MKO former members

Ashur Varshi joined the MKO 27 years ago. As a 19–year–old teenager his ideal was the overthrow of the Islamic Republic through armed struggle. But ultimately, the totalitarian and manipulative system of the group made him leave it. ”After 27 years of companionship with the group, I was threatened to death (by Alireza Budaqchi under the pseudonym of Ahad) just because I had said that the leader’s arguments were not realistic,” Varshi writes. “He [Ahad] used to pressure me to praise the leader’s words.”

Former MEK member Ehsan Bidi staged a sit-in outside the UNHCR office in Tirana, Albania where he has refugee status.Bidi and other formers were told by the UN office that their funds and accommodation would be stopped from end of March. They have now all been evicted and made homeless.According to Bidi, the responsible person at the UN, Nicola, has been replaced in the past few days by someone from Pakistan who claims to know nothing except that the UN is not allowed to pay for the refugees from today. The UN attributes this situation to an agreement between the Albanian government, the US, MEK and the UNHCR. According to this agreement, Albania should only provide land and the individual refugees’ expenses are to be met by the MEK. The problem is that not only will the MEK not provide for these formers’ expenses, they actually want to kill Bidi.Bidi says that already a few members have been forced to humiliate themselves and beg the MEK to be allowed again to become terrorists for money. They all have refugee status.

The two brothers managed to release themselves after 27 years of imprisonment within the MKO bases.

Bahadori brothers were recruited by the MKO in 2002 in Baku Azarbayjan where the older one was working. The MKO recruiters promised to provide them with European refuge.

Although they were promised a better life in Europe, they found themselves in Turkey and then Iraqi Camp Ashraf where they were immediately separated from each other. They were not allowed to meet each other for years. They were not told about their family who had several times come to visit them in Camp Ashraf, Iraq. The brothers made efforts to meet each other for eight years. Whenever they asked for a visit they were punished by the group leaders.

After their relocation from Camp Ashraf to Camp Liberty, they succeeded to meet each other randomly and eventually they managed to escape from the cult of Rajavi after the recent rocket attack on Camp Liberty in November.

Then, they were aided by the UN and Iraqi human rights bodies and the Iranian embassy in Baghdad in order to return to their country.

One of the brothers told Nejat Society that a large number of members of the group are thinking of leaving the group but they are kept busy in computer classes- without the Internet – because leaders claim that they will be sent to Europe after finishing their alleged computer training course.

Cult leaders keep members in a state of hesitation and passiveness by threatening them that leaving the MKO ends with death and destruction.

Ms. Fereshteh Khalaj Hedayati; member of the so called central Council of MKO noticed her separation from the Cult after 30 years of membership in the group. She declared his defection publishing a statement on her Facebook page, titled: ”Don’t be Silent”

On December18, 2015 members of Women Association visited an Albanian official in the country’s Embassy in Berlin.

Members of Women Association described their bitter experiences of their long-time imprisonment in the Mujahedin Khalq Organization (the MKO). They also recounted how they were released from the group.

Then, they raised the following issues to enlighten the Albanian authority:

Warning on the presence and activities of the cult of Rajavi (the MKO) in the Albanian territory considering their true nature as a sect.
Concern of families whose loved ones are taken as hostages in the group; they have not had the least information on the situation of their loved ones for many years; and even after their relocation to Europe, the leadership of the group continues this inhumane policy…..