{"id":8545,"date":"2018-07-23T10:05:13","date_gmt":"2018-07-23T05:35:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/?p=8545"},"modified":"2021-02-23T00:04:46","modified_gmt":"2021-02-22T20:34:46","slug":"we-were-slaves","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/posts\/8545","title":{"rendered":"We were slaves!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Hassan Shahbazi was a university student when he left Iran to visit his friend Hassan Heirani in Camp Ashraf, the headquarters of the Mujahedin Khalq Organization (the MKO\/ MEK\/ PMOI\/ the Cult of Rajavi) in Iraq.<\/p>\n<p>In Ashraf, he was welcome by the authorities of the MKO. \u201cThey intrigued our nationalistic sentiments\u2026so I decided to stay there but what I endured during the past years is not easy to recount now,\u201d he writes in his letter of declaration of separation from the MKO.<\/p>\n<img fetchpriority=\"high\" width=\"510\" height=\"270\" class=\"wp-image-8546 size-full\"src=\"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/Hasan_Shahbaz.jpg\"alt=\"Hasan Shahbaz\"width=\"510\"height=\"270\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/Hasan_Shahbaz.jpg 510w, https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/Hasan_Shahbaz-300x159.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 510px) 100vw, 510px\" \/>\n<p>He was coerced to work as a forced labor. \u201cOnce I found myself in a discriminating system that claimed the classless society,\u201d he asserts.<\/p>\n<p>However he did not leave the MKO until the group was relocated in Tirana, Albania where the group members could have a very limited access to the outside world. \u201cIn the first days of our arrival in Albania, the organization let us visit the city in groups,\u201d he writes. \u201cI contacted my family and I learned that my family had come to Iraq to visit me but the group authorities had not let me know.\u201d<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Thus, the final stages of distrust started for Hassan Shahbaz. \u201cThe organization authorized itself to decide instead of us,\u201d he suggests. \u201cWe were not allowed to contact our families. We had to hate our families.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>He eventually left the MKO secretly on April 3<sup>rd<\/sup>, the fourteenth day of the Iranian NewYear while the group had gone on a picnic. \u201cImmediately I submitted to the office of UN High Commissioners of Refugees in Tirana,\u201d he says. \u201cI declare that I have had no relationship with the Mujahedin Khalq Organization since my departure from the group.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hassan Shahbazi was a university student when he left Iran to visit his friend Hassan Heirani in Camp Ashraf, the headquarters of the Mujahedin Khalq Organization (the MKO\/ MEK\/ PMOI\/&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8546,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[24406],"tags":[14,161,24429,79,41],"module":[67],"ctype":[17],"blog":[3],"class_list":["post-8545","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mek-ex-members","tag-defectors-of-mujahedin-khalq","tag-membership-mko","tag-mko-former-members","tag-mujahedin-khalq-declining","tag-personal_rights_mko","module-news","ctype-story","blog-nejat-bloggers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8545","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=8545"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8545\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8546"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8545"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8545"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8545"},{"taxonomy":"module","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/module?post=8545"},{"taxonomy":"ctype","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ctype?post=8545"},{"taxonomy":"blog","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/blog?post=8545"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}