Sacred Defense POW writes captivity stories

Ahmad Yousef Zadeh who spent 8 years of his life in Saddam’s prison camps has finished writing stories of his captivity in a memoir entitled as Those 23.

IBNA: The book title stands from the number of the teens attending the Beitol Moghadas operation during the Sacred Defense by Iranian forces. The 23 were captured by Iraqi forces during the operation and were taken to Saddam’s detention camps, and were meant to be exploited as a took against Iran, but after they went on a five-day hunger strike, Iraqi forces backed out and agreed to give them what they wanted, said Yousef Zadeh in an interview with IBNA.

As he said, of the 23, one has died and the rest are still alive. A documentary was made of their captivity by Mehdi Jafai in 2006 and the book is based on the information gathered in the film.

Elsewhere in his interview, Yousef Zadeh related stories about his captivity, and posited that everyone captured by Iraqis should write a book on their memories given the fact that everyone has their own perspectives. There are many aspects of the Sacred Defense that have never been fathomed out so far.