Letters to My Torturer: Love, Revolution, and Imprisonment in Iran (12 page)

But the interrogator in the employment of an ideological authoritarian regime is either himself ideological or, even worse, pretends to be ideological. He views you as a personal enemy. Usually he comes from the lower classes of society and sees in you someone who has had every privilege, or he worries that you, rather than he, will take the advantage under the new government. His ideology is intensely coloured by class consciousness. So he tries to break you. To empty you of your self. To prove that his ideology is superior. You are his personal rival, political enemy and ideological nemesis. Sooner or later, he has to break you, be it before your first or your last confession. He takes more pleasure in accusing and defaming you than in killing you. But to the bureaucrat interrogator you are simply an opponent. A human opponent. Saqi,
³³
a famous interrogator and torturer during the Shah’s time, was pleased when a prisoner put up resistance and proved himself a worthy opponent. He belittled those who gave in and praised individuals who were steadfast.

For the Islamic regime’s interrogator, who is a carbon copy of the Stalinist interrogator, the prisoner was not a human being. He was dirtier than a dog. He wouldn’t touch the prisoner so as not to pollute himself. He would order you to bark “woof, woof” like a dog and then demand information.

He would keep repeating his deep attachment to religion. That he had performed his ablution. He would not drink water without God’s agreement and Sharia permission. Each lash was considered a religious punishment. If he turned out to be wrong, he would have to answer in the world hereafter. He is not ready to risk his fate in the hereafter for worldly fortunes.

He is very patriotic. The likes of you are serving the enemy but he’s given up his life to saving his country and to protecting the revolution from being stolen by the impure. In the religious worldview, in which everything seems to be traced back to the lower parts of the body, you are dirty and he is sacrosanct. He is pure and you are contaminated. He relies on spiritual help, you on material stuff. And such peculiarities have made him a hero and you a useless wimp, less than a fart.

And Brother Hamid, you were so showy with your heroism. Several times when you strung me up, you asked me: “Can you take it?”

What answer did I have? I who had no pretence or dream of heroism. Until a month ago, I had seen myself as your ally, because that was the Party’s line. We were fighting side by side against Americanled global imperialism. The “era” of capitalism was on the wane, and the sun of socialism was shining on the horizon.

I would be silent. And you, with a voice filled with pride, would say: “I can take it for forty-eight hours. The brothers, whose faith is even stronger, can go for longer.”

And you were not only a hero but also a true lover. Our kind of love was fake, and was for the sake of lust.

I discovered this on those “days of kindness”, which were a thousand times more dangerous than the days of whipping and hanging handcuffed from the ceiling. Those days when you would personally take me to the treatment room. You would make sure the bandages on my feet were replaced with new ones. When the guard/doctor finished his task, you would ask solicitously: “Need anything else, little lion?”

And you would pat me on my back. My endless toothache would not leave me but I was afraid to mention this. The fear of dentists had forever taken root in me. I am still frightened. Even now, when the needle filled with anaesthetic begins to pierce my gum and I close my eyes, I am all ears for the door. I fear someone might enter and take me away. Yes Brother Hamid, I’d rather be, as you say, a spoiled brat or as your guard says, a fart, than be a hero the way you are.

You return very quickly, Brother Hamid. The outline of the plot has pleased you. The doomsday scenario is being prepared. It won’t put anyone in danger. It just shows that the British have influence inside the Tudeh Party. Once again you become kind, very gentle.

You make me promises.

You say that I have been a victim of the Tudeh Party. You say that I am no longer filthy and can serve my country. You tell me that the doors of Islamic compassion are open to me. You are not taking me back to my cell. You are personally accompanying me to the shower room. I can stay there as long as I want. You whisper to me that you are going to discuss my case with Mr Khamenei. You tell me that I will now be allowed to receive visitors. But you take me to the room downstairs, where I know that I will have to bark. You put me on the bed. I had assumed that we had finished, but then you say: “Collect your thoughts. This is just the beginning.”

There is a photograph of my wife, taken in Nouvelle le Chateau, that is exactly the kind of image Khomeini desired for Iran: a woman wrapped up in black, lost in a sea of men. When my wife returned from an interview with Khomeini in Nouvelle le Chateau, she cried and told me: “The boots of despotism are about to be replaced by the sandals of despotism.”

And we journalists in Tehran were arguing with Shahpour Bakhtiar, and digging our own graves in the process.

I got married in 1978. The black and white photographs of my wedding are the best evidence of your government’s crimes. The majority of the people in the photographs have either been imprisoned, executed, or forced to leave their country. Rahman Hatefi, who never usually appeared in photographs, but is in one from our wedding, is one of them. A year later, our people took part in a revolution, and you stole the revolution from them, Brother Hamid.

It was winter 1979. Tehran was unusually warm and sunny. Crude political slogans were shouted openly on the streets. Iran’s last
king, hovering in a helicopter above the massed people, cried and asked his companions: “What have I done to deserve this?”

Prior to leaving the country, the Shah had appointed a new prime minister, Shahpour Bakhtiar, the head of The Iran National Front.
³⁴
My wife, who was a political journalist and therefore covered the National Front, was in regular contact with Shahpour Bakhtiar, and informed us that he was intending to invite the people in charge of the press to a meeting.

When his invitation arrived, the Writers and Journalists’ Syndicate debated the matter, and the syndicate’s leadership agreed to send a delegation to attend the meeting to hear what he had to say. We also agreed that we would only restart the printing presses when the military men had left the newspaper offices and we had been given complete freedom of the press. Hidden behind this very specific and rigid condition was the majority view of Bakhtiar and his position. We saw him to be protecting the Shah’s interests and blocking the revolution. A revolution which, ironically, would destroy everybody in that assembly of professional Iranian journalists.

The editors-in-chief of
Kayhan
,
Ayandegan
and
Etalaat
, the three largest Iranian newspapers, as well as representatives of the Writers and Journalists’ Syndicate attended the meeting. The majority of them were leftists.

Bakhtiar arrived slightly later than the rest of us, he was measured and slightly angry. He confirmed he had taken up the post of prime minister. He claimed he wanted a free Iran with independent journalists. However, we didn’t believe him. I asked: “Which independent newspaper would you like us to follow the example of?”

“
Le Monde.
”

Bakhtiar had studied in France, like the majority of Iranian statesmen who belonged to the first generation of post-constitutional revolution. A heated discussion took place about which category of newspaper
Le Monde
represented. Eventually, the syndicate
announced its two conditions and Bakhtiar agreed to both of them and left the meeting.

I followed him and as he was about to enter a side room I blocked his path and introduced myself: “Deputy editor-in-chief of
Kayhan
and a member of the Iranian Writers’ Association.”

I conveyed to him a message from the Iranian Writers’ Association: “If Behazin
³⁵
is not released when you become prime minister, the Writers’ Association will be your first opponent.”

He said with astonishment: “I know Mr Behazin very well. Why has he been arrested?”

I snapped at him: “You must release him.”

He looked me in the eye and left.

The next day, Behazin was released. From the day the military men left the newspaper offices until the morning of 11 February 1979, the day of the revolution’s victory, the newspapers were independent in the truest sense of the word. I don’t think there has been a time in Iran’s history when newspapers have been as free as they were during those thirty-eight days. Bakhtiar lived up to his promise but he didn’t take cultural differences into account – we were unable to produce an equivalent to
Le Monde
.

That night I phoned Khamenei and related the incident to him. He was worried that the press might side with Bakhtiar. When he realized what was going on, he said that he himself would support the press’s decision. He would tell me his colleagues’ thoughts on the matter by morning. Early the next day I woke to Mr Khamenei’s phone call. He said his friends agreed with him. Mr Khomeini was also going to make an announcement the following day.

When I arrived at
Kayhan
on the morning of 6 January 1979, a crowd had filled the corridors, spilling over into the editorial rooms. I passed through the throng with difficulty. One member of staff was speaking against the reopening of newspapers.
Kayhan
’s staff and employees were listening to him. For the first time the newspaper’s staff and employees were being given the opportunity to decide the paper’s
future and the process revealed the first differences of opinion in the editorial department. When I reached the editor-in-chief’s desk, I saw Rahman, about to walk upstairs to answer questions. As soon as he saw me, he took me to one side and said: “You have arrived just in time.”

While I kept half an ear open to what the speaker was saying, I told him about my conversation with Khamenei. He relaxed and said: “Go upstairs.”

Rahman always stepped aside when I was there. He was not supposed to be in the middle of the battlefield, so I would act as his defence shield. I quickly stood up on the table. I could see a crowd reaching all the way down the corridor. I made a short announcement: “We are going to press today. The paper could be a red carpet, thrown at Bakhtiar’s feet or a bullet, hitting his chest. We want the second option. What do you want?”

The crowd shouted unanimously: “Just that! Exactly that!”

When the voices quietened, I asked: “So you agree with the paper going to press?”

They all shouted: “Yes!”

The crowd dispersed and the editorial desk resumed work after a hiatus of sixty-one days. One of the first reports we printed was the announcement of Ayatollah Khomeini’s approval of the resumption of the press. Bakhtiar’s government came to power.

A few days later, my wife phoned from Paris. She was crying hard. She had just returned from an interview with the seventy-eightyear-old Khomeini. She was crying and shouting from the other end of the line: “The sandals of despotism are on their way. Do not support these people!”

I tried to calm her. She had had to put on a small headscarf for the interview with the Ayatollah. She had said to him: “It is said that the sandals of despotism are replacing the boots of despotism,” and had sensed violence in the Ayatollah’s answer. At the end of the interview, the Ayatollah had faced her and wagging his finger in a threatening manner, he had said: “You had better not add or delete a single word.”

My wife was crying as she repeated this, and told me: “His eyes are frightening.”

I calmed her down with great difficulty. She read out the interview and I wrote it down. That was the Ayatollah’s first and last interview with an Iranian journalist.

My wife returned to Iran on the same plane that carried Ayatollah Khomeini home after his fourteen-year exile.
³⁶
She was still not wearing a headscarf at that time, and throughout the flight she could sense the disapproval of the radical clerics around her. Interviewing Ayatollah Khomeini on board the airplane was banned. However, the journalist Peter Jennings managed to get close to Khomeini and asked: “Now that you are returning to Iran after so many years, how do you feel about it?”

To which the aged Ayatollah famously replied: “
Hichi. Hich ehsaasi nadaaram
” – Nothing. I feel nothing.

The Iranian TV broadcast this answer, and the footage remained the first document of a bloody revolution, the leader of which had no feelings for Iran. And now, his unknown soldiers
³⁷
are feeling nothing but hatred for the likes of us.

You are not talking at all. You drag me along, and at the door, you hand me over to the guard. He takes me into my cell and then leaves. The light is on. What time is it? I don’t know. I take off my blindfold. My teeth are aching. I am spitting blood. The door is open. The guard comes back in as soon as I sit down. I assume he had left the door open so I can go to the bathroom. I say: “Bathroom.”

He says: “Come on.”

I put on my blindfold again and set off. The corridor is jam packed with men sleeping on blankets. I wash my face. I try to see a reflection of myself somewhere. I wash my mouth. I enter the toilet. The guard says: “Leave the door open.”

The door is open and the guard is not averting his eyes. I am embarrassed. I cannot do my business under somebody’s prying eyes.
My toothache is killing me. I wash my hands with the washing-up liquid. I put on my blindfold. I tell the guard, who is taking me back to my cell: “My toothache is killing me.”

“Tell your interrogator.”

We reach the cell. I can no longer handle the pain. I say: “Tooth ...”