A State of Fear Read online

  For my dear wife Firouzeh and my children Sara, Zoher and Amir

  CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Dedication

  FOREWORD

  CHAPTER 1: WHEN DAWN’S LEFT HAND WAS IN THE SKY…

  CHAPTER 2: THE NARROW GATE TO HELL

  CHAPTER 3: ROOTS

  CHAPTER 4: REVOLUTIONARY DAYS

  CHAPTER 5: THE HOUSE OF REPENTANCE

  CHAPTER 6: AN ARTIST’S IMPRESSION

  CHAPTER 7: WRITING ON THE WALL

  CHAPTER 8: QUARANTINE

  CHAPTER 9: THE PRISON REGIME IN THE GOLDEN FORTRESS

  CHAPTER 10: DOOMSDAY

  CHAPTER 11: THE RED PRIEST

  CHAPTER 12: THE VIP LOUNGE

  CHAPTER 13: THE END OF THE ROPE

  CHAPTER 14: HOLY GANGSTERS

  CHAPTER 15: THE RISE AND FALL OF THE TAVABS

  CHAPTER 16: GETTING BETTER ALL THE TIME

  CHAPTER 17: GOHARDASHT

  CHAPTER 18: MASSACRE!

  CHAPTER 19: CAT AND MOUSE

  CHAPTER 20: WOMEN’S STRUGGLE AGAINST THE ISLAMIC REGIME

  CHAPTER 21: THE ISLAMIC COURTS

  CHAPTER 22: ESCAPE

  CHAPTER 23: PRISON HISTORY AND POLITICAL TRENDS

  CHAPTER 24: A CENTURY OF PRISONS

  CHAPTER 25: PARADISE LOST…OR REGAINED? A LOOK TO THE FUTURE

  EPILOGUE

  GLOSSARY

  Copyright

  FOREWORD

  This is the story of my long and agonising journey through Iran’s barbaric prison system, a network of institutions which created fear under the Shah and were maintained by the Islamic regime which overthrew him. The jails were designed to eliminate all opposition, to ruin health, to break minds. I spent six long years being shuttled from one hellhole to another, tortured, interrogated, abused and repeatedly broken.

  Yet I had never been a man of violence myself. I was passionate about education and I was an active underground campaigner for resistance to both the Shah and the brutal regime that followed. It was because of my dedication to reform that I found myself caught up in the prison machine in 1983. My learning in itself was a threat which the authorities couldn’t tolerate but I always loved reading. During my childhood and my time at Tehran University a great many books were deemed unsuitable by the authorities and therefore unavailable to me. Friends and colleagues would sometimes share stories and ideas from these banned works in hushed voices, like a nationwide version of Chinese whispers.

  I had come from a poor family, my father was a carpenter. I was one of the first to be properly educated. Even as a young man I was already involved in organisations struggling to get rid of the Shah but I went on to study in America where I also lectured and was a journalist. The experience abroad was totally new. I will never forget the feeling of my first visit to the library in the US. Lines of bulging shelves seemed to stretch for miles. Here, rather than relying on a third- or fourth-hand retelling of a book, I could just go to the desk and ask for a copy. It was intoxicating.

  I returned to my homeland to become a lecturer at the university in Tehran. After the Shah was at last overthrown in 1979 I was part of planning what should replace him. It didn’t take long for me to realise that as a supporter of workers’ rights, a passionate campaigner of the left, and as someone involved in the struggle of the Kurds I was seen as a dangerous criminal by the new Islamic regime. Our new rulers proved to be at the very least the equal of the Shah as a totalitarian government. For 15 years I had worked in secret for the left wing. But my struggle against what was called the Islamic ‘revolution’ led to long years of torture, degradation and imprisonment.

  It was not until I had fled my native land and settled in England that I read a book that, above all others, encapsulated my experience of life in Iran, George Orwell’s 1984. With its dystopian vision, tales of surveillance, propaganda and torture it was, I know, often interpreted as a warning of the dangers of communism. But I have experienced the reality of life in a state of fear like the one imagined by Orwell.

  And now I have a book of my own. It is a story that the Iranian authorities do not want you to read. It is not surprising they feel this way. What you are to read is a tale of brutality. Anyone who suspects that Iran is unfairly slandered in the West will have that scepticism dispelled.

  This is not merely a catalogue of torture and prison massacres, it is also one of integrity and the triumph of the human spirit. I do not speak of myself, but rather of the thousands of my fellow prisoners – not just men but women and children – who did their best to hold on to their sanity and support each other. Few survivors are in a position to share their experiences and I feel compelled to share the stories of my fellow inmates as well as my own.

  You will read of those on both sides of the struggle. Some stories I have chosen to tell are those of criminals in league with the worst elements of the Shah or the Islamic regime – in some cases, one after the other. And then there were those on the other side, whose idealism and honesty brought them to tragedy. I have painted as true a picture as I can of some of my comrades. Some of them are no longer around to have their own voices heard and mine is far from the only account of sustained torture and resistance which deserves to be recorded. Among the fallen is student Firooz Alvandi, whose life story best illustrates how the Islamic revolution sucked in and destroyed whole families and their young people who were bright and keen to make a significant contribution to their country. And I have carefully compiled the results of my own interviews with women who were shown no mercy in prison, even those who were heavily pregnant. Life in Islamic prison was unbearable for the men. For women it was much worse.

  My role as unofficial spokesperson for the forgotten prisoners of Iran has led to threats. After my son and his wife, a poet, were terrorised in London, I was moved to a safe house by MI6. I was there for almost a year and only saw my family twice. After I was allowed back to my home it was kept under surveillance.

  These days I live a quiet life. The years of torture have taken their toll on my health. There is a mixture of yellow, white and purple pills I must now take every day; regular, lengthy stays in hospital are just a part of my life.

  The fatwah imposed by Ayatollah Khomeini against Salman Rushdie for writing The Satanic Verses made it difficult to find a publisher for this book in English. Versions were first published in Turkish, German and Persian for people of the Iranian diaspora and these led to me giving talks in America and Europe. So you will understand that it is a great relief to me personally that a version of my book is now available in English. It might not be an easy read but it is a book that I believe should be read.

  Dr Reza Ghaffari

  London, 2012

  CHAPTER 1

  WHEN DAWN’S LEFT HAND WAS IN THE SKY

  ‘Don’t move! Keep your hands in view’.

  I opened my bleary eyes to find a circle of ten bearded faces surrounding my bed, scowling down at me. Just below each beard hovered the muzzle of a gun.

  One, whose facial hair was flecked with grey, shouted at my startled wife. ‘Don’t just lie there, sister – cover yourself, put on your chador!’ before throwing her from the room. In hindsight it was a ridiculous thing to say, like bursting in on someone in the toilet and reprimanding them for urinating in front of them. At the time, of course, it was terrifying. My wife returned with my pyjamas, as I was naked, before being bundled out once more.

  They cuffed my hands tightly behind my back and blindfolded me with a piece of white cloth snatched from the floor. While this was being done, the others ransacked the room.

  ‘Where have you put the gun?’ one of them screamed.

  I could hear a second group wreaking havoc throughout the rest of the house.
Our possessions were thrown into plastic sacks – books, tapes, the music centre, anything that would fit. It was as if these men were burglars, desperate to make a swift exit. But I already knew I couldn’t call the police; the Hezbollahi were the police.

  My family huddled together in the hallway: my wife, two daughters aged 10 and 12, my four-year-old son and their nanny, the elderly Khaleh Ghezi (who we called ‘Aunty’). They were terrified, shivering and crying. They watched helplessly as, all around them, their home was ripped to pieces. Then, as I was still trying to put on my pyjamas, I was pulled to my feet and led away.

  ‘Sister, we’re taking him for routine questioning,’ the older Hezbollahi told my wife. ‘You’ll have him back in a couple of hours.’

  Hands grasped my upper arms, roughly pulling me onwards. Still blindfolded, I was moving too fast to safely feel my way, and I stumbled down the stairs to the front door.

  Thrust outside onto the street, I briefly felt the gentle warmth of Tehran’s spring sun on the back of my neck. I was led across the pavement and was bundled into the back seat of a car. A hand grabbed the back of my head and pushed it down – perhaps so I wouldn’t try to see from under the blindfold or, more likely, to prevent anybody from noticing me. We pulled out. To where, I did not know. I could feel the coldness of a gun barrel against the back of my head.

  I soon registered that another man was hunched beside me. Through a small space at the top of the cloth tied over my eyes I could see that he, too, was blindfolded. He seemed wholly subdued, a condition I would later recognise as a result of torture. He very deliberately hit his leg against mine. I didn’t respond, but he nudged me again, this time with his elbow. This seemed strange. Who was this man? Was he the reason these thugs had come to my house? I was still in shock, my guard was up and I was too horrified to consider trusting anybody. I did not respond.

  It was early and the streets were empty and silent. We were driving very fast and every time we turned I was thrown from side to side. Each minute felt like an hour but, finally, we came to an abrupt stop. The driver beeped the horn, and I heard the screeching of iron on iron. A heavy gate was opening. Sure enough, when the screeching stopped, we drove on.

  Minutes later we stopped again. The door opened, rough hands grabbed my arms and I was hauled out of the car. Then, flanked by two guards, I was frogmarched to a nearby building and led to a room on the ground floor. As soon as we were inside my handcuffs were removed, although the blindfold remained. I was asked my name and the name of my father, my occupation, address and date of birth.

  I was instructed to undress and I removed my pyjamas. A guard approached and checked inside the waistband of my underpants to see if I had anything concealed there. I was handed some clothes and a pair of black plastic slippers and ordered to put them on. They didn’t even slightly fit me.

  Finally the makeshift blindfold was removed and, blinking into the light, I nervously surveyed my captors and surroundings. A battered wooden desk stood in the right corner of the room, behind which was a stocky man in his thirties with a heavy black beard that covered his entire face apart from his nose and eyes. Above him hung a huge poster, almost two metres high, of the very familiar face of the Ayatollah Khomeini. Three or four young men, all sporting beards, stood along one side of the room. They were cradling Uzis and Kalashnikovs, and wearing pistols at their sides. On the other side there was a pile of worn plastic slippers, another of worn-out uniforms and a smaller one of what must have been blindfolds. I looked down to see that I was wearing a threadbare prison uniform with faded vertical stripes.

  All this I glimpsed in a second. I didn’t get any chance to see more as my eyes and nose were covered by a standard issue black prison blindfold, stiff with sweat, dirt and dried blood. It smelt of faeces.

  ‘How long have you been a counter-revolutionary?’

  I hesitantly replied, ‘Brother, there must be some mistake. I have never been a counter-revolutionary. I have always supported the revolution.’

  ‘What revolution?’

  ‘The revolution that overthrew the Shah.’

  ‘When did you become a counter-revolutionary American leftist?’

  ‘I have always despised intervention by any foreign power, especially American intervention in the internal affairs of my country.’

  ‘Which counter-revolutionary group do you belong to?’

  ‘None whatsoever,’ I said.

  A grunt signalled that the interview was over. Hands seized me, pulling me through the door leading to the bowels of the jail.

  Welcome to hell.

  CHAPTER 2

  THE NARROW GATE TO HELL

  I could hear a terrible sound. As I stepped into the open prison yard, I realised what it was: the sound of torture. Once you hear those screams they stay with you forever. They penetrated the walls and echoed down the corridors and inside my skull. I can still hear those echoes today. I particularly remember the sickening sound of a woman screaming out for help. These hellish sounds grew louder and more piercing as we ventured inside.

  I was hurried along a long corridor. As we came to some steps I stumbled and fell to my knees, almost smashing my head on the ground. A guard grabbed my sleeve and pulled me back on my feet. I already knew why he had grabbed my sleeve rather than my arm: I was considered ‘untouchable’ by my devout captors. Further inside the prison I hit my forehead against what must have been a low ceiling. It made a sickening, dull thud and I collapsed for a second time.

  This corridor was the narrow gate to hell. Every ‘untouchable’ would have walked along it. Every prisoner would have fallen on that step and hit their head on that ceiling. This journey was a blunt and somehow fitting introduction to a world of psychological disorientation. We came to a room and I was pushed down into a chair. I could just make out a simple desk standing in front of me. I heard men filing in.

  ‘We’ve captured all of you bastards now,’ someone said. ‘You can die together.’

  ‘Brother Rahman, hand him to me,’ another of them shouted. ‘I’ll send him straight to hell.’

  They began incessantly cursing me and members of my family. It almost sounded like an incantation, a ritual they repeated for every new prisoner. I tried to convince myself that these taunts were the punishment, but inside I knew that they were just psyching themselves up before they began. Eventually, it started.

  ‘Tell me, which organisation do you belong to?’

  ‘Brother, there has been a mistake. I’m not a member of any organisation.’ I was in fact a member of an underground workers’ organisation called Rahe Kargar, which literally means ‘Workers’ Way’. Trades unions were banned, so secret cells of Rahe Kargar sprang up around the country.

  He struck the back of my neck with the edge of his hand. It was followed by a wild flurry of punches to my head and face.

  I was taken to an adjoining room. Still reeling from this initial beating, I was pushed into a corner. I was so close to the walls that I could feel the concrete against my nose. With my eyes still covered, I was now seriously disorientated. I tried to keep calm and not think about what was going to happen next. It emerged that I did not have to wait long to find out.

  Something struck from behind – not a fist, it was far too powerful for that – and my face and chest smashed against the walls in the corner where I stood. Badly winded and unable to breathe, I collapsed to my knees. I desperately fought for air but, like a fish on a slate, I was helpless. It was agony, like sharp bolts of electricity were being passed through my body. Someone tried to pull me to my feet but my legs wouldn’t support me.

  Once my system allowed me to swallow air again I saw, through the small slit above my blindfold, what had hit me. It was swinging from the ceiling and looked a bit like a punch bag, but bigger and filled with gravel. It was about a half a metre in diameter and a metre in length. When it slammed into you it felt like a train. While I was still on my knees, a heavy boot of one of the Hezbollahi delivered a swift kick
to my head, then another to my back. The man grabbed my hand, pulled me up, and I was dragged, staggering and breathless, to another room.

  From beneath my blindfold I saw the feet of my torturers. From what I could make out there were at least four men in the room with me. I also saw an iron bed frame, covered with what would have been a mattress if it wasn’t made of wood. They forced me onto it, face down.

  One interrogator sat on my back, firmly placed a hand on the back of my head and forced my face into the wooden board. Two others strapped my ankles to the crosspiece of the frame and my wrists to the top. My arms were stretched out straight. Then they began their ‘holy duty’, lashing the soles of my feet with a length of thick, insulated cable. The pain was indescribable. It tore through every inch of me. I screamed like never before, all the while anger growing inside me. The guard on my back only pushed down harder, grinding my face into the wood. As the flogging intensified, so did my screams. One of the men pushed torn pieces of blanket covered with dirt, blood, dust and hair into my mouth to gag me.

  Throughout the ordeal the interrogator demanded names, times, places and houses of my ‘comrades’. He was fixated on the times and places of alleged secret meetings. I couldn’t have answered even if I had wanted to; with my mouth stuffed with rags it was difficult to breathe, let alone speak. The pain from the lashing was almost obscured by the feeling of blind panic that I was going to choke to death. Focusing what little energy I had, I was able to dislodge the rags in my mouth. They were trying to break me mentally as well as physically, claiming they knew the time and place of a certain meeting and demanded that I confirm it. I knew they were bluffing. What they really expected from me was detailed information leading to the capture and arrest of my comrades. Mercifully, I passed out.

  My body was covered with a cold sweat. It felt like I had been soaked in icy water. From under the blindfold I could see a narrow beam of light shining through a hole in the door of the torture room. The rags had been removed from my mouth. The chief interrogator told me that Haji Aghah – a priest and representative of the Ayatollah Khomeini in the prisons – gave him written permission to torture me to death.