A State of Fear (18 page)

My eight-year-old son – who, like all the other prisoners’ children, was terrified by the visit ordeal – was allowed around the screen. While I held him in my arms, I put a cotton cap on his head, woven for me by an Iraqi comrade in the jail. Any exchange was forbidden but fortunately the guards missed the gift, assuming he’d come in with it as he left. The hat itself was
symbolic: on the top was a big red star, blending in with the rest of the colourful pattern. So at the end of the visit, off went my young son with a badge of prison resistance emblazoned on his cap, mocking the guards whose weapons he walked under. Now in his thirties, he still has the cap.

On another occasion, I hastily wrote the frequency and time of clandestine radio broadcasts from our organisation, Rahe Kargar, which were taking place on the border with Iraq and Iran, on the inside of his arm. He was already street-wise, and made sure that it could not be seen. When he was searched by the guards at the end of the visit, he jumped around, waving his arms and singing, playing the hyperactive little boy. The guards couldn’t get a grip on him to frisk him properly. I watched through the screen in silent trepidation as they tried to search him. If they found the numbers on his forearm, I was in serious trouble. In the end, they despaired of keeping him still, and one guard propelled him on his way with a frustrated slap on the back. Of course, this was risky stuff. But in prison, if you don’t take risks, you’re dead anyway.

For the first time we were permitted to write to our families on a special form with a maximum of five bland lines. Anything more than this would go straight in the censor’s bin. We could pen these notes once a month. At New Year, Noruz, our
five-line
cards wishing our families ‘better times in the coming year’ were censored, as the authorities were suspicious that the correspondent was encouraging his family to resist. Many prisoners were questioned about the ‘subversive’ nature of their new year’s greeting.

Yet the prison thaw encouraged a real community. We had our own library, sports club (of sorts) and social welfare network. Groups engaged in debate more freely. We built up a solid reservoir of strength to deal with issues about the mental and physical wellbeing of prisoners. The possibility of resistance became real.

One of the first tests of this new-found strength was when the left wing prisoners asked to be given meals regularly and punctually during the Islamic fasting month of Ramadan. At this time, we would get only two meals a day: one between 2am and 3am, and the other of bread, cheese and tea at about 6pm. There was nothing to eat between, other than what we had saved from these scant meals.

While I was in prison, Ramadan fell during the height of summer, so it was not hygienic to store food in hot, sweaty cells. In its new ‘liberal’ guise the regime did not enforce fasting, but neither did it give us regular food so that we would not have to comply! We could have food sent in, but the prison cooks were definitely working to rule during Ramadan. If food was sent in, it would not keep, and many prisoners contracted diarrhoea and food poisoning through rash attempts to supplement their diet.

Low rations and rotting meat provided the spark for a revolt. As discontent spread from block to block, only the Mojahedin stepped back from confrontation. As good Muslims, they did not want to demand additional servings during Ramadan, but felt bound to fast – or at least to maintain the pretence. The hard-line Islamists within their ranks were adamant about this and fasted with religious zeal. The liberals flouted the regulations but the majority in the centre upheld the principle of Ramadan, while ignoring it in practice. Still, they refused to combine with the left wing in demanding the full regular portion of food.

Discontent erupted during the first ten days of Ramadan in 1987. There was resistance in almost every block. In some, inmates from left groups would gather at the doors and demand to see the prison authorities. In block 1, 20 to 30 inmates maintained a continuous presence at the door. We did not want to go out on a limb or be left behind so we kept a careful eye on what was happening elsewhere in the prison.

In our block, about 120 men took part in this resistance, with
the Mojahedin and the hermits looking on. After a long debate, it was decided to boycott the early morning prison rations. We handed back the vats of food untouched, except for those who were not taking part in the boycott.

This tactic was adopted by other blocks and other prisons, as word was spread via our families and prisoners. As a result food supplies went back to normal throughout Ramadan. The mullahs had given up on our souls, and been forced to pay a little more attention to our stomachs.

Our victory was all the more remarkable when you consider that throughout the country restaurants were closed outside restricted hours at this time, and anyone seen eating in the street could be arrested. Our fight upset the sensibilities of none other than Haji Mortazavi, who came to our block at the height of this affair. ‘How can you infidels demand warm food?’ he asked. ‘Our Islamic soldiers are fasting on the front line against imperialism, even while they fight, while you want injured veterans to play the chef for you. It is impossible!’ Impossible it may have been, but we got it.

Group exercise was another flashpoint. On this issue, the regime had the Mojahedin in its sights. They took exercise in the yard, about 30 from our block grouping at a time, going through light exercise or sometimes with one among them giving instruction in karate or the like, which would often attract members of other groups.

Then a directive was issued banning group exercise. The left joined the Mojahedin in resisting this. More than 70 prisoners took part in a jogging group, round and round the exercise yard. We did this each day from 9 to 9.30am. A couple of older prisoners, who had been jailed under the Shah, acted as pacesetters, to make sure the younger, more energetic prisoners did not leave the pack behind. One was a Tudeh Party central committee member, and the other was from Rahe Kargar. They were at the front, and no one was to pass them. The rest followed
along behind – sometimes as many as 100, sending clouds of dust from our heels as we pounded round and round.

If the regime could stop us organising sport, we knew it could stop us doing everything under the sun. It was necessary to stick together and repulse this attack with all our might. The old and frail joined in – me included – and it gave confidence to the younger comrades to see those weak with injuries and illness in the line alongside them. There had not been such a united struggle from the blocks up until this point.

Unprepared for a head-on confrontation, the authorities looked on and the head guard threatened us with a 24-hour lock-up if we persisted. We were not deterred and the run continued every day. But the threat was real. One day there was no run round the yard – we could not get out of our cells. We talked it through. What would be the consequences should we carry on? Would it get those who did not run with us – the quitters – locked up with us as a result?

Discussion continued for several weeks, and most of us agreed to continue the runs as soon as we were allowed back in the yard. We heard that other blocks had got the same treatment; locked up en masse, or runners picked off, beaten and held in darkened solitary or the steam room. The steam room was a small room where 40 or 50 prisoners were crammed in so tight they couldn’t breath properly. Steam was pumped in and the men would sweat like hell, dropping like flies from the humidity after one or two hours. When all were totally exhausted, the guards would burst in with fists, clubs and cables. But clubs and steam were not enough to make us concede the fight and so it went on.

We were told that if word of our fight got out, the offenders would be put in solitary. Whole blocks defied this order by ensuring that each and every one passed the message on during visits, making it impossible for the authorities to deal with all the offenders. Word spread and resistance consolidated. Throughout
Gohardasht, ‘to be or not to be’ in the solidarity jog became the main question, overshadowing political differences inside and contradictory developments outside.

When guards came to the cell, we would encircle them, insisting on our right to exercise, arguing that it was necessary for our health. We also pointed out that if we did not run together, then we would get in each others’ way as 200 prisoners milled around in the confined space of the yard. It would be chaos.

One day we were visited by the head of prison security and riot squad, Haji Davoud Lashgari. We clustered round, badgering him. He screamed back, ‘I’ll open the gate but I’ll break the neck of anyone that runs together!’

The gate opened at 8am the next morning. Men went to the yard to hang their clothes, stretch their legs, chat and mill around. At 9am sharp the solidarity jog was back pounding around the yard. The guards on the roof immediately reported this disturbance. We completed the run – tired, breathless but happy. To run or not was a political question, rather than simply a dispute over recreational amenities, and would determine the next phase of our struggle within the prison system. We carried on for two more days under the eyes of the rooftop guards.

Day three was sunny, and we filed into the bright and warm yard on the stroke of 9am. Five minutes from the end, when we were sweating and panting our way through the last four or five laps, a small gate leading to the main corridor opened on one side of the yard. Out stormed Haji Davoud Lashgari, leading 30 members of the riot squad, smack into the front of the column of joggers. Each one down the line was bundled through the gate. The remaining members of the riot squad pinned down those further away, ensuring no one got away.

As each man was pushed through the gate, he was flanked by two lines of guards, in the narrow landing and up the staircase – the only way out. One by one, we were forced to run a continuous
gauntlet of baying, vicious guards, up three landings. It was the most horrendous beating I have ever been through, from Komiteh, Evin and the Golden Fortress. It felt like the worst of all of them rolled into one.

Some of us didn’t make it to the second floor, and had to be dragged, semi-conscious there. We were now on another block, blindfolded, and forced to stand facing the wall on either side of the corridor. The guards lined up behind us. Anyone that fell had all hell beaten out of him until he got back on his feet. We were then beaten mercilessly for an hour. Anyone who cried out got beaten worse.

I shouted, ‘How can you treat people like this for just running?’ I could hear them really laying into our elderly pacesetter and shouted for them to leave him alone. I heard Haji Davoud Lashgari just behind me: ‘You dare to question our brothers? I’ll teach you a lesson you’ll never forget, you bastard!’ He began to chop at me from all sides. One hand struck my floating ribs on the right side and I blacked out.

I came to in an infirmary bed. Two guards stood over me, alongside them two Mojahedin prisoners from my block, looking at me anxiously. I could feel an oxygen mask over my mouth, and that my left arm was attached to a drip. Night had fallen. All around us was dark.

I found my tongue and yelled with as much strength as I could muster – it was probably more of a croak – ‘Why don’t you leave us alone? What sort of Islamic justice is this? Why don’t you shoot me, so I can end this day-to-day torture?’

It seemed that I had been taken back to the cells by my fellow joggers. But when my cell mates could not revive me, they hammered on the door until the chief guard came and decided I should be taken to the infirmary. The two comrades from the Mojahedin had volunteered to carry me.

When I was fully conscious, I was jacked full of pain-killers, and the two Mojahedin were told to haul me back to the cells.
My return was greeted by prisoners from across the political spectrum. The Mojahedin had spread the word of how I had challenged the guards in the infirmary, and this seemed to have gone down well. Two of my cellmates looked after me. For two nights, groups of prisoners came to see me, to wish me well and check on my recovery. It was a much appreciated sign of solidarity.

Those painful days and nights passed quickly. We had to make a decision about how to counter this latest attack. We decided to refuse to leave our cells, all but a handful of prisoners who went into the yard to exercise alone. Others went to play football: solitary figures kicking a ball with half a guilty eye on those watching them from inside. We also told our families about the horrendous beating.

The prison was divided over our next step. Some argued that group exercise was not our problem but the Mojahedin’s, and that we should not put our necks on the line for them. Most felt that how we exercised affected all of us.

In the meantime, struggles broke out elsewhere. Some feared the return of doomsday and quarantine. News came that a left prisoner who had been in solitary for a long period because of his resistance had managed to prise apart the thick steel slats that covered his cell window, like heavyweight Venetian blinds, to squeeze through and hurl himself from the third-story window to die on hitting the yard below.

In another block, occupied mainly by the Mojahedin, one mentally disturbed prisoner had found a quiet moment in the bathroom and hanged himself from the door frame. In block 3, which faced ours, one Mojahedin prisoner had managed to save enough petrol from his commune’s heating and cooking ration – the amount of food we received from the jail was never enough, so food was bought from the guards’ shop whenever we could afford it – and had set himself alight. We heard the horrified cries of his comrades as they ran to put out the flames… too late.

These were not isolated incidents but charted a drift back to despair by many who had suffered so much. In our own block was Hassan Sedighi. He was an experienced prison militant who had come through the torture rooms of Savak never even giving his name. As a former Mojahad he joined the nucleus of Rahe Kargar in its formation in prison and spent almost half of his life, 14 years, in the prisons of the Shah and Khomeini. He killed himself late one night in the shower. There he could swallow cleaning fluid without disturbance. He then returned to his cell as if he’d just paid a visit to the toilet like any other night. I was unable to sleep because of pains from my injuries and saw him sitting in front of his cell with a book on his lap.