Fariba Davoudi Mohajer
One of the most prominent student activists of the past two decades, Heshmatollah Tabarzadi, has been imprisoned 10 times within the past 14 years (since 1993 until 2007), and is currently serving a 10-year ban from social activities. We discussed with him his history, activism and views. Read on for the details.
Rooz (R): In the 1990s you were a Hezbollahi student but your views gradually changed. How did your reformation occur and what factors played a role in it? How is the Tabarzadi of today different from the Tabarzadi of those days?
Heshmatollah Tabarzadi (HT): Quite a long journey was taken for the reformation. Although I was an idealistic and ideological student, certain windows of pragmatism were always open in my mind. I never placed myself completely at the mercy of any individual or political group. I believed with all my being to serve the goals of Islam and the [1979] revolution, but I was not dogmatic towards the faction that I saw myself closer to. Especially after the publication of "Payam-e Daneshjoo" magazine, and the dialog that we launched and continued to have with people through the journal, I realized that I was under an ideological cloud at the time. That is because I started to gain better familiarly with people's conditions: income inequality, discrimination, torture in prison, and many other bitter realities. Fortunately, I had the capacity to accept the realities. I particularly became aware of the regime's enormous bureaucratic-financial corruption and began to uncover them with the help of my friends. As a result, we were harshly confronted by the state security apparatus. To be truthful, present realities, as well as the regime's harsh treatment of us, were the main reasons behind the reformation of my friends and myself. The realization was that the problems are not simply limited to the performance of organizations and individuals in charge, but are rooted in fundamental flaws present in the political structure.
R: What do you mean by fundamental flaws in the political structure?
HT: I mean that a theocratic government cannot be effective. In other words, the breaking down of our beliefs was not limited to our political ideals, but included our "taboos" and historical "utopias."
R: Mr. Tabarzadi, how many years and for what charges did you serve time in prison?
HT: I entered the Evin Prison in June 1999 and was freed on May 2008, meaning 9 years later. But because I was not convicted by the judiciary until 2003, my time out of prison in the first 5 years was not taken into account and they calculated 7 years for me from the day of the sentence. Currently, I am serving a 10-year ban from social rights. My charge was "acting against national security through propaganda against the regime," "insulting the supreme leader," "establishment of the Democratic Front of Iran" and "invitation to protest and meeting."
R: What is your opinion on the upcoming presidential election, and are you planning on participating?
HT: In general terms, I believe that if the events of the coming year unfold as they do now, the same authoritarian faction that is presently in power will retain its control over the executive branch. However, there is a very weak possibility that the faction would attempt to swap Ahmadinejad with another, perhaps more moderate, conservative, but they will never allow a reformist candidate to win the election. In effect, the authoritarian faction needs the reformist camp simply to warm up the election season in an engineered manner. For the authoritarian faction, the participation of 40 to 50 percent of the public is satisfactory. Obviously, they would prefer if 70 percent of people participated and voted for their candidate, but they know that that is not possible. On the other hand, assuming present conditions - including rampant inflation - remain, people have no desire to participate in the elections. Therefore, the issue of the upcoming elections, assuming present conditions remain, is not that important for us, unless we turn them into a public boycott. In general, one of the ten principles of the mission of the Democratic Front of Iran is that we will not participate in any of the "elections" held by the regime because we do not recognize the legitimacy of this regime. We will participate in only one election, which is a referendum monitored by independent and unbiased institutions to choose the future government's structure.
R: Under what conditions would you be willing to support a candidate in the elections?
HT: Recently some reformists have discussed Abdullah Nouri's candidacy with me. I told them, first, before gathering around someone like Nouri, you should gather around a secular person like Amir Entezam. Secondly, whomever you choose, make sure you make the condition that if he is disqualified by the Guardian Council, he would not exit the scene. He should ask people to vote for him regardless. I told them that if they found someone like that and he agreed to remain in the scene and battle the regime, I would support him too.
