Torture survivors speak out

Summary report of The Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture

The Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture hears from torture survivors who have fled from Iran in the past.

For Araz*, life can sometimes look hopeless. This is the lasting legacy of his torture at the hands of the authorities in Iran. He shakes his head, shuffles his feet and looks down at his hands. With a heavy sigh he tells me, “and then it began.” He is referring to the three weeks and five days he was held in a secret prison in Tabriz in 2002 where he was shackled, beaten and sexually tortured by his captors, the Revolutionary Guard.

Stories of human rights abuses of this kind are not unique in Iran.  President Ahmadinejad has refuted allegations that hundreds of individuals have been tortured in detention. In this time, the MF has received over 200 referrals from Iranian citizens who have arrived in the UK and are assessing approximately 70 cases.  Some of these cases are of people who had been caught up in the demonstrations and include political activists, passersby, and eye witnesses to voting fraud.

...he was held in a secret prison in Tabriz in 2002 where he was shackled, beaten and sexually tortured by his captors, the Revolutionary GuardOne client describes the violence that erupted in his village

The fate of many of those who were arrested is not known, but human rights organisations have raised concerns about torture and other ill-treatment, unfair trials and arbitrary death sentencing within prisons.  

Sexual Violence in Detention

While President Ahmadinejad has disputed allegations that detainees are raped, at the MF we see those suffering severe emotional trauma after experiencing sexual violence at the hands of Iranian authorities.

Dr William Hopkins, a senior psychiatrist at the MF explains why it is such a damaging form of abuse: “Rape, like other forms of torture, provokes feelings of powerlessness and despair. It has a potentially long term, deeply psychologically traumatising effect. It can produce feelings of isolation and self hatred in the victim. And, due to societal or cultural beliefs the victim is then further traumatised by being ostracised by their families and communities. Presumably the perpetrators know this. One client I saw was told ‘you will never forget this; I can do whatever I like to you’. In some of the cases I’ve seen the survivors have said that the perpetrators appeared to enjoy the sadistic humiliation of it. That is what is so clever about sexual torture, it causes pain that goes on and on and yet leaves little by the way of evidence.”

Araz is piecing together what remains of his dignity and carrying on with his life. Having been granted refugee status in the UK, he is studying at university but when day to day life becomes difficult he says a sense of hopelessness overwhelms him.

One client I saw was told ‘you will never forget this; I can do whatever I like to you’. ~ Dr William Hopkins“I can’t help but think, why me, why did this have to happen to me?” He misses his family as well as his country, despite its flaws, and is passionate about his Azeri origins. The Azerbaijanis are an ethnic group mainly living in northern Iran and the Republic of Azerbaijan. “From a human rights point of view I spoke out against extremism in Islam, its treatment of women and the way the regime in Iran prevents our Azeri language to be used in schools. I didn’t agree with the way the government seemed to be trying to wipe out the Azeri culture.”

Once news of such verbal dissent filtered back to the authorities Araz’s fate was sealed. He was picked up by plain clothes security forces, blindfolded, handcuffed and imprisoned. Confined to a tiny cell for the entire duration of his incarceration, except when taken for interrogation and torture, he was forced to stand for long periods of time, prevented from sleeping and constantly insulted.

During his interrogations Araz was beaten about the head so badly his ears bled and he now has permanent hearing loss. A common and agonising form of torture he endured was having the soles of his feet beaten by rubber cables. This results in long term pain and tenderness due to damage of the connective tissue in the heels. But it is the sexual torture that causes the deep emotional scars that take time and expertise to help heal.

Araz had hoped to change the regime from inside, having seen from a young age that outward protests resulted in a swift and brutal response from the authorities. He studied law at university and later began training to become a judge. When speaking about his hopes and dreams at that time he is animated, bright eyed and charming. It is a glimpse of the man his torturers could not defeat. But speaking about how he could not return to his studies following his arrest and his subsequent detention two years later, a shadow passes over his face and he seems to visibly diminish.

Araz was arrested for the second time by plain clothes officers. Again blindfolded and handcuffed, his torture took on a more psychologically painful twist. He was told at one time that his mother and brother had died. Another time he was dragged into a room with a noose hanging from the ceiling, forced on to a stool and made to put the noose around his neck as the guards asked him for his last wishes. He believed he was to be executed. Death sentences are carried out at some Iranian prisons.

But most damaging for Araz was the rape. Shaming and deeply traumatising, his clinician at the MF is one of the few people he is able to speak to about it and he reports how Araz shook and cried as he recounted how it happened. Four guards entered his cell, two were naked. The two wearing clothes forced him to the floor then the naked guards took turns at anally raping him. When it was over he tried to report it to other guards but they told him he had imagined it and laughed at him.

“I thought about suicide”, Araz reports, “I felt so bad I asked to be executed. I thought I could try to electrocute myself with the ceiling light. I wished for death, what more could they do to me?”

Torture continues beneath the surface

In a report to the Universal Periodic Review of the Human Rights Council in November last year, Iran stated that all forms of torture for the purpose of extracting confessions or acquiring information are forbidden. And that ‘compulsion of individuals to testify, confess, or take an oath is not permissible; and any testimony, confession, or oath obtained under duress is devoid of value and credence. Violation of this article is liable to punishment in accordance with the law.’ However due to the high value placed on confessions in Iranian courts and the culture of impunity employed by officials, the practice of torture is widespread.

As recently as this February, Iran’s Chief of Police Esma’il Ahmadi-Moghaddam stated that ‘exerting pressure and force’ should not be used during interrogations and interviews. Yet it is still routinely deployed, as the steady stream of referrals to the MF testifies to. Although the authorities have admitted to some of the abuses - in January this year a parliamentary panel determined that a senior judicial figure, Saeed Mortazavi, was responsible for the deaths of three detainees in Kahrizak Prison and the ill treatment of many others – but they deny prisoners were raped.

As Dr Hopkins has described, this kind of torture leaves little by way of physical scars but the psychological scars are devastating. Many will suffer from PTSD as a result and suicidal tendencies in sexual violence survivors are not uncommon. As more survivors of torture who escape the Iranian regime make their way to our doors their testimony will be added to those who have already spoken out about the abuses arbitrarily meted out by Ahmadinejad’s security forces. Human rights groups and governments the world over need to hear their stories in order that appropriate pressure can be brought to bear on those responsible.

Torture, organised violence and sexual assault by the authorities is nothing new in Iran but every voice that speaks out against it aids in the fight to end it. That in itself can offer hope to our clients like Araz and the countless others whose voices have yet to be heard.

http://www.torturecare.org.uk/news/latest_news/3065