Mujahedin-e Khalq

The Mujahedin-e Khalq, or People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran (abbreviated MEK, PMOI or MKO), is an Iranian political organization in exile that advocates for the overthrow of the current government in Iran. It was founded by three Iranian students affiliated with the Freedom Movement of Iran, but it has long been led jointly by husband-and-wife team Massoud and Maryam Rajavi.

Massoud Rajavi became acquainted with the People’s Mujahedin-e Khalq (PMOI/MEK) while he was a university student, when the MEK was still a very young Iranian opposition movement. He was drawn to the principles and ideals that its members and leaders espoused and their dedication to achieving both freedom and democracy in Iran. Rajavi joined the PMOI/MEK in 1967 and was in close contact with Mohammad Hanifnejad, the leader and founder of the MEK. Hanifnejad appointed Massoud Rajavi to the MEK’s ideological group, where he helped to study and document the organization’s ideological principles. Rajavi later became a member of the PMOI / MEK’s Central Committee.

Mujahedin-e Khalq was the first Iranian organization to systematically develop a modern revolutionary interpretation of Islam that differed sharply from both the old conservative version of Islam of the traditional clergy and the new populist version formulated in the 1970s by Ayatollah Khomeini and his disciples. As the historical leader of the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK / PMOI), Massoud Rajavi has had a major role in forming the opposition against the religious dictatorship ruling in Iran.

Massoud Rajavi’s weekly lectures in Tehran’s Sharif University, in which he introduced and detailed the worldview and ideology of the Mujahedin-e Khalq, were attended by thousands of people. They were described by France’s Le Monde as being some of the most important not-to-be-missed events in Tehran. Approximately 10,000 people presented their admission cards to sit on Sharif University’s lawn and listen for three hours to the lectures given by the leader of the Mujahedin-e Khalq.

In an August 2011 report, the U.S. State Department, estimated Mujahedin-e Khalq’s global membership to be between 5,000 and 10,000, with significant contingents in Paris and other European capitals where the group maintains offices.