Persian → English transcript

Let's move on to another piece of news. Exclusive information and documents received

by Iran International report a horrific disaster at Rajai Heart Hospital in Tehran.

On the 18th of Dey, two nurses at Rajai Hospital were arrested for treating

protesters and were repeatedly subjected to severe torture and rape.

On the 18th of Dey, security forces entered Rajai Hospital and,

after shooting some of the injured,

ordered the medical staff to refrain from treating the wounded.

Of the roughly thirty staff members at this hospital,

almost half of them disobey this order and at least seven nurses continue to treat

the injured.

These seven people were beaten and transferred to the lower floors of the hospital.

The security forces shot and killed two nurses in front of their colleagues.

Their bodies were found a few days later in Kahrizak. They took us

to the lower floor of the hospital, into the storage area. They also shot two of the

nurses right there in front of our eyes. They killed two people. Five other nurses

were arrested. Two of those nurses were, at the time of arrest, subjected to torture

and gang rape.

In some cases foreign objects were used for the rape. Also, due to severe

internal tearing,

the uterus of one of the nurses was completely removed, and the other

nurse is also facing the likelihood of having her uterus fully removed.

According to information received by Iran International, one of the arrested nurses,

identified by the initials “ R.Z.,” has been subjected to repeated

sexual abuse.

They took us up onto a height and kept us there. Our eyes were blindfolded,

but we could feel we were at a high place. Suddenly they pushed everyone together

down into a pit. We could not breathe, we could not move. It was very cramped,

it felt like suffocation. To cover up these events, the security agencies put

the families under pressure.

The family of one of the nurses has prepared a fake temporary

marriage contract with a security officer by paying a large sum,

to pave the way for her release. In this regard,

we are joined by my colleague Farnoush Faraji, who has joined us from London.

Farnoush, I know you worked on this report for days, you reviewed the information.

What do we know about the situation of these nurses right now?

What situation are they in,

and how did you check and verify this information?

Niousha, the report you just released from

Rajaei Heart Hospital in Tehran and broadcast, is only part of the

horrifying accounts that show the situation of those detained on the eighteenth and

nineteenth of Dey.

A set of exclusive information reached Iran International,

hospital records and documents that showed these two nurses had been subjected

to severe sexual and physical torture and that, because of the entry of a

foreign object into their bodies, part of their bodies,

of their intestines and their uterus She was severely injured, and they even had

to remove the uterus of one of these nurses.

She has a bag hanging from her, she is under enormous psychological pressure.

Because one of the nurses who

this happened to her was a virgin girl who

when she was subjected to this torture,

suffered severe bleeding, they removed her uterus, and now she is in a very

bad mental state. When she was about to go into the operating room,

she was begging the nurses and the

doctors in that ward “ Do not let me leave here alive, I do not want to stay alive,

I cannot live with this nightmare, I cannot stay alive.” But as I told you,

this part is indeed very horrifying, but it is only one part of the catastrophe that

the Islamic Republic has inflicted on nurses and other detainees of

this national revolution on the eighteenth and nineteenth.

We have even received reports over the past weeks and months that showed these

tortures were being carried out systematically. It was done to

torture people, in such a way that they broke their limbs, there were burn marks on

their bodies, their limbs had been severed, there were signs of torture on them,

and many of these detainees were killed.

We even received videos, we received information that in this very

hospital they delivered the coup de grâce to the wounded. The nurses told us this,

that while they were treating the wounded, right before their eyes

they shot the patients in the head, and after they had witnessed such torture,

when they were helping the wounded, they were arrested in the hospital,

taken to a room

under the hospital, but as you know, this hospital is a very large hospital,

it has many rooms, they were taken there, and right before their

eyes two of them were shot,

they were killed on the spot, their bodies were taken to Kahrizak,

After several weeks,

their families were finally able to find them. The rest of the staff,

out of fear, had not informed anyone. These two nurses

and those who took them away and the others who

knew about it, and that informed source sent us the documents.

The torture they had been subjected to was so horrific,

but they still found the courage to inform us so that we could convey at least a

small part of these tortures

that the Islamic Republic has inflicted on

the detainees, and explain what has happened to them.

I should say that

the documents received by Iran International also include other things,

which are extremely horrific and painful, some of which cannot even be described.

But in other segments we also received the same documents that show

these people were thrown from a height and their limbs were broken or

they suffered suffocation or that

after they carried out the torture, the marks of torture remained on their bodies.

But the important thing in the story is that these tortures and these events

stay with this person for years and

they have developed severe psychological problems,

and I say they have tried to commit suicide

over and over again and even put an end to their own life.

Thank you, Farnoosh, but as you said,

in any case they also had this courage to want to tell their story and to recount

what happened and not stay hidden, what they went through. My colleague Farnoosh

Faraji was with us from London. Thank you, Farnoosh.