ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Iranian intelligence agents are threatening Kurdish protesters, including teenagers and women rights activists, with sexual violence, blackmail, and psychological torture to silence them and in some cases force them to spy on other protesters, according to released detainees.
The detainees say that the detention facilities run by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ (IRGC) intelligence in Sanandaj is far worse than those under the ministry of intelligence or the security police.
Thousands of people including ordinary citizens, rights activists, lawyers, journalists, as well as many school and university students have been detained in one of the most violent crackdowns the Islamic republic has unleashed since the revolution of 1979.
An activist with over 15 years of experience in fighting for women’s rights in the Kurdish areas of western Iran (Rojhelat) was among those rounded up by authorities in the city of Sanandaj in the early days of the protests sparked by the death of a young Kurdish woman while in custody on September 16.
Sama, whose name has been changed for security purposes, endured two weeks of interrogations by agents of the intelligence ministry. Given that the ministry’s office in Sanandaj does not have a facility to hold female detainees overnight, they were handed over to the general prison in the city after lengthy interrogations, providing them with a chance to speak to other activists and detainees.
Around 50 other female protesters and activists were detained at the time of Sama’s arrest and were all held in the general prison. There, Sama was able to liaise with other prisoners and offer advice on how to endure the psychological torture they were experiencing.
“The detainees ranged from 19 years of age to women in their 60s,” Sama told Rudaw English via a messaging app this week. “They would take me every morning from the prison to the interrogation office blindfolded and I would be back in the prison after dusk.”
Sama, in her mid-40s, said that out of the around 50 detainees held at the facility, the ones taken for interrogations were mostly activists. She would be blindfolded from the moment she left the general prison in a vehicle until she arrived at the interrogation room in a different facility.
“We would be interrogated for four to five hours in total and for the rest of the time we would be held in a solitary cell.”
In the interrogation room, Sama described the interrogators as appearing to be scared by the rate at which protests were growing and intensifying.
“They were apologetic and said that they did not want to see people like me in the interrogation room, but there were protests and they had to follow the instructions and the procedure,” Sama said. She was not physically tortured and has not heard of anyone being tortured or mistreated in the facility, but said that the psychological torture was intense.
However, those who were detained by the IRGC’s intelligence unit share a different story. They speak about blackmail and threats of sexual exploitation used against them in an attempt to sway them against the movement.
One tactic that has been used against female protesters handed over to the IRGC intelligence by the police force has been to blackmail them with content from their own phones which were forcefully taken away from them.
Rebin Rahmani from the Kurdistan Human Rights Network (KHRN) heard many testimonies of protesters, both female and male, detained by the security forces.
“The freed detainees are terrified and they do not want to speak to anyone,” Rahmani told Rudaw English. “They speak about solitary confinement, light manipulation and subjecting them to cold temperature in the cells.” Rahmani said that from the testimonies his organization has gathered, there is no evidence that women in detention centers have been subjected to physical torture except during violent arrests, when they are transferred to prison. However, he stated that some of the male detainees have been severely beaten.
“The beating during arrests has been savage even for women and we have testimonies of people whose legs and arms have been broken by the agents during arrest.”
Rahmani said that in particular, IRGC intelligence has threatened the teenagers detained during the protest with “sexual exploitation” and forced them to return to the protests in order to spy on those attending.
“Another tactic has been with ordinary female protesters who are not well known, the agents search through their phones and find a photo of the protester with a male person,” Rahmani said. “Then they threaten the protesters that if they do not stop participating in the protests or spy for them, anonymous calls would be made to their families telling them that they were sexually active with men.”
“This kind of blackmail is far worse for these young women than beating or torture,” Rahmani said adding that some of them have spoken about the risks they face if the intelligence agents tell their parents about sexual relations which may at times even be false. “The most vulnerable detainees are protesters who are less-known publicly.”
“Another woman who had photos in pajamas in her phone was told by the agents “how soft she was and that she would be very nice for sex,” Rahmani added.
As the days passed, the authorities started releasing a small number of detainees but said that they would bring new detainees almost daily as demonstrations outside the prison continued.
The city of Sanandaj, which is officially the capital of the Kurdistan province, has arguably become the epicenter of the recent wave of protests in Iran. Protests were sparked in reaction to the death of Mahsa (Zhina) Amini at the hands of the morality police in Tehran.
Iranian authorities have made huge efforts towards delegitimizing protests by trying to prove links between the protesters to opposition groups and foreign powers such as the US or Israel. The top brass of the IRGC have accused the Kurdish opposition groups of being behind the protests, and even fired a barrage of short range ballistic missiles and Kamikaze drones last month at bases of these groups in northern Iraq.
Sama, who was interrogated by six different individuals, states that the interrogators were clear experts in manipulation and tried to pin charges on her but she refused.
“The interrogators try to link you to the outside world or the Kurdish opposition parties or the general opposition outside Iran,” Sama said. “At one point I became upset and I said more than 100 cities have protested and I would love to know what other excuses you are going to use for other protesters in cities outside the Kurdish areas.”
“You must understand that this is a grass root movement and it is not linked to the outside of Iran.”
Sama says that some young protesters with no previous experience of being incarcerated broke down and were ready to accept any charges that the interrogators filed. Some were even forced to undergo staged filmed interviews which have not yet been aired and it is unclear whether they will be.
She added that the authorities were especially concerned about the protests taking place in the towns of Qorveh and Bijar due to the majority of people living there being Kurdish, but Shiite.
“This is the first time activists from these two towns joined protests and this scared the authorities of the unity of the people,” Sama said. Authorities also treated protesters from these towns harsher than the rest.
At the time of Sama’s release, which was settled with excessive bail, none of the activists from Qorveh or Bijar had been released as their bail amounts were even higher.
Meanwhile, despite the crackdown, protests continue across the country and in particular in the Kurdish areas with the authorities launching a massive cyber campaign against the activists aimed at undermining the movement.
On Tuesday, several protests took place at universities in Tehran, Shiraz, and in the northern provinces.
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