rape

PBS NewsHour and the Center for Investigative Reporting mark the two-year anniversary of Iran’s “Green Movement” with an exclusive report about the government crackdown that followed. The report features the courageous work of an Iranian journalist and the first, heart-wrenching accounts of women demonstrators who say once arrested, they were raped, beaten and tortured by the Iranian government. Watch the full report on PBS NewsHour.

CIR editors obtained an interview with the Iranian reporter, who must remain anonymous.

Why did you decide to make this film?

I'm not a filmmaker. I'd never filmed before in my life. If you want to know the real reason, the first week after election, Monday, I remember I was in the street. I was on Valiasr Street, the main street. The police were running from the students because they were throwing stones and stuff. And suddenly [the police] chased all the people, they threw tear gas and thousands of guards came.

I was just walking, I was not in the protest. I thought I could just walk around. I didn't do anything wrong. I got attacked, but I was lucky. I could run. They wanted to arrest me. But that was not the terrible part, the terrible part was [after I ran] I saw five big guys beating up everybody. Everything was dusty and [there was] tear gas…. I have asthma and I couldn't breathe. I saw a young guy who was like 17 years old, they put him in the [gutter]. All five of them were beating him on the head with their batons, they really wanted to kill him. And I started screaming, "What are you doing with him? You're going to kill him!" I was so upset.

I started screaming and suddenly the other [guards] ran toward me and I was pulled out by two guys. One of them was like 60 years old, and he said, "What are you doing? They're going to kill you. They're going to arrest you and rape you." And they took me out of that place.

I don't know what happened to that young guy [in the gutter], I think they killed him. He was bloody everywhere, blood was running.

But I was like, I could be one of them, I could be killed. After that I was always thinking about doing this story about people that nobody really heard anything about. About these poor guys, like Sohrab [Aarabi]—Sohrab got famous, but nobody knows about how these [other] people were killed, and their poor families. You know?

You know what's the difference between these young guys in the street and the people in the protest in '79, during the revolution? I think back then those guys were veryidealistic, they were thinking, "We have to do something for people in the world, we have to give them democracy and freedom and equal rights and blah blah blah." But these guys, they were all very simple people. I couldn't believe when I saw it with my eyes, young girls, fashionable, with high heels, they were going and beating up the guards. These guys, they are not idealistic. They are not Left, they are not Communists, they don't belong to any parties. They just want to have their own simple rights. They just want to have their own individual freedoms that everybody [should] have in the world in a regular life. We were kind of happy to have just the limited democracy that [the government] was giving us. But it is not acceptable that they are cheating people like this. People are not stupid.

How did you find the woman you call Leila?

Actually I was looking to talk to someone who was in prison or had a really close experience with [the government]. I've had a lot of friends who were arrested or in prison. But, unfortunately, when you get arrested and put in prison, they scare you to death so you don't talk with the media. People are very scared. They don't want to talk because they are afraid they'll be identified and they'll be taken back to that horrible situation.

So most people don't want to talk about it.

No. I was lucky, one very cold winter day I went to see friends in a cafe. I was with a few friends and this friend who was a young student, she was very active. She was always in all the demonstrations and whenever I wanted to get news about students, I would talk to her. She was very active on the election campaign for Mousavi.

I remember we met in the cafe, and she came with her friend. Her friend came to me and we had a little chit-chat and I said "What are you doing in your life, are you a student as well?" And she said "Yes and no." And I said "Why yes and no?"

She looked very young, younger than her age. And she said, "Honestly, I was a student, but I'm not a student anymore. They kicked me out." And I said "Why?" and she said, "It's a long story." She was very vibrant, a cheerful woman, and I was joking with her and she was joking, teasing her friends. She was really funny, nice, but you could see in her eyes, the eyes were saying something else. She was pretending to be a funny, happy girl. Then we talked a little more and she said "Yeah, they kicked me out of the university because I was arrested." But she didn't tell me any more about what happened to her.

I wanted to hear her story. We met again the next day in another place, we had breakfast together and we talked. Still she didn't tell me what really happened to her. She said: "I was in prison and I was arrested … I was in a difficult situation." And I said "Would you like to talk about what happened to you in prison on camera?" And she said, "Yes, if you promise me that nobody can identify me, I will do it."

But I still didn't know what happened to her. We met two more times to talk. Finally I met her [to film]. She didn't want to talk to me in her parents' house. She was very afraid they would follow her. So we met somewhere in a house [I didn’t know whose]. I didn't know really [what she would say], I didn't expect that horrific situation.

So you didn't know her full story until she told it on camera?

Yeah, on camera she told me, "Since I got out of prison, I promised myself that I wanted to tell this story to everybody."

Honestly, her story was so upsetting. I mean, I was quite involved with all these problems, with people who were arrested. I was reading what happened to people in prison online. I was really informed about what was going on. I knew about other people who had been raped or tortured in prison. But somehow this story was something I'd never heard or read [before]. I was so shocked…. And when she was telling me what happened to her and how they raped her and after that tortured her, she started to cry and I was crying too. I remember we had to stop three times because I didn't want to just let her cry, I had to hug her.

We started in the morning. We had a little talk and then we started filming. And we finished in the afternoon, seven or eight hours later. We had to stop and I was making tea and giving her water. It was so upsetting, the whole story. I couldn't even breathe when she was talking. It was one of the worst stories that I've heard in my life.

How did you meet the woman you call Samira, the rapper?

I met Samira the first time at the peaceful protest. The first week was quiet. There were peaceful protests…. People really tried to be silent, not violent. The second time I met her was [weeks] later in Baharestan Square, next to Parliament. It was announced that we had to go [protest] in front of Parliament.

We went there and I remember it was a terrible day. After a week that was peaceful, then the next weeks were bloody. Every day people were being arrested, they were killing a lot of people. But still you could see a lot of young people, thousands of them, they were still coming out.

We went in front of Parliament and I remember I couldn't even walk, it was full of guards everywhere and they didn't let us walk through, even on the square close to it. I wanted to see what was going on there. But they stopped us and said you can't, go home. And I thought the best way was by bus. I got on one of the public buses that was passing by. It's a huge street and Parliament was on one side and on the other side, on the sidewalk, I remember seeing hundreds of young people. They were sitting on the floor like this [hands bent over head] because they'd all been arrested.

I remember two young guys were [riding] really close to the bus on a motorbike and one of them had a little camera. They were filming, and I remember, poor guy, suddenly [the guards] came, it was like they were arresting a criminal. They took him out, they took the camera and broke it and beat him up and beat up the other guy…. They arrested them. It was very serious. They pushed them in the van with tinted windows. These were the vans they used to use for fashion police. If you were a woman and you didn't have the proper hijab, they would arrest you and put you in these vans. But during the protests it was not the fashion police.

Then I got to the other bus and I went back. I think I [rode through] four times because you couldn't walk and I wanted to see what was going on there. At the first stop after Parliament I got out and right after I got out, it was terrible. You could be arrested at any minute, they didn't care if you were old or young. They were beating up everybody and randomly arresting people. I got out of the bus and I was walking and suddenly I saw a girl, and I thought, "I know that girl." It was Samira.

She had green scarf, a very green shawl, a green manteau. From her head, the whole scarf and manteau, to her knee, was bloody. She was very angry. She was standing right in the street and people were asking her, "Do you need help?" And I got to her and I said "What the hell are you doing here?" I told her "You should get out, they're going to arrest you immediately."

But she said "No, I want to stay here, everybody should see what this idiot did to me!" And I was like, "Please, they don't care. They're going to arrest you…. And you know what's going to happen to you? They're going to rape you." And she was like "I'm ready to be killed." And I said, "Yeah, but they're not going to kill you, they're going to rape you, do you know what that means? You're so young." I said "Please, let's go, I'm going to help you get home."

She told me she was in front of Parliament and one of the guards came to her and started to push her. He was a big guy, one of the riot police. He started to beat her up even though she's a very skinny, small woman. He beat her on her head in a really bad way and then she said she fell down. She said for a couple of minutes she didn't know what had happened. And the guy, the guard, he was afraid, he disappeared. Maybe he was afraid he killed her, I don't know.

She said for a few minutes she was unconscious. Bloody. People had helped her up and took her [down the street], where I found her. I could see she had lost a lot of blood and she was really weak. After about ten minutes of me begging to take her, we got in the bus. That was the safest way. And I remember some women on the bus ... women like 50, 60 years old, very religious, with chadors, they said, "What's going on?" I remember one of them was like "Shame on me, shame on me! I voted for Ahmadinejad. Shame on me. I didn't know they were going to beat up and kill our young people like this. Oh my god, what happened to you?" And I remember she was crying.

So I took Samira home by bus. Later on, the next summer, I called her and we met and we had a long talk. She told me her story, that the Saturday that Neda [Agha-Soltan] was killed in the street she was somewhere close to Azadi Square, which was supposed to be the center of the demonstrations.

She was somewhere close to that square with a bunch of young guys and they were fighting with Basiji and guards for two hours. They were throwing stones at them and they couldn't get close. She told me about how other people from the area were bringing them stones. There was some construction and an old lady came [from the house] and said, "If you want, just destroy this wall and take the bricks if you need them."

People were helping them. It's like they were all unified, they all had one common enemy. She said for two hours they were fighting and the Basiji were really angry. "Once I got some stones from the floor, I had a bunch of stones, and I gave them to the guy [next to me]," she said. "I didn't know the guy. I just knew he was young and he had a mask on his face. Suddenly I heard a shot and I saw that he was on the floor. He was shot in the forehead and blood was coming out with the pressure." She said: "All of us were scared. Everybody was looking at each other saying 'What happened, what was that?' Nobody could believe that they shot him." She said suddenly one guy shouted "It was a direct shot, somebody shot the bullet!" They were all in shock.

Some started to run and [she said] she got very angry and she was screaming "Death to the dictator! Death to Ahmadinejad! Death to the Supreme Leader!" A couple of them tried to [carry] the guy who was shot away, but she said he was dead. It was so obvious he was dead. And then some guys came out of a private car, not a police car, and tried to push her into the car. Obviously they were secret service or something. She said suddenly the crowd of people who'd been around—everybody was angry because they'd seen the young guy shot—they pulled her out of these people's hands and let her go. They rescued her.

That night she went home and she said she couldn't sleep. She said: "I woke up a couple of times, and I just decided to get up and sit and start writing what happened that day. I wrote lyrics about what I'd seen. I promised myself, I have to tell the story of these people. The people who were fighting that day were very brave. People like the guy who was killed next to me. I promise to write and sing for these guys because nobody can hear their voices." And the name of that song is "Freedom Dream."

For her, being a rap singer is not easy. She can't really sing anywhere because in Iran, according to Sharia law, women are not allowed to sing in public, or for men.

Your film is focused on women. Do you think this revolution was somehow different for women? Were there more women involved this time?

I think women in Iran—[unlike] other countries in the Middle East, like Egypt or Saudi Arabia—are very different. Iranian women are really pioneers. They are very powerful. Now the number of women going to university is more than the number of men. That's why Parliament wanted to have an article [to limit] the number of women at university. Their reason was, they said, that after women get married and have kids they don't work anymore, and when they go and get an education they waste the government's money. Which is stupid, because a lot of women work now.

The system is religious, we have a religious government, but the other reason is that it's kind of a macho society. Many women still [believe that] whatever the family says is what they have to do. But I believe many, many of them, even those coming from very traditional, religious families, they want to get out, they want to be educated. This is one of the ways they can get out of the house.

And they're fighting. They're fighting for their own rights, their individual freedoms. When Ahmadinejad came to power there was more pressure on women. There is more reason for them to fight.

Did you see many women involved in the Green Revolution?

Honestly, in the Green Movement, in all the protests, I saw women always in the front line, fighting. You can see on Youtube, if they were arresting some guys, women were getting close saying "What are you doing? Release them!" They were not afraid. I remember the day that Neda was killed in street, right after they killed her and they were taking the body away, I went there. I met a woman who was like 55 years old with a chador, she looked very religious, and she was crying. She said "I come every day to the demonstrations with my husband. Because of my kids. My husband today said 'I'm not coming' because he was scared. Yesterday, we were very close to arrest." But she said, "I'm going. I'm going for my children. I don't let my daughter go now because I've seen they rape the girls. I'm going now to all the demonstrations and I'm going to fight now until the end for kicking these guys out."

Tell me about Sohrab's mother.

Sohrab's mom was an activist. There is a group in Tehran called Mothers for Peace. They've been active for many years. Sohrab was on Mousavi's campaign, and when he was killed his mother, who was already an activist, gave a lot of interviews. They threatened everybody, of course. But she talked. She talked and talked and talked. This protects people—if you get famous, they don't touch you. At least I hope not.

I heard some of her interviews and I've seen them on websites. She has a very strong character. [I managed to get] her contact information. I had to go [to her home], and I was in a very proper hijab, a chador, hiding my face so nobody could see me. I was thinking maybe [the government] was watching from somewhere. I went there and her apartment is really amazing. When you get in it's full of pictures of Sohrab, Neda, and all these young guys that were killed in demonstrations. She put everybody's pictures on the wall.

There was a lot of art, like paintings, drawings, writing, calligraphy and poems for Sohrab. Stuff that people sent to her. They didn't know her, they just heard about her and Sohrab and they sent her stuff in memory of Sohrab. I didn't know Sohrab at all, but when I was looking at his picture, I couldn't stop crying. I was thinking, such an innocent guy. He was very young. His face is very kind and sweet, a young person, like a baby, very innocent. When I went there she was reading for me what Sohrab said during a test at school, his ideas about democracy and the system. It was amazing. He was very smart. He had a lot of ideas about the future he'd like to have. His wish was to have freedom and democracy in his country. Then she showed me his room, and she hadn't touched anything. His notes, he had just finished high school, I think. The notes were still there—the English vocabulary that he was memorizing for the exam. And his cover—for Mousavi's campaign you had to have a green cover over your clothing. I saw the green bracelet that he was using, all the green stuff was still in his room.

Did you tell her your real name?

She didn't ask, I didn't tell her. She was very concerned for my safety.

Why don't you want to be identified as the reporter of this story?

I think after the election we didn't really have any reporters in Iran. People were all like me … I'm not a professional. But I believe all the people that took the risk and filmed in the street, they filmed Neda when she was killed, or they filmed the Basiji when they were shooting people, they all took risks, and they were all like great journalists. I don't want to be identified because I'm living in Iran, I don't want to leave Iran, I don't want to live anywhere else. I am one of these people fighting for their freedoms. I don't want to have my name anywhere because I'm like my people, we are all fighting for our rights. I would love to talk for the people in my country that nobody can hear. This is my duty. They go in the street and fight, and I have to report that. Like many other Iranians did in the street, they reported. I believe that they are reporters as well.

I am very proud of my people, especially the women. After the election, in the last two years, they showed they're not idiots, they're not stupid. They know what they want. They know exactly what they want. They know what these people in the system did to them, they know very well. And they know very well what they want and they're fighting for that. And still, the Green Movement and all these protests, they're not finished. It's still going on. Very soon it's the anniversary of the election. Of course they suppressed a lot of people, but when I was going to all the protests I was surprised, honestly, that still after all this arresting and raping, again thousands and thousands of people came out. This is amazing. This means people know what they want. And if it's quiet now that doesn't mean that it's over.

Everybody says in Iran, it's like fire under the ash, you can't see it, but suddenly it [comes] out and burns everything. I'm sure the right moment will arrive. I don't know when, but we are all fighting for our freedom. People, I think, don't have anything else to lose. They say, "Ok, I am ready to be killed." A lot of young people were killed for their freedom. You have to pay. They don't give you your rights just like this. And I believe Iranian people have to do some things on their own, nobody else can help them. I'm one of the people who believe we don't need any help from outside, from other countries. We have to do something on our own, that's the way we can get our country back, and our freedom, our democracy.

PBS NEWSHOUR and the Center for Investigative Reporting mark the two-year anniversary of Iran’s “Green Movement” with an exclusive report about the government crackdown that followed. The report features the courageous work of an Iranian journalist and the first, heart-wrenching accounts of women demonstrators who say once arrested, they were raped, beaten and tortured by the Iranian government. Watch the full report on PBS NewsHour.

CIR editors had the full interview with "Leila" translated. What follows is an excerpt. For reasons of safety CIR has decided to not reveal the identities of the interviewer and person interviewed.

I was an ordinary person and a student who was detained for no reason.

That day I wasn’t part of any protest. I was returning home from the university. They harassed me, abused me, tortured me.

They constantly deny any act of torture on TV, but that’s exactly what they did to me. I want to tell the whole world, it wasn't just me, but many people.

They arrested me and put me in a van. Along the way they hit us with batons, harassed us, and cursed us. They were policemen wearing uniforms with large builds, wearing hoods disguising their faces, you could only see their eyes and mouths. They had ripped off their name tags from their uniforms. Their uniforms, batons, shields and equipment were all similar. It was inside a van like those of morality police, they hit us and insulted us.

Among them was a young boy, his mustache hadn’t even grown yet, he wasn’t a man. He touched us all over with lust, on my breasts, other women’s breasts, wherever he wanted. No one dared to challenge him. A woman who protested, he turned and slapped her on the face. We all fell silent.

There was a guy filming us constantly with a handycam from all directions. They transferred us to a place that was like a warehouse. I didn’t see much of it, just that it had tall walls and a high ceiling like a warehouse. They wouldn’t exchange a word with each other, nothing whatsoever. They are such fearful people that [they wouldn't speak] in front of someone like me, who is a nobody. I have the strength only now. Why didn’t I speak out before? I didn’t have the ability to speak out.

I am an ordinary person who decided to speak out more than a year after what happened to me. Go try find someone like me who would be willing to give an interview. They don’t exist, they don’t have the strength because they fear another round of torture and trouble. No one would come forward and say these things.

If our captors weren’t scared they wouldn’t have heaped this misfortune on us. I am not a very religious person but I do believe in something. They shattered my soul such that I say "Damn God!" Because what had I done? What had I done to deserve this? All I had done was to give one vote and that was to Mousavi. A vote that was never counted, never!

The dragged us on the floor, not even asking us to stand and walk. They dragged us like potato sacks into hallways made of curtains.

They gave us typed up pages, with the standard bureaucratic font. And what was written on those pages? It said that I had committed acts I had absolutely never done. I was to copy from those pages that I am a rioter, I have endangered national security, I did this and that, and I am a terrorist! I didn’t even have nail clippers in my purse, for them to say I had anything remotely sharp or dangerous. I only had my books and pens coming from the university.

They separated us into groups of five here, five there. It was the same boy who was groping us in the van, he separated us. For example, he said I was one of the pretty ones and should go to one side.

They shaved all our heads. I used to have log hair. He grabbed my hair in his hand like this. A man! It was a man shaving my hair, a man giving me a body search, a man touching me all over. There were no women there.

He would purposely hurt me while shaving me, to give me marks on my head.

While he was shaving me, he was touching me all over. I wasn’t sitting on a chair. He held me like this and grabbed my head while his legs were feeling me.

Five of us were taken to a cell. A tiny cell. Some earlier detainees were also there. I was really tired, bruised, my face all cut up, totally devastated. They held us there until they supposedly clarified our status.

We were in that tiny room for 18 hours. I desperately needed to go to the bathroom. The pressure was really hurting me. I felt my bladder would burst. I was nauseous, thirsty. I had read in human rights books that detainees have certain rights. But I didn’t have the most basic rights like going to the bathroom or drinking water. I didn’t the right to a lawyer, or to call my parents to say where I was and not to worry.

I didn’t have any appetite for food but I wished I could call my father. That was much more important to me. To say "Father dear, I am here and need someone to come help me."

It wasn’t like they would tell us confess to this or that and then go free. They wanted to keep us in such limbo, to reach a point where you say enough. You would say I would do anything to get out of this.

With our hands tied, our eyes covered and hoods over our heads, they transferred us to a detention center. I couldn’t tell where it was. Not just me, no one had any idea where we were.

What haunted me the most was the groping, more than the insults. Their groping was torture.

As they groped us they would invoke Saint Zahra. Could you imagine that? Could Saint Zahra believe such things?

In the name of Saint Fatima, Saint Zahra they touched us and they even said "In the name of God" as they did it. They would say "Oh God accept us!" As if it was our wedding and he was performing his rituals preparing for the marital bed.

I detest the phrase vigilante forces that the government uses. How could they be vigilante if they have serious backing and protection? No! they were no vigilantes. All the papers and forms had seals of the Judiciary and Intelligence Ministry. You think I am a little kid to believe these people could be vigilantes? I am no kid! I have seen it all … killing people and claiming it was vigilantes!

They took us to a detention center. This was more like a proper detention center, not a warehouse. This time they took me into a solitary cell. I figured out that before and after interrogations they throw you in solitary confinement, so when you are done you don’t share your experience with others.

After a short time, about 20 minutes, they took me to the interrogation room. My hands were tied behind my back, I was blindfolded and gagged. The room was dark and the door opened. I heard steps. Someone sat in front of me.

“So you are a rioter! So you are undermining the State! Who you think you are? Who are you with?” I was gagged. He said "Why are you not talking?" I teared up.

I said "I am not with anyone." He said “Shut up, speak when I tell you.” I was trembling all over. I felt my body tense up. I was so defenseless. He went on and on saying “Who are you with? You want to overthrow the State?” I said "How can I? I am not capable." He said “Oh, yeah? You putting on a show? You think I am going to listen to you like others?” I kept silent. Next question: “What do you do?” I said "I am a student." He said “No you are not. From now on don’t say you are a student.”

Suddenly I felt he was sitting on my legs. I couldn’t breathe from his weight. I was scared silent. I could feel his breathing on my face.

The first thing he did was lick my face. I felt my life drained. I felt my whole being escaping out of my mouth. He started to pull my clothes off. My hands bound, my eyes covered, I started crying. He shouted “Shut up whore!” Then he opened my bra and took my clothes off. He was stroking and hitting me at the same time. Saying “I will do something to you that you’ll never forget. I’ll make it so you never leave your house again. Anytime hear my name you'll tremble, I’ll drive you insane”… and he did. He raped me.

Me, who never had a boyfriend. He raped me. Not with a baton … it was his filthy thing ... his ugly male instrument. He raped me. Afterwards he urinated on me. The smell nauseated me. After a while he walked away and I was left with my sorrows. What happened? I was told from childhood to protect [my virginity] and now it was gone. What happened? I was in shock. After a while someone else came and meanwhile I had wet myself.

When he came he smacked me in my face and said, “You filthy scum you have stunk up the place!” Then he called some guy to come over and mop the floor. Then he went out and dragged something into the room, and sat in front of me. I could hear crinkling. He started unwrapping something. I didn’t know what, but when he flicked his lighter I realized he wanted to smoke. Until then he hadn’t said anything. I sat there with my hands tied. I sensed, I mean I heard, he put the cigarette to his mouth, and lit it. He said, “You are not talking? Are you mute? I’ll make you talk, who do you think you are?”

He untied my hands and started caressing me as if he wanted to make love. I had no feelings, I was numb from the beatings. Then something burned me. I screamed. He extinguished his cigarette on my left hand. I screamed. It hurt. It hurt a lot. I felt it penetrate to my bone. A hole in my hand. It burned, as if my hand was seared against a hot kettle… He still wasn’t done. He extinguished another cigarette on my knee. I was still consumed in the pain, when he put out another on my breast. I sensed it. I didn’t see it.

I keep using the verb "see" but I didn’t see anything, I was feeling everything. He put one cigarette after another on my body. I was burning. I felt my life drain from my veins. Why me? How much can I endure? How much should I suffer? I got quiet. I was crying. Someone else came into the room. I could hear the steps. He said something that I could not process. I was just raped an hour ago, and he said, “I’ve heard you are not a virgin. Did you do it with your boyfriend? How many guys have you been with?” In my heart I screamed, “You just raped me, you took my innocence, and now you are asking me how many guys I have been with? Before, I was a girl! You did this to me!"

I couldn’t comprehend that they were saying this. Me, who was a girl, living in this rotten society. I was someone who would tell off a guy who got too comfortable in the taxi cab next to me! Now he was telling me, "You had fun with your boyfriend? When they brought you here your hymen was broken... Which whorehouse do you come from? Are you a prostitute?” I couldn’t talk. I wanted to say, “It was your friends who raped me, it was you! You all! Before this I was a girl!”

I didn’t know how long I was there. I fell asleep. A kick to the stomach suddenly woke me up. I felt like my stomach filled with blood. I tasted blood in my mouth. They cursed and pulled me out of the cell. I could not breathe. I didn’t know how long had passed. I felt drowsy, I couldn’t walk, I fell unconscious and when I woke up I thought I was in a clinic, but I wasn’t. The walls were dirty. They wanted to give me an IV, but I didn’t let them. I was scared it was infected with AIDs. They just dressed my cigarette burns.

I could smell blood, I was still drowsy. I didn’t feel well. They took my back to the cell. I don’t know how much time passed. One week, two weeks. Every other day it was the same routine. They would take me into the room, they would beat me, rape me, they would pour their sperm and excrement on me, and they would supposedly wash me with a bucket of water.

They didn’t extinguish cigarettes on me anymore, maybe they thought it would leave marks. They mostly beat me. I got an infection because of the repeated rapes. My uterus got infected, it smelled, I had little ugly bumps, I thought it was syphilis. I got treated, but I was never sent to the hospital. When I got back, my parents just took care of me at home.

I suffered many things during those days, and then later I was still tortured by the remaining pain. My uterus was polluted and sick. My spirit was crushed. Me, who was an active person, I was scared of crowds. I don’t know how many times they raped me. I didn’t have a watch to calculate. May be it was ten minutes, but for someone under such stress ten minutes is like a lifetime. I just know the number of rapes was very high, and it wasn’t always the same person.

They had handed my belongings to my father. They called him from my mobile and told him that we have arrested her. They told him she was one of the demonstrators. They showed him the file that I had handwritten and my father pursued my case. They kept us in limbo for so long that we no longer asked them when they would release me. This whole time I told myself to be strong. Be calm. In one instance, it will all be over. Death was my wish. I wanted to die. I wanted it all be over. I wanted to die in my sleep. I wanted peace. I prayed that I no longer existed. I wanted to die.

In my dreams my only wish was death. In my dreams I was running in a field in a white dress. That field was so beautiful. It reminded me of a trip with my family, it was a beautiful memory. Those days I never thought one day I would be able to sit here and say what happened. To say what happened to me, to others. We are not Nasrin Sotoudeh, so that someone would come to our rescue. We are not Nasrin Sotoudeh, so that our voice would be heard. No one knows my name, no one knows where I am, no one, no one came to look for me.

When Neda died, all of Iran, the whole world, heard about it. But no one knew when they were raping me, when they were torturing me, when they were burning me with cigarettes.

I told myself one day I would speak so the whole world could hear. I would speak, I had promised myself. I signed in blood, a promise stronger than the bond of marriage. Unbreakable. I told myself that I would do it and I did it.

There are many of us, people that, because of their reputation and because of their life, they don’t speak up. People who are out there, people like me. Believe me, they are out there. They need you. All of you. Don’t let people like me suffer. It already happened to me, I’m only 22, but I feel old and I feel like dying. Please stop them. Please stop them. How did you help others? Please do it for us too. Us, who fear our reputation. If they see this video, what they will do to me? But I’m here. I’m speaking because I have to. Those who hear this, those who are like me, you have to speak. They have to understand. The whole world has to understand that there are those of us who are invisible.

Lawlessness and sectarian violence quickly engulfed Iraq after the fall of Saddam, leaving women especially vulnerable. Correspondent Anna Badkhen and photojournalist Mimi Chakarova visited a secret women's shelter in Baghdad to meet with rape victims and war widows and document their stories. CIR spoke to the reporters in their hotel room in Baghdad via Skype for this episode of The Investigators.

The Investigators is CIR's web-video series highlighting investigative reporting—as it happens—by journalists around the world.

Anna Badkhen has covered wars in Afghanistan, Somalia, Israel and the Palestinian territories, Chechnya and Kashmir. She has reported extensively from Iraq since 2003. Her reporting has appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle, The Boston Globe, The Christian Science Monitor, The National, FRONTLINE/World, Truthdig, and Salon. Her book, "A War Reporter's Pantry," will be published in January 2011 by Free Press/Simon&Schuster. Read her reporter's blog for CIR.

Mimi Chakarova is a photojournalist and photography instructor at UC Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism. Her solo exhibitions include documentary projects on South Africa, Jamaica, Cuba, Kashmir and Eastern Europe. She is currently working on two long-term projects that examine the conflict in Kashmir and sex trafficking of women in Eastern Europe. Her work has appeared in National Geographic, The New York Times Sunday Magazine, The Atlantic Monthly, CBS News 60 Minutes, and FRONTLINE/World.

Learn more about this story on FRONTLINE/World: "Iraq: Living in Hiding"

Support for this project was provided in part by CIR's Dick Goldensohn Fund.

PRODUCED AND EDITED BY CARRIE CHING
PHOTOGRAPHY AND VIDEO BY MIMI CHAKAROVA

Lawlessness and sectarian violence quickly engulfed Iraq after the fall of Saddam, leaving women vulnerable. Human rights groups say incidents of rape have increased, and by Iraqi tradition the victims are shunned and sometimes murdered by family members in "honor killings." Correspondent Anna Badkhen and photojournalist Mimi Chakarova visit a secret women's shelter in Baghdad to speak with rape victims and war widows and document their stories.

+ Watch the slideshow on FRONTLINE/World and read the story by Anna Badkhen.

+ Watch CIR's episode of The Investigators featuring Badkhen: "Behind the Veil."

+ Listen to Badkhen talk about her reporting and her article in Ms. Magazine, "Baghdad Underground," on PRI's The World.

Support for this project was provided in part by CIR's Dick Goldensohn Fund.