Former detainees described being repeatedly interrogated, sat with their back to the interrogator and flanked by two prison guards who would “beat me regularly if they did not hear the answers they looked for,” recalled one. They were beaten with batons, hoses, sticks, often to the point of passing out.
The report released Friday by the France-based Kurdistan Human Rights Network (KHRN) details the existence of secret detention centres run by the Ministry of Intelligence and the IRGC’s intelligence branch in the Kurdish cities of Kermanshah, Sanandaj, and Urmia, and the use of torture in these facilities.
Prison conditions in Iran are under the spotlight after footage leaked this summer showed grim conditions and abuse in Tehran’s Evin prison. The leak forced an apology from the head of Iran’s prison authority and the promise of an investigation. “The judiciary is determined to deal severely with those who disrupt the security of society and play with the lives of the people and disrupt the well-being of the people,” said deputy chief justice Mohammad Mossadegh Kahnemoui.
Former detainees told KHRN that common torture techniques include being tied to a bed and flogged with cables on the soles of their feet, or hung from the ceiling for several hours, “with arms fully stretched and only toes reaching the floor.”
Others reported sitting in a chair with a hole in the seat and weights attacked to their testicles or administration of electric shock to their testicles and other sensitive body parts. “The severity of the pain caused by this device to the head and chest lasts for several days,” said a civil activist who was held for several weeks in a detention centre run by the Ministry of Intelligence in Urmia.
At an IRGC detention centre in Urmia, a former political prisoner said there is a courtyard where guards carry out mock executions. “Security interrogators tie the detainee’s hands and feet and take him to another area near the detention centre, where he gets told that he would be shot for not cooperating with the interrogators. Several armed people would also come to the scene, and the scenario continues with shots fired in the air or targeting the person’s legs until he confesses,” he recounted.
Other former detainees said their interrogators threatened to rape their wife or family members.
A woman held in Kermanshah on charges of spying for a political party based in the Kurdistan Region said she was repeatedly raped for two months. She said she would be tied up and drugged. In a stupor, she realized a cleric was touching her body. “I could feel his breath on my neck. I was suffering from moment to moment, but because my hands and feet were tied, I could do nothing but scream. He forcibly took off my clothes and raped me,” she said.
General conditions in the detention centres are harsh, according to KHRN. Former detainees said they would be pushed down the stairs, they were blindfolded when moved between rooms, lights were kept on 24 hours a day, they were allowed just 10 to 20 minutes of fresh air a day, and some were put into solitary confinement for months.
“It is also a full-blown psychological war when you are in a small multiple-occupancy cell with several people, with an open toilet and a camera over your head,” said a civil activist who was detained in Urmia.
KHRN documented three deaths from torture in these facilities.
Nasser Issazadeh was arrested in 2010 when he tried to join a Kurdish opposition party and was tortured to death in IRGC’s al-Mahdi Detention Centre in Urmia, according to the monitor.
Ebrahim Lotfollahi, a Kurdish student activist, was arrested January 6, 2006 in Sanandaj. He was buried in middle of the night by security forces nine days later. Officials claimed he committed suicide, but his family believes he died from torture.
Sarou Ghahremani from Sanandaj was arrested during protests in January 2018. His body was returned to family 11 days later and his mother said she saw evidence of beatings on her son’s body. Officials claimed he was killed during a police chase.
Amnesty International has documented 72 suspicious deaths in Iranian custody since 2010. More than half appear to have died from torture and ill-treatment. “In 46 cases, informed sources including the relatives and/or fellow inmates of the deceased reported that the death resulted from physical torture or other ill treatment at the hands of intelligence and security agents or prison officials,” Amnesty said in September.
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