{"id":13519,"date":"2021-11-01T10:57:39","date_gmt":"2021-11-01T07:27:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/?p=13519"},"modified":"2022-01-30T12:54:09","modified_gmt":"2022-01-30T09:24:09","slug":"mek-child-soldier-speaks-out-freed-at-last","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/posts\/13519","title":{"rendered":"MEK Child Soldier Speaks Out \u2013 Freed At Last"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cI missed the rain, the meadows and forests, wandering around in Cologne\u2019s pedestrian zone\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Amin Golmaryami came to Germany as a refugee child. When he was 15, he was taken from Cologne to Iraq together with many other young people, he says \u2013 to a military camp run by an Iranian organization called the People\u2019s Mojahedin. He is the first of those victims of this political cult to make his story public under his name.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re walking. Amin Golmaryami is a man with tousled dark curls who likes to wear Nike sneakers, as he does at this first meeting in October 2020 on Z\u00fclpicher Stra\u00dfe in Cologne\u2019s Neustadt, the student party district. The 35-year-old has already had many jobs; at the moment he looks after people with disabilities. He speaks accent less German and yet sometimes uses words from his native language, Persian. They are not difficult to translate, it is more difficult to explain them: Almaas-e ensaani, for example, means \u2018human diamond\u2019. This is one of the core ideological concepts of the organization, into whose clutches he fell as a child, says Golmaryami: The idea behind this is that everyone has a diamond inside them, that has become tarnished. It is the person themself with their desires who is to blame \u2013 as is the family. One must renounce all of this. Only through devotion to a leader can one become \u2018pure\u2019. This explanation is also given by other witnesses who say they have knowledge of this ideology.<\/p>\n

\"Amin

Amin Golmaryami<\/p><\/div>\n

The organization that shaped and partially destroyed his life, says Golmaryami, is the Iranian People\u2019s Mojahedin. Iranian exiles who want to overthrow the clerical regime in their homeland. They call themselves \u201cMojahedin\u201d \u2013 jihadist fighters \u2013 like many Islamic groups that fight for religious goals. Fascinated by the Marxist economy, the founders wanted to combine Islam with class struggle in the 1960s. Today the People\u2019s Mojahedin speak out for women\u2019s rights, human rights and freedom. They have thousands of members and supporters worldwide, including in Germany. Many work for the political arm of the organization, the National Council of Resistance of Iran. The European headquarters are located near Paris, in Germany the headquarters are in Berlin. The lobbying work is so successful that even members of the Bundestag support the National Council of Resistance and glorify it as a democratic alternative to the Iranian regime. Presumably they do not know what people like Amin Golmaryami have suffered according to what he said about the People\u2019s Mojahedin \u2013 or they do not want to know.<\/p>\n

According to research by ZEITmagazin, by the mid-1990s, the People\u2019s Mojahedin are said to have smuggled at least 40 children and adolescents who had come to Cologne as refugees without their parents into Iraq. According to a total of eight dropouts, many of them were trained as soldiers there and lived isolated from the outside world for years.<\/p>\n

One of them is Amin Golmaryami. He says he involuntarily spent twelve years in Iraq in the infamous Camp Ashraf, the former headquarters of the People\u2019s Mojahedin. He is ready to make his story public, under his real name \u2013 as the first among the Cologne youth. \u201cI want everyone to know what the People\u2019s Mojahedin did to me. So that everyone knows what a dangerous group this is. ZEITmagazin put these allegations to the National Council of Resistance of Iran. It did not want to comment on the details, but through a law firm, stated that information about the People\u2019s Mojahedin was largely controlled by the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence. On its homepage, however, the organization reacted: Children like Amin Golmaryami were at that time only \u201creturned to their parents in Iraq\u201d, it says \u201cas adults\u201d. Minors were never used in the military.<\/p>\n

Amin Golmaryami tells his story like this: He was born in 1985 in the city of Abadan in southwest Iran \u2013 underground; his parents were already resistance fighters for the People\u2019s Mojahedin. In 1979 they and other opposition groups overthrew the Shah of Iran. However, the clerical Islamic regime that subsequently came to power did not allow the Mojahedin to participate in the government and persecuted them. The People\u2019s Mojahedin then carried out attacks on state employees and eventually fled into exile, most of them to Iraq. Until 2009 they were on the list of foreign terrorist organizations in the EU, but now, however, they appear more moderate. Security circles see them today as a self-contained group with a cult-like character.<\/p>\n

When he was a few months old, Amin Golmaryami says, his parents fled with him and his two older brothers from Iran to Iraq, as did thousands of other members of the organization. From there they fought against their own country in the Iran-Iraq war. Amin\u2019s father died in one of the battles, as did thousands of other People\u2019s Mojahedin.<\/p>\n

\"MEK<\/p>\n

Also read: Tragedy of MEK born children<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

In the mid-1980s, the organization turned more and more into a cult \u2013 as the US historian Ervand Abrahamian, a renowned Iran expert, describes it: \u201cA personality cult in its most extreme form\u201d developed around the leader Massoud Rajavi. As is customary in cults, critics were denounced as \u201ctraitors, parasites, bloodsuckers, scum and dung\u201d. According to the Rand think tank, which advises the US armed forces, social ties had to destroyed \u2013 also a typical manipulation technique used by cults. The People\u2019s Mojahedin regularly reject such accusations as a propaganda campaign by the Iranian regime.<\/p>\n

When a US-led alliance attacked Iraq in 1991 during the second Gulf War, the People\u2019s Mojahedin used the stream of refugees to send hundreds of children abroad. To save them from the bombs, say the People\u2019s Mojahedin today. According to dropouts, however, it was also about breaking family structures and strengthening the fighting spirit. Amin Golmaryami was there too, as were his two brothers Alireza and Hanif.<\/p>\n

Amin Golmaryami remembers the trip in fragments. \u201cMy mother stood in front of the bus for a long time, she cried and waved.\u201d They were taken to Germany. He and about 150 other children came to Cologne. Golmaryami was accommodated in a house in the Meschenich district, he remembers a dilapidated semi-detached house. The children were there as unaccompanied minor refugees in the care of functionaries and confidants of the People\u2019s Mojahedin. Ten of them slept in one room. \u201cI missed my mother terribly\u201d, says Golmaryami. Some were beaten, many had little to eat. Amin started school and quickly learned German. Most of the other Iranian children were older than him and attended the Martin Luther King secondary school in Cologne-Weiden. One of the teachers from back then remembers: \u201cPleasant and hardworking\u201d the children were. But there was also something fanatical about them. Some had worshiped the leader Massoud Rajavi and his wife Maryam \u201clike gods\u201d. He informed the police. But nothing happened. The Youth Welfare Office also became aware of the children. \u201cI was worried about them\u201d says Klaus-Peter V\u00f6llmecke, 64, then head of department and responsible for the Iranian children. When he and his colleagues wanted to talk to the Iranian caregivers about the children, prominent German supporters appeared. The People\u2019s Mojahedin turned to the lawyer Annemarie L\u00fctkes.<\/p>\n

L\u00fctkes was then parliamentary group leader of the Cologne Greens, and later became Minister of Justice in Schleswig-Holstein. Her husband Christoph Meertens reports that her law firm represented the children in asylum proceedings. He himself, also a lawyer, had taken on the guardianship of around 60 children. Amin Golmaryami also became his ward. Meertens says today that he initially checked on the children every week, later every two weeks. In addition, in 1993 the couple and Kerstin M\u00fcller, the then state Chair of the Greens and later parliamentary group leader in the Bundestag, founded a non-profit aid organization: the Iranian Refugee Children\u2019s Aid. This was recognized as a provider of youth welfare. From then on, it was the board of this organization which spoke with the Youth Welfare Office about the children.<\/p>\n

Klaus-Peter V\u00f6llmecke says that the functionaries of the People\u2019s Mojahedin always accompanied Meertens and tried to assert their interests. \u201cThey wanted financial support for the children and maximum personal influence.\u201d The women insisted that the children should be looked after by cadres or supporters. After tough negotiations, an agreement was reached: every Iranian supervisee was assigned a German-speaking educator. This would give the young people a chance to break away from the organization. From 1994 onwards, the children were gradually moved to other accommodation. Amin Golmaryami moved to a better equipped house in Cologne-Marienburg. However, they continued to live in purely Iranian residential groups. \u201cWe have always remained under the spell of the organization,\u201d says Golmaryami.<\/p>\n

And yet the move from Cologne-Meschenich was a turning point for him. Thanks to the German-speaking teachers, he flourished. The children now had enough to eat, new clothes and even bicycles, and there were night hikes with campfires. Once he stayed with a German school friend and was amazed that his parents kissed them both goodnight when they went to bed. \u201cThat\u2019s when I realised that my life is very different.\u201d<\/p>\n

A letter from Iraq came from his mother only once a year: \u201cI hope you are well\u201d \u2013 he always said that the letters were not particularly sensitive. The rare times he was allowed to telephone his mother, she often only asked: \u201cWhat is happening at school?\u201d He says that it was not until much later that he understood that the mother was probably monitored by the organization during the telephone calls. The mother was also asked by ZEITmagazin whether the depictions by her son were correct. She called them lies without going into detail.<\/p>\n

As Amin Golmaryami got older, he rapped Eminem songs in front of the mirror, saving his pocket money for Adidas sweat pants and Nike jackets. His two brothers gave him support, especially Hanif, the eldest: a marauder whom many would have respected at the time. \u201cHe made me feel safe,\u201d says Amin.<\/p>\n

When Amin was 12 or 13, he happened to meet a girl on a bus with whom he was in elementary school, also a child of the People\u2019s Mojahedin. He still likes to talk about this moment today: a first kiss. The girl\u2019s name was Alan. He didn\u2019t see her again until much later, in an unexpected place.<\/p>\n

From the mid-1990s, some of their former teachers remembered that People\u2019s Mojahedin children suddenly disappeared from Cologne. They suddenly stopped showing up in their classes, 14-, 15-, 16-year-old teenagers. A former teacher says today that he informed the Cologne Youth Welfare Office and the guardian Christoph Meertens about it.<\/p>\n

Amin Golmaryami says that in 1999 his brother Hanif also disappeared, 18 years old. Hanif ordered Amin and the third brother Alireza to a secret meeting point at Cologne\u2019s Westfriedhof to say goodbye. \u201cI\u2019m going to Iraq,\u201d said Hanif. His destination there was the headquarters of the People\u2019s Mojahedin, a military camp. The cadres had promised him that he would meet his mother there. Amin Golmaryami says he was shocked and burst into tears. Who would protect him now? If you talk to Hanif Golmaryami today about this time \u2013 he now lives in Canada \u2013 he says that he had bad lovesickness back then and longed for motherly advice and a hug. The People\u2019s Mojahedin cadres had assured him that he could come back after a few weeks if he didn\u2019t like Iraq. He believed them. \u201cIt was the biggest mistake of my life.\u201d In a self-portrait published in German in 2014, the National Council of Resistance Iran wrote: Everyone who went to his camp was an adult and voluntarily joined the resistance.<\/p>\n

In 1998 at the latest, the Youth Welfare Office noticed that children were disappearing. The office warned the guardian Christoph Meertens: many young people allegedly went to Iraq. If there were to continue to be payments to the \u201cIranian Refugee Child Aid\u201d association, then it would have to completely replace the remaining Iranian staff with German educators. Meertens argued to the office that the young people had voluntarily returned to their parents in Iraq, which was humanly understandable. Today Meertens says he tried to talk many young people out of going to Iraq. \u201cI didn\u2019t succeed.\u201d In a press release from the Youth Welfare Office in August 2000, it was said succinctly: \u201cThat said, these allegations were out of the way and settled.\u201d And so, says Amin Golmaryami, he remained in the clutches of the group. At that time he longed to belong. That is why he went to holiday camps and demonstrations by the People\u2019s Mojahedin, where he met the organization\u2019s offspring from all over Europe. The cadres had spoken about the alleged martyrdom of the parents. \u201cYou have to avenge their blood, pick up their weapon again,\u201d demanded a functionary in a holiday camp. During demonstrations, the children and young people would have chanted: \u201cWe are resistance fighters!\u201d Golmaryami says he did not understand what all these words meant. He was proud that the cadres called him the son of a martyr. But seriously take revenge for his father, he never wanted that.<\/p>\n

\"MEK<\/p>\n

He saw his brother Hanif again in a propaganda video that the cadres showed him and other children: Hanif in Iraq, marching in rank and file. A functionary, a founding member of the Cologne association \u201cIranian Refugee Child Aid\u201d, persuaded him, \u201cAmin, you have to grow up. You have to go this way too.\u201d<\/p>\n

In February 2001, when Amin was 15, he finally turned to his Iranian supervisor: He wanted to follow his big brother to Iraq. The two pretended to the German educators that Amin Golmaryami had simply run away from the home after a fit of anger. Cadres would have brought him to their European headquarters in France, a house surrounded by high concrete walls in Auvers-sur-Oise, a small community northwest of Paris. His brother Alireza, who had also run away a few weeks earlier, was already waiting there. Amin had to hand over his cell phone, he says he never got it back. He was woken up in the middle of the night and taken to the airport. According to the stamps on their travel documents, it was mid-March 2001.<\/p>\n

If you ask Amin Golmaryami today, he says that Iraq was like a train everyone jumped on, \u201cand only you are standing outside.\u201d He was gripped by the fear that his whole family and all his friends would gradually leave him. That he had to stay alone in Germany. He also imagined Iraq as a large holiday camp. He was a child, immature. \u201cThey manipulated me,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Camp Ashraf, the headquarters of the People\u2019s Mujahideen in Iraq, was the size of a small town, 65 kilometers north of Baghdad, in the middle of the desert. Amin remembers driving down a dusty road past eucalyptus trees. They got out in front of a bungalow, and a committee of high-ranking women with headscarves greeted them. Whatever the teenagers wore, they had to give up. He was given a uniform to replace his Nike jacket. The cadre withheld his travel document.<\/p>\n

He had to undertake in writing not to have any romantic or sexual relationships with women. So he became one of around 3,800 soldiers of the People\u2019s Mojahedin at the time \u2013 he, the 15-year-old who had never held a weapon before. In the beginning, he says today, it all seemed like a strange dream to him. Barbed wire fences spanned the camp. Women and men were strictly separated. Even friendships between the soldiers should be avoided. They lived according to strict Shiite Islamic rules and had to pray three times a day. Contact with the outside world was almost completely forbidden. It was unthinkable to hear Eminem here, the cadres had restricted access to music as well as television, newspapers and the Internet. His brothers were also at the camp, but at first he was only allowed to see Alireza more often because they had completed their military training together. In its self-portrayal from 2014, the National Council of Resistance of Iran claims that the camp was open and tolerant.<\/p>\n

He actually wanted to leave immediately, says Amin Golmaryami, but Alireza persuaded him to wait and see. And he complied with everything: getting up at four in the morning, marching, learning to shoot, and later also driving a tank.<\/p>\n

After two weeks, he was allowed to see his mother again for the first time, who also lived in the camp. She came with an aunt and several other women, hugged him and his brother and cried. But after the greeting she was very distant, and the women listened to every word like watchdogs. He later learned that the People\u2019s Mojahedin urged their members to spy on one another.<\/p>\n

From now on he was only allowed to see his mother once a year. Secret meetings: impossible. His longing for maternal security was not fulfilled. Today, Amin Golmaryami says that later on instead of love he even felt hatred and disgust for his mother. Hatred because she gave him away as such a small child.<\/p>\n

Amin Golmaryami in May 2021: another meeting, the third. He\u2019s sitting in his kitchen in Cologne \u2013 unplastered walls, chairs from the flea market. When the conversation turns to his mother, he looks sad. He says he still feels the consequences of never having a normal family.<\/p>\n

After his return to Germany, he was restless for a long time. He had partied all night, continued working without sleep, smoked weed to calm down. He had palpitations, anxiety. After a panic attack, he began psychotherapy. For the first time, he says, he was able to sort out what had happened to him in his head.<\/p>\n

At Camp Ashraf, the cadres tried to use psychological techniques to make the soldiers submissive. Once a day everyone would have had to bare their innermost feelings in front of a group and criticize themselves: Would they have not wanted to take part in shooting training or would they have doubted one of the superiors? Later they would have had to confess sexual thoughts in front of the group \u2013 for example when they had masturbated or had an erotic dream. This is also confirmed by independent studies by the think tank Rand. The organization denied such allegations years ago.<\/p>\n

\"Alan

Alan Mohammadi<\/p><\/div>\n

Golmaryami says he internally resisted the brainwashing. Only rarely did he express his true thoughts. So he kept a clear head. Then suddenly and unexpectedly he saw Alan again, the girl who kissed him on the bus in Cologne. \u201cShe was in the back seat of a car. I waved to her. But she just stared impassively at me through the window. He hadn\u2019t gotten any closer to her. A few weeks after seeing her again, Alan shot herself<\/a>; several dropouts confirm this. The People\u2019s Mojahedin told them that her death was an accident. Golmaryami says he was deeply sad afterwards.<\/p>\n

Just weeks after his arrival, Iranian rockets hit several People\u2019s Mojahedin camps. He says he sat next to frightened adult men in the bunker and heard them cry and cry, \u201cI don\u2019t want to die!\u201d He was terrified. When they staggered out of the bunker days later, he asked a supervisor for a meeting. \u201cI don\u2019t feel comfortable here,\u201d he said. \u201cI want to go back to Germany.\u201d \u2013 \u201cWe\u2019re thinking about it,\u201d she replied. After that he was allowed to see his mother again, unplanned. She encouraged him to stay in the camp: Fear is normal, we are freedom fighters, that\u2019s part of our path, she said. The mother does not want to comment on this depiction by her son today either.<\/p>\n

From now on, the cadres overwhelmed him with tasks, says Amin Golmaryami, kept him up late in the evenings, criticized him heavily in order to break his will. On their homepage, the People\u2019s Mojahedin present the camp differently, they quote a US colonel who was there: He had never seen \u201ca man or a woman being detained in the organization against his\/her wishes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Amin Golmaryami says he thought about Alan incessantly back then. And about Germany: \u201cI missed the rain, the green meadows and forests, strolling around the Cologne pedestrian zone.\u201d He also missed New Year\u2019s Eve parties, Nutella, McDonald\u2019s, kebab, cinema, and traveling by bus and train. And Eminem. In the camp in the shower, he secretly cried. Slowly, says Golmaryami, over months and finally years, he learned to harden himself internally and no longer attract attention.<\/p>\n

About five months after his arrival, there was a special ideology session that lasted for weeks, from morning to night. The leader Massoud Rajavi personally directed it, a man in uniform with a round face. It was about things that Amin Golmaryami did not understand, but he was curious about the man who had managed to rally a small army around him. Rajavi threatened: Sex and the longing for Europe destroyed the organization. Anyone who escapes ends up in Saddam Hussein\u2019s Abu Ghraib torture prison. Years ago, the organization described similar reports as \u201cridiculous and fictitious film scenarios.\u201d<\/p>\n

Golmaryami says that many of the Mojahedin jumped up indignantly: \u201cWho wants to go? We\u2019ll put them against the wall!\u201d Others accused themselves. These were then insulted as \u201cspies\u201d or \u201ctraitors\u201d. Some of the others spat on and hit them. According to the human rights organization Human Rights Watch, some of those who wanted to leave actually ended up in Abu Ghraib. Others were tortured in a People\u2019s Mojahedin prison, which they deny. One of the last days of the meeting was September 11, 2001, the day on which the terrorist organization Al-Qaeda flew planes into the World Trade Center in New York. The \u201ctwo horns of imperialism\u201d fell, a high-ranking member of the People\u2019s Mojahedin rejoiced.<\/p>\n

For many years, Golmaryami did not give up hope that someone from Germany would rescue him from this nightmare. But nobody asked about him. One thing is certain: neither his guardian nor his former tutors were looking for him in Iraq. After all, the Federal Criminal Police Office was dealing with the People\u2019s Mojahedin. In December 2001, investigators from the BKA searched 25 of the organization\u2019s properties in Germany, including the office of the Iranian Refugee Child Aid in Cologne. In the room there was evidence of social welfare fraud with alleged orphans \u2013 that is, with the children who had come to Cologne. The functionary, whom Golmaryami says encouraged him to join the armed struggle, was wanted on an arrest warrant on suspicion of forming a terrorist group; but she had fled to Iraq. The investigation was later closed. However, several People\u2019s Mojahedin were convicted of other offenses. In May 2002 the EU Council of Ministers put the People\u2019s Mojahedin on its terrorist list, and in July the Cologne Youth Welfare Office terminated its cooperation with the Iranian Refugee Children\u2019s Aid. Nobody looked for the missing children anymore.<\/p>\n

Then something happened that suddenly made the People\u2019s Mojahedin appear in a different light \u2013 and possibly extended Golmaryami\u2019s stay in the camp by many years. At a press conference in August 2002, the US spokesman for the National Council of Resistance of Iran surprisingly presented evidence that Iran was working on a secret nuclear program.<\/p>\n

This press conference gave the People\u2019s Mojahedin a certain amount of credibility in the eyes of many to this day. In 2006, the New Yorker revealed that the Israeli secret service Mossad had leaked the information to the resistance fighters.<\/p>\n

When the US Army invaded Iraq in 2003, says Amin Golmaryami, his superiors sent him to the Iranian border. He crouched there in trenches for weeks. He and his comrades were to attack Iran as soon as an opportunity presented itself. Fortunately for him, the opportunity never came. Finally, on May 10, 2003, the American troops disarmed the People\u2019s Mojahedin, including in Camp Ashraf.<\/p>\n

When US soldiers questioned Amin Golmaryami, he said he wanted to go back to Germany. He was offered to be transferred to an internment camp for dissenters. But there was hardly a way to Europe from there. When he asked to call a former educator in Cologne, the Americans laughed. \u201cThey thought, why isn\u2019t he calling from the camp?\u201d But there the cadres continued to prevent contact with the outside world.<\/p>\n

In Europe, meanwhile, the organization was reaping the fruits of its lobbying work. From 2004 onwards, an EU parliamentary group called \u201cFriends for a Free Iran\u201d invited Maryam Rajavi to Strasbourg several times; she has been running the People\u2019s Mojahedin since her husband disappeared without trace in 2003. And since 2005, German politicians have been campaigning for the People\u2019s Mojahedin in a group called the German Solidarity Committee for a Free Iran. Former Bundestag President Rita S\u00fcssmuth (CDU) sits on the advisory board. She does not want to comment on this at the moment. In the past, she said it was about standing up for women\u2019s rights, freedom and democracy in Iran.<\/p>\n

From 2009, Golmaryami reports, life in the camp had become even more dangerous for him. The US handed over responsibility for security in the camp to the Iraqi government, which wanted these enemies of Iran out of the country. Security forces stormed the camp and people were killed. From 2012 onwards, the UN had the People\u2019s Mojahedin taken to a temporary camp next to Baghdad airport. Everyone in the camp was interviewed individually. When it was Amin Golmaryami\u2019s turn he was finally able to make a phone call, he says \u2013 the first contact with the outside world in so many years. He called a number in Cologne that he had received from another member, but it had got through to a supporter of the organization. The superiors in the camp would have known immediately that he had done something forbidden. He was interrogated for hours. \u201cOnly a spy does that,\u201d they had said.<\/p>\n

In February 2013, pro-Iranian militias fired rockets at the interim camp. Eight people died, including members of his military unit, Golmaryami says. He could hardly sleep, could hardly eat. \u201cI had an old man\u2019s face.\u201d In the end, it was possibly a packet of cigarettes that saved him. An employee of the UNHCR refugee agency, who regularly visited the camp, played a role in this. She still remembers Amin Golmaryami well today. Many People\u2019s Mojahedin turned to her in fear, secretly whispering something to her.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur water pipes are broken,\u201d he told the UNHCR employee on her tour, says Golmaryami. A sentence that cadre would have impressed on him beforehand. Talking about personal matters with the UNHCR was forbidden. He said quietly afterwards: \u201cPlease help me.\u201d She understood immediately. \u201cThe walls here, should they stay?\u201d She asked back. \u201cYes, they stay.\u201d And he added quietly: \u201cI have a pack of cigarettes in my pocket, there is a letter in it. Please meet me again if no one is watching.\u201d<\/p>\n

The next day the woman tracked him down. He slipped her the box. The UNHCR has kept the corresponding letter to this day, it contains the pleading request for an interview: \u201cI hope you understand the urgency of an appointment, as I feel under enormous pressure about my future.\u201d Today Golmaryami says: \u201cThis one woman saved my life.<\/p>\n

To Cologne: UNHCR staff told him he could not go back there; he got another offer. More than 200 People\u2019s Mojahedin were allowed to travel to Albania. Three weeks later, in May 2013, the UNHCR took them to the airport. On board the plane, says Golmaryami, he was with his brothers and five or six others who had once come from Germany. On the plane they toasted with red wine: \u201cTo freedom!\u201d Amin Golmaryami was now 28 years old.<\/p>\n

Your luck: In Tirana, the first People\u2019s Mojahedin \u2013 thousands followed later \u2013 were under more public scrutiny than in Iraq. The cadres, says Golmaryami, could no longer determine their lives as they did in Iraq. At first he lived with his brothers in a refugee house, then with his brother Hanif in a hotel room paid for by the UNHCR. But the way to Germany remained blocked for the time being. His residence status had expired. He bought a cheap smartphone, set up a Facebook profile and sent friend requests to people he knew from his childhood. A woman from the Netherlands responded, two years older than him, whom he knew from one of the holiday camps. Her name here is Sarah.<\/p>\n

Sarah says of herself that she has gone from being an ardent supporter of the People\u2019s Mojahedin to a dropout. She called Golmaryami, and soon they were Skyping every day. In July 2013, Sarah flew to Albania, and they met in the courtyard of her hotel. They hugged in greeting and didn\u2019t let go of each other for ten minutes.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were totally confused,\u201d she says today. \u201cThe shared memories, the shared story. And Amin was so lost.\u201d They both said they fell in love instantly. However, at first, Golmaryami says that he could hardly endure so much closeness. They would often argue when Sarah was with him again for a few weeks. \u201cBut without her,\u201d he says, \u201cI would not have made it psychologically.\u201d With Sarah\u2019s help, both say that Golmaryami finally managed to flee to Germany in October 2014. He cried when he saw Cologne Cathedral from the highway, says Golmaryami.<\/p>\n

Amin Golmaryami and Sarah were a couple for three years after his return to Germany. To this day, both say, they are united by a deep friendship. In 2015 Golmaryami was recognized as a refugee in Germany. He caught up with his secondary school diploma and passed his high school diploma. The city of Cologne rejected an application for naturalization for the time being: he has not lived in Germany long enough.<\/p>\n

Golmaryami\u2019s brothers also managed to get out in Albania, says Hanif Golmaryami, both of whom now live in Canada. Amin Golmaryami says he has little contact with them and that their time in the camp has alienated them. Hanif says on the phone that he still feels guilty today for luring his little brothers into ruin by leaving the country. Most of the 40 minors who were allegedly smuggled from Cologne into Iraq have allegedly now dropped out; many live in Cologne again. At least ten, however, are said to be with the People\u2019s Mojahedin to this day, somewhere in the world. Some are said to have died in attacks in Iraq.<\/p>\n

Amin Golmaryami\u2019s mother, now over 60, still lives with the organization in Albania, says her son. The country has taken in most of the People\u2019s Mojahedin from Iraq. The organization has built a new camp near Tirana. Dropouts there report that cult practices continued there, but the organization denies this.<\/p>\n

Amin Golmaryami says he has forgiven his mother. She was \u201cbrainwashed\u201d by the People\u2019s Mojahedin. He was last allowed to see her in the summer of 2019, in a restaurant in Tirana. When he offered to help her leave the organization, the mother became aggressive. \u201cOnly traitors and agents of the Iranian regime say that,\u201d she screamed. He no longer has any hope of being able to save her. She doesn\u2019t want to comment on that either.<\/p>\n

Cologne in August 2021, the fifth meeting with Amin Golmaryami. He is now 36. He seems relaxed. He has told everything. And he\u2019s made provisions in case the organization attacks him. Because it is conceivable that it will try to put him under pressure after this article is published \u2013 a popular means is to damage his reputation on the Internet. Golmaryami has obtained legal assistance as a precaution. He and his pregnant girlfriend have just moved. He also changed jobs. He is now removing graffiti from house walls for the city of Cologne. One could interpret this: He is trying to repair what others have destroyed. But Golmaryami says: he does it because he enjoys it. Outside, on the road in Cologne, he feels free.<\/p>\n

28.10.21 N0 44<\/p>\n

Behind the story:<\/strong> All details of Golmaryami\u2019s report have been checked and verified as far as possible \u2013 with the help of archive material and through discussions with former classmates and caregivers, with teachers, diplomats and in security circles. The author was also able to speak to seven other witnesses who also state that they were smuggled from Cologne to Iraq as children.<\/em><\/p>\n

Zeit Magazin, Germany<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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