The question is: Can repentance turn into a torturer? But perhaps it is more appropriate to change the question to the complicity of “repentance” with the “torturer”: Can repentance become an accomplice to the torturer? The “real torturer” gains absolute obedience from the victim by turning them into their prey, but they are never willing to give up their position as the “sacred” torturer.

Before delving into the phenomenon of collaboration and complicity in the ultimate moral corruption, it is necessary to emphasize that this statement should not be interpreted as disregarding the resistance of fighters who resisted under the worst tortures, did not give in to corruption, preserved their ideals, and in an unequal battle – at a heavy cost – brought the torturers to their knees.

It is no secret that among the political prisoners of that era, the Tavabeh were in the minority. However, when depicting the faces of the prisons of the 1960s, the phenomenon of Tavabeh – which was a shameful part of the Islamic Republic’s prisons – cannot be ignored. Even if we reduce their role to a noisy minority or a tool for propaganda and showcasing the image of the Islamic Republic to destroy the face of the prison, it does not diminish the fact that this showcase was more disgraceful than providing legitimacy for the oppressive regime, as it was a blatant reason for the presence of torture and torturers in the prison.

The hierarchy of repenters in collaboration with the torturers.

The role that informants played in suppression depended on factors such as their position in the past and their political background. What mattered to the interrogators was to determine which of the informants could be most useful to the system in a given situation and position. In fact, the use of informants in suppression was carried out through a specific hierarchy. At the highest level, there were those who were accomplices of the interrogators, called in for service in the morning and returning at night. This group of mercenaries – whether they had taken the whip or not – played a major role in tracking the activities of organizations and arresting active forces, providing valuable assistance to the interrogators. These informants provided the interrogators with internal information and secrets of the organization – which many had endured torture and even death to protect. In exchange for their “great” service to the intelligence agency, they were given the “small” opportunity to spend their imprisonment in open cells or separate rooms with better facilities. Since they

Another group were those who were assigned the role of guarding the rooms and prisoners. Their job was to closely monitor the behavior and movements of the prisoners and report any suspicious behavior to the interrogators. The implementation of strict regulations in the prison was only possible with their presence. The guards would come and go, but these individuals were constantly with the prisoners day and night, able to observe and report even the smallest behaviors and emotional states. Their night duty was report writing. With the power to command and forbid, they felt a sense of authority and in acts of violence, they would often take the lead over the guards. Beating the prisoners without reason was part of their daily duties, especially in the dead cells. In Qezelhesar prison, they were responsible for all the cells. Assigning prisoners to guard the prison and hiring unpaid and desperate “workers” – who would do anything to secure their release, even if it meant breaking the spirits of the prisoners – also had economic benefits for

At the bottom of the hierarchy of these mercenaries, there were repentants who had no responsibility in managing the prisoners, but they had no shortage of animosity and enmity towards the inmates. They played a black role in creating an atmosphere of terror and suffocation among the prisoners – along with the higher-ranking repentants. With the removal of Davood Rahmani from the head of Qezelhesar Prison in the summer of 1363 and the dismissal of Asadollah Lajvardi from the prosecutor’s office and the management of Evin Prison, a large number of prisoners, including the repentants, were released. The Islamic Republic, after the destruction of political organizations, did not see the maintenance of such a large number of prisoners as beneficial. The change in management of these two prisons, whatever it was, caused the prison to come back to life and resistance to become more apparent. In other cities’ prisons, the situation was different. According to reports that leaked out

How can one describe a prisoner in a prison guard’s uniform?

What we said was a very general depiction of the faces of the revolutionaries of the 1960s. The exact description of their faces can be highly debated depending on others’ experiences. The important issue is to address the reason behind this phenomenon; why those who fought for justice, freedom, and against the oppressive government suddenly turned their backs on all their ideals and became accomplices to the oppressors they once stood against?

The answer to this question can be examined from various perspectives. For example, one can consider the personal characteristics in explaining the “resilience” or “breakdown” of prisoners, but it must be acknowledged that even in the most terrifying tunnels, there is still a way to choose; meaning that personal responsibility cannot be ignored. In a broader view, it becomes clear that highlighting “personal characteristics and responsibility” and focusing on distractions can diminish the government’s responsibility for these crimes and cover up the ugly face of the planners of these inhumane behaviors.

The phenomenon of torture was a product of criminal policies and the systematic use of religious torture in the 1960s. It is necessary to keep in mind two points in this regard. Firstly, torture is a condition that is not limited to interrogation dungeons, individual horrors, and scenes of limited execution. These savage and daily actions were present throughout the duration of imprisonment, as if the prisoner would never be released from them. Alongside these acts of savagery, the suffering and torment inflicted by the torturers on the prisoners was an additional injustice and a soul-crushing pain, a suffering that is clearly seen in the memories of all prisoners of the 1960s.

The reality is that the effects of these tortures were not limited to physical harm to the prisoners, but also extended to their mental and emotional well-being, as well as the overall fabric of society. The screams of the lashings that fell upon the prisoner’s body would reverberate throughout the prison, causing pain and wounds to multiply and repeat in their bodies and minds. The torture would emerge from the terrifying rooms, creating fear and terror. Some fighters were executed, but a larger number were forced to listen to the sound of bullets and see the hanging gallows, as if they were watching their own execution. This type of torture and the creation of a climate of terror were so intense that they could disrupt the prisoner’s sense of self and their ability to respond, and even paralyze them.

Feeling of guilt.

The phenomenon of repentance and repentance-making is only understandable and explainable in one way; the perpetrators and agents of these inhuman behaviors, riding on the destructive and dogmatic ideology, would label dissidents and prisoners who had opposing political thoughts and actions against the Islamic government as sinners. With this explanation, when political action is judged according to religious interpretations such as disbelief, polytheism, apostasy, rebellion, and corruption on earth, its punishment will be considered legal and Islamic; punishments that have been predetermined in the books of jurisprudence. In the judicial system of the Islamic Republic, the existence of a court, judge, lawyer, proof of crime, and other legal measures were only used to maintain a superficial appearance. I have clearly seen the explicit form of these types of punishments in the Islamic Revolutionary Courts of the 1990s.

In the advancement of this policy, “language” played a very important role. The Islamic propaganda machine was at its service to bombard prisoners with mostly imaginary charges, using methods such as torture, execution, shooting, and expulsion, leaving no room for anyone to feel sorry, and with this method, it made crimes and torture appear more justifiable.

“When religion becomes a tool of oppression, another form of religious punishment emerges, a punishment based on ‘inducing a sense of sin’, in other words, ‘creating spiritual torment and imposing repentance’. The spiritual pain and torment, resulting from the sense of sin, must be transformed into grounds for the prisoner to purify themselves from their ‘sins’ and make amends for them, against their past integrity. In this way, in the interrogation rooms, the sense of sin was induced by destroying the prisoner’s past. The torturers, by creating chaos and manipulating the prisoner’s mind and memories, would paint a distorted picture of their entire past. They would convince the prisoner that in their past, they were a corrupt human being and their actions – whether it was reading a book or making a statement – were sins and stemmed from ‘carnal desires’. Their idealism would be transformed into submission to Islam, the interrogator, and the torturer. When the ‘sinful’

The mechanism of manipulation of the mind and psyche of humans is a complex process. This mechanism can play a role in imprisoning someone without even accepting the torturer’s intentions. When helplessness and vulnerability take over a prisoner, they may pretend to have surrendered in order to escape the current situation. However, when this role-playing is repeated, it puts the prisoner in a dangerous game that makes it difficult to distinguish between “real” and “unreal” behavior. In this way, the invasion and manipulation of the human mind through a combination of methods and in the terrifying environment of prison, with the constant presence of death, various torture techniques, and mandatory “rehabilitation” classes, could be possible. This inhumane policy, known as brainwashing, could have devastating effects even after the person is released.

In the prisons of the Islamic Republic, distorting the truth was common, even when it came to names. Real names had to be erased from minds, literature, and history. Uttering the real name of an organization was considered a crime. For example, if a prisoner affiliated with the Mujahedin-e Khalq organization referred to themselves as a “hypocrite,” they would be counted as a double hypocrite and subjected to severe punishment. In the summer of 1367 (1988), such audacity was met with death as a response.

The torture device was not enough, the victim’s brokenness had to be used as an example for other prisoners. He had to confess his sins in front of others and break down in front of them. Another form of psychological torture was forcing him to listen to confessions and repentance interviews. Religious speeches, Quran recitations, prayers, and lamentations were broadcasted through loudspeakers and closed-circuit televisions. The main theme of these programs was sin and repentance, accompanied by heart-wrenching cries and desperate pleas, creating an atmosphere of madness and hysteria.

To depict such a space, I transfer scenes that in the book “Simple Truth” are described using the term “petrified”.

“The prisoners were sitting silently in front of their cells, staring at us with a sense of despair. Even the familiar faces that we used to share a room with looked at us strangely. They were all wearing dark coats and pants, with headscarves and sleeves pulled down to their wrists. No one was walking in the hallway. No one was talking to each other. They had no books or newspapers in their hands, only the Quran and prayer books… The first night we arrived happened to be one of the nights of prayer. As the sound of prayer echoed through the loudspeaker, the lights went out. The prisoners sat in the hallway, whispering along with the prayer. The sound of crying, which was initially soft, grew louder and louder. Sometimes, when the prayer leader paused and recited a eulogy for a sinful human being, the crying reached its peak. It wasn’t just crying, it was wailing and screaming. They cried with such agony that it seemed as

Seeing oneself as a sinner, constantly struggling with the thought of hellfire and the wrath of God and punishment, depriving oneself of the joys of life and escaping from anything that brings pleasure, had brought the “stoned” to a place where they had lost the ability to enjoy, to have desires and hopes, and perhaps even the power to love. For many of them, the future was also ruined.

The “stoned” ones were the ones who were consumed by anger and hatred, towards themselves and others. It was not enough to atone for their sins by being a repentant prisoner, with the pain of guilt constantly haunting them. They had to prove their true repentance through action. True repentance was when one would shoot their former comrade who had not surrendered, and point the gun at those who remained loyal to their ideals. For the defeated prisoner, they were a reminder of the ideals that had been lost and the glorious past that had now been plundered. The repentant ones, seeking revenge against the standing fighters who were the source of their envy and hatred, were so persistent that they even overpowered the guards and prison wardens.

The tragic phenomenon of dehumanization is a product of the darkest period in contemporary Iranian history, the 1960s, during which every impossibility became possible. It emerged from the prisons with such terror that it was able to paralyze the sense of empathy in society and lead to collective depression and apathy.

We should not let it be repeated.