Secret Life in Dezful

Translated by Ruhollah Golmoradi

2024-5-29

When I went to Qom [1976], after a while, I made an appointment with Mr. Hamed Dehghan for the third time. Our appointment was in Mr. Ebrahimi's Jian (Dyane) car. When my family and I went to visit them, we saw another person sitting there too. Mr. Ebrahimi introduced him to us. Later, when I met him at our cabal house and we formed a guerrilla group together, I found out that his real name was Dehghan.

At that time, we were working with each other under pseudonyms. My wife and I sat in the backseat of Jian, Mr. Dehghan sat in the front seat, and Mr. Ebrahimi was driving. We went to the south of the country. On the way, because we were tired and it was night, we parked the car on the side of the road and we all slept in the car. In the morning, we continued our path until we reached Dezful. It took one or two days before we were able to rent a house in Dezful. At night, my wife, Mr. Dehghan, and I used to go to rest to Dez River, which runs through the middle of the city. The people of the city had made platforms by the river by picking stones from the river, smoothed them with cement, and slept on them at night.

_ Are these platforms called Soffeh in the local language?

Rezaei: Yes, a gentle wind blew and hit the water, creating a very pleasant atmosphere. We slept there for one or two nights until finally we rented a house near a Hosseinieh in the Abbasiyeh neighborhood in the center of the city. This house was both our residence and our cabal house. In Dezful, like Qom, we had a secret life and we had to completely adapt ourselves to the environment; For example, if people asked me what do you do? I used to say that I am a worker and, for example, I work in Karun Agro-industry. Sometimes we used to visit Sabzqaba with our neighbors—it is said he is the brother of Imam Reza (AS)—and pray in congregation. We were among the people, but they did not know that we, who live in the alley next to them, are secret guerrillas. They thought we were workers and came from other cities to Dezful to work. In the cabal house, our task was both self-improvement and preparing the organization to fight against the Shah. The three people who lived in this house (Mr. Dehqan, my wife, and I), were thinking about that each of us would become responsible for a multi-person team after a while and train them. Then they themselves become responsible for several other people and breed other people. I remember sitting in the same cabal house many times drawing grape clusters for the future organization in order to see when it would become a big organization.

During this period, our task was mostly self-improvement. We read books, read Quran and Nahj al-Balagha. We used to have ideological discussions. We read the pamphlets that were received from other guerrillas like the Mojahedin (MKO) or the Fada'i guerrillas, such as the defenses of the arrested, which were published in a few copies, or the pamphlets related to prosecution and care; pamphlets in which we were taught how to escape from the pursuit of the SAVAK agents or if we were captured and tortured, how should we talk so as not to reveal more information.

One of these trainings was to call the interrogator to get annoyed and to torture less or to stop torturing. Studying these pamphlets was important for us. Sometimes it was possible that someone would see us on the street accidentally and call us by name. It was taught in pamphlets and our friends also had told us that when someone sees you, you should say very firmly no, I'm not the one you think I am. You take me for someone else! We had to say this phrase so decisively that the other party doubted his knowledge of us. This did not happen in Dezful, but it happened in Ahvaz. We did the same and we were successful. Mr. Dehghan did this several times too and was successful.

During the period of secret life, we studied various experiences; For example, living in a guerilla situation, getting out of the conflict if it happened, doing anti-persecution if being pursued, coping with the interrogators and tortures so that the torture affects us less, giving false information to the interrogators and having correct information in our minds. In general, it was clear and obvious to us in the guerrilla life, and we took the work on religious and ideological issues very seriously.

In the beginning of June 1976, we went to Dezful and we were there about four months; after this period, due to the sensitivity regarding us in the environment, we had to leave Dezful in August or September. We felt that the neighbors suspected us, so to neutralize it, I tried to find a job on the Dezful-Shushtar Road and work in the Kiln there, so that if SAVAK agents came and asked the neighbors about me or investigated me, they would be informed that I worked there.

Source: Rezaei Mirqaed, Mohsen, Oral History of the Iran-Iraq War as Narrated by Mohsen Rezaei, edited by Hossein Ardestani, vol. 1. Tehran, Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the Holy Defense Research and Document Center, 2015, pp. 186-188.