NCRI – The first Tehran University chancellor after the downfall of the monarchy in Iran and a former political prisoner has spoken about the tortures he witnessed while incarcerated in various prisons in Iran and described the Iranian regime as the godfather of groups such as Islamic State (ISIS).
Dr. Mohammad Maleki, 80, who is barred from leaving the country, likened the Islamic State to the ‘Islamic Republic of Iran’ i.e. the Iranian regime.
In an article entitled “The regime of Velayat-e faqih, the godfather of Islamic fundamentalism” he explains the horrible torture that he witnessed in the 1980s while incarcerated in the notorious Evin Prison in northern Tehran and Ghezel Hesar Prison in the city of Karaj.
He said he recounts some of his memories “to make people know better the roots of current fundamentalists such as Islamic State (ISIS).”
“I recount a few cases which were carried out by the regime of Velayat-e faqih, the Iranian version of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in the past thirty and some years in our beloved country. By revealing these I may be able to reveal a drop from the ocean of crimes committed to the Iranian people.”
Dr. Maleki pointed out he hoped that by recounting these crimes, “he could reveal more of the true nature of the individuals, i.e. Iranian regime’s leaders, who are now taking anti-ISIS posturing.”
Dr. Maleki said in one such case, in 1983 when has been imprisoned in Section 3 of Ghezel Hesar Prison, adjacent to Section 4 where female prisoners were held, he would hear strange noises, very loud cries, sounds of people being insulted and loud screams.
When he wondered about things that were occurring in the next section, the then-newly appointed head of the prison responded: “I have a very huge and horrible problem. For example, in Hall No 1 of the section we have some 400 girls and women with mental problems that we do not know what to do with. We cannot release them and we cannot keep them here any longer.”
Dr. Maleki states: “During those years, Ghezel Hesar Prison was the place where the prisoners were sent for serving their prison term after being sentenced in courts sessions that lasted only a few minutes without the presence of any lawyer.”
“Most of these women were consequences of the torture they went through using various torture devices which were named as ‘the cage’, ‘the tomb’, ‘the day of judgment’ and ‘housing units’.”
“These prisoners were not on death row but had been sentenced to life imprisonment or long prison terms. Many of those arrested and held in Evin were either killed under torture or were executed. Tens of thousands were executed in the 1980s and particularly in 1998 in Evin prison.”
“Those held in Ghezel Hesar Prison were the ones that had their life spared in Evin but were tortured in Ghezel Hesar.”
Dr. Maleki writes: “Unfortunately the fundamentalists ruling in Iran have caused chaos and insecurity and war in four countries in the region, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen. While the people of Iran and other countries in the region are burning in poverty and corruption, Abu Bakr Baghdadi and Ali Khamenei are both claiming dominance in the Islamic world. In reality, what is the difference between the Islamic State and Islamic Republic?”
Dr. Maleki also criticized the U.S. policy in the region and raised the question “Why, those days when Americans in Iraq handed that country on a golden plate to the Iranian regime, the godfather of fundamentalists, were they not thinking of these days?”
He said as a result of their policy in the region, Iran and Iraq committed these crimes in both countries through Nouri al-Maliki and his collaborators to charge and raid against the people of Iraq and Iranians who are refuge in Iraq.
The members and supporters of the main Iranian opposition movement, the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) residing formerly in Camp Ashraf and now in Camp Liberty were massacred by the Iraqi forces of Nouri al-Maliki at the behest of the Iranian regime, although the U.S. government recognized them as Protected Persons based on the Fourth Geneva Convention and had made individual written commitments to provide them with safety and security.
