TEHRAN – The French government has issued fake passports for two top members of the Mujahideen-e-Khalq (MEK) terrorist organization so they can travel between countries more freely—a move that blatantly violates not only international law but also France’s own domestic laws.
MEK ringleader Maryam Rajavi and senior member Zahra Merikhi have received French passports with fake identities, registered as Farzaneh Darbahani and Parvaneh Hamedani respectively. The French government’s illegal scheme was first exposed at an exhibition Iran’s intelligence ministry held for foreign envoys in Tehran. The exhibition displayed weapons confiscated from rioters who killed over 2,500 people and set public and private property ablaze across Iran in mid-January. Some of the detained rioters worked for the MEK for large sums of money, it was revealed during a briefing on the sidelines. The role the French government has played in helping the group over the years was also discussed, according to an IRIB report. Diplomats from the French embassy in Tehran refused to show up.
The MEK has carried out terrorist attacks inside Iran since the 1980s. It also fought alongside Saddam Hussein during his eight-year invasion of Iran and backed the 12-day US-Israeli war on Iran in June 2025. An estimated 23,000 Iranians—security personnel, officials and civilians—have been killed by the MEK over the past 47 years.
The group’s top members are also notorious for grave abuses against their own members, whom they keep locked away from the world in a concentration camp in Albania. Before that, the group was based in camps in Iraq. Testimonies from members who managed to flee have been horrifying. Beatings, psychological torture and physical abuse have been routine in the camps for years. Women have also been subjected to extreme sexual abuse. All female members were forced to marry their previous leader Masoud Rajavi, who raped them with the help of his wife and current leader Maryam Rajavi, telling them that sleeping with him was an honor, according to female defectors. Countless women were also sterilized, as the outfit wanted them to think about nothing but serving the leaders. Defectors say many who tried to flee the MEK camps in Iraq and Albania were killed in gruesome ways—some beheaded, some electrocuted, some strangled, some killed with injections.
France had listed the MEK as a terrorist organization for over 25 years, yet for much of that time, its top members were receiving help from the French government to stay hidden and carry out anti-Iran operations, the Tehran Times found in its own inquiries. They came off the French terror list after mediation by the U.S., which wanted France to allow the group to hold annual gatherings in Paris.
The French government’s issuance of passports for the MEK’s two top figures violates French criminal law, France’s counterterrorism law, and UN international law, which requires states to deny safe havens to terrorists under Resolution 1373.
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