IMPACT OF INTERNET
Beheshti's death exposed Iran's political fissures as a handful of lawmakers badgered President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's government and the judiciary into ordering an inquiry.
But the most effective tool in publicizing Beheshti's unusual death was the one he had chosen - the Internet."I really do believe this is one of the great examples of the impact of the Internet in Iran," said Mahmood Enayat, director of the Iran Media program at the University of Pennsylvania and the founder of Small Media, a non-profit group that focuses on improving information flows in closed societies.
The Internet had become a watchdog, forcing the government to react to anything gathering enough attention, he argued.
"They can't just ignore it anymore."
Although many of the details of Beheshti's detention and death are murky, some are no longer in dispute. On the night of October 30, he was arrested at his home in Robat Karim and transferred to section 350 of Tehran's notorious Evin prison.
Fellow prisoners there said he was hung from the ceiling of a cell and beaten. His arms and legs were then tied to a chair and he was beaten again. At times, his interrogators threw him on the ground and kicked him in the head and neck.
A group of political prisoners talked to Beheshti while he was detained, and slipped out a letter based on their observations and his account to opposition activists.
"When they brought Sattar to section 350, the marks of torture were visible on all parts of his body," said the letter signed by 41 prisoners and published on opposition websites.
Despite his injuries, Beheshti filed a complaint about his treatment to prison officials. Shortly before he was transferred to another detention facility, Beheshti told his fellow prisoners that his captors intended to kill him. Four days later, authorities informed his family that he was dead.
After Beheshti's death, security forces warned his family not to talk to media outlets, and security agents threatened to arrest Beheshti's sister if the family did not sign a consent form regarding the circumstances of his death, his mother said in an interview with the Persian service of German radio Deutsche Welle.
BLOOD-STAINED SHROUD
The family was also offered diye, or blood money, but Beheshti's mother, Gohar Eshqi, refused. When the family was allowed to see Beheshti's body, they noticed that blood from his knee and head had stained the burial shroud.
"They killed him and handed me back his body," Eshqi said in an interview with the pro-opposition Saham News website.
On December 13, a small crowd of friends, neighbors and family gathered to commemorate the fortieth day after Beheshti's death at his gravesite. The previous day security agents tore up notices about the ceremony in the neighborhood, Beheshti's sister Sahar told Kalame, another opposition website.
Videos of the event posted online show Eshqi, Beheshti's mother, holding his picture and shouting "I'm proud of my son" and "My son's killers must be executed." Police later attacked the crowd and beat Eshqi, wounding her leg, Sahar said.
Kalame published pictures of Eshqi's injuries.
Few Iranians could have predicted that Beheshti's death would make any waves. But the Internet buzz kept building. Websites linked with the opposition Green Movement took up the cause and published details of his detention and physical abuse. That led even conservative bloggers to speak out, concerned that the case would damage the image of the Islamic Republic.
The cyber police, a unit within the Iranian police force, was created in January 2011 with a relatively broad mandate.
While the Revolutionary Guards and Intelligence Ministry do their own web surveillance, the cyber police are mainly responsible for tracking down dissidents online.
They are also responsible for blocking websites with controversial content and for pursuing cases of web sabotage.
Earlier this year, new cyber police guidelines directed all Internet cafes to install cameras to monitor customers.
But in Beheshti's case, little sophisticated surveillance was necessary - he was blogging openly under his own name.
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