The Torturer of Tehran

By Capt. Fogg

Saaed Mortazavi is sometimes called the “Torturer of Tehran,” but probably not to his face. The man also known as “Butcher of the press” has been given authority by the Iranian government to "interrogate" people involved, or said to be involved, in the demonstrations in Tehran.

Mortazavi earned his nicknames for his role in the death of a Canadian-Iranian photographer who was tortured, beaten and raped during her detention in 2003, says the Times Online. The TOT was behind the detention of more than 20 bloggers and journalists in 2004, held for long periods of solitary confinement in secret prisons, where they were allegedly coerced into signing false confessions.

I expect to be hearing a great deal about how Iranian concern over the strange results of the recent election are the products of American propaganda and the protest sponsored, choreographed, and financed from Washington, DC.

Of course, such things are more effective in terrorizing the locals than in convincing them that these confessions don'e have more to do with cattle prods and genitals than with American interference, but isn't it too bad that the US has lost any ability to deplore enhanced interrogation? Isn't it too bad that the US must remain silent about starting wars and killing people based on information extracted by torture?

Thank you, George W. Bush and all the other cowards who dragged our proud country down to the level of these savages!

(Cross-posted from Human Voices.)