The torture of a 17-year-old in Iran

June 24, 2009 | The pictures you are about to
see are not from someone who supports anarchy, he is not even a part of
the "DUST" that Ahmadinejad called his opponents. He is just a
17-year-old boy who was supposed to take the university entrance exam
within a month before his fingers were broken and the finger webs were
cut with a blade. He was arrested violently in the parking lot of a
living complex without even taking part in any of the recent
activities, and after more than 24 hours he returned home while his
face was fully covered with blood and one could only see his eyes.
These pictures are taken hours after his return home, his bruised face
and broken nose cannot be shown due to his and his parents fear from
the security guards. This is a summary of his story:

"It was
around 12:30 a.m., and I was with my friend, his brother and his
brother's wife. We were talking right in front of his place, which is
about 2 to 3 blocks away from my place, while a group of people
escaping entered the alley and took refuge in houses with open doors.
My friends' place is in the middle of the alley so nobody took refuge
there, and we went in and closed the doors. His brother and his wife
went in building and asked me to join them as well, but since I was not
feeling comfortable with his family, my friend and I stayed out in the
parking."

"All of a sudden agents in black uniforms and helmets
carrying batons broke the door and entered. We tried to hide behind the
big trash bin at the end of the parking but one of them saw us,
whistled and informed the rest of them who were just leaving the
parking. It was just baton strikes all over my body after that, and we
were transferred to the minus 4 level of Ministry of Intelligence
building. There were a lot of riot police in black uniforms like those
on the streets there. They were mostly non-Farsi speakers, and those
who spoke Farsi kept telling us they could kill us right away and no
one would ever know, they were also insulting us with very bad words."

"One
of them asked me if Mr. Khatami would come save us, while they were
breaking my fingers and cutting the finger webs. Although I swore a
thousand times that I had not voted and had never participated in any
demonstration, they didn't care and just kept beating me hard. I
fainted once or twice but there were some of us who fainted every time
their bones were broken, and as soon as they gained their
consciousness, the riot police started beating them again. I was trying
to contract my muscles to avoid further bone fracture."

"This
continued till around 1 p.m., when they took us to another place, where
security guards were in charge. We were then interrogated by the
militia. Again, they kept beating me although I told them that I have
never participated in any demonstration. In general, they were less
harsh than the previous ones. In the evening, we were transferred to a
police station where normal police with green uniform hung us by our
hands (you can see the signs of the string around my wrists on the
pictures), they hung some of us upside down and started beating us
again."

"Around
2 AM, they took us to a police hospital where they just stitched the
web of my fingers that were still bleeding and bandaged my head without
any stitches. They released us in a highway, I think they knew we did
nothing; otherwise they would not release us. I am surprised how I
tolerated all the tortures and survived. I didn't see anyone dying
there; a lot of people just lost their consciousness, but I guess the
baton strikes were so harsh that brain injury or internal bleeding was
inevitable. I can never forget the scenes I saw there."