From this issue, in the “Face to Face” section of the Peace magazine, we will focus on conversations or memoirs of torture victims in prisons. In this series of conversations, we will try to document the various forms of torture that are practiced in prisons, as told by the victims themselves. The purpose of this is to examine the history, reasons, and roots of using psychological torture instead of physical torture over time.

“White Torture” is a type of torture known as “clean torture” in the CIA and is also referred to as “soft torture” in Iran. It is a form of torture that aims to manipulate the prisoner’s mind and soul instead of physically harming them (unlike other forms of physical torture). This type of torture forces the prisoner to retreat into themselves and experience mental breakdown. The principles of this type of torture are based on the findings of psychologists and it is believed to have emerged after World War II.

In this issue, we have gone to meet Hossein Ghabraei, a former member of the Organization of Iranian People’s Fedayeen.

Hossein Ghabraei, in the month of Mehr in the year.

In the city of Langroud, he was born into a large family. He completed his elementary and high school education in the same city and then moved to the city of Rasht. Due to his activist activities, he has experienced two periods of detention and torture before and after the February 57 revolution. He currently resides in Canada and has remained silent throughout these years. As he puts it, the pressures he endured during the 90s forced him to empty his mind, just like erasing a tape recording, in order to not break.

We insisted and forced Mr. Ghabraei to review the memories of those years and share his experiences of detention and interrogations. He was first arrested in the month of Ordibehesht in the year 1354 near the city of Anzali and was sentenced to life imprisonment with a reduced sentence.

He describes his arrest as follows: “I was a primary school teacher in one of the suburbs of Anzali city. At 9 o’clock in the morning, while I was teaching in the classroom, I heard a noise and then saw a few soldiers rushing into the schoolyard from the classroom window, accompanied by several plainclothes officers and their military vehicles circling around the school. Within a few seconds, after seeing various Gendarmerie and Savak vehicles entering the school by opening the gate, I realized what was happening. As I was also the principal of the school, I went out of the classroom and approached them. They had a photo in their hand and said they were looking for Mr. Ghobrayi. I told them he didn’t come today! They showed me the photo and asked if it was me! I said yes, why? They said come down and as I was going down, four or five people pointed their guns at me. Immediately after

An interesting point that was completely recorded in my memory during the arrest was that hundreds of children had come out of their classes and were looking at us curiously!

After mentioning that during the journey, the Savak agents tried to create a climate of fear and terror, it continues: “They took me to the Savak headquarters in Rasht. When we arrived, I saw some of my belongings – from under my coat that was on my head – and realized that before my arrest, they had visited my house. Well, this was a very important and vital matter. If I didn’t see my belongings, I wouldn’t give the interrogators my home address, which only one other person besides myself knew. But then, the first solution that came to my mind was to say that the address of my house had been leaked. But I had to search my mind and understand how this had happened…”.

Mr. Ghabraei believes that one of the tactics to deal with an interrogator is to know what they already know and slowly reveal the same information. This behavior makes them think that you are cooperating or lying; otherwise, if they realize that you are trying to hide information and resist, they will put so much pressure on you that they will extract the information from you.

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“He continues, ‘One of the things that I was successful in seeing and was important to me was a red suitcase that contained some electronic devices such as transistors. We used to make radios and receivers according to the instructions of the “Scientist Magazine” that was published at that time. This magazine explained and taught us how to read transistors and resistors.'”

Fortunately, I did not see two pieces of my belongings that could have caused me trouble: the first one was a closet that I had a hidden compartment in; the walls of the closet were double-layered and I had painstakingly created another thin wall behind it to store some of my notes and hidden items. I also had a pit oil lamp that I had created two levels in by cutting its bottom. I would fill more than half of it with oil, but the empty bottom part was where we hid our secret belongings.

Ghobrayi, referring to the fact that after six months of detention, he was able to establish contact and meet with his family, with a smile on her face, says: “The wardrobe and the oil stove were so important to me that in the first meeting I had with my mother, I told her to go to my house and quickly remove them from there!”

This political prisoner was sent to Tehran shortly after being transferred to a small cell, accompanied by 17 armed individuals, in the afternoon of the same day. “They tied my hands to the mini-bus poles that were carrying me and the armed forces. When we arrived in Tehran, it was early morning. They took me to the Joint Anti-Sabotage Committee in “Sepah Square”. In this committee, the security forces of the Shah’s regime worked together, and in fact, it was managed by representatives of the army, gendarmerie, city guard, and SAVAK. The purpose of establishing such a place was that when, for example, one of these organizations arrested someone, the other organization would not be informed that previously, such lack of coordination had caused problems for them. The Joint Anti-Sabotage Committee was the main center for interrogations and essentially the worst torture chamber of the Shah’s time. If the agents intended to severely torture or even kill

Hossein Ghobrayi adds that after handing over their weapons and blindfolding, the officers took me to the prison. “They introduced me and the man who was three times my size opened my blindfold and said, ‘Look at me!’ And while raising one hand, he said, ‘Do you recognize me?! I am Hosseini! Now do you recognize me…?!”

Only ten minutes after receiving my prison uniform and being transferred to a cell by a guard, I was called and taken to an interrogation room. The interrogator opened my blindfold and introduced himself, emphasizing that I should cooperate and answer all his questions. He placed papers in front of me and wrote “SIN” on them, asking when I had contacted the organization, who had introduced me, and what actions I had taken. A few lines below, he wrote “JIM” (which is actually a combination of SIN and JIM from this point on). I wrote: I had no contact. What organization?! He repeated the first question and emphasized that answering like this was useless, and then moved on to the third question, calling for Mr. Hosseini!

After they blindfolded me again, they transferred me to a higher floor and brought me to a room with my eyes still closed. They threw me onto a hard bed, pulled and tied my hands and feet, and then started whipping the soles of my feet with short, sharp strokes. I counted twenty blows and didn’t say a word. After that, I could feel the blows but no longer felt any pain. They, knowing what they were doing, poured a liquid – which I assumed was cold water – on my feet every few minutes to get the blood flowing again and continue the whipping, so that the pain of the initial blows could be felt again. They also forced me to walk after untying my hands and feet, even though it was impossible for me to bear my own weight. They would hold onto both of my hands and put pressure on my feet, which seemed to have gone numb, so that the blood would flow and I felt like I was flying…

After ten steps, they tied me back to the bed and beat me. It was the same Mr. Hosseini who had complained about me not talking, he threw himself on top of me and pressed my throat and neck so hard that I started screaming. He grabbed me again and encouraged me to say something, but I couldn’t. I thought if I didn’t speak, they would stop hitting me, and on the other hand, I believed that screaming in front of the enemy would not make them happy… but they continued this process until I either opened my mouth or passed out.

He believes that being whipped is like having your leg numbed after ten strikes, and due to the intensity of the strikes – even with each strike being delivered by an electric cable with a heavy weight – the leg swells at least two centimeters and turns completely black; the sound of the strikes can be heard, but it’s as if they are landing on an object resembling a pillow.

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Mr. Ghabraei continues in this way: “The Organization of Fedaian-e Khalq had come to realize that forms of torture such as whipping or submerging the head in water until suffocation, which is done to simulate artificial respiration, are unbearable if continued. Therefore, it was decided to resist for a maximum of six hours after being detained, and after that, revealing many issues would no longer be considered a betrayal.”

Our meetings were once every six hours and through this we would stay updated on each other’s well-being. If we didn’t see signs of good health, we would suspect the person’s arrest and evacuate the location. It was previously said that there should be constant resistance, but the assurance that committed individuals wouldn’t confess had caused ninety percent of those who were arrested to reveal everything after a short period of time (for example, ten hours). Hundreds of people were mistakenly killed because they never believed that their comrade would say anything about them, especially their place of residence.

With all these characteristics, I had promised myself not to speak for twelve hours, as from the time of my arrest until my transfer to Tehran, practically twelve hours had passed and it was only after that that the interrogations and beatings began. I didn’t say anything for another twelve hours. And when I finally started talking, I tried to only say things that would ultimately harm myself and not others.

He continues his conversation and then goes back a little: “On the way from Rasht to Tehran, behind one of the red lights, a newspaper vendor appeared and loudly read the headline of his newspapers: ‘Five terrorists killed’, ‘Five terrorists killed’. With this news, the possibility that the victims were related to my arrest was very high. But who was killed that had my address? We never kept addresses written down so that it would be revealed with the death of someone. Therefore, a secret had been discovered. But which secret and by whom? … In any case, I had to quickly come to a correct conclusion that if they showed me a picture of that person, I could identify him as the same person who was dead and say that I knew him, otherwise they would realize that I had something to hide.

The organizational name of the responsible person was “Mohammad”. I put a 99% chance that he, being armed, had fought and been killed in a confrontation, and the Savak agents, after identifying the code they found from him, identified me. Otherwise, if they had succeeded in arresting him and exposing me, they would not have needed to torture me and could have completed the job by confronting the two of us. The only chance I had was that I had nothing strange or unusual in that house; for example, I did not have a weapon.

In our organization, in addition to individual homes, each person was also connected to a communal home. Individual homes consisted of the simplest items such as a bed and at most, basic items that needed to be hidden. The philosophy behind the existence of this place was that if there was a problem with the communal home, the individual would have a place to hide, where only they and one other person (responsible for them) would know the address.

Mr. Ghobrayi adds: “In any case, considering that I had seen my own belongings, denying everything was foolish. I was actually exposed and in such a situation, you can’t say there was no connection. They hit me so much to make me talk. They had a lot of evidence against me collaborating with the Mujahedin-e Khalq organization: writings, statements, books, and other organizational materials, even a radio through which we would track and listen to Savak conversations. Of course, they spoke in code, but after a while we would decipher the codes; in fact, we were growing up together in two groups.”

Hossein Ghabraei continues, “They took me back to the interrogation room and asked who introduced me to you, and I said Mohammad. They asked for his real name, which I didn’t say. (His real name was Behrouz Armaghani, who was killed during the arrest in Rasht.) Then they immediately brought out the photos, at least a hundred of them. I had dozens of photos that I recognized, but I didn’t say anything about them and only showed the photo of Behrouz. They asked who else you were working with, and I said no one. They asked who introduced you to Mohammad, and at that moment I looked for someone… the girl that I had introduced to the organization myself a few months ago and was killed, I introduced her as my contact! They said, she’s the one who was killed. I said, well what can I do!? They asked again, where did you meet her? I said in front

All the information that Savak had was just this. Of course, he didn’t know anything about that girl, but due to the fact that she had been killed four months ago, it was obvious that there was no danger of control or detention affecting her.

He is trying to find a book and show it to me: “Recently, the Islamic Republic of Iran has published a book called “Shah’s Time Files” which includes documents and files from SAVAK, including my own file in a section titled “Individual Files”. It mentions that I was detained alone and did not have a previous or subsequent person, but we had many people who, as a result of severe torture, which is not a joke, would introduce a large number of people they knew.”

As a result of torture, if the person does not break, they die. And choosing death is by no means easy. They won’t even let you die. As soon as you start to deteriorate, they transfer you to the operating rooms, inject blood into your body, and force you to drink milk. There were people who had undergone surgery ten times and had skin from other parts of their body grafted onto the soles of their feet. They even change methods: when they see that your feet can no longer withstand the whip, they use electric shock, pour water into your lungs, put you in a very tight cage where you can’t even move a muscle, and keep you in the sun. They put simple two-layered hats on your head and pour drops of water on them. The sound of the water dripping drives you crazy, and after ten to twelve hours of these sounds and the pressure from excessive wetness on your ears, you go insane, and they hang you

Hossein Ghabraei believes that one of the major differences in the behavior of officials and interrogators before and after the revolution is that, due to the global reputation of the monarchy, their efforts were focused on ensuring that no one would be tortured and at the same time, they valued you as a human being. This is in contrast to the interrogators of the Islamic Republic, who do not consider you as a human being. They saw you, who did not even have a religion, as a filthy animal that they were not even allowed to touch. “In situations where we were blindfolded, they would not even take our hands while transferring us to interrogation rooms and passing through stairs and other floors. We would hit walls and doors and be thrown down several stairs. Eventually, they would grab metal bars, one end in your hand and the other in their own, which was not very helpful in determining the direction while moving.”

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“After this period, I was sent to the prison of the palace and all the ridiculous stages of the court, such as appointing a lawyer, were followed; even though my lawyer was a military supporter of the Shah. Only those who had large sums of money or were favored by the Shah could afford to hire a non-military lawyer. However, even these lawyers did not have the courage to defend their clients. Our lawyers in court would dictate phrases such as “we know you were a supporter of the Shah, but you were deceived” and even you yourself admitted to this deception, and so on, in their defense.”

In fact, everything is just a show, a prisoner can have a lawyer and defend their case.

Ghobrayi concluded, “Going to court was truly enjoyable for me. After enduring five to six months in solitary confinement, seeing things like the sun, streets, and people was really nice. My cell was very small and dark. It had no windows and the only source of light was a dim bulb covered with a mesh screen. I never had the opportunity to tell day from night. On the other hand, during this time, I had not seen anyone except my interrogators. Of course, in the beginning, the light was too intense and I couldn’t open my eyes, but after that, seeing the trees and their greenery really brought me joy.”

Hossein Ghabraei, in the Shahanshahi court, was sentenced to death on charges of membership in the People’s Mujahedin Organization of Iran, but in the appeal court, his sentence was reduced to life imprisonment. He was among the last group of prisoners who were released from Evin prison by the people in February 1979.

End of Part One.