How Messages Were Sent from Komiteh Prison to Qasr Prison

Translated by Kianoush Borzouei

2025-1-2

One day, I encountered a prisoner in one of the cells, a sincere, religious, and committed young activist named Hashemian. Occasionally, he would start talking about his case: “Yes, there were many of us, and some of our group were arrested. Some have already completed their interrogations and have been transferred to Qasr Prison. Our activities have also been exposed and concluded. They’re planning to send me there as well.”

This young man seemed to share my tendency to talk a lot! Perhaps the difference was that, unlike him, I refrained from revealing information about my activities. I had learned this the hard way after an earlier interrogation when the interrogators mentioned things I had privately discussed with fellow prisoners in my previous cell. Although the matters weren’t significant, I realized that SAVAK might inquire about what was said in the cell—either through intimidation or torture—or perhaps there were microphones installed in the cell walls. Consequently, like everyone else, I was cautious not to disclose details of my activism to my cellmates.

Prisoners often harbored suspicions about their cellmates until they had enough time to gauge their sincerity, dedication, and trustworthiness. There was always the possibility that a cellmate could be working for SAVAK. Thus, whenever we were uncertain, we made it a point to say and act in ways that, if leaked, would mislead SAVAK into thinking we weren’t involved in anti-regime activities—or, better yet, make them think the opposite.

My cellmate, however, was a genuine activist. If he shared anything, it was likely because his activities had already been exposed, leaving nothing more to hide. Among the names he mentioned were some individuals I had, to some extent, worked with politically. For instance, one of them, a technical student, and I had read what SAVAK referred to as “rabble-rousing pamphlets." These included two or three booklets by Lenin—one of them being What Is To Be Done?—as well as several banned tracts from religious activist groups. This individual’s name was “Baradaran.”

When my cellmate referred to a few familiar names, I refrained from showing any recognition but came up with an idea: I decided to use him to send a secret message to my comrades in Qasr Prison. I approached this idea delicately. Since his interrogation phase was nearing its end and he was likely to be transferred from Komiteh to Qasr soon, I began creating an atmosphere of humor, playful banter, and lighthearted poetry in the cell. This served as a pretext to teach him some verses under the guise of harmless entertainment so he could unwittingly carry my message.

I told him jokingly: “You’ve spoken so much about your fellow detainees that I’ve fallen in love with them without even meeting them! I’d like to dedicate a poem to each of them. When you see them in Qasr, give them my regards, tell them about me—a prisoner at Komiteh with these characteristics—and say that based on what I heard about them, I composed these humorous, playful verses.”

The poems were intentionally simple and easy to memorize. Every day, I would repeat them with him, saying, “Recite them with me to see if you can memorize them.” The poor guy diligently repeated the lines, enjoying them immensely, thinking it was all just for fun.

Of those few verses, I remember two distinctly. For each name he mentioned, I crafted a simple rhyme, embedding my intended message within the verse. For instance, one of the names was “Khaksar,” a religious and committed activist who had once worked as a librarian in his city. Although I had met him at the University of Tehran through Mr. Honar-Bakhsh, we had no direct political collaboration. I instructed my cellmate: “When you see him in Qasr, tell him on my behalf:

He who is humble,
A librarian in his past.
Tell me, dear Khaksar,
Why meddle in politics?”

My cellmate found this verse particularly amusing and would laugh every time he recited it. I reassured myself that even if this scheme was ever uncovered, the young courier would believe he had merely been taught nonsense to pass the time. SAVAK would interpret it as meaningless chatter, nothing more.

Among the other names he mentioned was Baradaran, whom I hadn’t explicitly acknowledged knowing. For him, I devised the following lines:

If you seek the judge’s grace,
Speak no secrets to any person.

I tailored these lines to be ambiguous yet meaningful. The word “Baradar” (brother) also served as shorthand for Baradaran’s name. My cellmate, unaware of its deeper intent, laughed at its playful tone. I told him to share these verses with his fellow detainees for their amusement. He repeated the five or six lines so many times that he memorized them completely, believing they were merely jokes.

The prison environment was such that when someone arrived at a new facility, fellow detainees would swarm around, asking about their previous location and who they had encountered. When this young man was transferred to Qasr and began reciting the verses, some prisoners laughed, dismissing them as meaningless rhymes. But Baradaran instantly understood the message.

Years later, in 1976 or 1977, I visited him after his release. As soon as we embraced, he smiled and said, “Your message arrived on time.”

Before that, I had doubted whether my poems had reached him. But Baradaran confirmed: “When I heard your verses, I understood you were reassuring me that during interrogations, you hadn’t disclosed anything about our shared activities. This gave me peace of mind that, if I were ever taken back to Komiteh for torture, anything exposed couldn’t have come from you—it must have originated from another source or group.”^[1]