written by Reza who waz captured nad detained there
July 28.09
The Kahrizak Camp
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. 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 placed. 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