Jailed Iranian Man Faced Mock Execution in the Desert

Ramin Qashqaei, 29, was a music teacher, fitness and boxing instructor, and sales manager for a private company in the Iranian city of Qazvin, about 140 kilometers northwest of Tehran.

Qashqaei left his house for shopping on the evening of March 12 last yeara when he was detained by officers in plainclothes who were hiding behind a tree and inside a car, a source with knowledge of the matter told IranWire. 

The armed agents did not show him any arrest warrant.

Qashqaei was put in a car and taken to his family home where he was told at gunpoint to ring the bell and pretend to be alone. 

When he refused, the officers forcefully held his head in front of the doorbell camera.

Qashqaei's parents, two young sisters and 90-year-old grandmother were in the house, where the officers ransacked all the furniture while subjecting the family to obscenities. 

"It was as if they were arresting terrorists. They pushed his sisters and insulted him in front of his 60-year-old father," the source said. 

When the agents found an old air rifle in the house, they started threatening the family. 

"Ramin's father is known in Qazvin for being trustworthy. They had the air rifle of their ancestors, which is an old gun that had been lying in the corner of the house for 30 or 40 years," the source explained. "It is the custom in the Qashqaei and Bakhtiari clans to keep the grandfathers’ rifles."

Qashqaei was thrown in the officers’ car and taken to the detention center of the Qazvin Intelligence Department, where his interrogators tried to coerce him into confessing to having connections with foreign countries and possessing firearms.

"For approximately 11 days, they subjected Ramin to a disturbing game. They placed him in the car without uttering a word and then feigned an intent to kill him in the desert and abandon his body," the source said. 

"Throughout this harrowing ordeal, they persistently pressured him to divulge information, treating him as though they had arrested a terrorist."

On the 11th day of his detention, Qashqaei protested against his cruel treatment by striking his head against the iron door of his cell. 

He also initiated a hunger strike on the 26th day of his solitary confinement in Qazvin’s Chobindar prison, demanding access to legal representation, a meeting with his family and his relocation to a general ward.

After four days, prison authorities moved him to a multi-person cell where Manochehar Bakhtiari, the father of a 27-year-old man killed in a crackdown on protests in November 2019, was also held.

Qashqaei was temporarily released from prison in May 2023 after posting bail amounting to 1.5 billion tomans ($30,000).

Subsequently, he was tried in two separate cases and convicted of "propaganda against the Islamic Republic," "gathering and colluding with the intention of disrupting domestic and foreign security," and illegal weapon possession.

He was handed a total of seven years in prison.