Back to Brief on Iran
As the internal power struggle within the regime escalates, in recent weeks, a number of state newspapers revealed some aspects of the use of torture in Iran's prisons.
Mayors of Tehran's different districts, detained on corruption charges, were subjected to various forms of physical and psychological tortures, the newspapers reported. The officials said that they also witnessed the torture of other prisoners.
The pro-Khatami daily, Toos, wrote that a number of Tehran's municipality officials were confined to solitary cells for five to six months and subjected to such tortures as "lashing," "beating," "deprivation of sleep and food," among other forms of maltreatment.
Previously, a senior Judiciary official had also acknowledged "the use of torture and cruel treatment to extract confession from detainees and the existence of secret detention centers run by different government agencies, including the State Security Forces, the Ministry of Intelligence, the Judiciary and the Armed Forces."
Obviously, when the Judiciary and other suppressive organs apply such tortures to government officials, one can imagine the kind of brutal treatment to which the Mojahedin and other political prisoners are subjected.
Extrajudicial Activities Increase, Agents Murder 24-Year-Old, Iran Zamin News Agency, September 7
Despite hollow claims by mullahs' President Mohammad Khatami about the "rule of law" and "civil society," the atmosphere of repression and the number of arrests and mysterious killings in Tehran and other cities have dramatically increased since the start of the year.
Monday, August 31, Intelligence Ministry agents in the capital shot to death a 24-year-old man riding a motorcycle near Hafez bridge, across from the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) parking lot.
This is the fourth extrajudicial killing in recent weeks by the regime's suppressive agents. Intelligence Ministry agents shot and killed a 25-year-old man in Isfahan on Sunday, August 30. Also, in late August, an Iranian engineer who had returned from the United States, was arrested by the State Security Force and several days later, his badly-tortured body was handed over to his family.
Previously, an Iranian residing in France by the name of Jalali, who had received a letter of pardon from the mullahs' embassy in Paris, was arrested by Intelligence Ministry agents at his daughter's wedding ceremony in Tehran several days after his return and murdered under torture .
Recently, the clerical regime arrested many ex-political prisoners in Tehran, in Rasht, capital of the northern province of Gilan, and in Orumieh, capital of the northwestern province of West Azerbaijan. No information is available on their fate. Qassem Maslakhi, Ibrahim Asgarkhani and Ali Moradi were among those abducted.
In a statement, the National Council of Resistance of Iran, citing the above cases said: "The Iranian Resistance urges international human rights organs to condemn the new wave of extrajudicial killings, brutal torture, widespread arrests of ex-political prisoners and a dramatic five-fold rise in general suppression in society compared with last year."
Clashes Between Mullahs' Rival Factions in Tehran, Reuter, September 5
TEHRAN - Hardline Islamic militants assaulted Iran's liberal culture minister and a close aide to moderate President Mohammad Khatami during a public ceremony in Tehran, Iranian media reported on Saturday.
The daily Salam said about 80 of the militants chanted "Death to Nouri" as they attacked Vice-President Abdollah Nouri after Friday prayers.
Culture and Islamic Guidance Minister Ataollah Mohajerani was attacked several blocks away and slightly injured, the official news agency IRNA said.
Several people who tried to come to the aid of the two officials were also beaten up and injured, it added.
Nouri was dismissed from his post as interior minister in June by the conservative-dominated parliament after he authorized meetings and rallies by opposition groups and critical students.
There was no reports of any arrests after the assaults which were the most brazen in a long row of attacks by hardline militants on gatherings of moderates. The hardliners have also attacked bookshops and cinemas selling books or showing films they deemed un-Islamic.
No one has been brought to justice for the attacks, prompting widespread belief that the hardliners enjoy the backing of powerful conservative circles.
Khatami last week dropped charges he had brought against two magazines close to the hardliners.