Testimony of AbdulSalam Mullah Ahmadi (Arsalan Ahmadi Rigabadi)
KMMK:
testimony was made by the Kurdistan Human Rights Association in a conversation with AbdulSalam Mullah Ahmadi. He is currently a member of the KMMK and talks about how he was detained and his situation in the Iranian government’s prison.
Would you please introduce yourself in full?
I am Abdolsalam Mullah Ahmadi, known as Arsalan Ahmadi Rigabadi, son of Asia, born on February 20, 1981 in the village of Rigabad in the Somai Bradoust area of Urmia. Our village is in an area of Kurdistan that the Iranian government has never paid attention to and is a completely deprived area. Due to political (Kurdish) activities, there is always a situation like martial law.
How did you get involved in political and social activities?
The political and social situation and the presence of the political and military forces of the Kurdish parties, the history of the Kurdish nation’s struggle together with the Discrimination of national, linguistic, political and social discrimination of the Iranian government all made me get know with being a Kurd and the struggle of Kurdistan from a young age.
Did you face political problems and threats due to your political activity?
Yes, I have been threatened many times, even my family has been summoned many times by the terrorist organization of the IRGC.
In 2000, I was arrested in Salmas on charges of collaborating with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and transferred to an Iranian prison in Khoy. I was arrested again in 2007 in Karaj by the Revolutionary Guards terrorist organization on charges of collaborating with the Kurdistan Free Life Party (PJAK). In 2016, I was arrested again in the Somai Bradoust area on charges of collaborating with PJAK.
How long have you been in detention? Where and by which organization were you arrested?
I was in Khoy for the first time in the Iranian government for three months and was released on parole because was under legal age. When I was arrested in 2006, I spent three months in the Al-Mahdi Sepah Detention Center in Karaj and nine months in the Rajai Shahr Prison in Karaj.
Describe your interrogation period.
Were you in solitary confinement?
For the first time in 1999 in the city of Salmas, on the street, three plainclothes officers arrested me without a court order. I was tortured by interrogators from the beginning. The torture was so severe that even doctors declared that you would never be able to have children.
A few days later, I was transferred to an Iranian prison in the city of Khoy, which was a very dirty and crowded prison. We took cold showers, and very poor quality food was served.
I was arrested for the second time in Karaj by the forces of the terrorist organization of the Revolutionary Guards at home.
They broke house door, and six officers entered the house without a court order, they search my house with insults and disrespect. They then handcuffed and blindfolded me and took me to the detention center. I was in one of the solitary confinement cells of Sepah Al-Mahdi Detention Center in Karaj for three months.
Insulting my family and threatening to arrest or kill them, insulting my religion and my family, because we were Sunnis, were among the tortures I witnessed daily.
After three months in Rajai Shahr prison in Karaj, I was quarantined for a week. This section was a large, dirty hall full of prisoners.
Everyone had a blanket and slept on the floor, and a bottle of soda filled with water played the role of a prisoner’s pillow. After a week, they sent me to Andarzgah 4 or Dar Al-Quran Hall 3, whose conditions and environment were very painful.
The third time I came to Urmia from Tehran, I was on my way to the village.
So I was arrested in the Somai Bradoust area without a court order. Two cars, Hilux and a Xantia with more than ten officers in IRGC uniforms punched me in the mouth and face at the first moment, knocking me unconscious. When I woke up, I was soaking wet in a small, dark room. My whole body was in severe pain. I just realized that my arm was broken, my teeth were broken, my head was broken, and all my clothes were full of blood. There, whatever they said, I had to confirm it.
They pulled my fingernails with a gauze. They were not satisfied with these tortures, I do not know where to say everything I have to say.
The interrogators raped me with a glass of soda. They said, “We will break you,” I had heard how rude they could be, but I did not imagine that they could do such a thing to a human being. More than 200 to 300 sheets of forced confession were taken from me.
I was out of contact with my family for 40 days, on the 41st I met my brother for 5 minutes. During this time, they gave me one meal in day, which was accompanied by thousands of insults and insults. Once a day I had the right to use the bathroom. The cell in which I was imprisoned was a narrow, dark black room measuring 1.50 meters by 1 meter.
Without the lamp, there was only an old, dirty blanket. The interrogators called themselves God and God’s representative on earth, saying that here we decide who will live and who will not. When I swore and said that I was not in the Qur’an, the interrogator would call someone, “Oh, bring the Qur’an, he is working with you, or God, come he is working with you.”
Did you go to court? How did the judge behave?
I went to court twice during my detention, I had no opportunity to defend or speak at all, everything the interrogators and the prosecutor said was confirmed and I was threatened and disrespected. I was not even allowed to have a lawyer and they said be grateful you are alive. The judge behaved in such a way that you did not even notice that this person was a judge and a court there. He had the same behavior and attitude of the interrogators.
The last word …
During my detention, I witnessed the worst possible torture, my dignity was violated and my human dignity was of no value to them.
