... Massoumeh Ebtekar. She was vice president of the Islamic Republic of Iran and head of the department of environment there from 1997-2005. But Ebtekar has another name — “Screaming Mary." It was given to her by the American press during the 1979 Iranian hostage crisis. Mary was her nom de guerre and Ebtekar was the hostage-takers’ spokesperson.
A December 2004 article in The Atlantic Monthly provides more details about the U.N.’s latest "Champion":
she was especially disliked by many of the hostages…in part because of her endless propagandizing. She would saunter through the captured embassy with a camera crew in tow, urging the hostages to describe their ordeal in upbeat terms. “You have been treated well, haven’t you?” was her constant refrain. During one such filming session, in the final days of captivity, Army Sergeant Regis Regan got so fed up with Ebtekar that he let loose with a stream of invective and was dragged into a hallway for a beating.
A 1998 New York Times article recounts that she was asked by an ABC News correspondent whether she could see herself picking up a gun and killing the hostages — to which she responded “Yes. When I’ve seen an American gun being lifted up and killing my brothers and sisters in the streets, of course.”
Screaming Mary has no regrets. New York Times journalist Elaine Sciolino elaborated, in her book Persian Mirrors, on a conversation she had with Ebtekar in 1998:
I asked Ebtekar about the wisdom of the embassy takeover. She offered no apology; she made no excuses. “I wouldn’t think that it would be logical for any nation to look back and see any part of its revolution or its movement as negative,” she said. “That was the best direction that could have been taken.” She said the embassy was seized to preserve what she called “the values” of the revolution…“The action was a natural consequence of decisions that had been taken by the Americans....”
