MEK and its 57-year struggle for freedom
Since the Constitutional Revolution of 1906, a new era of social and political life begun for the Iranian people. For 120 years, the Iranian nation, with all its ethnic and religious diversity, has relentlessly pursued the cause of freedom and democracy at the cost of her very best children. While this struggle has had many ups and downs, it has constantly evolved the people’s awareness, knowledge, and methods of fighting.
The Oil Nationalizing movement in 1950s, led by Dr. Mohammad Mosadeq, continued and deepened the Constitutional Revolution and the long-lasting struggle for freedom of the Iranian people, and despite the August 1, 1953, Coup-d’état, and the bloody massacre of the June 5, 1952, which was called the “burial of reformism,” this struggle entered a new era.
The leading political groups that were established in the 1960s aimed at overthrowing the Shah’s regime. Meanwhile, the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) movement was a continuation of the Iranian National Movement led by Dr. Mosadeq.
On September 6, 1965, Mohammad Hanifnejad founded the Mojahedin-e- Khalq(MEK) Organization together with Saeid Mohsen and Ali Asghar Badiezadegan. The purpose of establishing the organization was to fight against the Shah’s dictatorship and to establish freedom, democracy, and justice in Iran.
Hanifnejad, along with Saeid Mohsen, Ali Asghar Badiezadegan, Massoud Rajavi, Ali Mihandoust and others, all graduates of various universities, worked in theory for six years. They then began to learn military techniques.
In August 1971, members of the organization’s headquarters were arrested in an intelligence crackdown, and in September of that year, Mohammad Hanifunejad was arrested by SAVAK. Mohammad Hanifunjad and other members of the Mojahedin were tortured.
Mohammad Hanifnejad and two other founders, Saeid Mohsen and Asghar Badizadegan, along with two members of the Mojahedin Central Committee, Mahmoud Asgarizadeh and Rasoul Meshkinfam, were handed over to the firing squad on May 25, 1972.
The Mojahedin-e-Khalq (MEK) has passed important milestones over the past decades under the leadership of Massoud Rajavi. After Khomeini’s hijacking of the 1979 revolution, a significant part of the A very important part of the history of the MEK, after the foundation of the organization, is its struggle against the religious dictatorship of the ruling mullahs in Iran. In the last 4 decades of battle, more than 120,000 MEK members and supporters have laid down their lives for the freedom of the Iranian people.