Authors: Marina Nemat
During another of our visits to the Hosseinieh, the guards told us that a few members of a human-rights organization (perhaps the Red Cross) had come to talk to us and see with their own eyes that we were all fine and thriving in Evin! One of the visitors, a middle-aged woman who wore a head scarf, not a
chador
, sat next to me. In English, she asked me how the girls in the prison were doing, and I silently looked at her. She repeated her question, and I said, “Fine.” A part of me wanted to scream,
How do you think we’re doing? They’re torturing us, raping us, and killing us, and you sit there smiling and ask how we’re doing? You’ll go back to your nice life, and we’ll stay here. What do you honestly expect us to tell you? Do you really think we can tell you the truth? They will shoot us right behind those doors if we say a word about what really happens here
.
Back then, the thought of going to conferences and talking about torture and what could be done about it would have frustrated me. I wanted out of Evin immediately, and I wanted torture and executions to stop at once. I wanted the people of Iran to march into the prison and free us before another innocent life was lost. But this didn’t happen. I did not understand what use it was for people to talk about torture while we suffered. Twenty-five years later, I came to see that my only way to fight the terrible things that had happened—and were still happening in Iran and in other countries around the world—was to attend conferences, write books and articles, and speak at events.
John McManus, another speaker at the RCMP seminar, recounted his experience as a clerk at the Federal Court of Canada
when he first became a lawyer. He had worked for Justice William McKeown, and they had done many judicial reviews of the applications of refugee claimants. When Justice McKeown, who was unfailingly thorough, found a legal problem in a case, he would send the case back to the review board for reconsideration. Mr. McManus remembered one case in particular. A woman from Chile had been a political prisoner during the reign of General Augusto Pinochet and had been tortured. After her ordeal, she slowly tried to reintegrate herself into society. In the beginning, she was afraid to even step out of her house. Then she began going out with friends and was making progress. One day at the market, she saw one of her torturers. He came up to her and said that just because General Pinochet was no longer president, it didn’t mean that she was safe. His supporters knew exactly where she lived, and they could find her easily. She fled the country the next day and claimed refugee status in Canada, but she was denied. Canadian authorities said that since Pinochet was no longer president, she would not be in danger if she returned to Chile. However, Justice McKeown decided that she was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), which was the result of the torture she had endured. The incident at the market had brought her extreme fear to the surface once more. As far as Mr. McManus could remember, this was probably the only time Justice McKeown sent back a file to the review board not for reconsideration but to order refugee status for the claimant.
I was impressed with Justice McKeown’s decision.
In the summer of 2009, a friend of mine—also an ex–political prisoner from Iran—told me that in 2001 or 2002, at a protest rally against the Iranian regime taking place in front of a federal building in Los Angeles, California, she saw her interrogator. She couldn’t believe her eyes and felt paralyzed. I asked her if she went to the authorities, did anything to expose him. She said she did
not. She couldn’t move and had to look away. When she finally looked back, the man was walking off. He disappeared into the crowd. My friend had already been in the United States for a few years and had had plans to visit her family in Iran. She cancelled her ticket and has never been back.
What would I do if I were to run into one of my interrogators? Ali is dead, but what about Hamehd? I have heard that he was killed, but I am not sure how reliable that information is. If he were alive, would I even recognize him after all these years? If I did spot him in a crowd, what would I do? I don’t know. There is a good possibility that—just like my friend—I, too, would be paralyzed.
During one of my talks in Toronto, I made it clear that I was against torture in any shape or form, and for any reason, and a man in the audience said that in order for us Westerners to save our way of life from Islamism and terrorists, we had to do whatever it took. I asked him how far he was willing to go to save his way of life.
“As far as it takes,” he said.
“That is what Hitler said,” I responded. “You can get so consumed with saving your way of life that in the process, as you get really busy torturing people, you forget what your way of life was in the first place. When we talk about our way of life, don’t we mean the way of a society that is not only democratic but also shows unconditional respect for the rights of all human beings? Don’t we mean a society that has a clear understanding of right and wrong and knows that wrong can never lead to right? All horrors in history have happened when we have begun justifying things.”
In Evin, they believed I knew the whereabouts of a girl named Shahrzad, and they kept on asking me about her. She was a member of a Marxist group and was a friend of a friend of mine. We met after school one day, and she walked home with me. She invited me to join her group, but I refused. I explained to her that I
respected her beliefs, but I was a devout Catholic and could never get along with Marxists. She went her way, and I never saw her again. Apparently, she was being watched at the time, and this was how my interrogators had discovered that I had met with her. She went into hiding, but I was arrested. However, I wasn’t arrested only because of her. My high-school principal, who was a member of the Revolutionary Guard, had given my name, along with the names of many students from my school, to the Courts of Islamic Justice.
Under torture, I told my interrogators the truth, but they didn’t believe me. I was a naïve girl who thought that if she told the truth, she would be saved. What I failed to see was that my interrogators’ main purpose in torturing me was not to find Shahrzad but to destroy me. Of course, it would have been a bonus had I told them where she was.
After
Prisoner of Tehran
appeared in print, I met some ex–political prisoners from different countries of South America who had been active members of various political groups. They had been trained to withhold information and tell lies for the first twenty-four hours of their interrogation. After twenty-four hours, they were allowed to share some of what they knew with the authorities. This gave their comrades some time to escape. I was sixteen when arrested, I was not a member of any political group, and I had never been taught what to do under torture.
At the RCMP seminar, Dr. Frank Chalk talked at length about the history of torture and said that in medieval times strict rules governed the torture chamber. The instruments of torture were shown to the potential victim. That often did the trick and the accused would recant—the prospect of having parts of one’s flesh torn from one’s body was, to say the least, intimidating. The judge accompanied the accused into the torture chamber, and notaries documented the proceedings. A doctor’s presence was usually required, even though the job of the doctor was only to throw a
bucket of water on the accused. And no defence lawyer was present in the chamber.
I was amazed at how procedures in the prisons of the Islamic Republic of Iran were similar to those of the prisons in medieval Europe. In Evin before they took me into the torture room, my interrogators first made me sit in the hallway and listen to a victim undergoing torture. It was a man, and he was being lashed. I heard the sound of the lash cutting the air. Then the man screamed. It went on and on. Never-ending agony. They finally took me into the same room and tied me up. Not only were there no defence lawyers present, but there were also no notaries or doctors.
I would have told them where Shahrzad was had I known. But I didn’t, and I thanked God for it. The interrogators gave me papers to sign, and I signed them all without reading a word.
In early summer 2009, a friend sent me a very short—less than two minutes—video clip. Where it was filmed is not clear, but it seems to have been a European city. A group of Iranian protesters have gathered in front of an Iranian Embassy and are yelling slogans against the Islamic regime. Embassy staff are watching the crowd. A female protester’s voice rises above everyone else’s: “We’ll kill you all! We’ll execute you all! We’ll make you suffer!”
I can understand her anger, but don’t we protest against the Iranian regime
because
it kills, executes, and tortures? When the regime finally collapses and power changes hands, if the new authorities behave the same way as the ones who came before them, we will not be much better off than we are today. Is this the kind of justice we seek? Iran will not become a better place until we accept that killing and torture are wrong under any circumstances.
I witnessed how the Revolutionary Guard and the Courts of Islamic Justice took over the work of SAVAK, the shah’s secret police, after the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran. In the name of protecting the revolution and national security, they committed
countless atrocities. During the time of the shah, Evin perhaps held a few hundred prisoners, but in the eighties, there were thousands, the vast majority of whom were teenagers. After the lashings and beatings, prisoners were sent to different cells, many of which were solitary. Solitary confinement is a form of torture designed to break the human spirit. The loneliness and the lack of communication with others can make one mad.
When I was in solitary confinement in the 209 section of Evin prison, prisoners could shower once a week. In the beginning, a female guard who was probably in her late fifties would escort me to the shower stalls. She never said much and was not mean. She never rushed me or called me names. After a while, a young woman took her place. The first time she came to walk me to the showers, she flung open the door of my cell without any warning, so I didn’t have a chance to put on my
chador
and blindfold. She screamed at me for not having them on. When I protested, she said that I was a dirty Christian, an unclean infidel, and I didn’t deserve to be treated like a human being.
“I’ve heard all about you,” she said. “They say you’ve converted to Islam. Yeah, right! You might have fooled some people. Not me. I know what you’re made of. You’re a dirty whore! Married your interrogator. Whatever. He’ll get tired of you, you know. Then you’ll get what you deserve.”
I didn’t say a word and ignored her.
On our way to the showers, she stopped at the cell next to mine and kicked the door open. A woman screamed.
“Get up, you dirty infidel!” the guard yelled. “Just like the Christian, you have no shame! Where’s your
chador
? Put it on! Baha’i, Christian—what’s the difference? The two of you can shower together. They must shoot you both. I don’t even know why I have to take you to wash up. No amount of washing will make you clean.”
I heard a rustle of fabric and then footsteps, and a hand hung on to my
chador
from the back. It was the woman from the other cell. Like me, she was blindfolded. I grabbed the end of the stick the guard placed in my hand, and we followed her.
The woman who was following me to the showers was the only Baha’i I met in the prison, even though there were many others.
At the door of the shower room, the guard made sure we understood that we had only five minutes.
“If you take longer, I’ll drag you out naked!” she barked.
The other prisoner and I stepped in and closed the door behind us. Hastily, we both started to undress. Once we had removed our
chador
s, we turned our backs to each other to give us each some privacy.
“My name is Marina,” I said, pulling off my shirt and putting it in the bottom of the plastic bag that contained my towel.
“Minoo,” she said.
“You Baha’i?” I asked.
“Yeah. You Christian?”
“Yeah.” I slid off my pants and put them in my bag.
“I heard what she said to you,” Minoo told me.
I didn’t react.
I took off my bra and panties and stepped into a shower stall. Minoo did the same. The cement floor was rough under my feet, but it seemed relatively clean. The water was lukewarm. At least it was not freezing cold.
“The guard said … you … you married your interrogator … Is it true?” Minoo asked.
I soaped my hair and body as quickly as I could.
“I heard a woman scream last night. Was it you?” Minoo wanted to know.
I rinsed off the soap, stepped out of the stall, and wrapped myself in my towel.
“You might want to hurry up,” I advised. “I don’t think the guard was kidding when she said she would drag us out of here naked.”
Water was dripping from my hair as I donned my clothes. Minoo was now drying herself. She was in her late twenties.
“I wasn’t screaming,” I said. “I don’t anymore.”
“I haven’t been able to sleep,” Minoo said. “All night, I think someone will rape me.” Tears were falling down her cheeks.
“Are you married?” I asked her.
“Yes.”
“Don’t worry. They won’t touch you.”
“Is this how it works?”
“People don’t talk about these things … but I think you’re safe.”
“Is anyone else from your family here?” she asked.
“No.”
“Lucky you. My parents and my husband are here, too.”
“Sorry to hear that.”
“How old are you?”
“Seventeen.”
“Dear God! A child!”
“How long have you been here?” I asked. She must have been arrested recently if she was surprised to see a seventeen-year-old in Evin.
“Three days.”
“I hope they let you go soon.”
The shower-room door was kicked open, and the woman guard barged in.
“Didn’t I tell you not to talk to each other? Move!”
When the guard let Minoo into her cell, I heard some strange noises. Minoo moaned. I guessed that the guard had pushed and hit her.