A State of Fear

by Dr Reza Ghaffari

  We heard that the Mojahedin prisoners were buoyant, believing that their advancing forces would soon take Tehran and release them. Their leaders told them to pack up their things, and wait for the prison doors to swing open.

  Then suddenly the prison was hit by an Iraqi Scud missile. It came screaming out of a quiet night. Part of the prison’s west wing was destroyed and several prison guards were killed. The force of the blast left hardly a single window intact. Many of us were cut by the flying glass. Prisoners were picked up and thrown against the opposite wall of their cells by the impact. We didn’t know what the hell was going on – it felt like the end of the world. Shock and panic exploded immediately after the impact. The insane howled, screamed and cried from their cells.

  When we’d picked ourselves up and assessed what had happened, we took the view that Khomeini didn’t have long left if the Iraqis were this close. It all contributed to the growing uncertainty in the jail. At a time when tension was high, the rocket blast acted as an additional force to push many prisoners over the edge.

  Stress built up like steam in a piston. By the second month of quarantine, we were conscious of new developments in adjoining blocks. Normally at night we were aware of prisoners moving around in nearby blocks as their bodies broke the light from their cells as they walked. Then the frequency of this decreased, then stopped. Now no one obstructed the light opposite us. Then the lights went out permanently. Each of these blocks had held more than 200 Mojahedin. Now they were empty.

  Information filtered through from other blocks that the same thing was happening in their line of sight. Either they had been moved to other prisons, or… we dared not think.

  Some of us decided to buttonhole prison officials to find out what was going on. Of course, we knew the officials wouldn’t tell us what was really happening, but we might be able to read between the lines in a face-to-face meeting. We needed to glean some idea of what was going on in their minds. What was in store for us?

  Information was at a premium and had never been so scarce. It was necessary to have mass support if we were to take even one step forward. There was no chance of success for individual protest action. But some on our block were reluctant to take on the officials. Those on the right were opposed to any action in principle. On the left, others urged patience because of the unknown circumstances. We were groping forward, blind.

  I went from cell to cell rallying support for our proposed course of action. We were in a total blockade. The withholding of medicines put many of our lives in danger. We had the right to know why this was happening, and how long we would be held in isolation. What new crime had we committed to merit such treatment?

  After a week of extensive discussion most cells had convinced themselves that unified action was the right response. Eighty out of 120 people on our block agreed to this course of action. Next morning, we asked those who supported us to gather at the door of the block. The guard came in response to our drumming on the door, and we demanded to see a prison official. He left and we remained by the door. After standing there for about an hour, we started knocking on the door again. The guard returned, cursing us, and pulled me and three others through the door.

  ‘Stay there!’ he ordered us, ‘I’ll bring someone down to talk to you.’

  We were blindfolded and each of us was stood in one corner of the corridor facing the wall. We stood there for two more hours before anyone came back. A low-ranking official with whom we were familiar came and told us to turn round and tell him what we had on our minds.

  I said, ‘I’ve been asked to tell you that many prisoners want to know why we are in quarantine. How long will it last?’

  ‘The decision has been made at a level above prison management’, he told us. ‘We don’t have to explain their reasons to you. And there is no way we can know when this emergency will end. By now you should have learned that in Islamic prison no one has the right to speak for anyone else.’

  ‘Speaking only for myself, then,’ I responded, ‘I need medical attention. Without the medicine that my family brings me every month, my life is in jeopardy. Doesn’t that give me the right to question why you are cutting off our essential supplies?’

  ‘Dead or alive, you’ll stay in this condition as long as you’re told to! We’re losing thousands of young Pasdars at the front – do you really think we give a toss if thousands of you drop dead in the meantime? You’re lucky to be alive at all. Go! We don’t want to hear you whining again.’

  One of my fellow negotiators attempted to argue with him. The official ignored him, instead turning to the guard and telling him, ‘Put each one of them in a solitary cell.’ He turned on his heel and left.

  We were bundled off and, once in solitary, tried to communicate with one another and with other inmates in cells around us, using morse code. Someone tapped through that many prisoners had been hanged. I was reluctant to accept this, believing that it could be a rumour planted by the authorities – a scare story to demoralise and intimidate us.

  We were back in our block the next day. For reasons that became clear later, the authorities did not want to keep prisoners in that part of the jail because they were concerned about what we might hear.

  I prepared a balance sheet of prison resistance and what it had achieved in our block. We managed to get it to the comrades from our organisation in the block below. In particular, I pointed out our success in organising a united opposition to the prison regime, although at least 60 per cent of our block were considered passives. This spurred on resistance in the block below, which took the form of a limited hunger strike. Their key demand was for information about what was going on.

  Officials came to the block below a week after our protest. They had a list with the names of four prisoners, who were taken away. Two were members of Rahe Kargar – one named Hossein Hajimohsen, the other Ebrahim Najaran. The third was a Fedayeen Minority member, and the last was a Peykar supporter. They were put in solitary.

  News was coming in from other sources throughout the prison that thousands of Mojahedin prisoners had been hanged, and that hundreds from the left had met the same fate. Patchy though this information was, it was all pointing to the same thing: a mass execution of political prisoners.

  By covering and uncovering the iron blinds on the cell windows, we could send semaphore-style messages from block to block by night. In this way we received news about what was happening. Claims about the massacre spread in this way, but there was no way of confirming it, and we remained suspicious. Then more concrete evidence came in which dismayed us all. Three days after our four comrades were removed from the block below, we received this coded message, which was deciphered over three long nights.

  ‘I was taken out of block 8 with 24 other comrades. We were taken down to the main lobby. There we were seated on the floor, facing the wall. One by one, we were taken to a room. We were told this was an amnesty tribunal. Each one that entered, came out a few minutes later and was led to the end of the corridor, where there was a big iron door leading to the large auditorium. When it was my turn, the guard grabbed my wrist and took me in. I was directed to a chair, and was told to take off my blindfold. The Tribunal was composed of four mullahs, the head of prison security and the prison liaison officer, also a mullah. I was ordered to introduce myself. On hearing my name, they asked me the following questions:

  ‘“Are you a Muslim? Do you pray in prison? Why did you become a supporter of an ungodly organisation? Are you ready to condemn your past activity and the activities of all opposition organisations in a televised interview? What would be your response if you were asked to go to the front in the war against Iraq? Are you ready to co-operate with prison officials in identifying those inmates who oppose the Islamic government? Do you consider the Islamic regime an anti-imperialist government? If so, why?”

  ‘This took three minutes for them to ask and me to answer. All the while they swore that I was a hardcore activist, just trying to cover my true nature
. I was then cursed, kicked, pulled out of the room and directed towards the big iron door. Their parting shot was “Take him to the top floor”.

  ‘I joined a queue. More than 50 waited in line, blindfolded. An hour and more passed. Then a guard called out 25 names. All the while, I was trying to find out whether those around me had been given amnesty or were destined for the top floor. All I could tell was that the others in the queue had been asked the same questions as me, and we were all waiting as a consequence. Once more, a guard called out 25 more names, and the queue shuffled forward.

  ‘Now I was at the front of the line, right up against the iron door. It was covered in a thick carpet to muffle the sounds of what was happening inside. The whole area was dimmed, lit up only when the door opened to let guards in and out. I noticed that these guards looked different from the normal ones. They wore no uniforms, were bare-footed, with sleeves and trouser legs rolled up. They had shaved heads and thick beards. As they passed, they shouted Islamic slogans. Suspicious of this change of routine, I wanted to see inside when the guards passed, but did not want to attract any attention.

  ‘Eventually, the door opened enough for me to glimpse a pile of prison slippers, dumped like lorry-loads of potatoes. When the guard returned, I craned to look over his shoulder, as soon as his back was turned.

  ‘I saw 30 to 40 bodies hung by the neck from blue plastic cords looped from a horizontal iron bar above the stage area. They had been executed. I recognised Hossein Hajimohsen and Ibrahim Najaran, both from Rahe Kargar. Now I knew what being “taken to the top floor” meant.

  ‘Another hour passed. A guard came, and called out more names. Mine was first – but not quite. They got my first name wrong – Hossein, instead of Hassan. I stood and said: “Brother, my name is not Hossein, it is Hassan. There is a mistake, I should not be taken to the top floor. There is a Hossein, but with the same surname, in another block.”

  ‘He insisted I come with him. I tore off my blindfold and ran towards the tribunal door, chased by these new guards. I shouted as I ran, “I swear to God my name is not Hossein, I swear to god my name is not Hossein!” again and again.

  ‘By the time the guards got hold of me, I was already in the room, pleading my case before the tribunal. One of the mullahs fished out another file from the stack on the desk. After poring over it quickly, he told the guards to take me back to my block.

  ‘Judging by the mound of prison slippers I saw, they must have already killed thousands of our comrades.’

  This story was substantiated by other sources. Disbelief crumbled. We now knew what had happened to those in the empty blocks and what was likely to happen to us too.

  I have said that the Mojahedin were singled out first. It was a reality for them while it was still a rumour for us. When the survivors were moved from their now denuded and echoing blocks, I had a chance to talk to them.

  They had seen their comrades based in Iraq advancing following the announcement of the ceasefire, and seizing ground from the Pasdaran. Some families had told them that the regime was crumbling. All this had created a feeling of elation in the Mojahedin blocks. Some packed their belongings, ready to take the walk through the prison gates into the clear, free air. So when news came of an amnesty tribunal, they thought that they were virtually home and dry, already feeling clean civilian clothes on their backs, and decent food in their bellies. They could smell victory – could see the regime crumbling and knew it could only be a short time before Rajavi, their leader, shoved Khomeini into the gutter.

  Now, the Mojahedin leaders liked to keep their footsoldiers’ spirits up with such stories, but this time it seemed to be confirmed by the Tribunal, which started holding sessions from the end of July 1988. The first batches of prisoners that came before the tribunals were told by the chief judge that its purpose was to give them amnesty. We’re going home boys, we’re going home, they thought.

  Each man was asked, ‘What have you been accused of? What organisation do you belong to?’ Those that answered with the self-deriding ‘Monafegh’ – the regime’s term for the Mojahedin, meaning ‘fake Mojahed’ – were put in a forced labour block that they presumed to be a step nearer freedom. Those that stood straight, answering ‘Mojahed’, which means ‘soldier of God’, were sent to the top floor.

  The Mojahedin felt they had good reason to be optimistic. Although they had answered, ‘Monafegh’ many times before to such questions, some thought that they could now afford to hold their heads up. They were duped into putting their necks into the noose.

  After almost three weeks and nearly a thousand secret executions, the remaining Mojahedin began to realise what was happening. Guards appeared on the block, calling out men in batches, often as many as a hundred – none of whom would be seen again. Like us, they looked anxiously from their cell windows to see empty blocks. In discussion, they agreed to answer ‘Monafegh’ to the main question. But other questions followed: ‘Are you prepared to do a TV interview and sign a petition, denouncing the Mojahedin organisation?’ Those that said no joined the queue for the gallows.

  Later the Tribunal upped the stakes further, as Mojahedin members tried to twist and turn out of the hangman’s noose. Now the Tribunal asked, ‘Are you ready to co-operate with prison officials and give us the information you have about other prisoners?’ Those who agreed to do this were transferred to the blocks to be processed by the tribunal. Two of them were put in our block, but we were lucky enough to realise what was going on. The sudden introduction of two Mojahedin into a left-wing block was bound to ignite suspicion at this time of heightened fear and distrust.

  Towards the end of the slaughter of the Mojahedin, the Tribunal became more choosy about what ‘co-operation’ entailed: total support for the regime, blanket condemnation of the Mojahedin and all other opposition groups, signed petitions and televised interviews were not enough. Neither was a vague promise to inform on fellow prisoners. The Tribunal now demanded the names of five Intransigents if the man in front of them was not to dangle from a length of cable.

  The ‘lucky’ survivors from the Mojahedin blocks went to do forced labour. The other 80 per cent were hanged. It took the Tribunal a month to administer this ‘amnesty’ to about 1,500 men in Gohardasht. That’s before they started on the left wing.

  I had lived close to many Mojahedin during my years in jail. I was particularly concerned about those I knew. I asked about Habib, with whom I shared a cell in quarantine at the Golden Fortress. He had acute intestinal problems. Those who had been with him said he had been constantly warning, ‘We’re walking into the regime’s net. We’re being sliced through like a cucumber!’ When he went before the Tribunal, far down the line of the Mojahedin inquisitions, they didn’t bother to ask ‘Monafegh or Mojahed?’ but straight away demanded information about prison resistance. He refused to answer and went to the top floor.

  I asked about Karim, who had read a poem at the ceremony for Hasan Sedighri. Karim had been a Tavab years ago at Evin and the Golden Fortress. He had been tried early on, and answered ‘Mojahed’. He was executed. Some Mojahedin comrades I asked about did survive, thankfully. But they were the lucky few.

  Final confirmation that a massacre was taking place reached us from the ground floor of block 20, which faced onto a yard. From their window, they saw the coming and going of large refrigeration lorries, two or three at a time, day and night. Their curiosity heightened by the rumours, the men in the block posted a 24-hour watch. One day a lorry stopped within clear view. The back opened. It was loaded with large parcels. Guards jumped on top of the pile as similar parcels were passed up to add to the load. Each was wrapped in plastic sheeting, tied with twine at either end. From the unsteady way in which the guards found their footing on top of the load it was clear what was in the packages – bodies. There had been a constant movement of these meat-wagons to an unknown graveyard for at least two months.

  These mass graves are still being unearthed in south Tehran. Bodies were dumped int
o shallow trenches by the thousand and hastily covered. Heavy rain washed away parts of the thin topsoil, exposing the corpses to scavenging dogs. After one storm, the destitute shanty-town dwellers in the area saw hundreds of dogs helping themselves at one partly-exposed mass grave. News spread fast, and Islamic Guards moved in quickly to pile earth over the exposed trench. But the place was known, and the families of thousands butchered in the massacre still gather at the site on Fridays to mourn those taken from them, often bringing food to hand out in the shanty town. Every year in September there is a big commemoration here, at which those who lost their lives for their beliefs are remembered and celebrated.

  Tension increased to the edge of madness for many of us. The only ones not affected were those who had no sanity left to lose. Most of us thought about the barely conceivable situation obsessively, night and day. We would all have to go through these tribunals. How could we avoid putting our necks in the noose? How were we going to avoid this calamitous fate? Vigilance, and clinging to contact with other blocks like life itself – for that was what it meant – became the be-all and end-all of existence.

  One morning we sat up to find the block below us was now empty. We knew where they had gone. Some very dear comrades had been taken away.

  Long meetings were held about how to face the tribunal, what to say to it, how to survive it. We had relative freedom to associate within our own block at this time. The guards were mostly busy with their offensive, but we still had to watch out for anyone who might be listening and could pass on information about our discussions. We still had to watch for elements who might crack under severe pressure under these most extreme circumstances.