Prison memoirs of Azam Haj-Heydari from the book The Price of Being Human – Part Two
In the second installment of the prison memoirs of Azam Haj-Heydari, published in the book The Price of Being Human, the author continues recounting her arrest, the fabrication of charges against her, and the torture she endured in June 1981.
At that time, Azam was a 22–23-year-old teacher who had stepped onto the path of political struggle. She would eventually spend five years in prison, including time in the Temporary Judiciary Detention Center, Evin, Qezel Hesar, and Gohardasht prisons, where she was subjected to torture.
The Struggle Between Two Forces
Once again, on 14 June 1981,I was arrested along with one of my teammates, Sediqeh, while we were setting up book stands on the street. After brutally beating us, the Revolutionary Guards arrested us.
For three days they did not take us to any detention center. Instead, they kept driving us around the city in Revolutionary Guard patrol vehicles.
They threw Sediqeh, who was pregnant, and me between several men in the vehicle. During those three days they continuously beat us with batons, fists, and kicks while driving around the city.
Sediqeh eventually lost consciousness from the blows. Because she was pregnant, I tried to protect her, using my own body as a shield to reduce the force of the attacks against her. My face and head were completely bruised and swollen, and eventually I could barely move.
After 11 p.m., they would take us to one of the regime’s local revolutionary committee offices in northern Tehran known as the Vozara Committee and throw us into a cell until morning.
In one section of that committee building, several new cells had been constructed. The cell they put us in each night was completely empty, without any facilities, not even a mat. We lay on the bare concrete floor until morning.
When morning came, they would drag us back out, throw us onto the ground, and shove us under their feet inside the vehicle again. The insults and beatings continued while the car was moving, leaving us almost incapable of any movement.
Finally, on the third day at around 10 a.m., they threw Sediqeh and me out of the vehicle in an alley north of Mossadegh Street. We had no shoes, and our faces were swollen and wounded. They had also taken our money and handbags.
We had no choice but to start walking barefoot in the street.
Street vendors nearby saw us in that condition, and, out of sympathy, each gave us a pair of slippers. We put them on and continued walking.
We went to the home of a friend of mine, which was about five or six bus stops away. She warmly welcomed us. When she heard what had happened, she brought us food. We had eaten nothing for three days, and we devoured the meal quickly.
She then took us to a doctor who was a family friend. He dressed our wounds.
However, because our faces were injured and bandaged, for several days afterward whenever we walked in the street the Revolutionary Guards would stop us and interrogate us suspiciously.
On 18 June 1981, while crossing the street, I aroused the suspicion of Khomeini’s agents and was arrested again. This time I was detained for two days at a committee office in Tehran located under the Seyyed Khandan Bridge.
They threw me into a very small room and began beating me with rifle butts and batons.
They used a box cutter that was in my bag as an excuse, claiming that I had put it there to kill a Revolutionary Guard.
Within two hours they fabricated a complete case against me. It consisted of several copies of Mojahed newspaper, a few books and publications of the PMOI, and even a large bloody kitchen knife that they added to the file as supposed evidence.
Based on this fabricated case, they interrogated me and demanded:
“How many Revolutionary Guards have you killed with this knife?”
During those two days my eyes were constantly blindfolded. Several times at night they took me to Evin Prison and told me, “Now we will send you to hell. Killing Monafeqin (a derogatory term meaning “hypocrite” the regime uses for the Mojahedin) is our job, and with this case file you are a proper Monafeq.”
The Pain Passes, the Shame Remains
They would take me blindfolded to various places, basements and other unknown locations, hang me from heights, and beat me.
At the same time, they played terrifying sounds, screams, cries, and the moans of people being tortured, to shake my nerves and force me to accept their fabricated case.
It was the first time I had ever encountered such scenes.
Before that, I had only read similar stories in the biographies of other members who were killed. I remembered that when I read those stories, those PMOI members seemed almost unreachable to me. Being like them was the highest aspiration I could imagine.
I dreamed that one day I might also resist torture for the freedom of my people and never betray them or their cause.
But when they first took me to a place where I never even understood where it was, and I kept hearing the screams, cries, and wails of people being tortured, and when they hung me up and beat me, I trembled deeply. Fear filled my entire being.
What frightened me most was the question: Would I be able to endure those terrifying tortures? Even hearing the screams of the victims was unbearable.
I prayed to God. I spoke to Him in desperation and begged Him to help me not lose my strength under torture and not lose the faith I had gained through so much hardship.
At night when I fell asleep, I would have nightmares that I had failed under torture. I would wake up suddenly, sit for a while, and ask myself: If they come right now and take me for interrogation, am I ready to endure it and not surrender?
At first, I felt helpless in front of the torturers.
But then I would think: if Fatemeh Amini, Mehdi Rezaei, Badizadegan, and so many others had endured such torture, then it must be possible. Why shouldn’t I be able to do it as well?
And then I would feel strength return to me.
Once they took me to a cell where someone had written on the wall: “The pain of torture passes, but the shame of betrayal remains.”
Reading those words made me tremble. I said to myself: My God, do not place me among the accursed.
Whenever I prayed and reached the Quran verse “Do not place us among those who have incurred Your wrath,” I would think of those who had eventually betrayed their comrades.
But after I was whipped for the first time, much of my fear disappeared.
What became clear to me was that the decisive factor in the face of the executioners’ torture is the human will—whether a person decides to endure, even at the cost of their own life, or to surrender.
And I had made my decision: I would endure. I would not surrender.
To be continued…
