Ahmad Ahmad Memoirs (71)

Edited by Mohsen Kazemi

Ahmad Ahmad Memoirs (71)
Edited by Mohsen Kazemi
Soureh Mehr Publishing Company
(Original Text in Persian, 2000)
Translated by Mohammad Karimi

Evin Prison

The day after Eid-ul-Fitr I was told to ready to go to prison. First I called Mrs. Moslehi and thank her for her helps during those days particularly for the help she did to keep me there in the hospital in Ramadan; she thanked me I prayed for her a lot.
Before leaving, Faramarzi –SAVAK torturer- came and told the agents not to close my eye and take via the newly constructed freeways and bridges to see how progressed had become the country. He said that I had been in hospital and was not aware of anything.
I could not walk by those disabled legs and had to use a cane. Before leaving I made plan. I thought that I would be executed. I decided to hit on the head of the driver to make him lose the control of the car. We would have a car accident and the car would become upside down. Thus, I would kill a few traitor agents. It was not making any difference to me if I would be executed or being martyred in that accident; however they were aware of what was going in my mind. They put me in the middle of themselves on the rear seat and put handcuffs my hands behind my left leg in order to impede me of doing any action.
As what Faramarzi said they took via Park Way (Shahid Chamran) Freeway and passed the bridges toward Evin. It was at the time that I was thinking how to take my leg out of my hands. When we passed the first bridge of Evin they closed my eyes. It was clear they were taking me to Evin Prison.
At that time, Evin had ten corridors and hundred cells. When you were entering the cells were on your left side and on the right side there was only a wall. This wall was the wall behind the front cells. All the corridors would end in the main corridor.
They took me with closed eyes to one the cells in Row 209 and then opened my eyes and handcuffs. There were everything needed inside the cell e.g. a blanket and toilet. I had not seen a foreign toilet till that day. There was a plastic door on the toilet that I thought it was a table. Like many other prisoners found out it was a toilet by testing it in different ways. There was a hole on the cell door that could be open and close from outside. The guard would control inside the cell through that hole. At first whenever that I wanted to use the toilet the guard would look inside the cell and I would ignore what I wanted to do. Finally I could tolerate that anymore, so decided to do my job. I used my shirt as a covering and I was relieved. For the second time the guard repeated to look at me and I ignored it again. I decided to sit while my disabled leg was bothering me. Then I told myself: “Aren’t you from Abbassi district?! Let him look as much as he may die! So I did not care about his looks anymore and did…
The guard did not continue that behavior and did not repeat that action. They wanted to torture me this way physically and mentally and I could defeat them by my ignorance.
Three times a day (morning, noon and night) whenever a bell ring was heard, the prisoners had to put their clean-washed dish in front of the cell door. On the first day of prison, I heard the sound of prayer call. It seemed that it was being broadcasted from the newly constructed National (Shahid Beheshti) University’s Mosque. Thus, I could say my morning prayers everyday in that prison. University had clock that would ring at each hour and thus we could be aware of time. Days would pass one after another; with no new event. I was physically a bit better. The agent would come to interrogate repeatedly but with it had no result for them.
The prison’s walls and floor was made by concrete and it was so hard to make contacts with the neighboring cell by hitting on the walls in Morse codes. It the past it was easily possible to send Morse code to the neighboring cells. But then it was so hard. I had injured my hands. However, I began writing or drawing the Morse codes in a table by half burnt matches sticks left by cigarette users. Alphabet would be divided into four sections with one to eight lines. We could this table by counting the number of hits. For example three hits one after another and then a gap and then six more hits, would lead to the third section of the table on the sixth line, which was the letter “غ”.
At nights the sound of hits would be heard from the cells. The agents had learnt the matter and would punish anyone who had injured hands. After some time we learned that the sound could be transferred through the sewer pipelines on the floor. Thus, we found another way to make contacts with other cells. We would hit the sewer and wait to hear the answer.
After some time, once again I would go into convulsion; something that I had suffered from in previous prisons. Convulsion and disabled legs had made life hard for me. When it got worse the prison’s agents came and took me to prison’s clinic with closed eyes. I got worse there because I was allergic to the drugs they had given me and it made my treatment hard. I could only have pain relief pills by force.

1- Faramarzi was arrested, trialed and executed after the Islamic Revolution.