Iranian President Ahmadinejad. 'If authorities manage to get their hands on him he’ll be executed'
Photo: AP
A Shiite suicide
With cell phone and laptop, Amir Abbas Fakhravar is managing Iranian student revolt against ayatollahs, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
VIRGINIA - His eyes have seen many atrocities in his 30 years on earth. He is being hosted at a large house in Virginia by Iranians who came to the United States 20 years ago. With a cell phone and laptop, Amir Abbas Fakhravar is managing the Iranian student revolt against the ayatollahs and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
For Fakhravar, the well-kept house in Virginia is an almost unthinkable contrast to his narrow cell in solitary confinement in Evin prison, where his interrogators nearly succeeded in driving him crazy.
According to Amnesty International, Fakhravar is apparently the first Iranian to be subjected to the “white torture,” which was used in the Soviet gulags. He was dressed in a white prison outfit and placed in a small soundproof cell with white walls, white floor, and white ceiling. Every morning he was served a handful of white rice on a white cardboard plate. For eight months his own cries of despair were the only sound he heard.
Revolution in the making
Dressed in a well-cut suit, his lapel pin bearing the American and Iranian flags, Fakhravar talks about the revolution in the making. He speaks with passion and he’s very persuasive, as only a man convinced of the righteousness of his path can be. He has an urge to talk and he’s both courageous and naive, the material from which revolutionaries are made. And now he has the backing of the Bush Administration.
When he fled Iran several weeks ago by escaping from the prison where he’d begun to serve an eight-year sentence, Fakhravar had already been in jail for four years. Next month he will sneak back into Iran by land, armed with resources and connections in the American establishment, and attempt to incite opposition movements within the country. He’ll conduct his battle from a hiding place prepared for him by his comrades.
Since his escape from prison he’s appeared on “wanted” posters in Iran. If the authorities manage to get their hands on him he’ll be executed. He says that he isn’t afraid, and he has no hesitations.
Republicans helping out
Washington has welcomed him with open arms. The Administration’s neo-conservatives want regime change in hostile countries, and Fakhravar, head of the secular students’ protest movement, has been marked by the White House as the man who will take power in Iran, together with his comrades, if and when they are able to cause the current regime to crumble.
Non-governmental organizations in Washington with strong Republican connections are helping him out, providing him with the means and connections to unite the various Iranian opposition groups in exile.
These include the group headed by Reza Pahlavi, son of the Shah of Iran, and that of Dr. Manouchehr Ganji, Minister of Education in the shah’s government who fled Iran when Khomeini came to power and was sentenced to death in absentia.
Fakhravar’s Washington connection for the past three years has been Richard Perle, a former senior adviser to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Their covert telephone contact began with a cell-phone smuggled into Fakhravar’s cell. Manda, a Los Angeles-based Iranian exile who was introduced to Perle by her father, a high-ranking official under the Shah, served as liaison.
First arrest
On April 29, Perle was told that Fakhravar had escaped from Iran. He cut short a visit to central Asia and got on the first plane to Dubai, where he met the escaped political prisoner in a secret location. Within a few hours Perle had arranged for Fakhravar to get an American visa.
Fakhravar was born on the air force base in Tabriz where his father worked. His teachers showed the students photographs and told them to destroy the Israeli and American monsters. They also convinced the students that America and Israel were out to destroy Muslims all over the world.
Fakhravar was placed in a class for gifted students, and his knowledge of computers exposed him to new worlds. When he went online he discovered that the US and Israel have people who engage in cultural pursuits and play sports, and they aren’t interested in destroying the Muslim world.
At the age of 17 Fakhravar organized his first demonstration and was arrested for the first time. Several days later he was released, and when he was accepted to medical school he continued clandestinely to run a student group. When he was 19 the revolutionary guards arrived on campus and arrested him.
It’s hot in Virginia, almost 86 degrees Fahrenheit, but Fakhravar’s teeth begin to chatter when he speaks about his time in prison. He goes to a fireplace in the room, lights the coals, looks at the flames, and tries to calm down.
Chattering teeth
Whenever his jailers took him to be interrogated they first put him in a freezing cold shower with his clothes on, and from there led him to a freezing cold room. When he was totally frozen they would bring him to the interrogator. His teeth would chatter and his body shakes from the pain of the cold burns.
He was brought before a judge, his eyes covered, and sentenced to eight months in prison. Then he was sent to the white cell and the abuse began. Once he was brought to a violent interrogation within the white room, where he was beaten and his wrist broken. Yet he was pleased because finally something was happening.
After his release from prison Fakhravar decided to give up medical school and was accepted to law school. He continued to run the student organization clandestinely, with tens of thousands of students helping him. At that time he published a book critical of the regime, and was arrested yet again.
'Go to hell'
When he came before a judge the interrogator from the revolutionary guards said that there was not enough time to read all the charges, so the judge heard only some of them before sentencing him to eight years in prison. He turned to Fakhravar and asked whether eight years were enough to turn him into a human being. The prisoner simply replied, “go to hell.”
The judge got up from his chair and gave Fakhravar a painful kick in the knee. For this behavior he was sent to a prison for common criminals, but within a year and a half the prison was closed and he was transferred to Evin, where political prisoners are jailed.
Prisoners in Evin can take college courses, and Fakhravar was allowed to leave twice for exams, accompanied by prison guards. The third time he was trusted to go alone, and he didn’t return. Manda made all the arrangements.
According to Fakhravar the Iranian regime is corrupt, and Manda was able to buy him a passport under an assumed name, and to pay an official at passport control to allow him to get on a plane without asking too many questions.
'Iranian people want regime change'
On May 12 he arrived in the US and began a series of meetings with Iranian exile opposition groups. Through his patron Perle, and as a guest of the American Enterprise Institute, he me with the “right” people in the Administration.
He strongly believes that the Iranian people want regime change, and he and his comrades plan to organize a revolution from within. Fakhravar believes that the time is right and the conditions ripe for change, and that with the support of the outside world it can be done.
As for Israel, he stressed that the Iranian people love Israel and the Jews, and that Ahmadinejad has turned the country’s friends into enemies. Nevertheless, he believes that Ahmadinejad’s days in power are numbered, and he asks for Israel’s help in overthrowing the ayatollahs.
Next week Fakhravar will meet with Natan Sharansky, who will be in Washington and plans to devote a great deal of time to him. Shortly after his meeting with Sharansky he will return to Tehran. He knows that the revolution will not be a velvet one, and he expects street battles, demonstrations, arrests, and victims. But for him, there is no other way.
