Zarah Ghahramani, a 20-year-old student in Tehran, spent a month in Evin, the Iranian prison with which opponents of any regime are threatened. She was physically and psychologically tortured for her participation in student sit-ins and her desire for a little liberty.
"My Life As A Traitor," which she wrote with Robert Hillman, alternates between the day-to-day trials of being a prisoner and the events that led her to Evin.
A second-year university student, Zarah was not a mastermind of any particular political event nor did she conspire to overthrow the government on a grand scale. But her sit-ins and desire for small changes, like loose head scarves and an audible voice in a hetero-social setting, were grounds enough for arrest.
The story of her life on the inside of Evin is chilling. Zarah is not a victim of extreme abuse, but the maltreatment she does sustain is frightening. She is subjected to attacks on her self-worth and these encounters are relished by her interrogators. Her head is shaved. She is repeatedly blindfolded and starved. Zarah candidly admits to the intensity of her vanity during the days she is forced to live in filth. She mourns her beauty and does her best to protect her teeth and face when she is beaten. This preoccupation with appearance may sound trivial, and she is aware of this, but it is identifiably human, and one of many dignities that she is stripped of.
Zarah, a smart, rational woman, begins to walk the line of madness soon after her arrival at Evin. She frequently describes having to fight against the irrational urge to threaten and curse her interrogators. This inclination is immediately followed by wild repentance and the internal admission that she will reveal everything in order for the pain to stop. Zarah indulges in murderous fantasies and succumbs to bouts of emotion that echo through the small recesses of her cell. Toward the end of her imprisonment, when she is repeatedly beaten, she vows that the next time they come to attack her, she will find a way to kill herself.
What is particularly incredible about Zarah's story is its intensity, the eternity of the unknown. Passing the time with her in her cell is unsettling. There is some refuge in the mind but that quickly devolves into something less comforting. Zarah converses with the prisoner above her, who has very real bouts of madness, in order to maintain some sort of human exchange. The fear that is inspired by Zarah's brief stay in Evin is shocking because it becomes difficult to imagine how one survives the physical and psychological horrors that subjects of more persistent interrogators endure.
It would be nice to think that as citizens of a democratic country we could be proud that this kind of inhumane treatment is not inflicted upon our prisoners. But as Abu Ghraib, Guantánamo Bay, and President Bush's recent refusal to outlaw extreme methods of torture reveal, our government does not behave much better. Zarah's story is mild comparatively, but it takes less than what she went through to recognize that her treatment exceeds the boundaries of what anyone should have to endure.