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I, Farzad Kamangar,
known as Siamand, have worked as a teacher in the
town of Kamyaran [in the Iranian province of Kurdistan]
for 12 years. A year before my
arrest [July 2006], I started teaching at
the Kar-o-Danesh vocational High
school. I was also a member of the Board of Directors of the Kamyaran branch of Teachers’ Union in and in charge of its public
relations before it was banned by the authorities. In addition, I was a member of the editorial
board of “Ruyan,” a cultural-educational monthly
published by the Education Department in Kamyaran
(this publication was eventually banned by “Herasat”
[the intelligence and security organization monitoring public offices]). For a while, I was a member of the board
directors of the Bio-Ecological Society of Kamyaran (Ausk),
and when the [Kurdistan] Human Rights
Organization started its activities in 2005, I signed up to be a reporter for
this organization.
In July 2006, I came to Tehran to follow upon my brother's medical
treatments. My brother is a Kurdish political activist. I was arrested and
immediately transferred to an unknown location.
It was a dark and narrow basement with no ventilators;
the cells were completely empty, no beds, no carpets, no blankets,
nothing. The place was extremely
dark. Then they took me to another
room. As they were writing down my
information, they would ask about my ethnicity, and when I
said I was Kurdish, they would flog me all over my body with a hose-like
device. They also subjected me to foul
language, insults, and beatings because of my religious
beliefs [Sunnis Islam as distinguished from Shi’a Islam which is the State
official religion] They flogged me to a pulp because
of the Kurdish ring tone I had on my mobile phone. They would handcuff me and tie me to a chair
and put pressure on my sensitive spots … and they would strip me naked and
harass me with a baton or a stick, threatening to violate me sexually.
My left foot was severely injured during the time I spent in
this place. Also, I fell unconscious as
a result of being repeatedly hit in the head and subjected to electric shocks,
and when I regained consciousness, I had lost my sense
of balance, and I still
get sudden uncontrollable shivers in my body as a result. They would chain my
feet and apply shock to different sensitive spots of my body through a small
device that could be clamped on to the waist.
The pain resulting from these shocks was extreme and horrifying. Later, I was transferred to ward 209 [in Tehran’s Evin prison]. I was immediately blindfolded and taken to a
small room just off the entrance hall (ground floor, left hand side, past the room where sentences were carried
out). There, I was subjected to assault
and battery (punching and kicking). The
next day I was transferred to Sanandaj, where they were planning to arrest my
brother. From the second I entered the
detention center in Sanandaj, I faced insults and verbal abuse and
battery. They tied me to a chair in the
medical clinic there and left me that way until 7 a.m. the next day. I wetted myself, because I was not even allowed to use the
toilet. After much more harassment, they
transferred me back to detention ward 209 [in Tehran’s Evin prison]. I was interrogated, harassed, and beaten in
the first-floor rooms (the green interrogation rooms).
On August 27, 2006, they finally had no choice but to seek
medical assistance for me as a result of the extreme
torture to which I had been subjected. The
clinic was on the first floor and next to the interrogation rooms. The doctor recorded bruises and clear marks
of torture and flogging on my waist, neck, head, back, thighs and feet. For two months in September and October, I
was in solitary confinement in room # 43.
The torture and harassment were so
harsh and unimaginable that I decided to go on hunger strike for 33 days. When they started threatening my family, I
tried to commit suicide by throwing myself down the staircase on the first
floor to rid myself from torture and [spare my family] to express my objection to the harassment and
pressure exerted on my family. I was
also held in solitary confinement in a small and stinking room at the end of
the hall on the first floor (113) for nearly a month. During this time, I was not allowed contact
with my family through visits or telephone calls. During the three months of my solitary
confinement, I was not allowed to take recreation. Later, I was transferred to a regular cell
(room # 10 in the hallway) and spent two months there. During this time, I was denied visitors or an
attorney. In mid-January,
I was transferred from ward 209 [in Tehran’s
Evin prison] to the Intelligence Office
detention center located in Naft [Petroleum] Square
in Kermanshah.
No charges were brought against me and I had no idea what I was accused
of. The detention center was dark and
narrow and home to any crime conceivable against the inmates.
They stripped me naked and, after considerable assault and
battery, gave me some dirty and stinking clothes to wear, and then kicked and
punched me out of the hallway and the detention center to the guarding
officer’s room and from there to another hallway that was accessible through a
small door. I was put in a very small
cell that was, in fact, secret and where no one could hear me. The dimensions of the room were approximately
160 cm by 50 cm. Two small light bulbs were hanging from the
ceiling. There were no vents. The cell had originally been a bathroom and
was putrid and cold. There was only a dirty blanket available in
the cell. The cell was so small that you
would inevitably hit your head against the wall when you got up. It was very cold. To breathe, I had to put my face on the floor
and take in the air through my mouth from under the door. Every few hours, they would bang on the door
or turn the lights on and off to disrupt my sleeping. After two days, they took me for
interrogations. Without any questions,
they started punching and kicking and insulting and verbally abusing me. Then they took me back to the cell. They would turn the radio up to maximum volume
in order to prevent me from resting or thinking. I was allowed to use the toilet only twice in
24 hours. Once in a month, I was allowed
to take a shower for a few minutes. Some
examples of the tortures that I underwent there are as follows:
“Soccer Game.” This
was the expression used by the interrogators. They would strip me naked, and then four or five them
would stand around and “pass” me to each other by kicking and punching
me. If I fell down, they would
laugh and subject me to verbal and physical abuses.
They would keep me standing on one leg for
hours. I had to hold my arms up and
they would beat me every time I got tired.
Since they knew that my left foot was severely injured, they put
more pressure on that foot. “Quran” recitations were played on the
highest volume so that no one could hear my screams.
They would slap and punch my face during
interrogations.
In the basement of the detention center, the stairs were
covered under garbage and bread crumbs from the courtyard to the main
hallway so that no one would notice them, there
was another torture room where I was taken at night.
There, they would tie my hands and feet to a bed and flog me on the soles
of my feet, my calves, thighs, and waist with a whip known as “Zolfaqar” (the name
of Imam Ali’s sword). It was very
painful and I could not walk for days.
Since it was winter and cold, they would keep me in a
particularly freezing room from morning to sunset, supposedly waiting for
interrogators, but there would be no interrogation, in the
end.
In Kermanshah, as
well, they used electric shocks; they would apply electric shocks to the
sensitive spots of my body.
I was not allowed to use toothbrush or
toothpaste. What little food there was stale, stinking, and not edible.
Here [Kermanshah], too, I
was denied visitors; they even arrested the girl I liked. They would harass and arrest my
brothers. Due to the unsanitary conditions in the cell and to using dirty and stinking blankets and clothes,
I developed skin problems (fungus), and I was not even allowed
to see a doctor. The torture was so harsh that I went on hunger strike
for 12 days to object to my conditions.
In the last 15 days of my detention, they transferred me to an even
dirtier and more stinking cell which had no heating facilities. Everyday, they would abuse me verbally and
otherwise; one time they hit me in my testicles so badly that I fell
unconscious. One night, they stripped me
naked in the basement torture room and threatened to rape me and … I had to hit my head against the wall a
few times in order to stop the torture. They would force me to confess to wrongdoings
in emotional and relationship … matters.
One could constantly hear moaning and
groaning from the other cells, and every once in a while
somebody would commit suicide.
On March 18, 2007, I was transferred back to ward 209 [in Tehran’s Evin prison] and, though this time I was put in the
collective cell (# 121), I was still denied visitors. Still, they would pressure me
mentally and emotionally by arresting my family members, preventing visits by
them, using foul language, employing verbal
abuse, and so forth.
Finally, after months of uncertainty, my file was sent to branch #30 of the Revolutionary Tribunal
in June 2007. The interrogators threatened me that they would do all they could to
get me a death or long-term imprisonment sentence. They would say that in case I was found
innocent and subsequently released, they would take revenge (?!) outside
prison. They held an incredible grudge
against me as a Kurd, as a journalist, and as a human rights activist. They would not stop torturing me regardless
of outside pressure.
The court in Tehran decided that my case could not be
adequately examined there and sent my file to Sanandaj. Every time people and human rights
organizations said anything in my support
and in objection to my detention and the legal justification
for my torture, the authorities got
madder and increased the pressure. In September 2007, I was transferred to the
detention center in Sanandaj, a place that turned into a horrifying nightmare, never to leave me and my life.
This was while, according to their own laws, no new charges were
brought against me. From the moment I
entered that place, battery and mental and physical harassments began.
The News Staff Detention Center
in Sanandaj had a main hallway and five separate hallways, and they put me in
the last cell of the last hallway. They
kept changing my cell until one day the head of the detention center and a few
others started hitting me for no reason and took me out of the cell. They knocked me unconscious by hitting me in
the head and I fell at the head of the staircase with 18 stairs that led to the
basement and interrogation rooms. They
had pulled me down the stairs while I was unconscious; I don’t know how they
managed to pull me down 18 stairs. When
I opened my eyes, I felt a severe pain in my head, face, and sides. As soon as they saw me conscious, they
started kicking and punching me again, and, after an hour-long beating, they pulled me back up the stairs and
threw me into a small room in the second hallway. Two people beat me until I was unconscious
again. I came back to consciousness with the sound of the call for evening
prayers. There was blood on my face and
clothes. My face was swollen. My whole body was bruised and swollen. I could not move. After a few hours, they forcibly threw me
under the shower to clean my bloodied face and clothes. At midnight, a few of
the head intelligence officials saw me
blindfolded with the wet clothes still on me and my physical conditions
deteriorating, and so they were forced to take me to see a doctor outside the
detention center, in the central prison, the next
morning. I was not able to eat for a few
days, due to injuries to my teeth and jaw.
At nights, they would leave the windows open so that
I would be cold, and they would not give me
blankets, so I had to wrap the carpet around me. I was
denied exercise, visitors, and phone calls
and was subjected to assault and battery in the basement interrogation rooms
over and over. I was on hunger strike for five days. They would bang my head against the basement
walls repeatedly and take me from the basement back to my cell, kicking and
punching me. No charges were brought
against me in either Kermanshah or Sanandaj.
The infamous torture method, “chicken kabob,” was employed
by the head of the intelligence detention center in Sanandaj on most of the
nights that he was on duty. He would tie
one’s hands and feet, throw you on the
floor, and start flogging.
Cries and moans of other prisoners, mostly young women, were
heard and tormented any human soul.
They would leave the windows open at nights, and I had to wrap myself in
dirty blankets in my cell, because they would wet my
clothes in the bathroom after beating me in the basement.
For about two months, I was in solitary confinement in
Sanandaj. The Sanandaj court declared
itself incompetent [to consider my case] and referred back my case to Tehran. The nearly eight months of solitary confinement and
the mental and physical harassment that I
had endured during that time had affected my body, my nerves, and my mental
health severely. After one night of
detention in ward 209 [in Tehran’s
Evin prison], I was transferred to one of Evin’s
correctional wards (# 7), where inmates commonly use drugs. Since November 20, I have been serving time in the Raja’i Shahr prison, a
prison reserved for dangerous criminals
such as murderers, abductors, armed rubbers, and so forth.
On November 18th 2007 I was transferred to the Raja’i Shahr Prison which is an extremely dangerous prison
where individuals found guilty of murder, kidnapping, weapons related crimes
are imprisoned.
Respectfully
Farzad Kamangar
23 November 2007 Raja’i Shahr Prison
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