Mujahedin Khalq Organization as a terrorist group

Israeli Hayom: The case for redesignating the MEK, Learning from history

The Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK) was previously listed as a Foreign Terrorist Organization by the United States until September 2012 due to the killing of US personnel in Iran during the 1970s and its ties to former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. The US State Department’s criteria for FTO designation include being a foreign organization that engages in terrorist activity or retains the capability and intent to do so, and whose actions threaten the security of the United States.
Arguments for redesignation often point to the MEK’s past violent activities and current human rights abuses within its own ranks. Historically the MEK orchestrated terrorist attacks against the Shah’s regime that killed several Americans working in Iran in the 1970s. While the MEK denies involvement attributing these to a breakaway Marxist-leninist faction, a 2011 State Department report asserted MEK members participated in and supported the 1979 takeover of the US Embassy in Tehran.

The group also engaged in a campaign of assassinations against Iranian officials and civilians in the early 1980s including the 1981 bombing of the Islamic Republic Party headquarters killing over 70 people. During the Iran-Iraq war, the MEK sided with Saddam Hussein and participated in spying and military operations against Iran. Since then, the group has been considered as traitors by Iranians.

Irandokht Pazooki, an anti-Islamic Republic journalist of Israel Hayom believes that “the decision to remove the MEK from terrorist lists appears to have prioritized political considerations over substantive evaluation of the group’s fundamental nature and documented history.” She states that the MEK should be returned to international terrorist lists as “a necessary correction based on documented historical facts.”

Furthermore, critics and former members of the MEK have described it as exhibiting the traits of a personality cult, testifying about authoritarian control, confiscation of assets, mandatory divorce and celibacy, emotional isolation, forced labor, sleep deprivation, and physical abuse.

Human Rights Watch reported in 2005 on prison camps run by the MEK and severe human rights violations against its members, including prolonged incommunicado and solitary confinement, beatings, coerced confessions, and threats of execution. These reports should be considered as “terrorist activity” or a threat to US national security because they are alighned with the criteria for FTO designation.

Pazooki also reminds her audience of reports from Human Rights Watch and other independent observers that “have documented concerning internal practices based on interviews with former members, including allegations of enforced celibacy, forced divorces, separation of family members, and mandatory ideological re-education sessions.” She added, “When French authorities detained MEK leadership during a 2003 investigation, several supporters engaged in self-immolation in protest – events thoroughly covered by international media.”

The correspondent of Israel Hayom believes that The MEK’s delisting in 2012, “occurred despite significant unresolved questions about the organization’s violent past and without compelling evidence of genuine reform.”

The US State Department delisted the MEK in 2012, citing the group’s renunciation of violence and cooperation in closing its Iraqi military base, while still voicing concerns about mistreatments of its members. However, the decision was influenced by intensive lobbying of American lawmakers who were paid hefty sums by the MEK.

“To what extent might organizations with reported ties to the MEK – operating under different names – be engaged in political lobbying abroad, without consistently clarifying their connection to the MEK?” asks Pazooki. “This critical question remains largely unaddressed in policy discussions.”

While the Israel Hayom’s journalist wants to exploit the MEK’s redesignation as a policy against the Islamic Republic, she correctly criticizes the double standards regarding terrorism: “Redesignation would restore integrity to counter-terrorism frameworks by ensuring consistent application of standards based on factual historical records rather than political expediency. Proper designation decisions must be grounded in thorough assessment of an organization’s documented history and demonstrated actions.”

As she asserts, the call for redesignation is not based on political preferences but on widely documented history, legal records, and personal testimonies. The MEK’s legitimacy and its cult-like nature continues to contradict its alleged commitment to nonviolence and democracy.

Mazda Parsi

November 29, 2025 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization as a terrorist group

Mujahedin-e Khalq| resistance or violence

The Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK) claims that it has publicly stated a commitment to non-violent regime change since 2001, advocating for a democratic, secular, and non-nuclear Iran. However, reports and visual evidence, including videos attributed to their “resistance units” (Kanoonhaye Shooreshi), continue to depict activities that suggest a more complex and contradictory stance on violence. These videos often circulated on the group’s social media and channels, sometimes show individuals displaying weapons and expressing support for the MEK’s leadership and their struggle against the Islamic Republic.

Armed Resistance Units

While the MEK maintains that these “resistance units” are engaged in acts of civil disobedience and symbolic defiance, critics and some analysts interpret the imagery of armed individuals and explicit calls for overthrowing the regime as indicative of a continued belief in the efficacy of armed struggle, or at least a willingness to employ it if deemed necessary. The distinction between “resistance” and “violence” in this context remains a point of contradiction.
The perception of support for the MEK among Baluch Iranians in Sistan and Baloochestan, an area with active drug and arms trafficking is a complex issue. The region is also potentially at risk of Balooch separatists and so the MEK strategically makes efforts to exploit the existing discontent and instability in the region.

The MEK has a long history of leveraging ethnic and religious minorities within Iran to further its objectives against the Iranian government. The Sisitan and Baloochestan province, characterized but its porous borders, ethnic Balooch majority and Balooch separatists, and significant economic disparities, presents a fertile ground for such exploitation. The presence of armed group and criminal trafficking networks can also create an environment where alternative power structures, even those with violent histories like the MEK, might gain a foothold by offering protection or economic opportunities, however illicit.

Criticizing the MEK’s video that has been recently published showing some armed Balooch resistance units, Siamak Naderi, former member of the MEK writes: “The MEK published a video of Balooch smugglers who receive money under the guise of resistance units and the MEK’s Liberation Army inside Iran. These smugglers and even their literate head cannot read correctly from the text sent by the MEK from Albania and Ashraf 3. There is a ridiculous mispronunciation.”

Violent acts of “Resistance Units”

The MEK’s violent acts often involve actions such as setting fire to government buildings and religious centers. While the MEK frames these actions as acts of resistance and civil disobedience, the intentional destruction and damage of property are interpreted as violent acts and even terrorism. Such actions even if symbolic, contribute to violence.
From the perspective of the Iranian nation and many independent analysts, such acts are indeed examples of violent struggle and are considered terrorism. The historical record of the MEK’s use of violence, coupled with these actions, support this view. The scale of the MEK’s experience in acts of violence is undeniable, given its history as an armed organization.

Mazda Parsi

November 18, 2025 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization as a terrorist group

Washington’s Double Standard on Terrorism Betrays the Spirit of Liberty

The U.S. government says its “war on terror” protects freedom. In practice, every new intervention narrows the perimeter of freedom at home. The language of confronting evil abroad has become a cover for expanding state power, channeling public money to defense contractors, and normalizing surveillance that would have been unthinkable a generation ago. The pattern is familiar: the more expansive the mission overseas, the more elastic the constraints on government at home.

The contradiction is starkest in Gaza. U.S. officials condemn terrorism but continue to arm and shield an ally whose campaign has killed tens of thousands and devastated the territory. Humanitarian agencies report mass displacement, widespread hunger, and a crippled health system. In the diplomatic arena, Washington has repeatedly vetoed U.N. Security Council resolutions calling for an immediate ceasefire even as it advances fresh weapons packages.

This moral blind spot is not confined to one conflict. During the Cold War, Washington funneled support to the Afghan mujahideen – a decision memorialized in official records – only to confront successor movements in later decades. In Syria, Kurdish-led forces became the principal U.S. partner against ISIS even as NATO ally Turkey labeled affiliated groups terrorists and pressed military campaigns against them. Definitions shift with alliances; the underlying violence does not.

The Iranian exile group known as the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK) offers another example of strategic elasticity. The group’s history includes attacks that killed U.S. citizens in 1970s Tehran, a fact acknowledged by U.S. government sources. Decades later, after an intense and well-funded lobbying effort, the State Department removed the MEK from its Foreign Terrorist Organization list in 2012.

Endless war feeds on fear, and fear consolidates power. Drone warfare was sold as precise and surgical, yet senior commanders themselves warned that killing civilians can be counterproductive – the “insurgent math” that every innocent death creates new enemies. The broader empirical record is mixed, but even the optimistic studies concede a pattern of backlash risks and strategic tradeoffs that should caution against routine reliance on force.

Sanctions are often marketed as a humane alternative to war, yet U.N. experts have repeatedly warned that sweeping unilateral measures punish entire populations, triggering shortages and eroding basic rights – effects difficult to square with a professed commitment to human dignity. If policy aims include stability and liberty, collective punishment is a poor instrument.

Meanwhile, the political economy of intervention hardens. The world’s major arms producers reported another rise in revenues in 2023, with U.S. firms accounting for roughly half of global sales – momentum propelled by ongoing conflicts and procurement cycles that outlast headlines. The incentives are aligned for more of the same.

If opposing terrorism were truly the goal, policy would prioritize ending the interventions that nurture it. That would mean halting arms transfers that fuel atrocities, rejecting collective punishment via sweeping sanctions, and abandoning the conceit that liberty can be delivered from 30,000 feet. Security grows from peace, commerce, and diplomacy – not from empire.

The libertarian tradition teaches that freedom and empire cannot coexist. Every bomb dropped abroad echoes at home as expanded surveillance authorities and normalized exceptions to the rule of law. To defend the American republic, policymakers should discard the imperial reflex that keeps creating enemies and rediscover a foreign policy consistent with the spirit of liberty.

Ultimately, reclaiming liberty demands moral courage – the courage to admit that power cannot purchase peace, that domination cannot deliver safety, and that genuine security begins with restraint. When the nation learns once again to measure strength not by the size of its arsenal but by the integrity of its principles, it will rediscover the freedom it claims to defend.

Sophia Gonzalez of AntiWar.com

November 8, 2025 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization as a terrorist group

October 8 1997, MEK’s designation as an FTO

Twenty-eight years from today, the US Department of State designated the MEK as a Foreign Terrorist Organization.
On October 8, 1997, the US Department of State designated the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK), also known by the aliases Mujahedin Khalq Organization (MKO) and National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) under Section 219 of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA).

At the time, the US government stated that the designation was part of a broader US government effort to combat terrorism by restricting support for violent activities and pressuring violent groups to cease their involvement in terrorism.

In response, the MEK claims that the Bill Clinton administration’s designation of the group as a an FTO was influenced by a desire to improve relations with Tehran during the presidency of Mohammad Khatami. However, American reports have emphasized that the group has a history of violent acts, including the murder of American citizens in Iran in the 1970s and an attempt to attack Iran’s mission to the United Nations in 1992.

Despite the MEK’s terrorist record of killing Iranian citizens and officials in the 1960s, the April 1992 attacks on 13 Iranian embassies and missions, including the Iranian mission in New York, were perhaps the closest in time and space to violate American laws on their territory. In these simultaneous attacks on Iranian government embassies and missions in ten different countries, MEK operatives used a variety of weapons, took hostages, and beat ambassadors and embassy staff, leading to the arrest of a number of MEK members.

The MEK was later delisted in September 2012. The official reason given for the delisting was a change in circumstances, including the group’s renunciation of violence and its cooperation in transferring its members from Iraq to Albania.

However, the extensive, multimillion-dollar lobbying efforts of the MEK and its supporters have been specifically documented in documents and reports as leverage to delist the MEK. The U.S. government stated at the time that the official justification for delisting the MEK focused on the group’s “behavior change” and “strategic considerations,” but concerns about the group’s cult-like nature and human rights abuses against its internal members, both before and after delisting, have been widely documented by various organizations and government reports.

The RAND Corporation, which published a document on the MEK specifically for the U.S. Department of Defense, and the Library of Congress have highlighted concerns about the MEK’s authoritarian leadership, the isolation of its members, and their psychological manipulation in separate reports.

The “strategic considerations” of the United States and its other Western partners may imbrace the famous proverb: “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.” But the historical record of the crimes of the MEK over the years since the 1960s is undeniable.

To verify the “change in behavior” of the MEK, the message attributed to the MEK’s leader Massoud Rajavi that was published by the group’s website, on December 24, 2024, is clear enough. Expressing his joy after the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria, he made the following request to the United States: “We do not ask for help from America. It is enough for it to return the weapons of the Liberation Army that it took from us.”

It is obvious that, Rajavi, following Golani’s path, is determined to continue using violence to achieve power in Iran. Historically, he has not refrained from any violent act against his fellow countrymen every time he has had access to arms and the borders of Iran. Whether or not the name of the MEK is on the list of terrorist groups, based on alleged strategic considerations and behavior change, the substantive truth of the MEK cannot be concealed.

By Mazda Parsi

October 8, 2025 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization as a terrorist group

New evidence on massacre of Kurds by the MEK forces

During his era (1979-2003), former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein suppressed virtually every major ethnic and religious group in his country. No one was safe from his reach: Sunni dissidents, Shiites in the south, Kurds in the north, and a wide range of smaller minorities, such as the Yazidis and Turkmen, were all targets of his wrath at various times.

Through patronage, bribery, and special privileges, Saddam Hussein built a loyal base and established solid networks of informers throughout the country to monitor anyone who might criticize his rule or seek to overthrow him. One of the groups loyal to Saddam Hussein was the Mujahedin-e-Khalq (MEK), which served as Saddam’s private army, and whose leader, Massoud Rajavi, had proved his loyalty to them in numerous meetings with Saddam and other Iraqi officials, in return for large-scale financial and military support, the MEK performed spying and military operations. The films of the meetings which were released after Saddam’s fall.

Saddam Hussein repeatedly engaged in open military attacks against his own people, and the MEK assisted him in suppressing the Hur Arab uprising in southern Iraq in March-April 1991 and in full-scale attacks on Kurdish rebel forces in the north of the country.

However, MEK officials vehemently deny any involvement in the crimes against Shiites and Kurds, claiming that they were attacked by joint Kurdish-Iranian forces and that the MEK did not even defend itself. The RAND Corporation report of the US Department of Defense reinforces the claims of on the MEK’s complicity with Saddam based on various press reports. These reports quote Maryam Rajavi as encouraging MEK members to “take the Kurds under your tanks and save your bullets for the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps.”

According to Rand, Saddam Hussein awarded Massoud Rajavi the Rafideen Medal – a first-class medal of honor in the Iraqi army – after suppressing the Kurdish and Shiite uprisings. “Whatever the truth of the matter, many Iraqis believe that the MEK committed acts of violence against Shiites and Kurds on behalf of Saddam,” according to RAND report.

A Human Rights Watch report published in June 1992 also confirms the role of the MEK in eyewitness accounts. According to the report quoting an eyewitness, “85 or 90 percent of the population crossed the mountain road. They had to cross a river near Tuz that cars cannot cross. The river is 20 to 25 meters wide. They chose this route because the Iraqis controlled the bridge and the Kefri road, and the main road was controlled by the MEK [an Iranian opposition group that supported forces loyal to Iraq]. Several children drowned while crossing the river.”

However, the testimonies of former MEK members who witnessed the MEK’s involvement in the Kurds genocide are more credible than any other testimony. Many former MEK members have written about their observations.

The most recent testimonies about the role of the MEK in the massacre of Iraqi Kurdish civilians are contained in the memoirs of Amir Yaghmaei, a former child soldier of the MEK. Although Amir Yaghmaei was a young child who had just been separated from his parents and smuggled to Europe at the time of the suppression of the Iraqi Kurdish and Shiite uprising, he makes an interesting reference to the issue of the Kurds genocide in a part of his memoirs that relates to the time of the US invasion of Iraq and the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003.

In the fifty-sixth episode in the Iraqi deserts after the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, before the MEK leaders signed a peace and disarmament agreement with the US army. In this part of his memoirs, he writes:
“They said that the Kurdish forces supporting the Islamic Republic, the “Yekiti” group, were approaching us… The news of the Kurds’ approach was enough to throw the atmosphere of the base into chaos. Faces were blurred; whispers rose. The organization had a dark history with the Kurds, especially since the first Persian Gulf War. At that time, they had clashed with the Kurdish forces and many of them, even civilians, had been killed. The organization always said that the Kurds were to blame; they were the ones who collaborated with the IRGC and attacked first.”

But Amir Yaghmaei, like many other members of the MEK who either participated in the operation or met first-hand witnesses to the Kurds suppression operation, continues: “But I had spoken to witnesses from within the organization itself. They said that the attack was not just a defense. When the fighting began, the organization did not stop at just defending its positions. They also entered Kurdish villages, attacked with tanks and artillery, and destroyed houses.”
“One said that they leveled a house with direct tank fire. Another personally confessed to me that he himself had run over a fleeing Kurd with a tank. These tragedies later caused an international reaction, and now the organization did not want to start another crisis with the Kurds.”

After the agreement was signed between the MEK leaders and the US army, the Americans interrogated each and every resident of Camp Ashraf. They, who had good relations with the Iraqi Kurds and their leaders, including Jalal Talabani, sought information during interrogations about the role of the MEK in suppressing Kurds.

According to the Iranian Center for Documents, citing a defected member, “The information from the American forces was accurate. It seemed that they had extracted [the information] from the interrogation of their teammates and they knew that in a clash between a team from the organization and the Kurds, a person named “Mohammad Reza Mohaddes” had commanded the killing of six Kurds, and the name of the person who opened fire on them and killed them was “Nosrat,” and the interrogator had downloaded their photos from the computer.”

Mazda Parsi

September 23, 2025 0 comments

The Italian parliament building (illustrative photo)

Mujahedin Khalq Organization as a terrorist group

Families of Iranian victims of terrorism protest Italian support for MKO

The families of Iranian victims of terrorism have issued an open letter to Italy’s judiciary and top lawmakers, condemning the reception given to the ringleader of the Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO) during her visit to Rome on July 30.

The letter, sent by the Habilian Association, which represented over 23,000 victims of terrorism, denounced the support shown by several Italian politicians and parliamentarians for the MKO, a group with a long history of violence and currently on trial in Tehran for acts of terrorism.

The letter outlined the MKO’s record, including its collaboration with former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein during the Iran–Iraq War and its involvement in attacks on Iranian and Iraqi civilians, which resulted in thousands of deaths.

Although the MKO was removed from the EU’s terrorism list in 2009, the letter said the group remained implicated in money laundering, internal human rights violations, and continued acts of sabotage in Iran through its so-called “rebellious units.”

The letter stated that the MKO’s former ringleader, Massoud Rajavi, had repeatedly incited armed violence against both military and civilian targets in Iran.

The families expressed deep concern over the actions of Italian officials, including the deputy speaker of parliament reportedly presenting an award to an MKO member and plans to host the group’s ringleader at the Italian parliament.

According to the letter, these events, which also included exhibitions and political propaganda, violated Italy’s anti-terrorism laws and the EU’s legal framework, both of which criminalized support for terrorist organizations, including promotion and provision of resources.

The letter argued that such actions not only contradicted Italy’s international obligations but also threatened public safety and risked damaging the historically friendly relations between Iran and Italy.

The Foreign Ministry summoned the ambassador over the Italian parliament’s decision to host the ringleader of the MKO terrorist cult.
“These actions called into question Italy’s commitment to fighting terrorism,” the letter stated, “and could negatively impact the psychological security of Italian citizens by enabling a group that openly promoted violence and sabotage.”

The families claimed that at least 12 MKO-affiliated front organizations operated in Italy and urged a thorough investigation into their activities.

The letter demanded that Italian authorities enforce anti-terrorism laws by investigating politicians who supported the MKO, banning its members from entering Italy, and prohibiting all forms of propaganda events associated with the group.

It urged the Italian parliament to provide a platform for the victims’ families to share their firsthand accounts of the MKO’s atrocities, equal to the space afforded to the group’s representatives.

“Italy, as a key member of the European Union, had the opportunity to demonstrate its commitment to combating terrorism and to prevent actions that promoted violence and instability, even when those actions targeted countries other than Italy,” the letter concluded, calling for immediate measures to halt unlawful support for the MKO.

The MKO has carried out numerous terrorist attacks against Iranian civilians and government officials since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

A top Iranian criminal court has held dozens of hearings into the group’s crimes and is expected to continue its trial sessions.

August 9, 2025 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization as a terrorist group

The NYTimes: the MEK has almost zero popularity in Iran

Following the Israeli invasion of Iran, claims of regime change in Iran have intensified, and journalists and analysts have tried to address various aspects of the issue.

In a recent article, the New York Times discussed the issue of regime change in Iran and various possibilities for a so-called replacement. As expected, the name of the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK) is also included in the list of existing options.

In the article, the MEK is introduced as a group that was once recognized by the United States as a foreign terrorist organization and is accused of being a cult by former members. The author of the article emphasizes that the MEK has tried to restore its credibility in recent years.

The NYTimes reporter sees the MEK’s siding with Saddam Hussein during the Iran-Iraq war as the dark spot in the MEK’s past, the act that many Iranians considered treason.

Reviewing the MEK’s background the author states: The group’s ideology, which began as a blend of Islamism and Marxism, had begun to center around its leaders, Massoud and Maryam Rajavi. Former members have said they were told to renounce marriage and divorce their spouses to prove their commitment to them.

The author of the article explains that representatives of the MEK, who are mainly based in Albania, and Maryam Rajavi did not respond to requests for an interview, and points to Maryam Rajavi’s recent claim regarding Israel’s attack on Iran which according to her “represents the beginning of a critical new chapter, both in Iran’s internal crisis and in the broader dynamics of the region.”

The NYTimes’ article has examined whether the MEK could be a factor in “broader dynamics” in the region. In this regard, he cites the MEK media’s claim: “Ms. Rajavi’s official platform now calls for a secular republic, gender equality, and a non-nuclear Iran.”

It also acknowledges that prominent American politicians have received tens of thousands of dollars to speak at the group’s conferences to promote this cause.

The NYTimes resumes the topic of the MEK with a key statement citing from Nader Hashemi, a professor of Middle East and Islamic politics at Georgetown University.: “The problem is that the MEK has almost zero popularity in Iran.”

Referring to the vast number of MEK paid supporters in the US government, Hashemi points out the ironic truth: ” It has more supporters in Washington, D.C., than in Iran.”

July 7, 2025 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization as a terrorist group

Rudy Giuliani slammed by public opinion for embracing the MEK

Maryam Rajavi was prepared with an interim government when the ceasefire was brokered!

While the US president, Donald Trump announced the ceasefire between Isarel and Iran on the early hours of June 24th, 2025, Rudy Giuliani, claimed on his X account that “The NCRI and the MEK under Maryam Rajavi is prepared with an interim government for Iran”.

The former mayor of New York City went further and claimed that Maryam Rajavi had pledged to an election in months! This ardent supporter of the MEK said that the long-life president of the NCRI would bring “a non-nuclear, democratic Iran with freedom of religion and freedom for women and a 10 Point Program to create a modern liberal democracy.”

As the Israel Iran war was almost over, both leaders of the US and Israel claim that they do not seek regime change in Iran. No uprising happened in Iran as Iranians were united in opposing the foreign military invasion against their territory. Thus, how Maryam Rajavi was prepared to run her so-called “interim government”?

Rudy Giuliani is one of the numerous American former politicians who are on the MEK’s pay roll. According to the US Department of Treasury investigations, he is one of the high-profile officials who have met with or received payments to speak publicly about removing the MEK from the State Department’s list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations.

The less-than-fifty-word post written by Giuliani was seriously slammed by the X users addressing him with respectful or offensive comments, trying to enlighten him about the truth of the MEK.

The comments included warnings about certain characteristics of the MEK as a cult-like organization with communist ideals. Although the MEK’s cyber army from Albania made efforts to praise Giuliani’s stance, the adverse comments of angry users flooded their cheerful applauds for the MEK’s paid supporter.
The Iranian and non-Iranian X users tried to enlighten former America’s Mayor on several facts about the MEK:

MEK’s anti American attitudes

They asked Giuliani not to promote radical #MEKterrorists who have taken American lives referring to the assassination of 6 American military and business men by the MEK agents during the 1970s in Ira.
They supported the hostage taking of American diplomats in the US embassy in Tehran in 1979 and celebrated the 9/11 terrorist attack against US civilians.
Thus, Any member of the US Congress or administration supporting the group or marketing their propaganda is acting against American interests and national security.

Marxist Islamist extremist ideology

The MEK’s original ideology is an unstable mix of Marxism, Islamism. Is that truly the future of Iran?

Forced Hijab

In the community led by Maryam Rajavi, women are forced to wear hijab. Users say that she can’t even free herself, yet claims to fight for a free Iran with religious freedom. The hypocrisy is staggering.

Child soldiers

The case of child soldiers recruited by the MEK is a new aspect of the group atrocities that has come to attentions in recent years. The group leaders separated families from their children to radicalize them when they grew up to teen age. The child soldiers of the MEK were trained and used in military operations. Critics think that the MEK leaders should be tried for indoctrination of Iranian children, into an armed extremist cult.

Hostages at Ashraf 3

According to the audience of Giuliani’s post, members of the MEK are poor and elderly people who are stuck in a delusional authoritarian cult at Ashraf 3, a remote camp in the village of Manez, north of Tirana, Albania.
Maryam Rajavi’s ten-point plan will not bring a democracy, not for her own followers, let alone the Iranian people.

Zero support in Iran

This isn’t a group with real support inside Iran. They’re viewed by actual Iranians as cultlike, terrorist, foreign-backed, and illegitimate. The Iranian people will never allow their country to be occupied again by an extremist terrorist cult.
The users ask Giuliani not to speak on behalf of 90 million Iranians, to stop pretending your opinion carries that weight.

Paid Supporters

The majority of comments share the idea that US supporters of the MEK are motivated by the money the group pay them. A user suggests that the money they pay them comes from the social welfare western governments pay MEK members residing their countries. The money is actually meant for medicine and diapers for these elderlies.
American users believe that the MEK pay for their lawmakers speaking engagements and that should stop.

Appeal to relist them

Users mention Donald Trump to ask him to make the USA and the world safer, by relisting the terrorist Islamist-Marxist MEK and NCRI on the U.S. terrorist list. They say that it’s time to put them back where they belong to and to investigate the dirty money the MEK has been paying to corrupt U.S. politicians, including Trump’s former friend, Rudy Giuliani.

Iranians do not want outsider’s force

“If your plan for Iran is to hand it over to a group hated by Iranians and distrusted by Americans, that’s not liberation. That’s a disaster waiting to happen.”
The Iranian people will never allow their country to be occupied by an outside force. It doesn’t need another imported savior. And it certainly doesn’t need another failed foreign project dressed up as “liberation.”
Iranians should decide for their future. History has already shown what happens when outsiders force regime change: In 2003, Saddam Hussein was toppled by the outsiders. The consequence was the rebirth of ISIS. Libya was allegedly liberated from Gaddafi in 2011, the country was left is anarchy. The US forces occupied Afghanistan for 20 years and finally, Taliban was back in power.

Although the MEK claims to be an independent secular democratic opposition to the Iranian government but it is mainly promoted by its paid supporters. Maryam Rajavi routinely visits western retired figures to buy their support. Giuliani promote her so-called interim government as soon as tensions escalated between Iran and Israel. To Iranians, neither war nor ceasefire mean that outsiders can push a hated cult of personality with violent background to acheive power in Iran.

Mazda Parsi

June 30, 2025 0 comments

Missions of Nejat Society Mujahedin Khalq Organization as a terrorist group

The latest report of CRS on the Mojahedin-e Khalq

The Mojahedin-e-Khalq (MEK) or People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI)

CRS PRODUCT (LIBRARY OF CONGRESS)
CRS Product Type: Reports
Publication Date: 02/25/2025
Author: Thomas, Clayton

Summary

The Mojahedin-e-Khalq or MEK (also known as the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran, or PMOI) is an exiled Iranian opposition group. This report provides background on the group, including its origins, its 1997 designation by the U.S. Department of State as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO), its 2012 delisting as an FTO, and other issues.

Background

The MEK was founded in Iran in the early 1960s to oppose the government of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the last Shah of Iran. The group’s foundational ideology has been described by one historian as “a combination of Islam and Marxism.”1 Alongside and in periodic collaboration with other opposition groups of various ideological backgrounds, the MEK in the 1960s and 1970s sought the overthrow of the then-U.S.-backed Shah through guerilla attacks against the Iranian government and other targets. Some of these attacks killed U.S. military personnel stationed in Iran according to a 1994 congressionally mandated State Department report.2 The MEK participated in the 1979 Iranian Revolution and, after the fall of the Shah, “supported the takeover of the U.S. embassy, and opposed the release of American hostages” according to the 1994 State Department report.3 The MEK has denied involvement in the 1979 embassy seizure and other attacks on Americans in Iran.4

In the early 1980s, the MEK fell out with the newly established Islamic Republic led by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, and launched attacks against it (including a 1981 bombing that killed Iran’s chief justice and dozens of other officials); in response, the government detained and “indiscriminately” executed thousands of MEK supporters.5 MEK leader Massoud Rajavi and other MEK figures fled to France in 1981 as the crackdown intensified and founded the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) purporting to act as a government-in-exile. In 1985, Rajavi married Maryam Qajar-Azodanlu, who changed her name to Maryam Rajavi and became secretary-general of the MEK and the “President-Elect” of the NCRI. The Rajavis and other MEK members left France in 1986 for Iraq, where the MEK aided the government of Saddam Hussein in its war against Iran.6 Massoud Rajavi has reportedly not been seen in public since 2003 and his whereabouts are unknown; some analysts speculate that he is dead.7 According to the State Department report mentioned above, NCRI “disintegrated in the 1980s” as various partners “left the organization because of their objections to Rajavi’s dictatorial methods and his unilateral decision to ally with Iraq.”8

After the 1988 conclusion of the Iran-Iraq War, the MEK remained in Iraq, which they continued to use as a base for attacks both in Iran and abroad. Such attacks included coordinated assaults against Iranian diplomatic installations in 11 countries (including Iran’s Mission to the United Nations in New York) in April 1992, and the April 1999 assassination of the deputy chief of the Iranian Armed Forces General Staff.

Listing as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO)

In October 1997, the State Department made the first designations pursuant to Section 219 of the Immigration and Nationality Act (as added by Section 302 of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, AEDPA, P.L. 104-132), which authorizes the Secretary of State to designate as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) any group that engages in terrorist activity that threatens U.S. national security.9 The State Department announced the designation of 30 groups as FTOs, including the MEK.10 An October 1997 media report on the designations, citing an unnamed senior Clinton Administration official, stated that “inclusion of the [MEK] was intended as a goodwill gesture to Tehran and its newly elected moderate president, Mohammad Khatami,”11 a quote that has since featured prominently in MEK efforts to portray the designation as baseless and politically motivated.12 A 1999 State Department report announcing the redesignation of most of the original designees (including the MEK) featured several frequently asked questions, including, “Why was the MEK designated?” The report answered:

We have sufficient grounds for concluding that they are a terrorist organization and continue to engage in terrorist violence. The designation is based on activities much more recent than the takeover of our embassy.

Additionally, directing terrorism against a government or entity with whom we have differences does not exclude an organization from designation as an FTO.

MEK is designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization because of the acts they commit, not who they act against and not who they are.13

In 1999, the State Department also added “National Council of Resistance” and NCR as aliases of the MEK.14

In the 2011 Country Reports on Terrorism (the last in which the MEK was included as an FTO), the State Department reported the group had 5,000-10,000 members worldwide, with large contingents in Paris and other European capitals, and that the NCRI (“the MEK’s political arm”) had “a global support network with active lobbying and propaganda efforts in major Western capitals. NCRI also has a well-developed media communications strategy.”15 That report also stated, “Before Operation Iraqi Freedom began in 2003, the MEK received all of its military assistance and most of its financial support from Saddam Hussein. The fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime has led the MEK increasingly to rely on front organizations to solicit contributions from expatriate Iranian communities.”16

Delisting as an FTO

In the late 2000s, the MEK mounted a legal and advocacy campaign in the United Kingdom and Europe to seek delisting as a terrorist group; the group was delisted as a terrorist organization by the United Kingdom in 2008 and the European Union in 2009.17 Seeking to capitalize on that momentum, the MEK petitioned the U.S. State Department to revoke its FTO designation in 2008, pursuant to AEDPA. In January 2009, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice denied the petition but noted in a document provided to the MEK that “the continued designation of the MEK should be reexamined by the Secretary of State in the next two years even if the MEK does not file a petition for revocation,” given the MEK’s claims to have renounced terrorism.18

In July 2010, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia directed the Secretary to review the designation and to “provide the PMOI the opportunity to review and rebut the unclassified portions of the record on which she relied” in keeping the group on the FTO list.19 That court ruled again in June 2012 that the Secretary’s “delay in acting on PMOI’s petition for revocation is egregious” and ordered the Secretary to deny or grant the petition within four months.20

The MEK complemented its legal efforts with an advocacy campaign in Congress focused on the status of the group’s members in Iraq.21 MEK members in Iraq relinquished weapons to U.S. forces in Iraq in 2003 and remained concentrated largely at a location known as Camp Ashraf. In 2004, then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld designated MEK members as “protected persons” under the Fourth Geneva Convention and U.S.-led coalition forces maintained security at the camp.22 U.S. forces handed security responsibility for the camp to the elected Iraqi government in 2008. As U.S. forces withdrew additional forces from Iraq in 2009, Iraqi government forces asserted greater security control over Camp Ashraf, and conducted operations inside the camp resulting in the deaths and injuries of some MEK camp residents. Some House Members introduced or cosponsored resolutions calling for protections and humanitarian assistance to Camp Ashraf residents (e.g. H.Res. 704, 111th Congress; and, H.Res. 231 and H.Res. 332, 112th Congress). Other Members introduced or cosponsored a resolution calling for the MEK’s delisting as an FTO (H.Res. 60, 112th Congress).

On September 28, 2012, the State Department announced the MEK’s delisting as an FTO. In the announcement, the Department said

With today’s actions, the Department does not overlook or forget the MEK’s past acts of terrorism, including its involvement in the killing of U.S. citizens in Iran in the 1970s and an attack on U.S. soil in 1992. The Department also has serious concerns about the MEK as an organization, particularly with regard to allegations of abuse committed against its own members. The Secretary’s decision today took into account the MEK’s public renunciation of violence, the absence of confirmed acts of terrorism by the MEK for more than a decade, and their cooperation in the peaceful closure of Camp Ashraf, their historic paramilitary base.23

In 2013, the MEK left Iraq for Albania, where the group remains at a site called Camp Ashraf-3 and reportedly has periodically faced threats from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).24 The U.S. government provided some diplomatic and financial support for the MEK’s move to Albania and the Albanian government’s role in hosting the group.25 In June 2023, Albanian police reportedly raided the MEK camp as part of an investigation into “unsanctioned political activities;” the MEK claimed one of its members was killed and dozens injured in the raid.26

Some Members of Congress have remained engaged in MEK-related issues. In the 118th Congress, H.Res. 100, which would have expressed “support for the Iranian people’s desire for a democratic, secular, and nonnuclear Republic of Iran,” condemned “violations of human rights and state-sponsored terrorism by the Iranian Government,” and referenced “opposition leader Mrs. Maryam Rajavi,” had 243 cosponsors. H.Res. 1148, which would have expressed the House of Representatives’ support for Rajavi’s “Ten-Point Plan for the Future of Iran,” had 227 cosponsors.27 In December 2023, NCRI asserted that Members of Congress had formed a “Congressional ASHRAF Protection and Rights Advocacy Caucus” and published what NCRI described as the caucus’s ‘mission statement,’ ‘statement of purpose,’ and ‘by-laws.’28 In a January 2025 “Strategic Framework,” the NCRI-aligned Organization of Iranian American Communities (OIAC, see below) called for the United States government to “formally recognize” NCRI as a “parliament in exile.”29

Role in Iran

As an exiled opposition group, the MEK plays no role in the authoritarian political system of the Islamic Republic. Given the Iranian government’s repressive approach to civil liberties and the media, there is not reliable information on the MEK’s activities or support within Iran. The MEK claims to be a focal point for broad-based opposition to the Iranian government.30 To bolster the group’s claims that it has support within Iran, the MEK has argued that it has received information from domestic sources on the government’s nuclear program and crackdowns on public protests.31 Limited public opinion polling suggests the group may not have broad popular support in Iran or within the Iranian-American diaspora.32 Statements from Iranian government officials as recently as January 2025, as well as alleged Iranian operations against both the MEK and the Albanian government, suggest that Tehran continues to view the MEK as a threat.33 The January 2025 OIAC “Strategic Framework” asserts that MEK “Iranian Resistance Units” operate covertly in Iran, organizing protests and strikes.34

In a 2022 statement to Foreign Policy, a State Department spokesperson was quoted as saying that “the United States does not see the MEK as a viable democratic opposition movement that is representative of the Iranian people.”35 The spokesperson also reportedly relayed that the State Department “continues to have serious concerns about the MEK as an organization, including allegations of abuse committed against its own members.”36 The group has long faced accusations that it holds members against their will and commits torture—allegations the group denies.37

Relationships with Other Iran-Related Groups in the United States

A number of U.S.-based advocacy groups seek to represent the views and interests of Iranian Americans. While the groups voice support for a free and democratic Iran, they often disagree strongly on U.S. policy approaches. Of these groups, the Organization of Iranian-American Communities (OIAC) appears to be closest to the MEK. OIAC materials and speakers regularly promote Maryam Rajavi, who has spoken (via video) at OIAC events, including a December 2024 OIAC briefing for congressional staff reportedly attended by several Senators and former U.S. military officials.38 OIAC has denounced Reza Pahlavi, the son of the former Shah and so-called “crown prince” whom other advocacy groups (such as the National Union for Democracy in Iran, NUFDI) have promoted.39

Footnotes
1. Ervand Abrahamian, The Iranian Mojahedin (Yale University Press, 1992), p. 92.
2. U.S. Department of State, Report on the People’s Mojahedin of Iran, October 28, 1994. The report states that the MEK “are known to have assassinated” six Americans, including three U.S. military personnel, between 1973 and 1976. The report was mandated by Section 523 of the FY1994-1995 Foreign Relations Authorization Act (P.L. 103-236) and is at http://iran.org/news/1994_10-State-Dept-MEK-report.htm.
3. U.S. Department of State, Report on the People’s Mojahedin of Iran.
4. See National Council of Resistance of Iran, U.S. Representative Office, FARA filing at https://efile.fara.gov/docs/6171-Informational-Materials-20170110-1.pdf.
5.U.S. Department of State, Report on the People’s Mojahedin of Iran.
6. Ibid.
7. Jonathan Masters, “Mujahadeen-e-Khalq (MEK),” Council on Foreign Relations, July 28, 2014. In a 2020 interview, an MEK spokesperson reportedly said, “We can’t talk about it” when asked about Massoud Rajavi’s whereabouts. Patrick Kingsley, “Highly secretive Iranian rebels are holed up in Albania. They gave us a tour,” New York Times, February 16, 2020.
8. U.S. Department of State, Report on the People’s Mojahedin of Iran.
9. 8 U.S.C. §1189. For more, see CRS In Focus IF10613, The Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) List, by Liana W. Rosen. For follow-up, congressional offices may contact Clayton Thomas.
10. Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism, Public Notice 2612, 62 Federal Register 52650, October 8, 1997.
11. Norman Kempster, “U.S. designates 30 groups as terrorists,” Los Angeles Times, October 9, 1997.
12. See, for example, “The resilient MEK: Rebuilding the Iranian Resistance in exile,” PMOI/MEK, September 8, 2021.
13. U.S. Department of State, 1999 Report Index, October 8, 1999, at https://2001-2009.state.gov/s/ct/rls/rpt/fto/2682.htm.
14. Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism, Public Notice 3130, 64 Federal Register 55112, October 8, 1999.
15. U.S. Department of State, Country Reports on Terrorism 2011, July 2012, at https://2009-2017.state.gov/j/ct/rls/crt/2011/195553.htm. For more information on the MEK’s reliance on Iranian diaspora communities as a financial support system, see Mark Edmond Clark, “An Analysis of the Role of the Iranian Diaspora in the Financial Support System of the Mujahedin-e Khalq,” in Terrornomics, ed. Sean S. Costigan and David Gold (London: Routledge, 2007), pp. 65-76.
16. Ibid.
17. For an account of the MEK’s legal campaign in the United Kingdom and European Union, including references to primary sources, see Ben Smith, “The People’s Mujahiddeen of Iran (PMOI),” UK House of Commons Library, Briefing Paper Number CBP 5020, March 7, 2016, pp. 9-12.
18. People’s Mojahedin Organization v. United States Department of State, 613 F.3d 220 (D.C. Cir. 2010).
19. Ibid.
20. In re People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran, 680 F.3d 832 (D.C. Cir. 2012).
21. Ali Gharib and Eli Clifton, “Long march of the yellow jackets: how a one-time terrorist group prevailed on Capitol Hill,” Intercept, February 26, 2015; Ali Harb, “How Iranian MEK went from US terror list to halls of Congress,” Middle East Eye, July 17, 2019.
22. Jeremiah Goulka et al., The Mujahedin-e Khalq in Iraq: A Policy Conundrum, RAND National Defense Research Institute, July 28, 2009.
23. U.S. Department of State, Delisting of the Mujahdin-e Khalq, September 28, 2012, at https://2009-2017.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2012/09/198443.htm.
24. Kingsley, “Highly secretive Iranian rebels”; Hollie McKay, “Inside the Albanian compound of an exiled Iranian opposition group,” Coffee or Die Magazine, September 20, 2022; and, Harun Karcic, “How Albania Ended Up in Iran’s Cyber Crosshairs,” Foreign Policy, November 8, 2022.
25. Pamela Dockins, “US praises Albania for MEK resettlement,” VOA, February 14, 2016; U.S. Department of State, Remarks Before the Daily Press Briefing, September 12, 2016.
26. Maziar Motamedi, “Why was this Iran dissident group raided in Europe?” Al Jazeera, June 21, 2023.
27. Rajavi’s Ten-Point Plan, which includes calls for “a republic founded on universal suffrage and pluralism,” “separation of religion and state,” and “complete gender equality,” is available at https://www.ncr-iran.org/en/maryam-rajavis-ten-point-plan-for-future-iran/.
28. “Congressional caucus spearheads global initiative to ensure safety and rights of Iranian dissidents in Ashraf-3,” National Council of Resistance of Iran, December 21, 2023. See also Matthew Petti, “Congress forms caucus to aid Iranian ex-terror group,” Responsible Statecraft, January 16, 2024. As of December 2024, the caucus did not appear on the Committee on House Administration’s list of Congressional Member Organizations (CMOs) in the 118th Congress. As of February 2025, the caucus does not appear on the CMO list for the 119th Congress. See CMO lists at https://cha.house.gov/congressional-member-and-staff-organizations.
29. “Strategic framework for U.S. policy on Iran: Supporting regime change, engaging viable alternative, and facilitating transition,” Organization of Iranian-American Communities, January 15, 2025. OIAC’s website says the group “supports the 10-point plans by Mrs. Maryam Rajavi for a democratic Iran.” See https://oiac.org/about/.
30. See, for example, Matin Karim, “The Resistance Units: The frontline of the fight for freedom in Iran,” PMOI, February 17, 2025.
31. “About the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK),” PMOI website, at https://english.mojahedin.org/about-the-peoples-mojahedin-organization-of-iran-pmoi-mek/.
32. Nancy Gallagher, Ebrahim Mohseni, and Clay Ramsey, “Iranian public opinion at the start of the Raisi Administration: a public opinion study,” University of Maryland Center for International and Security Studies, September 2021; Public Affairs Alliance of Iranian Americans, National Public Opinion Survey of the Iranian American Community 2023, February 2023.
33. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, “Iranian state actors conduct cyber operations against the government of Albania,” September 23, 2022; Gerta Zaimi, “Iran’s Balkan front: the roots and consequences of Iranian cyberattacks against Albania,” Middle East Institute, December 22, 2022; “Killing of senior Iranian judges puts spotlight on exiled opposition group,” Amwaj.media, January 20, 2025.
34. “Strategic framework for U.S. policy on Iran: Supporting regime change, engaging viable alternative, and facilitating transition,” Organization of Iranian-American Communities, January 15, 2025.
35. Harun Karcic, “How Albania ended up in Iran’s cyber crosshairs,” Foreign Policy, November 8, 2022.
36. Ibid.
37. No Exit: Human Rights Abuses Inside the MKO Camps, Human Rights Watch, May 18, 2005; Kingsley, “Highly secretive Iranian rebels”; Murtaza Hussain and Matthew Cole, “Defectors tell of torture and forced sterilization in militant Iranian cult,” Intercept, March 22, 2020.
38. “A bipartisan conference in the U.S Senate examined the path to a free democratic Iran,” Organization of Iranian American Communities, December 14, 2024.
39. OIAC, “Reza Pahlavi, son of overthrown shah, is no advocate for a democratic Iran,” May 10, 2023.

March 16, 2025 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization as a terrorist group

Families of Iranian terrorism victims slam Italian parliament’s decision to honor MEK member

In an open letter addressed to Italian authorities, families of Iranian victims of terrorism have condemned the Italian Parliament’s decision to honor a member of the anti-Iran terror group Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK).

The families described the decision as a “shameful act” that has caused profound pain to many Iranians, especially the families of the 23,000 victims of terrorism in Iran.

The protest follows the Italian Parliament’s decision to present the “Women of Courage Award 2025” to a member of the so-called Association of Iranian Youth in Italy, a group linked to the MEK terrorist organization. The award was handed over by the parliament’s vice president.

In their letter, the families expressed their deep disappointment and outrage at the decision. “This award was presented by the Vice President of the Italian Parliament to a member of a front organization affiliated with the MEK, known as the Association of Iranian Youth in Italy,” the letter stated. “In her acceptance speech, the recipient openly acknowledged her and her family’s membership in and political commitment to the MEK. She expressed support for the terrorist and destructive activities of the MEK’s so-called ‘Rebellious Units,’ whose mission involves sabotage and the use of homemade bombs targeting government and religious sites in Iran.”

The families highlighted the MEK’s long history of violence and terrorism, both within Iran and beyond. “The MEK is a terrorist organization that, over more than five decades of its existence, has massacred countless Iranian citizens through a range of brutal methods, including suicide bombings, explosive attacks, mortar fire, abductions, torture, and both targeted and indiscriminate assassinations,” the letter continued. “Thousands of Iran’s 23,000 victims of terrorism lost their lives to the atrocities committed by this group.”

The letter also pointed out the MEK’s involvement in the murder of American and Iraqi citizens and its mercenary service to Saddam Hussein from the 1980s until his downfall. “The group’s history is so steeped in darkness that, for years, it was listed as a terrorist organization by the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and even the European Union,” the families wrote. “While regrettable political maneuvers by these nations eventually led to its removal from those lists, the Iranian people and the families of terror victims will never forget the bombings, assassinations, and murders committed by this group.”

The families called on the Italian Parliament to reconsider its support for the MEK and to adopt more just and humanitarian policies. “Instead of representing its own people and defending their rights, the Italian Parliament has, regrettably, chosen an unjust and inhumane path by supporting and rewarding a notorious terrorist group and its members,” the letter concluded. “It is highly unlikely that the Italian people and the voters who elected these representatives would condone such repulsive acts, which stem either from ignorance or from complete disregard for morality.”

The families of Iran’s terrorism victims urged the Italian Parliament and its representatives to cease their support for the MEK and to redirect their efforts toward serving their own citizens.

March 16, 2025 0 comments

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