interview with to victims of rape in Iran prisons

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Raped and beaten for daring to question President Ahmadinejad’s election

ardeshir, an engineering student dressed in jeans and T-shirt, tells his story in a corner of a Tehran park obscured by trees — he no longer trusts telephones or the internet.

He smokes, fidgets, has bags beneath his eyes. Sometimes he cries. At one point he has to break off and return another day. His distress is hardly surprising: he was locked up, beaten and raped multiple times for daring to protest against President Ahmadinejad’s disputed re-election.

A psychologist said Ardeshir, 19, is depressed and may be suicidal: “He 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. He has temporarily abandoned his studies temporarily and seeks solace by playing the santur, an Iranian instrument.

Ardeshir said: “When I first participated in the protests I was not demonstrating against the Leader [Ayatollah Ali Khamenei] or the Islamic Republic. I was protesting Ahmadinejad’s cheating. But today, I say ‘Death to Khamenei’, and having been raped by his henchmen I also say ‘Death to the Dogs of Khamenei’.”

Ardeshir — not his real name — is one of scores, perhaps hundreds, of detainees who have been raped and tortured by their jailers in the past three months in what appears to be a systematic attempt to break their will.

Mehdi Karoubi and Mir Hossein Mousavi, the defeated presidential candidates, accused a regime, which claims to champion Islamic values, of raping opposition supporters.

The regime responded by accusing them of peddling lies to help enemies of Iran and, earlier this week, shut the offices where the opposition was collecting evidence and confiscated documents and CDs, and arrested key employees.

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 Ardeshir 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 when it was going to end, andwas 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.

“It’s hard to explain what it was like in that cell. All of us were in shock. Those of us who had been raped spoke the least and cried the most.

“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.”

Ardeshir spent 23 days in the makeshift prison before his father secured his release on bail with the help of an influential friend. Before he was freed he was taken to meet the commander in the flat above his cell. When the commander ordered him to sign a confession he refused and told him what was happening.

“He asked me why I was once again slandering the Islamic Republic. ‘Nothing illegal is taking place here. Everything that has happened has been religiously sanctioned by the Leader in his battle against you, Mousavi and Karoubi scum. Now sign.’. I again refused. He punched me in the face and then hit me above my eye with his pistol,” Ardeshir said.

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?”

Punishment for disputed vote

June 12 Election heldafter campaign with rallies for Ahmadinejad and Mousavi

June 13 Mousavi calls for vote-counting to stop but the Government says Ahmadinejad won

June 15 Ayatollah Ali Khamenei agrees to investigate as tens of thousands join largest protest since 1979 revolution. Eight killed; 368 detained

June 16 Mass rallies continue

June 19 State television says that more than 450 are detained during clashes in Tehran. At least ten are killed, including Neda Soltan

June 21 Ahmadinejad blames the US and Britain for the protests

August 11 The opposition candidate Mehdi Karoubi says detainees have been systematically raped

August 14 Group of reformist MPs denounce government brutality September 8 Karoubi’s office closed down by the authorities

Source: Times database

in Iran NO COMMENT

Iranian boy who defied Tehran hardliners tells of prison rape ordeal

A supporter of Mir Hossein Mousavi during a recent protest

The 15-year-old boy sits weeping in a safehouse in central Iran, broken in body and spirit. Reza will not go outside — he is terrified of being left alone. He says he wants to end his life and it is not hard to understand why: for daring to wear the green wristband of Iran’s opposition he was locked up for 20 days, beaten, raped repeatedly and subjected to the Abu Ghraib-style sexual humiliations and abuse for which the Iranian regime denounced the United States.

“My life is over. I don’t think I can ever recover,” he said, as he recounted his experiences to The Times — on condition that his identity not be revealed. A doctor who is treating him, at great risk to herself, confirmed that he is suicidal, and bears the appalling injuries consistent with his story. The family is desperate, and is exploring ways of fleeing Iran.

Reza is living proof of the charges levelled by Mehdi Karoubi, one of the opposition’s leaders, that prison officials are systematically raping both male and female detainees to break their wills. The regime has accused Mr Karoubi of helping Iran’s enemies by spreading lies and has threatened to arrest him.

The boy’s treatment also shows just how far a regime that claims to champion Islamic values is prepared to go to suppress millions of its own citizens who claim that President Ahmadinejad’s re-election was rigged.

Reza’s ordeal began in mid-July when he was arrested with about 40 other teenagers during an opposition demonstration in a large provincial city. Most were too young even to have voted. They were taken to what he believes was a Basiji militia base where they were blindfolded, stripped to their underwear, whipped with cables and then locked in a steel shipping container. That first night Reza was singled out by three men in plain clothes who had masqueraded as prisoners. As the other boys watched, they pushed him to the ground. One held his head down, another sat on his back and the third urinated on him before raping him.

“They were telling us they were doing this for God, and who did we think we were that we could demonstrate,” Reza said. The men told the other boys they would receive the same treatment if they did not co-operate when interrogated the next day.

Reza was then taken outside, tied to a metal pole and left there all night. The next morning one of the men returned. He asked whether Reza had learnt his lesson. “I was angry. I spat in his face and began cursing him. He elbowed me in the face a couple of times and slapped me.” Twenty minutes later, he says, the man returned with a bag full of excrement, shoved it in Reza’s face and threatened to make him eat it.

Reza was later taken to an interrogation room where he told his questioner he had been raped. “I made a mistake. He sounded kind, but my eyes were blindfolded. He said he would go look into it and I was hopeful,” Reza said.

Instead, the interrogator ordered Reza to be tied up and raped him again, saying: “This time I’ll do it, so you’ll learn not to tell these tales anywhere else. You deserve what’s coming to you. You guys should be raped until you die.”

He was subjected to further brutal sexual abuse — and locked up for three days of solitary confinement.

Reza was then forced to sign a “confession” in which he said that foreign forces had told him and his friends to burn banks and state media buildings. He was told to identify as the ringleader a 16-year-old friend who had been so badly beaten that he was in hospital.

“I was shaking so much I couldn’t even hear what they were saying,” said Reza. “I just signed whatever they put in front of me without looking at it. I was scared they would rape me again.”

The next day Reza and other detainees were transferred to a police detention centre, where he was held for a further week.

On the third day, police officers entered the cell in the middle of the night, blindfolded him and led him to the toilet, where he was again raped. “My hands began shaking, my legs were weak and I couldn’t stand up properly. I fell down and smashed my head hard on the ground to try and kill myself. I started screaming and shouting for them to kill me. I just couldn’t bear it anymore. I hated myself,” he said, weeping at the memory.

The following morning he was summoned by a police commander, who asked why he had been screaming the previous night. When he explained, he was asked to identify his rapist. The boy said he had been blindfolded, so the chief commander hit him and accused him of lying. He was forced to sign a letter admitting he had made baseless accusations against the security forces.

Reza’s ordeal was far from over. He was taken with about 130 other prisoners to the city’s Revolutionary Court, where they were herded into a yard. The judge told them that he would hang those who had violently resisted the Islamic revolution and read out the names of ten teenagers, including Reza. The message was clear: if they continued to say they had been raped they would be executed.

The judge sent them to the city’s central prison, where Reza was handcuffed and held in a small cell with six other boys for ten more days. In the evenings officers beat the boys and taunted them with the words: “You want to cause a revolution?.

Periodically, the most senior officer would take the boys away, three at a time. “When they returned they would be very quiet and uneasy,” Reza said. When his turn came he and the others were led into a small room and ordered to strip and have sex with each other. “He told us that with this we would be cleansed — we would be so shattered that we would no longer be able to look at each other. This would help calm us down.”

After 20 days Reza’s family finally secured his release on bail of about £45,000 — and with a final warning that he should say nothing about his treatment. His brother said: “A friend of mine who is a guard in the prison where Reza was being held had told me he was ill. The night he was released he was crying uncontrollably; then he broke down and told my mother everything.”

The family persuaded a hospital doctor they knew to treat him, despite the danger to herself. She has treated his physical injuries and given him antibiotics and sedatives but cannot perform an internal examination. Reza is deeply traumatised, terrified of being returned to prison and barely sleeps.

The doctor told The Times that other detainees had suffered a similiar fate. “We have many cases in the hospital but we can’t report on them. They won’t let us open a file. They don’t want any paperwork,” she said.

Drewery Dyke, an Amnesty International Iran researcher, said that Reza’s case was “consistent with other reports we have received in terms of the severity of disregard for human dignity, the unrestricted abuse without any recourse to justice, the involvement even of judicial persons in rape abuse and the denial of the basic right to healthcare”.

Reza, at least, survived to tell the world his story. The 16-year-old friend he had to name as the ringleader has since died in hospital from his injuries.

• The identities of all people mentioned in the article have been withheld.

NATION IN TURMOIL

June 12 Presidential elections held after a campaign marked by huge rallies in support of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his main challenger, Mir Hossein Mousavi

June 13 Mr Mousavi calls for vote counting to stop, saying there are “blatant violations”. Government says Mr Ahmadinejad won with 62.63 per cent of the vote. Angry crowds assemble in Tehran

June 14 Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei gives his blessing to the disputed results

June 15 He agrees to investigate the election as tens of thousands of Mousavi supporters take to the streets in the largest protest since the 1979 revolution. At least eight are killed and 368 detained, says Amnesty International

June 16 Mass rallies continue while foreign media are banned from reporting on the streets of Tehran

June 19 State television says more than 450 are detained during clashes in Tehran. At least ten are killed, including Neda Saledi Agha Soltan, apparently shot by a militia sniper. Her murder is seen around the world on the internet

June 21 Mr Ahmadinejad accuses US and Britain of fuelling protests

June 23 Britain expels two Iranian diplomats after two of its diplomats are thrown out of Iran. Britain and US condemn beatings and arrests of demonstrators

July 22 Amnesty International says it has received the names of at least 30 killed during the demonstrations

August 1 Thirty people put on trial for alleged opposition “conspiracy”. Amnesty denounces the trials as “grossly unfair”

August 5 Mr Ahmadinejad is sworn in for second term

August 10 “Confessions” from defendants on trial, including a British Embassy employee and a French student, are said to prove a Western plot to topple the Iranian government

August 11 Former opposition candidate Mehdi Karoubi says detainees have been systematically raped and tortured in jails

August 14 Reformist MPs denounce government brutality and call for Ayatollah Khamenei’s qualifications for position of Supreme Leader to be investigated

August 20 Mr Karoubi says he is ready to present evidence of rape

Sources: Amnesty International, Reuters, Times database

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Crimes Against Humanity Committed by the Islamic Republic of Iran

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3 peisoners have got disappeared !

3 prisoners who showed their bodies to prove they were under turture to congressmen in Iran after it got disappeared .
Abas Bigdeli,Reza Rastegar and majid Moghimi when Mr broujerdi and some other of congressmen went to Evin Prison to meet prisoners showed the turture sights them and after it got disaapeared and still there is not any news from them .

BBC:

Probe urged into Iran jail 'rape'

Mr Karroubi said if even one account were true, it would be a tragedy

A defeated opposition candidate in Iran's presidential election has called for an investigation into allegations some protesters were raped in prison.

In a letter to former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, Mehdi Karroubi said senior officials had informed him of the "shameful behaviour" taking place.

Mr Karroubi wrote that both male and female detainees had been raped, with some suffering serious injuries.

He asked Mr Rafsanjani to consult the Supreme Leader about the allegations.

About 200 people arrested during the mass protests sparked by June's disputed election, which saw President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad re-elected by a wide margin, are still being detained.

'Brutality'

In the letter addressed to Mr Rafsanjani in his capacity as head of the Assembly of Experts, Mr Karroubi demanded an investigation into allegations that several detainees had been sexually assaulted.

"Some of those arrested [as a result] of the unrest claim that detained girls have been sexually assaulted with... brutality," he wrote.

If Mousavi, Karroubi and [former president Mohammad] Khatami are the main suspects behind the soft revolution in Iran, which they are, we expect the judiciary... to go after them Yadollah Javan Islamic Revolution Guards Corps

"The young men in detention were also sexually assaulted in such a way that some are now suffering from depression and other physical and psychological problems, and are incapable of even leaving their homes," he added.

Mr Karroubi said that the people who had told him about the allegations of sexual assault held "sensitive positions".

"Even if one account is true, it would be a tragedy for the Islamic Republic… and it would whitewash the sins of many dictatorships, including that of the deposed Shah," he added.

On Thursday, police confirmed serious rights violations had taken place at the Kahrizak detention centre, where most of those arrested at the protests were sent.

The head of Kahrizak was sacked and jailed on Sunday along with three of his guards, who were found to have beaten detainees.

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei ordered the closure of the centre in July, because it had failed to "preserve the rights of detainees". Police officials have admitted that some of those held since June might have been tortured.

Earlier on Sunday, a senior commander of Iran's Islamic Revolution Guards Corps said that Mr Karroubi, and the other main defeated opposition presidential candidate, Mir Hossein Mousavi, should be tried for inciting unrest after the election.

"If Mousavi, Karroubi and [former president Mohammad] Khatami are the main suspects behind the soft revolution in Iran, which they are, we expect the judiciary... to go after them, arrest them, put them on trial and punish them," Yadollah Javan told the Irna news agency.

Foreign media, including the BBC, have been restricted in their coverage of Iran since the election protests turned into confrontations with the authorities in which at least 30 people died.