text: Detainees are often held for months, or even years. The effects of white torture are well-documented in a number of testimonials. Typically, prisoners will become depersonalized by losing personal identity for extended periods of isolation. Other effects can include hallucinations or psychosis.
  Allegations of use
  Iran
  In Iran, white torture () has been practiced on political prisoners by the Islamic republic regime. Most political prisoners who experience this type of torture are journalists held in the Evin prison. "Amir Fakhravar, the Iranian white room prisoner, was tortured [at Evin prison] for 8 months in 2004. He still has horrors about his times in the white room." According to Hadi Ghaemi, such tortures in Evin are not necessarily authorized directly by the Iranian government.
  It can include prolonged periods of solitary confinement, the use of continual illumination to deprive sleep (listed in the Geneva Convention on Basic Human Rights, 1949) often in detention centers outside the control of the prison authorities, including Section 209 of Evin Prison.
  Ahmed Shaheed, the United Nations special human rights reporter in Iran, mentioned in a statement that human rights activist Vahid Asghari was psychologically tortured by means of long-term detention in solitary confinement and with threats to arrest, torture or rape his family members. He was also reportedly tortured with severe beatings for the purpose of eliciting confessions.