Torture and prison experience of the anarchists in Iran

Torture and prison experience of the anarchists in Iran, is the series of articles written in 2018 by former political prisoner, anarchist Abtin Parsa about his prison time and struggles in Iran. Since 2018, this series of articles has been published in 6 sections by the Union of Anarchists of Iran and Afghanistan in different languages.

First course

For hours, they pushed my head onto an iron table. In that room, there was a barrel of water hanging from the ceiling. From the barrel, small drops of water dripped onto the iron table. I had to be silent and just listen to the water drops with agony

At the time, I was a 16 year-old with anarchist views and atheist beliefs. I was tortured because of my atheist views and my anti- government stance while a student at the Shahid Chamran School in Zarghan, Iran.

The name of the person who tortured me was Seyed Jaáfari; at least, that’s what they called him.

During the interrogation, most of the time, an empty glass bottle was on the table; I didn’t have another choice, I had to accept everything, even something that I never did; they told me if you don’t accept anything that we are telling you, we will rape you with this empty bottle We fought for freedom, for equality, we were tortured, under tthreat. I was just sixteen years old as an anarchist political prisoner in Iran There were many people in there that some of them were girls, The Revolutionary Guards officials raped them every day; When I was in the detention center, my room was near the torture chamber, I could heard their voices and groans; my morale was totally destroy, I wanted to commit suicide several times, But I was thinking that I had to survive for saying that what happened there; I had to survive for revenge Now I am in Greece but I will not forget and I will not forgive

Second course

Although they allowed me to continue the schooling because of my age, I was constantly under control at the school, even sometimes some people attacked me in the school, beat me and threatened to rape me and my family.

After about a year and a half and after many kinds of mental and physical torture, when I was about 17 and a half years, It seemed like my period of conviction had expired; I really wanted to leave from Zarghan because I was sick of that city; even though they allowed me to leave, they warned and threatened me about many things Including disclosing what happened to me. Anyway as soon as possible, I left Zarghan to Shiraz to live in a new city, in fact it was like exile.

I started a new life in Shiraz with fake names Dariush and Yashar, Although I knew they will not miss me by changing the name While I was severely suffering from mental illness as a result of torture in the past. After a while I entered a new school in Shiraz for a short time, but in fact my thoughts were very far from what the system wrote in the school’s books. All that existed in my mind was struggle and revolution for freedom and equality. In Shiraz as fast as possible I tried to find new comrades who had interest for the struggle. Finally we created a political group with five people (mobarezaneh shiraz), but it didn’t work well. Adding to that, due to security concerns of the comrades, we dissolved the group, after some activities, including the publication of an anti-government declaration.

This bad experience of doing political activity with the collective in the practical situation, forced me to do some political activity on the internet but I, as an anarchist, preferred the practical situation. So I was thinking of burning one of the government centers, one of the ideas was bombing in the Imam jomeh headquarters which was in the karimkhan zand street.

Third course

The summer of 2016, the municipality had fenced the square opposite the headquarters of Imam jomeh, The work had become much more difficult because the fence takes the space to move for bombing; in fact There was no choice except attacking with Molotov, but it woulf not make any damage so Inevitably the operation was stopped.

The lesson I learned that day was the power of patience. Sometimes you have to wait for years and watching the target

Almost every weeks, I checked the goal to make the coordinates updated in my mind

In one of the days that I was checking my targets, In the vicinity of one of the targets that a fascist shop was, I found a person who selling some books in Karimkhan zand square.

After more attention, I understand that most of the books were books that were forbidden in Iran for sale and maintenance, I passed without care, but tomorrow I was come back at this point for talking with him and buy some books.

After a few weeks, we became friends, and he told me that he has more books which he could not bring here because they were more illegal.

At this time, when I had a small shop in front of the Shiraz registry office, I thought I would sell books there because I needed money to do more serious things; Now that I think of it, it was one of my biggest mistakes because this was the beginning of a banned book’s shop, which later forced me to escape from Iran.

On the other hand, the activity I had on the Internet made me get acquainted with a communist-feminist girl who was living in Tehran, After a while, we realized that we were interested in one another, but we really did not have much information about each other except some political discussions.

Fourth course

Meeting with a Revolutionary comrade in Shiraz. Since he is still in Iran, we will not publish any personal information from a common comrade, I goy acquainted with him, and I requested of him a face-to-face meeting to talk.

But for such a meeting and escape from the intelligence forces of the Iranian regime, there was a need for an anti-intelligence operation So, after he accepted the invitation to meet, I designed two different times and places; First time and place for the first meet, and second place and time for that if we could not meet in the first meet for any reason, we would meet each other in the second place and time (Azadi park in center of shiraz at 16:00)

I gave one of my photos to our common friend and asked him to send me a photo of himself because It was very important for us to easily identify each other.

Then I sent the details of the meeting to him, by our common friend.

The person who arrived first at the point of meeting should not be fixed in the same place; he must move.

After seeing each other, we have to make eye contact.

We will never get very close to each other.

We have to make sure nobody is chasing us, so he should start walking and I will follow him away after I made sure nobody chased him, I will touch my clothes a few times as a sign of warmth, then he must do, what I did.

If there is any danger, the meeting will be canceled and we will meet in the second place and time.

The meeting was well done, but my forced escape from Shiraz to Tehran never allowed us to have a joint project.

Fifth course

Escape from shiraz to tehran.

The issue has always existed in my mind that why those who call themselves peaceful persons, do not call the violence of the system against people as terrorist attacks, but if we turn the violence back onto the system, they called us terrorists.

In fact they are part of this system, also the system speaking about peace because it wants the use of violence be only its monopoly.

Yes my revolutionary comrades that i do not know many of you, when we did robbery from rich persons to get money to continue the struggle of the guerrillas, they called us violent and thieves but they never said that the real thieves are those who have property and doed not shsre it with people who are in need, they never say that the real violent ones are banks that are raping our community with money every day, when the fascists and the authorities of the iranian regime were killed, they called us terrorist but they never said that the real terrorists are those who killed our freedom and equality, so let it go on until there is no authority anymore.

In order to carry out more serious operations i needed more money, I was thinking of robbing one of the shops in the mali abad region of shiraz which is a Bourgeois region, but the illness during the last month of my presence in Shiraz prevented me from any operation, even i could not be selling the banned books anymore.

And in those circumstances I noticed some movements around me that the beginning of them was a night that i was came back home from my small shop on Koye Zahra Street in Shiraz when I realized that I am chased by an intangible person, I guess it was an intelligence force, so i wanted to be sure about it, also if it was necessary, have the strategic ability to attack, for this reason i quickly changed my way to some other streets, The person concerned continued my deviation, but because of my illness I preferred to escape than have the conflict, then, as soon as possible, by a familiar cellphone. I contacted one of the Revolutionary comrades in Tehran and as much as possible i explained to her about my conditions, very fast to protect the information i destroyed my noted and on a bus i went tehran, We met each other in Tehran with security considerations and it was decided to leave Iran together.

Sixth course

After a few days of wandering across the border between Iran and Turkey, we finally managed to escape in a cold night. We were sure that if we could not escape quickly, they would find us

The political situation in Turkey, was not better than Iran with a stupid dictator like Erdogan, I did not prefer to do political activity there, so we decided to run away to Greece

Finally, we reached the small island of Samos in Greece in the vicinity of Izmir

During the staying in the camp of Samos, the Iranian regime, who was informed of my escape, issued a claimed that they arrested my two struggler comrades

They said that i am responsible for them, in fact, they were indirectly planning to bring me back to Iran by putting pressure on me

even they released some of my comrades’ information to prove to me

But I decided to do not return to Iran because I knew that my return would not help them, and I would only hand over myself to the Iranian regime

Eventually they issued my fatwa (murder), which means that everyone who kills me will go to Paradise. Soon after, we were attacked at the camp, my comrade was wounded by a knife and I was beaten

We asked for help from the UNHCR. Eventually, after receiving the seriousness of the matter, the UNHCR introduced me to speak with the interpol. But no answer was given to me except that Greece is a safe country