A Better Future

By Ahmad Rahbar

The bitter winter cold would make one’s bones shiver, and steps taken by legs in the month of December were truly very weak. There was no noise to be heard. Even birds were never heard singing to remind us of the next morning, as the cold winds blew over the fields of firing squads in Kermanshah, western Iran.

On December 7^th, 1982 the early morning hours were very eerie. The regime’s Revolutionary Guards were seen in a hurry, but why? All of a sudden it became clear that they were preparing for the execution of those Iranians who had given up everything in the fight and struggle to bring about freedom for their nation. A deafening silence was felt everywhere. A vehicle with all its windows covered was seen hitting on the breaks, and four individuals stepping out of it. Their faces were all covered. A prison guard rushed forward and took off their masks, and under the masks their eyes were also blindfolded. Four young men were seen standing like mystical heroes, fearless before the Revolutionary Guards. I knew all four of them.

Javad Ghandi, my friend from high school, born in 1958 and a student in Tehran Poly Tech University.

The second was Ali Samimi of the city of Songhor, and I believe he was born in 1953. From 1978 to 1980 he was a student in a college of Kermanshah.
The third was Bizhan Sodagari who was 24 years old at the time and studying agriculture in Karaj. He was brought along with his heroic wife, Giti Vanaie; all four to be executed.

These four young prisoners were so confident and brave that even the interrogators knew they could not treat them like the other prisoners. They were always a source of energy for the other prisoners, getting a message of resistance to the very end for the Iranian people.

I was deep in my thoughts and I remember that the interrogator was an individual by the name of Dahnavi, another was Abdulreza Mesri (who is now a member of the Iranian regime’s so-called parliament, and a former minister during Ahmadinejad’s tenure as the regime’s president). They had transferred Javad from Diesel Abad Prison in Kermanshah to the IRGC prison one day before his execution, bringing his mother to his cell in order to break his will and determination. They were attempting to force him to repent and back down from his beliefs in the cause of freedom for his people. However, Javad was not a man to betray his people, and he was so determined in the path he had chosen for freedom and democracy in Iran that the regime’s interrogators literally hated him. Later on I heard that even during his execution they had resorted to all kinds of tortures and insults…

I heard a noise that broke my chain of thoughts. The scene that the guards had prepared was for their execution, the execution of four young individuals in the utmost viciousness, as they were being taken before the firing squad. However, the regime’s riflemen shot them in their stomachs and legs so they wouldn’t die on the spot. After the first round of shots, as they were still alive and literally shaking in their last moments, they were left to be. The guards returned to the scene the next morning and fired the final shots to their heads.

These heroes sacrificed their lives for the freedom of the Iranian nation, as they paved the path for a better future for the Iranian people.