15 July 2011.

Testimony of Fatemeh Farhoudi, mother of Mohammad Khosh Sorour, detained Iranian asylum-seeker in Larnaca, Cyprus, regarding the armed assault on unarmed detained Iranian asylum-seekers by Cypriot prison authorities in the wake of the 12 July 2011 explosion of Islamic Republic of Irans munitions cargo intercepted by Cyprus. Letter provided via the Cyprus Refugee Rights Movement; translation to English by Mission Free Iran follows the text of the letter.

Translation from Farsi to English of the 15 July 2011 testimony of Fatemeh Farhoudi, mother of Mohammad Khosh Sorour, detained Iranian asylum-seeker in Larnaca, Cyprus, regarding the armed assault on unarmed detained Iranian asylum-seekers by Cypriot prison authorities in the wake of the 12 July 2011 explosion of Islamic Republic of Irans munitions cargo intercepted by Cyprus.

I, Fatemeh Farhoudi, daughter of Hassan, born in Tehran in the year 1345 [1966-67], passport # 14821293, mother of Mohammad Khosh Sorour, after 3 days of trying, finally succeeded today, Friday, 15th July 2011 at 12:30, in visiting my son in person for 15 minutes at Famagusta detention in Larnaca. According to the information that my son, Mohammad Khosh Sorour gave me verbally, he was attacked and beaten by 30 prison officers and CID, ordered by the chief of the Larnaca prison Mr. Galou Girou. They used brass knuckles, batons, and their guns [to pistol-whip, not discharged]. My son was injured on his back, face, and neck, and according to him, everyone has been beaten this way. These people are 1) Mr. B., 2) Mr. O., 3) Mostafa Taghilou, and a person from Syria. Mr. Taghilou has suffered a broken leg. He has not been allowed to go to the hospital. All of the personal belongings of these people, including bedsheets, medicine, and food, have been confiscated. They have been told, "You deserve to live like dogs." They were ordered not to tell anyone that they have been beaten, and they were threatened to be killed if they talk about the beatings. Because everything was confiscated from them, and they don't have any means of communicating, they asked me to let people hear their voice through me, to try to prevent a continuation of these tortures, beatings, and mishandlings. As we are not safe here, we demand to be transferred from this to another country as soon as possible. They said, "This is not the first time that the police and the government of Cyprus has acted in this way against the asylum-seekers and the Iranian asylum-seekers. I, Fatemeh Farhoudi, ask all humanitarian organizations, governments, churches, Red Cross, and the International Court, to attend to this urgent, sad, and at the same time important issue. 6:00 in the afternoon, 15 July 2011

Translation by Ahmad Fatemi and Maria Rohaly, Mission Free Iran.