Women Rights in the Mujahedin Khalq

Women’s rights according to Maryam Rajavi

Since 1985 when the so-called" Ideological Revolution" was run by the leaders of the Mujahedin Khalq Organization (the MKO), the group was officially turned into a cult. It was an absolute deviation from a Women's rights according to Maryam Rajavi political violent opposition group to a terrorist cult of personality in which the members were forced to divorce their spouses and to dedicate their whole mind and heart to the group guru, Massoud Rajavi. He—who is currently disappeared— launched its abusive mind control system to indoctrinate members and maintain them in the cult.

Abusive attitude of the leaders of the Cult of Rajavi has had different dimensions; the most crucial one seems to be endured by female members of the cult. Although the self-claimed president of the MKO’s propaganda arm, Maryam Rajavi chants the slogan of “Revolutionary, Progressive, Moslem Women” among her Western brainwashed and/or paid audience, women who have recently left the MKO are free and courageous enough to reveal the real situation for women inside the cult.

Women’s rights abuses committed in the Cult of Rajavi included forced labour, sleep deprivation, mandatory celibacy and particularly sexual abuse. The former was not actually committed by use of violence but the mechanism that made female members to endure such a treatment is really important.

In 2012 a number of defected women of the MKO spoke out about the sexual abuses they suffered in the MEK. They described how Massoud Rajavi, deceived them into sleeping with him after attending a ceremony called "Salvation Dance" in which the token women had to dace naked in front of him—Maryam Rajavi has actually been the real organizer of that cult jargon, she tried to convince the elite women who were selected to marry Massoud to do what she called "uniting with the ideological leader".

Former members of the MKO also exposed a program of coerced hysterectomies for all women members in order to "neutralize their sexuality". This way the cult leaders tried to cut the last links that might have tied the female members to the outside world.

The coercive sexual relationship in the MKO may not seem to be a forced jargon but when the female members get departed from the cult structure the whole story turned out to be a rape. Until the cult member is mentally and physically imprisoned by the leaders every order by the cult leader may sound normal and sometimes necessary but as soon as they find the least opportunity to break through light and normal life, they will find out the agonies and abuses they have suffered.

Fortunately, until now there have been a few female defectors who have started denouncing the extreme violation of women rights in the MKO. Unfortunately, there are still a large number of women taken as hostages in the Cult of Rajavi. Let’s hope the best for those captured ones even though Maryam Rajavi could be able to deceive a few number of woman’s rights advocates in the world.

Mazda Parsi

March 12, 2014 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization's Propaganda System

The fake Women’s Day of Maryam Rajavi’s male dominated shop front

from faking history to insulting Iranian women

International Women’s Day (IWD), originally called International Working Women’s Day, is marked on March 8 every year. In different regions the focus of the celebrations ranges from a general celebration of The fake Women’s Day of Maryam Rajavi’s male dominated shop front respect, appreciation and love towards women to a celebration of women’s economic, political, and social achievements (Wikipedia).

For a woman who claims to carry the flag of “Revolutionary, Progressive, Moslem Women” in France, the falsification of history would not bother her; she is used to it. What is important for her is a few days of glory in front of a paid audience and that is it. The Mojahedin Khalq (aka Rajavi cult), with no relevance to the cause of women, has yet again chosen to misuse the occasion of 1st March. It may suit the participants and the organisers but what about Iranian women? What do they get out of this and what do they think?

Contrary to what you would expect the shop front of the so-called conference is dominated by the male members of the cult. They are the same ones who were brought out a couple of weeks ago under the label of “Convention of Iranian associations”, the same bunch of people who are, and have for a long time been, under the social and financial umbrella of Massoud Rajavi. The same people who have followed him and Saddam for years in an unjust war against the people of Iran and have carried out armed terrorist activities from Iraq against ordinary men and women in Iran. And the same people who murdered the Iranian scientists in cold blood, and the same people who are plotting for more murder and destruction in training and supporting joint operations alongside the terrorist groups in Syria or the likes of Jaish al Adl, Rigi and others.

What made this gathering even more bizarre and unusual is that in the front row of the audience there were a few big rough men with arms folded over their chests and moustaches and posing as bodyguards! And a few European and Arab women who are known to get paid by Rajavi to attend such meetings and shows in order to applaud her; the ones who turn up each time and never change.

Ironically the title of the meeting is “International Conference on the occasion of Women’s Day – Women in the forefront of the struggle against fundamentalism”. But everything indicates that the meeting is a private gathering. And more than that, it is very clear that there are no independent Iranian (ie non Mojahedin member) women there. Is it not ironic that from the many Iranians living outside Iran not even one of them wanted to participate?

The Mojahedin Khalq’s various websites have claimed: “On Saturday March the first, the participants in an international conference on the occasion of Women’s Day warned about the role of the Iranian regime in spreading Islamic fundamentalism across the region and all over the world. This conference was in the presence of Madame Maryam Rajavi the president elect of the Iranian Resistance and with the participation of a high number of political, social personalities, artists and human rights activists as well as women’s rights activists from 5 continents, also delegations from tens of Iranian organisations and women’s organisations from all over Europe and America”.

From this paragraph it is clear that the “International Conference” as claimed by Mojahedin Khalq has had nothing to do with women but rather is another ill-presented advertisement stunt to whitewash the reputation of a woman who has commanded a terrorist organisation, and ordered both men and women to carry out many operations in Iran and Iraq resulting in thousands of deaths.

Maryam Rajavi, in just this one particular gathering, has gone into overdrive to lie and falsify the social structure of Iranian society and to portray a gloomy face for Iranian women to the extent of claiming that Iranian women are uneducated. This is while according to UN statistics and the international news agencies, Iran has one of the youngest and most educated women populations in the region. Iranian families are generally full of girls and women who have graduated from Iran’s various universities. And every statistic shows that the level of Iranian women’s education and fulfilment of management posts is by far higher than any other country in the region. It is also a well known statistical fact that the number of Iranian female students in Iranian universities is greater than the number of men.

Maryam Rajavi ridiculously goes on to describe the trapped women hostages in Camp Liberty in Iraq “samples and examples of progressive women”, and carries on, “women who have been irreplaceable in the struggle against fundamentalism in the last two decades”, and because of the presence of these women, “Iran on the back of its history and culture of struggle and on the back of 5 decades of Mojahedin Khalq resistance is now the centre of the struggle for justice and women’s rights”.

In this carefully selected meeting, Maryam Rajavi uses vague phrases like, “examples of progressive women”, but never explains who these women are. She does not come clean and say that she means the women in Camp Liberty in Iraq. The same women who have lost their homes and families because of her and her fugitive husband. The same women who have been banned from marriage, having children and barred from contacting their parents or siblings, and the same women who have to stand in front of the pre-staged cameras of the Mojahedin Khalq cult and shout slogans against their own families and reject them with swearing. The same women who have been deprived from their simple needs and forced to wear military uniforms simply because there is no other clothing available to them.

She does not say that these “samples of progressive women in Liberty” under the pretext of the “Ideological Revolution” have been forced to divorce their spouses and leave their children never to contact them again. And if anyone dares to refuse to give in to the “Ideological Revolution”, prison, torture and in some cases death is waiting for them. She does not say that that the women who were forcefully divorced from their husbands have immediately and in some cases collectively been married to her husband Massoud Rajavi and forced to be groomed by her and dance naked for Massoud Rajavi. (In the cult jargon of the Ideological Revolution of the Mojahedin Khalq this is called the “Freedom Dance” – refer to the testimonies of many women survivors of the cult.)

Maryam Rajavi is referring to the women who, throughout their lives have not learned anything but bloodshed, arms, murder and so on. Women who have been working like machines for 18 hours a day without pay; becoming tank commanders under Saddam’s army to attack and destroy Iranian and or Iraqi cities and villages. Women who have soon lost their femininity, lost their children, have no right to love or to be loved, and have to kill and kill till the day they themselves are killed.

The “examples of progressive women” which Maryam Rajavi refers to in Paris, and claims that the rest of the women in the world should accept them as examples, are the women who have seen nothing during the last 30 years except the barbed wire and trenches of the military garrisons given to the Mojahedin Khalq by Saddam Hussein. For the last 30 years they have had no contact with any education whether scientific or otherwise and therefore fall into the category of the most uneducated female population in the world.

Mojahedin Khalq women have never had telephone, Internet, or other contact with the outside world. Their personal transport and cars have been armoured vehicles and tanks from the era of Saddam Hussein. They have never been allowed to leave the perimeter of their garrison and have never had a day off to enjoy themselves. The whole of their belongings in this world is a backpack in which are all their personal belongings and is their only home.

Maryam Rajavi does not say that these “examples of progressive women” have no right to choose anything, even personal issues. They don’t even have the right to meet with their brothers and sisters, even though they are in the same camp or garrison. She does not say that women will end up in prison for even a simple criticism, that they can be subjected to severe torture and in some cases eliminated altogether without even marking their graves. Women who under the 50 degrees heat of Iraqi deserts are force to wear rough and thick military uniforms and boots, wear scarves and obey strict prayer and fasting regimes and take part in religious ceremonies even if they don’t believe in any of it. She did not say in her gathering that the women she refers to have certainly no right to leave her cult and the organisation she and her husband have created.

It is natural for Maryam Rajavi to talk in her male dominated shop front about some unknown women in some unknown place under the sun; a fantasy land covered in mysterious clouds and unfathomable fairy tales.

Surely if just one single independent woman who had some knowledge about the Mojahedin Khalq had been present in this meeting and had had the opportunity to expose the real lives of women in the Mojahedin Khalq cult to Maryam Rajavi’s paid audience, the roof of that building would have fallen in with the shock and amazement of it, and crushed the disgraced liar and murderous woman on the stage.

Amir Hussein Panahi,Translated by Iran Interlink

March 3, 2014 0 comments

Human Rights Abuse in the MEK

Rajavi’s absurd claim of equality !

Maryam Rajavi’s claim for promotion of equality in her cult is absurd and ludicrous.

Many argue that the hijab is oppressive to women and removing it would enhance women’s equality and freedom. They argue that veiling prevents and limits women’s activities in public. On the other hand, Muslim believers of hijab argue that It not only makes a woman feel confident and liberated, but encourages society not to see women as sex objects. They believe that Islam promotes sexual equality, and Hijab allows women to be an instrumental part of the society without being discriminated and looked down. Hijab can also prevent men from ogling look. What about Maryam Rajavi, the leader of the Mujahedin Khalq Organization, the MKO as an Islamic Marxist group? What is her stance about hijab?

Actually, Maryam Rajavi’s idea about hijab is very controversial. She claims in her so-called “ten point plan for future of Iran” that women “will enjoy the right to freely choose their clothing”. However, evidences on what is really going on inside her group indicates that there is no freedom of clothing in the MKO camps.

Perhaps, Elizabeth Rubin the New York Times correspondent, was the first to reveal the cult-like atmosphere ruling the MKO camps including uniform clothing of members, in 2003 after she visited Camp Ashraf. Rubin titled the MKO as “The Cult of Rajavi”. “As you pass the checkpoints and dragons’-teeth tire crunchers into the tidy military town, you feel you’ve entered a fictional world of female worker bees. Of course, there are men around; about 50 percent of the soldiers are male”, she recounts. “But everywhere I turned, I saw women dressed in khaki uniforms and mud-colored head scarves, driving back and forth along the avenues in white pickups or army-green trucks, staring ahead, slightly dazed, or walking purposefully, a slight march to their gaits as at a factory in Maoist China.”

Following the collapse of Iraqi dictatorship and the main financial supporter of the MKO in 2003, the US forces disarmed the MKO. Camp Ashraf was since then guarded by the American army. Having been disarmed and guarded by the MKO’s former enemy the US, members started doubting the group’s ideology. Moreover, the group’s leader Masssoud Rajavi was disappeared. The process of defection of members began.

Disassociated members of the MKO –hundreds of individuals—including female members disclosed shocking realities about the life inside MKO camps. They revealed cult-like and suppressive practices of the MKO authorities. The testimonies of women who had left the group exposed cases of forced divorce, forced celibacy, forced hysterectomy surgeries to make female members barren and particularly sexual abuse by Massoud Rajavi.

Among such abusive treatment against female members of the MKO, forced clothing might be very trivial but it certainly proves the invalidity of Maryam Rajavi’s claims about freedom of choosing clothes in future of Iran. Zahra Sadat Mirbaqeri is a defector of the group who was a member of the second layer of the group’s Elite Council. She was a candidate to marry Massoud Rajavi. She was given the famous necklace with the portrait of Massoud. Fortunately she managed to escape the Cult of Rajavi before she was raped by Massoud.

Mirbaqer challenges Maryam Rajavi’s promise to let Iranian women “enjoy the right to freely choose their clothing’’. She recites her firsthand account of living under regulations and obligations of Rajavi’s cult of personality:

“I was a member of this destructive cult for 23 years. I was not allowed to wear any clothes except the khaki uniform and the green head scarf. Forced hijab was ruled everywhere even in places that only belonged to female members…

“In the cult, women are not allowed to use any kind of hijab except green, khaki and red scarves. However, red and khaki scarves are allowed only for special occasions. You would be punished if you wore your red or khaki scarf in occasions other than the group’s propaganda ceremonies and marches.”

Zahra Sadat Mirbaqeri criticizes Maryam Rajavi’s propaganda for freedom of women quoting a renowned sentence that female rank and files of the MKO were always told:” Scarf is the official uniform of the organization.”

Mazda Parsi

January 14, 2014 0 comments

The cult of Rajavi

Memoirs of Nasrin Ebrahimi, MKO EX-member_ Part 6

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.

As I said, Massoud Rajavi exploited women against men. In fact, women were Rajavi’s slaves who were misused to fight men this way he grew hatred between men and women in Ashraf.

Rajavi hides his true face behind women. He manipulates them to humiliate men; to make them work as hard as slaves…

Men couldn’t clearly see Rajavi’s role in the story, they could only see some rude savage women who treated them madly. Thus the men hated the women and sometimes they came near their base to harm them.

For instance, once we had gone to a camp near Baghdad called “Parsian” to attend certain meetings. A number of women had remained in Ashraf. At night a woman who had gone to the yard of the dormitory was attacked by a man. The man had wounded her face and hand by a cutter. It was really horrible. I have no idea if she was raped but I remember the wounds on her face and hands.

Rajavi made efforts to grow hate and animosity between men and women and in general among all members. He thought that growing hatred among members will lead all love and affection toward him.

Regarding sexual suppression in Camp Ashraf, I’d like to note that some individuals in the Camp committed suicide because of the psychological diseases that originated in hormonal problems.

I recall a young girl who was about 22 years old. She was constantly suppressed during brainwashing sessions because she spoke of the heavy sexual pressure and deprivation she suffered in the cult. I used to drive in the camp giving ride to women who wanted to commute in different parts of the camp so I often used to see that girl taking her to Ashraf hospital. Once, she told me about the stress and difficulty she suffered. She said,” I’d like to fall asleep at night and not to wake up in the morning.” She wished to die. She wanted to get released of the life in the cult. I hardly tried to calm her because I feared that she would report what I said in the self-criticizing session we were supposed to attend at night. I didn’t let her feel free to open up her heart. By the way, she said that she wished that a bullet has come out to kill her! Exactly three days later she shot herself. Fortunately she survived the suicide. When I asked her why she committed such an act, she replied:”I’m tortured to death here, I wanted to finish it,”

You see Maryam Rajavi chanting slogans about “Mujahed” women. This is just propaganda. You should live with these women for only three days to know the suffering they go through…

Rajavi knows that sexual problems such as masturbation is the result of forced divorces and suppression of sexual desires but as we know Rajavi is very egocentric, totalitarian and an illusioned person who thinks that he is able to change people’s nature the way he likes. He thinks that he can turn people into what he wants by using manipulation techniques. He wants to swim against the current.

He is aware that he is not and will not be successful in this illogical process but he never admits his fault. If he admits this mistake then he is not more “Rajavi”. He considers himself the absolute leader who never goes wrong! Thus, in the meetings the solution presented to such problems was actually putting accusation on members. Maryam Rajavi never admitted that Massoud had run an inhumane project that ended in such big troubles instead she found all faults with the women who according to her had to resist such problems. The cult-like atmosphere was somehow that no one could let herself to criticize the system or the headers. Everyone just wondered why she was not able to cope with her sexual issues. If a woman confessed that she had difficulty to control her sexual desires, she was humiliated in public. She was labeled as “anti Maryam’s revolution”. She was told, "you don’t want to resolve your sexual problems otherwise you can!”

[..] Maryam Rajavi used to say,” You should be like me; you should follow my steps! You should pass through sexual issues so that you can take a serious responsibility in the organization like me! “ Therefore certain question come across our minds: How Maryam Rajavi dares to say such words while she is married and wearing a wedding ring and how she compares herself with the women who have been separated from their husbands?!

After sometime, when the Rajavis got to know that the nonsense they want to push as the solution for sexual problem is not helpful, Maryam began speaking of sharing Massoud with other women in the group. “Massoud does not belong to Maryam Rajavi", Maryam said. "He belongs to all women. All of them have the right to imagine themselves with Massoud but if they think of any other man they cheat on Rajavi .You have the best husband in the world!”

At that time I thought she meant that we should mentally cope with our sexual shortages with Massoud but after I fled the group, I found out that the suggested solution was not a mental practice but in some layers of the Elite Council!, it was practically carried out. [Refer to Batoul Soltani’s memoirs of sexual relationship between Massoud Rajavi and women of the “Elite Council”]

[…] In the system of the Cult of Rajavi, you must only praise Rajavi and criticize yourself. If you verbally abuse yourself ,you will be treated nicely but if you dare to say something against Rajavi’s will, in the brainwashing meetings, you should just listen to Maryam Rajavi and say,” Yes ,Sister Maryam .You are right. We made mistake. We will solve our sexual problems…”

No women dared to speak out. You could not realize what was really going on in their minds. Everything was repeated like a cliché! "Yes you are right, we are wrong”, we repeated every day.

As we say, the MKO is a cult. I mean that it is a closed establishment where friendly relationships hardly ever take place because everyone is under control all the time. It is not simply believable but believe me that even prisoners are not treated the way the MKO members are treated. In very few cases, certain members who were seriously under sexual pressure, spoke of their masturbation habit in a Daily Cleansing session (Daily Cleansing is a cult jargon in which members have to confess their sexual thoughts and memoirs of their ex-husbands and any other man). I remember a girl talking of her masturbation habit. She feared that she would have other disease because of such a habit. The outcome of such a confession was that she was boycotted for a long time; she was so terribly treated that no one else would dare to repeat what she did. She was attacked, verbally abused in any meeting

To Be Continued…

May 2, 2013 0 comments

The cult of Rajavi

Memoirs of Nasrin Ebrahimi, MKO ex- member_Part 5

Consequences of Emotional Suppression

After a few months, they held a meeting in women base where Maryam Rajavi discussed a very bizarre case. “When we separated you from men, we got rid of the main threat but now we are facing another serious threat,” she said. ”this time the problem is among women!” It was too difficult for me to understand what she meant as I had never come across such a case. “In the absence of men, women may want to satisfy themselves with one another,” Maryam continued.

“Women have no right to have friendly relationships. They mustn’t be kind to each other. They should criticize each other. They should destroy the relationships that have been created in the absence of men”, ordered Maryam Rajavi.

Well, the truth is that you cannot separate men and women otherwise you are fighting a Rule of Nature. When Rajavi omitted such a natural relationship, the negative effects appeared in both men and women […]

Considering such facts, the authorities frequently changed members’ responsibilities so that they could not be with certain comrades more than a few months […]

Special sessions were held for women. During the session, women had to read reports on their sexual relationships. Then they would verbally abuse each other in order to grow hatred between themselves.

You may not believe that in the female base, women were not allowed to wear open collar or short sleeve dresses. […]

If you take a look at women in Camp Ashraf, you would find that their faces were sad, bored, exhausted and often angry, violent and tough. Suppressed sexual desires caused hormonal problems that would in turn cause low-temper and depression.

The story of painful consequences of suppressing sexual desires in Camp Ashraf does not include one or two cases; it includes.

[…] There were men who escaped from their base after mid-night and would come around women bases so that they could find a woman alone outside the base.

There were numerous cases of the above mentioned stories. For instance, a young man was found around our guarding post. The women treated him like a murderer. He was terribly beaten by the women. I never found him guilty. In my opinion, he had done nothing wrong. I believed that it was Rajavi’s fault. With every cry of pain by the young man I cursed Massoud Rajavi for the crimes he committed against his own members. Those poor youth were deceived to join the horrible castle of Ashraf in the hope of living a better life in Europe!

April 11, 2013 0 comments

Former members of the MEK

Memoirs of Nasrin Ebrahimi, MKO ex- member_Part 4

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.

Women stuck behind Cult bars

I liked music very much. I wished to listen to a piece by one of our famous singers like Ebi, Siavash or Darius…but in Camp Ashraf there was no access to radio or TV…

To our surprise, today the MKO rudely propagates the problems of satellite broadcasting in Iran while in the MKO we were not allowed to listen to music, let alone having a radio.

How can the group run propaganda criticizing the satellite issues in Iran? Of course this is why the MKO is called “Hypocrites” by the Iranian people!

Once, I saw a women listening to a walkman in a room labeled “Luggage Room”. She had been brought to the camp from Europe. The room was hardly ever trafficked by members so it was a silent place.

Immediately after she saw me, she hid the walkman. I called to her and said,” I won’t tell it to anyone.”

Then I asked her to lend her walkman to me for a while. She begged me not to let anyone know that she had kept her walkman. As it was usual members’ properties were confiscated before they entered Ashraf but this woman could manage to keep her walkman.

There was a problem with the walkman; it could be heard by a person next to you so it was dangerous. There was the risk that officials would learn about it.

That night I decided to stay up and listen to music but I had to wait until everyone would fall asleep. I waited until 1 am. When I made sure that everyone was asleep, I started listening to music under the blanket …suddenly the person next to me asked, “Are you listening to music?” I was so terrified that I couldn’t answer her. I turned it off… I couldn’t sleep all night long. The next morning I tried to be nice with the person who had found out that I was listening to music. I tried to ask her to forget the case. If she criticized me in the brainwashing sessions, I would be left into a big trouble; I had to explain why I had granted the right of listening to music to myself!

The self-criticism meetings were actually trials where you had no attorney, no right to defend yourself. You had to hear your comrades verbally abuse you. During the trial, there was no justice; nothing was fair… That was why in Ashraf the word Meeting was the equivalent of Stress and Fear. That was why, with my eyes I begged that girl who had found me listening to music, asking her not to tell it to anyone! [..]

After the separation from men, it was the first time you could see all female members in one place. Before that we were divided in different bases as you could not find out who was who! Once all women were settled in one single base, you could realize there were a lot of mothers whose children were separated from them by Rajavi , there were a lot of young girls who were kept in the MKO by Rajavi for their whole life so they had no idea of the outside world.

I remember a young girl asking me what the buildings in Iran were built of. I said, “I can’t understand what you mean?!” She said,” I mean the buildings there, are like Ashraf made of Conex (Bengals) or they are built of something else?”This was really surprising! It recalled you of the Seven Sleepers!

After some time of living in female base, I found out that those mothers, whose children were taken by Rajavi, were so nice with us – we were almost at the age of their separated children.

I didn’t know that in the MKO love was forbidden and no one was allowed to be kind with others. After a while I realized that they pretended to ignore us before the eyes of MKO officials, they never talked with us in front of them. Thus I got to know that kindness and love was forbidden in the MKO. Loving mothers were humiliated by the Rajavis!

Some of the mothers gave us gifts, they liked to hug and kiss us just like their own children but this was forbidden in the cult of Rajavi. The cult authorities said, ”once you recall your children and love other sisters in the memory of your children, you betray Rajavi”(!)

March 18, 2013 0 comments

Maryam Rajavi

Ashamed of your Leader? Silencing the victims of MKO to promote Rajavi’s phoney feminism

International Women’s Day on 8 March is rooted in women’s demands for better working pay and conditions, and for voting rights, and has expanded to encompass women’s global struggle for equal rights and equal participation in social, political and economic processes.

In spite of considerable progress, continued vigilance and action are required to ensure that women’s equality is gained and maintained in all aspects of life all over the world.
In this context what are we to understand about Maryam Rajavi’s claim to feminist credentials?

Rather than take Maryam Rajavi’s words and image at face value, let us examine her actions and behaviour toward women in her own organisation. The best people to help in this respect are the women members of the Mojahedin. Understandably, current female MEK members cannot speak freely about their experience of being in this organisation because they must only iterate the MEK’s public stance.

However, those women who have recently left the MEK are certainly free to talk about the situation for women inside the MEK. Even so, their courage must be acknowledged. Not only is it difficult for women to break social taboos to talk about sexual abuse, but like whistleblowers everywhere, they are subjected to enormous pressure to keep quiet.

Indeed, just a glance at the difficulties faced by these women in recent months speaks volumes about the MEK’s real approach to women. Since making public statements in a conference held the Autumn of 2012 about sexual abuses committed by the MEK leaders, Massoud and Maryam Rajavi, against them and other women members, the following incidents have taken place against these women.

Batoul Soltani previously spoke out about the abuse of women in the MEK in both Baghdad and now in Europe where she lives. She was recently attacked in front of her house and her neighbours had to come to her rescue. The MEK have published indecipherable false documents on their websites alleging that while she was a member of the Mojahedin’s Leadership Council (the highest rank after the Rajavis), she was working for the Iranian Intelligence Ministry. Batoul joined the MEK with her husband and two month old baby when she was barely eighteen years old. She had been a member for over twenty years.

Nasrin Ebrahimi, who now lives in Switzerland, was fourteen years old when she was taken to the MEK’s Camp Ashraf in Iraq. She was only able to escape after the American army forced the MEK to disarm in 2003. Nasrin was invited to the European Parliament to testify about her experience as a woman in the Mojahedin. After that she suffered such severe harassment by the MEK that she changed country twice to escape them. Police have had to protect her for some time against the MEK. Recently she has again been approached and threatened in Switzerland for joining the group of women exposing the abuses.

Zahra Bagheri crawled combat-style over a kilometre for hours in the dark to escape Camp Ashraf. Her body was so lacerated and bleeding that the Iraqi soldiers who found her wept on seeing her injuries. She spent several weeks in hospital recovering from this ordeal. In addition she has had to undergo various operations in Germany because of neglect of her medical conditions while she was in Ashraf. She also joined the other women in the Autumn 2012 conference. The MEK are currently using her two sisters and her brother who remain in Camp Liberty to perform on their TV to swear at Zahra and their mother.

In the last two months, three more women have escaped from Camp Liberty. Seeing this treatment is it surprising that they are reluctant to talk to human rights investigators in Iraq even though privately they corroborate the experiences told by the women above.

They talk about Maryam Rajavi grooming young women and having them dance naked for her and Massoud. They say that after raping them Massoud gives them a medallion with his picture on it. There are 100 names, perhaps more, of women who have had hysterectomies; that is one in ten women in the MEK. They say this is done so that Rajavi can order them to sleep with him or any other man without fear of pregnancy.

It is public knowledge that the MEK instigated forced divorces long before the fall of Saddam so that for twenty years there have been no children in the MEK. In interviews with the BBC they proudly announced it and defended this policy. According to recent escapees, Rajavi has told the MEK the following: ‘According to Islamic rule, if a woman turns against her husband he has the right to kill her. According to the Internal Revolution you are all my wives. So if any of you betrays me and leaves the MEK I have the right to kill you under Islamic law.’ On the MEK websites they have published Massoud Rajavi’s threat: ‘I have evidence about everybody and if they leave I will expose them.’ It is thought he may have film of sexual acts.

(Women "rewarded" with pendants and robes after sexual ordeal)

The MEK have for decades used violence, intimidation and harassment to prevent former members from speaking publicly about the abuses taking place inside the organisation.

News of these activities is suppressed because some people think that terrorism is a useful tool. These women face a backlash of ‘power and money’ to stop them talking, while the same ‘power and money’ grooms the perpetrator, Maryam Rajavi, to talk about the rights of women and criticise marriage laws and say how they should be changed in the favour of women. ‘Power and money’ believe the MEK should not only be removed from terrorism lists but should be paraded in parliaments as exemplars of feminism. ‘Power and money’ are so dishonest that they cast the MEK in the role of victim while condemning the former women members as torturers, spies and agents.

No one expects ‘power and money’ to take the side of victims, but to turn the tables in this way is truly sickening.

Author of "Saddam’s Private Army" and "The life of Camp Ashraf"
http://www.camp-ashraf.com

March 7, 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

Human Rights Abuse in the MEK

Do not Disturb – Criminals at work in Camp Liberty

Massoud and Maryam Rajavi accused of sexual cruelty

When the US army captured the MEK and confined them to Camp Ashraf in April 2003, they registered 3,800 individuals. Of these, 800 were women.

Women "rewarded" with pendants and robes after sexual ordeal

The figure has remained mostly constant, with some members being trafficked in and out of the camp, and some escaping the cult altogether. (The actual figures are unknown because the Pentagon allowed the MEK to shut the door of the camp and operate Camp Ashraf independently of both national and international law.)

Understandably it is the women who escaped from Rajavi and his cultic abuses who are proving the most problematic. They are very angry and they are proving very difficult to silence.

In the Autumn of 2012 a number of these women, having courageously overcome the stigma attached to such issues, joined together to speak publicly about the sexual abuses they suffered in the MEK. They allege that Massoud Rajavi, the de facto leader of the Mojahedin-e Khalq, not only deceived them into having sex with him but had also instigated a programme of coerced hysterectomies for all women members in order to ‘neutralise their sexuality’. Out of the 800 women registered in Camp Ashraf, they gave the names of 100 who have already become victims of Rajavi’s hysterectomy programme.

The women (several of whom had been appointed to the highest level of the MEK hierarchy – the Leadership Council which directly serves Massoud Rajavi and his wife, Maryam), described a bizarre process of preparation for their sexual encounter with Rajavi which was facilitated by and presided over by Maryam Rajavi, who, they said, procured specific women from the membership for Massoud’s use. The women were made to believe that refusal to participate would result in demotion, humiliation and even worse punishments.

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 recognise as rape.

The women who spoke out all now live in Europe. Other former MEK women members living in Iran and currently in Iraq are also said to be willing to give their testimony. The women described how they were deceived into undergoing spurious hysterectomies in order to fulfill Rajavi’s demand that they ‘divorce from their sexuality’.

In response, former Colonel, Leo McCloskey, Commander of Forward Operation Base in Ashraf until 2008, was featured on the MEK’s websites and media, attempting to denigrate the women and dismiss their claims by labeling them as ‘agents of the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence’. Based on what knowledge and expertise did he manage to come up with such a nonsensical counter argument?

What is most disturbing about these revelations is the response from the establishment. I’m sure that everyone reading this article will be at least curious to know whether such outrageous accusations might be true or not. Perhaps those who are more familiar with the MEK’s past known behaviour will be willing at least to give some credence to these allegations. But for responsible bodies like the UN and even human rights organisations, which, over thirty years, have compiled reams and reams of documented evidence of gross abuses committed by the Rajavi cult (let us not forget the MEK victims found in Abu Ghraib prison), to ignore these easily verifiable witness statements because the MEK says they are a ‘plot by the Iranian regime to discredit the opposition’ really beggars belief.

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.

Let us look more closely then at the ‘one size fits all’ label used to denigrate the victims: ‘agent of the Iranian regime’. It is not the first time the label has been used by the MEK, nor will it be the last. After all, in the current reckless Western culture of ferocious Iran-bashing, it is an easy formula to trot out for a willing audience. And what a willing audience!

The phrase arises from the cultic nature of the MEK and of course the concept of ‘thought-terminating clichés’ is familiar among experts in cultic abuse. It describes the technique used by cult leaders to prevent their followers (victims) from using their critical faculties. Whenever the cliché is mentioned, the cult member stops thinking. In this case, the phrase is also linked to another technique ‘cultic phobias’ which is to introduce irrational fears which when triggered arouse a phobic reaction in the victim.

For members of the Rajavi cult, the phrase ‘agent of the Iranian regime’ fulfils both these purposes; they stop thinking and experience an amorphous, pervasive fear. In some cases they can easily resort to violence in response to this reaction. The really despicable aspect of this use of the label is that it is directed at those victims of the cult who have only recently escaped the abuses. For them the phrase stinks of menace and threat; exactly why the Rajavi’s choose to use it.

But for outsiders, clearly many are unable or unwilling to use their minds to think through the absurdity of this phrase. Or, maybe they don’t need to. Leo McCloskey surely wasn’t acting out of the goodness of his heart when he quoted the MEK phrase. In such crass cases, are we wrong to assume that pecuniary benefits most probably apply?

With the deployment of this thought-terminating cliché, Rajavi has effectively hung a ‘Do not Disturb’ sign on the closed door of Camp Liberty, while an apparently awestruck (by Rajavi’s genius no doubt) Western world tiptoes outside, afraid it too will be accused of being an ‘agent of the Iranian regime’.

Anne Singleton, Middle East Strategy Consultants, Author of "Saddam’s Private Army" and "The life of Camp Ashraf"

January 6, 2013 0 comments

Human Rights Abuse in the MEK

MKO Ringleaders Abuse Female Members Sexually

Those female members of the anti-Iran terrorist Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO also known as the MEK, PMOI and NCR) who were residing in Camp Ashraf, the former training center of the group in Iraq, were abused by the MKO ringleaders sexually, a defected member revealed on Monday.

According to a report by Ashraf News website, Zahra Sadat Mir-Baqeri, one of the defected leaders of the MKO, said that she has some information about the sexual abuse of female members by the main ringleader of the terrorist group, Massoud Rajavi.

"Rajavi abused women in the Camp Ashraf sexually and there is a list of 100 young girls and women who had gone under surgical operations to be raped by Rajavi," she said.

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. This is while they were falsely told that they needed surgical operations for being infected with anemia or kidney problems.

Earlier, a human rights group expressed deep concerns about the deteriorating conditions of over 3,000 members of the MKO who are under torture and harassment by the leaders of the group in Camp Ashraf in Northern Iraq.

In March 2011, another defected member of the MKO revealed that the female members of the group have been living under captivity for more than 25 years and are not even allowed to appear in public places alone.

"It can be firmly said that 95% of the women in Ashraf Camp (the terrorist group’s resort in Iraq) have not even been allowed to step in Iraq’s public and recreational places alone all throughout the last 25 years," the defected member said.

Many of the MKO members abandoned the terrorist organization while most of those still remaining in the grouplet are said to be willing to quit but are under pressure and torture not to do so.

A May 2005 Human Rights Watch report accused the MKO of running prison camps in Iraq and committing human rights violations.

According to the Human Rights Watch report, the outlawed group puts defectors under torture and jail terms.

The group, founded in the 1960s, blended elements of Islamism and Stalinism and participated in the overthrow of the US-backed Shah of Iran in 1979. Ahead of the revolution, the MKO conducted attacks and assassinations against both Iranian and Western targets.

The group started assassination of the citizens and officials after the revolution in a bid to take control of the newly-established Islamic Republic. It killed several of Iran’s new leaders in the early years after the revolution, including the then President, Mohammad Ali Rajayee, Prime Minister, Mohammad Javad Bahonar and the Judiciary Chief, Mohammad Hossein Beheshti who were killed in bomb attacks by MKO members in 1981.

The group fled to Iraq in 1986, where it was protected by Saddam Hussein and where it helped the Iraqi dictator suppress Shiite and Kurd uprisings in the country.

The terrorist group joined Saddam’s army during the Iraqi imposed war on Iran (1980-1988) and helped Saddam and killed thousands of Iranian civilians and soldiers during the US-backed Iraqi imposed war on Iran.

Since the 2003 US invasion of Iraq, the group, which now adheres to a pro-free-market philosophy, has been strongly backed by neo-conservatives in the United States, who argued for the MKO to be taken off the US terror list.

The US formally removed the MKO from its list of terror organizations in early September, one week after Secretary of State Hillary Clinton sent the US Congress a classified communication about the move. The decision made by Clinton enabled the group to have its assets under US jurisdiction unfrozen and do business with American entities, the State Department said in a statement at the time.

In September 2012, the last groups of the MKO terrorists left Camp Ashraf, their main training center in Iraq’s Diyala province. They have been transferred to Camp Liberty which lies Northeast of the Baghdad International Airport.

Camp Liberty is a transient settlement facility and a last station for the MKO in Iraq.

December 25, 2012 0 comments

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