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{{Short description|Iranian political activist (born 1948)}}
The President and official spokesman of the National Council of Resistance is Massoud Rajavi. Massoud Rajavi was born in 1948 in the town of Tabas in the northeastern province of Khorassan.The youngest of five brothers, he is a graduate of political law from Tehran University. His brothers completed their higher education in France, Switzerland, Britain and Belgium. The eldest, Professor Kazem Rajavi, was assassinated in April 1990 in Geneva. His only sister, Monireh, was executed in 1988 after enduring six years of imprisonment with her two small children. Asghar Nazemi, her husband, had been executed two years earlier.
{{Use dmy dates|date=November 2020}}
{{Expand Persian|مسعود_رجوی|topic=bio|date=June 2021}}
{{Infobox person
| name = Massoud Rajavi
| image = Masoud Rajavi 1970's.jpg
| imagesize = 220px
| caption = Rajavi in 1981
| native_name = مسعود رجوی
| native_name_lang = fa
| birth_date = {{birth date|1948|8|18|df=y}}
| death_date =
| disappeared_date = {{circa}} {{Death date and age|df=yes|2003|03|13|1948|8|18}}
| disappeared_place = ]
| birth_place = ], ]<ref>{{cite book|title=Historical Dictionary of Terrorism|page=454|series=Historical Dictionaries of War, Revolution, and Civil Unrest|edition=3rd |publisher=Scarecrow Press|year=2009|author1=Stephen Sloan|author2=Sean K. Anderson|isbn=978-0810863118}}</ref>
| spouse = {{plainlist|
*{{marriage|]|1980|1982|end=died}}
*{{marriage|Firouzeh Banisadr|1982|1984|end=div}}
*{{marriage|]|1985}}
}}
| children = 1 son
| organization = ]
| signature = Rajavi, Massoud - Signature 30.05.1986.jpg
| module3 = {{Infobox officeholder
| embed = yes
| office = Leader of ]
| term_start = January 1979
| term_end =
| alongside = ] (since 1985)
}}
}}


'''Massoud Rajavi''' ({{langx|fa|مسعود رجوی}}, born 18 August 1948 – disappeared 13 March 2003)<ref name=Border2019>{{cite web|author=Jonathan Border|url=https://www.newsweek.com/2019/09/06/iran-regime-fall-opposition-groups-mek-1456420.html|title=Iran's Opposition Groups are Preparing for the Regime's Collapse. Is Anyone Ready?|date=27 August 2019|publisher=]|access-date=25 November 2019|archive-date=1 March 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210301083652/https://www.newsweek.com/2019/09/06/iran-regime-fall-opposition-groups-mek-1456420.html|url-status=live}}</ref> is an Iranian politician and revolutionary who became the leader of the ] (MEK) in 1979.<ref name=Hern>{{cite book|title=Iran's Revolutionary Guard: The Threat That Grows While America Sleeps|page=208|publisher=Potomac Books, Inc|year=2012|author1=Steven O'Hern|isbn=978-1597977012}}</ref> After leaving Iran in 1981, he resided in France and Iraq.<ref name="Encyclopedia of Terrorism">{{cite book|title=Encyclopedia of Terrorism|page=509|publisher=ABC-CLIO|entry=Mujahedin-e-Khalq (MEK)|year=2012|author1=Peter Chalk
Mr. Rajavi's elderly parents were arrested and imprisoned by the mullahs in 1981. His first wife, Ashraf, was also a Mojahedin prisoner during the time of the shah. She married Mr. Rajavi in summer 1979, and was slain in Tehran in February 1982 when the Pasdaran attacked her residence.
|isbn=9780313308956}}</ref> He went missing shortly before the ],<ref name="Encyclopedia of Terrorism"/><ref>{{cite book|title=Assessing President Obama's National Security Strategy|page=|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=2012|last1=Lovelace Jr. |first1=Douglas |last2=Boon |first2=Kristen|last3 = Huq |first3=Aziz|isbn=978-0-19-975824-1|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QOdMAgAAQBAJ&dq=rajavi+2003&pg=PA582}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|title=Historical Dictionary of Terrorism (Volume 38)|page=454|publisher=Scarecrow Press|year=2009|author= Sean K. Anderson (Author), Stephen Sloan (Author)|isbn=978-0810857643}}</ref> leaving his then wife and co-leader Maryam Rajavi as the public face of the MEK.<ref name="Hern" />


== Biography ==
* Under the Shah
Rajavi joined the MEK when he was 20 and a law student at the ]. He graduated with a degree in political law. Rajavi and the MEK actively opposed ] and participated in the ].<ref>{{cite magazine|last=Hersh|first=Seymour M.|title=Our Men in Iran?|url=https://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2012/04/mek.html|magazine=The New Yorker|date=5 April 2012|access-date=19 December 2013}}</ref>


During the ], Rajavi was arrested by ] and sentenced to death. Due to efforts by his brother, ], and various Swiss lawyers and professors, his sentence was reduced to ]. He was released from prison during the ] in 1979.<ref>See Abrahamian, supranote 291</ref> After the revolution, Rajavi assumed leadership of the ].<ref>Abrahamian, page 90.</ref>
In high school Mr. Rajavi was a sympathizer of Ayatollah Taleqani and Mehdi Bazargan's Freedom Movement. He became acquainted with the Mojahedin at the university and became a member in 1967. He was in direct contact with the organization's founder, Mohammad Hanifnejad, and later became a Central Committe member.
Mr. Rajavi was arrested in 1971 and sentenced to death. His elder brother, Professor Kazem Rajavi, organized a worldwide campaign to save his life, and his sentence was commuted to life imprisonment. SAVAK, unable to execute him because of international pressure, kept Rajavi under torture throughout his incarceration. Amnesty International, the International Committee of the Red Cross, as well as distinguished European personalities such as François Mitterrand, intervened to save his life many times. He was released among the last group of political prisoners in January 1979.
Despite the difficult conditions of prison, Mr. Rajavi had to fill the vacuum of the Mojahedin's executed leaders and revive the organization, shattered by Marxists in an internal coup. He spent thousands of hours, under extraordinarily restrictive conditions, formulating and teaching the Mojahedin's positions. All his activities had to be kept hidden from the eyes of the SAVAK and the prison guards. Illness and systematic torture aggravated the difficulties of his task.
Every time SAVAK got wind of efforts, he was returned to the torture chambers, but he continued his discussions with his fellow cell-mates. Afterwards, the imprisoned Mojahedin passed on these positions to those members still outside. Mr. Rajavi described the Marxist current, which had shattered not only the Mojahedin organization, but also the unity and trust among opposition forces, as treacherous and deviant. He censured their misappropriation of the name "Mojahedin" stressing that the ideology of the Mojahedin was Islam, and their goal to overthrow the shah and establish an independent, popular government. These decisive positions forced the Marxists to stop using the Mojahedin's name in 1977. He warned that the blow to the Mojahedin would give rise to backward interpretations of the religion, and advised the Mojahedin to keep their distance from the reactionaries, whose ideologue he identified as Khomeini.


When ] took place in 1980, Rajavi nominated himself and his own ]. He was endorsed by the ], the ], the ], ] and the ]. He was disqualified in the elections by ] on the grounds that 'those who did not endorse the ] could not be trusted to abide by that constitution'.<ref>{{citation|author=Ervand Abrahamian|title=Radical Islam: the Iranian Mojahedin|publisher=I.B.Tauris|date=1989|isbn=9781850430773|volume=3|series=Society and culture in the modern Middle East|at=p. 198}}</ref>
* Mullahs' Biggest Threat


In 1981, when Ayatollah Khomeini dismissed President ] and a new wave of arrests and executions started in the country, Rajavi and Banisadr fled to Paris from Tehran's airbase. Massoud Rajavi and Banisadr formed the ] (NCRI) "with the intent to replace the Khomeini regime with the 'Democratic Islamic Republic.'”<ref>{{cite book|title=Iran's Revolutionary Guard: The Threat That Grows While America Sleeps|page=206|publisher=Potomac Books, Inc|year=2012|author1=Steven O'Hern|isbn=978-1-59797-701-2}}</ref> As a form of agreement with the Islamic republic, in 1986 France's Prime Minister ] evicted the MEK out of France. Rajavi and approximately five to ten thousand MEK members were received by the Iraqi government.<ref>{{cite book|title=Ideology and Power in the Middle East: Studies in Honor of George Lenczowski|author=Peter J. Chelkowski, Robert J. Pranger|year=1988|publisher=Duke University Press|isbn=978-0-8223-8150-1|pages=255–256}}</ref> After moving to Iraq, Rajavi set up a base on the Iranian border.<ref>{{cite news | url=https://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/23/world/africa/23iht-profile.html?_r=1 | work=The New York Times | first=Craig S. | last=Smith | title=An implacable opponent to the mullahs of Iran | date=24 September 2005 | access-date=19 February 2017 | archive-date=25 December 2014 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141225234917/http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/23/world/africa/23iht-profile.html?_r=1 | url-status=live }}</ref>
From the roof of Qasr Prison on the last day of his captivity, he spoke as the representative of the last group of political prisoners to thousands of Tehran residents who had come to secure his freedom. He expressed the hope that the prisons would be closed forever, and political freedoms established in Iran.
Several days prior to Khomeini's arrival in Tehran, his son, Ahmad, called Mr. Rajavi from Paris, telling him, "You have a lot of support in Iran and if you form a political party, millions will join you." Several weeks later, in a meeting in Tehran, Ahmad Khomeini told Rajavi, "If you support the Imam and oppose his opponents, all doors will be open to you, and you will be given all that you need." Rajavi rejected Khomeini's proposal, saying that the Mojahedin sought a nationalist, democratic government.
A year later, in spring 1980, Mr. Rajavi met with Hashemi Rafsanjani, then a member of the Revolutionary Council and Minister of the Interior, to file a complaint on the multitude of cases of fraud and rigging by the regime's operatives during the parliamentary elections.
Rafsanjani told him: "Forget about all this. You have an organization, a very good reputation and a lot of respect. If you had accepted the Imam and the velayat-e faqih, all doors would have been open to you. You have forced us to bring ministers and Majlis deputies from abroad." Mr. Rajavi replied: "You should not expect us to accept club-wielding and monopoly of power under the banner of Islam."
Soon after the revolution, the Mojahedin launched their own cultural, ideological campaign among intellectuals and the younger generation to counter Khomeini's despotic and reactionary interpretation of Islam. In late 1979, Rajavi began a series of lectures in philosophy at Sharif University of Technology. Every week, 10,000 students took part in these classes, and more than 100,000 others watched the video recordings of them across Iran. The transcripts were published weekly by the hundreds of thousands, and distributed throughout Iran. After just 16 weeks, Khomeini shut down the universities, his regime's leaders stressing that the universities had become a base for the Mojahedin.


== Electoral history ==
* Khomeini's Fatwa Against Rajavi
{| class="wikitable" style="text-align:center;"
|-
! Year !! Election !! Votes !! % !! Rank !! Notes
|-
|1979||Tehran elections for the ] (10 seats)||297,707||11.78||12th
| style="background-color:#C66"|Lost<ref name="ri">{{citation|author=Ervand Abrahamian|title=Radical Islam: the Iranian Mojahedin|publisher=I.B.Tauris|date=1989|isbn=9781850430773|volume=3|series=Society and culture in the modern Middle East|at=p. 195, Table 6; pp. 203–205, Table 8}}</ref>
|-
|rowspan="3"|1980
||]
!colspan="3"|–
| style="background-color:#C0C0C0"|''Withdrew''
|-
|Tehran elections for the ]||531,943||24.9||38th
| style="background-color:#FFFFE0"|''Went to run-off''<ref name="ri"/>
|-
|Parliament {{small|run-off}}||{{decrease}} 375,762||{{decrease}} 23||21st
| style="background-color:#C66"|Lost<ref name="ri"/>
|}


== Disappearance ==
By 1980, Rajavi's speeches in Tehran and provincial centers drew crowds of hundreds of thousands. The turning-point in the meteoric rise of Mojahedin's popularity came in January 1980 presidential elections. Rajavi's candidacy received a flurry of support from the democratic opposition to the mullahs' regime.
Shortly before the ], Massoud Rajavi disappeared. His whereabouts remain unknown.<ref name=Border2019/><ref name =Rasheed2009>{{cite news|author=Ahmed Rasheed|url=https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-iran-exiles-mujahideen/factbox-who-are-the-peoples-mujahideen-of-iran-idUSTRE5BR34420091228|title=FACTBOX: Who are the People's Mujahideen of Iran?|date=28 December 2009|work=]|access-date=25 November 2019|archive-date=22 December 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181222015603/https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-iran-exiles-mujahideen/factbox-who-are-the-peoples-mujahideen-of-iran-idUSTRE5BR34420091228|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last=Chalk|first=Peter|year=2012|title=Encyclopedia of Terrorism |publisher=ABC-CLIO|isbn=978-0313308956|pages=509}}</ref> In his absence, ] has assumed his responsibilities as leader of the MEK. According to members of the NCRI, Massoud Rajavi is still alive and in hiding due to being a "prime target" of the Islamic Republic of Iran,<ref>{{cite news|author=|url=https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/peoples-mujahidin-mek-dissidents-seeking-regime-change-in-tehran-rch5w8knc|title=The People's Mujahidin: The Iranian dissidents seeking regime change in Tehran|work=The Times|access-date=1 September 2022|archive-date=8 August 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220808121631/https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/peoples-mujahidin-mek-dissidents-seeking-regime-change-in-tehran-rch5w8knc|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|author=|url=https://www.newsweek.com/iran-raisi-mek-tehran-ncri-1608250|title=Iran Rebels See Hardliner Ebrahim Raisi as Chance to Bring Down Regime|work=Newsweek|access-date=1 September 2022|archive-date=30 August 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220830115841/https://www.newsweek.com/iran-raisi-mek-tehran-ncri-1608250|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|author=|url=https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-East/2011/1220/With-deadline-looming-to-close-MEK-s-Camp-Ashraf-in-Iraq-what-next|title=With deadline looming to close MEK's Camp Ashraf in Iraq, what next?|work=]|access-date=1 September 2022|archive-date=30 August 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220830115841/https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-East/2011/1220/With-deadline-looming-to-close-MEK-s-Camp-Ashraf-in-Iraq-what-next|url-status=live}}</ref> while other sources have said that he is presumed dead.<ref name=conflict>{{cite book|title=Conflict in the Modern Middle East: An Encyclopedia of Civil War, Revolutions, and Regime Change |page=209|publisher=ABC-CLIO |year=2020|editor1=Jonathan K. Zartman |isbn=978-1440865022 |quote=Massoud disappeared in 2003, believed dead.}}</ref><ref name=nyt>{{cite news|title=Iranian Diplomat Accused of Plotting to Bomb Dissidents Goes on Trial in Belgium|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/27/world/europe/iran-dissidents-bomb-assadi-belgium.html|work=]|date=2020-11-27|access-date=28 August 2021|archive-date=10 July 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210710195710/https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/27/world/europe/iran-dissidents-bomb-assadi-belgium.html|url-status=live}}</ref>
American historian Ervand Abrahamian wrote in his account of those years: "Rajavi's candidacy was not only endorsed by the Mojahedin-affiliated organizations...; but also by an impressive array of independent organizations including the Feda'iyan, the National Democratic Front, the Kurdish Democratic Party, the Kurdish Toilers Revolutionary Party (Komula), the Society of Iranian Socialists, the Society for the Cultural and Political Rights of the Turkomans, the Society of Young Assyrians, and the Joint Group of Armenian, Zoroastrian and Jewish Minorities. Rajavi also received the support of a large number of prominent figures: Taleqani's widow; Shaykh Ezeddin Hosayni, the spiritual leader of the Sunni Kurds in Mahabad; Hojjat al-Islam Jalal Ganjehi...; fifty well-known members of the Iranian Writers' Association, including the economist Naser Pakdaman, the essayist Manuchehr Hezarkhani and the secular historians Feraydun Adamiyyat and Homa Nateq; and, of course, many of the families of the early Mojahedin martyrs, notably the Hanif-nezhads, Rezais, Mohsens, Badizadegans, Asgarizadehs, Sadeqs, Meshkinfams, and Mihandusts. The Mojahedin had become the vanguards of the secular opposition to the Islamic Republic."
Fearing that Rajavi's victory would upset the emergence of the totalitarian religious state that he was shaping, Khomeini reneged on his earlier promise not to intervene in the elections and issued a fatwa (religious decree) to veto Rajavi's nomination for presidency.
The move only increased the Mojahedin's popularity. In the first parliamentary elections in March and April 1980, the Mojahedin received the second highest vote tally nationwide, second only to Khomeini's own Islamic Republican Party, despite huge riggings and electoral fraud by the ruling mullahs.
A candidate from Tehran, Rajavi received 550,000 votes, but Khomeini prevented him from entering the Majlis.
In a speech in June 1980 at Tehran's Amjadieh Stadium, Mr. Rajavi criticized the regime's leaders about the suppression of liberties. The gathering in tribute to the victims of club-wielding was itself attacked, creating a major political scandal for the regime. Twenty deputies from the newly convened parliament issued the body's first statement, condemning the attack.
Political observers were by then unanimously describing Massoud Rajavi as the leader of the anti-Khomeini opposition. Several days later, Khomeini made his strongest speech against the Mojahedin, candidly expressing his concern at Rajavi's popularity, who had begun a campaign to unite the democratic opposition forces.
The daily Mojahed, with a circulation of 500,000, had the largest readership in Iran at the time. It allocated a section, entitled Showra (Council), to other opposition groups and personalities to put across their views.
In early 1981, in a series of lengthy interviews, Rajavi explained the Mojahedin's viewpoints about Khomeini and other political trends at the time, and proposed the formation of a front against religious backwardness.


== Iraqi 2010 arrest warrant ==
* A Democratic Alternative to Mullahs' Tyranny
In July 2010, the ] issued an ] for 39 MEK members, including Rajavi, "due to evidence that confirms they committed ]" by "involvement with the ] in suppressing the ] against the former Iraqi regime and the killing of Iraqi citizens". The MEK has denied the charges, saying that they constitute a "politically motivated decision and it's the last gift presented from the government of Nuri al-Maliki to the Iranian government".<ref name="cah">{{cite web|author=Muhanad Mohammed|editor=Rania El Gamal|editor2=David Stamp|url=https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSLDE66A0A0|title=Iraqi court seeks arrest of Iranian exiles|date=11 July 2010|access-date=28 December 2016|publisher=]|archive-date=2 February 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170202021933/http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSLDE66A0A0|url-status=live}}</ref> Back in 2005, a ] official asked for arrest and trial of Rajavi based on his organization's documentary evidence of the involvement.<ref>{{citation|author=Bill Samii|url=https://www.rferl.org/a/1342660.html|title=Iran Report|date=26 October 2005|access-date=28 December 2016|publisher=]|volume=8|number=42|quote=Mohammad Tofiq Rahim, an official with the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, said in an interview with Radio Farda that his organization has documentary evidence of Rajavi's role. He said that when the Kurds seized control of northern parts of Iraq with U.S. assistance at the end of the Gulf War in 1991, the MEK cooperated with the Iraqi Army in retaking control of the city of Kirkuk. In the process, he charged, hundreds of the city's residents were killed by the MEK. "Everyone in Iraqi Kurdistan knows that Masud Rajavi cooperated with the Mukhaberat and security forces of Saddam Hussein not only in the suppression of the Kurds, but all the opponents of the regime of Saddam," Rahim added.|archive-date=13 November 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181113034505/https://www.rferl.org/a/1342660.html|url-status=live}}</ref>


==Trial ''in absentia''==
The rapid rise of the Mojahedin was not something Khomeini could tolerate. The first few months of 1981 witnessed a sharp rise in armed attacks on Mojahedin rallies, assassination of Mojahedin sympathizers while they were selling the organization's newspapers, and fatwas by various mullahs across the country, declaring that it was "religiously permissible" to kill the Mojahedin and confiscate their properties, because they were "renegades" and would not accept the mullahs' version of Islam.
In July 2023, the judiciary of Iran announced a mass trial of 104 MEK members '']'', including both ] and Massoud Rajavi.<ref>{{cite news |title=قوه قضائیه ایران از ۱۰۴ عضو مجاهدین خلق خواست وکیل به دادگاه معرفی کنند |url=https://www.radiofarda.com/a/iran-s-judiciary-calls-for-prosecution-of-members-of-mojahedin-organization/32525643.html |access-date=5 August 2023 |work=Radio Farda |date=1 August 2023 |language=fa}}</ref>
On June 20, Khomeini issued a public order to the Revolutionary Guards to quash a huge demonstration by half-a-million residents of Tehran, who had responded to the Mojaehdin's call to demonstrate against the mullahs' tyranny. Dozens were shot dead and hundreds arrested. On the same day, mass executions began. Tens of thousands of Mojahedin members and supporters and other opposition activists were executed in a few months in the bloodiest political purge in Iran's history.
Rajavi announced the formation of the National Council of Resisance of Iran in Tehran on July 21, 1981. A few days later, he left Tehran from France on board an Iranian miitary jet poilted by a team of pro-Mojahedin air force officers.
In Paris, Rajavi introduced the NCRI to the world public opinion and exposed the mullahs' atrocities. He met many foreign leaders and political dignitaries, and was interviewed by hundreds of journalists from all over the world


== Personal life ==
* A Courageous Breakthrough for Peace
Rajavi came from a prominent family. He received a degree in political law from Tehran University. His brother was Kazem Rajavi, Iran's ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva who held doctoral degrees from Universities in Paris and Geneva. They had three other brothers, Saleh (a cardiologist in France), Ahmad (a British-educated surgeon), and Hooshang (an engineer in Belgium).<ref>{{cite book |last1=Lincoln Bloomfield Jr. |title=The Ayatollahs and the MEK Iran's Crumbling Influence Operation |url=http://www.ubalt.edu/about-ub/news-events/images/The%20Ayatollahs%20and%20the%20MEK.pdf |publisher=University of Baltimore |isbn=978-0578536095 |year=2019 |access-date=20 March 2020 |archive-date=16 May 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200516004117/http://www.ubalt.edu/about-ub/news-events/images/The%20Ayatollahs%20and%20the%20MEK.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref>


Rajavi married fellow MEK member ] in summer 1980. Rabiei was regarded as "the symbol of revolutionary womanhood". She was surrounded and killed by the ] (IRGC) in 1982.<ref>{{citation|author=Ervand Abrahamian|title=Radical Islam: the Iranian Mojahedin|publisher=I.B.Tauris|date=1989|isbn=9781850430773|volume=3|series=Society and culture in the modern Middle East|at=p. 181 - 222}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/tehranbureau/2011/04/opinion-who-is-responsible-for-massacre-of-mojahedin-families-at-camp-ashraf.html|title=Opinion &#124; Who Is Responsible for the MKO Massacre at Camp Ashraf?|website=FRONTLINE - Tehran Bureau|access-date=18 October 2022|archive-date=19 October 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221019081934/https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/tehranbureau/2011/04/opinion-who-is-responsible-for-massacre-of-mojahedin-families-at-camp-ashraf.html|url-status=live}}</ref> Rajavi has a son from his first wife, named Mostafa.<ref>{{citation|first=Ronen|last=Cohen|title=The Rise and Fall of the Mojahedin Khalq, 1987-1997: Their Survival After the Islamic Revolution and Resistance to the Islamic Republic of Iran|publisher=Sussex Academic Press|year=2009|isbn=978-1-84519-270-9|pages=15, 39}}</ref> His second wife was ]'s daughter, Firouzeh. Their marriage took place in October 1982 and the couple divorced in 1984,<ref>{{citation|author=Ervand Abrahamian|title=Radical Islam: the Iranian Mojahedin|publisher=I.B.Tauris|date=1989|isbn=9781850430773|volume=3|series=Society and culture in the modern Middle East|at=p. 247}}</ref> after Banisadr left the NCRI.<ref>{{cite book|title=Iran's Revolutionary Guard: The Threat That Grows While America Sleeps|page=206|publisher=Potomac Books, Inc|year=2012|author1=Steven O'Hern|isbn=978-1597977012}}</ref> Rajavi married Maryam Qajar Azodanlu (later known as ]) in 1985.<ref>{{cite magazine|magazine=The New Yorker|volume=82|issue=1–11|pages=54–55|publisher=F-R Publishing Corporation|year=2006|title=Exiles: How Iran's expatriates are gaming the nuclear threat|author=Connie Bruck}}</ref>
In 1983, after Iraq's withdrawal from Iranian territories, Rajavi launched a massive campaign for peace, because there was no need to continue the fratricidal war. He presented a peace plan based on the 1975 Algiers Treaty in March 1983. The plan won the support of many governments, political parties and 5,000 parliamentarians and political dignitaries around the world.
Under pressure from the French government in 1986 after the latter's secret deals with the mullahs over the release of French hostages in Lebanon, Rajavi moved his headquarters from Paris to the Iran-Iraq border region in June 1986. A year later, he announced the formation of the National Liberation Army of Iran, as the military arm of the Iranian Resistance.
Under Rajavi's overall command, the NLA scored significant victories in more than 100 military operations against the Revolutionary Guards and elite units of the mullahs' military forces. Shortly after NLA forces liberated the city of Mehran in June 1988, Khomeini was forces to accept the cease-fire despite his earlier vows to continue the war "until the last erect building in Iran."
A year after the cease-fire, Khomeini's death deprived the mullahs' regime of its principal mainstay. Since then, during eight years of Khamenei-Rafsanjani duo at the top of the regime and particularty after the triumvirate leadership that emerged when Khatami became president in 1997, the mullahs' regime has been plagued with factional infighting, chronic instability, and numerous polticial, economic and social crises. In the face of this regime, Rajavi has capably led the resistance movement toward its strategic goal of toppling clerical rule in Iran.


== References ==
* A Historical Leader
{{Reflist}}


== External links ==
Despite Mr. Rajavi's decisive role in the history of the Resistance movement, all important decisions within the movement have been taken collectively after long discussions and democratic debate. Through this process, new members assumed greater responsibilities. Most members of the Mojahedin's Leadership Council and more than 90 percent of the organization's current Central Council joined the Mojahedin after 1979.
{{Commons category}}
Since 1989, Mr. Rajavi has had no executive responsibilities in the Mojahedin organization. His role in safeguarding the principles of the Mojahedin as a Muslim, democratic, nationalist and progressive organization in the 1970s, and more importantly against Khomeini's all-out assault to destroy the Mojahedin, has made him a historical and ideological leader for the Mojahedin.
* {{Wikiquote-inline}}
Since the formation of the NCRI, most of Mr. Rajavi's efforts have been devoted to the Council. His patient, democratic manner of managing the NCRI's affairs has been instrumental in the Council's expansion and resilience, and has earned him the trust of the NCRI's members. Mohammad Hossein Naqdi, an Iranian diplomat, joined the Council in 1982. He was assassinated by the regime's terrorists in 1993 in Rome. Mr. Naqdi said of Massoud Rajavi in a December 1992 interview, following the Council's expansion: "We in the Council are hesitant to highlight the role of individuals, but complements aside, I really think that in the world of politics, (Mr. Rajavi's) presence has, more than anything else, been the cause of the advances of the NCRI and Iranian Resistance. If we theorize about what would have happened if he had not been the NCRI's President, I believe if the Iranian Resistance existed at all, it would certainly be far less than it is today."

In the same series of interviews, Dr. Manouchehr Hezarkhani, a distinguished Iranian writer and Chairman of the Council's Culture and Art Committee, commented on the procedures of NCRI meetings:
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" When we arrive at the meetings, we do not share the same views... When we meet in session, sometimes we have serious arguments about certain matters, about political solutions. It is generally well understood that the point is to hold such meetings, where differences can be talked about and a consensus reached, but the individual capable of chairing such meetings and keeping the delicate balance of cooperation between different groups, none of whom are professional politicians, is gifted with the art of leadership... We have this leadership, and I think that to a large extent, it smoothes out the bumps."
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Whenever the interests of the Iranian people and democracy have been at stake, political considerations or concerns about protecting his personal prestige have never prevented Mr. Rajavi from making sensitive decisions. Launching the campaign for peace in the Iran- Iraq war in 1983, when Khomeini's belligerent nature had not been fully exposed, generated venomous propaganda by the regime and its internal and external allies. It was one of many examples of risks that few are willing to take. The formation of the National Liberation Army of Iran, as the most precious achievement of Iran's history and best guarantee and lever to overthrow the mullahs' regime, was another.
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Rajavi has always stressed that there is no insistence upon the NCRI or Mojahedin. "If at any time, any group or alternative is found to be better equipped to overthrow the regime and guarantee Iran's independence, democracy and popular sovereignty, we will definitely and wholeheartedly support it, even if it is opposed to our way of thinking," he says.
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At one of the most sensitive junctures of Iran's history, Khomeini sought to revive an Ottoman-like empire by taking advantage of special circumstances and usurping both temporal and spiritual power. Massoud Rajavi launched an all-out resistance against him and prevented him from achieving his evil goal. This is the essence of the historical role that has turned Rajavi into the national leader of the Iranian people in their quest to end mullahs' tyranny and establish lasting freedom and popular sovereignty in Iran.
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Latest revision as of 21:10, 9 December 2024

Iranian political activist (born 1948)

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Massoud Rajavi
مسعود رجوی
Rajavi in 1981
Born(1948-08-18)18 August 1948
Tabas, South Khorasan, Imperial State of Iran
Disappearedc. 13 March 2003(2003-03-13) (aged 54)
Ba'athist Iraq
OrganizationPeople's Mujahedin of Iran
Spouses
Ashraf Rabiei ​ ​(m. 1980; died 1982)​
Firouzeh Banisadr ​ ​(m. 1982; div. 1984)​
Maryam Rajavi ​(m. 1985)​
Children1 son
Leader of People's Mujahedin of Iran
Incumbent
Assumed office
January 1979Serving with Maryam Rajavi (since 1985)
Signature

Massoud Rajavi (Persian: مسعود رجوی, born 18 August 1948 – disappeared 13 March 2003) is an Iranian politician and revolutionary who became the leader of the People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran (MEK) in 1979. After leaving Iran in 1981, he resided in France and Iraq. He went missing shortly before the 2003 invasion of Iraq, leaving his then wife and co-leader Maryam Rajavi as the public face of the MEK.

Biography

Rajavi joined the MEK when he was 20 and a law student at the University of Tehran. He graduated with a degree in political law. Rajavi and the MEK actively opposed the Shah of Iran and participated in the 1979 Iranian Revolution.

During the Pahlavi regime, Rajavi was arrested by SAVAK and sentenced to death. Due to efforts by his brother, Kazem Rajavi, and various Swiss lawyers and professors, his sentence was reduced to life imprisonment. He was released from prison during the Iranian Revolution in 1979. After the revolution, Rajavi assumed leadership of the People's Mujahedin of Iran.

When Iran's first presidential election took place in 1980, Rajavi nominated himself and his own People's Mujahedin of Iran. He was endorsed by the People's Fedai, the National Democratic Front, the Democratic Party of Kurdistan, Komala and the League of Iranian Socialists. He was disqualified in the elections by Ayatollah Khomeini on the grounds that 'those who did not endorse the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran could not be trusted to abide by that constitution'.

In 1981, when Ayatollah Khomeini dismissed President Abolhassan Banisadr and a new wave of arrests and executions started in the country, Rajavi and Banisadr fled to Paris from Tehran's airbase. Massoud Rajavi and Banisadr formed the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) "with the intent to replace the Khomeini regime with the 'Democratic Islamic Republic.'” As a form of agreement with the Islamic republic, in 1986 France's Prime Minister Jacques Chirac evicted the MEK out of France. Rajavi and approximately five to ten thousand MEK members were received by the Iraqi government. After moving to Iraq, Rajavi set up a base on the Iranian border.

Electoral history

Year Election Votes % Rank Notes
1979 Tehran elections for the Assembly of Experts (10 seats) 297,707 11.78 12th Lost
1980 President – Withdrew
Tehran elections for the Parliament 531,943 24.9 38th Went to run-off
Parliament run-off Decrease 375,762 Decrease 23 21st Lost

Disappearance

Shortly before the Iraq War, Massoud Rajavi disappeared. His whereabouts remain unknown. In his absence, Maryam Rajavi has assumed his responsibilities as leader of the MEK. According to members of the NCRI, Massoud Rajavi is still alive and in hiding due to being a "prime target" of the Islamic Republic of Iran, while other sources have said that he is presumed dead.

Iraqi 2010 arrest warrant

In July 2010, the Iraqi High Tribunal issued an arrest warrant for 39 MEK members, including Rajavi, "due to evidence that confirms they committed crimes against humanity" by "involvement with the former Iraqi security forces in suppressing the 1991 uprising against the former Iraqi regime and the killing of Iraqi citizens". The MEK has denied the charges, saying that they constitute a "politically motivated decision and it's the last gift presented from the government of Nuri al-Maliki to the Iranian government". Back in 2005, a Patriotic Union of Kurdistan official asked for arrest and trial of Rajavi based on his organization's documentary evidence of the involvement.

Trial in absentia

In July 2023, the judiciary of Iran announced a mass trial of 104 MEK members in absentia, including both Maryam and Massoud Rajavi.

Personal life

Rajavi came from a prominent family. He received a degree in political law from Tehran University. His brother was Kazem Rajavi, Iran's ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva who held doctoral degrees from Universities in Paris and Geneva. They had three other brothers, Saleh (a cardiologist in France), Ahmad (a British-educated surgeon), and Hooshang (an engineer in Belgium).

Rajavi married fellow MEK member Ashraf Rabiei in summer 1980. Rabiei was regarded as "the symbol of revolutionary womanhood". She was surrounded and killed by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) in 1982. Rajavi has a son from his first wife, named Mostafa. His second wife was Abolhassan Banisadr's daughter, Firouzeh. Their marriage took place in October 1982 and the couple divorced in 1984, after Banisadr left the NCRI. Rajavi married Maryam Qajar Azodanlu (later known as Maryam Rajavi) in 1985.

References

  1. Stephen Sloan; Sean K. Anderson (2009). Historical Dictionary of Terrorism. Historical Dictionaries of War, Revolution, and Civil Unrest (3rd ed.). Scarecrow Press. p. 454. ISBN 978-0810863118.
  2. ^ Jonathan Border (27 August 2019). "Iran's Opposition Groups are Preparing for the Regime's Collapse. Is Anyone Ready?". Newsweek. Archived from the original on 1 March 2021. Retrieved 25 November 2019.
  3. ^ Steven O'Hern (2012). Iran's Revolutionary Guard: The Threat That Grows While America Sleeps. Potomac Books, Inc. p. 208. ISBN 978-1597977012.
  4. ^ Peter Chalk (2012). "Mujahedin-e-Khalq (MEK)". Encyclopedia of Terrorism. ABC-CLIO. p. 509. ISBN 9780313308956.
  5. Lovelace Jr., Douglas; Boon, Kristen; Huq, Aziz (2012). Assessing President Obama's National Security Strategy. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-975824-1.
  6. Sean K. Anderson (Author), Stephen Sloan (Author) (2009). Historical Dictionary of Terrorism (Volume 38). Scarecrow Press. p. 454. ISBN 978-0810857643. {{cite book}}: |author= has generic name (help)
  7. Hersh, Seymour M. (5 April 2012). "Our Men in Iran?". The New Yorker. Retrieved 19 December 2013.
  8. See Abrahamian, supranote 291
  9. Abrahamian, page 90.
  10. Ervand Abrahamian (1989), Radical Islam: the Iranian Mojahedin, Society and culture in the modern Middle East, vol. 3, I.B.Tauris, p. 198, ISBN 9781850430773
  11. Steven O'Hern (2012). Iran's Revolutionary Guard: The Threat That Grows While America Sleeps. Potomac Books, Inc. p. 206. ISBN 978-1-59797-701-2.
  12. Peter J. Chelkowski, Robert J. Pranger (1988). Ideology and Power in the Middle East: Studies in Honor of George Lenczowski. Duke University Press. pp. 255–256. ISBN 978-0-8223-8150-1.
  13. Smith, Craig S. (24 September 2005). "An implacable opponent to the mullahs of Iran". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 25 December 2014. Retrieved 19 February 2017.
  14. ^ Ervand Abrahamian (1989), Radical Islam: the Iranian Mojahedin, Society and culture in the modern Middle East, vol. 3, I.B.Tauris, p. 195, Table 6; pp. 203–205, Table 8, ISBN 9781850430773
  15. Ahmed Rasheed (28 December 2009). "FACTBOX: Who are the People's Mujahideen of Iran?". Reuters. Archived from the original on 22 December 2018. Retrieved 25 November 2019.
  16. Chalk, Peter (2012). Encyclopedia of Terrorism. ABC-CLIO. p. 509. ISBN 978-0313308956.
  17. "The People's Mujahidin: The Iranian dissidents seeking regime change in Tehran". The Times. Archived from the original on 8 August 2022. Retrieved 1 September 2022.
  18. "Iran Rebels See Hardliner Ebrahim Raisi as Chance to Bring Down Regime". Newsweek. Archived from the original on 30 August 2022. Retrieved 1 September 2022.
  19. "With deadline looming to close MEK's Camp Ashraf in Iraq, what next?". The Christian Science Monitor. Archived from the original on 30 August 2022. Retrieved 1 September 2022.
  20. Jonathan K. Zartman, ed. (2020). Conflict in the Modern Middle East: An Encyclopedia of Civil War, Revolutions, and Regime Change. ABC-CLIO. p. 209. ISBN 978-1440865022. Massoud disappeared in 2003, believed dead.
  21. "Iranian Diplomat Accused of Plotting to Bomb Dissidents Goes on Trial in Belgium". new York Times. 27 November 2020. Archived from the original on 10 July 2021. Retrieved 28 August 2021.
  22. Muhanad Mohammed (11 July 2010). Rania El Gamal; David Stamp (eds.). "Iraqi court seeks arrest of Iranian exiles". Reuters. Archived from the original on 2 February 2017. Retrieved 28 December 2016.
  23. Bill Samii (26 October 2005), Iran Report, vol. 8, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, archived from the original on 13 November 2018, retrieved 28 December 2016, Mohammad Tofiq Rahim, an official with the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, said in an interview with Radio Farda that his organization has documentary evidence of Rajavi's role. He said that when the Kurds seized control of northern parts of Iraq with U.S. assistance at the end of the Gulf War in 1991, the MEK cooperated with the Iraqi Army in retaking control of the city of Kirkuk. In the process, he charged, hundreds of the city's residents were killed by the MEK. "Everyone in Iraqi Kurdistan knows that Masud Rajavi cooperated with the Mukhaberat and security forces of Saddam Hussein not only in the suppression of the Kurds, but all the opponents of the regime of Saddam," Rahim added.
  24. "قوه قضائیه ایران از ۱۰۴ عضو مجاهدین خلق خواست وکیل به دادگاه معرفی کنند". Radio Farda (in Persian). 1 August 2023. Retrieved 5 August 2023.
  25. Lincoln Bloomfield Jr. (2019). The Ayatollahs and the MEK Iran's Crumbling Influence Operation (PDF). University of Baltimore. ISBN 978-0578536095. Archived (PDF) from the original on 16 May 2020. Retrieved 20 March 2020.
  26. Ervand Abrahamian (1989), Radical Islam: the Iranian Mojahedin, Society and culture in the modern Middle East, vol. 3, I.B.Tauris, p. 181 - 222, ISBN 9781850430773
  27. "Opinion | Who Is Responsible for the MKO Massacre at Camp Ashraf?". FRONTLINE - Tehran Bureau. Archived from the original on 19 October 2022. Retrieved 18 October 2022.
  28. Cohen, Ronen (2009), The Rise and Fall of the Mojahedin Khalq, 1987-1997: Their Survival After the Islamic Revolution and Resistance to the Islamic Republic of Iran, Sussex Academic Press, pp. 15, 39, ISBN 978-1-84519-270-9
  29. Ervand Abrahamian (1989), Radical Islam: the Iranian Mojahedin, Society and culture in the modern Middle East, vol. 3, I.B.Tauris, p. 247, ISBN 9781850430773
  30. Steven O'Hern (2012). Iran's Revolutionary Guard: The Threat That Grows While America Sleeps. Potomac Books, Inc. p. 206. ISBN 978-1597977012.
  31. Connie Bruck (2006). "Exiles: How Iran's expatriates are gaming the nuclear threat". The New Yorker. Vol. 82, no. 1–11. F-R Publishing Corporation. pp. 54–55.

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VacantTitle last held byCentral Cadre Leader of People's Mujahedin of Iran
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Served alongside: Maryam Rajavi (Since 1985) 		Incumbent
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