Reza, a victim of sexual abuse in Iran prisons, tells his painful story.

The 15-year-old boy sits weeping in a safehouse in central Iran, broken in body and spirit. Reza will not go outside — he is terrified of being left alone. He says he wants to end his life and it is not hard to understand why: for daring to wear the green wristband of Iran’s opposition he was locked up for 20 days, beaten, raped repeatedly and subjected to the Abu Ghraib-style sexual humiliations and abuse for which the Iranian regime denounced the United States.

“My life is over. I don’t think I can ever recover,” he said, as he recounted his experiences to The Times — on condition that his identity not be revealed. A doctor who is treating him, at great risk to herself, confirmed that he is suicidal, and bears the appalling injuries consistent with his story. The family is desperate, and is exploring ways of fleeing Iran.

Reza is living proof of the charges levelled by Mehdi Karoubi, one of the opposition’s leaders, that prison officials are systematically raping both male and female detainees to break their wills. The regime has accused Mr Karoubi of helping Iran’s enemies by spreading lies and has threatened to arrest him.

The boy’s treatment also shows just how far a regime that claims to champion Islamic values is prepared to go to suppress millions of its own citizens who claim that President Ahmadinejad’s re-election was rigged.

Reza’s ordeal began in mid-July when he was arrested with about 40 other teenagers during an opposition demonstration in a large provincial city. Most were too young even to have voted. They were taken to what he believes was a Basiji militia base where they were blindfolded, stripped to their underwear, whipped with cables and then locked in a steel shipping container. That first night Reza was singled out by three men in plain clothes who had masqueraded as prisoners. As the other boys watched, they pushed him to the ground. One held his head down, another sat on his back and the third urinated on him before raping him.

“They were telling us they were doing this for God, and who did we think we were that we could demonstrate,” Reza said. The men told the other boys they would receive the same treatment if they did not co-operate when interrogated the next day.

Reza was then taken outside, tied to a metal pole and left there all night. The next morning one of the men returned. He asked whether Reza had learnt his lesson. “I was angry. I spat in his face and began cursing him. He elbowed me in the face a couple of times and slapped me.” Twenty minutes later, he says, the man returned with a bag full of excrement, shoved it in Reza’s face and threatened to make him eat it.

Reza was later taken to an interrogation room where he told his questioner he had been raped. “I made a mistake. He sounded kind, but my eyes were blindfolded. He said he would go look into it and I was hopeful,” Reza said.

Instead, the interrogator ordered Reza to be tied up and raped him again, saying: “This time I’ll do it, so you’ll learn not to tell these tales anywhere else. You deserve what’s coming to you. You guys should be raped until you die.”

He was subjected to further brutal sexual abuse — and locked up for three days of solitary confinement.

Reza was then forced to sign a “confession” in which he said that foreign forces had told him and his friends to burn banks and state media buildings. He was told to identify as the ringleader a 16-year-old friend who had been so badly beaten that he was in hospital.

“I was shaking so much I couldn’t even hear what they were saying,” said Reza. “I just signed whatever they put in front of me without looking at it. I was scared they would rape me again.”

The next day Reza and other detainees were transferred to a police detention centre, where he was held for a further week.

On the third day, police officers entered the cell in the middle of the night, blindfolded him and led him to the toilet, where he was again raped. “My hands began shaking, my legs were weak and I couldn’t stand up properly. I fell down and smashed my head hard on the ground to try and kill myself. I started screaming and shouting for them to kill me. I just couldn’t bear it anymore. I hated myself,” he said, weeping at the memory.

The following morning he was summoned by a police commander, who asked why he had been screaming the previous night. When he explained, he was asked to identify his rapist. The boy said he had been blindfolded, so the chief commander hit him and accused him of lying. He was forced to sign a letter admitting he had made baseless accusations against the security forces.

Reza’s ordeal was far from over. He was taken with about 130 other prisoners to the city’s Revolutionary Court, where they were herded into a yard. The judge told them that he would hang those who had violently resisted the Islamic revolution and read out the names of ten teenagers, including Reza. The message was clear: if they continued to say they had been raped they would be executed.

The judge sent them to the city’s central prison, where Reza was handcuffed and held in a small cell with six other boys for ten more days. In the evenings officers beat the boys and taunted them with the words: “You want to cause a revolution?.

Periodically, the most senior officer would take the boys away, three at a time. “When they returned they would be very quiet and uneasy,” Reza said. When his turn came he and the others were led into a small room and ordered to strip and have sex with each other. “He told us that with this we would be cleansed — we would be so shattered that we would no longer be able to look at each other. This would help calm us down.”

After 20 days Reza’s family finally secured his release on bail of about £45,000 — and with a final warning that he should say nothing about his treatment. His brother said: “A friend of mine who is a guard in the prison where Reza was being held had told me he was ill. The night he was released he was crying uncontrollably; then he broke down and told my mother everything.”

The family persuaded a hospital doctor they knew to treat him, despite the danger to herself. She has treated his physical injuries and given him antibiotics and sedatives but cannot perform an internal examination. Reza is deeply traumatised, terrified of being returned to prison and barely sleeps.

The doctor told The Times that other detainees had suffered a similiar fate. “We have many cases in the hospital but we can’t report on them. They won’t let us open a file. They don’t want any paperwork,” she said.

Drewery Dyke, an Amnesty International Iran researcher, said that Reza’s case was “consistent with other reports we have received in terms of the severity of disregard for human dignity, the unrestricted abuse without any recourse to justice, the involvement even of judicial persons in rape abuse and the denial of the basic right to healthcare”.

Reza, at least, survived to tell the world his story. The 16-year-old friend he had to name as the ringleader has since died in hospital from his injuries.

I don't know it's that true or just blown up by press in order to create negative opinion to the Government of Iran. But if that's true,it ' s very horrible and bring Iran down to the hell. That's not democracy , but Demo crazy…

Anyway, after I saw the above pictures..i think it always happens in the country that is growing up its democracy ..and It also ever  happened in my country a couple years a go, people protested and showed their's refusal for what results of general election or maybe protest to Government policy. they burned anything in roads, throw stone to the buildings etc. So silly and immature..

But now, Indonesia people is wiser, more mature and spread democracy in better way..No violence to protest Gov'policy..As you can see in our  last President's election. there is no the loser..anymore, since two candidates president who got the least vote, finally they could accept and admit the result of election. they promise to be good opposition.

i hope Iran will build a better democracy in future ..

hi green 88

as u can check ur last comment

u will see u have said

(an unknown mwmbers of parlimant …)

so how can we trust it?

please say his/her name & ur sources.

as u know all these kind of events came from that lie which

 they say first which they couldn't prove it untill now.

they have the responsibility for each suffering which our

people & officialls have had for that.

they have push people to go to street & partisipate in

ilegal demonestrations &...

as u know some gangs of enenies came & brought their

guns &... in the street & ... they change the

 demonestratins to a civil war but mr moosavi & others

didn't say anything to them.

if u were the security officiall of iran what u had to do

 there?

sure u had to control these outlaws.

as u know all of their wise members accepted their faults.

who were the poor ones?

some people who came in the streets for nothing.

who  have cheated them?

so when the greatest persons of this demonstrations

don't have any prove for their claims what is ur expectation

to accepting this new stories.

please support some one who can prove

his/her claims & never  come back &

make u alone infront of the law.

be smart friend ,please.

regards

dear pop272001

thanks for ur comment

I agree with u.

demonstration has a meaning & riot has another meaning

they pushed the people out to street & now all of their

wise members accepted their faults & couldn't prove their last

& first claim, so how can we trust the new claims?

who can be sure they won't accept their new claims?

they talk first & think in second moment.

such a persons they are.

regards

That boy must mades a police report,and he must be examine by a medical expert, than shows a row of suspect and somebody must be detain…Iran must clean their name through this claim…this is too bad…but Its more easily proven if its happen on a female person and in the right stage of period (report)...Everything must be declared by an expert and made up a panel of investigation who none related to goverment…this bad feature of Iran prison or any prison at anywhere should be handle through the right stream of law….

hi, ahardzoo 

thanks for ur comment sure the way to prove this

case is just like whatever u have said ,but as u

may see ,some people just saying something

which hasn't any meaning

& doesn't even think  about the bad result of it 

for their beloved country. they aren't 

main creminals  cuz some ones else have

cheated them ,who are behind  the curtain

& push the others to the dangerous situations

& scape from there & hide again.

I hope GOD show their dirty hands to all people

as soon as possible.

Amin.

regards

Today in Tehran Friday’s prayer Ahamdinejad said illegal deeds and misbehaver to protesters in prisons was done by enemy (maybe he means Mousavi or foreign countries).

And this is the funniest excuse that a person can make up. Anyway at least we found out that it wasn’t our government who misbehaved with prisoners but it was agents of UK, US and Israel that did these horrible deeds in prisons of Iran!!!

 http://www.englishbaby.com/forum/LifeTalk/thread/320217

shardzoo

Malaysia

I feels so sad about this…but at the same time i know the person who responsible for bad things to happened is Iraq…. it is the iraqi peoples themself…why??...my question...(1)why Iraqi peoples wants their internal problem to be solve by outside people?? (2) did the way iraqi people to choose the outsider to solve their problem is the same with bringing somebody to rape their people?? (3) I don't think Iraqi people have brain to act personally…i think they still will continued to get help from others if america out of Iraq coz they are not rasional anymore…(4)What is the rasional having Islam as your religion but at the same time asking the none muslim to help you in your personal affair (5) Why you want america to be out of your country for at once america is choosen as the one who can help you (6)don't Iraqi peoples for once think that its their sin that they do thats makes all this bad situation comes to them..

Funny ,  how The Arab slave reacts to different topics. Here he talks about DNA evidence. There is talks about Sick Americans….

Today in Tehran Friday’s prayer Ahamdinejad said that enemy (maybe he means Mousavi or foreign countries) is one who misbehaved with protesters in prisons.

Ahamadinajad is an Arab slave… He is undermining the greatness of Iran by aligning with the Arabs. 

When Saudi and Kuwait funded War against Iran, where were the others? were were these Arabs slaves? 

If Arabs were not busy with US, then they would have invaded Iran or done something to destabilize Iran

Missersmidt…you know that words "slave" too well…and i admire you..and i think you got poor english too..but for some  other reason,yes!..i am an arab slave….i am slave to another slave of Allah his  name"Muhammad s.a.w" and don't tell me slave to him as slave to arab…you hate arabs too much don't you…and what you going to do about it??...and missersmitt…i have a question…Are you a slave of any religion?coz if you do..just find the right  words to appoint your conclution..coz its a sin to hurt everybodys feelings in this holly month of Ramadhan…and another…what if its the issue of mexico am i going to be "mexican slave?....You should gives us the right example…lead us to it…one of the example is: Don't be a slave of your own hatred…You surely got something bad on your body…i hope its not a bomb…if you want to explodes..just explodes infront of the person who teach you how to deal with words and manners…

SINA16:

KOONI!

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CHI GIRET MIAD HAGHIGHATO ENKAR KONI OBI?!

ASLAN TO SENET SHEKLE RAY DADAN HAST KE GOHE ZIADI MIKHORI?!

LASHI!

BACHE KOONI 17 SALE!

BEBINAMET ANGOSHTET MIKONAM TA DAFE AKHARET BASHE KE KOS SHER MINEVISI!

KHAR MADARE HAME UNAYI KE TARAFDARISHUNO MIKONI GAYIDAM!