By SABINA AMIDI
In a shocking and
unprecedented interview, directly exposing the inhumanity of the religious
regime in Iran, a serving member of the paramilitary Basiji militia has told
this reporter of his role in suppressing opposition street protests in recent
weeks.
He has also detailed aspects of his earlier service in the force,
including his enforced participation in the rape of young Iranian girls prior
to their execution.
The interview took place by
telephone, and on condition of anonymity. It was arranged by a reliable source
whose identity can also not be revealed.
Founded by Ayatollah Ruhollah
Khomeini in 1979 as a "people's militia," the volunteer Basiji force
is subordinate to the Iranian Revolutionary Guards and intensely loyal to
Khomeini's successor.
The Basiji member, who is married
with children, spoke soon after his release by the Iranian authorities from
detention. He had been held for the "crime" of having set free two
Iranian teenagers - a 13-year-old boy and a 15-year-old girl - who had been
arrested during the disturbances that have followed the disputed June
presidential elections.
"There have been many other
police and members of the security forces arrested because they have shown
leniency toward the protesters out on the streets, or released them from
custody without consulting our superiors," he said.
He pinned the blame for much of the
most ruthless violence employed by the Iranian security apparatus against
opposition protesters on what he called "imported security forces" -
recruits, as young as 14 and 15, he said, who have been brought from small
villages into the bigger cities where the protests have been centered.
"Fourteen and 15-year old boys
are given so much power, which I am sorry to say they have abused," he
said. "These kids do anything they please - forcing people to empty out
their wallets, taking whatever they want from stores without paying, and
touching young women inappropriately. The girls are so frightened that they
remain quiet and let them do what they want."
These youngsters, and other
"plainclothes vigilantes," were committing most of the crimes in the
names of the regime, he said.
Asked about his own role in the
brutal crackdowns on the protesters, whether he had been beaten demonstrators
and whether he regretted his actions, he answered evasively.
"I did not attack any of the
rioters - and even if I had, it is my duty to follow orders," he began.
"I don't have any regrets," he went on, "except for when I
worked as a prison guard during my adolescence."
Explaining how he had come to join
the volunteer Basiji forces, he said his mother had taken him to them.
When he was 16, "my mother took
me to a Basiji station and begged them to take me under their wing because I
had no one and nothing foreseeable in my future. My father was martyred during
the war in Iraq and she did not want me to get hooked on drugs and become a
street thug. I had no choice," he said.
He said he had been a highly
regarded member of the force, and had so "impressed my superiors"
that, at 18, "I was given the 'honor' to temporarily marry young girls
before they were sentenced to death."
In the Islamic Republic it is
illegal to execute a young woman, regardless of her crime, if she is a virgin,
he explained. Therefore a "wedding" ceremony is conducted the night
before the execution: The young girl is forced to have sexual intercourse with
a prison guard - essentially raped by her "husband."
"I regret that, even though the
marriages were legal," he said.
Why the regret, if the marriages
were "legal?"
"Because," he went on,
"I could tell that the girls were more afraid of their 'wedding' night
than of the execution that awaited them in the morning. And they would always
fight back, so we would have to put sleeping pills in their food. By morning
the girls would have an empty expression; it seemed like they were ready or
wanted to die.
"I remember hearing them cry
and scream after [the rape] was over," he said. "I will never forget
how this one girl clawed at her own face and neck with her finger nails
afterwards. She had deep scratches all over her."
Returning to the events of the last
few weeks, and his decision to set free the two teenage detainees, he said he
"honestly" did not know why he had released them, a decision that led
to his own arrest, "but I think it was because they were so young. They
looked like children and I knew what would happen to them if they weren't released."
He said that while a man is deemed
"responsible for his own actions at 13, for a woman it is 9," and
that it was freeing the 15-year-old girl that "really got me in trouble.
"I was not mistreated or really
interrogated while being detained," he said. "I was put in a tiny
room and left alone. It was hard being isolated, so I spent most of my time
praying and thinking about my wife and kids."
