Twenty-Five Years After Those Deadly Days
September 14, 2013
Twenty-five years have passed since those deadly days. It was August and September of 1988 when a wave of executions and massacres began in Iranian prisons. That might have been the last time I saw many of my friends and comrades. For some, I didn’t even have time to say goodbye or share a final embrace.
The loudspeakers in the ward began calling names one after another. That cursed night began right after state television showed the mutilated bodies of Mojahedin members killed in Eslamabad-e Gharb—piled on top of each other, being kicked by Revolutionary Guards and a few clerics. It was during the 8 PM news.
Just a few hours later, the loudspeakers started reading names. One by one, we were taken to the ward’s guard station.
At the time, we were in Ward 2 of Vakilabad Prison in Mashhad. Ward 2 was known as the opposition ward. A few rooms were occupied by leftist prisoners, but most were held by members of the Mojahedin-e Khalq. For the first time, we were forced to wear blindfolds when passing through the corridor connecting Wards 1, 2, and quarantine, which had the prison officials’ offices on the floor above. It wasn’t common practice in Vakilabad to wear blindfolds.
From the day I arrived at Vakilabad, blindfolds had never been used. I hated them. They gave you a sense of suffocation and death—especially knowing that your interrogators, standing around you with open eyes, were watching your every move.
During interrogations, you’d often have to sit in a room for hours with a blindfold on, not knowing whether anyone was there or not. You had to assume someone was watching you—how you sat mattered. Whether you sat straight or slouched, confident or weak, was important.
I always tried to sit upright and alert. Or if I was forced to stand facing a wall, I stood straight. I didn’t want them to think I was broken or afraid—didn’t want a sudden strike or shout to knock me over. That night, we sat blindfolded, facing the wall. They handed us a sheet with just a few questions. What I remember most from that cursed night are those questions:
– What group are you affiliated with?
– What is your opinion of your group?
– What is your opinion of the Islamic Republic?
– Do you have any contacts abroad?
We answered and returned to our ward. That very night, the first group was called.
There were eleven Mojahedin members. The first was Navid Amouzegar, a university classmate of mine. Despite political differences, we were close friends. Navid and a few others were from quarantine, and a few were from our ward.
Before I go on, I should tell you what the ward was like. After lights out at 10 PM, the ward was usually quiet. Police officers and a guard—whom we called “Asadollah,” whether they were IRGC or Basij—came for nightly roll call. Until then, we had to stay in our rooms and weren’t allowed in the hallways except to use the restroom. But things had relaxed in recent months. After roll call, some would still walk in the hallway, quietly, so as not to disturb others’ rest. Some visited each other’s rooms and chatted.
That cursed night, right after roll call, we heard loud footsteps on the prison roof. The Mojahedin prisoners, who had long anticipated a possible attack by their organization to free prisoners, believed this might be the beginning. They thought the Revolutionary Guards were positioning to defend the prison.
The prison atmosphere was tense—somewhere between fear, panic, anxiety, and anticipation of something unknown. Everyone speculated. Some whispered in pairs, others huddled in small groups. The Mojahedin had been closely following the news since their operation, “Eternal Light,” following the acceptance of UN Resolution 598.
They had a map—no one knew where it came from—spread across a room we jokingly called the “war room.” They tracked the Mojahedin’s advance from the west toward Tehran. Some believed the entire region from the border to Kermanshah had fallen under Mojahedin control. They imagined the footsteps on the roof were signs of the “National Liberation Army” coming to free them. May their memories be cherished—they were so hopeful and imaginative.
Some of us couldn’t believe how naive and optimistic they were.
Dear Mohammadreza—my childhood friend and a Mojahedin member—secretly laughed at them. He had no belief in their imagined rescue. My brother-in-law, Amin, who had served eight years in prison for Mojahedin ties, also dismissed their talk. But the prison atmosphere was radical, and few dared question these fantasies out loud. It was as if everyone had silently agreed to share this hopeful illusion. Still, despite the bravado, you could see fear and uncertainty etched on every Mojahedin face.
We all knew that with the war ending, the prison situation had become a major issue for the regime. I had heard several times from officials that if the regime ever faced collapse, they would massacre political prisoners to prevent them from emerging as heroes. But things weren’t that unstable—far from collapse.
In fact, we believed the Islamic Republic had been strengthened by the ceasefire and was regaining control. So mass execution didn’t seem likely.
Many of us thought the faction around Ayatollah Montazeri might gain strength and improve prison conditions—perhaps even release many prisoners. None of us imagined the massacre of summer 1988.
Why should we pay the price for Khomeini’s bitter acceptance of the UN ceasefire?
In less than two weeks, most Mojahedin prisoners were removed from our ward. Twenty-one of us, leftists and sympathizers of various groups, were transferred to a room called “quarantine.” The rest were sent to Ward 1.
That quarantine became our death row—a station where we awaited the train of death.
Months passed. By late December, visitations resumed. From our families, we heard that most of the others had been executed. A deep sorrow engulfed us. After my first visit, when I learned of the execution of Amin, Mohammadreza, and the others, I broke down in tears—loud, long crying, for the first time in my life. I wasn’t alone. We all wept.
We still didn’t know our own fate. Prison officials threatened us daily with execution.
We spent more months in that death station. In early February, we were taken to the IRGC’s intelligence office—the same place where everyone had been hanged. Interrogators constantly spoke of executions and demanded we sign letters of repentance. No one knew what awaited us.
After two or three weeks, we were returned to that same quarantine room—still a station of death. Again, we were summoned one by one. This time, interrogations were conducted in the room next door. Through a small hole we had secretly made, we could hear the questions and our comrades’ responses.
Apparently, the death train had paused. The last time it passed through Vakilabad, it had taken over a hundred Mojahedin with it. But we were still waiting at that damned station.
On the eve of Nowruz 1989, I was released from that cursed station—with memories I could never erase, even if I tried.
Now I was alone. Grief became my companion—grief for comrades I had lived with for years, some of whom I had deeply loved.
It has now been 25 years since those cursed days. But time seems frozen on that visitation day when my sister told me about the executions. I still see her face, my mother’s, and our relatives’—grieving, wailing, staring at us in disbelief through the metal bars, unable to understand how we were still alive.
When the large iron gate opened and I saw my mother, sister, and brother waiting, I finally realized that the death train had taken Mohammadreza, Amin, Ali, Jafar, and many more. And we—we were the ones still sitting at the station.
September 14, 2013