A State of Fear (9 page)

This purging of opposition had been particularly intense between the summer of 1981 to the end of 1982, when the Islamic regime legitimised itself by ratifying its constitution in the Majles Khebragan (Parliament of Islamic Experts). It tried to eradicate the class struggle in the cities, factories and countryside, reversing the peasants’ seizure of land in Kurdistan, Baluchistan and Turkmenistan. All forms of working class organisation, including the workers’ councils and peasants’ councils, were viciously attacked by Islamic guards who carried a gun in one hand and the Koran in the other. Khomeini was intent on consolidating power. One such attack was organised in December 1981 against striking workers at the Iran National car assembly plant. Some 176 of the striking workers were arrested. A number of them were taken to Evin and put in front of the firing squad. Many revolutionaries were dragged out of factories, offices, schools and universities and killed on the spot, or beaten and then taken half dead to prisons, which ranged from government warehouses to unknown underground depots.

The clergy were planning to establish a reign of terror – the absolute rule of the religious authorities. And at the top sat Khomeini.

A
middle-aged prisoner named Parvis was a professional artist with left sympathies. He would take the trouble to speak to most prisoners who were considered to be part of the opposition and he was scrupulously polite. He was even courteous to the Tavabs, though cautious of them too.

During his torture, his interrogators learned of his artistic ability and in particular his painting skills. Parvis negotiated his way out of a quick execution by offering his services to ‘the Imam's great revolution'. He agreed to paint a huge portrait of Khomeini in preparation for the anniversary of the Islamic seizure of power.

The portrait was to be a massive one, around three metres wide and six metres high. A thick, wooden frame would be built for it. It would be one of the centrepieces of the celebrations. It would be paraded all around the centre of Tehran and would be seen by hundreds of thousands of people: a great icon of Khomeini.

And so, the prison authorities rounded up the necessary materials so that Parvis could commence his great opus. Seemingly no expense was spared for this endeavour. First, a huge canvas was ordered, then paints, brushes and mixing pots. This project was seen as a great propaganda coup for the prison authorities. Khomeini often proclaimed the prisons in general and Evin in particular as the ‘universities of Islam'. The production of this picture would help the regime disseminate the myth that, in fact, the prisons did ‘cleanse' the opponents of Islam, rather than just physically eliminate them.

Parvis was given a large room in the block in which to produce this epic painting. Normally it would have held 60 or so prisoners, but for this project he had sole use of the room. It had even been cleaned spotlessly for him. The authorities kept it locked, but Parvis had his own key so no one else could get in.

Every morning at eight, Parvis would gather his paints and brushes and lock himself in the room for a 12-hour session at his canvas. Week after week, month after month this went on. After his ‘day at the office' he would lock up, return to his cell for a meal, roll a cigarette and talk to one or two prisoners. Some would ask what he was doing all day long. All he would say was that he was keeping himself busy painting.

After some six or seven weeks, one of the other prisoners managed to catch a glimpse of the inside of Parvis' ‘studio' as he locked up one night. All that was seen was the outline of a figure drawn roughly with charcoal. From then on, an attempt would be made to casually pass the door just as Parvis emerged each night. In this way, news emerged of the nature of his work.

Some prisoners took a rather dim view of the whole affair to start with; after all, would you have been happy knowing a grand portrait of the country's greatest hangman was being painted by one of your fellow inmates? So at the beginning he had quite some explaining to do, but after some weeks people
generally left him alone to get on with it, though some leftists would mutter to themselves about him, belittling his personal character and mettle in resisting the regime.

No one would say much openly. We were all aware of the pressure that the regime could exert if he refused point-blank to co-operate with them. In fact, after some time, a gentle air of respect arose for him as a recognition of Parvis's dedication to his task. It was clear that the scale of the painting was so vast that it would take him almost a year to complete. But some of the Mojahedin's sympathisers and some other leftists speculated that Parvis had become a Tavab. I was certain this was not the case. After all, the job of the Tavabs was not to lock themselves away from everyone else, but to keep an eye on as many prisoners as possible. After some time, this conception of Parvis lost its attraction and the notion was forgotten.

One of the prison officials, Haji Reza, a small man aged about 35, would be escorted by a couple of Islamic guards to view the work in progress. Their visits were frequent but irregular. They would chide Parvis over the amount of materials that he was using, his lack of progress, the slowness and wastage of materials. ‘You lazy bum!' they would shout at him. There was obviously some impatience developing – perhaps someone's promotion depended on the painting being completed quickly. Parvis would respond calmly each time, shrug his shoulders and laugh at them. ‘You're all so impatient – I'm not a magician, you know!' he would reply in a slightly mocking tone. So they would leave the chamber and he would return to his task.

By the 11th month, January, panic set in among the prison authorities. The celebrations were due in just one month's time, and there were great expectations for the painting. Poor Parvis worked like a dog for those last four weeks. He often would not leave the painting chamber until well past midnight, often 3am or later. He was under tremendous pressure.

Over these eleven months, I had often passed Parvis after his
sessions in the painting chamber and we had exchanged pleasantries, if not much more. But as the painting progressed, I got to speak to him more often. Personally, I would rather have done the painting than go to the firing squad, so I considered myself more on his side. Once or twice I relayed to him what was being said quietly behind his back, for which he was grateful. I must have gained a fair amount of his trust during these short exchanges because, on the day after he finally completed the painting, he came up to me.

‘Come with me', he beckoned, ‘I want to show you something'.

He took me to the door of the painting chamber and drew a long iron key from his pocket. He quickly unlocked the door to the room and motioned me to step inside. Then he closed the door and locked it behind me. Upon the wall I saw for the first time his huge portrait of Khomeini. ‘Take a very close look, my friend, and tell me what you see'.

I took a long hard look at the massive image of the face of the Imam.

‘The personification of our enemy!' I replied. These words alone could have got me instantly executed had I been overheard.

‘Yes, yes. Look again, closer this time – what do you see?' Parvis asked again. I looked again, closer this time, but I could not discern anything but the face.

‘All I can see is a huge Imam Khomeini, but with pursed lips – why are they like that?'

‘Listen to me, I will tell you what I have painted in this huge portrait,' Parvis said. ‘Look at the face – concentrate on the mouth, the nose, the two eyes, the brows and the forehead. Oh yes, and the beard, don't forget the beard!' Parvis' eyes had lit up by this time.

‘I still don't see anything special, Parvis. What have you painted? What are you trying to say with this painting?'

‘Listen, and look carefully. I have painted a portrait of Khomeini that will not only outlive Khomeini himself, but will also outlive this miserable Islamic regime! I'm not joking – this picture will see off the mullahs and will see their overthrow by the people. Then this painting will be viewed by very many people as a symbol of prison resistance to this regime.'

‘Do you mean to say that you believe people will still want to look at a portrait of Khomeini even after the mullahs have been done away with? Surely not!'

‘Yes comrade. This portrait will find itself a nice, quiet resting place in a gallery somewhere where art lovers and ordinary people will view it every day, after the fall of the Islamic regime.'

‘I can't quite understand why this would be the case', I replied.

Parvis then said to me, rather more quietly than before, ‘The facial features, you see them, yes? Look, I have painted a woman's genitalia, not Khomeini's features! You see? You see? His mouth is her vagina, the nose signifies the clitoris, the beard and eyebrows the hair and his forehead is the belly! Surely now you see? What I am saying in this picture is this: these mullahs, so sanctimonious, they represent the most depraved creatures imaginable. Yet they're so hung up, they're shocked by a woman's hair! I am showing their hypocrisy in this painting so that all can see! They're so obsessed with sex, they only see women as a sexual organ.'

‘Yes, now I see it, Parvis. How did you paint this, though?'

‘They forced me to paint this man, but I have added my own touch to it!'

Parvis's painting illustrated something most profound about the contradictory situation we found ourselves in. Firstly, there was the immense pressure from the interrogators, torturers and the guards to submit totally. Then there was the pressure within one's own self to resist, the basic, human instinct to survive as well as the drive to protect our own integrity. Then there was
the expectation among prison colleagues not to succumb. Added to that was the expectation of colleagues outside of the prison that we would not ‘go under' politically. All of these pressures manifested themselves in the way that each prisoner resisted and survived, in the routines that he devised and in the day to day battles he fought with himself and his surroundings. Parvis's painting was his own, unique expression of defiance and resistance to the prison regime in Evin. It was not only a depiction of Khomeini but was also a judgement on the Islamic republic itself.

T
he guard was holding a piece of paper in his hand. I caught my breath and my heart sped. Guards carrying pieces of paper never brought good news. The paper would have a list of names handwritten on it. There were four possible fates for prisoners on these lists; execution, trial, removal for torture in block 209 or a transfer. It was 6am and everything pointed to it not being a good day.

For three years I had been in cells where guards had entered with such lists in their hands. I had seen many comrades and prisoners whose names had been on one of these lists leave, never to return. The guards would often come back for their belongings: a signal to us that they had been executed.

Hasan Ardin – who used to run Rahe Kargar’s underground printshop before his arrest – was called from among us one day. He knew he would not be coming back. Calmly turning to me, he took off his glasses and held them out: ‘Give these to my children, if you can. Tell them their father always stood
firm.’ I kept these glasses with me for years, from block to block, and one prison to another. Almost five years later, I sent them back to his family through a prisoner I trusted who was due for release.

The guard standing at the cell door started to call out the names on the list. He read out 15 names very quickly, mine was eighth. ‘Pack up your stuff! Do not forget your blindfold! Leave the cell within five minutes’

What will happen to me next? I thought. Will it be the firing squad, another visit to 209, or a transfer? Please let it just be a transfer! Within this cell, 25 inmates will remain. I have less than five minutes to pack my things and say my farewells to them. Either I will be executed and I will never see any of them again, or they will have been executed themselves if ever I return.’

Panic prevented me from thinking clearly. Although I had become accustomed to the minute-to-minute unpredictability of prison life and had heard my name read out many times before, it was not possible to face this moment calmly. I embraced and said goodbye to all of the remaining prisoners except the two Tavabs, to whom I merely nodded.

The guard returned, opened the cell door and shouted, ‘Out, get out now! Put your blindfolds on and get out!’ Each of us pulled the blindfold over his eyes. We lined up in single file and were told to place our right hand on the shoulder of the person in front of us. The prisoner at the head of this line was led by the guard’s stick. We filed out of the cell behind him, into the corridor and out through the iron door that led down a flight of stairs and into the prison yard. I sensed that we were walking towards a wall that ran to the left of the door that we had just emerged from. We were ordered to stop walking at this point. The guard then prodded each prisoner with his stick, urging us all to stand one metre apart from each other He turned us to face the wall and sat us down. I could just see the wall about 30 centimetres from my feet out of the bottom of my blindfold. He
shouted again, ‘Do not move your heads. Do not touch the blindfold! Don’t talk to one another!’

This is not the procedure for executions, I thought to myself. And it’s not the way to 209. So there must be something else in store for us – perhaps we will be transferred to some other prison. Panic ebbed away, and my thoughts moved to trying to work out what might happen next. I could sense the movements of the guard as he walked up and down behind the line of seated prisoners. As he moved away, towards one or other end of the line, I started to speak very quietly to myself so that the prisoners each side of me would be able to hear but the guard would not see any movement. I tried to convey my conclusions as to our fate. Others agreed under their breath. They also thought we might be transferred from Evin but they were cautious: it was not impossible that some prison official could change his mind.

For five hours we sat there, blindfolded, facing this wall. Anyone who moved or fidgeted was struck on the head by the guard’s stick or kicked at the base of the spine. Another guard arrived who stood us all up and led us out of the yard on to one of the roads within the prison compound. A bus waited, its engine idling. As I boarded the bus, I raised my head slightly so that I could see if any other prisoners were already there. It was already almost half-full. There were four armed guards, one at the very back of the vehicle, one at the front and two towards the middle. Each one held a Kalashnikov pointed at the floor, but ready to be used in an instant. We filed into the bus, sitting on the two-seater benches. A further group of prisoners was led in after us. Now the bus was completely full. A guard ordered us to draw all of the curtains on the windows. Although we were still blindfolded, they did not want anyone outside to see us. The curtains did not completely cover the side windows so it was possible to catch a glimpse of what was going on outside. I could also see out of the front window by tipping my head back, pretending to sleep.

I remember feeling relieved, glad that I was leaving that place. Nothing can be as bad as what I’ve already been through, I thought; no more torture, no more interrogation. As we turned onto the main road, after leaving the long narrow track from Evin, from under my blindfold I could see young children walking home from school. Others were being driven by their parents in elegant Mercedes cars, while a few were being escorted by servants. Evin is situated in the northern part of Tehran. The houses there are owned, in the main, by the business associates of the regime, the clergy and prominent Hezbollahis. The Shah’s lackeys had lived here and their abandoned Beverly Hills-style villas were confiscated, and the allies of the mullahs moved in. Some cunning individuals had, however, managed to switch allegiance in order to retain their marble villas, swimming pools and landscaped gardens.

We passed the spectacular Tehran Hilton, now renamed the Freedom Hotel by the mullahs and through Evin district’s construction sites. Building workers passed by. In their hands they carried their meagre lunches, a loaf of bread and a soft drink, some also a half melon. The lowest paid section of the workforce, the most destitute peasants driven from the country into the towns, they sat down to consume their pitiful meal in the marble palaces. Their wage would have been less than
£
1 a day. One of those villas would have cost millions. Evin – the richest, the poorest and the most repressive elements of Iranian society, all in four square miles!

I strained to see how the real world outside the prison walls looked and worked. My first impression was of beggars, aged from three or four right up to over 70. They operated in groups of between five to 15. They would run to cars and vans stopped at traffic lights and plead for money or wipe the windscreens in the hope of a few Rials. Obviously the economic situation had worsened markedly for such poverty to be displayed so openly on the streets.

I could also see portable monuments to those killed in the war. These were erected on the pavement outside people’s houses and trundled from one place to the next once a week. They were hollow wooden or steel structures, four feet in diameter and about five feet high, with a chandelier and lights hanging inside them. They bore pictures and inscriptions in gold letters: ‘This is our fallen blossom, offered to our great leader Imam Khomeini’. There were an amazing number: down some small alleys you could hardly move for them. The monument would be hired from crooks in the bazaar for a fortnight at a time.

At the start of the Iraq war, the Islamic government paid for the costs of the funerals of those who fell on the battlefield for ‘the cause of the Imam’. Each family would also receive a payment of 200,000 Touman (around $8,000 in 1981, dropping to about $2,000 at the end of the war because of the falling exchange rate). In the countryside, where the annual family income for many peasants might be less than 10,000 Touman, this seemed like a gift from God. The ‘martyrs’ were given a key to heaven, and their families access to cheap goods and a higher status. For some, it seemed a fair trade. The government was printing money to keep up with these payments, but it was necessary as a part of the war propaganda machine.

As the bus drove through Tehran I could see graffiti on the walls. Some was from before the revolution and was familiar. But many of those old slogans had been whitewashed or partly covered with paint. There were still inscriptions, political slogans, the insignia of the various opposition and left-wing organisations, but these had not been painted recently, though. I could just about see the remnants of some of the large but faded May Day slogans dating back to 1979-81: ‘Long live May Day – International Workers’ Day!’, ‘All power to the shoras!’, ‘For workers’ control of the factories!’, ‘Long live proletarian internationalism’. There seemed to be no new graffiti by the opposition. They had been driven off the streets.

There were, however, areas with freshly painted slogans. The Tudeh Party and the Fedayeen Majority, who supported the Islamic regime, were still allowed to paint their slogans on the walls: ‘Place heavy guns in the hands of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards!’, ‘Support the war effort!’ and ‘Khomeini’s anti-imperialist line is the path to revolution!’

We joined the motorway that took us out of Tehran west towards the city of Karaj, 40 kilometres away. On each side of the road were endless large industrial complexes. I looked for left-wing graffiti on the factory walls. During the revolutionary period and immediately afterwards, left-wing organisations had tried to gain influence amongst the factory workers in this area but had not been very successful. Division among the left, their inability to establish a foothold within the factories, the presence of the Islamic shoras and associations and the strong presence of the Islamic Guards within these plants had ensured that their influence was negligible. These factory walls had been absolutely covered with graffiti and slogans, dating from the time of the Shah’s white ‘revolution’ in 1960-3, throughout the 1970s, the revolution of 1979 which deposed him and up to the present day. Most of it was no longer legible – unlike the slogans in support of the Islamic regime. I saw ‘The revolution was not for watermelons – economics is for the donkeys: Imam Khomeini’, ‘God himself is a worker – he takes no time off, he works all day, every day – he needs no May Day!: Imam Khomeini, 1 May, 1981’, ‘Death to communists and the hypocrites!’. Slogans such as theses were daubed in large bold letters through the streets. The regime had worked all out to direct their propaganda specifically at industrial workers to counter that of the
left-wing
organisations.

Once we were on the road to Karaj I calculated that there were two possible destinations and once we passed the Gohardasht jail I knew it had to be the prison they called the Golden Fortress (Ghezel Hesar). This was on the outskirts of
Karaj, around 25 miles from Tehran. Like the other prisons I had been held in, the Golden Fortress was built during the Shah’s regime, and had held many political prisoners – not a few of whom went back into jail under Khomeini.

The complex rose out of the barren plain as our bus rattled its way towards it. Putting my head back, feigning sleep, I watched my destination loom larger and larger still from under my blindfold, until its dark grey mass towered over our little bus. Thick concrete walls of up to 12 metres rose vertically up from the dusty earth. Each one sprouted barbed wire from the top.

The Golden Fortress sprawls over a vast flat wasteland. There is no chance of escape: The guard towers rise up like huge forbidding minarets, giving an uninterrupted view for miles all around. There is not even so much as a bush to hide behind on the plain. The electrified, powered gates were opened – sometimes prisoners’ relatives were crushed when these gates were deliberately closed on them.

A number of armed guards marched over to our bus as it came to a halt. They boarded and spoke to the guards from Evin, who handed over the paperwork. The new guards quickly counted how many of us there were to ensure no one had managed to get off on the way. The bus started up again. We drove for about one kilometre through this grey, soulless complex. Then the bus stopped abruptly. A second set of guards led us into the main building of the prison. Our ‘guides’ from Evin went to a rest area where they could eat before shuttling a group of prisoners back to Evin.

There was to be no relaxation and food for us. We were pushed down so that we were all sitting on the floor, still blindfolded, facing the wall in the reception area of the main building. Guards were running back and forth with sticks in their hands to ensure no one spoke to anyone else, or passed on any information. Some prisoners I travelled with were sick and they complained to the guards; they asked for some scraps of
bread as none of us had yet eaten – without any success. Others were in dire need to go to a lavatory and had to beg the guards to take them. Reluctantly, they were accompanied one by one for no more than a couple of minutes each.

Around 5pm, after we had been sitting on this hard floor for almost four hours, a guard gave each prisoner one piece of bread and a slice of cheese. A stream of curses, growing progressively louder, broke the silence. Someone was coming – someone none too sweet-tempered and big. The noise of his army boots on the concrete floor of the corridor seemed like an elephant! The thumping stopped as the cursing hit full volume. The owner of the boots and voice was in the hall with us, and it was obvious that we were the object of his cursing.

‘Watch out, it’s Haji Davoud!’ whispered a prisoner.

‘Hypocrites, atheists, socialists and communists’, his deep voice boomed around the hall, ‘You are in the Golden Fortress. Here we break your bones in quarantine! If you do not repent we will break your souls and your spirit to doomsday! In the unlikely event that you survive this, we put you in front of the firing squad! Only total surrender, full conversion to Islam and becoming a Tavab can possibly save your souls. Welcome to the Golden Fortress!’ This was to be no convalescence after my ordeal at Evin and the Komiteh. ‘Who wants to become a Tavab and save his soul? Stand up if you wish to spare yourselves!’