The Story of a Woman’s Resistance Who Did Not Succumb to Iran’s Religious Dictatorship

By Assadollah Nabavi

The sound of a woman in pain had me go to the door of my prison cell. Cell number 2 of Semnan Prison in central Iran. It was back in August 1988. 

The summer of 1988 Iran was the scene of horrific massacres carried out under Khomeini’s religious fatwa against all political prisoners across the country. I was looking down the hallway through the small hatch in my cell. The prison guards were busy taking something away with a cart. I looked more carefully.

It was the body of a woman covered all in blood in the cart, and the prison guards were around her like mad wolves. One of them said, “Pull this pathetic infidel by her legs into her cell.” Her legs were literally torn apart and all the floor was then covered with blood as she was taken into the cell. Another order came, “Finish it. Take her headscarf and chador. Place her back in the cell.” Once again the woman began screaming and protesting, and I finally got a look at the torturer.

Then the guards took the half-dead body of this woman into the adjacent cell. Between the two cells were 30cm-thick brick walls that were nearly noise-proof.

It was way past midnight and the guards had gone for some time. I listened carefully and heard no noise from down the hall other than a nearby water faucet. I wanted to know who that woman was. I carefully knocked her cell wall. There was no answer. I knocked louder and louder, but it was of no use. I told myself what do you expect, that body, soaked with blood, she may not even be able to move at all. I laid down on my cell floor and the small carpet on the ground smelled of dust and blood. Who knew the blood of how many people had spilled on this very carpet? A caterpillar was trying to climb up the old cell wall. I had become used to the noise each night.

All of a sudden I was shocked by the sound of a tap. I listened again. It was the sound of a Morse code. I answered it and found out that it was a woman on the other side of a wall and her name was Aghdas Hemmati. I was about to cry because I knew her. She had been released two years ago and a few members of her family had already been executed by the Iranian regime.

“Did you have a difficult interrogation?” I asked

“Not much. Both of my legs are nearly paralyzed and my left arm, too,” she said.

“Why?” I asked.

“I slit my wrist so the interrogator wouldn’t be able to get my information, but unfortunately I lived,” she said

I didn’t know what to say…

“Your legs were horrible,” I said.

She couldn’t talk anymore and said she had only drank water during the past week.

The next time we talked (through Morse) was in the early morning hours. She was in a hurry, knowing that the guards may arrive at any moment.

“I only have one request. They have taken everything from me. Anything that they feared I would use to commit suicide. They want information from me that may endanger the lives of a number of other people. I want to protect my secrets, but I’m afraid I won’t be able to,” she said.

I was left in a difficult position.

“I’m afraid it may be too late and I have to prepare something sharp,” she continued.

The guards could be heard down the hall and she stopped, and went …

At night when they were returning her blood-soaked body I was looking at the entire scene through the hatch. The same bloody legs and her half dead body, leaving me concerned what to say to her that night.

She began talking earlier that night, again through Morse.

“I know that you had another rough day, but we have many historic symbols of resistance in our history. Think about them, be strong,” she said.

She knocked to stop me. “I know all this. Have you prepared anything sharp?”

“No,” I said hesitantly.

She didn’t continue any longer and went. My efforts after that were futile.

A few hours later I suddenly woke up to the sounds of the guards rushing in and taking her away.

Once again the hallway became all bloody, and the sound of a woman in pain…

I was worried, asking myself have I not left her to be at hands of these animals?

I couldn’t sleep anymore and began walking.

She returned before morning prayers and this time she came and said, “No need to look for anything sharp. It’s all over.”

“Why?” I asked.

“They took me to the interrogator without any blindfolds last night. His face was just like I guessed. Despicable and ugly. There was no cables or lashing. The interrogator had given up and he was saying: ‘Your stubbornness is going to cost you’. I knew that it was all over and they have to execute me soon,” she said.

I felt that that the hand tapping the Morse code that night was very alive and high in spirits. I wanted to say something in protest, but she wouldn’t give me the chance and said, “Tell the others to resist. This is the secret of our generation’s success. Tell the organization (meaning the People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran) that Aghdas was loyal to her pledge…”

These were her last sentences. It didn’t take long and the guards came once again and she went away. She could probably see three of her colleagues when they were placing the noose around her neck, as she was executed along with them that night. One of them was Hossein Movakedi, her husband. They were the first group of political prisoners hanged in Semnan Prison as the 1988 massacre began under orders issued by Khomeini, the Godfather of terrorism and fundamentalism…

Writer’s Biography: Assadollah Nabavi, former political prisoner in Iran. He was held in Semnan and Evin prisons from 1985 to 1998, and one of the sole survivors of the 1988 massacre. He is currently living in Camp Liberty near Baghdad International Airport along with a few thousand Iranian dissidents, members of the People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran.