Former members of the MEK

Farhad Javaheri Yar, former member of the Mujahedin-e Khalq wrote his autobiography in 2003 after he defected the group. His book titled “From Evin to Abu Ghraib” covers some extents of the MEK’s crimes against its own members who had once joined the group trustfully. His Autobiography indicates how shallow the MEK’s slogans for freedom and democracy are.

According to Javaheri’s account, the MEK is a one-way path; a blocked path with no exit door. The rank and file of the group must be robots or modern slaves who have no idea of their own. Once they enter the MEK, they have to leave all their believes, interests, plans and in general their whole life behind.

In the beginning of his book, Javaheri explains why he decided to leave the MEK and how his decision was reacted by the group leaders:

When in 1994, hundreds of the group members were tortured and, in some cases, killed by the group commanders, I declared my demand to leave the group.

The group’s strategy of armed struggle in the streets had been defeated so Massoud Rajavi and his partners had to explain about their failure. But, instead of giving a logical and precise answer to the rank and file, they took action to eliminate dissident members and as always, their pretext was that dissident members were agents of the Islamic Republic who had penetrated the MEK.

A large number of members were imprisoned and tortured to sign forced confessions admitting that they were agents of the Iranian Intelligence Ministry while they were professional members of the group whose lifetime of membership in the MEK was longer than the lifetime of the Ministry of Intelligence of the Islamic Republic.

It was a trick used by Massoud Rajavi to cope with his problems at the time. The internal elimination process was a classified secret of the group. No one dared to talk about it.

I got to know about it by one of my friends who had been tortured. Eventually I asked to leave the group. There were a lot of other members of the group who had declared their defection. The group leaders launched an organizational suppressive and intimidating project to stop us from defection. A large number of those who wanted to leave gave up and stayed in the group but I had made my mind. The authorities knew that I had realized about the prisons and tortures so they tried to convince me to stay but they did not succeed. I insisted.

Thus, they decided to destroy me. The other night, all of the rank and file were supposed to be in a meeting where Maryam Rajavi was going to give them a bunch of watches as gifts. “Someone called Mahmoud Mahdavieh wants to talk to you about an important issue,” I was told. “You should stay and wait for him.”

I was aware of the tactics used by the MEK to eliminate dissident members. Therefor, I broke through the barbed wires around Ashraf and the Iraqi military stations and reached the road to Baghdad. I was got near Baghdad but the forces of the Iraqi Security Service had taken control of the road with the help of high-ranking members of the MEK. I had to cross the marshes around the city to reach the road to Tikrit.

Unfortunately, the driver of the car that I got on was a security agent. He knew that the MEK and the Iraqi Security Service were looking for an Iranian man who had escaped Camp Ashraf.
He immediately delivered me to the security forces who consequently arrested me, put handcuffs on me and blindfolded me. They jailed me in a dark cell.

In response to their interrogations, I told them that I wanted to leave Iraq and asked them to submit me to the Red Cross or at least to call my family. I gave them their phone number but the Iraq officers replied that this could be possible only under the order of the higher authorities.

The higher authorities in their turn ordered to deliver me back to Camp Ashraf, to the torturers of the MEK, Nader Rafieenezhad, Farhad Olfat and Mahmoud Mahdavieh. I was under torture from 5 to 20 hours a day.

I was in solitary confinement for 5 years. During those years, I saw Massoud Rajavi 3 times. In the meeting room, in addition to me and Massoud Rajavi, Mahmoud Mahdavieh and Mahboobeh Jamshidi were there.

Rajavi had a lot of unfulfilled promises. He signed an agreement with me and asked me to write a letter to my family. I wrote the letter but immediately after he received my letter, he handed me back to his torturers.

I was jailed in Ashraf prison until I was delivered to Iraqi forces who imprisoned me in Abu Ghraib. After a year they handed me to Iranian Intelligence agents.