Ahmed BatebiAHMED BATEBI HAS ESCAPED TO THE UNITED STATES--
Voice of America Interview
Washington DC, USA
June 30, 2008
The brave Iranian student activist who was sentenced to death and who was severely tortured for years in the notorious Evin Prison in Iran has arrived safely in the United States!
During a break from prison, Batebi fled Iran traveling through Iraq and Austria and finally arriving in Washington DC.
Ahmed Batebi is the Iranian student who gained international fame for his appearance on the cover of The Economist magazine holding up a bloodied shirt claiming to belong to a fellow student beaten by the Basij paramilitaries. The photo, which has been called "an icon for Iran's student reform movement," was taken during the Iranian Student Protests in July 1999 in Tehran. Human Rights activist Shirin Ebadi, reports that the shirt belonged to Ezzat Ebrahim-Nejad, a student who was shot and killed reportedly by a plainclothes police or vigilante.
Ahmed Batebi was one of four people who received a death sentence in a closed-door trial by a Revolutionary Court on charges relating to "creating street unrest" and "agitating people to create unrest," and "endangering national security" following the demonstrations. Batebi, in an open letter addressed to the judiciary, wrote that he had been beaten in his "testicles, legs, and abdominal area- -Wiki.
Ahmad Batebi is now in Washington D.C. and had a tv appearance on VOA Persian a few days ago in which he spoke of the horrific torture he endured at the hands of his interrogators for 9 years!!!
Iranian blogger Aryamehr has more on Batebi's escape to America where he describes more of Batebi's horrible torture.
This is a MAJOR BLOW to the brutal Iranian Regime!
WELCOME TO AMERICA AHMED BATEBI!
--Hat Tip to Iranian Human Rights Activist Banafsheh Zand-Bonazzi--
Winston adds: "It appears that now a free Iraq has been instrumental in helping the democratic movement of Iran since many Iranian political figures have used that country to get to the free world. Isn't that interesting?"
MORE-----
July 8th is the anniversary of the student uprising that ended in bloodshed in 1999. Every year students commemorate this day. This year, there is a special commemoration. Iranians inside Iran are organising widespread demonstrations across the country in all major cities (More HERE). The people of Iran need the support of the international community in their uprising against the dictatorial Islamic regime.
Previously on Ahmed Batebi:
Brutal Death of Iranian Activist Akbar Mohammadi Revealed
Iranian Political Activist Ahmad Batebi Re-Arrested in Tehran
Iranian Political Activist Batebi Gets Nine More Years at Evin Prison
Noted Iranian Activist, Ahmad Batebi, in Serious Condition
Harvard Students Will Protest Khatami for Release of Ahmed Batebi
Noted Iranian Activist Under Extreme Torture
Today on Iranian "Student's Day" Remember Ward 209 Evin Prison
Iranian Activist Ahmad Batebi Suffers Stroke in Evin Prison
Iranian Student Activist Ahmad Batebi Suffers Second Stroke
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ReplyDelete"I wish each and every Iranian could travel abroad, come to the U.S. or go to Europe, for just one week, and feel, smell, and breathe freedom, human dignity, and realize the value of their lives." - Ahmed Batebi
FABULOUS!! (thumbsup)
"i wish each and every anti-American could travel to Iran with their Obamessiah cult leader for even one day!!"
WELCOME TO AMERICA AHMED BATEBI!
ditto.. :)
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It's so good to hear from you, BG.
ReplyDeleteThank you God for keeping him safe.
ReplyDeleteWelcome Ahmed.
Hhhmm...
ReplyDeleteOne escape following another.
Truly a weekend of Independence.
If this isn't a message, I don't know what is.
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ReplyDeleteGP @ 1:59 PM..
thanks.. :)
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AWESOME!!! I had wondered what had happened to this youngman. I hope he is enjoys the freedom here and can use this liberty to perhaps help his native country one day have the same.
ReplyDeleteIs there a fund to which $$$ may be given to help him and those who -like him - stand for freedom?!
ReplyDeleteI'm glad he is here.
ReplyDeleteMay freedom be everything he has dreamed it would be.
“The secret of happiness is freedom. The secret of freedom is courage.”
Thucydides
May those in the west who still believe that sharia law and democracy can coexist read this story and note how those assembling to protest their government's atrocities are treated. Thank God for the US Constitution and the First Amendment...and the Second...
ReplyDeleteThis is wonderful news!!
ReplyDeleteHuman is earth's Choicemaker. Psalm 25:12 He is by
ReplyDeletenature and nature's God a creature of Choice - and of
Criteria. Psalm 119:30,173 His unique and definitive
characteristic is, and of Right ought to be, the natural
foundation of his environments, institutions, and re-
spectful relations to his fellow-man. Thus, he is orien-
ted to a Freedom whose roots are in the Order of the
universe. selah
a follower of The Lion of Judah
Irresponsible? No. Knowledgeable ? Yes?
ReplyDeleteI know your sources and I have my own with information from within Iran who are horrified by the naivety shown by you.
No matter. Time will tell.
No harm no foul. Just a heads up that you are being misled and how!
Being cursed out by anonymous posters is water off a duck's back and holds no value when it is helping the Mullahs achieve their aims.
What is sad is our gullibility not my warning.
Want to publish what kind of passport did Batebi use to travel through Iraq, via Turkey to the West?
ReplyDeleteOne issued by the Islamic Regime? Do due diligence before jumping to conclusions.
Abbas Fakhrovar, who arrived indirectly through your sources - as did Mohammad Mohammadi, claimed there was a shoot on sight order on his head. Yet he traipsed in and out of Evin prison to visit Akbar Ganji while this was in force.
Then left Iran with a regular passport officially provided to him by the same Islamic regime that had issued the shoot on sight orders.
You might also check to see if anyone among your sources has fammily in Iran, possibly also on furlough from prison, who risks being rearrested and possibly die in prison if they do not co-operate with the Islamic regime.
Again, you have to assess matters not on emotion but on the reality of who is vulnerable and likely to have a vested interest in feeding you and everyone else disinformation. Or pay a horrible price to their nearest and dearest.
As I understand it Alan, he did not have a passport to travel from Iran to Iraq. He was issued a passport by KDP (Kurdistan Democratic Party) once he reached Iraq.
ReplyDeleteI can't imagine what shape he is in or how he will help anyone or what information he will give anyone after being jailed since 1999. From what I understand, he has brain damage, vision and hearing problems, stomach and kidney and heart problems.
We know the mullahs "detained," his wife in 2006 and she has not been heard from. I'm sure it was some sort of incentive for cooperation.
This is all from the pleasure of the picture that appeared on the "Economist."
I am sure there are people exercising caution but no matter the circumstances that brought him here, it is nice to see a fellow human being paroled from hell.
Great news!
ReplyDeleteOh and people, keep the bible thumping down, please. Everybody with a brain knows that the bible is garbage, just like the koran and any other so called "holy" scripture. They were written by humans for humans, in order to execute power over them. And, let me tell you... in 2036 you all will learn that your gods are merely fantasies. You will encounter the one true god in 2036. And all the heretics, no matter whether they are christiams, muslims, jews, or whatever else, will burn.
Still waiting for the mothership takekaze?
ReplyDeleteWell, God bless you.
...thumping my bible to a catchy tune.....
TaSS,
ReplyDeleteAgree with you Batebi has suffered. As much psychologically as physically. In his own recent interview, he states that the torture is not only to acquire co-operatioin and have the tortured work for the Mullahs but also belittle them to a point of no return.
I believe his wife was freed after only a few days and if missing is hiding. I would, too.
On a humanitarian level, I am glad he is out, however, based on the previous way that we took in previous infiltrators and apparently shared classified or gray area information with them, I had to sound the alarm.
Again, because he was a genuine student dissident and has a reputation that could mislead if you are not up to date on his life events, the heads up was essential.
Part of this rests on information that is not fully public and an assessment of the reflected glory some wish to achieve by pushing him forward and benefitting in a double edged way.
Firstly with avoiding severe penalties to their own families back in Iran and secondly to establish themselves here as insiders, rather than the probable paid Mullah shills and Communist supporters they may well be.
I am being as nice as possible, since this would not be the first time they came into the infiltrator picture. Or adopted a pro-Mullah disinformation profile.
However, as one of my contacts said, Batebi could be a potential anti-Mullah tool if he were still in Iran. Now that he is out, all he can do, as is the case with most of the opposition is to "yell and shout".
He cannot even do this until his wife and kids are safe. Thus his attitude that he will only be active against the mistreatment of prisoners.
In a similar fashion, there are already some people promising to bring two million people into the streets of Tehran and trying to access and receive part of the new $400 million budget giveb ti Bush for anti-Iran ops.
Batebi, what's left of him after his mistreatment, is but a small pawn in the bigger picture but needs to be handled with caution. NOt because he is a bad guy and willingly a pro-Mullah operative but because he has little choice.
Nevertheless he is a Mullah facilitated escapee, even limited to their closing their eyes and pretending not to know what was going on.
Hope this clarifies matters.
BTW, pure speculation , I wonder what the sortie by the Kurds to Tehran and attacking the Air Force HQ and the killing of several officers (hushed up in Tehran) may have had to do with Batebi coming out via the Kurds as you state?
The Kurds had others along with them.
And that Batebi is at best a street level rabble rouser and (sadly) unable to be a leader against the Mullahs.
Alan, those who knows you in the Iranian community know that you're a propagandist lunatic...you're just as much of a liar and disreputable nut job as some leftist kook...except you're on this side of the issue. Stop making up stories about innocent people who have been through hell, you crazy old man. Your family wants nothing to do with you, your relatives all say you're a charlatan and anyone who has ever come into contact with you realizes what a psycho you are and walks away, wanting nothing to do with you anymore. All because you're an angry old man, spewing any nonsense about anyone who doesn't kiss your ass. Take your meds and shut up already.
ReplyDelete