Maryam Rajavi tries to cover her violence under benevolent gestures but the Iranian people’s hatred returns the path of the bullet against herself
The MEK and the Iranian People
Ms. Ann Singleton wrote the book Saddam’s Private Army in 2003 on “How Rajavi changed Iran’s Mojahedin from armed revolutionaries to an armed cult”
![Rajavi and Saddam](https://www.nejatngo.org/en/wp-content/uploads/Rajavi_Saddam_25.jpg)
Part One – From prison to Ideological Revolution
Chapter 1 – Historical context
Chapter 2 – Rajavi’s first bid for power
Chapter 3 – National Council of Resistance
Chapter 4 – Foreign Relations
Chapter 5 – Armed Struggle
Chapter 6 – Internal Relations
Chapter 7 – Ideological Revolution
Part Two – From Ideological Revolution to Cult Status
Chapter 8 – Internal Relations
Chapter 9 – Armed Struggle
Chapter 10 – Foreign Relations
Chapter 11 – Rajavi’s second bid for power
Chapter 12 – Internal Relations
Chapter 13 – National Council of Resistance
Part Three – The Mojahedin in the Present
Chapter 14 – Dissent within the Mojahedin
Chapter 15 – Political Scene
Iran has said talks will still go ahead in Vienna in spite of an attack on its nuclear facility at Natanz on Sunday. Foreign Minister Javad Zarif said Israel was behind the cyber-attack but stressed Iran would not fall into the trap of halting talks. Indeed, efforts to move beyond the Trump legacy in relation to the JCPOA last week have been constructive. Shuttle (or rather hotel hopping) diplomacy between Iran and America with France, Germany, UK, China, Russia and EU negotiators acting as go between have brought the sides closer to agreement. All sides have been willing to engage. The Americans – the Biden administration – frontingtrea a deeply divided nation successfully navigated the dangerous rocks of the domestic audience. Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister for Political Affairs Abbas Araghchi later reported there were signs that the Americans would be willing to lift all the sanctions in one go to return to the JCPOA. Talks resume this week.
It is inevitable though that as the two sides inch toward making workable compromises that will lead to the reinstatement of the JCPOA, enemies of the deal will do their utmost to derail it. As well as Israel, Saudi Arabia and US neocons are poised to oppose. For this reason, at the outset of the talks the Iranians passed their concerns to the Austrian police and security services, warning that the Albanian based Mojahedin-e Khalq terrorist cult would be sure to lob a symbolic stink bomb or two to toxify the atmosphere. Forewarned, Austrian police were able to curtail MEK activity, except for one lone MEK protestor who managed to shout at Araghchi and his colleague as they emerged from the building to get into their car.
This alone was such a trivial incident that analysts examining the talks in Vienna may be forgiven for missing the significance of this small detail. But there it was, hidden in plain sight, the west’s go to tool for regime change. The MEK, as ever, threatening to hijack the Iran agenda. It is beyond a joke that this rogue group which is infamous for using violence – whether in terrorist attacks in and beyond Iran, against its own members and former members, in the service of Israeli assassinations and false ops – and which threatens mass suicide whenever it feels existentially threatened, should be free to deploy ‘protesters’ to interrupt these high-level talks in Europe.
How come the MEK is still tolerated?
It’s certain that the Biden administration officials did not want the MEK to interfere in these efforts to engage Iran in talks. It’s even likely that the majority of Republicans would not condone this. The MEK has become synonymous with Donald Trump’s approach to Iran – fabricate and inflate the threat posed by Iran to the Middle East (read Israel and Saudi Arabia), and threaten war and punish the whole country with extreme sanctions. This cannot be and was not the American opening position in Vienna this week.
Even Facebook has tired of them and their ilk. Last week, Facebook blocked 300 MEK-linked accounts; though this is the tip of the iceberg in terms of MEK’s social media presence. After 2017, the MEK took advantage of the Trump administration’s confrontational approach to Iran and built a slave camp in Albania under the auspices of the CIA in which it housed a click farm and troll accounts to unduly influence western opinion on Iran. It was in this camp, remember, that Rudi Giuliani symbolically spat on and tore up a copy of the JCPOA document.
However, it is worth noting that the majority of the MEK’s propaganda sites and social media accounts are in English. Their Farsi presence is negligible. The few Farsi sites they have are only viewed in the hundreds by their own supporters. Among the 80 million population of Iran the MEK are either unknown or hated as a treacherous group that sided with Saddam Hussein to attack their homeland in the 80-88 war. For a group which has spent millions of dollars and uses click farm slaves to convince western policy makers that the group is the vanguard of regime change, they have not shown any evidence that anyone in Iran is behind them – or even aware of them. So, to answer the question, ‘why are the MEK still here in 2021?’ It’s not because they are successful, it’s because no one has chosen to stop them.
As the Vienna talks demonstrate, rolling back the Trump administration’s errors in relation to Iran can be difficult. In some cases, such as the assassination of general Qasem Soleimani, impossible. But direct talks are not the only means to that end. We wrote in January that a quick, effective and pain free policy win for Biden on Iran would be to return to the Obama administration’s plan to dismantle the MEK in Albania. This would achieve several outcomes. It would signal to the Iranian people that America will not pursue a foreign policy based on terrorism and violence against them. It would free the two thousand slave members of the MEK in Albania and allow them to return to their families and civilian life. It would help stem an inflow of some foreign funds into America that is used to skew analysis and policy making on Iran. (The MEK is funded largely by Saudi Arabia and amplifies its anti-Iran propaganda.) It would also, and this is relevant at this moment, rob the Iranian hardliners of their weapon; the MEK is used as the stick to beat the west over ‘terrorist interference’ in the country, as indeed happened in Vienna. If compromise is to be reached, the Iranians should at least not be given grounds by the MEK presence there to complain of American double standards.
By Massoud and Anne Khodabandeh
Moises Garduño is a Professor of the Faculty of Political and Social Sciences of the National Autonomous University of Mexico where he teaches Middle East Studies and Arabic Language. He is also PhD candidate in Contemporary Arab and Islamic Studies at the Faculty of Philosophy of Autonomous University of Madrid. His article titled “The collective action of Mujahedeen-e Khalq Organization (MKO): evolution, interests and current situation” was published on volume 51 of the Estud. Asia Áfr. Journal in 2016.
This paper defends the hypothesis that the political survival of the Mojahedin-e Khalq-e Iran Organization (The Fighters of the People of Iran) is dependent upon the recognition of this group’s joint interests with the political competitors of the Islamic Republic of Iran and not due to the effectiveness of any discursive or political project as these might relate to the Iranian society at large. The abstract reads:
For over three decades MKO has survived and operated against the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran supported by Saddam Hussein (in eighties) and for several personalities of the U.S. and some European governments in nowadays under National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI). Led by the charismatic Maryam Rajavi, wife of the movement’s official leader Massoud Rajavi, MKO promotes the establishment of”The Democratic Islamic Republic of Iran”, a project that displays that Islam, democracy and human rights can be implemented in”a future and new Iranian state. However, its history full of political treachery, terrorist acts and harassment against its own members, casts doubt on the authenticity of its political project which, with the unfavorable international environment faced since the departure of the U.S. troops from Iraq in 2009, questions its legitimacy and future as a political organization.
From time to time, Iranian users of the social media succeed to soar trends against the Mujahedin Khalq Organization (MKO/ MEK/ PMOI/ Cult of Rajavi) in order to show their hatred toward this violent group. They sometime give evidences for the hashtags to denounce the group.
Many People in Iran and around the world disclosed evidences of the most odious crimes committed by the terrorist MKO as hashtag #BanMEK was trending worldwide, Tasnim reported in June 2018.
A huge number of Persian-language internet users used hashtag هزارجلادهزاراشرف# (Thousand of Executioners,
Thousands of Ashrafs) on their personal accounts on Instagram and Twitter as the English version of the hashtag #BanMEK is trending on the social networking sites.
These hashtags became popular after the MKO’s leader, Maryam Rajavi, used Twitter to provoke unrest in Iran following protests over price hikes in the Grand Bazaar of capital, Tehran, on Monday.
In one of the posts on Twitter, a user says the MKO terrorists are the same persons who used to tear the abdomen of a pregnant woman just for a bet on the baby’s gender.
The MKO crimes emerge on social media as Iran on Thursday marked the anniversary of the 7th of Tir bombing, a terrorist attack in 1981 claimed by the MKO.
On June 28th, 1981 – the 7th of Tir 1360 in the Iranian calendar– a powerful bomb blasted at the headquarters of the Iran Islamic Republic Party in Tehran, while the members in a meeting.
72 officials of the Islamic Republic were killed, including Chief Justice Ayatollah Mohammad Beheshti – who was the speaker of the parliament – four cabinet ministers, 27 members of the Parliament and several other government officials.
The MKO – listed as a terrorist organization by much of the international community – fled Iran in 1986 for Iraq and was given a camp by former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.
They fought on the side of Saddam during the Iraqi imposed war on Iran (1980-88). They were also involved in the bloody repression of Shiite Muslims in southern Iraq in 1991 and the massacre of Iraqi Kurds.
The notorious group is also responsible for killing thousands of Iranian civilians and officials after the victory of the Islamic revolution in 1979.
More than 17,000 Iranians, many of them civilians, have been killed at the hands of the MKO in different acts of terrorism including bombings in public places, and targeted killings.
The MKO also had a hand in the massacre of Kurds following the crushing of a 1991 uprising by Shiites in Iraq’s south and Kurds in the north, which was one of the most brutal acts of repression under Saddam Hussein.
First published in June 2018
In response to the recent message of the Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO)’s leader, in which he ordered the group’s terror cells to initiate widespread assassinations throughout Iran, families of Iranian victims of terrorism have written a letter to the international institutions of the European Union calling for legal proceedings against this terrorist group.
“The families of terror victims in Iran call on all international authorities and institutions in the European Union to, along with restricting the activities of this group in Europe, prosecute the leaders of this terrorist group in an international court with the presence of their victims,” the letter read.
According to this letter, the MKO leader’s order demonstrates adoption of a violent strategy towards the judicial process and the court hearing on March 8 and 9, 2021 where a large number of former members filed a complaint about years of torture and violation of human rights by this group.
As the open letter points out: “the group’s recent move to establish terror cells in Iran and their acts of sabotage and violence, which is officially admitted and prompted by the group, proved that the MeK is still a militant cult and a far cry from becoming an opposition group.”
Referring to The MKO’s location in Europe and freely activity of its members in European countries, families of Iranian terror victims warned that the group’s previous crimes and the violent threats its leader made on March 8 as well as any upcoming terrorist acts and assassinations in Iran, are partly the responsibility of the countries which have sheltered this group.
Read the full text of the letter below:
We are the families of the victims of assassinations and violence of the terrorist group Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization (aka MKO, MeK, PMOI) who lost our children, parents and grandparents in targeted and blind operations of this group. We have repeatedly protested against the negligence of international institutions in carrying out their obligations such as restraining this group and taking necessary measures to start prosecuting its leaders for their terrorist acts and crimes against humanity.
In our earlier correspondence, we had warned that ignoring their violent acts and behaviors would lead to this group’s return to violence and aggression.
As a result of this negligence, on March 8, Massoud Rajavi, leader of the Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization who has been living in hiding for nearly two decades due to fear of criminal prosecution and has been leaving occasional voice messages for members of his cult, broadcast a message to members of his terror cells known as”rebel centers”in which he ordered them to make use of weapons and initiate widespread assassinations throughout Iran.
This order of the MKO leader clearly demonstrates adoption of a violent strategy towards the judicial process and the court hearing on March 8 and 9, 2021 where a large number of former members filed a complaint about years of torture and violation of human rights by this group.
Fearing that ex-members of his cult sue him in court in Tehran and disregarding dozens of international documents on MeK crimes, terrorist acts and violation of human rights, Massoud Rajavi has escaped forward and invited Iranian officials to appear in an international court. On the other hand, former members and survivors of this terrorist group demand to go to an international court of law along with Massoud Rajavi and other leaders of this group to be fairly judged. Do Massoud Rajavi and his wife, as leaders of this cult, dare to appear in an international court of law before the victims of the crimes they have committed? And are EU officials and international institutions based in this continent ready to hold such a trial? This is the legal obligation of European officials and institutions. The MeK is located in Europe and its members travel freely in it. Therefore, the group’s previous crimes and the violent threats its leader made on March 8 as well as any upcoming terrorist acts and assassinations in Iran, are partly the responsibility of the countries which have sheltered this group.
In his message which promoted violence, leader of the MeK called on his elements to provide his rebel centers, with names and addresses of employees of Iran’s military, security and judicial institutions so that for what he calls the”Great Day of Justice”, weapons can be fired at their chests! In the message, Rajavi made mention of the early years after the 1979 revolution when his group’s death squads assassinated Iranian civilians and officials. He requested the rebel centers to do the same.
As mentioned, numerous reports have been published by the research centers, governmental institutions and western intelligence agencies about this cult and its threats.
The FBI’s 1987 report; a Court of Appeals document on June 25, 1999, based on a CIA Report; US Government Statement in 1997; a report by Canada’s SIRC in 1992; US Department of Justice’s report in April 2009; State Department’s Reports in 2004, 2005, and 2006; Executive Order No. 13224 by the US Secretary of State on Terrorist Financing of the National Council of Resistance and the Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization in August 2003; US Court of Appeals’ verdicts in 1999, 2005, and 2009; FBI’s reports in August 2002 and November 2004; a report by the American Institute for Political Studies (IPS) in 2012; a 2005 Human Rights Watch report named No Exit; German BfV agency’s reports in 2004 and 2005; a document regarding the MEK’s inclusion in the European Union terrorist list printed in the Official Journal of the Union in December 2007; a report by security service of North Rhine-Westphalia State in October 2005; the 2008 North Rhine-Westphalia State Protection Office’s Report; Foreign Affairs Committee of the British Parliament’s report in July 2003; the British Foreign Relations Committee’s report in July 2004; official Statement by the UK Foreign Secretary in May 2008; Statement by the French Minister for Justice in June 2003; Swedish Government Resolution on 2 September 2004, and Swedish Immigration Office Decision against the MEK; EU Declaration on 5 April 2002; the US Deputy Secretary of State’s reports to Congress and the Foreign Affairs Committee of House of Representatives in October 1994; the 2009 Rand Corporation’s report; Saban Center for Middle East Policy’s report in June 2009; Columbia Court of Appeals’ report in 2010; and US Council on Foreign Relations’ report in July 2014.
These documents, reports and verdicts are only part of what proves the violence and terrorism of the Mojahedin. The group, which was disarmed in 2003 as a militant group affiliated with Saddam Hussein’s regime following the US invasion of Iraq, has since acted in Europe, pretending itself as a political group opposed to the Iranian government. However, the group’s recent move to establish terror cells in Iran and their acts of sabotage and violence, which is officially admitted and prompted by the group, proved that the MeK is still a militant cult and a far cry from becoming an opposition group. One should add to it the recent order of Massoud Rajavi to the terror cells to identify Iranian citizens working in judicial and military institutions and “execute justice on them”.
The families of terror victims in Iran once again call on all international authorities and institutions in the European Union to, along with restricting the activities of this group in Europe, prosecute the leaders of this terrorist group in an international court with the presence of their victims. We also declare our full readiness to cooperate in this process by providing the required documents to the responsible institutions.
To:
European Commission
Council of the European Union
European parliament
Secretariat of the European Parliament
European Court of Human Rights
Court of Justice of the European Union
Council of Europe Committee on Counter-Terrorism
Sincerely yours,
Habilian Association (Families of Iranian victims of terrorism)
March 12, 2021
Having a social base requires the support of the majority, and if there is no support, no base will be created. One of the claims of the Mojahedin Khalq Organization is that the majority of Iranians support them, and this is while the Iranian people clearly hate this group and have no interest in supporting them, that I will discuss the causes of this hatred in the following.
This group carried out many terrorist operations and in the early days of the revolution, many shopkeepers, students, etc. were assassinated for various reasons, such as attending mosques and installing pictures of Imam Khomeini or even having a beard.
![MKO Terrorist Operations](https://www.nejatngo.org/en/wp-content/uploads/MKO_Terrorist_Ops_T.jpg)
After a while, these assassinations turned to a new face and took the form of bombings and mortar shells, which is why people call them terrorists.
The war between Iran and Iraq is one of the reasons why people hate MKO, and they attacked Iran on behalf of Saddam in Operation Forough Javidan, and that is why the people see them as a traitor.
Another reason why MKO doesn’t have a social status among the people is the suppression of the opposition and the destruction of the critics, who, due to the sectarian nature of this group, minimized the tools of opposition within the group and suppressed any protests within the organization with imprisonment, torture and physical purification (Assassinating). They insult the opponents and critics outside the organization and call them mercenaries and spies.
The policy of the Mojahedin-e Khalq group is called”with us or against us”and if anyone is other than these two, they insult and humiliate that person.
Hypocrisy in the behavior of MKO caused the people not to trust this group. They were ostensibly pro-Islamic and for this reason, they were able to enter Iran’s parliament during the revolution, but behind the scene, they sought to collect weapons to overthrow the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Contrary to the internal dictatorship of Maryam and Massoud Rajavi and their uncritical behavior towards external critics, they showed themselves to be pro-democracy, and the mismatch between the outward and inward behavior of MKO caused the Iranian people to call them hypocrites and distrustful.
One of the reasons for the increase in sanctions against Iran was the cooperation of MKO with the enemies of Iran, who made life difficult for the people by giving false information and spending a lot of money, and the harder the life of the people became, the more their hatred for MEK increased.
Even now, MEK is using violence as a practical tool to achieve their goals, and this is another reason why people do not support this group.
Some believe that the group is like a personality-oriented cult and that only the goals and aspirations of its leadership are important, and the claims of their members that this group is a people-based political movement, is completely false and untrue.
In her book”Chador in the Torn Heart of Iran”, Ms. Lili Gruber writes in an article entitled”Cyanide Tablet”that:
The Mojahedin lost the same small amount of trust and popularity among the Iranian people by launching a war between Iran and Iraq and betraying their country and people, unlike groups such as the Kurds and the Northern Alliance used by the United States in Iraq, the Mojahedin are severely isolated and have no support network to assist them in their sabotage operations.
Many party leaders agree that: the MEK is a cult, not a political party.
The noteworthy point is that MEK is not only unpopular among the Iranian people but in addition to spending a lot of money and working abroad, they also have no place among the opposition groups.
But the question that comes to mind is that given that the MEK does not have supporters inside and outside, then how do they bring a large crowd in their ceremonies? And for example, where did the population of three thousand people in Albania come from?
According to studies conducted in some reports, the MEK mentioned the numbers higher than what they really are, for example, in a conference, the number of participants was announced as 90,000, while the reporter who was present there, had estimated that the number of people was 9,000.
For example, in an interview with a Kyrgyz student, Alina Alimkova, Radio Farda, which is run by the US Congress, said that she came across an advertisement for a cheap trip to Paris on the Internet, which included a round-trip ticket, a week stay in a four-star hotel and … all for 35 euros, and by e-mail to the authorities, she realized that she had to take part in a political demonstration and chant Persian slogans to participate in this tour, and when she got on the bus, she realized that Many students are from Russia, the Czech Republic, Ukraine, and Central Asia.
In any case, they tricked the youth and students with every trick so that they could gather people for themselves, and if anyone refused to participate in these political demonstrations, that person would have to pay all the travel expenses.
As for the people living in Albania, most of them were recruited at the beginning of the revolution because of their good social positions, or they are the children of people who were born in Iraq and then sent to Europe to be brainwashed.
Some were taken captive during the Iran-Iraq war, and during Saddam’s visit, it was decided that some would join the MKO to escape the harsh conditions of the Iranian prisoner-of-war camps in Iraq.
The other part that was recruited came to Ashraf with false promises of work, residence, money, and so on.
Another point to note is that Ashraf keeps the identification documents of the people, including their passports and identification documents so that the people do not escape from the camp, and in case of escape, they are without identity.
In one of the memoirs of the members who left the organization, it is mentioned that “I handed over my documents and they put a notebook in front of me and told me to choose any name I wanted, and from now on I had to live in the camp with a fake name.”
BY David Brooks, Ahtribute
Since the Islamic Revolution of Iran in February 1979, the MEK’s militia has killed over 12000 Iranian civilians. The group’s long record of crimes has been corroborated by a number of reports and documents published by Iranian and international organizations. On one hand MEK has been forced to work under the cover of political processes, but on the other hand it’s natural tendency for radicalism drives it to violence. That’s why the group is forming terror cells throughout the Iranian cities under various names to prove its existence for its supporters and disappointed rank and files. What follows is an interview with Dr. Salman Omrani, faculty member of Imam Sadiq University Law School.
![Omrani](https://www.nejatngo.org/en/wp-content/uploads/Omrani.jpg)
Habilian: As you know, MEK has been forming and expanding terror cells for acts of sabotage in recent years under the name of “rebel centers”. These terror cells are on a mission to launch arson attacks on the government and private buildings. MEK actively uses internet to provoke unrests and provide trainings for group attacks on police forces or demolition of power lines, etc. What’s your take on these activities?
Dr. Omrani: Needless to say, the primary basis for the establishment of this group before the Islamic Revolution was political change through violence, assassination, killing, destruction and terrorizing civilians and government officials and they kept the strategy after the Islamic Revolution. Although, the group has tried to represent a political face in the recent years, it made no changes in its organizational activities and it has tried to keep its armed capability. In fact, the reorganization of the forces in the form of rebel centers is an effort to retrieve the former strategy and declare power as an armed group. Regarding the behaviors you mentioned, training and inciting people to violence is an act of crime in all the legal systems and will be dealt with decisively. Without a shadow of a doubt these behaviors are criminal offenses.
Habilian: MEK leaders have repeatedly supported their terror cells and released videos of their activities in their media, showing that they are keeping pictures of the MEK leaders. Moreover, some high-ranking MEK members as Mehdi Barai has quite openly referred to their “rebel cells” as their former militia known as the National Liberation Army. They are apparently moving towards violent and terrorist acts. Would you please explain the potential legal consequences of these activities for the MEK?
Dr. Omrani: The groups’ strategy for not being listed as a terrorist group has made them adopt more meticulous stances towards terrorist activities. They have made a great deal of effort not to take credit for terrorist behaviors lest they suffer legal consequences. However, as you mentioned, the key members of the group have acknowledged the formation of these centers to prove themselves over other opposition groups. This matter is of critical importance as the attribution process and assessing the criminal responsibility of terrorist groups are extremely complicated in legal proceedings. Sometimes, attributing a criminal act to an organization is quite impossible owing to the group’s terrorist nature and its complex organizational communications and the judge can only deal with the crimes committed by the people at the scene. Since the well-known members of the MEK have openly took responsibility for the creation of these [terror] cells and their criminal sabotage acts, the ground has been prepared for criminal prosecution of this group in the courts of other countries. Based on these positions, the IRI government can file a lawsuit in every country hosting the organization. In other words, classifying the political and militant wings of the MEK in these countries is well within the capacity [of Iran]. Additionally, their assets will be frozen and given to victims of their criminal attacks through a litigation in hosting countries. Finally, their members will be tried and expelled from those countries.
Habilian: How about the governments providing support for the group? Would they be prosecuted as well?
Dr. Omrani: Backing and facilitating terrorist crimes constitute a crime under international law and the domestic laws of most countries and the governments are obliged to block all the possible pathways to terrorism. Proving the group’s terrorist nature paves the ground for condemning their political and financial supporters as their accomplices in terror acts or promoting terrorism. There is also potential that the group’s supporting countries ask for compensation fund caused by the group’s crimes.
Habilian: A few weeks ago, MEK leader’s account in one of the social media platforms had been temporarily suspended for promoting terrorism and violence. It indicates the group tends to turn back to its violent and extremist nature, despite its claims of pursing a political and democratic path, which can be under the influence of Trump administrations’ coming to power in 2016 and their hope for him taking his seat again in the Oval Office. What’s your take on this?
Dr. Omrani: Indeed! Unfortunately upholding a law and implementing justice in the international sphere is more related to political matters than legal rules and regulations and MEK has regulated his activities in full knowledge of this reality. This is also probable that following the changes in the US administration, the group’s crimes and stances undergo changes, refraining from taking credit for the operations. However, this will not erase their recent activities and there is still potential for prosecuting the group in their hosting or other countries.
The MEK was founded in 1965 by a group of students from Tehran University who opposed the Shah’s regime. Pahlevi’s policy of alignment with the US and westernization of the country displeased a part of the society, which saw in it a loss of its own values and traditions. It is a heterogeneous group where Marxists and Islamists are mixed, who share the idea of direct action and armed struggle as a strategy of opposition to the Pahlevi regime, according to the website MEK, they are, in the mid 60’s the main group of opponents to the Shah’s regime in Iran. They call themselves the People’s Holy Warriors of Iran or MEK (Mujahedin and Khalq).
The intellectual middle classes and the working classes, are those that nurtured militants to the MEK during the first steps of the organisation, Masud Rajavi joins in 67 in Tehran, stand out as one of the ideologists of the group. After 6 years in which political ideas are shaped and a political ideology based on a mixture of Islam and Marxism is formed, the MKO is ready to carry out its first activity.
![MEK Women](https://www.nejatngo.org/sq/wp-content/uploads/blank.gif)
Women fighters armed with AK-47s in the National Liberation Army of Iran stand at attention during a flag ceremony at Camp Ashraf,Wednesday Jan 29 1997, 110 kilometeres northeast of the Iraqi capital Baghdad. The fighters are dedicated to overthrowing the Islamic regime in Iran and installing a multi-party democracy. (AP PHoto/ Jassim Mohammmed)
In the early 1970s they plan their first operation, the attack on Tehran’s electricity grid. However the operation fails, the SAVAK (Sazeman e Ettelaat va Amniyat e Keshvar), the Shah’s fearsome secret police, infiltrated into the MEK’s ranks, disrupts the operation. As a result several MKO activists are arrested and three of their leaders, Mohamed Hanifnejad, Saeid Mohsen and Ali Asghar Badizadegan are executed. An international campaign led by Kazem Rajavi, exiled in Switzerland, in which, according to the MKO website, Francoise Mitterrand, among others, participates, leads to Masud Rajavi, also sentenced to death, having his sentence commuted to life imprisonment.
The SAVAK was the intelligence agency of the Shah’s government, specialized in counter-intelligence and counter-insurgency work. It was formed in the late 1950s under the supervision of the CIA and placed under the direct command of the Prime Minister, personally supervised by the Shah. During the early 1960s it infiltrated all areas of Iranian civil society, workplaces, political, social and religious organisations and universities. He carried out censorship in the media, supervised applications for jobs in the state, while monitoring universities for dissidents. One of its main targets is the Tudeh Party, Iran’s communist party, a political organisation that gained considerable strength at the state level during Mossadeq’s rule but was reduced to a residual political force throughout the country in the early 1970s. The SAVAK in the mid-1970s has almost 15,000 members and an undetermined number of informants throughout the country. However, in the face of growing social unrest against the Shah, they are forced to collaborate with the police in a new organisation, the Anti-Sabotage Committee, to coordinate the fight against political dissent.
They are again turning their attention to relevant sectors of society, infiltrating student associations and labour organisations, both trade unions and employers’ organisations, and political parties and organisations considered to be on the left, including the MEK, although they also operate against conservative parties opposed to the Pahlevi regime. At present, the SAVAK has the capacity to control Iranian students studying outside the country, arresting those who are involved in political activities, including in third countries.
It is the CIA that provides capabilities to the SAVAK for the development of this type of operation. During the years before the revolution the SAVAK dismantled most political parties and organisations, did not hesitate to imprison, torture and execute political dissidents or any citizen involved in political actions or dissidents with the Shah’s regime. The SAVAK retaliates not only against those suspected of activities, described as subversive, their families and friends are also in the sights of the fearsome secret police. Confiscations of property, withdrawal of passports, loss of jobs are some of the consequences for families of the political activity of some of their members. They operate outside the law, under the direct control of the Shah, control the streets by operating with small groups and paramilitary organisations, have their own prisons and their own powers to detain or prosecute suspects. The last prime minister of the Pahlevi government, Sapor Bajtiar, faced with the drift of the protests against the Shah, tries to limit the power of the SAVAK by purging the organisation of officers who are followers of General Nematollah Nasirí, the former prime minister, but it is too late. With the march of the Pahlevi into exile in January 1979, Bajtiar dissolved the organisation and arrested its former leaders. In September of that year, the organisation disappeared for good under the direct supervision of Ayatollah Khomeini.
In spite of the difficulties and the danger that the political activity in Iran during the 70’s supposes, the actions of the MEK follow one another, achieving a certain relevance with attacks to American companies, Pepsi-Cola, General Motors or the air company PAN-AM, and American interests in Iran, attacks where civil and military personnel of the USA stationed in the country die. Little by little, throughout the decade, all the leaders of the MEK are imprisoned or victims of the violence of the SAVAK. In 1975, while Rajavi rots in the Shah’s jails, the Mek undergoes its first political split, by the Maoist wing of the organization. With the majority of its main leaders dead or in prison, one of the groups that make up the Mek, expresses in a manifesto its abandonment of Islam and declares Marxism the only engine of the revolution. The Islamic organisations opposed to the Pahlevi dictatorship were quick to declare the entire organisation Marxist, causing the MKO to lose much support among the popular classes, who were heavily influenced by religious rhetoric. In January 1979, Rajavi was released from prison, free and recognized as the only leader of the organization. The differences with the Islamic opposition organizations become more acute when they accuse Rajavi of collaborating with the SAVAK in exchange for his freedom. Despite these accusations he leads the Mek in the protests against the increasingly weak government of the Shah, causing a chain reaction throughout the country against the absolutism of the Pahlevi.
Finally, the protests lead to the overthrow and exile of Mohammed Reza Pahlevi, putting an end to his regime and giving way to the Islamic Revolution led by Ayatollah Khomeini. The differences with the Islamic organizations quickly surfaced, because although they coincided at first with the revolution and the processes that led to it, including the participation of the MEK in the assault on the US embassy in Tehran and the subsequent hostage crisis, since Rajavi is opposed to the release of the hostages decreed by Khomeini.
The rise to power of the ayatollahs implied the suppression of political parties, causing a definitive break with the movement led by Khomeini, until it became one of its main detractors. After the revolution, Masud Rajavi ran in the 1980 elections, his candidacy being vetoed by the Islamic organizations, so that the MEK supported the president who emerged from the first democratic elections in the country since 1951, Abol Hassan Banisadr in opposition to the PRI, the Party of the Islamic Republic of [Ayatollah]Khomeini.
The PRI, founded in 1979 by the clergymen Mohamed Javad Bahonar, Mohammad Beheshti, Akbar Hashemí Rafsanjaní, the current supreme leader of Iran, [Ayatollah]Alí Khamenei and Abdolkarim Musaví-Ardabilí, all of them very close to the leader of the revolution, Ayatollah Khomeini. The PRI was the unifying element around which Khomeini’s followers gathered in the early years of the Revolution. The principles of the party were based on the Revolution as a way of coming to power and on Islam as a political ideology, in opposition to economic liberalism. One year before the end of the conflict with Iraq, with the Ayatollahs firmly in power, the party is dissolved.
After the invasion of Iran in September 1980, Baghdad begins to finance and provide arms and resources to the MEK and makes the organisation its main source of information on Iran. Months later, pressure from the PRI and the Islamists forced Banisadr to resign from his post as president, and in the first months of 1981, the Mek, the president’s main political support, went over to the opposition, declaring a return to armed struggle as a form of political activity and making the PRI its main target.
After Banisadr’s dismissal in July 1981, Masud Rajavi founded the NCRI (National Council of Resistance of Iran), as the political arm of the MKO, to bring together the opposition, including the KDPI (Kurdish Democratic Party of Iran), the Kurdish Democratic Party of Iran, the Union of Communists of Iran and the Workers’ Party. Days after the dismissal of President Banisadr, after an intense campaign by the Iranian government against the MEK, Banisadr and Rajavi leave Iran and go into exile in Paris. Part of the MKO militants go to Europe, a second group goes to Iraq, and finally a third group of MKO militants remains in Iran, going underground to continue the armed struggle. In the NCRI an autocratic style of leadership is quickly revealed, so that the KDPI splits from the organisation.
![Rajaei Bahonar](https://www.nejatngo.org/sq/wp-content/uploads/blank.gif)
on August 30, 1981, a bomb attack by an MEK commando killed Iran’s new president, Mohammed Ali Rajai, and the new prime minister, Mohamed Javad Bahonar
During the summer of 1981 the MEK intensifies the attacks on high government officials, fails in its attempt to assassinate [Ayatollah]Ali Khamenei with a bomb, but on June 28, 1981 the MEK achieves one of its greatest successes, by attacking the headquarters of the PRI, killing 75 people, most of them workers. One of the dead in the attack is Ayatollah Mohammed Beheshti, number two in the Islamic Revolution after [Ayatollah]Khomeini. Two days later, on August 30, 1981, a bomb attack by an MEK commando killed Iran’s new president, Mohammed Ali Rajai, and the new prime minister, Mohamed Javad Bahonar. Rajai had taken office 15 days before the attack. That summer the MKO kills more than a hundred people.
In October 1981, Rajavi meets Tarek Aziz, Iraqi foreign minister, in Paris, and, granting himself the representation of all the opposition forces in exile, he theatricalizes a peace signature between Iran and Iraq, according to Rajavi, in the name of the Iranian people. The definitive alignment of the MEK with Iraq takes place in 1983, Abol Hassan Banisadr, separates from the NCRI and with him a great number of militants tired of Rajavi’s authoritarianism and the refusal to support Sadam Hussein’s aggressor government.
In 1985 Masud Rajavi divorces and marries Maryam Rajavi, formerly married to an MEK militant, whom he forces to divorce, according to various sources. From this moment on, both share the leadership of the organization. In 1987 the Mek was expelled from France, the terrorist actions attributed to the organisation attacked an Iranian diplomat in Madrid in the summer of that year, and the Mek’s alignment with Iraq in the conflict with Iran led to the Mek being used as a bargaining chip in the kidnapping of French citizens in Lebanon. In exchange for their release, France expelled the Mek from its territory.
The whole organisation is moved to Iraq, Saddam Hussein provides the necessary infrastructure for Rajavi and 1000 of his militants to settle in the country, military equipment, training and logistics. In exchange the MEK would be integrated as a combat force in the Iraqi army. Throughout that year, around 7000 people join the MKO in Iraq, most of them MKO militants, although some also join the opposition to the ayatollahs’ government. According to the NCRI, they remain independent of Baghdad, representing the interests of the people of Iran as the only valid interlocutors with the Iraqi government.
During the war, the MKO specialised in intelligence work and operations on both sides of the Iraqi-Iranian border, directly confronting the CGRI (Guardian Corps of the Islamic Revolution).
In Iraq Rajavi creates the ENL (National Liberation Army) as the armed arm of the MEK, it is also the moment when the organisation settles in Ashraf. It is the moment of greater collaboration with the Iraqi army, leading the attacks to localities in the border and participating in actions in which the Iraqis use massive gas attacks on Iran. On the other side of the border, the government’s efforts to break up the MKO result in arrests and executions of its militants. In early 1988, according to Human Rights Watch, nearly 2,000 of them were executed by members of the MKO, Kurdish and Tudeh militants captured on the front after Operation Mersad or Eternal Light, the last major offensive of the war, executed by the MKO with Iraqi support. In the same year, 5,000 MKO fighters took part in the battle of Kirkuk between the Kurdish rebels and the Iraqi army.
![Kurds Massacre](https://www.nejatngo.org/sq/wp-content/uploads/blank.gif)
MEK allied Saddam Hussein in Suppressing Iraqi Kurds
The end of the conflict led the MKO to increase its actions towards its ally in Baghdad, deploying troops and participating in Kurdish repression in Kirkuk and at the United Nations, where the NCRI was struggling to clean up the image of the organisation. The Rajavi were multiplying by giving press conferences as part of an intense propaganda effort. At the same time, they regularly carried out attacks in Iran, operating from Iraq.
In April 1992, the MKO began a chain of attacks against Iranian embassies and interests around the world, which meant that in 1997, the US and the EU included the MKO in the list of terrorist organisations. The NCRI blamed this on a goodwill gesture by the Clinton administration towards the reformist government of Mohammed Khatami.
The MKO’s terrorist actions did not stop after the organisation was placed on the list of terrorist organisations. Between 1998 and 2002, MKO activity multiplied, so much so that in 2002 all EU countries, Canada and Australia recognised the MKO and its political arm, the NCRI, as terrorist organisations.
In 2003, after the invasion of Iraq, the US reached a ceasefire agreement with the MKO, taking control of its main camp in Ashraf and five other smaller camps established throughout Iraq, Anzali, near the Iranian border, Bonyad in Baghdad, Alavi in Kut, Faezeh in Basra and Homayoun in Amara. The MKO accused the U.S. of attacking their camps, as a concession to the Tehran government, while in France, the government was operating against MKO interests throughout the country. At that time, the MKO was a large, fully operational fighting force, with 4,000 MKO members stationed at Ashraf, including about 600 vehicles, including tanks, armoured vehicles and transport, artillery and military equipment to arm about 10,000 fighters. It is at this point that Masud Rajavi disappears, his wife assuming responsibility for leading the organisation.
Between 2004 and 2005, an investigation by the USA was initiated to determine the involvement of the MEK in terrorist acts and war crimes that could constitute crimes against humanity, giving rise to a complaint by militants of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan in 2005 for war crimes against Rajavi. With the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime, the group lost its main source of funding and political support, and was forced to provide 2002 information to both the US and Israel on an Iranian nuclear programme, unbeknownst to the UN, detailing two facilities in Arak and Natanz for heavy water production and uranium enrichment. After obtaining this information, the United States recognized the right of the militants of the MEK in Iraq to the protection due to civilians in time of war. Until 2009, when the MKO camps came under the control of the Iraqi government, ELN members continued to train as military units preparing for combat, leading to clashes with the Iraqi armed forces between 2009 and 2013. In 2010, the Iraqi government evacuated Camp Ashraf, relocating MKO militants and their families near Baghdad’s international airport to a new camp called Hurriya or Camp Liberty, where the MKO says there are clashes and numerous crimes against its militants by the Iraqi army and allied Shi’a militias. Tehran is of course accused of instigating these attacks. In the same year, the Iraqi High Criminal Court requested Rajavi’s arrest on the basis of overwhelming evidence of the MKO’s involvement, among other operations, in the 1991 crackdown on Kurdish rebels. Again, despite the evidence, in September 2012, the US State Department removed the MKO from the list of terrorist organisations. According to the State Department, several factors were taken into account, including the MKO’s quick disposition towards a ceasefire in 2003, the resettlement and evacuation of its base in Ashraf, as well as an alleged renunciation of violence. Human Rights Watch attributes this to the organisation’s intensive lobbying of Western governments and political bodies. This decision was decisively influenced by the support of the group by prominent US politicians such as former governors Howard Dean and Edward Rendell or the former mayor of New York, Rudolph Giuliani, who from 2009 to 2012 actively participated in a campaign to remove the MKO from the list of terrorist organisations, influencing the US, the EU and the rest of the countries that had declared the MKO and the NCRI to be terrorist organisations.
![blank](https://www.nejatngo.org/sq/wp-content/uploads/blank.gif)
US-Delisted MEK Terrorists Still Openly Committed to Violence
In mid-2013, the MEK, under the umbrella of the NCRI, established a headquarters in the US, as a key pillar of the campaign to launder and clean up an organisation which, as we have seen, had not given up its weapons and for which there was more than enough evidence of its terrorist activities. In early 2017, Giuliani put pressure on President Donald Trump, urging him to recognize the NCRI as representatives of the Iranian exile and to open talks between this group and the US government. As part of the support that the Trump administration has given to the MEK, in 2017 one of the guests of honor at the NCRI congress was John Bolton, the other was Prince Turki bin Faisal Al Saud, former ambassador to London and Washington, who during his speech gave condolences to Maryam Rajavi, implying the death of Masud Rajavi. In June 2018, Giuliani was the star guest at the NCRI congress in France. He accused the Iranian government of being Marxist, terrorist and a sponsor of terrorism, recognized the NCRI as the resistance of the people of Iran, and insisted on the need for more belligerent policies against Tehran. Newt Gingrich, former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives and former presidential candidate, another active militant in the cause of the MKO, also spoke at this conference.
![MEK terrorists in Albania](https://www.nejatngo.org/sq/wp-content/uploads/blank.gif)
MEK was not embraced but imposed on Albania in 2016
Finally, in 2016 the MEK is relocated to Albania, in a camp near Tirana, after an agreement reached in 2013 between Barack Obama and Sali Berisha. According to the Balkan Post, the agreement included the construction of a de-radicalisation centre for MKO fighters from Iraq. According to this source, in reality the camp where the MKO militants have been resettled serves as a military training camp, where security is provided by the organisation and the Albanian government has no jurisdiction. The establishment of the MKO militants in Albania has created more than a few frictions between the Iranian and Albanian governments, the last disagreement following the death of Qasem Soleimani, when Iran called Albania a small and sinister country, an instrument in the hands of the USA, where the enemies of Iran hide, due to the presence of the MKO in its territory, where it has been settled since 2016. It has not gone beyond a mere exchange of declarations and accusations between Ilir Meta and Hassan Rohani, but it can be descriptive of the extent to which the MKO conditions Iran’s relations with third countries. According to Albanian media, the EU even looks at the presence of the MKO in Albania with suspicion.
During the first years of political action, the MKO shapes a political ideology dominated by two ideas, Islam and Marxism. Although God created the world, he also enlightened human beings so that through lessons as the powerhouse of history they would be able to shape the world. This political idea not only confronted the Mek with the Pahlevi regime, but also with Shiite orthodoxy, which considered the Mek’s erroneous interpretation of Islam as a mere excuse to justify terrorism.
With the founding of the NCRI, Rajavi gave the first signs of his authoritarian style of leadership, which, as we have already seen, led to the departure of several organisations from the NCRI.
The MEK went from being one of the most relevant organisations of the revolution that overthrew the Pahlevi, to becoming one of the most belligerent organisations with the government of Tehran. In 1985 Masud Rajavi initiated the ideological revolution of the MKO. Rajavi’s leadership cult was promoted and he came to control all aspects of the organisation, including the control of the militants, who were forbidden to leave the organisation, to control its assets and activities and to work for the organisation, adopting a structure at the organisational level more appropriate to a sect than a political party.
With the end of the war between Iraq and Iran and the need to change the image given during the years of the war as a terrorist organisation, the Rajavi abandoned the pseudo-Marxist revolutionary Islamic ideology and embraced, in the eyes of the world, liberal democracy, but without any democratic intention. By their own definition, they oppose the struggle between atheists and Muslims that the ayatollahs’ government promotes and proclaim themselves to be defenders of democracy in Iran. Or what is the same, part of the process of changing the group’s image since the end of the war is to adopt a more friendly image for the West, separating itself from the ideological Marxism adopted by some of the original organisations that formed the MEK 20 years earlier.
The MEK is a complex organisation that responds to a multitude of different acronyms. The MEK is the original organisation, from which the different branches and denominations that make it up derive. Of the different organisations that make up the MEK, the main one is the NCRI, which is considered the political branch of the MEK and is currently based in France. They define themselves as workers for freedom and democracy and declare themselves representatives of the Iranian opposition in exile. The organisation is presided by Maryan Rajavi and is organised around five secretaries and formed by 25 committees, with the aim of planning the future of Iran. These 25 committees act, according to the organisation, as the 25 ministers of the Iranian government in exile. According to the information provided by the NCRI website, the most relevant committees are the Foreign Affairs Committee, which is in charge of influencing both the United Nations and the different governments, political parties, NGOs and organisations of certain social relevance in the countries where they operate. The women’s committee, which works on the rights of Iranian women both outside and inside Iran. Defence Committee, which acts as a sort of intelligence agency, providing information on Iran and its missile programme. Political committee, which analyses the political situation in Iran. Security and anti-terrorism, again, work on intelligence actions against Iranian infiltration of the organisation and on cyber security. It also monitors and controls all the activities of the other committees and the organisation’s militants. Cultural Committee, according to information provided by the NCRI, organises and promotes events on Iranian culture and provides shelter to all artists fleeing the regime of the ayatollahs.
Under Rajavi’s supervision, they meet regularly in a main assembly at the Paris headquarters. They are represented both in the USA and in Europe, where they have delegations not only in France but also in England and Germany.
The ENL is considered the military branch of the MEK, responsible both for the combatants and for the planning and execution of operations.
![Maryam Rajavi](https://www.nejatngo.org/sq/wp-content/uploads/blank.gif)
Who is Maryam Rajavi?
The president of the NCRI and the MEK is Maryam Rajavi, wife of Masud Rajavi, born in Tehran in 1953. As a student at the university, she joined the MEK along with several of her brothers. The death and torture of several of her brothers in the Shah’s prisons definitely mark Rajavi. She is elected to parliament in the first elections after the escape of the Shah from Iran, but with the dismissal of the Banisadr in 81, she goes into exile in France. In 1985, the leadership of the NCRI is reorganised, Maryam Rajavi is appointed co-secretary general of the organisation, giving rise to a two-headed leadership shared by the Rajavi couple. In 1991, she took over the sole leadership of the organisation, as such she was accused by the Iranian government of being the main perpetrator of the MEK’s involvement in the repression of the Kurds in Iraq. In 1993 she is elected president of the NCRI, at the same time, she unilaterally proclaims herself president of Iran in exile. From this moment she carries out an intense work of proselytism and publicity of the organisation all over the world, especially Europe and the USA.
Since 2003 he has been pressing for the removal of both the MEK and the NCRI from the list of international terrorist organisations. That same year the DST (General Directorate of Foreign Security) arrested Rajavi and 20 members of the organisation at the headquarters in Auvers-sur-Oise, accused of keeping several million euros destined to finance terrorist actions. The mobilisation of MKO members led to a ban on MKO demonstrations by the Paris Prefecture following three attempts to immolate them in protest at the arrests. Two MKO members were arrested for incitement to suicide. This fact does not prevent Rajavi from continuing her political activity, being invited the following year to intervene in the European Parliament, where she is presented as the third option, accusing the West of acting either with a speech of appeasement towards the Ayatollahs or of constantly threatening Tehran with war. It was also in 2003 that he began to organise the MEK congresses on the outskirts of Paris, which have given the organisation so much political currency.
With the elimination of the MEK and the NCRI from the list of terrorist organisations, Rajavi focused his political activity on presenting the organisation as the legitimate representatives of the Iranian diaspora in exile, with very intense publicity campaigns and pressure on both governments and political parties to recognise the organisation as representing the Iranian opposition. Since 2016 it has been leading a campaign to condemn the Iranian government for the executions of MEK members during the conflict with Iraq, accusing Tehran of genocide.
Despite this, both in the US and in Europe, the MKO remains an organisation that is viewed with suspicion, several agencies and law enforcement bodies have accused the organisation of sectarian practices, encouraging the cult of leaders among themselves or, as a 2009 Rand report states, practices such as compulsory daily community confession, celibacy, authoritarian practices, forced labour, sleep deprivation, physical abuse, confiscation of property, isolation and confinement of dissidents take place within the organisation. It is noted that during the time that the MKO was integrated into the Iraqi army, the children of combatants in the front line were sent away from their parents to be educated by the organisation and when they reached the age considered appropriate to fight and complete their training, they were returned to their parents to serve as soldiers. This same RAND report in its conclusions indicates that about 70% of the MEK members in Ashraf were forcibly recruited. Similarly, a Human Rights Watch report on the MKOE denounces frequent cases of torture in Ashraf.
Over the past few years they have whitewashed their image and blurred their past as a terrorist organisation, in order to present themselves to other Western organisations and political parties as representatives of the political opposition to the Tehran government. The removal of the MKO from the list of terrorist organisations in the US and the EU has been controversial, as there is no evidence that the MKO has abandoned the armed struggle, and there is no evidence of intensive international image whitewashing. According to Tehran, the change in the US and the EU with respect to the MKO as a terrorist organisation is due not only to the profound work of whitewashing the organisation’s image, but also to bribes paid to politicians, parties and institutions in Europe and America.
The truth is that the abandonment of the armed struggle as a form of political opposition has been determined by the change of political regime in Iraq, its main support, after the US invasion in 2003, and the support given to the organisation by prominent US political figures, who see in the MKO a tool to force regime change in Iran, or at least the way to show the face of political opposition to the Ayatollahs. The NCRI frequently proselytizes in the US and Europe in order to attract funding and support among the political classes, most notably the interventions in events during 2015 and 2016 by Elaine Chao, Secretary of Transportation of the US Government, for which they have spent nearly 70,000 dollars.
At a local level they operate with similar organisations, through which they organise different events and where they solicit contributions for the Iranian opposition in exile, such as the Iranian-American Cultural Association of Missouri, Iranian-American Community of Northern or The Society of Iranians professionals in California, USA. In England, they have used the white label Iran Aid.
A common practice to attract funding comes from the families of MEK fighters in Europe and the USA, where under the cover of the Iranian diaspora, they form this type of association or organisation, where the MEK is never named, and which through different acts and events collect donations destined for the opposition in exile, which finally end up in the hands of the MEK. Another source of funding is donations from the families that are part of the MKO or from the families of MKO combatants, who, as we have seen, are forced to send their children away from the front, generally Iraq, so that the organisation can take charge of their education. In return, these families make donations to finance the MKO. In most Western countries the MKO cannot apply for or raise funds under this name or any of the other names it uses for the organisation. In Germany they have raised funds under the guise of refugee aid involving even political parties, which otherwise would not have collaborated with the MKO, such as the Greens. In the same way, under the cover of aid to Iranian refugees, they have operated to raise funds from individual donors to whom they promise anonymity, without specifying that these donations go into the coffers of the MKO.
Throughout its history, the MKO has used a variety of names and denominations, MKO, NCRI, ELN…in Iran they are popularly referred to as monafeghin, the hypocrites or the sect. It is considered a blasphemous organisation in which the leader, Rajavi, is worshipped. They accuse the Rajavi of appointing themselves president of the Iranian government and head of the armed forces, and censure the presence of women as combatants in the ranks of the MKO, since part of the MKO’s ideology emphasises the role that women play in the organisation, including during the war between Iraq and Iran, the presence of women in the front line of combat. They consider MKO members to be unthinking machines, and women initiated into the cult of the Rajavi to be sex slaves.
The MEK ( Mujahedin-e-Khalq MEK MKO ) is not very well established in the country, and its leaders have, as we see, little or no consideration in Iranian society, despite this they operate internally in hiding and have first-hand information about the country. Their historical leader, Masoud Rajavi, is still missing and so far it has not been possible to determine whether he is alive, in hiding, as declared by the MEK in 2011, or dead, as suggested in 2017 by Turki bin Faisal Al Saud, and what the causes of his disappearance have been. What is certain is that since 2003 he has been placed in many different scenarios, dead in Iraq during the 2003 invasion, arrested by the US and then transferred to Bahrain, arrested by the Jordanians and handed over to the US, or in hiding in Paris, where he is sure to meet with Obama.
Tehran holds the organisation responsible for the death of nearly 12,000 Iranian citizens around the world. The abandonment of the armed struggle has reduced, theoretically to a minimum, the military capacity of the organisation, because as we can see the capacity to finance and recruit new members is increasing, to which we can add the tolerance with which some western countries treat the MEK, especially the US. For the US, even more so at this time, when the confrontation with Iran is a matter of the first order, supporting, or at least not bothering too much an organisation like the MKO, may be a reasonable option in order to destabilise the government of Tehran.
Before taking office in the Trump administration, John Bolton testified at the MEK Congress in France in 2017:
“There is a viable opposition to the leadership of the ayatollahs and that opposition is meeting in this room today”.
Luis Illanas García, Atalayar.com, Spain