State of Fear: My 10 Years inside Iran’s Torture Jails by Dr Reza Ghaffari
Blake Publishing (ebook), 2011
321 Pages
Amazon (UK)
I borrowed this ebook from my library and read it on my Kobo.
BLURB
A prominent Iranian political prisoner tells his story from the time of his arrest to his eventual escape a decade later.
Dr. Reza Ghaffari was a professor at the University of Tehran until his 1981 arrest for suspicion of being a member of a banned socialist group. This account of his experiences through 10 years of torture and as a witness to and near victim of prison massacres offers unparalleled insight into the torturous treatment of political prisoners who oppose the Iranian regime. Nothing written in English or in Persian has so comprehensively and movingly portrayed prison conditions and the strength of those suffering them not merely a catalog of atrocities; it is also a tale of triumph for integrity and the human spirit in the face of the utmost degradation. In 1999 the Iranian authorities came looking for Dr. Ghaffari in London and he was moved to a “safe house” by MI6 where he stayed for close to a year. After 9/11, the terrorist threat level in the UK was raised and Dr. Ghaffari was allowed back to his family with greater surveillance on his house. The years of torture have taken their toll on his health but he has refused to be intimidated and is as determined as ever that his story should be told. The fatwah imposed against author Salman Rushdie for writing The Satanic Verses scared many publishers into refusing to print this book, A State of Fear, in English.
OPENING SENTENCE
This is the story of my long and agonising journey through Iran’s prison system, a network of institutions which created fear under the Shah and were maintained by the Islamic regime which overthrew him.
REVIEW
I read this for the ‘a book that scares you’ category of my Popsugar Reading Challenge 2015. I choose the book because the regime in Iran and other similar countries scares the hell out of me. That such things are common in other parts of the world makes me sick to my stomach.
I feel violated after reading State of Fear: My 10 Years inside Iran’s Torture Jails. I feel like I need to shower and scrub my skin until it’s raw. I need a hug and a hot sheet just fresh out of the tumble dryer and a big bar of cholate. This booked shocked me to my safe, bubble-gum, cotton-wool wrapped Western soul. My eyes weren’t just opened they were almost torn out of the sockets. A part of me wishes I had read a work of fiction. The fact every word is true and such a place exists in a world I’m part of chills me to the bone. If you think you know what prison life is like from watching Wentworth (or whatever it’s called), Bad Girls or Prisoner Cell Block H then State of Fear: My 10 Years inside Iran’s Torture Jails will blow your mind. I cried a lot reading this and hugged myself and sometimes I was so upset I had to look away from the words.
RATING
