The Threat of Cults

Can Albania deradicalise Mojahedin Khalq Rajavi cult

Can Albania Meet its Obligations and De-radicalize an Influx of Terrorists into Europe?

Situated on the east of Europe, Albania applied for membership of the European Union in 2009. As the poorest country in Europe and designated the most corrupt, there is a lot of work to be done before this country of 3 million people is accepted into the Union. A recent visit by US Secretary of State John Kerry does indicate that this work is well underway. But Albania’s efforts to reform and strengthen its political, security, judicial and civic institutions after years of dictatorship, could be drastically undermined if the country ignores or underestimates the threat posed by the arrival of the Mojahedin Khalq (MEK) from Iraq.

Albania is the target location for the transfer of the notorious terrorist organization Mojahedin Khalq into Europe. Currently based in Iraq, the MEK is now being transferred to Albania under a deal struck with America in 2013.

Since the 1980s the MEK were paid and trained in terrorism by Saddam Hussein to effect regime change in Iran. After his ouster in 2003 the MEK aligned itself variously with the US army – during Senator Kerry’s visit to Albania, the MEK was described as “a group that has supported the US in military operations in the Middle East and in its fight against terrorism” – as well as former Saddamists headed by Ezzat Ibrahim and more recently Al Qaida insurgents and Daesh in Iraq. Each successive government of the newly sovereign Iraq tried repeatedly to evict the group from their country, but the MEK leader Massoud Rajavi – himself a fugitive from justice – ordered his followers to put up violent resistance.

Even if they would agree to go willingly, the United Nations refugee agency has struggled to find third countries to take them in. It seems that, although Western countries have benefitted openly from the MEK’s sometimes violent anti-Iran activities, and found the group particularly useful as a thorn in Iran’s side through the period of nuclear negotiations, the MEK is deemed too dirty for them to willingly host any of them even as refugees.

In an attempt to encourage other countries to take some of the MEK, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton persuaded the then Albanian Prime Minister Sali Berisha in 2013 to take just over 200 MEK members on humanitarian grounds. That process got underway, but in 2016 Albania is now expected to take up to 3,000 MEK after the President of Romania, Traian Basescu, refused to take them in 2014.

This agreement has attracted surprisingly little attention from either inside Albania or even from a world media sensitive to terrorism and organized crime. The reason is partly because the transfers are taking place in small groups of around twenty at a time in a piecemeal fashion as the UNHCR is forced to defer to Massoud Rajavi’s demands in order to circumvent threats of violence. Rajavi hand-picks the members he allows to be transferred, many using false identities. He ensures that each group of ordinary MEK members is accompanied by minders and enforcers to keep them under control and prevent them breaking loose. In order to accomplish their mandate to remove the MEK from Iraq, UN officials have had to accede to transferring the refugees under such conditions even though it reinforces the concept that the members belong to the MEK in conditions of modern slavery.

Once they arrive in Albania, the MEK leadership takes charge of the transferees. Although the US made a donation of $20 million to the UN refugee agency to help resettle the MEK, and according to a State Department official the US has provided the Albanian government with “security and economic development assistance, to help the country build up its physical capacity to house the refugees”, none of this benefits the individual refugees. In Tirana the MEK has purchased an abandoned university campus into which it has corralled the new arrivals and recreated the conditions of isolation and cultic control which have always prevailed for the membership. What started out as a humanitarian gesture has turned into the mass relocation of a terrorist group to Europe. The MEK has created a de facto enclave in Albania which is outside the law, just as they did in Iraq.

This has put the refugees out of the reach of the Albanian authorities and because they are not free to mingle with Albania’s citizenry, the influx of over a thousand trained terrorists has cleverly avoided detection and therefore controversy.

However, even though it appears that the MEK are somehow quietly contained, the citizens of Albania are entitled to ask whether the new refugees pose any actual threat to their civic life, to their security and to their ambitions to accede to membership of the European Union.

To answer this, we must ask why the Iraqi government is so desperate to expel them and why other Western countries are so extremely reluctant to accept them.

As a violent criminal organization, the MEK thrives where the rule of law is weak – in countries like Iraq and Albania which are emerging from past turmoil and troubles. In such conditions the MEK can be dangerous through criminal activity and violence.

As expert propagandists and manipulative persuaders, the MEK leaders have no problem making connections with and bribing government officials, power brokers and media types – let’s be clear, the MEK has always been well financed. Former MEK have also reported that the MEK leaders are already vigorously pursuing links with Albania’s mafia-like gangs. The MEK will work with these gangs for mutual benefit as they did with Saddam Hussein’s regime. In the long run, if the MEK organization does become established Albania – with the quiet collusion of political circles who benefit from the cult’s track record of terrorism – they will be better placed to do from Tirana what they can’t do from Paris.

The CIA characterizes Albanian corruption as a ‘transnational’ problem involving drugs, money laundering and illegal aliens. In this sense it is the very location of the country which makes it attractive to international criminal organizations and thereby creates huge problems for law enforcement agencies. Albania essentially acts as a gateway into Europe from the rest of the world.

Now, while the various routes to Turkey, Syria and Iraq are under stringent scrutiny, terrorist commanders from any mercenary group can slip beneath the radar and seek training and logistical support in Tirana. What better location to establish a clandestine terrorist training camp than in Albania? It is in Europe, but not in the EU and therefore not so open to scrutiny by the international community.

With the changed political mood following the nuclear deal between Iran and the P5+1, the MEK is looking for new friends and benefactors. The group has already aligned itself with the Syrian Free Army and has offered to help the Saudis fight against the Shias in Yemen. The MEK has over forty years of experience in terrorist activities. The real danger posed by this group is not only that they can re-arm themselves in Albania, but they can invite other groups in for training.

The worry is that the MEK has branched out and is open to do business with any terrorist group.

It is impossible to ignore the fact that MEK members are radicalized to the core. They are not ordinary refugees. Enough of them have been trained in Iraq by the former Saddam regime for terrorist activities as well as forgery, intelligence, military operations and even torture methods, to make them extremely dangerous. Above all, the nature of the MEK leadership style is cultic. This means the followers are not able to resist the orders of the leaders even if they wanted out. So there is a danger they will be used for a variety of criminal activities without their real consent. There are already examples of people trafficked by the MEK from Albania to Western Europe and used for money laundry activities in Germany.

However, the refugees could also be described as extremely vulnerable. Another reason they have not attracted attention is that the MEK can easily be dismissed as a defunct fighting force; the average age of its fighters is sixty years old and many of them are ailing with mental and physical disease after years of punishing training in the Iraqi deserts. But while this is true of the majority, there are still many among them who are expert terrorist recruiters and trainers, people who know how to train others for suicide missions; strangely transferrable skills in today’s world of global terrorism.

Not all the members who arrive in Albania do stay with the MEK. There is a growing community of formers – around two hundred to date – who have turned their back on the group and want to return to their families and to normal life. Interestingly, it is from this pool of former members that the US has carefully selected a quota of eighty individuals to be given asylum in America. They have undergone rigorous interviews to ascertain that they have completely rejected the MEK and so no longer pose any danger. Some others have been accepted by other European countries under the same conditions but the rest remain in Albania under conditions of hardship.

With the stakes set very high, Albania’s authorities will need to stop this organization from covertly establishing a terrorist base in Europe. The first step would be to remove the MEK members from the source of their radicalization. If this doesn’t happen, the problem will simply have been moved instead of being solved.

The authorities in Tirana can ensure that all the newly arrived refugees are treated as individuals, not as belongings of the MEK leader. They should be given protection and helped with accommodation and financial support as people entitled to determine their own future paths. Experience in Iraq has already shown that once these people are physically removed from the coercive atmosphere imposed by the MEK leaders and reinforced by their peers, they very quickly find that their commitment to terrorism evaporates and the de-radicalization process can begin.

De-radicalization is greatly helped when they have contact with their families. There are numerous examples of former MEK who managed to leave the cult and establish new and successful lives. Some now live in various western European countries because they have family there who have been able to help them. Some have returned to Iran – even though Iran doesn’t want them back – where they have been granted amnesty and lead normal lives under the supervision of the UN and ICRC. Some others now live in Iraqi Kurdistan and have transferred their family assets there from Iran there so they can set up in business.

Once they are out of the ‘pressure-cooker’ of the cult their lives can be sorted out through humanitarian organizations. As a Red Cross official told the authors, ‘As individuals, three thousand is nothing, we sort out millions every year. But as a group, neither us nor any other organization can deal with or help them.’ It is a choice the Albanian government cannot ignore, for to do nothing is to risk everything.

Massoud & Anne Khodabandeh

Co-authored by Anne Khodabandeh

March 3, 2016 0 comments

Former members of the MEK

After years of devotion to Rajavi, I was threatened to death

Mr. Ashur Varshi, 46, is the most recent defector of the Mujahedin Khalq Organization (the MKO). He escaped Camp Liberty a few weeks ago. He is residing in a hotel in Baghdad now, in company with other survivors of the MKO. He is in contact with his family.

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.”

Ashur who was labeled an anti-leader agent, was eventually supervised all the time. ”There was an absolutely suppressive atmosphere,” he recounts.” I was repeatedly summoned by them; and I was faced with mental torture in order to stop criticizing the group.”

As a dissident member of the Cult of Rajavi, Ashur was brave enough to question the leaders for their dishonesty but the answer was more punishment. ”with each punishment, I got more assured that the MKO was not the same group I once had joined for struggle, so I admitted any danger and pressure.’’

He paid a heavy price for the disagreement he voiced against the group leaders. ”I preferred to be bombed, to be attacked by missiles everyday instead of talking with a bunch of brainwashed torturers,” he states.

Ashur Varshi warns the Iranian youth to be careful about Rajavi’s propaganda.”Now, I see that what I’ve been told in the group was not the truth,” he regrets the years he lost inside the bars of the Cult of Rajavi.

But, he is hopeful. “I’m free now”, he writes.” I do my choirs and I’m in contact with my family. I want to leave the past behind and begin a new life.”

February 22, 2016 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq 's Terrorism

Elimination Projects in the MKO – Mehdi Katiraei

The second part of the series on the assassinations committed by the MKO authorities, contains the elimination of another high-ranking member of the group named “Mehdi Katiraei” whose pseudonym was “commandant Sasan”.

Former member of the MKO, Mohammad Karami introduced Mehdi Katiraei in his interview with Mardom TV: “He was the deputy commandant of the June 20th protest which marks the start of the MKO’s armed struggle against Islamic Republic. He was then in charge of training partisans in Iraqi Kurdistan.”

After the so-called ideological revolution that turned the MKO into a destructive cult, Katiraei was a member of the group’s political office. Like Ali Zarkesh, he was opposed to the establishment of the National Liberation Army. “He was strictly against the establishment of the NLA so Massoud Rajavi was very angry with him,” says Mohammad Karami.” Because of his critics against the group’s strategy, he was demoted to rank and files.”

Then, Mehdi was brought to trial and sentenced to death by Massoud. He was imprisoned in the SouthWestern side of Camp Ashraf. Later, Massoud Rajavi launched his Eternal Light operation against Iran. It was a great opportunity for him to get rid of dissatisfied members such as Ali Zarkesh, Majid Hariri, Mehdi Katiraei and many others.

During that catastrophic operation, Mehdi was shot to death from behind.

February 21, 2016 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization as a terrorist group

Elimination projects in the MKO – Ali Zarkesh

In a dictatorship maintaining of absolute power requires one important action: elimination of opponents. As a totalitarian cult of personality, the Mujahedin Khalq Organizaion (the MKO) could not survive for over three decades without eliminating the opponents and critics inside the group. According to various reports and testimonies, there have been numerous cases of assassination of dissident members of the Cult of Rajavi. Some of these assassinations were then reported by the group’s media as suicide or even martyrdom.

These series of editorials will cover certain cases of internal eliminations in the MKO which are more significant in the group’s history and have been confirmed by several witnesses although there must be many more secret murders in the cult that few people might know about them.

Ali Zarkesh Yazdi in prison before revolutions

Ali Zarkesh might be the most important figure in the MKO whose removal from the group has been very controversial. Ali Zarkesh was the second person of the MKO and actually Massoud Rajavi’s rival. In 1986 Zarkesh was sentenced to death penalty by Massoud and Maryam Rajavi.

. Mohammad Hossein Sobhani, former member of the MKO, wrote a book on his life in the MKO, titled “Dark Days of Baghdad” in which he recounts the case of Ali Zarkesh in details. According to the book, Zarkesh’s death sentence was then reduced to imprisonment.

As Massoud Rajavi wrote in a letter to one of the group’s high-ranking member, Saeed Shahsavandi, Zarkesh was punished because he had “repositioned”! What kind of repositioning deserves death punishment?

Based on the testimonies of former members the answer was never revealed. But again based on facts witnessed by former members, Zarkesh criticizes Massoud Rajavi’s armed struggle policy for it doesnot result in the overthrow of the Islamic Republic. He is against the establishment of the so-called National Liberation Army (Saddam’s Private Army) because he sees it as a mistaken failed strategy.

Despite his opposition against military invasion, Ali Zarkesh is treated as an ordinary soldier in the MKO’s military operation across Iranian borders “Eternal Light” (Forough Javidan). He is simply killed in that disastrous operation in which a large number of the group forces were sent to death.

February 17, 2016 0 comments

The cult of Rajavi

The Cult of Rajavi keep members as “Non Person”

Morgan-Davies, daughter of the cult leader, said she wanted to escape from being the “non-person”. She was under her father who “was just obsessed about control”. Morgan was the “slave” daughter of the Maoist cult leader Aravindan Balakrishnan who jailed her for 23 years for her imprisonment and repeated sex attacks on two followers, according to the Guardian.[1]

Every day, the world comes across revelations about abusive cults that indicate how much the world is exposed to the threat of cults. The most crucial characteristic of a destructive cult is its power to isolate people from the free world. In the isolated atmosphere of the cult, leaders have the opportunity to commit the most horrific abuses against their victims.

The No Exit report of the Human Rights Watch on the human rights abuses committed in the Mujahedin Khalq Organization, published in 2005, presents various examples of violation of human rights under a strict cult-like control. 2[]

Prior to the HRW’s report, Elizabeth Rubin visited the group’s then headquarters in Iraq Camp Ashraf in 2003. Eventually, she wrote a detailed report for the New York Times under the specific title “The Cult of Rajavi”. She described the camp as “a fictional world of female worker bees” and “a factory in Maoist China”. [3]

The above mentioned reports and many other reports and evidences on the life inside the MKO point out common features of cult leaders that aid them abuse their victims. As Morgan Davis told reporters about her father, “The people he looked up to were people like Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot and Saddam Hussein.” [4]

One of the victims of years of sexual abuse by Balakrishnan, also said she was “traumatized, shocked and horrified at what he habituated me to and against which I had no defense. I will live with this torment for the rest of my life.” [5]

The other rape victim described Balakrishnan as “such an evil force” and said she suffered fear and nightmares. “He wreaked havoc on every part of my life before and after I left,” she said. “He literally shattered my life.” She said she had never managed to fully rebuild her family relationships. [6]

This is the very characteristic of the leader of the MKO too. Although Massoud Rajavi tries to cover the abusive nature of his cult under the mask of a pro-democracy political organization, he is usually symbolized by dictators including Polpot and Saddam Hussein. Professor Paul Sheldon Foote from California State University writes: “the During the American hostage crisis, the MEK participated and called for the executions of the Americans. Rajavi is anti-American, anti-imperialist, and anti-capitalist. His aim is to become the Pol Pot of Iran, even if the MEK must become a tool of the American government to achieve his aim.” [7]

Massoud Rajavi’s similarities with other dictators originates from his cultic attitude towards his followers. Thus, his character can also be compared with that of Aravindan Balakrishnan and other cult leaders like Ziona who is another example of such cult leaders whose greed for women is endless. He rules a polygamous cult in India.

Ziona, 70, is the head of a local Christian religious sect”Chana”, which allows polygamy and was founded by his father Chana on June 12, 1942. The sect believes it will soon be ruling the world with Christ and has a membership of around 400 families. Ziona has 39 wives, 94 children, 33 grandchildren and 14 daughters-in-law. Ziona is feared and worshiped by all in the village. What’s even more strange is that Ziona’s followers firmly believe that he will one day rule the earth with Jesus. [8]

Now, let’s get back to Massoud Rajavi. He runs a polygamous cult, according to the testimonies of former female members of the MKO. Batoul Soltani is one of the female victims of Massoud Rajavi whose revelations about abuses committed in the cult has become a credited source for cult experts. . This is Wikipedia’s account about this victim of the Cult of Rajavi:

“Batul Soltani (born in 1965) is an Iranian politician who is former member of the leadership council of the People’s Mujahedin of Iran (PMOI. Soltani is a political activist and critic and a former twenty-year member of the Mujahedin leadership council. In December 2006, she escaped from the Camp Ashraf. In interviews regarding the Rajavi cult as an example of cultic behavior and mind manipulation. she has spoken about the sexual exploitation of the women in this cult after the her escape. She continued by pointing to numerous cases of Rajavi’s exploitation of the women of this cult and said: “Massoud Rajavi was using many of the divorced women in this cult, who had been forced to separate from their husbands to satisfy his sexual desires.” [9]

Batoul’s shocking revelations about what is going on inside the MKO camps is available on Nejatngo website in details. Her bitter experience of living in the Cult of Rajavi is confirmed by other female defectors of the group including Zahra Mirbagheri and Nasrin Ebrahimi who also left the group in the past decade.[10]

Isolated from the outside world, Massoud Rajavi tries to keep his victims as non-persons whose rights and even whose existence are ignored. The news of violation of human rights, sex abuse, child abuse, manipulative control and etc. in cults, as recent as 2016, is a warning for the world community that the threat of cults is not over. More than three decades after the tragic ending of the cults in Jonestown, Guyana and the Waco, Texas the authorities of countries should still beware of such a menace. They should be even more cautious than before because these cult members who have been under severe mental abuse have the potential to simply turn into extremist terrorists like Al Qaeda and ISIS.

Mazda Parsi

References:

[1] Booth, Robert, Maoist cult leader jailed for 23 years as ‘slave’ daughter goes public, The Guardian, 29 January 2016

[2] https://www.nejatngo.org/en/posts/79

[3] Rubin, Elizabeth, The Cult of rajavi, the New York Times Magazine, July 13, 2003

[4] Booth, Robert, Maoist cult leader jailed for 23 years as ‘slave’ daughter goes public, The Guardian, 29 January 2016

[5] ibid

[6] ibid

[7] Sheldon Foote, Paul, American Demons, paulsheldonfoote.blogspot.com, November 13, 2011

[8] ZeddMonsang, Strange polygamous Christian Cult, The More the Merrier!, The Zephyr Diaries

September 29, 2012

[9] Wikipedia

[10]https://www.nejatngo.org/en/tag/womens-rights-abuse-by-mujahel

February 4, 2016 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization members' families

Iraqi Newspaper on families of MKO hostages

Following the recent trip of the third group of Liberty residents’ families to Iraq, the Iraqi mass media widely covered the news of the event.

Iraqi newspapers and websites published reports on grieves of families of residents, who are not allowed to visit their loved ones taken as hostages by leaders of the Mujahedin Khalq Organization (the MKO/the cult of Rajavi).

Iraqi official newspapers such as Kul al Akhbar and news websites like Babil News, Ketabat fil Mizan and Wikileaks Baghdad published letters written by the families and reported on their efforts to visit their loved ones in Camp Liberty.

In a full-page report, Kul al Akhbar reported on the activities of the picketing families in front of Camp Liberty, interviewing some of them. The report included photos of the picketing families under the title: “A number of Iranian families told Kul al Akhbar the tragic story of their grieving children.”

“Parents who are awaiting the visit of their dear ones despite all troubles”, the report describes the families. “Who help their desires come true?”

The newspaper calls Iraqi Government, the United Nations and all human rights bodies to pressure the MKO leaders to evacuate Camp Liberty.

Kul al Akhbar reported that in Camp Liberty human rights are violated; people are terribly deprived of freedom. Hostages are not allowed to contact their families and families – who come from different towns of Iran- are not permitted to meet their children even for an hour. Instead, families are verbally abused and attacked by the brainwashed members of the group.

February 1, 2016 0 comments

Human Rights Abuse in the MEK

How Mujahedin Khalq abducted my brothers

Maryam sanjabi;MKO separated member interviewed Ms. Narges Beheshti

Ms. Narges Behesthi is a suffering sister who lost her brothers within the Mujahedin-e Khalq Cult.

It is now a decade that Ms. Beheshti is seeking to visit or at least have a contact with her two brothers; Mostafa and Morteza.

Unfortunately her older brother Morteza was killed during the Iraqi police invasion to Camp Ashraf. Actually Morteza was victimized for the cult leader’s interests and his passion for power.

Even after such a disastrous and painful event, the Rajavis denied the Beheshti family’s visit their younger brother; Mostafa.

Ms. Beheshti went to the Camp Ashraf dozens of times and requested for a visit, still she couldn’t.

In an interview with Ms. Maryam Sanjabi – MKO separated member, she describes how her brothers joined the Cult:

My brothers were not supporters of Mujahedin-e Khalq. We didn’t know these unpatriotic and traitors.

In 2011 my older brother; Morteza went to Turkey to find a better job. For two months he took a temporary job. After two months that we had no contact with him, Moteza sent us a letter saying that he worked in a shipping company and that they would help him to go to Europe. He wanted us to send our younger brother Mostafa to Turkey. This way Mostafa who was seeking a good job went to Turkey as well.

We later understood that the MKO recruiters in Turkey had promised my brother to send him to Europe provided that he stay at Camp Ashraf, Iraq for six months.

We had no contact with my brothers for a year when we received a letter from Mostafa. In the letter he had asked us to send our sister to Turkey as well. Though we were somehow doubtful, we agreed that my sister go to Turkey. My sister went to Turkey in accompany with one of our relatives. We were worried so we wanted our relative to make sure that my sister would reach our brothers. In Turkey someone else had gone to welcome my sister. The two men said that we would drive you to your brothers. Our relative refused my sister to go with them. And after some disputes with the two men he took my sister back to Iran.

Two weeks later Mostafa called us. While crying he said “.. why didn’t my sister come here.. they will kill me…,” he was crying when the connection suddenly cut out.

Tanks God. We were lucky that the Rajavi army didn’t succeed to take another member of our family as hostage.

After the last call we could not find my brothers. We had no news of them.

After the fall of Saddam Hussein, through NejatNGO we understood that my brothers had not gone to Europe. They had no job rather they were transferred to camp Ashraf,Iraq. In fact they were deceived by the MKO Cult recruiters in turkey. The Rajavis henchmen had assured my brothers that they will help them with sending them to Europe and providing them with residency in case that they stay at Camp Ashraf, Iraq for six months. Then they wanted Mostafa to write a letter to get my sister to Iraq as well.

In 2004 my mother could visit my brothers for the first time after three years. In that year for the first time the Cult leaders allowed the families to visit their children at Camp Ashraf. My mother could have a short visit with my brothers. The conversations were strictly controlled by the Cult in a way that my brothers couldn’t speak freely to their mother. My younger brother had taken my mother’s hands from under the table while crying. They didn’t dear to express their emotions….

From then on we have had no contact with my beloved brothers.

Unfortunately Morteza was killed in 2011 during the clash between Iraqi police and Camp Ashraf residents.

We went to Camp Ashraf several times but the Cult leaders didn’t allow us to visit Mostafa…. The separated members of MKO told us that the members are kept under pressure within the Cult and some even do not know that their families come to visit them….

Neday-e Haqiqat website published the interview in Persian.

January 14, 2016 0 comments

Former members of the MEK

Masoud Banisadr:Living and Escaping a Terrorist Cult

In this edition of The Interview, Fair Observer talks to Masoud Banisadr, a former member of Mujahedeen-e-Khalq.

In 1965, Mujahedeen-e-Khalq (MeK) was established in Iran in opposition to US imperialism. Espousing a blend of Marxism and Islam, the group helped bring about the Iranian Revolution of 1979. However, after breaking with the revolutionary government, MeK embarked on a terrorism campaign and was forced into exile, losing followers in Iran after its support for Saddam Hussein in the Iran-Iraq War.

MeK was designated as a terrorist organization by the US State Department until 2012. The Iranian government estimates that MeK activity has claimed some 12,000 Iranian lives over the last three decades.

Operating from exile, the organization had all the trappings of a cult. Attracting young, idealistic Muslims with slogans of Islamic justice and social freedom, it disrupted familial and social ties, forcing members to divorce their spouses and abandon relatives, making them dependent on the group through isolation, misinformation and manipulation.

Masoud Banisadr, a cousin of former Iranian President Abolhassan Banisadr, joined MeK while studying in Britain and served in its political wing for nearly 20 years. Finally leaving the group in 1996, he now writes about the dangers of cult ideology and the appeal of extremism. His books include Masoud: Memoirs of an Iranian Rebel and Destructive and Terrorist Cults: A New Kind of Slavery.

In this edition of The Interview, Fair Observer talks to Masoud Banisadr about what first attracted him to the MeK and what eventually forced him to escape.

Anna Pivovarchuk: How was MeK different from other political organizations? What is your definition of a cult, and how does it fit into that image?

Masoud Banisadr: Cults resemble slavery more than they do political parties, which are idea-based. Cults, on the contrary, are leader- and behavior-based. They claim to have an ideology that is useful for recruitment, to use it as a mind manipulation tool and to glue followers to each other. But when you look at them closely, you will see that they have taken shape around a leader and a code of behavior dictated by that leader.

Cult dogmas are shaped around behavior. For example, for a cult member, it is more important how he looks than how he thinks. In MeK, you could say I don’t believe in this or that principal of Islam, and nobody cared much. But if you behaved differently, if you didn’t follow or have enough loyalty toward the leader, you couldn’t stay in MeK for a second—same as al-Qaeda, same as Daesh [Islamic State]. In all of these organizations, you can see that what is important is survival of the group and absolute loyalty and obedience toward the leader.

The other main difference is that a cult is a way of life, and as slavery there is no way out of it till you die. When you are a member of a cult, it is the whole of you. Your motherhood and sisterhood is defined by being member of a cult. Your work is defined by being a member of a cult.

Pivovarchuk: So what makes people join a cult in the first place? Are there some common reasons?

Banisadr: I think people are recruited by cults rather than joining them freely. However, some people might be more vulnerable than others to fall in the trap of cults due to three main reasons.

The first is personal: I might have a problem of belonging, identity or not having a sense of purpose in life. These days, many young people lack a sense of belonging. Family ties are not as strong as before. Religion is not as important as before. Even nationality is not as relevant as before. This lack of feeling of belonging might attract them toward gangs, cults or groups of any sort to feed that longing. Imagine a young Muslim on the street who has nothing: Suddenly, when he joins a group like al-Qaeda or Daesh, he becomes a warrior, a martyr, a great hero. It’s a great change. People either love you or hate you, but at least you are not insignificant anymore.

The second is the cause: ideological, political, or philosophical, mainly as a means to seek justice. If you feel or see injustice and discrimination against yourself or against your community or religion, you feel you have to do something. Many young Muslims feel injustice against Palestinians in Israel, or they see the rise of Islamophobia in Western countries and feel they have to do something against it. Cults feed on injustice and claim they can offer people a way to seek justice. Cults also give an illusion of a sense of honor and a way for an ordinary normal person to feel that he/she can have an honorable life and that if one dies for the cause, they will be remembered as a martyr or a hero.

And the third reason might be that you have been born into a cult. Your parents have been followers of a cult, and as a result you have been raised in the cult.

Pivovarchuk: You talk about the personality of a cult leader being very important. You have to get people to buy into your narrative. How is that achieved?

Banisadr: After being recruited comes their mind manipulation. Although they have recruited you, using some sort of doctrine, or cause, forcing you to accept that if you join their cult you will become a better person. Still, they have to change you into a committed or, if I may say, blind follower or a “zealot” member. And here comes mind manipulation that I have divided in three intertwined stages.

The first stage is rational trickery and influence techniques that change your belief system. For example, if you are attached to the family, through some rational trickery, through some influence techniques, they can persuade you that your new family are the cult members rather than your parents or your siblings. They persuade you to fight for them—[as] the only way that you can seek justice for yourself or your community. Then using some influence techniques they will force you to do something to affiliate yourself with the group. They might start with small requests and then build on those small steps and gradually pull you deeper and deeper into their swamp.

The next stage is of “mind control”—control of environment and control of behavior. Because at this stage you are divided between who you were and who you are going to be, your feelings, your personality will force you to go back toward who you were.

I was born the year when the first democratically elected prime minister of Iran, Mohammad Mosaddegh was violently overthrown by a CIA coup. It affected my generation and the later ones deeply.

To overcome the effect of your old feelings, cult leaders have to isolate you from the society and your past life; this will be done through control of environment. There is an Iranian expression that says, “Whoever leaves your eyes will eventually leave your heart.” By stopping you from having any contact with your parents and friends, gradually cults can stop you remembering your feelings toward your loved ones.

They can change your personality gradually by changing your behavior. For example, if you look at the people who became followers of Daesh or al-Qaeda, you can immediately see a change of appearances and behavior. For example, they grow a beard, or they grow or cut their hair, their clothes change, and also their behavior will change—in extreme form of it, used by Daesh. You have seen in the media that they have asked a British-born person to behead another person, or even destroy shrine of a Muslim saint. By doing that, Daesh will force that person to stand against his old personality by an extreme change of behavior. It is also a way of dehumanizing the outsiders and isolating a new follower not only from the society, but also from history, tradition, ethic and culture of his previous being.

Pivovarchuk: How important is this isolation from family and friends in altering someone’s idea of yourself? In your personal experience, what have you been told to do or asked to do?

Banisadr: When you say that I am a person, what does it mean? I am a person because of my set of beliefs, because of my principles, because of the way I think, because of the things that I enjoy, because of my relation to my family, my relation to parents, siblings, wife, children and so on. If you lose them one by one, then eventually you become an “unperson.” Nobody.

For example, I was in the last year of my PhD. But the way that MeK educated me, I was feeling ashamed of being a PhD student, not proud of it. Why? Because they were telling me that while I was studying and wanted to become a doctor, followers of the group were in prison under torture during the shah’s time. So instead of fighting, instead of sacrificing my life for the people, selfishly, I was studying. So instead of being proud of who I was, I was ashamed of it.

I was even ashamed of my family, because of my family name—because of my cousin, who was the president of Iran.

This is the new you—this new personality of yours. You change into a nobody, and you define yourself according to your cult personality. What is your rank in the cult? What is the relationship between you and the leader of the cult? How have you behaved in the cult? How successful have you been in the pursuit of the cult’s objectives?

I am calling it slavery because you change into an “unperson.” Your relationship with everybody else is defined via your relationship with the cult leader. Because whatever you do, you are not gaining anything for yourself and even your family and your society but for the cult leader. Like slaves whose existence was defined through their relationship to the master, and the fruit of their life was going to the master.

In MeK, we were not even allowed to think of our children and their wellbeing. The logic behind it was that while children in Iran are suffering, you wouldn’t dare let yourself think about your own children. As with slavery, you are a parent, but you are not a parent. You are a supervisor of your children, a person responsible for educating a child so he can change into another follower/slave of the leader/master. You have to teach your children: instead of loving you, love the leader. Instead of remembering grandparents, remember those who have sacrificed their life for the cult.

In slavery, at least in your dreams, in your desires, you are free. You can desire freedom because you can see that you are a slave. In your dream, you can remember your old life. Your country, your family. But in cults you can’t. Because through brainwashing, they have changed you into your own jailer. You even don’t dream of freedom as you are educated to think that you are freest person on earth.

Pivovarchuk: In your book, you say that you underwent a transformation from a “liberal middle-class semi-intellectual” to a zealot ready to die for the leader. It shows that those who join cults are not stupid or naïve, but that it’s a complicated psychological process. What caused this transformation that you talk about?

Banisadr: For me personally, I guess I have to go back to three slogans of the Iranian Revolution: independence, freedom and Islamic Republic.

I was born the year when the first democratically elected prime minister of Iran, Mohammad Mosaddegh was violently overthrown by a CIA coup. It affected my generation and the later ones deeply. We wanted independence because we used to feel that our country was ruled by Americans—not physically, but we knew that the shah was a puppet of the US. So independence was very important to us.

The first thing to understand is what attracts young Muslims to these groups. I believe it is injustice—injustice against Muslims in different countries. It is very important we recognize this.

The second one was freedom, which was opposite of the dictatorship, and the censorship of shah’s regime. We understood political freedom more than any other freedom, probably because of the lack of it. So when we talked about freedom, we meant political freedom rather than liberalism as it is in the West, where it is mostly about personal freedom. During the shah’s regime, we almost had all personal freedom enjoyed by the Western youth, but there was a total lack of political freedom.

The third one was the Islamic Republic, which was mainly about social justice promised in Islam. We felt that people were divided between the superrich and super-poor, and if you were part of the system you could have everything. What attracted me among many other young people to the revolution were these three ideas, these slogans.

After the revolution, because I was in the UK, I couldn’t see for myself what was going on in Iran. I couldn’t judge for myself. The only source of information we had about what is going on in Iran was MeK papers. Even Western media, because they were against the Islamic Revolution and the new government in Iran, were feeding us with the same kind of news—all negative ones. So we felt that our country was even more unjust than before. What happened to freedom and Islamic justice?

MeK was even telling us that sooner or later, this new government would become the puppet of the United States. That because they cannot run the country, they will need the help of foreigners and will invite Americans and British. As you can see, for us it looked like everything was ruined and lost.

Pivovarchuk: What made you change your mind? What was the catalyst for you leaving the MeK?

Banisadr: As I mentioned before, cults—I believe all cults—have one weakness. They can change you, they can change your set of beliefs and everything, they can change your behavior, your appearance and so on. But they are unable to change one very important thing: They are unable to wipe out your memories. There are some fantasy stories where people have been brainwashed and have lost their memories and have found completely new personalities. That is fiction.

If you do not think about your feelings toward your past life, friends and families, your feeling toward them is still alive—though it is passive, paralyzed or asleep.

Anything can make it active. A smell reminds you of your childhood. A flower, a color or kindness from a stranger. Walking in the streets, seeing somebody who looks like your mother. Seeing love between a parent and children in the street. For the majority of followers of groups like MeK, Daesh and al-Qaeda that have been isolated (both psychologically and physically) from society and normal life, it is more difficult to save themselves because their feelings toward their loved ones cannot be triggered and remembered.

But for a person like me, who had to travel to different countries to represent the group politically at the United Nations in Europe and the United States, the situation was different, because I could see other ordinary people.

The first thing that forced me to remember ordinary kindness was when I was traveling from France to the United States. I was so tired that I slept on the airplane, from the beginning almost to the end. When I woke up, there was an old lady sitting beside me, and I found out that she kept for me whatever was given out in the plane. It was a very natural, ordinary kindness, but it affected me greatly to understand ordinary life, ordinary human behavior, because in the cult you will categorize ordinary people just above animals. They dehumanize outsiders, so followers are ready to do anything for the cult. As you have noticed, followers of Daesh are ready to behead other human beings without any remorse or doubt.

In MeK, if you were called ordinary, it meant that they had called you a dog or a pig. To be ordinary is worse than any other swear words. And suddenly, I was facing the beauty of being ordinary. Beauty through love, through understanding, through simple empathy and compassion.

And the second thing that saved me was seeing my daughter and old friends in the UK. Remembering my love for my daughter. My family and friends.

And also after that, I was lucky because of my back problem I had to be hospitalized. And because the group was so busy with the different political meetings that Maryam Rajavi [wife of Masoud Rajavi and co-leader of MEK] had in London, they forgot about me. So for almost a month, or three weeks, I was in the hospital without having any kind of connection to the group.

In the hospital I could see other people. I remember there was a guy beside me who had an accident and his hands were in plaster. I used to give him lunch and I even helped him to shave. And he showed me kindness as well. These kinds of things suddenly force you to remember who you were and who you truly are: a human being.

Remembering feelings suddenly forced me to wake up from a very, very bad dream. Although I can admit that still I could not understand what was happening or what had happened. I could not understand the political deception; I could not understand the hypocrisy of the group. But I could understand and I could see who I was. I could see my old personality, I could see my old feelings, and I think this was the trigger that helped me leave the group.

Pivovarchuk: How long would you say it took you to process all that had happened to you?

Banisadr: Very long. They say you can leave a cult, but it takes a long time for the cult to leave you. Because it infiltrated your mind, your heart, your philosophy, your way of thinking, and it’s very difficult to get rid of it.

I think for a year I couldn’t understand it as a cult. I couldn’t understand the procedure as brainwashing or mind manipulation. After I started writing my memoirs—gradually, because I was remembering stage by stage what had happened—I think it was in the last chapter of the book that I finally felt that it was a cult and I had been brainwashed.

Pivovarchuk: How did this realization make you feel?

Banisadr: It was great and horrible at the same time. If you find a very close friend has robbed you, it hurts; if you find him violating your trust and dignity and deceiving you for years, it hurts much more. Then imagine finding out a guy who you thought of as a saint and the holiest person on earth has been just a charlatan wanting to make you his slave through manipulating your mind—robbing not only your wealth, health and happiness, but your individuality, personality and humanity. Then you will understand what I felt.

After that comes realization of nothingness, loneliness and powerlessness. You feel you are free to do anything you like, but you are neither who you were before the cult, nor a follower of the cult.

So you ask yourself, who am I? If I am going to buy clothes for myself, what should I buy? What kind of food do I enjoy? Suddenly making any decision became huge. Impossible. I used to get help from my daughter. Ask her to choose for me, to buy clothes.

What do you consider as honor, and what are you proud of? What are your political or philosophical beliefs? And how do you run your daily life and make a new relation? All these are very big questions.

When people look at you, they see a grown man. But I can say that somehow you are a newborn child without the support of parents. There is no solid wall to lean on. You are really vulnerable, and there is nobody to tell you what has happened to you and how should you find your way.

Suddenly you’re coming out of a cult penniless—the things that I knew were obsolete. For example, I went to a job interview, and they asked me, “What do you know?” I answered: mathematics, chemical engineering, programming and so on. The guy asked me, “Okay, very good, nice great, what kind of programming do you know?” I started saying, “Fortran, Assembly, basic language…” And he looked at me: “Where are you from?”

Suddenly I realized that I knew nothing. I even didn’t have common sense of ordinary people. I had lost it. If you wanted to talk with me about music or movies, or the kind of programs I like on TV, I didn’t have a clue what to say. So what kind of connection and communication could I have with you?

After that you will face another big problem: how to get rid of the cult in your mind. How to change your behavior. How to change your way of thinking, your worldview from a black-and-white into a colorful one. How to see bad and good beside each other. How to get rid of the cult’s way of thinking, what they have forced you to believe and accept as reality. All this will take a lot of time.

Pivovarchuk: Ironically, what they tried to isolate you from—your family, your children—has become something that brought you back to normality. As you said, you can’t destroy memory, so there’s this hope that people can find their way back.

Banisadr: I think so. And this is my advice to parents of all those children who have been recruited by cults: show them love. Instead of arguing and discussing political, religious or philosophical issues, give them love. Let them remember the kind of relationship, the kind of emotion that they had with you. The kind of feelings that existed between you. In this way, they can remember who they were, and in this way they can find a way to get rid of cultic manipulation and become somebody again.

Pivovarchuk: It’s interesting that you mentioned that, because obviously there’s been a lot of attention given to Islamic extremism and groups like al-Qaeda, al-Shabab, ISIS. How do we stop people from joining? Where does this battle for their hearts and minds begin?

Banisadr: The first thing to understand is what attracts young Muslims to these groups. I believe it is injustice—injustice against Muslims in different countries. It is very important we recognize this. For politicians and the media to recognize it—accept that yes, there is injustice against, for example, Palestinians in Israel. There are double-standards toward Israel. We understand this, we accept this. This acceptance is very important.

Then we have to separate the religion of Islam and Muslims from these groups. Calling them Islamic or Muslim is a horrible thing to do. Why? Because we are enabling them to recruit from a 1.6 billion population pool. If you call them Muslim, you will create sympathy, shared ideas and religion between them and these 1.6 billion Muslims. Even these Muslims might see them as their own children—they might see them as their fellow Muslims in need of help and support.

So it’s a very big mistake, which unfortunately many mass media and some politicians make and in a way will help these groups to recruit even more. By calling these terrorist groups Muslim and using Islamic State instead of Daesh, first they enable these groups to recruit more. At the same time, they advocate Islamophobia among non-Muslims in society, and finally alienate ordinary Muslims from the rest of the society.

Therefore, Muslims in the West think of themselves more as Muslim than, for example, as British. Even if the media want to talk about ideology of these groups, they should use the name of their ideology—Wahhabism or Takfiri—and not Islam. The same thing they do when they want to talk about other groups such as David Koresh’s or Jim Jones’s cults, or when they talk about the Moonies.

Second, we have to educate young people about Islam as a religion of peace and tolerance, and at the same time, we have to educate them about cult and mind manipulation—to immunize them against mind manipulation of the cults. To teach them how people can be manipulated, how people can be influenced, be tricked by rational manners. How they can be brainwashed.

Finally, we have to show them a way out of the cult. Instead of criminalizing them, which will stop them coming back. We should realize that followers of a cult are victims as well—a victim of mind manipulation and not a criminal. If we help them and show them kindness and education, they can change into an antidote of cults and terrorism. It is very important for those who have left Daesh and al-Qaeda to say what they have witnessed and educate other people not to fall in the trap of cults.

By criminalizing them, by putting them in prison, we change them into heroes of the next generation of terrorist cults. By executing them, we make them into martyrs.

Pivovarchuk: Can Iran and the US work together against Daesh successfully?

Banisadr: To get rid of Daesh and al-Qaeda in the Middle East, to find a long-lasting peace and stability in the region, America and Iran have to talk and work with each other. But can they? True, every week in the Friday prayer, Iranians chant “Death to America,” but what they mean is “Death to those Americans who tried to destroy our country and still want to do so.”

After all, while no American has ever been killed by any Iranian (except those killed by MeK), but on the opposite side. The CIA overthrew the first democratically-elected prime minster of Iran; America established and supported the shah’s dictatorship; supported Saddam Hussein’s war and his chemical attacks against Iran. During aggression of Saddam against Iran, Americans even shot down Iran Air Flight 655, an Iran Air civilian passenger flight from Tehran to Dubai in 1988, killing all 290 passengers, without any proper apology.

And now some warmongering American politicians are supporting MeK, who have been the lobbying force behind the sanctions against Iran and are lobbying Western countries to attack the country, praying for the destruction of Iran so they might become its new rulers. They are mostly hated in Iran, and I believe this will add to why Iranians don’t trust Americans.

As long as America doesn’t review its foreign policy, realizing who its friends and who its enemies are, and the Western media doesn’t stop this propaganda against Iran based on its love for Saudi petrol dollars, we will hardly see any improvement in Iran-US relations. And, unfortunately, we have to witness growth of Saudi-backed Wahhabi terrorist groups and more instability and suffering in the region.

By Anna Pivovarchuk and Masoud Banisadr , Fair Observer.com

January 11, 2016 0 comments

The cult of Rajavi

True Threat of Terrorism: Human Beings who turned into “acolytes” of Rajavi

Over the past decades, much of the attention of the world have been focused on the radical extremist groups such as AlQaeda and ISIS. But the true threat actually comes from the cult-like structure of these groups. Cult-like controlling system and the indoctrination methodology of these groups finally results in the most horrible acts of violence.

The Mujahedin Khalq Organization (the MKO/MEK) is characterized as one of these destructive cults that threat the world’s security. Elizabeth Rubin the prominent journalist of the New York Times, was first to call the MKO, “the Cult of Rajavi”. The phrase was based on her first-hand experience of visiting the group’s base in Iraq, Camp Ashraf. About the world she witnessed in the MKO camp, she wrote:

“When I arrived at Camp Ashraf, the base of the group’s operations, in April 2003, I thought I’d entered a fictional world of female worker bees. Everywhere I saw women dressed exactly alike, in khaki uniforms and mud-colored head scarves, driving back and forth in white pickup trucks, staring ahead in a daze as if they were working at a factory in Maoist China. I met dozens of young women buried in the mouths of tanks, busily tinkering with the engines. One by one, the girls bounded up to me and my two minders to recite their transformations from human beings to acolytes of Ms. Rajavi. “[1]

As Rubin asserts, members of the Cult of Rajavi transformed from “human beings to acolytes of Rajavi “. But what the leaders of the cult want to show off is entirely different from what they really are. Jeremiah Goulka is one of the authors of the RAND Corporation report on the Mujahedin Khalq. He criticizes the US high profiles who support the group and finally removed it from the list of terrorist organization. ”Accidentally or not, though, the speakers were helping to raise the profile and legitimize the aims of a cult group that will not bring democracy to Iran and has no popular support in the country,” he warned. [2]

The group will not bring democracy because it has not practiced democracy in its four-decade history. “After my visit, I met and spoke to men and women who had escaped from the group’s clutches,” Rubin writes. “Many had to be deprogrammed. They recounted how people were locked up if they disagreed with the leadership or tried to escape; some were even killed.” [3]

“Friendships and all emotional relationships are forbidden. From the time they are toddlers, boys and girls are not allowed to speak to each other. Each day at Camp Ashraf you had to report your dreams and thoughts.” [4]

Rubin also refers to RAND report, “ A 2009 RAND Corporation study found that up to 70 percent of the group’s members there might have been held against their will. “ [5]

Regarding the cult-like terrorist substance of the MKO, its leaders’ efforts to pretend the group as a democratic alternative to the Islamic republic is ridiculous. The so-called president elect of the group starts her fabrications in an article raising the issue of the “radical factions” who shake “the world with their ability to convince ordinary people to commit unspeakable atrocities.”

As leaders of a cult, Massoud Rajavi and his wife definitely know how “to convince ordinary people to commit unspeakable atrocities”. The “acolytes” of Massoud and Maryam Rajavi, committed numerous acts of violence including military operations, mortar attacks, suicide attacks and assassinations. One significant example of the MKO’s “unspeakable atrocities” was the suppression of Kurdish uprising in Iraq. Read Rubin’s account of the story: “In 1991, when Mr. Hussein crushed a Shiite uprising in the south and attempted to carry out a genocide against the Kurds in the north, the Rajavis and their army joined his forces in mowing down fleeing Kurds.

“Ms. Rajavi told her disciples, “Take the Kurds under your tanks, and save your bullets for the Iranian Revolutionary Guards.” Many followers escaped in disgust.” [6]

Today, with the increasing growth of defection from the MKO and the decline of the group following the relocation of its rank and file from Iraq to Europe, the group leaders make efforts to hook their survival to the West. In their masquerades to boast a democratic portrait, Rajavi introduces her cult as “moderate Muslim” that is suppressed by the Islamic Republic.

Presenting a solution to the trouble of the region, she tries to pass her cult off as “an interpretation of genuine Islam that is both democratic and tolerant” that should be accompanied with “military campaigns and intelligence operations in the region”.

Jeremiah Goulka correctly suggests that the MKO’s real aim is “to have the United States install the MEK as Iran’s new government”. He warns, “That would mean war. The MEK may deny wanting violent regime change, but the only conceivable way it could become the next government in Tehran would be at the head of a U.S. invasion force.”[7]

Goulka advises the American supporters of the MKO, “Aligning ourselves with the MEK would undermine any attempt at credibility among Iranians because it would make us look like dupes.” [8] He is absolutely right but looking like “dupes” is the least danger that a community in which the MKO followers are living is posed to.

Brainwashed members of the Cult of Rajavi have several times showed their ability to commit “unspeakable atrocities”. A dozen of them set themselves on fire to protest the arrest of their leader by the French Police, in June 2003. Two female members of the cult lost their life because of self-immolation.

The Rajavis are definitely professional on the most effective methods to turn ordinary people into devotees who commit appalling violence.

By Mazda Parsi

Sources:

[1] RUBIN, ELIZABETH, An Iranian Cult and Its American Friends, The New York Times, August 13, 2011

[2] Goulka, Jeremiah, The Cult of MEK, The American Prospect, July 18, 2012

[3] RUBIN, ELIZABETH, An Iranian Cult and Its American Friends, The New York Times, August 13, 2011

[4] ibid

[5] ibid

[6] ibid

[7] Goulka, Jeremiah, The Cult of MEK, The American Prospect, July 18, 2012

[8]ibid

December 26, 2015 0 comments

The cult of Rajavi

Brainwashing? There should be a law against it

Shocking revelations about Maoist cult leader Aravindan Balakrishnan and his female victims in a suburb of London shone a light on the normally hidden phenomenon of cultic abuse which pervades society. The danger now will be that this is treated as just another sensational story before being placed on a journalistic ‘bizarre incident’ list along with Jonestown, Wako and Heaven’s Gate, as a freak occurrence.

Sadly, practitioners in the field of cult awareness know of thousands of lonely families suffering the loss of loved ones to cultic abuse with little recourse to help or even acknowledgement.

As a former member of the political cult Mojahedin Khalq, I am intimately familiar with the methods which Balakrishnan used to control and exploit his victims. As this case has highlighted, for a person caught up in cultic abuse there is no exit, they are in fact modern slaves. Indeed, the 2005 report on the MEK by Human Rights Watch was named ‘No Exit’.

If the experience of the daughter and the other victims in the Balakrishnan case are to teach us anything, it is that this is more common than we’d like to believe and that such ghastly behaviour – much like child abuse – thrives on secrecy and collusion; that is, the unwillingness of successive governments to acknowledge this as a widespread problem. More than anything we need to explode the myth that cults are about religion. They are not. The illusion that ‘new religious movements’ are relatively harmless belongs thirty years in the past. But for years, families and former cult members have been dismissed, even denigrated, as hysterical, malicious or delusional or have been exploited for entertainment by the media. No wonder they are reluctant to speak out.

Even when families do bravely confront the cults which have enslaved their loved ones, they find themselves battling litigation, intimidation and disbelief.

Government failure to engage with this phenomenon has left the public unprotected. While civil law protects a designated group of vulnerable people from undue influence, cult experts argue that anyone can be susceptible to deceptive cult recruitment at some point in their lives; people are usually in a state of transitioning when they get involved in cults. This emphasis on susceptibility not vulnerability is an important distinction because it places culpability directly on the intention and activities of the perpetrator rather than looking for deficiencies in the victims. The Balakrishnan cult case is unusual because the leader was prosecuted, not just because the victims were rescued.

Interestingly, techniques for deceptive psychological manipulation are already acknowledged and understood in various modern contexts where coercive persuasion is used for cynical exploitation and enslavement. These include partner abuse, grooming for sex, spiritual abuse, abusive therapy, extremist violence and terrorism. All these are regarded as morally repugnant. But as yet we lack a law which covers the activity which underlies them all.

In the modern vernacular, the term brainwashing is used by ordinary people exactly to describe an unaccountable change of mind and/or personality in an otherwise normal person. Bewildered families of young people travelling to Syria say their children have been brainwashed. The government needs to catch up with scientific and social understanding of this phenomenon if we are to be protected. Are MPs aware, for example, not whether, but how many fully brainwashed cult members are working in sensitive national security roles? We know they exist because as cult counsellors we talk with their families. Yet the phenomenon is glossed over as almost immaterial.

Cultic abuse – known in the vernacular as brainwashing – has a very precise definition. It is not about ‘using advertising to brainwash us into buying things’ or ‘brainwashing us into becoming docile citizens under government dictates’. These are false and unhelpful myths. Neuropsychology explains that ‘changing your mind’ is a physical experience which can be scientifically identified. Brainwashing is not about doctrine, it is about the psychologically manipulative techniques used to literally ‘change’ our minds.

In more legalistic terms it is ‘the deliberate and systematic application of an array of recognised techniques for psychological manipulation without the knowledge or informed consent of the victim in order to effect a breach of a person’s mental, emotional, intellectual and social integrity for the purposes of abuse, exploitation, slavery and/or pecuniary gain, and to so inhibit their critical faculties that they do not recognise their own predicament so that they may act in ways harmful to their best interests and the interests of society on instruction or by command or by neglect.

The advantage of criminalising cultic abuse in this way is that it is ideologically neutral and does not reflect any particular belief system but straightforwardly describes harmful behaviour. This would protect all our citizens and an obvious place would be an amendment to the new Modern Slavery Bill passed in March.

Prime Minister David Cameron has already uttered the word brainwashing in speeches about Radicalisation. There was no public outcry or panic. Ordinary people know what he means. What a law would do is to give a precise definition which would allow us to ‘join the dots’ between seemingly disparate events like the Balakrishnan cult, the Rotherham grooming for sex scandal and terrorist recruitment.

Indeed, public apprehension over the war on terrorism in Syria and the perceived threat of blowback, is the perfect opportunity for the government to introduce and explain the phenomenon of brainwashing in this narrowly defined sense as an element of the Prevent Strategy. The introduction of a criminal offence which allows the detection, prosecution and punishment of this abhorrent behaviour will aid public understanding and allay fears.

Anne Khodabandeh @AnneKhodabandeh

Anne Khodabandeh, a leading authority on cultic abuse and terrorism, works as a consultant within the remit of the UK Prevent Duty. After twenty years in the MEK, a dangerous, destructive mind control cult, she helps families through Iran-Interlink.

Anne Khodabandeh (Singleton), Iranian.com,

December 13, 2015 0 comments

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