The former member, Rafiq Dehghan, officially declared his disassociation from the Mujahedin Khalq Organization.
Rafiq Dehghan from Iranshahr, Baluchestan, Iran, left the MEK in Albania after 17 years. In the announcement published by Rafiq on MEK Survivors’ website, he explains how he was deceived to join the group as a young Baluch who was seeking a happy life.
“About 17 years ago, I got to know a human trafficker named Ali,” he writes. “He told me that he could take me to Europe and I accepted what he said. After three days, I crossed the Iranian border and went to Pakistan where an Iranian man called Farid received me. Ali said that Farid would help me travel to Europe. Farid took me to an apartment in Golshahr region in Karachi.”
Though, Farid told Rafiq that he had to go to Iraq and stay there for some time before immigrating to Europe. “I asked him how long I had to stay in Iraq.” Rafiq recounts. “He told me that it would not take so long.”
By the way, Rafiq was sent to Iraq with a forged passport after bribing the Pakistani security guard at the airport. Three members of the MEK received Rafiq at Baghdad airport. “They took me to a paramilitary complex,” he recalls. “In the afternoon, I was taken to Camp Ashraf in which a man named Aidin received me. He gave me a military uniform and a pair of military boots and told me, ‘Now, you are a Mujahed’ “.
Rafiq Dehghan; MEK defector in Albania
Rafiq was shocked. He had no way out. He had to stay in Iraq. “I spent tough years in Camp Ashraf until we were relocated in Albania,” he said. In Albania, he started doubting the MEK leaders who according to him were “just liars and storytellers whose lies had coerced me and brainwashed me.”
In Albania, Rafiq could manage to contact his family via another defector, Sarfaraz Rahimi who was also from Sistan Baluchestan. “I realized that the MEK cult had told me lies about my family,” he writes. “Families are not mercenaries. The MEK leaders themselves are the top mercenaries who are henchmen of Israel and the US and Saudi Arabia.”
After Rafiq left the MEK, he was not left free by the MEK agents. They forced him to spy on other defectors of the group in Albania in exchange for giving him the monthly payment that the UNHCR is supposed to pay every refuge seeker including all MEK members.
“For a period of time, I had to spy on defectors,” Rafiq admits. “Until the day I ran into Sarafraz in the Cafe. It was his birthday. I joined him and other defectors who were having a party in the Café but then I was punished by the MEK agents. They told me that I had passed the red line.”
In order to punish him, MEK agents Javad Khorasan and Abdollah Tehrani forced him to sign a paper containing some fabricated information on the defectors accusing them of being agents of the Iranian intelligence.
Rafiq Dehghan denied all the fabricated lies that the MEK websites published under his name. “I had financial issues,” Rafiq stated. “The cult commanders confiscated the monthly money that was mine. I had no income. Sarfaraz and his friends always helped me when I needed money. I felt guilty when I was spying against them.”
Ultimately, Rafiq Dehghan decided to defect the MEK completely. “I just want to live a free life and denounce the Cult of Rajavi that troubled me and others who are like me.”