Authors: Dr Reza Ghaffari
A State of Fear (31 page)
U
nfortunately Dr. Ghaffari’s amazing escape to the UK was no immediate cause for celebration because his wife, who was still in Tehran, had no idea where her husband was and his children had lost their father.
‘The night before I decided to leave I told my wife I was going but not where I was going,’ he explains. ‘She had no idea. But still I pleaded with her not to tell anyone else, none of the family or friends, no one. I feared if anyone else knew pressure could be put on them. This way my wife could honestly say she had never been involved in any of my political activities and now I was gone she did not know where I was.’
Dr. Ghaffari had already been to court and given over everything to his wife so the Islamic Regime could not get their hands on his apartment in Tehran when he disappeared. Before leaving he kissed his children and told them to be good and said he was going to visit their aunt who lived in a town near Tabriz. In fact he did contact his sister, but it was not until a week after
he arrived in the UK. He phoned her and told her to get in touch with his wife, tell her the news that he was in the UK, and ask the family to prepare to leave for Turkey immediately because at the time no visas were needed to pass across the border with Iran and Turkey.
When his wife and children arrived in the Turkish capital Ankara they had little money but stayed with ‘comrades’ of Dr. Ghaffari who also had relations in prison in Iran. Although there was 10 to 15 people living in two rooms his wife and children were relatively safe. It was cold that winter but they stayed there for three months.
‘I didn’t know exactly where they were,’ he says. ‘But they were in a safe place and that’s when I contacted Amnesty International in London.’
Amnesty International knew immediately who Dr. Ghaffari was because he was listed as a prisoner of conscience and a person whose life was in danger. They quickly contacted the Home Office to help sort out Dr. Ghaffari’s legal status in the UK. Once that was completed and his family’s whereabouts established it took about a month for Amnesty International to send airline tickets to his wife and children in Ankara so they could all be re-united in London.
Dr. Ghaffari still lives in London with his wife. Two of his children are also in the UK with his eldest daughter living in Sweden.
The tortures and beatings that Dr. Ghaffari suffered during his years of incarceration have left a toll on his health. He has a broken back and suffers from the neurological disorder Huntington’s Disease. He has to go to hospital every month and is treated as an in-patient about every six months.
But he is unswervingly grateful to the British people. He says: ‘I would like to thank everyone including your wonderful health service for everything you have done for me and my family.’
Baha’ists:
religious followers of Baha’u’llah whom they believe is a messenger from God similar to Abraham, Zoroaster, Moses, Buddha, Jesus and Muhammed.
Bazaari:
name given to merchants and workers in bazaars, the traditional marketplaces of Iran.
Chador:
an open cloak worn as an outer garment by Iranian women and female teenagers with a head hole at the top. It is tossed over the head and then held closed in the front.
Evin:
a prison in north-western Tehran. Due to the number of intellectuals held there, it was nicknamed Evin University.
Fatwah:
a juristic ruling concerning Islamic law issued by an Islamic scholar. In popular terms it is seen to be a death sentence imposed upon a person. This is one possibility but is rarely used. It came to prominence over Salman Rushdie’s allegedly profane book
The Satanic Verses
.
Fedais:
non-disciplined guerrilla fighters, usually associated with opposition to the Islamic regime, but some supported Khomeini and fought on the side of the regime.
Fedayeen:
a Marxist-leaning activist group. Operating between 1971 and 1983, the Fedayeen carried out a number of political assassinations in the course of the struggle against the Shah, after which the group was suppressed. In 1979, the Iranian People’s Fedâi Guerrillas split from the Organization of Iranian People’s Fedaian (Majority).
Ghapani:
a form of torture in which victims are hung up like lamb carcasses.
Ghazvin:
at an altitude of 1800 metres and 165 kilometres north of Tehran, the climate is cold but dry. It is the capital and largest city of the Province of Qazvin and has a population approaching 500,000 people.
Ghezel Hesar:
Iran’s biggest prison and known as the ‘Golden Fortress’.
Iran-Iraq war:
it lasted from September 1980 to August 1988, making it the longest conventional war of the 20th century. It began with Iraq invading Iran and resulted in more than 500,000 deaths and many more injured. There was such
large-scale
trench warfare that it is often compared to World War I.
Gohardshast:
a prison 20 km west of Tehran, where there were systematic executions and interrogation of monarchists, students and Marxists after the 1979 revolution.
Hejab:
(or Hijab) refers to the head covering traditionally worn by Muslim women.
Hezbollahi:
members of the Party of God (Hezbollah), formed at the time of the 1979 Iranian revolution to assist Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and his forces in consolidating power.
Imam:
an Islamic leader for the Muslim community and often worship leader at a mosque.
Jandarma:
paramilitary force with responsibility for security throughout the countryside and specific border sectors.
Kilim:
flat tapestry-woven carpet or rug.
Komiteh Moshterak:
a security prison in Tehran, which literally means ‘joint committee’ first used by the Shah.
Majles:
Iranian Parliament or People’s House – national legislative body of Iran.
Mohareb:
perpetrator of a crime under Islamic law. Literally means ‘enemy of God’.
Pasdar:
a Revolutionary Guard (or Army of the Guardians of the Islamic Revolution to give them their correct title), belonging to a branch of Iran’s military founded after the Iranian revolution of 1979.
Peykar:
also known as the ‘Maxist Mojahedin’ and a splinter group of the People’s Mujahedin of Iran (PMol). Founded in 1975, by the mid-Eighties it was no longer considered active.
Rahe Kargar:
a Marxist Iranian political organisation founded in 1980 calling for social justice, human rights and revolution in Iran.
SAVAK:
the secret police, domestic security and intelligence service established by Shah Reza Mohammed on the recommendation of the British Government. It lasted from 1957 until the Pahlavi dynasty overthrow of 1979.
Shoras:
workers’ councils.
Tavabiat:
system of using ‘tavabs’ or collaborators to spy and report on prisoners in jail.
Tudeh:
an Iranian communist party formed in 1941. It still exists in a much weakened form because it was banned following mass arrests by the Islamic regime in 1982 and mass executions in 1988.
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First published in hardback in 2012
ISBN: 978–1–84358–396–7
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