Inside a Khomeini Prison

The first-person account of a man marked for death

While Khomeini's Islamic Guards are executing enemies of the regime in the streets, they are also torturing suspected opponents behind prison walls with a ferocity unequaled even by the deposed Shah's notorious SAVAK agents. Many of the prisoners who are being tortured are merely relatives of dissidents sought by the political police. One victim, who is now in hiding in Iran, described his ordeal to TIME

Why am I here?" I asked one of the Islamic Guards who had arrested me in July and brought me to a detention center north of Tehran that was filled with political prisoners. He wanted to know the whereabouts of my brother [a political dissident wanted by the police]. "I don't know," I said. "I haven't seen him for two months."

At that, the door of the interrogation room burst open and a group of men circled me, then charged. Each man in turn would direct a karate kick or chop at me, sending me staggering to another of the torturers. My lips cracked, my nose bled and my cheeks were so swollen I could not see. When I could not stand on my feet any more, one guard would pick me up and another would kick or punch me. They laughed each time I hit the floor. I passed out a few times. They would bring me back to consciousness by splashing ice water in my face. Each time they would ask me if I still had difficulty remembering where my brother was. I truly didn't know, but they wouldn't believe me.

Then they threw me into a cell full of other battered political prisoners and threatened to "play football" with me again unless my memory improved. [The same technique was used by SAVAK and called by the same name. The aim is to shatter the prisoner's self-confidence and ability to think clearly so that he cannot consistently relate a "cover" story he may have prepared.]

They played football with me for four days. After the second day, they introduced a new feature to the game. Two men locked their legs in mine and held me spread-eagled against the wall. Then a third would run at me from the opposite wall and drive his knee into my lower abdomen and testicles. The pain was unbearable.

After that they took me to Tehran's Evin Prison, one of the Shah's most notorious jails. The cells were so packed with political prisoners that some were held in the halls and bathrooms. I was placed in a tub of ice water. I don't know how long I was kept there, but when they dragged me out I was numb and almost senseless. My skin was frozen and felt like wood. "Let's warm him up," said an Islamic Guard. The two began whipping me with cables. At first I couldn't feel much pain, but then it got sharper and sharper. I was bleeding all over. I passed out.

They let me alone for a few days. Then just as I was feeling a little better they started on a different tactic. It was psychological. Clergymen strolling through the passages between cells would abruptly point to a prisoner in an ostensibly whimsical manner and order the Islamic Guards to shoot him on the spot. One of the Guards yelled "I'm the judge and the executioner too" as he fired into a prisoner's temple. A man I was talking to in our cell was suddenly separated from me and shot through the head by an Islamic Guard. I was given a mop and a bucket and ordered to "clean up the mess." "Your turn is coming," the Guard told me.

Toward the end of July, around midnight, about 70 men, women and children were brought in. The children and most of the women were shrieking. They were all members of a wedding party. One smartly dressed celebrant said he had no idea what had gone wrong. "We were congratulating the bride and bridegroom when they burst in and arrested everyone," he said. Some of the more sophisticated political prisoners pointed out that all newly married couples in Iran had lately been suspected of being members of the Mujahedin-e Khalq (People's Crusaders), the militant anti-Khomeini guerrilla force. The reason was that the Mujahedin leadership had recently instructed its unmarried guerrillas to wed in order to counter government propaganda claiming that Mujahedin members were living in sin.

On Sept. 4, one of my interrogators told me that very serious charges had been leveled against me, though he did not say what they were. When Ichallenged him to name a single individual who had accused me of a crime, he said, "I will introduce you to as many as you want." And he did. A few days later he brought me in manacles to a mass prayer service in the jail courtyard. He then asked the congregation to look me over to see if anyone recognized me. More than a dozen men came forward, rattled off my name and address and declared they had seen me kill Islamic Guards and innocent people during anti-Khomeini demonstrations. When I asked one of the witnesses who claimed to know me so well, "What's my father's name?" the interrogator yelled at me to shut up.

The next day a makeshift tribunal consisting of five mullahs was set up in a corner of the prison yard. They sent a few new prisoners to the execution squads before my time came for interrogation. One of the clergymen asked me whether I remembered where my brother was. When I replied that I didn't know, the mullah said to his colleagues, "Why keep such vermin alive anyway?" They nodded. My interrogator came for me and waved a paper under my nose. "Well, it's all over, this is your writ of execution," he said. "By the way, if you change your mind about your brother, let me know. Maybe I can get the judges to cancel your sentence."

I was sent to the bathroom to perform my ablutions as a Muslim before the execution. There I met two other condemned political prisoners. One said they had both tried and failed to squeeze through a narrow opening into what looked like a ventilating shaft. To make a ladder for me, one stood on the other's shoulders. I climbed them both and just scraped through the hole. I am thin as it is, and the loss of 40 Ibs. under torture helped.

As I was letting myself down, one of the prisoners said, "Tell the people to avenge our murder. We shall die chanting 'Death to Khomeini!' Tell the people we are proud of dying for their freedom."

I jumped into a tree and climbed down into a garden. Then I scaled a wall, leaped into the street and walked away.

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