“I will not be silent”: Tabarzadi on Life After Prison

The night before his release, as the news of his impending freedom made the rounds throughout Ward 12 of Rajaei Shahr Prison, his friends organized a farewell party. But Heshmatollah Tabarzadi said he had a lump in his throat as he looked at his fellow inmates, many with expectant looks on their faces.

Now, one day out of prison, his voice trembles when he speaks about his fellow prisoners. “Right now, as I am talking to you, my mind is wandering around the cell,” he says. He lists the names of prisoners of conscience, young and old: those who had been condemned to death and whose sentences had been reduced to life in prison, those he came to know at Evin Prison in 2002 and 2003 — from Kurdish and Baha’i prisoners to Christian converts to members of the People’s Mojahedin Organization.

Heshmatollah Tabarzadi, a political activist and journalist, was released on the night of June 30 after serving five and a half years in prison. He was arrested on December 27, 2009 and was sentenced to eight years in prison on charges of conspiracy, insulting the Supreme Leader and propaganda against the regime. Before being imprisoned, he was the managing editor of the magazine Payam-e Daneshjou (Student Message). Authorities had arrested Tabarzadi several times before his last arrest, which came in the wake of the disputed 2009 presidential election.

He spent five years of his sentence at Rajaei Shahr Prison, which he says does not compare with any other prison in Iran.

 

What did you feel when you walked out of prison after five years?

Over the past 16 years I have been imprisoned many times. I have been in solitary confinement and in various prisons, and I have been on furlough, but this was a very different feeling — especially last night when I was told “you are free.” At first they beat around the bush a lot and I thought they were going to transfer me to Ward 2A [the cell block at Evin Prison controlled by the Revolutionary Guards] or someplace else. At 10:30pm they told me that the Verdict Execution Bureau wanted to talk to me and I should call them. At first I refused, but eventually they said that I was free. My cellmates and I could not believe it. When at last I stepped out of prison, I still could not believe it. I had a strange feeling, a feeling that cannot be expressed. Only those who have spent time in prison, especially in Rajaei Shahr Prison, can understand it.

 

Why did you not expect to be released?

According to Article 134 of the Criminal Code of Procedure, which is called “Aggregation,” if you have committed multiple offences, and you have received the maximum sentence for each one, then the longest sentence applies. I was sentenced to five years for conspiracy, two years for insulting the Leader and one year for propaganda against the regime, so I had to serve five years. Of course, I served five and a half years. My friends expected that the new law would be applied to me, but from what I knew about the security establishment of the Islamic Republic I thought it was unlikely. I thought I had to serve two and a half years more, for a total of eight years, because they had opened new cases against me.

A new charge of propaganda against the regime was lodged against me because of the statements I issued from prison. One of the statements the case focused on was entitled “The Motherland is in Ruins.” But the examining magistrate cleared me of the charge. A while later, I was again charged with propaganda against the regime, but I refused to go to court. They persisted but I still refused. I felt that they would most definitely build a couple of other cases against me, because they had done it to others. As a result, I was not expecting to be freed last night.

 

You said that Rajaei Shahr Prison cannot be compared to other prisons. Can you explain?

Authorities themselves call Rajaei Shahr a “super-secure” prison. It is built like a centipede, with a very long hall and cellblocks three floors high, connected to the main hall. So the building is completely closed off, and even the visitors must walk through an underground tunnel to reach the visiting room. Of course we were the ones being visited, and we did not go through the tunnel. But one of my children told me that the tunnel is dark and gruesome.

At Rajaei Shahr Prison, the prisoners are tightly controlled. The jailers essentially treat prisoners as if they are all guilty of threatening the security of Iran. They say that the prison warden himself was a military man who worked for the Revolutionary Guards. Prisoners in Ward 12 have no access to the library or to sports equipment. The air is foul and all the windows are barred, so there is no ventilation. We could walk out in the fresh air for only about an hour and a half each day.

Before this, I had been detained at Evin and Kochooei prisons. All of these prisons are gruesome, but none are comparable to Rajaei Shahr in terms of control, security and the psychological effects. For example, in Rajaei Shahr they would not give you sneakers, saying that they can be used to escape. Or if the prisoners themselves built sports equipment to exercise, it would be confiscated. “We don’t want the prisoners to exercise”, the guards said.

Also, at least half the prisoners there have been condemned to death. You have to live in an environment where each Tuesday or Wednesday they prepare the prison for executions and a few inmates are hanged. It is a horrible environment. When you enter Rajaei Shahr Prison, you can never believe that one day you will get out.

 

Can you tell us about the radio jammers at Rajaei Shahr Prison?

In 2011, when we were transferred from Evin to Rajaei Shahr, prison authorities had installed radio jammers so we could not get access to the outside world. I had not seen them in Evin so I asked the fellows in Rajaei Shahr about them. Inmates said that they created interference and that authorities did not want people to use mobile phones. A couple of years after we were transferred, I think in 2012 or 2013, prison guards installed many of them around the prison. Late in 2011 they had cut the phone lines to the political ward.

In any case, in prison you can find contraband, including mobile phones. The prisoners wanted to contact their families and talk about the difficult conditions. But prison guards blocked them, an inhumane act to prevent any contact between the prisoners and the outside world. We protested many times. We went on hunger strikes, we wrote letters and shouted slogans. Unfortunately, they answered our protests by saying that the equipment was not theirs and that it belonged to the Intelligence Ministry. They increased their power every day. Their interference is so powerful that it even overrides TV signals.

A month ago, the interference was so strong that we all became dizzy. And since the doors and the windows in the cellblock are closed, there was not enough oxygen. Some people became so ill that they had to be hospitalized. The most miserable part is that the prisoners who are hospitalized must pay hospital expenses, medication, and so on — but the law says that the prison must pay for it.

 

You have paid heavily for your activism. Do you regret anything?

No. I cannot be somebody other than who I am. In these 16 years that I have been in prison and in solitary confinement and detention, my family —my spouse, my mother and my children— have suffered the most. We have paid a high cost for freedom, human rights and the improvement of society. We are not doing anything illegal and our methods are democratic. We have not promoted violence and will not.

We believe that it is the right of the Iranian people to be the masters of their own destinies. This is the underlying principle of human and legal rights. The constitution guarantees freedom of expression, freedom of speech, freedom to belong to political parties, freedom of conscience and freedom of religion. Until we achieve these I cannot remain silent. Writing and talking is my job. I will continue my activities.

If they could make me change my ways, they would have done it 16 years ago. Now they have got the message that prison cannot force us to our knees. And my understanding is that there is a new mood in society, created by public and international opinion, and by political movements within the governing establishment. It seems they themselves have concluded that they cannot deny people’s basic demands through oppression.

 

Considering that you have been banned from social activities, what are you going to do now?

I have served my sentence and my 10-year ban from social activities is over as well. Under the new law all bans on social activities have been reduced to two years maximum. I am happy to hear that the bans on other friends who are journalists and political activists have been reduced to a maximum of two years. Therefore, I am officially the managing editor of Payam-e Daneshjou and it is my legal right to publish it.

I will act on it. Of course, with the situation as it is, I don’t expect much, but I will pursue it because it is my legal right. We will continue organizing, too. The Interior Ministry granted permits for the Islamic Union of Students and Graduates in 1994. Of course, the Revolutionary Court presided over by Judge Haddad cancelled the permit in absentia, but I will pursue it, because organizing is our right and I hope I can be active in these movements.

But, no matter what, they cannot take talking, writing and political, social and cultural democratic activities away from me. And I have writing and translations from prison that I have to work on. In addition to everything else, I also have to pay a little attention to my family and my children —they have suffered financially, and otherwise. 

 

Related articles:

Heshmatollah Tabarzadi

 

For more information, visit Journalism is Not a Crime, documenting cases of jailed journalists in Iran.

 

To read more stories like this, sign up to our weekly email.