Memoirs of Mehri Hajinejad from “The Last Laughter of Leila”— Part Thirteen
In this section, Mehri Hajinejad recounts another form of cruelty she endured: collective torture, a two-minute sham trial that issued her death sentence, and the night she believed she would be executed.
We follow Mehri Hajinejad through the terrifying moment of being summoned for interrogation at dusk — the hour usually associated with executions. She described the suffocating wait outside the prosecutor’s office, the line of prisoners with their belongings beside them, and the sense that she was only a few steps away from the firing squad.
She also witnessed the brutal presence of the infamous prison chief, Asadollah Lajevardi,[1] who paced among the condemned like a predator.
Collective Flogging
After a few days, the loudspeaker blared again, calling out names for interrogation, mine among them. Mahshid and Mehri Derakhshani (executed in the 1988 massacre)[2] gave me a few pairs of thick socks to layer on. Shahin-khanoom handed me her wool scarf to wear over my own, and Marjan lent me her knitted sweater. Everyone pitched in so I could face interrogation as prepared as possible.
It was a common practice: whenever someone was summoned, she wore as many layers as she could, socks, thick clothes, etc., anything to soften the blow of the cable. But after the flogging, when your swollen feet had turned into something the size of a pillow, taking off all those layers became its own torture.
When we reached the interrogation unit, there were no questions. No talking at all. The interrogator simply said, “Since you ran away from interrogation, you’ll be punished. Sixty lashes.” Then he added: “It’s a group flogging.”
I didn’t understand what he meant, until a few minutes later. They placed two beds side by side, piled me and fifteen other girls on top of each other, apparently all the ones who had done the same thing I had and returned to the ward that night, and delivered the sixty lashes with one hand to all of us at once.
It seemed the interrogator was simply exhausted. He couldn’t whip fifteen people separately, so he chose this method. Honestly, it was a ridiculous idea. With every strike, all fifteen of us screamed in unison, shredding his nerves. And strangely, being piled on top of each other made us feel like one single body, and the pain somehow became more bearable.
In my memory, that day remains not as something bitter, but as a shared moment of resistance, a collective battle against Khomeini’s regime.
When the flogging ended, we were sent toward the prayer room. When we lifted our blindfolds, I saw a few of my friends there, including Sousan and Azam from another ward, and I forgot the pain entirely. I hadn’t heard anything about them for a long time and didn’t know what had happened to them. We hugged, and I quickly asked when they were arrested.
I was especially eager to find out who had been newly arrested, whether they had any news from the PMOI, any new songs, any updates. While waiting blindfolded to be taken back, we even laughed about the absurdity of the scene, all of us stacked together, being whipped as a group.
That day was around early May 1982. Between then and June 26, 1982, I was summoned twice more. The last time, the interrogator threatened, “If you don’t cooperate, I’ll send your case to court, then your fate is in the hands of the scribes of your deeds.”[3]
A Death Sentence in Two Minutes
On June 26, 1982, they called me again. When I reached the prosecutor’s office, they said, “Today you have court.”
With a blindfold on, the so-called trial lasted no more than five minutes. Judge Nayyeri read my indictment, seventeen charges, and at the end said:
“Because you participated in armed uprising and collected weapons for this organization, you are sentenced to death. Sign here.”
I said I didn’t accept any of what he read and would not sign anything. “I wasn’t involved in anything. I haven’t been active since 1980. How could I have collected weapons?”
Nayyeri said, “Fine. Give a televised interview and say you no longer support them.”
I answered, “I haven’t done anything to justify an interview.”
So without my signature, they threw me out of the room and sent me back to the ward.
From that day, I waited for the execution, from summer 1982 until early 1984 when they finally gave me a formal sentence. Oddly, those eighteen months became one of the most meaningful periods of my life. I felt I had kept my promise, and that God had given me the honor of facing this test, waking every day thinking it could be my last.
I often told the others, “Each extra day God gives me feels like a gift.” I felt a strange lightness.
By the end of summer 1982, nothing had happened, no interrogations, no news.
One Step from the Firing Squad
In mid-autumn of 1982, around 7 or 8 p.m., they summoned me alone. I quickly said goodbye. The girls watched me in fear, asking, “What do you think is happening?” It was well known that prisoners scheduled for execution were typically taken at that hour.
I was more than 90% certain I was being taken to be executed.
When we left the ward 216 complex, I saw a line of male prisoners being taken as well. They merged me with them, and we all walked together.
As we moved, I tried to focus my mind: If they give me paper, what should I write in my will? What should my last words be? Sometimes they allowed the condemned to write five lines to their families.
Lost in these thoughts, I reached the prosecutor’s office. The guard was rushing and pushed me behind the door of Interrogation Branch 7. I didn’t understand — why here? What interrogation was this? I stood there, sorting through every possibility.
I stayed standing on purpose, to keep control of the scene.
Across from me, many girls were sitting lined up against the wall, their belongings beside them. I thought, They’ve brought them for execution.
My heart was pounding so hard my whole body was burning. Time flashed by. Every second felt like I was inches from death.
I will never forget those moments.
Then a guard shouted, “Who hasn’t written their name yet?”
Before execution, they often gave the prisoners a marker to write their names on their legs.
One girl said she wanted to pray. Another asked to call her mother to say goodbye. I don’t know if they ever granted those wishes.
The movement of guards increased. I couldn’t tell how many were to be executed that night.
Then came the most horrifying sight: Lajevardi himself. The ugliest, most terrifying face I have ever seen. But that night, he looked even more monstrous — like a predator drunk on the smell of blood.
Through the blindfold I had stitched so I could see a sliver beneath it, I recognized him when a guard called him “Haj-Agha.” He was walking around wearing only an underwear and shoes with the heels crushed down — like some wild beast circling its prey.
Seeing him like that, I was certain that in the group sitting by the wall, waiting, there were women too, and that he was feeding off the fear of the soon-to-be executed.
To be continued…
[1] Asadollah Lajevardi — Known as “the Butcher of Evin,” the clerical regime’s most infamous prison chief and interrogator in the 1980s.
[2] 1988 Massacre — Mass execution of thousands of political prisoners, mostly PMOI supporters, carried out under a secret fatwa by Khomeini.
[3] Scribes of your deeds — Reference to Kiraman-Katibin, the two angels believed in Islamic tradition to record a person’s good and bad actions.