Experience 'In the Interrogation Room'

The small window of the solitary cell opened. Without seeing the guard's face, he said: 'Put on your blindfold and come out!' This sentence meant the hard start of the interrogations. These interrogations were my first real challenge and experience, contrasting with everything I had studied in law school: Would the interrogator act within the legal framework?! For long hours, I had to face the wall and answer oral questions while blindfolded and written questions without a blindfold. 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 completely unaware. Later, solitary confinement became their best tool to pressure me. In the interrogation room, watch the documentary 'In the Interrogation Room' at 8 AM on Friday, December 26, immediately after the breakfast video segment on Radio Farda's satellite network. This documentary will also be broadcast simultaneously on Radio Farda's Facebook page and will be accessible afterward on the website and other social media pages of Radio Farda, including the Telegram channel and Radio Farda's YouTube page. 'In the Interrogation Room' will also be rebroadcast at 9 PM on Friday, December 26, and at 8 AM on Saturday, December 27, on Radio Farda's satellite network. In my first detention, I repeatedly reviewed my legal knowledge about how to treat a defendant and interrogation in solitude, 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. 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 distant from what I had learned in law school. The psychological pressures had increased. When I was released, my concerns about 'solitary confinement,' 'interrogation,' 'confession,' 'trial,' etc., became greater 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 my 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 thrived for nearly 17 years. On this side of the world, in a new media—Radio Farda—I experienced my first radio documentary: the 18-part series 'Solitary Confinement.' All aspects of 'solitary confinement' in Iranian prisons over the past decades were documented through interviews with more than 35 people. After the experience of the 'Solitary' documentary and 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 producing 'radio documentaries,' this time, in my third challenge and hard media experience, 'interrogation' in Iranian prisons became a long documentary film. A different experience from the previous two. Eight faces, 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 pressures,' 'threats or temporary detention of spouses and children, as well as pressure on other family members to extract confessions from the accused,' 'use of solitary confinement,' 'white torture,' 'depriving the accused of sleep,' 'keeping the accused standing 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 Kahrizak detention center arrests in 2009, illegal behaviors of judicial and law enforcement officials were acknowledged—although Iran's laws regarding the rights of detainees 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: not to turn 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 authority' to the depths of the realities inside the cells of the accused and strives to rectify that, has achieved its goal. Vahid Pourastad is a political journalist with nearly two decades of experience in various Iranian newspapers. He joined the editorial team of Radio Farda in late 2010 and has produced several radio and television documentaries, including 'Solitary Confinement,' 'The Controversy of a President,' 'The Case of Judge Saeed Mortazavi,' and the documentary 'In the Interrogation Room.'