A blogger has interviewed a friend of Taraneh Mousavi, who we reported on a few days ago. She was last seen being dragged off by the Islamic regime’s security agents. Her burnt body has now been found.

Her friend, Sh. Says:

‘Taraneh was very beautiful and very kind; she used to sing with a beautiful warm voice and played the piano with skill. I cannot imagine that all this life and beauty should be buried under dust and dirt, without mercy.’

Sh. is speaking haltingly, and I ask her:

When did the family learn that the body had turned up?

‘They went to Ghazvin yesterday to get her burned body. But as much as we asked them they wouldn’t tell us any details and neither did they tell us where they want to bury her. They have been threatened heavily and are very afraid.’

Was Taraneh arrested on 7th Tir (28th June) near Ghoba mosque?

‘Yes. On that day, Taraneh was wearing a green shawl and manteau and high heeled shoes and because she also had beautiful green eyes, she probably caught the attention of the plain clothes agents. But she wasn’t participating in the rally and she cried and said so many times to the agents, but they threw her into a van with other detainees. Her car was parked in the vicinity and she was on the way to her Beauticians’ Training Establishment which is situated near Hosseinie Ershad.’

And then they brought her to a detention centre?

‘Yes, they brought her and about 40 other blindfolded boys and girls to a secret detention centre, a building with high walls on Pasdaran Street, and put them in a large room. They were harassing the girls very much and Taraneh’s interrogation took longer than the others’…

Did Taraneh give her phone number to the others there?

‘Yes, when she had come back to the others from her long interrogation she said she had been harassed and asked some of the others to call her parents and some of her friends and tell them that she had been arrested. She was crying all the time, and when they allowed all the girls except her to call home briefly she grew even more worried.

‘Then they took all the detainees away from this building; some were taken to Evin and others to Nobonyad police station. Only Taraneh they kept with them, which worried all the other detainees.’

And afterwards, were her family and friends contacted?

‘Yes, the other detainees who were freed the same evening or the next days and had the numbers were all worried about Taraneh’s state, as they had seen the savage behaviour of the agents. They called Taraneh’s family and friends and told them she had been arrested.’

And did the family follow up?

‘Yes, after some days they found her car but there was no trace of her until last week…’

…when an unidentified person called…

‘Yes, an unidentified person, probably one of her abductors, called and said Taraneh had a moral problem and that she hadn’t been arrested at all. He said she had been raped and her womb and anus had been torn and she had wanted to kill herself by throwing herself in front of a car. He said she had been brought to Imam Khomeini Hospital in Karaj and that she had also tried to kill herself there with a serum tube.

‘The family immediately went to the hospital but Taraneh’s name wasn’t registered at the hospital. However one of the nurses confidentially told one of her friends that some days previously a girl with these particulars had been brought to the hospital unconscious and had been removed again after a couple of hours.

‘Hearing this, we guessed that Taraneh had probably been brought to the hospital in the last moments of her life after suffering repeated rape. We grew very worried.’

At this stage, what enquiries did Taraneh’s family make?

‘Our main problem was the family’s silence and the fear they had that the story would come out. Taraneh’s mother and father are very religious and over sixty; Taraneh was their only child, which they had had after years of praying and longing and medication, and they had given her a good life. But when this happened they became very afraid and didn’t talk to us any more. But after all we are her friends too and have a right to know where her body is and where she will be buried.’

Is there no information at all about the funeral ceremony?

‘No. Yesterday the family were informed that a burnt corpse fitting Taraneh’s description had been found between Karaj and Qazvin. The family has been threatened severely not to talk about their daughter’s arrest.’

Now that this story has come out in the media and in the weblogs, do you think the truth will be found out?

‘I just want Taraneh’s voice to go on, and our call that our most beautiful friend has been cruelly taken from us, that they have raped her brutally for several days and then burned her lifeless body and tossed her out in the desert.

‘When Taraneh sang, her beautiful voice was always in my ear, but from yesterday until now I have only been hearing her screams. Taraneh’s suffering was over, but our pain and suffering will remain with us as long as we live; she was our Taraneh [song].’

More news of arrests yesterday

Yesterday, lawyer Shadi Sadr was arrested by plainclothes security forces; she was dragged into a car and driven away with several others.