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October 29, 2008
Posted: 1023 GMT
LONDON, England –The beatings, the broken bones, the squalid conditions - it was "nothing," says Iranian Amir Fakhravar, compared to the pain he suffered under "white torture" in an Iranian jail. "We didn't see any colour, all of the cell was white, the floor was white, our clothes and also the light, 24 hours, was white, and our food also, was white rice. We couldn't see any colour and we couldn't hear any voice," says Fakhravar. Amnesty International first documented Fakhravar's case in 2004, saying such conditions of extreme sensory deprivation appear to be designed to weaken political prisoners. Amnesty says that even if Fakhravar wanted to use the toilet, he had to slip a white piece of paper under the door. Even the guards wore padded shoes to muffle any sound. The organization describes the silence as "deafening" and inhumane. "I was there for eight months and after those months I couldn't remember my father and my mother's face and they released from that prison I was not a normal person," says Fakhravar. Watch my report on "white torture" Fakhravar was first arrested at the tender age of 17 after criticizing the Iranian regime in speeches and writings. He says he spent more than five years shuttling between Iranian prisons. He eventually escaped to the United States but says he will not rest until he sees regime change in his homeland. As a young medical student, Fakhravar says he wanted reform, not regime change. He says he struggled in prison to understand why the Iranian government was putting him through such extraordinary and dehumanizing psychological torture. "That was the question for us, and I asked my interrogator: 'What do you want from us?' And after several times experiencing this I realized they want to inject fear into Iranian society, all of Iranian society," he says. Fakhravar says he now knows how dangerous the regime is and how determined its leaders are to export the Islamic revolution around the world. "They are trying to brainwash all the children in Iran," says Fakhravar. He claims there is an institutional program to indoctrinate all Iranian children into believing the globe should be converted to Shia Islam. "Iranian children, Iranian students, they are suffering a really bad time in school and they are more dangerous than the atomic bomb." says Fakhravar. Fakhravar says change in Iran will only come from complete and utter isolation, enforced by severe economic sanctions. And he has some sobering advice for American presidential candidate Barack Obama, who has said he believes the U.S. should engage Iran through dialogue. "He cannot find anybody to talk to him," says Fakhravar. "It doesn't work, and I'm sure that the Islamic republic will be closer to an atomic bomb." Posted by: International Security Correspondent, Paula Newton |
 
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News and observations on the threats to international security and the challenges posed by terrorism to societies around the world. By CNN's International Security Correspondent, Paula Newton, and International Security Producer, Andrew Carey. From breaking news to background stories, from serious analysis to casual asides, if we think it's interesting we'll post it here. 
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