Torture in Tehran
August 28th, 2009 § 5 Comments
It has been almost 3 months since the June 2009 Iranian election and allegations of detainee abuse have been added to the upsetting news of protesters who were beaten in the streets and others who were needlessly killed during the demonstrations. Reform candidate Mehdi Karroubi has been applauded for publishing the testimony of a young man who claims that he was also sexually assaulted while in detention on his party’s website and has warned that he will come forward with more allegations if investigations are not conducted.
It is not difficult to find many more allegations, by other Iranian men and women, who claim they were raped, beaten, subjected to prolonged solitary confinement and other forms of torture while held in detention. Some protesters have also died while imprisoned. Of course, these allegations are not evident of a new trend, but rather a continuation of Mohammad Rezā Shāh Pahlavi’s policies by the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI).
Writes Columbia university scholar and writer Hamid Dabashi:
These charges are no longer brought by expatriate, and at times discredited, opposition. It is the founding fathers of the Islamic Republic, with impeccable revolutionary credentials, who are bringing these charges, as others are coming out and corroborating them in excruciating detail.
It is a welcome change that so much international attention has been focused on the suffering of the Iranian people, but one cannot simply overlook the fact that similar events had inspired little or no coverage in the past. That being said, anyone who believes in human rights must stand in solidarity with those who have been forced to endure the horrors of torture and political persecution regardless of the charges that have been brought against them. Iran’s ongoing “show trials” are also a massive miscarriage of justice and further proof of how poorly the IRI has responded to the election unrest. That the IRI continues the horrors of the Iranian monarchy is ironic, tragic and necessary to condemn.
In Jean-Paul Sartre’s words:
Torture is senseless violence, born in fear… torture costs human lives but does not save them. We would almost be too lucky if these crimes were the work of savages: the truth is that torture makes torturers.
Well said. I’ll send this to my friend, Mary Apick ;-)
FYI, whoever downrated this, it was purely sarcasm.
Courageous article. Thank you, for standing up and tall for young victims of oppression
“one cannot simply overlook the fact that similar events had inspired little or no coverage in the past.”
Absolutely true! But there are several reasons for that; I give you some that I know of from direct personal experience, without speculation:
1) many of the victims of torture are in Iran on “conditional” release from prison. They do not want to further jeopardize themselves by talking about torture. (yes even if you were released from prison 20 years ago, you are still not “free”.
2) Many have been continuously protesting the human rights abuse in Iran (e.g. the cases of Zahra Kazemi, or the torture videos of the wife of Saeed Emami, or the stoning videos and ect) but a lot of us Iranian bloggers have kept silent about these things BECAUSE we have been under threat of military attack by Bush. When he called Iran an axis of evil, he forced us all into siding with evil. We kept silent; and kept focusing on the full half of the IRI glass. We have also not sided with the “human rights lobby” in the US because of their links to neoconservatives. But we have had human right activists like mohammad-e baghi who has decried to America to STOP funding these human-right advocacy lobbies BECAUSE of the pressure they put on activists INSIDE Iran. This is why we have stayed silent to not have our friends in IRan accused of foreign conspiracy.
3) The tales of 1988 mass executions and tortures have been part of the common Iranian knowledge. They are out in the open on the web site of Ayatollah Montazeri. He was dismissed from his appointment (it was HE who was supposed to be the supreme leader, but because he protested about those torture and executoins he was dismissed as a “lunatic” as they are trying to do now to Karoubi–and this is why Khamenei became the supreme leader, without even having any of the religious credentials that are necessary according to Iran’s constitution.) That you are hearing about them now has to do with globalization of media (viva blogger and wordpress!), and also with the fact that Mr Khamenei doesn’t have the same legitimacy and charisma that Imam Khomeini had, when he put a cap on that fire in 88.
4) Many of the victims of the 88 torture and murders were from Mojahedin-e Khalgh. This group fell out of grace with Iranians when they set up camp in Iraq and participated in attack against Iran with Saddam’s forces. Therefore, people lost sympathy for them. Those who “repented” were stripped of their passports, stripped of right to education, and forced to ‘normal life’ (a condition of release of someone I knew was to get married ASA getting out and to never participate in university entrance exam–she WAS a genius and they didn’t want to have to kick out someone with rank one in the exam out of university.)
However, now, they have put a Rank-One and gold olympiad medalist university student (who happened to belong to a family who has sacrificed at least two sons to defending IRan during the Iran-Iraq war), Jalayee pour, in prison, and then have started these sham courts, which are televised, bringing out old ministers, stern intellectuals and journalists, to come out and make a 180 degree turn from ALL they have believed before! It is THEY who have made obvious the evidence of their own brutality. No one else could expose their ass better than themselves!
You see, some may be VERY right that Israel has an investment in this. I really think it does. But Israel’s orders seem to be carried by Ahmadinejad … more and more people have started to talk about links between the ideological movement that supports Ahmadinejad (hojjatiyeh) and Mossad.
Considering the TOTAL chaos that Ahmadinejad’s created, and his blatant aim to install fascist regime in Iran, considering that his chief of staff, Mashayee (the man that supreme leader had to force out of proposed position of deputy president!) says:”in fact from the 24 million vote for Ahmadinejad, only 4 million were his. The other 20 million were people who were not happy with the system and wanted it changed!” is an indication that the REVOLUTION is indeed intended and designed by Ahmadinejad’s minority.
“these allegations are not evident of a new trend, but rather a continuation of Mohammad Rezā Shāh Pahlavi’s policies by the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI).”
Are you kidding me? What the Shah did is NOTHING compared to what these murderous lunatics are carrying out. Have we all so quickly forgotten the possibly tens of thousands of political prisoners summarily executed in 1988 at the flick of Khomeini’s finger? The Shah was absolutely no saint, but he sure looked like a nice guy up against this lot, for whom a much more apt comparison should surely be with the Nazis?