When the coup d’état happened in 1978, the Khalq/Parcham regime first arrested my older brother and soon after my father. Then, one year later they arrested me and my three brothers. I was 18 years old. First, we were brought to Shash Darak (The Interrogation Centre). There, one member of the AGSO took me into an underground room. In the room there was a lot of blood and some torture instruments. They showed me the room to break my spirit. The same day they tied our hands and took us to Sedorat.

After that, they started interrogating us. First my older brother. After one hour they called me. On the way to the interrogation room I saw my brother with a bloody face lying unconsciously in the yard. I wanted to speak to him but the agents had warned me not to speak. “Don’t talk to anybody about anything”. When I arrived in the room, the interrogator told me “I have a lot of experience in torture. If you know anything, say it now and I will not torture you. Otherwise, look at what happened to your brother.” He started interrogating me “What’s your name, nickname and organization? How many people do you know?” I said my name but then I told him that I didn’t know anything. The interrogator called four more people. They tied my hands and feet and started beating me with a cable for hours. Then they started torturing me with electric shocks. They finally finished torturing me in the middle of the night.

For the next two weeks, the torture continued in different ways. Sometimes they forced me to stand up the whole night. Other times, they made us built toilets and beat us with a lash whenever we stopped for a break or talked to each other. After three months, in exchange for our freedom, they made me and two of my brothers sign an agreement that we would not say anything about what we had experienced inside the prison. A few months later, the regime changed and all the remaining political prisoners were released. I and my two brothers went to look for our brother who had remained in jail. He never came out. Outside the prison, I saw an older woman, similar to my mother. She was carrying a winter coat. I went and asked her: “Why did you bring this coat?” She told me: “My son was arrested in the summer. Now it’s winter. If my son is released, maybe he will need a warm jacket.” The old woman went home alone.