What was the regime[Pahlavi regime] which the people of Iran confronted? Which people formed this regime? These are very important questions. I will refer to two, three characteristics of this regime. As I said, today there are certain motives for distorting facts. That is to say, they are trying to ornament and decorate the face of the ugliest, the darkest, and the most malevolent rulers of this country in its recent history, in a way that the people cannot discover the truth, and in a way that they do not understand what they did to this Revolution.
One of the characteristics of the corrupt regime was a dark dictatorship that suppressed people with the cruelest methods. These methods may exist in other countries as well. We ourselves have witnessed up close what they did and how they behaved towards the people during the time of Reza Khan, our fathers had witnessed it and they used to narrate it for us, and the recent era when we ourselves were in the middle of the arena. Of course, youth have not seen those days. There are many reliable sources about what they used to do to the people, revolutionary activists, and those who even made the smallest criticism. They used to adopt extreme measures: torture the people, exert bizarre and strange pressures, and put people in startling prisons. Some of these prisons exist today, and people are greatly shocked when they visit them.
This was one of the things that they used to do. They used to preserve their power by behaving in an oppressive and dictatorial way and by exerting pressures on the people. The people who claim to support human rights today and who constantly repeat these ignominious claims used to support them with all their power. We cannot say that they were not aware of their oppressive measures. They were completely aware of them. It was the Zionists, the Americans and the CIA that created the hellish SAVAK. It was they who taught them their methods. How could they not know about it? Recently, it has become clear that they themselves have faced great problems because of these organizations. How can we add together the recent revelations about the behavior of the intelligence service of America towards its opponents and the statements that they make about freedom of expression, liberalism, democracy and attention to people's opinions? It is a strange world. This was one of the characteristics of that malevolent regime in our country: adopting extreme measures and showing utmost cruelty towards anyone who made the slightest criticism.
The second characteristic was their humiliating dependence on foreign powers. Of course, they deny this through the books that they write to acquit the evil Pahlavi regime, but it is not deniable. Reza Khan came to power at the command of the English. He had no other source of support. It was they who brought him to power and it was they who brought him down when they deemed it necessary. He came and left at the command of the English. Later on, the English brought Mohammad Reza to power and they managed to take affairs in their hands until the late 1320s. From the early 1330s, The Americans entered the arena and took all affairs in their hands. Policies were formulated by the Americans. Government officials used to do what America's interests dictated, whether in their domestic or in their regional and international behavior. They used to do exactly what the Americans wanted. This means the great humiliation of the people of Iran. This was one of the characteristics of that evil regime. This is why the Americans look at the people of Iran, the Islamic Revolution and the Islamic Republic with such defiance, enmity and grudge. This is because they used to witness that era. They have lost such a country and such a system. Therefore, their enmity with the Revolution is endless.
The third characteristic of that malevolent regime was corruption: different kinds of corruption such as sexual corruption which included all courtiers and their companions. The stories about their sexual decadence are too humiliating to mention. In those days, the people knew about their sexual corruption, but they did not dare mention it. Sometimes, it was leaked through foreigners. They used to say certain things about their sexual and financial corruption, not only among ordinary officials which can occur at any time, but also in the highest levels of the country. Mohammad Reza himself and his close friends were involved in the highest levels of financial corruption, in the biggest bribes, in the worst transgressions, and in the most malevolent pressures on the financial resources of the people. They used to accumulate wealth for themselves by impoverishing the people.
Promoting corruption--including sexual and financial--and addictive and industrial drugs had been carried out by the main elements of Iran's government in those days. The Swiss police arrested one of Mohammad Reza's sisters at the airport while she was carrying a suitcase full of heroin. The news spread throughout the world, but they whitewashed it very soon. Well, this disgrace was related to themselves and they covered it up. It was such a horrible situation at that time.
Another characteristic of that regime was that it used to ignore the people. This was one of the most important characteristics of the taghuti regime. The people were not seen at all. During our youth, in times of the previous regime, we never participated in an election, nor did we witness this from the people on the streets. This is because there was no election. Sometimes overtly and sometimes less overtly, they acted on their own. That is to say, they used to elect a bunch of mercenaries, and through them they made their own decisions in the Majlis and in the Senate. The people did not at all know who was in charge of affairs. There was no relationship between the people and the government. The political awareness that exists among the people today is the exact opposite of what existed in those days. That malevolent regime was completely separate from the people.
Other characteristics were lack of attention towards scientific progress, promotion of national timidity, and magnification of western culture. There was no progress in scientific work and there was no scientific movement in the real sense of the word. Through media, they accustomed the people to imports, and this habit has, unfortunately, prevailed today. The long-term habits that people acquire are not easily kicked. Instead of drawing the country towards reviving domestic production and reliance on the true resources of the people, they accustomed the people--with oil revenues--to imports. They changed the people's tastes, they destroyed agriculture, they destroyed the real and national industries of the country, and they made the country completely dependent on foreigners and the enemies of our people. They humiliated the people, they undermined their capabilities by speaking about it, and they magnified western culture. It was a deceptive and malevolent regime which incorporated all kinds of evil.
