Documentary Film 'In the Interrogation Room'

The small window of the solitary confinement cell opened. Without seeing the guard's face, he said: 'Put on your blindfold and come out!' This phrase meant the difficult start of the interrogations. In the interrogation room / English subtitles. Watch the English subtitled version of 'In the Interrogation Room' on Radio Farda's YouTube channel. These interrogations were my first real challenge and experience, contrasting everything I had learned in law school: Would the interrogator act within legal bounds?! For long hours, I had to face the wall with a blindfold, answering verbal questions and, without a blindfold, responding to written questions from the interrogator. Two interrogators were behind me, cracking seeds and laughing mockingly. It was 2003; the interrogators, in coordination with Saeed Mortazavi, the then Tehran prosecutor, were trying to make me accept accusations of which I was unaware. After that, solitary confinement became their best tool to pressure me. During my first detention, I repeatedly reviewed my legal knowledge about how to treat the accused and conduct interrogations in the solitude of my cell, but I saw little resemblance to it; those interrogations ended. It became 2009; after the controversial presidential election, I was arrested again. This time it was longer than my first arrest in 2003. The arrest took place at midnight, and around 4 AM, the door behind me closed in Evin prison. The interrogation began with threats and started at 4 AM, continuing until nearly 9 AM. The insomnia and pressure from the interrogator were unbearable. In the interrogation room, the writer and director: Vahid Pourastat, editor: Mohammad Reza Kalani, cameramen: Mohammad Reza Kalani and Mohammad Hassan Maqsoudlu, interviewees: Mehdi Amini Zadeh, Reza Zoghi, Taghi Rahmani, Masoud Zinati, Madiar Sami Nejad, Reza Alijani, Masoud Alizadeh, Zhila Mahdavi, produced by: Radio Farda. From the day I entered the 'solitary' and 'quasi-solitary' cell until 20 days later, there was no news of interrogation. After that, I faced a new interrogator. He did not behave badly, but his interrogation was also far from what I had learned in law school. The psychological pressures had increased. When I was released, my concerns about 'solitary', 'interrogation', 'confession', 'trial', etc., had grown more than before. I compared all the moments of previous interrogations more seriously with legal books; it was sad. The interrogator's pressure, his untimely phone calls, and the shadow he left after my release determined my fate to flee the country - against my inner will. I left my soul in Iran and brought my body out. I said goodbye to the editorial offices of Iranian newspapers where I had grown and developed for nearly 17 years. In this part of the world and in a new media - Radio Farda - I experienced my first radio documentary: the 18-part series 'Solitary Confinement'. All aspects of 'solitary' in Iranian prisons over the past decades were documented through conversations with more than 35 people. After the experience of the documentary 'Solitary' and winning international awards at festivals in New York and London, as well as several other radio documentaries, including 'The Controversy of a President', 'The Case of a Judge', etc., the next step was to create a visual documentary about the 'interrogation' of political-civil activists. After experiences in 'print media' and then creating 'radio documentaries', this time in my third challenge and hard media experience, 'interrogation' in Iranian prisons turned into a feature-length documentary. A different experience from the previous two. Eight individuals who had experiences ranging from two months to over 14 years in prison narrated their interrogation periods. The interrogations mostly occurred between the 1970s and 1990s in the prisons of the Islamic Republic of Iran. 'Psychological and mental pressures', 'threats or temporary detention of spouses and children and also pressure on other family members to obtain confessions from the accused', 'use of solitary confinement', 'white torture', 'keeping the accused awake', 'standing the accused for over 50 hours', etc., are part of the interrogation methods in the prisons of the Islamic Republic of Iran that are narrated in this film. Such statements from political detainees are generally denied by Iranian judicial and security officials - although in exceptional cases, such as the detentions at Kahrizak detention center in 2009, illegal behaviors of judicial and law enforcement officials were accepted - although Iran's laws regarding the rights of the accused in prison are clear and relatively progressive, there has been little effort to uphold the rights of political detainees in Iran. When we were making the documentary 'In the Interrogation Room', my goal was not only to recount the narratives of political and civil activists about their interrogation periods but also a more important goal of not turning a blind eye to the realities surrounding us and the illegal behaviors of interrogators that destroy the lives of innocent and defenseless people. This documentary, if it only opens the eyes of an 'indifferent person', a 'judge blind to the law', and a 'political and judicial figure' to the depth of the realities inside the cells of the accused and strives to rectify it, has achieved its goal. Vahid Pourastat is a political journalist with nearly two decades of journalistic experience in various Iranian newspapers. He joined the editorial team of Radio Farda in late 2010 and during his time at Radio Farda has produced several radio and television documentaries including 'Solitary Confinement', 'The Controversy of a President', 'The Case of Judge Saeed Mortazavi', and the documentary film 'In the Interrogation Room'.