Secret Detention Centres of the Revolutionary Guards of the Islamic Republic
Morteza Bakhtiari, Chief of the Prison Service, has stipulated that military organisations do not have the right to set up centres for the detention of ordinary citizens.
While working with the Revolutionary Guards of the Islamic Republic, I witnessed frequent detention and transfer of ordinary civilians to the internal detention centres of the Revolutionary Guards.
As well as disclosing details of Detention Centre No. 59, I will also talk about a number of other such detention centres or prisons:
1. Protection and Information Association Detention Centre at Karaj- Taleghani Intersection
This Centre was used freely for the detention of the youth involved in the July 99 demonstrations. The lower ground floor of a white building belonging to the Association was the location where these young people would be subjected to torture and humiliation.
2. Karaj-Gardens Detention Centre
This Centre was used for those prisoners for whom there was no real hope of release. The Centre is situated on the top floor of a confiscated villa. It has a swimming pool and a large terrace under which several storage rooms with metal doors (like prison cells) have been built.
Karaj-Gardens Centre has very poor ventilation. This factor, for those detainees held during the summer months, was intolerable. Similarly in the Autumn and Winter months there are strong winds and temperatures reaching several degrees below freezing.
The Centre swimming pool which is saturated with slime, insects and frogs as well as left over food, was sometimes used when frozen, for torture of detainees.
3. Detention Centre No 66
Although this Centre was the main detention centre of the Revolutionary Guards, it was often host to civilians. In the lower ground level of this Centre, there are small iron cages in which you can neither stand nor sit but have to squat, a little like a chicken.
Leaving someone here especially in the summer with no ventilation, is known to be one of the worse kinds of torture.
�In anticipation of the overthrow of the tyrannical Islamic Regime of Iran�
�Long Live Freedom�.
Hamid Reza Azizi Shirazi
Translated by: Negin Alborz
Courtesy of Marz-e Porgohar