A State of Fear (26 page)

Under these pretexts, she was taken off to the so-called Islamic courts of justice. There, the court was presented with signed confessions for this so-called criminal conduct. These signed confessions could have only been obtained under torture. The court branded her a
mohareb
, a non-believer who had taken up arms against Islam. This is what she told her comrades after just ten minutes in the court: ‘The judge, after asking me my name and my father’s name, asked the prosecutor, “Is she to be shot?” The prosecutor [the same person who interrogated her in the torture room] replied, “Yes, Haji.” Then the judge said to me, “Get lost! We won’t see you anymore!”’ She was returned to her cell to collect her belongings and took the opportunity to recount the brief court appearance to her cellmates. Then she was shot.

Harir, who we have already met, recounts her brief visit to the courthouse in Sanandaj in 1990: ‘Five and a half months after my arrest, one day around ten in the morning, a security guard opened the door to my solitary cell. He said to me, “You can take a shower today and wash your clothes.” Two months had passed since I had last been permitted to do so.

‘As I had no other clothes with me in the cell, after my shower and laundry I had to return to my cell wearing the wet clothes. Back in my cell, I had to remove my washed clothing to allow it to dry. Dry or not, I had to put them back on fairly quickly. I did not want to be seen naked by the lecherous eyes of the guards. Luckily, none of them came by before my clothes had dried.

‘Later, a guard returned, saying, “Pick up your bag. We are leaving.” I was led out of the solitary block. I could see his distinct military uniform from underneath my blindfold. I guessed the
trip must be one that would take me outside of this prison. One guard came up to me and handcuffed my wrists. I started to argue with him. “Who do you think I am, a criminal?”

‘The young guard told me in a quiet murmur, “Don’t be angry. Today these cuffs are on your wrists, tomorrow they will be on mine.”

‘Then a deep, loud voice bellowed out, “Brothers, are you ready?” A number of voices replied. “Yes, we are ready.” Then again, “How about your cartridges?” “They are ready too, brother,” came the reply, repeated by all the guards around me. “Get ready to fire, God be with you!” roared the deep voice one more time.

‘I was very shaken. I wondered whether they would be taking me to Evin, perhaps to complete the court proceedings against me. But the car that I had been bundled into stopped somewhere in the middle of the city. The guards with me told me to take my blindfold off. I was taken into a building, which I recognised as the central headquarters of the police during the Shah’s regime.

‘They took me to the second floor, where I was led to the Islamic revolutionary court department. There were two rectangular tables full of papers and files relating to prisoners in the court. The judge sat behind one table and the court recorder behind the other.

‘The recorder had a thick beard, but was wearing no Islamic robe or turban. He looked around 40-45 years old. The judge was a young man, only about 30. He too had neither cassock nor turban. He was wearing what looked like house pyjamas, made of a very fine white cloth – cotton or silk. His trouser legs had ridden up to his knee so I could see the lower half of his leg from where I was sitting. On his desk, in addition to many fat prisoners’ files, there was also a large aluminium tray full of melon peel. By one corner of this table, close to where he was sitting, stood a black-and-white lamb. Every so often, the lamb
would bleat and the judge would pick up a couple of pieces of melon peel and fed the lamb with them. I was expecting to see the common features of the Islamic court, not a judge in pyjamas with his trousers rolled up to his knees playing nursemaid to a lamb.

‘The recorder told me to take a seat, one of several in the middle of the floor which faced the judge and the recorder. I took a seat and as soon as I sat down the court recorder started to read out the charges made against me by the interrogators: “Armed uprising against the Islamic state. Composing poetry of an anti-Islamic nature. Inciting the community and
school-children
to oppose the Islamic regime. Reading and distributing anti-Islamic government propaganda.”

‘As I was listening to this list of fabrications and falsehoods, the judge interrupted. “Are you Harir? You should have been put in front of the firing squad the last time that you were here! Go to Hell!”’ He didn’t take his eyes off the lamb as he spoke, stroking its haunches and feeding it from the palm of his hand. Upon his curt dismissal, the court recorder dragged me out of the room and handed me back to the guards who had driven me from prison that morning.

‘Back in the jail, I was taken from a solitary cell to a normal block, occupied by many women inmates. I thought that I would definitely be set free, that the judge had exonerated me – in his own peculiar way – as there was no incriminating evidence against me whatsoever. Only my brother had been an active supporter of one of the opposition groups, Komoleh.

‘Five days later, a guard came to see me and told me again to collect my plastic bag of possessions and follow him. Again I was taken from the prison to the old police headquarters building. This time I thought that I would be set free. There, they made me sign a piece of paper acknowledging the final judgement on my case. I was so excited that I could hardly stop myself from weeping with joy and relief.

‘Just as I picked up the pen to sign the document, I saw that, to my horror, it was not one for my release, but for imprisonment for eight more years. I refused to sign, but the guards told me that if I did not then the judge could easily get angry and change his decision from eight years to life. Reluctantly, sobbing away, I signed the wretched document.’ 

I
n mid-1990 a thaw began. We were allowed family visits in Gohardasht. Restrictions on books and other literature were relaxed. Medical treatment was made more readily available. And forced communal prayer was abandoned. Around 200 prisoners who had completed their sentences but had refused to make televised confessions were finally paroled, often up to five years after their proper release date. Another 500 prisoners received pardons. Others, many of whom had spent eight to ten years in jail, were given leave of absence for a month or so, to stay with their families. I was one of these.

My family had been campaigning hard for my release, going from one government agency and department to the next to put my case. One mullah asked for one million Touman (about
£
90,000) for my freedom. My wife and father talked to me about this on a prison visit but I made it clear that this was unacceptable, even if the cash could be raised. But to discuss this, we had to resort to gestures and allusions because we were separated by
screens in the visiting area. If someone from the prison authorities found out that someone else from another department was going to get his palm greased, then they would blow the whistle – not out of any honest reaction to corruption, but from pique that someone else was making money and not them.

Eventually, a prison middle man managed to extort 200,000 Touman from a cousin of mine who was naive enough to take his vague promises of release as good coin. He’d been had, as my name was already listed for a month’s home leave.

Brought before Haji Nasirian in his office in late 1990, I was told that the arrangement was my family had provided the deeds to a cousin’s house as security against me fleeing the country once outside the prison gates. Thoughts flooded into my head, but one raged through like a torrent, sweeping all else aside: Once I’m out, I’m never going back! How do I do it? How do I get out and stay out?’ I wasn’t going to be satisfied by a peek under the blindfold at freedom. I was determined that the blindfold was going to come off for good.

Two years earlier, I would not have accepted such a compromise. But the massacres had made it plain that we were not only prisoners, but hostages. The regime would not hesitate to kill every one of us whenever it considered it expedient. Momentarily, they had left the door ajar. We needed to push it and run before it slammed shut forever.

This had to be done without a compromise of principle. Freedom at the expense of a confession, of a renunciation of beliefs, or of disclosing the names of others would have been too high a price. But, just for the moment, it was possible to walk through the jail’s heavy iron gates without such a toll being demanded.

About half the 200 men on my block had already visited their families and returned. They were eagerly quizzed about their impressions. The answers seemed encouraging: the prisoners had been well received, even welcomed, by those outside. This was
in contrast to the early 1980s, when there was no wide support for the opposition and neighbours who you had known for years would inform on you to the Islamic committees. This identification with the regime had evaporated, leaving behind sullen resentment of it, and an increasingly open respect for those who had fought back and paid the price.

About a week after my interview with Haji Nasirian, I was called to a visit from my family at about 10am, along with the other nine men in my visiting batch. My family had been waiting at the prison since 5am, filling in forms and the like, as had many other families on this standard visiting day. Most families wanted to get in and out of the prison as swiftly as possible. Visits were often harrowing experiences, and Evin wasn’t a place you wanted to hang around.

In the visitors’ waiting room, women hugging framed photographs of their sons and daughters to their chest under their chador showed these pictures to other families, explaining that this loved one had been shot or hanged. They were there to find out where the bodies of their murdered kin had been hidden. Macabre though this was, it was the main way information about the massacre spread, helping families to gauge its extent.

As usual, I was taken through the prison, but instead of going to a visiting booth, I was led to the main office. I had no idea what was happening, but dared not ask my guards.

Before me stood a prison official. ‘Your family is here to take you home for your month’s visit. Remember, we will be watching you constantly – whatever you do, wherever you go. Whether or not you will be released hinges on how you behave.’

No one had referred to my release since my interview with Haji Naserian, and no prospective date given at the time. The idea was to catch each prisoner unawares, so no arrangements could be made between prisoners. This meant that I was not primed with messages from cellmates for those outside.

The official motioned a guard to take me to an adjoining room. My clothes, shoes and body were searched for messages. I was led out into the courtyard, and sat in the back of a Jeep, with one armed guard next to me. I remained blindfolded.

The guard beside me asked, ‘How do you feel now? You were very sick last time I saw you.’

‘I’m still not well,’ I replied, ‘Maybe I can get some medical treatment while I’m on leave. But where do you know me from?’ He said he recognised me from a particularly brutal beating I received in the ‘jogging protest’ at Gohardasht. By this time we were almost at the big main gate. The guards at the security post checked my papers and removed my blindfold.

The gates swung open with the screech of iron on iron and the hum of electrical motors. Before me stood my wife, three sisters and father, bathed in the early afternoon of a bright sunny day. You have no idea what a beautiful sight that is.

Upon seeing me one of my sisters fainted. We had to carry her 250 metres across waste ground to where the rest of my family waited: about 20 of them, with several cars and a minibus. With them waited many friends I had not seen for long, long years. None of this seemed real. I had not seen a world without walls for so long that it now seemed strange and wonderful beyond belief. I was surrounded by sun, sky, family and friends. I could see children returning from school; experiences I had been robbed of for years.

It was odd. I was having difficulty walking, not just because I was so weak, though that was true, but because I had been confined for so long that, out in the open, I just couldn’t get my bearings. There was no wall before me to adjust my perspective to. Gloriously disorientated, feeling a sense of agoraphobia, I reeled around like a drunkard. Friends clasped me from either side and steered me towards our transport. We clambered joyously into the vehicles: me in the back of a car, along with my wife.

On arriving home, the celebrations began. The family had splashed out on a live lamb, which was ceremonially slaughtered and cooked. This is a traditional form of welcome. Beasts as large as camels are sometimes bought live and feasted on in this way – though we wouldn’t have got one in our oven. The lamb was divided up, making sure that those neighbours hardest hit by the times got their share first. The party got into full swing. Groups of two, four, ten friends arrived in a steady stream, bearing flowers, cakes and drinks. My oldest daughter made sure that everyone was made welcome.

As people finished eating, I unconsciously went straight into my prison routine. I went around the house picking up dishes. In automatic pilot, as the partygoers looked on curiously, I carried the stack of crockery into kitchen and began washing up. My eldest daughter followed on my heels.

‘Dad, what are you doing? Stop and go back into the party. Please!’

I insisted that I was going to do the dishes, that I felt guilty about leaving them around. Male friends of the family who had followed me in were horrified: it just isn’t done for a man to do such jobs in Iran. ‘For God’s sake stop! If you carry on like this, you’ll have our wives expecting us to wash up too!’

But the more they pleaded, the more I dug my heels in.

Doubt was nagging at me as I milled around the party. As the night drew on and people left I became more jittery. Why? Ten years of bromide, beatings and isolation are not good for a man. ‘I hope my wife won’t be disappointed with me’ I thought, ‘There’s no way I’m going to be able to perform as expected of a husband – especially after an absence of ten years.’

I was anxious about what sort of relationship would be possible with my children. They had grown up without me. I watched them throughout the night: they seemed like strangers. My 14-year-old girl was now a woman. My daughter was a teenager. And my son was now a gangly 13-year-old, as tall as
his father. How was it possible, given all this time and all that the whole family had been through, for me to take up the mantle of father?

That night, I dreamed I was still in prison. I was hiding in my cell and the guards were looking for me. I was in for a beating. I was shaken awake by my wife, horrified at the way I thrashed about and screamed in my sleep. It was as if my subconscious refused to accept that I really was free.

Every night, I would stay up while the family slept, hunched over the radio. I moved the dial over from World Service, Voice of America and Radio Moscow to the underground Iranian opposition stations and back again. I absorbed news like a sponge.

My difficulty with being outdoors persisted. The blue dome of the sky wheeled and lurched every time I poked my head outdoors as if I was drunk. I couldn’t judge perspective, distances or speeds. Crossing the road seemed more hazardous for me than for a hedgehog. I couldn’t judge the speed of approaching cars. Had I not been constantly watched and helped by patient family and friends, I would surely have bounced off someone’s front bumper. Indeed, one time I was knocked to the ground as I stepped into the path of a moving vehicle. Fortunately I was only grazed and bruised. Better still, the concerned driver was behind the wheel of an ambulance.

For two weeks people came visiting: friends and relatives from the provinces, even Islamic associates of my father came with flowers. How things had changed since my arrest, when no one in the family dared to say that I had been arrested for fear of reprisals.

I saw a series of medical specialists, who examined each of my many ailments. After ten years of harsh jail life, this meant a considerable number of doctors. The gratifying thing was knowing that each one had pushed me up their long waiting lists as soon as they found out I was being temporarily released, and what my condition was. Some had year-long
queues. Perhaps more surprisingly they refused to accept a fee – this at a time in Iran when money was the determining factor in relationships.

My pleasure wasn’t entirely personal. It was inspiring to know that those of us who had held out against the regime in prison had not been forgotten, but had won respect and admiration. The welcome seemed to validate our whole struggle.

But I constantly reminded myself of the need to be watchful. I had to be very circumspect on the phone or in gatherings. All the people I spoke to I trusted, but words filter through. I also needed to prepare to leave the country. This needed careful planning, and from the second week onwards I devoted all my time to preparations.

Using the pretext of medical treatment, I called a halt to social visits. In Iran the tradition is that if someone visits you, you repay them with a return visit. If I’d done that, I would have been too busy seeing family and friends to even think of skipping the country. My excuses made, I established contact with comrades in my organisation.

I explained the urgency of getting out of the country. Messages were left for me with a third person, so that there would be no direct link with our house, which was undoubtedly being watched. In this way, I got details of when and where to meet someone who would take me the 1,000 or so kilometres from Tehran to a town on the Turkish border, and from there over into Turkey. I arranged to meet him in the border town itself, so minimising my contact with others, who might have to face heavy flack once I was safely away.

No one else knew about these plans, not even my wife. I could not afford to have anyone give anything away, by even so much as a change in behaviour, that might provoke suspicion.

I had already asked a relative to let us borrow a car for day trips to visit provincial branches of the family. A sister lived halfway between Tehran and the border, and this was our
ostensible weekend destination. As we loaded our things into the car for a supposed two-day trip, my family didn’t know that this was not the final destination.

We arrived at her house at about 10pm, where we spent two or three hours with her family. At about 2am, I announced we were leaving for a wedding the next morning, between 400 and 500 kilometres further on – and conveniently near the border. Our car left, with a male friend driving, two sisters, two small children, my wife and myself – a natural-looking family outing, even if at an odd hour. I had grown a beard, my friend usually wore one and the women had covered their faces with all due propriety, so we even looked respectably Islamic.

It was not the best time to travel. Iran today is like a garrison. As you travel through it, you come across countless checkpoints along the road. Most are manned by Basij, the youth wing of the Islamic Guard. Some are in dugouts with the guard sitting behind a heavy machine gun, finger on the trigger, as if they are expecting the entire tank battalions of Iraq to come rumbling along their little country road, rather than just the casual traveller. After dark, such military readiness intensifies.

We were stopped leaving the city where my sister lived, waved down at a guards’ kiosk at the roadside. A sandbag wall ran in front of it, over which poked the threatening muzzle of a heavy automatic. Three or four young khaki-clad men kept the gun company in its sandbag nest. Out came another guard, with a pistol at his side. He ordered our driver out of the car, asked to see identification, and then walked to the back of the car with him, to go through the boot. Satisfied that our family car was not the advanced guard of an Iraqi invasion, we were ordered on our way.