Before the Islamic revolution in Iran, although I was
still a
schoolgirl, I was very interested in politics. I read voraciously-books
on sociology,
social evolution, and by the progressive author Samad Behrangi. My
cousin, who was a
college student, was a political prisoner under the Shah. He had been
arrested for his
ties with the Mojahedin. In 1978, as the revolution began to sweep the
country, he was
released from prison. It was through him that I became acquainted with
the People’s
Mojahedin Organization of Iran, which is a democratic, Muslim,
progressive, independent
political organization. For more than thirty years, the Mojahedin has
been fighting for
democracy and human rights in Iran, first against the dictatorship of
the Shah and then
the fundamentalist ayatollahs.
I was attracted to women’s activism the first
time I saw Mojahedin
leader Ashraf Rajavi. She was speaking at a meeting about women’s
liberation. I met
with her. She had a lot of permanent injuries from her torture in the
Shah’s prisons,
and was deaf in one ear. She spoke in a very calm, dignified manner.
This experience was
very exciting to me. A woman who had resisted so adamantly; this was a
whole new concept
for me. Two years later, when I saw her bloodied body at Evin Prison, I
swore that I would
follow in her footsteps to my last breath. Ever since that day, I have
been in love with
women’s activism. To me, whatever step a woman takes against
dictatorship has
tremendous value.
In his first speech, after the overthrow of the Shah
in 1979, Mojahedin
leader Massoud Rajavi identified freedom, democracy and equality as the
crucial issues and
warned that religious fundamentalism was the primary obstacle to
democracy. The Mojahedin
always stood for freedom and equality, whether the issue was women or
religious
minorities. When the fundamentalist regime began talking about
enforcing an
"Islamic" dress code, it was the Muslim Mojahedin who came
out into the streets
to protect the women protesters from attacks by the regime’s mobs.
On the day of that
speech, I realized I did not want to lead a comfortable life, while the
underprivileged
women of my country were crushed under the dictatorship of the mullahs.
During those days,
most of the Mojahedin’s supporters and activists were young and
educated, which also
drew me to them. Women became more and more active in the movement, and
now women have an
unprecedented role in the leadership. This is especially remarkable for
the Middle East
and Iran.
I was arrested in August 1980 for being a
supporter of
the People’s
Mojahedin Organization. I was 22 at the time, and had completed my
college education and
begun teaching at Majlessi High School in Tehran. I was taken to Evin
Prison, where I was
held for four years, until September 1984, in cellblocks 246-upper and
1-upper. I also
spent 6 months at Gezel Hesar Prison, where I was in punishment
cellblock 8 and cellblock
3. I was also held for a time in a cellblock known as "the
apartment" in Evin
Prison. At that time the building had six floors, with two large cells
on each floor. The
overcrowding in these cells was extreme. One hundred women crammed into
cells designed for
twenty. Most of the prisoners were subjected to psychological torture.
For example, for
long periods they were forced to face the wall and stand on one leg.
Such tortures put us
under physical and mental pressure. I was transferred from cellblock to
cellblock because
my jailers were very worried about the prisoners organizing themselves.
As soon as two or
three prisoners would become close friends, they would separate them,
sending them not
just to other cells, but to different cellblocks.
I endured many different tortures while in
prison. The
first day I was
tortured, I still remember the day, August 25, 1980-it was a Monday. I
was tied to a very
short bench and blindfolded with a filthy rag. Then I was flogged on my
back and on the
soles of my feet with a cable. Threats of rape were also used as a form
of torture, not
just against me, but all the women prisoners. The interrogator who
threatened to rape me
was the chief interrogator for section seven of Evin Prison, named
Rahmani. After he had
flogged me with a cable for a week and gotten nowhere, he began
threatening me with rape.
He kept it up for 3 months. Another form of torture I endured was known
as "the
scale"-my arms were twisted-one up over the shoulder and the other
from underneath
then bound behind my back. Then I was suspended from the ceiling and
left like that for 12
hours. I still bear scars from the torture. I lost the hearing in my
right ear under
torture. I have also lost much of the sight in my left eye. I suffer a
great deal of pain
in my arms and legs. Because of the blows to my head, I suffer long
periods of headaches
and dizziness.
They also threatened to rape my younger sister,
Nassrin Pardehshenas,
who was only 18. Ultimately, they did rape her before she was executed.
That was their
last try at breaking her, but she was very brave. Nassrin made prayer
stones from the mud
of Evin Prison, on which she wrote the verses of Kosar (The
Fountainhead) from the Quran.
Just before her execution, she wrote a letter to her mother: "In
an hour they will
execute me, these miserable worshippers of the night. But as Massoud
Rajavi says, we are
like the fountainhead; the more of us they execute, the more we
multiply." She never
gave in, and walked proudly to the stake for her execution.
Ayatollah Khomeini issued a special "religious
decree" that
required that all virgin women prisoners be raped before execution to
prevent them from
going to heaven. They also threatened Ashraf Jalali, Farah Shirmahale,
and Mashid Sheikh
with rape. The routine was to rape all of the women, especially the
unmarried girls,
before they were executed. Ashraf was young, not more than
17-years-old. I got to know her
in prison and in the torture chamber. She had attractive dark eyes, and
would stare at one
point. When asked what she was thinking about, she said she was
thinking about freedom for
the women of her country. She used to say that the more they flogged us
with cables, the
more she believed in the path she had chosen. She was only with us a
short time; they
executed her very quickly.
One prisoner named Farah had a poetic nature. She
used
her fingernails
to carve out a picture on the wall of the cellblock of a group of
people who had pulled
down Khomeini and set free a group of prisoners. She was summoned the
day prior to her
execution by Rahmani, the chief interrogator, who told her,
"Tomorrow you will be
executed, but since our religion tells us that we should not kill a
virgin girl, we are
going to marry you to one of our Revolutionary Guards." They told
her this to try to
break her spirit. Farah shouted and slapped him. The next day, Farah
was executed. As she
was taken away, she said, "I am certain that our blood will set
Iran free. I see
women who have been freed, singing a song of freedom.
Psychological torture was also used. The worst was
being forced to watch
another prisoner being tortured. They forced us to be in the same room,
to hear the sound
the cable made as it bit into the flesh of one of our fellow prisoners.
Sometimes the
women who had children were tortured in front of their children. This
was the ultimate
test of their spirit. The worst torture I ever endured was being forced
to watch as my
sister was flogged with the cable.
Sometimes I was kept in the torture chamber from ten
to 18 hours, and
forced to watch as the other Mojahedin supporters were being tortured.
Those were some of
the worst moments I endured. I was forced to watch the torture of
Monireh Rajavi, Nassrin
Pardehshenass, "Mother" Zakeri, Leila Ardekani, Mashid
Sheikh, Homa Radmanesh,
Farah Shirmahale, and Ashraf Jalali. All of them were martyred in
prison.
"Mother" Zakeri was a woman about 70 years
old, who was jailed
and tortured for supporting the Mojahedin. They threw two of her
granddaughters, aged 12
and 17, and two of her sons into prison at the same time. She refused
to break. Everyday,
they came and took her for torture. Her strength was such that it gave
even us, her
cellmates, courage. Despite her age, she had a special sort of
high-spiritedness. The
prison guards did not dare to come close to her, because on more than
one occasion she had
slapped them hard on the face and boxed their ears. On the day they
took her away to be
executed, her shouts of "Long live Rajavi" set the whole
cellblock trembling.
She told the guards with a special smile, "I am happy that I have
achieved my goal.
You must understand that however many of us women you execute, more of
us will arise,
roaring like lionesses."
I shared a cell for one year with Monireh Rajavi. She
was tortured with
a long cable, which shredded her flesh and the soles of her feet. She
was tortured with
"the scale" for 12 hours. Every two hours, they dropped her
on the floor and
then started again. For days on end, she was in the torture chamber for
21 hours of the
day, either being tortured herself or forced to watch other women being
tortured. They
always called Monireh and me for interrogation together. We had the
same interrogator. One
day, I asked her why they always summoned us together. She replied,
"Either they will
take us together for execution, in which case we will leave here
together, or we will be
set free by our heroic people. But if either of us ever does reach our
people, we must
tell them how these criminals did everything imaginable to the
Mojahedin prisoners, and
how these women stood up to their tormentors." My most lasting and
beautiful memory
of Monireh is of her face, which had an innocent expression and smile,
always. I saw a
special dignity in her face. Her eyes spoke to you, like they were
telling her story.
Khomeini issued a religious decree declaring that the
Mojahedin women
were infidels and hypocrites. Rape and sexual abuse, the worst forms of
torture, were
practiced in the worst way on these women. The jailers had absolutely
free rein, and this
religious decree justified their actions. They hated the women of the
Mojahedin, because
they are very active-they resist, and in particular, they defend the
leader of the
Resistance movement. One day, Chief Interrogator Rahmani told me,
"It is all the
fault of you Mojahed women that we are annihilating your generation. No
matter how many of
you we execute, you spring up again like mushrooms. I am amazed that
none of you talks. We
torture you to make you talk. From Monireh Rajavi to the likes of you,
you are all alike
and none of you talks. I can’t understand how Massoud Rajavi
managed in just one year
to teach all these women to fear nothing. Women are made for raising
children and keeping
house. Shame on you, who now have to be tortured by men and ultimately
killed by
them."
The women organized among themselves to support one
another. We had
group activities, focusing on politics and organizational issues. The
Khomeini regime
prevented family members from bringing any books or articles that might
be related to the
Mojahedin into the prison. So our political activity was for everyone
to gather in a
circle, and for anyone who had read a book or article to relate as much
as she could
remember of it, especially those dealing with ideological questions or
political
challenges. This was part of the daily program. Whenever anyone was
brought back from the
torture chamber, we all gathered around her. Anyone who had anything
that could ease the
pain offered it to her. The prison guards did not give us any
medications, so we tried
with things like massage to soothe the suffering. The only way out was
execution or
escape. The only thing that gave us our spirit was the resistance as a
group against the
torture and execution. Sometimes, we gathered together secretly to come
up with plans of
escape. As a result of these plans, we managed to get two people
out.
The guards got really upset by the women’s
activism. The prison
guards blindfolded us everyday to take us for interrogation. One day,
as I was being led
to the torture chamber, the guard said to me: "Why would a woman
be drawn to the
resistance? A woman should get married, and keep house. You are
throwing your life away
here. You even have an education. You should get married and make the
best life for
yourself. What have ‘the people’ got to do with you? What
does this sort of
thing have to do with women? A woman is a wife and mother." One of
the guards told
another woman prisoner, "We torture you so much to make you give
this up and go back
to taking care of your houses and children. It amazes me, all these
women in one place and
time; we will annihilate you all."
Some of my most cherished images of the prison were
those of the
Mojahedin women’s resistance in the face of mass executions. I
remember one day in
particular, when 50 were summoned for execution. All the other
prisoners of the cellblock
lined up in two lines, and embraced the condemned and began singing an
anthem. The
condemned went to put on the best clothes that they had from their days
in the Mojahedin
militia, which they felt was their official uniform. They used to talk
about how they
would say good-bye to this world in these clothes, and enter the next
in them. The outfit
consisted of a navy blue headscarf and tunic, and an army green
overcoat. They donned the
coat as they said their farewells. Their faces were shining; they
laughed and cried at
once. They said, "We smile because we have achieved our objective;
we are joining our
beloved. But we cry because we are leaving you." The room filled
with tears, laughter
and singing. The atmosphere was such that the prison guards did not
dare to enter the
cellblock. Instead, they kept repeating the condemned prisoners’
names over the
loudspeakers. Pulses were racing. It was an unforgettable moment. They
left the cellblock
chanting, "Long live Rajavi!" As I write these words, I feel
I am reliving it. I
can see the shining face of Leila Ardekani. I shall never forget her
face. I feel as
though she were still in my embrace.
