What Mehdi Mahmoudian Saw Inside the Iranian Prison System

On a rainy winter afternoon in 2001, Mehdi Mahmoudian, a political dissident in Tehran, noticed a man with an amputated hand struggling to repair his car. Mahmoudian, aged around 20, worked in a nearby printing shop. He immediately recognized it as a former guard who had used his left hand to torture Mahmoudian in Towhid Prison two years earlier.

Mahmoudian decides to help his torturer. He invited the man into his shop, offered him tea and recruited a colleague to repair his car. A few hours later, as the man prepared to leave, Mahmoudian introduced himself again as his former prisoner. Stunned, the man left without answering. But he returned to the printing house the next day and asked Mahmoudian for forgiveness. He said it was the authorities’ fault; he was just doing his job and he regretted it.

This encounter has striking parallels with the opening of the film “It Was Just an Accident,” co-written by Mahmoudian with Iranian director Jafar Panahi. In an early scene, an auto mechanic named Vahid recognizes his former torturer by the distinctive squeak of his prosthetic leg. Vahid kidnaps the man, nicknamed Peg-Leg, in a white van and assembles a motley crew of ex-convicts from across Tehran to try to certify his identity. The feature film was shot over twenty-eight days, in secret, mainly inside the van.

Mahmoudian and Panahi met in the notorious Evin detention house in 2022, while they were both serving their sentences. Panahi told me that in seven months they became friends and that Mahmoudian even took care of him when he contracted COVID. Shortly before Panahi’s release, Mahmoudian hugged him and whispered in his ear: “Don’t forget the guys in prison.” »

Later, after Mahmoudian was also free, Panahi invited him to collaborate on a screenplay that would draw on their collective experience in the Iranian prison system. The film captures the plight of Iranians who endured incarceration, interrogation and torture at the hands of the Islamic Republic. But he also asks these same Iranians to sympathize with their oppressors.

On January 31, shortly after his screenplay for “It Was Just an Accident” was nominated for an Oscar, Mahmoudian was arrested again. He had just signed a joint statement accusing Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, of being responsible for the killings and arrests of thousands of protesters taking to the streets across the country. Mahmoudian was released on bail on February 17 and spoke to me via video chat from his home in Tehran a few days ago. I contacted him briefly on Saturday, hours after the United States and Israel began bombing Iran; he only said he was unharmed, then his signal was cut. Our conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

You were recently released from prison on February 17. How are you doing? How would you describe your current state?

To be honest, coming out of prison in this situation doesn’t make me happy. Over the past sixteen years, I have spent approximately nine years in prison. I have been arrested thirteen times and been released from prison several times before.

All the prison sentences I have endured in the past were aimed at reducing the number of deaths on the streets. All the acts of resistance committed by myself or others for decades before me were aimed at stopping the Islamic Republic before it caused such bloodshed, and either bringing it down or changing it from within. This time the release from prison did not bring joy, as thousands of people were still in prison and thousands of families were mourning the death of their loved ones. If I had to sum it up in one sentence: we are not good.

Take us back to when you were arrested.

I was at home with two friends. It was 2:30 p.m. AM. Two of us were up and one of us was sleeping. They opened the door very quickly, and before we could realize what was happening, within two or three seconds, they had a gun pointed at my head and my friend’s head. The sleeping friend also had a gun pointed at his head – he woke up feeling the pressure of the gun. One team entered through the window and six other people entered through the door. It was a so-called anti-terrorist team that they sent for us. We are just three political activists who live together and, apart from writing and speaking, we have never had any other weapons.

Can we name the other two activists?

Yes of course. Their names are Abdollah Momeni and Vida Rabbani. We are three of the seventeen people who signed this statement – ​​well-known activists who warned the government before the protests and said: “Don’t kill people.” After the massacre, we issued this statement condemning the state. These are activists who are mostly in Iran. Some of them are outside, but they remain connected inside.

How were you treated during these weeks in prison? Can you describe some of your living conditions?

I think the way we have been treated is not a fair assessment of anything, because they know we are recognized figures and our names are published in the media, so they are trying to project a more humane form of treatment with us. But I would like to take this opportunity to tell you how they treated others.

Please tell me about the other prisoners. But first I would like to know your situation: which prison was it?

The first was in Chalus. The next, Sari, was a high security facility. And the last one was Nowshahr, which is a very old prison in poor condition, almost destroyed.