BRIEF
After Savak
A briefing on the security-intelligence complex of Iran.
A satellite view of Evin Prison in Tehran: Google Maps.
T he Islamic Republic of Iran has
one of the most complex security
machinery of our time, which is
operated by brutal thugs. The ideology
that fuels this system has no restraints,
when it comes to the crushing of any kind
of opposition. In fact, the current security
and intelligence apparatus of Iran is
remnant of the system deployed by the
infamous Shah and his cronies.
In 1956, Iran established the second
large-scale intelligence apparatus in the
Islamic world, after Turkey. Initially,
the intelligence bureaucracy was run by
military officers who were co-conspirators
in the US-British orchestrated coup of
24 ISSUE 5
By Houshang Asadi
1953. That coup, which changed the
course of history in Iran, overthrew the
nationalist government of Mohammad
Mosaddegh, and centralised all power
in the hands of the last Shah of Iran,
Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.
At that point of time, the State Security
and Intelligence Organisation, commonly
known by its Persian acronym Savak, was
put under the direct supervision of the
Shah. In addition to Savak, the military
and law enforcement forces had their
own special security agencies which were
all ultimately under the command of the
Shah, through the military hierarchy.
In 1971, when the insurgent
Independent World report
movement in Iran heightened, all the
security agencies in the country were put
under a single command known as the
Komite Moshtarak Mobareze ba Kharabkari
(Joint committee to combat sabotage). The
headquarters of this committee was in a
notorious prison in the centre of Tehran.
In 1979, the offices of the Komite were
stormed and taken over by the public.
But a year later, the newly created
Intelligence Centre of the Islamic Pasdaran
Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) began using
the complex for its own purposes and
turned it into one of the most horrendous
prisons in the world.
In my recently released book, Letters
to my torturer, I have written about
my personal experience in that very
Moshtarak prison. For a period in 1975, I
shared a cell in that prison with Seyyed
Ali Khamenei, then an influential leader
of the Islamic clergy, now the supreme
leader. Eventually, when he became the
president of the Islamic Republic of Iran,
I was imprisoned once again in the same
prison. This time, arrested and brutally
tortured for six years by the agents of
my former cell-mate. My torturer and
minder, a young Islamic revolutionary
known as Brother Hamid [real name: Naser
Sarmadi Parsa], later became the Iranian
ambassador to Tajikistan.
The fact is that the Islamic republic
has expanded the security apparatus of
the Shah, and has turned it into one of the
most extensive and most horrific systems
in the world.
After 1979, Savak was dismantled and
the revolutionary Islamic regime even
executed some of the most infamous
Savak torturers. However, the counter-
intelligence units and the anti-communist
sections of the agency were kept intact.
Those were put under the command of
young Islamic revolutionaries. Thus, the
expertise of the old-timers were put to
use, and the foundation of the current
intelligence apparatus of the Islamic
Letters to my torturer
Love, revolution, and imprisonment in Iran
By Houshang Asadi
Oneworld Publications, 2010
republic was facilitated.
At the same time, the committees
that were founded post-1979, to replace
the official police forces of the Pahlavi
regime, started to create their own special
intelligence units. They soon took over
the Evin prison, which today has earned
international notoriety. The majority of
the members of these committees were
city thugs who took over the local police
stations within three days of the fall of
the Shah.
Soon, the Pasdaran Guards/IRGC was
created. And then, religious youth along
with left-leaning clerics who had a role in
creating the IRGC embarked to create a
new intelligence agency.
Intense rivalry among the three
groups, who tried to dominate the
security-intelligence complex of Iran,
was noticeable from the very beginning.
That was until 1984, when the Ministry
of Intelligence and National Security
officially became operational. After much
debate, the new agency was put under
immediate command of the government,
instead of supervision of the supreme
leader.
Using the intelligence assets and
resources of the IRGC, the Ministry of
Intelligence became formally responsible
for the security and intelligence affairs of
the Islamic Republic of Iran. One of the
first projects undertaken by the agency
was the creation of a security university in
Iran.
With the collapse of the Soviet
Union, the ministry recruited former
KGB agents and used their expertise to
expand its operational knowledge base
– including interrogation techniques,
forcing prisoners to repent, and parading
detainees in front of television cameras
to incriminate themselves.
The committees which had taken
over Evin prison also created a judicial
apparatus known as the revolutionary
prosecutor. Not only they expanded the
prison, soon they built a number of other
prisons across the country. The Ministry
of Intelligence followed the same methods
practised at Evin.
The Iranian police, which was
reformed and remodelled according to
the needs and standards of the Islamic
republic, changed its name to Niruye
Entezami (Law Enforcement Forces), and
created its own intelligence bureau along
Independent World report
For a period in 1975, I shared a
cell in that prison with Seyyed
Ali Khamenei, then an influential
leader of the Islamic clergy, now
the supreme leader. Eventually,
when he became the president of
the Islamic Republic of Iran, I was
imprisoned once again in the same
prison. This time, arrested and
brutally tortured for six years by
the agents of my former cell-mate.
with own detention centres. The Iranian
military followed the same path. Even the
Tehran municipality eventually built is
own intelligence and prison system.
One of the first acts of these security
structures, each of which were sponsored
and guided by a specific political group,
was to crush opposition groups active
in Iran. Today, the ruling groups in
the Islamic republic are battling and
crushing each other. In the events of the
last fourteen months, which resulted in
the birth of the Green movement, rival
security groups inside the regime have
even engaged in fighting each other.
Today, a network of security agencies
operate under the direct supervision of
the supreme leader of the Islamic republic,
under the firm control of senior officials.
With the purge of traditional cadres from
the Ministry of Intelligence, the security-
intelligence complex in Iran looks more
and more like the one deployed by the
Shah. �
Houshang Asadi is the author of Letters
to my torturer: Love, revolution, and
imprisonment in Iran (Oneworld, 2010),
that details his imprisonment and torture
at the hands of the Islamic regime in Iran.
He is now in exile in France along with his
wife journalist Nooshabeh Amiri. Weblog:
houasadi.wordpress.com
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