The Mujahedin Cult
Membership in the MEK as a cult
The friction between Mojahedin’s leadership and its rank and file, critics, as well as dissident members is totally idiosyncratic among all political organizations. The mannerism, due to the dogmatism that is infesting MKO’s methodology, is the outcome of the group’s totalitarianism in terms of political power and aims at elimination of all opposition forces or movements that might be a challenge to the organization. NCR was a turning point in the history of MKO that promised a peaceful coexistence of Mojahedin with other political movements. Unfortunately, after a short while and due to MKO hegemonic ambitions of Rajavi, the NCR failed to preserve its coherence and suffered a crushing dissolution. A brief look at the course of events of MKO up to 20 June 1981 and its continuous friction with other political movements is an evidence of the organization’s incompetence to establish durable contact with the outsiders. Such a reactionary feature has its roots in the fact that Mojahedin consider themselves an exception amongst others; an illusion that resulted in their total social and political isolation. Even they consider all political movements and internal and external opposition forces to be indebted to them for their existence.
Rajavi has his own opinion toward detached members that well represents his reactionary mentalities. Explaining on the emergence of critics and opponent members, Rajavi identifies them as such: “Biological actions and reactions of all living organisms involve absorption as well as excretion. As such, dissident members constitute the excrements of Mojahedin e-Khalq”. It is such a viewpoint that regulates the orientation and relations of Mojahedin with the outside world, critics, dissident members and even former members. The turning point of such a relationship was parallel to the development of the ideological revolution in MKO when, according to many former MKO members and Niyabati, the organization underwent fundamental changes. Prior to the ideological revolution, Mojahedin based their external relations on the necessity for overthrowing Iranian regime by the means of armed warfare; however, after the ideological revolution what determined the internal and external relations of MKO was the degree of blind obedience toward ideological leadership of Maryam and Massoud Rajavi. Such an ideological criterion made the internal relation of the MKO suffer an absolute metamorphosis. Niyabati elaborating on such a metamorphosis writes:
After the initiation of the ideological revolution, Mojahedin’s relations underwent a complete metamorphosis. Mojahedin’s quadrilateral relations changed into a trilateral one. On one side was situated Mojahedin-e Khalq Organizatio, at another stood Massoud and on the third was whatever refuted the two formers. Noting in between the two ends was legitimized. Here, an element of Mojahed was recognized by one criterion through which everything was assessed. From this point on, Mojahedin’s friends and enemies were not bilateral but trilateral. Friends of Massoud were friends of Mojahedin and his enemies were theirs (p.112).
The new criterion made former criteria, through which organizational qualifications of members were assessed, fade away. In fact, the organizational promotion that was based on the members’ past campaign records and their practical as well as theoretical qualifications was replaced by the blind submission to the ideological leadership:
He (a member metamorphosized by revolution) is nobody representing no individual value. Neither imprisonments under Shah or Sheikhs qualifies him nor the blood and smock of the internal combats. He is neither a fine orator nor has multitudes of academic degrees. He is not even a man! In a nutshell, he is devoid of former values for which Mojahedin considered themselves capable of leadership after the development of anti-monarchic revolution in Iran (p.115).
After such a fundamental metamorphosis, members criteria of qualification underwent a qualitative change. No longer was the criterion of qualification to bear with the problems and challenges of revolution but it was the degree of unquestionable demand of obedience to the leader:
Since then, the difference between a volunteer and an ordinary member was far more than that of the latter and a member of executive committee. Since then, organizational ranking was restricted to executive cadres. Since then, promotion was not via political and organizational qualifications but to prostrate before a woman. She was the first woman appointed as imam in the history of the Shiism and who was about to replace Hanif’s ideology with her own. (p.55)
Niyabati further elaborates:
From this point on, Mojahedin’s process of relations underwent a qualitative change. Prior to the ideological revolution, the ideological capabilities within MKO were defined in a hierarchical frame of relations. (p.116)
The approach inevitably resulted in the domination of a personal authority that led to a phase of gradual split the in organization:
The sole outcome and the logical result of such an valuable revolution was replacing the essentiality of recruiting forces with a policy of continuous repelling of forces as a result of Maximalist conduct towards members. The revolution discriminated between the revolutionary and mass forces and did its best to establish a micro ideological society. (p.116)
Of course, the inevitable internal backlashes necessitated especial techniques of control for the advancement of the process:
It goes without saying that without the fulfilment of the internal revolution and its specific controlling mechanisms, Mojahedin would be annihilated under the intolerable pressures during the recent years. (p.116)
However, Mojahedin in an attempt to maintain its hegemonic control over opponents and critics apply a variety of instruments and levers such as launching aggressive attacks against dissidents’ gatherings, spreading disinformation, and even indulges in acts of labeling, harassment and intimidation. Massoud Rajavi’s latest massage delivered nearly two months ago obviously represents MKO’s belligerent attitude adopted for controlling the opponents and former members. The red line Rajavi delineates to distinguish between a sympathizer and an opponent is not the Iranian regime but the extent of rejecting or submitting to his hegemony.
References
All quotations are from Bijan Niyabati’s” Different Look at Mojahedin’s Internal Revolution”.
Constance Andresen-Tanter Comments: (…I am banned from going to my dear friends at Alban Towers since he made a point to keep me isolated from family friends and living in fear of my very well being and life…..One might ask who’s spell is he under. Alireza took my place as Raymond’s wife…..or at least he took my home space and life….)
Michigan daily, August 09, 2007
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Professor Raymond Tanter, Iran Policy Committee, Women’s Rights, and the MEK
Paul Sheldon Foote
http://360.yahoo.com/paulsheldonfoote
August 9, 2007
Constance Andresen-Tanter has posted her comments on the November 30, 2006 incident at the University of Michigan sparked by Professor Raymond Tanter’s speech promoting the Iranian Communist MEK (MKO, PMOI, NCRI, Rajavi Cult, or Pol Pot of Iran) terrorists. She has worked for the Iran Policy Committee. She is available as a speaker, talk show guest, or as an article or book author (attention: literary agents and publishers). You may telephone Constance at: (212) 920-7748.
For additional details on the incident at the University of Michigan and on the arrests of opponents of the MEK terrorists, see:
http://defendwilkerson.org
Constance Andresen-Tanter posted her comments today at the Michigan Daily’s Web site:
posted 8/09/07 @ 11:49 AM EST
I am Raymond Tanter’s wife and I would like to make a statement. I married Raymond Tanter May 14. 1999 being a widow living in New York City. I was innoncent to what his work was about but he asked me to become his research assistant and help him promote his work, in fact many letters are written on Georgetown Letterhead how I helped him, how he benefited from my work…I traveled to France London, walked the Halls of Congress promoted what I thought was the Freedom for Women of Iran and all around the globe.
Raymond and I traveled the globe together working in Vienna, etc. and I attending events at the State Dept. and other places helping him as his wife. I hosted parties for him in our Trump Tower apartment…I got him speaking engagements, at the WNRC in NYC, at the BEST social clubs in New York and elsewhere…. I took him to my clubs and gave him my apt NYC ….now I find myself homeless, yes he locked me out of our apartment in ALBAN TOWERS in Washington DC he keeps two not one apartment for himself. He will not pay my dental bills, eye glasses or other medical emergencies. I AM in shock with threats to eliminate me and most of the information is in HOUSING COURT where Raymond Tanter fails to pay on one of our three apartments to make me homeless….he did this in SEPT 2006 the month my mother died after have her in 4 hospitals in 32 days. He threatend that if I did not sign off the lease and perhaps giving up my condo marital rights of the other apt. 507 which he used to work with IPC MEMBERS AND ALIREZA displaces me into another unit that they and yes I say they because they all knew he was making me homeless for no reason……..He apparently is now married to the to the
MEK……I am now in court but awaiting court orders. Raymond got into clubs in Washington using my social clubs as his which is untrue, he was never a member of those clubs,,,,then he refused to pay my bills since I could live there…He used my friends, many of high circles including their money in the hundreds of thousands of dollars…..he also took generals and their wives to Paris leaving me homeless with 13 cents in my pocket and without the good church I would be hungry….I worked years for him and am in the process of suing for my promised wages by my attorney.. and Raymond still is living the high life…..fooling many….However I married him as a widow former widow of a Wall Street MNYSE…a man of great character….I thought Raymond was a good man but he fooled me ..he still keeps a checkbook with his former lover in Ann Arbor MI Mia Saverino….some friends of Ann Arbor have come to me and said they are not supprised ….. have missing funds from my deceased husband’s life insurance and well I can tell you this because all you have to do is go to DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA HOUSING COURT FIRST IN ARSCHSTONE SMITH V. CONSTANCE AND RAYMOND TANTER…YES Raymond went to housing court refusing to pay rent on our extended apartment to make me homeless when I would not sign off units he now holds,,,,because I believe of the condo rights status,,,,since we moved into unit 507 in June of 2001…..which give lots of value should the ARSCHSTONE DEAL GO THREW the largest private equity deal in the UNITED STATES HISTORY……so you see Tanter is not a nice man…he speaks of women’s rights but he has made his former researh assistant and partner and friend…..homeless after he took all he could get out of me…I pray for his soul daily, because I thought married a good Christian. I have many Jews as friends, Muslims, all faiths…I am white and I recently noticed that Raymond an African American never has even one African American intern or any African American around him.
We had a good marriage I thought and he whispered much in my ear of love and committement and never abandoning me……he whispered much of his internal work and clearly involved me…My photos and media is all over Europe. and in Iran…I still believe one thing…..all people have the right to be free…
Raymond Tanter abuses his own wife…..so perhaps you might want my story how the once happy man I married , we danced at balls, and were friends on the tennis court and went to church and were happy….I was promoting his books and his works and the works of his friends….now I have no idea who he is..>I have been told I am a Mortal Threat but what human being makes a wife homeless stealing not one but two apartments….my clothes my life are in storage….Jack Andresen I married before had an Uncle in Congress for 34 years, his other Uncle Andrew Fleischer invented the blood pressure machine and his other Uncle was Arschbishop Raymond Ettelldorf of the Vatican in Rome.
I am banned from going to my dear friends at Alban Towers since he made a point to keep me isolated from family friends and living in fear of my very well being and life…..One might ask who ‘s spell is he under. Alireza took my place as Raymond’s wife…..or at least he took my home space and life….I met Alireza’s family and I liked them…I was kind to all and well now that watch me being abused and threatened and do nothing…Do the Generals know who are on the board that Raymond is doing all of this…I think not..They took their wives on thousands of dollars to a trip to Paris…I was in Paris in June of 2004 as Raymond asked me to speak and I even introduced Dick Armey….I thought this group was for the rights of women and democracy….but if that is true then why are they helping do this to me….Calls should be made on this issue and I am taking interview so when you email me identify yourself I am looking for a literary agent at this time….My story is inside the box and it needs to be told…>I loved Raymond when I married him…he apparently had other motives for marrying me……….I pray for Peace and love for all people in our world…I pray that all get to speak when they wish to do so..Last July 25 2007 a man was kept from speaking in the Caucus Room at Cannon Building because Raymond did not wish him to…My hand was ignored when raised….I will not be ignored, threatened by death threats or discredited I will fight back for my rights and for my property……I would hope someone out there will listen. The public record of the divorce is Tanter v. Tanter in DC depositions are public record and of course. I am exhausted but people need to know first hand……I am an abused wife….17 years younger of Raymond and I tried to get him to speak with our Minister he would not…….I wonder has he become a member of another religion? thanks and God Bless our World.
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P: We’re joined now by Anne Singleton she’s a married mum from Leeds. Who was actually brainwashed by extremists at one point but now campaigns to warn others. Good Morning Anne.
AS: Good morning.
P: Is brainwashed the right word to use? What actually happened to you Anne?
AS: It is a word which resonates with people. More familiarly I would call it ‘mind control techniques. These are well-known, well-documented. For years and years destructive cults have been using them. The way that they work in essence is that they will take a perfectly ordinary person and strip that person of their values using specific psychological manipulation.
P: What got you into this position in the first place?
AS: I was involved with Iranian students at the time of the Iranian revolution in 1979. I was at Manchester University. I was young and innocent, looking for something to fulfill my ambition to ‘change the world’. I was very idealistic and I got involved with those people. They seemed to me very sincere, very genuine and committed to making change in their country. I hadn’t grasped that the path which they were leading me along led to extreme violence.
P: So this was happening in this country, it wasn’t happening in a foreign environment where you would maybe be more susceptible to someone else’s culture.
AS: I was recruited at Manchester University. Having said that, ten years down the line – I was just supporting the group from a distance, I had a job and ostensibly a normal life. But ten years down the line I took part in a hunger strike and that’s really what tipped the balance for me and sent me over the edge into total commitment to this group. After about five days of eating nothing I was on a complete high and I felt as though I was moving at a different speed to the rest of humanity.
P: What was it they encouraged you to support?
AS: The Mojahedin even today present themselves as an alternative to the islamic regime in Iran. They say that they want to overthrow the whole regime in its entirety and replace that regime with themselves. They frame this in the context of human rights. They say we will protect human rights by overthrowing the mullahs. What I came to realize was that they were committing just as much abuse of human rights inside their organization as Amnesty International was ‘clocking-up’ in other countries throughout the world.
P: Anne, what do you think of the stories today? The front page of the Yorkshire Post says ‘University Launches Review after Conviction of Student Terror Ring’. How do you feel when you feel when you hear about these students, about what they were doing – substituting their faces with the faces of the 9/11 highjackers – after what you have been through.
AS: What comes to mind first of all is that terrorism is such a complex issue. Yes, it sounds horrific on the surface when you hear of people having extremely radical views like this. And people are frightened because they know that such views can lead to violence. But what I have understood from my experience is that to tip somebody over the line between radical ideas and actually perpetrating violence needs psychological manipulation. Words don’t kill people, they never have. Words are how societies move forward, through discussion, debate and progress. There have been lots of radical ideas throughout history – the world is round was quite a radical thought at one point. So we must pull back a little bit and say that OK there are extremist views but if we remember a few years back – 1993 – the Admiral Duncan pub was bombed, a gay pub in Soho. If you start looking only at the so-called ideology of these people then you are going to miss a whole lot of clues that lead you to understand how a person goes from thinking extremely to acting extremely.
P: You mentioned the hunger strike thing and that really strikes a chord with me. When I was going through my divorce I literally couldn’t eat a thing. And it absolutely does your mind no good. If you are not eating properly you think in a totally irrational way. That’s my experience. So, when you say your hunger strike was the one that led you up to that kind of high, moving and thinking differently from everyone else, that must be part and parcel of it.
AS: This is a fundamental technique for psychological manipulation. These techniques are used by all destructive cults – whether they present themselves as religious, therapeutic, or like the Jonestown cult of the 1980s. They each present themselves differently but they all use the same techniques. These techniques are very effective, you can actually recruit and convert somebody into a cult member within three or four days. That’s how effective they are.
P: This was happening to you at Manchester University. Now we hear about these students at Bradford University. There are some interesting issues about how this radical thought, idealistic thought can tip over the edge into violent action, but in terms of the universities what is the best plan for them in your experience in combating this, I mean tipping over into violent action.
AS: I think that young people generally need to be educated in the danger of destructive cults. You should start at high school even. I am surprised that in schools you may be given sex education, you are educated about how to keep your PIN number safe and not get robbed, But where is the education to tell people how to look out for somebody who is going to come along, take you out of your normal environment and convert you into either a terrorist or at least a cult member.
P: But will that education be enough? I think one of the things Bradford University is looking at as well is the idea of surveillance and looking at what people are looking at on the Internet and monitoring the traffic that’s coming through.
AS: I am not a security expert so I couldn’t say how effective that would be.
P: Would education have stopped you?
AS: Certainly it would have opened my eyes a lot sooner to looking for signs that people were trying to influence me in ways that I wasn’t aware of actually happening. I think university students are quite vulnerable because they are away from home usually, they are in a vibrant atmosphere. They are intelligent, idealistic and are looking for new experience and new ideas.
P: You are a mum, Anne. How many kids have you got?
AS: I’ve just got the one.
P: And how old is your child?
AS: My child is seven.
P: Right, so a long way to go in terms of university. How do you feel about your life now and your fears for your child?
AS: I have to add here is that the reason I have one child is that we started rather late. I was involved with a terrorist cult, the Mojahedin Khalq, which denied its members marriage and children. Those are the levels of intrusion that these organisations have on ordinary members. So, they would not allow anyone to be married, they forced people to divorce and took their children away from them. It was only after I left and met my husband that I was able to have a family. And I realise now that being in one of these organisations deprives you of all your basic, fundamental human rights, even freedom of thought. Because a person who is brought around to thinking as terrorists do in order to give their own life to this other person – because it is someone else who will be persuading them to do that – your basic freedoms are taken away from you without you realising. Now, if you are aware, first of all, of your basic freedoms – what are the basic human rights that everyone is entitled to – that is a starting point from which you can say, I do have the right to have a family, to have children. These are certainly the things I will be teaching my child as he grows up and certainly I will be teaching him to think and to question and not to accept anything at face value, ever.
People can be very persuasive. I think we’ve all been sold something we didn’t really want by somebody who was very persuasive. The same techniques will persuade you to act in ways that you don’t mean to, let alone buy things.
P: Anne, thank you very much for coming in. She’s a wife and mum and she was involved with the Mojahedin in West Yorkshire.
BBC Yorkshire, Radio Leeds, July 26, 2007
http://www.bbc.co.uk/leeds
Tehran, July 25, IRNA – Two former members of the terrorist Mojahedin-e Khalq Organisation (MKO), Ebrahim Khodabandeh and Jamil Bassam, said that the organisation has reached the dead-end, and the countdown has started for its decline.
Khodabandeh and Bassam, both 54, became members of the MKO in 1983 and quit the terrorist organisation four years ago.
Talking to IRNA, they uncovered issues about the terrorist group which are "interesting and surprising".
MKO, SILENT ON STATEMENT OF US STATE DEPARTMENT
The interview with the two former MKO members started with the…circumstances "surrounding an accident". The question was: "Why the terrorist MKO has remained silent vis-a-vis the annual statement of the US State Department, after more than two months."
Khodabandeh, who was active at the MKO international relations section for some 20 years, said that the main reason behind this silence was that the statement refers to the MKO as a "Cult of Personality".
He believes that this title, as well as keeping the MKO in the list of "Proscribed Terrorist Groups" by the European Union which recently has been announced, would internationally weaken the position of the organisation.
Although the US State Department has put the MKO in the list of the International Terrorist Groups since 1984, it has underlined the organisation being a "cult" this year.
Khodabandeh, who has made broad studies on cultic organisations and cult leaders, said that according to definitions presented by psychiatrists and sociologists around the world, cultic organisations are those whose members are under mental coercion and mind indoctrination.
According to the law in European countries, unauthorized imposing of systematic manipulation on individuals is an offence which is subject to legal prosecution, he added.
Based on definitions, those who are under thought reform processes in such cults would carry out tasks on the demand of the cult leader they would have never done in normal life and natural situations, he noted.
Meanwhile Jamil Bassam, who was active in the MKO publications section in several European countries for years, outlined another important issue.
According to him, after the MKO was put on the list of terrorist groups by the US State Department as well as the EU, the organisation made great efforts, through American and European Courts, to be dropped from the list.
Regarding the issue, Bassam believes that the US State Department has adopted a "tougher" position on MKO by classifying it a cult as well as putting it in the list of terrorist organisations.
The US State department has come to such conclusion by receiving information from the massive number of former members of the organisation both in Iraq and in other countries, he added.
The statement has reiterated that the MKO, in addition to its terrorist record, has displayed cultic characteristics, too.
The State Department Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism on April 30 released the list of designated terrorist organizations. Once again Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO) continues to occupy the status it has been designated since 1997.
This statement quotes: "In addition to its terrorist credentials, the MEK (MKO) has also displayed cult-like characteristics.
Upon entry into the group, new members are indoctrinated in MEK ideology and revisionist Iranian history. Members are also required to undertake a vow of "eternal divorce" and participate in weekly "ideological cleansings." Additionally, children are reportedly separated from parents at a young age. MEK leader Maryam Rajavi has established a "cult of personality." She claims to emulate the Prophet Muhammad and is viewed by members as the "Iranian President in exile."
Khodabandeh believes that the statement by the US State Department is the work of experts and professionals and is not politically motivated.
MKO EFFORTS TO DRAW ATTENTION OF WAR-MONGERING PENTAGON FACTION
The two former MKO members further unveiled the efforts made by the terrorist organisation to establish relations with the war-mongering faction of the Pentagon.
According to them, after the fall of Saddam Hussein, the terrorist MKO made efforts to attract the attention of certain war-seeking elements of the Pentagon.
They also referred to internal disputes in the US saying the US State Department, contrary to the view of the Pentagon war mongers, is opposed to using the MKO as a tool.
Khodabandeh referred to the statement of the US State Department plus the classification of the MKO as a cult, the two huge "obstacles" in the way of such efforts.
He believes that by inserting the MKO in the list of terrorist organisations again, both by the US and the EU, efforts for the MKO cooperating with the west in general and the USA in particular are "blocked".
Considering the expert views presented on the terrorist MKO, the US State Department would argue that the cult is not trustworthy and would be placed in the rank of such groups as al-Qaeda, the two former MKO members said.
Regarding the question of the cults, they said that "methodology" is the prime issue, not the "ideology". In other words, in a cult, the use of methods for total mental domination on a person in line with the cultic tendencies would be under consideration.
Khodabandeh said that the position of the terrorist MKO for Washington is similar to those terrorist groups supported by the US in certain countries of the world, including Iraq, Afghanistan and Lebanon, who later took action against the US interests.
Bassam also believes that the MKO is trying to take advantages of the existing Iran-US disputes for its survival.
He added that as to restrictions faced by the MKO since it was included in the list of the International Terrorist Groups, the MKO members, in order to escape the restrictions in Europe and in the US, were active under the cover of "Iranian Societies" and "National Resistance".
WHY SILENT
The remaining question is that due to the negative impacts of the statement of the US State Department on the activities of the MKO, why the cult had remained silent over the past two months and had not given any response?
Khodabandeh gives an interesting answer to this question. He said that the MKO used to take a tough stance vis-a-vis previous statements issued by the US State Department but this time the case is different.
According to him, one reason behind the stillness is that the MKO is faced with a political "deadlock" in the international arena and is incapable of showing any reaction.
They both said that all cults are obliged to provide propaganda to feed their members in order to pretend that everything is going well.
The two former MKO members reiterated that the organisation has inducted its members that the west and the US are currently supporting the MKO. Therefore they do not want such negative reports reach their members so they keep silent regarding the statement.
The two believe that members of the cult are living in "delusion".
They give an example saying: "Those living in Ashraf Camp are presented with a false image of Iran. Therefore when we arrived in Tehran, we saw that the situation was totally different from what we had thought."
They added that the MKO has told its members inside the organisation that Maryam Rajavi is the designer of "third option" strategy, which in reality is to be executed by the Pentagon!
Khodabandeh said: "By issuing such statement, the US in fact has disappointed the MKO. Therefore, leaders of this terrorist group, in order to keep their members away from the reality, preferred to remain silent regarding the statement.
He emphasised that the recent report by the US State Department had passed through a point of no-return and has faced the MKO strategy in seeking a substitute for Saddam Hussein in the west with a complete deadlock.
He said that the stillness of MKO regarding the report precisely originates from this strategic deadlock.
Due to the severance of relations between those living in Ashraf Camp with their families and friends and in general with the realities of the outside world, Bassam said that the Iraqi formula is different from those in other parts of the world.
Despite the issuance of such statement by the US State Department, reports point to the cooperation between the MKO and some elements in the US Defence Department, he added.
Khodabandeh is of the view that Washington may use this card in its negotiations with Iran. However, the card is not so important because the Ashraf Camp in not a security concern for Iran any longer, he added.
Bassam believes that Washington has been trapped in Iraq. The MKO is trying to pretend that Iran is involved in the Iraqi problems and thus get closer to Washington, he added.
He said that the Iraqi government is willing to dismantle the Ashraf Camp. Referring to the current situation as sensitive for the MKO, he added that they are trying to come out of this quagmire before George W Bush’s second term is over.
MKO SEEKING AN ALTERNATIVE FOR SADDAM HUSSEIN
The two former MKO members added that the objective of the terrorist organisation is to gain power by any means including cooperation with Saddam Hussein. The cult is seeking a person like the former Iraqi dictator to lean on, they noted.
They were convinced that the statement has placed an obstacle in the way of MKO efforts, to create such a point of backing by the US, and has made the organisation face an impasse.
Asking Khodabandeh about the role of the French government in toughening the tone of the statement, in response he referred to acts of self-immolations by MKO members in Paris in 2003, after the arrest of Maryam Rajavi and added that those MKO members arrested by the French police at that time, unveiled some realities indicating cultic relations inside the organisation.
Meanwhile, Bassam reiterated that in addition to the reports by the French government on the terrorist cult, disclosure made by over 2000 MKO breakaway members was effective in making the tone of the statement stronger.
According to them, the West is currently well aware that such cults are a threat to both their members and their surrounding environment.
ALARM FOR EUROPE, US
The statement of the US State Department has referred to Europe as the two command headquarters of the organisation. Commenting on the issue, Khodabandeh and Bassam said if true, this could be alarming for Europe.
They further reiterated that both the US and Europe should be concerned over terrorist operations by the MKO members.
The move by some MKO members who committed self-immolation after the arrest of Maryam Rajavi on 17 June 2003 in Paris, is an indication of this alarm, they said urging both the US and Europe to be sensitive towards possible terrorist operations by MKO members.
Khodabandeh said that noting is more dangerous than a cult having reached the state of impasse. Under such condition, he said, the behaviour of a terrorist cult would be unpredictable and such a threat would endanger, before anything else, the security of countries they live in as well as its present and breakaway members.
It’s not easy for aspiring filmmakers to get their feet wet in the industry, but Erin Mills resident Simon Chang has done just that.
Chang and his Sheridan College classmate were recently honoured with a prestigious award from the U.S. International Film and Video Festival, one of the largest film events in the world. Staged in California, the festival recognizes documentaries and business, educational and entertainment productions.
Writer/narrator Chang and his Toronto producer/researcher, Neha Gandhi, were recipients of the student award in the public issues and concerns category. They won for their documentary, Breaking the Ties that Bind.
“It felt good getting recognition on an international level,” says Chang.
Gandhi said it’s a good start for the young filmmakers, students in Sheridan’s Media Arts program.
“(The festival) was about meeting a lot of filmmakers around the world. It’s a step in the door,” says Gandhi.
Breaking the Ties that Bind is about terrorist organization Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK). The film focuses on an Iranian family’s attempt to rescue their daughter from an MEK camp in Iraq. Almost a decade ago, Somayeh Mohammady left Toronto to go to Iraq to learn about her family history. Instead, she was forced to stay at Camp Ashraf, a terrorist camp. She remains there, brainwashed.
Breaking the Ties that Bind features an emotional interview with Mustafa Mohammady, Somayeh’s father.
“(The film has) been compared to professional news programs, like 20/20,” says Chang, a former University of Toronto Mississauga (UTM) student.
Gandhi believes their film, one of 115 student entries, won because they touched on a topic that’s impossible to ignore.
“What’s really important for people to know is that other women and children have been brainwashed (by MEK). Today, it’s Somayeh. Tomorrow, it could be anyone else. It’s not an issue that can be overlooked,” explains Gandhi.
The film began as a class project and took six weeks to complete. It was an unforgettable experience for the filmmakers.
“You get so caught up in the story, you have to remind yourself to be objective (as a filmmaker),” says Chang.
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for more information:
somayeh.org
Mississauga News
Of the major challenges the so-called Marxist revolutionary organizations or those under the influence of the Marxism in the contemporary history encounter is how they conceptualize the individual or individuality in contrast to their liberal definition. As defined by the theoreticians of these groups, individual rights are subordinate to social rights and the real value and legal status of individuals are considered to be the same as counter-revolutionary values that are somehow the legacy of the bourgeoisie. In such movements, the first step into the milieu of theory and revolutionary action should be a combat against the individual’s social status and its denial.
The organizational experiences of the leftist parties in general and countless victims of Stalin’s reign in particular are typical instances of the individuals being victimized for the cause of the contemporary revolutionary moves. As such, the groups and organizations that adhere to Marxism in violent warfare and social struggle have the same understanding of individuality. In some instances, they blend Marxist views with that of religious instructions while considering a priority for the former over the latter. For these organizations, individuality means smearing revolutionary values and culture with the stain of the bourgeoisie and sacrificing interests of the group for that of the individual. The outcome of these creeds is physical annihilation of members and depersonalization in the case of any conflict between members and organization whether the grounds of discordance are justified or not.
The course of events in MKO in the past four decades witnesses such instances of conflict which led to the murder of at least four dissent members. However, we are not to review such cases in this article. We are to remind that individuality is of no significance in such organizations. In other words, these kinds of organizations consider individuality as a means to gain organizational objectives so that any criticism on the part of members leads to their physical annihilation. It has to be pointed out that such a process in MKO led to consequences much different from that of other political movements due to the unique features of the group. The climax in MKO was the ideological revolution that mainly targeted the depersonalization in all its social, psychological and mental modes. According to one of the MKO’s ex-members, the gist of ideological revolution is as follows:
Close your eyes, let me hold your hands and ask not whereto you are being taken. [1]
That is the substratum of ideological revolution within Mojahedin that proves the group’s shift into a cult as a result of the negation of democratic elements in the inter-organizational relations as well as encountering numerous strategic stalemates. Establishing an ideological revolution on depersonalization enables the leadership to enforce the leader’s egocentric wills on members and to require the members’ blind obedience that the organization preferably calls it absolute devotion.
Compulsory divorce and marriage, suicidal operations, self-immolations, hypocrisy and a lot more are the immediate consequences of depersonalization and annihilation of mental capacity of members that constitute one of the theoretical challenges of MKO on the one hand and develop personal hegemony of Rajavi on the other hand. Mojahedin justify such a paradox resorting to metaphysics making leadership a sacred and divine entity. As Bijan Niyabati explains, the process of the ideological revolution requires blind obedience with no logical justification:
It goes without saying that such a process is of no logical significance. The main factors contributing to this process are not knowledge and logic but love and emotion and the instruments are not justification and discussion but devotion and obedience. [2]
Then he takes advantage of the expressions of Islamic mysticism for more justification:
In spiritual journey, no question is allowed. The wayfarer has to put his faith in Sheikh wholeheartedly and must regard him as the most perfect person to conduct him in spiritual training, guidance and education, be his interlocutor and obey Sheikh far from any inward or outward objection. [3]
Such justifications forge another paradox as they are in total contradiction with MKO’s standards of developing a worldview based on practical and scientific facts. However, Mojahedin deny such a paradox in order to pass over the challenges they encounter. Mojahedin insist to pose as respecting the rights of the individuals and even tolerating dissidents and critics. In contrast to these claims, makeup of Mojahedin’s internal ideological revolution infuses a much complicated system of values for the individuals:
As I pointed out before, ideological revolution in general means a substitution for conventionally adopted ideology and system of values. In other words, it involves a fundamental alteration in a specific value system. That is, to revolutionize values and standards. It is self-evident that because of the fundamental role of the substituted value system in the ideology in general, any change therein includes all those action and reactions as well as member-organization relations to a full extension of political and social level. [4]
This kind of relation based on the absolute devotion and blind obedience rather than reason and knowledge or political or social weight inevitably results in depersonalization. It makes individuals devoid of any value and devalues any value system out of MKO context.
Even the members’ suffering sustained in the course of struggle to ascertain the ideals are well denied in Mojahedin’s delineated value-system:
Within this scope, neither past campaign records nor organizational qualifications and political conscience count. [5]
Thus, Mojahedin radically deny the role of individuals in their organizational relations and despise it as an element of counter-value. As recently included in the State Department report to maintain MKO on its terror list, the cult-like behaviors within MKO corroborate the routinely practiced acts of depersonalization:
In addition to terrorist actions, Mojahedin express cult-like behavior. At the beginning, the newcomers are indoctrinated with MKO ideology and the revolutionary history of Iran. They have to take the oath of ‘permanent divorce’ and take part in weekly security cleansings. Moreover, the children are separated from their parents. Maryam Rajavi, MKO’s leader, has fostered a cult of personality and claims to be incarnated with Prophet Mohammad.[6]
Now the question arising here is that what is the real status of such an ideology based on blind obedience and absolute devotion of members in our world of knowledge, reasoning and intellectuality?
References:
1. Shahsavandi, S; An interview by ‘Voice of Iran’ radio, Part 112.
2. Niyabati, Bijan; A Different Look at Mojahedin’s Ideological Revolution, Khavaran Publication, 113.
3. ibid, 40.
4. ibid, 115.
5. ibid, 114.
6. The U.S. State Department report. April 30, 2007.
Bahar Irani – July 11, 2007
Children are the most despised creatures inside MKO as you can find no child living with the group in Camp Ashraf at the present. Human Rights Watch report’s No Exit; Human Rights Abuses inside the MKO Camps released in 2005 explicitly refers to instances of children’s abuses inside MKO:
[Yasser] Ezati moved to Iraq with his family at the age of three and grew up inside the MKO military camps. During the 1991 Gulf war, Ezati and other children inside the camps were separated from their parents and sent outside Iraq. During the next three years, Ezati lived with three different families in Canada. These families were MKO sympathizers. In the summer of 1994, the MKO moved Ezati to Cologne, Germany, where he lived in a group-house for the MKO children. The organization recruited Ezati for military training when he was seventeen years old and sent him to Iraq in June 1997.
Besides being mistreated and abused for military purposes, children were exploited as fundraising tools in Western countries. That is the way the Mojahedin cult looks upon children. Now, at the time when the Iraqi government intends to expel MKO, its leader is playing another trick to hide the group’s terrorist intentions behind a humanitarian mask. Maryam Rajavi in her speech made on 30 June in a Paris rally surprised many people who are familiar with the group’s cult-like and counter-children moves and practices when she announced her group’s readiness to look after 1000 Iraqi children:
We announce our readiness to the United Nations to use every means at our disposal to look after a number of Iraqi orphans. Specifically, I announce that the Iranian Resistance is prepared to take care of 1,000 Iraqi orphans and pay for all their expenses in Ashraf City under the supervision of UNICEF and in accordance with its guidelines. This offer is made purely on humanitarian grounds and is devoid of any political or public relations considerations. We will inform the Iraqi embassy in Paris and expect that the current Iraqi government would agree to such a humanitarian initiative.
Iraqi children have no need of terrorists to take care of them. If MKO really intends to show respect for humanitarian moves devoid of any political considerations as it claims, it can show its good-will by letting humanitarian organizations visit and watch over the condition of the Group’s own insiders forcefully held within Camp Ashraf.
Mojahedin.ws – July 5, 2007
On Sunday 17 June I was scheduled to speak on this subject at a public meeting in Paris. The meeting was unfortunately disrupted by an unusually large number of Mojahedin cult members who had lain in wait at the venue in order to prevent people speaking. Regardless of the implications for freedom of speech in a European country, this kind of disruption has become emblematic of the Mojahedin’s inability to even vaguely disguise its cult nature. Similar disruption has taken place in meeting after meeting held by former members of the cult; Paris, April 2005, Amsterdam, October 2005, Washington, D.C., October 2005, London, November 2005. (click here to see a montage of these meetings)
During the disruptions, charged-up cult members rant at former members accusing them of being ‘agents of the Iranian Intelligence Ministry’, ‘agents of the regime’, ‘mercenaries of the Iranian regime’. In my speech I explain the reason this is done and why, even though I was unable to speak at the time, I and other former cult members, rather than feeling angry or intimidated, have nothing but the greatest sympathy for those victims who are still trapped inside this dangerous, destructive cult.
Speech of Anne Singleton – Paris June 17, 2007
First may I congratulate all the former members of the Rajavi cult… what a long way we have come, what a difficult path we have trodden and how thankful we are to be free.
Those of us who are former members have come to understand our own experience by studying how cults operate, how they recruit and indoctrinate their members. We know first hand how it was to be subjected to mind control and psychological manipulation and in many cases painful psychological and physical coercion.
We understand that once a person has submitted to the control of the cult that it is not the ideas but rather the environment and methods used which change you from a normal, healthy, thinking person into someone whose identity, beliefs, whose very ways of thinking and feeling are shaped by the cult.
In the Mojahedin the two basic values we were required to live by were honesty and sacrifice (sedaqat and fada). We had no idea that this is the foundation for creating cult identity.
You all remember in the early days in the 1980s when it was extremely difficult to become a member of the Mojahedin and how easy it was to be thrown out. And how that changed after the marriage of Massoud and Maryam and the beginning of cult culture. After that it was too easy to get drawn in and almost impossible to get out.
When Human Rights Watch published its report on human rights violations inside the Mojahedin in May 2005, there could not have been a more appropriate title for describing the conditions we endured in Rajavi’s cult: ‘NO EXIT’.
Our knowledge of how cults operate informs us that the Mojahedin’s Camp Ashraf in Iraq is vital to the ongoing indoctrination of the majority of members – if France hadn’t thrown Rajavi out he would have had to go to Iraq anyway to pursue his vision of how the Mojahedin members must become totally obedient and dependent.
It is in the isolation of this camp, the total exclusion of anything that is not introduced by the cult, from clothes, food, timetables, information and relationships. It is this isolation which has allowed Rajavi to introduce the most outrageous demands and beliefs to his followers, and expect them to be accepted and obeyed without question.
But, there remains a question in many observers’ minds. They look at cult members like Alireza Jafarzadeh and Ali Safavi and others, and ask how is it that these people who are living in the west and are surrounded by western media and political ideas, can be described as brainwashed cult members? If it is the control of the person’s environment which enables the cult to create and maintain and shape an individual’s personality, then how do we account for those who are free to come and go and are not under this tight physical control, who may even look as though they have freedom?
One simple explanation could be that these people are ‘senior’ cult members. They are people who have submitted most to mind control and have the least possibility of thinking for themselves. But this is not the full explanation. Rajavi can never totally trust any of the members.
The answer is to be found in the way that members are indoctrinated.
When we look at the Mojahedin’s ideology we see that the cult creates what can be described within the cult context as ‘positive’ ideological beliefs: You must unthinkingly love the Rajavis, you must believe unquestioningly in the leaders’ authority, you must believe in the black and white version of reality – that the regime is totally evil and we are totally righteous. You must believe that you have to give everything – your heart, mind, body and soul – in order to fight the regime. You must believe that the cult is the source of all right and purity and that you as a cult member belong to a higher order of human kind.
But when former members think back to their time with the Mojahedin they remember that it was not a time spent purposefully and happily pursuing this vision. We remember that much of our everyday life was not about purpose and happiness, but about confusion, pain, anxiety and despair.
The reason for this is that simultaneous with the Mojahedin’s ‘positive’ cult beliefs, the cult is also busy implanting all kinds of negative ideas in the minds of the person.
These negative ideas come under the generic description of phobias. This is something that all cults do and as I describe how it works you will recognise the absolutely vital part they play in controlling the cult member. Phobias are much the most effective way of ensuring total obedience – even in your sleep.
So, what do I mean by a phobia?
A phobia is more than simple fear. Fear is vital to our existence. Fear tells us whether to stay and fight or to run away when danger presents itself. But a phobia is more than fear it is a persistent, irrational fear of an object or situation. There are many kinds of phobias, from fear of drowning, of dogs or heights, spiders and many others.
All phobias are triggered by a cue that starts up a negative cycle of fearful images, thoughts and feelings. That cue can be an internal or external stimulus such as a thought or image a word or smell, taste or behaviour.
When a person’s phobia is activated it stimulates the fight or flight response. The most common coping mechanism is to avoid the provoking stimulus.
Phobias undermine a person’s view of reality, their emotional and intellectual control, self-confidence and judgement. To the extent that the introduction of phobias is the single most powerful technique used by cults to make their members obedient and dependent.
Now this explanation gives us a better understanding of all those people that we know inside the Mojahedin who have long ago stopped believing in the Rajavis or the organisation or the cause, but who are still afraid to walk away – even when they have the opportunity. These people are quite literally frozen with indoctrinated fears. When I tell you that these fears operate unconsciously then you can see why they work so well.
I hope also that as I describe how this works, former members will begin to fully recognise their own achievement in having found the courage to escape the cult however they did it – and some have travelled the most extraordinarily painful and life-threatening paths to escape.
I am sure that as I go on, former members will also begin to remember the specific incidents when the Mojahedin either installed or activated their phobias, their irrational fears.
For example, one irrational fear is that you cannot trust your own capacity to think because you are subjected to negative forces beyond your understanding that arise from your upbringing or culture or society etc. Only Rajavi is pure enough to be able to think beyond these forces.
Another fear is that everything that goes wrong is your fault, that the leader is beyond sin and does not make mistakes. If things go wrong it is because you haven’t obeyed or followed instructions well enough.
Do you remember the one where they hinted they were just about to invade Iran and take over but that you probably weren’t ready yet. That awful fear that they’d go without you and leave you alone, that you didn’t make the grade as a Mojahed to take part in the final battle.
The main point behind such phobias is to bring you to a point at which you cannot think rationally or logically. Fear prevails over logic.
Certainly on an individual level the cult will encourage non-specific fears, fear of loneliness, rejection, failure, being shut up, being tortured, being raped or …
But one of the most powerful and indeed the most universal of cult phobias used in ALL cults not just the Mojahedin is fear of the anti-cult network. Those inside the cult are told that terrible things will happen to them if they fall into the hands of the enemy.
In this way they make you fearful of your own family and friends. They make you fear that there is a huge, well-funded network of enemy forces constantly looking for ways to tear you away from the safety of the cult. Looking at this from outside a cult someone might find such beliefs laughable. But these fears bind the members in perpetual fear and anxiety.
Now, let me tell you the name of the Mojahedin’s specific phobia which deals with this phenomenon. It is called:
‘working for the intelligence ministry of Iran’
No, I’m not talking about a job description. But former members will all recognise this as one of the Mojahedin’s most obvious and powerful phobias. There is not a single person inside the Mojahedin cult who does not believe that anyone who speaks out against the Rajavis and the Mojahedin is working for the Iranian intelligence ministry. Certainly when I was with them I believe this without question.
This is such a specific and widely used phobia that it deserves our further explanation.
This is Rajavi’s way of bringing the enemy right to the doorstep of his members. For years they have lived in isolation and the enemy has been far away. Not only that, but the enemy has changed beyond all recognition for the members – as anyone who has travelled to Iran can testify. So, Rajavi has brought the enemy right up to the members and supporters in order to terrify them, to make them feel that there is nowhere they are safe, that the enemy is right there at the door. And beyond that he has made the members believe that this enemy must be killed.
Those of us who have been inside the cult at any level know that this accusation is shorthand for ‘death sentence’. We all know that when Rajavi says someone is working for the Iranian regime, this is not describing a factual situation – no one ever asks for proof or evidence that this accusation is true or not – just by saying it Rajavi is issuing a death sentence. He is giving permission for anyone to kill the offender any time he orders.
But it goes far beyond this simple threat that the enemy is right upon you and must be confronted. Because for the cult member it is the worst fate ever to be imagined. Even worse than the fear of being tortured or executed is the fear of being accused of being on the side of the enemy. This would mean they had totally betrayed the leadership of Rajavi.
Massoud Rajavi has set himself up as the equivalent of God’s representative on earth. Rajavi’s enemy is the Iranian regime in its entirety. The whole purpose of the cult is to fight the regime and replace it with Rajavi’s rule. There is nothing other than this. Therefore in simple terms you are either with Rajavi or with the enemy.
Anything you do which may be interpreted as not giving 100% of your self, mind body and soul to Rajavi can be labelled as ‘regimi’ that is, undermining Rajavi by supporting the enemy.
Of course, inside the Mojahedin, even a sneeze can be interpreted as being against Rajavi if that sneeze is not performed in the name of Rajavi. So, you can imagine, the level of fear is intense.
The daily confessions and cleansing sessions are aimed at creating and maintaining this phobic mentality.
Now, imagine you are Alireza Jafarzadeh sitting in Washington, surrounded by happy normal people. If one of the distant supporters even hints that you have looked for two seconds longer than necessary at a female journalist or passer-by or something similar, then Jafarzadeh and others like him will be asked to report on their betrayal of Rajavi. Because thinking about anything except Rajavi is considered a sin.
Now, imagine you are not thinking about something as innocent as a woman’s hairstyle or imagine Dowlat Nowroozi is not thinking how nice some man’s aftershave smelled. Imagine instead you are thinking about why Rajavi has sent you to work with Fox News when only a few years ago Maryam Rajavi was running after a meeting with the late Yasser Arafat.
Are you not going to feel frozen in fear that just this question which innocently popped into your mind will lead you to be accused of undermining all of Rajavi’s great empire and ‘working for the enemy’.
Better not to think about it. Empty your mind and focus on something else.
How convenient then that there are people out there who are quite legitimately asking such logical questions, and uncovering some rather unpleasant facts about life in the Rajavi cult. How much easier it is to repeat the mantra to yourself that ‘they’ and not you are working for the Iranian regime, that ‘they’ and not you deserve to die. How comforting to draw that line and be on the right side of it.
How easy.
The effect of phobias is that the cult member cannot imagine being safe, happy or fulfilled outside the cult. At best they fear that their life will lose meaning and purpose, that they will never have such an exalted position again.
Inside a cult you are made to feel that you are the saviour of the world. Only you and this cult can solve the world’s problems.
How difficult then to first reject that position by leaving, and then how difficult to accept that what we were made to believe just wasn’t true anyway and that we had been lied to and cheated and half our lives stolen from us for nothing.
When we are able to penetrate the slick propaganda image and peer into the inner world of a cult we can easily discern the methods of control. It is this ability which arouses our compassion and sympathy for those still trapped inside the Mojahedin cult even when they shout at us.
We can now understand that the hecklers who come to meetings where former Mojahedin members gather, have had this specific phobia deliberately triggered. Although they believe they are attacking their enemy and feel courageous in their face-to-face confrontation with the ‘agents of the Iranian regime’, we understand that the cult leaders’ real purpose behind triggering their ranting is to create an impenetrable barrier between their indoctrinated cult identity and the normal outside world where logic, reason and freedom live. The place that we all now live.
Addendum
How phobias are indoctrinated
Direct suggestion
Eg. You will become a drug addict or a prostitute if you ever leave
Indirect suggestion
Eg. Whenever anyone leaves something terrible always happens to them or their family
The use of stories and testimonials
Eg. Do you remember so-and-so, after they left they got taken to prison and tortured
Use of existing phobias and fears
Members reveal in daily reports information about their past – in particular traumatic events or psychologically disturbing events or disorders. Fears surrounding these can be recreated or triggered.
The cult members’ fear is generalized to include anything which is designated as a threat to the cult identity.
Any thoughts or feelings or information critical of the cult leader, ideology or organisation
Fear of former members or critics of the group
Doubts or thoughts about leaving the group
Once the phobia is in place the cult member becomes a dependent personality, filled with helplessness and hopelessness about leaving the group. Cult leaders want the members to be filled with fear and self-doubt, they cultivate low self-esteem and manipulate members to work harder for praise and promotion.
Common Cult Phobias
Physical health – if they leave the cult member will:
Die painfully, commit suicide
Become ill and die of AIDS or cancer
Become drug addicts
Become prostitutes
Develop sexual perversions or diseases
Become overweight or not eat
Psychological health – if they leave the cult member will:
Go insane
Be committed to a mental institute
Be a failure
Become less intelligent
Lose their memory or talents or abilities
Lose control completely
Never be happy
Lose their dreams and hopes and aspirations
Spiritual life – if they leave the cult member will:
Lose their relationship with God
Be haunted by past problems and without the group’s help they will not be saved
Be judged sinful on Judgement Day
Find their soul rotting in hell forever
Be possessed by evil
Social life – if they leave the cult member will:
Lose the safety and security of the group
Be unloved
Never be able to trust anyone again
Never find a good wife or husband
Be controlled by others
Be rejected by family and friends
Be harassed
Commit crimes
Be imprisoned
Be persecuted by psychiatrists
Paranoia instilled in cult members
Fear they are being spied on and followed
Fear of kidnap by ex-members
Fear their families are working for the enemy Anne Singleton, June 26, 2007
In 1992, Anne Singleton was in the Iraqi desert being trained to fire a Kalashnikov rifle by the People’s Mujahedin of Iran. It was a year after the first Gulf War and Singleton was a member of an organisation intent on overthrowing the Iranian government by force.
“I was in the desert wearing a military uniform and I had no passport and no money,” she says.
“I had never felt so free in my life. But the irony was that I was in a state of modern slavery. I was mentally chained to the Mujahedin.” Sitting in her Leeds home 15 years later, the 48-year-old wants to make her past public in the hope it acts as a warning that recruitment to an organisation proscribed as a terrorist movement by the European Union, America and Canada is something that could happen to anyone. In the present climate, with radical terrorist cells and cults active in the UK, Singleton is campaigning to raise awareness of how extremist groups and cults manipulate people. Her life now, living in a three bedroom semi as a computer programmer and being a mother to a six-year-old-son, could not be further removed from a previous existence where she prepared for war and accepted the deaths of innocent people as a justifiable means to an end. “I thought I was a savior of the world and would have done anything for the Mujahedin.
I worshipped those people,” says Singleton, whose involvement with fanatical extremists began when she moved from Yorkshire to study English at Manchester University. Her boyfriend at that time, an Iranian called Ali, was interested in the Mujahedin, and Singleton became intrigued by the movement’s opposition to the regime of the Ayatollah Khomeini after the 1979 revolution. “Manchester Uni was very political and I went along to Mujahedin meetings,” she says. “In truth, I could not even understand what the leader was saying in the videos but I was utterly transfixed.”
The Mujahedin was formed in 1965 to free Iran from “capitalism, imperialism, reactionary Islamic forces and despotism” and by the early 1970s; it had embarked on an armed struggle and later sought refuge in Iraq, fighting with Saddam Hussein against the Iranian government. Singleton’s indoctrination, conversion and submission to the organization was something that happened gradually over a period of about 10 years, the subtle influence of her Mujahedin peers eventually leading her away from her job, friends and family.
She views the Mujahedin now as a cult and says their methods of psychological manipulation are tried and tested and used by many other groups around the world, even similar to some tactics employed by salesmen to sell timeshares. “It takes a long time and they are very clever and use peer pressure. They implement subliminal messages. They use mind control techniques.
“They got me to submit to a higher order, their leader. They got me to make financial commitments. I used to ask friends and family to donate money to causes that were blatant lies. They replace your family, your relationships and get you to reject all your old values.” In 1985, Massoud Rajavi became the Mujahedin leader, transforming the movement, Singleton says, from being a political group into a cult. He married a woman called Maryam, whose role was to encourage women to break away from male control, and Singleton began spending all of her spare time looking after members’ children, cooking, listening to their poetry and revolutionary music. “I thought they were people of a higher order,” says Singleton, who was utterly convinced she was part of a noble, armed struggle. She even had posters of martyrs, suicide bombers and women with guns adorning her walls.
In 1989, Singleton split with Ali, who wanted nothing more to do with the movement, and she moved to London to become more involved in Mujahedin activities. During this period, she got involved with activists at a safe house in Finchley and, when the Unite Nations human rights rapporteur visited Iran in l990, they all went on hunger strike to apply pressure on him to question the Iranian government about the nation’s Mujahedin prisoners.
“I was as high as a kite on hunger strike and I felt superhuman, as if I had transcended normal humanity. Shortly afterwards I walked out on my job and went full-time with the movement. “I didn’t question anything. I was shown a film of a female suicide bomber blowing up an ayatollah in Iran. It was horrific and very shocking at first but I was shown the film many times, and each time I was less distressed. Eventually, I didn’t bat an eyelid.” By this time Singleton barely saw her parents and she had ditched all her friends. She had even publicly burned the diaries she had kept since childhood, as a symbolic rejection of her past. “If the leader had said ‘kill yourself’, I would have killed myself.” In l992, Singleton was asked to go to Iraq for military training. As a member of an armed struggle, she knew this might be required and did not resist, even relinquishing her passport to the Mujahedin when she arrived in the desert.
“You have no human rights, no nationality, you are simply a Mujahed. I loved the camp and it felt liberating to obey orders, because you lose all responsibility for yourself. I felt like a child and thought if I put all my trust in their hands, I would be OK.”
But in 1993 Singleton started to have doubts about the movement after all members were told that marriage was banned and all couples must get divorced. At this time she met her current husband, Massoud, another disillusioned member, and in 1996 they made the decision to leave. With the Mujahedin in constant contact, initially it was extremely difficult for them to adapt back into society and it took three years to make a complete break and fully recover from their ordeal. “We are both Muslims, and we were like little kids doing things like going to the supermarket and choosing our own food.” In 1999, Singleton and Massoud discovered literature from the Cult Information Centre and discovered that the psychological coercion techniques used by the Mujahedin were methods all recognised and listed, and together they now campaign to warn others that anyone is vulnerable to these groups.
“Look at the young men in West Yorkshire who are being targeted by the terrorist organisations. People across the UK must be asking what is wrong with the people in West Yorkshire. There is nothing wrong with the people here, it is just that the extremists are out there recruiting in the locality, using the same tried and tested methods used by the Mujahedin and the many other disparate cults and movements active around the world. “Psychological manipulation can happen to anyone, any time. If you’re lucky, you end up with a timeshare. If you’re unlucky you end up blowing yourself and innocent people up on the Tube.” An interview by Billy Briggs – Big Issue Magazine (UK), May 2007