Exclusive: Norwegian student Was forced to watch the mass killing in Iran, on Dec 2009

Majid Tavakoli's Physical Condition Seriously Deteriorating

Source: Negar Irani’s Posterous

Sunday June 27th, 2010. According to reports by HRANA, even though Majid Tavakoli's physical condition has seriously deteriorated, to date, prison officials have done nothing to treat him. Tavakoli is a well known student activist in Iran, transferred to room #2 in Evin's general ward 350 on June 22nd, 2010.

HRANA reports that due to the harsh prison conditions and in particular Tavakoli's dry hunger strike while he was in solitary confinement in ward 240, he is now suffering from a serious lung condition that is rapidly deteriorating with the passing of each day.

The medicines Tavakoli been prescribed by a doctor is no longer sufficient. Dr. Behzadian Nejad, Tavakoli's prison mate, has recommended that he stop using them due to possible adverse consequences.

Majid Tavakoli is currently being held in room #2 at ward 350 in Evin (formerly room #5). Since his transfer he has only been allowed a 2 minute phone conversation with his family.

As a result of the recent construction efforts many of the imprisoned political prisoners have been transferred from other areas in ward 350 (particularly section 7 and 8) to area, that has more restrictions than other general wards in the prison.

It is worth mentioning that Majid Tavakoli a former student at Amir Kabir University in Tehran, was sentenced to 8 1/2 years in prison and has been incarcerated since December 7th 2009.

Source: http://www.daneshjoonews.com/news/student/1705-1389-04-06-08-57-41.html


شرایط جسمی وخیم مجید توکلی در بند ۳۵۰
يكشنبه, ۰۶ تیر ۱۳۸۹

مجید توکلی، از فعالین معروف جنبش دانشجویی ایران که از اول تیرماه به بند 350 منتقل شده است، در شرایط جسمی نامساعدی به سر می برد و مسئولان نسبت به رسیدگی به وضعیت وی بی توجه اند.

بنا به اطلاع گزارشگران هرانا، آقای توکلی که به دلیل شرایط سخت زندان عموما و اعتصاب غذا در سلول انفرادی بند 240 خصوصا به نارسایی ریوی مبتلا شده است روز به روز شرایط وخیم تری پیدا می کند.

این روند تاجایی است که داروهای قبلی که توسط پزشک برای این زندانی سیاسی تجویز شده بود، دیگر جوابگوی وضعیت وی نیست و دکتر بهزادیان نژاد، هم بند وی، توصیه کرده که دیگر از این دارو ها استفاده نکند چرا که عواقب خواهد داشت.

مجید توکلی اکنون در اتاق 2 بند 350 (اتاق 5 قدیم) محبوس است و از زمان انتقال تاکنون تنها موفق به برقراری یک تماس 2 دقیقه ای با خانواده ی خود شده است.

مدتی است که علی رغم ساخت و ساز و شرایط نامطلوب بند 350، زندانیان سیاسی محبوس در سایر بندها (خصوصا اندرزگاه های7-8) را به این مکان منتقل می کنند. در این بند نسبت به سایر بندهای عمومی، محدودیت های بیش تری به زندانیان اعمال می شود.

لازم به یادآوری است که مجید توکلی، دانشجوی دانشگاه پلی تکنیک تهران، از 16 آذر سال 88 تاکنون در زندان به سر می برد و با حکمی 8 و نیم ساله مواجه است.

هرانا

Death Row Inmate Hadi Aravand Killed by Prison Guards in Sari

RAHANA – Sari Prison’s warden has claimed that Aravand’s death was the result of suicide, but the coroner ruled that the young man died after being suffocated to death.

Torture and bruise mark were visible on Aravand’s body, including a broken arm, wounds on his back and a 1cm deep slit around his neck ruling out any possibility of suicide. Cuts around Aravand’s wrists and ankles prove that he suffered an agonizing death, according to a family member who talked to a RAHANA reporter.

The relative added that Hadi Aravand was moved out of his cell at 5pm on April 30, and an hour later his wounded body was delivered to the Sari hospital.

The coroner has confirmed that, at the time of his death, Arvand’s arms were tied behind his back and his legs were tied together, ruling out the possibility that the death occurred as a result of suicide. The coroner’s report says that the young man died after he was suffocated with a plastic bag while his arms and his legs were tied.

According to the inmates, this is the 4th suspicious death in 7 months since Abedi was appointed as the prison’s new warden.

The 23-year-old Aravand was awaiting his execution which was scheduled to be carried out 3 months later. He was arrested on March 19 2008 after killing someone during a street fight. Aravand was buried in Soural near Sari on Sunday May 9.

Farsi text: RHANA

قتل یک زندانی توسط ماموران زندان ساری

رهانا: رییس زندان مدعی خودکشی وی با ملحفه است، اما پزشکی قانونی خفگی را علت مرگ می‌داند.

آثار و کبودی شکنجه در همه قسمت‌های بدن هادی اراوند دیده می‌شد؛ به طوری‌که یکی از دست‌ها شکسته بود و پشتش هم زخمی بود. دور گردن هم به عمق یک سانتیمتر بریده بود؛ که امکان خودکشی را از بین می‌برد. یکی از آشنایان وی با اعلام این مطالب به خبرنگار رهانا اضافه می‌کند که البته بریدگی مچ دست و پا بیانگر این است که چقدر در حال مرگ به وی فشار وارد شده است

وی در ادامه گفت: هادی روز جمعه ۱۰ اردیبهشت، حول و حوش ساعت ۵ از بندش به بیرون منتقل شد و ساعتی بعد جسد مجروح و زخمی‌اش در بیمارستان امام ساری بود.

طبق تائید پزشکی قانونی در هنگام مرگ پاها به صورت ضربدری و دست ها ازپشت بسته بودند و امکان هیچ گونه خودکشی وجود نداشت و در این حالت بست پلاستیکی را به گردنش انداختند و آن را کشیدند که باعث خفگی و در نهایت مرگ این زندانی شده است.

بنا به گفته زندانی‌ها از زمان ورود رئیس جدید زندان «عابدی» در ۷ ماه گذشته زندان ساری شاهد ۴ مورد مرگ مشکوک بوده است که نشان دهنده‌ی وضعیت بد زندان ساری است

هادی اراوند، ۲۳ ساله، از زندانی‌های محکوم به اعدام بوده است که سه ماه به اجرای حکم‌اش باقی مانده بود. وی در ۲۹ اسفند ۸۶ در نزاع خیابانی مرتکب قتل شده بود و روز یکشنبه هفته قبل در آرامگاه شهر سورک در چند کیلومتری ساری به خاک سپرده شد.

پایان پیام

Iran acknowledges prisoners were beaten to death

By ALI AKBAR DAREINI, The Associated Press, December 19, 2009

TEHRAN, Iran -- After months of denials, Iran acknowledged Saturday that at least three people detained in the country's postelection turmoil were beaten to death by their jailers. 

The surprise announcement by the hard-line judiciary confirmed one of the opposition's most devastating and embarrassing claims against authorities and the elite Revolutionary Guard forces that led the crackdown after June's disputed presidential vote. […]

The judiciary also said it has charged 12 officials at Kahrizak prison - three of them with murder, but it did not identify them. The prison, on the southern outskirts of the capital, Tehran, was at the center of the opposition's claims that prisoners were tortured and raped in custody.

Full story in Washington Post.  

BBC Newsnight report on the protests 4 November

The opposition movement is far from being crushed

After weeks of relative silence the protests flared up again all over Iran on 4 November. Hundreds of protesters were arrested or beaten up in the streets. The opposition movement is still very much alive!

From the video: The opposition leaders are following the crowd. They are not leading the people.

Stop Child Executions!

- and Release Innocent Prisoners!

Thousands of people are injustly arrested, tortured, raped, and possibly even executed in Iran. Many of these victims are only minors. We must stop these injustices. Think of your own daughters, sons, brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, friends, etc and ask yourself if it were them, or better yet if it were you, would you not want someone to help? Please sign petitions and act loudly against such acts. We accomplish so many things peacefully. We must all join in an stop this injustice done to our fellow humans. The song is called "Coma" and it is by Buckethead feat. Azam Ali and Serj Tankian.

A video made by @thesilentdove

Justice Islamic Republic Style

Warning. Graphic content!

Torture in Iran - CBS 60 Minutes

April 5, 2009

Ahmad Batebi tells CNN's Anderson Cooper, in his 1st U.S. television interview how he was tortured for 9 years in an Iranian prison and how he managed to escape.

At least 200 killed in Tehran alone

- in the wake of the post election unrest

Times online has done some excellent reporting on human rights violations in Iran in the wake of the post election unrest. On September 18, the paper revelaed that they had been given access to several documents suggesting that the killings, rape and torture stories that have leaked out of Iran since June, is part of a systematic program ordered by the highest authorities and aimed at breaking the opposition.

Excerpts from the article:

'Torture, murder and rape' — Iran’s way of breaking the opposition

Times online. September 18, 2009

[…] The Times has been given access to 500 pages of documents […] They suggest that security forces have engaged in systematic killing and torture to try to break the opposition.

“The use of rape and torture was similar across prisons in Tehran and the provinces. It is difficult not to conclude that the highest authorities planned and ordered these actions. Local authorities would not dare take such actions without word from above,” wrote one investigator, in a coded reference to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Supreme Leader.

Mehdi Karoubi, 72, a defeated presidential candidate, said: “These crimes are a source of shame for the Islamic republic.”

Western non-governmental organisations said the documents corroborated what they were hearing from Iran […]

“We are repeatedly receiving credible reports of harsh beatings, sleep deprivation and alleged torture to extract false confessions in Iranian jails,” said Steve Crawshaw, UN director of Human Rights Watch. “Iran has fallen off the front pages but this doesn’t mean the situation is improving. On the contrary, we very much fear it is getting worse.”

The documents suggest that at least 200 demonstrators were killed in Tehran, with 56 others still unaccounted for, and that 173 were killed in other cities. These are several times higher than the official figures. Just over half of the 200 were killed on the streets. […]

The rest of Tehran’s 200 known victims died in custody […] In three quarters of the cases, the victims’ families were told nothing about their whereabouts and were denied permission to hold proper funerals. The opposition claims that dozens were buried in unmarked graves in Behesht-e Zahra cemetery. […]

The documents also suggest that a chain of unofficial, makeshift prisons has been set up across Iran where rape and torture are common practice. In Tehran alone, 37 young men and women claim to have been raped by their jailers. Doctors’ reports say that two males, aged 17 and 22, died as a result of severe internal bleeding after being raped.

Many of the male rape victims also spoke of beatings, being subjected to forms of sexual humiliation including riding naked colleagues, and living in their underwear and in filthy conditions. Some testified that prisoners were subjected to torture including beatings, electrocution and having their toenails torn out. […]

Female rape victims were mostly held for days, not weeks, like the men. Some said that their jailers claimed to have “religious sanction” to violate them as they were “morally dirty”.

Almost all, male and female, testified that they were ordered to say nothing of their ordeal or they would face more of the same.

The documents detail other systematic abuses: violent raids on student dormitories, attacks on the homes of suspected opposition sympathisers and the widespread intimidation of medics. They cite instances of security forces storming hospitals and ordering doctors not to treat injured demonstrators, not to record deaths by gunshot and to suppress medical reports indicating rape or torture. […]

[Karroubi]: “There are no few stories about the rape of girls and boys in prison. I say to myself three decades after the revolution and two decades after the death of the Imam [Ayatollah Khomeini] — what place have we reached?”

Read full story here

Ebrahim Sharifi on Radio Farda

Rape victim Ebrahim Sharifi did an interview with Radio Farda

Translation tweeted by @persianbanoo, September 21.

Ebrahim Sharifi, computer science & Italian language student talks to Radio Farda about his arrest.

ES: I was returning home from the Italian Consulate when I heard someone calling me. I went towards the person calling me, and all of a sudden they grabbed me, handcuffed and blindfolded me. They threw me into a car pushing my head down behind the seat.

RF: How come in judiciary panel report they indicate there is no history of your arrest?

ES: Just what do you expect them to say. From the very beginning, when Mr. Moghadami started to interrogate me ... I told Mr. Karoubi that this prosecutor is talking to me as though I have received money from you to become a witness or as if I have become a pawn in a political game.

RF: After your arrest where was the first place they took you, and did they explain your charges?

ES: I was not interrogated the entire time. They only asked for my name when they released me.

RF: Where did they take you to?

ES: A place where I could not hear cars anymore. They took me out of the car and pushed me. All I could hear was the sound of my breath and others breathing. I was laying on my stomach. I don't know if I fell asleep or not. Early in the morning I could hear a woman's voice screaming: "Don't, don't, don't hit, don't hit!"

RF: Which detention center were you at?

ES: I don't know, I was handcuffed & blindfolded.

RF: How long were you at this detention center.

ES: From June 23 to June 30.

RF: When exactly were you raped?

ES: The fourth day they took me for a mock execution session. I told them, if you are going to execute me, then do it, what kind of games are you playing. Someone hit me in my stomach, I fell to the ground, he continued to hit me in my stomach. He told someone else "take him & make him pregnant". I was vomiting blood. They pulled me by my arm, took me to a room & tied me to the wall.

RF: You had said you didn't know if that same person raped you or someone else did.

ES: I think it was the same person. But I am not certain it was him or a foreign object was used. Even judge Mohamadi asked me if I resisted or protested in any way. I answered him I wasn't capable of thinking at that time.

RF: What were your feelings at that time?

ES: I was vomiting blood and also due to what had just happened I passed out. The man told me, "you can't even protect your-----how are you going to make velvet revolution?"

RF: When you became conscious, where did you find yourself?

ES: I was in a medical clinic, laying in a bed, IV in one arm and the other arm cuffed to the bed. Someone came in and asked a doctor if I was going to die or should they take care of me themselves. Blindfolded and handcuffed they threw me into a car drove me to Sabalan highway where they threw me out on the side of the road, told me to count to 60 nd then they left.

RF: What was the first thing you did after you arrived home?

ES: None of my family members knew of my rape until Mr. Alameh's video. Only Mr. Karoubi, a few Parliament members and Justice Dept officials and some of the clergy knew of the rape. The next day, a friend who is a lawyer advised me to make an official complaint. I went to the public prosecutor's office in Elahiyeh, filled in an official complaint. After being harassed there, I was able to obtain a letter from a judge. The judge told me to go to Niyavaran PD, he also said this could be the work of Monafeghin (MKO).

RF: Did you bring up the matter of your rape with the judge?

ES: No I did not.

RF: Then when did you decide to bring up the matter of your rape?

ES: I didn't want to talk about the rape. At the police station they told me it's best not to follow this case. They said this sounds like the Ministry's work, and I should thank God that I am still alive. I still had pain in my stomach and back, I was able to get a report from the medical examiner’s office. A friend suggested I should go to a clergy or to Mr. Karoubi. I went to Mr. Karoubi. At first I didn't want to say anything about being raped. Mr. Karoubi seeing my tears and the tone of my voice, asked if I was hiding anything. He asked everyone to leave the room, quoted an Ayeh from the Quran and asked if anything like that had happened to me. I said yes. I started to cry, he hugged me and was extremely upset. After a month and a half Mr. Moghadami interrogated me and took me to the medical examiner’s office. They told me that too long had gone by and that they could not make a ruling. The police had told me that the medical examiner's office would be able to even pin point the size of the object used.

*********

@persianbanoo:

So sad to think how many more rape victims there are that are not coming forward due to the stigma attached to rape in Iran. It is even harder for a female rape victim to come forward.

Rape victim Ebrahim Sharifi now lives outside Iran. His family and friends are being pressured to give TV interview and deny all of his rape charges. HRA is very concerned about his family’s safety.

IR HRA spokesman says, what happened to Sharifi was not a one time accident but seems to be a systematic torture method not limited to only one prisons in Tehran but is used in other cities in Iran as well.

The rape victims both male & female who are set free after the rape, are usually young and from religious families.

Arrested, beaten and raped

- an Iran protester's tale

This account of rape and torture was published in Guardian.co.uk as early as July 1, 2009 as a part of Guardian’s project to trace people who were killed and detained during the unrest. When the story was published, Guardian had not been able to verify it through independent sources.

Afshin, a shopkeeper from south-west Iran, tells the story to Esfandiar Poorgiv (a pseudonym) a journalist and academic:

“He came to my shop around 10.30am. You could tell straight away that he had just been released. His face was bruised all over. His teeth were broken and he could hardly open his eyes.

[…] He had gone home directly after his release, but his father did not let him in. He didn't mention he had been raped. At first, he didn't tell me either. It was the doctor who first noticed it and told me.

When he came to my shop he collapsed in a chair. He said he had nowhere to go and asked if he could stay with me. I called a friend of mine who is a doctor to come home and see him. Then I brought him home.

His shoulder blades and arms were wounded. There were some slashes on the face. No bone fractures, but he was bruised all over the body. I wanted to take some photos but he did not let me. The doctor said only four of his teeth were intact, the rest were broken. You could hardly understand what he said.

Then the doctor told me what had happened. He had suffered rupture of the rectum and the doctor feared colonic bleeding. He suggested we take him to the hospital immediately.

They registered him under a false name and with somebody else's insurance. The nurses were crying. Two of them asked what sort of beast had beaten him up like that. He was a broken man. He told us not to waste our money on him, and that he would kill himself.

He was arrested in Shiraz on 15 June, the Monday after the election. Some sturdy young men made a human shield around the demonstrators. He was among them. He said he managed to hit some of the anti-riot police. But then they caught him and beat him up.

"I was kept in a van till evening that day and then transferred to a solitary cell where I was kept for two days," he said. "Then I was repeatedly interrogated, beaten and hung from a ceiling. They call it chicken kebab. They tie your hands and feet together and hang you from the ceiling, turning you around and beating you with cables.

"They gave us warm water to drink and one meal a day. Repeated smacking was a regular punishment. In interrogations, they kept on asking if I was instructed from abroad. I believed I was going to be sent from the detention centre to prison. But they sent me to where they called Roughnecks' Room. There were some other youths of my age in there. I asked a guard why I am not sent to prison and the reply was: 'You have to be our guest for a while.'

"I refused to confess during interrogations. They said: 'Ask your friends what we'll do to you if you don't co-operate.' Others in the room were also arrested on 15 June. I was tempted to confess at this point but I didn't. On the third and fourth day, they beat me up again. They insisted we were instructed from abroad. I kept on saying we were only protesting for our votes.

"It was on Saturday or Sunday that they raped me for the first time. There were three or four huge guys we had not seen before. They came to me and tore my clothes. I tried to resist but two of them laid me on the floor and the third did it. It was done in front of four other detainees.

"My cell mates, especially the older one, tried to console me. They said nobody loses his dignity through such an act. They did it to two other cell mates in the next days. Then it became a routine. We were so weak and beaten up that could not do anything.

"Then the interrogations started again. They said: 'If you don't come to your senses we will send you to Adel Abad [another prison in Shiraz] to the pederasts' section so that you receive such treatment every day.' I was so weak I did not know what to say. Then they asked for my contacts. I told them I had no contacts and I was informed about the demonstrations through the internet.

"The same routine was continued till this morning when I was released. In the last week, there was no interrogation, no beating. Only rape and solitary confinement."

This is what he recounted. But he couldn't articulate quite like this. He was in much physical and mental pain as he talked. I asked him to tell his story in the hope of making a difference to those still detained.”

Source

Raped and beaten

for daring to question President Ahmadinejad’s election

From Times online, September 11

Times online has published several accounts of rape and torture in Iran prisons since the election protests and the following arrests began in mid June.

In this editorial Martin Fletcher and a special correspondent in Tehran tells the story of Ardeshir (not his real name), a young engineering student, who […] “was locked up, beaten and raped multiple times for daring to protest against President Ahmadinejad’s disputed re-election.”

A psychologist said that the young man “has extreme feelings of self-hatred resulting from a sense that he will never be clean again, and from shame over the repeated rapes.”

“A hospital report confirms he suffered anal damage.” […]

Ardeshir “was no political activist but took to the streets on June 20 to protest at the election. He and his friends were attacked by Basij, the Islamic volunteer militia, and separated.

As the violence increased [he] headed to a metro station but was seized by plain-clothed police and thrown into a windowless van containing 14 other bruised and bloodied demonstrators.

They were driven to an apartment building 90 minutes away that was clearly an unofficial detention centre. Ardeshir believes that 60 to 70 detainees were held there.

The new arrivals were ordered to strip to their underwear and stand in lines. Two Basiji “rubbed our genital areas with their batons, calling us ‘scum’ and saying ‘Ah, yes, the balls of the foot soldiers of the heretic Mousavi’,” Ardeshir recalled. “They then promised that we would confess to trying to overthrow the divine regime.”

The next day two Basiji took a 17-year-old schoolboy from the cell that Ardeshir was in. “Ten minutes later we heard him screaming and crying. It then went suddenly silent,” Ardeshir said.

“A couple of minutes later two Basiji grabbed me ... I felt faint and wanted to cry when faced with a scene I had never before in my life imagined ... The boy, completely naked, was seemingly unconscious on the mat, his face in a pile of vomit and with blood around his rectum.

“A Basiji called Mahmoud said, ‘Take a good look. That will happen to you if you resist, you faggot lover of Mousavi’.

“The Basiji then said: ‘Now you.’ “They threw me on my back on the ground. Mahmoud then urinated on my face, saying that this would teach me not to oppose the divine wishes of the Great Leader of the Revolution. ‘We have been sent to re-educate you, you spoilt Western piece of shit,’ he said.

“They took off my underwear and made me go around on all fours. Then Mahmoud said it was time for my punishment. I was still on all fours when he began to rape me. As he penetrated me I cried out and felt as if I would throw up. He told me that if I didn’t stop screaming he would stick his baton up me.

“When he was done, another Basiji came up and raped me. At this point I felt that I was not me. I seemed to have shut down and separated from my body. All I could think of was when it was going to end, and why these people who claim to be the most religious in our society can do such things?”

Every other day Basiji would choose detainees from the cell to rape. “The third time they dragged me from the cell, I momentarily escaped their grip and ran to a corner. I screamed, ‘You say you are Muslim. How can you rape and humiliate us in this way?’. They laughed and said they had religious sanction from the Leader [Ayatollah Khamenei] to do so because we had gone against his word.

“Three guys then dragged me from the corner. I was shoved against the wall, face first. Two guys spread my legs and once again I was raped by them. I just cried and prayed for God to take my life. After the third man finished Mahmoud said, ‘This is for insubordination. I warned you. I then felt a large object shoved up my rectum. I think I lost consciousness because the next thing I knew I was back in the cell. […]

“They also liked to take several of us out at the same time and forced us to ride each other, doggy-style, whilst naked. They laughed and took pictures with their mobile phones. They would watch this for ten minutes and then proceed to rape.” […]

After being beaten and raped again by two Basiji Ardeshir finally signed the “confession” which said that opposition leaders and the foreign media had encouraged him to engage in anti-regime activities, and was released.

“He’s a broken boy,” his father told The Times. “I just pray that we can put him back together, although I know he will never be the same gregarious, optimistic, sensitive boy we brought up. How could this so-called Islamic regime do this?”

We will rape your son!

Today Human Rights Activists in Iran

- published a text version of an interview with a detainee.

He was arrested by plain clothes forces and special guards officers on his way home from work and brought to Meghdad Basij Station together with his friend. Less than 24 hours later, they were hand cuffed and blindfolded and taken to Kahrizak prison, and locked up in an underground container.

Two hours later the interrogations started. He was not allowed a lawyer and was not told what he was charged with, but they wanted him to confess to his participation in the protests. He spent more than 58 days in the underground container - along with 75 other people.

Read his story about the interrogations, the hygienic and food conditions, and the physical and psychological torture he endured during his detension.

And: Has Kahrizak prison really been closed?

Deadly Fatwa

Iran’s 1988 Prison Massacre

From News Blaze August 27, 2009

"The Iran Human Rights Documentation Center (IHRDC)" has "released a report documenting and analyzing the Iranian government's massacre of political prisoners during the summer of 1988.

[…]

In late July 1988, pursuant to a *fatwa* issued by then-Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khomeini, the Iranian government began systematically interrogating, torturing and summarily executing thousands of political prisoners. […] Although the exact number of victims is not known, thousands of prisoners were tortured and executed over the course of only a few months.

[…]

The Iranian government has never identified those who were secretly executed and tortured, and has never issued an explanation for this crime. However, many of the men who were responsible for the massacre continue to hold positions of power in the Iranian government."

Link to full report

Torture and rape is nothing new

- it has been going on for 30 years.

In this video - from VOA (August 2009) - also posted on iReport, Mina Entezari talks about the legacy of torture and rape in Iranian prisons. English subtitles. Translation of interview on iReport.

Mina Entezari’s blog.

For more on political prisoners and prison torture during the 1980s, watch the documentary "Blindfolded Witnesses".

Also read this article in The New York Times News Blog The Lede, quoting from an English translation of an essay by the feminist lawyer and journalist Shadi Sadr:

"Published reports are available about these types of torture committed against women political prisoners after the 1979 Revolution. The most systematic type of reported rape has been the rape of virgin girls who were sentenced to death by execution because of political reasons. They were raped on the night before execution. These reports have been substantiated by frequent statements from the relatives of women political prisoners. On the day after the execution, authorities returned their daughter’s dead body to them along with a sum considered to be the alimony. Reports state that in order to lose their virginity, girls were forced to enter into a temporary marriage with men who were in charge of their prison. Otherwise it was feared that the executed prisoner would go to heaven because she was a virgin! [...]

[I]t is known beyond a shadow of a doubt, that during the 1980s, the rape of women political prisoners was prevalent."

And Mojtaba Samienejad’s (@madyar) blogpost Memories of Prison and Raped Prisoners also quoted in The Lede.

A state-sanctioned murder

Zahra Kazemi (born 1949)

- was an Iranian-Canadian freelance photographer.

She was arrested on June 23, 2003, when taking photographs of the demostrations in Tehran, and died on July 11, 2003, in custody of Iranian officials.

Two days later IRNA news agency reported that she had suffered a stroke while she was being interrogated and died in hospital.

On July 16, 2003, Iran’s vice president Mohammad Ali Abtahi conceeded that Kazemi died of a fractured skull as a result of being hit in the head.

Shahram Azam, a former military staff physician, had examined Kazemi’s body and found obvious signs of torture:

• skull fracture
• broken nose
• crushed toe
• missing fingernails
• broken fingers
• signs of brutal rape
• marks from flogging
• deep scratches on her neck
• severe abdominal bruisings

Prison is good for you!

Mohammad Ali Abtahi (born 1958)

- a liberal cleric and pro democracy activist, former vice president during Khatami’s presidency and advisor to Mr. Karroubi in the presidential election was arrested on June 16, 2009.
After more than 40 days in prison he was brought to trial looking like this (photo on the right):

In an interview with ILNA http://tinyurl.com/lpznhb Ahmadinejad's media adviser Ali Akbar Javanfekr commented on a wide range of issues, including Abtahi’s obvious weight loss:

"Abtahi and Atrianfar surrendered to the truth that was explained to them in prison. In prison you come to yourself and realize that being obese is not good for the soul and body. Perhaps Mr. Abtahi used this opportunity to lose some weight."

Blindfolded Witnesses

A documentary on political prisoners in Iran 1981–1991

Link: Blindfolded witnesses

Just as the study of tree-rings allows scientists to understand the present in historical context with the conditions of the past, former political prisoners of the Islamic Republic of Iran’s prison system must undergo the same process in order to reconcile their tortured past with the present. In the video “Blindfolded Witness,” seven former Iranian political prisoners tell their personal stories of life behind Iran’s prison walls. Each strives to answer a simple question posed by Jorge Luis Borges: “What will die with me, when I die?”

For background, these individuals endured on average 10-years of imprisonment during the period of 1981-1991. Years such as 1983 and 1988 were particularly brutal when mass executions occurred. The mass executions in 1983 were meant to dehumanize the prisoners. When visits between prisoners and their families were eventually allowed, two lines formed outside the prison walls: one line for those who survived and the other for the executed. During the 1988 mass executions, parents weren’t allowed to visit their loved ones in prison. The only way they knew about the status of a loved-one was whether or not a postman arrived at their door carrying a letter sent from the prison. Sometimes executions were announced only in the media, so many parents had to read the newspapers to see if their loved-ones were alive. During some years of this era, Wednesdays served as the day of execution when names were called out over a loudspeaker. On other occasions, executions were simply announced by the hail of gun shots, with the last shot used to finish off the prisoner.

Let Tahmineh explain to you her experience with “torture orders” and how it necessitated the wear of a pair of large men’s slippers. Learn what “beatings to death” meant when interrogators could beat someone until they got information or until the prisoner was dead. Hear what Pardeh-dari (canvas play) was and what the terms “graves,” “coffins,” and “boxes” referred to. Learn why people celebrated when they were sentenced to 5, 10, or 12 years in prison. Let Manouchehr explain why the bruises on his wrists lasted for years. And, if the psychological torture inflicted on these prisoners were not enough, many did go insane or experienced mental breakdowns, listen to their stories of young children being raised in this inhumane environment and the psychological impact it created.

As the narrator of these interviews states, the goal of torture is to: 1) destroy the prisoner’s physical strength, and 2) transform them into a different being. This process begins at the moment they’re detained until the time of their release from prison. Words alone cannot describe the horrific experiences these former detainees endured, but one thing is known—these experiences were all created by an Islamic Republic regime—in the name of religion. Their experiences of imprisonment and torture will stay with them until their last breath, but silence only nourishes a tumor that grows and eventually destroys from the inside. This only fosters continued injustice for the victim.

@Artemis_ia

Blindfolded Witnesses

via Association of Iranian Political Prisoners (in Exile)

http://www.kanoon-zendanian.org/

VOA interview with Babak Daad

Babak Daad on torture and rape in Iranian prisons (farsi)

For an English translation visit the blog For a democratic secular Iran. The blogger, Azarmehr, gives this short introduction to the interview:

"Babak Daad, is an Iranian journalist and blogger who is now on the run and in hiding. Here is what he says in his shocking interview about what is going on in Iran's prisons and how the lackeys of the coup d'etat are ordered to break down the youth of Iran."

English translation and reader comments in Azarmehr’s blogpost Fath-ol-mobin, Codename for Rape Operations in Iran's Prisons

Torture in Evin Prison - a personal story

- by @iranproxy on #iranelection August 16

• friend who was in Evin prison yrs ago told me they used fake execution on him 7 times to break him
• they would take him out, tell him at night he would die in the morning and then prepare the execution
• the last few times they did fake execution he said just kill me, i cannot live like this
• for fake execution he said they do it like real execution, even show him other ppl who were executed
• he showed me the scar where guards cut him open for fun to see what was inside him
• he said what is done to women in Evin is too much to say
• he said some women would ask to be killed after first day
• my friend said they would do the same rapes to men they do now, bottles, other objects
• he said that they tortured him so much one time that he was beginning to die
• so the guards called his family and ask them to pay to save his life
• he show me scars and holes on his body and ask how can we negotiate with ppl who do this to ppl?
• he told me the guards would make fun of him as they tortured him and cut him
• the torturers said he could speak english, was educated, had a future and could go anywhere
• and said with all that education and knowledge look where he was now? being tortured by the uneducated
• that his education and knowledge was worthless, that this was his punishment for being educated
• they said he could go anywhere in world because he was educated and could speak english
• they said they were uneducated & could speak only farsi & couldn't go anywhere, no options in life
• and so they would stay until the end, they would kill anyone because they had no options in life
• that they would fight forever because their back was against the wall in life because of no options
• he said as they torture him they said they hated the educated people because they had hope in life
• he said they killed his cousins and brother in prison from torture and from execution
• my friend said they force prisoners to vote in prison, those who didn't vote were killed or tortured
• he said the worst was hearing women scream, they would beg to die
• then he tell me how he got out of prison, one day they had cut him open too much for fun
• he showed me the scar, it was biggest i have ever seen in my life
• even the scar looked like it was evil, that is how much it hurt me to see it
• he said he passed out that he does not know what they did when his body was open
• that doctor told him he had basically died and then his body released to doctor
• but they called the family to tell them to pay to save his life
• this doctor was a hero, knew him and helped him get out
• he could not say more, it was too much for him
• i can see in his eyes the pain when he talks about it, the shame he still carries for his whole life
• i can see in his eyes the pain when he talks about it, the shame he still carries for his whole life
• he said to me the torture that happens to political prisoners is much worse than what happened to him
• if you saw him, you would never know this happened. heroes are everywhere in our lives
• he told me the guards felt hopeless and jealous and were encouraged to blame ppl for their situation
• my friend escape from Iran after worst torture where they said he died, now he wants to go back
• he wants to go back to fight so other ppl do not suffer what he did, he said world cannot abandon these ppl