How far will they go?

By Paul Iddon

Recent testimonies from families of Iranian citizens targeted by the regime show just how cruel and savage that regime is.

Evin prison.

When one hears emancipated foreigners contend that Iranian women, among others, have their rights in their country one finds ones general appetite has been unalterably lost. You may arrive at a similar feeling my reader when you realize such empty assertions are made in direct contradiction to the reports and investigations of human rights organizations, as well as the numerous victims of the regimes brutal methods themselves. 



Following a recent visit an MP of the theatrical parliament in Tehran recently, rather lamely, referred to Evin prison as not a prison but a hotel. This particularly depraved comment isn't the first time a member or token representative of Iran's dictatorial system has made such flippant remarks with regard to the infamous prison. In the 1980's for example prison governor Asadollah Lajavardi referred to the prison, not as “Evin hotel”, but “Evin university.” The logic being that at “Evin university” political prisoners would be taught why they are wrong until they 'conceded' this was the case, following brutal, cruel, degrading mental and physical torture that is. They were tortured to the point that they are 'broken'. On top of this, several thousand of these political prisoners were callously murdered without being given any discernible form of a trial or even an actual reasonable charge for their initial imprisonment! 



Reliable reports from inside the country's prison systems reveal that regime thugs are actively distributing condoms to criminals and encouraging them to rape young activists and demonstrators. The extent of the rape is very unsettling and utterly revolting. Analysts who deny or ignore the distressing human rights reports and recorded and documented violations by the regime of the most basic semblances of civil and human rights are below contempt and should be vehemently distrusted. Because, in essence, defending the facile moral equivalences of an analyst and saying that aside from their, by their very subject matter questionable, consistently selective omissions pertaining to the regimes cruelty and heinous human rights record their work is objective and valid is the equivalent of arguing that writer David Irving's accounts of the Second World War are credible histories with the salient exception of his ridiculous denial of the existence of the gas chambers at Auschwitz. And along with that his consistent exculpation of, and distortion of the historical record when it came to, Adolf Hitler. A few too many exceptions to make if you ask me.



There is barely a semblance of elementary rights or justice in Iran today under this regime. Peaceful activists, religious minorities and political demonstrators alike face show trials of a Stalinist nature for participating in peaceful protests where they try and voice their many justifiable grievances with the system. These Iranians, like their Shi'a kinsmen in Bahrain, have their ultimate fate decided by the brute men who interrogate them. Interrogators who are prone to coerce them and make them confess to over-the-top crimes which they did not commit. This serves as a deterrent against any open expression of the rampant discontent among the Iranian populace.



One finds that a very simple way to go about determining whether or not a states 'law-enforcement' agency is merely an in-name only oppressive arm of a tyrannical government, hence a litmus test, is to see if it seeks out rapists and psychopaths in order to jail them or hire them.



Take this account of the apparent systematic nature of these sexual assaults and rape of prisoners described by a family member of one of Iran's many political prisoners:

“During exercise periods, the strong ask for sex without any consideration. Criminals are repeatedly seen with condoms in hand, hunting for their victims. If the inmate is not powerful enough or guards would not take care of him, he will be certainly raped. Prison guards ignore those who are seen with condoms simply because they were given out to them by the guards at first place.”

As is often the case when one is pondering the motives of the morally depraved one finds oneself questioning how this system came into place. Was there a decision making process that upon discussion over the merits and demerits of the matter determined that rape is okay once the rapist wore protection?



As much a cliche as the nature of oppressive regimes is one cannot nevertheless help but to recline in disgust when one reads, or ponders, about the grisly details and torturous and murderous exploits of such oppressive systems. When one does this one can henceforth comprehend to an extent the depraved, rotten and sick nature of tyrannical regimes. 



We have recently been given a series of renewed anxieties about potential things to come in Iran following the recent public executions in Tehran. Perversely we're also seeing the introduction of rather bizarre amputation devices that will be used to amputate the fingers of thieves. We have in the past seen seen similar developments, widespread regime implemented amputation practices to torture thieves for the smallest of offenses and in turn terrorize the entire beggared and trod-on population, in Iraq in the 1990's following the Persian Gulf War when the United Nations upheld the sanctions which crippled the Iraqi economy.



On that occasion the Iraqi regime had to be as cruel and as brutal as it possibly could, it had to go miles beyond the pale of civility. Its cruelty and violence towards ordinary Iraqi citizens had to be indiscriminate and widespread in order to coerce everybody. So the mere thought of speaking out against the oppression would immediately bring to a persons mind the haunting prospects of what might ultimately be their fate if they were to stand up for themselves and voice their heartfelt grievances. 



Hopefully the severity of those dark years for the Iraqi people aren't a historical precedent for the brutal means the regime in Tehran will utilize to terrorize and subvert a discontented populace. 

But the essential question remains, how far will these tyrants go?

And furthermore, what lame pretexts will be cited for the implementation of rape and torture, the continued negation of the most basic of rights and justice and the implementation of cruel and oppressive means of coercion?



It would be counterproductive and nausea inducing to ponder, but the simple reality remains that Iran is an authoritarian state. The very tight-knit minority who have plundered it and are maintaining through force of arms their monopoly on the states capital and resources are proving to be getting consistently more violent and oppressive. As the excellent truism John F. Kennedy famously said upon his inauguration goes, “those who make peaceful revolution impossible, make violent revolution inevitable."