Rebels of Khorasan

Drawn from the Quchan Gendarmerie archive, this collection of photographs and glass negatives of outlaws, insurgents, and detainees in the Khorasan province of north-eastern Iran between the years 1952-1954 is one of a kind. The files were kept by SAVAK - the secret police of the Imperial State of Iran, established in 1957 - and later seized by the Islamic Revolution Committee following the 1979 revolution. They include handwritten notes by gendarmerie officers describing the perpetrators and situation in the region. Years later, the 36 files ended up in an antique shop in Tabriz, where the authors found and purchased them, curious to investigate this unique window into history.