Friday , 29 March 2024

Life inside Iran’s prisons: Ex-inmate reveals torture in cells as Brit Nazanin loses hope

Express: A former inmate has revealed the horrors of life inside Iran’s prisons where beating and torture are a regular occurrence as British mother Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe loses hope of ever seeing her daughter again.

Nazanin Zagahari-Ratclffe has been held by Iran in prison for more than a year

Hamid Bahrami is a former political prisoner, locked up for weeks in the Iranian regime’s dungeons after filming a protest in Iran.Jail sentences are harrowing experiences in Iran, where people are routinely locked up for minor indiscretions.

For British mother Nazanin Zagahari-Ratclffe, who was on holiday with her small child to visit her family, her supposed offence is spying on the Tehran regime – despite her insistence she was just on holiday.

Now Mr Bahraini, a human rights activist who recently left Iran and moved to Glasgow, has revealed the horrific extent of his harrowing experiences in prison – and what it may well be like for Nazanin.

Hamid was locked up in a section of Alf Ta, the central prison of Isfahan also known as Isfahan’s Dastgerd Prison, on 17 Feb 2014 after he recorded a political protest against the governing regime.Although only locked up for a week, he claims he suffered horrific treatment while inside – including depriving him of food, light and suffering from beatings.

Speaking exclusively to Express.co.uk, Hamid said: “I was scared when I was told I was going to prison, especially when they repeatedly threatened to lash me.

“I was interrogated for hours and they said to me that I am arrested because of having the relationship with the democratic opposition PMOI.

“They also accused me of encouraging people to protest and insult Supreme Leader. Having relation with the PMOI cause death penalty in Iran.

“When I was in solitary confinement they attacked my home to get some evidence but fortunately, they took my nephew’s laptop.

“Actually, I was lucky because if they had found my laptop I would have faced with serious charges.”

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s husband: She’s in a ‘difficult place’

Hamid BahramiHAMID BAHRAMI

Hamid Bahrami is a former political prisoner, locked up for weeks for filming a protest

He said he was kept in solitary confinement for his whole sentence, and they didn’t give him anything to eat and just water to drink.He said: “The place was so small, two meters by two meters. I didn’t know if it was day or night, dark and dirty but when birds started to sing I thought it was morning.

“They even didn’t let me sleep.

“Every morning I heard that some people were lashed and screaming from another part of the prison. The lashing had continued until noon.”

And he was repeatedly interrogated, with prison guards trying “to play good cop bad cop role”.

Although he was released after just a week, police raided his home repeatedly – and fled Iran after officers again attacked his home in March 2015, snatching “all my things such as the laptop, books, my writings, and personal things”.

He knew then he could never go home again.

His offence was deemed minor. But for Nazanin, he said her treatment may be a lot worse despite the diplomatic chaos her detention has caused.Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe, 38, from West Hampstead, was jailed on spying charges after being held at the airport in capital Tehran in April 2016 as she returned from visiting her family with daughter Gabriella, who remains with her grandparents.

After more than 540 days in Evin Prison, a fellow captor claimed she has been forced to wear a hood during interrogation, and that her hair is falling out due to the stress she is under.

The jail was originally built in 1972 but has now been extended and become the main detention centre for political prisoners.

Jailers are accused of keeping the eight-foot-by-four-foot concert cell well lit to deprive inmates of sleep, with many blocks in the building infested with cockroaches.

Hamid BahramiHAMID BAHRAMI

Hamid Bahrami is now a political activist and journalist fighting for freedom in Iran

The prison has a set of underground interrogation rooms where, according to Amnesty International, detainees are regularly tortured as a way of forcing them to sign confessions.And executions are carried out by hanging in a courtyard within the prison.

Prisons in Iran are renowned for their In recent months, there have been growing calls for help from political prisoners regarding the deteriorating and dreadful conditions.

Some had managed to smuggle out letters describing their inhuman treatment, including interrogations with hoods and torture devices.

But the Iranian regime responded with an even greater crackdown by deploying highly intrusive 24/7 surveillance and monitoring equipment in prisoners’ cells, as well as in private areas such as showers and bathrooms.

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