Abbas Amir-Entezam (
Persian: عباس امیرانتظام, 18 August 1932 – 12 July 2018) was the spokesman and deputy prime minister in the
Interim Cabinet of
Mehdi Bazargan in 1979. In 1981 he was sentenced to life imprisonment on charges of spying for the U.S., a charge critics suggest was a cover for retaliation against his early opposition to
theocratic government in Iran. He was "the longest-held political prisoner in the Islamic Republic of Iran".
[1] According to Fariba Amini, as of 2006 he had "been in jail for 17 years and in and out of jail for the last ten years, altogether for 27 years."
[2]
In December 1979 Bazargan asked Entezam, who had been serving as ambassador to Sweden, to come back quickly to Tehran.
[2] Upon returning to Tehran, he was arrested
[2] because of allegations based on some documents retrieved from
U.S. embassy takeover, and imprisoned for a life term. He was released in 1998, but in less than 3 months,
[8] he was arrested again because of an interview with
Tous daily newspaper, one of the reformist newspapers of the time.
In smuggled letters, Entezam has related that on three separate occasions, he had been taken blindfolded to the execution chamber - once being kept "there two full days while the Imam contemplated his death warrant." He has spent 555 days in solitary confinement, and in cells so "overcrowded that inmates took turns sleeping on the floor - each person rationed to thee hours of sleep every 24 hours." He suffered permanent ear damage, skin disease, and spinal deformities."
[9] He has attacked the regime saying
Islam is a religion of care, compassion, and forgiveness. This regime makes it a religion of destruction, death, and torture.
[9]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abbas_Amir-Entezam
ABBAS AMIR-ENTEZAM: A SONG OF PATIENCE AND RESILIENCE
https://tavaana.org/en/content/abbas-amir-entezam-song-patience-and-resilience
Celebrating Nosratollah Amini's life held on June 28, 2008