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Letter to IranWire: “I Begged to be Taken Back to Prison”

November 10, 2021
IranWire
11 min read
Gonabadi dervishes suffered brutal beatings and at least one was killed during the 2018 unrest. Many remain behind bars today
Gonabadi dervishes suffered brutal beatings and at least one was killed during the 2018 unrest. Many remain behind bars today
After the 2018 unrest, many dervishes were handed down harsh sentences. Mohammad Salas was given the death penalty
After the 2018 unrest, many dervishes were handed down harsh sentences. Mohammad Salas was given the death penalty

A jailed Gonabadi dervish has revealed that he was tortured while being held in a “safe house” operated by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps’ Sarollah unit.

Mohammad Sharifi-Moghaddam, a dervish and student activist currently jailed in Fashafuyeh Prison, sent details of his ordeal to IranWire. The torture took place in March 2018, after his arrest on February 20, 2018 following clashes between security forces and Gonabadi activists on Golestan Street in Tehran, also known as the Seventh Golestan case.

The brutal beatings Gonabadi dervishes suffered during the unrest, the execution of Mohammad Salas, the torture and murder of Mohammad Raji and the imprisonment and deportation of several dervishes made headlines in Iran and internationally.

Several of those arrested remain in prison, including Mohammad Sharifi Moghaddam.

The letter Mohammad Sharifi Moghaddam sent to IranWire is published below.

***

Mid-March 2018, following his imprisonment in Fashafuyeh Prison, also known as Greater Tehran Penitentiary

Thirty people were placed in a cell. We slept like you hear about in books: face to face all night. An officer came to the cell and called, "You come out now to see the brigade." I had just returned from the hospital, and I was to be sent to Farabi Hospital again for eye surgery. With that in mind, I left the cell, and jail.

Our ward was at the end of a large corridor. One by one, I passed the “kitchens" [the “kitchen” is the name given to the area where guards are stationed]. I reached the brigade. I was handed over and the accompanying officer left.

Another officer said: "Sit down, the car has not arrived yet."

"Where am I going?" I asked.

"I do not know," he said. "they have written to NAJA [ the Islamic Republic police]."

A short man in a hat came in and greeted the guard, and handed him a ticket. The officer pointed to me and said, "There." The short man pointed at me and said, "Get up." I still believed I would have the operation on my eyes that night.

I passed through the first door, and the second one opened to the outside. As the door opened, a large blindfold was placed over my face. The blindfold was large and thick. The tissue seemed soft. It was different from the blindfolds I’d had in previous interrogations. Just before being blindfolded, I had seen a white van. It was hard for me to climb the stairs. It was dark, my eye was injured, I did not have glasses — and after all I was blindfolded. The officer threw me into the van and pushed me from behind. They tied my hands to my legs. They passed the chain over the back of my blindfold and I was told to keep my head near my feet until we got to where we were going.

I’d guess it took two hours to travel from Fashafuyeh to our destination. I felt we were being escorted and realized we had crossed a bus lane. Then I also realized there was another person in the van. When we arrived, the agents grabbed me by the neck and threw me out of the van. I hit a wall and slumped over. The officers sat on me. I later heard one of the officers had pissed there. Not on me, but anything could have happened. I was ready; I was ready for anything.

Lessons From Other Prisoners

Maybe a few things helped me in that situation. First, I’d learned something from a former prisoner. Throughout the interrogation process, I had to remember that it would end. Other cellmates had told me other things that helped, things to think about when my throat was being stomped on and I was being kicked and beaten with a Taser gun.

I was right; another prisoner was there. I could hear his screams alongside my own. Someone soon came and took me to a small room. I saw the corner of his white robe. I was told to take off my clothes and was forced to wait there in shorts and blindfolded. Two people entered the room and started insulting me and kicking me. They kept telling me to talk. One of the officers sat next to me with a pair of pliers in his hand. He cut my hand and the hairs on my skin while another used a Taser against me. It was then that I heard the sound of Radio Ava from somewhere in the hallway. It made other sounds and voices fade away, except when it was turned down too low, and then I heard screams. Someone else was being beaten. My hand, which had also been previously injured during my arrest and had been operated on, was tightly closed along with my eyes.

They took my photograph as part of the process of admitting me.

A man, also in a white robe, lifted my blindfold and said, "Let me see. I am a doctor." He had a round face, bright eyes and short hair. Usually they take off the blindfolds when they want to scare us even more. It occurred to me that seeing him meant I might never get out of there again. Half an hour or maybe an hour passed. I was asked questions that were obviously not meant to be answered.

They blindfolded me again and forced me roughly down the corridor. I was naked and cold. They sat me down at a table and left. I saw myself as being on the verge of death. I did not even know where the next kick would come from.

I shivered from the cold.

I could hear the screams of another. At least he was alive.

A little later I entered a building, went up the stairs and passed through rooms and corridors. They put me on a chair and gave me something grey to wear."From now on, if you make any noise, we will kill you,” a man said.

I understood that I was about to enter a cell and that they did not want the other prisoners to know. They moved me several times; each time I bent down so that I was not hit on the head. Occasionally I saw the officer's shoes or my feet from under the blindfold. They gave me a blanket. My cell was different from other cells I had seen during interrogations. There was a toilet behind a white stone wall.

I slept. The sound of the air conditioner broke through silence of the cell. Food was delivered through a hole in the bottom of the door.

Interrogations in a Familiar Chair

I was taken for interrogation in the morning as I thought I would be.

“Come out,” a man said. When he was sure I had a blindfold on, he opened the door and I came out.

I passed through several corridors and was handed over to two people. I entered the room and sat on a chair against the wall. It was like what we had at the university for exams: a single chair with a table attached to the side. It was the same as the one I sat on during my interrogations. But this time I couldn’t use my hand to write. I did not have glasses. One of my eyes was bandaged. The interrogation was an amalgam of insults, stupid questions, and scrutiny of my acquaintances and friends. I was ready for all of it. I had heard about this from students who had been detained before, from friends, and from my lawyers, all the way back during the first time I saw an anonymous number come up on my phone.

I was returned to my cell at night. I took the food and poked at it, but I did not eat. I did not intend to go on a hunger strike. But I did not want to eat either. I held the medication they forced us to have under my tongue and only drank water in front of them. When they left, I spit it in the toilet. They woke me up in the middle of the night and again blindfolded me and took me out of the cell. I was taken to the same large yard as the night before. The air was still cold, but I was wearing clothes.

In the room, they put a piece of paper in front of me. I waited for the beatings to start. "I will kill you,” one said. “You and the others. I will say you were killed during arrest or whatever." I was waiting. I contracted my shoulder muscles.

A man came up beside me and said, "Lift your blindfold up a little bit and write down what I say: ‘I will leave this place on such and such a date and am in perfect health.’ Now stamp it with your fingerprint." I did as they said. They brought in another person and they put me in a van, handcuffed, blindfolded. In front of me was a man with a gun. "Head down," he said.

The True Jailers

I woke up to the sound of dogs. Most of all, of course, I was confused. The interrogation and the answers. After all those horrors, here were the dogs of Fashafuyeh. I had returned to prison. A few minutes later I heard the familiar voice of my friend. He had been with me during this time.

"How are you? These are the Revolutionary Guards."

“But our case is being dealt with by the Ministry of Intelligence."

I was sure about this. Maybe my friend thought it was the Guards because they had been so harsh.

"I saw the IRGC logo on the blanket,"my friend said.

The van door opened. But we were not taken into the prison. A car started and I remembered what I had written a few hours ago: "perfect health ....” I fell asleep during the trip. I had not slept the night before and had been interrogated since morning. We arrived, changed our clothes again. They let us through the yard and I was returned to the same cell I had been in. I was still thinking about a form I’d written on, and it suddenly occurred to me that they had discharged me. Now they could do whatever they wanted. Of course, if they needed confessions, they could use my fingerprint after I was killed.

The next morning, the van came again. We walked for half an hour and returned. We were taken for questioning twice. This time there were more interrogators and more questions. As soon as I entered, a large man stood there and said, "Haji, these people are trained. These are moharab [forbidden].” He meant my kung fu classes.

During these interrogations I realized that we were in the hands of the IRGC. My eyes began to bleeding and they took me to the hospital in the evening, after the interrogation. The same person in the white robe came to me. At the hospital, they did not even remove my blindfold to examine my eyes. I was returned to the ward.

The third day began with more interrogations. They said they had brought someone who had lived with me. He was probably one of the university's Basij members because they had raised a number of issues from our student days. I went back to the cell. They threatened me and showed me photographs of my wounded and unconscious friends; they looked like corpses and they passed before my eyes like a movie. They announced my friends had died or committed suicide, they said my family had been arrested, or that they soon would be. Again, I heard the shouts and screams of detainees being interrogated in other rooms. All of this had done such a damage to me that my only wish was to return to prison.

That third night, when they blindfolded and beat me, me, the officers standing in the yard warned each other:"Just keep their faces untouched. The guys on the other side want to make films." There were three of us and we got in the van. We were told, "We will take you to the NAJA so that they can kill you there." After one beating in the van, they said, "We are going to Kahrizak [the notorious detention center].” The beatings continued for two hours.

This time, however, the sound of the dogs was actually a message of “release.” We were taken to prison at last. A few months later, when we appeared in court, we were put before the Ministry of Intelligence, as well as the legal assistant from the IRGC Sarollah Headquarters. We knew then who had done this. We had, without a doubt, been in the “safe houses" of the Revolutionary Guards.

Related coverage:

Gonabadi Dervishes Resist Oppression of All Minorities Since Tehran Clashes

Clashes Between Police and Sufis Leave Five Dead

Leaked Government Document Exposes Policies Against Baha'is and Dervishes

IranWire Exclusive: Interrogator at Evin Prison Arrested

Notes from Fashafuyeh: “The Prison Sentence That Could End in Death”

'No Problems, Except for the Problems': Iran's Jewish MP Gives Nonsensical Interview on Minority Rights

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