Solitary Confinement is Torture for Every Living Being / Interview with Narges Mohammadi by Reza Akavian

Narges Mohammadi is a human rights activist, former political prisoner, and spokesperson for the Human Rights Defenders Center. She has repeatedly experienced detention by security agencies and prolonged periods of solitary confinement. Recently, along with a number of other civil activists and former political prisoners, she filed a complaint at the judicial office against the detention of suspects in solitary cells. In an interview with Khatt-e Solh magazine, Ms. Mohammadi examined the effects of solitary confinement on the mental health of detainees and her personal experiences in prison. The full text of this interview follows:

How would you describe solitary confinement spaces? What psychological and mental effects does solitary confinement have on a prisoner?

According to definitions of torture in international human rights texts, any harassment, torture, or pressure—whether physical or psychological—that exceeds human capacity and is inflicted on a person is considered torture. Since solitary confinement is designed to inflict psychological and mental pressure on the confined person and make the space unbearable for them, the person confined in the cell is forced to confess against themselves and others falsely; or they accept accusations that may even lead to a death sentence or lengthy prison terms; or under the psychological and mental pressure that becomes unbearable, they are forced into interviews where they comply with what interrogators demand. All of this indicates that white torture is unfortunately applied in Iran’s Islamic Republic prisons through solitary confinement, and we have witnessed its dire consequences over the past forty-three years.

To clarify what psychological and mental pressure is inflicted on a prisoner in solitary confinement, I will try to start with the physics of the solitary cell. A solitary cell means a space with a very limited area, and these areas differ in various detention centers. For example, in 1380 [2001], when I was confined to solitary confinement in Eshrat-Abad prison of the Revolutionary Guards, the solitary cells were so small that only one person could fit in them. That is, when sleeping, it was the length of a person and space to move one arm from the sides. Of course, there were cells where you couldn’t move your arms from either side. Some prisoners were held in those cells.

So there are four walls that are usually painted with cream or light colors. After some time, the eyes become irritated by these colors. Because the color is constant and there is no color variation. The walls are very close to the prisoner. The ceiling is high and generally has no windows. For example, in Eshrat-Abad prison, there was a very small space of thirty to forty centimeters in width next to the ceiling from which no light entered the cell. The only way you could tell was whether it was day or night. Or, for example, in the solitary cells of Ward 209, although there were windows at a very high elevation near the ceiling, they had placed perforated metal sheets behind them so that nothing could be seen or distinguished from outside. But through those openings, you could only tell if it was day or night. Some solitary cells in provincial towns are even more limited and deprived than minimum space. For example, I remember when Zeinab Jalalian described it to me and spoke about solitary cells in Kurdistan where, for several months, because there was no opening to the outside, she had lost track of day and night. She said one time I brushed my teeth and thought it was midnight—I wanted to sleep—and officers came and asked me to come out. When they led me through the corridors and doors and took me toward a door that opened outside, when that ventilation opening opened, I saw the sun was directly above my head and it was noon. That is, I had even lost track of day and night.

The physics of the solitary cell is designed so that, given the space and absolute silence, the senses of sight and hearing and all the senses that are the distinguishing features of humans and through which they organize and live their daily lives, all become disrupted. For example, complete silence that may last several months for some people is very distressing. This silence can be hallucinatory in nature. Deprivation of air, deprivation of sunlight, deprivation of walking in an environment outside the cell, sometimes creates such pressure on a person that they truly cannot tolerate those conditions. You add to these conditions that you are given no books and no newspapers and there is no music, radio, or television. There is no paper and pen. In the truest sense, nothing exists. Just as the body is put under pressure, by limiting human vision, hearing, and the other senses, the brain is also put under control and pressure. This means that no data enters your mind. No news or information, from seeing and smelling to sound. Therefore, over time, it seems the mind loses its function. That is, to the extent that the body is pressured in this void of solitary confinement, the mind also suffers serious disorders and damage. Those who explain white torture say that just as the body needs air and food to survive, the mind needs to receive data and information to survive and function, and when these don’t arrive, they actually cause it disorder. In a way, in this void of thoughts and information, the mind gradually moves toward silence and collapse. This is precisely when the interrogator can, by entering and providing false information or deliberately channeled analysis and news, prepare the mind for the project they have in mind; or the limitations they create for the person actually put the person confined in solitary confinement under such pressure that even if they are aware of what is given to them as false news or lie or wrong analysis, the person confined in solitary confinement, to escape loneliness, isolation, and helplessness, tries to get closer to and please the interrogator and the interrogation environment, and gradually settles into that space and continues with the logic, method, and discourse that the dominant interrogator creates for them, and becomes part of the interrogators’ project.

So I want to say that given the limitations imposed on the prisoner in solitary confinement, whether physical or psychological, the person confined in solitary confinement, to escape this situation, complies with the interrogator’s demands. And if accompanied by psychological and mental pressures or interrogators’ threats—that is, if you are constantly threatened in the cell that if you don’t comply with what they want, for example, members of your family will be arrested and transferred to this place. Your spouse, sister, brother, child, or parents. Or suppose that interrogators gain access to your private information in mobile phones, laptops, or other personal items that fall into their hands, and threaten to expose that private information if you don’t comply with the interrogators’ demands, they put the imprisoned person under psychological and mental pressure.

For someone confined to solitary confinement, who cannot talk to anyone and experiences loneliness, isolation, void, helplessness, and defenselessness in that space, these pressures can break them. Therefore, from a psychological perspective regarding the elimination of information input and data, whether physically or mentally, a person can lose their psychological and mental balance or may suffer from psychological and mental disorders. They may develop serious sleep disorders. They may develop anxiety disorders or some of the people in solitary confinement cells I spoke with said we experienced hallucinations in solitary confinement. Like hearing a sound or seeing something. All of this creates a set of conditions for a person confined in solitary confinement that inevitably forces them, willingly or unwillingly, to take action. Actions that are under pressure and under torture and unfortunately are used as evidence in Iranian Islamic Republic courts where judges make rulings based on them. In fact, human rights activists are seeking, based on what is stated in Article 39 of the Constitution that forbids torture, and of course confessions and admissions obtained under torture cannot be accepted and have no legal validity. Human rights activists are trying to consider solitary cells as a torture instrument and confessions resulting from solitary confinement as confessions under torture, and to limit and stop this process to create a minimally suitable space for the detained person in prison.

A detained person during detention faces interrogation and prolonged uncertainty; they don’t even know how long they should be kept in this cell. The interrogator wants to break them in the way you described and affect their spirit and psyche in a way that is intended to break them. In many cases, prisoners have said that weeks and months passed in solitary confinement and the interrogator didn’t follow up with them. Some said that in some situations in solitary confinement, even though they didn’t act on it, they thought about suicide. But there have been cases where it reached the point of attempting suicide. The question is: how does the idea of suicide intensify in solitary confinement, and how is a prisoner willing to end their life to escape these conditions?

In solitary confinement, most people who spend prolonged periods in the cell think about death or suicide, which I believe is a very important factor for proving that solitary confinement is torture due to the psychological and mental pressure it inflicts on a person confined in solitary confinement. I divide solitary confinement into two parts. One part is these physical conditions and elimination of sound, sunlight, and every facility necessary for human daily life. Another part is deliberate and planned. From the type of treatment by prison guards to the types of interrogations that a person confined in solitary confinement faces, it confronts the human with a very great crisis. Sometimes a person even doubts their own humanity. Sometimes a person intellectually and ideologically becomes subject to doubt, wavering, and uncertainty about their political positions and all their beliefs. That is, a person gradually loses the things that constitute their personality and identity, who I am and what I have done and what am I doing here; becomes confused, lost, and bewildered about all of these. Sometimes a person loses themselves in prison. Loses themselves in the cell. When everything that reminds you of your identity and personality is taken from you, this can be physically taking your clothes, taking your glasses, or even the hair clip you used to tie your hair with. They take from you everything that reminded you of what your identity and true self was. They want to separate you from yourself. Create distance between you and yourself. You should not remain with those political positions you had. You should not remain with those thoughts and beliefs you had. You should not remain with that identity you had in society, with your family, and in your own eyes. In fact, the interrogator through solitary confinement and white torture wants to separate you from your true self. Therefore, in this state, this state of doubt, this state of wavering and uncertainty or losing yourself or becoming confused in the cell, all of this puts a human on the brink of real collapse; enduring this collapse is very difficult. In the view of many of those who have endured both white torture—that is, psychological and mental torture—and physical torture, enduring these moments of collapse, these moments of loneliness, isolation, void, uncertainty, and this getting lost in the cell is much more deadly and difficult than physical torture. Besides, in physical torture, every blow inflicted on the prisoner or every beating they receive makes the line of interrogation more distinct, more explicit, and more transparent compared to the line of the prisoner. But in solitary confinement, there is another danger, and that is that the interrogator in the capacity of torturer does not appear to you visibly. You cannot see that line and connection that the interrogator and torturer makes evident in physical torture with that same symbol and clarity, identify your own interrogator in solitary confinement and determine the line and boundary. And these are places where a person is thrown into dissolution, misunderstanding, and wrong positions, and very often people think that they have lost that motivation for resistance, the power and force of resistance, have lost their true self, or have become uncertain about their positions, and by becoming uncertain about those positions, it becomes impossible for them to endure in the cell, and very often they think about suicide and death.

You yourself have experienced solitary confinement and then transfer to a general ward. When a prisoner is brought from solitary to a general ward, encountering a person who may not have spoken to anyone for weeks and months, what is it like? Based on your personal experience, what has this encounter been like and what memory do you have of those days?

There are people who endure solitary confinement and resist, and enter general wards, and this sense of resistance is seen in their being. But in most cases, when someone comes from solitary confinement, they experience confusion and disbelief. Some of them develop severe depression. I always told my friends to pay attention to the eyes of someone coming from solitary confinement. Their eyes show terror and fear and anxiety; the unease and disturbance resulting from psychological and mental pressure in solitary confinement are completely observable in their eyes. In my view, the first thing you could see in the appearance of these people and guess that they were coming from solitary confinement was this state of their gaze; it was the fear and anxiety shown in their eyes. For example, when one of my friends came from solitary confinement, he had developed severe sleep disorder. Another friend of mine, when she came, had developed severe anxiety and restlessness. That is, she couldn’t stay in one place. She couldn’t last more than a few minutes on a chair or where she was sitting. She constantly went to the lower floor, the courtyard, the club, and other sections and came back up. She had no peace and rest on her bed, and this restlessness resulted from the same psychological and mental pressures of solitary confinement. Or someone who would sleep and when waking from sleep thought they were in solitary confinement, and therefore was very troubled by sleeping. Only from fear that when that moment of waking comes, they won’t tell if they are in solitary confinement or not. I had another friend who, when she came from solitary confinement, ate in a strange way. That is, if she ate now, half an hour later she felt severe weakness and thought she had to eat again. Half an hour later she would eat again; to the point that everyone, including herself, realized this wasn’t normal, and sometimes when the intensity of her anxiety rose very high, she thought she was hungry and would calm herself by eating. In any case, I saw many people who, when they came from solitary confinement to enter general wards, were truly not in a normal state. Especially if they came from prolonged solitary confinement, from prolonged isolation to the community, these behaviors and disorders such as sleep, anxiety, and concentration and all of these could be seen in these people. Some of them entered with severe physical problems. Usually they suffered from knee pain, back pain, shoulder pain, and neck pain. Beyond the fact that there is no room for activity and movement in solitary confinement, sitting and standing is on the ground and there is no bed or chair, or they don’t have proper opportunity to walk. They developed complications in the area of cervical and lumbar vertebrae and knees and suffered great pain. I remember one woman who, when she came from solitary confinement, had black secretions coming from her chest. For me too, it was very strange. She waited for a female gynecologist to come. When she went to the doctor, the doctor also couldn’t diagnose it, and eventually they gave her sedative pills. That is, they recognized it as resulting from her nervousness. In fact, it was a nervous reaction that the body was showing. Another issue was that many people coming from solitary confinement had a lot of pills with them, and in their pill boxes they would be given them. They were also called at night to take their pills. Usually they took many pills. These were nerve and psychiatric pills that, especially those who had been in solitary confinement for prolonged periods, for example, their sleep had been disrupted and they couldn’t sleep. Or they had developed severe anxiety and restlessness. Over time, the number of their pills had increased, and they entered the general ward with many pills for nerves and psychiatry. Once I remember when the deputy prosecutor and prison superintendent came to the women’s ward, I was the ward representative. In objecting to the detention of prisoners in solitary cells that I spoke with, I told the superintendent about the special pill box. I want you to show the prison superintendent. They gave me this box and I showed it to the prison superintendent and said that this is a tragedy happening in solitary cells and people enter the general ward with ten, fifteen nerve and psychiatric pills. In my view, this is itself part of white torture. Why does a situation develop in solitary cells where the prisoner is forced, in order to sleep, to use pills without coating that they don’t know what they are for. What they are composed of and what psychological and mental effects they can have on the person; they have no choice but to resort to these pills so they can eat and sleep and even sit, to escape the anxiety and restlessness. In my view, the use of these pills itself constitutes part of psychological torture and has very destructive effects on the prisoner’s spirit and mind.

Most people who have experienced solitary confinement feel that after release these destructive psychological effects still persist in them. There are even people who after one or two years still have sleep disorders, or when they leave their home environment and travel, cannot sleep properly in a new environment. What is your personal experience? Were you able to follow the right path for treatment after going through solitary confinement and after release? Does the state provide treatment facilities for citizens who have been in solitary confinement to treat themselves? Is there a space for treating these disorders in Iran? Are these cases even treatable or recoverable in principle?

I want to specifically talk here about people who have spent prolonged periods in solitary confinement. People who have been in solitary confinement for several months or years. Certainly, even if a person confined in solitary confinement resists, doesn’t break in solitary confinement, and is unwilling to interview, confess, and accept false and lying accusations attributed to them, the reality is that white torture and detention in solitary confinement has long-term harmful effects on the prisoner’s body, spirit, and mind; so such people, given that they either receive heavy sentences and enter general wards and don’t have proper treatment opportunities and aren’t properly looked after and aren’t sent to doctors and can’t find a way to recover themselves, because they are transferred back to prison and in any case the security conditions of the prison are stressful and pressured conditions, treatment in general wards doesn’t happen. But if some of them want to be released on bail, they are under court rulings or interrogations continue. Their summons to security agencies continue. That is, they don’t completely escape the pressure resulting from solitary confinement. Each of these think they will return to solitary confinement, and this return to solitary confinement itself creates a doubled psychological and mental pressure and anxiety. This not only takes away from them the possibility of treating what happened to them in solitary confinement, but adds anxiety and a kind of worry that itself increases psychological pressure. I generally see these discomforts and these damages in people I spoke with have continued. Some of them believe they have suffered such damage in solitary confinement psychologically that they think until the end of their lives this damage will accompany them. For example, waking from sleep or their sleeping. For example, being confined to an enclosed space and environment. This space can be an elevator or a toilet or a bathroom. These conditions recall that solitary confinement environment for them and cause them distress and anxiety. Every time this repeats, it increases the damage to the person. The fact that facilities for counseling and treatment of damage resulting from white torture are available for those who have endured this torture is a very difficult issue; because first of all there needs to be cultural awareness that attention should be paid to these psychological and mental pressures. The person should be considered for treatment and recovery. But first of all, the culture of this issue doesn’t exist much. Second, it’s not possible. Naturally, if the state realizes that there is a place to provide facilities and services for this type of solitary confinement victims, it puts pressure on that place and goes after those groups. We still can’t provide such an opportunity. I actually thought many times that there could be a group of doctors who volunteer to help torture victims. But we couldn’t make it possible.

Can one object to solitary cells by filing a complaint? I know that you and a group of civil activists and former political prisoners recently filed a complaint at the judicial office against the detention of suspects in solitary cells. Is it possible to file a complaint both when a detainee is transferred from solitary confinement to a general ward and when released from prison, so that the treatment process proceeds? Apart from the fact that the perpetrators and organizers of this should be brought to trial.

What happens is that when victims of solitary confinement come to general wards and face discomforts, face serious damage to their spirit, mind, and body, and think of treatment and healing or at least follow-up, in reality and in practice, the prison system, given that if it creates and records an opportunity for the person to pursue these follow-ups and treatments, this process will itself be documentation and evidence against security agencies and solitary confinement and torture, prevents this. That is, a group of independent doctors don’t have this opportunity. Prison doctors themselves are under the control and supervision of security agencies. Some of these doctors go to wards 209, Ward 2-A, 240, and 241. I witnessed that when doctors enter security wards, in many of these cases, security officers accompany them. For example, I remember one time when I needed a doctor, the interrogator was standing over my head next to the doctor. Although the doctor standing over my head was much worse than my interrogator. That is, their position was much more rigid and their treatment was much harsher.

This happened in Ward 209?

Yes, it was in Ward 209. I remember a doctor in a white medical coat treated me with such violence that my interrogator left the room. They laid me on the ground and on the tile. Instead of laying me on a bed. And even grabbed my hands from both sides as a doctor and put them on me and threatened that if you don’t allow me to inject this ampule into you, I will chain your hand to the bedframe and chain your legs, you won’t be able to move anymore and I will do this. Therefore, I want to say that what happens in solitary cells is part of that white torture that whether the physics of solitary confinement, the manner of interrogations, or the manner of medical care, completes it. Therefore, when a person is brought to a general ward, the prison health service and doctors and the path that the prisoner’s medical file goes through can be like a judicial file that has no judicial effect. That is, we are not benefiting from just trials. Because the security agency is influential and the judiciary places itself under its control and authority and exerts influence. The same happens with health services. Whatever referral you have to whatever hospital, the deputy prosecutor must give permission. In what way does the deputy prosecutor give permission? Certainly the security agency’s opinion must be present. Therefore, the security agency’s view to the same extent that it is influential in the judicial process of cases and during case examination, also affects medical care and treatment, and performs the same filtering and control. Therefore, this issue cannot properly happen in prisons; maybe it happens in form. But in my view, even that form is useful and should be recorded. But the fact that after release this can be done, the reality is that legal medicine in the Islamic Republic of Iran’s system is under the supervision of the judiciary and lacks independence. A body that is under the supervision of an entity that itself is the perpetrator and perpetrator of this situation; I don’t have much hope for it. Although, for example, regarding cases where a prisoner has been sent from prison to a hospital and they have concluded to send them to legal medicine, legal medicine does not write clear and transparent medical opinion. For example, it says that you can keep this person in prison, but on the condition that they don’t have stress. Is a doctor who implements this opinion in legal medicine familiar with the concept of prison? If they are not familiar and know that one of the characteristics of prison is anxiety, stress, and conditions resulting from prison such as separation from family, illness, and other problems, and living under security and judicial agencies, don’t they know that one of the requirements of prison, one of the things that is always associated with prison, is anxiety and stress? This opinion is not independent and medical. In fact, it is an opinion that only relieves them of responsibility. Or, for example, regarding a person who if detained in prison, this detention would result in disability, for example, this happened with Ms. Raheleh Ahmadi. For her, a hospital that itself is under the supervision of the judiciary has written that if she is detained in prison, based on these medical reasons, it could result in this woman becoming paralyzed. What opinion does legal medicine give on this? I’m sorry to say that legal medicine regarding the issue of prisoners, especially political and ideological prisoners, does not give an independent medical and therapeutic opinion, and under the pressures of security and judicial agencies, we don’t receive independent medical opinion from medical commissions. You also saw in the case of Behnam Mahjoubi that even the opinion that came from the medical commission was ignored by security and judicial agencies, resulting in Behnam Mahjoubi’s death. Or in the current situation regarding Mr. Mohammad Nourizedeh, certainly the opinion of doctors in the hospitals where Mr. Nourizedeh was taken is that he should not be detained in prison. Has legal medicine given such a clear and decisive opinion to the judiciary? Therefore, I want to say that although I agree with you that certainly these cases should be recorded, even if they are not examined and the judiciary ignores them, from the perspective that documentation happens from tortured against torturer, which is the judicial and security system of the Islamic Republic of Iran’s system, and should one day be subject to litigation, and this is an important historical issue. It is a historical document. This is an important matter that should be addressed. How much it results is not very encouraging. But in my view, it can serve as a pressure lever on security and judicial agencies, or we can use it to enlighten public opinion. If we can’t stop this process, at least we can try to control it somewhat.

Are the psychological effects of solitary confinement, considering the conditions governing security wards in the Islamic Republic, different for women and men or not? Considering the treatment in solitary confinement of women, for example, the issue of clothing or the issue of menstruation for women and its effect on the interrogation process. Sexual harassment during interrogation of a detainee or threat of exposing private information of a detainee by the interrogator.

Solitary confinement is torture for every living being. Every living being needs air. Needs sound. Needs sunlight. When you take these from a living being, you disrupt their daily life and existence. When you restrict a human’s social relations. When you take from humans the ability to speak and listen and associate and take them to isolation and void, the reality is that you separate humans from their humanity. Therefore, solitary confinement is torture for every human. There is no doubt. Psychology also considers white torture to be one of the most horrific types of torture. This torture targets the human spirit and mind and causes disorder. But that in solitary cells for women there can be doubled pressure, in my view, both the interrogation system and the system of detaining women in solitary cells provides the opportunity for this doubled pressure for the interrogator. That women in our society have always faced discrimination and suppression, this is the lived experience of women in Iranian society. Especially in religious governance and in a patriarchal system. Many of us have had these experiences of suppression, humiliation, and harassment and abuse. But in solitary confinement, each of these is applied many times over. Maybe the humiliation of the body is of the same type of humiliation that we always witness. But in solitary confinement, this humiliation creates doubled pressure. For example, when they access your personal files and question your relationships regarding them, or use that as a leverage of threat. That we show these pictures and videos to your family or that we broadcast these on the internet and take your credibility from you and take your honor. Or other interventions in private matters related to women, these place doubled psychological burden on women, and many women, due to fear for their honor and fear of what for any reason they don’t want to be raised in public opinion, cannot bear these pressures and comply with the interrogator’s demands. For example, regarding virginity testing that I have heard from two of my cellmates until now, and both actually belonged to the Revolutionary Guards detention center. This psychological pressure really had affected them greatly. Because they had resisted such treatment, but when you’re in solitary confinement, you have no lawyer and can’t talk to anyone and you’re defenseless in the cell, any of these pressures can break a woman. Or I remember a woman who was also religious. She was put under pressure regarding relationships she had with a man she had become friends with, to give a verbal explanation, and when this woman didn’t agree, they told her we’ll give you paper and pen to go to your cell and write these for us. She mentioned this pressure as one of the pressures that had disrupted her sleep and concentration and nerves and affected her greatly. She herself said that they wanted me to write and this was very horrifying for me. If I didn’t write, the interrogators’ mistreatment toward me would increase and I didn’t have the capacity to bear the conditions of the cell in addition to enduring all this mistreatment by the interrogator. Therefore, I faced a horrifying mental struggle where I couldn’t decide what to do. The reality is that in solitary confinement, even if the interrogator doesn’t come after you, you should be able to endure prolonged loneliness, helplessness, and even not speaking with the interrogator. Accepting these by someone in solitary confinement is not easy. Therefore, you’re forced to comply with the interrogator’s demands, and if you do comply, for a woman it is very horrifying and fragile and can lower that woman’s position in subsequent interrogations that have nothing to do with this matter and make the interrogator master over that woman. These are events that happen to women in the cell.

Source: Hrana