Two scenes of a crime!

Rouhi Shafii
Scene one
In 1982, I was still in Iran. I had a neighbour who was diagnosed with cancer and died in an early summer day. As was the custom, we accompanied the bereaved family to the hospital, where an ambulance carried the dead man to Behesht Zahra cemetery, 50 kilometres south of the Capital. While we were nearing the cemetery, I noticed a tall, white van followed and accompanied by other unmarked cars kept us under constant observation until we got to the compound, where they would the dead to be washed and shrouded as is the Islamic custom. We got out of our cars and waited in the area for the ritual to complete and then accompany the family to the plot where they would bury their loved one. It was a sombre atmosphere, the family were weeping in silence and we were bunching up speaking in low voice.
Suddenly, a curious neighbour of mine attracted my attention to a side door of the compound where the white van had reversed and opened its rear doors. Two black Mercedes were parked on each side of the van, blocking our vision. We were standing in about 50 metres from the van and through the opening between the cars saw in total horror, corpses being taken out and into the washing hall. Shortly, those who were standing guard in plain clothes noticed our curious eyes and shouted to us to move away. My neighbour and I forgot about the dead neighbour. It was the days of the suppression of the opposition groups in Iran as Ayatollah Khomeini was strengthening his grip on the country and prisons were full of young supporters of various groups, young men and women. We didn’t know then. We found out later that prisons had turned into killing fields.
Scene two
In the afternoon of a summer day in 1983, I was chatting with my neighbour friend outside our houses in the dead-end alleyway where we both lived in Niavaran, Shemiran near the mountain ranges of Alborz and a kilometre away from Ayatollah Khomeini’s residence. We didn’t choose to become neighbours with him. He chose the outskirts of Tehran and the mountain side to be safe from Saddam Hossein’s missile attacks.
In those days the regime had managed to send us under the compulsory veil but we disobeyed it whenever we could. We were both chatting unveiled as we didn’t expect intruders.
Suddenly, a man appeared from the next street and as he neared, my neighbour said that she was certain she knew the man but why had he changed into such old, disfigured person? He stopped and said hello to her. She looked hard at him and then asked whether he was Mr …(I have forgotten the name). Didn’t you recognise me Mrs S? He asked in amazement. 'I wasn’t sure it was you.' She answered. 'You have changed so much in just 4 years!' Yes, he sighed. ‘I have changed. I am not the handsome guy I used to be. Life has been hard on me.’ She asked him what has happened to him to have changed him so much.
As if he was waiting to open his heart to someone he began to tell us about his life after the revolution. I should add that later my neighbour explained that he was a Savaki(active member of the notorious security service of the Shah). He sometimes went to their factory and if any of the employees were suspicious of disturbance or being anti-Shah, he would be taken away for questioning. This was routine during the Shah. All factories and work places had a Savaki either as employee or occasional visitor to look over their behaviour and attitude to the Shah.
When the revolution happened he was taken into custody and sentenced to death. The night before his execution he was called into the prison office and told that if he cooperated with the new regime his life would be spared which he naturally did. First, he was appointed as the new head of the Ghasr prison (a prison in the capital which housed both political as well as normal prisoners). Later, he was transferred to the Evin prison as guard, where he witnessed so many atrocities that he said, had driven him into madness. He told us of the tortures in Evin and the execution of young people in the early 1980s. He said he had not been able to have a normal sleep because he hears the cries of girls as young as twelve as they were taken to be shot and were calling on their mums. “mum, mum where are you?”. The trials were rapid and the executions carried out in the middle of the night. He claimed that in one night about 400 people were shot and their bodies taken to Behesht Zahra cemetery. I asked him whether he remembered the date. The date of the removal was the day we were in Behesht Zahra! Later, he pleaded with Ayatollah Khomeini personally to be transferred and now works with the street patrolling group (Gasht Sarollah) which at the time controlled the city. The reason he had grown so old and disfigured in just few years were the result of his tormented soul and sleepless nights and there was no way out of it. He now wished he was shot when captured.
So, dear reader the two scenes in my narrative combined. I got out of the country in 1985. Ever since, a lot has happened but the human rights record of the Islamic regime remained the same. Today, I am sad at the terrible news coming out of Iran. But not surprised. Not surprised at all.