Children of Prison
By Monireh Baradaran
Translated from Farsi by CCVT (Ezat, Peri Paulina)
I want to talk to you about children. One of the conspicuous features of prison in the Islamic Republic of Iran is the existence of a relatively large number of children in the female wards, particularly in the 1360’s (1981-1991). During this time, children were forced to stay alongside their mothers and go through the various ordeals of jail life from interrogation to punishment, in addition to enduring the sad tedium of days on the ward.
The first child I saw in prison was Ali, who was a one-year-old boy. Ali and his mother were hostages. Security had gone to arrest Ali’s father and as they couldn’t find him, they had brought his wife and son to jail instead and kept them as hostages. Ali was forced to spend long, monotonous days among hundreds of women and girls who called themselves his aunties. He was witness to their anxieties and extremely violent outbursts of emotion. He had to tolerate loud and overcrowded conditions. He did not even have a simple toy to enjoy in a moment of peace and quiet. Therefore it was not altogether surprising that little Ali was always nervous and nagging. In those days, in the autumn of 1981, he was the only child in our ward. I don’t know whether later, when the number of children was increased, Ali was still in prison or not. I lost track of him in the transfer schedule of the jail.
I spent the summer of 1984 in a ward where 10-15 children were being kept alongside the adult women. The eldest was a six-year-old girl, quiet and solemn. She was involved in the daily chores of the cell and her name was on the list of prisoners responsible for chores in the ward as well. In contrast with the other minors, she was old enough and able to understand the limitations of prison life because she had some experience of life on the outside. She was not, however, old enough to understand why she should be imprisoned. I think for this reason, prison was more painful for her than the other children.
All the children played strangely. Sometimes they would stand behind one another in a row, and chant slogans: “God is great; Khomeini is the leader”. Sometimes they blindfolded another child and dragged the boy or girl behind them. Little boys liked to play the role of male guards and of the passdars, (guards and sentries). Once one of these little ones shouted from the entrance of the ward: “Sisters, cover yourselves with the hejab: the technician brothers are coming (technician brothers was a term used for prisoners who fixed plumbing on the wards.) All the inmates stopped their work and searched hurriedly for their veils. We had been tricked because in fact there were no technician brothers coming; it was little Yavar holding a jug and followed by many children pretending to be technician brothers.
F. Azad writes in her memoirs that one of the children’s tragic games consisted of bandaging each other’s legs. They would put ointment on one another’s feet and wrapped bandages around it. They nursed each other and in that way would amuse themselves for an hour. They had learned this from their elders.
Children’s games are partially a reflection of their observations and experiences. For most of them their only experience of life was the experience of prison. The only car most of them had ever seen was the mini bus which used to take them from the ward to the visitor’s hall. And usually this ride was more exciting for them than the visits themselves. F. Azad writes about a woman who had to keep her daughter Sahar with her inside the jail for a year and a half, and describes the girls’s internal world in her momoirs : “Sahar did not go out of the ward even for visits. Her mother had no visiting rights for years. All Sahar’s learning was limited to her observations in the ward. She would very quickly learn the names of the prisoners. She knew all the new inmates, and it was she
who introduced them to me. Normal things in the world of children, like animals, parks, ice cream, sandwiches and etc., she knew only through television. As a result, funny accidents took place. Once in our room there was an empty cheese bucket with a picture of a sheep that had not been erased from the surface. Prisoners used it as a stool and called it “ the calf”. There was a bigger bucket that had the same use and we called it “the cow”. One day, while watching a television programme for children, Sahar saw a cow. As usual, she asked “what is this?” and she was told that it was a cow. Sahar laughed and said “No.” She went and brought the bucket and said “this is a cow.” Everybody laughed. But Sahar insisted on her interpretation for a long time after.” (Prison memoirs page 69)
The rules on ‘cleanliness’ and ‘uncleanliness’ were extended to children. Drawing demarcation lines between human beings because of their ideals or religions is one of the most inhumane and painful aspects of the ‘ideological’ jails. The Bahais, people who followed the Bahai faith, the leftist groups, or whoever did not pray were called infidels and treated as untouchable. The ‘repentants’, those prisoners who had been brainwashed in the course of their torture and imprisonment into acting as spies and informers against other prisoners and the fanatical Muslim prisoners did their utmost to avoid the ‘untouchables’ in order to protect their ‘cleanliness’. To “repent” means to acknowledge one’s sins, but in the context of Iranian jails repentents had become dangerous torturers and sometimes executioners while they were serving their terms in prison. This was a unique phenomenon of the Iranian prison system under the new Islamic regime. Repentants live alongside other prisoners, playing the roles of both victims and victimizers. With the intensification of torture and execution they became so powerful that even prison guards would obey their orders. Yet this did not ultimately spare them from the harsh conditions of jail life – several were even executed themselves. The repentents had learned a system of belief from the authorities which they in turn codified into prison rules and regulations. The outcome was a system of apartheid on the basis of religion.
Rumina and Rufia were two sisters, two and four, in jail with their mother. They had been arrested because they belonged to the Bahai’ faith. According to repentants and Muslim fundamentalists, these two children were considered untouchable like their mother. They were kept in the “untouchable” cell that was designated for the leftist prisoners. They had no right to step into the “Muslim” cell. It was interesting that at the same time a two year old child called Mehdi was imprisoned in the adjacent cell. Mehdi had no playmate. Yet I never saw Mehdi approach the girls even for a moment. Mehdi’s parents were killed during an armed confrontation with pastors (guards). Mehdi had been saved and brought to the prison. The story given out was that because Mehdi did not have a family, he should be taken care of in the prison. Responsibility for this was given to three repentant sisters. These three sisters had named him and cared for him with all their love. Mehdi was an extremely intelligent boy. But there was something in his behavior and his way of talking that did not fit at all with his age and that disturbed anyone who spoke with him. Faranek from our cell, who was doubly untouchable as both a leftist and a Zoroastrian loved Mehdi very much. But Mehdi knew his boundaries and was aware that that he did not have permission to approach Faranek. Mehdi knew all of us by the name of our cell “room six”, which to him meant the room of people who did not pray. The family of the three repentant sisters had announced that they were quite willing to adopt Mehdi, but the jail authorities had given him to the family of a martyr instead. The day when Mehdi left forever was a day of lamentation for the three sisters. Yet, they tried not to show their feelings and they pretended to agree with the jail authorities that Mehdi would be happier with his new family and that they had made the decision with his best interests in mind.
In another ward the mother of Saeed did not pray. According to the rules of the Islamic jail she belonged to the group of untouchables, and again her baby was included in this category. Saeed was born in jail and when he learned to crawl his only opportunity for moving and exploring the world was a place the size of a blanket. He was not permitted to go beyond that blanket lest he make others unclean. When Saeed’s mother was forced to go out of the room, she had to fasten his leg to the bars of a radiator in an attempt to keep him from moving beyond his permitted boundary.
Cheshme was born in jail from a mother who was steadfast in her ideals. In ward number three of Evin prison she was among the few prisoners who did not pray. The guards and repentants were highly hostile towards her and had boycotted her and her daughter. Even her friends had succumbed to this inhumane boycott. Although Cheshme commanded the respect of others, the atmosphere of intimidation was such that this respect could not be expressed and remained secret. Cheshme’s mother felt these limitations and preferred to do her work alone so as not to put others under pressure. She used to get up earlier than the others to wash Cheshme’s clothes and diapers while the bathroom was empty. During the daytime the bathroom was always crowded. We used the bathroom for washing dishes and clothes as well and Cheshme’s mother had to be vigilant that drops of water from her hands and clothes would not fall on any Muslim.
Cheshme had green eyes as clear as a mountain spring. She created a feeling in everybody of wanting to embrace and kiss her. However, on her apron was stitched: “Do not kiss me!” And what would have happened to Cheshme’s health if tens of people kissed her on a daily basis? The little Cheshme, almost one year old, was always nervous and bitter. Perhaps contrary to our imagination she was able to see and feel the realities of her environment. Perhaps she was able to observe her mother’s anxiety and sorrow and fear the day when she would be separated from her forever. Cheshme’s mother was given a sentence of execution but it had been postponed because of Cheshme. Cheshme’s father had been executed before she was born.
Later they transferred all of us to another prison and Cheshme’s mother remained there alone. Her days must have been difficult among repentants who had animosity for her in their hearts.
There was another mother in the same ward with a similar story. She was, according to prison terminology : “on death row”. This was because she had refused to be interviewed on television as a repentant and had refused to pray. She had given birth to her daughter in jail and had named her Sona, which means white swan. She was always alone and except for one or two inmates, had no friends or acquaintances. One day they called her for interrogation. She came back nervous and broken; they had told her that her husband has been executed. The news spread in the ward immediately, and all glances went to her. Nobody saw her weeping. Lamentation for the death of an ‘infidel’ was considered a crime. Perhaps the mother of Sona, in her own loneliness and in private had shed tears – but that was only possible by going under a blanket or inside a toilet stall for a few minutes.
In ward three where I spent a short time, Sima was the littlest child in our cell. She was three years old and spoke very sweetly. She was in love with our stories and poems, and had a strange power of imagination. Children of prison usually show much imagination and a rich vocabulary. Sima’s father and aunt had been executed, and when she was bored of everything she used to cry incessantly. It was only reciting a story that could somehow relieve her boredom and even that would not always work.
The children in prison were frequently agitated and nervous. Their games usually led to quarrels and avoidance of each other. Navid, a four year old boy, was always the cause of complaints because he was agitated, rebellious, and he used to bite children who were younger than him. His mother, who was ashamed of his behaviour, used to explain that her son was not so aggressive outside of prison.
Three year old Rowshan had spent more than two years of his life in jail. During those years the number of imprisoned children had been reduced and most of the time he was the only child remaining in our ward. His behaviour and the way he spoke did not fit his age. His games had little similarity with children’s games. Even when they brought little Yashar and Rosa to our ward, Rowshan did not have much inclination to play with them. His last year in prison he was openly tired of all of us. He used to wake up in the morning angry and bitter. On his way to the washroom he used to cover his eyes with his hands in an attempt not to see us, and when one of us used to run enthusiastically to him and say hello, he used to say: “no hello” with boredom. His patient mother used to tell us that her son was tired and that we shouldn’t disturb him. It is possible that if happy and sociable Yashar, who always smiled generously at everybody, spent more years in prison, he would have ended up avoiding us as well.
These children had seen and felt realities that could not be explained by logic alone. They used to directly or indirectly participate in their mother’s interrogations. They had heard the screams, insults and threats of interrogators and the cries and howls of torture victims, and they had seen their bandaged, injured feet and legs.
They had separated Roozbeh from his mother for the period of her initial interrogation, which was interspersed with prolonged torture. The mother had no news from her son for a few days and nights. She thought that they had taken her son away from her forever. Later, they took two year old Roozbeh with his mother to the corridor known as ward 2000, where they had to live together with one blanket between them. He was forced to learn to spend day after day on the same blanket, with only the traffic of prisoners’ coming and going for entertainment. Roozbeh was also an assistant and guide to his injured mother, since she could not walk on her injured feet and had to use her hands to move around. Roozbeh helped his mother to go to the washroom and acted as his mother’s eyes, since she was blindfolded at all times. Roozbeh used to explain the events of that small world and the story of his acquaintance with other prisoners to his mother in his sweet childish language.
The number of children who were imprisoned in solitary cells was more than those who were in public wards. The newly arrested prisoners had to spend a long time in cells. They kept them all alone, or sometimes when there were many prisoners they kept a few people together in a very small space with no window. Prisoners under interrogation (which sometimes continued for up to a year) had no contact with their families. This naturally included newly arrested mothers. They had no option but to keep their children with them for months in a cell the length of which you could walk in six steps. Mothers and “aunts” were forced to entertain little ones by games they invented especially for that small world. We recited stories and made up all sorts of games with hands or mouths.
I remember ten-month-old Siavash, who used to be our cell mate along with his mother for some time. It was bad luck that he learned to walk prematurely when he was nine months old and still in the cell. To entertain him we recited all of the children’s poems that we could remember. Sometimes we even became poets ourselves and made lines up to entertain him. We also imitated the sounds of different animals for him, or pretend to be an animal and give Siavash a ride. But all of this was not enough for him. He used to stand and stare out of the slot low in the door, which was intended for passing the food tray to the prisoners. For his sake, the guards left it open during those days to allow a bit of fresh air into the cell. The boy used to put his mouth in front of the slot and repeat the word “come” which he had recently learned. By using this word he was asking for help. When he heard the sound of steps he would start moving his hands and legs. One of the many guards had developed a kind of affection for him. He used to take Siavash with him out of the cell whenever he got an opportunity. But where? We didn’t know. His mother was anxious but she had no other option and yielded and let her son go. When he returned, Siavash was not willing to leave the guard’s arms. The mother had no option but to pull him away by force and this scene was the most painful of all.
There were a small number of other guards who at least behaved humanely towards children. In a book called “The tiny window of my cell” we read about Fakhri, the guard of a jail named “ward number 2000” (the former joint committee)* who was concerned about children. He used to take children who were imprisoned in locked and semi-dark cells out for fresh air and buy them toys from time to time.
Despite all of the difficulties, children inside the prison were a big gift to all of us. The beauty and tenderness of their world was capable of taking us out of our monotonous and coarse existence and even sometimes of giving us back a passion for life. The little Siavash whom I mentioned before gave me back the will to live at a time when it had lulled in my heart and I was driven to the point of suicide. He came to me when despair drenched the four walls of my cell. I had taken the right to happiness from my fellow cellmates with my own despair. Then ten month old Siavash imposed his own rules on us. This little dictator told us that we should all pay attention to him. He made us laugh because he wanted our laughter. He also created work for us. His mother used to be taken for interrogation every day and I had to replace her, giving him his milk on time and washing his diapers. When it was time for bed, he used to fall asleep in my lap listening to lullabies I sang, and so I knew I was still useful in life. I had no time to think about the trials of my continued interrogation and the dangers of the retrial which lay ahead.
Playing with children and reciting stories to them was perhaps more delightful to us than to the children themselves. By inventing a game, providing toys, and stitching clothes for them we developed our own interests and artistic talents. I remember Farvardin (the first month of spring in the Iranian calendar beginning the 20th of March and ends the 22nd of April) of the year 1362 (1983) and the passion and enthusiasm with which we prepared a birthday party for Eliar and Sara. Both children were born in Farvardin 1361 (March 1982) in Ghezel Hessar prison. Their father had been executed, and now they were being held in a punishment ward, where they would celebrate their first birthday. Everybody was thinking of preparing something. Some of us decided to stitch traditional indigenous clothes for them: Azerbaijani for Eliar and Baluchi for Sara. Everyone helped us find the cloth and string. It was unbelievable how so much coloured cloth and yarn and string could be hidden in boghcheh-ha (the large cloths in which we wrapped up and stored our clothing). Handicraft work was prohibited and during the inspections that used to take place by repentents everything except prisoners clothes was confiscated. But the prisoners, especially those who were in that ward because of their steadfastness in keeping to their ideals, knew how to hide precious things in prison. They had learned to hide them in places that would never occur to the minds of the repentants despite their knowledge of each and every prisoner’s trick.
It was therefore natural that stitching clothes should happen out of sight of the repentant guards. In the meantime, we wanted to surprise the mothers of Sara and Eliar, and therefore we had to hide our work from them as well. All this used to add to our excitement. The birthday was on the 15th of Favardin (April 5th). On that day the ward had a different, quiet atmosphere. Some had prepared cakes by using bread and mixing it with sugar and butter a little piece of which we could still find in our breakfast in those days. Others had made toy dogs and cats by stitching towels together. Both mothers shed tears of joy at the sight of such a celebration. The only people who did not participate in this delightful party were the children themselves. They could not stand that much noise and our excitement. They felt uncomfortable in the clothes that we had made for them and they wanted to get rid of the ostentatious finery and hats as soon as possible.
Years later little Rosa had the same problem with us. She didn’t want to be our doll. Our eagerness, our enthusiasm about the natural manifestation of life sometimes prevented us from paying attention to the needs and aspirations of our little princess. We used to stitch and weave unique and strange clothes for her out of the most beautiful cloths that we could find in our ward and from the yarn taken out of our torn sweaters. We became so happy to see her wearing those dresses and would get so much pleasure out of seeing her in the clothes that we had made for her. But she chaffed under our attention and did not want to be our doll. The first word she learned was “no”.
Is the demarcation line between childhood and adulthood in Iranian society different than the demarcation line between childhood and adulthood in Iranian society. In the year 1360 (1981) there was a 12-year-old girl in our ward. She was held as a hostage for her brother and was lucky to have her mother with her in jail. Apart from her there were quite a few 13-and 14-year-old girls in those years. In the absence of their mothers, we witnessed them going through puberty.
At the time of her arrest Maryam was 13 and had not yet completed her junior high school. She was severely tortured and in the process her kidneys were injured. Other injuries were caused by whipping and had left permanent scars on her young legs. Sometimes even woolen socks were not able to relieve her pain. She was sentenced to eight years in prison and would be released at the age of 21.
One of the other adolescent girls in our cell, when she heard her name being called by loudspeaker for interrogation, threw herself in the arms of a middle aged woman and started pleading with her and weeping. With still childlike voice and gestures she insisted that she didn’t want to go. The day before she had spent all day undergoing interrogation. She had been tortured and had heard the screaming and howling of others who had been flogged. She had also seen wounded bodies. Despite being called a few times by loudspeaker she would not go until at last a guard came and took her resisting by force.
In the decade of the 1360’s (around 1980’s), when we were taken to Hosseinieh (a place of worship and lamentation named after the third Immam of the Shi’ite Muslims), from the top of the curtain that separated us from male prisoners we could see adolescent boys. In their faces and behaviour you could still observe a remnant of childhood. Some of them gathered around Lajvardi (the chief interrogator and head manager of the prison who was later assassinated by the militant mujaheddin). The face of this man who pretended that his tyranny stemmed out of his concern for these adolescents engendered in me feelings of hatred.
Let’s go back to the previous question. What is really the boarder-line between childhood and adulthood? Is a twelve-year-old girl a child or an adult who has legal responsibility? According to international norms people are usually considered adults at the age of eighteen. The civil law of the Islamic Republic of Iran, however, defines the age of adulthood according to Islamic jurisprudence. According to note number one of the article 1210 of the civil law that was passed by the Islamic Consultative Assembly in 1361(1982), the age of religious maturity or adulthood for boys is 15 lunar years, (just under 15 years old), and for girls, nine full lunar years (just under 9 years old). Accordingly, when a girl reaches the age of nine full lunar years, she has legal responsibility because article 49 of the criminal act demarcates the borderline between childhood and adulthood. According to these laws it is possible to subject this group to “divine punishment” (torture), to sentence them to prison, and even to execute them.
Another group of children in prison were the children of female guards that used to come to work with their mothers. They had been taught that we were dangerous outsiders, different from other human beings, and that they had to keep their distance from us. We could understand the prejudices that their impressionable minds had been indoctrinated with through their looks, behavior and through the way they avoided us. Melika was a four or five year old girl who used to come to us every other day with her mother who was a guard of the ward. She was beautiful, precocious and extremely intelligent. Her honey-coloured eyes and stubborn look created a kind of fascination in us to touch and exchange a few words with her. But it was useless. They had even taught her to order prisoners to do or not do certain things, such as: “Lower your blindfold, don’t look at me!”.
In the year 1368 (1989) when I was in a solitary cell called a sanatorium, Malika let slip to me the news that another woman had hung herself in her cell; a few days later, I read the news on the wall of the bathroom. Malika was of an age where she could understand the relationships and events within the jail. But with her small experience, how was she capable of interpreting them for herself and creating meaning? This was a question with no answer.
In the year 1360 (1981), a small boy worked in a building designated for torture and interrogation. I heard that he was the son of Mohammad Kachooei – the manager of Evin jail - who had been shot by one of the guards during the mass execution of a group of prisoners in June of that year. I saw this boy helping his grandfather and other guards distribute food or giving water to prisoners. I can imagine that they had told him we were the murderers of his father. I don’t know how this boy could stomach the atmosphere which prevailed in Evin jail during the year 1361 (1981). With such rancor and violence, what type of future awaited him?
It is not possible to speak about imprisoned children and forget their mothers. Imprisoned women and mothers constituted a significant portion of the political prisoner population, and was one of the characteristic features of prisons under the Islamic republic. As a result of our gender we women were always subjected to double humiliation and psychological persecution. These types of sexual pressures were more severe for mothers, both those whose children were brought up in jails and the ones who had children on the outside. In either case, the apprehension and responsibility for childcare fell on their shoulders.
One of the imprisoned mothers writes “ The male prisoners did not understand this phenomenon. In male wards there were no children. The child problem was not their problem. Only in cases like naming a child that was born in jail did they intervene. Or else they made recommendations for bringing up the child that they conveyed through letters or during visits which sometimes took place.” (The book of Prison, Noghteh Publication, 1377)
No father had been forced to take his child with him to prison when they arrested him. No father had to add the apprehension of taking care of their child to the usual anxieties related to interrogation and living in jail. And even when it was decided that a child should be sent outside, frequently it was the family of the wife that used to take care of their grandchild. The contradiction in this issue is clear and self-evident; the anti-women laws of the Islamic republic give legal custody of children to fathers, and in the case of the death or execution of the father, to the grandfather. It happened frequently that these children had no relationship whatsoever with their grandfathers and had not even met them. Nevertheless, when a decision had to be made about the fate of the child, the law, that did not recognize any rights for the mother except the so-called “holy” duty of caring for the child and breastfeeding it up to the age of four, would interfere.
At the time of her arrest, Maryam had to bring her newborn baby with her to jail. They had executed her husband. After about one year, she sent the baby to her family and they accepted responsibility for taking care of the child up to the age of six, which was the time when Maryam was released from jail. Later on, Maryam found an opportunity to leave the country, but had to postpone this for years in order to get the consent of her father in law to take his grandchild out of the country. Let me add that, fortunately, among the families of Political prisoners these anti-women and anti-human laws did not usually lead to a crisis, because of the trust and understanding among families.
I frequently heard mothers confess that in their decisions in jail they used to think more about the fate of their children than their own fate. And if there was an apparent conflict between the two, usually stemming from the mother’s ideological commitments, the result was a guilty conscience. This feeling was accentuated by families who sometimes allied themselves with the prison authorities in accusing the mother of selfishness.
I was not a mother. I could not even imagine this double and extremely heavy responsibility and I confess that my understanding of their predicament is thus limited. I cannot know what they felt, just as I cannot truly know what a three year old girl felt when she used to fold her hands behind her back and slowly and thoughtfully pace in the cell, or in the yard when they sent us out for fresh air.
Toronto, March 2001
* Under the Shah of Iran, when the struggle against his rule intensified, the intelligence (SAVAK), police, and gendarmerie, established a joint committee to fight against so-called terrorists, the name given to everyone who opposed the regime. The term “committee” was used for their joint detention center that was a notorious place for torture.
Translated from Farsi by CCVT (Ezat, Peri Paulina)
I want to talk to you about children. One of the conspicuous features of prison in the Islamic Republic of Iran is the existence of a relatively large number of children in the female wards, particularly in the 1360’s (1981-1991). During this time, children were forced to stay alongside their mothers and go through the various ordeals of jail life from interrogation to punishment, in addition to enduring the sad tedium of days on the ward.
The first child I saw in prison was Ali, who was a one-year-old boy. Ali and his mother were hostages. Security had gone to arrest Ali’s father and as they couldn’t find him, they had brought his wife and son to jail instead and kept them as hostages. Ali was forced to spend long, monotonous days among hundreds of women and girls who called themselves his aunties. He was witness to their anxieties and extremely violent outbursts of emotion. He had to tolerate loud and overcrowded conditions. He did not even have a simple toy to enjoy in a moment of peace and quiet. Therefore it was not altogether surprising that little Ali was always nervous and nagging. In those days, in the autumn of 1981, he was the only child in our ward. I don’t know whether later, when the number of children was increased, Ali was still in prison or not. I lost track of him in the transfer schedule of the jail.
I spent the summer of 1984 in a ward where 10-15 children were being kept alongside the adult women. The eldest was a six-year-old girl, quiet and solemn. She was involved in the daily chores of the cell and her name was on the list of prisoners responsible for chores in the ward as well. In contrast with the other minors, she was old enough and able to understand the limitations of prison life because she had some experience of life on the outside. She was not, however, old enough to understand why she should be imprisoned. I think for this reason, prison was more painful for her than the other children.
All the children played strangely. Sometimes they would stand behind one another in a row, and chant slogans: “God is great; Khomeini is the leader”. Sometimes they blindfolded another child and dragged the boy or girl behind them. Little boys liked to play the role of male guards and of the passdars, (guards and sentries). Once one of these little ones shouted from the entrance of the ward: “Sisters, cover yourselves with the hejab: the technician brothers are coming (technician brothers was a term used for prisoners who fixed plumbing on the wards.) All the inmates stopped their work and searched hurriedly for their veils. We had been tricked because in fact there were no technician brothers coming; it was little Yavar holding a jug and followed by many children pretending to be technician brothers.
F. Azad writes in her memoirs that one of the children’s tragic games consisted of bandaging each other’s legs. They would put ointment on one another’s feet and wrapped bandages around it. They nursed each other and in that way would amuse themselves for an hour. They had learned this from their elders.
Children’s games are partially a reflection of their observations and experiences. For most of them their only experience of life was the experience of prison. The only car most of them had ever seen was the mini bus which used to take them from the ward to the visitor’s hall. And usually this ride was more exciting for them than the visits themselves. F. Azad writes about a woman who had to keep her daughter Sahar with her inside the jail for a year and a half, and describes the girls’s internal world in her momoirs : “Sahar did not go out of the ward even for visits. Her mother had no visiting rights for years. All Sahar’s learning was limited to her observations in the ward. She would very quickly learn the names of the prisoners. She knew all the new inmates, and it was she
who introduced them to me. Normal things in the world of children, like animals, parks, ice cream, sandwiches and etc., she knew only through television. As a result, funny accidents took place. Once in our room there was an empty cheese bucket with a picture of a sheep that had not been erased from the surface. Prisoners used it as a stool and called it “ the calf”. There was a bigger bucket that had the same use and we called it “the cow”. One day, while watching a television programme for children, Sahar saw a cow. As usual, she asked “what is this?” and she was told that it was a cow. Sahar laughed and said “No.” She went and brought the bucket and said “this is a cow.” Everybody laughed. But Sahar insisted on her interpretation for a long time after.” (Prison memoirs page 69)
The rules on ‘cleanliness’ and ‘uncleanliness’ were extended to children. Drawing demarcation lines between human beings because of their ideals or religions is one of the most inhumane and painful aspects of the ‘ideological’ jails. The Bahais, people who followed the Bahai faith, the leftist groups, or whoever did not pray were called infidels and treated as untouchable. The ‘repentants’, those prisoners who had been brainwashed in the course of their torture and imprisonment into acting as spies and informers against other prisoners and the fanatical Muslim prisoners did their utmost to avoid the ‘untouchables’ in order to protect their ‘cleanliness’. To “repent” means to acknowledge one’s sins, but in the context of Iranian jails repentents had become dangerous torturers and sometimes executioners while they were serving their terms in prison. This was a unique phenomenon of the Iranian prison system under the new Islamic regime. Repentants live alongside other prisoners, playing the roles of both victims and victimizers. With the intensification of torture and execution they became so powerful that even prison guards would obey their orders. Yet this did not ultimately spare them from the harsh conditions of jail life – several were even executed themselves. The repentents had learned a system of belief from the authorities which they in turn codified into prison rules and regulations. The outcome was a system of apartheid on the basis of religion.
Rumina and Rufia were two sisters, two and four, in jail with their mother. They had been arrested because they belonged to the Bahai’ faith. According to repentants and Muslim fundamentalists, these two children were considered untouchable like their mother. They were kept in the “untouchable” cell that was designated for the leftist prisoners. They had no right to step into the “Muslim” cell. It was interesting that at the same time a two year old child called Mehdi was imprisoned in the adjacent cell. Mehdi had no playmate. Yet I never saw Mehdi approach the girls even for a moment. Mehdi’s parents were killed during an armed confrontation with pastors (guards). Mehdi had been saved and brought to the prison. The story given out was that because Mehdi did not have a family, he should be taken care of in the prison. Responsibility for this was given to three repentant sisters. These three sisters had named him and cared for him with all their love. Mehdi was an extremely intelligent boy. But there was something in his behavior and his way of talking that did not fit at all with his age and that disturbed anyone who spoke with him. Faranek from our cell, who was doubly untouchable as both a leftist and a Zoroastrian loved Mehdi very much. But Mehdi knew his boundaries and was aware that that he did not have permission to approach Faranek. Mehdi knew all of us by the name of our cell “room six”, which to him meant the room of people who did not pray. The family of the three repentant sisters had announced that they were quite willing to adopt Mehdi, but the jail authorities had given him to the family of a martyr instead. The day when Mehdi left forever was a day of lamentation for the three sisters. Yet, they tried not to show their feelings and they pretended to agree with the jail authorities that Mehdi would be happier with his new family and that they had made the decision with his best interests in mind.
In another ward the mother of Saeed did not pray. According to the rules of the Islamic jail she belonged to the group of untouchables, and again her baby was included in this category. Saeed was born in jail and when he learned to crawl his only opportunity for moving and exploring the world was a place the size of a blanket. He was not permitted to go beyond that blanket lest he make others unclean. When Saeed’s mother was forced to go out of the room, she had to fasten his leg to the bars of a radiator in an attempt to keep him from moving beyond his permitted boundary.
Cheshme was born in jail from a mother who was steadfast in her ideals. In ward number three of Evin prison she was among the few prisoners who did not pray. The guards and repentants were highly hostile towards her and had boycotted her and her daughter. Even her friends had succumbed to this inhumane boycott. Although Cheshme commanded the respect of others, the atmosphere of intimidation was such that this respect could not be expressed and remained secret. Cheshme’s mother felt these limitations and preferred to do her work alone so as not to put others under pressure. She used to get up earlier than the others to wash Cheshme’s clothes and diapers while the bathroom was empty. During the daytime the bathroom was always crowded. We used the bathroom for washing dishes and clothes as well and Cheshme’s mother had to be vigilant that drops of water from her hands and clothes would not fall on any Muslim.
Cheshme had green eyes as clear as a mountain spring. She created a feeling in everybody of wanting to embrace and kiss her. However, on her apron was stitched: “Do not kiss me!” And what would have happened to Cheshme’s health if tens of people kissed her on a daily basis? The little Cheshme, almost one year old, was always nervous and bitter. Perhaps contrary to our imagination she was able to see and feel the realities of her environment. Perhaps she was able to observe her mother’s anxiety and sorrow and fear the day when she would be separated from her forever. Cheshme’s mother was given a sentence of execution but it had been postponed because of Cheshme. Cheshme’s father had been executed before she was born.
Later they transferred all of us to another prison and Cheshme’s mother remained there alone. Her days must have been difficult among repentants who had animosity for her in their hearts.
There was another mother in the same ward with a similar story. She was, according to prison terminology : “on death row”. This was because she had refused to be interviewed on television as a repentant and had refused to pray. She had given birth to her daughter in jail and had named her Sona, which means white swan. She was always alone and except for one or two inmates, had no friends or acquaintances. One day they called her for interrogation. She came back nervous and broken; they had told her that her husband has been executed. The news spread in the ward immediately, and all glances went to her. Nobody saw her weeping. Lamentation for the death of an ‘infidel’ was considered a crime. Perhaps the mother of Sona, in her own loneliness and in private had shed tears – but that was only possible by going under a blanket or inside a toilet stall for a few minutes.
In ward three where I spent a short time, Sima was the littlest child in our cell. She was three years old and spoke very sweetly. She was in love with our stories and poems, and had a strange power of imagination. Children of prison usually show much imagination and a rich vocabulary. Sima’s father and aunt had been executed, and when she was bored of everything she used to cry incessantly. It was only reciting a story that could somehow relieve her boredom and even that would not always work.
The children in prison were frequently agitated and nervous. Their games usually led to quarrels and avoidance of each other. Navid, a four year old boy, was always the cause of complaints because he was agitated, rebellious, and he used to bite children who were younger than him. His mother, who was ashamed of his behaviour, used to explain that her son was not so aggressive outside of prison.
Three year old Rowshan had spent more than two years of his life in jail. During those years the number of imprisoned children had been reduced and most of the time he was the only child remaining in our ward. His behaviour and the way he spoke did not fit his age. His games had little similarity with children’s games. Even when they brought little Yashar and Rosa to our ward, Rowshan did not have much inclination to play with them. His last year in prison he was openly tired of all of us. He used to wake up in the morning angry and bitter. On his way to the washroom he used to cover his eyes with his hands in an attempt not to see us, and when one of us used to run enthusiastically to him and say hello, he used to say: “no hello” with boredom. His patient mother used to tell us that her son was tired and that we shouldn’t disturb him. It is possible that if happy and sociable Yashar, who always smiled generously at everybody, spent more years in prison, he would have ended up avoiding us as well.
These children had seen and felt realities that could not be explained by logic alone. They used to directly or indirectly participate in their mother’s interrogations. They had heard the screams, insults and threats of interrogators and the cries and howls of torture victims, and they had seen their bandaged, injured feet and legs.
They had separated Roozbeh from his mother for the period of her initial interrogation, which was interspersed with prolonged torture. The mother had no news from her son for a few days and nights. She thought that they had taken her son away from her forever. Later, they took two year old Roozbeh with his mother to the corridor known as ward 2000, where they had to live together with one blanket between them. He was forced to learn to spend day after day on the same blanket, with only the traffic of prisoners’ coming and going for entertainment. Roozbeh was also an assistant and guide to his injured mother, since she could not walk on her injured feet and had to use her hands to move around. Roozbeh helped his mother to go to the washroom and acted as his mother’s eyes, since she was blindfolded at all times. Roozbeh used to explain the events of that small world and the story of his acquaintance with other prisoners to his mother in his sweet childish language.
The number of children who were imprisoned in solitary cells was more than those who were in public wards. The newly arrested prisoners had to spend a long time in cells. They kept them all alone, or sometimes when there were many prisoners they kept a few people together in a very small space with no window. Prisoners under interrogation (which sometimes continued for up to a year) had no contact with their families. This naturally included newly arrested mothers. They had no option but to keep their children with them for months in a cell the length of which you could walk in six steps. Mothers and “aunts” were forced to entertain little ones by games they invented especially for that small world. We recited stories and made up all sorts of games with hands or mouths.
I remember ten-month-old Siavash, who used to be our cell mate along with his mother for some time. It was bad luck that he learned to walk prematurely when he was nine months old and still in the cell. To entertain him we recited all of the children’s poems that we could remember. Sometimes we even became poets ourselves and made lines up to entertain him. We also imitated the sounds of different animals for him, or pretend to be an animal and give Siavash a ride. But all of this was not enough for him. He used to stand and stare out of the slot low in the door, which was intended for passing the food tray to the prisoners. For his sake, the guards left it open during those days to allow a bit of fresh air into the cell. The boy used to put his mouth in front of the slot and repeat the word “come” which he had recently learned. By using this word he was asking for help. When he heard the sound of steps he would start moving his hands and legs. One of the many guards had developed a kind of affection for him. He used to take Siavash with him out of the cell whenever he got an opportunity. But where? We didn’t know. His mother was anxious but she had no other option and yielded and let her son go. When he returned, Siavash was not willing to leave the guard’s arms. The mother had no option but to pull him away by force and this scene was the most painful of all.
There were a small number of other guards who at least behaved humanely towards children. In a book called “The tiny window of my cell” we read about Fakhri, the guard of a jail named “ward number 2000” (the former joint committee)* who was concerned about children. He used to take children who were imprisoned in locked and semi-dark cells out for fresh air and buy them toys from time to time.
Despite all of the difficulties, children inside the prison were a big gift to all of us. The beauty and tenderness of their world was capable of taking us out of our monotonous and coarse existence and even sometimes of giving us back a passion for life. The little Siavash whom I mentioned before gave me back the will to live at a time when it had lulled in my heart and I was driven to the point of suicide. He came to me when despair drenched the four walls of my cell. I had taken the right to happiness from my fellow cellmates with my own despair. Then ten month old Siavash imposed his own rules on us. This little dictator told us that we should all pay attention to him. He made us laugh because he wanted our laughter. He also created work for us. His mother used to be taken for interrogation every day and I had to replace her, giving him his milk on time and washing his diapers. When it was time for bed, he used to fall asleep in my lap listening to lullabies I sang, and so I knew I was still useful in life. I had no time to think about the trials of my continued interrogation and the dangers of the retrial which lay ahead.
Playing with children and reciting stories to them was perhaps more delightful to us than to the children themselves. By inventing a game, providing toys, and stitching clothes for them we developed our own interests and artistic talents. I remember Farvardin (the first month of spring in the Iranian calendar beginning the 20th of March and ends the 22nd of April) of the year 1362 (1983) and the passion and enthusiasm with which we prepared a birthday party for Eliar and Sara. Both children were born in Farvardin 1361 (March 1982) in Ghezel Hessar prison. Their father had been executed, and now they were being held in a punishment ward, where they would celebrate their first birthday. Everybody was thinking of preparing something. Some of us decided to stitch traditional indigenous clothes for them: Azerbaijani for Eliar and Baluchi for Sara. Everyone helped us find the cloth and string. It was unbelievable how so much coloured cloth and yarn and string could be hidden in boghcheh-ha (the large cloths in which we wrapped up and stored our clothing). Handicraft work was prohibited and during the inspections that used to take place by repentents everything except prisoners clothes was confiscated. But the prisoners, especially those who were in that ward because of their steadfastness in keeping to their ideals, knew how to hide precious things in prison. They had learned to hide them in places that would never occur to the minds of the repentants despite their knowledge of each and every prisoner’s trick.
It was therefore natural that stitching clothes should happen out of sight of the repentant guards. In the meantime, we wanted to surprise the mothers of Sara and Eliar, and therefore we had to hide our work from them as well. All this used to add to our excitement. The birthday was on the 15th of Favardin (April 5th). On that day the ward had a different, quiet atmosphere. Some had prepared cakes by using bread and mixing it with sugar and butter a little piece of which we could still find in our breakfast in those days. Others had made toy dogs and cats by stitching towels together. Both mothers shed tears of joy at the sight of such a celebration. The only people who did not participate in this delightful party were the children themselves. They could not stand that much noise and our excitement. They felt uncomfortable in the clothes that we had made for them and they wanted to get rid of the ostentatious finery and hats as soon as possible.
Years later little Rosa had the same problem with us. She didn’t want to be our doll. Our eagerness, our enthusiasm about the natural manifestation of life sometimes prevented us from paying attention to the needs and aspirations of our little princess. We used to stitch and weave unique and strange clothes for her out of the most beautiful cloths that we could find in our ward and from the yarn taken out of our torn sweaters. We became so happy to see her wearing those dresses and would get so much pleasure out of seeing her in the clothes that we had made for her. But she chaffed under our attention and did not want to be our doll. The first word she learned was “no”.
Is the demarcation line between childhood and adulthood in Iranian society different than the demarcation line between childhood and adulthood in Iranian society. In the year 1360 (1981) there was a 12-year-old girl in our ward. She was held as a hostage for her brother and was lucky to have her mother with her in jail. Apart from her there were quite a few 13-and 14-year-old girls in those years. In the absence of their mothers, we witnessed them going through puberty.
At the time of her arrest Maryam was 13 and had not yet completed her junior high school. She was severely tortured and in the process her kidneys were injured. Other injuries were caused by whipping and had left permanent scars on her young legs. Sometimes even woolen socks were not able to relieve her pain. She was sentenced to eight years in prison and would be released at the age of 21.
One of the other adolescent girls in our cell, when she heard her name being called by loudspeaker for interrogation, threw herself in the arms of a middle aged woman and started pleading with her and weeping. With still childlike voice and gestures she insisted that she didn’t want to go. The day before she had spent all day undergoing interrogation. She had been tortured and had heard the screaming and howling of others who had been flogged. She had also seen wounded bodies. Despite being called a few times by loudspeaker she would not go until at last a guard came and took her resisting by force.
In the decade of the 1360’s (around 1980’s), when we were taken to Hosseinieh (a place of worship and lamentation named after the third Immam of the Shi’ite Muslims), from the top of the curtain that separated us from male prisoners we could see adolescent boys. In their faces and behaviour you could still observe a remnant of childhood. Some of them gathered around Lajvardi (the chief interrogator and head manager of the prison who was later assassinated by the militant mujaheddin). The face of this man who pretended that his tyranny stemmed out of his concern for these adolescents engendered in me feelings of hatred.
Let’s go back to the previous question. What is really the boarder-line between childhood and adulthood? Is a twelve-year-old girl a child or an adult who has legal responsibility? According to international norms people are usually considered adults at the age of eighteen. The civil law of the Islamic Republic of Iran, however, defines the age of adulthood according to Islamic jurisprudence. According to note number one of the article 1210 of the civil law that was passed by the Islamic Consultative Assembly in 1361(1982), the age of religious maturity or adulthood for boys is 15 lunar years, (just under 15 years old), and for girls, nine full lunar years (just under 9 years old). Accordingly, when a girl reaches the age of nine full lunar years, she has legal responsibility because article 49 of the criminal act demarcates the borderline between childhood and adulthood. According to these laws it is possible to subject this group to “divine punishment” (torture), to sentence them to prison, and even to execute them.
Another group of children in prison were the children of female guards that used to come to work with their mothers. They had been taught that we were dangerous outsiders, different from other human beings, and that they had to keep their distance from us. We could understand the prejudices that their impressionable minds had been indoctrinated with through their looks, behavior and through the way they avoided us. Melika was a four or five year old girl who used to come to us every other day with her mother who was a guard of the ward. She was beautiful, precocious and extremely intelligent. Her honey-coloured eyes and stubborn look created a kind of fascination in us to touch and exchange a few words with her. But it was useless. They had even taught her to order prisoners to do or not do certain things, such as: “Lower your blindfold, don’t look at me!”.
In the year 1368 (1989) when I was in a solitary cell called a sanatorium, Malika let slip to me the news that another woman had hung herself in her cell; a few days later, I read the news on the wall of the bathroom. Malika was of an age where she could understand the relationships and events within the jail. But with her small experience, how was she capable of interpreting them for herself and creating meaning? This was a question with no answer.
In the year 1360 (1981), a small boy worked in a building designated for torture and interrogation. I heard that he was the son of Mohammad Kachooei – the manager of Evin jail - who had been shot by one of the guards during the mass execution of a group of prisoners in June of that year. I saw this boy helping his grandfather and other guards distribute food or giving water to prisoners. I can imagine that they had told him we were the murderers of his father. I don’t know how this boy could stomach the atmosphere which prevailed in Evin jail during the year 1361 (1981). With such rancor and violence, what type of future awaited him?
It is not possible to speak about imprisoned children and forget their mothers. Imprisoned women and mothers constituted a significant portion of the political prisoner population, and was one of the characteristic features of prisons under the Islamic republic. As a result of our gender we women were always subjected to double humiliation and psychological persecution. These types of sexual pressures were more severe for mothers, both those whose children were brought up in jails and the ones who had children on the outside. In either case, the apprehension and responsibility for childcare fell on their shoulders.
One of the imprisoned mothers writes “ The male prisoners did not understand this phenomenon. In male wards there were no children. The child problem was not their problem. Only in cases like naming a child that was born in jail did they intervene. Or else they made recommendations for bringing up the child that they conveyed through letters or during visits which sometimes took place.” (The book of Prison, Noghteh Publication, 1377)
No father had been forced to take his child with him to prison when they arrested him. No father had to add the apprehension of taking care of their child to the usual anxieties related to interrogation and living in jail. And even when it was decided that a child should be sent outside, frequently it was the family of the wife that used to take care of their grandchild. The contradiction in this issue is clear and self-evident; the anti-women laws of the Islamic republic give legal custody of children to fathers, and in the case of the death or execution of the father, to the grandfather. It happened frequently that these children had no relationship whatsoever with their grandfathers and had not even met them. Nevertheless, when a decision had to be made about the fate of the child, the law, that did not recognize any rights for the mother except the so-called “holy” duty of caring for the child and breastfeeding it up to the age of four, would interfere.
At the time of her arrest, Maryam had to bring her newborn baby with her to jail. They had executed her husband. After about one year, she sent the baby to her family and they accepted responsibility for taking care of the child up to the age of six, which was the time when Maryam was released from jail. Later on, Maryam found an opportunity to leave the country, but had to postpone this for years in order to get the consent of her father in law to take his grandchild out of the country. Let me add that, fortunately, among the families of Political prisoners these anti-women and anti-human laws did not usually lead to a crisis, because of the trust and understanding among families.
I frequently heard mothers confess that in their decisions in jail they used to think more about the fate of their children than their own fate. And if there was an apparent conflict between the two, usually stemming from the mother’s ideological commitments, the result was a guilty conscience. This feeling was accentuated by families who sometimes allied themselves with the prison authorities in accusing the mother of selfishness.
I was not a mother. I could not even imagine this double and extremely heavy responsibility and I confess that my understanding of their predicament is thus limited. I cannot know what they felt, just as I cannot truly know what a three year old girl felt when she used to fold her hands behind her back and slowly and thoughtfully pace in the cell, or in the yard when they sent us out for fresh air.
Toronto, March 2001
* Under the Shah of Iran, when the struggle against his rule intensified, the intelligence (SAVAK), police, and gendarmerie, established a joint committee to fight against so-called terrorists, the name given to everyone who opposed the regime. The term “committee” was used for their joint detention center that was a notorious place for torture.
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