ASTONISHING STORY

The kind of story that really matters. Beyond missiles, beyond the Axis of Evil.

His name is Ahmad Batebi. He was arrested in 1999 after he appeared on the cover of the Economist with a blood stained t shirt belonging to a friend who had been wounded during a protest.

I read the story here, on New York Times.

That picture has cost him 8 years in the Iranian prisons. Not pretty at all, as some of my friends say. I remember being shocked at an 18 year old Kurdish kid story, back in March. My friend, Hasan had told me the story and he wanted me to publish it here.

Ahmad Batemi went through hell. Most people wouldn't make it.

"His jailers thrashed him with a metal cable, beat his testicles and kicked in his teeth, he said. They held his face down in a pool of excrement. They tied his arms behind his back and hung him from the ceiling. At other times, strapping him to a chair, they kept him awake night after night, cutting him and rubbing salt into the wounds."

"Twice he was led blindfolded to the gallows. Once the noose was left around his neck for 45 minutes, and he passed out from fear, he recalled. The second time, he sat, waiting, as a prisoner on each side of him was hanged. "

He left Iran a few months ago, he was smuggled by the Kurds to Erbil, in Iraq, and finally made it to the US. His intervew for the New York Times is here. There is also a video.