Mohammad Reza Foroughi
Majid Tavakkoli is one of the three Polytechnic University students who was arrested and heavily tortured along with Ehsan Mansouri and Ahmad Ghassaban following Polytechnic University student protests against Ahmadinejad in December 2006. In an interview with Rooz, Tavakkoli discussed his prison experience and events that led up to their arrest. We read the text of this interview.
Rooz (R): If possible please recount the events that led to your arrest.
Majid Tavakkoli (MT): In my opinion the project began in June of 2006 when our reformist Islamic Association was declared illegal and that summer, in the middle of the month of Mordad, the association's building was demolished. In October of 2006 the university's management had done everything in its power to thwart all activism in the university. More than 40 students were summoned to disciplinary committees and more than 70 had been barred from continuing their education, and several student publications were banned, but the Islamic Association continued its activities. This persisted until December of 2006, when Ahmadinejad visited Polytechnic and the Polytechnic University students heavily criticized him in front of the press.
R: How do you know that your criticism of Ahmadinejad was the main factor in your confrontation?
MT: The charge of "insulting the president" was one of the issues repeated time and again in our interrogation sessions. That "you are those people who insulted Ahmadinejad" was a phrase that was always repeated to us during interrogation sessions in various ways. Our loud protest against him in the presence of the media was significant, perhaps because we had created an environment in which an ordinary student could protest against the regime's second top person in such a manner.
R: Was that the only factor behind your confrontation?
MT: I view several catalysts as significant in this issue: in our publication, we dealt first with criticizing the regime's structure and secondly with criticizing the supreme leader and the principle of the rule of the jurist. We even wrote several articles directly to Mr. Khamenei and witnessed very peculiar reactions from publications affiliated with the student Basij and university management, who warned us at that time.
R: Tell us about prison conditions. In July 2007 reports surfaced about your torture and hunger strike. Tell us a little about that.
MT: We were in section 209 for five months and were transferred to solitary confinement immediately after arrest. The first portion of the arrest was the interrogation period which was very, very difficult for the guys. We were treated very badly. From the first day it wasn't like they were waiting to talk with us and if those talks weren't successful then they would confront us differently. What happened to me happened to most of my friends. My first interrogation sessions was such that after five or six words were exchanged the beatings began, as if the plan wasn't even to ask us anything in particular. The point was to each us a very good lesson. About ten days after the initial arrest and three, four days after the second round of arrests, they began discussing the main issues they were concerned with: our student activism. This was the first round of interrogations, which lasted about a month. We were tortured a lot during this month: heaviest beatings with fists and kicks, slamming our heads against the wall, throwing on the ground, stepping on the face, on the body, throwing various objects at us. After the first month, interrogation sessions ended and conditions improved a bit.
R: Now that you have returned to the university after a year and four months, how do you evaluate the university's atmosphere?
MT: It really is different than before. Much has taken place at the university. In the past two or three weeks critical student publications have been published in high volumes despite being deemed illegal by university administration.
R: Were there any obstacles facing your continuing education after you were released from prison?
MT: They didn't allow us to register. But we are allowed to go and sit in our classes. I hope as they say it is only a semester-long ban. We will never be students and at the end of each semester, if we meet certain criteria and guidelines and if we refrain from activism, our grades will be recorded.
R: Since less than a year is left until the presidential election, how do you evaluate the views of students towards the election?
MT: It is too early to say what the students have decided, and perhaps the students will fail to reach a consensus about the election for the next few months. But one thing is predictable from now: elections in the Islamic Republic are not free. Contributing to this situation and defending this type of election is nothing but treason against democracy.
