From the memoir by Hengameh Haj Hassan – Part 7
Face to Face with the Beast ⚠️ Content Warning: Includes descriptions of torture, execution, and grief.
In the past six parts, we followed Hengameh Haj Hassan’s prison memoir, Face to Face with the Beast, detailing the arrests, tortures, and executions of her fellow prisoners under the clerical regime. In this section, her memories return to her dear friend Tahmineh Rastegar Moghaddam.
Echoes Through the Walls
During all that time, I had found ways to stay in touch with Tahmineh and get news of her well-being. She was held in one of the cells down the back corridor. On days when the halls felt quiet and empty, I’d whistle—just once, a short signal only she and I knew. Without fail, she’d whistle back.
Once or twice, I even heard her arguing with the guards. Tahmineh was still the same: brave, defiant, unshaken. One day she made a loud croaking frog sound—one of our inside jokes from our student days—and it made us all laugh uncontrollably. I knew instantly it was her. It was a silly thing we used to do when we needed to cheer each other up.
The guards were furious. They stormed into the cell blocks screaming and cursing. But the fact that we could still provoke them gave us a kind of twisted joy. It reminded us we were still human, still resisting. Almost every day, someone would pull a prank, crack a joke, or make a noise just to lift the mood. And even though the guards tried to identify and punish whoever it was—dragging them off for torture or punishment—we never stopped.
For me, the most important thing was knowing that Tahmineh was still alive. That alone gave me comfort.
The Execution of Tahmineh
One day, while I was in the hallway, a teenage girl walked up to me.
“Someone was calling for you—Hengameh. Are you a nurse?”
I nodded. She brightened. “Are you friends with Tahmineh?”
My heart leapt. “Yes! Do you know anything about her?”
She didn’t hesitate. “She was executed.”
It felt like I was falling from a great height. My legs gave out. I couldn’t feel them anymore. I slid down against the wall and just sat there, numb. My brain couldn’t process what I had just heard.
The girl looked stricken. “I thought you already knew.”
I pulled myself together. “No, it’s okay. Tell me everything. How do you know her?”
“My name is Mahshid. I was in the same cell with her.”
She told me about a day when Tahmineh brought in her clean clothes from the yard. As she slipped her hand into the pocket of her pants, she pulled out a small, tightly rolled piece of paper.
“What’s this?” she asked, puzzled. She read it, then smiled and shook her head. “Hengameh.”
After reading the note, she tore it up and flushed it down the toilet so it wouldn’t be found. Then she told Mahshid, “Hengameh is my friend. She’s worried about me.”
Tahmineh was as bold and mischievous as ever. She made that frog sound again—this time to make another woman laugh, someone who’d just been arrested and was terrified. But they came for her. They beat her all night, made her stand in the freezing cold. When she came back to the cell at dawn, she was shaking. Her skin was gray.
Her interrogator tormented her constantly. No one knew what he wanted from her—why he wouldn’t let up.
Then one day, he came into her cell holding a sheet of paper.
“You either do a televised confession,” he said, “or you take this and write your will.”
Tahmineh didn’t flinch. She stared straight at him, eyes locked, a faint smile on her lips. She stood, grabbed the paper without a word, and sat back down.
The guard, furious, kicked her and shouted insults, then slammed the door behind him.
She wrote her will calmly, that same slight smile still on her face.
And then she said goodbye to everyone in the cell.
A few hours later, they took her away for execution.
Even though I hadn’t heard anything from her in a month—and had feared this—I didn’t want to believe it. I kept telling myself maybe she’d been transferred. Maybe she was in solitary. Maybe…
I just didn’t want to accept that she was gone. That all that joy, that kindness, that fierce spark she carried—was extinguished.
In our profession, we fight to give people even a few more minutes of life. Even patients with no hope—we do everything, anything, to ease their final moments.
And now? The regime was executing the best of us: young, healthy, full of life. Killing them not for any crime, but because of their ideas. Because one bloodthirsty old man—Khomeini—could not tolerate anyone who thought differently.
Why?
Why?
There was no answer.
To be continued…
