Iranian Artist Reveals Brutal Torture, Forced Confession
An Iranian artist arrested during the Women, Life, Freedom protests has spoken of the severe torture she endured in custody.
An Iranian artist arrested during the Women, Life, Freedom protests has spoken of the severe torture she endured in custody.
Now in exile in Turkey after fleeing Iran, Elham Modarresi was arrested last November on charges such as vandalism of facilities, anti-government propaganda, disrupting public order and inciting people to kill.
In January, rights activists Hengaw told of her hunger strike while imprisoned at Karaj's Kachoui prison. During her detention, the artist originally from Kurdish province Sanandaj, was deprived of the right to access a lawyer as well as her case, and she also suffered from liver and intestinal disease, the group said.
In her latest update from Turkey, Modarresi revealed that during her imprisonment, she was subjected to severe physical torture, including brutal beatings that led to internal bleeding.
Minority Kurdish Iranians have historically been treated with extreme oppression under the regime, as a recent report revealed at length.
The artist was temporarily released from Karaj's Kachoui prison on January 22, with bail posted, allowing her to escape.
In a message shared on the X network, Modarresi said, "12 Iranian security agents stormed our house, violently pushed my mother, put handguns against my mother and brother's heads, blindfolded me, and took me away."
She spoke of how intelligence officers destroyed her ultrasound records, concealing the abuse, and the recurrent threats of sexual violence, part of systematic state sanctioned sexual violence well documented by Iran's Me Too movement.
Throughout her time in prison, Modarresi was denied access to medication and medical care as the regime pressured her into a forced confession.
She now faces an uncertain future with no guarantees of safety in Turkey and has pleaded for help to find refuge.
Interior minister Ahmad Vahidi had reported this lower figure on September 27, stating that there were "around five million Afghans in Iran." However, Mohsen Najafikhah provided a substantially higher estimate of 8.4 million immigrants.
Afghans, often referred to simply as ‘foreign nationals’ by officials and the media, make up the majority of immigrants in Iran. The census of 2016 found the presence of over 1.5 million Afghans followed by 34,500 Iraqis and 14,320 Pakistanis.
“The question is whether the number of foreign nationals in the country has increased since [September] or the statistics offered by the interior minister was not right,” Faraz Daily news website asked Monday.
Afghans first came to Iran as refugees in early 1980s and later as economic migrants but before the Taliban takeover of the government in Afghanistan in 2021 their numbers rarely rose above two million. Around 780,000 had obtained refugee status and were not considered illegals.
In April 2022, Javad Hedayati, the director general of the International Transit Bureau of the Transportation Organization, reported a significant increase in the number of Afghans entering Iran through official borders since the Taliban takeover. He stated that the number had risen to as many as 5,000, compared to the previous range of 700-800. Notably, there were no available statistics on the number of illegal immigrants.
The government has not taken any steps to slow down the deluge of refugees, leading to accusations that the clerical regime might have sinister plans to use the Afghans, who speak Persian, for political or military aims.
In late September, a member of the parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, Mahmoud Ahmadi-Bighash, disclosed plans to grant Iranian citizenship to legal Afghan immigrants. Ahmadi-Bighash claimed they number between eight to ten million.
According to Ahmadi-Bighash, a former governor of the northeastern North Khorasan Province, the primary aim of the plan is “population transfer” and legalizing the presence of millions of Afghan immigrants.
Referring to the parliament’s approval of a bill to establish a “national immigration organization” in November 2022, he claimed that those behind the plan want to “facilitate the entry and residence” of Afghan citizens.
In recent weeks, the government’s political rivals have repeatedly warned about its “open borders” policy and the possibility of hidden agenda with hardliners responding to such criticism by accusing critics of inciting “Afghan-phobia” amid fast-growing anti-Afghan sentiments on social media and violence against the immigrants.
Some government critics claim authorities are actively encouraging the growth of the Afghan population with incentives such as subsidized energy and food to remedy the problem of population decline or even to bolster its military by recruiting young Shiite Hazara Afghans.
During the Sunday session, lawmakers assigned the interior ministry the task of establishing a national immigration organization in collaboration with the Secretariat of the Supreme National Security Council.
The government claims that by forming such an organization it will be able to “systematize” the data on foreign nationals’ entry, exit and expulsion for which, according to Najafikhah, ten different government departments are currently responsible.
Government’s critics allege that the plan may be a cover for naturalizing Afghans in Iran. “A national immigration organization, if formed, can easily turn into an organization for issuing residence permits,” Faraz Daily’s report said.
The report pointed out that the government bill includes provisions for offering a series of services – including access to national insurance and benefits – to foreign nationals without citation of allocated budget.
“It is not clear whether the country’s economy is capable of offering these services to so many immigrants, just the same as it is still not clear how many of the 8.4 million are legal immigrants and how many are illegal (undocumented),” the report said.
Speaking at a gathering in Tehran, the anti-Israel and anti-West leader of the Islamic Republic, also accused the United States of being a partner in what he called Israeli crimes.
With his usual rhetoric, Khamenei said, “The wounded and wrecked occupier regime seeks revenge for the blows dealt by the resilient Palestinian fighters in Gaza, but undoubtedly, despite all the support of the wicked oppressors and the explicit collusion of the Americans in the crimes of the Zionists, all this injustice and aggression ultimately leads to nowhere, and in these matters and future events, victory belongs to the Palestinian nation."
The Iranian regime immediately congratulated Hamas on October 7, as the news of the terror raid and the mass killing of civilians was being received. Later, the government organized street celebrations and began issuing statements of support for Hamas and threats against Israel and the United States.
Khamenei on Wednesday described the attack on Israel as “defining and unprecedented.” He stated that with the passage of time, “the irreparability of this operation becomes more evident." He praised the “perseverance of the people of Gaza” and said that this will eventually “defeat the enemy.”
He claimed that leaders of “usurper and oppressor” governments are visiting Israel to save it from complete annihilation. "The evildoers around the world see that the Zionist regime is in a state of struggle and destruction due to the powerful and defining blow delivered by Palestinian fighters. For this reason, they are trying to forcibly keep the wounded and wreaked regime afloat through these visits, expressions of solidarity, and the provision of tools of crime such as bombs and other weaponry."
The 83-year-old Iranian dictator accused the United States of being a “partner in crime” with Israel. "The hands of the Americans are tainted with the blood of children, women, and other martyrs of Gaza, and in reality, the Americans are managing these crimes."
The Biden administration has warned Iran and Hezbollah not to get involved in the fighting and not to expand the war, although the militant Lebanese organization has already attacked some targets in Israel. The administration has deployed two powerful naval task forces in the eastern Mediterranean, which could be a deterrence against a potential barrage of missiles by Hezbollah.
Khamenei also called on Arab and Muslim governments to not lose their will in the face of “Western propaganda” and refrain from calling Palestinians terrorists.
Israel on Wednesday accused Iran of orchestrating recent attacks carried out by its proxies in Yemen, Iraq, and Lebanon in addition to supporting Hamas' war on Israel.
Israeli Chief Military Spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said: “Iran supported Hamas before the war directly, in training, in providing weapons, money and technological know-how. Even in these moments, Iranian support to Hamas continues with intelligence assistance alongside incitement on social media and fueling incitement worldwide against the State of Israel," he said.
Clearly naming Iran as the culprit of regional destabilization, he added; "In the Middle East where the Iranian proxies operate from within Iraq, Yemen and Lebanon, the instructions come from only one place — from Iran."
