NCRI – "In the name of freedom, we began, we continue and we will finish," said Valiollah Feiz-Mahdavi on August 26, 2006, while in Karaj’s Gohar-Dasht Prison. Mr. Feiz-Mahdavi was born on January 25, 1980 in the south-western city of Ahwaz. In September 2001, when he was on his way to join the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI) in Iraq, he was arrested by agents of the notorious Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) in the southern city of Dezful.
Valiollah spent 546 days in the torture chambers of the ministry of intelligence under appalling conditions. On April 16, 2006, in a telephone call from Gohar-Dasht Prison, he said, "During the time I spent in a four-meter square solitary confinement cell, I did not have enough light, and blindfolds, handcuffs, and shackles were the only things at my side."
He added, "These days were the worst times of my life. Sometimes, in the middle of the night the MOIS agents would wake me up and take me outside my prison cell pointing a gun at me and firing at point blank. They carried out mock executions on me several times and each time afterwards I would be taken back to my prison cell." In 2003, he was sentenced to death by the 26th District of the mullahs’ Judiciary in Tehran during a session which lasted a short time. During the same session, Valiollah defiantly declared, "I seriously question the validity of the court since neither my lawyer nor a jury is present."
In late 2003, he was exiled to Dizel-Abad Prison from Tehran’s notorious Evin Prison following a "quarrel" with Haddad the prison’s warden. A few months later, he was involved in another quarrel with Bakhtiari, the Director General of the regime’s prisons, resulting in a hasher exile. Thus, he was sent to Gohar-Dasht Prison. Upon his arrival, the prison warden, Maliki threatened him by saying, "There is no one here to listen to your cries."
A few days before the Persian New Year, the prison’s judicial deputy, Ali Mohammadi, informed him of his death sentence which was to be carried out on May 16, 2006. Although a written confirmation of the sentence was never given to him, the warden of Gohar-Dasht Prison, Haj Kazem, and the head of the prison’s 6th block, Mohammad Jaroui, threatened that he would soon be executed. Valiollah said, "Mohammad Jaroui summoned me to his office threatening with a harsh tone that what I am doing is not helpful in my case, just as such actions were not of any help in the case of Hojjat Zamani."
On September 3, 2006, Valiollah Feiz-Mahdavi was taken to an unknown location. After they had murdered Mr. Feiz-Mahdavi, suppressive forces raided Ward 2a of Gohar-Dasht Prison and attacked other political prisoners. They demanded that the prisoners take part in televised appearances and announce that Mr. Feiz-Mahdavi had committed suicide. But the brave prisoners refused to take part in the mock confessions.
Several days after his execution, the mullahs’ judiciary has refused to hand over Valiollah’s corpse to his family.
Amnesty International wrote in its report regarding his death, "Amnesty International today expressed its deep concern at the death in custody of political prisoner Valiollah Feyz Mahdavi in Gohar Dasht Prison (also known as Reja’i Shahr) near Tehran. The death in custody is the second to occur in Iranian prisons in recent weeks, after imprisoned student activist Akbar Mohammadi died in Evin Prison on 31 July 2006." The report adds, "Valiollah Feyz Mahdavi, a supporter of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI), was reportedly arrested in 2001 and sentenced to death after an unfair trial in a Revolutionary Court after being convicted of moharebeh (enmity with God, a charge often applied to those accused of armed resistance to the state)."
In his last audio message Mr. Feiz-Mahdavi said, "I have learned in my struggle for freedom that it is not necessarily important to see the day of victory. It is more important to reach the final goal which is democracy and equality; the two components necessary for human lives which are just as important as breathing is for a living soul. I ask you not to give up your struggle against the suppressive measures of the mullahs’ regime."
As is evident in the reports by Amnesty International and other humanitarian organizations, the mullahs’ regime executed Hojjat Zamani, a PMOI member, on February 8, 2006 and killed student activist Akbar Mohammadi on July 31, 2006 and has now executed Valiollah Feiz-Mahdavi under the false notion of "suicide." These executions have been carried out on the helpless political prisoners as revenge against mounting international pressures on the regime especially in regards to its nuclear dossier.
