תגית: Iraq

Atefeh Sebdani was born in Iran to parents active in the MEK but was torn from them and sent for molding to a family in Sweden. In an interview, she describes life in the exiled cult and its rejection of Persian culture.

Published in Haaretz: She Grew Up in an Exiled Iranian Opposition Group, That Turned Into a Brutal Cult – Middle East News

At a protest in Stockholm in April, alongside the Lion and Sun flags representing pre-revolution Iran, Israeli and American flags were also waved. As in similar events around the world, the demonstrators praised the Israeli-American attack on Iran and expressed support for Reza Pahlavi, son of the shah who was deposed in 1979, as Iran's future leader.

The rule of the ayatollahs unites many Iranian exiles against the regime, and threatens political activists operating against it in Europe. However, one of the women who helps the organizers of the Stockholm demonstrations, Atefeh Sebdani, has suffered for most of her life from another Iranian group – an organization that was once part of the Islamic Revolution but later became its enemy.

Mujahedin-e Khalq was founded in 1965 by a group of Iranian students who opposed the shah's rule. The organization combined elements of Shiite Islam with Marxist and anti-imperialist ideas and operated underground during the 1970s. During this period, it attacked regime targets and gained support as an opposition organization.

When the Islamic Revolution emerged in the late 1970s, MEK even joined Khomeini on his path to power. Yet after the establishment of the Islamic Republic, conflict arose between it and the new regime and by the early 1980s, the MEK was attacking government targets. That was countered with brutal repression that included the execution of thousands. The MEK leadership fled into exile in Iraq, where it formed a controversial alliance with Saddam Hussein during the Iran-Iraq War.

Atefeh Sebdani's story begins in the clash between the ayatollahs' regime and the MEK. "My parents were imprisoned after the revolution because of their rivalry with the new regime. They were considered enemies of the state and like other MEK members, after they were released, they were forced to leave," she says.

She was two years old at the time. Sebdani recounts that she, her younger brother, her father and her pregnant mother fled to Pakistan and lived there destitute on the streets. Her father continued from Pakistan onto Iraq, where he joined other MEK members in a camp called Ashraf, which later became the movement's center.

"After some time, we also moved to the camp. By that stage it had become a kind of small town with kindergartens, parks, and schools – mainly for propaganda purposes. They wanted to show how good things were there so others would join," she says. "For me, it was like paradise. I had everything; it was idyllic. I was with my mother and I was happy."

Then, without warning, everything ended at once. She hadn't even turned five yet but her mother told her she would have to take care of her two brothers by herself. She didn't explain why or how, but when the day came, Sebdani found herself standing by a bus with a group of crying women. When the bus departed, five-year-old Sebdani became a mother in practice.

"On the way, I had to take care of one brother who was still a baby and wanted to breastfeed, and another who was very ill," she recalls. She adds that the expulsion of the children from Camp Ashraf was a process. She doesn't know exactly how long it took, but she remembers children disappearing from kindergarten without knowing why or where they were going.

Eventually, all the roughly 900 children in the camp were separated from their parents and transported to other countries.

"The place was emptied of children's voices," she says. "And children's voices are the most human thing there is – the core of life – and that was taken away."

Why were the children expelled?

"The children were an element that disturbed the organization's leader, Massoud Rajavi. The ideological struggle to liberate Iran turned into the struggle of a narcissistic leader who wanted all the power in his hands. He wanted the men and women in the movement to be under his absolute control, and the children stood in his way. The movement began as an ideological movement, but it became a cult."

What Sebdani describes aligns with what is known from other sources about the MEK. During the 1980s and 1990s, the organization became highly centralized, developing political and military branches that operated from bases in Iraq. At the same time, the National Council of Resistance of Iran was established as a political umbrella organization.

'The family I came to was politically obligated to take children. It's not that they loved children or wanted us. We underwent heavy indoctrination and were forced to constantly work for the organization.'

During this period, allegations indeed emerged about cult-like characteristics such as strict internal discipline, ideological control, and exclusion of dissenters.

However, the organization's leader, Rajavi, has not been seen in public since the early 2000s, and his fate remains unclear, as the organization has not disclosed information about his whereabouts nor announced his death. Meanwhile, his wife, Maryam Rajavi, serves as the public face of the organization – contributing to an atmosphere of secrecy and uncertainty regarding its structure and decision-making.

After several months and a long journey that included stops in Jordan and Germany, Sebdani and her two younger brothers arrived in Gothenburg in western Sweden.

"For all that time, I was sure we would soon be reunited with my mother," she recalls. "We sat on planes and trains, I saw things I didn't know, I saw climates and people change, there were new languages and places – but alongside the excitement, I constantly feared we were moving further away from my mother and worried she wouldn't be able to find us."

In Gothenburg, they were told they would soon meet their mother. "I was very excited. But what actually happened was different – we stood on a train platform, and instead of my mother, two other people I didn't know arrived, a woman and a man, and we were told: these are your mother and father. That's when the nightmare began."

The people who took Sebdani and her brothers were MEK members living in Sweden and working for the movement. They also had a child of their own, and took in two other children out of roughly 200 MEK children who arrived in Sweden. Sebdani says she later traced the fate of hundreds of other children who were "exported" from Camp Ashraf and that she obtained a document listing their destinations – including Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Canada, and the United States.

"The family I came to was politically obligated to take children," she says. "It's not that they loved children or wanted us. We underwent heavy indoctrination and were forced to constantly work for the organization." She does not reveal the identities of her foster parents, but her childhood memories expose the nature of the organization as it became a cult.

According to her, MEK families abroad were completely mobilized. They engaged in recruiting members and funds, organizing demonstrations, fighting opponents, and harassing defectors. She describes this society as oikophobic (one that is hostile, dislikes and rejects its own "home" culture, country and traditions). "They hated anything Iranian that wasn't related to the MEK. We weren't allowed, for example, to listen to Persian music unless it was the music of MEK members. I didn't read books in Persian. There was no Persian culture—everything was subordinated to the organization."

As far as you know, is this still the case?

"Yes. They still have offices in different countries and a strong presence on social media. The headquarters is in Auvers-sur-Oise, a suburb northwest of Paris, where political leadership members and full-time 'soldiers' are based. At the same time, there are activists like my foster family, and MEK members in Camp Ashraf 3 in Albania. That camp is essentially a 'troll factory' that produces large numbers of accounts and spreads propaganda in Persian and English. They write articles about themselves, smear their opponents, and create the impression of support – even though they have no real support."

Camp Ashraf 3 is the fortified camp to which most MEK members – estimated at 2,500 to 3,000 – were transferred from Iraq between 2013 and 2016. The move was carried out with the support of the United States, the United Nations, and the Albanian government. It took place because after the fall of Saddam Hussein, the MEK was no longer protected in Iraq, and international actors worked to evacuate them. Although the organization had been designated a terrorist organization in the U.S. for many years, it was removed from the list in 2012 as a result of pressure applied by the movement, and some American and other actors even saw it as a partner in opposing the Iranian regime. According to reports, the MEK no longer engages in military activity, but the camp in Albania has become a center of political and media activity with a highly centralized and controlled structure.

"It's a place where entry and exit are not free, and in the past there were physical punishments and torture of those who wanted to leave," says Sebdani. "I know stories of people who disappeared and of mandatory daily confessions about 'dirty thoughts' – for example, sexual thoughts and masturbation. You weren't even allowed to think about your children or speak with members of the opposite sex without permission. Today, with defectors speaking out and social media, the movement can no longer allow itself to use such methods."

Sebdani is not alone in her claims about the MEK. The French newspaper Le Monde conducted interviews in 2024 with former members of the organization living in Europe, including two named Amir Vafa and Amin Golmaryami. Vafa described how he and others were forced to participate in public confession sessions in which, once a week, everyone had to describe their sexual fantasies. He added that friendships were closely monitored: "It was forbidden to have lunch with the same friend twice in a row."

Golmaryami added that during clashes with Iraqi security forces in 2011, MEK leaders sent him and his comrades to go "in front of Iraqi bullets to increase the number of casualties." He claims they did this in order to "put pressure on Europe and the United States to remove the organization from the list of terrorist organizations and facilitate the relocation of its members to another country."

Another MEK member, Reza Torabi, said that at the age of 17 he was a zealous member and was assigned the role of "welcoming" young newcomers. "Our objective was to brainwash them, make them forget their previous lives, and instill in them the ideology of the Mujahedeen," he said. "My dedication was unwavering." In hindsight, he believes that he too fell victim to manipulation and regrets "the harm [he] caused in the course of his duties."

A 2005 report by Human Rights Watch, based on in-depth interviews with former members, also described a reality of beatings, verbal and psychological abuse, coerced confessions, threats of execution, and torture.

How do you believe control of MEK member is maintained today?

"If you look at people like the father, you see someone who joined in his twenties and spent his entire life inside this system. He never paid a bill or looked for a job – everything was handled by the organization. He doesn't know how to buy a plane ticket or even drive to the end of a street. The MEK infantilized these people, and there is no one to take care of them if they leave."

Does that mean there are no new members?

"That's right. There are no new members. It's a movement of older people – but they pay young people to attend demonstrations. If you go to MEK protests, you'll find Poles and Ukrainians who don't speak Persian and don't know what they're protesting about, alongside Swedes with no connection to the organization who were paid to join."

Who pays for all this?

"From what I saw and was part of, many people pay the MEK monthly so they won't harass them – Iranians in exile subjected to pressure, propaganda, flattery, and social coercion. There are also welfare funds, for example for foster families, as well as political donations and funding from human rights organizations influenced by the group's propaganda."

Beyond the political activity, the period that Sebdani stayed with her foster family, had another aspect. She talks about indoctrination and the constant threat that was used to make her stay.

"From the age of five, I experienced sexual abuse, physical abuse and psychological abuse in the foster family," she says, "but I couldn't say anything because they threatened to separate me from my brothers. I was not allowed to be a child. The first thing that happened to me in the foster family was that my father began to show interest in my naked body. He wanted me to do things. I felt it was wrong and frightening, but I knew nothing about sex or sexuality and I didn't understand.

"Over time, it only got worse, and my foster brother abused me too, encouraged by my foster mother. I had no childhood; it was just survival. I was the one who cleaned and tidied, I had to be a good student, and also the one who went out to demonstrations and went to Mujahideen conferences around the world". Talking to Sebdani she describes a reality full of exploitation, punishment, crying at night, and deception of Swedish welfare services.

As an adult, she eventually left, moved to Stockholm, became an engineer, and worked for Microsoft. After a personal crisis, she began telling her story and wrote a book (Min hand i min, "My Hand in Mine", published by Albert Bonniers förlag, 2024). Today she is married and has three children.

Politically, Sebdani is active among supporters of Reza Pahlavi. "I saw the difference between the two leaders," she says. "I met Maryam Rajavi as a child, and recently I met Pahlavi in Paris with a group of other former MEK children. I support the Iranian people, and the people support Pahlavi. He is exactly what Iran needs – a secular, humane person, with a family, who knows what living a normal life is, who listens and can unite people."

After Sebdani's meeting with Reza Pahlavi and other "MEK children" she became the target of an online campaign against her. Sebdani says that this isn't the first time and she has been targeted by a smear campaign led by the MEK on several previous occasions before.

"This kind of harassment happens to everyone who has left the organization and spoken out," she says. This time, the MEK website denied Sebdani's account through a letter it claimed was written by her biological father. "For me, as a father, seeing 'Atefeh Sebdani' at a gathering of the Shah's son was painful… Atefeh is the same person who, by spreading defamation against the organization under the false pretext of being part of a group of 'child soldiers,' has for many years become a full servant of Iranian intelligence."

The text claims that Sebdani was never part of the MEK and accuses her and her associates of collaborating with the regime in Tehran. Sebdani does not know whether her father actually wrote the text, but she says that everything in it is false and that she is familiar with other examples of letters that MEK members were forced to write under coercion.

Following the letter, a senior figure in the organization, Freydoun Salimi, also spoke out, accusing Sebdani of never having been a member of the group and of acting as an agent of the regime. In responses to his claims on X, supporters of the organization repeat the accusations and insult Sebdani. On other social media platforms, she is also accused of assisting Israel, betraying Iran, and supporting Americans attacking her country.

Sebdani's personal MEK story has a positive ending – she escaped, her siblings left, and even her mother eventually left the organization. The organization itself, however, is still very much alive. It even claims to still have networks inside Iran, though most analysts believe its influence there is limited. "The MEK is more of a European problem than an Iranian one," Sebdani concludes. "In Iran, they have no real support, not even with regime critics. But after the 'Woman, Life, Freedom' protests, it's clear that a unifying leader is needed, otherwise, there will be no change – and I have no doubt that Pahlavi is the right person."