A controversial feature of the organisation was its decision in 1983 to ally itself with the former Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein. Massoud Rajavi moved to Baghdad in 1986 and the following year announced the formation of the National Liberation Army (NLA). The NLA fought alongside Iraqi forces against Iranian troops, an alliance that completely destroyed the organisation’s rapidly diminishing credibility inside Iran.
The signatures of the petition supporting 42 former members of the MEK Cult is on the rise.
The petition has been filed by Nejat Society Website for those who are seeking to file a complaint with international judicial bodies against the MEK leaders.
The signatories of this petition, call on the International Court of Justice in The Hague, as well as the governments of France and Albania, to work for the realization of the rights of the material, physical and spiritual victims of the MEK.
Ex-members of the Mujahedin Khalq Organization (MEK, MKO, PMOI, Cult of Rajavi), current members of the group and their families are all victims of its cult-like and violent practices during over forty years.
A court was held in the Iranian judicial system in Branch 55 of the Tehran international Court of Law to hear the complaints of 42 former members of the MEK, who were subjected to solitary confinement, torture, and physical and mental sufferings in Camp Ashraf in Iraq. The court was held in March 2021 with the presence of representatives of domestic and foreign media and human rights and international organizations.
In this court, former members of the MEK spoke about the crimes committed by the Rajavi Cult against them and their families for more than 30 years, and some of them had the effects of physical injuries inflicted on them as a result of torture shown to the court judge and those present.
The file was finally referred to The International Court of Justice in The Hague, Netherlands, under the Iranian judicial law and international justice, in the early days of July 2021.
As expected, the so-called Iran Free Summit of the Mujahedin Khalq Organization was followed by a wave of critics from various Western individuals, from Socialist Democrats of the EU to American journalists and scholars who were mad at the presence of some of their political figures in the MEK gathering.
However, critics against the paid speakers of the MEK event came also from Iranians inside and outside Iran. Certain figures from opposition groups against the Iranian government also declared their disapproval against the MEK as a terrorist cult-like group. Erfan Fard is an example of these figures.
Sllovenia PM Janez Janša
Following the MEK online gathering, centered in Camp Ashraf 3 in Albania, Fard, the Iranian researcher and analyst who is an unforgiving critic of the Islamic Republic government tweeted:
“Dramatically, these Democrats Senator Menendez, Cory Booker and Republicans Roy Blunt and Senator Ted Cruz, as well Mike Pompeo have no knowledge about a notorious Islamic Terrorist Group of #MEK.”
Publishing photos of newspaper –in which the news of the assassination of the American military advisors and businessmen who were killed by the MEK in Iran during the 1970s, was available—he wrote:
“Hawkins, Shaffer & Turner were American colonels. Heavy check mark you spoke for terrorists, sir!”
Fard also criticized politicians from Department of Homeland Security for promoting the MEK terrorists:
“Strangely, some uneducated thugs in @DHSgov endorsed the articles of #MEK and these criminal individuals inside the soil of The USA! and they censored any any objections. shamelessly, now, some of them play trumpet for #terrorist loving mullahs who activated the dark cells in the US!”
He added:
“by a quirk of history, @DHSgov and @ICEgov postulated a sham pejorative article of this quisling Terrorist group in the court @TheJusticeDept against 1 Iranian researcher! Quizzically & sorrowfully nobody cares about the sophistry of MEK’s members in dark corners of net!”
About the MEK’s terrorist designation he tweeted:
“The @StateDeptCT or @USTreasury cannot change the History! On Sept. 28, 2012, the @StateDept formally removed the Mujahedin-e Khalq (#MEK) from the Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) list.
Date Originally Designated: 10/8/1997
Date Removed: 9/28/2012”
OH? Michèle Flournoy claims she didn’t realize this weekend’s conference where she was a featured speaker on regime change was put on by the once-terror-listed MEK.
An Obama-era Pentagon official who was at one point under consideration to be President Joe Biden’s secretary of defense called for “internal regime change” in Iran at an event held by a shadowy group designated a foreign terrorist organization by the U.S. government until 2012. But she claims she didn’t know anything about the group’s notorious past when she agreed to appear.
Former Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Michèle Flournoy, who heads up a consulting firm upon which the Biden administration has drawn heavily to fill top White House positions, appeared virtually on Sunday at the “Free Iran World Summit 2021.” The confab was put on by the National Council of Resistance of Iran, the diplomatic wing of the People’s Mojahedin of Iran, or Mojahedin-e Khalq. Known commonly by its Farsi acronym, MEK, the dissident group was put on the U.S. terror list in 1997—only to be removed from the list 15 years later with support from disgraced former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani.
Former Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Michèle Flournoy
“When she agreed to the engagement, Ms. Flournoy was unaware of the affiliation,” a Flournoy spokesperson told The Daily Beast. “She would not have participated had she known of it, and she refused payment for the engagement once she learned of it. She has no affiliation with the MEK and will never appear at their conference again.”
Flournoy is the rare Democratic A-lister who’s publicly linked themselves to the MEK, which has historically enjoyed support from right-wing neoconservative allies such as Giuliani, former Trump National Security Adviser John Bolton, former GOP House Speaker Newt Gingrich, retired Gen. Jack Keane, who is a regular on Fox News, and others. On the other side of the aisle, former Vermont governor, Democratic National Committee chairman, and also-ran presidential candidate Howard Dean has made paid and unpaid speeches for the MEK.
“[W]hen there is an internal regime change, and a government comes to power that renounces its revolutionary aims and terrorism, the United States will be the first in line to engage it,” Flournoy told the summit audience. “In the meantime, we must continue to applaud and support the important work of diaspora groups like yours that keep alive the vision of a secular, free, and democratic Iran.”
Matt Duss, foreign policy adviser to Sen. Bernie Sanders (D-VT), tweeted, “I’m tempted to say that this is horrible staff work from Flournoy’s team in letting her do this, these invitations can often be deceptive, but at this point no former nat sec official really has any excuse for not knowing what the MEK is.”
“Social media has been abuzz with words of condemnation from journalists and other users who said it was both ‘shocking’ and ‘embarrassing’ for Michele Flournoy, former U.S. undersecretary of defense for policy, to address the annual summit of the notorious anti-Iran [MEK] terrorist group,” Iranian state media crowed.
The speaker’s list at this year’s summit included a mixed bag of names, from Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) to Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) to Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) to Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY).
While the MEK began in 1963 as a revolutionary movement agitating for human rights and democracy in Iran, it has more recently been described as “a secretive, cult-like group that resembles a militant, Islamist version of the Church of Scientology.”
In the 1970s, the MEK “staged terrorist attacks inside Iran and killed several U.S. military personnel and civilians working on defense projects in Tehran,” according to the State Department, and supported the 1979 takeover of the U.S. Embassy in the capital city. In the early 1990s, State says the MEK “conducted attacks on Iranian embassies in 13 different countries, demonstrating the group’s ability to mount large-scale operations overseas.” In June 1998, MEK planted bombs in Tehran that killed three people.
The group also fought against the U.S. in the early stages of the Iraq War. According to the U.S. Army’s official history of the conflict, “by 2003 the MEK has become an elite element in the Iraqi Army and had fought against Coalition forces in March and April of that year.” MEK forces later surrendered to American special operations forces and the U.S.-led coalition provided security for the group members detained in Camp Ashraf facing attacks by Iranian-backed militias. MEK members were subsequently evacuated from Iraq to Albania.
Interviews with MEK dissidents conducted by Human Rights Watch in 2005 included testimony from ex-members about “abuses ranging from detention and persecution of ordinary members wishing to leave the organization, to lengthy solitary confinements, severe beatings, and torture of dissident members.” A 2009 study by the RAND Corporation alleged that MEK displayed various “cult characteristics,” such as “intense ideological exploitation and isolation,” “sexual control,” “emotional isolation,” and other such tactics.
In April, Facebook exposed a troll farm run by the MEK. However, the illicit initiative “achieved little to no audience visibility,” largely failing to gain significant numbers of new followers, according to Facebook.
By Justin Rohrlich, The Daily Beast
A group of former members and high-rankings of the MEK Cult appeared at the headquarters of the International Court of Justice in the Hague on Monday, July 5, 2021. The Plaintiffs submitted related documents to the Secretariat of the International Court of Justice.The documents were initially examined and registered in the Secretariat office.
A number of MEK cult ex-members held an action in front of the Supreme Court in The Hague and exposed the crimes of the MEK leaders by installing banners and distributing announcements.
Ghafour Fatahian and Isa Azade
Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), also called Hashd al-Shaabi, held a parade in Camp Ashraf, the longtime headquarters of the Mujahedin Khalq Organization (MKO/ MEK/ PMOI/ Cult of Rajvi) in Iraq.
Camp Ashraf in northwest of Baghdad was donated to MEK by Saddam Hussein the group’s major financial and military sponsor. It was the group’s main base in the eight years of the war Saddam Hussein imposed on Iran. And, it was there that Massoud Rajavi built his cult of personality, practiced cut-like activities, trained terrorist forces, launched attacks against Iranian country fellowmen and punished his own dissident members.
After the collapse of the Iraqi dictator in 2003, the US army surrounded the camp and disarmed MEK forces. The camp was officially closed after the last 280 residents were flown to Albania, in 2016.
Hashd al-Shaabi parade in Camp Ashraf
The parade that was held by Hashd al-Shaabi on Saturday morning to celebrate the seventh anniversary of the founding of PMF was in the presence of Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi, who is also commander-in-chief of the armed forces.
Numerous PMF brigades marched in the parade, including Shiite, Christian, and Yazidi, according to images and video shared by the PMF-linked media sources. An image of Abu Madhi al-Muhandis, the PMF commander killed alongside Iran’s General Qasem Soleimani in a US drone strike in Baghdad in January 2020, was carried in the parade.
Camp Ashraf was a symbolic container for the ideology of MEK. The group leaders still glorify the name so as they named their headquarters in Albania as Camp Ashraf Three.
While the objective of regime change in Iran has been seemingly firm since the Mujahedin Khalq Organization (MKO/ MEK/ PMOI/ Cult of Rajavi) came into conflict with the newly established Iranian government in the early 1980s, the strategy to achieve the objective has changed from time to time based on the circumstances.
Having been disarmed by the US army in 2003 –after the collapse of the MEK’s former sponsor Saddam Hussein– the propaganda campaign of the group became comprehensive. Today, various events including gatherings and demonstrations, publications and media are considered as the group’s most important strategic weapons. Meanwhile, social media has helped it with more intensive activity. However, it has not been so simple for the group to run its propaganda machine.
Having been described as a terrorist organization, MEK has endured efforts to change the world community’s view of them. They have worked vigorously to make connections with Western politicians, and organize press conferences, rallies and demonstrations in North America and Europe. Maryam Rajavi has hosted the so-called NCRI conferences in Washington DC, Paris, Brussels and now in Tirana, Albania.
The offensive multi-million-dollar lobbying campaign of the group has yielded some results. The campaign has offered them support from some American and European politicians. For the United States’ part, it allegedly includes representatives, senators, ex-generals, former ambassadors and current policymakers of all political stripes including former United States security adviser John Bolton and Donald Trump’s lawyer Rudi Giuliani.
MEK also pays its guests large sums to speak at its rallies. It has been said that the group receives financial support from Saudi Arabia. Saudi speakers have participated in the group’s rallies, for instance Prince Turki al-Faisal, who is a former intelligence chief and diplomat attended and spoke in the group’s gathering in 2016.
The group also organizes demonstrations against Iran in several countries including Scandinavia. In the so-called demonstrations –that hardly ever comprise a dozen of participants– the group calls the West to isolate and put more pressure on the Iranian government through sanctions and even military actions.
In fact, the very famous proverb “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” is often used to understand the support of Western politicians for MEK. It is suggested that this is easiest way to irritate and pressure Tehran, and not necessarily an expression of a real belief that MEK is an alternative to the Iranian government.
Underground protests have dramatically increased among members of the Mujahedin Khalq Organization, now based in the group’s headquarters in the region of Durres in Albania.
As long as the history of the Mujahedin Khalq as a cult of personality under the rule of Massoud Rajavi, clandestine dissent has been on going among the rank and file. According to former members of the Cult of Rajavi, disagreements and demands for defection from the cult-like system of the group, has enhanced since the group’s relocation in Albania.
Based on the news from the insiders, protesters who are afraid of voicing their dissent, write slogans against the group’s leaders on the walls of bathrooms where they are not under the supervision of commanders. This has happened on different occasions which indicates the rise in the number of dissident members who want to leave the group but they are intimidated by verbal and physical abuse on daily cult jargons.
A member of Mujahedin-e Khalgh walks in a street at the Ashraf-3 camp. Photo:Gent shkullaku/AFP
Although most members of MEK refuse to express their opinions openly because of fears of torture and abuse committed by the group commanders, the increase in the number of defections from the group since its arrival in Albania has been indicative of an increase of dissatisfaction.
According to unofficial data, since the resettlement of MEK in Albania, more than 400 people have left this group, regardless of those suspicious cases who have been killed mysteriously inside Camp Ashraf 3 in Manez, Durres, Albania.
The rise of protests in the Cult of Rajavi has plunged the leaders of the group into alternative ways to prevent the spread of protests among the rank and file, in addition to conventional methods of the organization, including solitary confinement and peer pressure. In this regard, all members of the group have been ordered to sign an engagement letter to stay in the group until the overthrow of the Iranian government –which according to the leaders of the group has been always close during the past forty years.
The headquarters of the Mujahedin Khalq Organization (MKO/ MEK/ PMOI/ Cult of Rajavi) is called Camp Ashraf 3. The thought-provoking point about the newly-built camp is that it is very similar to the group’s headquarters in Iraq, Camp Ashraf, which was located in Diyala Province, about 120 kilometers west of the Iranian border and 60 kilometers north of Baghdad. As the group’s new base in the heart of Europe, in north of Tirana, Camp Ashraf 3 is still under construction.
However, the headquarters of the MEK in Albania is much smaller than the notorious Camp Ashraf in Iraq, which covered an area of about 50 km from the Diyala deserts in Iraqi territory. But Camp Ashraf 3 is built precisely by copying the buildings and monuments of Camp Ashraf.
The organization’s instructions to build the new camp parallel to Camp Ashraf must be based on two reasons. Firstly, it connotes the same atmosphere to members of the group and may be able to stop the impressions of failure and frustration from expulsion from Iraq. Secondly, it may create this mental orientation for disappointed and dissident members –whose number is increasingly on the rise—- that nothing has changed and they should remain at service of the group and its cause. Actually, according to the leaders, members should not expect any change!
A member of Mujahedin-e Khalgh walks in a street at the Ashraf-3 camp. Photo:Gent shkullaku/AFP
According to members who managed to escape from the MEK’s camp in Albania, the buildings of the camp are apparently interior and exterior like what it was in Camp Ashraf, Iraq. The names of the streets, the number of the rooms and the way they use the rooms and buildings, exactly the same way they were used in Camp Ashraf, Iraq.
The shut down of Camp Ashraf and the eventual expulsion of the MEK from Iraq is considered to be the most disappointing blow in the history of the Cult of Rajavi, following the long years of promising to overthrow the government in Tehran. The closure of Camp Ashraf marks the failure of the Rajavis to meet their promises and more importantly annihilation of lives of thousands of their members.
An Irish lawmaker has apologized for delivering an address to an event held by the Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO), an exiled anti-Iran terrorist group that has killed thousands of Iranians since its formation.
Fine Gael TD Jennifer Carroll MacNeill addressed an online event hosted by the MKO on March 8 to mark the International Women’s Day (IWD), after she was asked by a constituent to speak at an “online parliamentary conference” to celebrate the day.
In her address, she expressed solidarity with “brave, brave Iranian women who have been actively taking part in and standing at the forefront of the anti-regime protests.”
However, MacNeill says now that the invitation she received in relation to the event did not make any reference to the MKO, “nor was I ever aware or made aware of any link between the event and this organization.”
Since it was founded, the MKO launched a campaign of bombings and assassinations in Iran. The terrorist group also fought alongside Iraqi forces in the former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein’s war on Iran in the 1980s.
Irish lawmaker Jennifer Carroll MacNeill
Widely known as a cult, the MKO is currently based in Albania, where it enjoys freedom of activity after being delisted as a terrorist organization by the European Union and the United States in 2009 and 2012, respectively.
“I apologize for any link, no matter how remote, unwitting or inadvertent, to any such organization. The invitation made no such reference and my motivation was entirely about the advancement of women’s rights on International Women’s Day in a country where women’s rights are very considerably behind where we would hope they would be,” she claimed, speaking to the Sunday Independent.
Press TV has visited an Iranian family that was exposed to a terror attack carried out by a formidable US-backed terror group, known as the MKO.
In spite of its claims to favor gender equality and women’s rights, the MKO is particularly notorious for sexually abusing its female members, with a number of its defectors having spoken out in recent years about forced sexual relations with Masoud Rajavi, the leader of the group who is believed to be dead.
“There was a strong pressure” on MKO women to initiate sexual relationships with Rajavi “to show your commitment to the leader and the group,” Batool Sultani, a former MKO commander, recalled in an interview with the Intercept published last year. Sultani defected in 2006.
Another defector, identified as Sima, said that in 1995 “Rajavi gave every single woman in the organization a pendant and told us that we are all connected to him and to no other man.”
Sima told the Intercept that she was forced to divorce her husband and, like Sultani, eventually became sexually involved with Rajavi.
“When you are under brainwashing, you would do anything and everything,” she said. “You would do any military operation, you would go and have sexual relations with your leader, you would sell information and intelligence. We were under constant control by the leader.”
Regardless of its ill fame, the MKO has in recent years held numerous big events attended by senior American, Israeli and Saudi officials, including the late US Senator John McCain, former mayor of New York City Rudy Giuliani, former US National Security Advisor John Bolton, former US Senator Joe Lieberman, and former director of Saudi Arabia’s intelligence agency Turki bin Faisal Al Saud.
