Iranian Dissidents Fight Back

CBNNews.com – WASHINGTON - To many Americans, Iran is the epitome of a terrorist state, home to waves of Islamic extremists. It is a place where calls for the destruction of America and Israel are a daily occurrence, and where the U.S. Embassy was once seized by thousands of angry young radicals.

But there's also another Iran, one largely hidden from Western eyes. It is an Iran where democracy activists are risking physical and mental torture, even death in their quest for freedom.

“I have been in and out of jail fighting for freedom in Iran since I was 17. All my friends are like this.” Iranian democracy activist Amir Abbas Fakhravar said.

Thirty-year-old Fakhraver is one of the leaders of the Independent Iranian Student Movement, which frequently protests against the ruling mullahs in cities across Iran.

“I want the world to see the real picture of the Iranian people. We are not terrorists...It is very important for Americans to realize the huge difference that exists between the people of Iran and their government,” said Fakhraver.

Fakhraver recently escaped from Iran, where he had been in and out of prison for the past several years. His crime? Calling on the people of Iran to reject the country's radical regime.

A former medical student and journalist, he's now in the U.S. He told CBN News about the brutal treatment he and other Iranian political prisoners endured.

“The first thing they do to the prisoners is they break them down. So before they ask them any questions, before anything, they break them down with white torture. That's the first step,” said Fakhraver.

“He [Fakhraver] survived one of the worst forms of torture called "white torture," which is a terrible psychological torture in which you're locked in a very small cell and then you do not hear anything, and everything you see is white. Everything from the food you eat, to the plates it's served on, to the walls, ceiling, floor--everything is white. So you're deprived of all sensual stimulation,” explained The American Enterprise Institute's Michael Ledeen, an expert on Iran.

Fakhraver made it through this psychological torment. But he says it broke other political prisoners.

“Most of those who are subjected to this kind of treatment developed psychological illness,” Fakhraver said. “Even myself, after I was released from prison I had to go live in a forest away from society for many months, so I could regain my sense of myself and society.”

Fakhraver finally made it out of Iran alive after being on the run for months. But others haven't been so lucky.

Last month, a popular Iranian dissident named Akbar Mohammadi died in Tehran's Evin Prison. Iranian activists say he'd been tortured to death. Mohammadi's death was condemned by the U.S. State Department and human rights groups worldwide. That didn't stop the Islamic republic from threatening to execute all of its political prisoners if the u.n. Security Council imposes sanctions over its nuclear program.

Ledeen said, “They beat up, arrest, torture, and kill people who energetically protest the regime. They filter, block, jam telephone conversations, television broadcasts, radio broadcasts, and Internet sites, so they're trying to eliminate any way the Iranian people can get accurate information.”

Roya Toloui is an Iranian Kurdish activist. She formerly published a newspaper supporting women's rights in Iran. That is, until last year, when she was falsely accused by Iranian officials of leading anti-regime protests.

Toloui was arrested at her home in front of her young children. A hard-line Islamist judge then sent her to one of Iran's notorious internal intelligence prisons.

“I begged the judge not to send me to the internal intelligence prison,” said Toloui, “because I had heard that they are very cruel and it's not a place where any human being wants to be. Even the driver who was driving me to the internal intelligence prison told me, 'I hope God is with you.'”

Toloui was held in solitary confinement for the first 17 days of her imprisonment.

She said, “...For hours and days, I was just there alone, without having anything--no paper, no books, no talk—nothing, with dead, deafening silence surrounding me. I can't explain it. It's maddening. You can go crazy easily.”

Interrogators tried to force her to confess that she had led the anti-regime protests. They also wanted her give the names of other dissidents.

“They would be slapping me around all the time,” Toloui said. “They put pencils in between my fingers and pressed to hurt me.

Still, Toloui wouldn't break. Until one of the regime's deputy prosecutors entered her cell.

“I told him, ‘What kind of person are you? Aren't you an Iranian? Aren't you my fellow Iranian? How can you do these things?’...He told me, 'I don't care about Iran, my nationality doesn't mean anything to me. The only thing I care about is Islam...,' she said.

“Then he attacked me, started beating me up,” she recalled. “And from the fear of his beatings, I stepped back, and he pushed me against the wall of the small room. And I don't want to explain what he did to me. But he did the worst thing that any human being can tolerate and accept.”

Bleeding internally, Toloui was dragged back to her cell. Her captors then told her that if she didn't confess, they would "burn her children before her eyes."

Toloui said, “I gave up. Because the most important thing to me is my children. And I agreed to confess to whatever they wanted.”

She remained in prison for the next three months. She says she was finally released, thanks to pressure from international human rights and women's organizations. But she was forced to give to the regime her home, and all of her belongings, as payment.

“I was completely hopeless,” Toloui said, “and I thought I was going to be dead. And when I was released, I thought it was a miracle.”

In January, Toloui fled Iran with her children. She eventually arrived in the u.s. with help from Iranian American activists. But her husband remains there, forbidden to leave by the regime.

Ledeen says there are countless other dissidents like Toloui in Iran and that opposition to the harsh rule of the mullahs is growing.

“People are not paid for long periods of time. Nine months, 12 months, 16 months, who knows?” he said. “A long time. So they strike and they demand to be paid. And those demonstrations and strikes, which begin as pure economic protests, rapidly turn into calls for the end of the regime.”

Ledeen says that the u.s. hasn't done enough to exploit this internal unrest. He points to strong American support for anti-communist groups like Lech Walesa's Solidarity Movement during the cold war as a blueprint that the U.S could follow in Iran.

But that may be an uphill battle. The u.s led by the State Department is currently trying to reign in the Iranian regime through diplomacy and negotiations.

"When Senator Santorum introduced an amendment in the Senate that would have given more money to support democracy in inside Iran...,” said Ledeen, ”The Secretary of State sent an angry letter to the Senate saying, we don't want this. This'll make our negotiations more difficult.”

Here in Washington, most experts agree that the best way to achieve regime change in Iran is from within. That's why Amir Fakhraver and Roya Toloui are vowing to continue their efforts. Their dream is to one day return to a free, democratic Iran, where torture and intimidation are a thing of the past.

A REALLY good posting. Thanks.

In many of these countries turning toward Radical Islam, the people are sheep being exploited by the leadership. Iran was once a very enlightened, western nation. The religious few have come to dominate power and there are many more open minded young people just keeping quiet and going along with the flow....

Masses of our Opposition Exploited, Unsophisticated

By John E. Carey
September 5, 2006

On September 1, 2006 the United States successfully demonstrated the ability to shoot down a ballistic missile like those being developed now in North Korea. The North Korean propaganda machine immediately cranked-up and went into action with a long diatribe which included several ridiculous sentences accusing the U.S as an aggressor.

North Koreas press release, in a heavy handed way, implies that the U.S. missile defense system is, in fact, offensive.

We should notice ignorance in North Korea. We should set aside our fears. We should feel pity for the people of North Korea.

We should listen to and notice the immaturity, the lack of education and awareness and the lack of hope of people being “used” and exploited.

America’s missile defense system demonstrated exactly what it says it is: a defensive measure. Yes, there is a rocket and guidance system. No, there is no warhead or offensive capability. No, you would never want to modify missile defense to be offensive. The missile defense system is engineered and optimized to provide a hit-to-kill space vehicle that can find and smash into a nuclear weapon-carrying reentry vehicle. If you wanted to hit a target on land; you sure wouldn’t start with this technology.

In fact, everyone from the American media to common Russian men and women on the streets of Moscow have, for years, referred to the missile defense system as “the shield.”

There is an old saying about a warrior, intent upon threatening his foe, as he “rattles his saber.”

Have you ever heard about a warrior “rattling his shield”?

Most of the people in North Korea are starving or living just above the line Americans would consider to be Neolithic. So a foaming at the mouth press release should worry us little. We should worry about the leader—especially if he has nuclear weapons.

Many of the Middle Eastern “terrorists” we encounter live within a similar construct as the people in North Korea. When Fox New reporter Steve Centanni and cameraman Olaf Wiig were captured by Hamas terrorists in the Gaza region of Israel, the two were threatened with death because, the terrorists said, “you are both Americans.”

Wiig, a New Zealander, protested to his captors. But they didn’t know where New Zealand was; or that it was a sovereign nation and not a part of the United States.

Wiig had to draw them a map.

The point is this: many of the “terrorists” and other foes America faces are not very sophisticated. They are being exploited or used by powers with the money and influence to manipulate masses of people to achieve dubious aims. Usually the users are seeking more wealth and prosperity. They care nothing for the lives of the minions they manipulate and cause to be killed.

Didn’t Yasser Arafat become wealthy? And how did he do that? Hard work? No. “Chairman” Arafat pulled the wool over the eyes of the ignorant. He used his people to become a world leader. It is hard to prove that he helped his people achieve anything except their own terror.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is no different from the other tin horn dictators who use and manipulate people. Iran has the poorest airline safety record in the world. On September 1, 2006, another Iranian air liner bit the dust. As many as 80 souls were lost, all innocent citizens of Iran who placed their lives and trust in the hands of their careless government. They were on a holy pilgrimage.

Ahmadinejad has a responsibility to buy new Russian airliners and then to maintain them to the highest safety standards possible.

But he doesn’t have to take care of the people. He is an absolute ruler with no obligation to the people. There are no real “voters” in Iran the way there are in the US. There is no free and open media in Iran. Like in North Korea, the people can hear little but what the government feeds them.

And we all know that Ahmadinejad backs Hezbollah and offers to “eliminate the Zionist state from the face of the earth” whenever he can.

Do you think for one second that Ahmadinejad cares one bit for the lives of Hezbollah or the innocent lives of the Lebanese lost in the recent war?

Cuba, Vietnam and China also come to mind as nations with similar characteristics. The leadership has no true accountability to the people. Any voting is window-dressing and rigged. And no free and open media. No freedom of speech. In Vietnam and China you can’t even get to such internet websites as the one maintained by the US Department of State or The Washington Times.

When Fidel Castro went into the hospital last month, what was the first major political decision of his designated stand-in, his brother Raul? Raul proclaimed an end to TV satellite dishes in Cuba. No more western TV and news.

What we in the west need to realize is this: there is a mass of humanity, much of it living under Communism or poverty or ignorance or all three. Many of these people, in fact most, share two things: they are exploited and powerless to control their real destiny because they cannot vote in free and open elections. And secondly, they have limited access to education and news and the media. Maybe none at all.

The war on terror has similarities to the Cold War. Both confrontations feature oppressed, exploited and uninformed zealots managed by bosses using them. On the other side is s free and open society relying upon democratic values and volunteer military men and women to fill the armed forces.

The North Koreans feverishly prepared a press release on missile defense that demonstrated what we already knew: in North Korea and elsewhere, the population lives in an upside-down world. We should pity them. We should not rush to their destruction.

We need to draw them a map.

"We are great with TV but we are getting crushed on the P.R. [Public Relations] front,” President George W. Bush told NBC News reporter Brian Williams on August 29, 2006.

Why is that? Why can’t we explain the benefits of democracy? Why can’t we diffuse the time bomb of a riled up people and concentrate on the leaders?

The western democracies need to figure out how best to strike a blow at the oppressive user leaders who manipulate the masses of uninformed zealots against us.

Mr. Carey is former president of International Defense Consultants, Inc.

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