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The cult of Rajavi

The cult of Rajavi

MKO Executes Discontent Members before Leaving Camp Ashraf

The anti-Iran terrorist group, Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO also known as the MEK, PMOI and NCR), has executed a group of its discontent members and commanders before the forced MKO Executes Discontent Members before Leaving Camp Ashrafevacuation of its main training camp in Northern Iraq.

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.

Now, a report by the website of the Habilian Association, a human rights NGO formed of the families of 17000 Iranian terror victims, said that .. a mass grave in Camp Ashraf (now the Camp of New Iraq) 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.

Earlier in January, Sadeq al-Husseini, the deputy chairman of Diyala Provincial
Council, said several mass graves had been unearthed in Camp Ashraf.

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.

In a 28-page report titled "No Exit: Human Rights Abuses Inside the MKO Camps," the Human Rights Watch described MKO camps in Iraq and the severe human rights violations committed by the group against its members.

The report says dissident members and those rank and files wishing to leave the organization were subject to "lengthy solitary confinements, severe beatings, and torture".

"The witnesses reported two cases of deaths under interrogation. Three dissident members – Abbas Sadeghinejad, Ali Ghashghavi, and Alireza Mir Asgari -witnessed the death of a fellow dissident, Parviz Ahmadi, inside their prison cell in Camp Ashraf."

Earlier this month, reports said a growing number of Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization members are leaving the terrorist group as MKO ringleaders are using all types of physical and mental tortures against members to prevent their mass defection.

"As far as I know, due to the MKO’s physical controls and psychological and mental pressures on the members, a large number high and mid-ranking members of the Organization in the transit camp (Camp Liberty) are after a suitable opportunity to escape and defect from the rogue cult as soon as possible," a defected member was quoted as saying by the Persian-language Neday-e-Haqiqat (the Voice of Truth) website.

According to the recent reports, tens of veteran MKO members in Camp Liberty (the transient settlement facility and a last station for the MKO in Iraq) have left the terrorist group during the last month.

The MKO is behind a slew of assassinations and bombings inside Iran, a number of EU parliamentarians said in a recent letter in which they slammed a British court decision to remove the MKO from the British terror list. The EU officials also added that the group has no public support within Iran because of their role in helping Saddam Hussein in the Iraqi imposed war on Iran (1980-1988).

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.
2013-01-13
http://english.farsnews.com/newstext.php?nn=9107135267

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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.

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The cult of Rajavi

European intellectual views on the Cult of Rajavi

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.

Abbaslou: Ms. Shemeltz! Thank you so much for your time. You are a psychotherapist and once you have lived in a cult in Western Africa so you get precious experience on living in cults. We are so pleased to have you here. You trusted Peace and Freedom Association and declared your readiness to share your ideas and experiences with us. This is an honor for our association.

Ms. Shemeltz! You are well informed about practices of cults. How do you define the MKO or in better words the Cult of Rajavi?

Ms. Shemeltz: I consider the system used in the MKO Cult the same as the system used in North Korean camps. In these camps everything is run by force and aggression. As I know and according to documents I studied on the MEK cult the impact of stalinistic approaches on the MEK is too significant.

For me, the story of the cult of Rajavi is like an unbelievable myth. During the 1970s there were various versions of such organizations but the MKO is very complicated. It does not comply with today world. The MKO members are sort of frozen people.

On the other hand, the leaders of the cult of Mujahedin present themselves as progressive and modern. Their inner reality does not go with the mask they wear outside.

Mr. Abbasslou: as an expert, how do you think the Cult of Rajavi could control and imprison individuals for so many years? How is this psychologically and scientifically feasible?

Ms. Shemeltz: in my opinion, before they enter the organization, people do not know how it works and what its functions are. They arrive in the cult while they know nothing about its internal relations, so they suddenly find themselves imprisoned. I think the MKO takes the members’ common sense.

Members of the cult even can’t go for a walk out of their camp. They have no individual freedom. The cult has taken their entire power for decision making or choosing. The members, held imprisoned in the cult have defined a strategy for themselves to stay alive:

“We obey the organization regulations to stay alive. We have no way out!”

Translated by Nejat Society

To be continued

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The cult of Rajavi

The Cult of Mojahedin; A Modern Cult of Personality – 2

The transformation of MKO to a pseudo-religious cult occurred through a lengthy process

For sure, as many experts on the subject believe, there are certain similarities between cults and The transformation of MKO to a pseudo-religious cult occurred through a lengthy processterrorist groups in the way each uses sophisticated psychological techniques to indoctrinate their devoted members. As a matter of fact, there exists a high potentiality in a terrorist group to actually change into a dangerous cult as it possesses cult features, because any group that challenges adopted norms that advocates moving against the current for sure it avails backdrop of a cult. In the same way, any cult has the potential to be a terrorist group. in the case of MKO it is not an exception.

But still there is a question to put that how and when it happened that MKO transformed from a Marxist-oriented political group with a fundamental ideology of advocating armed warfare to what is today known as a total cult of personality. Speculations fueled by a considerable bulk of studies as well as assertions by detached and former MKO members center on the fact that it was not an overnight transformation but a plot that hatched gradually through some lengthy process of guilefully outlined stages. Ali Akbar Rastgoo, an ex-member, firmly believes that MKO had some cult-like features even from the beginning but due to some reasons, they did not break the surface:

The transformation of MKO to a dangerous pseudo-religious cult occurred through a lengthy process. It has to be pointed out that it was a potentiality existing from the very beginning in the organization’s Islamic-Marxist eclectic ideology. If it failed to be manifested in those first years of its formation, it was because it was impossible to build up the current relations at that time. [1]

There are more than enough evidences to prove that Massoud Rajavi had a personal ambition of establishing a cult of personality after a complete failure in armed warfare and facing an overall political stalemate that led his group into total isolation from the masses. Even before the initiation of the military phase and declaring armed struggle against the regime in 1980, some eminent political figures well acquainted with MKO envisaged it would turn into a cult sooner or later. And Rajavi needed some information before taking the first step. Ali Ferasati, an ex-member, discloses that in 1984 while in Paris, Rajavi ordered the information bureau of umbrella groups and associations to do comprehensive studies about the structure of cults in the West:

In 1984, the information bureau of associations was asked to conduct a study into the Western religious cults. The reason was said to be since the imperialists were pushing policies ahead through religious cults, the organization needed to find out what the cults were doing and under what mechanism. … At the time I got to the bottom that Massoud [Rajavi] was aware of the fact that the organization was getting disintegrated and thus, he wanted to see how the western cults operated so he could follow their model. [2]

It may seem hard to believe that the first seeds of MKO’s transition to a cult of personality were sown in the heart of the Western democratic and free soil following the shocking initiation of a heretic inter-organizational revolution within MKO. In fact, before MKO relocation to Iraq to execute cultic relations in Camp Ashraf as its main cult bastion, the cult thought had passed beyond its embryo stage at Auvers-Sur-Oise in Paris. The four-year settlement of MKO in France and a great accumulation of members made them engaged in a routine bureaucracy that caused a staff crisis. Many other factors such as daily-life problems, lack of a clear strategy in 1981 to 1985, critical detachment and separation of members and lack of motivation as a result of long residence in France, attractions of life and beauties of European countries all and all caused the organization suffer acute crises. Besides, Rajavi was receiving formal messages and invitations from Saddam Hussein for a complete transfer of the organization to Iraq. The group had been caught in a difficult dilemma since Iraq was at war with Iran and Saddam was the most hated man in the eyes of Iranian. As a matter of fact, move to Iraq was equal to involving in an unforgivable conspiracy against a nation for whom the group had promised freedom and democracy.

Knowing the problem and hearing murmurs of protest from the ranking members against his goals and plans, Massoud Rajavi came to a conclusion to make a basic change in the already adopted conventional model of the Leadership Council for steering his group. On the other hand, the very existence of the Leadership Council had to be dissolved as it was an obstacle and threat to his authoritative leadership and he needed a plan to dissolve it. To find a way around all these problems and to pave the way to break any probable resistance, it required a very wise, deep plan which should also support a kind of revolutionary move. Besides, Rajavi was already embroiled in the scandal of having intimate and amorous relations with his office secretary, Maryam Qajar Azodanlu, the wife of Mehdi Abrishamchi at the time. The relation uncovered, it could cause a serious crash against the structure of the group that claimed to highly value moral principles in its campaign.

References:

1. Ra’isi and et al. Ravand-e Jodaee (originally in Persian) “The process of separation”. 1979. Samadie publication. p.164.
2. Massoud Jabani; Ravanshenasi Khoshunat va Terror (originally in Persian) “A psychology of aggression and terror” , Khavaran publication. p.127.

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The cult of Rajavi

The Cult of Mojahedin: A Modern Cult of Personality

At the present, Mojahedin Cult is notoriously reputed and referred to as the sole political-terrorist cult of personality

The inside and outside members
At the present, Mojahedin Cult is notoriously reputed and referred to as the sole political-terrorist cult of personality
Masud Rajavi complements his authoritarian leadership by fostering a personality cult that revolves primarily around himself and secondarily around his wife, Maryam. (The US State Department Report, Nov. 1992)

Cults are feverishly active all over the world and a grave feature of their menace is the deceit with which they distort the truth to trap the unwary. Cults generally tend to function in isolation and are usually remote from the society and keep away to have direct contact with people. However, for some purposes cults need to make contact with the outside world, that is, recruiting new members, fundraising and more. Sending the members to live among the free society is even more crucial when the cult comes to be a hypocritically political one that needs the society as the wheels to push the cult forth.

Although cults cut members off from easy and tete-a-tete contact with outsiders, there are a number of members in certain cults that live out of the cult among the ordinary people to fulfill the mentioned purposes. It does not mean that these outside members can escape tense, thought reform processes worked within the cult. These members seemingly living outside separate from the cult are also under direct and strict cult controls and undergo the same mechanisms that are used against the insiders:

In most live-in cults, every detail of life comes under group scrutiny. For example, there are dress codes, food restrictions, and enforced marriages or relationships. In such cults, the members generally live together at the headquarters or at specified locations around the country or over, seas and work for cult-owned enterprises. However, there are also cults whose devotees appear to remain active in quite a few major aspects of the outside world, earning a living outside the cult. But for all practical purposes these individuals also live under rules governing such crucial features of their personal life as the people with whom they associate, what happens to their money, whether they raise their own children, and where they live.

At the present, Mojahedin Khalq Organization (MKO/MEK/PMOI/NCR), or Mojahedin Cult/Cult of Mojahedin as it is notoriously reputed and referred to, may be the sole political-terrorist cult of personality that avails big number of live-in and live-out members. The group’s main bastion was once located in Camp Ashraf, located some 60 kilometers north of Baghdad in Iraq, but the majority of insiders have been relocated to a temporary transit location (TTL) near Baghdad’s airport. However, its headquarters are situated in Auvers-Sur-Oise in Paris under the name of National Council of Resistance (NCR), an officially recognized alias for MKO. But there are many countless umbrella and front groups aiding the cult in fundraising activities, recruitment, propaganda blitz, organizing rallies and so forth.

To the list of front groups can be added numerous political, social, charity, art and much more groups and societies wherein hardly you can trace them back to the mother group. They all function according to the taste and culture of the societies among whom the insiders live and mostly propagate under democratic standards. For instance, the women and girls officially active as ring members of MKO are forced to wear outfits covering all their body parts and the head. Even Maryam Rajavi herself in spite of dressing in colorful non-transparent outfit never shows bareheaded in the public. But there are many occasions in which women sympathizers, under the command and direction of the commanding members in charge, engage in activities in extravagant western fashions on behalf of MKO. It has to be also mentioned that many of these sympathizers are unaware of the real nature of MKO and work as propaganda tools to beguile the Westerners. As soon as they are recruited as the formal members, they have to embrace cult principles including the clothing codes.

Before September 28, when MKO was removed from the State Department’s list of FTO, it was a designated terrorist group and therefore the US persons and firms were generally prohibited from engaging in transactions with or providing services to the group. The key responsibility was thus on the US based umbrella groups active in making contracts with American firms as part of a lobbying campaign, hiring speakers and paying speaking fees, making arrangements for encouraging and hiring Iranian and non-Iranian masses for rallies, fund-raising and collecting donations, and more. Here is a few of these active front groups to name just in the US:

The Iranian-American Community of North Texas

Iranian-American Community of Northern California

California Society for Democracy in Iran

The Iranian American Cultural Association of Missouri (IACAM)

The International Solidarity for Democratic Change in Iran (ISDCI)

The Global Initiative for Democracy

U.S. Committee for Camp Ashraf Residents

The National Coalition of Pro-Democracy Advocates

References:

1. Thaler Singer, Margaret; Cults in Our Midst: The Continuing Fight Against Their Hidden Menace, p. 11.

Mojahedin.ws

November 27, 2012

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The cult of Rajavi

MEK has turned Camp Liberty into a prison

Mrs.Maryam Sanjabi has written a new valuable article on the situation in Camp liberty Mrs.Maryam Sanjabi has written a new valuable article on the situation in Camp liberty[Temporary Transit Location] where the last remaining members of MEK reside. Sanjabi`s review is important in regards to evaluating the situation of MEK members. She was an important and trusted figure in MEK and since decided to leave the cult like terrorist group, has remained active to help others inside. She has established a great contact with those who have managed to escape the camp and applied asylum from UN. In her article Sanjabi describes how MEK chain of command has made life in camp liberty as a concentration camp for people inside. She says that each individual has to get up at 5 am and follow a daily ordered program that is already set for them. The program consists of aimless labor till noon and from noon to night people are forced to attend ideological meeting.

She adds that MEK leaders have ordered a kind of separation and segregation. Every 3-4 residential building in the camp are set for a group of members and they have to spend their time inside the isolated section. "They are using some sort of curtains to cover each section. People have to stay inside this area even for eating. So the only things they can see are a few others and the sky.", She Says. Sanjabi believes that such efforts is to limit contacts between MEK members.

It was long mentioned that MEK keeps its members isolated and there is no means of communication with the outside world. But it seems that new efforts include preventing cult members from contacting each other.

Earlier this month there was a report indicating that an MEK member set himself on fire due to pressures he received from MEK commanders. Fortunately he was saved by Iraqi officials and survived.

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The cult of Rajavi

MKO, a Cult Rebuilt in a New Bastion

MKO has turned TTL into another cult milieu just under the eyes of the world

It is a common belief that the structure and organization of cults are complex, but the terrible truth about many of them is that they can easily and immediately adapt, recover and rebuild their organizational setup, rather than withering away, if partly disintegrated or broken into smaller groups. That is mainly because order structure and the authoritatively established system of hierarchy within the organization of cults can guarantee the replacement of a leader and guru in his or her absence and demise. But there are solutions for certain to get rid of a cult and to push it to the edge of abyss and precipice of dissolution; the most working is the one that leads to wither in membership and accelerates the process of decline in the number of the insiders and members.

Of the most dangerous cults whose threats never diminish and continue to spread the shadow of their nightmare over the modern world are the terrorist ones. And among them to name one in particular, and which is still active as a peculiar and the most dangerous one, is Mojahedin Khalq Organization (MKO/MEK/PMOI/NCR). Generally recognized as a terrorist group with at least some forty year-long record of violence and bloodshed, MKO “began to be transformed into something more sinister during the mid-1980s after the group’s leaders and many of its members had relocated to Paris”, according to RAND’s A Policy Conundrum. Following its alliance with Iraq’s fallen dictator Saddam Hussein in 1986, MKO leaders and majority of its combating cadres moved to Iraq where it was provided with protection, money, weapons and expropriated lands which the group turned into military bastions as well as a closed milieu for cultic practices just in the middle of Iraq’s deserts.

Unwelcome in Iraq and facing a crisis of being forced to leave its main military-cultic stronghold, Camp Ashraf, which Iraqi Government was decisive to close permanently, all the camp’s insiders had to be relocated, according to a MoU signed by the Iraqi Government, UN and MKO, to a Temporary Transit Location TTL near Baghdad’s airport to be processed within a few months to be transferred to third countries. Around 3400 residents of the camp were scheduled to be transferred in groups of 400 that lasted months beyond of the given deadline. Was it for promises by the State Department to be removed from the FTO’s list or other incentives, MKO reluctantly submitted to resume halted process of the relocation and the last group of the insiders, but for a small number, were transferred on September 16, 2012.

But the story of MKO is a never-ending one since it has been mostly dealt with as a terrorist group rather than a cult and that is where the problem fails to be circumvented. Although now de-listed as a terrorist group for certain political causes, MKO preserves its formidable reputation as a dangerous cult of personality run by the husband-wife Rajavies. In contrast to the speculations that the relocation of the insiders would lead to diminish the imposed cultic practices, the current situation and condition of the insiders in TTL uncovers intensified instances of tough cultic practices even in the absence of the chief leaders.

To survive and also to recover, a cult and its leader/s need to isolate his/her followers from outsiders to ensure that the followers will only hear the cult’s propaganda. The isolation from outside influences and provocations protects the cult’s internalized belief system and keeps them away from the outside critical thinking that threatens the cult’s integrity. And MKO has turned TTL into another cult milieu just under the eyes of the world to continue the heavily controlled physical and psychological exercises. A member of the group, Majid Mohammadi, recently escaped from the TTL, in an interview disclosed that MKO plans to turn TTL into another cult bastion like Ashraf:

… The organizational control and cult-like practices exercised by the Rajavis, at Camp Liberty [TTL] was worse than those applied at Camp Ashraf. MKO leaders knew that Liberty is not like Ashraf. It’s not an isolated, closed location with no access to the outside world so they enhanced the organizational control in Liberty to prevent defection and eventually the collapse of the cult. From the beginning of our arrival at TTL, one of the criminal commanders of the MKO, named Abbas Davari, who had been previously sent there, started holding meetings for members. He said: ”The difference between Liberty and Ashraf is that the former was completely under our control, no one was able to interfere in the organization relations but here at Liberty we are dependent on the outside world and Iraqi forces. We should work hard to maintain this Camp and change it to another Ashraf.

It is difficult to tolerate the recovery and reorganization of a seemingly dismantled cult. However, those familiar with the characteristics of cults will easily spot one when they encounter it or are exposed to the bitter experiences that the escaped members, rather than separated members, impart. The intensified exertion of control and pressure on the insiders in TTL is an attempt to stop the escape and separation of them, both physically and mentally, because the leaders are heedful that the fall and decline in the number of the insiders and members is tantamount to gradual dissolution and demise of the cult. Thus, a unanimous consensus is needed to deracinate MKO from the long list of dangerous cults. But there exists a problem that has so far made many indeterminate in making a decisive decision against MKO; they are uncertain whether to recognize MKO a cult or not!

Let’s start a study to corroborate findings and testimonies that MKO is a cult for certain.

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The cult of Rajavi

PMOI: a cult in heart of the Republic

A member of French Senate has written a book on the Mujahedin Khalq (People’s Mujahedin of Iran/PMOI) earlier this year. Senator Nathalie Goulet of Orne published the book "PMOI: a cult in Senator Nathalie Goulet of Orneheart of the Republic" to warn her comrades in French Assembly and Senate about the threat of the cult of Mujahedin.

She writes of the MKO’s violent background and its devotion to armed struggle and terrorism, noting that the group has never published a statement or confession letter to officially denounce violence.

Revealing facts on cult-like practices of the group, she warns that a full-scale cult exists in the heart of Republic of France. She describes the MKO’s efforts in her working place, French Senate and Assembly:

"…in December 2011, a petition was being circulated in French parliament. It was signed by 74 senators and 282 members of the Assembly. It demanded support for the People’s Mujahedin Organization of Iran and its leader Maryam Rajavi, as well as guarantee for international protection of camp Ashraf in Iraq.

” As I know, a large number of these representatives think that they are supporting democracy in Iran by embracing the PMOI. However, I should emphasize that the signatories know almost nothing about the history of the PMOI. So I found it useful to notify the history of the group which is Marxist Islamist"

The author refers to the MKO’s treasonous cooperation with former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein against Iranian people and Iraqi Kurds and Shiits and notices the lack of support for the group among Iranian community. She poses questions to those French officials and governmental bodies who are involved with the cult of Rajavi:

"How can a group which has had no base in its county since long time, suggest analysis and advice on the current situation of the country?

Can you count on any party or organization that claims to be democratic?"

Ms. Goulet concludes: "Regarding the past of the PMOI, it’s hard to believe that such a group that still suffers all symptoms and problems of a totalitarian cult of personality, violent activities, hidden financial resources, lie, threat, accusation and destruction of civilians under the pretext of enlightening, has turned into a democratic organization!"
Download PMOI: a cult in heart of the Republic
Download PMOI: a cult in heart of the Republic

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