A STUDENT’S TALE OF TORTURES IN IRANIAN PRISONS
PARIS 11 July (IPS) "Professional torturers, using various inhumane methods such as beating of sensitive body parts, hanging from ceiling up-side-down in most painful position and burning the flesh with cigarette bouts, were trying to silence us and on one occasion, one of them told me: "Don’t think that the Tohid prison is closed, rather, we have prepared better places to receive you, ready to serve you personally!"
This is part of a brief letter addressed to his countrymen from the Evin prison by Mr. Mehran Mir Abdolbaghi, a young student arrested following the 9 July 1999 students uprising.
The letter, made public on the eve of the second anniversary of the uprising that surprised Iran and the world by its magnitude, is important for the fact that it shows that despite President Mohammad Khatami’s pledge, torturing political prisoners continue unabated.
Here is the full text of the letter:
"Almighty, holy God, I praise you and you alone are my saviour!
Fellow countrymen,
Two years has passed since the barbaric attack on the University of Tehran dormitory campus in which myself and hundreds other political activists were arrested, charged with supporting innocent and undefended students and sent to the prisons of the Islamic Republic.
On Tuesday, 23rd of Tir, 1378 (14 July 1999), security forces of the regime raided my home without respecting the slightest of human being principles and plundering of my personal belongings, in the hope of extinguishing our voice for justice by forcing us to submit to extorted confessions and demanding pardon.
On the course of these past two years in prison, I was forced to endure despicable physical and mental tortures. I spent 5 months in the dungeons of the notorious Tohid prison. There, I was given 70 lashes with metal cables on the sole of my feet.
Under physical abuse, they broke two of my limbs, and due to lack of any medical attention and sanitary conditions, have since contracted various life threatening illnesses.
In total disregard of it’s Constitution, the Judiciary system of the Islamic Republic, continue to try political prisoners behind closed doors and in my own case, they tried, by bringing in cameras and Audio-Video equipment and placing their hopes in the Tavab-Sazi (repenting process) and Injecting drugs and false information fed to the so-called defence lawyer, to record confessions according to their version while I was drugged and almost unconscious.
The so-called Defence Lawyer assigned to me against my will, summarily read the accusations to me while I was under sedation of drugs administered to me earlier, and as such, I was not coherent as to what was really taking place.
Needless to say, the verdict, presented as legal, was: Guilty!
Can a system that has freed the attackers of the student dorms and released the murderers of political assassinations and fills its prisons with freedom fighters carry out real justice?
Today, after two years of imprisonment, I inform the freedom loving Iranian people that despite the harshest physical and psychological tortures, I would resist till the last moment of my life, never stepping back from my beliefs and convictions, telling to my torturers and inquisitors: I consider myself as a humble pupil of the school of "Dariush and Parvaneh" (Forouhar, assassinated in November 1998 by high-ranking officials of the Intelligence Ministry) the eternal myths of history, whose murders, in turn, have become a thorn in the eye of the despots, taking away from them their comfortable sleep for eternity to come.
Long live Iran,
Mehran Mir-Abdolbaaghi
17/4/1380 (July 8th, 2001) Evin Prison, Section 3 ENDS Mir abdolbaaqi
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