When Soraya Abdollahi worked day and night to provide three young children as a single mother in her 30s, she thought the biggest challenge she faced in the future was ensuring that her children were properly educated and married to the person they loved. She was 64 years old and never imagined that she and the rest of her family had already spent over 20 years searching for her only son, Amir Arsaran.
Soraya has three children. Arsaran is the second and what she felt was closest. “We lived a financially difficult life,” she explained. “I worked in a factory, but sometimes I had to do night shifts. Arsaran helped me with the money. After school, he worked at a car repair shop, made his own allowances and helped me buy some of the things my sisters needed.”
Amir Arsaran holds his sister. He is in his late teens in this photo
Arsaran became obsessed with bodybuilding at the age of 16. He liked sports because he could help him gain strength and ultimately help him make money. “He had a coach who told him he needed to complete an international course, so he could enter the tournament and have his own trainees.”
In the early 2000s, Soraya’s beloved son traveled to Türkiye at the age of 20 and earned his certification. There he met an Iranian who owned a factory in Germany. However, in reality, this man was a secret Mohahedyn e Kalk (MEK) agent, looking to recruit new members for the terrorist organization.
“Alsaran one day called me and said he had changed his plans,” Soraya recalled. “He said he met the owner of a wealthy factory who provided him with a high-paying job in Germany. He said he had promised that he could take me and his sisters to Europe in a few years.”
The Istanbul hotel where Alsaran was staying also housed many other Iranians. MEK Agent strategically placed other group members around the hotel to ensure the expected ownership of the factory, portraying him as a generous and charitable individual to those he targeted.
Soraya sent a considerable amount to Türkiye and covered his son’s travel expenses in Germany. “The man who claimed he was taking him to Europe even spoke to me over the phone while Arsaran was still in Turkey,” she said. “He said the money I sent wasn’t enough, but he still said he would take Arsaran and deduct the remaining amount from his salary.”
Arsaran called his mother to say goodbye. He then disappeared.
“I was worried about my illness every day. I had lost contact with my son so easily and I couldn’t believe there was no way to get to him. It was a living nightmare.”
It took Alsaran three years to contact his mother again. He told Soraya that he was staying in a German refugee camp where there was no way to communicate, but he had now gone out, lived a good life and trained dozens of athletes in the gym he owned.
“He gave me a German number and told me that I can now stay in touch on a regular basis,” Soraya said. The numbers turned out to be fake.
After 4 years of the Gate of Hell
It wasn’t until 2008 or 2009 that Soraya discovered the truth about her son. It was assumed that Arsaran, the owner of the expected factory, had met, but he had not taken him to Germany. Instead, he took him to Iraq. And not anywhere in Iraq, Camp Ashraf: MEK’s desolate, secluded headquarters holds over 5,000 individuals. Some were happy to enter the camp, while others were accused of like Arsaran and dragged there.
“I learned about my son’s fate through my step-sister’s distant relative. He left MEK and returned to Iran. He knew me, so he looked for me and told me what had happened to Arsaran.”
At the time, Soraya didn’t know much about MEK. She recalls hearing their names on television during the 1980s when the Teleans were conducting terrorist attacks in Tehran, but at the age of 18 she was so focused on her new marriage that she was paying much attention. Even after learning that Arsaran was taken to MEK, she naively imagined that they were living a relatively normal life within the general population. The reality of the situation was only revealed when the association founded by former MEK members took her and other families whose children had been accused of to Iraq. Their goal was to scream the names of the children outside Camp Ashraf and hope they would hear them and try to escape.
Former US Vice President Mike Pence will address MEK on June 23, 2022 at Ashraf 3 Camp in Albania
“We crossed to Iraq through the Melan border in western Iran and we cannot really explain the emotions we felt when we reached the desert, essentially.
As the Tehran Times previously reported, people inside the camp were effectively blocked from the outside world. Mobile phones were banned, TV surveillance was restricted, and computer use was limited to assigned tasks. The relationship was also closely controlled. The group leader, Masoud Rajavi, forced every couple in the camp to divorce, separating their children from their parents, claiming all remaining women as their own wife. He mandated daily sessions where everyone was forced to confess their “sin” and reaffirm their loyalty to Rajavi and his agenda.
Soraya stayed outside Camp Ashraf for four years. She and other families of Adeductes lived in harsh conditions alongside the Iraqi forces stationed nearby. Food was rare, clean water was unavailable, and maintaining sanitation was a constant struggle. However, despite the difficulties, Soraya endured. She and others set up speakers around the camp, yelling the child’s name into the microphone, hoping to reach them. Of course, none of their children were allowed to approach the gate. Occasionally, some of the top MEK members come out and throw at them metal fragments of humiliation, rocks and fragments.
Soraya was eventually forced to return to Iran for surgery after suffering a serious back injury in one of these attacks. By the time she returned to Iraq, her son had been moved to a new MEK camp in Albania.
“We tried to do the same thing in Albania. At the time, Albania still had an embassy in Iran. I went there with a few other mothers to apply for a visa, but we were all denied without explanation.
According to information obtained by the Tehran Times, the new Albanian camps are rising up for MEK along with US coordination and are running under the same harsh and inhumane conditions as those in Iraq. Those there are stripped of their freedom and identity, forced to work long hours every day, and if they fail to follow orders, they will face serious punishment, even death.
Tirana snapped diplomatic ties with Tehran in 2022, influenced by the two biggest supporters of MEK, the US and Israel. Albanian police stormed Iranian diplomatic facilities when no diplomats were in the building.
Betrayed by international rights organizations and western states
After the Albanian government has no luck, Solaya hoped that international organizations like the UN could be useful. “What I knew was that the UN had a responsibility to support human rights. So I went to Geneva in 2016 with some families who were also trapped in Albania,” explained Soraya.
In Geneva, she was able to meet Ahmad Shahid, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights Situation in Iran at the time. “I told him my story and he assured me that he would help me see my son. He invited me to attend a meeting that I had with MEK in the UN building.
A person walking on the streets of Ashraf 3 Camp near Tirana. They are prohibited from communicating with the site exits and the outside world
Her experience with organizations such as the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) followed a similar pattern. She is initially promised assistance only to be ignored indefinitely.
Soraya’s disappointment doesn’t end with an international organization. Promote terrorist groups as freedom fighters who strive to bring prosperity to Iran while her son lives in terrorist prisons, especially those living in the US, UK, France and Germany, live every day! MEKs are routinely brought to the US Congress and European Congress, honored and sometimes awarded.
“We understand that these governments have political goals and that they are using MEK to achieve them,” Soraya said. “But how can they call these people democratic people? MEK is torture its members physically, mentally and sexually. And now Albania is protecting them while refusing to see our children to mothers like me.”
The future and what it looks like
Iranian courts are currently holding public hearings on crimes committed by MEK over the past 40 years. As Soraya’s son did not voluntarily join the group, he, along with about 2,000 others associated with the organization, is not on the defendant’s list. However, Soraya believes that once the doors to Albania’s MEK camp open and people get the chance to leave, even some of the willing people can return to Iran and live safely. She says she knows many former members, like other Iranians, who have already returned and now live normal lives.
“I don’t think other governments are allowing this to those who took arms and fought their country,” she said. He mentioned MEK’s alliance with Saddam Hussein during Iraq’s invasion of the 1980s. “But based on what I have learned over the years, the Iranian government has forgiven many of them.”
By the end of our interview, Soraya looked tired and hopeless. This is the condition that marks the 24-year search of her son. “I just want to hear my son’s voice again. Is it too much for my mother to ask?”
By Sheida Sabzehvari