A State of Fear

by Dr Reza Ghaffari

  We agreed that it meant death to confess to being a communist or a socialist or, indeed, any oppositionist to the Islamic regime. But it was left to the individual as to whether he said if he prayed. At previous prison inquisitions, we had always managed to dodge this question. Each prisoner was asked to approach the question of ‘co-operation’ with the authorities carefully. The issue of whether or not one prayed was not the central concern; defending your integrity, your comrades and fellow prisoners was. I said it was better to accept death than to give any information that would lead to further arrests or the execution of other inmates. ‘For me, the bottom line is, do you sacrifice your dignity and comrades, or your own life? If I was prepared to compromise, I would not have spent nearly ten years here’. In my own cell, this approach was agreed upon.

  Certainly, this very same discussion echoed around every cell in the block, and in the cells of other blocks. As far as other prisoners were concerned, my position was that each prisoner had to decide for himself how he would conduct himself. The situation was of such an extraordinary nature that we could not possibly hold some sort of block vote to decide a general line that everyone had to follow: each prisoner was due to face an almost split-second decision-making procedure - each individual had to establish for themself how they were to survive and how they would protect their fellow prisoners.

  And so my turn came.

  The guards arrived at our block. We were all led from our cells and out of the block, blindfolded. From where we were located, on the second floor, we were taken down to ground level, in single file and in absolute silence. Each of us had our right hand upon the shoulder of the prisoner in front of us. We were taken to a long corridor where many prisoners were waiting, sat cross-legged on the floor in a queue. The queue led to the door to the ‘inquisition chamber’. Here, prisoners were ‘processed’ one-by-one by this ‘inquisition panel’. Such was the speed of each hearing that another prisoner would be called every two or three minutes.

  It was a good two hours before I got to the head of the queue, but finally my turn arrived. I was taken into the room to face the inquisition. I was sat on a chair and was told to remove my blindfold. I saw six people. I recognised the faces of two well-known Islamic judges behind a desk. These two presided over Divisions 1 and 2, respectively, of the Islamic courts. They were responsible for dealing primarily with the left-wing organisations and other oppositionists and, as such, their department was responsible for executing thousands of prisoners between 1981 and 1988. Haji Mobasheri had dealt with me before, back in 1982 and 1983, and again in 1986.

  The other two clerics of the inquisition panel were Haji Raisi, the head prosecutor, and Ayatollah Eshraghi, Khomeini’s son-in-law, the biggest landlord in the holy city of Qum: a rich man indeed. Now this man, who had so mysteriously accumulated vast amounts of property after 1979, appeared before us as the chief judge of our morals, holding all our lives in his hand.

  The tribunal had to establish during the interview whether the prisoner was a non-Muslim (or Mortad, one born a Muslim but who has since rejected Islam) and/or a communist, or if he was hostile in any way to the regime. They asked each prisoner the same questions, and had no individual case papers. This ‘amnesty inquisition’ had been set up at the behest of Khomeini, who had issued a fatwa to ‘eradicate all the Monafeghs, Mortads and communists’.

  They explained, ‘The Imam has given us the task of distinguishing between those prisoners who continue to oppose our Islamic Republic, and those who do not. On this basis we will oversee the amnesty for suitable prisoners.’ He had told other prisoners that the panel was there to ‘look into any problems you might have.’

  With this short explanation out of the way, it immediately became clear that we were the real problem. And so the standard questioning commenced.

  ‘Are you a Muslim?’ he asked.

  ‘I was born into a Muslim family, but religious practice was never very strong in our house – my father was a constant drinker’, I answered.

  ‘But I want to know whether you are a Muslim now!’

  ‘I consider myself as much a Muslim as my mother and father do’.

  Second question. ‘Did you pray before you came to prison? Do you pray here in prison?’

  ‘No, I do not pray in prison. Neither did I pray outside of prison. In order to be true to myself and to others, I have not put up a show of praying just for the sake of appearances.’

  Third question. The prosecutor, Haji Raisi, now took up the line of questioning. ‘Which grouplet did you belong to?’ He used the term ‘grouplet’ as a putdown, to belittle political opposition groups generally.

  ‘All through my interrogation and three appearances in court, I have constantly stressed the fact that I have never been a member of any organisation’. This had always been my answer to this line of questioning throughout my detention. Not even now was I prepared to alter it.

  Haji Raisi probed further. ‘What is your analysis of the Islamic revolution and of the Islamic regime?’

  ‘The Islamic regime is an untypical form of government, based on the authority of Imam Khomeini and the Shia clergy, which arose after the popular revolution of millions of people against the Shah’s despotic regime,’ was my answer, deliberately ambiguous, and similar to one of the left group’s broader formulations dating back to 1981.

  Fourth question. ‘Are you ready to pray as soon as you get back to your block?’

  ‘I have no aversion to praying, but I am unable to pray because I have a broken back. The infirmary has all the documentation on my condition.’

  ‘Then you can sit on the floor and pray! And you can have 50 lashes for not praying in prison. And ten more for any prayer session that you miss from now on. Now get out! Next!’

  And that was it. All over inside three minutes! Before I knew what was happening, I was whisked out of the room just as quickly as I had entered it. I had managed to manoeuvre sufficiently to spin out my allotted few minutes before the inquisition panel. But more importantly, as I had intended, I had given away nothing nor had I compromised or implicated anyone. In fact I had not even told an untruth. Those three minutes could have been the end of me, and I had managed to emerge with just a few lashes. But so many had not been so fortunate, so many had been lost before we had been able to formulate an ‘escape plan’ from the inquisition panel.

  The guard walked over to me and tugged on my arm. ‘Get up and put your blindfold back on.’ I was led out of the inquisition chamber and off to the queue for the lashes. I could hear the screams of those who had been placed on the tables to be lashed. But on the other side of the corridor was a line of prisoners who awaited the gallows.

  As I looked over to them, the voice of Haji Naserian called out. ‘Oh, dearest Khomeini, in your fatwa you ask us to bleed these infidels to death!’ This chilling invocation was directed at the line of prisoners awaiting the hanging chamber. Then another voice returned, ‘Don’t forget to make your will! Do not be too cowardly to make you own will!’ Again, this was directed at the soon-to-be executed prisoners. Rhythmic death threats and morbid jeers, often in rhyming couplets, were accompanied by the screams of those stretched across tables having the soles of their feet lashed. These sounds echoed round the corridor like a chant from hell.

  Our line moved quickly. The guards had set up a torture production line. At the head of the line of men, a row of tables awaited their next victims who were hauled across their length and held face down on the table by wrists and ankles, the lick of thick electrical cable cut across soles. If you jumped in pain and they missed with the next lash, you would receive a further three. And remember, we were the lucky ones.

  At this time, news came from a comrade, Mohammed Ali Behkish, from block 20 where most of the Tudeh cadres were kept. This was at ground level and looked out onto the killing floor. Mohammed had overheard the two chief judges talking to one of the executioners.

  ‘The executioner said, “Ten minutes is not enoug
h”,’ said Mohammed. ‘“When we bring them down from the gallows after this time, some of them are still moving. Please give them more time.” One of the judges answered, “We don’t have that much time to spare. Ten minutes is enough.” The executioner asked, “Why not just stick them in front of the firing squad? That will be much faster.” The judge replied, “We don’t have the facilities here. You’ll get blood all over the streets from the removal lorries. Do you want everyone to know what we’re doing here?”’ Mohammed Ali Behkish was executed shortly after, as was his brother, Mahmoud Behkish.

  The Tudeh and Majority members in block 20 badly misread their situation. Believing that the regime was only purging the Mojahedin and revolutionary left, and having given their support to the regime, they went before the inquisition stating they were communists who backed the Islamic Republic. As a result, almost all of block 20, including some Tudeh Central Committee members, went to the gallows. Only a handful of broken leaders, such as the general secretary Kianoori, and their main theorist Esan Tabari, were kept alive for show. Some said that they were spared because of the might of the Soviet Union. But there was no Soviet Union by then; it is clear that they kept their skins for other reasons: they were later to publish books that fully supported the Islamic regime.

  Kianoori, who died in 1999, was the regime’s pet ‘communist’ and churned out his ‘confessions of a turncoat’ for the Islamic regime. This included his 600-page memoirs, approved by Vevak, the Ministry of Information and Security, which had been printed and published by the regime (this in a country that jailed a newspaper editor for ten years in April 1994 for printing a cartoon of a footballer thought to resemble Khomeini!). Having the pseudo-communist Kianoori tucked under the mullahs’ turban proved more useful to them than killing him. My own view is that the Islamic regime had no right to imprison him or anyone else, either now or in the past, for their political beliefs.

  It was a measure of our success in interpreting and analysing the unfolding events of the inquisition panel that, from our block, only one comrade was executed. He defiantly told the inquisition panel that he was a communist and that he did not believe in God. The rest of us managed to slip through the net. But we were one of the last blocks to be processed; the losses overall had been very high. Overall I estimate that 1,500 of us were executed at Gohardasht.

  After our lashings, those of us who had survived the tribunal were brought together in a new block. Here, at dawn each morning, around 4am, guards went from cell to cell, asking every prisoner in turn, ‘Are you ready to pray now?’ Those who were not, for whatever reason, were dragged to a lashing table erected in the corridor and flogged. It became clear that this was the norm throughout the prison. From the blocks above, below and on either side we could hear thick electrical cable cutting the air, followed by screams as it cut the soles of feet.

  The morning after our inquisition panel, when the guards gave us their first sadistic ‘morning call’, two comrades from the Fedayeen Majority who had been passive throughout their prison term, and who had little political contact with prison resistance, refused to pray. This was a surprise to us as these men kept themselves to themselves, eating and associating separately. One of these men, Masoud Masoudi, had also been jailed during the Shah’s reign. (His brother, Babak Masoudi – a leader of the more militant Fedayeen Minority and a founder of the Fedayeen back in the 1960s – had been executed by the Islamic regime in 1987.) Masoud told one of the guards that he considered it ‘belittling to do something in which I have no faith.’ Islamic guards and prison officials in general are not great free thinkers and both men were hauled off to the lashing table. We were all ordered out of our cells to act as an audience.

  The more experienced of the two, Masoud, was strapped face down to the table, given ten lashes and asked, ‘Will you pray now?’ ‘No,’ he replied, defiantly. They gave him another ten and still his answer was, ‘No.’ A further ten lashes. After 30, 40 then 50, his feet were oozing blood; his face too, as he was being punched and kicked if he moved during the flogging.

  Eventually, barely audibly, he croaked his assent when asked. He was dragged off the table and ordered to wait for his compatriot – not that he was capable of going anywhere.

  The second man was strapped into place. He quietly took the first 30 lashes, and from then on screamed each time the cable struck his soles. He too nodded after the 50th.

  These two comrades must have seen many others bruised, bloodied and broken throughout their internment. But this was the first time that they had learned for themselves what it felt like to be torn apart. They had never guessed that the simple act of refusing to pray would receive such brutal retaliation.

  For those intransigents who could not imagine these passives doing this, their act of defiance came as something of a revelation. Any man could emerge as a fighter in the prison resistance, as these two had done – at the last minute, despite others’ beliefs and even their own ideas about themselves.

  They were not the only eleventh hour converts to intransigency. There were others, but to explain I must go back to sunnier days.

  In the aftermath of the hectic and hustling days of the Shah’s overthrow, when Khomeini had not yet sunk his claws firmly into the structures inherited from the Peacock Throne, two fighters from the still unified Fedayeen organisation were passing through the Niavaran area of Tehran, where the Shah’s court had been. As they walked through the deserted palace in the early light of the morning, with their Kalashnikovs slung behind them, Jalil Shahbazi and Ali Zareh got a glimpse of how the other half lived.

  Ali was a university student, Jalil a young worker. A Jeep belonging to the Islamic security forces pulled up beside them. This was a patrol to make sure the poor kept away from the court’s palaces – at least until the mullahs had finished plundering them. Caught unprepared, these two armed Fedayeen were captured and thrown into Evin. At this time, there were no left-wing political prisoners in Evin, and Jalil and Ali found themselves keeping company with the Shah’s top brass: army generals, who were responsible for civilian massacres which led to his overthrow, and with Savak’s head torturers and the like.

  For whatever reason, the theocracy’s new prison officials decided to keep these two young men in prison. By default, then, they held the dubious honour of being the first leftist prisoners arrested by the regime – prisoners who were held onto until the last minute of the massacres and beyond.

  Our paths crossed in the prison system a number of times, and I consider myself fortunate to have run across them, and talked to them.

  While we were in the Golden Fortress, Jalil explained their prison history. ‘Once in a while they pull us into interrogation, and ask about the Fedayeen and its development. When the split occurred, they wanted to know which side we had taken. As things developed within the Fedayeen and society, we lined up with the Majority. So we told them that we believed the regime was progressive and deserved support. During the first two years, we were treated fairly decently. In the first year, we were even given the opposition’s publications.

  ‘After the Mojahedin’s coup attempt in September 1981, things went downhill. We were witnesses to the mass executions of innocent people in jail. Within the year, we were sent to the Golden Fortress. The Majority and Tudeh were seen as compliant, and kept separate from the other left trends. Ali and I were put in with this section.

  ‘Later, Haji Davoud split us up, sending us to different blocks in an attempt to divide the prison resistance. Many prisoners shunned us because we were tainted with collaboration. Despite this, I was quite optimistic because the convergence of Tudeh and the Majority looked like resulting in a united party. The arrest of Tudeh’s leadership, coupled with the regime’s assault on the Majority, caught us by surprise. We were shocked by the confessions of Tudeh’s leaders.

  ‘Six months after this, I was taken to court for the fourth time. They could never find anything to charge me with as I had only taken up arms against the Shah a
nd had consistently said I supported the Islamic government. The court, as before, could not come to a conclusion. We were neither freed nor charged. But this time, the judge ordered me to co-operate with the interrogators and divulge any information I had about other prisoners. Either that, or stay till I rot.

  ‘So when I walked from the court, I knew I was going to be in prison uniform for a long, long time.’

  During the 1989 massacre, pressure was put on Jalil to pray. He refused and was badly beaten. Before the next prayer session came around, he slashed his wrist with a jagged fragment of a glass jar. He was dead before anyone found him.

  Ali was more fortunate, surviving his torture. He was released in 1990.

  Each day at prayer, I would tuck myself away in the corner and watch the other prisoners going through the charade. Fractured vertebrae excused me from this – scrambling from feet to knees, bowing and back again. Instead of touching my forehead to the ground, I was given a piece of ‘Mecca mud’ to lift to my forehead, when everyone else bowed down. It looked stupid.

  From here I could see my comrades bowing up and down, cursing Khomeini, Islam and the regime under their breath in the most obscene terms to the rhythm of the muezzin’s chant. Our Imam was of the most makeshift sort: an illiterate guard with a dirty matted beard, who smelled worse than we did and couldn’t get the prayer right. He kept losing his place and mixing up the sequence of prayers. Even an amateur and reluctant worshipper like myself knew enough to spot his glaring mistakes.

  We were forced to take part in this hollow pantomime five times a day. And each day we would witness comrades being lashed, or hear others scream from other blocks. This went on for months, well into 1990.