Maryam Banoo Torabi is a member of the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK), which is known mostly through her brothers. She is the younger sister of Ghorban Ali Torabi and Nade Ali Torabi. Ghorban Ali was a dissident member of the People’s Mujahideen who was killed under the torture of the commanders of the organization, and Nade Ali is a member of the Nejat Society who has been appealing the blood of his brother and the release of his sisters from the bars of the Cult of Rajavi. But today, Maryam Banoo’s heart-breaking story is narrated through her nephew, Mohammad Reza Torabi.
Mohammad Reza Torabi, the son of Gurban Ali Torabi, the former child soldier of the MEK learned about the death of his father under the torture by his Mujahed comrades only after he left the group in 2017 and stepped into the free world. His life story has been recently welcomed by his audience on social networks.
In a thread of detailed tweets, Mohammad Reza Torabi tries to write an honest account of his personal experience with the MEK including his childhood, his father and mother during their involvement in the MEK cult. He writes about the killing of his father during the interrogation, imprisonment and torture within Rajavi’s cult in the years 1994 and 1995 in the headquarters of the group, in Iraq.
In the meantime, he made another revelation in response to a user’s question whether his aunts are still in the group’s headquarters in Albania:
Yes, unfortunately they still are. The story of one of my aunts is very heart-breaking. In fact, my younger aunt. During the interrogations of the MEK in Ashraf in 1995, she was also tortured a lot. And especially after hearing the news of my father’s death, she suffered from mental illness and trauma. During the time when I was in the MEK, my older aunt was always careful not to tell me anything about my father. She was not even allowed to talk to me about my father, that is, her elder brother. Curse the Mujahedin! My aunt was very kind and loving. She loved me much more than Zahra.”
Stating “Zahra”, Mohammad Reza Torabi means his mother. Zahra Seraj is his mother, who called him a traitor because of his revelations about the MEK’s violent and cult-like nature. Masoumeh Torabi is the older aunt of Mohammad Reza, who, along with Zahra Seraj, has repeated the lies of the MEK about the death of his father during all the years of Mohammad Reza’s presence in the group.
Mohammad Reza’s words about his younger aunt, Maryam Banoo, were previously said by another former member of the MEK. Maryam Sanjabi, one of the activists of Nejat Society, who herself experienced torture and interrogations in 1994 and 1995 in the MEK’s prison, writes about Maryam Banoo:
“During the months that I was in the MEK’s prisons located in Camp Ashraf, I continuously heard the screams of the tortured and imprisoned men and women, and I witnessed the double torture of Maryam Torabi. This lady was imprisoned in a solitary room for months. At night, she moaned, screamed and screamed until the morning because of the terrible pressure they put on her.”
Sanjabi continues her comments about Torabi family: “The evil leaders of the Cult of Rajavi have managed to force Masoumeh Torabi and Zahra Seraj to remain silent. But because of the violent acts that they committed against this oppressed lady (Maryam), She was psychologically damaged and became psychotic in the same year. Humiliation, insults and abuses of the cult officials against Maryam banoo Torabi did not end even after the end of the projects. She was constantly under control in the cult and was unable to do anything due to his physical disability caused by torture, but they forced her to do activities.”
Although Mohammad Reza Torabi has no connection with Nejat Society and probably with Maryam Sanjabi, the common point of these two people’s testimonies about Maryam Banoo Torabi is the suffering of an innocent woman who lost all her youth, prosperity, fertility and vitality in the clutches of the fences of the destructive cult of Masoud and Maryam Rajavi. There are many such testimonies that confirm each other from different aspects.
The story of Maryam Banoo Torabi is just one of thousands of unpleasant stories of people who were in some way connected with the MEK cult. With the help of media and social networks, these testimonies are multiplying and confirming each other. Awareness about the nature of the MEK is increasing day by day, and the testimonies and evidence are getting richer over time in order to be able to be presented in international forums.
By Mazda Parsi