Massoud Rajavi - Biography

Biography

Massoud Rajavi is a graduate of political law from Tehran University. He joined the MEK when he was 20 and a law student at Tehran University. Later on he was arrested by SAVAK (the Shah's secret police) and was sentenced to death. Due to efforts by his brother, Professor Kazem Rajavi, Amnesty International, the International Committee of the Red Cross, as well as François Mitterrand and others, he was not executed. He was released from prison during the Iranian revolution in 1979. (His brother Kazem Rajavi was assassinated in 1990 in Geneva by agents of the Iranian Islamic regime.)

Upon his release, Rajavi assumed leadership of the Islamic MEK, reclaiming the name from the Marxists. Rajavi and the MEK actively opposed the Shah of Iran and participated in the 1979 Iranian Revolution.

Following the removal of the Shah, MEK vigorously pursued its objective of establishing democracy in Iran. The group clashed with Ayatollah Khomeini's government. By the time Iran’s first presidential election took place in January 1980, MEK had gathered significant support in Iran, including support from Jews and Kurds. Rajavi was one of the candidates for Iran's presidential elections; however before the final result of the election was announced, Ayatollah Khomeini ordered Rajavi's name omitted from the list of candidates. When Rajavi was barred from running for office, many Kurds, who widely supported Rajavi, also boycotted the election. In a speech in June 1980 at Tehran’s Amjadieh Stadium, Rajavi criticized the regime’s leaders, especially Ayattollah Khoimeini, about the suppression of liberties.

In 1981, when Ayatollah Khomeini dismissed President Bani Sadr and a new wave of arrests and executions started in the country, Rajavi and Bani Sadr flew to Paris from Tehran's airbase. In 1986 Rajavi moved to Iraq and set up a base on the Iranian border. Rajavi was welcomed in Baghdad by then-Iraqi president Saddam Hussein.

Following the American invasion of Iraq, Massoud Rajavi disappeared. In his absence, Maryam Rajavi has assumed his responsibilities as leader of the MEK. In 2010 an Iraqi court accused Rajavi and 38 others, including his wife, of crimes against humanity in helping Saddam Hussein to crush the 1991 Kurdish and Shiite uprisings. In 2011 NCRI posted an article which described Rajavi as being "in hiding". Karim Sadjadpour, an Iran expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace has stated: "Cult leaders generally don't retire. They either die or go to prison. I'd be surprised if Massoud Rajavi is still alive."