Arab Activist Gives Chilling Testimony of Imprisonment and Torture by Iran

The world’s interest in reaching a nuclear deal with Iran has compelled it to ignore the regime’s extensive human rights abuses, leaving its many “political prisoners, torture victims and persecuted ethnic minorities with little hope of any respite,” Rahim Hamid wrote in The Telegraph on Tuesday.

Hamid is a member of the Ahwazi Arab community, a minority that lives in the oil-rich southwest region of Iran. In 1925, Persia (now Iran) annexed and renamed the territory Khuzestan.

Hamid was arrested by the regime in 2008 and sent to the Sepidar prison after he attempted to form a student group to raise awareness about Ahwazi Arab culture, which is suppressed by Iran. He described the horrific conditions under which he was held.

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Saeed Ghasseminejad, an associate fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and former Iranian political prisoner, warned this past summer that more engagement with Iran would lead to greater repression.

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