Modern Slavery in the Mujahedin Khalq Organization (the MKO/ MEK/ PMOI/ Cult of Rajavi) includes various destructive practices which has lasted the four-decade history of Massoud and Maryam Rajavi’s ruling over the group. Discrimination, sexist ideas, emotional isolation, peer pressure and sexual control are certain measures of cultic characteristics of the MEK, that were listed by the RAND report on the MEK in 2009.
Defectors and some insiders of the MEK’s Camp Ashraf three in Albania assert that leaders of the group have issued a travel restrictions directive in a new move to impose more sexual control over male and female members. The action is aimed to prevent confrontation of men and women in the streets of Tirana in Albania.
According to the directive, some streets have been allocated to men and some routes have been defined for women’s travel to the city. According to the instructions, each member who has to enter the of Tirana, should travel according to this directive. In case of violating the so-called law, he or she will be subject to punishments. Thus, in a street allocated to women, any work or mission through that street will be given to women, and if a male member of the group is seen in that area, the female members should immediately report the matter to their superiors.
View of some members of the Iranian opposition resistance Mujahedeen-e- Khalq group, who have resettled in Albania from Iraq, in a street, in Tirana, Albania, Friday, May 17, 2013.
As the RAND institute documented, MEK’s sexual control over members is nothing new, Camp Ashraf was a notoriously Known container for Massoud Rajavi’s cult of Personality:
“Despite the MeK’s and NCRI’s claim to support gender equality and the placement of women in leadership roles, men and women are kept strictly apart in MeK camps. Housing is segregated by gender, and in other buildings, lines are painted down the middle of hallways, separating them into men’s and women’s sides. Men and women below the leadership level are prohibited from contact with one another unless they have obtained official case-by-case permission. Shaking hands is prohibited across genders. Even the gas station at Camp Ashraf has separate hours for men and women.”