Khamenei's cellmate remembers torture in Iran

Iranian political activist and prominent journalist Houshang Asid remembers years of imprisonment and torture in the post-revolution Islamic Republic and reflects on the changes that turned his cellmate Ayatollah Ali Khamenei from a benevolent revolutionary to a savage tyrant.

At the time of Shah Reza Pahlavi, Asadi and Khamenei shared a prison cell where they developed a close relationship that lasted up until the 1979 Islamic Revolution took place when it turned into a bitter animosity, the London-based newspaper Asharq al-Awsat reported Sunday.

Prison days with Khamenei

Asadi remembered his friendship with Khamenei and the first time they met in 1974 when they were put in the same cell.

In an interview with THE TIMES published Aug. 10, Asadi “jokes that he is the only man in the world to have seen Ayatollah Khamenei's private parts.”

"I was 26 and he was 37. We talked about philosophy and poetry and he told me how he fell in love with his wife. I was never attached to someone like that."

Asadi was impressed with Khamenei's tolerance since, as a cleric, he never minded being close friends with a Communist and an atheist.
When Khamenei was transferred from the cell, he embraced Asadi and cried.

"I felt his tears while I embraced him and he told me something I will never forget: 'In an Islamic government, not one innocent person will shed a tear.'"

Khamenei and Asadi stayed in touch after both were released. He supported the revolution and offered to help in founding the first newspaper in the Islamic government.

"I thought my personal relationship with Khamenei would save me from the government's clampdown on Communists who took part in the revolution. But I was wrong."

Till now Asadi can't stop wondering at the change that happened to Khamenei when he assumed power.

"I still can’t believe this is the pious man who cried while praying. Although many years have passed, I am still possessed by this emotion. My mind knows what he has become, but my heart keeps denying."

"Since that time, we have become worlds apart and communication between us came and end," Asadi told the paper. "Power has changed him."

I was 26 and he was 37. We talked about philosophy and poetry and he told me how he fell in love with his wife. I was never attached to someone like that

Houshang Asid

Writing memoires

Asadi, 60, tells the story of the six years of torture and imprisonment he spent after his 1983 arrest in his memoir “Letters to My Torturer: Love, Revolution, and Imprisonment in Iran.”

Asadi and his wife fled to Paris in 2003 and together they created Rooz Online website for the aim of exposing the abuses taking place in Iran.

He suffered a heart attack while writing the book from his exile in Paris and his doctor advised him to stop due to the stress of remembering the time he was writing about, yet he insisted.

"Every morning when I started writing, it was like going back to hell. Writing this book was an extremely painful experience."

The memoir, Asadi said, is not about Khamenei or Brother Hamid, his torturer in prison, but rather about oppression and torture, which are prevalent in Iran and several countries all over the world.

"It is a book about a problem that disturbs the conscience of all humanity."

It is a book about a problem that disturbs the conscience of all humanity

Houshang Asid

Behind the bars and in torture

Asadi told the paper that he dreamt of freedom and supported the revolution in the hope of eliminating dictatorship. However, he was arrested four years after the Islamic government came to power.

He first stayed in solitary confinement for 682 days and saw no one except Brother Hamid.

"He flogged me, deprived me of sleep, hung me with ropes from the ceiling, and made me believe that my wife was also being tortured. He wanted me to confess. Of what? He himself had no idea."

During his torture, Asadi “confessed” to being a British spy and a Russian spy and a double agent for the Shah's secret police SAVAK and the Communist Party.

"I confessed that the Tudeh, the leftist party to which I belonged, was planning a coup against the Islamic government. I invented times and places and stories. However, the torture didn't stop."

After he went to exile in France, he received an email from a friend with the picture of the Iranian ambassador in Kazakhstan.

"My friend asked if I knew the man. Of course I did. He was none other than Brother Hamid."

For nine months, Asadi was not allowed to make phone calls or receive visitors. When his wife finally managed to visit him, she was shocked at the way he looked.

"She yelled 'what did you do my husband?' I had lost a lot of weight and had a very long beard. I also broke my glasses when I tried to use them to commit suicide."

Asadi tried to kill himself several times. One time, he drank a liquid which he thought was a detergent then it turned out to be alcohol. Another time, he tried to slit his wrist with the glass of his eyeglasses, but he was saved by one of the guards.

Asadi was saved from the capital punishment only when he said in court that he hated his past and that he was dedicated to serving Khamenei. Only then he was handed a 15 year jail sentence.

"After six years, there was an amnesty for political prisoners and I was released."

(Translated from the Arabic by Sonia Farid)