Dariush’s bloody blanket

By Javad Oliyan

In the winter of 1981, being the climax of the Iranian regime launching its crackdown and repressive measures against political dissidents, I myself was arrested on charges of selling pamphlets and supporting the People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran. These charges were fabricated by the mullahs’ ruling Iran, and are not considered legitimate charges by any international judiciary organ that is based on principles and legal foundations. These were nothing but the inquisition of people’s political and social beliefs.

In the Revolutionary Guards’ torture chamber in the city of Mashhad, northeastern Iran, I was waiting always under torture and interrogation. Individuals arrested for purely political dissent and were still in the first stages of their torture and interrogation when they saw authorities isolating them from other prisoners.

One of these prisoners was Dariush. I never came to know his last name. At times we were taken to the main hall of the torture and interrogation rooms to take showers and wash some clothing. There was a tight passage in this section, with torture rooms on both sides. Whenever I was taken there I took the opportunity to look under my blindfold to see 3 or 4 people placed before each door. However, most of them had bloody and dirty blankets on the ground, with their hands cuffed and mainly lying down on their stomachs. These individuals were the same people who were under initial interrogation and kept fully isolated from others, and each time that a prison guard would pass by they would be kicked and insulted.

One day early morning we were there again for our daily chores when I realized a seriously tortured prisoner who was placed in line to undergo another round of the atrocious measures. He had committed suicide by cutting his wrist vein. From underneath his blanket there was a pool of blood streaming, leading to the next room. However, none of the guards had realized it until the next morning that we had entered the hall.

When a prison guard, himself a torturer, realized what had taken place, he rushed away to inform the others and leaving us there to be. They were furious over the fact that they had lost him and were never able to get his secrets or any other information. They were also never able to force him to succumb to their demands. They angrily pulled his body on the blanket and then to the white snow outside of the building. The reddish color of Dariush’s blood on that snow has been hacked into my memory, to stay there forever and all time.