Former members of the MEK

MKO former members

Rajavi, self-immolations forces French authorities to withdraw

An interview with Batool Soltani on MKO self-immolations – Part fourteen

Sahar Family Foundation: Ms. Soltani, we intend to have a discourse on the issue of self-immolations in June 17, 2003. My first question is under what motives and ends were these incidents broached within the organization?

Batool Soltani: I was not present in the Europe at this phase, but the question was that the members’ main responsibility to repel the direct threat posed against the leadership’s interests was to make sacrifice in any possible way and degree.

SFF: I mean, through what clear process did the organization conduct such feats and what were the targets it directly aimed at?

BS: The main objective was to release Maryam Rajavi as fast as possible but hardly had they thought of possible controversial consequences of such operations. In the higher echelons there might have been a different analysis and conjectures concerning the incidents but in our membership level the stress was on the acceleration of Maryam’s release.

SFF: Maybe I have failed to properly phrase my purpose. So I phrase it anew with an explanation. The motives behind these self-immolations are a matter of dispute. It can be looked upon as a reaction against the leadership’s sacrilege. Or it can be a matter of infringing regulations, that is to say, if Maryam Rajavi’s case was to follow a legal process, especially with concern to the charges against her, she had to face legal trials and the consequent verdicts of punishments. Looking it from this aspect, could these anti-social deeds be challenging and charging Maryam Azodanloo with further allegations and their irreparable consequences? If you remember, prior to this session, you had a reference to Rajavi’s best position taking concerning Maryam’s arrest and explained that her arrest could have serious legal outcomes for her and the headquarters in Auvers-sur-Oise. Your reference to these deeds was from a precautionary point of view. The motives behind these self-immolations were only a reaction against the sacrilege to the leadership or coverage for allegations such as laundry, plot against the opponents and other charges of her case? Will you explain if in their inter-organizational analysis the issue was discussed from this aspect?

BS: What they mainly focused on in the organization was the very aspect of the leadership’s sacredness and that we had to do our best to force French judiciary into withdrawing or at least baffle their attempts to take serious decisions. Thus, it can be concluded that their principal objective was aftereffects of the arrest. If you may ask for the cause, the organization has already an experience of Rajavi’s expulsion from France. It happened at a time when Rajavi had resolved to join hands with Saddam and make an alliance. That is, the organization had prepared a de facto background to settle if expelled from France. Of course, there is also a possibility that France’s decision to expel Rajavi was in line of his own volition to leave France. That is why he showed the slightest resistance with the excuse that Iran and France had reached a compromise on his expulsion.
Naturally, when the expulsion by itself helped to actualize general objectives of the organization, it was in no way rational to show reactions like that of the 17 June immolations. Of course, such operations were on the agenda at that time but Rajavi had resolved on a willing decision to leave. But in the case of Maryam it was totally different; Camp Ashraf was no more a stable bastion to settle and her chance of relocation to Iraq had sank to zero. Furthermore, the strategy of the organization was to keep her in the Auvers and to fortify the new bastion there with her as the leader of a pro-democratic and counter-fundamentalist opposition. Naturally, accomplishment of such objectives required a timely decision and reaction. Just as the organization thought France was cozy up to her settlement there she was arrested on many charges that not only seemed to be a violation of the leadership’s sacredness but also could in itself lead to unpredicted consequences; she could even be possibly tried and expelled from France. There had to be taken a calculated risk since the organization lacked a brain at the top; one leader was absent and the other was arrested.
The immolations were the sole option to overcome the crisis, call it a reaction against violation of Maryam’s sanctity or anything else. What the organization needed at that critical moment was to strip members of their capacity for rational activity because it could not preach for them about the legal adverse consequences of Maryam’s apprehension. Then, what had to be done? It is already instilled into them to react whenever the leadership’s sanctity happens to come under direct violation regardless of any regulations they have to submit in the country wherein they are living. The sole goal becomes to release Maryam and they have nothing to do with the legal and illegal aspects of her arrest. The immolations were blind operation that could either aggravate the crisis or temporally tone it down.
It was all outside reflections. As soon as Maryam was arrested, Mozhgan Parsai held an extraordinary meeting in Camp Ashraf and announced that Massoud had delivered a message to inform the arrest of Maryam and a number of other rankings in France. The squall among the members of the Leadership Council disturbed the meeting but Mozhgan continued reading Massoud’s message saying he had insisted that for the release of Maryam, even one hour sooner, all the interests of the organization throughout the world, all its possessions and all the members failed to be enough to be set on fire. It was the reflection of her arrest inside Camp Ashraf. That is why I insist that the organization tried to keep the sacredness of the leadership infringed since it could easily stir the emotions if the sanctity was proclaimed to have been violated. As it was a question of the survival of the organization, leadership and ideology, Mozhgan persisted on emotional aspects of the issue to be magnified for the rank and file. She ended the meeting by saying we were all in our organizational preparedness.

SFF: What did she mean by organizational preparedness?

BS: Nothing in particular. It was only an emphasis on the normalization of the relations among the present members of the Leadership Council and that, all had to behave normally when encountering the lower ranks to pretend nothing serious had occurred. The mixed up appearance of the rankings, swollen red eyes and disorderly hair, could disturb and lower the rank and file’s morale.

SFF: How sincere do you think were the ranks in their emotional reactions?

BS: For myself, it was not sincerely at all. At that moment I had my own doubts. Among the members of the Leadership Council were those who had volunteered to set themselves on fire before Americans, but I believe it was nothing more than a histrionic behavior and there is no clear evidence to say if they were truthful in what they showed. In some cases, it was genuine emotions mixed with insincerity that had their impact on the others to create a homogeneous unity.

To be continued

September 5, 2009 0 comments

Former members of the MEK

MEK dissident broaches US ties with Rajavi cult

Sobhani was separated from his daughter and wife for more than eight years.

A former member of the terrorist Mujahedin-e-Khalq Organization (MKO) claims the US turned a blind eye to the terrorist nature of the ‘Rajavi cult’.

Mohammad-Hossein Sobhani, 49, from the central Iranian town of Saveh, came into contact with the MKO two years before the 1979 revolution in Iran, which overthrew the pro-US Iranian monarch, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.

Five year later, after working in the organization’s administrative and student departments, he was whisked away to Iraq to assume his role”as a unit commander at the training school for urban guerrilla warfare.”

After questioning the organization’s”armed struggle and presence in Iraq”, Sobhani claims he was beaten, tortured and”held in solitary confinement for eight-and-a-half years, from September 1992 to January 2001.”

“The reason why I started to raise my objection was that I believed that the strategies employed by Masoud Rajavi were meant to secure his domination on its members,”Sobhani said in an exclusive interview with Press TV.

The former senior MKO official said Rajavi resorted to”cult-like”practices, including forced divorce and celibacy.

He would separate couples claiming that”such practices would liberate the members”from competing loyalties. Their children were also sent to European countries, Sobhani said.

“Rajavi would justify forced divorces by claiming that these practices would free a member, and pave the way to transform a micro society into a macro one and overthrow the Islamic Republic,”Sobhani said.

During his interview, he also claimed that because”the organization forbids matrimony, for the past 25 years no child has been born to a man and woman inside the organization.”
He said the US had committed a colossal mistake in not dealing with the residents of the MKO training camp in eastern Iraq, known as Camp Ashraf.

The camp, home to 3,400 Iranians loyal to Rajavi, was the base for operations against the Tehran government during the eight-year war as well as operations against Iraqi Kurds and Shias during the 1991 uprising against former dictator Saddam Hussein.

“Rajavi maintained a mercenary-like relationship with Saddam Hossein, after Iraq’s invasion he wanted to forge the same relationship with the Americans so he announced that he was ready to [willingly] lay dawn his arms,”Sobhani explained.

“Although the Americans were fully aware of the fact that the MKO was a terrorist organization, they still cooperated with Rajavi,”he claimed.

Americans in Iran were one of the primary targets of the group throughout the 1970s. They assassinated a number of American citizens, namely William C. Cottrell, Colonel Lewis L. Hawkins, Donald G. Smith, and Colonel Jack Turner inside Iran.

“As a former member of the group, I feel that the Americans have made a grave mistake with regards to the organization. Six years after overthrowing Saddam, the MKO is still brainwashing the residents of Ashraf Camp with the help of the Americans,”Sobhani said.

The MKO was founded in Iran in the 1960s, but its top leadership and members fled the country some twenty years later after carrying out numerous acts of terror inside the country.

The group masterminded a series of assassinations and bombings inside Iran, including the 1981 bombing of the offices of the Islamic Republic Party, in which more than 72 senior Iranian officials were killed, including the then Judiciary Chief Ayatollah Mohammad Beheshti.

Download MKO dissident broaches US ties with Rajavi cult

September 5, 2009 0 comments

Former members of the MEK

Rajavi’s interpretation of the holy and foul suicide

An interview with Batool Soltani on MKO self-immolations – Part thirteen

Sahar Family Foundation: Ms. Soltani, in our last session, you mainly focused on theoretic and tenable aspects of suicide operations. Your explanations were nice but it would be much better if you elucidate the practical instances of suicides and self-immolations you have personally witnessed. There are reports of some cases committed for a variety of reasons. I mean how Rajavi reacted to these acts and analyzed them. Your explanations will shed light on ambiguities especially if the names of the victims are mentioned.

Batool Soltani: Well, many of these cases can be found happened within the organization. In many cases Rajavi exclusively referred to some instances as proofs when trying to inoculate his mentalities.

Of course, as I have already pointed out, such discourses were held only in the meetings of the Leadership Council and never leaked out. Bear it in mind that he never intended to compare anything with the opponent side or infer anything from these instances of suicide when referring to them. It was an issue discussed within the organizational sphere and, of course, deductions were generally related to internal relations. The main focus was differentiating between the holy and sinful kinds of suicide with the emphasis on romanticizing the suicide and describing it as a noble act which Rajavi theorized according to his interpretations.

I have to point out that some of these suicides were committed just following these meetings like the suicide done by Mehri Moussavi just as some had been recorded before. Of the significance was his skill in presenting examples that could well help to differentiate between the two, that is to say, the presented standards and motivations, which the ranking members were well aware of, behind these suicides could well help to identify whether it was esteemed a holy suicide for the cause of the leader and interests of the organization or despised a sinful suicide for individual weaknesses, flaws and ambitions. Of the suicides that offended Rajavi and made him erupt furiously to hold consequent lengthy meeting with the members of the Leadership Council was the suicide committed by Kamal Haddadi long after the beginning of these discourses. He was a ranking member of the Central Council and that was the cause for Rajavi to be sensitive about the incident.

A look at the list of the members of the Central Council at the time, dissolved after the initiation of the ideological revolution, indicate that he was a ranking commander deposed of his responsibility after the ideological revolution. The emphasis on him as an officer of high ranking is to know how Rajavi degraded such people when treating them for organizational concerns. Kamal was reported to have established a relation with a woman under his command.

The relation could be any organizationally unauthorized relation regardless of being ideological, emotional, moral or even a love affair. They said it was a love affair and the case was sent to Rajavi and Maryam to be dealt with. At the time Rajavi was stationed in Camp Parsian. Before transferring Kamal to Camp Parsian, Mahvash Sepehri began further investigation of the case and put Kamal in a prison cell called ‘Bangal’, an isolated, solitary confinement where they kept the culpable to be judged. She pressed him with recriminations and accused him of immoral relations with the woman. So harsh and disdainfully she treated Kamal that he could easily anticipate what awaited him before Rajavi. He could tolerate no more and committed suicide in his cell.

At the time, I was a ranking deputy in the Leadership Council and was present in the meetings particularly dealing with such cases. I remember the first words stated by Rajavi concerning Kamal’s suicide. He was much enraged by Kamal’s act and said he threw his corpse on the leadership’s table. I have to point out that Kamal’s suicide was never mentioned among the rank and file who thought he had died of a natural death. But all the members of the Leadership Council knew that he had died of psychological pressures impressed by Sepehri. In the very same meeting, Rajavi appreciated Sepehri and said Kamal deserved to be treated so contemptibly and unworthy way to commit suicide. Rajavi never mentioned anything about ideological deviation that could have affected Kamal because it could raise questions. Kamal was shown to have no ideological problem and that he had chosen his path rightfully; his death had to be looked and analyzed from a different angle to preserve the good image of the organization.

What Rajavi depicted was so easy to perceive. Among the members are those who set themselves on fire for the sake of the organization and leader’s interests; in contrast, some others commit suicide for deviant, immoral causes and threw their corpses on the table before the leader. Then he compared the different motivations behind the two acts. Those who committed suicide for selfish causes not only committed sin but also led the organization to the midst of a big problem hard to deal with. The former suicides solved a problem in the course of accomplishing a holy cause while the latter suicides burdened problems on the shoulder of the leader. People from each group lose their lives on their own but it is the contradictory motives that decides who is blessed or condemned; the former has succeeded to release himself of his own self to become selfless and attach to an ideological source without; the latter is a slave of his own self and is reluctant to discharge introspections in the arranged weekly ablution sessions to clean his inside.

Taking opportunity of Kamal’s case to illustrate intended motives of suicide, Rajavi presupposed that following the US invasion, the destiny of Mojahedin would be vague. We would be dispersed and sent to different parts of the world; a group to Iran, another to France, America or any other place. In that case, could we possibly carry the potentiality of being a mobile bomb ready to detonate to safeguard the interests of the leadership? To ideologically justify the suicide operations, he again referred to Kamal’s case and other similar cases of suicide for personal motivations; one killing himself for sexual impulses, another disappointed, flawed and depressed, and Kamal Haddadi who was in contradiction with himself and failed to appear before other members to confess his sins and purge himself. None of them, he said, had committed suicide for the sake of leader and their attachment to him. No status and value could be so noble as compared to that of setting oneself on fire for the leadership and Maryam.

Although motives for suicide varied, what differentiated between the individual and ideological motives, the former described as a sin in the Quran and the latter romanticized and glorified for organizational causes, was the pivotal point where one’s self met and attached itself with that of the leader who well directed the act onto the right path. It was no more suicide but martyrdom and even exceeded it in value. To give further explanation, he said; consider in this very moment something suddenly threatens my life as your leader. One of you may imagine that the threat is removed if you set yourself on fire. In his opinion, the suicide had committed a sin in risking his life to save the leader because the act was non-ideological and performed under no command by the leader; the suicide was now a foul corpse cast before the leader.

It was one of the instances Rajavi delineated and formulated the ideological suicide that differentiated it with a foul and sinful one; the holy suicide has to be performed only and purely by the permission and the command of the leader, otherwise it will be considered a big sin the ideological motives have spurred it. Thus, it can be concluded that the 17 June self-immolations, in contrast to Maryam Rajavi’s rejection to be instigated by the organization, were organizationally planned and orchestrated and approved by the leadership. None of the volunteers set themselves on fire entirely of their own volition; their acts to be esteemed holy, they had to follow the decree and command of the leadership. Does it mean anything else when they glorified the acts of Neda (Hassani) and Marzeh (Mojaveri), both died of the burning injuries, as holy feats? Their self-immolation before anything indicated the degree of their loyalty and submission to the leadership. These instances along with Rajavi’s ideological interpretation as well as his reference to the Quran as a subterfuge to justify his egocentric ambitions may lead us to the bottom of truth.

To be continued

September 3, 2009 0 comments

Former members of the MEK

Rajavi’s passion for women and his ambition for leadership

Memoirs of Ms. Batoul Soltani – Final Part

When the so called detachment between women and Rajavi was removed, they were completely comfortable to speak about any sort of problem in the meetings. In fact, the ease in the Rajavi's passion for women and his ambition for leadership relationships was the outcome of those arguments made by Maryam about “traditional woman “or “woman in quotation marks”. Massoud Rajavi never limited himself to present any sort of problem. Even before marrying every woman in the leadership council, he was always relaxed to ask his questions or to convey his arguments in a manner he desired.

Even where there were some reports on immoral relationships in various levels of the organization, he simply asked detailed questions to know what he needed to know. He asked our opinion and what we knew about that immoral relationship. He never felt shameful among the members in every level of MKO to seek the details. He was totally open in his relations and behaviors.

Among the members, there were some people who left meetings after such cases were presented. It is worth knowing that Massoud’s reaction was so humiliating. He called them "peasants" or “mullahs”. Maryam also accused them of being superficial or reactionary.

Despite these reactions there were others who stood up and asked why they are saying so and that was not their problem. Thus they faced the case from a superior position. After some time gradually those so called "peasants" became relaxed in the meetings due to the process the leaders used in order to despise them.

As a matter of fact, those justification meetings lasted for around a hundred hours in order to achieve the desired result. The problem cannot be solved in a short-term meeting.

During the meetings some of the members protest, they leave the hall to think outside, and then they get back saying that they were wrong. They explain their reaction towards that case. The leader asks them what their problem is. They confess that they got angry regarding the discussed case.

To justify their reaction, Rajavi says that these thoughts are the remaining of the reactionary traditional thoughts of Mullahs. He relates the protests to different things and finally accuses the person of being under the influence of her ex-husband and then he concludes that “she hasn’t actually divorced her husband; her divorce is not a real one! She is basically problematic and that is why she doesn’t attend the meeting. She has to start from the beginning.” Such arguments sometimes last one to two hundred hours.

I think Rajavi stands on two virtual legs: One is his passion for women and the other is his ambition for leadership. These traits lead him to a totalitarian, power seeking personality.
I think he is able to achieve his ambitions using these two aspects of his personality. He is definitely capable of using them. I’ve already explained that he cannot bear the presence of a man among his so called leadership council. This certifies that he has a psychological problem. In a wide echelon (the leadership council) he gathers his passion for women with his ambition for leadership to accomplish what he wants.

Rajavi believes that a woman works more obediently than a man. He thinks that when he orders a man to do a job, he may ask why, but a woman never asks questions about the demands, she would immediately execute the order. And that’s exactly what Rajavi wants. This is the potential that he cannot see in his male members. What matters to him is that who the best to achieve his goals is. Comparing men with women, Rajavi believes that women are different phenomena whom he can invest on.

I think this approach has a very basic role and makes good tools to achieve further objectives.

Translated by Nejat Society

September 2, 2009 0 comments

Former members of the MEK

MKO Leaders’ seditious acts condemned

Nejat Society,Western Azarbayjan Branch condemns MKO leaders’ seditious acts

The recent incidents at Camp Ashraf where a number of residents, incited and organized by the cult leaders, confronted the Iraqi Police, ended with the death and injury of some of them. The act once again showed the brutality of Rajavi’s gang in rising crisis and creating constant tension for their propaganda. They never matter the victimization of their rank and file but they only matter how to feed their deceitful propaganda machine as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said about the move of Iraqi Police to Ashraf :"It is a matter now for the government of Iraq to resolve,"

We deeply believe that MKO leaders try to maintain Camp Ashraf as their ideological and strategic container by launching false propaganda and mongering crisis, they violate all international laws based on the right of sovereignty of the nations on their own territory.

We as the ex – members of MKO, who returned to our homeland and now are living in Iran peacefully, condemn MKO leaders’ plot to create crisis and tension by warmongering, terrorism and violation of international laws and finally victimizing Ashraf residents for their own inhumane cause. We know that MKO leaders are terrified by easy access of Iraqi police to their base since it will pave the way for the access of International human rights bodies and also residents’ families to them.

The ideological leader of MKO knows well that if their base is supervised by Iraqi officials, the release of captured members will be more likely. Therefore they try in any way to stop Iraqi supervision over the camp to prevent the decline of their forces.

Their anti-democratic acts contradict the most basic human rights.

We want them to stop crisis mongering in Camp Ashraf and provide the residents a peaceful relaxing atmosphere, without any control or supervision by their authorities, so that they can visit their families in mental security and can decide for their future by their own free will.

August 31, 2009 0 comments

Former members of the MEK

MKO former member open letter to Vidal-Quadras

I am responding to your recent speeches in the European Parliament in relation to Iran in which you express support for the Mojahedin-e Khalq organization led by Massoud Rajavi. As a former member, I have known this group since 1979. Because of them I spent five years of my youth in Mr. Sadeqi: As a former member, I have known MKO group since 1979 Iranian prisons; including two years in solitary confinement in Gohar Dasht in Karaj. I also spent the years from 1997 to 2006 as a prisoner of the MKO in Camp Ashraf, Iraq.

I was sent to Camp Ashraf after several years of fundraising work for the MKO in Canada. I was originally sent for a six month military training stint, but in fact they never allowed me to leave. (As you know, none of the people at Camp Ashraf have any legal status in Iraq and their passports and personal documents are confiscated by the MKO leadership to prevent them leaving. Ref. RAND report.)

After considering your support for this military cult, I just want to ask you, and give you the benefit of the doubt, if you honestly and purely, as the freedom lover you make claim to be, believe in your own use of the term ‘democratic’ in relation to the MKO. How do you know that? By visiting Camp Ashraf?

I should remind you and your colleagues that these are visits carefully pre-arranged and organized by the MKO leadership. Where did you go while you were at Camp Ashraf, to whom did you speak? I was there while so many people like yourself and like Paulo Casaca visited. We saw by whom you were escorted and of course we were not allowed to approach you and talk to you. All those people around you were MKO intelligence and security personnel, the same people who are responsible for the suppression and mistreatment of rank and file members.

Did it ever occur to you that everybody you were introduced to and allowed to speak with was saying exactly the same things like a broken record. Maybe you didn’t think of this because when it comes to it the MKO are expert at manipulating and deceiving people with their red carpet treatment and their provision of gifts like Perisan rugs and fancy goods.

In your speech you used the words ‘pressure’ and ‘harrasment’. Do you have any idea what your Rajavi has done to us? The beatings, humiliation, swearing and constant mental pressure aimed at anyone who wants to leave, or even to say anything critical of what Rajavi has ever said. Where you then? Why has no one asked any international human rights organization to come and visit Ashraf independently?

Many tragedies have taken place within the confines of Camp Ashraf. But no more, not for the rank and file members like myself. On the contrary, with the takeover by the Government of Iraq in January 2009, and the recent publication of the RAND report, they see some light at the end of the tunnel at last.

But as for Rajavi and his high rank killing machine, of course you said that you recently visited Camp Ashraf and that such allegations are absolutely unfounded. Are you a man of your word? Are you prepared to return to Camp Ashraf with a different, non-MKO organized delegation to see if you are right or not? I make only one suggestion; that I be permitted to come along with that delegation and show you the real Camp Ashraf and take you to places so that you could freely talk to the rank and file members. What do you say about that? Since your speech is presumably not political and is purely humanitarian, so you should not have any objection to this suggestion. In fact, I am sure you will be happy to prove your words, especially as you think that everybody in Camp Ashraf is there voluntarily.

In the end however I have so many things to say and explain to you and your colleagues. But for now I just wanted to ask how you can be so sure of what you say? How many former members, or even ordinary Iranians have you spoken to before you came to your conclusions? I myself am ready to come and talk about freedom and democracy and voluntary action and anything else that you and your colleagues want to discuss.

Don’t you think for one moment how strange it is that everyone who backs the MKO repeats exactly and precisely what Rajavi himself says? But that when it comes to listening to what former members say both MKO backers and leaders alike scream their hearts out that they are all agents of the Iranian Intelligence ministry?
Why is that? Could it be that Rajavi doesn’t want people like yourself – western, liberal, democratic, freely elected representatives – to talk to people like me?
Rajavi knows that if you talk to us you will have to think twice before you repeat whatever they want you to.

If you are truly a freedom lover, I think it’s only fair, not for me, or even for the Iranian people, but first for yourself to take these steps. Because I believe that if you are a humanitarian person then one day, maybe not long from now, as events unfold, you will see the truth and you will think back to this day and wish that you had taken a different stand. I just want you and other purely humanitarian people to remember that, along with my fellow brothers and sisters, victims of the Rajavi cult, I would remind you that little streams will, at last, join the ocean.

Reza Sadeghi, Paris

August 30, 2009 0 comments

Former members of the MEK

Sobhani broaches US ties with Rajavi cult

Sobhani was separated from his daughter and wife for more than eight years.

A former member of the terrorist Mujahedin-e-Khalq Organization (MKO) claims the US turned a blind eye to the terrorist nature of the ‘Rajavi cult’.

The former senior MKO official said Rajavi resorted to”cult-like”practices, including forced divorce and celibacy.

He would separate couples claiming that”such practices would liberate the members”from competing loyalties. Their children were also sent to European countries, Sobhani said.

“Although the Americans were fully aware of the fact that the MKO was a terrorist organization, they still cooperated with Rajavi,”he claimed.

The MKO was founded in Iran in the 1960s, but its top leadership and members fled the country some twenty years later after carrying out numerous acts of terror inside the country.

Click here to view the video file Download MKO dissident broaches US ties with Rajavi cult

August 27, 2009 0 comments

Former members of the MEK

Nejat Society Azarbayjan Branch letter to ICRC

Dear Mr. Fredrick,

ICRI deputy In Tehran,

A number of defectors of Mujahedin Khalq Organization who were assisted by the respectful authorities of ICRC to return home, declare their position on recent incidents in Camp Ashraf where a group of members have been victimized by MEK leaders’ Machiavelli’s tricks to violate international and Iraqi laws:

Your Excellency,

Regarding the crucial fate of the members who are under the organizational restrictions in Camp Ashraf and have no idea of what is happening outside the Camp and also considering their families concern about their situation and their desire for their beloveds’ return to Iran, we ask your Excellency to provide the possibility for the return of those physically and mentally captured ones in Camp Ashraf.

Dear Mr. Fredrick,
The letter signed by MKO defectors residing in Western Azarbayjan Province on August 2nd, 2009, is published on Nejatngo website:

Arash Rezaie
Marziye Qorsi
Gholamreza Shirdom
Saied Baqeri Darbandi
Hojat sayyed Esmaili
Hamed Mehmankhah
Ali Namakian
Qader Rahmani
Shahram Dehqan
Naser Sayyed babayee
Mansur Tanhaee
Farhad Purmeshki
Afshin Jafarzade
Morteza Jaafarzade
Mahmud Akbari Moqadam
Fathollah Amani
Sajjad Purhashemi
Mohammad Araghi
Naser Shirdom
Saieed Yaldaiee
Alireza Pejmanfar

CC:
International Committee of Red Cross in Tehran & Geneva
HRW
Amnesty International
Iraqi Human Rights Organization

August 26, 2009 0 comments

Former members of the MEK

Massoud asked arrogantly:”Does anyone claim to have a husband other than me?”

Memoirs of Ms. Batoul Soltani – Part 22

The members of the Leadership Council were convinced to marry the leader with the reasoning Massoud asked arrogantly: "Does anyone claim to have a husband other than me?" and logics that Maryam and Massoud gave them. They may simply be convinced due to the way Maryam viewed them. She had already spoken to the members in a humiliating manner in order to make sure that they would be persuaded that “ideological marriages are superior to normal marriages”!

This reasoning recalls Surdell’s dialectic that says:” to escape from humbleness, the individuals have to shelter before the one who humiliates them. Therefore, the relationship between leaders and members was managed in a way that the justifications were easily accepted. I would like to note some justifications Maryam and Massoud made to convince us.

Maryam accused us of having a reactionary mind that motivated us to feel a distance between Massoud and ourselves In order to convince us to marry him, Massoud Rajavi said in a meeting: “if the peak of sexual marriage is 10, then the peak of ideological marriage will be one thousand. Imagine that you are in a hall with a very high ceiling, if you are under a table, the top side of the table will be the peak of an ordinary marriage which signifies a wife-husband relationship, but the ceiling of the hall will be the peak of an ideological ideal relationship. Your mind is filled with old thoughts; you think that I am stranger to you, so you are not comfortable with me. Now that we want to remove this obstacle and we want to remove the quotation marks from the women, we use this scheme.” According to the leaders of MKO, “Women in quotation marks” (cult jargon) signifies women who have grown up in an ordinary society with normal regulations ruling it. They meant the traditional weak women.

Maryam Rajavi tried to degrade the traditional women who “are always owned by their husband.” She insisted that we were still in that situation and we didn’t pass over those old thoughts.

Naturally, we tried to remove that humiliating view from ourselves. The leaders looked dawn on us so we accepted everything they said. They always tried to make us doubt our individuality. If we were not able to present a case about one of our minor colleagues, Maryam would punish us. She accused us of distancing ourselves from Massoud. Then she concluded that the problem comes from our thinking. I could never convince myself to accept their justification from the bottom of my heart.

Maryam accused us of having a reactionary mind that motivated us to feel a distance between Massoud and ourselves. Then she concluded that in order to remove this distance, we should marry him. She made us believe that we never had the right to have another husband. Then in the meeting Massoud asked us arrogantly: "Does anyone claim to have a husband other than me?"

Then he added “if anyone feels she belongs to her ex-husband for the least part, she should get out of the room.”

In fact, with his reasoning, Massoud convinced the members that he sacrificed himself to release the women from the old, traditional, reactionary thoughts that always exploited women in the history.

In MEK, the leaders try to make you believe that Massoud Rajavi is the only one who is always ready for change and revolution; the only one who scarifies himself to solve others’ contradictions; he is the only one who accepts every responsibility. Therefore he is not an ordinary man! This is what the organization makes us to believe.

August 25, 2009 0 comments

Former members of the MEK

Weekly sessions, a process to secure obedience to Rajavi

An interview with Batool Soltani on MKO self-immolations – Part twelve

Sahar Family Foundation: Ms, Soltani, you pointed out something interesting concerning the Weekly sessions, a process to secure obedience to Rajavi mechanism of suicide operations and self-immolations, that is, how easily one can carry out these organizationally inculcated operations just by making a liaison with a point out of one’s own self. That is, one overruns his individuality and will for a greater cause crystallized in another person called leader. The logic, regardless of its justifiably luring virtue, does not end here because any thought and attitude can easily justify itself through such a logic. That is true about many adherents of cults who do anything for the guru, preaching right or wrong notwithstanding. Following such logic, any group can claim to be rightfully on the right path and it has nothing to do at all with the nature of the source of liaison. There were people on the side of Yazid (a reference to a historical event when the army of Yazid massacred all forces on the side of Imam Hussein, the third Shi’it imam) who had accepted the leadership of Yazid and fought against Imam Hussein with a gesture of goodwill and for the sake of God. Is it right to say that liaison with a source of leadership justifies a truth? If so, there are many antitheses to discuss. Was there any opportunity to discuss these discrepancies and what were Rajavi’s responses?

Batool Soltani: Indeed there were many controversies and, of course, Rajavi insisted that the members of the Leadership Council take their time to solve any ambiguity and raised question. But his answer to these ambiguities was that first it had to be discovered why people had joined the side of the wrong. He insisted on recognition of what had motivated them to join. There was no question if they had joined for worldly and ambitious causes but it was different if they were fighting on the wrong front for the cause of truth. Then it turned to be a matter of the ideologically polluted system of the opposite front. He mainly focused on the polluted ideology of the followers of the opposite front. He gave example of the operation Eternal Light saying that we would call our killed forces martyrs as did the Islamic Republic and strongly contradicted its claims to be on the right path; he believed that the IR had deceived and misled who had come to confront the rightful Mojahedin’s forces. The IR forces had not erred in attaching themselves to the IR leadership but it was the wrong ideology that had misled them.

SFF: Then it was not totally a matter of ambitions since they too fought for ideological causes and had attached themselves to someone out of their own self.

BS: That is why he would say they had ideologically been misled and anybody following Khomein’s ideology failed to be accounted as our forces who could never be ideologically affiliated with the regime. None of the either sides could possibly agree on the oriented ideology of the opponent, but there were those who walked a middle path and dodged seeing their interests in danger. He would call them compromisers who never walked in a fixed front and changed their position whenever sensed danger from any side. Thos who shunned, for example, committing suicide or self-immolation when it was necessary belonged to this very same group. They are people of ambitions and opportunists who are enslaved by their whims and avarice and infiltrate into both sides to fill their pack and have nothing to do at all with the ideology and the leadership. In fact, he believed, they were attached to nobody but themselves while the real forces adherent to either ideology resisted to the end and never changed their positions.

Those who stood on Rajavi’s side were known to be the true believers of a right ideology while the others on the opposite front were perverted and aberrant. He would adduced the Quran as his proof for his theory and would say the Quran classifies people into four groups; the righteous, the martyrs, the faithful and the prophets. Nothing was to be told about the last group that was an exception. One way to recognize the sincere who assented to commit suicide operations was to see his frequent attendances of weekly hold sessions of ablution and confession*. It was the recognized boundary between the true ideological believers and the opportunists. It was Rajavi’s instructions preached in the meetings of the members of the Leadership Council and insisted that those who refused and dodged to attend weekly sessions of cleansing and confession would certainly stop midway in the path of struggle while others, who attended sessions, continued to the end.

These instructions were all included in the especial book prepared by himself for the members of the Leadership Council who had to attend weekly sessions as well to prove their sincerity. He would call the weekly ablutions a ‘great crusade’ through which one could unite his within with without and dared to outpour all counter-values that hindered when the time came to sacrifice to defend the leader and his interests. These were the faithful who had even outstripped the martyrs, that is what he believed in. There were sympathizers who came to take part in the demonstrations and would donate sums of money to help but never risked their life in practical struggle. They were the righteous but still lagged far behind the martyrs. Unlike them, the faithful risked their life anywhere in the world just to defend and safeguard the interests of the leadership by setting themselves on fire. They outshined the martyrs.

Now, what was the touchstone to distinguish them? They could be recognized in the frequency of taking part in the weekly sessions of ablution and who cleaned their selves by pouring out what was passing within them; their personal penchants, lust, insincere tendencies, and whatever hindered them to be unified with Rajavi. The ones that merged with Rajavi made no attempt to conceal anything from him and if they had to, it was a matter of submission to his order. Nothing could come between them and the leader and they had fused into one. No doubt, such devoted people never disappointed their leader when the time came to commit suicide and set themselves on fire. Thus, this is an answer to existing contradiction within Rajavi’s system. But I can give more details to resolve these contradictions. I think Rajavi followed a model that he had theorized in its most extreme form.

At times in inter-organizational relations and meetings, Rajavi would decry the idea of being touched by Khomeini. He meant that we should not do things to be afraid of being condemned of following the models and ideological guidelines of Ayatollah Khomeini. But then it changed. Rajavi resolved that his relation with the members and sympathizers had to be set on such pattern that was further explained in a speech by Mehdi Abrishamchi. What he said in general was that the organization should have no reluctance in abandoning fears of condemnation and following a pattern in its struggle to topple the regime. The best pattern at hand he recommended to adhere to and practice within the organization was Ayatollah Khomein’s relation with his followers, mainly founded on people’s compliance with him. Of course, they disregarded his charismatic influence on his followers that goes far beyond ordinary logic or self-interest and since Rajavi failed to understand and explain such devotional relationship, he tried to interpret it within the terms like detachment from the self and attaching to a source without; that is, the members have to be completely devoted to their leader and prepared to do anything he commands- even kill others, or themselves.

The more the time passed, the more he was obsessed with plans to become a magnet to draw devoted members and insisted to exactly, even if forcibly, accomplish the pattern he was holding onto. He was merging the principle of guidance with its authoritative aspects and opportunism to create a holy man of himself called the ideological leader. He dissolved all those assemblies and bodies whose role was to supervise the leadership and became the egocentric leader and center of all decision makings and identical to nobody in the modern world; a morally, ideologically and politically infallible leader who was even exceeding the pattern he had chosen. Thus, he became a leader from whom even the ideology drew its legitimacy.

To be continued

*. According to a recently published official report by RAND, the MeK holds daily, weekly, and monthly “sessions” that involve forced public confessions aimed at expelling deviant thoughts and behaviors that are believed to undermine group coherence. MeK members are required to keep daily records of their thoughts and nighttime dreams, particularly sexual thoughts and desires (which are, of course, forbidden), as well as observations about their fellow members. They must submit their journals to their supervisors. During large meetings, members often are forced to read their reports aloud and to make self-critical statements. MeK members are often required to admit to sexual thoughts.

August 24, 2009 0 comments

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