing that their names might be taken out of the prisoner exchange list, agreed to be videotaped.

To be continued

June 1, 2022 0 comment

The cult of Rajavi

Mohammad Gamoosh was hanged in the MEK Camp Ashraf

Born in 1968, Mohammad Gamoosh was from Zanjan, Iran. He was a soldier in the Iran-Iraq war serving in division 46 Orumieh. He was taken as a war prisoner in a joint operation launched by Iraqi and MEK forces against Iranians in Hajomran region. Mohammad Gamoosh had just finished his army service and had planned to get back home but the tide turned.

The MEK forces transferred Mohammad and other POWs to Debes prison near Kirkuk, Iraq. From the first moment Mohammad tried to convince the MEK agents that his army service had finished and his parents had awaited his return but he was totally ignored. Instead, Sadat Darbandi (called Kak Adel), the notorious MEK’s commander humiliated and threatened him. Mohammad did not stop complaining. He was known among POWs for his dissent against MEK commanders.

Eventually, in a cold morning of the winter of 1987, his body was found hanged behind the prison building. A number of members of the Mujahedin Khalq saw Mohammad Gamoosh’s body hanged.

The MEK agents did not allow anyone to ask a question about Mohammad’s fate. A group of 20 to 30 MEK agents came to take his body, suppressing other prisoners violently. They put his body in a jeep, took him out of Debes prison and buried him immediately.

May 29, 2022 0 comment

Former members of the MEK

I come from the land of pain and suffering – Part five

I was physically and psychologically tortured by Ebrahim Zakeri and others for at least seven to eight hours. I was subjected to the most terrifying and violent torture. A number of them began hitting me on the shin with their army boots. They would tie my hands behind my back, pick me up and slap me around. Sometimes, they would put their mouth next to my ears and would scream loudly. It was torturous and nerve-racking. They feared that I had somehow been able to telephone my family and BBC radio. Therefore they were trying to break me down and force me to sign the letter, so in case the news of my imprisonment were to be broadcast, they would be able to manufacture a document explaining their actions.

Mohammd Hussein Sobhani

They sold me (blindfolded and handcuffed again) to Iraqi intelligence and security Organization (Mukhaberat) on 16 January 2000[ 26 Dey] of the same year (later I discovered that three other longtime members of the organization had separately received the same kind of treatment as I. I, however, would not reveal their identities for safety reasons, but I am prepared to give their names to amnesty International, UN High Commission on Human Rights and legal agencies). Other members of the organization and I spent 35 days in Iraqi torture chambers and at Intelligence and Security Organization’s (Mukhaberat) central jail. As long as I was at Rajavi’s jail, I was kept in solitary confinement which placed great deal of emotional and psychological pressure on me.

However, the overcrowded jails at Iraqi Intelligence and Security were unbearable. They put 12 prisoners in a cell three meters by three meters. The prisoners had to sleep on top of each other. Toilet and sink filled one third of the room. The walls of the cell were the color of blood. The half-dark cell was lit only by a dim moonlight. This was in stark contrast to Rajavi’s solitary confinement jail, where four years I had to sleep with the light on every night. And anytime I was awaken by onslaught of mosquitoes, suffocating heat or unbearable psychological pressure, I was not able to go back to sleep. The bright lamps would worsen the throbbing headache that I had to frequently endure.

I along with another three long-time members of the organization were transferred to Abu-Quraib prison on 20 February 2001[1st Esfand 1379] date as received. To my amazement I discovered that 30 to 40 former members of the organization who had been sold to Iraqi government were housed at that prison.

To be continued

May 26, 2022 0 comment

The cult of Rajavi

Hamzeh Rahimi was tortured then disappeared in Rajavi’s prison

Hamzeh Rahimi a member of Mojahedin-e Khalq was killed under torture when he was imprisoned in the group’s Camp Ashraf. He was an officer of the Iranian army taken as a POW by Iraqi forces before he was recruited by the MEK. He was deceived to join the MEK by the group recruiters when he was in Iraqi POW’s camp under too much physical pressure.

Mirbagher Sedaqi, former member of the MEK was in the same unit as Hamzeh was in the MEK’s headquarters in Iraq, Camp Ashraf. He states that Hamzeh had been a pilot of F-5 aircrafts in the Iranian army. He recalls the patriotism of Hamzeh although he was in the side of the enemy of Iran.

“When Iraqi military advisors wanted to know about the tactics used by the Iranian army, Hamzeh refused to give information,” Sedaqi writes.

Thus, Hamzeh Rahimi became the target of his commanders. “Since then, Hamzeh was a problematic member,” Sedaghi asserts. “He got disappeared in a few months. His name could not be found either in the list defectors or martyrs of the group.”

MEK commanders setting enmity between two friends

Gholam Reza Shekari was a close friend of Hamzeh’s in the MEK. In 1994, both of them were jailed, interrogated and tortured in the group’s notorious prison called Eskan. Shekari recounts,

“After a week, they jailed me in the same cell that Hamzeh was. We wondered why so many people were jailed, beaten and interrogated every day. Some of them would be disappeared after some time.”

After a month, again GholamReza and Hamzeh were separated. “I was getting weaker and weaker under the daily mental and physical torture. I had nothing to say to the interrogators. So, they kept on beating me.” After a few days they told him that he would be confronted by someone. “I was sure that someone would be Hamzeh,” Gholamreza writes. “Hamzeh had been awfully tortured. His eyes were swollen and bruised. He told some words against me that I was sure were not his own words. He had been forced to say those nonsense.”
That was the last visit of the two friends. GholamReza was not even allowed to ask about the whereabouts of Hamzeh. “The MEK leaders pretended as if he had left the cult,” GholamReza testifies. “However, when Hamzeh’s family came to Camp Ashraf, the authorities of the group gave them the code of his grave in the cemetery of Karbala, Iraq.”

Using oil of food to soothe the wounds left by torture

The third defector who has witnessed the heartbreaking fate of Hamzeh in Rajavi’s prison is Ardeshir Darvishi. “I was jailed there together with Hamzeh Rahimi and Hassan Yazdi,” he recounts in his memoirs of Ashraf prison. “We were shocked. We did not know why we were imprisoned. Assadollah Mosana, Mokhtar, Sayedsadat and Mohammad Mohaddsin, the interrogators, had no answer. They beat us for three nights. The fourth night, they told us to confess that we were the spies of the regime!”
Writing about his own distressing experience of being tortured by MEK commanders, Ardeshir speaks about Hamzeh too. “Hamzeh Rahimi had been tortured too,” Ardeshir writes.

“They had used a cable to beat him on the back and feet. His body had been so swollen that he could not sleep on his back. We applied the oil of our meals on his wounds to soothe his pain.”

After three months of detention under severe mental and physical torture, the suspected rank and file of the MEK were forgiven by Massoud Rajavi and took back to their units in Camp Ashraf –although they were still isolated from the outside world. But Hamzeh was not seen any more. He was disappeared in Eskan prison. “Later we found out that Hamzeh Rahimi had been killed under torture,” Ardeshir states.

Another former comrade of Hamzeh is Ali Moradi. They were both from military personnel of the Iranian army before they joined the MEK. In 1992, in a visit of an American military advisor to camp Ashraf, as former officers of the Iranian army, Ali and Hamzeh told him about the capacities of the Iranian army. The result was troublesome for both of them.

They were summoned to Mahvash Sepehri’s office. She criticized them for what they told the American advisor. “She questioned us why we had spoken to the American guest in person; why we had talked of the Iranian army.” Ali recalls. “’Why did you defend the Iranian army’, she asked us.” Ali and Hamzeh were shocked by Sepehri’s questions. “Since then, Hamzeh started hating the group, he opposed all of their orders and agendas,” Ali continues. “So, he was always under pressure by the commanders. He was humiliated by them. Eventually in 1994, he was imprisoned, tortured and killed in Ashraf prison. No trace was left of him.”

Hamzeh Rahimi was not the only victim of MEK’s violence against its own members. Parviz Ahmadi and GhorbanAli Torabi were also killed in that very year in the notorious prison of the MEK.

May 21, 2022 0 comment

Former members of the MEK

Darvishi’s prison break, an account of escaping Camp Ashraf

Ardeshir Darvishi joined the Mujahedin Khalq Organization (MEK/ MKO/ PMOI/ Cult of Rajavi) when he was 32 years old. He crossed the Iranian border to reach the MEK’s headquarters in Iraqi territory, Camp Ashraf. He was a sympathizer of the group since his teen years but residing in the group’s base changed his mind about it.

“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.

May 17, 2022 0 comment

The cult of Rajavi

Darvishi witnessed Parviz Ahmadi’s killing under torture in the MEK

Ardeshir Darvishi, 63, was a sympathizer of the Mujahedin Khalq Organization while he was an army officer of the Iranian army. He left the army in 1991 and joined the group in Camp Ashraf, Iraq, but he soon regretted his decision.

“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 told the judge of the Iranian court to appeal against the leaders of the MEK.

Ardeshir asked for leaving the group but there was no exit in the Cult of Rajavi. In response, in 1994 he was jailed in the notorious prisons of Ashraf called Eskan. “I was jailed there together with Hamzeh Rahimi and Hassan Yazdi,” he recounts in his memoirs of Ashraf prison. “We were shocked. We did not know why we were imprisoned. Assadollah Mosana, Mokhtar, Sayedsadat and Mohammad Mohaddsin, the interrogators, had no answer. They beat us for three nights. The fourth night, they told us to confess that we were the spies of the regime!”

Ardeshir and other prisoners were taken to the torture room constantly and were beaten by cables and wooden sticks. One night, the torturer Mokhtar Janat Sadeghi pulled out his nails. “A nail of my fingers and one of my toes were swollen and infected. I fainted of severe pain and ache.”

Ardeshir also writes about the fate of his two other comrades. Hamzed was killed under torture. Ardeshir did not see him anymore. To get rid of tortures, Hassan tried to kill himself twice.
Besides, Ardeshir witnessed another murder under tortures in Rajavi’s jails. Parviz Ahamadi is one of the two people whose killing by the torturers of the MEK was documented by Human Rights Watch in the report published on the group titled “No Exit” in 2005.

“In order to pass the corridor from our cell to the torture room, our eyes were blindfolded,” Ardeshir writes. “In that dark and wet room, I could hear the others’ moaning.”

At one of those nights, the corridor seemed crowded. While being taken to the torture room, Ardeshir heard them talking about Parviz Ahmadi’s dead body. He used the opportunity and tried to remove a part of the cloth on his eyes. “Sayedsadat told, ‘Take the body!’”, Ardeshir recounts. “Sirous Janat asked, ‘what’s up?’. He replied, ‘Parviz Ahmadi died’. They took the dead body immediately and sent me back to my cell. I remember that Adel who was the director of the prison said, ‘I will tell Maryam (Rajavi) about him stop interrogating others for tonight.”

The death of Parviz Ahmadi under torture in 1994 has been testified by several former members of the MEK. Ardeshir’s account indicates that Maryam Rajavi the co-leader of the group was aware of everything taking place in the their prisons.

QorbanAli Torabi is another victim of torturers of the Cult of Rajavi whose killing has been in the limelight in recent months after his son Mohammad Reza (Ray) Torabi began to appeal the MEK’s leaders for his father’s death.

May 16, 2022 0 comment

Former members of the MEK

I come from the land of pain and suffering – Part four

I was physically and psychologically tortured by Ebrahim Zakeri and others for at least seven to eight hours. I was subjected to the most terrifying and violent torture. A number of them began hitting me on the shin with their arm boots. They would tie my hands behind my back, pick me up and slap me around. Sometimes they would put their mouth next to my ears and would scream loudly. It was tortured and nerve-racking.
They feared that I had somehow been able to telephone my family and BBC radio. Therefore, they were trying to break me down and force me to sign the letter, so in case the news of my imprisonment were to be broadcast, they would be able to manufacture a document explaining their actions.

Prior to my treatment at the hands of these people, I had spent the night before wondering in the streets of Baghdad and had not slept for 48 hours. This fact intensified the awful effects of the torture.
I was subsequently blindfolded and handcuffed again and transferred to another solitary confinement cell where I remained until Dec 1999-Jan 2000 [Dey 1379]. They sold me (blindfolded and handcuffed again) to Iraqi intelligence and Security Organization (Mukhaberat) on 16 January of the same year [26 Dey ]] (later I discovered that three other long-time members of the organization had separately received the same kind of treatment as I. I, however, would not reveal their identities for safety reasons, but, I am prepared to give their names to Amnesty International, UN High Commissions on Human Rights and legal agencies).

Mohammd Hussein Sobhani

Other members of the organization and I spent 35 days in Iraqi torture chambers and at Intelligence and security Organization’s (Mukhaberat) central jail. As long as I was at Rajavi’s jail, I was kept in solitary confinement which placed great deal of emotional and psychological pressure on me.
However, the overcrowded jails at Iraqi Intelligence and Security Organization were unbearable. They put 12 prisoners in a cell three meters by three meters. The prisoners had to sleep on top of each other. Toilet and sink filled one third of the room. The walls of the cell were the colors of blood. The half-dark cell was lit only by a dim moonlight. This was in stark contrast to Rajavi’s solitary confinement jail, where for four years I had to sleep with the light on every night. And anytime I was awaken by onslaught of mosquitoes, suffocating heat or unbearable psychological pressure, I was not able to go back to sleep. The bright lamps would worsen the throbbing headache that I had to frequently endure.

After two or three weeks,Abu-Seyf came to visit me at Ashraf Base. I protested my imprisonment and demanded to be turned over to UN so I could join my daughter in Denmark. In the past, he, on many occasions because of my post in the HE, had seen me with Mr. Rajavi and Mrs Rajavi Qajar Azdanlou. Abu-Seyf tried to console me. He tried to portray Iraq as an innocent party to all that had aspired by differentiating between MKO and Iraqi policies. He placed the blame for my years in Rajavi’s solitary confinement on MKO. he expressed his sorrow at my years of imprisonment and torture and my inability to see my daughter promising to transfer me to a new location where UN officials in Baghdad would visit me. He said that I would be able to ask the UN officials to transfer me to Denmark where I could join my daughter.
I, along with another three long-time members of the organization were transferred to Abu-Ghuraib prison on 20 February 2001, date as received.[Esfand 137]. To my amazement I found out that 30 or 40 former members of the organization who had been sold to Iraqi government were housed at that prison. This number, however reached 80 by the winter of 2002 [1380].

To be continued

May 8, 2022 0 comment

Former members of the MEK

The MEK Ex-member: We were remote controlled, like robots

Ali Qashqaei spent five years (1995-1998) in the organization’s camps in Iraq:
“I was in a difficult financial situation. I thought the organization could help me to get out of it. I was also attracted by the leaders’ message. They claimed they were working to give freedom back to the people and to create democracy and social justice. I left Iran for Istanbul (Turkey) and from there, entered Iraq where movement officials welcomed me. I received military training to use a number of weapons, but I was never involved in operations against the Iranian army. I only took part in reconnaissance missions inside Iran”.

“From the time I arrived in Iraq, the atmosphere of suspicion in the camps shocked me. Our leaders asked us for total devotion, heart and soul, to the organization. They remote controlled us, like robots. They told us, “if you have sexual fantasies, even a dream, you must report it in writing in order to exorcise it”. In a speech repeatedly broadcast in video, Maryam Rajavi told the Mojahedin: “80% of your energy should be used in the fight against your sexual instincts”. Many of the organization’s officers, who protested against this sudden authoritarian and sectarian change of course, paid a heavy price for their insubordination. They were humiliated, tortured and imprisoned.one, named Hassan Rashedi who now lives in Iran, went insane, because of this. I knew him in prison, along with Beijan, from Kermanshah. Houshang, from Eilam, Ali Reza, from Tehran and Mahdi Eftekhari, who before his demotion, had been in charge of organizing Rajavi’s travel”.

Ali Qashqaei spent four years in prison, two months in the movement’s jail in the Ashraf Camp and the rest in the foreigner’s wing of an Iraqi penitentiary. He particularly wanted to share this eyewitness account: “in prison, I knew Parviz Ahmadi, a young man from Kermanshah. He had held senior positions in the organization. Because he refused to support Rajavi’s new ideological line, he was brutally tortured and then killed. Twenty of us were witnesses to his execution. He was only 36”.

From the book: The People’s Mojahedin of Iran: A Struggle for what? “By Victor Charbonnier

May 2, 2022 0 comment

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