In recent days, a photo from a conference of the Mujahedin (MEK) has been circulating on social media, once again attracting negative attention from users.
This photo was taken from a recent conference of the so-called National Council of Resistance at the MEK base in Paris. Several Western officials and a number of MEK members, supporters and female members with forced hijab are at the so-called conference, but the main point is the poster that is installed at the end of the hall.
The dimensions of this poster and the angle of the shooting are such that, in the background of the actual crowd present at the meeting, it suggests the presence of a larger crowd in the hall.
This hypocritical portrayal of the MEK’s audience size was enough to once again make anti-MEK hashtags trend on social media.
However, more details about the MEK’s deceptive methods can be found in the posts of members who have defected from the group. In a post on his X account below the photo, Mohammad Reza Torabi, a former MEK child soldier, called the MEK’s tactic of inflating its audience size “a well-known method of manipulation” that is “frequently employed by the MEK.”
He then wrote about his first encounter with such a phenomenon in the early days of his involvement in the MEK:
In 1999, the same year I was recruited as a child soldier, the organization staged an event in Paris, claiming that 20,000 people had participated. At the time, the MEK often organized cultural events and concerts to attract supporters from the Iranian diaspora. However, the hall they had rented for this event—and the number of empty seats visible on camera—told a different story. It was evident that the attendance fell far short of their claims, sparking rumors among our unit, which consisted mostly of newcomers.
A few days later, Mahvash Sepehri, better known as Sister Nasreen, a senior MEK commander, held a meeting with us to address the issue. I still vividly remember her words as she furiously declared, “Of course there weren’t 20,000 participants! What do you think?! When it comes to our enemies, we have no ‘honesty and sacrifice’ (the MEK’s motto). We can and will inflate numbers!”
Torabi, who has been a member of the MEK for 18 years and has served in various social, political, and financial sectors of the organization, acknowledges that the manipulation of numbers and figures is a culture of deception that is “deeply embedded” in the organization’s organizational structure.
This former MEK member, who is today a staunch critic of the Rajavi organization and is trying to inform Western politicians about its nature, poses a fundamental question to his target audience, namely deceived and bribed Western politicians:
So, if the MEK is willing to use posters to fabricate larger audiences at their events, one must ask: how else—and where else—are they deceiving you?
Mazda Parsi