Witness Statement: Fariborz Baghai
In this witness statement, Fariborz Baghai, a Tudeh Party leader, describes his imprisonment from 1981 to 1993 and in particular his experience during the summer of 1988 when thousands of political prisoners were summarily executed.
Name: Fariborz Baghani
Place of Birth: Tehran, Iran
Date of Birth: 1940
Occupation: Physician
Interviewing Organization: Iran Human Rights Documentation Center (IHRDC)
Date of Interview: June 8 & 9, 2009
Interviewer: IHRDC Staff
This statement was prepared pursuant to an interview with Fariborz Baghai. Baghai passed away on July 21, 2010.
Witness Statement
Childhood
1. My name is Fariborz Baghai. My friends call me Borzoo. Both names are historical names mentioned in Shahnameh. I was born in 1940 to a large family in Tehran. I have five brothers and two sisters. I am second to the youngest. My father was a middle rank employee at the Ministry of Agriculture. He was often on mission. Thus, all my siblings were born in different provinces. I was the only one among them who was born in Tehran because my father was forced to stay home then.
2. In 1946, my father was transferred to Karaj animal husbandry based in the village of Hyderabad. I was six years old then and enrolled in the first class of the only primary school of the village. The school had four grades. Students in grade two were teaching students at grade one, students in grade three were teaching students in grade two, and students in grade four were teaching students in grade three. The school had one teacher. He was the headmaster, the teacher and footman.
3. Running into a dispute with his boss for having a different opinion, my father was forced to retire. He fell sick because of the dispute and forced retirement, and died in the age of 54 in 1947. I was studying in grade two.
4. My mother and my eldest brother who was 15 years older than me took the house responsibility and brought us up. I belonged to a middle class educated family in Iran. My uncle had an important position in the National Bank of Iran. He bought a house for his sister, my mother, and my brother in Tehran by securing a loan through the bank. Thus, we settled in Tehran. My mother and brother repaid the loan on a monthly basis. I studied in Tehran from third to twelfth grade. At this time, one of my brothers got a job in the Ministry of Finance, another one joined the army and my sister became a teacher.
5. In May 1959, my brother sent me to Germany for studies with 2,000.00 Toman, the equivalent of 1500 Deutsch Mark. I took an intensive German language course for two months in a boarding school and paid all my money for fees to school. Then I started working from July to October. In 1959, Germany was in the period of reconstruction and needed construction labor. I started working and got paid 2.60 Marks per hour which was a considerably amount. I saved some money.
6. On October 15, 1959, I joined a medical college because I had been admitted in Iran to medical school. After three months, my savings were finished and I resumed working. I lived with a person who worked at the Opel Company. He helped me to get a job with the Opel Company where I worked during the winter and summer vacations to save some money for my university expenses.
7. I passed the first term very successfully. The subject’s taught during the first year in medical university in Germany like physics, chemistry, and botany were easy for me because I had studied them before in Iran from ninth to twelfth grades. Therefore, I become one of the top 10 best students in the first term.
8. The governor of Rheinland-Pfalz, the state where I was studying, declared that he would pay 200 Marks every month to the 10 top best foreign students. I became one of the beneficiaries of his promise. My expenses were 300 Marks every month and I had to work to make an additional 100 Marks every month, though I worked less than before. I worked at an American hotel located near Mainz and washed dishes. It was there that I met my wife.
9. Meanwhile, the Vietnam War had intensified and the student movement had become very active, particularly in West Germany. I witnessed that only the Eastern Europe socialist countries led by the Soviet Union supported the Vietnamese. I grew up in a non-political family because my father worked in the monarchy system. The monarchy regime did not kid with the political opposition. The Vietnam War made me become politically active. I contacted the German Communists and they told me to get in touch with the Tudeh Party. After the defeat of the 28 Mordad Coup d’état, the Tudeh Party had established student unions and confederations abroad. I joined the student union and later became a member of Tudeh Party.
10. I was involved in leading the student unions directly or indirectly from my second term until I graduated from the university. At the end of my studies, I became a member of Tudeh Party. At that time, the Maoists had taken control of the confederations and all my friends had become Maoists. There were not more than 10 Tudeh Party members in all of Europe. Three of them were in Germany and Austria. When I refer to Tudeh Party, I mean those who supported the Soviet Union unlike the Maoists who endorsed the Chinese policy. We were the target of Maoist propaganda and they pushed us into a corner and put us in a difficult situation. To counter their propaganda, we decided to establish the Medical Graduate Students Association in Germany. Meanwhile, the Tudeh Party leadership discovered that SAVAK, the Monarchy System Intelligence Organization, had identified their network in Iran and put some of their members behind bars. This made the party’s leadership focus their attention on Western Europe. Thus, we became the focal point and had to tackle a lot of the responsibilities. We tried hard and recruited many students into our ranks.
11. Around this time, the Afghan Revolution succeeded and many Afghan students were attracted to Soviet Socialism. After that, we founded the Democratic Youth and Students Organization which was a professional association. We advocated for gradual changes and believed that we could make the Iranian government retreat gradually unlike the Maoists who advocated radical political measures to bring change in society.
12. The Iran Revolution led by Khomeini occurred at this time. When Khomeini in Paris said that everybody had freedom in the Islamic Republic, even the communists, as long as they do not betray us, Tudeh Party got some freedom. In January 1979, Tudeh Party emphatically urged all opposition groups to form a united front and support Ayatollah Khomeini and encouraged the party leaders living in exile to return to Iran during or immediately after the revolution. The party leaders’ who were living in Eastern Europe returned to Iran and I did too.
13. I was an obstetrics and gynecology specialist surgeon in Germany and lived with my wife and had a child who was 10 years old then. I sold my property, resigned from my job, and went to Iran. I taught at Shahid Beheshti University as an associate professor and continued my political activities with the party.
14. Considering my commitment and service to the party particularly when all but three had abandoned the Party in Germany, I was appointed as the head of international relations and the point person to coordinate and communicate with Tudeh supporters around the world. Meanwhile, I had some responsibility in Tehran and became a member of the provincial council of Tehran. I was elected as the central committee’s advisor in the first plenum held in Tehran after the revolution.
15. At the beginning of the revolution, many Iranian sent their children for higher education to India because it was cheap. As Tudeh Party policies were more rational than their Maoist counterparts, many students in India joined the Tudeh Party. They, however, did not have any political experience. I had to write them letters everyday instructing them how to organize themselves, describing what party and memberships are for, and what positions they should adopt with respect to daily political issues. The students supporting us were competing with the Maoists in India because we supported the Islamic regime and considered the new establishment revolutionary and democratic, while the Maoists considered them reactionary and labeled us “cooperators of the imperialists.” Therefore, our supporters were under huge political pressure to justify their political stance against the Maoists. As they did not have any political experience, I asked them to send me their press releases before publishing them. I wanted to review their writings so that they did not write things against the Iranian government and create trouble for us inside the country. The students used to send their writings and the money they had collected for the party through someone who was coming home to visit his family.
16. In June 1981, People Mojahedin Organization of Iran (MEK) started an armed struggle and the government started arresting members of MEK, all the leftist organizations but the Tudeh Party and Fadayian (the Majority). Around this time, I had an appointment in front of a mosque with a person who had brought a letter from Afghan students in Bangalore, India. The following was written in the letter, “Comrades of the central committee of Tudeh Party, Iran; we appreciate the information you have given us about the Iran revolution and government. We wish you success, the supporters of Parcham Party, Afghanistan, in Bangalore”. The guy with the letter was arrested.
17. The reason for writing this letter was a dispute about the nature of the Islamic Republic that divided the communist parties throughout the world, including in Afghanistan. The two pro- Soviet ruling communist parties, Khalq and Parcham, in Afghanistan disagreed with each other about the Tudeh Party policies. The Khalq believed that Khomeini was an agent of the imperialism; therefore, they denounced us for supporting the Islamic government. While the Parcham Party supported us but they did not have sufficient information. In response to a Parcham Party member’s inquiry in Bangalore about our policies, we sent them our official public bulletin called “Mardom”. The said letter was a thank you for sending them our bulletin.
Arrest
18. After the person with the letter was arrested, they came after me at my home on July 6, 1981. I was about to enter my home at around 11 or 12 pm in my car, when I saw my son, eleven or twelve years old, riding his bike. The moment he saw me, he came running and said, “Father, don’t go home. Pasdars (IRGC officers) are at home and searching everywhere. They want to arrest you.” Two other members of the central committee, Manouchehr Behzadi and Nik Ayeen, had come to visit me before. My son had informed them about Pasdars presence at my home and they returned. I told my son that I had not committed any wrongs, I had supported the regime. No danger would threaten me. I would go in.
19. There were five or six persons at my home. They did not have uniforms because it was the early days of the revolution. But I knew they belonged to the committee. I noticed that they had searched my room, my books and shelves. As I entered, they asked me if I had a gun. I said, “Weapon! No.” They asked, “Haven’t you hidden it somewhere?” I said, “I’m a doctor and it’s not my profession to carry weapons. Besides, our party is legal and does not have weapons. We support you and when you ordered that all weapons should be handed over to government, the only organization that complied with the order was ours.” He said, “You have a lot of books. Are you involved with some sort of cultural work?” I said I was because the Tudeh Party was doing only cultural work. Then one of them was contacted through wireless and reported that I had come and they found no weapons but books at my home and asked for further instruction. Then he received an order to pick me up. I told my wife that I was going with them. I would come back because there had to be some misunderstanding. At this time, my neighbors had gathered around my home. When they took me, because of the fear and in support of me, they loudly sent me their religious blessings.
20. The agents took me to their headquarters located in the former national council center, called Majlis Komittee. Kommittees were set up early days of the revolution but by then, they were wellestablished bodies in Iran’s political structure. I was not blindfolded when I got there. I was taken to a room which held twenty or thirty persons. Some of them were addicted; others were prominent leaders of the former regime. Four or five hours later, around early morning, somebody called, “Fariborz Baghai, collect your stuff and come!”
21. This time, I was blindfolded and moved around the city. I think they stopped behind the national council building and told me to put my head down because I was in a moat and my head might touch the ceiling. It was not true. They wanted to make me afraid. They put me in a solitary cell that smelled of urine and was very dirty. There was a mat, a Quran and a religious book called Mafateh-al janan. I was kept there for three days. It was Ramadan month. I was fed only one time at midnight before dawn and one time at dusk. After three days, they blindfolded me, told me to put my head down again and transferred me to another location. There a man registered me and asked if I was a professor and member of the Tudeh Party. I replied that I was one of the leaders of the Tudeh Party. He said that I had two options; lashes (turning his moustache) or cooperate with them. I said, “I defended you within the framework of the Tudeh Party. Our policy is to support you because we believe you are revolutionary democrats and against imperialism. We have common interests and therefore, we support you. He said, “Tie him to the bed.” They tied me to the bed and then asked, “Do you want to cooperate now or not?” I said “I’m cooperating with you and have defended you all the time.” He said, “No, this is not what we want.” He did not beat me that day and ordered a guard to take me to my room.
22. Around 11 or 12 o’clock that night, they came behind me again, blindfolded me and ordered me to put my head down. They put me in a Peykan car. There were two Mujahedin women in the car with me. One of the women said that she was arrested without any reason. She said she was the daughter of an ayatollah (I have forgotten his name now). Both of them quarreled with the guards inside the car and insulted them. The guards told them to shut their mouths and cover their eyes. I lowered my blindfold because I believed there were some misunderstanding and they would release me soon. So far they had not used violence against me apart from the threat to cover my eyes and put down my head.
23. We entered Evin. There are many hills near Evin. When we went up and down the hills, I guessed we were about to arrive at Evin. Many cars came and left. Later I found out that the cars dropped Mujahedin detainees. They took me to a room. The Mujahedin were protesting and hitting the wall. I decided to move my blindfold up to see what was going on. I saw some guards hitting a detainee.
24. There was no police force and the Basij was not established then. The plainclothes agents who defended the regime were a bunch of clandestine vulgar people called Sepah (IRGC). Sepah was not a distinguished force then. When Iraq attacked Iran, Sepah was divided into two sections. One was the revolutionary committees which had the responsibility to maintain security in the cities, like police forces; the second was military forces that fought against the Iraqi forces alongside the Army. The moment I moved my blindfold up, someone slapped me very hard with his coarse hand. He seemed to be waiting for me to move my blindfold. My tooth became loose. I asked to see a dentist. The guard started to insult and curse me.
25. I was forty years old. Other prisoners, mostly Mujahidin, were between the age of 15 and 17. I was considered an old man among them. A while later I was told to put my head down to cross the moat. I was taken to a corridor and handed a blanket. I lay down there. There were a lot of noises in the corridor. Constantly prisoners were taken for beating. I was not taken. Whoever passed by me, I asked for a dentist. When they looked at me and saw that I was not a member of Mujahedin, they just insulted me and passed by. Some of them said if I remained alive, I would visit a doctor one day. I was there for two days. When I needed restroom, I was taken out. I asked for and was given water two or three times. But I did not eat for two days.
26. Around 12 o’clock the second night, somebody took my hand and told me to put down my head and lean forward to cross the moat. They put me in a Peykan car and made me sit with two other persons in the back seat. Two guards, one of them armed, sat in front of us. We were told to put our heads down and the car moved down the hills. After a while an iron gate opened and we entered. I did not understand where we were at that moment but I heard someone was wielding something. (Later I understood that it was Komittee Moshtarak near Topkhana Square. Of course, it was not called Komittee Moshtarak anymore because that was a name used during the former regime for this place. Now it was called Towhid Prison or Prison 3001.) I was searched there and they took my watch. I was smoking a pipe. They took my pipe from my pocket. I had a Sampson leather box in which I kept my ID card, driver’s license, graduation certificate and medical practice permit. They seized all this stuff from me.
27. I was sent to a solitary cell in the basement. There was a blanket in the room but nothing else. There was a small iron window about thirty into forty centimeter with small holes through which weak light entered. The walls were made of cement and some slogans from before the revolution were still visible on the wall. I understood that this place was a prison before, too. It was a small room – when I stretched my hands, I could touch both walls and it was about 2 meters and 20 centimeters long. The room had an iron door with a small window which I believe was only for guards to observe us because it did not have a hand-rail through which to give us food. They opened the door when they gave us food.
28. It was the first time I noticed that the guards wore green uniforms there. However, they covered their faces with bags whenever they gave us food so that we could not see their faces. The guard who gave us food said that we should be grateful to them for keeping us alive. The food was rice without meat with a piece of bread on a plastic plate that was not enough. It couldn’t fill me. When I asked for more food, the guard said that I was Mahdour-el dam (i.e. my blood was free and I had no rights whatsoever) and I should be happy to receive that amount of food. Those who were tortured did not have any appetite. They threw their food in the garbage in restroom. Those who were hungry picked up that food and ate it. So in the first three months, my food came from the food thrown in the restroom bin.
29. I started to exercise there because I did not have cigarettes. I could not sleep during the day because detainees screamed under torture. I made myself tired by exercising during the day in order to fall sleep at night. I could not take showers and wash myself for the first six months. They opened the door three times during praying time. I scheduled my exercise to finish right before the praying time. When I was taken to restroom, I took off my shirt and pants and washed them. They noticed that I was wet one day near winter time and thought that I wanted to commit suicide and took me for interrogation. Fortunately, they did not torture me but commanded me to stand for four hours with my hands up. It was a punishment because they believed I was attempting to commit suicide.
30. I was not tortured in this prison for the first three months but the Constitutional Revolutionaries who fought against the regime after the revolution, the leftist organizations that waged armed struggle against the regime like Fadayian (Minority), Razm-Avaran, the Revolutionary Organization of Tudeh Party, the Communist Party of Iran whose women members had returned from England to Iran, were tortured. The regime tortured them severely to extract information about their friends at large and to destroy their organizational structure as quickly as possible.
Interrogation and Torture
31. My interrogation started in late September 1981. I told them about all my political activities, i.e. I was the head of the international relations of the Tudeh Party and responsible for the student section outside the country and was a member of the Tehran Council. They did not believe me and started beating. They beat me about 50 to 60 lashes every day for three consecutive days and asked about the Tudeh Party political structure and what its purpose was. They respected me a little because I was a university professor. Still, the Tudeh Party was legally active in Iran.
32. During the second round of interrogation that lasted about two or three days, I was charged with spying but overall I was not lashed more than thirty times each day. The reason I was charged with spying was that letter sent by Afghan Students from Bangalore, India. They showed it to me. I told them that if I wanted to spy for Afghanistan, there were many direct ways that I could do that. For instance, I could get in touch directly with the ambassador of Afghanistan in Tehran who was a Communist. My interrogator said that I was smart and knew that the embassy was monitored by the IR intelligence agents and therefore I did not go to the embassy to send the information. I said there were other ways too. For instance, I could get in touch with the head of the party in Germany or Prague and tell them to convey the message to Afghanistan. Finally, if I wanted to contact the Afghan government, why I would get in touch with the supporters of the Afghan Parcham Party in Bangalore and not directly with the members of the Central Committee. If the thank you letter was sent by the central committee of the Parcham Party, you had rights to question me but this letter was written by a supporter of the Parcham Party in Bangalore.
33. I was told at the interrogation sessions that they arrested me for two reasons: because I was a spy and because their revolution had just entered into its third phase. My interrogator said that the first phase of the revolution was to destroy the monarchy; the second phase was to expel the Americans which they did when they occupied the embassy; and the third phase, which they had just entered into, was to destroy all political organizations, particularly, the Tudeh Party which he called um-al fesad i.e. the mother of all corruptions. He said the only party that had the right to remain active was the Islamic Republic Party. My interrogator said that if I cooperated with them, I could surely go back and teach at the university. I told them what I had said four months ago.
34. I had three interrogators, Haji Amin, Haj Mojtaba, and Mahmoud. Haji Amin was the head and struck most of the lashes. He was the head of Komittee Moshtarak. His real name was Ali Fallahyan and became Minister of Intelligence later. There was no ministry of intelligence then. Only the IRGC had an intelligence unit. Haj Amin asked me about my private life, like which Iranian girls I had relationships with and which one I had slept with. He believed that the Communist shared their women and had sexual intercourse with each other’s wives. They knew that my wife was German so they did not ask about her. They were interested in discovering my relationship with Muslim women, not with foreigners whom they believed were all sexually corrupt.
35. For the first four months of my imprisonment, I was kept in solitary confinement apart from a short while when a young guy, around 18 years old, was brought to my room. His name was Akbar and he lived in a rural village in Kermanshah, in the west of Iran. He had attempted to plant a bomb but was arrested and executed very fast. The Iraqis’ had addicted Akbar to alcohol and used him as a tool. He tried to fight his addiction while in prison. Having him in my room was very troubling for me. I had nothing in my room but they brought in an addicted person. Now imagine how you can live with an addicted person in a room who has no control over his behavior and does not react rationally. Living with him was an additional torture for me for the two months that he lived with me.
36. In the summer of 1982, a year after my arrest, some friends of Qotb-zadeh, the former Foreign Minister, was arrested. One of them called Darvish (Sufi) Kermanshahi known as “Ali Alhaq” was brought into my cell. He told me that he was from “Ali Allahi”, a Sufi sect, but that he knew the Shiism very well, and said that if I did not pronounce my belief in Islam, I would be killed very soon. I told him that I believed in Islam so he taught me how to pray and perform it. Darvish also reported to the prison authorities that I was a Muslim and practiced Islam.
37. When I started practicing Islam, the guards came and asked for medicine for their families. They handed me their notebooks and I wrote prescriptions for them. In return, I asked them to give me a bucket of water. They gave me a painting box. I brought water in it from restroom and washed myself after I exercised.
38. I knew that hemoglobin in the blood vessels die under torture and kidneys fail to discharge them from the body due to the lack of water. As a result, the dead cells accumulate in the kidneys and are not discharged through urine. This can cause serious disease and might lead to the death of the person. Therefore, when I was tortured, I drank from the bucket I mentioned above and urinated in the same bucket. I drank my pee again because I feared that my hemoglobin would not get filtered. I believe that bucket of water and drinking from it helped me remain alive. I was told that a doctor who had been there before me had told prisoners not to drink after torture but I believed he was wrong. When I explained the change in physiological function of the body after torture, the guards changed their practice and allowed prisoners to drink more water. I think it was a service I did in prison.
39. I had been in prison for fifteen months when I heard that Khorramshahr, a city in the south of Iran, was recaptured from Iraqi forces. The Iranian forces were at the Iraq border. Khomeini had the ultimate power to command forces to cross border or not. The moment I heard this news, I said that now the Tudeh Party would announce that they would no longer support the war because it was no longer a defensive war but an aggressive one. If the Tudeh Party takes this stand, the Russians would do the same and would not support the Iran government. Thus, in the next couple of months the government would arrest all members of the Tudeh Party. This was my guess at that time.
40. During one of my interrogation sessions, I told Haj Amin that crossing the border was a trap the United States planted for them to drown in Basra’s swamps. (The government was also referring to Basra’s swamps in their news but I warned them far in advance that the army would disappear in Basra’s swamps.) I told him that the world was against their advance in Iraq territory. They would not sell them weapons any more. The Soviet Union would not cooperate with them and they would be defeated there. Besides, the moment they are recognized as invaders, they would not be given compensation. (At that time, some Arabic countries wanted to give Iran $40 billion compensation and they would not give it if they entered Iraq). Haj Amin asked me if I knew why the international community was against their invasion of Iraq. I said I did not. He said, “A kid was circumcised. He was crying and shouting. There was a girl behind him shouting and crying too. They asked her why she was crying. The girl said, “They sharpen it for me.” If the world is against us, it is because we sharpen it here. After Iraq, it is Saudi Arabia’s turn.”
41. After fifteen months, Haj Amin asked me to announce that I was a spy in front of a camera in order to be released. I asked him to tell me what I and the Tudeh Party spied for and I would repeat it in front of TV camera. He said that he could not tell me what to say, I should come with a story myself. I told him that it had been fifteen months that I was in prison and he had not given me any evidence implicating the Tudeh Party in any espionage. He said “no, it doesn’t work like this.” I was sent back to solitary cell.
42. By February 1983, I had been in prison for nineteen months. During this time, I practiced my profession on one or two occasions. As torture and whipping were widespread, there were a lot of sick persons in prison. There was one doctor in prison whose name was Shahchi. He was Baloch and a supporter of the monarchy. The leftists and the monarchists were held in Komittee Moshtarak. Dr. Shahchi did not belong to any political party. He was an independent prisoner so he was allowed to practice medicine in prison. He sometimes paid me a visit and treated me. As I did not brush my teeth for long, my teeth were dirty and about to fall out.
43. Before Dr. Shahchi, two persons, both Turks from Azerbaijan who had no medical background, practiced medicine in the prison. They were assigned during the Shah’s regime to work in the health section because they did not want to take up arms during their compulsory military service. They continued their work in the health clinic. When my tooth ached, I left a note behind my door for the guard to inform the doctor that I needed help. The Turk passed by my cell and said, “Those who did not believe in God, did not need antibiotics either.” After a while, all my teeth fell out. I have artificial teeth now. They brought one of the Turkish persons who practiced medicine in prison to my cell to teach him medicine. He had studied until grade four. The more I taught him, the less he understood. Nevertheless, I tried to teach him something so that he could help others.
44. Once a lady, a member of Iran Communist Party, who was from England got sick in prison. She had serious bleeding. Dr. Shahchi told the guards that he did not know anything about women’s diseases and urged them to call me to treat her. As I had become a Muslim and practiced Islam, they came for me, blindfolded and guided me to a circle shaped area. I loosened my blindfold a bit to see if it was Komittee Moshtarak because I had heard from former political prisoners about this area and I understood that I was right. I was taken to the second floor. I saw that Dr. Shahchi and the person who had no medical knowledge set up in a room for themselves where they were treating prisoners and giving them injections and serums particularly to those whose kidneys had failed under torture.
45. I was taken there and saw that a lady was behind the curtain. It was the first time I saw that a sick person was left behind a curtain. When I examined her, I noticed that she had a fetus of about 20CM about five or sixth months. It was alive. I did a dilation and curettage and tried to pull the fetus out. I noticed that the placenta was not coming out and I had to curettage it. I asked for Methazine to relax the womb and give a serum to the patient. I wrote the prescription and ordered the medicine to be brought from outside through the insurance card of another prisoner. I was returned to my cell. It was the only medical practice that I had done during those years.
46. Another time, I was taken to treat a prisoner who belonged to the Revolutionary Organization. I saw his foot had a hole. I could see his bones. My feet did not have holes despite being subjected to harsh lashings. I think it was because I exercised, ran and walked for 17 or 18 hours a day in the cell during the 19 months. My soles were thick. Or maybe it was because he was lashed with a different kind of whip. Some whips made holes while others did not. For instance, the knitted cables created wavering feelings and bodies shivered while the filled cables wounded the skin. I believe they used knitted cables for prisoners they wanted to keep alive and extract information from but used the filled cables for prisoners they sought to kill.
Targeting Tudeh Party Leaders- First Round
47. On February 6, 1983, I noticed the corridor located in the basement was vacant. Then new prisoners were brought in. They were the Tudeh Party’s leaders. They started chanting some slogans, like “long live Tudeh Party” to break the silence. They believed they were wrongly brought in because they supported the regime. The guards started beating them. After three or four hours they were silenced.
48. Three days later I was called for interrogation. The interrogator said that the newly arrested Tudeh Party members had said I was a member of the central committee. I was elected advisor of the central committee in a plenum held in Tehran in March 1981. I denied this and said that I was not. He said that two leaders of the party had confessed and confirmed that I was. Then he asked who was there at that plenum. There were 50 or 60 persons in that plenum. I did not remember all the names. They tied me to a bed and hit me with cables. There was an iron bed with wooden plates on top of it. They tied my hands and feet to the bed and lashed my feet. I shouted a lot. There were cloths filled with dry blood in the room. They pushed a dirty cloth into my mouth. It closed my nostrils. I could not take a breath. The pain in my feet and my difficulty in breathing exhausted me. Beating was painful but suffocation was worse. I could see death in front of my eyes.
49. They hit me and asked what information I had about the military structure of the Party and to mention the names of the army officers I recruited for the Party. I told them that before the revolution a navy officer, Hamid Ahmadi, came to me but I did not see him after the revolution. He used to come to visit me in Germany because his uncle lived in the city where I lived. His uncle introduced him to me and I introduced him to the Party. I did not know anybody else. Fortunately, Hamid Ahmadi had escaped from Iran. I was interrogated for the next fifteen days everyday for four or five hours. I fabricated names and told them that I wanted to confess. For instance, I said that I knew a navy officer called Amjadi and another one in the air force. When they wanted me to write down the names of the officers, I told them that I lied because I was about to die under torture. Then they subjected me to torture again. My urine was bloody.
50. The other question was to tell them the identity of Khosro. Later I found out that Khesrou was the head of the secret organization of the party. He was known as Partovi. I knew Partovi but I didn’t know that his name was Khosro. If they had asked me who Partavi was, I would have been able to tell them about him but they asked me about Khosro about whom I had no idea.
51. I was tortured every day from March to April 1981. One day they took me for mock execution. They asked me to write my will. I wrote in my will that my dear wife should take our son and leave Iran. “These are the last days of my life. You should not stay here anymore because I’m not alive. As a German citizen, there is no reason for you to stay here. Take our son to Germany to continue his education.” To tell you the truth, I understood that they would not kill me because I was not taken to court. They needed a religious judge’s permission to kill me. They told me that a religious judge had approved my execution. But I knew the judge had to speak with me. Interrogators cannot convey the message to me. Secondly, I thought that they believed that the Tudeh Party was a very strong and large party. I had some information that I did not share with them. They knew that we had more information than what we had shared with them. Nonetheless, they took me blindfolded to an open space in Komittee Moshtarak. Then ordered “in line, order and fire.” Then they started laughing and said, “He pissed himself.” Then they returned me to my cell.
Arrests of the Tudeh Party’s leaders: Second round
52. The Islamic Republic knew by now that the Tudeh Party had a secret organization. When the first rank leaders of the Tudeh Party were arrested on February 6, 1981, some leaders went into hiding. The secret organization protected them. However, the arrested leaders told everything about the secret organization under torture. Torture and beating were constant those days. We could hear screams from the interrogation room all the time. Under extreme pressure, the party leaders exposed some secret information about the Party and the secret military organization. To confirm the accuracy of the extracted information, the government shared the confession with other prisoners. They confirmed the truthfulness of the information. After that government agents followed the secret organization leaders for two months to discover their connections, living places and contacts.
53. On May 1, 1983, the rest of the Tudeh Party leaders’ were arrested. There was no space when they were brought in. I was in a solitary cell in Ward II. When I went to the restroom, I saw that the cells and corridors were full of newly-arrived detainees. Prisoners were made to sit blindfolded. There was a guard standing next to each one of them. Then they came after me. They showed me a picture and asked if I knew him. I said I did not. The interrogator told me that that person had claimed that I was a Russian spy. I looked at the picture again but could not recognize him.
54. Around dusk they gave my room to senior rank leaders who had more important information than I. They wanted to interrogate them individually. They placed me in a hall and gave me a blanket. Every prisoner had a small space to live and to sleep in the hall. When the hall became full, I was transferred to a hall in Ward IV located one floor above that one. They brought more prisoners until there was no space in that hall as well. Then they took me to a room to live with five or six other prisoners.
55. Looking at the thickness of the soles of my feet, my roommates were surprised. Some of them knew me but I did not know them. They said they were members of the Tudeh Party. There was a man named Doctor Kambiz Shirdel in that room. He said that he was a medical doctor in Germany. I asked him why he was arrested; he said “I was arrested mistakenly.” I inquired and asked which kind of mistake, he said, that he had a Landover car and was on his way to an appointment that he had with a lady belonging to the head of the former regime in the north of Tehran, when he was stopped and arrested. The guards thought he was Kianoori, the leader of Tudeh Party, because Kianoori also had a Landover car. He said that he had been in prison since January 7, 1983. He said that his wife was also arrested because she had protested against his arrest and they had told her “welcome to prison” and she was put in the women’s ward. I asked him where he had studied; he said he lived in Koln. When I looked at him carefully, I remembered he was the person in the [picture my interrogator showed me. He was a monarchist and I was a member of Tudeh. Thus, we did not have any contact with each other in Germany. There was an army colonel with us in the room too. He was a member of the Tudeh Party. The rest of my cellmates were members of the secret organization of the Tudeh Party.
56. I spied once for the Islamic Republic in prison. I wrote a letter to prison authorities and described the story of the doctor in my room. I wrote that he was not a member of the Tudeh Party, had never studied a newspaper in his life, did not know anything about Marxism and had no connection whatsoever with the Tudeh Party. I wrote that he was a prominent radiologist in Tehran and I asked for his release. Then I was summoned again and ordered to pick up my belongings and leave the room.
57. My radiologist cellmate asked if I had any message for him to convey to my family if he got released. I told him to ask my brothers to send me underwear and shirts because it had been a year and a half that I did not have any, and to tell my wife to leave Iran. I did not have any visit with my wife and child during this time. They stayed for two years in Iran to visit me but when they were not given any visits, they left for Germany after the summer school holidays.
58. In the summer of 1983, I was transferred to the hallways of Ward I and kept there for six months blindfolded. I was given a space of about 1:30 meter long and half a meter wide in which to live. I had to wear my blindfold at night time. My torture and interrogation resumed when I was in this hallway. The reason was a report that one of the prisoners in the room had claimed that I still believed in the Tudeh Party and withheld some valuable information from them.
59. It was July or August 1983 when they resumed torturing me. They took me every day for interrogation. I had a new interrogator. The prison authorities believed he was good because he had come from the United States and studied psychologist. I came to know him later. His name was Saieed Emami, the deputy Minister at the Ministry of Intelligence who was later responsible for organizing the chain murders during Khatami reform period in the late 1990s. When he saw that I was not admitting to my charges including spying, he said that he had permission from a religious judge to whip me 25 times every day until I confessed. 25 lashes was nothing but because it was endless, it occupied all your thinking. You keep thinking about when they would call you for the next session. Usually a person breaks after two or three days. I endured it for a month and half. They kept asking who I had contact with. I tried to find a name and say that I was in touch with him, but I could not. I knew if I fabricated a name, they would go after that person. Finding that I lied, they would subject me to 75 lashes.
60. One day, Saieed Emami told me that some people wanted to participate in a round table TV interview and if I wanted to stop sleeping in the hallway, I should participate in the interview. He did not intend to let me go but to place me in a better room. I told him that I was ready to do that provided he wrote what I should say. I said, “I’d like to serve you” but “please tell me what I should say.” He said, “No, you should write it yourself.” I said that I did not have any information to write about. “At least give me the name of one person and I would elaborate the plot and write a scenario to get rid of lashings.”
61. He said that I was Kianoori’s puppy and ordered me to walk and barks like a dog in the torture room. I did but in my heart I was laughing at him. Then he said, bark and say death to Kianoori. I did that too. It continued for a week but the lashing did not stop.
62. One day he held my hand, took me to a room that had a glass and told me to remove my blindfold. When I removed it, the first thing I saw was him standing behind me. He told me to look at myself and laugh at my idiocy for refusing to tell the names of the people I was in touch with. He said, “Look! What you have brought to yourself.” I saw that my eyebrows were white because of sweating and blindfolds. When I looked at myself carefully, I saw my hair had turned white and I did not have eyebrows and eye lashes anymore.
63. The questions Emami asked were laughable. For instance, he asked where I was on May 9. It made no sense. My response was either I was in a meeting, or in a class, or in the hospital or at home. How on earth I would know what I was doing on a day that you pick randomly! It was the sort of game he played with me those days in prison.
64. In the last days of the sixth month, October 26, 1983, Saieed Emami took me to the torture room called Hashti. He apologized and asked me to forgive him and said that he had tortured me without any reason. I was obviously delighted to hear that. From that day on, I was transferred from one solitary cell to another where the heads of secret military organizations were imprisoned.
65. After a month, I was transferred to a room where a senior military officer of the Tudeh Party lived. His name was Colonel Kabiri and was the deputy of Mohammad Reyshahri for a while when he was the head of the Intelligence and Protection office of Sepah. Reyshahri later became the Minister of the Intelligence in Iran. After helping the Islamic Republic in exposing the Nojeh Coup, Colonel Kabiri became very close to Reyshahri. The Tudeh Party had given him a mission to infiltrate the Constitutional Monarchists, go to Nojeh and whenever the monarchists wanted to take military action report it to the Party.
66. Colonel Kabiri was arrested and I was with him in the room. He asked me if I knew what had happened between the two waves of arrests from February 6, 1982 to May 1, 1983. As I said, all the leaders of the Tudeh Party ware not arrested in the first wave. About 50% of the top leaders remained at large. Those arrested, however, betrayed the rest under torture and told the government about the secret military organization and its leader, Khosro. Besides, they told the government that the head of naval forces and Colonel Kabiri were members of the Tudeh Party.
67. The government exploited this opportunity very well and deceived members of the Party who were at large. For instance, Reyshahri intentionally lied to Kabiri that the Tudeh Party members in prison did not confess and betray their comrades under torture. Believing Reyshahri told the truth, Kabiri reported to the Secret Organization and the party leaders at large that their guys had not betrayed them in prison. Thus, the Tudeh Party leadership at large concluded that there was no imminent danger threatening them. They continued their normal activities until they were arrested on May 1, 1983.
68. The other eleven or twelve persons in that room said that they worked on designing zigzag rockets. Reyshahri tried all of them, including Colonel Kabiri, in a military court and sentenced them to execution which was carried out in 1983.
69. I remained in that room alone on the second floor. Those whose interrogation had ended were transferred to Evin. There were a couple of other prisoners who were kept in Komittee Moshtarak. I do not know why they kept me there. I think they wanted to release me but did not know how. I was practicing Islam. They took me to a different room to show me the bad things the Tudeh Party had committed in order to make me denounce the Party. I was not Communist anymore. Why? I saw that the Islamic Republic was implementing our theories. They did not look at your talent and what you could do or could contribute. They drew a line and asked whether you were with them or not. I told them that I was willing to cooperate with them but I would not become a member, so they could not tolerate me. I noticed that they were doing what we would have done if we were in power. There was no space for the color gray in their opinion. Either it was black or white. It was a Marxist way of thinking, particularly when Leninism is added.
Transfer to Evin
70. After a year, I was transferred to Evin where I was kept in solitary confinement. I can say that only for a short while, about three months, I lived with members of the secret organization. I was in solitary confinement for five years from 1981 to 1986.
71. In November 1984, I was transferred From Komittee Moshtarak to Ward 209 of Evin that was administered by the Intelligence Ministry. At this time, the Majlis approved that the Intelligence Protection Office of the Iran Revolutionary Guard would be changed to the Ministry of Intelligence so that the head of the office could participate in the ministerial meetings. In Ward 209, I saw sun light for the first time since I had been arrested. They took me to a room about 4 by 4 meters with an iron ceiling to take fresh air.
72. In Ward 209, I was interrogated by a person called Haj Naser. He was head of Ward V and meanwhile, responsible to interrogate the leftists and the Tudeh Party members. They gave me my charge sheet. I think it was in the month of Muharram but do not remember whether it was 1985 or 1986. Seventeen charges were brought against me namely being politically active during my studies, campaigning against the Shah’s regime, joining the Tudeh Party, serving the Soviet Union, and returning to Iran with the intention of overthrowing the Islamic government. Therefore, the prosecutor had asked for the maximum penalty. At the end of my charge sheet, it was written that I had only one purpose when I entered Iran and that was to infiltrate the administration and to overthrow the government. When I read my charge sheet, I got excited because they had not implicated me in espionage. I decided to plead guilty to all charges.
First Trial
73. I was finally put on trial. It was one or two days after I received my charge sheet. My trial took place in Evin and the presiding judge was Hossein-ali Nayyeri whom I came to know later. I was blindfolded when I entered the room. Then I heard two persons were speaking softly with each other. Then Nayyeri said, “Are you Fariborz Baghai, son of Hosseinali? You are accused of having political activities during the Shah’s time. Are these correct?” I said, “Yes, it was.” He said, “Did you participate in confederation demonstration and anti-Vietnam war?” I said, “Yes.” He asked, “Did you participate in all demonstration against the Shah regime outside the country?” I confirmed again. I heard him again speaking softly with another person. Then I was told that I could remove my blindfold. It was the first time I was hearing this sentence. When I removed my blindfold, I saw that Nayyeri and a guard were in the room. The man who spoke softly with him was not there anymore. Nayyeri read all my charges and asked whether I wanted to overthrow the government. I said, “Yes.” I was hoping that he would give me the maximum penalty and let me go. I did not expect any rational behavior from them. After reading my charge sheet, he was surprised to see that I pleaded guilty to all my charges. I returned to my cell after a while.
74. A few hours later, I was told to collect my stuff. I was taken to a room called “Amouzishgah” or “training center.” About 100 and 150 prisoners lived in a space of about 6 by 8 meters. I saw them holding Qurans on their heads and praying “Ya Hussain, ya Hussain.” It was the month of Muharram. I said to myself that I was better off in solitary confinement. Then I noticed that somebody was shaking my foot. I saw he was Partovi. He was the head of the secret organization and cooperated with the government. He asked me to sit down. I sat and told him about my trial that day. He said that he was in the room with Nayyeri before me and added that when I entered the room he had told Nayyeri that they would have no trouble with me. I understood that he was the person in my court who confirmed my answers. I asked Partovi, “What he was doing there”. He said that the next day, Amoui, the third person in the party, would be tried and he was looking at his charge sheet and based on Amoui’s answer, he would make some counter argument for Nayyeri. I understood what he told me because the clerics had no information about Marxism. Even if you explained, they could not understand. It was the job of Partovi to justify the judge’s decision. Partovi told me that I had to learn how to hold the Quran over my head if I wanted to live.
75. Two or three days later, I was told to pack my clothes again. I was taken to Ward known as Shokolatiha’s ward. The Ward consists of two villas located at the foot of a mountain. A stream of water flowed down there. Mostly senior military officers from the former regime, armed robbers, and some students who attempted to cross the border unlawfully to study abroad were kept there. They were tried in the Revolutionary Court because their crimes were considered security crimes those days. These prisoners were not under pressure because they did not belong to any political organizations. They lived comfortable lives. There were some homosexuals among them too. The government vehemently denied having homosexuals in Iran like the West and considered the spread of homosexuality a national security threat. Therefore, the government had arrested some of them and executed a few others.
76. I became the prisoners’ medical doctor there. Sometimes I had to treat addicted people, other times I treated prisoners who protested and sewed their lips shut, and prisoners who attempted to commit suicide by cutting their wrists. I was told that I could read any books. So I decided to translate a book about homosexuals.
77. The head of our Ward was a vulgar guy from the south. He had a problem. He could not become a father. I used this opportunity and told him a friend of mine, Dr. Davanesh, who was an urologist, was able to treat him if he could bring him here. It was the beginning of a good relationship between him and me. This man took my translated articles in which it was argued that homosexuality was not a disease but a genetic desire and they should be given the sexual freedom like straight people. I guess there were some demonstrations worldwide against the execution of homosexuals in Iran. Anyhow, the execution of the homosexuals stopped. I think I contributed something to this process.
78. In 1988, I was transferred from Shokolitiha’s ward to Amouzishgah. At that time, the government had detained a great number of clerics. Therefore, ordinary prisoners were transferred to other wards to make space for them. Shokolitiha’s ward administration was changed and the Clerical Court took charge of it. I lived with Dr. Danish and Dr. Sivo-shamsian, an eye doctor, who was charged with spying for Israel in one room. Prisoners who worked in Amouzishgah had permission to go out in the afternoon and exercise. On July 21, 1988, some guards came and took our TV set and newspapers.
79. The smugglers and robbers enjoyed more freedom than political prisoners in Amouzishgah. They did most of the labor jobs in the prison like gardening, cleaning, cooking and etc. They were physically strong and it was difficult to keep them idle in prison. They lived like the guards and behaved like them in prison. They did not have their own opinions and did what they were told to do. It was hard to imagine they would establish an emotional connection with the political prisoners but I did.
Beginning of the Execution
80. One day in August 1988, when I was entering the restroom, one of them came to me and said, “Every day some people in a helicopter land in Evin. They call the prisoners and ask them three questions: Are you a Muslim? Do you pray? Do you accept the Islamic Republic? If the answer to one of them is negative, the person would be killed!”
81. I returned to my room and told my roommates, Dr. Danesh and Dr. Sivo-shamsian. Dr. Danish reacted very badly and said that everybody should make up his own mind. Dr. Sivo-shamsian (whom the clerics considered dirtier because he was a Bahai than both me and Dr. Danish who were Marxists) said that he did not believe they would kill him because he was not an “inmate apostate,” he was a “national apostate.” An “inmate apostate” is a person who grew up in an Islamic family but does not accept it; while a “national apostate is a person who grew up in a non- Islamic family, for instance the family practice Christianity or Baha’i. I practiced Islam for a while but since joining these two persons in the room, I had abandoned it because I did not believe in it.
Second Trial
82. On August 28, 1988, Dr. Danesh was summoned. He did not return. On August 30, I was summoned. I was transferred to 209. I was blindfolded but I could see on the way that all the stairs were full of prisoners waiting in line. I could hear uproar in the hallway. I guess around 200 to 300 persons were in the hallway.
83. After two or three hours, the head of Evin Security called Haj Mojtaba Halvai (he was not the same Halvai-e who interrogated me in Kommittee Moshtarak) called me and took me to a room. The moment I entered the room he told me to remove my blindfold. I did. The court room was one of the rooms in Ward 209. There was a table about 2 or 3 meters in size and four chairs in the room. I recognized Nayyeri, I also noted Eshraghi (though I did not know his name until later), and the administrator who had interrogated me, Hajj Nasser. He was the head of section 5 and had been in charge of interrogating all Tudeh [members] and other leftists.
84. Nayyeri the head of the Court was in the middle; Eshraghi was on his left and Haj Naser, the warden of Evin, was on the other side. There was one other person whom I did not know. Halvai kept security in the room.
85. Nayyeri opened the conversation. He said that it was my court. His first question was whether I was a Muslim. I was very frustrated and said that I was Shiite. I forgot to say I was a Muslim and directly jumped and said that I was a Shiite. Then he asked if I accepted the Tudeh Party. I said I did not. Then he mockingly asked whether I believed in Marxism. I said “no.” He asked whether I was praying. I knew that the head of the prison had given my report to him. I said, “I live in a room with a Marxist and a Bahai who are both considered “dirty”, so I cannot pray there but when I was in the Villa and had my own room, I prayed regularly.” I thought if I said I did pray, they would accuse me of lying. I said, I was not praying. I thought I had given them very strong argument for not praying.
86. But Eshrahgi said, “You have wrong information. You must understand that you have to pray when you hear the praying call even when you live in space.” I noticed that Eshrahgi and Nayyeri murmured with each other for a while. Then Eshraghi said, “We will send you to a place where you have the space to pray.” My court lasted 10 minutes. I was completely perplexed when I heard Halvai telling me to put on my blindfold and leave the room.
87. I was taken to the fresh air room in 209 which I described earlier (a 4 by 4 meters room that light was coming through its ceiling). I saw that seven or eight leaders of the Tudeh Party were there. I saw Mahmoud Roghani there too. We had not seen each other for seven years. I saw Dr. Hussain Joodat, who thought they would release us because the war was over, Bahram Danesh and some other people whose names I can no longer recall. One of the men asked me about a spot on his skin and whether it was a tumor, not knowing how close he was to execution. Everybody but Bahram Danesh believed that they were brought there to be released. Based on the information I had from the armed robbers, I knew they were wrong. I did not want to disappoint and tell them that it was their last moments, however.
88. There I found out they were taken to court before. Some of them had gone two times to court like Bahram Danesh. They were asked the same questions that I was asked but they had told that they were Marxist. At that point, I tapped Roghani and said, “These ones are done. They have sent them out three times and each time they have emphasized they are not Muslims. Later I found out that a person, who declares he is not a Muslim, must repeat his answers three times (with sometimes in between each questioning) before he can be executed as an apostate. If he repeats his answer for the third times, the religious judge can sentence him to capital punishment. After about 30 to 45 minutes, someone came and called Roghani and I. They separated us from the others. Later I heard that they were all executed.
89. Roghani and I were taken to a cell in Section 209. When I entered, Roghani gave me a hug. I told Roghani that we must pray if we wished to survive. Roghani said that he did not know how to pray. I said I take the lead and he should follow me. I though him how to take ablutions. I warned Roghani that they had an intention by placing us in this room. We promised them to pray, they are monitoring us. So we must deliver to our promise. I told him that we place a paper outside our door the next morning. I wanted to imply that I wanted to pray. Mahmoud was laughing at me.
Third Trial
90. After two days, Roghani was taken out of the cell. He went out and did not return. The next day, September 2, 1988, I was called again. I passed by the stairs which were full of prisoners again. I met the same people. Nayyeri was the head of the court. Eshraghi and Haj Naser were sitting across from me. Halvai was behind me.
91. Eshraghi asked the first question and said, “Did you pray?” I said, “I did”. He said that I must say my Shahadateyn, declaration of my belief in Farsi that there is no God but God and Mohammad is his messenger. He inquired if I knew what Shahdateyn was. I said I did. Then he said to put my hand over my heart (this practice is not in Islam. They have seen it in American movies). I put my hand on the left side of chest. He said to repeat this sentence before the religious judge. I did.
92. Then Nayyeri asked me a few questions. He said, “How many weapons did you have?” I said that I did not have any. When I entered Tehran on July 8, 1979, six months had passed since the revolution. His second question was what my opinion was of the Baha’i? I answered that I did not understand how the Baha’i could make the claims that every thousand years one prophet would come. How did they found out these thousand years? He asked one other things and I answered. Then Nayyeri asked the head of our ward if he had any questions. He said that he did not. They took me back to the same cell.
93. A day or two after that, I was taken out of the cell. This time, they mentioned the name of “Court” for the first time. I sat. Around noon, I heard the call for praying. I called the guard and said that I had to pray before it gets late and I had to go to the restroom to take ablution. He guided me to a restroom. I washed my face and was about to pray when door opened. I heard voice of Nayyeri and Eshraqhi, so I started reading my praying loudly.
94. After that the guard came and told me to stand in a corner. I went and stood there when I heard Haj Mojtaba Halvai’s voice. He asked how I was. I told him that I served you and asked if deserved that kind of treatment.
95. What was my service to him? Halvai was addicted to opium. When I was in the health clinic in prison, he used to come to me for morphine when he did not smoke opium under work pressure. This was the service I had done to him. He was one of the main recipients of my morphine injection in prison.
96. Halvai take me to a side. I stood in a line that most of Tudeh Party members were standing in. After entering a room, I introduced myself a Muslim. I was handed a few medical books. I was comforted because it implied that they would not kill me.
Execution stops
97. In 1988, they announced those who had been sentenced to imprisonment would be released but those who had been sentenced to execution but the date of the execution was not set, would be kept in prison. I had been sentenced to execution but the date was not set. I was not released.
98. In February 1989, my execution changed to life imprisonment. Khomeini had ordered before his death that the prisoners, who had been tried, should be released. According to this decree, I should have been released but was not. Instead I was sentenced to life imprisonment.
99. Kianoori, Partovi, Amoui and one other person who was an architect and worked as Kianoori’s driver did not have any kind of sentences. So we were kept in prison. Partovi was pardoned in 1990. Kianoori and his wife were kept under house arrest monitored by the Ministry of Intelligence. Only Amoui and I were kept in prison. The two of us lived in a ward made for 800 prisoners.
100. In February 1990, my sentence reduced to 20 years imprisonment and in February 1991, 20 years reduced to 10 years imprisonment. I should have been released but I was not. Because they argued the times that I had spent without any sentence would not be counted in my sentence.
101. I heard that Reynaldo Galindo-Pohl, special representative of the United Nation, was coming to Iran. He had the names of some prisoners with himself. Around this time, I was asked to work in the medical clinic of Evin. It was the first time; I worked in Evin health clinic. There were a few dozen political prisoners in Evin- around thirty to forty Mujahedin, Abbas Amir Entezam, from Iran National Front, Amoui from Tudeh Party and four or five other prisoners who were member of Cherikhai Jangle (Forest Guerrillas). The rest were all ordinary prisoners.
102. Evin changed when ordinary prisoners came. With Khomeini’s death, Hashemi Rafsanjani introduced free market economy. Dealings of goods started in Evin. You could find everything in Evin even drugs. Prostitute and women charged with illicit moral crimes were brought to Evin. I was their doctors.
103. When Tudeh Party members outside Iran find out that I was alive, gave my name to the United Nation Human Rights Commission. I was in Evin health clinic that Reynaldo Galindo Pohl came. He asked what he could do for me. I told him that I had a legal problems and that was from what dates his detention would count. I said that I was pardoned but I was not released. I told him that my issue with the prison authority was that they count my imprisonment from the day my sentence changed from execution to imprisonment. He said he would address it with the authorities. Eventually, I was released in February 1993.
