Word: savak
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...member Iranian secret police force SAVAK (a contraction of the Farsi words for security and information organization) has long been Iran's most hated and feared institution. With virtually unlimited powers to arrest and interrogate, SAVAK has tortured and murdered thousands of the Shah's opponents. Last week, in fulfillment of a promise made by Prime Minister Shahpour Bakhtiar, the assembly approved a bill abolishing SAVAK and establishing a new National Intelligence Center, without police powers. The No. 2 man in SAVAK agreed to an unprecedented interview with TIME Correspondent David S. Jackson at the organization...
...charges against SAVAK: We do admit there have been some mistakes in the past. But they have been distorted. It is said that SAVAK has been brutal. If SAVAK receives information about a terrorist group, and we go to arrest this group, do you think they will not resist? Of course they will. Resistance brings violence, and you should expect a similar response from our side. We're like the CIA. If we have ten activities and nine of them are successful, only the failure gets worldwide attention. You never hear the good things we do. Some people think...
...political prisoners: In January, demonstrators paraded a man who was blind and had lost his arms. They said SAVAK did this to him, and they called him a hero. In fact, he was a terrorist who lost his sight and was maimed when a bomb he was making exploded. If SAVAK had been responsible for his injuries, we could easily have got rid of him. We would not have let him live as a document of torture...
...SAVAK's future: Those of us who have reached retirement age will be retired. Those who are not needed or who have bad records will be let go. Others will be transferred to other organizations or to the Prime Minister's office. Some will go to the new National Intelligence Center. It will be worse for the younger agents. They have not been working long enough to prove themselves; yet they are blamed in all the bad publicity, and they can do nothing about it. Now they will lose their salaries. Many of us will have problems making...
...Commando Organization of the Warriors of the Constitution." They threatened "guerrilla warfare" and "unprecedented slaughter" if the 1906 royalist constitution were overturned. These self-styled warriors also threatened to assassinate anyone who joined the Ayatullah's revolutionary council. Khomeini loyalists charged that provocateurs?suspected of being either agents of SAVAK or underground Communists, who have the most to gain from chaos?were inciting violence. Gangs of street toughs burned down a beer factory, a nightclub, and numerous slum dwellings in the city's red-light district. The apparent motive was to make the revolutionary movement seem fanatical and violent...