Iran’s Islamic Revolution, Unique Movement (3)

In this program we are going to talk about the diaries of two other companions of Imam Khomeini, namely, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and Marziyeh Hadidchi Dabbagh in the prison of despotic and puppet regime of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.

The 38^th anniversary of victory of the Islamic revolution has arrived and the revolution is still the center of political equations in the region and the world. The Islamic revolution gained victory by Imam Khomeini who was a history-maker. On one hand this great event of the 20^th century disrupted the bipolar system ruling over the world and on the other hand eradicated one of the most powerful regimes which were supported by big powers. This revolution created a great political and popular development in Iran and enjoyed strategic and economic importance. With high awareness that it created among Muslim nations, the Islamic revolution paved the ground for deeply-rooted political developments and popular movements. The Islamic revolution once again raised Islam as a determining power in the world. The ideological nature, the power of leadership and the depth of the developments resulting from the Islamic revolution caused many political pundits to ponder over the revolution’s theories. The anniversary of victory of the Islamic revolution is an opportunity to review the way it triumphed, since in view of its deep impact on Iran and the world the revolution still has many untold stories especially for the young generation. 

The Islamic revolution was led by Imam Khomeini as a great source of emulation. Imam Khomeini was accompanied by certain friends who played an effective role in the victory of the revolution and stability of the Islamic Republic of Iran’s system. Many of these companions were persecuted, imprisoned, tortured or exiled during their struggle against the despotic regime of Shah. One of the reasons why people from all walks of life had participated in the struggles was the suffocation and the countless crimes of the regime against freedom-seekers and masses. In the previous program we retold you some diaries of the leader of the Islamic revolution and Imam Khomeini’s successor Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei and martyr Mohammad Ali Rajaee second president of the Islamic Iran. Another one of Imam Khomeini’s companions was Hojjatol Eslam Hashemi Rafsanjani who spent part of his life in prison. In his diaries of the first night of his interrogation, Hashemi Rafsanjani says: “Whipping and torture were accompanied with insults. When I was beaten, one of SAVAK agents ordered his men to stop beating thinking that I would speak. Another man started beating me again but they were not satisfied. Sometimes they pushed me to the wall and put knife under my throat and said they would behead me. My throat was injured. Once they stripped me off as a sign of insult. This was continued till 4 in midnight. Whipping injured me to the extent that I had a broken bone. A few days later, they took me blindfolded to a military hospital.” The director of Keyhan newspaper Hussein Shariatmadari has a considerable memory of Hashemi Rafsanjani in prison. In his diaries he says: “Once I pretended to be unconscious in the interrogation room so that the agents stop torturing me. Then I found out that Hashemi Rafsanjani was brought to the torture cell. I had already met him in meetings and I knew him. The notorious torturer Azqandi placed the French tool around Mr. Hashemi’s neck and twisted it. I saw how Azqandi twisted the French tool so that Mr. Hashemi was almost choked. Simultaneously Azqandi insulted him and then said: ‘Why do you propagate for Khomeini?’ While he twisted the French tool he said to Hashemi not to propagate anymore and after a few moments he opened the French tool. As soon as it was opened, Mr. Hashemi said I will do it again.”

For the shah regime, it made no difference if the combatant was a man, woman or teenager. The regime exposed every opponent to the severest tortures. One of these brave combatant women was Marziyeh Hadidchi Dabbagh. Dabbagh was the lady who in a trip to Moscow in 1988 along with Ayatollah Abdullah Javadi Amoli handed over Imam Khomeini’s historical epistle to then Soviet leader Michael Gorbachev.

In her diaries of her arrest and torture by Savak agents, Ms. Dabbagh said:  “Torture began by slapping and insults and gradually with whip and baton. They several times tied my hands and legs to a chair and put iron or copper helmet on my head and then exposed my body to electricity with different voltages that caused strong tremors and shook my body. Lashing and baton were the common torture which were conducted professionally. They would whip the soles of my feet so professionally that made me lose my consciousness. After spraying water and making me conscious I was forced to walk so that my feet would swell.” Marziyeh Dabbagh continues relating her experiences of the SAVAK torture cells, “Once, they laid me on the bed and tied my hands and legs from both sides. When the torturer entered the room he had a cigarette on his lips, immediately he turned it off on my hand and when I screamed he ridiculously said, ‘Oh! My cigarette is off!’ He lit another cigarette again. This time he turned it off on sensitive parts of my body so that every cell of my body was in pain.”

SAVAK interrogators used different methods for crushing the morale, resistance and steadfastness of combatants. One of these methods was the arrest and torture of children and relatives of the imprisoned or persecuted combatants. Ms. Marziyeh Hadidchi Dabbagh was exposed to severe psychological torture. SAVAK agents arrested her 14 year old daughter and exposed her to severe tortures in a vain bid that the mother would be forced to disclose some information on other fellow-combatants.

A number of Imam Khomeini’s combatant companions were martyred under SAVAK tortures. Among the most prominent of them were Ayatollah Ghaffarri and Ayatollah Saeedi. There is a long list of these brave souls but we cannot mention all of them in a short program. In this program we just referred to two of them as samples of the dark years of the despotic and cruel regime of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi which was installed by the oppressive British regime and supported by the regime of the United States of America which was rightly dubbed as the Great Satan by the sage of the age and man of the millennium Imam Khomeini. In conclusion, we point to some methods of torture applied by SAVAK agents who were trained by Mossad and CIA murderous agencies. One of the methods of SAVAK was to tie women to fences and walls. They tied the hands and legs of prisoners with ropes or chains to fences and kept them for a long time. As a result the prisoners would feel severe pains in arms and legs, and were exposed to abdominal cramps, loss of bladder, tingling legs and tiredness.

Whipping the sensitive parts of body was another method for torturing prisoners. Stripping and tying to bed and whipping were also ordinary tortures. SAVAK agents stripped prisoners and laid them on hot bed with no mattresses and tied their two legs to the end of the bed and whipped their bodies from top to bottom. Sometimes, to avoid the screaming of prisoners they put a piece of cloth in their mouth. In addition to psychological humiliating of prisoners these methods caused severe distress. Burning different body organs was one of the common tortures. In this way, they put hot rod or electric flat iron with intense pressure on all parts of the body. One of the most common tortures was to stick needles under the nails or forceful taking out of the nails with pliers. SAVAK had numerous methods of torture which should be mentioned in other opportunities.

FK/RM/ME