Exposure against the Pahlavi Regime

Translated by: M.B. Khoshnevisan

2024-10-9

Another thing we did to expose was to inform the people in the streets and the bazaar. Since the bazaar was a shopping center, we could well awaken the feelings of the faithful people who were passing by to shop or had shops there. The active bazaaris also emphasized that the bazaar was the best place for exposing.

We made an appointment with the ladies at home, and the next day we went one by one in front of the bazaar and gathered there at a certain time. Then, we would all shout Allah-o Akbar [God is greater] and La Ilaha Ellal-lah [there is no God but Allah] and enter the bazaar. We said that they have taken our wives or children and are harassing and torturing them and want to kill them. Of course, the shopkeepers would tell their family, friends, and acquaintances what they saw. Sometimes when the agents rushed to arrest us, the shopkeepers who were really Muslims helped us escape in order to show their companionship; but despite this help, sometimes some of them were arrested.

I remember a young lady who was one of our acquaintances and her husband was in prison and spent some time in our house with her six-seven-month-old daughter. She once entrusted her child to Mashadireza and we went to the bazaar together. That day, when the officers attacked, we lost each other in the alleys of the market while fleeing. I looked here and there a lot; But I could not find her and returned home alone. I was hoping she would come back by herself; but after a few hours when she didn’t come back, I guessed that she had been arrested. I was very worried. On the other hand, her child was hungry and did not get along with us and was constantly crying. We had some pasteurized milk at home.

I heated the milk, the baby drank and slept. I told myself that the next morning I should inform her family in Shiraz that they should do something for him. I knew that calling from home was not the right thing to do. I couldn't go to anyone's house, I couldn't call. That's why I went to the telecommunications company and said to his father: "This has happened, you should come to Tehran and make an effort to find her." Two or three days later, the lady's parents came to Tehran and released her after following up and giving guarantee. After her release, when she came to our house to pick up her daughter, she said that they arrested several other people in the bazaar on that day.

Source: Tayyaba Pazouki, The Gem of Patience: The Hidden Gem of Sharia, Tehran: Sooreh Mehr Publication, 2018.