Last week, some former child soldiers of the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK) spoke about their nightmares, which still torment them years after leaving the group. The pain that seems to be common to all the traumatized children of the MEK. Some have been able to recover from these sufferings, and some still have nightmares or at least remember them.
Mohammad Reza Torabi, a former child soldier of the MEK, shared this on his X account on August 14, 2024:
“I used to have nightmares of Mujahidin two or three nights a week. Of course, not only me, but all the children who escaped from this cult have these dreams. All our dreams are similar. I open my eyes and with the mentality I have now, I am again in the Mujahidin. I tell myself no! It is not possible, I ran away and I was outside, how did I come back to this hell again? I try to escape and get out and find a way out, but the Mujahedin and Rajavi officials don’t let me stand in front of them. They tell me that it is here and there is no way out. I wake up and my heart is pounding on my chest and I am afraid. Then I slowly come to my senses and realize that it was just a dream.”
Definition and causes of nightmare
Nightmares, like dreams, are the product of our brains, and their terrifying vision originates from inside us. Nightmares should not be confused with bad or unpleasant drteams. Nightmares are actually long, vivid and frightening dreams that usually threaten our survival, physical integrity, safety or self-esteem and fill us with fear. They can also cause intense feelings of fear, anger, sadness, confusion, and even disgust.
Some researchers call nightmares “repetition of threats”. The meaning of this term is that most people repeat the threats they have faced in real life in their nightmares. This is why most people remember the images and content of their dreams well when they wake up from nightmares. According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM; latest edition: DSM-5-TR, published in March 2022), the causes of nightmares are as follows:
– Anxiety and stress
– Trauma (physical or mental impact) or distressing events such as the death of a loved one
-Disordered sleep, lack of sleep, fatigue from long-term air flights, illness and fever
– Side effects of a specific drug or treatment
– Medicines or drug withdrawal such as sleeping pills
– Drinking or quitting alcohol
– Breathing disorders during sleep such as sleep apnea
-Sleep disorders such as narcolepsy or sleep anxiety disorder
-Eating shortly before bedtime
The causes of nightmares of the MEK child soldiers
According to the large number of memories, documents and evidence about the prevailing atmosphere within the Cult of Rajavi, it seems that at least the first three are the most true causes of nightmares regarding the child soldiers of the MEK. Of course, as he says, Mohammadreza has gotten rid of this suffering due to the beautiful life he has built for himself outside the cult. He attributes the end of his nightmares to the birth of his young son Ryan:
“But since Ryan Azadi was born, those nightmares have ended. I don’t know what the mechanism is, but what a blessing. These days, I am very proud of myself for having the courage to escape from that hell. Life is beautiful.”
But another child soldier of the MEK, who is active on the X social network with the username Aylin Moghadam, said in the comments to Mohammad Reza’s post about his endless recurring nightmares:
“I also have nightmares almost every night, they hold meetings for me, previously by Masoud Rajavi, now Maryam Rajavi has entered the scene, with her scary face looking at me with anger, and in my dream, I say ‘why am I here while I had gone out, how did I come back?’ and I scream asking for help Everywhere I go there is barbed wire…
“Another recurring nightmare of mine is that they forcefully tell me to get on a tank and fight. In my dream, I say that I don’t want to fight anymore. I’m tired. I don’t want to ride an armored car. They say that no one asked you if you want to get on and… I wake up crying again.
“In my dream, I don’t have anything, they have thrown away all my things, they force me to wear boots and tell me that you have to clean this whole desert of grass and… they regularly hold meetings for me and yell at me, I wake up with tears still on my face and after that most of the time I can’t sleep anymore I don’t know how long I’m going to have nightmares.”
Even reading Aylin’s nightmares is heart-breaking, let alone knowing that Aylin and people like him and Mohammad Reza experienced these fears in the MEK camps. Being isolated in the deserts of Iraq, participating in self-criticism and inquisition meetings for long hours, forced participation in military operations and conflicts, are all real and tangible experiences for the child soldiers of the MEK.
Aylin, who doesn’t want his real identity to be revealed and seems to be still trapped in the atmosphere of terror created by the MEK leaders, has a lot to say, but he avoids revealing:
“Unfortunately, I avoid saying many things for some reasons, because the MEK agents are very much looking for who I am, and I want them to fail.”
Only from the content of his nightmares one can understand what fear and anxiety, trauma, sleep disorder and excessive fatigue caused by the MEK system have done to the soul and spirit of this former child soldier.
Is there a remedy for the suffering of the children of the MEK?
Although Azadeh Masoum has left the MEK some years ago, got married and become a mother, the birth of her child has not stopped her from having nightmares, but her deep motherly love and concern for her daughter has affected her nightmares as well. She writes to Mohammad Reza in comments:
“Unfortunately, I still see them, I even dreamed once that my daughter was with me and she was taken from me and given to another sister in an “organizational ranking change”. I was going crazy, when I woke up, I felt very bad.”
A few days later, impressed by the traumatic experiences of the MEK child soldiers, the author came across a post on the Facebook account of Atefeh Sabdani. Although Sabdani has no experience as a child soldier, she has experienced terrible traumas as a child of the MEK. She is now a 38-year-old mother of three children. The experience of a bad dream that her five-year-old daughter had the night before prompted her to write about it on August 16th, 2024.
The scream of the little girl woke her up and she rushed to her room to comfort her. She hugged her and soothed her by saying, “mommy is here”. The child calmed down, but Atefeh was thrown to her childhood, orphaned by the MEK, separated from her mom, left with feelings of helplessness and lack of security, and the experience of sexual assault by her foster father, who was a supporter of the MEK, and he had taken Atefeh and her two brothers and two other children under his custody in order to receive the social aids that the Swedish government pays children.
It is in the midst of night and Atefeh Sabdani, a successful Swedish citizen, influencer and author of a best-selling autobiography, is suffering from anxiety and shortness of breath from recalling bitter childhood memories. She had nightmares from the age of 5 to the age of 10 and 15 with no one to soothe her, she is still not completely healed from her traumas. She writes about this:
“Although I am actually 38 years old. And no matter how much I have walked through the path of healing and distanced myself more and more from my past, it still sneaks up on me. At night, as if to remind me of who I am and where I came from. Don’t forget. My five-year-old daughter sleeps peacefully. Now, I have to comfort myself.”
Mazda Parsi