People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran

The People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI), also known as Mojahedin-e-Khalq (MEK) or Mojahedin-e-Khalq Organization (MKO; Persian: سازمان مجاهدین خلق ایران, romanised: Sâzmân-e Mojâhedin-e Khalgh-e Irân), is an Iranian dissident organisation. It was an armed group until 2003, afterwards switching focus into a political group. Its headquarters is currently in Albania. The group's ideology has been historically influenced by Islamic and revolutionary socialist philosophies, particularly through a re-interpretative approach to Shia Islam. After the Iranian Revolution, the MEK opposed the new theocratic Government of Iran, seeking to replace it with its own government. At one point the MEK was Iran's "largest and most active armed dissident group", and it is still sometimes presented by Western political backers as a major Iranian opposition group. The MEK is unpopular today within Iran, largely due to its siding with Iraq in the Iran–Iraq War and continued ties with the government of Saddam Hussein afterwards.

The MEK was founded in 1965 by leftist Iranian students affiliated with the Freedom Movement of Iran to oppose the Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. The organisation contributed to overthrowing the Shah during the 1979 Iranian Revolution. It subsequently pursued the establishment of a democracy in Iran, particularly gaining support from Iran's middle class intelligentsia. The MEK boycotted the 1979 constitutional referendum, which led to Khomeini barring MEK leader Massoud Rajavi from the 1980 presidential election. The MEK organised the 20 June 1981 Iranian protests against Khomeini and the ousting of President Abolhassan Banisadr. The protests were violently suppressed by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which shot into the crowds, killing 50, before executing 23 further protesters who had been arrested, including teenage girls. On 28 June, the MEK was implicated in the blowing up of the headquarters of the Islamic Republican Party (IRP) in the Haft-e Tir bombing, killing 74 officials and party members. A wave of killings and executions led by Khomeini's government followed, part of the 1981–1982 Iran massacres.

Rajavi fled to Paris and during the exile, the underground network that remained in Iran continued to plan and carry out attacks. It allegedly conducted the August 1981 bombing that killed Iran's president and prime minister. In 1983, the MEK began meeting with Iraqi officials. In 1986, France expelled the MEK at the request of Iran, forcing it to relocate to Camp Ashraf in Iraq. In 1987, it founded the "National Liberation Army of Iran" (NLA), with the sole objective of "toppling the Islamic Republic through military force from outside the country". During the Iran–Iraq War, the MEK then sided with Iraq, taking part in Operation Forty Stars, and Operation Mersad. Following Operation Mersad, Iranian officials ordered the mass execution of prisoners said to support the MEK. The group gained significant publicity in 2002 by announcing the existence of Iranian nuclear facilities. In 2003, the MEK's military wing signed a ceasefire agreement with the U.S. and was disarmed at Camp Ashraf.

Between 1997 and 2013, the MEK was on the lists of terrorist organisations of the US, Canada, EU, UK and Japan for various periods. The MEK is designated as a terrorist organisation by Iran. Critics have described the group as exhibiting traits of a "personality cult", while its backers describe the group as proponents of "a free and democratic Iran" that could become the next government there.