Maryam Rajavi

Using cult leader Maryam Rajavi to derail nuclear talks backfires

With the P5+1 nuclear negotiations with Iran due to resume on Monday (5th May), American anti-Iranian hardliners have been working hard to destroy or disrupt any rapprochement between Iran and the US. As an example, The Hill newspaper, written for the political community in Washington D.C. to reflect business and lobbying views, has been persuaded to give webspace to blogs directly promoting the notorious MEK cult. The blogs, written by Soona Samsami, a member of ‘Saddam’s Private Army’ (aka MEK) and a Briton, Lord Alton (a long time MEK advocate presumably pulled in to give the illusion that this is not an exclusively American plan), are part of a pattern of activity deliberately designed to disrupt or destroy any rapprochement between the US and Iran.

An article (below) by Anne Singleton reveals that these anti-Iranian hardliners in the USA, headed by Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, already failed in a provocative bid to bring the Mojahedin Khalq’s second-in-command Maryam Rajavi to the US to speak in Washington to coincide with the nuclear talks. Such a visit could have only one purpose; the hope that Iran would take offence and walk out of the talks.

But anyone even remotely familiar with the way in which the view of Iran’s mainstream political establishment toward the MEK has evolved over the past twenty years will understand that this is a futile hope; sure the MEK is a terrorist organisation, but one that has long passed its sell-by date as an actual threat to Iran. (Although Iranian hardliners are just as keen as their American counterparts to exploit the MEK to foment enmity and prevent progress.) The Rajavis, and indeed the MEK itself, are essentially political lightweights who are only able to attract notice through well-paid publicity stunts like that in The Hill.

Rather than causing the talks to fail, the other P5+1 countries would see clearly that America has been reduced to a publicity stunt to gain leverage. Who wins then except Iran?

This is the article by Anne Singleton of Iran Interlink:

Rajavi’s visa application challenges America’s stance on terrorism

May 6, 2014 0 comments

Maryam Rajavi

MKO Ringleader Orders Execution of Defected Members

The ringleader of the terrorist Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO, also known as MEK, NCRI or PMOI), Maryam Rajavi, has issued an order for the assassination and execution of any member who intends to defect the group, media reports revealed on Saturday.

Rajavi in a message two weeks ago branded those MKO members trying to defect the group as enemy and also called for murdering them, informed sources disclosed to the Persian-language Ashraf News website.

She has asked the MKO ringleaders in Camp Liberty to gather intelligence and find out who intends to defect the group.

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

A recent 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 MKO, 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.

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 transient facility near Baghdad.

May 4, 2014 0 comments

Maryam Rajavi

Rajavi’s visa application challenges America’s stance on terrorism

There are rumours that Mojahedin Khalq leader Massoud Rajavi is contemplating whether and where it would be safe for him to resurface after going to ground during the 2003 invasion of Iraq. But in Europe his wife, Maryam Rajavi, is herself keen to expand her reach. According to a source inside the organisation, Maryam Rajavi has recently been ‘encouraged’ to apply for a visa to the United States of America. Maryam is currently based in Auvers-sur-Oise just outside Paris, from where the MEK plans and supports its various acts of violence including aiding the insurgency in Iraq. From here she has been able to exploit the lack of effective oversight in the European Parliament in Brussels to join with anti-Iran politicians in their drive to prevent any rapprochement between western governments and Iran, and to support a level of violence and chaos in the region which benefits Israel. With no other tools at their disposal, neoconservatives and the Israeli lobby have spent years using the MEK – at arms length – to pursue their virulent, provocative campaign to keep the two sides apart. (Matched equally of course by former president Ahmadinejad’s calculated provocations; both sides playing the same game with different footballs.)

Maryam Rajavi’s application for a US visa is embedded in the context of this deliberate animosity.

Certainly because the European Parliament has no foreign policy teeth, Maryam Rajavi tried for over a decade to obtain a visa to visit the UK to promote this agenda; even unsuccessfully using private health treatment as an excuse. Either the system of border control in the UK is more rigorous than it is rumoured to be, or the UK government considers Maryam Rajavi persona non grata. Either way – or both – she has not been welcome in the UK.

But the efforts of MEK backers like MEP Struan Stevenson failed to make an impact. The successful P5+1 nuclear talks with Iran in November 2013 have put rapprochement, no matter how difficult, back on the agenda. Anti-Iran advocates and promoters have been forced to try a new tack – attack Iran’s record on human rights. Again, at the forefront of this push is the MEK. Preparations to use the MEK have been in train for some time. The group’s US presence has been carefully managed since 2009 when Iraq moved to expel the MEK from its terrorist base there. There has been a concerted, well funded campaign to whitewash the group’s past and pass it off as a democratic, feminist opposition group. Fortunately, only the MEK’s western backers have convinced themselves there is some truth to this assertion, and this comes at a price – speaking fees paid to them range from $25-60,000 each time.

In September 2012 Hillary Clinton, as Secretary of State, reached an accommodation with the MEK over its continued occupation of this base, Camp Ashraf, and removed the MEK from the US terrorism list. By early 2013 the MEK had opened an office in Washington and registered, under its pseudonym the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), as a lobbying group. Interestingly, registration as a lobby group includes a declaration that no money is provided by a foreign government, which raises the question as to where the MEK gets its money within the USA. Previous claims that wealthy Iranian expatriates have backed the MEK’s massive expenditure are unrealistic and in any case have never been backed by any evidence.

Instead, we can join up more than a few dots by considering the MEK’s current place in American foreign policy and linking this back to its previous position as described above. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, who is Chair of the House Subcommittee on the Middle East and North Africa has been a long time supporter of the MEK, and recently described ‘her friend’ Maryam Rajavi as a human rights advocate – a description which is nonsense to American-Iranians.

In pursuit of an agenda to prevent rapprochement, hardliners (I mean neoconservatives) in America surely aimed to slip Maryam Rajavi into Washington during the next round of nuclear negotiations next week (5-9 May). On the heels of the controversy over denial of a visa to Iran’s appointed head of mission at the United Nations in New York, this would indeed have been a poke in the eye to goad Iran with. But whatever incentives have been offered by Ros-Lehtinen to John Kerry to nod through this visa application, the US Secretary of State will no doubt have lent an ear to the voices of the other members of the P5+1 group. It would mean that, after Saddam Hussein, the United States would be the only government in the world which has directly supported the MEK. It would mean that the other members of this group would drift further and further away from the US agenda, and it would mean that Iran would make a net gain rather than the US. Fortunately this time the administration has not fallen into Ros-Lehtinen’s honey trap. But who knows what may happen in future.

Anne Khodabandeh (Singleton), Middle East Strategy Consultants,

May 3, 2014 0 comments

Maryam Rajavi

Rajavi’s Nowruz Message, reproduction of a fantasy

As the Iranian New Year begins, the leader of the Mujahedin Khalq cult of personality every year holds her luxurious ceremony of delivering message to her so-called Resistance but for over three decades the Nowruz speeches of the cult leaders have included one unique message: "The new year is the year of the overthrow of the Iranian government"!

However, Maryam Rajavi’s this year Nowruz message has one new point: "the regime is in the final stage of being overthrown."(!) When did the Islamic Republic pass the primary stages of being overthrown that this year is the "final stage"?

Rajavi bases her allegations on what she calls "Bakhtiari uprising" (the recent democratic protest by Bakhtiari tribe against a TV serial that was ended with the apology by Iranian TV officials ) and the Iranian traditional and historical custom, Fire Festival which is held on the eve of last Wednesday of the year, literally the eve of ‘Red Wednesday’ . Bonfires are lit in public places with the help of fire and light, it is hoped for enlightenment and happiness throughout the coming year.

Every Year, the propaganda websites of the MKO misuses the photos of fireworks and bonfires in the streets and alleys of Iranian cities where people are celebrating their national ancient tradition, labeling that as "uprising"!

As an annual convention, Rajavi’s New Year speech promises the absolute collapse of the Iranian government due to "the existence of a democratic alternative and organized movement". She claimed that the past year was a "momentum and achievement" for her cult. What does she consider achievement? The shutdown of the 26-year old base of the MKO in Iraq, Camp Ashraf? The gradual removal of the group from Iraqi territory? Or the collapse of the Group’s hegemony by moving members to Albania, Germany and Italy? Or the mass defection of 76 individuals after resettlement in Albania and their actions to reveal the internal relations in the cult of Rajavi?

The latest revelations on the true substance of the MKO cult was published in open letters written by former members to UN representatives. Mehdi nikbakht is a survivor of the MKO who wrote of "his first hand experience of the cultish relationships" inside the MEK to the UN special Rapporteur on Counter Terrorism and Human Rights, Ben Emmerson.

Nikbakht denounces the reality of the MKO cult-like violent attitude despite the group’s hard efforts "to portray a democratic, freedom loving, pro-human rights and pro-women’s rights face in the west". The followings are his revelations about inside the MKO:

"Inside the MEK cult no one has the right to have a spouse or family and even thinking about it is a severely punished crime. Members are regularly forced to write and announce their most intimate thoughts in front of large audiences and the audience is to shout and swear at the person.

"Inside the MEK no one has the right to contact their families in any shape or form. Even mothers and fathers who come to Iraq from Iran with all the risks and hardships are not given permission (by MEK leaders) to meet their children. Some of these people have not seen their families for over 25 years.

"Inside the MEK harsh forced labour, together with a regime of inquisition, has taken away the critical minds of the members. They can no longer think properly and normally. Their every day life is confined to a restricted, forced, mental and physical circle. They no longer decide for themselves about anything. It is the leaders who decide for them."

Maryam Rajvi’s fantasy for regime change in Iran would never be fulfilled because she can never silence the voice of critics and former members of the cult as well as the voice of the hatred of the Iranian nation. She can repeat her Nowruz message of "overthrow" year after year to calm her inside anger but no one outside the bars of her cult, would be deceived by her illusions.

Mazda Parsi

March 29, 2014 0 comments

Maryam Rajavi

Beware of Maryam Rajavi’s deception

open letter to Régine Deforge

Dear Ms Régine Deforge

I am Nasrin Ebrahemi a defected member of the People’s Mujahidin Organization of Iran (Rajavi Cult). Due to my decade long membership and work with this Cult, have a deep and thorough knowledge of them. I got to know you through your website and your news broadcasted on the Rajavi Cult’s websites.

Having read your comments about Mariyam Rajavi, who has many atrocities about the women inside her cult, was deeply moved and wondered how they could have deceived people like yourself by feeding them with false information and taking advantage of their humanitarian feelings.

Rajavi Cult is based on lies and deception from the day one. Rajavis even mislead and betray their own members. This is the only methodology that Maryam Rajavi and her Cult utilize to keep the Cult going. They never tell you about their horrific atrocities inside their Organization. They only use the nice western accepted terminologies that would move any human being. This is so especially when it is said about the women. About the 1000 women who have washed their hands off their life, beloved ones and whatever they have had to stay in the struggle. The stories that had deceived the same 1000 women who are now trapped in the Camp Liberty and can’t get out. This and other similar stories are what are used to lead others on with.

I am one of those 1000 women that Maryam Rajavi has been lying about them to yourself and the rest of world. The fabricate stories that these women have freely chosen to leave whatever they have had because of the love of freedom and willingly entered their Cult is a total lie.

Maryam Rajavi claims to be women supporter, were she and her organization breach basic rights of the women inside their Cult. This is whilst Masoud and Maryan Rajavi are married to each other, forced their members to divorce their spouse. They did not stop at this, and went further and brutally forced them to separate from their children. Some of whom were still being breast feeded. And the excuse was the war in Iraq.

Visiting your husband or wife was not only forbidden. The next step was to report to Rajavi if they missed their loved ones or even thought of them for a second. Never mind that any communication with outside Camp Ashraf was absolutely forbidden, and no one had the means of doing so. If any woman or any man thought of their ex-spouse or child and worried about their condition, would be taken to Ideological courts which would be frightened to death to make a lesson out of it for the future and for the others too.

Having a nice look was forbidden. In order to destroy and tendency towards life outside Camp Ashraf, Maryam Rajavi used to tell us, “I like your tanned faces, I don’t like you having nice complexion, your hands should bear the scars of hard work under the sun”, bearing in mind that we experienced horrific temperatures 50-60 degree centigrade in Iraqi hot climate.

By the way had you seen Maryam Rajavi’s her own complexion, or hands? She never experienced any sun, never mind Iraq sun.She did not stop at that. She forced some women to go under operation to be spayed. This was done to kill the sense of ever having a child. Maryam Rajavi recognizes the equality of man and woman in hard labor work. Some women were crippled under such hard labor in the Camp.

Did you know that leaving the Camp Ashraf was forbidden? If anybody wanted to leave the Camp, he or she would be eliminated. Alan Mohammedi was one of those women who wanted to leave the Camp. She was eliminated. She was only 16 years of age. Did Maryam Rajavi tell you that there are many women that commit suicide because they cannot take the situation in the Camp Asharf.

I remember when there was a guest from outside as like a reporter or women activists, a very tense security atmosphere was created. No visitor was taken to visit the men, since they were scared of them tell the horrific facts of inside the Camp. All those who were supposed to come in contact with the visitor were strictly chosen and briefed to watch what they say and only those who were selected were allowed to talk and say what they were dictated to say. While we were sitting at a far distance from the visitor wished that there was a drop of freedom to the guest about the hell we were in, and wished the visitor could take us out of it.

Dear Ms Régine Deforge

You believe in the Freedom of Women’s Dress. Have you ever asked Maryam Rajavi why is it that the dressing especially covering the head in Camp Ashraf is mandatory? Did you know that if a few of our hair was out of the mandatory scarf we were severely humiliated in the ideological courts. Did you know that we could not have any makeups what so ever? We could not have put on colored clothing.

Those women that you called them with dignity and their poise had gained your praise are starving for a drop of freedom inside the Cult of Maryam Rajavi, where everything has been taken away from them. They can’t have a normal life, can’t think of their loved ones, can’t visit their families, can’t contact them. Can’t have a child, can were whatever they wish like Maryam Rajavi.

I hope that Maryam Rajavi had told you the realities about the struggle of these women. She used to tell us that we all belong to Masoud Rajavi, her husband. Our soul and body must be for him. We were told that without Masoud, we women did not mean anything. You must be ready to sacrifice your lives for him whenever he wanted. He owns our souls, blood and breath. You will leave Masoud only in your coffin.

But as far as Rajavies were concerned, the struggle before the Iraqi dictator Saddam was toppled, meant, to work on the broken second world war tanks that Saddam gave as present to Rajavis with only 4000 members all over the world, which about 70% of them were over aged and retired, to topple a country with an army of 2 million or so personnel. (90% of the members of the Modjahedin were at their 20s or 30s when they broke with the Iran regime in 1980 and were forced to leave Iran.) On the other hand we had to be proud that we are the only women in the world that have access to tanks. This is the progress we have made. We were lead to believe so, and forced to do hard labor like cutting the grass by hand, displace heavy parts of Tanks, and armored vehicle, Kitchen works and you name it. But shortly we found that all we have been told to free our country is just a mirage. This has left us wishing to be freed from this hell we were in, and almost forgotten the Regime in Iran.

This is only one out of thousands that I could put in this letter to you. I beg you to investigate more about this cult, don’t let them play with your humanitarian feelings. Ask Maryam Rajavi to let only one of your books to be circulated within the cult. She will not even let the name of your books to be circulated never mind the book itself. This is the red line within the Cult. No information, no news no books no article … can circulate outside their very much censored information controlled by them to be circulated. I ask you to personally hand in your books within the members of her cult. And monitor the results. If you are successful there would be no body left for her in her cult. All the members are kept away from the normal life and news and the information of the real life. They are not allowed to watch TV even in Europe or anywhere outside Iraq.

Maryam Rajavi is scared to death if the people in camp Liberty come out to a third country and disclose the atrocities committed against the members. She prefers them to die in there and use it for propaganda purpose for her cult. The best result for her is, all members to be killed by the terrorists in the Camp Liberty. So she can make martyrs out of them to use it to play with the feelings of very humanitarian people like you.

I you permit me I can give you great deal of information about our lives in Camp Ashraf and all the pains that are being suffered in there due to the cult rules applied there.

Best regards

Nasrin Ebrahimi, Setaregan Association, Switzerland

March 27, 2014 0 comments

Maryam Rajavi

EU must reassess risk after Rajavi orders MEK loyalists to kill critics

Maryam Rajavi has used a meeting at her headquarters near Paris to incite her followers to go ahead and kill individuals that she identifies as her enemies. Speaking to Mojahedin Khalq loyalists on the eve of the thirty fifth anniversary of the Iranian revolution, Rajavi drew a red line between her supporters and everyone else; at one point she lashes out at Iranian opposition groups outside Iran, calling their criticism of the MEK “the struggle of Khamenei’s Pasdars’ satanic attacks against the resistance”, (i.e. Rajavi). Her red line has a very clear definition; you are either totally for us or totally against us.

According to the MEK’s NCRI website, three hundred associations – essentially sub-sects of the Mojahedin Khalq – were in attendance, although the pictures do not reflect these numbers and the associations are not named anywhere in the report. These represent the core supporters of the MEK who are paid to perform the activities which the majority of actual MEK members are incapable of doing. To the extent they are loyal to Rajavi, they are at her command.

Rajavi began to motivate them by first claiming, without providing even anecdotal evidence and in spite of the recent popular election of President Rohani that, “the Iranian society stands ready to change this regime”. She then went on to define her red line: “we highlight the demarcation with the regime in its entirety and we also stress solidarity with all those true defenders of overthrowing the regime”.

To be absolutely clear about what she means by drawing this red line between ‘us and them’, she says, “the struggle of the participant organisations and associations in this convention against the Mullah’s intelligence ministry at this time is the most needed part of the struggle to topple the Mullah’s regime and bring about democracy and the rule of people in Iran. We announce that countering the agents of religious fascist rulers of Iran who are targeting the leadership of the resistance (i.e. Rajavi), is a nationalistic duty of every freedom lover Iranian irrelevant to their political and ideological belief”. [my emphasis]

By “agents of the religious fascist rulers of Iran”, Maryam Rajavi means anyone who criticises the MEK and in particular former members of the MEK who are by default, and “according to the rules of armed struggle [war], condemned to death”.

Since the vast majority of these critics and former members are resident in Europe and North America, ‘countering the agents’ who are ‘condemned to death’ can only be interpreted as instructing her loyal followers to kill these people wherever they reside in the west.

Of course this is never expressed in English, only on the Farsi sites was the threat published. Realising that, as a resident of France, Rajavi would be held personally responsible for incitement to murder, the MEK quickly removed the incriminating Farsi sections of her speech from the hambastegi meli website (a copy is available), and instead an MEK spokesman in Iraq was quoted issuing the same threat. This time more directly as he said, “since we are at war with Iran we will treat anyone who leaves us as someone who has changed sides and we will execute them”. In this context the specific delineation of the red line becomes highly significant as Rajavi is now able to label anybody who does not bow down to her as her enemy , as an “agent of the Iranian regime”. Even those who have escaped Camp Liberty after thirty years in isolation, and threaten them with elimination.

Try as they might the leaders of the MEK cannot for long disguise their total dependence on violence as a means to pursue the very existence of their group. Although posing for Western consumption as a democratic opposition group, the MEK operates as a cult and relies absolutely on instilling fear and dependency on its members. It is imperative that the leaders maintain this atmosphere among the members in order to keep them ‘on message’. As a result, any criticism or protest aimed at exposing the true nature of the group provokes an immediate deployment of intimidation and aggression, sometimes leading to actual physical attacks, even in the streets of western countries. In this way, members (and backers) are graphically reminded of their real role as a group.

The question is, how far will the MEK go to counter the exposures made by former members who are increasing in number and who remain undeterred in their efforts to help rescue those former colleagues who remain trapped in conditions of isolation and suffering daily abuses inside all the MEK’s bases, whether in Iraq or in Europe and North America?

Informed people are beginning to ask what Maryam Rajavi will ask of the members being kept in Iraq against their will. The MEK are trained to violence, to kill and be killed. That has been the MEK’s raison d’être for five decades. It is the reason warmongers and anti-Iran pundits back the group. Loyal members who are trained for assassination are known to already be in Europe. Will they be unleashed soon in an attempt to silence the MEK’s most effective critics? (In her recent speech Maryam Rajavi emphasises that her real enemies – former MEK members – are no more than a handful in every western countries, but she does not name them.)

Judging by past behaviour, the answer to this question is a resounding yes. On many occasions since the MEK established bases in western capitals, it has used violent attacks on its rivals and enemies; tactics from character assassination campaigns to knifings and attempted kidnaps have frequently been reported by victims. Unfortunately, because the MEK has powerful backers, these low level criminal activities have seldom been investigated or prosecuted, leaving the victims vulnerable, though undeterred.

This threat however must be taken seriously. The gruesome death of a former MEK member who had become incarcerated in Camp Ashraf is a vivid reminder of what the MEK is capable of. Massoud Dalili’s disfigured body was discovered among 52 other victims of a violent attack on the Camp which occurred on September 1st 2013. The victims had mostly been subjected to execution style killing. But Dalili’s face had been burned with acid to render him unidentifiable. Although it is still unclear who launched the attack – Iraqi investigators are unable to interview the 42 eyewitness because the MEK are holding them incommunicado inside Camp Liberty – the fact that Dalili was a former high ranking member who disappeared unaccountably from a hotel in Baghdad two years before has led experts on MEK behaviour to conclude that he was killed by the MEK themselves after being kidnapped or deceived into returning to Camp Ashraf. The MEK have simply blamed Iran for his death.

There are further indications that the MEK are actively mobilising to counter the inevitable exposures of former members about human rights abuses committed systematically inside all MEK camps and bases. Two MEK intelligence and security officers of the Mojahedin Khalq have been tracked travelling between Paris and Tirana in Albania. Tirana is now home to some 210 individuals who were recently transferred there from Camp Liberty. The MEK has made every effort to contain them and keep them under cult control, sending minders along with them from Iraq to maintain the control.

Since their arrival, 70 have separated from the MEK and begun to speak out against their treatment in the Iraqi camps. Now, Esmail Mortezaee (Javad Khorasan) and Hassan Nayb Aghad, have been reported bringing suitcases of money (well over a million dollars in cash) with them from Paris out of which they pay $500 per month to each person on condition that they do not talk to anyone, not even their families, about their experiences in the MEK camps, that they do not talk to the UNHCR, which is responsible for the individuals but pays only around $200 per month, and that they work for the MEK by updating social networks to promote the group. Some of these refugees have been threatened with violence and physical elimination. Interestingly, Esmail Mortazaee carries a card or pass which identifies him as working from the Pentagon office in Tirana. He shows this to the ex members as proof of his backing and power over them.

Such activities are not new and have gone on unchallenged for many years in Europe and North America. Many former members who are outspoken critics of the MEK have been, over the years, subjected to mental and physical intimidation carried out with impunity by loyal MEK members trained in security, intelligence and military skills. But importantly, not one of these trained killers will act without the order of their cult leaders, Massoud and Maryam Rajavi. It is incumbent on western security services to understand this dynamic and also acquaint themselves with the current change in risk following the transfer of defected MEK members from Iraq to Europe and in particular Maryam Rajavi’s speech in France blatantly giving her ‘permission’ (read order) to go ahead and kill her opponents.

Middle East Strategy Consultants,Author of “Saddam’s Private Army” and “The life of Camp Ashraf”

February 12, 2014 0 comments

Maryam Rajavi

My big sister, who I have never seen, is in Camp Liberty

Open letter to Maryam Rajavi from an Iranian woman who has not ever seen her sister

Mrs Maryam Rajavi,

After greeting, I am Mona Hussein Nejad – 31 years old. I was an infant aged only 10 days when I was taken from the bosom of my mother and her milk into tears and wailing and left in the bosom of my grandmother in Tehran. My father and mother with my older sister secretly fled Iran from the oppression of the Iranian regime with a large number of members of the PMOI thirty-one years ago. I am the youngest daughter of martyr Mojahed Farideh Karim Zadeh and the younger sister of Mojahed Zainab Hussein Nejad, one of the residents of Camp Al-Hurriyeh (Liberty), the headquarters of the PMOI in the proximity of Baghdad airport .

I cried during the lean years, eager to see my mother, looking for the intimacy of her embrace, the intimate lap of her tender motherhood, which I did not experience except for only ten days. So I stayed, sighing to see her for the first time in my life until I was 18 years of age, when I discovered that I had lost my mother a few years ago and my waiting will not end for seeing her.

But I ask will my waiting end up the same for seeing my sister Zainab, who I have not seen in my life? I remember that when I was a teenager I wished that my parents had taken me also with them and I tell myself: Blessed sister Zainab who lives with mama and papa. But I was not to know that she lived after the death of our mother under the care of individuals and families and it is not about us and them, that she also grew up under difficulties. But today I wish that they had not taken Zainab with them but they had left her here for us to live and grow old together and share our sorrows and joys and share each other’s concerns, and pain.

Mrs Rajavi,

I have not seen and held my sister Zainab in my life for more than thirty years now, and I have not heard news about her safety also, especially after the terrorist attacks on camp Ashraf and camp Al-Hurriyeh (Liberty) in Iraq, and I do not have information about her condition. I ask, cannot your Excellency, as the senior leadership of the People’s Mojahedin Organization, order her to relate me so that I hear her voice at least to make me sure of her safety and health? Or allow us to meet together and embrace each other for the first time in our lives even so I can smell the odour of our martyred mother because she has been grown and nurtured for many years in the bosom of our mother? I do not know whether the relentless struggle against the system of government established in Iran may have kept something in the heart of the emotions of motherhood and the love that binds sisters or not? If there has remained something of it, you can understand my feelings and my sense. I travelled to Baghdad a year ago and asked officials at the People’s Mojahedin Organization through the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, the United Nations and the Iraqi Human Rights Ministry to meet my sister Zainab, or at least see her, even from a distance, and so I went for this purpose to the door of Camp Al-Hurriyeh (Liberty), before taking off on the plane at Baghdad airport adjacent to the camp to return to Iran. But officials in the organization did not allow us to meet and see each other so I went back to my homeland with tearful eyes.

Mrs Rajavi,

I ask you:

1 – to provide the possibility for my sister Zainab Hussein Nejad one of the residents of Camp Al-Hurriyeh ( Liberty ) to call me even briefly about her safety and health.

2 – Do not allow me to wait all my life to see and hug my sister and do not let it go on, God forbid, as did my waiting to see my mother.

3 – Remove the restrictions and harassment from the residents of the camp toward contact with their families, to bring about an end of the concern of the families about the conditions of their children and their relatives.

With my thanks in advance to your Excellency.

Mona Hussein Nejad

February 4, 2014 0 comments

Maryam Rajavi

Maryam Rajavi holds her followers in contempt – where is her compassion?

Those MEK supporters living in western countries who have recently distanced themselves from the organisation and publicly questioned the MEK’s activities, (most of whom would deny that they have Maryam Rajavi holds her followers in contempt – where is her compassion? separated completely), have been stunned by the vitriolic attacks the MEK launched against them. They truly believed while they were close to the MEK that these kinds of attack were justifiably targeting real agents of Iran. Now they have also come under attack themselves and it is slowly dawning on them that such accusations are not only unfounded but are meant deliberately to instill fear and provoke self-justification as a way to distract and silence such criticism. They will no doubt find the courage to challenge this behaviour and continue to seek the truth.

The Rajavis of course claim that anyone who speaks out against them, particularly the former members, has been recruited by the IRI and sent to destroy the MEK as part of a malicious, murderous plan. Yet where is the evidence of this?

The MEK’s critics have pointed out many times that the people who are hurting the MEK most are the cult’s leaders. It is they who order self-immolations, who withhold medical treatment, who place them in the line of danger of attack and, most recently, starve them by denying them food and calling this a hunger strike.

The critics demand help and rescue for the people still enthralled by these leaders and held captive by isolation and cultic manipulation, not only in Camp Liberty but in western bases also.

So, if the critics are acting out of humanitarian concern, the Rajavis must surely be aware of the mixed message this sends. Here’s the problem: if the Iranian regime is the evil, terrorist sponsoring entity which Rajavi has built her whole narrative on, what are we to make of the message of these so-called agents who display nothing but compassion for the people still trapped inside the MEK, at every level.

None are calling for the deaths of the members. Quite the opposite, we all wish to help them, to give them back their humanity, their dignity and their integrity which Maryam Rajavi has stolen or destroyed. Critics of the MEK leaders, Massoud and Maryam Rajavi, have campaigned for ten years and more to expose the appalling cruelty and corruption of their little dictatorship. For years they have endured the insults, beatings and attempts at character assassination flung at them at the instigation of these two wicked people.

Anyone involved in dealing with the MEK in any place and over any issue, who has met with the former members has expressed surprise at the simple, straightforward concern they have for their former colleagues and their families. There simply isn’t a hidden agenda.

The MEK demonise the Iranian government as evil and wicked. So, using the same MEK logic, outsiders need to ask the Rajavis where did all this compassion come from? Why is the Iranian intelligence ministry acting in such a charitable way? Have they become social workers!?

Think! Who, in the past ten years, has done more to harm the members than Massoud and Maryam Rajavi. The cruelty and corruption which govern the group’s internal relations are known intimately by those who suffered under that regime. Where is Maryam Rajavi’s compassion? Why does she show no sympathy or kindness toward her own people, yet lash out against those who do?

Rajavi says the demand of her forced hunger strike is the return of seven allegedly missing people. But she has still not produced any evidence to demonstrate whether they are alive or dead, or where they are or why there has never been any sign of them anywhere. The people who could give clues to solve this mystery are out of reach of UN and GOI investigators. These are the 42 survivors of the September 1st attack on Camp Ashraf in which 53 people were brutally killed by unknown assailants. These 42 were transferred to Camp Liberty where they are being held incommunicado by the MEK leadership cadre. Why? They certainly have information about what took place in the camp on that day.

Until the facts become known, the hunger strike is meaningless and causing unnecessary suffering for the participants. If there is no end-game how long do they go on? We are witness only to another graphic example of the cruelty and callous indifference of the Rajavis toward other human beings.

Anne Khodabandeh (Singleton), Middle East Strategy Consultants,Author of “Saddam’s Private Army” and “The life of Camp Ashraf”

December 10, 2013 0 comments

Maryam Rajavi

Does she still want to return to Ashraf ?

The attack Sunday September 1st on Camp Ashraf ended with the killing of 52 high ranking members of the Mujahedin Khalq Organization (the MKO). Those members had been remained at the Camp to allegedly watch Back to Ashraf; Back to disaster the group’s properties. The attack was reportedly the most bloody of the several mortar attacks on MKO camps in Iraq. However, the MKO leaders and supporters view “return to Ashraf” as the best solution to guarantee the security and safety of MKO members!

The news on the recent attack on Camp Ashraf is controversial. No credible report has been published on details of the incidence except those released by the group propaganda but one thing is sure: Camp Ashraf is not a safe place for former partners of Saddam Hussein who aided him in operations to suppress Kurdish and Shiite uprisings during the 1990’s. Iraqi people have sought to expel the MKO from their territory since the collapse of Baath regime but the MKO leaders’ unyielding position was to stay in Iraq. The group leaders have urged to return the members to Camp Ashraf since February 2013 when the majority of members were transferred to Camp Liberty, a former US military base near Baghdad airport.

In February 2013, following a much slighter attack on Camp Liberty –only five people were killed – Maryam Rajavi claimed that there was no guarantee of protection and safety for the residents at Camp Liberty and “the only way to prevent further killing is to compel the Iraqi government to return 3000 defenseless residents of Camp Liberty to Ashraf, their home for 26 years”.

Since then, running the agenda of “Return to Ashraf” became a nonstop approach to prolong the group’s stay in Iraq. Advocates of the MKO among European MPs including their long-time sponsor Struan Stevenson also emphasized on “return to Ashraf” as “ the first step “ to rescue Liberty residents before their relocation to third countries. Stevenson and his peers state that Ashraf is “much more secure” against attacks.

Besides European sponsors of Maryam Rajavi, a delegation of her advocates in the US congress including Ted Poe who visited her at that time tried to appease her by saying that “the full protection of the residents of Camp Liberty can only be ensured by moving them out of the harm’s way and returning them to their home for 26 years at Camp Ashraf.”

The so called “home for 26 years” is actually a part of Iraqi territory granted by former Iraqi dictator, Saddam Hussein to foreign insurgents – the MKO members. Iraqi nation do not want the MKO as the remnants of the former dictator in their soil anymore.

Why do not the MKO leaders and their Western supporters “emphasize” on the residents’ urgent relocation to third countries?

Regarding the fact that previous attacks on Ashraf (April 2011 and July 2009) and Liberty (February 2013 ) were warnings for the group leaders to act more seriously to transfer residents out of Iraq and to cooperate more willingly with the UN. Nonetheless, Maryam Rajavi and her disappeared husband, Massoud Rajavi are so reluctant for the relocation process that one can conclude that they benefit more from staying in Iraq than leaving it ! Their agenda of “Return to Ashraf” is now considered absolutely questionable. The process of martyr-making out of attacks on the MKO camps using them to draw the World attention to the group or at least to gain their sympathy provides more fuel to the group’s propaganda machine. Bad for the group leaders, this time the world’ attention is focused on Syria.

By Mazda Parsi

September 9, 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

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