In order to get an insight into the Iranian regime’s real behavior and culture, you first need to analyze the speeches and comments of its officials. In a landmark trial in Sweden, which has been ongoing over the last nine months, the former Iranian prison official, Hamid Noury was accused of war crimes for his involvement in the purge of political prisoners, mainly members of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK), during the summer of 1988.
This is the first time that a regime official has been put on trial for this massacre, and the prosecutors have requested a life sentence for Noury, who has been on trial in Stockholm district court since 2021.
According to the testimonies of the prosecutors, survivors, and family members of the victims, Noury was the assistant to the deputy prosecutor of Gohardasht prison, near Tehran, at the time of the event. One of his main duties during the massacre was guiding the victims to the execution chamber.
The life sentence request by the prosecutors has raised much happiness among the victims’ families and the survivors, with many of them expressing hope that all the regime’s officials involved in the massacre will face the same verdict.
Something that hasn’t been discussed much is the rude comments that have been made by Hamid Noury himself, his family, and regime officials during his trial.
In an interview with Press TV, an English TV channel operated by the regime, Noury’s daughter said, “If I want to talk about human rights violations, there are so many that I do not know where to start. Human rights have not been respected at all. My father was arrested in the worst of circumstances when he came here at the invitation of a family.”
She added: “They humiliated him. When he was arrested, he was under a lot of psychological pressure. It was a very difficult time for my father.”
In other interviews, his family members have claimed that the Swedish prison authorities refused to give him access to consult ophthalmology specialists.
The silliness of these claims becomes transparent when a simple search about ‘Sweden’s prison or rehabilitation system’ is made on the internet. The truth is that Sweden has one of the most unique systems in the world, and this country is famous for its human rights values and principles.
In a questionable comment made by Kazem Gharibabadi, the Secretary of the Human Rights Headquarters and Deputy Chief of Staff for International Affairs of the Judiciary of the regime, he claimed that until Noury’s family was informed about his detention, his arrest in Sweden could be considered a case of enforced disappearance.
Gharibabadi said, “Violent treatment during detention and disrespect for human dignity, violation of the 1963 Vienna Convention, and keeping the Iranian embassy and his family unaware of his whereabouts to exert psychological pressure and prevent family visits are just some of the inhumane acts against a person who has been arrested by fabricated and false allegations.”
He added, “The lack of access to a lawyer and the denial of his right to defend himself in court is another proof that this court is a show that was set up with politically biased goals and did not observe the basic principles of judicial justice.”
Now the question remains, how many of these claims are being observed by the regime in its prisons, which according to the former inmates and survivors of the regime’s brutalities, are considered hell on earth?
The footprint of such claims can be overserved in the speeches of the regime’s officials. This is how the regime reverses the truth and devalues the sense of the words. As an example, in the recent speeches of Ahmad Alamolhoda, one of the regime’s main clerics, discussing the reason for the extreme poverty in the country, he said, “The second issue is the issue of not observing hijab and immorality, which is the worst denial and should not be ignored. This laziness and insolence have their effects in the matter of livelihood.”
This statement was so absurd that even some of the regime’s officials were forced to object to such a claim, due to their fear of the people’s reaction. Regime cleric Mohammad Taqi Fazel Meybodi, responded saying, “If not observing hijab is the cause of high prices, the world must be starving. Think a little.”
Cleric Rahmatollah Bigdeli mocked him too, and on behalf of Alamalhoda he tweeted, “The reason for the high cost in the Rouhani’s government was he self, but the unbridled high prices in the time of my dear son-in-law have two causes: brokerage, none obeying the hijab and immorality of women.”
