Sahabi Father and Daughter Die a Day Apart

While Ezzatollah Sahabi, the leading figure among Iranian national-religious activists, and a quiet critic of the Islamic regime, passed away on Tuesday after a month-long comma, his daughter Haleh Sahabi died due to a scuttle with security forces during her father’s funeral ceremony on Wednesday. Close family members spoke with Rooz about the father’s death, and said that the Islamic regime feared the corpse of Sahabi as much as it feared him when he was alive.

While the father is said to have died after being in a comma for one month, the daughter Haleh died while she was at her father’s funeral and as she was confronted by security agents who are reported to have tried to snatch a photograph of her father from her. Haleh was a recognized civil and human rights activist in her own right with wide respect in Iranian society.

Perhaps the best examples of the regime’s fear are the pressures that emerged on the family members of Ezzatollah’s death immediately after his death by the country’s security forces. Intelligence and security agents dictated to family members in no uncertain terms that a quick and quiet burial of Sahabi the father was the way to go with the death, despite the family’s resistance and protests to this. Haleh Sahabi and Yahya Mashayekhi, the child and a grand-child of Sahabi told Rooz before Haleh herself was killed that because of this pressure they had to change the mourning ceremony from 8:30am to 7am, when fewer people could gather and join the procession from the deceased’s house to the cemetery, which was a short distance away.

Mr. Mashayekhi said in this regard, “We accepted the change of an hour and a half simply to prevent any more larger requests that could have prevented the ceremony altogether. “

Ezzatollah Sahabi had been hospitalized on April 29 this year because of a stroke he had that completely paralyzed him and putting him in a comma at Modarres hospital in Tehran. His daughter Haleh Sahabi told Rooz late on Tuesday that even though her father had passed away at 2:10pm, she and others were told of this only at around 6pm.

 

Security Agents Had Been Prepared to Bury Him

Prior to informing his family members of Ezzatollah Sahabi’s death, security and intelligence agents positioned themselves around Sahabi’s house in the town of Lavasan. According to a Rooz reporter, there were agents from Babai autobahn to the door of Sahabi’s house covering a distance of about 15 kilometers.

Security agents also had stationed themselves in front of Sahabi’s house, where a number of members of Nehzate Azadi (Iran Freedom Party) and national-religious council members were arrested and subsequently released after a few hours of interrogations.

Reza Tajik and Yasser Maasoomi were among those who were interrogated at the ministry of intelligence after being detained in front of Sahabi’s house on Tuesday.

But security agents did not simply stay outside. They entered Sahabi’s house repeatedly where they stressed that the deceased had to be buried rapidly, issuing threats to use available regulations of the provincial security bureau.

 

Sahabi’s grandson Yahya Mashayekhi told Rooz, “Intelligence agents pressed for a short mourning ceremony and a quick burial, something that his family did not accept. Then they threatened that we would have more problems if we did not comply.”

Mashayekhi said that such pressures had existed since the day Sahabi went into a comma, a month earlier. They dictated the terms for the mourning ceremony, the burial etc, indicating that they had already thought about the events that would be taking place after the death of Sahabi.

His daughter Haleh, who at the time of her father’s death was on leave from prison told Rooz, “We held a quick memorial ceremony and want to walk the short distance from his house to the cemetery, but are not sure they will accept that.”

 

Fear of the Corpse

Dr Mohammad Maleki was a close friend of Sahabi and is a member of the religious-national council who told Rooz that the insistence of security and intelligence agents that the burial take place quickly and without fanfare indicated how scared the regime was of Sahabi’s corpse because of his national popularity and appeal. He added that these agents had even threatened to take the corpse and bury it themselves before the public arrived if their demands were not, something that Haleh also alluded to.

The last time Haleh Sahabi saw her father was during the Nowruz (New Year) holidays in late March when he went to visit her while she was held in Evin prison. She said he looked and felt good then. “Before asking about how I was, he asked about how other student prisoners such as Haleh Bahareh were doing in prison, and expressed his concern over their fate because they were at the time barred from any visitations and in a hunger strike.”

Haleh told Rooz on Tuesday that she did not realize why prison officials had given her leave, a few days prior to her father’s death. “It was when I came home that I realized that my father was in hospital and under what condition. When I saw him at the hospital, he was unconscious but I read out some poetry for him and talked with him while he could not respond. His eyes occasionally turned wet with teardrops,” she said.

Her son Yahya said he was not sure how long prison officials would allow his mother to remain on her out-of-prison visit.

Haleh told the Rooz reporter that in the last two years, Sahabi had been concerned about the Green Movement, while fully supporting it. “He had faith and believed in the young generation,” she said. “This generation understands the course of dialogue and fairness and rejects lies,” she quoted her father saying. She said that in her last visits from prison, her father who was still on his feet prior to his comma, talked about his own experience in prison as a way to ease her pain and predicament.

Sahabi was one of the most influential activists belonging to what is in Iran known as the national-religious groups. He was among the most popular and respected politicians and activists known for his honesty, sincerity and love for Iran. In a public letter in 2010 he prayed that God save Iran or end his life. “Where can I take the pain of the young women and men of this country,” reflecting on the many imprisoned activists who have been jailed since the disputed 2009 presidential elections.

 

Reactions to Sahabi’s Death

While government media in Iran refrained from publishing the news of Ezzatollah Sahabi’s death, political and religious groups and individuals published condolences and memorial statements on the occasion.

A number of right-wing newspaper while not publishing the actual news of the death, published the condolence message of Hashemi Rafsanjani. Some reformist and independent newspapers in contrast published not only the news of the death of this reformist but also stories on his life and his role in Iran’s political landscape, including photographs.

Iran Farda had many articles on Sahabi and mourned the passing of what he called was Iran’s dignity.

The council that includes the religious and national political groups, which was headed by Sahabi, published a statement on the occasion, saying that “everybody was a Sahabi from now on.” The statement said that Sahabi was an inclusive activist who wanted Iran for everybody, for which he spent many years of prison and torture. It said that he was concerned about the fate of Iran, during his final days, lamenting that he had not done anything for his homeland.

Shirin Ebadi, Iran’s only Nobel Peace laureate also commented on the event saying his only concern was Iran, which may end up in ruins.

Hashemi Rafsanjani, the head of the powerful State Expediency Council also sent a condolence message, as did Ahmad Montazeri (the son of the late reformist grand ayatollah). The message of the latter said that those who subjected Sahabi and others to torture and suffering would be questioned in the other world.

The Teachers Association of the Qom Theological Seminary also issued a statement calling Sahabi a role model for the youth and someone who strived to advance the cause of his country.

Among senior clerics, ayatollah Sanei and Bayat Zanjani both sent wrongly worded condolence messages, praising Sahabi for his political ethics and freedom loving dreams for his country, who had played an important role in the establishment of the Islamic republic of Iran.

Iran’s largest student alumni organization, Sazemane Danesh-Amookhtegane Iran Eslami (aka Advare Tahkim Vahdat) also sent a condolence message expressing pride and sympathy for a man who saw the prisons of the Shah’s regime as well as those of the Islamic republic, because neither had any toleration for any dissent. The student group called on all students to participate in the memorial and mourning ceremonies related to Sahabi.

The Coordinating Council of the Green movement also issued a statement, calling Iranians to participate in the passing of Sahabi.

Iran Participation Front, which still has many of its supporters behind bars, also issued a statement lauding Sahabi’s lifelong efforts for his country and Iranians.