whose facial hair was flecked with grey, shouted at my startled wife. ‘Don’t just lie there, sister – cover yourself, put on your chador!’ before throwing her from the room. In hindsight it was a ridiculous thing to say, like bursting in on someone in the toilet and reprimanding them for urinating in front of them. At the time, of course, it was terrifying. My wife returned with my pyjamas, as I was naked, before being bundled out once more.
They cuffed my hands tightly behind my back and blindfolded me with a piece of white cloth snatched from the floor. While this was being done, the others ransacked the room.
‘Where have you put the gun?’ one of them screamed.
I could hear a second group wreaking havoc throughout the rest of the house. Our possessions were thrown into plastic sacks – books, tapes, the music centre, anything that would fit. It was as if these men were burglars, desperate to make a swift exit. But I already knew I couldn’t call the police; the Hezbollahi were the police.
My family huddled together in the hallway: my wife, two daughters aged 10 and 12, my four-year-old son and their nanny, the elderly Khaleh Ghezi (who we called ‘Aunty’). They were terrified, shivering and crying. They watched helplessly as, all around them, their home was ripped to pieces. Then, as I was still trying to put on my pyjamas, I was pulled to my feet and led away.
‘Sister, we’re taking him for routine questioning,’ the older Hezbollahi told my wife. ‘You’ll have him back in a couple of hours.’
Hands grasped my upper arms, roughly pulling me onwards. Still blindfolded, I was moving too fast to safely feel my way, and I stumbled down the stairs to the front door.
Thrust outside onto the street, I briefly felt the gentle warmth of Tehran’s spring sun on the back of my neck. I was led across the pavement and was bundled into the back seat of a car. A hand grabbed the back of my head and pushed it down – perhaps so I wouldn’t try to see from under the blindfold or, more likely, to prevent anybody from noticing me. We pulled out. To where, I did not know. I could feel the coldness of a gun barrel against the back of my head.
I soon registered that another man was hunched beside me. Through a small space at the top of the cloth tied over my eyes I could see that he, too, was blindfolded. He seemed wholly subdued, a condition I would later recognise as a result of torture. He very deliberately hit his leg against mine. I didn’t respond, but he nudged me again, this time with his elbow. This seemed strange. Who was this man? Was he the reason these thugs had come to my house? I was still in shock, my guard was up and I was too horrified to consider trusting anybody. I did not respond.
It was early and the streets were empty and silent. We were driving very fast and every time we turned I was thrown from side to side. Each minute felt like an hour but, finally, we came to an abrupt stop. The driver beeped the horn, and I heard the screeching of iron on iron. A heavy gate was opening. Sure enough, when the screeching stopped, we drove on.
Minutes later we stopped again. The door opened, rough hands grabbed my arms and I was hauled out of the car. Then, flanked by two guards, I was frogmarched to a nearby building and led to a room on the ground floor. As soon as we were inside my handcuffs were removed, although the blindfold remained. I was asked my name and the name of my father, my occupation, address and date of birth.
I was instructed to undress and I removed my pyjamas. A guard approached and checked inside the waistband of my underpants to see if I had anything concealed there. I was handed some clothes and a pair of black plastic slippers and ordered to put them on. They didn’t even slightly fit me.
Finally the makeshift blindfold was removed and, blinking into the light, I nervously surveyed my captors and surroundings. A battered wooden desk stood in the right corner of the room, behind which was a stocky man in his thirties with a heavy black beard that covered his entire face apart from his nose and eyes. Above him hung a huge poster, almost two metres high, of the very familiar face of the Ayatollah Khomeini. Three or four young men, all sporting beards, stood along one side of the room. They were cradling Uzis and Kalashnikovs, and wearing pistols at their sides. On the other side there was a pile of worn plastic slippers, another of worn-out uniforms and a smaller one of what must have been blindfolds. I looked down to see that I was wearing a threadbare prison uniform with faded vertical stripes.
All this I glimpsed in a second. I didn’t get any chance to see more as my eyes and nose were covered by a standard issue black prison blindfold, stiff with sweat, dirt and dried blood. It smelt of faeces.
‘How long have you been a counter-revolutionary?’
I hesitantly replied, ‘Brother, there must be some mistake. I have never been a counter-revolutionary. I have always supported the revolution.’
‘What revolution?’
‘The revolution that overthrew the Shah.’
‘When did you become a counter-revolutionary American leftist?’
‘I have always despised intervention by any foreign power, especially American intervention in the internal affairs of my country.’
‘Which counter-revolutionary group do you belong to?’
‘None whatsoever,’ I said.
A grunt signalled that the interview was over. Hands seized me, pulling me through the door leading to the bowels of the jail.
Welcome to hell.
I could hear a terrible sound. As I stepped into the open prison yard, I realised what it was: the sound of torture. Once you hear those screams they stay with you forever. They penetrated the walls and echoed down the corridors and inside my skull. I can still hear those echoes today. I particularly remember the sickening sound of a woman screaming out for help. These hellish sounds grew louder and more piercing as we ventured inside.
I was hurried along a long corridor. As we came to some steps I stumbled and fell to my knees, almost smashing my head on the ground. A guard grabbed my sleeve and pulled me back on my feet. I already knew why he had grabbed my sleeve rather than my arm: I was considered ‘untouchable’ by my devout captors. Further inside the prison I hit my forehead against what must have been a low ceiling. It made a sickening, dull thud and I collapsed for a second time.
This corridor was the narrow gate to hell. Every ‘untouchable’ would have walked along it. Every prisoner would have fallen on that step and hit their head on that ceiling. This journey was a blunt and somehow fitting introduction to a world of psychological disorientation. We came to a room and I was pushed down into a chair. I could just make out a simple desk standing in front of me. I heard men filing in.
‘We’ve captured all of you bastards now,’ someone said. ‘You can die together.’
‘Brother Rahman, hand him to me,’ another of them shouted. ‘I’ll send him straight to hell.’
They began incessantly cursing me and members of my family. It almost sounded like an incantation, a ritual they repeated for every new prisoner. I tried to convince myself that these taunts were the punishment, but inside I knew that they were just psyching themselves up before they began. Eventually, it started.
‘Tell me, which organisation do you belong to?’
‘Brother, there has been a mistake. I’m not a member of any organisation.’ I was in fact a member of an underground workers’ organisation called Rahe Kargar, which literally means ‘Workers’ Way’. Trades unions were banned, so secret cells of Rahe Kargar sprang up around the country.
He struck the back of my neck with the edge of his hand. It was followed by a wild flurry of punches to my head and face.
I