A State of Fear (22 page)

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 enough”,’ 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 and 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.

Political prisoners are scattered throughout Iran. Each province has its own representatives of the religious hierarchy and jails over which they have complete authority. And, of course, each jail holds its share of the disaffected. All can rival Evin and Gohardasht in their degradation. The level of struggle inside can be gauged by just how vile the prison conditions are and where one finds the most prisons. Kurdistan is well supplied, and not even the smallest district is complete without its own prison.

Just as each locality has its own jail, each had its own massacre in 1988-89. All local representatives of Khomeini were instructed to deal with their opposition. Often, even those oppositionists who had served their sentences and been released were re-arrested, re-tried and executed.

This was the reaction of a frightened regime defeated in war, trying to reassert its hold, made more desperate and brutal by the thought that things were slipping away from it. The war that Khomeini had called ‘God’s greatest blessing’ became his curse.
The defeat at the hands of Iraq made it essential to step up the war against its own people if it was not to lose that too. ‘The Front’ became the gallows in Iran, not minefields in Iraq.

In Kurdistan, the massacre was carried out in the most blatant and barbaric ways. Public gallows were erected in town squares. The corpses of those executed were kept on display for days, sometimes weeks, to warn the population of the rewards for ‘subversion’. If this was what went on in the streets, one can only guess at the slaughter dished out behind prison walls.

A sort of race developed between officials in the different regions as to who could deal with dissenters most speedily and callously. In places such as Hamedan, Rasht in the north, and Rezaieh in Azerbaijan, more than 90 per cent of political prisoners were executed.

Mass graves were discovered in Karaj, near Tehran, on 24 October 1988 – 725 bodies were unearthed. Others were found in Tehran, in Rudbar and Menjil, both in the Caspian region. It will never be known how many prisoners were murdered at this time, but the figure usually cited is between 8,000 and 10,000.

O
ur sisters and brothers had queued for the gallows while we had queued for the lash. In the aftermath of the massacre we queued for interviews and interrogation.

Two or three times a week, blindfolded, each of us would stand before a panel as they fired a stream of questions and demands at us.

‘Are you ready to condemn the opposition grouplets? Will you sign a petition to this effect? Are you prepared to be interviewed on television to do this publicly? Are you prepared to co-operate with prison officials? Will you give information on prison opposition? Are you prepared to go to a Jihad labour block? Will you participate in a mass demonstration of prisoners in front of the UN headquarters in Tehran, in support of the Islamic Republic and against the so-called Human Rights Commission inquiry into torture and massacres? If you are released, are you prepared to co-operate with Vavak?’

These barrages were designed to wear us down, to force us to
submit; they kept alive the climate of fear and suspicion in the wake of the massacres. I took time and care in answering these questions to avoid implicating myself, or giving the regime an iota of help.

‘Brother, I have never been a member of any group, so I have never supported their programmes in the first place. Signing your petition would imply that I have had associations with them. I’ve always denied that this is so. The same is true for being interviewed. What can I say about these groups? I don’t know much about them… Brother, while in prison I’ve kept myself to myself. I haven’t mixed in prison politics, so I have no information to share with you… As to demonstrating, brother, as you can see’ – I looked down at my body and shrugged expressively – ‘I can hardly stand, let alone demonstrate at the UN… I can’t co-operate with state security. I have no expertise or experience here. You’re welcome to my expertise where I have it. I can teach for you if you want!’

This final – and only – offer to my interrogators provoked an upwardly extended middle finger from one of my interrogators. ‘We’re not letting you near a classroom again, you bastard!’

In the aftermath of these interrogations, the blocks were constantly reshuffled so there was little chance to build new links. Prisoners were regrouped in line with the answers each gave. As was the case before the massacre, it prevented us from re-establishing firm relations with one another. The threat of another massacre was kept in front of our noses by constant interrogations and our vulnerability was emphasised.

One post-interview journey for me went a little further than from one block to the next. In early 1990 I was put on the prison bus to Evin – an old acquaintance that I was not anxious to renew. I managed to avoid the Jihad forced labour blocks because of my ill-health. Many prisoners didn’t and became slave labour.

Work would start at 8am and end around 5pm. Men were put
to work in the carpentry shop making crates for guns and ammunition; though the war was over, the regime clearly had its sights set on the next. Others made light switches in the electrical shop, and in the machine shop general repairs were handled. Lastly, there was a Jihad brigade who, with grim irony, were given the job of building more cells and blocks. All worked to a quota. If you didn’t fulfil it, it was recorded and your prospects of release receded.

Most members of the Jihad block, about 400, had been in prison since their teens, some earlier, and had no experience of the work they were put to. No training was given, no protection provided. Accidents were common especially in the machine shop. Men lost fingers, even hands, with horrifying frequency.

Abbas, a Mojahedin sympathiser had been in jail for seven years since the age of 14. Now 21, he had managed to survive torture and massacre, and retained his spirit. Although unprepared to compromise with the regime, he was strongly focused on getting out and rebuilding his life. Volunteering for the Jihad block was seen by many prisoners as a way of accelerating release.

Abbas worked in the carpentry shop, on the circular machine saw, feeding in the uncut wood. One day, hurrying to meet his quota, he severed the four fingers of his right hand. He stood there, in shock, gaping at his fingers lying in the bloody sawdust.

Recovering with a bony stump where once his hand had been knocked the fight out of Abbas in a way the threats and attacks of the regime failed to. Although he put on a brave face, those close to him could see the deep pain and sorrow within. To have survived so much of the intentional brutality of the regime only to be robbed of the use of his hand by a dumb machine demoralised him profoundly. He continued,
one-handed
, to work in the Jihad block and was released about six months later.

The Human Rights Commission inquiries were giving Khomeini problems with international relations. The regime was visibly rattled, and wanted to bully prisoners into telling the commission how tenderly the regime catered for every need.

In the spring of 1990, a large number of prisoners were bussed under armed guard to the commission’s temporary office in Tehran. These reluctant demonstrators were then forced to chant their condemnation of the commission’s critical reports on the abuses that they knew they would return to later that day.

I had dodged the demonstration draft. But I had not got out of the whole thing. Soon after this prisoners’ forced picket, I was taken, blindfolded, to the interrogation block. I was seated in a wooden cubicle containing a school chair with a wooden extension on which to write. I was hunched in this child-sized desk for maybe an hour, staring at a blank wall from under my blindfold. Someone entered silently and a sheaf of paper was slipped over my arm onto the writing surface.

A protracted question and answer session followed; one where no words were exchanged between me and my captors. My interrogator would write down a question. He would then leave and give me between 30 and 45 minutes to compose my answer. Then he would return, take my answer sheet and write down the next question. In this way, a short series of questions and answers managed to drag out all day.

The interrogators obviously wanted to be precise; to leave me opportunities to be sloppy and drop myself in it, and have it all in black and white for the record. Aware of this, I would sit sucking my pen for a good half-hour before committing a word to paper. I wanted to be sure my answers were watertight. The session proceeded like a chess game, with the interrogator and I each trying to lure the other into a strategic mistake; me to get off the hook, him to jam me firmly on it.

And so it started: ‘There are some questions you need to answer,’ said my first question sheet. ‘Your release hinges on the co-operation you give us. And it must be completely confidential. Can you write in English?’

‘Not very well.’ Half-an-hour to write that.

‘Do your best, anyway. We want you to write a confidential letter to Dr Galindo Pohl, the Human Rights Commission’s chief investigator. In it you must condemn the opposition grouplets. We want you to blame the grouplets for the damage they have caused you. Tell him that they have destroyed your life, and the lives of your family. You should also explain how well you have been treated in prison by the Islamic security guards, from the time of your capture to the present.’

‘Brother,’ I wrote, ‘if there is one thing you drummed into us during the past few years it is that a prisoner should not get involved in politics. Writing this letter is definitely a political act. How do you reconcile this with your insistence that I stay out of politics?’

My opponent frowned over this answer, and then agitatedly scribbled, ‘Who told you writing a letter to Galindo Pohl is political activity? We are asking you to complain against those who have wrecked your life.’

‘Condemning the opposition is political. And once I have written this letter to the commission it will be a public document. By publicly condemning these grouplets, don’t I put mine and my family’s lives in danger, if they are terrorists, as you say?’

Since there was no realistic way of forcing me to write their letter, and I didn’t want to expose myself as openly hostile to the regime, we had to play cat and mouse with each other.

‘No,’ my interrogator promised, ‘we will give you full protection.’ The cheese in the trap.

‘But these grouplets have assassinated some of the Islamic regime’s leading officials. If you can’t protect them, how can you
protect me and my family?’ The mouse is staying well inside his hole, thank you.

‘You think about it,’ offered the fat Islamic cat. ‘Do you want to get out of here, or stay and rot? I’ll leave you the pen and paper. You have two hours to write the letter. This is your last chance.’

The time passed. When he returned, there was nothing written in English. But he had another of my notes in Persian. ‘Self-preservation is the individual’s prime instinct. The lessons I have learned in prison, to abstain from all political activity, prevent me from writing any letter supporting or condemning any party.’

He took my answer sheet away. Then he returned, and slapped me hard on the back of my head, like a bullying school master. I rocked forward in my classroom chair with the force of the blow. He spoke for the first time. ‘You dirty animal! Get lost,’ this being the signal for the guards to return me to my cell.