Javid Tahmasbi, born in 1345 in Tehran, was arrested on November 24, 1360 at the age of 15 while he was a student, on charges of supporting the Mujahedin-e Khalq organization.

In continuation of our monthly face-to-face conversations with victims of torture in prisons, we have gone to visit someone who, despite being young, has spent around 5 years in prison.

Mr. Tahmasebi believes that the psychological and emotional effects of prison, after a period of imprisonment and the restrictions that are imposed on prisoners in society, make the individual’s situation much more difficult than during their time in prison.

He, referring to the fact that he was arrested twice but was released after about 10 days on the first occasion (in August 1981) in a house belonging to a committee with no name or address, talks about his second arrest: “My second arrest, which happened three months after the first one, took place in November 1981. The officers who came to arrest me (around 2-3 am) were very hostile; after entering the house, I escaped through a window, but they shot at me. I was shocked and even thought one of the two bullets hit me! Anyway, a few of them caught me and forced me to the ground, hitting me with batons and searching my whole body. They dragged me inside the house. During this time, they had already ransacked the house and confiscated some books, tapes, and other items. They took me in the same clothes I was wearing at home, blindfolded me, and before leaving,

Mr. Tahmasebi describes the days he was waiting for interrogation as follows: “We were in the prison yard for several days. Then we were transferred to the interrogation hall. I waited for two days to be interrogated. They blindfolded me and tied my hands and feet to the other prisoners. That means all the people in this hall were chained together. In the hallway of Branch 7 – where the Mujahideen were interrogated at the time and the most terrifying and ruthless interrogators of Evin were in this branch – we could hear the screams, lashes, and beatings of the prisoners. I even saw the scene of blood flowing under the blindfold several times. According to some accounts, the interrogators used recorded tapes of constant cries and screams to torture us. Their goal was to break our spirits. We were not allowed to speak to each other at all, and even the slightest word would result in severe beatings from the guards. Only during meal

He adds about the interrogation process: “My interrogations were not very long and complicated because we had already been exposed and later I realized that they knew everything about me. The duration of my interrogation was once for 2 hours. They put a sheet of questions in front of me and for example asked if I had participated in the June 30th demonstrations with the Mujahideen or Amjadiyeh, to which I gave a positive answer. Regarding June 30th, they accused me of stabbing one of the guards with a knife, and this led to me being severely beaten for about 2 hours, but since I hadn’t killed anyone, I didn’t accept such an accusation. In any case, even the words of the person who had exposed me were confirmed and this led them to stop beating me… On the second day of interrogation, the interrogator hit me hard on the head and my whole face was covered in blood. Then, perhaps out of fear or compassion,

This former political prisoner says that after severe bleeding from his nose, his interrogations stopped and he was kept in the prison yard for a few days. “After two days of interrogation and three days of being kept in the prison yard with all kinds of threats, like killing us as hypocrites, no one has ever left this place alive, or being beaten like Putin, we were transferred to another open space and there they said to close your eyes. After opening our eyes, we saw the horrifying scene of several people hanging from a tree with their tongues hanging out. According to them, those people were the perpetrators of the martyr’s assassination, members of the Islamic Republic Party… In the evening of that day, we were taken to Evin Prison as a caravan, in a closed line. Our transfer to Evin Prison was without any court order, and no one had any idea about their fate the next day. It was there that this large number of people were divided and the women went to

We slept in shifts and our time for going to the bathroom and showering was limited. When our time was up, they would bang on the toilet curtain (there were no toilets, just a military blanket hanging in front of it) and forcefully pull us out no matter what state we were in. There were several old men in our room who couldn’t hold their urine, but the guards wouldn’t open the door for them. Later, the children prepared some containers for them to urinate in right there.

He continues: “Our room was close to a courtyard where executions were carried out, and every night – usually from 6-7 pm when the executions began – until morning, we could hear the sound of the executions, the verdicts being read for them, and the arrows and bullets that took about 45 minutes to finish. We even heard the sound of prisoners’ last wills being taken to the room before their execution, where they were asked to write their wills and recite Surah Al-Asr for them. After the wills, someone would always say loudly: “Line up, ready, fire!” and then a long burst of gunfire would follow.

Prisoners were calling out from inside the cells, either in groups or individually; now it depended on the events outside and for the sake of compensating for every assassination or protest, they would kill several times more. Of course, after the years 1982-1983 when the number of executions had decreased, they would only execute on Wednesday afternoons, but in the first year, it was every night… This issue still affects me and bothers me, the sound of explosions that comes, I jump out of my place.”

I ask Mr. Tahmasebi about the different execution methods and their reasons: “The hanging method was mostly used in the 67 massacres. In our time, they mostly hanged those who had committed serious crimes; for example, members of the Mujahedin organization or Fedayeen, or those who had been arrested in a special operation and had confessed to their own crimes. The rest of the people who were executed by firing squad were those who had been arrested in protests such as the 30th of Khordad and their execution sentence was approved in a few minutes in court. Usually, the religious judge of these people was from Gilan and would ask if they accepted the Mujahedin organization or not…”

I asked Javid Tahmasebi, who was only 15 years old at the time of his arrest, about his separation from his peers and age-mates in prison: “I was with older inmates for about 5 months. After that, we were transferred to the juvenile section. They used us, who were younger, for propaganda. Laajvardi was leading this idea and after preparing special clothes, they would take us out of prison for Friday prayers and to visit the martyrs’ cemetery, etc. They also used me several times for these excuses to take me out of prison, and it was not voluntary. They also used younger inmates for farming and cleaning the prison environment, and in return, they gave us warm food. Well, since I went there, they didn’t give warm food to anyone under the excuse of kitchen repairs, and the meals were things like bread, cheese, and cucumber yogurt. That’s why getting warm food created the necessary motivation to do such

This political prisoner from the 1960s continues: “They used young individuals for executions or for collecting and transporting corpses. This was the worst form of torture. Fortunately, they never chose me for execution, but I was often chosen for collecting bodies. The individuals who were taken to execute others would return with severe depression and mental pressures…”

I ask him to explain a little more about the collection of bodies: “You see, they usually didn’t touch the bodies of those who were executed. Well, we considered them impure according to their beliefs. We had to wait a few days after they were killed (this interval was for the blood to drain out of the bodies so that it wouldn’t spill out of the trucks during transportation), and then we would put them in compressed trucks.

There were several bodies there. Some belonged to executed individuals and some belonged to people who had been killed in various operations. Well, whoever they captured, they used different methods to create fear and terror; they would show the confessions of some ordinary people through radio and television, and they would also show us prisoners the bodies. The first bodies they brought out were for the 19th of Bahman in 1360 (February 8, 1982) when leaders of the Mujahideen such as Musa Khiabani and Ashraf Rabiei were there. They had brought about 34-35 bodies. I remember at that time the weather was very cold and they had placed the bodies in front of the kitchen and, in addition to filming, they brought groups of prisoners to see these bodies. They did this under the pretext of identifying the bodies, but it was just an excuse; because I saw with my own eyes that they had put a sign around Musa

“The painful issue that I myself did not witness, but other prisoners would talk about, was that during the transportation of bodies after a mass execution, it was possible for one or two bodies to move, and according to Islamic law, these individuals would be considered alive after the execution. However, there were people who would come and shoot the same half-dead body again, killing the person.”

He recalls: “Another form of torture that happened to me as well was artificial execution. They took me to the execution room and from there to the execution squad, and after they put the gun to my head, someone came and said that these are not for the condemned ones! In fact, they had started a fake execution. This is the most inhumane act towards our fellow citizens… If I want to summarize, I have to say that the security system of the Islamic Republic is very complex and with the use of psychology, they know how to break prisoners and it’s not just physical torture.”

Javid Tahmasbi talks about the way his court was held: “I can say that my court was very comical. There was no sign of a defense lawyer or a fair jury, and the interrogator’s report was mostly the judge’s guide for action. The main judge was Mohammad Gilani, and later a young judge named Neiri came, who later became the main judge in Evin, and most of the executions of ’67 were carried out through him. My judge was also Neiri.”

After a year and a half, one day without any notice of a court hearing, I was called and taken blindfolded to the courthouse. The whole trial lasted 5 minutes and there was no understanding of the charges. Almost 3 months later, a guard came to me with a paper and told me to sign it, and that’s when I saw my prison sentence. Despite it being a prison sentence, I was actually happy because I knew I wouldn’t be among the executed and I would stay alive. However, later on, under these same sentences, some of the convicts were executed while others were sentenced to imprisonment. My sentence was 4 years, but they had counted my time in prison from the day of my trial, not from the day of my arrest.

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He talks about his time and how he was freed: “I was finally released in late 1364 (1985). I had to have a government employee vouch for me and also provide a document as collateral. I should also mention that government employees were usually banned from leaving the country and the documents were kept with the prosecutor.”

I wanted to mention something about the prisoners who were being released. After being released from prison, their behavior in society was more terrifying than in prison. For me, there were many times when I wished I had been executed. I was not allowed to study for two years, and even after that, I had to struggle to obtain a letter from the prosecutor’s office and get my high school diploma from a night school. When I was accepted into university, I was disqualified and not allowed to continue my education. I was deprived of all job opportunities in life. I was not allowed to leave the country. We were even not allowed to serve in the military and were given a military service ban, which meant being deprived of all government jobs. We had to have a bad record for everything. In fact, even smugglers in Iran had a better reputation than us.

Javid Tahmasbi, who has been living in Switzerland for years, said at the end: “Unfortunately, these events that happened years ago still haunt my body and soul, and even after many years, I still see the nightmare of prison. I am currently not affiliated with any group, but I collaborate with anyone or any organization that investigates human rights issues in Iran, in the hope that by exposing the atrocities that have happened to me, at least in the future, they will not happen again for me or others of my generation.”