City of Lies: Love, Sex, Death, and the Search for Truth in Tehran

Chapter Three: Amir

Amir’s story is based on that of a man who wishes to remain anonymous. The real Amir is not a blogger; I changed his profession at his request. I interviewed bloggers and student activists for all the details in this chapter. For information on the judge in Amir’s story, I interviewed a former judge who was a judge in the Revolutionary Courts at the same time as the judge who approached Amir. All information on bribes, corruption and the incident of the stoning in Evin prison is as he described.
For details of Amir’s parents’ lives as dissidents, I interviewed several people of his parents’ generation who were active at that same time. All details of parties and dissident meetings come from them, or from Amir’s memory of his parents’ gatherings. The account of the man on military service crying as he witnessed executions is from a man who had witnessed them in Evin prison following the 2009 protests; he told me that all the guards watching had cried.
The judge’s son has also contacted Amir, asking him to forgive the old judge. The judge’s son told Amir that his father has tracked down nearly all the children of those he condemned to execution, begging for forgiveness. Amir is the only one not to have forgiven him, and is the only one who has never accepted his gifts and his money. Amir is also the only child both of whose parents were executed.
When in prison, the blogger Sattar Beheshti publicly complained of being tortured and details of his treatment were published on the opposition website kaleme.com. An article in the New York Times, ‘Jailed Blogger Not Tortured
Before Death, Iran Says’ by Thomas Erdbrink, 12 November 2012, quotes ‘influential Iranian lawmaker’ Alaeddin Borujerdi denying that Beheshti was tortured to death.
For the imprisonment and execution of political opponents after the revolution see Ervand Abrahamian, A History of Modern Iran (Cambridge University Press, 2012), p. 181; estimates of numbers eliminated by the Shah between 1971 and 1977, see Ervand Abrahamian, Iran Between Two Revolutions (Princeton University Press, 1982), p. 480; Khomeini’s slogans, Abrahamian, A History of Modern Iran, p. 148.
Ayatollah Hakim’s fatwa against joining the Communist Party, Baqer Moin, Khomeini, Life of the Ayatollah (IB Tauris, 1999), p. 144; the Ayatollah’s younger son releasing a pop video, Bahar News, 13 January 2013.
On the exclusion of Baha’is see ISNA, quoting politician Javad Larijani, 14 May 2011 and Human Rights Watch, ‘Barring the Bahais’ by Faraz Sanei, 11 May 2010.
The number of executions ordered by revolutionary courts between the revolution and June 1981 is from Abrahamian, History of Modern Iran, p. 181 (the exact number given of those executed is 497).
Khomeini’s secret order to execute all prisoners who remained opposed to the Islamic regime: Kaveh Shahrooz, ‘The Iran Tribunal’ www.irantribunal.com/index.php/news/articles/30-twenty-years-of-silence-the- 1988-massacre-and-quest-for-accountability. The account of the court proceedings: see Muhammad Sahimi, ‘The Bloody Red Summer of 1988’, 25 August 2009, PBS Frontline/Tehran Bureau www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/ tehranbureau/2009/08/the-bloody-red-summer-of-1988.html.