Letters to My Torturer
Page 33
68 In earlier times, a cannon shot would be fired to announce the New Year and then traditional music would be played, using ancient instruments like the Saaz and Naqaara.
69 Kavah Golestan was a famous Iranian photojournalist who died after stepping on a mine while working for the BBC in Iraq in 2003.
70 These are aristocratic Persian names uncommon among practicing Muslims.
71 One of the titles of the twelfth Imam, sometimes referred to as the hidden Imam, whose return is eagerly awaited by Shia Muslims.
72 This phrase, “I ate shit”, has a double meaning, both the literal meaning and also, “I repent”. Here it is used in both its senses.
73 Ali Shamkhani was born in southern Iran and is of Arab descent. He was one of the founding members of the Revolutionary Guards Corps and later became commander of the navy. He was defence minister under Muhammad Khatemi.
74 The abbreviated form of Mashadi, designating someone who has visited the shrine of the eighth Imam, Imam Reza in Mashhad, northeast Iran.
75 Abdul Basit is an Arab famous for his Qur’an recitations.
76 A fatwa is an order issued by the most important ayatollahs, which is considered binding by their followers. In the case of this fatwa, bread is regarded as sacred, and throwing it away is therefore viewed as a sin. Instead, it should be given to other living creatures such as birds.
77 Soon after their arrest, the Tudeh Party’s first secretary, Kianuri, along with all the important members of the Central Committee, appeared on television and confessed that the Party had been spying for the Soviet Union. The leaders were over sixty years of age and had undergone intense torture. The majority of them were hanged during the1988 mass killings.
78 A 1926 Soviet film by Vsevolod Pudovkin. Based on a novel of the same title by Maxim Gorky, the movie portrays a woman’s turbulent life during the Russian revolution of 1905.
79 Bahram Beyzaie’s critically acclaimed first feature film, made in 1971, depicts the life struggles of an intellectual and honest teacher in prerevolutionary Iran. In post-revolutionary Iran, Beyzaie has been under huge pressure due to his religious affiliation.
80 Imam Reza is the eighth Imam of the Shia Muslims, and his shrine is visited by 15 to 20 million pilgrims every year. It is a vast complex, including a university, museum, library, seminaries, vast prayer halls, and a cemetery.
81 In colloquial Persian, the “Blues” refers to Esteghlal Football Club fans, while the “Reds” stands for Persepolis Football Club supporters. The Tehran derby between these two popular football clubs and archrivals is the biggest football match in Asia.
82 The Peykar (Struggle) Organization was formed in 1979 from a Mujahedin splinter group. It advocated the total separation of the religious establishment from the state. In 1982, several Peykar leaders were arrested, and the organization was disbanded.
83 After the revolution, the Islamic Republic censored the chapter dealing with sexual questions.
84 The loans office is a type of Islamic private bank set up by an Islamic organization with a focus on small investments.
85 The Jafar Tayyar prayer consists of a lengthy form of prayer that the very religious perform after the night prayers. It sometimes extends throughout the night.
86 According to instruction books published by the Islamic Republic, the Kumayl prayer was taught by Imam Ali to Kumayl, one of his close companions, hence its name. According to Muhammad Baqir Majlisi, the author of The Ornament of the Righteous, the prayer should be performed at night in the middle of the Sha’ban month, or every Thursday night, to protect one from the evils of the enemy and to seek forgiveness for one’s sins.
87 A Shia cultural and religious tradition is to cry and grieve for the coming of the twelfth Imam, who is believed to be in occultation. Nudbah means to mourn and cry for the dead and to praise them.
88 Hadith are the sayings of the Prophet Muhammad (and, in Shia Islam, also from the Shia Imams) that have been handed down orally before being collected and written down by several Muslim scholars. They are regarded as important tools for understanding the Qur’an and questions of Islamic law.
89 Taking a bath here refers to the religious, ritualistic bathing procedure that precedes and follows intercourse and is accompanied by a specific set of prayers.
90 This is the last of the five daily prayers Muslims perform from dawn till dusk.
91 The word used in the original manuscript is monafeq, meaning a twofaced, conniving person. Following the Islamic revolution, monafeq was used to refer to members of Mujahedin-e Khalq.
92 Peech-e Tobah, or Repentance Turn, is the name of the road that leads down to Evin Prison. It is very steep and has a sharp bend. Lajevardi, the cold-hearted butcher of Evin, boasted that every time prisoners reached the bend, the fear they felt made them repent immediately.
93 Haqqani’s circle is composed of hardline clergymen based in the holy city of Qom and led by Ayatollah Mohammad-Taqi Mesbah-Yazdi, a prominent theologian who is believed to exert a huge influence over President Ahmadinejad. The group derives its name from the Haqqani Seminary, established in 1964, whose graduates occupy key political and security positions in Iran today. Haqqani alumni are known for their radical political activism grounded in a messianic belief in the imminent return of the Mahdi, the twelfth Imam in Shi’ism.
94 According to Shia religious instruction, if a man is sporting a moustache, he must cut it short to prevent the moustache from getting wet when drinking liquids.
95 Collective prayers are performed together in unison, and one of the people in the group leads the prayer. Shias believe that those who pray collectively will receive greater rewards than those who pray individually.
96 The punishment for insulting Imam Ali sometimes includes hanging.
97 Jihad is an Arabic term meaning voluntary, holy struggle or war, including both physical war and the internal spiritual war to improve oneself. The block was named with the second definition in mind.
98 A death sentence is one of the cruellest sentences issued in Iran. The prisoner sentenced to execution can be hanged or shot at any time, whenever it’s deemed necessary. Consequently, the prisoner would often spend years, never knowing when the sentence would be carried out. Some individuals have spent up to twelve years in this situation.
99 Drugs would sometimes be carefully wrapped in multiple plastic sheets, swallowed and brought into prison undetected.
100 Moharebeh is an Islamic offence that means “waging war against God”. Those convicted of being Moharebs face execution under Iran’s Shari’a legal code.
101 Qur’an: 9: 73.
102 Saeed Emami, also known as Saeed Eslami, was the Islamic Republic’s most terrifying security official. He returned from the US after the Islamic revolution, and became Deputy Minister of Intelligence, in which role he organized the mass murder of the intelligentsia, the socalled Serial Murders. He was imprisoned during Muhammad Khatemi’s leadership and was mysteriously killed while in prison.
103 One thousand individuals were identified by name in a UN Human Rights Commission’s Special Representative’s Report, “Names and Particulars of Persons Allegedly Executed by the Islamic Republic of Iran during the period July–December 1988”, published on 26 January, 1989. The report specifies that although 1,000 names are mentioned, “in all probability” there were several thousand victims. “Most of the alleged victims were members of the Mujahedin. However, members of the Tudeh Party, People’s Fedayeen Organization, Rahe Kargar, and Komala Organization, and eleven mullahs were also said to be among the alleged victims.”
104 Azadi Square, or Liberty Square, is the name of a very large square in the west of Tehran. In the middle of the square, a beautiful tower was erected in 1971, combining both Sassanid and Islamic architectural styles, in commemoration of the 2,500th anniversary of the Persian Empire. Initially, the tower and the square were called the Martyrs’ Tower and Square but after the revolution, the square was renamed Liberty Square.