Once inside, Sadeghi asked to make a phone call. He still had the phone number of his brother who lived in Canada. Issa Azadeh, a senior operative who left the group in after 34 years, told The Intercept about his experience inside the MEK. I searched about cults. I realized we were robots. This is something that they put in our minds. Over the years, minute by minute, month by month, year by year, they put that in our minds.
If you doubt Rajavi, it means that you doubt God. Azadeh was shocked. Soft-spoken with brown hair and glasses, Sultani easily blended into the crowd when we met in Cologne. The High Council governed the conduct of everyone living at Camp Ashraf. They could order the isolation, ostracization, and imprisonment of members who ran afoul of Rajavi.
Unlike other former members, Sima asked that her real name not be used because she feared retaliation from current MEK members. She now lives in hiding in a European country and agreed to meet privately in a place where other local supporters of the group were unlikely to see her. This is the reason that these people are scared. As the years dragged on, she began to clash with other members. In response, they placed her under surveillance and forced her to engage in grueling self-criticism sessions that she described as psychologically tortuous.
Around , Sima was nearing a breaking point. She made a plan with another woman to escape from Camp Ashraf. They plotted their exit in meticulous detail, but the other woman turned her in to MEK leaders. As punishment, Sima was subjected to even more intense ostracization and psychological torture.
For most of the next 14 years, Sima was confined to one section of Camp Ashraf, unable to move freely on her own.
Like Batool Sultani, Sima described an intense form of psychosexual manipulation by Rajavi that she said became an integral tool for controlling female cadres. She was forced to divorce her husband and, like Sultani, eventually became sexually involved with Rajavi.
Around , an even more chilling directive came down from Rajavi to the female members of the organization. We want to eliminate any kind of hope for the future from your mind. You are either with us or not! The revolution In the final years of the s, Iran was increasingly shaken by nationwide demonstrations that raged against the tyrannical rule of the Shah. In January , Shah's regime gave in under the mounting pressure of popular revolt and released the last group of political prisoners, which included MEK leader Massoud Rajavi and several senior members of the now-famous Iranian opposition organization.
Less than a month later, the Shah regime was toppled by popular uprisings. In the first years that followed the revolution, Massoud Rajavi directed the efforts of the MEK on raising awareness on the threats of extremism by holding meetings and political rallies.
During this time, Massoud Rajavi and the MEK grew very popular among Iranians, and the organization expanded to tens of thousands of members across Iran. Massoud Rajavi. Rajavi quickly became the favored candidate of various individuals, groups and movements that opposed fundamentalism and were worried that Khomeini was heading the country toward a religious dictatorship. The growing influence of Massoud Rajavi and the MEK caught the attention of Khomeini, who feared that a democratic movement would become a challenge for his regime.
The founding of the National Council of Resistance NCRI As the Khomeini regime continued to tighten the noose around the freedoms of the Iranian people, it became evident that the country was headed for an era of total tyranny and religious dictatorship.
In a final attempt to encourage Khomeini to respect the most basic political, social and legal rights of the Iranian population, Massoud Rajavi and the MEK called for a peaceful demonstration on June 20, Similar rallies took place in other cities. The regime responded by opening fire on the peaceful protesters, killing many in the streets and arresting thousands of others.
Members of the Revolutionary Guards killed many MEK members and supporters in the streets in extrajudicial executions. On the morrow of the June 20 demonstrations, Khomeini officially banned all Iranian opposition groups and ordered all of their members and leaders arrested. There have also been reports that Obama has repeatedly refused meeting with Rajavi. Amid all rumors about Rajavi's fate after the invasion of Iraq, statements from the People's Mujahedin of Iran reiterated that the organization's leader is alive and hiding in a safe place.
Since Rajavi's absence from the political scene, his wife Maryam Rajavi has been acting as the president-elect of the Paris-based National Council of Resistance of Iran. Rajavi became the head of the People's Mujahedin of Iran in after several of the organization's leaders were executed during the reign of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, whose rule was opposed by the group since its inception in After the triumph of the revolution, the gap widened between the organization and the new Islamic regime due to the former's adoption of Marxist ideologies.
The tension reached its peak in when an armed conflict took place between the two parties. This led Rajavi to flee to Paris. When France and Iran signed a deal to release French hostages taken in Lebanon during the Lebanon hostage crisis, Rajavi was deported from France along with many opposition leaders who took refuge there after the revolution.
Rajavi headed for Iraq where he was given a warn welcome by Saddam Hussein with both hoping to unite to topple the Iranian regime. The National Council of Resistance of Iran, to which the People's Mujahedin of Iran is affiliated, also joined the struggle from Europe and tried to recruit as many Iranian dissidents as possible.
The People's Mujahedin of Iran stayed on the EU list of terrorist organizations for several years and its name was removed after the organization gave up armed struggle. However, the U. State Department still considers it a terrorist organization.
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