CNN
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Arman doesn’t sleep a lot anymore.

“In my nightmare, I see somebody is following me at midnight, ” he mentioned. “I’m alone and nobody helps me.”

He says his life was eternally altered in early October, when he was arrested on the streets of Tehran for becoming a member of anti-government demonstrations, after which tortured by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) – often known as the Sepah – for 4 days.

The abuse was psychological and bodily, he informed CNN, together with electrical shocks, managed drowning and mock executions.

The 29-year-old says he was held in solitary confinement and intermittently overwhelmed, earlier than ultimately being positioned in a room with roughly two dozen different protesters, together with a girl with cuts throughout her face and neck who mentioned she had been sexually assaulted by safety forces.

Arman, whose title has been modified for his security, says he noticed the IRGC’s emblem on a desk, and once more on the uniform of one of many males guarding him – however that he doesn’t know precisely the place in Tehran the middle was situated as a result of he was tasered and had misplaced consciousness earlier than being pushed there.

With a view to depart the detention heart, Arman claims he was pressured to signal a false confession saying he obtained cash from the US, UK and Israeli governments to exit and create “chaos” in Iranian society. He was then informed that if he engaged in any extra “activism” he and his household can be hunted down and arrested, he mentioned.

What Arman claims occurred to him and people allegedly detained alongside him isn’t an remoted incident. As a substitute, it’s a part of a tried and examined playbook utilized by the Iranian authorities to stalk, torture and imprison protesters, in an ongoing marketing campaign to squash political dissent.

Within the months following Iran’s nationwide demonstrations in 2019, which had been sparked by the federal government’s abrupt determination to extend the value of gasoline by 50% however snowballed into requires the autumn of the Islamic Republic and its leaders, widespread accounts of torture and hundreds of arrests had been documented.

As Iranians from all walks of life unite to combat for his or her civil rights – in protests first sparked by the demise of a younger lady in spiritual police custody final month – it seems to be taking place once more.

“We are actually within the worst time of our life. Filled with stress. Filled with worry,” a 24-year-old feminine protester informed CNN. She says a number of of her pals had been tortured – and that one in every of them was additionally sexually violated – after being detained by the IRGC in Rasht final month.

“Nothing has occurred to me but and I used to be capable of escape. However it’s attainable at any second,” she defined throughout a video name concerning the incident, her face coated to guard her id.

CNN has spoken to nearly a dozen Iranians who’ve shared first-hand accounts of torture in both the 2019 and 2022 protests, or who’ve had family members die or disappear whereas within the custody of authorities.

A few of these impacted shared images documenting their accidents in addition to courtroom data detailing the legal costs they’re dealing with; others shared solely their tales, which CNN can’t independently confirm.

CNN contacted the Iranian authorities in addition to its everlasting mission to the United Nations relating to the accounts of torture and arbitrary detention detailed by protesters however has but to obtain a response.

Farhad, a 37-year-old father-of-two, intimately understands the private value of talking out in opposition to the Iranian authorities, nevertheless it hasn’t stopped him from becoming a member of the demonstrations which have continued for greater than a month now and appear to transcend Iran’s social and ethnic divisions.

Within the November 2019 protests, he says he watched a number of of his pals die on the streets of Tehran after being gunned down by safety forces, in what can be a four-day nationwide rampage to silence dissent that finally left greater than 300 civilians lifeless, in accordance with Amnesty Worldwide.

It wasn’t till December 2, within the aftermath of the bloodshed, that Farhad says plain-clothes officers kicked down his door in the midst of the night time to arrest him for his involvement within the demonstrations.

Farhad, whose title has additionally been modified for his safety, says the IRGC used footage of the protests from the BBC – which he has since shared with CNN – to determine him, successfully weaponizing the media protection of the rallies to seek out members.

He claims he was tortured for 16 days in whole and like Arman, that he knew the Tehran detention heart by which he was being held was run by the IRGC due to an indication on one in every of its partitions displaying its distinctive insignia.

In Farhad’s telling, a number of hundred folks had been detained and tortured alongside him. He nonetheless hears their screams.

“A whole bunch of individuals had been imprisoned with me. There was a mattress, folks had been being tied to it and abused. There have been rapes, torture with electrical shocks and boiling water … they had been hanging folks from the ceiling to beat them,” he informed CNN.

Farhad’s final reminiscence from his time in that darkish room is when he was hung up and overwhelmed mindless by plain-clothes officers earlier than being thrown behind a automobile, pushed to an undisclosed location and dumped on the facet of the street.

Days later he awakened in a medical clinic close to his home in Tehran, he mentioned. He doesn’t understand how he bought there however cites an prolonged member of the family with hyperlinks to Iran’s authorities as a attainable cause his life was spared.

“My tooth had been damaged; my lip was utterly torn off. As a result of my bleeding was so extreme, I [think] they didn’t count on me to outlive.”

CNN has reviewed images of Farhad’s accidents and the scarring he lives with at the moment.

Farjad has since left Tehran along with his speedy household for his or her security, however says he nonetheless receives late-night cellphone calls from Iranian authorities threatening to rape his spouse and kill his youngsters, and that his checking account is periodically frozen.

He additionally claims that within the months following his torture, his nationwide id card – the first doc used to entry important providers in Iran – was wiped from the system.

Regardless of the continuing dangers to his life and livelihood, Farhad’s dedication to the present demonstrations is unwavering.

“My nation and my individuals are struggling. The federal government of the Islamic Republic oppresses within the title of faith, I can’t see folks [being] killed for his or her beliefs anymore,” he mentioned.

CNN spoke with 4 extra protesters who had been tortured whereas in detention and later imprisoned for collaborating in anti-government demonstrations in 2019 – together with a younger single mom who says she has needed to place her son within the care of her mother and father in an effort to serve jail time, and a 43-year-old father of two from Shiraz who says he suffers from acute post-traumatic stress dysfunction, after spending 48 days in solitary confinement.

Their accounts all share placing similarities, most notably the continuing harassment they are saying their households face from Iranian authorities through pretend social media accounts, late-night cellphone calls, and native informants whom they consider monitor them for the IRGC intelligence service.

Amin Sabeti is an Iranian cyber safety skilled who has spent years finding out hacking teams with ties to the Islamic Republic, together with the IRGC-affiliated ‘Charming Kitten’ group, which was just lately sanctioned by the US authorities for “malicious cyber-enabled actions, together with ransomware and cyber-espionage.”

In line with Sabeti, who relies within the UK, state-sponsored hackers have a tried and examined technique in place to “dox protesters” as soon as they’ve infiltrated their on-line teams utilizing pretend accounts, which includes “sharing photographs of them on Twitter, Instagram or Telegram and asking others to share details about them,” whereas pretending to be involved for his or her security.

“They used the identical techniques within the November 2019 rebellion,” Sabeti defined, which has led to extra tech-savvy demonstrators figuring out suspicious accounts and distributing warnings amongst their networks.

At Tehran’s Ebrat Museum – a repurposed former jail – dramatic shows on the atrocities carried out in opposition to Muslim clerics by Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi’s police throughout the revolution have lengthy been used as a propaganda software to rejoice the “freedoms” gained within the Islamic Republic.

And but, Iran’s Supreme Chief Ayatollah Ali Khamenei – who was himself imprisoned within the Seventies throughout Pahlavi’s reign – and his safety equipment, have a decades-long legacy of additionally utilizing mass arrests and torture to regulate and silence political dissidents – the hypocrisy of which isn’t misplaced on protesters at the moment.

The present motion – led and impressed by ladies – has united Iranians throughout generations, in what’s shaping as much as be the largest menace the regime has confronted so far. Notably, it has additionally survived weeks of rolling web outages and violent crackdowns.

However as chants of “lady, life, freedom” proceed – a rallying cry that’s come to embody the every day violence and management Iranian ladies are rising up in opposition to – greater than 1,000 folks have been arrested, in accordance with state information IRNA.

Wanting forward, analysts and exiled activists CNN spoke to are fearful that the authorities will finally make use of no matter violent techniques they deem essential to as soon as once more, regain some semblance of management.

Already, nearly two dozen youngsters – some as younger as 11 – had been killed by Iran’s safety forces throughout demonstrations in September, in accordance with Amnesty Worldwide, in a chilling reminder that no life might be spared. In the meantime, Iran’s Schooling Minister Yousef Nouri confirmed final week that pupil protesters are actually being detained in what he termed “psychological establishments,” run by the state.

Not one of the Iranians CNN spoke with had been naive to the truth that their lives – and the lives of their households – are on the road because the rebellion rages on, with most going to excessive lengths to guard their private info on-line and keep away from pointless dangers whereas taking to the streets.

Arman nonetheless receives threatening cellphone calls and messages for his activism, however he says he gained’t be deterred.

“They torture us, and they’re mendacity to the world, to the worldwide group … Iranians need freedom,” he mentioned. “We don’t need dictatorship. We need to join with the world.”