Three to four weeks before the Special Representative's trip, the regime tried to give a face lift to the prisons. Among others, they painted parts of the Evin and Qasr prisons.
The mullahs also resorted to secret but extensive relocation of political prisoners in the Evin prison, particularly cell blocks 204 and 209, Qasr, Gohardasht and Qezel-Hessar prisons. A number of political prisoners were transferred to train wagons. The regime also disguised some of its agents and mercenaries as prisoners at Evin.
Those prison officials and agents most likely to have encounters with the Special Representative, were given special instructions so that they would be prepared to answer any questions posed by the Special Representative.
The Intelligence Ministry also stationed its agents in the hotel where Prof. Copithorne was staying. They were assigned the task of preventing the families of martyrs and political prisoners, seeking to testify about the fate of their loved ones, from making personal or telephone contacts with him.
While the Special Representative was in Tehran, the National Council of Resistance of received hundreds of complaints from Iran indicating that it was impossible to reach him, whether in person, by fax or telephone. Disappointed over not reaching Prof. Copithorne, a number of families sent copies of their letters to the Special Representative to the NCR. The council will shortly provide these letters to the Special Representative.
Moreover, a week before the Special Representative's arrival, the regime put many of the families of the martyrs and political prisoners under surveillance, tapping their telephones and checking their letters. The Intelligence Ministry arrested a number of people who tried to get in touch with the Special Representative as well. The names of some of those arrested have been put at the disposal of the Special Representative and other relevant international authorities.
To occupy the Special Representative's time, the Khomeini regime arranged numerous meetings for him with government leaders and officials, who are directly responsible for the torture and execution of political prisoners. The Intelligence Ministry also took a number of people to meet the Special Representative to complain about the economic situation. The mullahs, thus, tried to prevent genuine victims of human rights violations from meeting Mr. Copithorne on the one hand, and pretend as if there were no restrictions imposed on meeting the Special Representative on the other.
Just as it had dispatched a group of the Intelligence Ministry operatives, posing as former members of the Resistance, to see Prof. Copithorne in Geneva before his trip to Iran, the Khomeini regime also sent a number of its torturers and Guards Corps personnel, as members of "the Organization to Defend the Victims of Violence," to meet him in Tehran and testify against the Mojahedin and the Iranian Resistance.
During Prof. Galindo Pohl's trip to Tehran in 1990, the mullahs brought this organization to the fore for the first time in order to influence his report and conceal their crimes. This matter was discussed at length in Human Rights Betrayed which the NCR published in 1990. Cognizant of the bogus nature of this organization, Mr. Galindo Pohl did not allow the regime to take advantage of the scheme during his subsequent visits to the country.
In 1991, the clerical regime dispatched to Geneva a torturer by the name of Abbas Malekan, posing as the President of the aforesaid organization, to testify against the Mojahedin. While testifying in a court, an Iranian woman in the audience cried out that Malekan had repeatedly tortured her in Evin prison, and that he had even executed his own sister. Coming face-to-face with another of his victims, Hamid Habibi, when exiting the courtroom, Malekan covered his face. Witness to the scene, lawyers and reporters became convinced that Malekan was but a torturer.
The court had originally convened to examine a Khomeini regime's law suit against a Swiss journalist who had cited Prof. Kazem Rajavi's brother in blaming Rafsanjani for his murder. The court acquitted the reporter and fined the Khomeini regime. The documents on this court are available for presentation.
In a letter on February 13, the National Council of Resistance informed the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mr. Ayala Lasso, of most of the above-said cases about which it was informed during Prof. Copithorne's stay in Tehran.
Mr. Massoud Rajavi, the NCR President, also addressed a letter to the Special Representative on the eve of his visit to Tehran, urging him to compel the regime to answer 15 fundamental questions on the violations of human rights in Iran, including the mass executions, and the other practices in the torture chambers and secret and official prisons.
Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran - Paris February 19, 1996
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