{"id":13136,"date":"2021-08-23T14:24:48","date_gmt":"2021-08-23T09:54:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/?p=13136"},"modified":"2021-08-23T14:24:48","modified_gmt":"2021-08-23T09:54:48","slug":"female-ex-member-of-mek-our-memoir-of-the-cult-is-not-fictional","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/posts\/13136","title":{"rendered":"Female ex-member of MEK: our memoir of the cult is not fictional"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\u201c<em>Cults are terrifying. But they&#8217;re even worse for women<\/em>\u201d, Alexandra Stein states.<br \/>\nAlexandra Stein, Ph.D. is an honorary research fellow at Birkbeck, University of London. Her latest book, &#8220;Terror, Love and Brainwashing: Attachment in Cults and Totalitarian Systems&#8221; was published in 2017.<\/p>\n<p>What Stein reveals about women in cults has been seen in the testimonies of all female ex-members of the Mujahedin Khalq Organization (MKO\/ MEK\/ PMOI\/ Cult of Rajavi). Over twenty years ago, Zahra Moini and Homeira Mohammadnezhad could manage to leave the MEK after they found it intolerable to stay in the cult-like structure of the group.<\/p>\n<p>Homeira and Zahra have been denouncing the group during the years of living their free life in Germany although they were always labeled as agents of the Iranian Intelligence by the MEK propaganda. In a recent interview with Mardom TV, they talk about the group\u2019s undemocratic practices against its own members particularly women and its current situation in the political and social scene of Iran.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_13137\" style=\"width: 610px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-13137\" class=\"wp-image-13137 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/Moeini-Mohammadnejad-1.jpg\" alt=\"Zahra Moeini and Homeira Mohamamdnejad\" width=\"600\" height=\"361\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/Moeini-Mohammadnejad-1.jpg 600w, https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/Moeini-Mohammadnejad-1-300x181.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-13137\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Zahra Moeini and Homeira Mohamamdnejad<\/p><\/div>\n<p>\u201cHistory should not be repeated in favor of villains,\u201d Homeira says. \u201cWe give testimonies of our experiences in MEK to inform the world about the threat of a group that claims of huge changes in Iran but it does not observe the least human rights inside its own structure.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt is not easy for me to review the grieves I endured in MEK but I want more people to know about the disgusting relationships in the cult of Rajavi,\u201d Zahra says.<br \/>\n\u201cAfter I left the group, I used to see nightmares for so long,\u201d Homeira adds. \u201cWhen I began to speak out about my sufferings in the group, I felt much better. Our accounts of living in the MEK is not a fictional story. We speak based on facts.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Homeira and Zahra state that members inside the MEK are deprived from the most basic human rights. \u201cMembers in the MEK are prisoners who even do not have the right to contact their families,\u201d Zahra says.<br \/>\n\u201cWhat has been the achievements of Massoud and Maryam Rajavi for the Iranian people and their own members?\u201d Homeira criticizes the totalitarian leaders of the group. \u201cMassoud Rajavi never takes responsibility for the suffers he created for his own members.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>About Maryam Rajavi\u2019s partnership in the consolidation Massoud\u2019s dictatorship over the cult, Zahra says, \u201cWhen I was in the group, Maryam told us that the food we ate and the clothes we wore, all had belonged to Massoud! We were considered as a bunch of homeless wrecked people that Massoud had saved us.\u201d<br \/>\n\u201cThe MEK\u2019s goal is not the overthrow of the Iranian regime any more,\u201d Zarha believes. \u201cThe MEK is stuck in a cul-de-sac but it does not let its members leave.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn case of the recent incidents in Afghanistan, the MEK has not taken any position so far,\u201d Homeira says. \u201cMassoud Rajavi\u2019s tactic is based on squeeze. He is always ready to squeeze in the scene through chaos, war and divisions. This is what he exactly did in Iraq and then after the fall of Saddam Hussein he worked as proxy force for Iranian enemies. He might be ready to negotiate with Taliban against Iran.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cGiven that he changes the regime, Rajavi will change Iran into North Korea,\u201d Zahra says.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cCults are terrifying. But they&#8217;re even worse for women\u201d, Alexandra Stein states. Alexandra Stein, Ph.D. is an honorary research fellow at Birkbeck, University of London. Her latest book, &#8220;Terror, Love&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":13137,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[24551,145,52,51,24552],"module":[81],"ctype":[17],"blog":[3],"class_list":["post-13136","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-human-rights-abuse-within-mujahedin-khalq-organization","tag-homeira-mohammadnejad","tag-manipulation-techniques-mko","tag-mujahedin-khalq-destructive-cult","tag-womens-rights-abuse-by-mujahe","tag-zahra-moeini","module-article","ctype-story","blog-nejat-bloggers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13136","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13136"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13136\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13137"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13136"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13136"},{"taxonomy":"module","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/module?post=13136"},{"taxonomy":"ctype","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ctype?post=13136"},{"taxonomy":"blog","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/blog?post=13136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}