Interviews with Iranian women prisoners – punished for speaking out – The Irish Times

Imagine you are in a cell, approximately 2 square meters, with only a piece of rough carpet to sleep on. There may or may not be a toilet that may or may not be blocked and overflow. Imagine no light, dim light, or bright light over which you have no control. You can’t tell day from night. You’re there indefinitely. You may be there for months or even years. The Fourteen Prisoners of Conscience Interviewed by Narges Mohammadi in White torture tell us how it feels: you are a “human being in a box”. Time, they say, does not pass. What you hear from your cell, apart from the footsteps of your guards and interrogators, will likely be the suffering of other prisoners who are being tortured or about to be led away for execution.

If there is no toilet in your cell, you must ask permission to be taken to use one somewhere else, which may or may not be granted. If it is allowed, you will go there blindfolded. You may or may not be watched, on the toilet or in the unsanitary shower, by people you cannot see. You won’t see anyone except (sometimes) your interrogators, who may be sitting behind you in a small space or hidden behind one-way glass. These men will insult you, lie to you, and berate you for hours on end. Their questions may be guarded, personal, irrelevant, or confusing. They will accuse you of things that make no sense and have no basis. Your detention may be unlawful. If you complain or name your investigators after your release, you may be arrested again. They will threaten your friends and family. They will lie to you about your children. They will tell you that you will be executed.

Being told this may lead you to a room with a rope where you will pass out with fear. They may or may not beat you with a cable. They may or may not skin your feet so that your shoes no longer fit. Despite all this, the loneliness and sensory deprivation of solitary confinement, where “time does not pass,” is so extreme that you may prefer hours of interrogation to being locked in your cell. You may develop a strange dependence on your interrogator. You will develop medical conditions such as heart palpitations, kidney and skin diseases, malnutrition, panic attacks, partial blindness, memory loss, splitting. All this is described on these pages.

What helps people survive in such conditions? Inscriptions found on cell walls. Religion, for some. Reading if allowed

“White torture” refers to a form of psychological torture using solitary confinement and sensory deprivation through solitary confinement widely practiced in Iranian prisons. Its purpose is to break a person’s will and self-confidence. It has long-term debilitating effects. Narges Mohammadi, an Iranian human rights activist whose crime is to fight against the death penalty, has experienced it herself. Her foreword, written while waiting to be returned to prison in March 2022, tells us that she has been arrested 12 times and is now in solitary confinement for the fourth time because of this book (and possibly because of her documentary of the same title, which includes the testimonies of men).

What helps people survive in such conditions? Inscriptions found on cell walls. Religion, for some. Reading if allowed. Solidarity with other prisoners and the awareness that they are innocent of the charges against them. One interviewee, Marzieh Amiki, makes the startling but convincing suggestion that women are predisposed to survive this insane regime because of their experience from birth of living under a repressive, authoritarian patriarchal system that inherently seeks to control and destroy them.

The testimonies of these brave women are made more effective as they are conveyed in Amir Rezanejad’s calm, understated translation. They reveal an impressive capacity for endurance and resistance. A foreword by Shirin Ebadi and introductory notes by Nayereh Tohidi and Shannon Woodcock put their stories in context. Their courage is beyond imagination. Some are still in captivity. Some are free, but in a state that can at any time choose to punish them if they speak out.

• Narges Mohammadi, the journalist and human rights activist who collected and compiled the testimonies in this book, is currently in prison. While on screen in 2020, she made a documentary, White Torment, which will be screened on November 13 at 1.15pm at Printworks as part of the Dublin Book Festival.