A prison called Kahrizak

I received this email a few days ago:

"As you may be aware during recent events, many persons who protested
to the results of election were arrested and sent into an infamous
prison called Kahrizak, located south of Tehran. It was in fact a
temporal prison made 2 years ago. Now it was closed two weeks ago by
the direct order of supreme leader because of "short of facilities".
Hereunder, you will find a report written in Persian by a released
detainee who spent few days there. Some of Iranian have translated
this which you will see. I beg you for the sake of justice and human
right publish it in your magazine and anywhere you think it is best
and send it to anyone you think it is suitable. we need your help."

Hassan

".... I do not know where to begin! Forgive me if the report I would
like to give of the Iranian Guantanamo, the Kahrizak Camp, will have any grammatical
and spelling errors, because I am in a hurry and must leave soon. It is
currently 8 in the morning, 6th of Mordad (26th of July) as I write this. This
morning I along a few others were able to escape certain death miraculously
and I just arrived home from the hospital and immediately came to the
computer to write this blog.
I was arrested on 18th of Tir (9th July) . I am 21 years old. Even as
I write this I am in disbelief about my release. In the Tir 18th protests my friend and I
were beaten by the plain clothed agents while we were on the motorcycle with
my friend filming with his cell phone. A woman came to save us from the
hands of these people but they even beat that poor person up as well. They
threw us in a mini-bus filled with people hurt and beaten just like us. The
mini-bus took us to a police station. We were beaten so much that we did not
know where we were. The put us next to a wall and my friend and I were
standing next to each other. Then a bulky plain clothed agent came
and selected every other one of us and forced us into the mini-bus. I have not heard
any news of my friend since that moment. They took I along with tens of
others to a camp at Kahrizak. You would not believe me but there were at least
200 of us in the room they took us to. Everybody was injured. The sound of
groaning from pain had took over the room. I wondered to myself what it was
they had planned to do to us. Maybe tomorrow they will take us to a court
or prison, which would at least be much better than where we are right now.
There was no place to sit. The doors and walls were covered with blood.
I was thinking about my friend, because he was not the type to have any
tolerance for such places. In the midst of this all those in the room began
to weep and cry, and said that 1 person had died. The voice was coming from
the end of the room but you might not believe that we were all stuck to one
another and could not move. Plain clothed guards entered the room,
shattered the light bulbs and began to beat everyone in complete
darkness. They hit anyone they saw in front of them. We were beaten for a good half an hour.
A few went into coma and may have even died from the intensity of the
beatings.
They then shined flash lights in our faces and said “if you let out any
sound we will stick these batons….” I was in disbelief, it felt like a
nightmare.
Sadegh, who seemed to be of their higher rank took the dead body and laid
it against the wall, shined a flashlight in his face and said, “We have
warrant to kill you all. So you better wish for some luck and not end up like
this mother….dead.” “…Don’t let out the slightest sound. If you stay alive
until morning you stay alive…” He then continued, “you are all muharebe
[combatants], do you know what a muharebe is.” He grabbed someone from the
front who seemed to be a 16-17 year old boy by the neck and said, “tell them
what Muharebe means!” the boy said he did not know. The man then responded
“the hell you don’t!” and began to beat him ruthlessly while saying “
tell them, tell them!” He beat him to the point that the boy was unconscious.
He continued to say Muharebe means Satan, means wrong doer. He beat the boy
so hard that some begin to voice their anger, but were also beaten
ruthlessly.
In that room of ours at least 4 people were killed until the morning.
Sadegh said in a loud voice, “there is no such thing as a toilet and tooth
brush here, you do your business right here, are we clear?”
There was not a single uninjured person among us, they all either had
blood clotted on their faces or their eyes had been bruised like mine. And
many others had broken arms and legs. It was completely dark and I was not
able to see a lot of people. Our eyes would become extremely irritated from
the light every time they opened the door. The next days we spent the in the
worst conditions for which explaining would take a long time.
We could not tell night from day, and in order to prevent us from starving
to death they threw us a sack filled with leftovers every day which we ate
very enthusiastically. In this sack there was some left over break, greens,
and rice and was spread among us by an individual named Dr. Zare, who
claimed he was a doctor and responsible for distributing food. For
several days I could only hear the voices of him and numerous other prisoners and I
could recognize them from their voices until one day Sadegh came and brought
some light bulbs with. After several days we were allowed to go in the
outside area of the camp.
Oh what sense of freedom we found this to be. The blue sky and the sun
light were refreshing for us. (in addition I should mention that the reason
they brought us out was for us to clean out our filth and feces.) I apologize
for writing in such manner, but in a few more days when others are freed
especially those from the Kahrizak camp will be able to provide you with
better details, which I am certain has Guantanamo and Abu Gharib beat on
certain subjects these past few days.
Anyway according to a few of Sadegh’s thugs we were some of the first
people to be thrown out of the camp due to the camp being over crowded. And
they threatened us that they will kill us if we speak a word about what
happened anywhere. It was around midnight last night when I
immediately contacted my family with somebody’s cell phone and had them pick me up. Freedom
tastes sweet. But keep in mind that there are thousands of people going
through under the worst conditions at Kahrizak camp. In addition I have
memorized and will say the names of those who lost their lives just in
our camp while I was there. In addition if these animals had taken these people to the
hospital they might have stayed alive today.
Hassan Shamloo (Student)
Reza Fatahi (Student)
Milad with unknown last name (the 17 year old who was kicked and punched
by Sadegh on the first night and went into a coma, and was taken away.
Although our doctor prisoner said he bled from his ear and mouth and has died.)
Morteza Salahshoor
Morad Aghassi
Mohsen Entezami
In addition I also have the names of several of those arrested in our camp
which I will also list in this blog in the coming days.
Dear god please free us from the evil of these people
I cannot believe where I was 24 hours ago.
Dear god, save all Iranians and freedom seekers as quick as possible.
Also with the changes that have occurred in Kahrizak camp, the detention
center that our corrupt leader is supposed to shut down is probably
Kahrizak, because a lot of people were killed in it.
Reza Yavari (my alias)
Mordad 6th 1:10am

With the hope of freedom for those imprisoned in Kahrizak