August 09, 2019
It was 20 years ago that Ahmad Batebi became the face of the 1999 student protests in Tehran, the largest demonstrations against the regime since the revolution, as of then.
A photo of Batebi holding up the bloody t-short of another demonstrator appeared on the cover of The Economist of London and became the iconic representation of those protests.
Twenty years later, Batebi lives in the United States where he is a vocal supporter 
Batebi recently talked to IranWire about his experiences and how they have changed his views—and why he is a Republican.
“I consider myself a Republican because, unlike the Democrats, the Republicans take responsibility for what they do. Take abortion, for example. Democrats say that a woman’s body is her own and she is free to do it, but the Republicans say: you must accept responsibility before you get pregnant, meaning that you must go back two steps, teach women and give them the means to prevent pregnancy so that there will be no need for abortion. But the Democrats do not accept responsibility for what they say and hide behind words like liberty and democracy.”
Turning to foreign policy, Batebi said, “The Republicans are much more serious than the Democrats in how they think and make decisions about Iran. They really believe in democracy for Iran. I believe that the businessmen and those for whom democracy has no meaning, and who only think about US-Iran relations in term of their own profits, adopt the identity of a Democrat. But the Republicans’ priority is freedom and democracy for the Iranian people.”
Batebi found much more to fault in the Democratic Party. “Let us look at history. Whenever Iran suffered a disaster, it was the Democrats who were in power. They were in power during the 1979 Revolution. When the Green Movement wanted to change things, President Obama was president and he ruined things. So, whenever Democrats have been in power, they have followed a weak policy in regards to Iran.”
But Batebi made clear that he does not want to see a war between the United States and Iran. “Nobody wants war. The question of war is a means for political grandstanding. Everybody wants to say that he is a good guy, so he accuses somebody else of warmongering and puts himself on the opposite side.
“But which war are we talking about? For many reasons war is not going to happen unless the Islamic Republic itself starts it. The American government is deep in debt and, financially, lacks the means to enter a full-scale war. And American public opinion does not favor a war. If, during the Gulf War people were ready to pay the costs and start a war, it was because of 9/11, when thousands of innocent people were killed. Then you need another 9/11 to start a war and that is not going to happen.”
Batebi then turned to the US sanctions imposed on Iran. “Some say that we are placing sanctions on the Iranian people. No, we are putting sanctions on the Revolutionary Guards terrorist organization and [we have] succeeded. We are also after putting sanctions on the IRIB [state broadcasting] and entities like the Martyrs Foundation, Astan Quds Razavi and the Endowments Organization, which annually handle billions of dollars. We are for sanctions until the point when the Iranian government will not be able to take the money that belongs to the Iranian people out of Iran and spend it on the Yemen’s Houthis, Iraq’s Hashd al-Shaabi [Popular Mobilization Forces], the Lebanese Hezbollah and Syria’s Bashar al-Assad.”
The chain of events that led to Batebi gracing the cover of The Economist started July 6, 1999, when the daily Salaam published a confidential letter on planned legislation to curb press freedom—and was shut down by the Judiciary.
On July 8, students from the University of Tehran held a demonstration to protest the closure. Then, at midnight, plainclothes police and vigilantes from the paramilitary Ansar-e Hezbollah (Supporters of the Party of God) attacked the students’ dormitory, beating up students and ransacking their rooms. Clashes on the streets of Tehran lasted for five days and, according to the Human Rights Activists in Iran group, led to the deaths of at least seven students and the arrests of dozens.
Ahmad Batebi was arrested after his photo graced The Economist. The court sentenced him to death for holding up the blood-stained shirt, a sentence that was reduced to 15 years in prison on appeal. After serving nine years of his sentence, Batebi was given a furlough, which he used to escape Iran. In 2008 he arrived in the United States, where he was given asylum.
Batebi says the experience soured him on those criticizing the regime in Iran but not seeking to topple it.
“My biggest regret is that, in a period of contemporary Iran, changes for the better were possible but did not happen because of procrastination, inefficiency and the broken promises of one group of people. At the beginning, the Reformist movement had popular support and many, including me, paid the price….
“I was tortured to say that the Reformists were involved in street riots. I was tortured so that I would say that Mostafa Tajzadeh [an Interior Ministry official under President Khatami] had ordered us to destroy public property. Or to accuse many of the prominent figures of the Reformist movement of wrongdoings so that they could trump up charges against them.
“But I resisted all of this and never signed anything against them because, at that time, I felt that they really believed in reforms. I believed that freedom, democracy and change were their priorities. Had I accepted and confessed, I would have not spent nearly a decade in prison.”
Batebi said, “I realized that their priority was not democracy, freedom and reforming society. Their only priority was the preservation of the regime. Many of the Reformists and [conservative] Principleists are relatives [of people in power] and they benefit from preserving this regime. The priority of these gentlemen was not change or reforms but protecting the regime and its continuity.”