Naeim, the son of one of the friends in prison, Mr. Behrouz Tavakkoli, has written a very personal and heartfelt letter of what it's like for him to imagine his father in prison.
Reading this letter, just makes me realize how little my problems, pain and own suffering are in comparison to theirs. I cannot even compare them! My words are really not even befitting enough to even talk about it, so i will just share with you Naeim's letter...
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Naeim Tavakkoli
February 18, 2009
(Photo: Mr. Behrouz Tavakkoli)
I would like to share a few words about my personal experience and feelings on the
current situation of Baha’is in Iran: about my family, my friends and myself. What I am
going to share are my feelings and thoughts, and the complications which I face
everyday: as an Iranian; as a Baha’i; as a member of the human family; and as a person
whose father is incarcerated in one of the most infamous prisons in the world. The Evin
prison, in north of Tehran. High on a hill. With underground cells and torture rooms.
Surrounded by thick huge walls.
I remember the time I was involved in a hi-rise construction project which had a good
view of Evin prison. As the building was going up, higher and higher, I was able to have
a better view of that scary place. That is why today I can clearly remember the
asymmetrical outline of Evin. It is the image I go to sleep with at night and wake up with
in the morning, trying to picture my father in it. I know what it looks like.
Three years ago, my father, Behrouz Tavakkoli, was in jail on a previous occasion for his
Baha’i beliefs. When we finally received permission to visit him I couldn’t believe the
man before me was my father. Pale, weak with a long beard and long hair, in a loose
prison uniform. As they took him away I saw he was limping. Now I can imagine what it
looks like. But this time I have to add to this picture all I can remember from his friends,
too. I have to use my imagination like Photoshop software to add beards to the smiling
faces of the other four men. I have to make them look older. Make them look older by
several years older for each month which they have spent in prison. I have to picture
their joyful eyes as tired. Tired of repeated daylong intense interrogations under high
intensity light sources. I have to imagine how my father and his friends look today after
nine months of devastating interrogations accompanied by the most humiliating and
insulting words they’ve ever heard in their lives. Do you know two of these seven
arrested Baha’is are women? I can’t imagine these two women in that situation. This is
what they call “white torture”. Words are loosing their meanings and implications. Upon
hearing the word “White” it is no longer the snow that comes to my mind, nor is it a dove
or peace. Torture comes to my mind these days with the word “white”. White torture
means all the serious orthotic problems my father has developed during the
incarceration period. White torture means that Vahid, one of my father’s colleagues, who
is 35 years old, is loosing his eye sight due to severe nerve breaking pressure. White
torture means to deprive a mother from being with her teenage daughter for several
months.
I have only a few minutes to share with you a few words about my father, and his friends
but this is more or less the everyday life of the largest non-Muslim religious minority in
Iran. This is the life of anyone who belongs to the Baha’i community, a community of
over 300,000. A community deprived of everything. Deprived of basic human rights from
the time of their birth until they die. Deprived of being given - while still a newborn - any
name which holds significance to the Baha’is. Deprived of having even one easy day in
school without being singled out. Deprived of being able to register in any school based
solely on their talents. Deprived of higher education. Deprived of marriage certification.
Deprived of not only governmental jobs, but even banned from being hired by a large
part of the private sector due to government pressures. Deprived of having their own
businesses without their names published in the revolutionary guard’s black list.
Deprived of having a tombstone on their graves, to rest in peace without shaking several
times a year in their caskets from the bulldozers of the Islamic Republic. Deprived of
having Baha’i administrative elections and institutions.
My father and his friends were seven members of this populous community which is
scattered over every corner of Iran. Their job was only to bring these people together. To
provide them with sense of community and integrity in the absence of any Baha’i
institutions, which are banned by law in the Islamic Republic of Iran. Now they have
been targeted by several false and fabricated accusations by the regime.
I remember nine months ago after that morning raid to my parent’s home, I was talking
to my mother and I could feel she was shaking on the other side of the line as she was
telling me about her conversation with one of the intelligence agents. She was packing a
warm sweater for my father as they were taking him away, but the agent refused to allow
my father to take that package, saying “he is not going to need clothing anymore, only a
live person does”!
Now it has been over nine months that my father is in jail. It has been over nine months I
am working on that picture in my head, imagining my father’s situation. Once I had to
paint him in a solitary confinement, and in interrogation rooms. I’ve tried to picture him in
a room sitting on a wooden stool for over 20 hours facing two intelligence agents filled
with blind religious prejudices. I have moved my father in this picture from solitary
confinement to the general ward. Then I moved him back to a small cell with no bed, not
enough blankets, sleeping on a cold cement floor in Tehran’s cold winter with his four
fellow cell-mates. Now I am working on another corner of this big mental canvas. I am
drawing a court. I cannot see a lawyer though. Probably they don’t have access to their
lawyers.
Will I have to draw my father and his friends back into the prison after this court case?
Will I have to move him around Evin prison in my imaginary drawing one more time?
From solitary cells, to interrogation rooms, to torture benches, to larger cells with his
friends with him.
When I look more carefully at this big unpleasant picture there is another section in this
prison which I can see, with wooden posts or steel posts. And steel rafters. And hand-operated
cranes. And hoisting machines. And ropes!
My mind won’t let me move my father and his friends to that corner.
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