List of sources with quotes about MEK's cult practices:
- Abrahamian, Ervand (1989). Radical Islam: The Iranian Mojahedin. I.B. Tauris. p. 139. ISBN 978-1-85043-077-3.
The Mojahedin was also active within the prisons. Following the example of the Feda'iyan, it formed tightly knit networks known as komunha (communes) in all the major prisons, especially in Qasr, Evin, Qezal Qal'eh, and Qazal Hesar in Tehran. The Qasr commune, by far the largest, was led by Rajavi. He held this leadership position both because Bahman Bazargan, the other surviving prisoner from the Central Cadre, had become a Marxist, and because of the power of his own charismatic personality, especially over the younger inmates. After the revolution, Rajavi quickly promoted these younger activists from Qasr to the top echelons of the organization. In fact, Qasr was the seedbed for the cult of personality that was to grow around Rajavi in the early 1980s and reach full bloom in the mid-1980s. Those rejecting this cult tended to be pushed aside.
- Abrahamian, Ervand (1989). Radical Islam: The Iranian Mojahedin. I.B. Tauris. p. 255. ISBN 978-1-85043-077-3.
In short, the Mojahedin had metamorphized from a mass movement into an inward-looking sect in many ways similar to religious cults found the world over.
- Abrahamian, Ervand (1989). Radical Islam: The Iranian Mojahedin. I.B. Tauris. p. 255. ISBN 978-1-85043-077-3.
This was cult of personality at its most extreme, comparable to that of Khomeini at the height of the Islamic Revolution; of Hitler and Mussolini in the 1930s; of Mao Tse-tung during the Cultural Revolution; of Stalin during the second world war; and of Lenin, but only after his entombment in Red Square. Rajavi's personality cult had two far-reaching consequences. In the first place, it frightened off many former allies. If the Mojahedin, these allies asked themselves, did not have a semblance of democracy within their own organization, what faith could be put in their promise to respect the political rights of other organizations? If they were already, before the revolution, worshipping their leader as a demi-god, what type of personality cult would they create afterwards? If they were using Shii imagery to legitimize their leader's power, what confidence could others have that their state would separate religion from politics? If the Mojahedin in exile were denouncing their critics, even sympathetic ones, as 'traitors', 'parasites', 'leeches', 'garbage' and 'gutter filth', how would they deal with adversaries once in power? In the words of Hajj-Sayyed-Javadi: 'With the triumph of the personality cult, the Mojahedin began to see the world in simple black and white terms. Those who accepted the cult were considered absolutely good. Those who refused were labelled traitors, opportunists, and representatives of evil.'24 Thus many former supporters began to wonder in what ways, if any, the Mojahedin version of the Islamic Republic would differ from that of Khomeini.
- Vick, Karl (21 June 2003). "Iranian Dissident Group Labeled a Terrorist Cult". The Washington Post.
- Rubin, Elizabeth (13 July 2003). "The Cult of Rajavi". The New York Times.
- 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. ISBN 978-1-84519-270-9.
- Axworthy, Michael (2008). Iran: Empire of the Mind: A History from Zoroaster to the Present Day. Penguin Books. ISBN 978-0-141-90341-5.
From exile, at first in Paris and later in Iraq, the MKO kept up its opposition and its violent attacks, but dwindled over time to take on the character of a paramilitary cult, largely subordinated to the interests of the Baathist regime in Iraq.
- Goulka, Jeremiah; Hansell, Lydia; Wilke, Elizabeth; Larson, Judith (2009). The Mujahedin-e Khalq in Iraq: A Policy Conundrum (PDF) (Report). RAND corporation. p. 4.
Rajavi instituted what he termed an "ideological revolution" in 1985, which, over time, imbued the MeK with many of the typical characteristics of a cult, such as authoritarian control, confiscation of assets, sexual control (including mandatory divorce and celibacy), emotional isolation, forced labor, sleep deprivation, physical abuse, and limited exit options.
- Goulka, Jeremiah; Hansell, Lydia; Wilke, Elizabeth; Larson, Judith (2009). "The MeK as a Cult". The Mujahedin-e Khalq in Iraq: A Policy Conundrum (PDF) (Report). RAND corporation.
- Goulka, Jeremiah; Hansell, Lydia; Wilke, Elizabeth; Larson, Judith (2009). "Application of Cult Theory to the MeK". The Mujahedin-e Khalq in Iraq: A Policy Conundrum (PDF) (Report). RAND corporation.
- Abrahamian, Ervand (2013). Cronin, Stephanie (ed.). Reformers and Revolutionaries in Modern Iran: New Perspectives on the Iranian Left. Routledge. p. 274. ISBN 978-1-134-32890-1.
The Sazman-e Mojahedin-e Khalq [...] declared that the revolution had been betrayed, took up arms against the Islamic Republic, and, setting up bases outside the country, turned into a cult resembling medieval Shi'i sects. Its leader elevated himself into an infallible imam with the power to determine policy and reinterpret thirteen centuries of Islam.
- Moghissi, Haideh; Rahnema, Saeed (2013). Cronin, Stephanie (ed.). Reformers and Revolutionaries in Modern Iran: New Perspectives on the Iranian Left. Routledge. p. 300. ISBN 978-1-134-32890-1.
After the revolution, they followed their eclectic ideology, mingling some socialist ideas with their interpretation of Islam, were brutally suppressed by the clerical regime and were reduced to a religious cult based in Iraq but with a large following in other countries outside Iran.
- Dehghan, Saeed Kamali (2 July 2018). "Who is the Iranian group targeted by bombers and beloved of Trump allies?". The Guardian.
Today, it functions as a fringe exiled group with characteristics of a cult that works for regime change in Iran, though it has little visible support inside the country. It portrays itself as a democratic political institution although its own internal structure is anything but.
- Merat, Arron (9 November 2018). "Terrorists, cultists – or champions of Iranian democracy? The wild wild story of the MEK". The Guardian.
Widely regarded as a cult, the MEK was once designated as a terrorist organisation by the US and UK, but its opposition to the Iranian government has now earned it the support of powerful hawks in the Trump administration, including national security adviser John Bolton and the secretary of state, Mike Pompeo. [...] Isolated inside its Iraqi base, under Rajavi's tightening grip, the MEK became cult-like. A report commissioned by the US government, based on interviews within Camp Ashraf, later concluded that the MEK had "many of the typical characteristics of a cult, such as authoritarian control, confiscation of assets, sexual control (including mandatory divorce and celibacy), emotional isolation, forced labour, sleep deprivation, physical abuse and limited exit options".