IRAN: Kahrizak prison scandal reveals depth of agonizing post-election rift

 

Some Western analysts in recent months have characterized Iran's ongoing political turmoil as a fight to the finish between a tyrannical government and the forces of democracy. Meanwhile, Iranian officials and even opposition figures occasionally have downplayed the struggle over the disputed reelection of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as a particularly heated argument between two brothers.

But an examination of the Kahrizak prison scandal, the subject of a lengthy piece in Sunday's Los Angeles Times, now being investigated by parliament, shows how the intimacy between the two sides only serves to make the rift that much more traumatic and agonizing. 

One of the three victims who allegedly died in Kahrizak was the son of a prominent conservative political adviser. Another killed was the nephew of one of Ahmadinejad’s security chiefs. And one of the prisoners inside Kahrizak was a photographer close to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. 

The story of Kahrizak shows how intertwined are the government and the opposition, how deeply a political movement that did not exist months ago has seeped into the country’s social fabric, extending tentacles close to the highest rungs of power. 

“A dramatic change has taken place,” said Saleh Nikbakht, an attorney who is pursuing a case on behalf of the family of Amir Javadifar, one of those killed in the prison. “This change has affected families ... whether they are from one social or economic class or another, or even whether they are tied to power or not.”

-- Ramin Mostaghim in Tehran and Borzou Daragahi in Beirut

Top photo: A former prisoner of Kahrizak grieves over a fellow prisoner allegedly killed inside the facility. Second photo: Lawyer Saleh Nikbakht in his Tehran office. Credit: Los Angeles Times

Comments

[Charissa Standage]

"...a political movement that did not exist months ago has seeped into the country’s social fabric, extending tentacles close to the highest rungs of power." Isn't it amazing to see that what may seem so unconnected, is actually entirely dependent on its connection? As I read the story in the Sunday Los Angeles Times about the Kahrizak prison scandal I was appalled and shocked at what I read. The beatings and torturing that American's have seen on TV as a form of entertainment and method for emotional catharsis is not just derived from a script writer's gross imagination, it really happens. The protestors described in the story were imprisoned with other criminals and were actually treated worse that the inmates. All of the treatment these 180 men received was, as stated above, due to a political movement that didn't exist a few months ago. This political change is doing more than just reforming the functionality of the Iranian government, but it is also changing the way people conduct their power. When was it ever okay for a man to beat another man to a pulp because he was expressing his beliefs? What gets me is that had many of these victims not been closely related to men in high places, would the end of this story be the same? Had actors and photographers and politicians managed to stay unscathed, and had regular civilians with no social or political voice been cruelly harassed and victimized, would anyone have taken notice? Would the prison have shut down? Would parliament be investigating the whole situation, and would a four page article on these atrocities be on the Los Angeles Times website? I commend you for exposing this tragedy, and I also challenge others who read of it to question whether they would bring other injustices into the light without the power of influential men on their side as well. Where there is corruption, there must be a change, and where a change is needed, there must also be unadulterated, unbiased, truth.