Ahmad Raouf Bacharidoust was
born on 23 August 1964 in Astara, a small town on the Caspian Sea. Living
conditions were ideal in the region, with its rolling green hills. With his
older sister Massoumeh and his family, Ahmad had every reason to feel happy.
And yet…
There would be many
surprises in the life of Ahmad Raouf Bacharidoust, nicknamed the “little
prince” by his families, first his natural family, then that of his brothers-in-arms and
companions in prison. The young man soon understood that he would have to fight
in order to survive. And yet he had the good fortune to be born into a
close-knit family. The young man in a hurry could not stand injustice. His freshness, his youth, his unconcern,
and his insolence made him a prominent figure in the fight against the mullahs. A Little Prince in the Land of the
Mullahs tells his story. The story of one young man among so many others who, risking his
life, driven by a deep sense of purpose, would fight to his last breath against
all tyrannies.
From
the Shah to the mullahs, from one tyranny to another
From an early age, he
already resisted the Shah’s men in his own way. He was 15 when the Shah
abdicated, making way for the revolutionaries. But then, as so often, wheeling
and dealing between the powerful violently frustrated the plans harbored by the
people. Certain of their release from the Shah’s yoke, the Iranian people
danced and sang. But the celebrations would not last long. On 8 January 1979, the
American president, Jimmy Carter, sent a secret message to Ruhollah Khomeini,
in exile at Neauphle-le-Château at the Shah’s request a few months earlier, via
the French president, Valéry Giscard d’Estaing. Fearing a revolution, the
Americans asked Khomeini to take control of the country.
The Iranians quickly
realized they had been tricked. The country was divided. On one side the just,
calling for freedom and democracy. On the other the horde of those faithful to
the man who would soon become the first supreme leader. Within a few months,
the tyranny of the Shah had been replaced by the tyranny of the mullahs. The
people had been robbed. The mullahs and behind-the-scenes agreements had stolen
the revolution. For freedom fighters, the struggle went on whatever the price.
For Ahmad’s family, and for all resistance fighters, it was the beginning of a
long hell. Individual freedoms were curtailed day after day. Books were banned.
The Pasdaran did not hesitate to open fire on the crowds of angry
demonstrators. All over the country, the new tyrant’s Basij militia wielded
their power over the weak.
In the Bacharidoust
household, first Massoumeh was sentenced to 20 years in prison. She
managed to escape after eight months and get out of the country to join the
resistance then organizing in exile. Then it was the turn of Ahmad and his
brothers-in-arms. All were tortured several times, 12 of them crowded into a
cell of six square meters. They were refused medical treatment, even after 400
lashes of the whip. And yet young Ahmad never lost his sense of humor and
refused to kneel before his torturers. More than a revolutionary, he was a
symbol of the struggle, a source of inspiration for those alongside him.
Beatings,
imprisonment, torture: the whole family gets it
Ahmad’s
mother was tortured in turn, despite suffering from cancer,
simply because her two children were officially part of the resistance. She
died while Ahmad was still in prison, serving a 5‑year sentence punctuated by
torture sessions and constant changes of prison and location. Each time the
pressure and pain increased. But Ahmad never said a word. Weakness was out of
the question. There are three types of a prisoner: those who give up the fight
and become trustees or informers for their gaolers, those who seek to stay
under the radar, and those who continue the struggle, supporting each other and
motivated by a true ideal. An ideal does not suffer. An idea does not die. It
germinates, and in the end, it always flowers…
That is why Ahmad and his
companions fought. All of them lost family members. All were tortured,
sometimes every day. All suffered terribly from their wounds, from lack of
care, from lack of everything… Ahmad was finally released in late 1987, having
served his five years. But even though his friends begged him to drop his
resistance activities, he was unable to embrace the idea of a “normal” life. It
would be a denial of everything he had fought for. He considered leaving the
country and joining his sister to continue the fight against the mullahs. But
Ahmad would never see her again. Halfway to his goal he was arrested by
collaborators and sent back to prison.
The
massacre of summer 1988
This time things were
different. It was the spring of 1988 and the supreme leader had issued a fatwa,
one of those utterly abject orders that will go down in history: kill all
opponents of the regime. In every gaol, lines of political prisoners were
formed in front of courts specially created for the purpose. The same three
questions were asked each time: are you a hypocrite (monafeghine, the name
given to opponents by the mullahs)? Are you willing to deny and condemn the
hypocrites? Are you willing to repent publicly? The trials lasted no more than
five minutes from start to finish. Each negative answer entailed the death
penalty for treason before God. Ahmad was condemned and executed, in the green
hills by Lake Urmia, by the guardians of the revolution, with a knife.
Barbarity plumbed new depths.
More than just a comic
strip, this book recounts a young man’s life devoted to the defense
of freedom. His story highlights the tyranny and impunity of the clerical
regime. For the leading players in the 1988 massacre are still in power, at the
head of the state even today, Supreme Guide Ali Khamenei and President Hassan
Rohani prime among them. Those whom Europe calls moderates to have blood on
their hands and do not even bother to deny it. The hell and the horror that
Iranians have had to live through since the advent of the Islamic Republic
continues to this day. Many families still do not know when their relatives
died or where they are buried. Ahmad was born on 23 August 1964 and executed in
August 1988, perhaps on his 24th birthday.
We expect to find this
kind of story in old tales from the Middle Ages, not in the late 20th century.
And yet… This is essential reading for all those who want to know about the
ordeal experienced by resistance members in Iran – and for all those who would
turn a blind eye too. It reveals much about Iran under the mullahs, a regime
that European technocrats still regard as one it is possible to do business
with. It would be instructive to ask Federica Mogherini, the EU’s High
Representative for Foreign Affairs, what she thinks about the story of Ahmad
Raouf Bacharidoust and his 30,000 companions of misfortune…
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