Ahmad Ahmad Memoirs (38)

Edited by Mohsen Kazemi

Ahmad Ahmad Memoirs (38)
Edited by Mohsen Kazemi
Soureh Mehr Publishing Company
(Original Text in Persian, 2000)
Translated by Mohammad Karimi

Interrogation

Few days after my meeting with Saeed Mohammadi Fateh, the agents came to me. They closed my eyes and hands and put in a bus. Then we came out of Evin Prison. Inside the bus somebody had sat so calmly just beside me. I asked him: “Who are you?” He said: “A Muslim guy!” I said: “I’m Ahmad Ahmad.” He said: “Ahmad Ahmad! Member of INP? How are you, I’d your name.”
I asked: “What’s your name?” He said: “I’m Mohammad Hanifnezhad.”(1) I was shocked a bit. We warmly began speaking. He was going for his case revision and getting ready for appeals court. I told him: “People backbite you and ask why he is not given a death penalty verdict while other members of Organization (People’s Mujahedin) are going to be executed!” He said: “I’ve heard these things and know them either. I swear to God that I resisted very well, but I do not know why they behaved this way! This time I would do the way that they would give me a death verdict too.” I heard later that in the appeals court he had thrown the book of law to the picture of Shah and then the judge had gotten angry and issued his death verdict.
When we reached Qasr Crossroads, the bus entered the army justice. We all got off the bus. When they removed the blindfolds, I could see Mohammad Hanifnezhad and about 15 other Marxist activists from Masood Ahmadzadeh group (2). We greeted each other and went for case revision and choosing barristers.
From that day on I was imprisoned with 36 other members of Ahmadzadeh Group in one row. Every morning we would go for case revision to Qasr Crossroads and come back in the evening. Being among the Marxists was not easy, but I had to tolerate. I was also bothersome for them. They were suspicious about me.
One day Ahmad Ahmadi, a doctor among them, during the interrogations visited Mohammad Hanifnezhad and asked him about me and said: “there is a man among us who prays and prevents interactions with us.” Hanifnezhad would answer: “He is a Muslim and can be trusted. He has been in prison for his activities in INP.” From that day on, they were not suspicious about me anymore and came to me to apologize. I told them that they had behaved normally and it is a rule even for that from each two people in political prison, one is a spy and the other is a SAVAK agent.
After that meeting, they changed their behavior toward me and gave me a better place for sleeping. They also let me to take part in some public meetings and consult with me about some affairs. However, despite all these relations I would take care about ritual purity an impurity particularly when eating. With no embarrassment I would separate my dish from theirs and if they would touch with wet hands I would wash it and it was not bothering for them.
In one of public meetings, they discussed about the knowhow of Roqiyyeh Daneshgari and her simplicity that resulted in the arrest of other members of the group. They said Roqiyyeh Daneshgari had been arrested by SAVAK in a safe house and had tolerated lot of tortures. When SAVAK became disappointed in forcing her to talk, a police officer pretended to be a religious friend and got close to her. Daneshgari was hoaxed and had trusted that guy and given him her mother’s phone number in order to inform her family about her conditions and the reason of her absence. The police officer would deliver the phone number to SAVAK. Thus, by monitoring that phone number SAVAK could identify and arrest the other members of the group.
One day Alireza Nabdel told me that one Samad Behrangi, a soldier of their own group and him would go beside the Aras River. Then Samad would fall down in the river and sank. They could not save him. Then the group would decide to rumor that Samad had been killed by SAVAK. Nabdel had been shot, injured and arrested during the disarmament operation of Bouzarjomehri (15 of Khordad) Police Station in Pachenar Street. They moved him to The Police Hospital (Bimarestan-e Shahrbani). After 25 days, he would jump down from the second floor to escape, but his stomach would tear apart and SAVAK became suspicious that he must have had important information. They pressed him. Finally he who had thought his friends would have had changed and cleaned their places up to that time, revealed some names…
One day, Husseini came to our row. The palls stood to show their respect. But I did not. He moved others to sides and came right to me and after slapping on my face said: “Don’t you have feet?! Couldn’t you stand?!…” I remained silent and did not say anything. He continued his insults and then called a soldier and said: “Close the eyes of this son of a bitch and bring him to me!” Then they took me to another room. There, Husseini told me: “Stupid! When you would be a man?! Don’t you know how to say hello?! But I chasten you…”
Then he beat me in the most severe ways for about 15 minutes till his own hands became red and tired of hitting me. Then he ordered to take me to another row.
It was interesting when I entered this row; it was just like the other one belonging to a Marxist Group known as Jaryan (movement) Group(3). They had passed their first trial and were waiting for the appeals court. They also sympathized with me after one or two days and some became close friends with me and talked about their goals and plans.
Each day they would take me for interrogation. I was wondering why Saeed Mohammadi Fateh was not even in one session of interrogation beside me. I guessed they might have separated his case from mine. Later Saeed told me that his father had made some influence and through a high ranking officer, known as Nasser (4), had separated our cases in order to decrease the degree of verdicts for us. This guess facilitated me to deny my previous talks of Saeed about myself.
After several interrogations, they took me to Public Prison at Evin. On April 26th 1972, head of 7th Branch of Inspectorship, wrote to the warden of Qezel Qal’eh (5): “Since the interrogation of the above mentioned name (Ahmad Ahmad) is over, he can have visits with his relatives and there is no problem for this matter from the viewpoint of this branch of Inspectorship.”
After completing the file and several warnings, they forced me to accept referred lawyer. So, they introduced a retired colonel known as Kalhori as my lawyer.

1- Mohammad Hanifnezhad was born in 1938 in a poor family in Tabriz. He began his political, social and religious activities by participating in religious circles and these activities reach their ultimate after he entered the university. He was elected as the students’ representative in Iranian National Front at Agriculture Faculty. At this time he was known as an active member of Liberty Movement and head of Students Islamic Association in that faculty. So, two days before the regime’s referendum in 1962, he was arrested and passed 7 months in Qezel Qal’eh and Qasr Prisons. In the prison he was acquainted with the late Ayatollah Taleghani while continuing his activities and taking part in his speeches and Quran interpretation classes. Hanifnezhad after freedom in 1963 was graduated in agriculture and then went to military service.
In 1965 along with Saeed Mohsen, Ali Asghar Badi’zadegan, and other comrades, he established People’s Mojahedin Oraganization with a military approach. This organization was defeated badly in 1971 by SVAK and 50 of its members were arrested and imprisoned. Hanifnezhad could hide himself for some time from SAVAK. However, finally he was arrested by the revelations of a PMO member. He was finally executed by death squad on May 25th 1972 along with four other comrades few days before President Nixon journey to Iran.
2- The second group that played role in establishing People’s Devotee Guerrillas, was a group of young people who were active in 1967 and 68. Two main members of this group were Masood Ahmadzadeh and Amirparviz Pooyan whose political beckgrounf would go back to the years of Oil Nationalization Movement.
Masood Ahmadzadeh belonged to a famous and noble intellectual family in Mashhad. The members of this family had openly opposed the regime since the regime of Reza Shah and were among the supporters of Dr. Mosaddegh. After the coup of 1953 they continued their cooperation with National Front and then Resistance Movement and then Iranian Liberty Movement.
Ahmadzadeh, at the time of his high school created The Muslim Students Association and took part in rallies against the government while being affiliated to National Front. After high school, he came to Tehran and continued his studies at Aryamehr Industrial University (Sharif University) and from that time he found Marxist orientations and in 1967 created a secret group including some student friends and then they began studying the works by the French revolutionary Regis Debray, the Brazilian theoretician and revolutionary Carlos Marghelle, and the Cuban revolutionary and guerilla Ernesto "Che" Guevara from Latin America. In 1960, Ahmadzadeh wrote a treatise as the theoretician of People’s Devotee Guerrillas titled: “Military Fight: Strategy and Tactic” (See: Tarikh-e Siasi-ye 25 Sal-e Iran)
At the beginning of 1971 Ahmadzadeh-Pooyan Group joined with a group of Siyahkal Group (Hamid Ashraf, Safa’ee Farahani) and People’s Devotee Guerrillas was established. Assassinating General Farsiv, Head of Military Prosecuting on April 7th 1971 was one of their earliest attempts.
3- Jaryan Group, was group that believed in political action in the form of publishing pamphlets and distributing them in intellectual circles. The other name of this group was Parseh and was mostly constituted from Tudeh ex-members.
4- This officer was known as Nasser Zaghi who had been an orphan in childhood. His mother would go to Saeed’s father for passing her life. Vajihullah Mohammadi would accept her fostering and with his help Nasser could go to military university. This attempt for Saeed Mohammadi Fateh was something to thank Saeed’s father.
5- Ahmad was in Evin Prison and the letter was to the warden of Qezel Qal’eh because he had been imprisoned there first and had a file there. So he was known as the prisoner of Qezel Qal’eh and Evin both.