A report on the secret detention centers of Iranian security agencies in Urmia, Sanandaj, and Kermanshah
The Kurdistan Human Rights Network has published a report on the detention conditions, interrogation methods, and torture of political prisoners in the detention centers of the Ministry of Intelligence and the Intelligence Organization of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in the cities of Urmia, Sanandaj, and Kermanshah.
In a report published on Friday, November 27, the Kurdistan Human Rights Network revealed the conditions of political prisoners in secret detention centers of the Ministry of Intelligence and the Intelligence Organization of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in Urmia, Sanandaj, and Kermanshah.
At the beginning of the report, it is stated that, given the security situation in these detention centers and the obstacles that have existed in the way of collecting information, the Kurdistan Human Rights Network has attempted to interview a number of detained activists who have spent time in these detention centers, and most of what is included in the report is information obtained from the objective observations of these individuals.
The report states that the Ministry of Intelligence, the IRGC Intelligence Organization, the intelligence of the law enforcement forces, and the security police each have separate secret detention centers in different cities in Kurdistan.
The IRGC Intelligence Organization has several secret detention centers in each of the provinces of West Azerbaijan, Kurdistan, Kermanshah, and Ilam in the provincial capitals, and the locations of some of them have not yet been determined.
The Ministry of Intelligence also has a central detention center in each provincial capital, where all detainees from different regions are usually transferred to and interrogated.
Each city's intelligence department also has a small detention center at its office, which is used in emergencies, such as in cases where sudden street protests, strikes over livelihood conditions, and other such incidents occur, which often lead to mass arrests of citizens.
In addition to the headquarters of this military-security institution, the detention centers of the IRGC Intelligence Organization also include, in some cases, villas in residential areas that are used as detention centers for the interrogation of foreign nationals and top-secret cases.
According to the Kurdistan Human Rights Network, the locations of these top-secret detention centers have not yet been identified.
"Grave" cell
The report states that all cells in the Urmia Intelligence Detention Center have no windows. Only channels are installed in the ceiling of these cells for air entry and exit.
The Kurdistan Human Rights Network, citing some people who have spent time in this detention center, has written that it is one of the dirtiest and most horrible Ministry of Intelligence detention centers in Iran. The toilets and bathrooms in each of its cells are extremely inadequate and smelly, and the detainees are provided with dirty blankets.
The food given to the detainees is the food of Urmia Central Prison, which has been described as being of very poor quality.
According to the report, the aforementioned detention center has a cell known as the “grave cell,” which is one and a half meters high and half a meter long and wide. The prisoner is forced to stand in this cell for hours. This room is used only during torture.
According to former political prisoners, beatings are a common practice of torture by intelligence interrogators. During interrogations, two members of the torture team stand next to the accused's chair and if he does not answer the questions asked, the accused is severely beaten by these two individuals, in such a way that in some cases some of them have been rendered unconscious as a result of these blows.
In another room of the detention center, which is used for torture, the accused is made to lie on a bed and whipped on the soles of their feet with various cables and other devices. The use of electric shocks and hitting sensitive parts of the body, such as the testicles, is also common in this detention center.
A detention center for murder and execution
According to the Kurdistan Human Rights Network, the IRGC Intelligence Organization of West Azerbaijan Province has several secret detention centers inside and outside the city of Urmia.
The report states that one of them, the 81st Ramadan Detention Center, also known as the Al-Mahdi Detention Center, is a place for fake murders and shootings. In several other cases, security interrogators tell the accused that they intend to shoot him in order to extract forced confessions.
In many cases, prisoners are pressured by detaining their spouses or close relatives and threatening to torture or rape them.
So far, at least one Kurdish citizen has died under torture in this detention center. The report says that, based on reliable information, Nasser Eissazadeh, a citizen from Salmas who had intended to join a Kurdish opposition party during his military service, was arrested in 2010 and died under severe torture in this detention center. The IRGC forces secretly transferred his body to his hometown and buried him at night.
Sanandaj detention centers
According to the Kurdistan Human Rights Network, the solitary confinement cells in the security institutions' detention centers in this city, like their other secret detention centers, are dirty and disgusting, and prisoners are tortured in various ways, both physically and mentally.
Over the past few years, at least two detainees have died under torture in this detention center.
According to this report, one of these individuals was Ebrahim Lotfollahi, a Kurdish student activist who was arrested by security forces on January 6, 2007, and nine days later, his body was buried by security forces at night in the cemetery of Sanandaj.
Also, another young man from Sanandaj, named Saro Ghahraman, who was arrested in Sanandaj during the nationwide protests in January 2017, was handed over to his family after 11 days. Saro Ghahraman's mother, who had managed to see her son's body, stated in a conversation with her relatives that the signs of beatings on her son's body were clearly visible.
Mohammad Hossein Rezaei, a former Kurdish political prisoner who spent several months in the Sanandaj Intelligence Agency detention center, told the Kurdistan Human Rights Network about the conditions of the detention center and the torture that was applied to him: "Despite the fact that my leg had recently been operated on, they transferred me to the basement of this detention center and tortured me severely just because I had been humming hymns in my cell. As a result of this torture, my nose and several ribs in my chest were severely damaged."
Farzad Kamangar, a Kurdish teacher who was executed in Tehran's Evin Prison on May 9, wrote in one of his letters about this detention center: "One day, the head of the detention center and several others beat me for no reason and took me out of my cell. On the stairs that had 18 steps leading to the basement and interrogation rooms, they hit me on the head from behind at the top of the stairs, and I fell to the ground and my eyes went black. They dragged me down the stairs in the same condition."
Roya Tolui, a Kurdish civil activist who currently resides in the United States, was arrested by security forces in 2005. In an interview with an American newspaper, she stated that she was raped while in detention.
The Sanandaj IRGC Intelligence Organization detention center is located in the high-security Shahram Far camp.
Mohammad Hossein Rezaei, a former Kurdish political prisoner, told the Kurdistan Human Rights Network about this detention center: "I was held in this detention center for 29 days in the worst conditions. While I was injured, I was transferred directly to this detention center without being taken to the hospital and was subjected to severe physical and mental torture for 29 days in order to extract a confession. In the first days, a military doctor examined me but did nothing to treat me. As a result, my leg became infected and the wounds on my leg were infected with worms. In addition to being deprived of any medical care, my interrogators tied both my hands behind my back several times and hung me in this way, which caused my shoulder to dislocate."
Kermanshah Intelligence Agency Detention Center
Unlike the other two provinces (West Azerbaijan and Kurdistan), most security interrogators in Kermanshah are natives of this province.
According to the Kurdistan Human Rights Network, none of the cells in the Kermanshah Intelligence Department detention center have windows, so the detainee is unable to distinguish between day and night. There are two dirty blankets in each cell, and the cells lack any heating or air conditioning.
There are no toilets or bathrooms in these cells, and detainees are only allowed to go to the bathroom three times a day. Such restrictions are one way to put pressure on prisoners.
The Kurdistan Human Rights Network report also states that this detention center has a large basement where detainees are often transferred to for torture. The people who work as guards in this detention center are mostly elderly Basij men trusted by the Ministry of Intelligence; in recent years, several young guards have also been employed in this detention center.
Torture and rape in Kermanshah detention center
Zeinab Jalalian, a Kurdish political prisoner serving a life sentence who has been interrogated and tortured in this detention center for several months, told the Kurdistan Human Rights Network: "After failing to extract a fabricated confession, one of my interrogators announced that he wanted to make me a concubine. That is why he was trying to forcefully put a ring on one of my fingers. To prevent this, I had to kick him, which caused several people who were there to attack me and beat me until I was unconscious."
Zeinab Jalalian was taken to the basement several times and was flogged on the soles of her feet with cables by interrogators for hours. The severity of the whippings was so severe that she was repeatedly returned to her cell unconscious.
A Kurdish citizen who was arrested on charges of espionage also said that in the interrogation room he was made to sit on a chair with a hole under it and then heavy weights were attached to his testicles, and each time the weight of these weights was increased. He was also hung from the ceiling with a special rope for several days for hours. In this way, he was hung from the back or from both legs for hours at a time, with one hand or two friends.
Two of the detained women told the Kurdistan Human Rights Network that they were subjected to virginity tests by a doctor during their detention under pressure from interrogators.
According to the Kurdistan Human Rights Network, another young woman, who was arrested a few years ago on charges of spying for an intelligence agency affiliated with one of the parties in the Kurdistan Region, was raped by a cleric in this detention center for several months.
The young woman told the Kurdistan Human Rights Network that she was being injected with drugs in prison. She added: “One day, after being injected with a syringe while I was blindfolded, I noticed a new person in my cell. After greeting him, I realized that he was completely clinging to me to the point that I could feel his breathing on my neck. I was in agony every moment, but because my hands and feet were tied, I could do nothing but scream. He forcibly took off my clothes and raped me.”
According to the Kurdistan Human Rights Network, the man was wearing a clerical robe. The cleric's rape of the detained woman continued for two months.
Farzad Kamangar also wrote in his letters about this detention center: "In the winter of 2006, I endured three months of terrible imprisonment in a cramped, dark solitary confinement in Kermanshah, without any charges. Three months that, after three years, still torment my body, soul, and mind."
The Kurdistan Human Rights Network report has pointed to similar cases of torture and abuse of political prisoners in the detention centers of the IRGC Intelligence Organization and the disastrous conditions in which they are held.
The Kurdistan Human Rights Network has said that it will publish a report on two other security detention centers in Ilam city in the future.
Source: DW
