Methods of Weakening the Morale of Prisoners

Compiled by: Islamic Revolution Website
Translated by: Fazel Shirzad

2021-8-24

When interrogators did not profit from torturing and beating the comrades, they tried to demoralize them. Some events happened to me that I will describe.

One night, at twelve or one o'clock (in 1975) that a cell was opened and I was told to put the blouse on my head. I was in very bad condition and I was not able even stand on my feet. The guard wrapped the blouse around my head and tied its sleeves, and took the head of one of the sleeves. He also had a cable in his hand, and I was moved on all fours like an animal, and we went to the interrogation room.

When we arrived, I was worried that something might revealed that I had not said. Mr. Arash said: "take his blouse!" Mr. Arash was sitting in front of me. He was wearing a red cape collar blouse. Two or three other interrogators were there. Usually three interrogators were there every night, and that night it was their shift. One of them said: "Stand up!" I could not.

About two months after my interrogation, I was still in solitary cell and could not stand due to severe injuries and infections of my feet and other parts of my body; but he insisted on getting up. With the help of the broken sofa that was there, I stood up with great difficulty. In order to demoralize the comrades, they initially naked them from and after torturing them, they could no longer stand, they moved them on a stretcher.

After the torture, they were given tight pants and a tight blouse, which after a while the blouse was torn; and the trousers were also torn and we had to put one of our hands to our trousers so that our private parts would not be visible. Meanwhile, one hand was on the sofa so that I could stand and the other hand was holding my pants so that they would not fall off. The comrades were not bathed since they were arrested. I had not taken a bath for about two months, I smelled and my head was full of lice. My feet were dirty and I smelled bad. There was a carpet on which blood and pus had spilled from the comrades' bodies, and it became thick.

There were two or three interrogators, one named Rahmani and the other Vahid Afrakhteh. Mr. Arash turned to me and said in order to humiliate me: "you cannot catch the lice on your body, you cannot keep your pants and they fall off your feet, how you want to deal with the imperial regime?" Meanwhile, the interrogator arrived. Although one of the interrogators had a soldier; Mr. Rasooli was of the interrogators was short and the man was very vile and unclean. One of the comrades had just been picked up and hung there. Mr.Rasooli mockingly said to him: "And those who oppress people, will soon know to what punishment they shall return."[[1]] At that time, no one thought that the revolution would win so soon. But, as God wanted to give his power to these cowards who recited and ridiculed the verses of the Qur'an in torture chambers, and a regime was being supported by all world arrogance and armed power, it was overthrown within about three years of reciting that verse. While the thought of the revolutionaries was that with these struggles taking place in the cities, the revolution might win in another fifty years. Of course, this was the analysis of all the revolutionists, and I remember when I was in Qasr and Evin prisons, I was familiar with all the comrades there, and their analysis was that with this support for the regime, the revolution would win in seventy to eighty years.