Written by Javad Shafaei, former political prisoner in Iran who spent years in prison and witnessed untold violence.
Translation: Paymaneh Shafei
I am a formal political prisoner, who spent more than 6 years of my life in Evin and Ghezelhesar prisons.
I have tasted the bitterness of torture in most gruesome way imaginable. During all these years, I have been tortured and interrogated 9 times, and undergone false executions twice, a common method used to achieve mental anguish. The pain of the physical and mental torment is unforgettable, and I will suffer from it all the rest of my life.
However, all of this cannot compare to the pain I suffered as an eye witness to the torture of my comrades and their eventual sentence to death row.
I also cannot forget the sweet memory of our resistance: the times when the wicked torturer gave us the option of submission or resistance, the captured freedom fighters chose to stand firm and not bow to surrender. They chose to resist and not betray their ideals.
It was a matter of and humanitarian ethics and to preserve the core values for which they fought. To withstand torture on your flesh and torment on your soul, is a great anguish but in the end, it is rewarding to feel self-confidence as to how much you have withstood for humanitarian values and not yourself.
Watching a prisoner survive a night of torture, seeing him walk away head high, with a triumphant grin and a twinkle in the eyes, made our pain vanish. It is a double sided coin: one side symbolizing struggle and resistance, the other anguish and pain; and the price of it all being the ability to remain human.
What can we do? The history of man and mankind has always been written in such a way as to condemn the dictators and merchants of blood and human dignity.
For all of us numerous former political prisoners who have undergone this experience, it is hard to grasp the current situation of the residents of camp Ashraf , many of which are former political prisoners , like us, with abundant testimonies of the horrific scenes .
These residents are currently in Iraq suffering in the midst of intolerable pressure under the Maliki regime. Their situation has become exceedingly more complex when compared to what we were forced to endure in prison. It is mind-boggling to witness the clear and evident breach against basic human rights while the whole world only discusses – if at all- about the possibilities of what may. Camp Ashraf was not ambushed once but twice by the military in front of American forces who guaranteed their eternal protection.
340 horn loud speakers were set up to bombard slander onto the residents of camp Ashraf twenty four hours a day, medical needs and fuel and visits are barred from the Camp by Maliki ferocious forces turning the once City, into a concentration Camp.
3400 residents who obtained refugee status and were to be protected under the international laws, specifically the Fourth Geneva Convention, are left in a state of limbo.
It is a bitter political farce when on one hand the Iranian regime executes members of the MEK accusing them of being agents of United States Imperialism, and on the other, the Maliki regime slaughters MEK residents of Ashraf from the direct order of Ali Khamenei (Known to many as the Godfather of Terrorism and the Supreme Leader) under the absurd justification that the MEK is listed as a United States Foreign Terrorist organization.
During the time that I and thousands of my friends, as well as hundreds of current residents of Ashraf were imprisoned and tortured in the Islamic Republic prisons of Iran, there was very little information released to the public. Since the worldwide web was not yet available much of these gruesome crimes and large scale executions went unheard. The world did not know what this Iranian government did to these victims.
Fortunately, due to the rapid advancement of technology and growing social networks such as Facebook and tweeter, reporters like Asiyeh Derakhshan, Nastaran Azimi, Saba Haftbaradaran, who were shot and killed while reporting the attacks on camp Ashraf, have become exposed. The Iranian regime, the Iraqi agents, and the true face of evil have all been revealed.
The world is not going to forget the nonchalant attitude of the United States, and its refusal to help those defenseless refugees.
It puzzles me when an organization that has so much support from its own people and tirelessly works to overthrow a dictatorship with relying mainly on resolve and commitment to its Ideal for “freedom”, has to also suffer the restraints put upon them by the United States. Even more strange is when the State Department annual report names the criminal clerics of Iran the active supporters of terrorism. However, in a report published by the New York Times on July 23 2011, Mr. Lawrence Butler restates the exact same intentions as Ali Khamenehie the leader of a fanatic terrorist regime!
It is a surprise to see the Iranian regime’s agents are in contact with the State Department to prevent them to follow the law and delist MEK off the FTO listing.
This is yet another criminal attempt by the mullahs and its paid agents to tarnish the reputation of the United States forever.
The continuation of MEK remaining on FTO, and the negligence regarding the future of these residents has put them directly at the Guillotine of Maliki’s forces. If this happens, their blood will be on the hands of the American government, the United Nations, all international human right organizations and history will save this as a shameful dark spot in US record.
To prevent this , unlike rhetoric’s spurred out b Iranian lobbies under pretext of “Experts” , we all believe that by delisting the MEK, a catastrophic bloodshed will be prevented and a strong signal will be sent to Iran and the hopeful Iranian who are looking at the changes happening right now in the Middle East. They need a positive response from the secretary of State , Hillary Clinton, to forsake the ethical values put at risk by lobbies that are already propagating massacre of these people.
De-List the MEK , it is the right thing to do.
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