In a dictatorship maintaining of absolute power requires one important action: elimination of opponents. As a totalitarian cult of personality, the Mujahedin Khalq Organizaion (the MKO) could not survive for over three decades without eliminating the opponents and critics inside the group. According to various reports and testimonies, there have been numerous cases of assassination of dissident members of the Cult of Rajavi. Some of these assassinations were then reported by the group’s media as suicide or even martyrdom.
These series of editorials will cover certain cases of internal eliminations in the MKO which are more significant in the group’s history and have been confirmed by several witnesses although there must be many more secret murders in the cult that few people might know about them.
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| Ali Zarkesh Yazdi in prison before revolutions |
Ali Zarkesh might be the most important figure in the MKO whose removal from the group has been very controversial. Ali Zarkesh was the second person of the MKO and actually Massoud Rajavi’s rival. In 1986 Zarkesh was sentenced to death penalty by Massoud and Maryam Rajavi.
. Mohammad Hossein Sobhani, former member of the MKO, wrote a book on his life in the MKO, titled “Dark Days of Baghdad” in which he recounts the case of Ali Zarkesh in details. According to the book, Zarkesh’s death sentence was then reduced to imprisonment.
As Massoud Rajavi wrote in a letter to one of the group’s high-ranking member, Saeed Shahsavandi, Zarkesh was punished because he had “repositioned”! What kind of repositioning deserves death punishment?
Based on the testimonies of former members the answer was never revealed. But again based on facts witnessed by former members, Zarkesh criticizes Massoud Rajavi’s armed struggle policy for it doesnot result in the overthrow of the Islamic Republic. He is against the establishment of the so-called National Liberation Army (Saddam’s Private Army) because he sees it as a mistaken failed strategy.
Despite his opposition against military invasion, Ali Zarkesh is treated as an ordinary soldier in the MKO’s military operation across Iranian borders “Eternal Light” (Forough Javidan). He is simply killed in that disastrous operation in which a large number of the group forces were sent to death.
