Posted on 07/05/2008 4:36:29 PM PDT by faq
"I wish each and every Iranian could travel abroad, come to the U.S. or go to Europe, for just one week, and feel, smell, and breathe freedom, human dignity, and realize the value of their lives."
Ahmed BatebiAHMED BATEBI HAS ESCAPED TO THE UNITED STATES--
Voice of America Interview
Washington DC, USA
June 30, 2008
Ahmed Batebi is the Iranian student who gained international fame for his appearance on the cover of The Economist magazine holding up a bloodied shirt claiming to belong to a fellow student beaten by the Basij paramilitaries. The photo, which has been called "an icon for Iran's student reform movement," was taken during the Iranian Student Protests in July 1999 in Tehran. Human Rights activist Shirin Ebadi, reports that the shirt belonged to Ezzat Ebrahim-Nejad, a student who was shot and killed reportedly by a plainclothes police or vigilante.
Ahmed Batebi was one of four people who received a death sentence in a closed-door trial by a Revolutionary Court on charges relating to "creating street unrest" and "agitating people to create unrest," and "endangering national security" following the demonstrations. Batebi, in an open letter addressed to the judiciary, wrote that he had been beaten in his "testicles, legs, and abdominal area- -Wiki.
Ahmad Batebi is now in Washington D.C. and had a tv appearance on VOA Persian a few days ago in which he spoke of the horrific torture he endured at the hands of his interrogators for 9 years!!!
Iranian blogger Aryamehr has more on Batebi's escape to America where he describes more of Batebi's horrible torture.
This is a MAJOR BLOW to the brutal Iranian Regime!
WELCOME TO AMERICA AHMED BATEBI!
--Hat Tip to Iranian Human Rights Activist Banafsheh Zand-Bonazzi--
MORE-----
July 8th is the anniversary of the student uprising that ended in bloodshed in 1999. Every year students commemorate this day. This year, there is a special commemoration. Iranians inside Iran are organizing widespread demonstrations across the country in all major cities (More HERE). The people of Iran need the support of the international community in their uprising against the dictatorial Islamic regime.
Thank God!!!
wonderful news....
this is Huge!!
was he water boarded?
it’s not torure, you know
unless it’s u.s. style water boarding.
Ping!
Ping!
Ping!
bump
Great news bump!
As I'm stuck in a very remote part of the Upper Penninsula of Michigan (with two tv stations and wireless internet? yes, that's remote!) I can't help but wonder if this will be on the news when I get home tomorrow.
No. They really tortured him!
They put panties over his head!!
Has the DNC (and DU) called for his immediate return to Iran yet?
Maybe this helps to make possible regime change that will be a lot less destructive to the Iranian people than a war with the West, a war that the theocracy seems hell-bent on starting.
see:
“war and logic”
http://wintersoldier2008.typepad.com/summer_patriot_winter_sol/2008/05/war-and-logic.html
that’s funny!
series. i have a democrat tv-watcher friend who thinks lyndie england
and charles graner are “victims”!
si. she thinks the u.s. military “abused” them.
bump
BTTT
Pilot, are you around?
oops, wrong thread...
LOL!!
Thanks. I heard a few days ago. There were rumors several weeks ago that he was out. I’m glad they weren’t just rumors.
I’m hoping his wife is out too, but I haven’t heard yet.
Thanks for posting.
Pong
I am amazed that he was able to escape from prison and make it out of Iran. The guy had help and they are to be commended.
He didn’t escape prison. He was let out of prison on a medical leave. They allow prisoners to leave for a few days or a week or so in order to seek medical attention outside the prison.
They also will give prisoners a week or 2 out of prison on leave if they’ve been on good behavior, with the idea that they can go home to their families and friends and tell them about their time in prison (and show them the physical results) so that it may discourage others from getting any ‘bad ideas’ about breaking the rules.
Nice, huh?
Thanks for the clarification. I magine that he was under the watchful eye of the Iranian government, no?
Batebi escaped while he was let out to get medical treatment. He’s done this before, but he never left the country.
A year or more ago he was supposedly diagnosed with MS. I don’t know if that’s true or not. He has recently talked about being beaten on the right side of his head and he suffers chronic headaches as a result.
I haven’t seen any pictures of him in a year or 2. But in those pictures he certainly had changed from the handsome young man in the posters and he had difficulty walking.
In other words, they beat the %$#@ out of him. Lovely. At least he is free and able to tell more people about what he has suffered.
“In other words, they beat the %$#@ out of him. “
That and more over the course of 9 yrs.
Nine years of hell. The man must have brass ones and one heck of a will to live. More power to him.
FOR CRYING OUT LOUD!! When are we going to catch onto the inflitrators the islamic regime in Iran prepares and then sends at us???
As recently as yesterday and as far back as some six months ago, I have been warning about the sudden ‘miraculous’ escape of Batebi to the West!!!
Background:
A genuine dissident student leader to begin with, Batebi was arrested and mistreatd in prison then freed on medical furlough.
He was then suddenly a “fugitive” hiding from the authorities,
After nearly a year or so, he was “finally” caught rearrested.
Where?
At the apartment at which he had lived before and was still living.
Then his wife was later arrrsted in the city of Mashhad and mistreated physcially.
Batebi was asked if he wanted her to be raped some more or would prefer to join the ranks of the Mullahs and infiltrate the West on their behalf - just as Fakhravar and Ganji and Mohammadi had done before him.
It was a matter of time till he appeared on our shores.
Because we have virtually ZERO intel inside Iran, the Islamic regime continues to use their tried and tested and repeatedly used and SUCESSFUL method of preparing a “bullet proof background” then sending their chosen infiltrator into our eager arms.
This expectation of the arrival of Batebi has been posted on AntiMullah and inside posts/somments on FR.
Wake up to the fact we are being conned!!!! Again!
Panties on head = Torture
Thanks for the heads up on that.
<>The sooner we accept and acknowledge this, the sooner we can begin to fight the enemy!!
Lock and load people!
How the hell did you get 2 TV stations? Yoopers are only supposed to get one, and it's supposed to be Hockey, dammit!
Or Canuck PBS, which is more-or-less the same thing ................ Eh? ............ FRegards
Thanks for the ping!
Now what I want to know is, why can I get cheap DSL up here in the middle of (bleeping) nowhere with the POP more than 10 miles way, while I'm stuck with expen$ive Comca$t at home?
Ya Hey! Welcome to da Yoooo Peee, eh?
He looks kinda Rambo like in that picture!
Hallelujah! Wonderful news! What an amazing story he must have to tell.
But, if we know he is here, then what good can he do, now???
From what I can gather and I have talked to contacts with sources inside Iran and they say that he is a plant/infiltrator for certain.
His probable mission is - as the suddenly trusted and adored darling of the opposition - to find out what the West has in mind.
Remember he has family back home being held hostage.
Does it not seem strange that this “most wanted” man could go into Iraq, then Turkey and make his way to the West, as if he were not wanted by the Islamic regime?
His “hosts/supporters” here are also possibly suspect as pro-Mullah facilitators. As was Communist Noam Chomsky, the facilitator and supporter for infiltrator Akbar Ganji.
Batebi is not a secret agent infiltrated here as were spies in World War II. He is someone who was helped to the West by the Mullahs to be taken in by our authorities who might share their secrets and plans against Islamic Iran with someone “apparently” anti-Mullah and perhaps able to help our weak agencies with their plans to destabilize the islamic regime.
Specially with some $400 million approved by Congress for covert ops inside Iran.
The timing is perfect - from the Mullahs’ viewpoint. And they hold our intel and security in such disdain, they have not bothered to change their modus operandum but simply repeat what they have done successfully to penetrate our defenses. Time and again.
AntiMullah has stated clearly that it has been expecting, waiting for this to happen with a certainty that had no misgivings. And here it is.
My contacts are horrified - again - by how naive we are. And how some Dhimmis on the Internet have rushed to help the Mullah tactic and strategy.
BTW, Islamic Iran is conducting a huge campaign inside the USA to oppose an attack on Iran, using all kinds of anti-war groups to specifically oppose any attack on Iran. Details wil be posted on AntiMullah soon.
Ya - Hoo dere, hoser. My parents retired to Midland, Ontario, Canada aboot 40 years ago, which is aboot the same latitude as the U-P.
I asked my Dad why they didn't go to Clearwater, FLA, where they had land. He said that the people talked funny.
You guys measure snow in feet instead of inches! Clearwater is aboot 10 miles South of me now, and I never have to dig my car out.
Stay well, pal ........... FRegards
Of course, one cannot be 100% sure, but, imo, there is a very strong possibility, and I’m going to agree with you for some of the reasons you’ve mentioned.
Additionally, it is not humanly possible to endure 9 years of abuse based on initial psychological assessment which these type of high profile, and often, political prisoners in IRI go through.
The initial psych assessments are done for specific reasons; a type of diagnose, if you will. Psychological breaking and reconditioning processes are then employed as per initial psych assessment as well as ongoing ones (checkpoints of progress, in other words).
Actually physical torture I hear is a secondary tool used in IRI; the emphasis is more and more on shifting mindset and indoctrination. Of course, this process does not apply to every single prisoner.
diagnose = diagnosis
I have contacted some of my people again and they repeat that Batebi is a plant. They ask “what kind of passport did he use for his travels?”
Like the infiltator Abbas Fakhrovar who claimed he had a sboot on sight order out on him, yet traipsed in and out of Evin prison to visit Akbar Ganji, another infiltator, at that time and eventually used a regular passport issued to him by the same Islamic regime that put the shoot on sight order out on him to leave the country and be received by those who then brought him into the USA.
Incidentally, it appears that the minders and supporters of Batebi, who are trumpeting his arrival - may well have very close relatives on furlough from Evin prison inside Iran themselves and risk them being rearrested and probably dying in prison if that happens. Quite a leverage for the Mullahs to ensure their co-operation and support for their Batebi plant. The same group was involved with promoting another plant in the past.
There is much more to this than meets the eye and the website that posted the story is trusting and has trusted sources that have provided disinformation and have close family in peril inside Islamic Iran.
Batebi was free for a long time and working in plain sight and living in full sight of the Mullahs, so the torture etc., is highly exaggerated and part of the background fabricated for him.
Yes, he suffered torture for a while but was let go fairly quickly (relatively speaking) and went back to leading a normal life and earning a living in advertising sales.
Last year he was rearrested and so was his wife to bring him into play and prepae him for us. Enough said.
Wearing a dog collar while a Pretty young woman walks you on a leash= Torture.
“Has the DNC (and DU) called for his immediate return to Iran yet?”
No, but I bet the ACLU has. Remember Walter Polovchak, the Ukrainian defector they tried to send back in the 1980s?
In Florida I could only afford dial-up. Then two years ago I moved to Kentucky, and have had a cable modem since then. Who’d have thought that would happen? The Appalachians are supposed to be behind the rest of the country, when it comes to getting “wired.”
Fascinating insights.
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