The Prison Memoir of Azam Haj-Heydari from The Price of Being Human— Part Twenty-Seven
In this installment of Azam Haj-Heydari’s prison memoir, she recounts a week of mock executions at Evin Prison, when she and other female prisoners were repeatedly taken blindfolded to the execution hill, left standing in freezing conditions for hours, threatened and beaten, and then locked in solitary cells.
During this ordeal, the memory of her executed comrades, and a message of loyalty from her friend Siba Sharifpour, strengthens her resolve to resist.
But the account goes beyond the experience of terror and physical suffering. Azam also describes the prisoners’ determination to preserve their solidarity in the face of the authorities’ efforts to isolate them.
She portrays their collective life as their most important means of survival and resistance, and recounts how they continued to support one another even when confined to solitary cells. The section offers a glimpse into the struggle between a prison system designed to break prisoners through isolation and a group of women determined not to let their bonds be destroyed.
A Week of Mock Executions
More than a month had passed since that incident when I heard that two new prisoners had arrived in our ward. I was in Room One of Ward 240. I went over to them and asked their names.
“Zahra Samimi Motlagh[1] and Fatemeh Samimi Motlagh[2].”
“I wish I weren’t seeing you here,” I said, “but I’m glad you’ve come to our ward.”
Fatemeh’s voice caught in her throat. Turning to Zahra, she said, “I think this is her.”
I was startled. Fear and apprehension seized me, and I asked, “Who do you mean? Who is her?” For a moment, I wondered whether these two women might be working for the regime.
They pleaded with me urgently, almost desperately, to tell them my name so they could share something with me.
“Azam,” I said.
“Azam what?”
“Haj-Heydari.”
It took several minutes for the two sisters to compose themselves and stop crying. Finally, Zahra said, “Come here. We need to pass something on to you, something entrusted to us. We mustn’t delay.”
It was so painful for them to recount what had happened that sometimes Fatemeh broke down in tears while Zahra spoke, and at other times they switched places. Amid all that grief and anguish, they told me about the execution of my dear Siba (Sharifpour), who had not uttered a single word or even given the enemy her name. She had identified herself only as a PMOI member.
They told me that the notorious Dr. Sheikh-ol-Eslamzadeh had repeatedly visited her at Evin’s infirmary, urging her to betray her convictions. “Come on, have some pity on yourself and your youth! Give an interview. They don’t even need this interview and won’t broadcast it. Just do it to save yourself!”
But Siba, with her courageous smile, had denied them even the satisfaction of hearing her speak a single word.
Her final message to Zahra and Fatemeh had been:
“If one day you go into the prison wards and meet someone who matches this description, tell her that Siba did not even give them her name. And whoever manages to get out of prison, give them my greetings and tell them I tried to remain faithful to the promise I made to you.”
I don’t know why, but at that moment I began thinking of every one of our executed comrades. My trembling had stopped. I was so absorbed in their memory that I could feel their warmth within me. I kept thinking about how they had remained faithful to their pledge to God and the people.
Remembering them filled me with such joy and stirred something so powerful inside me that I stood there in the freezing air, without any warm clothing and wearing nothing but a torn slipper, consumed by the desire to join them and remain true to my own pledge.
I asked myself: Could my name one day be among those who have the honor of breaking Khomeini’s spell of tyranny and repression? Could I, too, stand before God and the people with a clear conscience?
I was so lost in these thoughts that I had no idea how many hours had passed. I was happy at the thought that I might soon be reunited with my martyred comrades. I imagined telling them, “You see? I kept my promise, too. You see that I never bowed my head before the executioner?”
I was still lost in my thoughts when a brutal blow from one of the executioners, who was moving among the prisoners, struck my head. I could not keep my balance and fell to the ground at the edge of the hill. I nearly rolled over the edge, but the executioner himself grabbed my leg, dragged me away from the drop, and put me back where I had been standing.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “You’ll soon meet the same fate as the other hypocrites! When we decide to send you to hell, we’ll put you right here beside the others!”
This ordeal continued from around three in the afternoon until about two hours after midnight. We stood there in the freezing night at Evin, wearing slippers, waiting to find out when they would finally finish us.
After several hours, some of the girls had fainted from the cold, hunger, and exhaustion and were lying on the ground. Instead of returning us to our previous ward, the guards took us to Ward 209 and threw each of us into a separate cell.
I had no idea what had happened to the others. At least the two prisoners in the cells next to mine and I managed to communicate with one another through Morse code, so I knew I was not entirely alone.
Our feet were frozen. When they shoved me into the cell, I hurried over to the radiator, hoping it would be warm. But there was no heat. The cell itself was cold, yet even so, it was far better than the deadly cold on the hill.
I lay in a corner of the cell, drifting between sleep and wakefulness. Someone brought me a meal (I don’t even remember what it was), left it in the corner, and went away. I was so drained by the cold and exhaustion that, despite my intense hunger, I could not summon the strength to get up, walk to the door, and eat.
A thought crossed my mind: How much better it would be if they executed me. Then I would be free of all the pressure and torture I have to endure every day, and I could go to the comrades I loved so much.
But I immediately rebuked myself. No! This is exactly what the executioner wants.
I remembered the days in the Cage Ward and Haji Davoud’s constant refrain: “I’ll make you wish you were dead!”
Then I understood that this was precisely what the executioner wanted. I pictured Haji Davoud throwing back his head and giving one of his ugly, triumphant laughs as he declared, “Didn’t I tell you I was the greatest hero of all? I’ve brought you to your knees!”
I answered him in my mind: You’ve got another thing coming, executioner! The cage is over, and we’ve seen who really ended up on their knees. This, too, shall pass!
My body had only just begun to warm up, and I was starting to regain my strength, when they came back and knocked on my cell door.
“Interrogation!”
I braced myself. I knew there would be no real interrogation. They intended to repeat the previous night’s ordeal.
And that was exactly what happened.
Although I was still exhausted and aching all over, I felt psychologically stronger than I had the night before.
By then, it hardly mattered to me whether they intended to execute us for real or subject us to another mock execution and psychological torture. Whatever happened, I saw it as another form of resistance. The executioner was trying every means at his disposal to bring us to our knees. Having failed to achieve his aims through mass executions, he was now resorting to these methods.
If they executed us, the resistance would continue. Our comrades would remain and carry on our work. If they did not execute us and we returned, we would have defeated the executioner once again.
The mock executions continued for a week. Every day, they took us to the top of the execution hill sometime in the afternoon and kept us standing in the freezing cold until midnight, sometimes until dawn. They threatened us, cursed us, beat us, and subjected us to further abuse. Then they brought us back and locked us alone in our cells.
After a week, they returned us to our previous ward and announced, “If anyone has anything to say, come forward!”
They imagined they had intimidated us into submission and that, from the following day onward, we would all remain silent and comply with their demands.
But they were in for a disappointment. It was back to square one. The girls resumed their activities and resistance just as before. The executioners and their treacherous collaborators watched us and seethed with rage.
Every day, they would manufacture some new pretext for a confrontation. For example, scissors and needles were forbidden in the ward, yet we managed to keep both. The guards could tell we had them from the signs they left behind. If one or two girls had trimmed their hair, the guards would conclude that we had scissors. If they noticed that we had sewn something new, they would know we had needles.
Despite all their raids, searches, and roundups, they could never find these items. It drove them mad. They could not understand where we might have hidden them in a bare, empty room, so they would start a confrontation, invariably followed by a raid on the ward.
The traitors would storm in, shrieking insults that reflected their own character: “Do you think you can keep holding your ground?”
They would then rush into the ward and beat the girls with extraordinary brutality.
In reality, this was a clash between two opposing approaches.
One was Lajevardi’s doctrine. He believed that if they had enough solitary cells for every prisoner and kept the Monafeghin (hypocrites) in solitary confinement for just one month, that would be the end of them.
The other was our belief in the collective, in staying together. We had come to understand that our solidarity was our only means of defense: the group, and the group itself, was our shield. We were unwilling to abandon it at any cost.
Throughout our imprisonment, we had learned this lesson through every fiber of our being: the only way to avoid being destroyed by the executioner, reduced to a worthless remnant of ourselves, or turned into his instrument was to remain part of the collective and stay together.
So, we did everything collectively. Our entire life was built around the group, and we were determined to sustain it at any cost. The executioner, in turn, was determined to tear us apart at any cost.
Even in solitary cells, where we appeared to be alone, we were never truly alone with ourselves. Every moment of the day and night, we drew strength from remembering the things we had done together.
Lajevardi was constantly preoccupied with finding ways to break up the PMOI prisoners’ collective life. That was why he had created the Resurrection Ward and the Cage Ward, the Residential Unit, the infirmary ward, cells known as the Stable and the Dog Kennel, and all manners of other cells with bizarre and degrading conditions.
Yet none of these methods had succeeded in breaking the PMOI prisoners. They could break their bodies, but they could not defeat them ideologically or force them to surrender.
To be continued…
[1] Zahra Samimi Motlagh, a PMOI member, was executed by the regime’s guards at the prison on January 26, 1982.
[2] Fatemeh Samimi Motlagh, a PMOI member, was executed at Evin Prison on February 10, 1982, at the age of 26.
