Articles

Ray Torabi: Happy father’s day to the father I never had

Children of the Mujahedin Khalq (MEK/ PMOI) are victims of enormous traumas. Six years after his defection, Mohammad Reza (Ray) Torabi, a defector of the group and the son of GhorbanAli Torabi, a victim of the group lives in Germany. On May 18th, on the occasion of Father’s Day in Germany, Mohammad Reza published a post on his Facebook account and recounted his heart-breaking memoirs about his father who died under torture by the MEK commanders.

Mohammad Reza Torabi never got to know his father, Ghorban, while he was still alive. “Destiny separated me from him at a very young age,” he writes. “When I was 1 month old, my parents were arrested and imprisoned by the Islamic republic for opposing the regime and trying to flee Iran.”

He did not see his father during the first 7 years of his life but after the release of his father from prison a long period of separation started again, this time in the very organization that his parents were fighting for. He writes, “My parents decided to leave Iran and go to Iraq and join the MEK (a religious cult that then portrayed itself as an Iranian opposition organization fighting the regime).”

Mohammad Reza Torabi

Although Mohammad Reza has understandably strong feelings against the government of Iran, he confirms that he and his family are victims of the destructive Cult of Rajavi in which they experienced cult-like violence, military life and destruction of their family center.

“After the first 6 months in MEK camps in Iraq, where I only saw my parents on the weekends, the cult leader ordered all couples to divorce,” He recalls. “From then on, I never saw my parents together again. Once every couple of weeks I would visit Baba’s military unit and he’d show me around the tanks and artillery.”

Ghorbanali Torabi

This is the journey of the young Mohammad Reza under the rule of “criminal” Massoud Rajavi, in the MEK:
“When the first Gulf War began in 1991, Rajavi, the cult leader, ordered all the parents to send their kids away. The last memory I have of Baba is the last night we spent together alone without any electricity and under a candle light. (I love candle lights. To this day, I can stare into one for hours and get lost in my mind and memories). Neither of us knew it would be our last night together. Maybe he guessed it. But I thought I was going on a trip with the other kids and coming back.

“The last image of Baba in my mind is of him with a fake smile waving goodbye to the bus I was sitting in while tears were running down his face. I know now it was a fake smile because over the years I also learned to wear the same fake smile on my face.

“I was sent to Canada and for the first 2 years, Baba wrote me one letter every year. But then the letters stopped. Deep down I knew he was gone. I just felt it. I asked the foster family I was living with many times about news of him but each time received different answers. “Baba’s in a secret mission in Iran and he can’t write you letters”, they told me.
“But the truth was that in 1995, the MEK arrested Baba, my mom and around 200 other members of its own cult and accused them of spying for the regime. It interrogated and tortured them to sign a confession statement. Baba never gave in. For a week straight they took Baba every night for interrogations and tortured him until morning hours. His cellmates say that the last morning they brought him back to the cell, his face wasn’t recognizable from the bruises and swelling and his body was covered with blood. That day Baba hanged himself with a blanket in the shower of their cell so that he wouldn’t have to bear the torture anymore. After all, he was trapped in a MEK camp in the middle of a desert in Iraq and no one could hear his voice. MEK cowards took his body and buried him in an unknown location without a tombstone. He was 39 years old. 2 years younger than me now.

“Baba suffered a lot of pain and hardships throughout his short life. But he left something behind that will carry on his name and legacy. Me. People who knew him tell me how much I resemble him. And the more I get to know him, the more I realize how much I’m like him in character as well.

“Until the day I’m alive, Baba’s legacy will live on. I too, like Baba will fight for the freedom of my country Iran. But I will also fight for justice. Those within the MEK responsible for his death will one day face justice in a criminal court. I will not forgive, and I will not forget.

“There’s still a lot that I don’t know about my Baba. But one thing I’m certain of is that he was a great man with a beautiful heart that I’m incredibly proud of.”

Mohammad Reza Torabi is only one of the hundreds of MEK children who lost their parent, family life and eventually family support due to Rajavi’s criminal cult. There are also a large number of former child soldiers and young orphans whose parents are still alive but isolated in the MEK’s camp in Albania. They are not allowed by the group leaders to contact their parents. Besides, parents will be punished by the group leaders if they try to contact them. There are also dozens of children of Mujahed parents who are taken as hostages inside the Cult of Rajavi. Unlike Mohammad Reza, they have not succeeded to leave the group.

Human rights organizations should notice the stories of these children. They are victims of violence of the Cult of Rajavi. Violation of human rights should be stopped in Camp Ashraf 3 in the village of Manez, Albania.

May 29, 2023 0 comment

The cult of Rajavi

Testimony on annihilation of MEK members by their leaders

Mohammad Ashayer and Aziz Asadi were disappeared after they criticized the MEK leaders.
Ghafoor Fattahian, a former member of the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK, PMOI) testifies about the fate of two of his comrades. He witnessed suppression, torture and disappearance of Mohammad Ashayer and Aziz Asadi in the Cult of Rajavi. The group commanders then exploited the photos of their both victims as victims of the Islamic Republic!

Fattahian left the MEK in 2011 after 19 years of membership. He lives in France now. Comparing Maryam Rajavi’s so-called “Ten Point Plan” for “Free Iran” with the reality inside the MEK, Fattahian proves that the group is undemocratic and hypocrite.

Ghafoor Fattahian, a former member of the Mujahedin-e Khalq, living in france

He writes, “In the notorious Camp Ashraf, a lot of members would react Maryam Rajavi’s speeches about free Iran in her propaganda shows because they could see contradictions between what Rajavi said and what was going on inside her camps.”

He even recalls Massoud Rajavi’s reply to members who criticized Maryam: “Maryam and I have to say these words in order to shut the mouths of western politicians”.
Two of MEK members who began dissent at Camp Ashraf were Mohammad Ashayer and Aziz Asadi. Fattahian confirms that they were killed by the group leaders after they criticized them for the conflicts between their words and acts.

Actually, actions carry the stronger message. Fattahian recounts:
“These two people were in my unit. Mohammad Ashayer criticized Maryam’s words about free future Iran saying that the MEK itself was not engaged in democracy and freedom for its own members and acted undemocratically inside its base. He would ask how Maryam Rajavi could guarantee freedom of Iranians after the overthrow of the Islamic Republic.”
According to Fattahian, “Aziz Asadi criticized the MEK for lack of freedom of speech and expression”. He would also question the function of the MEK’s so-called National Liberation Army.
Both men were tried in a court under the command of two female commanders, Maryam Akbari and another woman who Fattahian does not remember her name. “The trial lasted for several hours,” Fattahian writes. “The two men were insulted, humiliated and accused of being the agents of the Iranian intelligence ministry during the trial.”

However, Ashayer and Asadi did not shrink from their opinion. Thus, Assadollah Mosana, the MEK’s notorious torturer entered the scene. Fattahian was an eyewitness of the scene:
“Assadollah Mosana along with some of other prison guards and torturers suddenly attacked them. They beat them to death and then they took them out of the hall, and we never saw them again.”
Fattahian tried to find a track of his disappeared comrades, but he could not find anything until two years later. “Kamran Fallahi and I were patrolling around Camp Ashraf,” he says. “We went to the camp’s cemetery and ran into a group of journalists. A large number of photos of casualties of the MEK’s terrorist operators and executed members of the group were hanging everywhere. Kamran and I were shocked to see the photos of Mohammad Ashayer and Aziz Asadi among them. Pari Bakhshai, the high commander of the camp was telling the journalists that they were victims of the Islamic Republic!”

Ghafoor Fattahian and Kamran Fallahi went to Pari Bakhshai and asked her, “When were they killed? They were in our unit” Bakhshai answered, “Good job to tell us about them. We will remove their pictures,” But, eventually Ghafoor and Kamran were kicked out of the cemetery.
This was not the end of the story. Ghafoor and Kamran were summoned immediately after they got back to their unit. “Never talk about what you saw today! It is a red line!” They were told.

May 28, 2023 0 comment

Mujahedin Khalq Organization's Propaganda System

How MKO, Israeli regime lure European MPs with money for lobbying

A short verbal exchange recently between a TV presenter and a low-profile politician and former lawmaker from a small country on the periphery of the European Union laid bare a long-standing problem of non-transparent lobbying in the highest EU institutions in Brussels.

A TV host on a popular Croatian talk show asked a guest how she copes with the growing European inflation of 13 percent since she has savings of 700-800,000 Euros in publicly available bank accounts.

This financial data was known to him because the Croatian anti-corruption institutions require that leading Croatian politicians must make their assets publicly available online every year, in order to prevent conflict of interest.

Croatian MP Marijana Petir, the guest on the show, was visibly rattled by the unexpected question.

Croatian MP Marijana Petir

She was not disturbed by inflation and the loss of around one hundred thousand Euros, but by the fact that this little-known information was presented in an extremely popular show watched by over half a million people, roughly a quarter of the Croatian adult population.

So, instead of answering about inflation, she immediately changed the subject and stated that her savings are a private matter, that she earned everything fairly and that she regularly and transparently submits her financial data to the relevant institutions.

Public reactions

Her dark forebodings turned out to be correct because the information about the bank account overshadowed the rest of the interview and was a hot topic in the Croatian media and public for days.

Soon, many interesting data emerged like skeletons out of a closet.

For example, of the 151 representatives of the Croatian parliament, which includes prominent businessmen and wealthy heirs, Petir has the largest independent savings: roughly 700 thousand Euros.

Her savings are roughly twice as large as this year’s reported assets of Zoran Milanović, the incumbent Croatian president who has held coveted political positions for two decades, including the mandate of prime minister and the position of leader of the second largest party in Croatia.

Furthermore, the available property data show that Petir did not inherit anything, is not married and has no joint property, and has no loans or debts.

In other words, the entire amount is the result of her political career spanning only 17.5 years, in addition to less than two years of work in the real sector.

Calculations

Few investigative journalists have tried to reconstruct her career and the sum of all salaries, arriving at the same conclusion that her claims of “fair earnings” do not hold water.

The most fruitful period is certainly her mandate as a member of the European Parliament when she received a net salary of 4,500 Euros during the five years from 2014 to 2019.

This still constitutes approximately a third of her total savings.

Petir was also a member of the Croatian Parliament for six years, where her net salary was twice as low, giving a quarter of her savings. If we also include minor jobs in her younger days, we get an amount of barely two-thirds of her total savings.

This superficial calculation of course implies that she hasn’t spent a cent in two decades, which is simply impossible considering her well-known lavish lifestyle.

Despite the fact that these contradictions were made public, no one managed to answer the key question – where did the money really come from?

Concealments

Petir herself avoids answering the question – where do her staggering earnings come from?

“My savings come from 20 years of work in different workplaces, which were not only related to the European Parliament or the Croatian Parliament,” she was quoted as saying in the media.

“Salaries for official positions are public and available, while the amount of salaries for other positions, based on the contract, cannot be disclosed to the public,” she hastened to add.

Neither the Croatian nor the European Parliament provides an answer.

Although their rules dictate that they are required to report the amount of savings and interest group affiliations, they are apparently not required to report the full source of money and lobbying policies; for whom, and against whom.

The website of the EU Parliament only briefly reveals that she is chair of the Croatia-Israel friendship group, while the website of the Croatian Parliament lists her membership in the inter-parliamentary friendship groups with Hungary, Israel, North Macedonia, and the United States.

Finally, there is not a single Croatian or European media outlet, newspaper article, not even a blog, that writes about her true employers and lobbying activities.

Not only for Petir, but also for most of the dozens of similar cases in the EU Parliament.

Revelations

The answer to the question of how a little-known peasant politician accumulated hundreds of thousands of Euros is yet quite simple – it comes from anti-Iranian and anti-Palestinian lobbying for the Albania-based terrorist group MKO and the Israeli regime in the EU parliament.

Just two weeks after entering the EU parliament, she boasted on her private website that she is the only Croatian member of the delegation with close relations with the Israeli regime, and her Zionist rampage was evident throughout her five-year mandate, in the form of tens of examples.

In her speeches, she repeatedly promoted the lie that Palestinians use “human shields,” thus whitewashing the Israeli regime’s war crimes. She also claimed that the EU’s humanitarian aid to Palestine “finances terrorism”, equating criticism of Israeli policy viz a viz Palestine with anti-Semitism, and demanding that Lebanon’s Hezbollah resistance movement be put on the EU terror list, etc.

She has traveled to the Israeli-occupied territories at least three times, from where she proudly opposed EU labeling of products originating from illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied Golan Heights, Gaza Strip, West Bank and East Jerusalem.

Petir thus ardently defends the apartheid regime responsible for the ethnic cleansing of millions of Palestinian Muslims and hundreds of thousands of Palestinian Christians, but at the same time paradoxically presents herself as a great Catholic concerned about the violations of the rights of Christians in the world.

In one of her freaky rants, she named Iran, Syria and Turkey as allegedly “the most aggressive anti-Christian countries.”

MKO ties

There is also ample evidence that points to her close ties with the MKO, a notorious anti-Iranian terrorist organization based in Albania that is responsible for the killings of tens of thousands of Iranians, which Petir indirectly refers to as “Iran’s human rights organization” on her website.

She held meetings with Maryam Rajavi, promoted MKO propaganda on her Twitter page, and most importantly, used their disinformation for anti-Iranian presentations in the EU Parliament.

Among numerous anti-Iran speeches is a particularly bizarre one in which she says: “It is well known that the position of women has declined after the revolution,” and goes on to cite various fake data from MKO pamphlets, including the alleged “denial of education to girls.”

This is while, before the Islamic revolution, more than three-quarters of women were illiterate, while today literacy is almost 100 percent and the number of female university students is 50 percent higher than in Germany and some other European countries.

Astonishingly, no one among 700 EU representatives confronted Petir or her ignorance, while High Representative/Vice-President Federica Mogherini said she was aware of the “worrying situation.”

Most of Petir’s other activities in the EU Parliament are limited to marginal agricultural and Balkans-related regional issues, so the possibility that she profited from other types of lobbying can be ruled out.

Lobbying octopus

Petir is not an isolated case. Out of a total of 11 representatives from Croatia in the EU Parliament from 2014 to 2019, three more participated in pro-MKO anti-Iranian activities: Jozo Radoš, Željana Zovko and Ruža Tomašić. Tomašić’s replacement Ladislav Ilčić has also been active since 2021.

A similar phenomenon exists in neighboring Slovenia, which also has five representatives who have actively lobbied for MKO terrorist group in recent years: Franc Bogovič, Ljudmila Novak, Patricija Šulin, Romana Tomc and Milan Zver.

Overall, there are between 40 and 50 individuals who have participated in such activities in the EU Parliament in recent years. More than half come from the Eastern EU countries, the rest mainly from the marginal parties of the Western EU.

The MKO’s purchasing a prominent MEP of a major Croatian party obviously represents an issue, not only due to the accompanying cost but also international repercussions. On the other hand, dealing with cheap marginal figures from the European periphery does not pose any problem.

The Petir case is also reminiscent of the well-documented case from Spain where the MEK financed the European campaign of the radical right-wing party Vox with several hundred thousand Euros.

Again, everything happened discreetly and legally, without an anti-corruption process or major controversies.

So, with the relatively cheap cost of a few million Euros given by their Zionist sponsors, the anti-Iranian terrorist group managed to gather the same number of representatives in the EU Parliament as Poland.

This is not an Iranian problem alone, but also a European problem.

European citizens, experts believe, should ask themselves if the highest EU institution is so vulnerable to the lobbying influence, how prone is it to ultra-rich corporations, let alone an overseas master?

By Ivan Kesic

May 27, 2023 0 comment

Mujahedin Khalq Organization as a terrorist group

MEK: terrorists who jail dissidents

The Mujahedin-e Khalq terrorist group, known as MEK, which was listed as a terrorist organization from 1997 to 2012 and has a criminal record of killing 17,000 people, is now presented as a purely political group and engaged in human rights advocacy from anti-Iranian satellite channels, such as Iran International. This cult has created horrific relationships and situations both at home and abroad. Violence perpetrated against its own members is an important issue which perhaps has not been sufficiently addressed.

Violence against members

The issue of torture and secret prisons is raised only by militants who have spent time in MEK camps. From another point of view, one of the consolidated practices of this sect is represented by the justifications that the leaders of the MEK express for some issues, in particular regarding the internal cleansing and the killing of dissident members. The imprisonments and tortures MEK leaders carried out against rebel members included long-term imprisonments (without any contact with the outside world), solitary confinement, torture, psychological and verbal abuse, forcibly extracted confessions, threats of death and torture which in many cases led people to death.

Prisons inside the MEK

Statements from isolated members indicate that the MEK used three types of imprisonment within its camps: the first type consists of small residential units known as Mehmansara (guesthouses). Those who tried to escape from the organization were locked up in these units, unable to leave their respective facilities to talk or meet anyone inside the camp. Karim Haqi, a high-level member of the terrorist group, who was in charge of the security of Massoud Rajavi, the leader of the sect, says: “In 1991, I was Rajavi’s security commander, they didn’t believe I wanted to leave, they put me, with my wife and six-month-old son, in a building called Eskan, a series of residential units. The organization had built a very high wall around these units and installed barbed wire inside (so that no one could get out of the fence); a watchtower and patrols. During this period, when our food rations were reduced, they beat us, insulted us and threatened to have us executed.” Another defecting cult member admitted that, in 1991, after submitting a request to leave the group, they were locked up in various rooms in the camp. “When we entered the camp of the organization, they took our passports and identification documents, and later, when we told them we wanted to leave, they refused to give them back to us. They locked us up in buildings called Eskans and other prisons.”

Masoud Bani Sadr, who was in charge of the group’s diplomatic representation in Europe and North America, writes that after a meeting with Massoud Rajavi and other senior members, the conclusion was reached that he himself had been judged to be a corrupt individual and therefore should become a Bengali . “After that, my supervisor asked me to become Bengali and think like one, which meant that I had to go to solitary confinement to reflect and write. This is a severe form of mental torture, so much so that some members of the organization preferred to kill themselves rather than become Bengalis.”
The third type of detention reported by former members includes imprisonment, physical torture and interrogation in secret prisons thrown into gang cells. These prisons are mainly used to persecute political dissidents. Most of the cult members were unaware of the existence of these prisons, people who have been incarcerated in these centers claim that they were unaware of their existence until their firsthand personal experience. One of the witnesses, Mohammad Hossein Sobhani, claims that he spent eight and a half years, from September 1992 to January 2001, in solitary confinement cells in MEK camps. Another witness, Javaheri Yar, stayed there for five years, from November 1995 to December 2000. Both people were senior members of the MEK and wanted to leave, but were told they would not be allowed to leave due to the great amount of information they were aware of. They were then imprisoned and finally handed over to the Iraqi authorities and transferred to Abu Ghraib prison.

A member of Rajavi’s cult, who managed to escape from the dreaded Camp Ashraf, later said: “Since the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, the leaders of the group have changed their strategy and Camp Ashraf has become a prison where prisoners do not have the possibility of communicating with the outside of the camp”. According to him, from that time until today, MEK leaders have been training members of this group to carry out terrorist attacks, spending millions of dollars. According to the revealing statements of three members who fled from Ashraf camp, MEK leaders persecuted and tortured members of this group and did not allow them to leave the camp and join their families. According to them, many MEK members want to flee, but fear for their future. Reportedly, dozens of MEK members were killed on the orders of their leaders; the only fault of these people was to try to escape from the camp. According to another such witness, MEK leaders use all kinds of ways to brainwash and oppress the inmates of Ashraf, such as group meetings where each member had to account for his sexual tastes and other members had to insult him by ridiculing him. . Furthermore, these people stated that those in Ashraf camp are not allowed any contact with outside the camp, and if they try to escape, they will be killed by the guards or arrested and executed. All these cases are only a small part of the crimes of the MEK terrorist group, which, with obvious human rights violations, keeps its members in the camp as prisoners, and none of the human rights organizations make the slightest effort to save these people.

Nejat Society demonstration in front of the ICRC

In this regard, the “Nejat” association, formed by the families of the members imprisoned in the Ashraf camp or, better to say, in the prison of the MEK (terrorist cult of Rajavi) in Albania, organized a demonstration in front of the headquarters of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Tehran on May 8, and asked this humanitarian organization to make sure of the people caught in the MEK’s clutches. The purpose of this rally, which coincided with World Red Cross Day, was to draw the attention of international organizations, including the International Committee of the Red Cross, to the most blatant human rights violations of the trapped members in the MEK camp in Albania and to take immediate action to save these people. International Day of the Red Cross and Red Crescent is celebrated every year on 8 May. This day was chosen because it was the birthday of Henry Dunant, one of the promoters and founders of the Red Cross. Henry Dunant is considered the first Nobel Peace Prize winner.

https://dlb.nejatngo.org/Media/Report/PressTV/Presstv-Fa-RC-20230508.mp4

To download the video file click here

At the end of this demonstration, the crowd present signed a declaration, of which we report: “As indicated in the mission of the Red Cross, to prevent and alleviate suffering, sustain life and health and ensure respect for human beings, especially in emergency situations. We expect that the imprisoned members will soon be recognized as refugees thanks to the humanitarian diplomacy of the Red Cross and thus be saved from a sectarian life and difficult mental and physical conditions, avoiding tragedies such as individual and collective murders and suicides”. In this statement, which was delivered to the representative of the Red Cross in Iran, it is further emphasized that: “The MEK, by creating a prison camp without communication with the outside world, prevents the presence and communication of families and also of all international institutions, including the Red Cross with the prisoners; the parents of every inmate are deprived of contact and visits with their children, some of them for decades”.
By Alireza Niknam – come don chisciotte

Alireza Niknam, reporter and researcher in the field of terrorist groups, especially the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK) terrorist group. He holds a degree in political science from the University of Tehran and writes articles for various international news agencies. In addition to journalism, he is a political commentator and consultant to the TerrorSpring Institute in the field of counterterrorism.

May 21, 2023 0 comment

The cult of Rajavi

How Ahmad Heidari was tortured to death by the MEK commanders

Former member of the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK), Samad Nazari recounts the story of Ahmad Heidari, a victim of the group who was tortured in its prisons.

Samad Nazari was a former member of the MEK who defected the group more than three decades ago. He returned to Iran where he later founded Nejat NGO. His autobiography titled “Footprint of the Evil” was focused on the years of his membership and imprisonment in the MEK and defection from the group. Nazari passed away in the Fall of 2014.

In 1991, at the time of the first Gulf war, Samad Nazari was jailed in solitary confinement in the MEK’s Debes prison (Askarizadeh camp) near Kirkuk, Iraq. He was punished for his decision to leave the Cult of Rajavi!

Samad Nazari

During his breath-taking process of defection, Samad witnessed imprisonment, torture and killing of many of his peers. In a part of his memoirs, he writes about a man named Ahmad Heidari. He was jailed together with 5 other members. He recalls that Ahmad Heidari was brought to the cell in the weekend:

“He was badly beaten, with wounded and bruised head. His clothes were torn and his mental condition was not normal. He was Ahmad Heidari who had been irritated by Rajavi’s ideological revolution and since then he had started dissent against Rajavi.”

In the meeting that he was told to divorce his wife, he was so shocked by Rajavi’s order that he cried insults against Massoud and Maryam Rajavi and Fahimeh Arvani.
Nazari writes, “Ahmad had committed a huge crime, so he was attacked by some of the commanders. He was beaten and jailed in solitary confinement. He went on a hunger strike. In that mental state, he constantly cursed Rajavi, Maryam and Fahimeh.”

After a week Ahmad was brought to the office of Majid Alamian –the notorious torturer of the MEK. “Ahmad was so disgusted by the commanders that again started shouting insults,” Samad Nazari writes. “Majid beat his fist on Ahmad’s head. Ahmad was shocked and eventually silenced. Majid went out and Ahmad walked through the corridors around the office. He soiled the building and the sleeping equipment there.”

The torturer, Majid Alamian, comes back at lunch time and throws Ahmad in solitary confinement again. Ahmad pooped and pied all over the cell. “Majid tied his feet and hands and beat him harshly,” Nazari recounts, “He kicked Ahmad’s chest so much that she lost consciousness and fell into a coma.”

This was the daily routine of Ahmad for a few days. Nazari writes, “When we opened his arms and legs, he was shaking for an hour and could not stand.”

Majid Almaian and other commanders presumed that Ahmad had no mental problem, so they put pressure on him to confess his sins (insults against the leaders of the cult). Samad Nazari does not know much about the fate of Ahmad. He was taken out of the camp a few days later and nobody could know about his whereabouts anymore.

May 20, 2023 0 comment

The cult of Rajavi

The MEK a cult with cartel culture

The Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK) is also Known as the Cult of Rajavi. It is considered a cult because it meets all criteria of cults. The MEK is a fanatical armed group, which until 2012 was designated as a terrorist organization by the United States and the European Union.

Cult is a term, considered pejorative by most people, for a relatively small group which is typically led by a charismatic and self-appointed leader, who excessively controls its members, requiring solid devotion to a set of beliefs and practices which are considered deviant outside the norms of society. The MEK is a cult focused on the personality of Massoud Rajavi, the charismatic leader who has been disappeared since 2003 and his third wife Maryam Rajavi has been the self-appointed president of the group for about three decades.

Massoud and Maryam Rajavi

The Rajavis excessively control their members requiring them unwavering devotion to the group’s cause and ideology. They coerce members to work for them without being paid (forced labor). They require members to stay single forever. They coerce a layer of female members in the group’s hierarchy to sleep with Massoud Rajavi.

The MEK is a cartel too. It uses the resources of the enemies of the Iranian government to maintain its position within its members and sympathizers. This has formed a cartel culture around the MEK.

What is a cartel culture? Narcoculture describes the way of life and ideas of drug traffickers. Its existence depends on drug traffickers and drug trafficking maintaining a transnational network of production, transportation, and commercialization of illegal drugs.

Narcoculture in Mexico is a subculture that has grown as a result of the strong presence of the various drug cartels throughout Mexico. These cartels work like a cult. In July 2009, Reuters reported that a cult-like drug cartel was defying President Felipe Calderon in his home state in western Mexico by taking on security forces with a menacing mix of violence, pseudo-religion and gifts for the poor.

This drug cartel was called La Familia. It also wielded great power in local politics, making the organization harder to confront. What began as a means of comfort and protection among the poor and innocent in Mexico during uncertain times has found its way to becoming the foundation and justification for criminality and horrific acts of violence.

This is very similar to what the MEK does in Albania today. The group’s untransparent financial resources helps it launch huge charity campaigns, mobilizing doctors among poor citizens of Albanian villages, buying support among Albanian politicians and journalists. Meanwhile, the violent background of the group with thousands of innocent victims who were killed by the MEK’s terrorists make it very similar to La Familia.

Despite this paid support in Albania and some western countries, the group has almost no credibility in Iran. Houshang Shahabi, an Iranian-born professor of international relations at Boston University says, “They have been politically irrelevant in Iran since at least the mid-1980s and have little to no domestic support.”

As a matter of fact, the cartel culture ruling the Cult of Rajavi answers the question of why Albania would strain itself into one of the world’s most tense geopolitical standoffs, between the United States and Iran, by agreeing to host the MEK which until 2012 was designated as a terrorist group by the United States.

According to interviews conducted by The Guardian and the Intercept with MEK defectors, members spend most of their time working in the group’s troll farms demonizing the Iranian government and fomenting unrest among Iranian youth without presenting themselves as agents of the MEK.

MEK is a destructive cult which acts like drug cartels. It is dangerous because it is funded by hefty sources. Its power is based on money, cult and cartel culture. The Albanian government and international human rights body must take action to stop the MEK cartel grow in Europe.

Mazda Parsi

May 17, 2023 0 comment

Missions of Nejat Society

What Nejat Families want on the Int. Red Cross Day

Members of Nejat Society used the occasion of May 8th, the International Day of Red Cross to call on the world for the release of their loved ones. Families of hostages of the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK/ PMOI/ Cult of Rajavi) are members of Nejat NGO who have been looking forward to visiting their loved ones in the group, for decades.

Since the establishment of Nejat Society, families have taken numerous actions to attract attention of the world to the humanitarian crisis that members of the Cult of Rajavi are faced with. When the group was in Iraq, families used to travel there to hold sit-ins in front of the gates of Camp Ashraf and Camp Liberty.

However, they were never allowed by the MEK leaders to visit their loved ones. Through loudspeakers they called the names of their children and asked them to leave the group. This was the slightest chance to show their love to their loved ones who are mentally and physically barred from the outside world by the Rajavis. And this action worked in many cases. Several members of the cult eventually left the group during the next years. Their process of defection from the Cult of Rajavi had started after they had heard their names cried by their suffering family members through loudspeakers.

Today, far from the Iranian border, members of the MEK are still isolated in the group’s headquarters called Ashraf 3, in Manez, a village in north of the Albanian capital, Tirana. Families are not granted visa to travel to Albania due to the group’s corrupted links in the Albanian government. Thus, they must use every opportunity to make the international human rights bodies hear their voice for help.

Nejat families sit in ,in front of the ICRC office in Tehran

Yesterday’s sit-in by the heart-broken parents and grieving brothers and sisters of the MEK hostages in front of the office of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Tehran was another step forward. They demanded the authorities to step in and aid them to contact and visit their beloved family members taken as hostages by the MEK leaders.

ASILA members’ gathering in front of the ICRC office of Tirana

Nejat Society has a complement in Albania. ASILA, the Association for the support of Iranians Living in Albania is somehow a branch of Nejat in Albania. ASILA was established by some of the Albanian citizens and former members of the MEK who previously left the group in Albania. On May, 8th, 2023, they also gathered in front of the ICRC’s office in Tirana.

Carrying placards and pictures of their loved ones and their friends, members of Nejat and ASILA asked the authorities of the ICRC to take immediate action to stop violation of human rights against members of the MEK, hostages of Massoud and Maryam Rajavi.

Their demands include the followings:
They should be granted the right to contact and visit their loved ones in the MEK.
The right of MEK members to take asylum should be observed by the Albanian government.
The MEK leaders should be compelled to stop violating the human rights of their members.

May 10, 2023 0 comment

Mujahedin Khalq Organization members' families

Mosayeb’s grandson looking forward to his release from the MEK

Mosayeb Rashidi was taken as a war prisoner in 1980. He was a young newly married soldier of the Iranian army. Iraqi Baath forces trapped him in Iran-Iraq border in the early months of the war. He was in Saddam Hussein’s notorious POW camps for 9 years.

Mosayeb’s wife was pregnant when he was taken as a POW. Their daughter was born a few weeks later and eventually she grew up in the absence of his father. The little girl turned into an adult, got married and had children.

Mosayeb Mazaheri and other POW’s at the Baath Regime prisoners’ camp

She has not seen her father since her birth. In 1989, Mosayeb was recruited –in better words was taken as a hostage– by the agents of the Mujahedin-e Khalq who collaborated with Iraqi officers in POW camps.

Since then, Mosayeb’s family have not been able to contact or visit him. When the group was in Iraq, they traveled to Iraq and picketed across the gates of the MEK camps, asking for permission to visit their beloved Mosayeb but the leaders of the Cult of Rajavi did not allow them to visit him and did not let Mosayeb know that his family had come to visit him.

He is now in the MEK’s camp Ashraf 3 in Albania, and he is still isolated from the outside world, having no access to his family, his daughter and his little grandson.

May 6, 2023 0 comment

The cult of Rajavi

Kids imprisoned in the MEK, former member testify

Former member of the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK) speaks of imprisonment of children in the group. He writes about kids who were in custody in the MEK’s prisons because their parents wanted to defect the group.

Samad Nazari was a former member of the MEK who defected the group more than three decades ago. He returned to Iran and then he became one of the founders of Nejat NGO. His auto biography titled “Footprint of the Evil” was focused on the years of his membership and imprisonment in the MEK and defection from the MEK. Nazari passed away in the Fall of 2014.
In 1991, at the time of the first Gulf war, Samad Nazari was jailed in solitary confinement in the MEK’s Debes prison (Askarizadeh camp) near Kirkuk, Iraq. He was punished for his decision to leave the Cult of Rajavi!

Samad Nazari

In two parts of his memoirs of custody inside the MEK, he notifies that women and children were also imprisoned in Debes prison.
He was jailed in his dark and dirty cell in Askarizadeh when the coalition forces bombarded the camp. “I heard the loud noise of 5 bombs that hit the area,” he writes in his book. “A thick suffocating dust entered my cell which was in the basement. I could hear the cries of women and children from the upper floors of the camp. I realized that there were other guests in that prison, those who were willing to leave the group.”

In other part of his horrific memoirs of solitary confinement and torture under Massoud Rajavi’s ruling, Nazari writes:
“In my new cell, there were words written in a child-like handwriting: Mom died, Dad is in jail.” Nazari was curious to know that whose child was in prison. Later, a friend who had been imprisoned in the same cell, told him about the poor child. “The handwriting belonged to the kids of a man called Farhang. He wanted to defect the group in the summer of 1991. Soraya Shahraki, a commander of the group beat Farhang and jailed him. His two kids who were primary students were taqken from school and delivered to him in the cell. Their mother had been killed in the MEK’s cross border operation against Iran, Forough Javidan.”

This was only one of the testimonies of MEK defectors about violation of human rights against children in the MEK. There are numerous cases of children rights abuse in the MEK. The followings are just some of them:

– Nadereh Afshari, former member of the MEK writes in her book of new-borns who had been separated from their parents and had been smuggled to Europe. They were maltreated by a female Mujahed, named Azam who worked in the group’s team house in Coln.

– Mother Esmat, former member testifies about her younger daughter, Jennifer, whose knee was injured because of the military trainings inside the MEK school. Jennifer’s ponytail hair was also cut by the teacher because she had not wear hijab.

– Amin Golmaryami and Amir Yaghmai, former child soldiers testified about sexual harassments they experienced inside the MEK camps.

– Hundreds of child soldiers endured heavy military trainings and even were coerced to launch terrorist operations.

– Many child soldiers were killed in the group’s operations. Maryam Qeitani was only 15 years old when she was killed in Forough Javidan. Having been grown up in the MEK’s bases Asieh Rakhshani was in her twenties when she was killed by Iraqi armed forces because Massoud Rajavi had ordered his unarmed members to clash with Iraqi army.

– Alan Mohammadi and Yaser Akbarinasab were two teenagers who could not stand the dictatorship of the Cult of Rajavi and committed suicide.

To the list, add hundreds of children who were orphaned by the MEK leaders, left in foster families across Europe and North America and were never able to find their parents again.

May 3, 2023 0 comment

Mujahedin Khalq Organization members' families

Amin Asadan, 24 years of imprisonment in the MEK

Amin Asadan was a young guy from North of Iran who was kidnapped by the agents of the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK/ PMOI) . Amin is one of the hundreds young men who were taken as hostages by the MEK recruiters in Turkey.

Amin has not been allowed to contact and visit his family during the 24 years of membership (in better words, imprisonment) in Massoud Rajavi’s cult of personality. He has been deprived from access to the outside world in both headquarters of the group in Iraq and Albania.

The mother of Amin Asadan

Back in Iran, Amin Asadan’s family took actions in order to visit their beloved son but they did not succeed. “Amin was such a passionate young hardworking man seeking an ethical life,” Amin’s brother, Amir Asadan says. “In the early 2000s, he went to Turkey in order to find a better job. The whole family were happy with his decision, but we did not know that he would be a victim of Rajavi’s mafia. They had deceived him to join the MEK in Iraq under the promise of transferring him to Europe.”

This was the U-turn in Amin’s life. The start of a long-term separation from his family. “He has been taken as a hostage by Rajavi and he has not contacted us for 24 years,” his brother adds.

Amin’s mother sends a message to his beloved son in the hope that he will see it sometime:
Dear Amin. I miss you a lot. I am looking forward to your return. Yor father passed away and let me alone over a decade ago. My only hope is that you get back home before I die.
My beloved Amin. I need to have you more than any time. I insist you to call me, to return home so that I could hug you, kiss you and live by your side.

May 1, 2023 0 comment

Newer Posts

Older Posts