ISTANBUL, Turkey (CNN) -- Two Iranians who were caught up in the waves of arrests that followed the disputed presidential elections in June have accused their captors of raping them.





By telling his story, Ibrahim Sharifi says, he "committed social suicide so this incident wouldn't happen to others."





An Iranian man and a woman made the allegations in separate interviews with CNN. Both said they fled to Turkey from Iran after claiming to have been threatened by Iranian security services. While CNN does not normally use the names of alleged rape victims, their names are included here with their permission.





CNN could not independently confirm their accounts. But the testimony of one of the alleged rape victims, Ibrahim Sharifi, was revealed last month by a prominent Iranian opposition leader who claimed to have gathered at least four accounts of sexual assault this summer in Iranian prisons. Sharifi's allegations were also included in a report published last week by two Western human rights organizations investigating reports of abuse in Iranian prisons.





"What we're encountering are numerous accounts of brutality, poor treatment, even torture, serious beatings, and a couple of cases, as you know, of alleged sexual assault -- rape," said Joe Stork, Middle East deputy director for Human Rights Watch.





The Iranian government has launched two investigations into the allegations. Iran's judiciary concluded there was no evidence of rape. A parliamentary fact-finding committee is still working on the issue.





Repeated calls by CNN to get reaction from Iranian officials to the claims of the alleged victims did not result in a response.





"Take him and get him pregnant"





Twenty-four-year-old Ibrahim Sharifi is a university student from Tehran who campaigned actively on the Internet for opposition presidential candidate Mehdi Karrubi in the run-up to the controversial June 12 vote.





When incumbent president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was declared winner, Sharifi joined the throngs of angry protesters in the streets who accused the government of rigging the election.





On June 22, Sharifi said, he was kidnapped, handcuffed, blindfolded and stuffed into a car by three unknown men while he was walking home from language lessons at the Italian Embassy. He said they drove him to an unknown location, where he was stripped to his underwear. There, he said, he endured several days of beatings and mock executions alongside other male prisoners, all the time tightly blindfolded.  Watch Ibrahim Sharifi describe being tortured and sexually assaulted »





"They took us and they put a noose around my neck in a way that I was forced to stand on my tiptoes, unable to breathe," Sharifi said. "Somebody was constantly telling us ... 'You have received the oral sentence to be hanged, we are just waiting for the written order.'"





"There was the stink of piss and blood. It smelled terrible," Sharifi recalled. "I was beaten so much I didn't have any energy left to cry."





On the fourth day of his detention, during one of these mock executions, Sharifi said he finally snapped.





"I said, if you want to kill us, go ahead. Why do you play such games with us? And the response was a kick in my stomach that made me fall."





Sharifi said his captors kicked him repeatedly in the stomach until he started vomiting blood. He showed a pink scar on his belly from a previous car accident that he said was torn open by the blows.





"Then the guy told someone else, 'Take him and get him pregnant,'" Sharifi said, his voice cracking with emotion. "They tied my hands to the wall and tied my legs, and then did that thing to me. While doing it, he was telling me, "You, who cannot even defend your you-know-what, you wanted to conduct a revolution?"





Sharifi said he blacked out during the rape and woke up later, handcuffed to a hospital bed. A day later, he said, his captors dumped him, blindfolded, on the side of a highway.





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An Iranian man and a woman made disputed presidential elections in June An Iranian man and a woman June June
question: Who gave interviews to CNN?, answer: An Iranian man and a woman made | question: Who allege rapes?, answer: disputed presidential elections in June | question: Who gave separate interviews to CNN?, answer: An Iranian man and a woman | question: When were they arrested?, answer: June | question: When was the presidential election?, answer: June