The shocking news of torture of imprisoned students in Evin has one peculiar characteristic: They all take place in Ward 209 rather than the Ward 325.

The interrogators of ward 325 were not professionals from the intelligence ministry. These individuals, coming from other agencies, filled in a void created because of the lack of confidence that Iranian hardliners had in the ministry of intelligence under president Khatami’s administration. They took up intelligence work out of the circumstantial necessities of the time. Most of those interrogated by these individuals have expressed dismay at how little their interrogators new the subject matter of interrogation or the person being interrogated. As a result, it was not far fetched to expect that the only way these amateurs believed they could acquire information from their subjects was to exert more pressure on them.

The interrogators in Ward 209 of Evin on the other hand constitute the professional cadre of the ministry of intelligence. These are specialists who have vast and detailed information on a subject matter of their interest. Their purpose in torturing their victims therefore should not be seen to be aimed at extracting information, but rather to exclusively pressure and break their victims (for the purpose of getting false confessions or to create fear in them). Furthermore, the quality and quantity of torturous measures that the interrogators practiced on the imprisoned students held at Ward 209 of Evin prison are of a different caliber from what normally takes place in Ward 325. This in itself is a worrying phenomenon.

These signs are real indications that the ministry of intelligence has returned to the period of its supra-legal activities. This period is commonly known in Iran as the ‘Saeed Emami period’, who was a deputy at the ministry of intelligence responsible for domestic security and the leader of the operations that have become known as the ‘serial murders’ through which scores of dissidents and intellectuals were systematically subjected to psychological and physical torture while also being accused of sexual crimes and even threatened with them.

The evidence of the treatment of prisoners at Ward 209 leaves no doubt that the criminal group at the ministry of intelligence which was believed to have been pushed aside following disclosure of the serial murders in the 1990s has once again taken control of this security agency. The intensity and aggressive nature of the ministry interrogators in dealing with the imprisoned students bears a clear signature of this corrupt and dangerous precedent. This approach is a warning sign of the malignant revival of the cancerous disease which if not brought under control right away, will rapidly spread through the ministry of intelligence and will again result in the practices of Saeed Emami’s group, using those methods to eliminate domestic dissident and engage in similar foreign operations.

Those authorities of the Islamic Republic who because of their short-term political interests have consented to the revival of the criminal groups in the ministry of intelligence should not forget that regardless of whether they want to or not, they shall be domestically and internationally held responsible for the actions of these groups, who if not checked shall go to the same extremes that their friends did during the 1990s. In other words they engaged in such excessive activities that their bosses were forced to deny their links to these groups by torturing some of their most trusted individuals in the ministry of intelligence to extract confessions of espionage, abnormal sexual behaviors and antagonism with the regime, and consequently fully accept the extensive displeasure of the security personnel which came about because the political leadership had resorted to such unscrupulous method to sacrifice the security agents.

On the other hand, those against responsible for the recent criminal behavior against prisoners should not forget the fate of their own colleagues who were subjected to torture to the point of death when their utility was served with the purpose of extracting ultimate confessions of perversion and treacherous security acts. It is unlikely that those individuals who are currently engaged in activities that raise the scales of brazenness in their treatment of harmless prisoners have already forgotten the fate of the leading theoretician of such inhuman interrogations – Saeed Emami. It is implausible that these individuals have forgotten that after Emami was arrested, they spread rumors that he had confessed to being a recipient gay for more than 10 years (in addition to cooperating with Israeli security agency Mossad, the CIA and the FBI!), and eventually announced that he had committed suicide, without being given a chance to rehabilitate himself. And it is unlikely that it has lapsed from their memory how they forced Emami’s wife – who no matter what views she had, she was a respectable and religious woman - to make public ‘confessions’ – under torture -of stories that one cannot find even in the dirties porno movies. If they have, here is a link to the movie that shows how she was treated:
http:www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4VzY4cG9dk&mode=related&search=

And which should remind them that whenever she could not utter what they wanted her to out of dignity, they would subject her to another round of torture until she would finally succumb and ‘confess’ to whatever they wanted.

If those individuals who have become instruments of executing cancer-like policies that are growing in the ministry of intelligence have come to believe that their bosses are so fateful to them that they will defend them under any circumstances, then they are seriously mistaken. The conditions that are increasing the pressures on the hardline machinery – thus endangering regimes such as Ahmadinejad’s because of its domestic and international policies – are also creating growing conditions for ’deals’ for power brokers. And one possible ‘deal’ remains creating a scapegoat out of naïve officials and executioners who are overzealously counting on the support of their superiors.

In all honesty, are the powers and influence of torturers in Ward 209 of Evin prison today more than those that the deputy officer for domestic security in the 1990s - Saeed Emami the terrible - to make them assume that their life, property and wife are secure from being ‘traded’ should their superiors need to make such a choice?