Let me cry aloud like the spring cloud
Farewell to friends makes stones cry aloud (Sa’di Shirazi)
The retaliation sentences are there to cover up and make possible
the on-going injustice, peculations and gaining billions by the Islamic
Republic.
Rasoul Badaghi and I were taken to the solitaries because of
protesting to the authorities when they were closing the library of the ward. I
wish I had to serve months in the solitaries of other prisons and I had not had
to see and hear what I saw and heard and had as real night mare here, the
events which had made me deeply sad and outraged.
On February 18th I was in the cell and thinking of my
situation and the oppression which I had to face when the shouting of the
prison guard shook me up:
“Gather your stuff. I am ordered to change your cell!”
I took the 2 blankets I had and followed the prison guard.
When I was leaving the corridor I saw 8 young men entering there. Their eyes
were shining which showed how young they were but at the same time those eyes
were full of fear and terror. You could see in their eyes the storm that was
going on in their minds and the effort which was trying to tie the past, present
and the future to each other. A thought came to my mind like a heat-lighting,
my heart was beating rapidly and my whole body was shaking.
I asked the guard: “Why are they being brought here?”
-To enforce the sentence!
I got frozen and could not breath. My mouth got a bitter
taste and a storm of horror and sadness raided my heart. I could not understand
and had different emotions from moment to moment. I tried to swallow the saliva
very hardly and asked him: “Do you mean that they are going to be executed
tomorrow?” I heard the word “YES” in full horror. I was scared but the prison
guard continued:
“We have been busy with death row prisoners in recent days.
There will be more prisoners hanged tomorrow.”
I have been witnessing scenes, sounds and words which were
the signs of an increase in the crimes being committed by the regime. According
to what the prison guard said, they were going to hang more people, kill more
people. (How much blood does this monster need to survive?)
The guard said: “We could not accept them in here because of
not having enough space but there are 40 more prisoners waiting to be executed
in the next 2 days.”
I do not remember what he said afterwards. I was completely
into my thoughts and I was hearing absolutely nothing more. I hit my hands on
my head unconsciously and began to weep from the depth of my heart. I wanted to
scream with every cell of my body and turn every corpuscle of me to a drop of
tear. The words and sentences were marching in my mind rapidly and
disorderedly. Shame on us! Where are we that the youth are taken to
slaughterhouses every day? On which wall of this house can I beat my heavy and
confounded head?
My legs could not stand my weight anymore. I threw myself in
the corner of the cell and sat there on the ground. I have no idea how long it
took, the only thing I remember is that the faces of those 8 young men were all
the time in front of my eyes and I definitely knew that one of them was in the
very cell that I was, sitting on the very carpet that I did which was probably
wet from tears of hundreds of others, too. Or maybe he was walking while
thinking of endless dreams. I could not imagine what he was thinking of and how
he was going to spend these final hours of his life. Whose pictures is he
imagining in his mind? His wife? Father? Mother? Brother? Sister? What is he
saying to them? What is he asking them for?
Again I do not remember when it was that the sound of the
opening doors and the voices of the talking people increased and immediately I
heard the supplication of those miserable men which were scratching deep into
my bones and covered all my whole being. It was the time to enforce the ordered
death. After years of waiting among hope and disappointment and the last
hopeless terrible hours for them, I was only an observer through the walls who
was able to understand some parts of this bloody relationship between the
government and these young men who were the victims of the brutal social
conditions. I was only able to hear the wings of the death owl flying on the
other cells and could not understand the necessity of this bloodshed but I was
seeing the shadow of the death on all walls and the whole environment. It
seemed that I had died hours ago. I had felt the cord around my neck and had
been hanged several times during that night. The claws of the lump were so
tight around my neck that I could not even move. I was just stuck to the door
hoping to get some news or hear that they are not going to be executed. Among
the supplication and crying I heard some other voices, too. Maybe they were
their families or the families of the complaints. I am not able to describe
this atrocity and mercilessness anymore.
I wish I could! I wish I could take the families of the
Larijanis and other judges and authorities instead of the families of these
miserable young men and tell them to watch the slaughter and murder which was
committed by their fathers, children, brothers or sisters. The murder of the
youth who have been growing up in these 35 years and no matter what they have
done, they are the outcome of the Islamic Republic. I wish I could tell them
the monster that you owe your happiness to it is surviving on such murders and
it has to drink more blood as the days pass. I wish I could tell them the
facilities that you are benefiting from, the things that you are living with
and all the delicious food that you are eating are bloody and you continue to
have them because of these slaughters. If you do not stand against the crimes
which are committed by your family members, you have a certain amount of accomplicity.
I wish I could take some films or at least photos of these
murders for the sake of the history and to give to the international community
and human rights organizations and tell them that under the hoax called “Hassan
Rohani” and the fictitious “Islamic Human Rights” there are on-going crimes
which are increasing rapidly. I wish I could tell them how they are hanging the
youth and slaying them to keep the reactionary social relations alive while
hiding their bloody teeth under a smiling mask.
Shame on all of us! Shame on all those whose lives are
dependent on these bloodsheds! Shame on all those who see the bloodshed and
turn their eyes blind! Shame on the human hunters who are going to face a very
hard death!
The execution of human beings must be prohibited
Shahrokh Zamani
Rajai Shahr Prison, Karaj, Iran
February 22, 2014
