Human Rights Abuse in the MEK

Atefeh Sebdani: the dirt on the MEK’s activities and criminality is just beginning to be told

Atefeh Sebdani, one of the children the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK) whose lived experience within group has been depicted in the recently released documentary “Children of Camp Ashraf”, states that the revelations on MEK’s crimes against their own children has just begun.

Children of Camp Ashraf, directed by Sara Moien and produced by Linda Mutawi is based on testimonies of four young Swedish citizens, Amir Yaghmai, Parvin Hosseinnia, Hanif Bali and Atefeh Sebdani. The latter has also published her autobiography in Swedish language. The book is titled “My Hand in Mine” which is the story about Atefeh’s growing up with no one to hold on to but herself, of abuses made by the MEK agents who smuggled her from Iraq to Sweden and the MEK sympathizers who fostered her and her two brothers.

Prior to the release of Sara Moien’s documentary, Atefeh posted a note on her Facebook. She began with the Goteborg Film Festival’s description about the film:

“When they were children, they were taken from their parents and sent to Sweden with the aim of one day returning as warriors and overthrowing the current regime in Iran.”

Atefeh Sebdani finds the year 2024, the time for MEK children to find the courage to tell their stories:

“A few times I’ve hinted at things to be released in 2024. A few other times I’ve hinted that the dirt on the Mujahedin’s activities and criminality is just beginning to be told…”

This is what she writes about Children of Camp Ashraf:

“It is a documentary film that was recorded over several years, where I was with them for three years. We get to follow Amir Yaghmai above all, but also Parwin Hoseinia, Hanif Bali and me. Children of four Mujahedin soldiers with different destinies. I think the film festival’s text describes it well. The purpose of more or less kidnapping us to foreign followers and at the same time keeping us away from our parents was to one day be able to recruit us as warriors.”

Sebdani speaks of those MEK children who are not alive any more because they were killed in Camp Ashraf when they were recruited as child soldiers of Massoud Rajavi’s army. Hamid is one of her foster brothers who had also been smuggled from Camp Ashraf to Sweden but one day he was disappeared. Atefeh has written about Hamid’s sad destiny in her book too. Here she states:

“Some of us already as children, like Amir. Others as young adults, who never came back alive. Like my brother. Which I still have a hard time talking about.”

She promises the audience that in the documentary they get to see the story from the beginning. She speaks of the large number of MEK children who have just been motivated to tell their stories after the book and the film were released:

“Do you see, my beloved Mujahedin siblings? See, all of you out there writing to me all the way from Australia and in between? Our withheld, strangled story is slowly being told.”

Sebdani appreciates the film’s director and producer:

“Huge thanks to the incredible director Sara Moein who picked up on the clues about us and chose to start digging. You have no idea how many people’s lives you will touch and what historic victory you will contribute to. I am forever grateful to you. Thanks also to Linda Mutawi, the amazing producer who against all odds made this happen.”

Finally, she promises a roaring wave of traumatized children of the MEK who will reveal more facts about the crimes of the group leaders:

“Hold on, because we grew up, shook off our fears, found each other’s hands and like a chain around the world we are now unstoppable. Gothenburg Film Festival, wow. And then we’ve only just begun.”

Mazda Parsi

February 24, 2024 0 comment

Human Rights Abuse in the MEK

Sara Moin: Why do the MEK protest against a movie they have not seen yet?

The director of the documentary “Children of Camp Ashraf” in an interview with Keyhan London raises a question that simply challenges the claim of democracy and freedom of the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK).

Sara Moin, the director of the controversial documentary about the children of Camp Ashraf, was interviewed by Ahmad Rafat of Kayhan London. She was asked about the protests of the MEK sympathizers against the Goteborg Film Festival before the release of her film. “Despite the fact that the film had not been seen so far, they sent a series of emails to the festival,” Moien said. “They wanted to stop the release of the movie. I don’t know the reason…and a few days before the festival, they requested a demonstration. I don’t know why they want a movie that has not been seen to be stopped in a democratic country?”

Sara Moien insists on announcing that her film deals with a very human issue about 4 Swedish citizens. She finds the life story of the four heroes of her film interesting because despite their success in life in Sweden today, they have gone through a strange fate and a painful childhood.

The director of the documentary “Children of Camp Ashraf”, who is basically a journalist, is trying to draw the audience’s attention to a human tragedy without political bias by taking advantage of the freedom of expression that governs the country where the four protagonists live. According to Sara Moin, although there are a revolution and three wars in the life story of the characters of this film, which can involve the audience with all kinds of views and political biases, she aims to draw the attention of the audience to the painful story of about 800 to 1000 children from Mujahed parents who paid a heavy price for their parents’ political choice.

Sara Moien accurately believes that the contents related to the children of MEK are very few compared with the contents about the very organization. He pointed to the article written by the German journalist Luisa Hommerich a few years ago about former child soldiers of the MEK in De Zeit magazine, as one of the pioneering materials in raising the issue of these children. It should be mentioned that Luisa Hommerich also recommended watching the movie to the residents of Sweden before its release.

According to Hanif Heydaranjad, a journalist and former member of the MEK, more than 120 of the hundreds of children of the group who were trafficked from Iraq to Europe and North America were settled in Sweden in foster families. Therefore, it seems that Sara Moin had more options to choose her heroes, but why she went to Amir Vafa Yaghmai, Parvin Hosseinnia, Hanif Bali and Atefeh Sabdani, is an important point.

In response to this question about the number of children of the MEK, she says that compared to these four people, they were not successful people, they suffered bitter fates and even committed suicide. (Perhaps you have heard the names of Yaser Akbari Nasab and Alan Mohammadi.)

Certainly, there are former child soldiers who could be considered as witnesses of the violation of children’s rights in the structure of the Cult of Rajavi, and certainly today in various countries of the world, including Sweden, there are former children who have lived in the families of sympathizers of the MEK without the supervision of European governments. They have experienced the same pain that Atefeh Sabdani suffered.

Howeever, as Sara Moin says, these people with fragile spirits caused by sufferings and with their damaged self-confidence, do not have the courage to appear in front of the camera. A camera that intends to depict a bitter human story in a European democracy.

The screening of the documentary about the children of Camp Ashraf has just started. This controversial film will soon be shown at Tempo Film Festival in Sweden and other festivals around the world. Public opinion will watch only one part of the record of crimes of the MEK leaders, the part that demostrates the innermost corners inside the group.

As Sara Moin emphasizes, in the future screenings of her film in Stockholm, the MEK can demonstrate within the framework of democracy and freedom of speech. But you should ask them: “Isn’t it better to watch the movie first and then protest?”

Mazda Parsi

February 18, 2024 0 comment

Human Rights Abuse in the MEK

Yaser, a murdered child soldier of Camp Ashraf

Following the screening of the Children of Camp Ashraf documentary at the Swedish Goteborg Festival, Nejat Society interviewed the family of one of the child soldiers who was killed inside Camp Ashraf. Reza Akbari Nasab, an active member of Nejat society and the uncle of Yaser Akbari Nasab, told us about the fate of Yaser, his young nephew whose story has been heard in the testimonies of a large number of defectors of the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK).

Reza’s 2 nephews and 1 niece were among the children of Camp Ashraf. Yaser, Musa and Fatemeh were the three children of Reza Akbarinasab’s brother, Morteza, whose lives were awfully affected by the cult-like violence of Rajavi because of their father’s membership in the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK). Among these three children, Yasser suffered the most traumatic fate. He was tragically killed in Camp Ashraf.

According to Akbari Nasab, Yaser got involved with the MEK since he was three years old. As a child, he was separated from his parents under the order of Masoud Rajavi and was smuggled from Iraq to Europe along with hundreds of other children. He and his siblings were placed in the MEK’s orphanage buildings in Germany.

Yeser’s sister, Fatemeh, could not stand the abuses in the MEK’s team house in Germany and escaped the house, few years later. According to Reza Akbarinasab, the MEK commanders immediately smuggled Yaser and Musa back to Iraq, to prevent their escape from the cult. Like many other children of Mujahed parents, Musa and Yaser were recruited as soldiers of the group’s so-called Liberation army. The two teenagers were given military uniforms and were taught military trainings.

Referring to evidence from defectors of the MEK, Reza believes that Yasser was not happy with his conditions at Camp Ashraf from the beginning, and his dissatisfaction caused him to be subjected to cult-like violence. Finally, in June 2005, in a suspicious incident that seemed to be self-immolation, he was killed.

Yaser died soon and did not survive the Rajavis’ violence to share his life story with us like the 4 young people who share their lived experience in the MEK, in the documentary Children of Camp Ashraf. His brother, Musa could manage to leave the group when it was located in Camp Liberty, Iraq.

Yaser was no more than 25 years old when he died. His two siblings managed to escape from the organization, but Yaser, who was not interested to stay in Camp Ashraf, became a victim of Masoud and Maryam Rajavi’s conspiracies to run their cult.

February 10, 2024 0 comment

Human Rights Abuse in the MEK

Four decades of human rights abuse by the MEK leaders

Leaders of the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK), have been violating the rights of their own members for over 4 decades. Violation of human rights in the group was the result of its cult-like attitudes. The MEK, under the rule of Massoud Rajavi was no more a political group. Rajavi has turned it to a destructive cult of personality since he came to power in the MEK.

Forced Celibacy

Human rights abuses began from the very days after the bizarre marriage of Massoud with Maryam Qajar Azdanloo –later called Maryam Rajavi. Maryam was married to Mehdi Abrishamchi, a high-ranking member of the group but her husband handed her over to the leader as a sign of loyalty. This was the start of a series of human rights violations in the MEK which came one after the other.

During the 1984 and 1985, following the so-called ideological marriage, all married members of the MEK were coerced to divorce. Male members had to surrender their wives to the group leader. Female members were manipulated to consider Massoud as the only man of their life. Celibacy became mandatory in the Cult of Rajavi. Any disobedience to the command would lead to punishment including interrogation, imprisonment, torture and even death.

Self Criticism

Punishments were along with a brainwashing system that worked through the hierarchy of the cult. Mind manipulation process was amplified. Self-criticism sessions, daily reports on personal thoughts and actions led to suppression by the commanders and pressure by peers.

Isolation

Members were isolated from the outside world. Mental and physical bars were formed around the group. News was filtered. Contacts to family and friends were forbidden. The entire members had to focus on the group’s leader. His words were considered a holy book.

Child abuse

The brainwashing system of Massoud Rajavi kept on destroying the entire family center. In 1991, after the first Gulf War, Rajavi ordered parents to surrender their children to the group. Around 7 hundred children of Mujahed parents, from two months old to 15 years old, were smuggled from Iraq to Europe and North America where they were left in team houses, foster families or orphanages. The number of heartbreaking stories of MEK children mounts to the number of the smuggled ones.

Child Soldiers

About 3 hundred of these children were smuggled back to the MEK’s camp in Iraq. They were recruited by the MEK as child soldiers of the group’s so-called National Liberation Army. Child soldiers of the MEK were coerced to wear uniforms and receive military trainings. Several of them could later escape the group and reveal what they endured in the Cult of Rajavi. The stories of former child soldiers of the MEK became viral in the social media.

In addition, a lot of former members of the group published their revelations about human rights abuses inside the MEK. Their personal accounts of living in the MEK destructive cult were covered by media and human rights bodies such as Human Rights Watch.

Today, 4 decades after the ruling of Massoud and Maryam Rajavi over the MEK, the group members are still under constant human rights violations. Forced hijab, forced labor, forced celibacy are only a few examples. Brainwashing sessions are still held every night at Ashraf 3. Members are not allowed to contact their families outside the group. Even if they have family members inside the group, they are not able to have routine visits of normal family members.

The international human brights bodies and the Albanian authorities must take proper actions in order to stop human rights abuse in the Cult of Rajavi.

Mazda Parsi

September 4, 2023 0 comment

Human Rights Abuse in the MEK

Parviz Ahmadi tortured to death in the MEK prison, Eyewitness

Abbas Sadeghinejad who escaped the Camp Ashraf on June 20, 2002, was one of the first defectors of the Mujahedin Khalq Organization to testify about the murder of group members under torture and violence by the leaders. He witnessed the death of Parviz Ahmadi and Ghorban Ali Torabi during the weeks he was jailed in the prison of Camp Ashraf, Iraq.

Leaders of the MEK are accused of committing violence against their members. According to the rulings of the group, the rank and file have to obey the absolute power of the leaders, Massoud and Maryam Rajavi. Disobedience to leaders, criticizing their approaches and expressing your willingness to leave the Cult of Rajavi qualifies you for this label: “spy of Iranian regime” and therefore you deserve the most horrific punishments.

https://dlb.nejatngo.org/Media/Interview/Sadeghinejad-Ahmadi-1.mp4

To download the video file click here

During the 1994 to 1995, hundreds of members who had been deceived by MEK recruiters or simply did not agree with the group’s ideology any more, expressed their dissent. The Cult of Rajavi reacted with a process of suppression called “security clearance”.

A large number of defectors of the MEK have so far testified about what they endured in the MEK’s prisons in Camp Ashraf during security clearances. They also gave testimonies on what they witnessed in the interrogation rooms, prison cells and solitary confinements. In March 2005, Human Rights Watch published a report on the MEK titled “No Exit, Human Rights Abuses Inside the MKO Camps”. The report was based on various interviews with former members of the group.

Human Rights Watch interviewed four witnesses who were detained during the security clearances of 1994-1995 because “they were suspected by the MKO of harboring dissident views”. Based on the HRW’s report, page 16 and 17, “Ali Ghasghavi, Alireza Mir Asgari, Ali Akbari, and Abbas Sadeghinejad were severely tortured, subjected to harsh interrogation techniques and forced to sign false confessions stating their links to Iranian intelligence agents.”

According to the reports, Abbas Sadeghinejad, Ali Ghashghavi, and Alireza Mir Asgari witnessed the death of Parviz Ahmadi in February 1995 inside an internal MKO prison in Iraq. The three shared a prison cell during the security clearance arrests in February 1995. Parviz Ahmadi was a dissident member who was held in the same cell.
Abbas Sadeghinezhad, who was also present in the cell, was interviewed by HRW by telephone, on February 14, 2005. He recalled the final moments of Parviz Ahmadi’s life: “The prison door opened, and a prisoner was thrown into the cell. He fell on his face. At first, we didn’t recognize him. He was beaten up severely. We turned him around; it was Parviz Ahmadi taken for interrogations just a few hours before. Ahmadi was a unit commander. His bones were broken all over, his legs were inflamed; he was falling into a coma. We tried to help him but after only ten minutes he died as I was holding his head on my lap. The prison guard opened the door and pulled Ahmadi’s lifeless body out.”

Sadeghinejad also shared his testimony in a documentary made by another ex-member, Milad Aryaiee, in 2007. He recounts the moments of Parviz Ahmadi’s passing away in the MEK’s prison after he was brought to the cell with a bruised swollen body.

Abbas Sadeghinejad told Human Rights Watch that he had earlier witnessed the death of another prisoner, Ghorbanali Torabi, after Torabi was returned from an interrogation session to a prison cell.

October 10, 2022 0 comment

Human Rights Abuse in the MEK

Former child soldier of the MEK – They killed my father

Mohammad Reza Torabi (Ray Torabi) seeks the trial of the MEK leaders for the murder of his father under torture in the group’s prison. His father Ghorban Ali Torabi was killed in the MEK’s internal prisons in Camp Ashraf, Iraq, in 1994. As a member of the MEK, Mohammad Reza did not know about his father’s killing until he left the group, in 2017.

Mohammad Reza Torabi who is one of the former child soldiers of the MEK has recently began denouncing the MEK for violation of human rights, in the social media. He was also a victim of the MEK cult-like system. Unlike his father, he survived an 18-year-long membership in the group and could manage to leave it 4 years ago.
Mohammad Reza’s biological mother, Zahra Seraj, is still under the MEK’s brainwashing structure and denies him as her son because, as she says, “he is a traitor to the organization”. In his recent Facebook post, Mohammad Reza asks the MEK leaders to explain how his father was killed under the torture in the group’s prison.
“28 years after the death of my father, I just got to know about the whereabouts of his grave,” he writes.

“My Mujahed mother and aunts and those who killed my father did not tell me about it but I was told by witnesses of their crime. When I arrived in the MEK’s base in Iraq in 1999, I realized that my father had died 5 years earlier. I should state that I was just informed how and by who he was killed after 23 years when I left the MEK in 2017. My Mujahed mother and all those who call themselves unique revolutionaries lied to me for a long time.”

Mohammad Reza Torabi regrets all those years that he lived in close connection with the killers of his father. “I used to work with those who are responsible for the killing of my father in Camp Ashraf,” he writes. “I used to live with them, eat with the, kiss and hug them, look in their eyes while I did not know anything about what they did to my father.”

Mohammad Reza Torabi

Four years after his defection from the Cult of Rajavi, the son of Ghorbani Ali Torabi is now ready to receive any information on the murder of his father by the side of the witnesses. “I’d say that I am ready to talk to any individual receiving any document and testimony in order to find the truth about my father,” he writes.

It is worth to know that the internationally documented testimony about the murder of Ghorban Ali Torabi was first published by the Human Rights Watch, in April 2005. The report was titled “No Exit: Human Rights Abuses Inside the Mojahedin Khalq Camps”. Even in the summary of the HRW’s report, the case of Torabi as a person who was killed by the MEK torturers was brought up:
Human Rights Watch interviewed five of these former MKO members who were held in Abu Ghraib prison. Their testimonies, together with testimonies collected from seven other former MKO members, paint a grim picture of how the organization treated its members, particularly those who held dissenting opinions or expressed an intent to leave the organization.

The former MKO members reported abuses ranging from detention and persecution of ordinary members wishing to leave the organization, to lengthy solitary confinements, severe beatings, and torture of dissident members. The MKO held political dissidents in its internal prisons during the 1990s and later turned over many of them to Iraqi authorities, who held them in Abu Ghraib. In one case, Mohammad Hussein Sobhani was held in solitary confinement for eight-and-a-half years inside the MKO camps, from September 1992 to January 2001.
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. Abbas Sadeghinejad told Human Rights Watch that he also witnessed the death of another prisoner, Ghorbanali Torabi, after Torabi was returned from an interrogation session to a prison cell that he shared with Sadeghinejad.

GhorbanAli Torabi Qorban was tortured to death by the MEK

At the time, the No Exit report was expectably labeled by the MEK’s paid lobby a group known as Friends of a Free Iran (FOFI), comprising four Members of the European Parliament – Alejo Vidal Quadras, Paulo Casaca, Andre Brie, and Struan Stevenson, as “orchestrated by Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence”!
Thus, in February 24, 2006, HRW published a “statement on Responses to Human Rights Watch Report on Abuses by the Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO)”, in which the testimonies about the killing of Torabi were once more confirmed:

Their responses, in the view of Human Rights Watch, confirm the credibility and reliability of their original testimonies in No Exit. The Human Rights Watch report contained allegations by witnesses that two MKO members, Ghorbanali Torabi and Parviz Ahmadi, died as a result of abuse suffered in MKO detention. The FOFI document challenged these testimonies.

With regard to Ghorbanali Torabi’s death, the FOFI delegation interviewed two MKO members in Camp Ashraf who disputed these testimonies. These two MKO members, Zahra Seraj, Torabi’s wife, and Masoume Torabi, Torabi’s sister, told the FOFI delegation that he had died of a heart attack, and not as a result of beatings at the hands of MKO officials. Neither of them claimed to have been present when he died. According to a communication to Human Rights Watch from Lord Avebury, who said he had interviewed Masouma Torabi by telephone on June 13, 2005, “Masouma saw Ghorbanali a week before he died.”

Human Rights Watch again questioned Abbas Sadeghinejad, one of Human Right Watch’s original sources on these events, about Torabi’s death. Abbas Sadeghinejad confirmed his earlier testimony, based on his experience of sharing a prison cell with Torabi. He again told Human Rights Watch that late one night, after Torabi had been taken out of the cell for two days, two men carried Torabi back to the cell, threw him inside, and locked the cell again. Torabi, Sadeghinejad said, was not breathing and his face showed signs of severe beating. He said that other cellmates examined Torabi more closely and believed that he had suffered broken bones. Sadeghinejad acknowledged that Torabi may have died of a heart attack, but maintained that the MKO had severely beaten Torabi, apparently during interrogation.

Alireza Mir Asgari corroborated the fact of Torabi’s detention and ill-treatment at the hands of the MKO, based on his own direct experience. Mir Asgari told Human Rights Watch that the MKO also detained him at the time Torabi was detained. He said that he knew Torabi well as a child in Iran, and that Torabi had recruited him in Tehran at the age of seventeen to join the MKO ranks in Iraq. Mir Asgari told Human Rights Watch that during his detention in 1995, he encountered Torabi face-to-face during an interrogation session. He said that the interrogators questioned them both about Torabi’s motivation for recruiting Mir Asgari to the MKO camps in Iraq and accused them of working for the Iranian government. Mir Asgari said that when he met Torabi during this interrogation, Torabi’s body showed signs of beatings and physical abuse.

Mir Asgari told Human Rights Watch that when he raised the subject of Torabi’s death with MKO leader Massoud Rajavi, Rajavi alternately responded that Torabi had committed suicide and that Mir Asgari and other prisoners had themselves killed Torabi because they suspected him of being an informant. He said Rajavi at no point claimed that Torabi had died from a heart attack.”

Besides, there are numerous testimonies presented in Persian by other former members of the MEK about the death of Ghorban Ali Torabi under torture. Mohammad Razaghi, Siamak Naderi, Alireza and many others who do not want their names to be exposed, testified that Ghorban Ali was brought to the cell where twenty other MEK members were imprisoned. He had bean beaten to death. It was just two weeks to the Persian New Year, in the winter of 1994.

February 21, 2022 0 comment

Human Rights Abuse in the MEK

The threat of suicide by hostages of the MEK

A combination of situations could lead someone to think of suicide. Some risk factors increase the possibility of suicide. Mental illness, such as depressions, social isolation, criminal problems, financial problems, impulsive or aggressive tendencies, job problems or loss, legal problems etc. may push people to commit suicide. Now, consider the Mujahedin Khalq Organization as a cult-like group in which members are deprived from their most basic human rights. The MEK provides its members with the combination of situations that can lead them to consider suicide as the last resort.

In the early days of December, 2021, the Albanian news media, Gazeta Impact reported of a suicide attempt by a young man named Shahpour Danafar in the MEK’s camp in Manez, in north of Tirana. The report called the case as “the Danafar family tragedy”. Shahpour whose real name is Nikfarjam is the son of Behrouz Danafar a longtime member of the MEK.

According to Gazeta Impact, “The Danafar family tragedy occurred in late November when the Danafar family decided to leave the Rajavi Cult. The father of the family and his two sons, Navid Danafar and Shahpour Danafar, asked their Rajavi Cult superiors to allow them to leave the Manez camp and live in the city of Tirana like many other former members of the cult. The commanders of the camp on the direct order of Maryam Rajavi, the cult leader, refused to allow the family in question to leave the camp in Manez and settle in Tirana. One of the sons, Shahpour Danafar attempted suicide by cutting the veins of his wrist. Shahpour was hospitalized in QSUT Hospital (University Hospital Center “Mother Teresa”). Albanian state bodies are keeping a dirty silence over this case of attempted suicide.”

Banning member’s departure is the old tactic that the leaders of the Cult of Rajavi have always used to maintain their cult of personality. However, a large number of the group members –about fifty percent of the population– have left it during the two past decades.

Based on the report by RAND institute on the Mujahedin Khalq sponsored by the of the office of the US Secretary of Defense, “Rajavi instituted what he termed an “ideological revolution” in 1985, which, over time, imbued the MEK with many of the typical characteristics of a cult, such as authoritarian control, confiscation of assets, sexual control (including mandatory divorce and celibacy), emotional isolation, forced labor, sleep deprivation, physical abuse, and limited exit options.”
Thus, Massoud Rajavi created many of risk factors that increase the possibility of suicide for his own members –better said hostages. The case of Shahpour (Nikfarjam) is not the first one in the MEK. Some names are repeatedly referred to when former members want to testify about suicide in the MEK: Yaser Akbarinasab, Alan Mohammadi and Marjan Akbari.

Yaser Akbarinasab was 17 when he was taken from Europe to Iraq to join the MEK’s National Liberation Army (NLA) together with his 14-year-old brother, Musa. Yaser had almost no sympathy for the MEK and so he began to protest against the MEK’s cult-like attitudes. He wanted to leave the group but he was not allowed by the group leaders and so he was put under severe pressure by the commanders. Finally, on a summer day, after lunch time, Yasser’s friends in the cult saw smoke from behind the base number seven, at Camp Ashraf. Commanders did not let his friends see the body of Yasser. Yasser had set himself on fire.

Marjan Akbari (nicknamed Faezeh) was a child soldier too. She had been separated from her Mujahed parents in 1991 and then she had been brought back to join the NLA as a teenager in the late 90s. A few years later, Marjan asked to leave the group but she was not permitted. Just like Yaser, her request was faced with commanders’ anger. In 2004, Marjan stole the cyanide capsule of her commander and swallowing the capsule she committed suicide.

Alan was only 13 years old when she was brought from Germany to Camp Ashraf to receive military trainings as a soldier of the NLA. She requested to return to Europe, but she was faced with what is usual in the MEK. Mental and physical tortures that were imposed on Alan by the MEK authorities finally resulted in her mental breakdown. She was 15 years old when she committed suicide and put an end to her life. She shot herself when she was on her guarding post at Camp Ashraf.

Today, the MEK propaganda boasts with the names and pictures of Yasser, Marjan, Alan and many other of its victims as martyrs of the struggle against the Iranian government. However, the naked truth about what really goes on in the MEK is increasingly being exposed to the world. The more the MEK propaganda tries to silence the defectors, the less it can mange to cover the truth. As Gazeta Impact also puts, concerns over the fate of two thousand hostages in the MEK’s base in Albania should not be neglected by the Albanian authorities and the international human rights bodies.

Mazda Parsi

December 27, 2021 0 comment

Human Rights Abuse in the MEK

Letter to the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court

Honorable Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court

Greetings and Regards
I am Samad Eskandari, the representative of the 42 plaintiffs in the case of the survivors of the Mojahedin terrorist sect led by Maryam Rajavi, who are currently based in Albania. We have complained of torture, imprisonment, prohibition of marriage, prohibition of family relations and other inhumane acts, and in the presence of former members, a public trial attended by local and foreign journalists in accordance with judicial protocols notified to the Mojahedin in Albania and France. They did not comment on the case, but the plaintiffs were threatened with assassination. We have condemned this inhuman sect in 39 pages of the final verdict. It should be noted that after the legal formalities and the 60-day legal deadline, the verdict was approved and the documents were handed over to the International Court of Justice.

Mr. Karim Assad Ahmad khan; Honorable Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court

As the legal representative of the 42 plaintiffs, I am the voice of the victims who were really deprived of a free life, me and even the people who are currently imprisoned in this group. We are so mentally, emotionally and even physically damaged that some of my friends are unable to perform even the simplest physical activity due to physical torture. And in a simple sentence, all the victims of Rajavi’s violence suffered irreparable damage.
We expect you to pursue Maryam Rajavi and other leaders of the Rajavi sect to maintain justice in the world.

Thanks for your attention,
Samad Eskandari, representative of the plaintiffs in the case against the Rajavi terrorist sect

From Iran, Zanjan

October 13, 2021 0 comment

Human Rights Abuse in the MEK

Sobhani spent eight-and-a-half years in solitary confinement inside MEK camp

Mohammad Hussein Sobhani spent eight-and-a-half years in solitary confinement inside the MKO’s main camp in Iraq, Camp Ashraf, from September 1992 to January 2001. He was subsequently held in Abu Ghraib prison and left Iraq in 2002.

Sobhani first came in contact with the MKO in 1977, a year before the anti-monarchy revolution. By 1979, he was working “professionally and full time” with the organization. When the headquarters of the armed wing of the organization relocated inside Iraq, he followed suit. By 1991, he had risen in the ranks of the organization and had become a member of the Central Committee. However, ever since the “ideological revolution,” when divorces were mandated, he became uncomfortable with the path pursued by the leadership. His differences with the leadership of Masoud and Maryam Rajavi and other members of the Central Committee reached a climax in 1992. Masoud Rajavi argued for remaining in Iraq regardless of the end of the Iran-Iraq war and Saddam Hussein’s defeat in the first Gulf War in 1991, he said. Rajavi still hoped that fighting between Iran and Iraq would resume, and based the organization’s strategy on such a development. Sobhani says he found the possibility of a new war highly unlikely given the dismal state of Iraq’s armed forces. Other members of the Central Committee saw his arguments as a challenge to the Rajavis’ leadership:

Mohammd Hussein Sobhani

As long as my criticisms were mild, I was left alone. But as soon as I persevered in my questioning, their behavior changed dramatically. In the beginning, I discussed my concerns personally with the leadership, Maryam and Masoud Rajavi. I also brought up my concerns with other members of the Central Committee. These discussions reached a dead-end. Once they became certain that I didn’t share their views, on August 28, 1992, they convened a meeting (neshast taiin taklif) to determine my faith and to decide if I was staying with the organization or not. The process began with intimidation, verbal abuse, and beatings. Of course, since I was a high ranking official, I was treated better than ordinary members. I was told that my criticisms and questions were just an excuse to quit the struggle. Their conclusion was that I was a quitter (borideh) and didn’t have the strength to continue the struggle any longer.

On August 31, 1992, Sobhani was moved to a prison and kept under solitary confinement for the next eight-and-a-half years.

After the first two months in prison, all of my beliefs in the organization fell apart. Up to that point I considered my differences with them as a matter of divergent political views; I wasn’t questioning the MKO’s underlying essence. I used to mark my prison walls each time I was subjected to severe beatings. There were many occasions of lesser beatings, but on eleven occasions I was beaten mercilessly using wooden sticks and thick leather elts.
Sobhani was handed over to Iraqi officials in January 2001. He spent one month in mukhabarat prison and then transferred to Abu Ghraib. He was held in Abu Ghraib until January 21, 2002, when he was repatriated to Iran in exchange for Iraqi POWs. In Iran, he was detained and interrogated by the Iranian government. After three days, he escaped from a low security detention center and fled Iran. He is currently living in Europe.

September 8, 2021 0 comment

Human Rights Abuse in the MEK

Children; victims of MEK destructive cult

In the history of religious and destructive cults, children have always been the first victims. Whereas, among militant political groups around the world, there are few cases whose stories are as tied to children as the Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization (MeK).

In 1990 and 1991, the MeK separated about 700 children from their parents and sent them to European countries via the Jordanian border. Rajavi did this without the heartfelt consent of the children’s parents.

During the war with Kuwait, Massoud Rajavi separated these children from their parents and sent them to European countries under the pretext of creating a safe environment for them.

Why Rajavi separated children from families?

In the second ideological revolution, which included forced divorce, Massoud did not have much success in the lower echelons of the organization. The inferior members opposed this order, using their children as an excuse to reject separation from their emotional partners. Therefore, Massoud who saw children as a great threat to his so-called ideological revolution thought of removing them.

The winter of 1990 coincided with the First Persian Gulf War. While Saddam was severely weakened, Massoud Rajavi used the dangerous conditions of war to achieve his sinister goals.

In fact, he was trying to carry out his sinister plan to remove the children, the enemies of the ideological revolution, from the territory of Iraq in order to guarantee his intended revolution.

Therefore, in the first step, the schools, recreation centers, and other nests of the members’ children, who numbered more than 700, were closed under the pretext of war condition. Then, they were transported to the anti-missile barracks inside the camp in fear and panic, with minimal means of survival and psychologically vulnerable conditions.

After a few weeks, the children became accustomed to the new situation, and the organization’s trick to forcibly relocate the children failed, and the parents still refused to separate them.

This time, the organization’s officials took cruel action and transferred the innocent children to Baghdad, the center of the airstrikes. Numerous bombings and the endangerment of children’s lives made it easier for the organization’s officials to obtain parental consent. So many of parents were content to move their children wherever the organization deemed expedient.

The first refuge for children after leaving Iraq was Amman, the capital of Jordan. There, the children, who had been in love with each other for years, were sent in groups to various European countries especially Scandinavian countries, Australia, Canada and the United States. Of those, more than 200 children entered Germany illegally under the pretext of leaving the Persian Gulf war. Germany was the second-largest children’s destination after Jordan.

During the presence of children in Germany, the MeK received millions of marks annually from child support associations. Children were returned to Iraq at the age of 16 after receiving organizational and ideological training.

Why did Rajavi return young children to Iraq?

After sending the kids to European countries, the organization did not allow any contact between the parents and their children. Rajavi pursued some goals for returning them, such as infusing new blood into the organization which was faced with a manpower crisis. On a deeper level, in Rajavi’s eyes, it was the last chance to return those children who had their parents killed in previous operations since all of them were transferred under pseudonyms and fake identities, and as soon as they reached the legal age, they refused to return or in case of a return, they could apply to leave because they had the original card and identity. Therefore, Rajavi was able to transfer many of the children who had been transferred abroad.

September 7, 2021 0 comment

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