Mohsen Sazegara was one of the youngest figures near the helm of Iran’s Islamic revolution in 1979. Serving first as a press attaché to Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in his exile command center outside of Paris, Sazegara went on to hold a series of high positions in the early revolutionary government — chief of national radio, commander of the Revolutionary Guard, cabinet aide, and head of the Industrial Development and Renovation Organization — all while still in his twenties. However, he got caught in the wheels of internal power jockeying and was accused falsely of being a secret agent of the Mojahedin-e Khalq, an Islamo-Marxist group that lost out to Khomeini for control of the new regime. Trying to clear his name, he agreed to surrender for interrogation.
Mohsen arrived early at Evin Prison, where he was blindfolded, although not handcuffed, and . . . led by the hand down a long and wide corridor. He could see from under the blindfold, and what he saw was “a very sad scene.” As they passed various interrogation rooms he heard shouting, and the corridor was lined with young male and female prisoners awaiting their turns. The young women looked particularly pitiful.That was a turning point of my life. I said to myself, what is going on? Is this what we wanted to create — these prisoners, this atmosphere, that interrogator? I knew that I would be released because of pressure outside Evin. But what about these young people?I had heard several things about tortures, killings, executions. I had told myself that the opposition groups exaggerate. Lajevardi [the warden of Evin] is cruel but not that cruel.
Now he wondered if all the terrible things he had heard were indeed accurate. Then he witnessed something that chilled him to the bone:
While I was looking at that sad scene, an interrogator came out from one of the rooms and shouted, “Guard, come take this [bitch] to be beaten more; more lashes.” She was young and blindfolded, and she started to cry. I heard her say, “I cannot bear more lashes.” And the interrogator said . . . “Hah, you cannot tolerate a few lashes in this room? How can you tolerate the God’s eternal punishment? In the next life you will be in hell.” And they took her away.
Mohsen recalls, “That really shocked me. I asked myself, ‘Who persuaded this interrogator that he is an agent of God?’ A person who believes he has a mission from God can easily torture, kill, or do anything.” That evening one of the interrogators told him that he was going to be released “because your friends have lied to Imam Khomeini, but rest assured you will be back here. We’ll be waiting for you.” He was turned over to a guard who led him outside the building, where he was allowed to remove the blindfold, and suddenly roles seemed to revert to normal. As they waited for a car to the prison gate, the guard said, “Mr. Sazegara, I know you are the head of the automotive industries. I’m trying to buy a van. Can you help me?” Mohsen declined. The next morning, Mohsen went directly to the office of Minister Nabavi, his friend and patron, to review the previous day’s events. Nabavi told him that he had enlisted the help of Ardebili, the head of the Judicial Authority, and that the two of them had won over Ahmad Khomeini, the usually hard-line son of the Imam, who in turn went to his father and secured an order for Mohsen’s release. Mohsen told Nabavi of the disturbing things he had seen and heard in Evin. “I have to tell Ayatollah Khomeini what is going on,” he said. Nabavi phoned Ahmad Khomeini and asked if they could come to see his father, and somewhat to their surprise, they were given an appointment for later that morning at the Ayatollah’s home in Jamaran, a northern suburb of Tehran (where he had moved from the holy city of Qom). CONTINUED 1 2 Next > adsonar_placementId=1448671;adsonar_pid=1609767;adsonar_ps=-1;adsonar_zw=300;adsonar_zh=250;adsonar_jv='ads.adsonar.com'; * * *
NOT A SUBSCRIBER TO NATIONAL REVIEW? Sign up right now! It's easy: You can subscribe to National Review here, or NR / Digital here. Or, you order a subscription as a gift: print or digital!
var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www."); document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E")); var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-1167326-1"); pageTracker._setDomainName("nationalreview.com"); pageTracker._initData(); pageTracker._trackPageview("/DarknessinTehran/JoshuaMuravchik/"); � National Review Online 2009. All Rights Reserved. Home | Search | NR / Digital | Donate | Media Kit | Contact Us
NOT A SUBSCRIBER TO NATIONAL REVIEW? Sign up right now! It's easy: You can subscribe to National Review here, or NR / Digital here. Or, you order a subscription as a gift: print or digital!
Read Full Article »