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Massoud Rajavi
Rajavi in 1981
Leader of People's Mujahedin of Iran
Incumbent
Assumed office January 1979Serving with Maryam Rajavi (Since 1985)
Personal details
Born	(1948-08-18) 18 August 1948 (age 76) Tabas, Iran Iraq
Died	c. 13 March 2003(2003-03-13) (aged 54) (assumed, denied)
Political party	People's Mujahedin of Iran
Spouses	Ashraf Rabiei ​ ​(m. 1980; died 1982)​ Firouzeh Banisadr ​ ​(m. 1982; div. 1984)​ Maryam Rajavi ​(m. 1985)​
Disappeared	c. March 2003 (aged 54–55)
Signature

Massoud Rajavi (Template:Lang-fa, born August 18, 1948 – disappeared March 13, 2003) is the leader of the People's Mujahedin of Iran (MEK), alongside his wife Maryam Rajavi. After leaving Iran in 1981, he resided in France and Iraq. He disappeared in the 2003 invasion of Iraq and it is not known whether he is still alive.

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 dynasty, 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. Upon his release, 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 Bani Sadr and a new wave of arrests and executions started in the country, Rajavi and Bani Sadr fled to Paris from Tehran's airbase. Massoud Rajavi and Bani Sadr 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. Rajavi moved to Iraq and set up a base on the Iranian border.

Electoral history

Year	Election	Votes	%	Rank	Notes
1979	Assembly of Experts	297,707	11.78	12th	Lost
1980	President	–			Withdrew
	Parliament	531,943	24.9	38th	Went to run-off
	Parliament run-off	375,762			Lost

Iraqi 2010 arrest warrant

In 2010, an Iraqi court ordered the arrest of 39 MEK members, including Massoud Rajavi. The court accused the group of helping Saddam Hussein counter a revolt by Shias and ethnic Kurds. The MEK have denied the charges, calling it a "politically motivated decision and it’s the last gift presented from the government of Nuri al-Maliki to the Iranian government".

Disappearance

Shortly after the Iraq War, Massoud Rajavi disappeared. His whereabouts remain unknown. In his absence, Maryam Rajavi has assumed his responsibilities as leader of the MEK. In 2011 the NCRI posted an article which described Rajavi as being "in hiding", but that has not been independently verified. The MEK have issued statements to claim that Massoud Rajavi is still alive.

Personal life

Shortly after the revolution, Rajavi married Ashraf Rabii, an MEK member regarded as "the symbol of revolutionary womanhood". Rabii was killed by Iranian forces in 1982. Eight months later, in order to help build his relations with Abolhassan Banisadr, Rajavi married his daughter. The couple divorced in 1984. In 1985 Rajavi married Maryam Rajavi.

See Also

• People's Mujahedin of Iran
• Maryam Rajavi

References

1. Stephen Sloan; Sean K. Anderson (2009). Historical Dictionary of Terrorism. Historical Dictionaries of War, Revolution, and Civil Unrest (3 ed.). Scarecrow Press. p. 454. ISBN 0810863111.
2. Ahmed Rasheed. "Iran's Opposition Groups are Preparing for the Regime's Collapse. Is Anyone Ready?". Newsweek.
3. Steven O'Hern (2012). Iran's Revolutionary Guard: The Threat That Grows While America Sleeps. Potomac Books, Inc. p. 208. ISBN 1597977012.
4. Peter Chalk (2012). "Mujahedin-e-Khalq (MEK)". Encyclopedia of Terrorism. ABC-CLIO. p. 509. ISBN 9780313308956.
5. Hersh, Seymour M. "Our Men In Iran?". The New Yorker. Retrieved 19 December 2013.
6. See Abrahamian, supranote 291
7. SeeAbrahamian, supranote 363 at 146¬147, 183.
8. 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
9. 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.
10. 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.
11. ^ Council on Foreign Relations, "Backgrounder: Mujahadeen-e-Khalq (Iranian Rebels)." Archived 27 September 2006 at the Wayback Machine
12. Smith, Craig S. (24 September 2005). "An implacable opponent to the mullahs of Iran". The New York Times.
13. ^ 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
14. Ahmed Rasheed (12 March 2007). "Iraq tribunal sets sights on Iran opposition group". Reuters. Retrieved 11 July 2017.
15. Ahmed Rasheed. "Iran's Opposition Groups are Preparing for the Regime's Collapse. Is Anyone Ready?". Newsweek.
16. Ahmed Rasheed. "FACTBOX: Who are the People's Mujahideen of Iran?". Reuters.
17. Matt Cresswell, Camp Ashraf protest moves to Paris, 24 June 2011, source unclear; article posted on NCRI website, 2 July 2011
18. Khodabandeh, Massoud (13 July 2016). "Grand Controversy As MEK Can't Prove Leader Massoud Rajavi Is Dead Or Alive". The Huffington Post. Retrieved 17 June 2019.
19. Ervand Abrahamian (1989), Radical Islam: the Iranian Mojahedin, Society and culture in the modern Middle East, vol. 3, I.B.Tauris, p. 181, ISBN 9781850430773
20. 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
21. Connie Bruck (2006). "Exiles: How Iran's expatriates are gaming the nuclear threat". The New Yorker. 82 (1–11). F-R Publishing Corporation: 54–55.

External links

Media related to Massoud Rajavi at Wikimedia Commons

• Use dmy dates from November 2012
• Iranian activists
• Missing people
• 1948 births
• People's Mujahedin of Iran members
• People's Mujahedin of Iran politicians
• People of the 1991 uprisings in Iraq
• People of the Iranian Revolution
• Iranian revolutionaries
• Exiles of the Iranian Revolution in France
• Iranian emigrants to France
• Iranian emigrants to Iraq