Dr. Reza Ghaffari - A State of Fear: My 10 Years Inside Irans Torture Jails

T his is the story of my long and agonising journey through Irans barbaric prison system, a network of institutions which created fear under the Shah and were maintained by the Islamic regime which overthrew him. The jails were designed to eliminate all opposition, to ruin health, to break minds. I spent six long years being shuttled from one hellhole to another, tortured, interrogated, abused and repeatedly broken.

Yet I had never been a man of violence myself. I was passionate about education and I was an active underground campaigner for resistance to both the Shah and the brutal regime that followed. It was because of my dedication to reform that I found myself caught up in the prison machine in 1983. My learning in itself was a threat which the authorities couldnt tolerate but I always loved reading. During my childhood and my time at Tehran University a great many books were deemed unsuitable by the authorities and therefore unavailable to me. Friends and colleagues would sometimes share stories and ideas from these banned works in hushed voices, like a nationwide version of Chinese whispers.

I had come from a poor family, my father was a carpenter. I was one of the first to be properly educated. Even as a young man I was already involved in organisations struggling to get rid of the Shah but I went on to study in America where I also lectured and was a journalist. The experience abroad was totally new. I will never forget the feeling of my first visit to the library in the US. Lines of bulging shelves seemed to stretch for miles. Here, rather than relying on a third- or fourth-hand retelling of a book, I could just go to the desk and ask for a copy. It was intoxicating.

I returned to my homeland to become a lecturer at the university in Tehran. After the Shah was at last overthrown in 1979 I was part of planning what should replace him. It didnt take long for me to realise that as a supporter of workers rights, a passionate campaigner of the left, and as someone involved in the struggle of the Kurds I was seen as a dangerous criminal by the new Islamic regime. Our new rulers proved to be at the very least the equal of the Shah as a totalitarian government. For 15 years I had worked in secret for the left wing. But my struggle against what was called the Islamic revolution led to long years of torture, degradation and imprisonment.

It was not until I had fled my native land and settled in England that I read a book that, above all others, encapsulated my experience of life in Iran, George Orwells 1984. With its dystopian vision, tales of surveillance, propaganda and torture it was, I know, often interpreted as a warning of the dangers of communism. But I have experienced the reality of life in a state of fear like the one imagined by Orwell.

And now I have a book of my own. It is a story that the Iranian authorities do not want you to read. It is not surprising they feel this way. What you are to read is a tale of brutality. Anyone who suspects that Iran is unfairly slandered in the West will have that scepticism dispelled.

This is not merely a catalogue of torture and prison massacres, it is also one of integrity and the triumph of the human spirit. I do not speak of myself, but rather of the thousands of my fellow prisoners not just men but women and children who did their best to hold on to their sanity and support each other. Few survivors are in a position to share their experiences and I feel compelled to share the stories of my fellow inmates as well as my own.

You will read of those on both sides of the struggle. Some stories I have chosen to tell are those of criminals in league with the worst elements of the Shah or the Islamic regime in some cases, one after the other. And then there were those on the other side, whose idealism and honesty brought them to tragedy. I have painted as true a picture as I can of some of my comrades. Some of them are no longer around to have their own voices heard and mine is far from the only account of sustained torture and resistance which deserves to be recorded. Among the fallen is student Firooz Alvandi, whose life story best illustrates how the Islamic revolution sucked in and destroyed whole families and their young people who were bright and keen to make a significant contribution to their country. And I have carefully compiled the results of my own interviews with women who were shown no mercy in prison, even those who were heavily pregnant. Life in Islamic prison was unbearable for the men. For women it was much worse.

My role as unofficial spokesperson for the forgotten prisoners of Iran has led to threats. After my son and his wife, a poet, were terrorised in London, I was moved to a safe house by MI6. I was there for almost a year and only saw my family twice. After I was allowed back to my home it was kept under surveillance.

These days I live a quiet life. The years of torture have taken their toll on my health. There is a mixture of yellow, white and purple pills I must now take every day; regular, lengthy stays in hospital are just a part of my life.

The fatwah imposed by Ayatollah Khomeini against Salman Rushdie for writing The Satanic Verses made it difficult to find a publisher for this book in English. Versions were first published in Turkish, German and Persian for people of the Iranian diaspora and these led to me giving talks in America and Europe. So you will understand that it is a great relief to me personally that a version of my book is now available in English. It might not be an easy read but it is a book that I believe should be read.

Dr Reza Ghaffari
London, 2012