Iran Document: "Our Sons' And Daughters' Agony" (Sahabi)

Ezzatollah Sahabi, former minister and member of Parliament, editor of the banned journal Iran-e Farda, and leader of Iran's Nationalist-Religious political alliance, writes in Rah-e-Sabz (translated by Khordaad 88):

In the name of God,

To whom can I speak of my sons’ and daughters’ agony?

The Latest from Iran (19 April): Stay Firm, Spread the Word

Enduring the past nine months and seeing the torment experienced by the sons and daughters of this land has been unbearable for this old man – seeing the nation’s potential melt away in the hands of our incapable rulers; seeing the atrocious treatment of the nation’s righteous and courageous children, both in the streets and in prisons. But the pain has gotten worse lately and I do not know how to handle it or object.


These days, I keep hearing that my dear Badressadat Mofidi, Hengameh Shahidi, Shiva Nazarahari, and many more are under intense pressure [during] interrogation. [I hear that] they are subjected to constant insults with the goal of making them break down and forget about everything they are fighting for. The situation is so unbearable that some of these ladies have wished for death.

Government officials visiting the prisons reported that the intensity of verbal abuse makes some prisoners complain about that even more than they do about bthe violent beatings.

I am also constantly hearing that in recent weeks, Ahmad Zeidabadi, Mansour Esanloo, Masoud Bastani, and others, who are as dear to me as my own sons and who are clearly imprisoned because of their beliefs and political ideas, are illegally and unethically kept with prisoners who have committed heinous crimes (though some of the felons are, of course, victims of this unjust system). [My friends] are exposed to direct pressure and pain. Some of them are in danger of serious and irreversible damage being done to their physical and mental health.

It is so sad for me to see political prisoners of a regime that I helped create experience such unjust, cruel, and unethical treatment. [I am referring to] cruelty such as keeping the political prisoners with murderers on death row or insulting women in such a way that they break down and admit to false and shameful crimes on national television. I have been imprisoned and interrogated both before and after the [formation of] the Islamic Republic. [I can guarantee that] the situation is much worse than before.

I do not understand why our rulers have completely forgotten about ethics and religion, resorting to any means [necessary] to protect their short-lived worldly powers. We have not forgotten the days before the Islamic Revolution, when we criticized others by saying that the end does not justify the means.

I am a religious person who understands ethics to be the main pillar as well as the main goal of religion. [I am also a person] whose prophet – a prophet common to all of us – was chosen to raise the standards of ethics. As such, I am ashamed to live in times where the sons and daughters, the men and women of this society are arrested and tortured under the worst physical and psychological pressure and women are treated with the most shameful disrespect. [This is] all [done] to force them into false confessions and to find them guilty because of the facts they speak and the truth they seek; all in the name of God and religion.

Alas, “to lie,” which, in our culture, is recognized both nationally and religiously to be among the worst of sins, has now become a dominant trend. Our authorities lie with the greatest exaggeration. They seek to stamp their hollow (national and international) ambitions into the minds of the people merely by repeating them over and over again, every day and every night. Those people would not be deceived by such trickery and lies and in the seminary schools of Qom, religious leaders further unmask the liar. But unfortunately, they are still forcing male and female prisoners to lie in order to avoid more intense pressure and/or exile. Dear Almighty, where do I go to counsel my pains and concerns; who can I go to?

I hope that there is someone left among the Judiciary or the establishment who will hear my cries and change either the conditions of the prisoners I named or any of the other nameless ones – if only for the sake of God and their own afterlife, so that the families of victims can be spared the torment that they have to bear each day.

Dear God, as you witnessed, the [main] promise of the Revolution was the governance of justice, like the justice created by Imam Ali, the first Imam of the Shi’ites. His governance was strict with the people closest to him, and his mercy reached [even] his enemies who were furthest from him.

This was the promise. However, the ‘justice’ our government perpetuates today, in the name of Ali, is easy-going on political and financial corruption, as well as any theft or murder that those close to the authorities commit in banks, other financial institutions, universities or Kahrizak and Evin prisons. They impose their severity on blindfolded, handcuffed and innocent men and women, who are [merely] insisting on [seeing] the goals and desires of that very Revolution [that created this government in the first place]. Oh dear Almighty, O Saviour of hearts and minds, O Guide of night and day – either transform our days, or else give me death.