A Prison Called Iran

Ali Akbar Musavi-Khoeini was a deputy representing Tehran in the 6th Majles (parliament, 2000-4).  He is also former Secretary General of Iran’s Student Alumni Organization (Sazeman-e Danesh Amoukhtegan-e Iran), an active member of Advar Tahkim-e Vahdat (Office for the Consolidation of Unity, a student organization), an engineer, and a university teacher and researcher.

He was arrested on June 2006 in Haft-e Tir Square in Tehran for participating in a women’s rights demonstration, but unlike other detainees was kept in Evin prison for over four months. He made this statement after his release: “My arrest was the price I paid for my helpful and effective activities during my term as the representative of Tehran and my role in the student movement in the 6th Majles, my inquiry into the condition of prisoners and illegal detention facilities, bringing scrutiny to the performance of the authorities in charge, acting as a responsible member of Advar Tahkim-e Vahdat and especially for criticizing the performance of the 9th government after 2005 in managing the nuclear project.” After his acquittal, his attorney, Dr. Mohammad Sharif, announced that the accusations against him were related to the interviews he gave to the media, using his rights under article 84 of the Constitution of Iran, during his term in Majles.

Musavi-Khoeini was elected because of his promise to investigate the condition of students held as political prisoners and in his pursuit he embarked on important tasks, most notably his attempt to shut down detention center 59 of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) and the Tohid detention center of the Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS), which later was converted into a museum. He says: “I met Akbar Mohammadi, a student in captivity who later died in prison, and I inquired about his condition. Before the members of the 6th Majlis gained access, the detention center 209 of the Ministry of Information in Evin was a place where even the head of Evin prison had no formal permission to enter. When you are locked up in the IRGC’s #2(a) detention center in Evin, which still is not properly supervised, your release is entirely up to the will of your interrogator. This horrific center is a place even Mortazavi and Dolat Abadi, both public prosecutors and members of Majles, have not yet formally visited. Many attempts were made to improve the condition of these centers. The Tohid detention center, which was in poor condition and was under review to be converted into a prison for women, was turned into a museum called Ebrat (example)after extensive efforts by the Committee to Inspect the Condition of Prisons and by the order of the Minister of Information of Khatami’s administration.”

Also Musavi-Khoeini and this committee’s efforts led to the closure of one of the secret detention centers of the police that was adjacent to Tohid prison. These two facilities were the center of activities of an anti-sabotage committee shared by Savak (the Shah’s secret police) and the pre-Islamic revolution police force.

As a result of these attempts, the Federal Bureau of Prisons made a legal case against Musavi-Khoeini that barred him from any involvement with Evin prison during the last year of the 6th Majles (2004). But he says happily:

“After we, the members of the Student Faction, took sanctuary in the 6th Majles in protest against the widespread arrest of university students and attacks on the dormitories ofAllameh Taba Tabai University, the other members of the investigative council in charge of the files of the imprisoned students could continue their inquiry. As the 6th Majles came to its end, the only law that was approved by the Guardian Council was the law to preserve citizenship rights. The law’spassage gave the members of Majles the authority to investigate the condition of the prisons.”   

How similar is the Evin prison you were kept in for four months to the one the released prisoners of the recent crisis are talking about?

The treatment I received in prison was similar to what the youngsters who were arrested during the Green Movement talked about from their memories of captivity. The way prisoners are treated is based on patterns handed down to us for years from prisons in countries like China, Russia and North Korea. This time, however, a large group was arrested after an important presidential election where the regime was frightened by the demonstration of millions exercising their legal rights. A considerable number of those detained, threatened and tortured were among those who had once played a vital role in the formation and continuation of the regime. There is also a change in the methods of confrontation and we can see some deterioration in the foundation of the system. Of course a major portion of the recent arrests happened among the post-revolution generation whose rights were violated by the government.

People react in different ways while in prison based on their capacity, mood, and condition. Since we knew we were going to be detained for a long time, from the beginning we resisted their demands and exercised the applicable articles of the law of citizenship rights. Since many of my friends and a considerable number of innocent and unknown people are in prison today, I prefer to talk about my personal experience some other time.

Don’t you think some of your resistance came from knowing that your interrogators could not harm you so much because you were well-known? If you were an unknown student would you have treated you the same way?

Of course that mattered. But when a regime like the Islamic Republic detains a member of parliament, a minister, a mayor or one of its own authorities, it pays a high price for doing that and creates a big scandal. In such circumstances it tries to use its full power to break the prisoner. Therefore the treatment a member of parliament receives is not that much different form an ordinary person, and sometimes it may even be worse. When we were arrested on June 12, 2006 in Haft-e Tir Square, on our way to Evin some of the detainees were contemplating the duration of their captivity. I told them I anticipate they will be released within a week, but for myself I believed a much longer period would apply, and I was right.

The first interrogator told me in the beginning I should not have participated in the demonstration. He said now that you are arrested and the regime has incurred the expense for your arrest, there is a lot to be done with you, and my captivity lasted 130 days. I was not even released after my father’s death. It was around the mourning ceremony of the 40th day following his death, and after my wife and children were denied visitation rights by my interrogator that I gave a brief description to some journalists of my head fracture and the subsequent bleeding and the pressures of captivity. My release came a few days after, when my fourth interrogator was removed from duty. The same kind of treatment was experienced recently by members of the reformist faction, including members of the 6th Majlis and the executives of the reformist government, and also by others.

The main pressure was their attempt to split up my family members, like my father and brothers. They also put lots of pressure and limitation on my wife to stop her from giving the news to the media. But fortunately my family survived these episodes.

Of course the pressure and the threats the prisoners and their family members were subjected to during the recent events after the election, especially the family members of the martyrs of the Green Movement, makes me give less significance to my own incarceration and for this reason I am refraining from giving details about how the regime treated me. We must pay full attention to solving or at least minimizing the difficulties of the recent prisoners and those in mourning so that this illegitimate government cannot escape from being held accountable.

What is the capacity of Evin prison that housed such a big number of prisoners in recent months?

If they were to observe the regulations which dictates one prisoner per certain number of square meters, this prison should have been shut down many years ago. Now that they are faced with emergency situation, they are populating this facility even more, and also sending a great number of prisoners to other prisons such as Rajaii Shahr and Gohar Dasht.

As a human right activist, do you have any new reports from the clashes happening inside these prisons after the election?

I have some news, but there are limitations due to the oppressive environment and the regime’s use of filtering, censorship, static and other illegal methods to prevent free circulation of news about these cases. This of course leads to reaction from Iranian experts inside and outside, and attempts are made to gain access to this information and the facts about the prison environment.

What is the condition of prisons in other cities of Iran? Were you able to investigate those too?

We did some follow up in other cities when we received reports from family members about illegal treatments by interrogators and prison authorities. For example in Iranian Azerbaijan some civil and ethnic activists who were arrested during the ceremony of Babak Fort[1], were released due to the perseverance of activists. Most of the students of the universities across the country used to contact us and inform us about the condition of the prisoners. This helped us to find out about cases and follow up on them. But outside Tehran we were unable to conduct direct investigation of the prisons and were faced with many limitations. However, the law of citizenship rights which dealt with prisoners and the place of their captivity applied to the entire country—and this law was endorsed by the Guardian Council. After the Tohid detention center was shut down and the procedure for the treatment of prisoners was reformed, the new regulations were announced to the entire country and were somewhat observed in other cities in Iran. Tehran is the showcase of Iran. Any good or bad measure that takes place in this city is exported to other cities. It was the same with these regulations and their implementation in the prisons.

What is the difference between a prison and a detention center in Iran?

The attitude is different in a prison from a detention center. A prison is for those condemned and the prisoners’ issues are limited to food, access to books and newspapers or maybe time for outdoor activity, visitation and other accommodations during their captivity.

But what determines the fate of the prisoners is what happens when they are in detention centers. If physical and psychological tortures are used to force confession, the captive’s destiny and his case is thereby determined. When a captive is kept in solitary confinement for a long period of time, with his eyes covered and faced with humiliation, he may confess and accept unfounded accusations. Long interrogation is another means of inflicting torture, along with the environment of the detention center. Violating personal, private and family boundaries and abusing the name of the spouse or mother is another way of tormenting the captive that may result in false confession.

Heavy bail which sometimes is even more than what is asked from a murderer is another form of torment. Some judges try to assess higher bail and apply harsher treatment to secure a judicial job, a promotion or praise from their superiors and to be at their service. Some of these judges are the true example of the proverb that says: “instead of the hat, they bring the whole head”. Some motivated judges are like Judge Mortazavi, who by presiding over press courts, as desired by the authorities, and by pressuring journalists, became a favorite and all of sudden was promoted to the position of public prosecutor of Tehran. However, the judges must not only see this side of the story and must learn from the fate of Mortazavi who, based on formal reports, was held responsible for the case of abuse and rape in Kahrizak detention center and was removed from his position.

What is your view of the regime’s prisons during the last 30 years?

Iran’s prisons in this period went through three stages, the 80’s, the reformist era and recent years. Based on proven evidence and the testimony of those who were imprisoned during the 80’s until the reformists’ era, their condition was much worse and not comparable to that of succeeding periods. The circumstances were horrifying, and even after all these years their families are still under  government pressure. After my term in Majles came to its end, some families of those buried in mass graves in Khavaran [from the 1988 prison massacres] came to us and told us the government is destroying the unnamed graves and wants to turn it into a public park. We appealed to a benevolent individual who was involved in this project and prevented the destruction of this graveyard. As per documented reports of that period, the condition of the 80’s cannot be compared even to today’s, but still the recent situation is not in line with minimum global standards and we need to speed up the process of reform and change.

Do you have any information about the condition of political prisoners and their families after the election?

Their condition is very bad. Many of them have been dismissed from their employment, or due to the length of their captivity their salaries have been stopped. Among the leaders of the Green Movement, Mr. Alviri and Ali Reza Beheshti who assumed the responsibility to investigate the condition of political prisoners were themselves arrested and all their documents were seized by the police. The doors of the Society to Defend the Rights of the Prisoners and the Center for Defenders of Human Rights are closed. The only channel to help the families of political prisoners is informal and occasional assistance. We must use the available media to make people aware that a movement cannot be limited to street demonstrations. Helping the prisoners and their families is another way of participating in a bigger movement and carrying the load of this expense and this pressure is the duty of Iranians inside and outside the country.

Some, because of heavy pressure, have to pursue asylum and emigration. Asylum is the right of every man, recognized by the United Nations. These asylum seekers endure hard and complicated conditions for long months. Iranians outside Iran must come to their help and make it possible for them to live honorably during this waiting period.