Abbas Sadeghinejad who escaped the Camp Ashraf on June 20, 2002, was one of the first defectors of the Mujahedin Khalq Organization to testify about the murder of group members under torture and violence by the leaders. He witnessed the death of Parviz Ahmadi and Ghorban Ali Torabi during the weeks he was jailed in the prison of Camp Ashraf, Iraq.
Leaders of the MEK are accused of committing violence against their members. According to the rulings of the group, the rank and file have to obey the absolute power of the leaders, Massoud and Maryam Rajavi. Disobedience to leaders, criticizing their approaches and expressing your willingness to leave the Cult of Rajavi qualifies you for this label: “spy of Iranian regime” and therefore you deserve the most horrific punishments.
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During the 1994 to 1995, hundreds of members who had been deceived by MEK recruiters or simply did not agree with the group’s ideology any more, expressed their dissent. The Cult of Rajavi reacted with a process of suppression called “security clearance”.
A large number of defectors of the MEK have so far testified about what they endured in the MEK’s prisons in Camp Ashraf during security clearances. They also gave testimonies on what they witnessed in the interrogation rooms, prison cells and solitary confinements. In March 2005, Human Rights Watch published a report on the MEK titled “No Exit, Human Rights Abuses Inside the MKO Camps”. The report was based on various interviews with former members of the group.
Human Rights Watch interviewed four witnesses who were detained during the security clearances of 1994-1995 because “they were suspected by the MKO of harboring dissident views”. Based on the HRW’s report, page 16 and 17, “Ali Ghasghavi, Alireza Mir Asgari, Ali Akbari, and Abbas Sadeghinejad were severely tortured, subjected to harsh interrogation techniques and forced to sign false confessions stating their links to Iranian intelligence agents.”
According to the reports, Abbas Sadeghinejad, Ali Ghashghavi, and Alireza Mir Asgari witnessed the death of Parviz Ahmadi in February 1995 inside an internal MKO prison in Iraq. The three shared a prison cell during the security clearance arrests in February 1995. Parviz Ahmadi was a dissident member who was held in the same cell.
Abbas Sadeghinezhad, who was also present in the cell, was interviewed by HRW by telephone, on February 14, 2005. He recalled the final moments of Parviz Ahmadi’s life: “The prison door opened, and a prisoner was thrown into the cell. He fell on his face. At first, we didn’t recognize him. He was beaten up severely. We turned him around; it was Parviz Ahmadi taken for interrogations just a few hours before. Ahmadi was a unit commander. His bones were broken all over, his legs were inflamed; he was falling into a coma. We tried to help him but after only ten minutes he died as I was holding his head on my lap. The prison guard opened the door and pulled Ahmadi’s lifeless body out.”
Sadeghinejad also shared his testimony in a documentary made by another ex-member, Milad Aryaiee, in 2007. He recounts the moments of Parviz Ahmadi’s passing away in the MEK’s prison after he was brought to the cell with a bruised swollen body.
Abbas Sadeghinejad told Human Rights Watch that he had earlier witnessed the death of another prisoner, Ghorbanali Torabi, after Torabi was returned from an interrogation session to a prison cell.