The Wardman Wire

A defecting member of the infamous Basij militia, the men who wounded and killed in the aftermath of the Iran elections in the summer, tells Lindsey Hilsum of Channel 4 News what he knows.

News report on Channel 4 website.

“I’ve lost my world and I’ve lost my religion” – the words of a former Iranian Basij militia member who says he witnessed killings and tried to stop rapes during the uprising that followed the disputed Presidential election in June.

After months of stories by witnesses and victims, we are now getting a picture of what went on by a man who claims he was part of the group ordered to carry out attacks.

He is now seeking refuge in the UK and has spoken exclusively to Channel 4 News about the orders the Basij were given to ensure President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won the election.

Lindsey Hilsum blogpost:

Aged 27, he had been a member of the Basij for as long as he could remember, born into a deeply religious family, utterly loyal to the Islamic Revolution and above all to the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamanei.

For “Sayyed”, as we’ll call him, Ayatollah Khamanei was the incarnation of the 12th Imam, the equivalent of the Messiah in Shi’a Islam. Not far short of God, in other words.

So he didn’t question it when commanders told his Basij unit, months before the election, that the Supreme Leader had decreed that Ahmadinejad should win. Nor even when they were told to ignore the desires of illiterate voters and vote for Ahmadinejad on their behalf.

He had a twinge when he realised they were simply “disappearing” the ballot boxes with the votes of young people, who mainly voted for the opposition.

As he described how they were armed with batons, cables and other weapons and told to attack protestors, he started to cry.