Masoumeh Chaheh was 24 when she showed up at her family\u2019s door in southern Tehran \u2013 bruised, scratched, and dishevelled. She couldn\u2019t form coherent sentences about where she had been the past few years. “We were all shocked. We kept asking her what had happened, but she couldn\u2019t explain anything. She just screamed, cried, and zoned out,” said Leila, Masoumeh\u2019s younger sister, one of the first to find her in that state. “We didn\u2019t know what to do. She kept running away, and eventually, we lost contact with her again.”<\/p>\n
After fleeing home, Masoumeh was picked up by police while wandering Tehran\u2019s streets. She eventually ended up in a psychiatric facility, where her family was notified of her whereabouts. “When she was still home, she used to mumble an anthem. We later found out it belonged to the Mojahedin-e-Khalq (MEK).”<\/p>\n
The MEK is a terrorist organization that has operated mostly from outside Iran. Currently based in Albania (and previously in Iraq), the group is responsible for killing over 24,000 Iranians \u2013 including at least six people, one of them an infant, in a recent MEK-linked terrorist attack in southeastern Iran. Media outlets affiliated with the MEK characterized the terror attack as an \u201carmed rebellion by the youth\u201d and praised the terrorists for their brutal crime.<\/p>\n
The MEK was listed as a terrorist organization in the U.S. and Europe for years, until its removal in the early-to-mid 2010s. The West has long used the group for espionage and attacks inside Iran. Most recently, during the Iran-Israel war, Western media and politicians attempted to rebrand the MEK, hailing it as a “reformed,” female-led faction and even floating it as a potential alternative to Iran\u2019s government. One New York Times report wrote that the MEK now advocates for a “secular republic, gender equality, and a non-nuclear Iran.”<\/p>\n
But for the MEK\u2019s victims \u2013 like Masoumeh \u2013 no PR campaign can erase their suffering. Like many others, she didn\u2019t join voluntarily, and leaving cost her everything: her sanity, and ultimately, her life.<\/p>\n
“Masoumeh started taking care of us at just 8 years old, after our mother died. Our father was a construction worker and was usually away at work,\u201d Leila explained. \u201cShe always put us first and dreamed of a better life for her siblings. She cooked for us, cleaned after us, and took us outside to play.\u201d The family had seven children \u2013 two sisters, four brothers, and an older half-sister, Fatemeh, whose ties to the MEK would destroy Masoumeh\u2019s future.<\/p>\n
Fatemeh had been an MEK member but left before Saddam Hussein\u2019s fall, when the group began to bar defections from its Iraqi camps. She moved to Finland and tried to bring over two financially struggling siblings \u2013 Masoumeh and her brother, Hamidreza \u2013through an MEK contact she thought could be trusted. “They were supposed to go to Turkey first, then Finland,” Leila said. Instead, in 2001, the MEK member took them to the Ashraf Camp in Iraq.<\/p>\n
The family lost contact immediately. Hamidreza resurfaced 14 years later, escaping during the MEK\u2019s chaotic relocation to Albania. Masoumeh reached out sooner by randomly visiting them after four years \u2013 but her ordeal had been far worse.<\/p>\n
“After being taken to Iraq, they were separated at Ashraf Camp. Both resisted at first, but Hamidreza bided his time. Masoumeh kept fighting back \u2013 so the group decided to \u2018get rid of her,\u2019” Leila said.<\/p>\n
As previously documented by the Tehran Times, the MEK routinely sent defiant members to the infamous Abu Ghraib prison, which was well-known for the systematic torture of inmates. Masoumeh endured months of beatings, isolation, and psychological torment before Iraqi guards dumped her near Iran\u2019s border. She then walked for days \u2013 starving, traumatized \u2013 only to face more violence from roadside thugs. By the time she reached Tehran, her mind was shattered.<\/p>\n
“The person who came back wasn\u2019t my sister,” Leila said. “She\u2019d slip into catatonic states. When she did regain awareness, the memories made her try to kill herself \u2013 over and over.”<\/p>\n
The final escape<\/p>\n
For the next 20 years, Masoumeh cycled through psychiatric facilities, where she tried to take her life multiple times. Her last attempt, taking place in February of 2025, was successful. That day, Leila visited Masoumeh in the psychiatric hospital and then took her to a restaurant in Chaloos, a scenic route north of Tehran.<\/p>\n
\u201cMasoumeh used to love nature. So, I took her to a nice location to spend a few hours together. But as we sat at our table, she started recalling her past, so I tried distracting her. I looked away for seconds\u2026 and she was gone.\u201d<\/p>\n
Triggered by flashbacks of Abu Ghraib, Masoumeh had jumped into a nearby river. Her body was later found wedged against a tree trunk. “That was the end the MEK gave her \u2013 decades of torture, physical and mental, until she couldn\u2019t take it anymore,\u201d Leila said as tears began to rush down her face.<\/p>\n
Masoumeh\u2019s story is not unique. Before the West attempts to promote a terrorist outfit as a \u201cdemocratic group\u201d, similar to how it rebranded the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) terrorists in Syria, it must reckon with dozens like her. Future Tehran Times reports will ensure they are not forgotten.<\/p>\n
By Sheida Sabzehvari<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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