While there is no sympathizer of the Mujahedin Khalq (MEK) among Iranian protesters, the group’s leaders broadcast messages for the so-called Khalq (people) one after the other, on their propaganda machine. “Stop outrage! Iranian women do not deserve it,” Maryam Rajavi addressed her fictional audience. She should be asked what about the Mujahed women? Do they deserve outrage?
As an Iranian living in Iran who has access to the media inside and outside the country, I can testify that the majority of Iranian protesters never hear the so-called messages of Maryam and Massoud Rajavi. In fact, the group is so detested by the Iranian public that its very few supporters do not dare to chant slogans on behalf of the MEK and its leaders. They are sure that if they are recognized as MEK supporters, they will be definitely excluded by other protesters because Iranians regard the MEK as traitors and terrorists who has the blood of their own fellow Iranians on their hands. Thus, messages of MEK leaders launched by the group’s media is almost only reached by the group’s insiders, those who are confined in Camp Ashraf 3, in north of Tirana, Albania.
Consider an elderly female member of the MEK who gets the massage of her leader, Maryam Rajavi, while she is sitting in front of a desktop system. Her daily routine is to share the leaders’ messages and other manufactured news of the MEK propaganda in social media. She has to like and share the same contents that are shared by her comrades in the same room, at Ashraf troll farm. She works like a robot but who knows? Mind is the most powerful tool in the world. She might hesitate for a second thinking of her own situation as a female member in the MEK Camp.
The token woman has no husband. She got married about forty years ago but her husband might have been killed in one of the MEK’s terrorist act or more probably he must have divorced from her under the order of the group’s guru, Massoud Rajavi. She has no child. Her children were smuggled to somewhere in Europe or North America in 1991 and since then, she has had no news of them. Maybe, the children have been brought back to the group as a child soldier. She might be allowed to visit her child once a year for new year’s celebration although they live in the same camp, regardless that the child might have defected or might have been killed in past years. She has no news of her family outside the group. No phone call or other means of communication are allowed.
The token might have been endured a hysterectomy surgery as about one hundred MEK women endured when the group was located in Camp Ashraf, Iraq. The surgery made them ready for what Massoud Rajavi would call “Ideal Summit”, the position that made the female members prepared for a sexual relation with him. Thus, the woman of this story might have been coerced to become one of Massoud’s numerous sex partners.
She is wearing a gray or khaki uniform and head scarf. She has no choice to select the color of her clothes. She has to cover her hair, and the whole body. If she does not obey the group’s regulations for clothing, she will be punished. Talking of anything except routine tasks is not allowed. She must always take distance from male comrades. Any contact with the opposite sex is considered a crime and makes her the subject of suppression, verbal abuse, torture and even murder. Read about the fate Mehri Moosavi here.
This woman has been manipulated to abandon her sexuality and her individuality. She should be proud of her situation according to the leaders. She has to admit that the cause of the group is more important that any personal choice in her life. But, where is the cause of the group? What have been these women struggling for? Where is their voice in the streets of Iran? How can Maryam Rajavi call for freedom of Iranian women while her own female followers are deprived from their most basic rights? Outrage and discrimination must be stopped against all women including women of the Cult of Rajavi.
By Mazda Parsi