Prison Memoirs of Azam Haj Heydari from the book The Price of Being Human — Part Eight
In this installment of the prison memoirs of Azam Haj Heydari, published in The Price of Being Human, the author recounts the creative forms of resistance prisoners developed under the harsh and suffocating conditions of prison, and how they defied the schemes of the notorious torturer Asadollah Lajevardi through collective morale-building and solidarity.
At the time, Azam was a young teacher in her early twenties who had entered the path of resistance. She spent five years imprisoned in the Judiciary’s Temporary Detention Center, Evin Prison, Qezel Hesar Prison, and Gohardasht Prison, where she endured brutal torture at the hands of the Guards.
Keeping Our Spirits Alive
We turned even the harshest routines of prison life into opportunities for laughter, energy, and human connection.
One of the events that became strangely lively and festive in prison was bath day. Tuesdays were the days when our ward received hot water. Organizing the shower schedule and deciding who should go first was difficult and sensitive work. There were always around thirty prisoners who had been severely tortured, whose wounds were still fresh. Cold water intensified their pain and often infected their injuries, so they had to bathe first while the hot water lasted.
After them came the older, weaker, and sick prisoners who could not tolerate the freezing water.
The rest of us bathed in cold water — in the freezing mountain climate of Evin, where even in summer the running water felt icy. In winter, the cold penetrated straight to the bone.
Yet somehow the prisoners turned even this into a noisy and joyful ritual. Together, counting “one, two, three,” we would rush under the freezing showers and bathe as quickly as possible.
Alone, I do not think anyone would have had the courage or motivation to do it. But as a collective, not only did we overcome our fear of the cold water, bathing itself became an act of resistance and even a form of recreation.
Gradually our bodies adapted. We became stronger against the cold and no longer got sick as easily as we had in the beginning.
Meals — though the food itself was terrible — also became occasions for collective humor and warmth. The prisoners jokingly called the food cart “the carnival of joy.” They managed to eat the meagre and tasteless meals with such laughter and playfulness that it made the hellish conditions more bearable.
The executioners and their informers burned with rage when they saw this. They were furious because none of the pressure they imposed seemed capable of crushing us.
Another important morale-building activity was exercise.
Exercise Was Forbidden: An Important Morale-building Activity
Exercise was forbidden, but every day we secretly worked out in groups — morning, noon, and night — depending on conditions. Sometimes thirty or forty prisoners exercised together. When surveillance became too strict, we exercised individually in bathrooms, toilets, or hidden corners, performing workout routines out of sight of the Guards and informers.
At the end of the group exercises, we gathered together. If conditions allowed, we joined hands and shouted slogans. If not, we simply ended with a collective cheer.
Every day the executioners devised new methods to break us. Every day we found ways to counter them.
One program that Asadollah Lajevardi especially insisted upon was taking prisoners to a hall they called the “Hosseiniyeh.” There, prisoners were filmed so the regime could broadcast the footage on television and pretend that all political prisoners had repented and converted to Khomeini’s ideology under Lajevardi’s guidance.
But despite all the threats, beatings, and lashings, Lajevardi never managed to force more than a small minority of prisoners into participating in this spectacle.
Many prisoners found excuses to avoid going altogether. Others went only to exchange news with prisoners from other wards.
The first time I was taken to this absurd performance was in 1981.
Male and female prisoners were seated in separate sections divided by a curtain about one meter high. We could still partially see each other, and many prisoners searched anxiously for brothers or relatives they knew were imprisoned there too.
As soon as the cameras started rolling, the women immediately pulled their chadors tightly over their faces so no filming could capture them. The men lowered their hats over their eyes and bowed their heads.
The entire scene became ridiculous. Anyone watching the footage would immediately realize what was really happening.
Eventually Lajevardi himself stormed in.
Unable to order the women to uncover themselves, he instead screamed obscenities at the men, shouting for them to lift their heads and remove their hats.
“You bastards are always so proud and upright,” he yelled in his foul language. “What happened? Why are you suddenly so submissive here?”
Hearing this, we quietly enjoyed watching the executioner’s frustration and helplessness.
That day they offered unlimited tea to everyone. Usually nobody drank it because it smelled strongly of camphor and was nauseating. Instead, we agreed to take as many sugar cubes as possible back to the ward.
Sugar was extremely valuable in prison. Since we lacked nutritious food, we used sugar water to revive prisoners returning from torture or suffering from severe weakness.
Everyone stuffed sugar cubes into their pockets and clothes. When we emptied them out back in the ward, we had almost an entire bucket full.
The sugar cubes felt like spoils captured from the enemy in battle.
For days afterward we laughed together, retelling funny stories about Lajevardi and his cronies losing control and becoming enraged after their propaganda event had failed so badly.
Another recurring event during the first months in Ward 240 was that prisoners who had been savagely tortured were sometimes mistakenly brought into our ward.
They had been tortured with such medieval brutality that even we, who had become accustomed to horrifying scenes, were shaken by the sight of them.
One afternoon around three o’clock, I was walking through the ward when prison guards carried in a prisoner on something resembling a stretcher.
Her entire body was bruised. She was so swollen she looked twice the size of a normal person.
Some prisoners recognized her immediately and said, “That’s Parvin Koohi.”
When I saw her condition, I burst into tears. I wanted to go speak with her, but the others told me she was unconscious and unable to respond.
A short while later, the loudspeaker repeatedly summoned Parvin Koohi to the ward office.
But she was unconscious. She could neither hear nor move.
Finally, the Guards entered, hurriedly removed her from the ward, and took her away again.
Apparently, they had brought her into the general ward by mistake.
To be continued…
