Noureddin Kianouri , communist political leader

Kianouri mentioned how he had come to realize that communism was essentially alien to the people of Iran, and that the party was plagued by private jealousies and corruption. Throughout his presentation he kept his hands under the table: it had been broken during interrogation.(In 1995, he testified to the United Nations Human Rights Commission, denouncing “the torture and other inhumane practices carried out in the Islamic Republic’s prisons”.) His wife, who had fallen ill during solitary confinement, was released on medical ground and placed under house arrest; he joined her a year later, on the condition that he remain quiet to the media. Later, “in an open letter to Khomeini, Kianouri recorded a horrific catalogue of maltreatment and tortures meted out to him and his wife during their imprisonment”. He died in 1999.