Gay Iranian refugee forced to watch executions ‘to know what to expect’
Ramtin Zigorat (Instagram/ramtin_zigorat)
A gay Iranian refugee has said he was forced to watch executions so “we would know how they were going to kill us”.
Activist Ramtin Zigorat, who has been living as a refugee in Spain for six-and-a-half years after fleeing Iran, was arrested and spent 40 days in a detention centre. “They were the worst days of my life,” he said.
Zigorat explained that he was subjected to “physical and psychological torture”. He was beaten, recorded, urinated on and “treated like an animal”.
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Eventually, after being sentenced to “several death penalties” for charges including “being a spy for who knows what, for sharing homosexual diseases, for going against Islam”, he was taken to another prison.
He told El Mundo America: “Every morning they forced us to look out a window at the courtyard where they executed people so we would know how they were going to kill us.
“We had to watch for five minutes while they died. If we closed our eyes, they would beat us. I still have nightmares about that.”
His mother managed to get him out after selling off her land to pay bribes, though it was under the condition that he stay locked in the home for two years.
Sadly, his mother died of cancer a year later. After that, more family members helped him leave Iran, eventually getting to Spain.
“I feel well taken care of in Spain,” he said. “I still have many nightmares. But here they take care of me, and through my work, I try to take care of others.”
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