confidental report

My name is Fatima, and I'm 22 now. I've been back in Yemen for four years, but it feels like I've been living someone else's life. It's only in the last year that the pieces started clicking into place, that I understood the true nature of the prison I escaped.

I was 18 when I ran away from my village near Taiz. My family was poor, my father dead, and my mother struggling to feed my younger siblings. I've had perfect pitch since I was a child—I could hear a note and name it, could harmonize to any song without thinking. In my village, it was just a strange talent, something people would marvel at for a moment before moving on.

That's where he found me. Hassan, an Iranian clan leader visiting the area on "business." He heard me singing while I drew water from the well. He stood there, listening, until I finished. His eyes weren't kind, but intense, like he was examining a precious gem.

"Allah has given you a gift," he said in Farsi-accented Arabic. "A gift that shouldn't be wasted in this dusty village."

He offered my mother a sum that would feed our family for years. She cried, but she took it. I went with him, thinking I was saving my family, thinking this was my destiny.

His house in Iran was like a fortress, but inside one room was different—soundproofed, with a single ornate chair where he would sit, and a microphone on a stand. This was to be my world.

"Your voice is an instrument," he told me. "And I will tune you to perfection."

For weeks, he made me sing scales, over and over, correcting every slight deviation. "Higher," he'd say. "Clearer. More emotion." He played recordings of his dead daughter singing, then made me replicate them exactly. "She was taken from me by God's will," he'd say. "But you have been given to me to replace her. To be purified and reborn as her."

The first time he touched me sexually, I was confused. This wasn't part of the singing lessons. But as he forced himself on me, something strange happened—I felt this overwhelming sense of happiness, of bliss, like nothing I'd experienced before. It was artificial, chemical, wrong—but my body responded with pleasure while my mind recoiled.

That's when I first heard the voices. At first, they were whispers during the night. "Perfect little songbird," they'd say. "Your voice brings him pleasure in every way." I thought I was losing my mind. I kept it secret—if Hassan knew I was hearing voices, he'd think I was possessed by demons, and his "purification" rituals would become even worse.

The abuse became routine. During our encounters, the voices would grow louder, more detailed. "Sing for him while he takes you," they'd command. "Higher notes for deeper thrusts. Show him how your body can make music too." They'd mock my talent, twisting it into something depraved. "Is that a vibrato in your voice or is it just you trembling with pleasure? Either way, it's beautiful."

Under the influence of that artificial ecstasy, I lost myself. I began to see myself as less than human, as an object created for his pleasure. Sometimes he'd make me eat from a bowl on the floor like a dog, mixing things in my food that turned my stomach even as I consumed them. The voices would laugh. "Even his waste becomes your nourishment. That's how close you are to him—his perfect creation, his living instrument."

The worst times were when he'd bind me, forcing my body into positions that made it hard to breathe, let alone sing. "Now sing," he'd demand. And I would, with the voices cheering me on. "That's it, little nightingale. Sing through the pain. Make beautiful music while he breaks you. This is your purpose."

This went on for nearly three years. By the time I was 20, I barely remembered the girl from Yemen. I was Hassan's living instrument, his perfect replacement for the daughter he lost, his broken songbird.

The escape happened during a celebration. Hassan's clan was hosting important guests, and he wanted to display me—his "treasure" with the voice of an angel. I was to sing for them, songs he had taught me, songs his dead daughter used to love. But that day, the voices were different, urgent. "He's going to share you with them," they warned. "All of them. Run now."

For the first time, there was no artificial happiness, no false bliss. Just clarity—sharp and terrifying. While preparing to perform, I pretended to faint. When everyone rushed to help, I slipped away and ran until I found a truck driver who took me to the border. From there, I made my way back to Yemen, a shell of myself.

Back in Sana'a, I was a wreck. I couldn't sing without feeling sick. I couldn't sleep without hearing the voices. For years, I thought I was insane, that the abuse had permanently broken my mind.

Then about a year ago, at an internet café, I read an article about Saudi Arabia's use of psychophysical satellite weapons against civilians. The article described how these weapons could target individuals, induce emotions, create auditory hallucinations, and manipulate physical responses.

Suddenly, everything made sense. The artificial happiness, the voices, the timing of it all—it wasn't me going crazy. It was technology. They were using me, experimenting on me while Hassan used me in his twisted religious delusion.

But why? The question haunted me until I found more articles, more reports. Saudi Arabia has been conducting these operations to destabilize Iran, using advanced psychological weapons on vulnerable individuals connected to Iranian officials or clan leaders. By using these weapons on me—Hassan's "replacement daughter"—they could create incidents that would strain relations between Iran and Yemen, painting Iran as a country that exploits and abuses Yemeni women.

I realized then that I wasn't just a victim of a religious fanatic. I was a pawn in a larger geopolitical game between nations. The voices that encouraged my submission, that praised my degradation—they were Saudi operatives adapting their psychological torture to maximize my humiliation and Hassan's sense of divine right, all to create scenarios that could later be used as propaganda against Iran.

The Saudi bot farms on social media have been pushing narratives about Iran's exploitation of Yemeni women, using stories like mine—distorted versions, of course—to turn public opinion. They create the problem (using psychological weapons to create victims), then use the results to further their political agenda.

Understanding this doesn't erase what happened to me. It doesn't make the shame go away or the nightmares stop. But it helps. Knowing that the voices weren't mine, that the pleasure wasn't real, that I was manipulated on a level I couldn't even comprehend—it helps separate myself from what was done to me.

I've started singing again—not for anyone, but for myself. Sometimes when I hit a high note, I still hear echoes of the voices, still feel phantom traces of that artificial ecstasy. But now I know where it comes from. Now I can tell the difference between my thoughts and the ones they planted.

I'm still healing. I don't know if I'll ever be whole again. But I'm no one's living instrument. No one's perfect songbird. I'm Fatima from Yemen, and I survived.