MEK and Children – Saeed and Mohammad Akhavan Hashemi

Saeed and Mohammad Akhavan Hashemi—MEK children Saeed and his twin brother Mohammad were only three years old in 1988 when their mother was killed in Forough Javidan, the messy military operation that the Mujahedin Khalq launched from Iraq against Iran after the ceasefire was signed between Iraq and Iran. A year later, the twins were smuggled out of Iraq together with seven hundred children of Mujahed parents who were separated from their parents under the direct order of Massoud Rajavi who saw the children an obstacle to the struggle. Saeed and Mohammad were smuggled through Europe to Canada. As well as other MEK children, the agents of MEK in Canada handed the twins to families who were mostly sympathizers of the group. They were grown up in Canada until their teen years. When they got sixteen, the organization needed the child soldiers to extend its millitary force. Thus, Saeed and Mohammad were persuaded to get back to Iraq to join the group’s military arm, the so-called National Liberation Army (NLA). They were first moved to the US where they were settled in the MEK’s base for a few months. They were indoctrinated to join the army to revenge the blood of their mother. In the US, Saeed was intrigued to take part in the anti-Iran protests run by the MEK. After a few months of indoctrination in the headquarters of the NCR in Washington, when they were 17 years old, the twins were coerced to sign the membership forms of the NLA and eventually they were smuggled back to Iraq. They were given military uniforms and arms as child soldiers of the MEK’s army. In the MEK’s headquarters in Iraq, Saeed and Mohammad like other child soldiers of the MEK were not able to go to school or university. Instead, they received military trainings. In 2003, after the US invasion to Iraq, the MEK was disarmed by the US army and NLA was practically dismantled. Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, main sponsor of the MEK had been collapsed and the newly established Iraqi government did not want the MEK in its territory but the MEK leaders considered themselves the owners of Camp Ashraf, the land that Saddam Hussein had confiscated from Iraq farmers and had donated to Massoud Rajavi. In order to move the MEK out of Iraq, the group was temporarily relocated in Camp Liberty near Baghdad. The twins were separated. Mohammad was transferred to Camp liberty and Saeed was ordered to stay in Camp Ashraf. Although the brothers did not use to live together in Camp Ashraf –as none of family members are allowed to live together in the MEK—the last two weeks they spent more time together. “We used to talk to each other every night for the last two weeks,” Mohammad says. “The last day we said goodbye to each other. We exchanged our watches as memento.” This was their last visit. Saeed was shot dead by Iraqi Intifada Youth who raided camp Ashraf on September 1st 2013. He was only 28 when he became the victim of Massoud Rajavi’s ambitions in Iraq. The whereabouts of Mohammad Akhavan is not clear. He might be still under the brainwashing system of the Cult of Rajavi i9n Albania to revenge the blood of his mother and brother, who both were victimized by the cult’s system or he might have left the MEK after the group was relocated in Albania, just like many other former child soldiers of the group.