IRAN: Ten days of anguish, abuse inside Tehran's prison archipelago

All 33-year-old Ali-Reza wanted to do was stop pro-government Basiji militiamen from beating up a man lying on the ground. Instead the engineer said he wound up in the clutches of the capital's security archipelago, where he was himself beaten for days.

The east Tehran resident's story is among the tales of abuse and detention surfacing from Iran's weeks-long crackdown against dissidents and protestors in the wake of the reelection of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a vote marred by allegations of massive vote-rigging. 

Ali-Reza said he was near Tehran's Fatemi Square on June 13, a day of riots and unrest just after the election, when he spotted the plainclothes Basiji fighters beating a man "in a very bad way," he said.

"Do not beat him!" he protested to the Basijis.

But instead of laying off, the militiamen came after him. "They started to follow me," he said. "I ran and changed my direction, but in a dead-end street they caught me."

He said they began pummeling him. "The started to beat and beat and beat me, with their batons, feet and cables."

They stuffed him into a van with other young men and women and took them to a holding cell near Horr Square, where they were all beaten for more than two hours, he said.

"You voted for Mousavi," one of the Basijis told them, according to Ali-Reza. "Beating you is our right. We can even kill you." 

The Basiji called each other by honorifics, like Haji or Seyed, never by their real names.

For two days the captives were held in the facility, fed only bread and sugar. 

But Ali-Reza said his treatment improved after he was handed over to the regular police. At one point a Basiji interrogator was about to break the fingers of a 24-year-old man, but the police stopped him, Ali-Reza said.

After days at the police detention facility, he and others were moved into Tehran's infamous Evin Prison, where they were no longer subject to as much abuse, but crammed into horribly overcrowded conditions. 

"Our place for sleeping was nothing," Ali-Reza said. "There were too many people forced to sleep in one place and the toilet was very dirty."

During interrogations he and others were presented with pictures and video footage showing them at demonstrations and asked to answer questions about their political views and lives. 

After 10 days, Ali-Reza was freed. His family had to put up the deed to their house as collateral, and in a month he's scheduled to appear before a judge at a branch of the Revolutionary Court. 

The ordeal has made him more angry and contemptuous of Iranian authorities. He remembers watching as young men lay bleeding and injured on the ground and no one came to help them. 

"Now I know whom I hate," he said. "Now I know how they are wild, are not human. They do not believe in anything. They just close their eyes and beat you until they kill you."

-- Los Angeles Times

Photo: An undated image of the halls of Tehran's Evin Prison. Credit: AFP

Comments

[TALAMASCA]

I can't believe a little sarcasm got so many panties in a bind. I got it "SHOCKED."

[Yuvix]

Apparently this butter troll "SHOCKED" never been arrested in Iran. He doesn't comprehend the circumstance and psychological anguish he would go through when bunch of thugs ram him with batons, shove him in a dark room and break his bone. These people will never understand what it means to be scared sh*tless, not knowing whether you'll live or not. They automatically recall some Hollywood movie where happy ending is surely to follow without making any real connection when emotions in a movie are supposed to be conveyed to the viewers. He doesn't know the meaning of torture because he is too busy masturbating to the underage Japanese pornography while gorging on roasted pizza and pro-wrestling. People like him are a lost cause.

[ann]

link to the referenced Guardian UK story. Take it as you will.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jul/01/iran-protest-arrests-afshin-friend

it should come as no surprise that everyone is using pseudonyms.

[ann]

To: SHOCKED:

You're kidding, right? Otherwise you're pathological. Do you know what they do to people in Evin? Sometimes people who did nothing more than gawk while others were asking for their actual votes to be counted?

I'm not saying all that we we did was forgiveable - it wasn't - but what they're doing now is beyond unforgiveable.

If you can't see that you're simply not interested in paying attention.

You might want to check the UK Guardian from 7/1 or 7/2 for details. They're trying to get as much as they can. Look for the story on the anonymous 18 year old who suffered horrible abuse. I fear his case was not at all unusual. Mild? Hardly.

[SHOCKED]

Very mild compared to what we do. I see no problem.