Mike_Edward
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A Lifelong Dissident Defies Iran's Rulers on Torture
By ELAINE SCIOLINO
New York Times
TEHRAN — Ezatollah Sahabi is a war horse of the revolution. He began his dissident activity half a century ago after the Central Intelligence Agency staged a coup that overthrew the government and reinstated the monarchy. He spent 12 years in the shah's prisons, and in the heady early days of revolution he was rewarded with a seat on the ruling Revolutionary Council.
Then, repulsed by repression in the name of Islam, Mr. Sahabi turned against the system he helped create, writing and speaking out for the cause of freedom. In 2000, he was silenced — with prison.
Now, in his mid-70's, Mr. Sahabi is free again, in a manner of speaking. And he has dared the Islamic Republic to execute him. Death, he said, is preferable to the torment he suffers at the hands of a justice system that has broken him and continues to pursue him.
"If you believe I'm such a dangerous person, rid yourself and the country of me with my execution, for the sake of the country, the nation, the revolution and Islam," Mr. Sahabi wrote in a letter to the three branches of government that was written last summer and recently made public. "After all," he added, "there is another world, where we will all be accountable before God."
Mr. Sahabi's letter is the latest and perhaps most dramatic manifestation of a battle between political dissidents and a justice system run by clerics that uses various forms of repression, including torture. "This is one of the most important documents in the past decade," said Mohsen Kadivar, a mid-level cleric who was imprisoned for 18 months on charges of spreading lies, defaming Islam and disturbing public opinion with his writings. "There is a struggle today between democracy and dictatorship."
This struggle, epitomized by Mr. Sahabi and Mr. Kadivar, reveals a significant, if unintended, flaw in the judiciary's failure to neutralize its perceived enemies. Instead of stunning them into silence, it has created a revolving door between prison and the world outside and emboldened its victims to bear witness to their suffering.
Of all the hot-button issues of Iran's revolutionary experience, none evokes such passionate debate as mistreatment and torture in prison.
"The desperation they create in prison is so bad you think it's the end of the world," said Ahmad Zeidabadi, a 37-year-old journalist who was put in solitary confinement and then imprisoned with drug addicts and mentally ill people. "The criminals use rape, especially with the newcomers. And when you're taken everywhere blindfolded and hear horrible, scary screams, and you are put in a tiny cell, you have the feeling you will never see normal life again."
Mr. Zeidabadi said that the torture was usually done in private but that other prisoners learned of it from the victims themselves.
Asked why he is talking about it, Mr. Zeidabadi replied simply, "These things have to be talked about."
Torture of political prisoners had been a linchpin of the reign of Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, and many of Iran's revolutionaries had suffered in his prisons. So the Islamic utopia on earth envisioned by its makers was supposed to abolish a repressive system that inflicted pain on those who opposed it.
Symbolically, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini made that point from the moment he stepped on Iranian soil in 1979 to make his revolution. The first place he visited was the graves of the political prisoners who had died at the hands of Savak, the shah's secret police force.
Legally, the Islamic Republic's Constitution explicitly bans torture, saying, "All forms of torture for the purpose of extracting confessions or acquiring information are forbidden," adding, "Any testimony, confession or oath obtained under duress is devoid of value."
The Islamic Republic did not end the repression, but simply introduced a new form of it. In addition to physical abuse, there is an open-ended effort to degrade prisoners by bringing morals charges against them and their families, including detailed accusations about sexual habits and activities.
The charges can sometimes be comical. Mashallah Shamsolvaezin, a journalist who served 19 months as a political prisoner for "harming Islam" in his writings, said that in one of his interrogations, he was presented with a photo in which he was shaking hands with a woman, a practice that is officially banned.
"I told my prosecutor I would always shake the hand of a lady who held her hand out, that only a sick person would retreat from such a gesture," Mr. Shamsolvaezin recalled. "I told him, `Every person has three zippers in his life — the zipper to his pocket that prevents him from taking bribes, the zipper to his pants, and the zipper to his mouth.' I said I had pulled up the first two zippers to keep the zipper to my mouth open."
In Mr. Sahabi's case, it was not only his prison experience but also the continuation of pressure on him after his release that prompted his letter. He wrote that he had suffered two heart attacks and convulsions because of the twisted charges against him, the insults and psychological trickery. Confessions were extracted under "much duress," he said.
After Mr. Sahabi sent his letter, the main reformist party condemned what it called "the activities of rogue groups" working in tandem with the intelligence apparatus and the judiciary and called for an official inquiry. Ayatollah Mehdi Karroubi, the speaker of the Parliament and one of the recipients of the letter, called on Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi, the head of the judiciary, to investigate.
Early in February, Mr. Sahabi appeared before a parliamentary committee to tell his story. But the antipathy toward people like Mr. Sahabi runs high among those in power. Ali Mobasheri, a mid-level cleric who runs the Revolutionary Court, criticized his "lack of good will and unfriendly behavior toward the judiciary," adding that Mr. Sahabi had a big cell that had furniture and even a television set. Mr. Sahabi should not forget that "he is a criminal" who has been released on bail, he said, and therefore could be imprisoned again.
Mr. Sahabi's case has gotten much attention in Iran because he is a founding father of the revolution. But the stories of lesser-known prisoners provide support. One is Muhammad Batebi, a student who was sentenced to 15 years in prison for endangering national security after he held aloft the bloody T-shirt of a wounded friend during student riots in 1999.
In 2001, he smuggled a letter out of prison describing his ordeal, which he said included beatings and having his face held down in a vat of excrement as he gasped for breath.
All this has prompted Iran's elected and reformist Parliament to push for a law banning physical or psychological torture to extract confessions.
The Guardian Council, an unelected watchdog body that can veto legislation for violating Islam or the Constitution, has voted down three drafts of the bill. It argued that the bill was "un-Islamic," despite the Constitution's ban on torture. The bill may go to a higher body, the Expediency Council, for review.
Without some basic guarantees, the justice system remains open to abuse. "There's a minefield in front of us, and we don't have the map," said Mr. Shamsolvaezin, the journalist. "In democracies, the people have access to the map of the minefields. But here, the government keeps the map secret. It wants to keep changing it whenever it wants."
By ELAINE SCIOLINO
New York Times
TEHRAN — Ezatollah Sahabi is a war horse of the revolution. He began his dissident activity half a century ago after the Central Intelligence Agency staged a coup that overthrew the government and reinstated the monarchy. He spent 12 years in the shah's prisons, and in the heady early days of revolution he was rewarded with a seat on the ruling Revolutionary Council.
Then, repulsed by repression in the name of Islam, Mr. Sahabi turned against the system he helped create, writing and speaking out for the cause of freedom. In 2000, he was silenced — with prison.
Now, in his mid-70's, Mr. Sahabi is free again, in a manner of speaking. And he has dared the Islamic Republic to execute him. Death, he said, is preferable to the torment he suffers at the hands of a justice system that has broken him and continues to pursue him.
"If you believe I'm such a dangerous person, rid yourself and the country of me with my execution, for the sake of the country, the nation, the revolution and Islam," Mr. Sahabi wrote in a letter to the three branches of government that was written last summer and recently made public. "After all," he added, "there is another world, where we will all be accountable before God."
Mr. Sahabi's letter is the latest and perhaps most dramatic manifestation of a battle between political dissidents and a justice system run by clerics that uses various forms of repression, including torture. "This is one of the most important documents in the past decade," said Mohsen Kadivar, a mid-level cleric who was imprisoned for 18 months on charges of spreading lies, defaming Islam and disturbing public opinion with his writings. "There is a struggle today between democracy and dictatorship."
This struggle, epitomized by Mr. Sahabi and Mr. Kadivar, reveals a significant, if unintended, flaw in the judiciary's failure to neutralize its perceived enemies. Instead of stunning them into silence, it has created a revolving door between prison and the world outside and emboldened its victims to bear witness to their suffering.
Of all the hot-button issues of Iran's revolutionary experience, none evokes such passionate debate as mistreatment and torture in prison.
"The desperation they create in prison is so bad you think it's the end of the world," said Ahmad Zeidabadi, a 37-year-old journalist who was put in solitary confinement and then imprisoned with drug addicts and mentally ill people. "The criminals use rape, especially with the newcomers. And when you're taken everywhere blindfolded and hear horrible, scary screams, and you are put in a tiny cell, you have the feeling you will never see normal life again."
Mr. Zeidabadi said that the torture was usually done in private but that other prisoners learned of it from the victims themselves.
Asked why he is talking about it, Mr. Zeidabadi replied simply, "These things have to be talked about."
Torture of political prisoners had been a linchpin of the reign of Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, and many of Iran's revolutionaries had suffered in his prisons. So the Islamic utopia on earth envisioned by its makers was supposed to abolish a repressive system that inflicted pain on those who opposed it.
Symbolically, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini made that point from the moment he stepped on Iranian soil in 1979 to make his revolution. The first place he visited was the graves of the political prisoners who had died at the hands of Savak, the shah's secret police force.
Legally, the Islamic Republic's Constitution explicitly bans torture, saying, "All forms of torture for the purpose of extracting confessions or acquiring information are forbidden," adding, "Any testimony, confession or oath obtained under duress is devoid of value."
The Islamic Republic did not end the repression, but simply introduced a new form of it. In addition to physical abuse, there is an open-ended effort to degrade prisoners by bringing morals charges against them and their families, including detailed accusations about sexual habits and activities.
The charges can sometimes be comical. Mashallah Shamsolvaezin, a journalist who served 19 months as a political prisoner for "harming Islam" in his writings, said that in one of his interrogations, he was presented with a photo in which he was shaking hands with a woman, a practice that is officially banned.
"I told my prosecutor I would always shake the hand of a lady who held her hand out, that only a sick person would retreat from such a gesture," Mr. Shamsolvaezin recalled. "I told him, `Every person has three zippers in his life — the zipper to his pocket that prevents him from taking bribes, the zipper to his pants, and the zipper to his mouth.' I said I had pulled up the first two zippers to keep the zipper to my mouth open."
In Mr. Sahabi's case, it was not only his prison experience but also the continuation of pressure on him after his release that prompted his letter. He wrote that he had suffered two heart attacks and convulsions because of the twisted charges against him, the insults and psychological trickery. Confessions were extracted under "much duress," he said.
After Mr. Sahabi sent his letter, the main reformist party condemned what it called "the activities of rogue groups" working in tandem with the intelligence apparatus and the judiciary and called for an official inquiry. Ayatollah Mehdi Karroubi, the speaker of the Parliament and one of the recipients of the letter, called on Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi, the head of the judiciary, to investigate.
Early in February, Mr. Sahabi appeared before a parliamentary committee to tell his story. But the antipathy toward people like Mr. Sahabi runs high among those in power. Ali Mobasheri, a mid-level cleric who runs the Revolutionary Court, criticized his "lack of good will and unfriendly behavior toward the judiciary," adding that Mr. Sahabi had a big cell that had furniture and even a television set. Mr. Sahabi should not forget that "he is a criminal" who has been released on bail, he said, and therefore could be imprisoned again.
Mr. Sahabi's case has gotten much attention in Iran because he is a founding father of the revolution. But the stories of lesser-known prisoners provide support. One is Muhammad Batebi, a student who was sentenced to 15 years in prison for endangering national security after he held aloft the bloody T-shirt of a wounded friend during student riots in 1999.
In 2001, he smuggled a letter out of prison describing his ordeal, which he said included beatings and having his face held down in a vat of excrement as he gasped for breath.
All this has prompted Iran's elected and reformist Parliament to push for a law banning physical or psychological torture to extract confessions.
The Guardian Council, an unelected watchdog body that can veto legislation for violating Islam or the Constitution, has voted down three drafts of the bill. It argued that the bill was "un-Islamic," despite the Constitution's ban on torture. The bill may go to a higher body, the Expediency Council, for review.
Without some basic guarantees, the justice system remains open to abuse. "There's a minefield in front of us, and we don't have the map," said Mr. Shamsolvaezin, the journalist. "In democracies, the people have access to the map of the minefields. But here, the government keeps the map secret. It wants to keep changing it whenever it wants."
