‘Shouts of boys, girls enduring torturer fill prisons’: How Iran is coaxing out false confessions

**Tehran: “**Brutal, torturous and inhuman conditions”. This is how a prominent female rights activist named Sepideh Qolian described Iran’s notorious prison system. Sepideh Qolian, 28, has been serving a five-year sentence since 2018 after she was convicted of acting “against national security” for supporting a strike. In a letter that she wrote from Tehran’s Elvin prison, Qolian has detailed the brutal treatment that her fellow inmates and she have had to withstand, according to BBC. Bringing attention to the current protests in Iran, which were sparked by the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, the activist said, “In the fourth year of my imprisonment I can finally hear the footsteps of liberation from all across Iran.” “The echoes of ‘Woman, Life, Freedom’ can be heard even through the thick walls of Evin prison,” she added. ‘Torture and interrogation building’ Qolian is currently studying law at the Elvin prison and as a part of her course, she is required to give exams. The exams are conducted in the “cultural” wing of the prison, which, according to her, has been turned into a “torture and interrogation cell”. In the letter, she says that she has witnessed young detainees being interrogated in this very building. “The exam room is filled with young boys and girls and the shouts of torturers can be heard,” she shared. Recalling a particular incident that took place on 28 December 2022, she said, “It’s freezing cold and snowing, near the exit door of the building, a young boy blindfolded and wearing nothing but a thin grey T-shirt is sat in front of an interrogator.” “He’s shaking and pleading: ‘I swear to God I didn’t beat anyone.’ They want him to confess. As I am passing, I shout: ‘DO NOT confess,’ and ‘Death to you tyrants.’” Qolian recalls her own confession In 2018, Sepideh was apprehended for voicing her support to a workers’ strike that took place at a sugar factory in Iran’s Khuzestan province. Following her arrest, she was interrogated by a female officer. She anticipated that a female interrogator would at least save her from the possibility of getting sexually assaulted and that a woman might be “softer” on her. However, her hopes were crushed after the female interrogator “kicked the leg of the desk and shouted ‘you communist wh*re, who did you sleep with?’” The interrogator lifted Qolian’s blindfold and forced her to confess her alleged sexual relations on camera. The activist says that she initially did not budge from her stand. After hours of interrogating, Qolian begged to be taken to the toilet where she was locked in. While stuck inside the female washroom, the 28-year-old could hear a man being tortured and whipped. She wrote, “The sounds of torture continued for hours or maybe a day, maybe more, I lost track of time.” After she was finally brought out of the toilet, a sleep-deprived Qolian was taken to a room where she was handed out a script. “I took the script from her as I was half-conscious and sat in front of the camera and read it,” she said. Based on this “forced” confession, Qolian was convicted of her “crimes”. Qolian’s interrogator sanctioned In the letter, Qolian also mentioned that one year after she was convicted, she was in Qarchak prison where she recognised her interrogator on a prison television who was forcing another prisoner to confess on TV. In an open letter to the public, she identified the woman as Ameneh Sadat Zabihpour. She claimed that Zabihpour was an “interrogator-journalist” who had ties to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The US Treasury Department, in 2022, sanctioned Zabihpour for her role in obtaining and broadcasting forced confessions out of prisoners. Qolian was hit with an additional eight-month sentence after her interrogator sued her for making the accusations. Iran’s practice of broadcasting confessions According to Human Rights Activists’ News Agency, to date at least 519 protestors, including children, have lost their lives at the hands of prison authorities while as many as 19,300 have been arrested. Many of those arrested are now facing the death penalty and so far four protestors have been executed based on their confessions on TV. Read all the  Latest News,  Trending News,  Cricket News,  Bollywood News, India News and  Entertainment News here. Follow us on  Facebook,  Twitter and  Instagram.