The People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran was founded in September 5, 1965 by six former members of the Liberation or Freedom Movement of Iran, students at Tehran University, including Mohammad Hanifnejad, Saied Mohsen and Ali-Asghar Badizadegan. The MEK opposed the rule of Shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, considering him corrupt and oppressive, and considered the Liberation Movement too moderate and ineffective. Its membership has been described as part of the Iranian generation "shaken by the events of June 1963" and the radical generation Fidel Castro, Che Guevara, Vo Nguyen Giap, the Tupamaros in South America, the Algerian Mojahedin, and the Palestinian fedayeen. They were more "religious, radical, anti-American" than the earlier generation of Iranian leftists.