MEK is stuck in a Stalemate
Cult leaders often tend to claim that they are so spiritually elevated that they know the “absolute 
truth” for the well-being of their followers. In this way, they apply various bizarre practices to blind the followers from observing the reality of maltreatments against them. In the cult, they are constantly kept under a sever mind control manipulative system that they cannot see their leaders abusive acts.
Once the member defects from the cult whether mentally or both mentally and physically, he realizes what has gone to him during the period of his engagement with the cult. He seriously gets motivated to denounce the cult and its leaders.
The majority of former members of the cult of Rajavi (the Mujahedin Khalq Organization/ the MKO/ MEK) are determined to reveal what they once thought as normal in the cult because of the responsibility they feel regarding the threat of the cult for both their former friends in the MKO and the humane community. Overwhelmed with feeling of anger and vengeance against Massoud and Maryam Rajavi, defectors of the MKO can help keeping silent over the human rights abuses they witnessed in the cult. Unsurprisingly, they are labeled by the cult as “agent of the Iranian regime” which is according to Mrs. Ann Singleton (a defector of the cult) a “one size fits all used to designate the victims” of the MKO [1]
Mrs. Singleton and his husband Massoud Khodabande and his brother-in-law Ebrahim are even mentioned as agents of the Iranian intelligence in the recent Pentagon report on Iranian intelligence. The misleading Pentagon report was noticeably run by the MKO’s agents in the US government. Iran Interlink offers evidences on the allegation:
The report is characterized by its mixture of allegation, assertion and allusion, much of which is not substantiated by evidence. The report blends fact and fiction in a manner intended to deceive and mislead. As such, this document is not an attack, it is a defensive act, it is a play on words intended to prevent informed discussion and stop important people being listened to. Indeed, the gratuitous mention of two specific individuals, Anne Singleton and Massoud Khodabandeh, who have consistently exposed the aspects of the Mojahedin Khalq which it most wants to hide – cult nature, human rights violations, mercenary relation to foreign agents – is the strongest possible indication of the provenance of this report.
The other indication is that the source of this specific misinformation is Rabbi Daniel M. Zucker. In a footnote the article “Disinformation Campaign in Overdrive: Iran’s VEVAK in High-Gear” is sourced at Global Politician, September 3, 2007, http://www.globalpolitician.com/23386-vevak-iran (accessed April 17, 2012). Interestingly, this website can no longer be accessed. [2]
However, the whole deceitful report –which was highly propagandized by the MKO – did not disturb the Khodabandehs. On January17, a few days after the report published Massoud Khodabandeh posted this status on his face book profile:
“I told my Mum that the Khodabandeh family was being attacked by the MEK in Washington and that she had been mentioned too. She said – I’m sure you three are more than enough for Rajavi and his cult, but if not, I’ll be happy to personally sort out Rajavi.”
For defectors denunciation of the violence committed in the MKO is kind of delightful job that helps enlighten the world community and release of their ex-comrades.
Ann singleton was among the first defectors to write about her experience with Rajavi’s Cult. She is the author of a book titled “Saddam’s Private Army”[3]. This is a sentence the review of the book published by Amazon.com:
”Told by a western woman who for twenty years had unique access to the secret inner world of the Mojahedin.”[4]
As you read on the book cover, "Saddam’s Private Army” gives a very detailed account and analysis on “How Rajavi changed Iran’s Mojahedin from armed revolutionaries to an armed cult."[5]
Regarding recently published testimonies of female former members about sexual abuse and women’s rights violations in the cult of Rajavi, Singleton’s book is perhaps the first document on the corrupt world created by Maryam and Massoud Rajavi. Singleton describes how Maryam’s ambitions lead her to promote herself in the MKO until she becomes Rajavi’s “personal assistant”. In 1984, Massoud who had been married to Firouzeh Banisadr – daughter of his then ally — divorced from her,” in this respect it is widely believed that she began a sexual relationship with Rajavi even before he divorced from Firouzeh in 1984. Singleton writes, ”She had been appointed head of Rajavi’s office and she worked closely with him in his office often not returning home at night for days. Before their marriage on 8th February 1985 Maryam hadn’t returned home to her husband Abrishamchi for several months. In this time. She had also attended a hospital in Paris for what is believed to have been a termination of pregnancy.”[6]
It took us just a few years more to learn about further violations of human rights in the MKO. Batoul Soltani, is a former member of the MKO’s so-called elite called “Leadership Council”. She bravely revealed horrifying facts about sexual abuse by Massoud Rajavi although she said that recalling those memoires is “awfully difficult” for her.[7]
Mrs. Soltani exposed a cultic ceremony in the MKO, called “Salvation Dance” (nude dancing) in which women of the “Leadership Council” were made remove their clothes in front of Massoud Rajavi and dance before him.”Get close to Massoud and unite with him”, Maryam said to dancing women.[8]
The former member of the Mojahedin Leadership Council added “They had portrayed the issue of having [sexual] relations with Massoud Rajavi in such a way that it appeared to us as the most sacred task. Mas’ud Rajavi also used verses from the Koran to justify his behavior.”[9]
A few months ago, Soltani together with two other former members, Zahra Mirbaqeri and Nasrin Ebrahimi once again denounced the MKO by receiving a list of 100 female members of the group who have gone under hysterectomy to be sexually abused by the Cult leader, Massoud Rajavi.[10]
Nasrin Ebrahimi had previously revealed that Rajavi had entitled the operation to remove women’s womb as “Summit”[11] referring to women’s extreme devotion to their leader. They lose their final sign of sexuality and motherhood, or as Mrs. Singleton says” to neutralize their sexuality”.[12]
Mir Baqeri said that the surgical operations were carried out to take out the victims’ wombs so that they would not be pregnant after being raped by Rajavi.[13]
Women of the Leadership Council were given a necklace on which Massoud’s portrait was graved earlier than they were made married with him. Zahra Mir Baqeri has one of the necklaces to show those who are concerned.
“Maryam Rajavi invented rituals such as being washed by other women members so as to ‘spiritually purify’ them, followed by the instruction to dance naked before both the Rajavis to prove they had ‘broken the physical and mental barriers’ to their total submission to Massoud. After these coercive practices, he would choose a bedmate for sex. The women have said that they did not agree to sex with Rajavi out of free will but because they had been coerced through deception into submitting to what they later came to recognize as rape.”, Ann singleton notifies.[14]
As she suggests:
“The facts are easily verifiable. The physical evidence of hysterectomy can be found in the women’s bodies. It is a matter of fact, not opinion. And if those who managed to escape the cult have evidence consistent with their accusations, does it not behove those people actually responsible for their welfare to conduct an investigation into the condition of the other named women in the MEK who are trapped incommunicado in (the ironically named) Camp Liberty.”[15]
There may be a much longer list of abuses committed in the Cult of Rajavi, as some of them were already reported by Human Rights Watch in 2005. This is what terribly disturbs the leaders of the MKO. To defend themselves they have no way except using their old tactic, labeling them “agent of regime”. Such reaction cheers defectors up as they see that they’ve been successful to bug the cult leaders.
By Mazda Parsi
References:
[1]Singleton, Ann, Do not Disturb – Criminals at work in Camp Liberty, IranInterlink, January 5, 2013
[2]Iran Interlink, More smoke and mirror from the MEK propaganda factory, January &, 2013
[3]Singleton, A, SADDAM’S PRIVATE ARMY: How Rajavi Changed Iran’s Mojahedin from Armed Revolutionaries to an Armed Cult, IRAN INTERLINK, 2003, ISBN 0-9545009-0-3
[4]http://www.amazon.co.uk/Saddams-Private-Army-Mojahedin-Revolutionaries/dp/0954500903
[5] Singleton, A, SADDAM’S PRIVATE ARMY: How Rajavi Changed Iran’s Mojahedin from Armed Revolutionaries to an Armed Cult, IRAN INTERLINK, 2003, ISBN 0-9545009-0-3
[6]ibid. Page 57
[7] https://www.nejatngo.org/en/posts/3261
[8]ibid
[9] BBC Monitoring, Massoud Rajavi accused of "sexual exploitation" of women, September 22 2010
[10]Fars News Agency, MKO Ringleaders Abuse Female Memoires Sexually, December 25, 2012
[11]Fars News Agency, The Ideal Summit Mujahedin Khalq makes women unfertile, October 15, 2008
[12] Singleton, Ann, Do not Disturb – Criminals at work in Camp Liberty, IranInterlink, January 5, 2013
[13] Fars News Agency, MKO Ringleaders Abuse Female Memoires Sexually, December 25, 2012
[14] Singleton, Ann, Do not Disturb – Criminals at work in Camp Liberty, IranInterlink, January 5, 2013
[15]ibid
Maryam Rajavi’s recent interview with Spanish newspaper El Pais appears to be one her few interviews with mass media. As the so-called president elect of the National Council of 
Resistance and the leader of the most viable alternative- as she claims – to the Islamic Republic, it seems odd that she has experienced so few appearances in the media, and roughly no appearance in Persian media.
Maryam Rajavi, the self-assigned president of the NCR and the co-leader of the Mujahedin Khalq Organization (the MKO),seems to be too reluctant to appear in front of her country fellow men and answer controversial questions on her cult-like organization and its disappeared leader, Massoud Rajavi.
About two years ago in August 2011, Nooshabeh Amiri, the Iranian journalist published an article titled”Interview with Maryam Rajavi” on Rooz Online. Amiri wrote of a failed effort to have an interview with the leader of the MKO, Maryam Rajavi:
“A few years ago, one of the producers of CBS’s 60 Minutes asked me to arrange for the networks interview with Maryam Rajavi, a leader of Iran’s Mujahidin Khalq Organization (MKO). I told him then that I thought it was not possible to do this, to which he replied, “If the interview is going to be with a non-Iranian network, the response will certainly be different.”
“I then recruited the assistance of a person affiliated with the MKO. A few days later he provided me with an email address to contact. When I did, I was given a telephone number to contact, which in all honesty made me feel embarrassed for my initial assumption which was based on hear say. Subsequent events however proved me right.
“When I made the first call, I was given another telephone number to call. This was repeated several times in the course of a few months that followed, until the American producer called me and said the issue was over and that there was no need to follow-up.
“I concluded that 60 Minutes must have decided to call off the pursuit because of how long it had taken to arrange for the interview. He surprised me when he said that a representative of the MKO had made arrangements with the program’s senior producer and had made a condition for the interview and had written up the questions to be asked….
“This was pathetic, something that still continues.”[1]
“Pathetic”! This is the term Ms. Amiri uses to describe the MKO’s propaganda system. However, the group’s approach regarding media is fraudulent.
The MKO’s propaganda decides what media to interview with its leader as well as what questions to be asked. Considering various reports on human rights violations committed inside the MKO as a cult of personality, the group’s propaganda runners know that all peace activists, freedom lovers and independent journalists would ask questions of which the answers are beyond the red lines of the group. Thus, they never risk the façade of a “democratic” opposition to Islamic Republic they are trying to build for their cult-like organization.
The Spanish daily, El Pais does not ask any question to trouble Rajavi but the questions are so simply and directly asked that could recall you a memorized dialogue in a screenplay. For an authentic unbiased interview with Maryam Rajavi the most crucial question which has never been answered since American invasion to Iraq in 2003 — the same year that Maryam Rajavi was arrested by French Police in her headquarters in the suburb of Paris—is this:”Where is Massoud Rajavi?”
There are many other important questions to be asked particularly regarding numerous testimonies of former members. For instance, recent testimonies of former female members on sexual abuse of women of elite council of the group by Massoud Rajavi must be explained by Maryam Rajvi who is according to evidences the main person to make women sleep with Massoud Rajavi.[2]
According to the 2005 Human Rights Watch report ” No Exit”, inside MKO camps there are ”abuses ranging from detention and persecution of ordinary members wishing to leave” to “lengthy solitary confinements, severe beatings, and torture of dissident members.”[3]
In Ms. Amiri’s article you can also find a list of questions that may obsess any independent journalist who is going to interview Rajavi. The followings are some of them:
“Does the MKO see itself responsible to respond to questions such as its cooperation with Saddam Hossein in attacking and invading Iran?
“Under what strategy and goal were inexperienced youth asked to respond to the Mersad Operation inside Iran?
“Is internal criticism allowed within MKO and can it be reflected outside the organization?
“Is it true that some MKO members have left the organization on the basis of such instructions by the group to take up the responsibility of attacking other opponents of the Islamic republic?”[4]
To our surprise, the biased report of EL Pais begins with this ludicrous statement by Maryam Rajavi: ”popular support inside Iran is a source of legitimacy for this resistance” (!)
This opening sentence clearly indicates that the interview was actually managed by the interviewee not the interviewer.
What does Maryam Rajavi mean by “popular support” inside Iran?!
One thing is sure; Rajavi’s claim is absolutely false. Although the MEK claims to be loved and respected inside Iran, the truth is that most Iranians view the terrorist organization as ruthless traitors who killed their own countrymen, according to many reports. For example Massoud Banisadr who is a former top official of the group say in an interview with Steve Hassan:”After Iranian revolution, late seventies and early eighties MEK could change from a guerrilla (or terrorist organization according to different people’s definition) into a popular political group attracting thousands of young people. But after moving back to terrorism, ignoring and violating people’s ethics, beliefs and principles, especially working with Iraq’s president, Saddam Hussein after the incursion of Iraq into Iran, they lost all their support inside Iran and as matter of fact in public view they changed into a traitor organization”. [5] Also, The Wall Street Journal writes of critical views on the group,”Critics of the MeK allege that the organization has no major support inside Iran and that its leaders, who are based outside Paris, run the group like a cult.”[6]
Based on Mrs. Rajavi’s own claim, the “source of legitimacy for the resistance”is definitely absent.
By Mazda Parsi
Reference:
[1] Amiri , Nooshabeh, Interview with Maryam Rajavi, Roozonline, August 22,2011
[2] https://www.nejatngo.org/en/posts/3261 ;
[3]Human Rights Watch, No Exit, 2005
[4] Amiri , Nooshabeh, Interview with Maryam Rajavi, Roozonline, August 22,2011
[5] http://freedomofmind.com/FormerMeKtopofficialanswersquestions
22February2012.php
[6]Solomon, Jay &Perez, Evan, Iran Exile Group Nears U.S. Rebirth, the Wall Street Journal, May 15, 2012
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Dear Mr. Ambassador,
We are a number of relatives of the captives held by the Mujahedin Khalq Organization (the MKO) and also a number of former members of the organization who succeeded to leave it after 20 to 25 years of mental and physical imprisonment.
We live in Iran now.
We appreciate the recent act of Swedish parliament members who condemned the suppression of Iraqi Kurds by the MKO during the 1991.
Dear Mr. Ambassador,
As former members of the group, we all eye-witnessed the massacre of Kurdish people under the order of Maryam and Massoud Rajavi. We remember the voice of Maryam Rajavi via military radio, who called on all units:”Take the Kurds under the tanks. Save your bullets for Pasdaran”! 
Yes, the Kurds who had revolted against Saddam Hussein’s regime were suppressed by his mercenary, the MKO, in Kurdish regions including Kefri, Tuzkhormatou, Qareh Tapeh.
Once we defected the MKO, we were determined to denounce all crimes of the group which is actually in the inside a dangerous destructive cult. Nejat Society founders work to release their family members or ex-comrades who are still taken as hostages by the cult of Rajavi.
Thus, we ask your honorable government to give us the opportunity to attend your parliament in order to reveal horrible crimes we eye observed in the operation against Kurds, in 1991, although we know that agents of the MKO are awfully active in your country.
You may want to get learned about documents and evidences on the group operatives, recruiters and fundraisers who are secretly supported by the MKO leadership in order to run the group’s propaganda as well as attacking former member in your territory.
We are looking forward for your positive response. Your prompt cooperation with Nejat Society can definitely help your honorable government with the security of Swedish citizens as well as European citizens.
Thanks in advance.
Sincerely,
Nejat Society
Another dimension of Rajavi’s anti- national relations
Muajhedin-e-Khalq Organization’s history is replete with treasonous acts.
Regarding various reports on the MKO’s relationship with Western intelligence bodies including CIA and Mossad, it is not surprising to figure out about the group’s deals with KGB almost at the same time it was harbored in Iraq where Saddam Hussein granted it logistical and financial support.
According to the archives of the Soviet State microfilm collection, the MKO leader hadn’t found Saddam Hussein’s support sufficient so he sought support from Russian Committee for State Security (KGB):
Reel 1.993, File 24
Resolution of the TsK KPSS Secretariat approving a response to a letter from M. Rajavi, leader of the Mujahedin [Holy Warriors] Organization of the Iranian People, to M. Gorbachev, and to a request submitted by the organization; two copies of instructions to the Soviet Embassy in Bulgaria to be delivered in ciphered form by the Committee for State Security (KGB); extract from the minutes of the TsK KPSS Secretariat; memorandum to the TsK KPSS from R. Ulianovskii, Deputy Chief of the International Department; letter to Gorbachev from Rajavi (translated into Russian) and the original letter in Persian; statement with information about the collection of documents attached to the letter from Rajavi; memorandum (translated into Russian) to the TsK KPSS from F. Olfat, member of the Politburo of the Mujahedin Organization, and the original letter in Persian requesting that the TsK KPSS lend any amount of money (up to US$300,000,000) to the Mujahedin Organization; memorandum to the TsK KPSS from Olfat, (translated into Russian) and the original letter in Persian requesting that the supporters of the Mujahedin Organization be allowed to cross the Soviet-Iranian border and be granted a temporary asylum in the Soviet Union 1985 December – 1986 February
Source : oac.cdlib.org
The recent act Canadian Government to delist the Mujahedin Khalq Organization seemed disturbing to us, members of Nejat Society, although it was not a surprise, regarding the earlier 
removal of the group from the list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations of the US State Department in September. Nejat Society works hard to help release friends and families who are held as prisoners by the MKO.
Once the MKO is delisted, what about the blood of thousands of people assassinated and tortured by the group? The recent decision sounds like a political signal to Islamic Republic of Iran, rather than an action to protect democracy and human rights. Thus, you can also recognize Saddam Hussein, Muammar Qaddafi and other brutal dictators as peace activists and human rights defenders! The MKO cooperated with Saddam Hussein in the suppression of Kurds and Shiites uprisings in the 1990’s, according to various reports including the famous RAND report 2009.
We truly wonder how an undemocratic violent cult of personality – see Elizabeth Rubin’s the “Cult of Rajavi”, 2003 – can be excluded from legal actions that outlaws a terror listed group or entity. Has the MKO really changed or the recent decisions are just a sign of change in Canadian politics?
The move by Canadian government came soon after Secretary Clinton’s decision to delist the MKO. The MKO was delisted in the United States following a large scale propaganda campaign that was led by a number of well-paid US prominent figures. The MKO’s multi-million dollar campaign ended with its designation as a “good terrorist”! The DOS might hope to use the group as pressure lever against IRI in the midst of nuclear complications with Iran and along with widespread sanctions against the country.
The MKO is no democratic based on numerous testimonies. “The MKO former members reported abuses ranging from detention and persecution of ordinary members wishing to leave the organization, to lengthy solitary confinements, severe beatings, and torture of dissident members,” reads HRW report on the MKO.
As former members of the MKO, we urge on pursuing various cases of suicide, assassination and sexual abuse in the Cult of Rajavi (MKO/MEK).It was just a month ago that a number of ex-members of the group revealed new secrets about sexual abuse, hysterectomy surgery and violation of women’s rights committed in the group. The disappeared leader of the MKO, Massoud Rajavi sent a message of congratulations to those women whose wombs were removed saying:”You’re liberated from sexuality” (!)
This is an absolutely significant sign of violation of human rights, particularly women’s rights to firstly force them to divorce their spouses, then separate them from their children, make them give their last sign of motherhood to the leader by removal of their wombs and ultimately to be sexually abused by him. Regarding such facts on the internal mysteries of the cult of Rajavi and many other evidences on the cult-like an terrorist substance of the group, we state our protest against the recent decision the government of Canada made to allow the cult to act freely in its territory. Western states should be responsive to public opinion.
It doesn’t matter whether we believe that the MKO has renounced violence (although we don’t 
believe it at all); the US administration doesn’t believe it, at least for the time being. Recent acts by the US administration have somewhat dismantled the mask that the government actually cares about the Iranian people. Once upon a time the US was at least pretending that it was caring for people of Iran.
The removal of the MKO cult from the list clearly indicates Washington’s increasing animosity against the Iranians. Although the brutal substance of the MKO have been described several times in various reports – including RAND report 2009, HRW 2005 – and once they were financially and militarily sponsored by Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, the US officials gave credit to the group by delisting it. Undeniably, the MKO is highly despised by the majority of the Iranian people. Thus, it is very disturbing for them to observe the US supporting a group that has the blood of a large number – at least 12 thousands victims, according to Habilian Website – of their country fellow men in its hands.
The US risks its reputation at stake by supporting the MKO. But is it really worth that?
The MKO is now hoping to set up to play the role Ahmad Chalabi played in the days preceding to the American led invasion to Iraq. The so-called intelligence they published about the Iranian nuclear program has earned some approval among Western officials for them.
The Vancouver Sun journalist, Jonathan Manthrope suggests, “it seems unlikely that the Obama administration would fall for the same kind of blarney from the somewhat sinister husband and wife team of Massoud and Maryam Rajavi ,who, if several US government reports are to be believed, run MEK[the MKO] as a personality cult complete with brainwashing, brutal internal discipline, and the indoctrination of children.”[1]
The ultimate objective of US warmongers politicians such as Congressman Dana Rohrabacher, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs sub-Committee is to support and use Iranian oppositions and separatists to destabilize the Iranian government. Rohrabacher who welcomed the MKO’s delisting by the State Department, is pushing the US government to embrace the MKO as the “legitimate opposition” to the Iranian government.[2] it seems that they are willing to turn the MKO to a “Syrian National Council” type opposition and eventually to use them to launch terrorist acts against Iranian people. This is exactly what Maryam Rajavi is looking for. Her so called resistance movement seeks “Syria-style recognition”, according to the AFP. These days she is passionately prostituting her cult among Western authorities. [2]
Glenn Greenwald, the American prominent journalist and lawyer in an interview with Iranian journalist Kourish Ziabari told that the MKO is still engaged in violence.”There are credible reports that they are the ones who are working with Israelis and behind the assassination of civilian scientists” he said. “And because this group has paid so many influential politicians in the United States and also because this group now carried out terrorist operations on behalf of Israel and the United States in promotion of the interests of Israel and the United States.”[4]
The experience of Ahmad Chalabi and even the Syrian opposition demonstrate how distorted the miscalculations of Western politicians would be. Maybe, that’s why that Manthrope believes ,”If Obama is not about to be stampeded into war with Iran by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – with the aim of stopping the Tehran regime acquiring the ability to make nuclear weapons – he is unlikely to be impressed by the Rajavis.”[5]
To use the MKO against the Iranian nation is definitely cynical act and maybe worse than what we saw in regard to Iraqi INC or Syrian National Council.
By Mazda Parsi
References:
[1] Manthrope, Jonathan, Iranian Terrorist group now freedom fighters, in US eyes, Vancouver Sun,October3,2012
[2]McGreal, Chris, MEK supporters to push US to recognized as official Iranian opposition, Guardian, September28, 2012
[3]AFP, Iranian Opposition seeks Syria-style recognition, December5, 2012
[4]Greenwald, Glenn & Ziabari, Kourosh, The US and Israel have made a joke of the United Nations Security Council, Global Research, December16, 2012
[5] Manthrope, Jonathan, Iranian Terrorist group now freedom fighters, in US eyes, Vancouver Sun, October3, 2012
The area in front of torturing room, the word “HARRASMENT” is seen on the ground.