Underground protests have dramatically increased among members of the Mujahedin Khalq Organization, now based in the group’s headquarters in the region of Durres in Albania.
As long as the history of the Mujahedin Khalq as a cult of personality under the rule of Massoud Rajavi, clandestine dissent has been on going among the rank and file. According to former members of the Cult of Rajavi, disagreements and demands for defection from the cult-like system of the group, has enhanced since the group’s relocation in Albania.
Based on the news from the insiders, protesters who are afraid of voicing their dissent, write slogans against the group’s leaders on the walls of bathrooms where they are not under the supervision of commanders. This has happened on different occasions which indicates the rise in the number of dissident members who want to leave the group but they are intimidated by verbal and physical abuse on daily cult jargons.
Although most members of MEK refuse to express their opinions openly because of fears of torture and abuse committed by the group commanders, the increase in the number of defections from the group since its arrival in Albania has been indicative of an increase of dissatisfaction.
According to unofficial data, since the resettlement of MEK in Albania, more than 400 people have left this group, regardless of those suspicious cases who have been killed mysteriously inside Camp Ashraf 3 in Manez, Durres, Albania.
The rise of protests in the Cult of Rajavi has plunged the leaders of the group into alternative ways to prevent the spread of protests among the rank and file, in addition to conventional methods of the organization, including solitary confinement and peer pressure. In this regard, all members of the group have been ordered to sign an engagement letter to stay in the group until the overthrow of the Iranian government –which according to the leaders of the group has been always close during the past forty years.