The Testimony of Hamidreza Yousefi

Transcript of the Video:

“In the Name of God, the Most Compassionate, the Most Merciful.

Peace be upon you all dear ones, and upon the ones who are oppressed.

I am Hamidreza Al Al-Mahdi.
The subject of my speech is about the arrest of the Al Al-Mahdi family in Iran.

We were fifteen people, from the Family of Al Al-Mahdi, who believe in The Ahmadi Religion of Peace and Light.

And we were traveling together, and amongst us were two women, teenagers, and a seven year old kid.

And we traveled from Tehran, to Tabriz, in a bus.

Armed people arrested us. We were detained there for three days with women and a 7 year old child.

Then they took us to the vicinity of Qazvin province with 2 vans that were used to transport prisoners.

And there came very violent people who beat my dear brother Muhammadreza and punched him.

And they punched Muhammadreza in the face more and we witnessed many violent scenes.

And then they put handcuffs on Muhammadreza, tied up his feet and blindfolded him.

And after that they put handcuffs on all of us and blindfolded us.

And they tied up our feet as many as they could because they didn’t have enough equipment for all of us.

They took us to Evin prison and they confiscated all our belongings and they took it all.

And the prison guards of Evin beat up my brother Owais.

And they transferred the kids to the under 18 section inside the prison.

As for the rest of us, they transferred us to section 209.

In reality, this section is the most secure and the most dangerous detention section (center) in Iran.

They arrested and imprisoned all of us in that section.

When I entered the detention room, there, the prisoners told me about Evin’s severe torture methods.

And one of the prisoners who was 44 years old.

He was crying and saying that they took a beer bottle and…

How can I explain this?

They pushed the bottle inside his body from his bottom.

The next day, I could hear the loud cries of our dear sister Sabah (one of the 15 believers).

It was during her interrogation.

And she was crying so loud that the entire section 209 could hear it.

And it was so loud and clear, everyone could hear her clearly.

She was crying so loud.

One of my roommates had sharp ears.

And he went very close to the door and he could hear the voices more clearly than I could hear.

And he was telling me what they were saying.

He said one of the interrogators was telling the other one that I don’t like her otherwise I would have raped her.

And at that point I became extremely sad for the sake of my sister Sabah.

The next day they took me to their interrogation office.

And I told them I will cooperate with you, just don’t harm the women and children.

And don’t harm the women and the kids and if you want to put any crimes on them just put it all on me.

Add it all to my crimes.

And leave them (women and children) alone.

Free them and let them go!

They are innocent!

And if you want to write any crimes in their names, don’t, write it all in my name.

Then I wrote down all of my works and activities for my religion because they asked me to write my activities and duties.

For my religion and for my Imam Zaman (my leader).

I wrote all of my activities in the confessions.

For example, I would invite many guests to our public telegram group, I was adding many members to our group.

This was my work.

So that the news of the appearance of the Imam Zaman (Imam of our time) reaches the people.

In the next interrogation session two interrogators were pressuring me saying,

“You must write that Abdullah Hashem has told you guys to perform fornication and sodomy (homosexual acts) and these acts are religiously allowed.”

“And you must write down that you believe in fornication and sodomy.”

And I didn’t write it.

They shouted at me and one of them was kicking my chair and he was forcing me to write that I believe in these acts.

And write that Abdullah Hashem has made fornication and homosexuality (sodomy) halal (religiously allowed).

But in reality this is a complete lie and it is not true.

And I didn’t write it.

A few days passed…

Suddenly I heard the voice of my dear brother Muhammadreza.

He was yelling and telling one of the interrogators,

“Be quick! Kill me with your sword!”

“Take out your gun and kill me. I will never apostate from my religion.”

The interrogator was replying with a very loud voice and was threatening him saying, “No matter where you go we will find you.”

And the interrogator said many other things that I don’t remember, but he was threatening Muhammadreza and he was very loud and we could easily hear him

After that, Muhammadreza was telling them with a very loud voice.

“We don’t want Iran’s cruel and child-killing government.”

“You didn’t even have mercy on Alireza Akbari’s children and you arrested and imprisoned them in the worst possible way.”

“MuhammadHassan and MuhammadHossein (children of Alireza Akbari, 2 of the 15 Iranians.)”

Then the interrogator shouted and said bad things about our religion.

And then Muhammadreza with a very loud voice said:

“My God is the one who has said in the beginning of every Surah of the Quran IIn the name of Allah, the Most Compassionate, the Most Merciful.”

And in that exact moment one of the prisoners believed in the Ahmadi Religion of Peace & Light.

At that point I got a lot of courage and I was asking God that I be interrogated after Muhammadreza.

And this happened, I was next after Muhammadreza and I was blindfolded and was taken to the interrogation office.

And I was yelling and shouting at the interrogators and I was telling them,

“You are accusing me of fornication and sodomy (homosexuality) and you even told my family members that I have committed such acts.”

“And according to the religion of Islam for such great accusations you must bring 4 witnesses.”

“And I am going to file a complaint against the Iranian Intelligence services.”

During this 4 to 5 hours of interrogation, I only wrote for 30 minutes. The rest of it I was shouting at them.

The intelligence officers and the interrogators.

And they threatened me that they are going to keep me here (in the prison) for a very long time.
And 5 billion Iranian Toman (around 103,000 dollars) bail is equivalent to 15 years in prison.

This was for my case, to basically let me free.

After that I entered my cell (detention room) and my roommate woke up and he said,

“Hamidreza, I had a dream that you gave your interrogator a heart attack.”

And after this dream they interrogated me 6 more times and I never met that interrogator who was accusing me of fornication and sodomy and homosexuality.

In total, they interrogated me 9 times, each time was 5 to 7 hours.

And I propagated our call the Ahmadi Religion of Peace and Light in the detention room which had 4 cameras.

And 7 prisoners said they believed in our call.

All the prisoners inside the prison were fascinated by our kindness and self sacrifices that we have learnt from our religion.

And even one of the Turkish-Iranian prisoners who was accused of propagating against the regime and causing conflicts.

He defended the Ahmadi Religion of Peace and Light when he was interrogated.

Prisoners were moved around and they were roommates with some of our brothers. We were each placed in a different room and we didn’t see each other.

And O dear ones, the Iranian government committed all of these crimes only because of our belief in the Ahmadi Religion of Peace & Light

Maybe one day when this video reaches you, I won’t be among you anymore, but it doesn’t matter.

The important thing is the dignity and honor that I had in my life.
And I learned from our elders that it is better to die with dignity than to live with humiliation. And I am ready to ransom my life for my dear imams like the 72 martyrs of Karbala. And the difference is that I haven’t met the imam of my time and I believed in him with black on white. 

And in this case I will win with my blood.”

 -End of Transcript-