Journalist for Newsweek, Channel 4 and other outlets Maziar Bahari has revealed how he was threatened with execution, tortured and frequently asked sexual questions during his 118-day imprisonment in Iran.
Channel 4 News broadcast a first in-depth interview with Bahari since his release in October and his return to London.
Speaking of his interrogators, Bahari said: ‘Mr Rosewater looked like the boss and he was obsessed with sex, which is a sign of many ideological in Iran and around the world, but especially in Iran and among the Revolutionary Guards.
“For a month he was asking me about my sex life and what he was imagining in his head. He was going through all the female names in my mobile phone, on my Facebook account and my email addresses and asking me one by one whether I had had sex with them.
“Of course there was some physical torture. He beat me, hit me with a belt, punched and kicked me but to me the scarier parts were these conversations because I could see he had a very wrong view of the world.
“Like everybody else, Mr Rosewater spoke to his family while he was at work. One day it was his wedding anniversary and his wife called and was obviously complaining that he was not at home with her.
“He was very loving on the phone to her and he was twisting my ears at the same time.”
Snow interviewed Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad shortly before Christmas and put some of Bahari’s allegations to him.
Jon Snow:
“Take Maziar Bahari who worked for Newsweek. He gets thrown into jail he is beaten in jail, he is tortured in jail, he has told me that himself.”
MA:
“And you have accepted his claims?”
JS:
“He is a man I have known for a long time – I trust him…”
MA:
“People say a lot of things. Do you think freedom prevails in US? And do you think the media in the US is free? Why aren’t people allowed to have demonstrations against the Zionists? Do you think all the media in the US I against the Palestinians? They are clear facts. We are not going to deceive each other – they are political and media games. And that period is over. It will have not effect in the world. They offer interpretations based on some lies.
“That period is over we should focus on realities and we should talk to each other based on those realities, based on the law. And I think that is a mistake made by the political politicians in the West. They make the media themselves – they create them and they say lies. And based on those lies they take political positions. And at the same time they insist that others should believe them.”
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