Despite the harm it has caused to Iranians and others, the MEK’s most numerous victims may have been its own members.
Former members describe the life of a typical MEK member as a nightmare of psychological and physical torture, paranoia, forcible separation from family, and ideological indoctrination.
Membership in the MEK as a cult
In 2002, Sarfaraz was a young boy from Zahedan (a city in East of Iran) seeking to immigrate to Europe in hope of a better life. “A human trafficker took me to Pakistan and introduced me to a man named Farid,” Sarfaraz recounts his story with the MEK. “He told me that Farid would take me to Sweden.”
Nevertheless, Farid took Sarfaraz to Iraq. “In Iraq, they took us to camp Ashraf where I found out that I would never go to Europe,” Sarfaraz says. “This was a trap made by the MEK to recruit more members.”
![Srafaraz Rahimi](https://www.nejatngo.org/sq/wp-content/uploads/blank.gif)
Srafaraz Rahimi
The brainwashing system of the Cult of Rajavi coerced Sarfaraz to stay in Camp Ashraf for about two decades. “The group only seeks the interests of Massoud and Maryam Rajavi,” he says. “Neither the cause of the group and nor the forces matter to the Rajavis.”
After the group was relocated in Albania in 2013, Sarfaraz Rahimi left the group but he was financially dependent on the MEK. The group had actually confiscated the monthly payment that the UN pays the refugees in the MEK’s camp in Albania. This was a tool for the MEK authorities to morally abuse Sarfaraz and some other defectors of the group. The group wanted them to spy on other defectors, otherwise they were labeled as the agents of the Islamic Republic.
Finally in August 2021, Sarfaraz cut off all links with the notorious MEK agents and publicly announced his dissociation from the group. He was welcome by other defectors of the group who live freely in Albania. They held a party to celebrate his salvation from the bars of the Cult of Rajavi.
MohammadReza Aghasi is a captive in the Mujahedin Khalq Organization (MKO/ MEK/ PMOI/ Cult of Rajavi). He has not been allowed to contact his family freely as long as he has been in the MEK.
When in 2016, the group was relocated in Albania, MohammadReza’s mother published a congratulation letter expressing her pleasure for the new possibility that would open the way for the freedom of her son. Yet, five years passed and her son is still imprisoned in the MEK’s Camp Ashraf 3, in Albania.
However, the Aghasis did not lose hope. They kept on writing letters and sending videos to their beloved MohammadReza.
![MohammadReza Aghasi mother](https://www.nejatngo.org/sq/wp-content/uploads/blank.gif)
MohammadReza Aghasi mother
“Dear MohammadReza, I expected that you would get released from the bars of the group in Albania,” Hamideh Aghasi, his sister, writes in her recent open letter to her brother. “But you weren’t liberated. You didn’t contact us and now I realize that you are actually mentally and physically imprisoned. The entire family and I will be very happy if you contact us.”
![MohammadReza Aghasi sister](https://www.nejatngo.org/sq/wp-content/uploads/blank.gif)
MohammadReza Aghasi sister
“I pray for your freedom from the chains of your mind and thought,” Hamideh adds. “I hope you make the right decision for the rest of your life. Bro! you are in a mental prison and you are not aware of the crimes the Cult of Rajavi has committed.”
The Aghasis live in Qazvin province, Iran.
Mr. Houshang Mohammadi, the brother of Nasser Mohammadi, the victim of Operation Forough-e Javidan (Eternal Light), stated on the first day of the online Conference of the Nejat Society held on August 7,2021:
(Mr. Houshang Mohammadi spoke in Turkish, which was interpreted by Mr. Samad Eskandari)
Nasser Mohammadi, who was captured by the MEK during the Iran-Iraq war, was unfortunately held captive for a few months. He asked for his release, but was told that he had to take part in Operation Forough-e Javidan.
![Naser Mohammadi brother](https://www.nejatngo.org/sq/wp-content/uploads/blank.gif)
Naser Mohammadi brother
In a meeting we had in Iraq, the officials of the MEK said that he was martyred, which means that he was killed, but there are documents according to a meeting with his friends who saw him in the operation that the Rajavi Cult agents targeted Nasser from behind. That is the mere fact.
Despite the claims of Maryam and Massoud Rajavi that they defend democracy and human rights, they are nothing more than liars, because they did not even show mercy to their own members who wore their uniforms, and shot them in the back.
May God curse Rajavi, who has really offended our family. We sincerely wish that Rajavi and his aides and those involved in this cult be held accountable for their criminal acts in a public international court.
Zhila (Forouzandeh) Kakavand is from Borujerd, Lorestan, Iran. she has been taken as a hostage by the Mujahedin Khalq Organization (MKO/ MEK/ PMOI/ Cult of Rajavi) for over 40 years.
Zhila was married to a Mujahed named Yaser Jahan Nezhadi. He is still in the MEK too. They left their daughter Sara behind in Iran and they fled to Iraq to join the MEK in Iraq. Zhila’s mother recalls those days that Sara was languishing the absence of her mother, as a little girl. “Grandma tell me about my mom’s childhood,” Zhila’s mother says about Sara. “While I was talking for her, she was just weeping tears.”
![Zhila Kakavand's mother](https://www.nejatngo.org/sq/wp-content/uploads/blank.gif)
Zhila Kakavand’s mother
Sara lives in Canada now. She is still disconnected with her parents. “She still looks for her mom and asks me about her,” Sara’s grandmother says.
Zhila’s family has taken numerous actions to open a way to contact their beloved Zhila. Besides several letters that they have sent to the International Human Rights bodies, Ziba has published a few videos in the hope of reminding Zhila of the good memories of their past, their school, their neighborhood and their home.
![Ziba Kakavand](https://www.nejatngo.org/sq/wp-content/uploads/blank.gif)
Ziba Kakavand attended Nejat Society meeting
Ziba Kakavand also attended the online conference of Nejat Society last month. She once more called on the international community to help the release of her sister.
Mr. Mohammadpour, a former member of the Rajavi Cult, stated on the first day of the nationwide conference of the Nejat Society held on August 7,2021:
Greetings to all friends. Whether those who we were together in Camp Ashraf under the captivity of the Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization (MEK, MKO, Rajavi Cult) or those whose loved ones are there. As my friend Mahmoud Dashtestani said, this is not a matter of economics and material things. They took over our whole life during these years. How, for our soul and for our being, can materials be discussed?
![Abbas Mohammadpur](https://www.nejatngo.org/sq/wp-content/uploads/blank.gif)
Abbas Mohammadpurmr; a former member of the Rajavi Cult
We are talking about those who are waiting. In turn, I support all that is being done and what other friends are doing in connection with the complaint. I will work until the end, so that we can take these loved ones back to a place where they are free, or at least their families can visit them. The waiting period for families is not one or two years, but 30 years.
We do our best to get at least one of them out of captivity or they can call or their families can go and visit them. We complained against MEK and we will follow it to the end, and we will go and testify and say what they did to us and what they did to those who are still in captivity wherever necessary.
In my opinion, this organization has no foundation and it is vanishing day by day like a tree bitten by termites. Therefore, supporting this organization, both by governments and politicians, is useless. We follow this way so that we can bring these families to their loved ones. We do everything we can.
Hassan Sharqi is a former member of the Mujahedin Khalq Organization (MKO/ MEK/ PMOI/ Cult of Rajavi). He addressed the on-line conference held by Nejat Society in August, 2021.
At first, he introduced himself for the participants of the conference:
“I am Hassan Sharqi. I was born in 1954 in Tonekabon [North of Iran]. I was a military man of the Iranain army when I was taken as a war prisoner by the Iraqi forces in Iran-Iraq war in 1980. I was captive in the Iraqi prison for 9 years.”
![Hassan Sharghi](https://www.nejatngo.org/sq/wp-content/uploads/blank.gif)
Hassan Sharqi; MEK ex-member
Hassan was recruited by MEK agents when he was in Iraqi jail. “Fed up with my family issues and the hardship in Iraqi prison, I was betrayed by the propaganda launched by recruiters of the notorious cult of Rajavi.”
He was kept in the MEK’s camps for 24 years. “During the 24 years of my stay in the cult, I and my friends were trapped in forced labor without being paid a penny,” he said. “After 24 years of mental torture, I could manage to escape the group and return to my homeland in 2013.”
Expressing his pleasure for the submission of the petition made by his ex-comrades against the MEK leaders to the Court in the Hague, he said, “impatiently, I am looking forward to the trial of the cult leaders.”
He ended his speech by chanting, “Damn with Massoud and Maryam [Rajavi]! Viva Iran!”
GholamReza Shekari was twenty years old when he crossed the Iran-Iraq border in order to immigrate to Europe seeking a better life. As his bad luck had it, Iraqi security forces delivered him to the Mujahedin Khalq Organization (MKO/ MEK/ PMOI/ Cult of Rajavi). This was the start of 27 years of detention in the cult-like structure of the MEK. His requests to depart the group was not met as long as they were in Iraq. The group had confiscated his documents and told him that if he left the group, he would end up with torture in Iraqi prison.
After the group was expelled from Iraqi territory, Shekari was relocated in Albania in 2017 and eventually he asked to leave the group again. He was allowed to leave but he was under the group’s control as far as he was given a monthly payment by the group. In 2018, when he announced that he was not willing to work for MEK, the group cut off his monthly pension. Since then the UNHCR supported him financially.
A few months later, Shekari was interviewed by Luisa Hommerich, the correspondent of Der Spiegle. Hommerich’s investigative report on MEK, titled “Prisoners of Their Own Rebellion, The Cult-Like Group Fighting Iran” was published in February, 2019. As expected, The Spiegle’s article was labeled as the propaganda of the Iranian Government.
As Hommerich reports, “Gholamreza Shekari, a slender 50-year-old man with bony cheeks, says he spent 27 years as a member of the People’s Mujahedin, adding “the organization’s public face is liberal. Internally, though, it works by way of lies, manipulation and fear.””
“They spoke of freedom and democracy for Iran,” Shekari told Hommerich. “And then they promised me that they would arrange a visa for Europe for me.”
In March, 2019, Shekari officially declared his defection from the MEK. His statement of defection that was published by Nejat Society, contained horrific facts about the dark days he had experienced inside the MEK.
Eventually he began writing in Persian his account of the mental and physical torture he had endured in the MEK’s notorious Camp Ashraf, in a series of articles in Persian. This is an extensive account of what he mentioned about torture by MEK commanders in his interview with the Spiegle.
Shekari told Spiegle that he repeatedly asked when he would be allowed to leave. “But that turned out to be a mistake: According to Human Rights Watch, the organization began torturing members who wanted to leave the group or who asked critical questions in the mid-1990s,” Hommerich accurately states.
“They insulted me as a spy, beat my shins until they were bloody and put out burning cigarettes on my skin,” he told Hommerich. “After a week, he says, his lower legs were completely black. He rolls up his jeans to reveal scars covering his legs.”
Besides the strict regulations of the Cult of Rajavi that required absolute obedience, According to Shekari and many other defectors such as Bahman Azami, Adel Azami, Nader Naderi, Nader Chapachap, in 1994 and 1995, dozens of members of the group were imprisoned in groups and in solitary confinement, tortured and even killed by the commanders of the group. Defectors revealed the names of some of the torturers of the Cult of Rajavi. Mokhtar Jannat, Majid Alamian, Mahvash Sepehri, Assadollah Mosana, mohammad Eqbal and some other high-ranking members of the group were in charge of interrogating, beating and torturing the imprisoned members who did not even know what their accusation was.
After months of torture and imprisonment, Shekari told the Spiegle, “the leader Masoud Rajavi gathered all those who had been tortured”. “He threatened that if we ever spoke about it, we would be handed over to the Iraqis, which would mean additional torture or death,” Shekari added.
The group still claims that Shekari and other former members are agents to spread the disinformation of the Iranian Government. “The organization claims that we are all agents so that nobody believes us,” he told the Spiegle. “But I’m not working for anyone.”
This is just a short part of four episodes of Shekari’s memoirs of torture and imprisonment in Camp Ashraf:
“Majid Alamian and Mokhtar Janat, the two torturers and slaughterers received me…They took off my clothes. I was completely naked when Mokhtar began beating me. He gave me pajamas to put on. Again, they started beating on my head. I raised my arms to cover my head, he kicked me in the back. Then the major commander, who was called Kak Adel, came and told them to take me to the cell. They covered my eyes and took me around the place. Finally, they uncovered my eyes in a cell where about ten other of my comrades had been jailed.”
This was the start of Shekari’s five-months imprisonment, interrogation and torture in the Cult of Rajavi. He was under the most severe mental and physical pressures from January to May, 1994.
Farhad Javaheri-Yar is a former fighter with the MKO in Iraq. He served in various capacities in intelligence and security operations. In 1995, he became aware of dissident members being imprisoned inside the MKO camps in Iraq. He wrote a letter to his superiors requesting to be released from his duties and expressed his desire to leave the organization. His superiors tried repeatedly to intimidate him into staying. After his refusal, he was incarcerated in various prisons inside the MKO camps in Iraq from November 1995 to December 2000. He was subsequently turned over to the Iraqi officials and held in Abu Ghraib prison until January 2002, when he was repatriated to Iran.
Javaheri-Yar joined the MKO in August 1982 in Tehran and became active in their underground armed resistance. He was arrested in October 1984 by the Iranian authorities and spent the following four years inside Evin, Ghazal Hisar, and Gohardasht prisons in Iran. Upon his release, he contacted MKO operatives in Europe and was smuggled to Karachi and from there to Iraq. He entered Iraq in 1989 and became an active member of the MKO’s armed wing.
Javaheri-Yar became disillusioned with the MKO in 1995 after learning from a number of other MKO cadres that they had been recently imprisoned by the organization:
In July 1995, I returned to Camp Ashraf from a reconnaissance mission. During the preceding months, I had noticed a number of my friends had “disappeared.” I was told that they were inside Iran to carry out missions. I met two of them, Akbar Akbari and Ali Taleghani, who told me that they were imprisoned inside Camp Ashraf during this period and were forced to sign false confessions indicating their ties to Iranian intelligence agents and [promising] that they would never leave the MKO.
I could not believe that the Mojahedin would engage in acts of torture and forced confessions similar to what the Iranian government used. I wrote a number of reports for my superior. In these letters I expressed my disapproval of the mistreatment of members and submitted my resignation. My request was repeatedly ignored.
Javaheri-Yar persevered with his request to leave the MKO, but was told that the organization could not relieve him of his duties because of his extensive knowledge of MKO’s activities. Once Javaheri-Yar realized he would not be free to leave, he escaped from Camp Ashraf on November 28, 1995 and attempted to reach the Jordanian border. On November 30, 1995, he was arrested by Iraqi security forces near the city of Tikrit. He pleaded with the Iraqi forces not to return him to the MKO camp, but his pleas were ignored and he was handed over to the MKO forces in Camp Ashraf. During the next five years he was held in solitary confinement in various locations inside the MKO camps, from November 1995 to December 2000.
During the first two months, I was kept inside a pre-fabricated trailer room called a bangal. I was told that I could not leave the camp but could resume life inside the camp if I chose to do menial labor, such as making bread or sweeping streets. I refused their offer, and their response was harsh. I was moved to a prison cell in Avenue 400 of Camp Ashraf. The cell’s dimensions were three by two-and-a-half meters [nine feet by eight feet]. It was connected to a narrow hallway – one meter [three feet] wide and three-and-a-half meters [ten feet] long – that led to a small toilet and sink.
In February 1996, I made very loud verbal protests from inside my cell. To punish me, they confined me inside a bathroom for three consecutive weeks. I was miserable. There was no room to stretch or lie down. The tiled floor was wet and cold. It was a terrifying experience.
The MKO’s leadership, including Masoud Rajavi, promised Javaheri-Yar that he would be released “soon,” but each time they broke their promise. Javaheri-Yar was imprisoned in solitary confinement inside Camp Ashraf, as well as Camp Parsian, until December 2000, when he was turned over to the Iraqi intelligence forces (mukhabarat). He spent one month in a mukhabarat prison before being transferred to Abu Ghraib prison. He was repatriated to Iran on January 21, 2002. He left Iran and is living in Europe.
Mohammad Reza Birnazari as a native of Gorgan, in Noorshahr, worked in the organization from 1989 to 1999. This is his description of his difficult time with the Mojahedin:
“In 1989, I was 27. The war against Iraq had ended, but the situation inside Iran was bad and I was personally very unhappy. Seduced by the organization’s anti-Iranian propaganda, broadcast from Iraq, I joined the organization in order to take part in the struggle for change in Iran.
After intensive military and ideological training, I was made a member, but I quickly began to see things differently. there was a good reason for this: they kept promising us things that never happened. The leaders said: “we’ll win in a week, in a month, in a year’. But nothing happened. After five years of waiting and being obedient, I openly began to express my doubts and worries. This led to insults and threats and moral and psychological torture. I was terrified that they would actually act on the threats they made. Those who disagreed with them disappeared from one day to the next.
They told us they were spies and had been handed over to the Iranian authorities or transferred to other camps, people sometimes spoke about suicides. But officially, deaths were explained as heart attacks or accidents. We had no way of verifying any of these stories, since we were completely cut off from the world. One day in 1999, to punish me, they hand me over to an Iraqi Kurd who arranged illegal border crossings. He took me into Iran via Erbil and Qasr Shirin. For me, prison in Iran was better than living in the Mojahedin camps in Iraq. The camps were places of suspicion, informants and no hope at all.
From the book: The People’s Mojahedin of Iran: A Struggle for what? “By Victor Charbonnier,2004.