Why did you get up so soon?

Translated by M. B. Khoshnevisan

2024-5-8

Zhian Panah was one of the elements who prevented the guys to pray which led them to go on strike. Once, I woke up earlier than the deadline, there was a three-story bed, and I was on the third story. There were also good guys in the lower stories. When I came down from the bed, Master Sergeant Moradi saw me, I did it every night, but I don't know what happened. It was exactly 8 AM when I was summoned, I went there, and when I stood in front of Moradi, he slapped me two times left and right and said, "Why did you get up then, what was your plan?" I said, "By God, I had no plans, I wanted to pray". He said; No, and then again slapped me two more times and then brought me under the stairs, which those who were in the yard couldn't see there, and said: "You have to do 100 sit-ups." He was also standing and his baton was in his hand. Then Sergeant Nazari came and stood, they said: You have to do 100 sit-ups. And I also started doing sit-sups. After doing 40 sit-ups, a situation happened to me that my leg got cramp. I fell down from behind and my head hit the concrete wall hard in a way that the sky revolved around my head and my head was hurt.

Then they told me to go back to the cell, I didn't continue the rest. In the prison, the issue of prayer, especially congregational prayer, was very worrying for the regime, maybe with this act they wanted to intimidate religious children. Maybe they wanted to make the whole prison more under the influence of the ruling power. For this reason, thirty guys or so who were praying were transferred to solitary cells for several days and some of them were flogged. I was also one of those who were put in solitary confinement for about eight days and then returned to prison again because I was apparently effective in provoking other prisoners.

Apparently, the resistance that the guys did in prison and was transferred to the families, and caused some religious scholars and authorities to react, caused them to take back their words. Their excuse was that they said: prisoners like you, would get up, disturb the order of the cells and prison and cause disturbance. Whoever sleeps anywhere, when we give the order to get up, everyone should get up together. Well, the prison was a political prison and had a different atmosphere from other ones, that is, it was never on a fixed routine and was influenced by political conditions.

All the issues outside the prison were effective inside the prison, all the issues related to the prisoners were effective in the condition of the prisoners, and basically the political and security situation of the regimes are effective in the prison. The events that happened outside, for example, they said they caught two saboteurs, there was an explosion, all of this had an effect inside the prison, therefore the issue of dealing with praying was perhaps not dealing with praying, it was the confirmation of the regime's authority in suffocating political prisoners. When they saw that they milked the ram and that these collisions may be the source of another explosion outside, they sat back. I don't believe that they wanted to stop the prayer, but they wanted to intimidate. Especially, for example, announcements from the Imam were effective in prison. If a tape from the imam came, it would reach the people. Naturally, the Savak kept its agents informed, and this had an effect on the situation of the prison managers and the prison guards. The prayer story was among such things.

Source: Hamidzadeh Givi, Akbar, Revolutionary Scholar: The Thoughts and Memoirs of Hojjat al-Eslam Valmoslemin Akbar Hamidzadeh Givi, Tehran, The Institute for Compilation and Publication of Imam Khomeini's Works, Orouj Publication Institute, 1398 (2019), pp. 304-305.