Khadijeh Mossadegh : A Collateral Tragedy

In 1940, during the reign of Reza Shah, Mohammad Mossadegh was arrested and his home ransacked. He was bound by rope, dragged to jail and later transferred to the infamous prison in Birjand.

His youngest child Khadijeh, then 13 years old, became distraught after learning about the cruel treatment of her father to whom she had tremendous attachment. This incident and her fear of losing her father made Khadijeh, already a very sensitive child, so depressed that she succumbed to a "trance" from which she did not recover. Khadijeh received various treatments including lobotomy, an accepted surgical treatment at the time. As a result, she became quiet and spoke very little; yet she could not sit down for long and her memory was generally limited to the events before her surgery. In 1942 she was sent to Switzerland where she stayed in various psychiatric hospitals.

Mossadegh considered his daughter's fate the cruelest punishment that man or Shah could have ever inflicted on him.

Khadijeh remained hospitalized until her death in 2002.