As the anniversary approaches for the most profound man made disaster that struck our nation in the past century, the 1979 revolution, I think that we should take a moment and remember some of its unfortunate victims. My cousin was one such victim. For the purposes of this narrative I will call him Omid.
He was one of my favorite cousins. His father, my dad’s brother was my father’s closest sibling, and consequently our families spent a lot of time together. We lived in different cities and spent summers with one another. We were very close.
It was some time in 80’s. The first news about his arrest came by phone. We had a frantic call from his family saying that “pasdars” had picked him up the night before as he was standing on a street corner waiting to meet one of his comrades. Apparently, he had recently become involved with a leftist organization (not MKO). He hadn’t done much…just a few meetings. It turns out though that one of the guys in the organization had been arrested, and under torture, had agreed to “cooperate” with the regime. So, he had been going around calling for meeting and rendezvous’ with everyone that he could think of, and then setting them up to be picked up by the regime’s agents. It was only a few days after Omid’s 17th birthday.
Time went on, and Omid remained in prison, without trial, without a court hearing and a lawyer…well, let’s not turn this into a comedy. Then the summer vacations came and we went to his city. The sad highlight of the trip was our anticipated trip to the prison to see Omid. We had to fool the guards into thinking that we were his siblings because those were the only people who were allowed to visit him. We arrived at the prison gate. It was an unbelievably sad scene. There were hundreds of crying, chador wearing mothers on top of one another, who were gathered in the dusty, unpaved entrance of the prison, holding out their “shenasmehs” and trying not to lose the rare opportunity of seeing their children. So, we held out our “shenasnamehs” also and convinced the machine gun holding pasdars that we were his brothers and sisters. It was pretty easy to fool them considering the chaotic scene there.
We got in and got a “hozoori” visit. That meant that we could actually sit down with him in a corner of the prison, as opposed to having to speak to him through a phone and from behind a screen. We weren’t really free to talk, though, as there was a pasdar standing next to us and listening to the whole conversation.
Omid was ecstatic to see us. He said he missed us…missed spending summers with us. Considering that this was another summer, and then seeing him there…it was just too emotional. We talked about soccer. His sister quietly, and in codes, asked him if he was being “harmed”, i.e., tortured. He smiled and didn’t answer. We had another visit with him and then left the city. His parents were concerned that he was getting “hozori” visits, because they had heard that “hozoori” visits were given to the prisoners who were going to be executed. Perhaps it was mullahs’ sick definition of “compassion”.
Three months later, the shocking news came via a phone call. Omid’s parents had gone to visit him at the prison for their regular weekly visits, and had taken some homemade food for him too…but were told at the gate that they should go to “shahrdari”, i.e., the morgue…to “retrieve” him. He had been hanged with a crane that morning…
What follows is a description of Omid’s final hours according to a cellmate who was later released.
The night before his execution, someone from the prison’s clinic had come to collect Omid and a few other prisoners. A couple of hours later, Omid was brought back to the cell. He was tried and sits down, holding his forehead. He tells the cellmate “they didn’t leave a drop of blood in my body. I don’t know how many bags of blood they took, but it was more than one, may be three. I’m tired and can’t stand up.” He lies down, and goes to sleep from apparent exhaustion. A few hours later, about 4:00 am, names begin to be called in the prison’s intercom, the ominous sign of executions. Everyone wakes up in terror and quietly listens to see if tonight is their night. Omid’s name is called. He turns to the cellmate, nods and says this last sentence: “please tell my mother not to cry”. He then sheds a few tears. The guards come and take him away…He was still 17.
It turns out that they were drawing the blood of the executees a few hours before their execution and were sending the blood to the war front to be used for the war wounded. They would leave just enough in the body for them to survive the few hours before their execution.
Omid was one of the tens, or hundreds of thousands who have been victims of this inhuman, anti-Iranian regime. A regime that has made death the cheapest commodity in our homeland since it cast its dark cloud of ignorance, backwardness and violence over our ancient nation. And a regime that wont hesitate to continue its murderous ways just so that it could remain in power. But its victims, the Iranian people, will not allow it to do so. May this 22 Bahman be their last.
