Sepideh Ghaleyan from Evin Prison: Spread the Names of These Women by Word of Mouth
Sepideh Ghaleyan, who is imprisoned for her civil activities in support of imprisoned workers, has written a letter dated in Bahman describing her situation and that of several other imprisoned women, which has now reached Radio Farda.
Sepideh Ghaleyan was sentenced to five years in prison in the Haft Tappeh protests case. Last year in Esfand, Ms. Ghaleyan was transferred to Boushehr Prison, and after some time she wrote and published a report titled “Where It’s Close to the End of the World” about this prison, addressing issues such as “temporary marriage by some women in need through male inmates with the financial coordination of the ward supervisor.”
Ms. Ghaleyan, who is now in Evin Prison, in her new letter, the full text of which follows, while apologizing for “the deceptive cameras of the prison organization,” describes her situation and that of several other imprisoned women and has asked people to spread the names of these women by word of mouth.
Full Text of Sepideh Ghaleyan’s Letter from the Women’s Ward of Evin Prison
Preamble:
Torture, courthouse corridors, solitary cells, and long paths of exile from one prison to another—this is a summary of my life in recent years. The most painful moments of these years, however, are those times when I became a source of despair for my loved ones and fellow citizens. Boushehr’s suffering was pure truth, and I could not witness this suffering and live in it without speaking about it in every way; sometimes by talking with the prison guard and sometimes by publishing a report on the situation of the “women” in Boushehr Central Prison.
But I apologize that in this process, due to the double pressure that was exerted on my cellmates in Boushehr Prison, I fell under the deceptive cameras of the prison organization and became a source of disappointment. I hope that the dire situation of Boushehr Prison never befalls anyone.
The body of an exile is torn to pieces, and now pieces of my existence are scattered from Tehran to Ahvaz and Boushehr.
In Sepidare, I saw an Arab woman whose son had been killed by officials and had been denied the right to attend mourning ceremonies. Now I only remember her cry: “God, you are not our God!” A cry that is forgotten in Sepidare, at any moment it could be heard from anyone else’s lips.
My mother, at our last visit in Sepidare, brought a bottle of milk and some other items for the newborn baby of Elaheh Dervishy. She said: “Sepideh! Since the baby was born, you assume Tahoura and Mehr were born.” Becoming a mother in Sepidare, when you have been exiled to a desert full of despair at the end of the world, means you have brought a child and hope into the world.
I ran my hand over Elaheh’s tired, insulted, and aching pregnant belly. She still did not know why at age 18 such heavy torment had been inflicted upon her. I had not yet seen Elaheh’s child, who was supposed to be born speaking Arabic and from the moment of birth be a criminal and condemned person, when my exile letter arrived. Now I had to gather the pieces of my heart from Sepidare and go to Boushehr with a world of longing.
I said goodbye to Makieh, who was forced to repeat the details of her sexual relationship with her husband to interrogators and was my only sister. Later, I heard news of her death. When I left Sepidare, I became an exiled woman, and until this moment I have remained in exile.
In exile, the days were longer. In exile, my bones were crushed. They never let me return to my homeland, Sepidare. They never let me become one with Sepidare.
I have placed Haft Tappeh over my eyes, the Arab people and Khuzestan in my heart. When I was exiled to Boushehr, I saw a woman named Mahan Bollandkarami. Mahan was from Kurdistan; like a mountain, but forgotten, sorrowful, and with many wounds on her body. Her head rested on my feet until her death and she suffered. They killed her, only because she had spoken the truth.
Now silence was neither permissible nor possible. I told you since childhood about shrouding and a naked woman. About the suffering prevalent in Boushehr Prison, which was even hard to believe for me, who witnessed it. A woman in the crowd called out that it was time for us to find each other and hold hands. She was right. I, standing at the edge of a great abyss, took on a new life. Without any hesitation, you accepted my accounts. You stood by us. We stood together and did not believe the cameras and lies.
The reasons and evidence in the file were so clear that even in these oppressive and bloody kangaroo courts, I was acquitted of the charge of publishing lies about Boushehr. It is better to say that each of us, who had found each other and held hands, were acquitted.
From Evin:
Now I am a woman in love; very much in love. Among the smell of wood shavings and the scent of sweets, among reviewing the resistance of my loved ones in several prisons, I become even more in love. Among the sufferings of a young woman in love with me, again condemned to pack my bags. Exile! The torture of going from one prison to another.
Today when I am in love, excitement and dance and freedom have taken hold of my entire being. I want to write to you about the sufferings of several other women. I hope you will remember the women; not me, the women. Spread their names by word of mouth. I hope that along with their beloved ones, one day in neighborhoods that belong to them, they will review their love in their mother tongue. I hope that joy comes from us. Let’s dance and rise throughout the four corners of Iran.
One: Maryam Hajihosseini has been in prison for more than two years. Maryam is one of those who, between the temptation to leave and the thirst to stay, chose her homeland; rather, to have a hand in its development. She herself told the authorities that she is dissatisfied with the country’s position in the world, so she stayed to do something about it. But her answer was arrest and being accused of spying for Israel. Maryam was sentenced to corruption on earth and execution.
412 days, that is, more than a year, she was in a safe house at the foot of a mountain—according to the authorities themselves—in solitary confinement. In an unknown location. Away from her son Alireza and without news. She asked herself a thousand times why she hoped for the development of a country that is so determined to destroy its sympathizers. After 412 days, with the accusation of corruption on earth and a death sentence on her forehead, she was transferred to the women’s ward of Evin Prison.
Now with every official entering the women’s ward of Evin Prison, she expresses her only request for the thousandth time in words: even if there is a one-line document proving my espionage, please execute me faster; I cannot anymore, I don’t have the strength to endure this humiliation anymore, please execute me.
Two: Nilofar Bayani has been in prison since the age of thirty on charges of spying for Mossad, CIA, and every organization that crossed the IRGC’s mind. She worked for the United Nations and was a Columbia University student. She has been held in solitary confinement for more than two years and is now serving her fifth year of imprisonment. During this time, she has sometimes been taken to the parking lots of empty apartments on the outskirts of the city, sometimes to a villa in Lavasan. The interrogator circled Nilofar in parking lots and empty villas to make her confess that she is a spy. Enduring more than two years of solitary confinement and all kinds of torture and psychological pressure.
When you think about it, your four limbs tremble, everything begins to die and die and die, and what you have and have not done, said and not said become one and worthless, whether it’s a confession to spying or a confession to the murder of a disgusting interrogator who appears to be alive and is recording your confession to his murder! Nilofar, who devoted all her time and life to loving nature, is now here and can only greet the fish from a distance.
Three: Nahid Tagavi, a dual citizen, came from Germany to Iran. She is a communist and dreams of justice and freedom. But she has been sentenced to 10 years and 8 months in prison. Her child is outside Iran waiting for her mother. The mother has no visits, but she does not frown. From her phone calls that return, she is happy that she has talked with her daughter. Her daughter is concerned about the prisoners. Concerned about her mother’s cellmates. As if she is in Evin Prison.
Her mother turns to me and with eyes shining with tears and joy, tells me that Maryam is no longer the Maryam of before. Her heart is in Evin. Her heart is with the people of Iran. Her heart is pledged to Iran’s freedom. Nahid endured months of interrogation and torture. They gave her a furlough and took it back again, which itself is a form of torture. That Nahid can hold her daughter, her Maryam, in her arms is contingent on the rise and fall of Iran-Germany relations! Nahid got COVID and was one of the few people for whom furlough did not apply. Nahid never cries unless her cellmate cries.
Four: Zahra Sarv, a monarchist prisoner sentenced to seven years in prison without visits. Zahra spent two full years in Qarchak Prison. But her release did not last two months and she was arrested again. A woman of strong resistance and very sympathetic and kind. Zahra’s sick mother has no one but her and is waiting for her daughter’s freedom.
Five: Shahre (Layla) Qolkhani, a monarchist prisoner who has been sentenced to four and a half years in prison in complete destitution. They have assumed her to be so lonely and helpless that they have also raised all her possessions, which is 21 million tomans in home mortgage money. God knows what cries this woman has uttered over the loss of a few ducats that were the savings of her entire life. Only God knows.
Six: Golarcheh Abbasi has not spoken for a long time. She only screams, shouts, and suffers. Golarcheh has both rheumatism and arthritis, suffers from spinal canal stenosis and has five herniated discs in her back. Add sciatica pain and heart failure to these, and see what is left of her but pain?
But I wish it was all just that. Golarcheh endures these pains in the women’s ward of Evin Prison. The pressures on monarchist women prisoners increase day by day without any voice being raised. We must share some responsibility for these pressures; we must question the silence of public opinion in the face of the double oppression of these prisoners and not allow disagreement with a person’s political leanings to lead to ignoring or denying her rights.
Seven: Zahra Zahtabchi is the oldest female prisoner in Evin Prison. She has been sentenced to 10 years in prison, of which she has completed 9 years. During this time, she has been furloughed only once, and that was due to contracting COVID. When Zahra was arrested, her youngest daughter Mina was 11 years old. After her arrest, she was interrogated for more than a year and held in solitary confinement. During this time, her husband and Narges, her older daughter, were also arrested and pressured. Zahra’s father was one of the victims of the bloody massacre of political prisoners in the 1980s.
Eight: Sepideh Kashani has been sentenced to six years in prison. She, like Nilofar, has been accused of espionage and has been in solitary confinement for more than two years under the most severe pressures and psychological torture. Sepideh and Houman have been classmates, companions, colleagues, confidants, aligned, spouses, housemates, fellow travelers, fellow sufferers, groupmates, fellow voices, coordinated, kindred spirits, and cohabitants for years. They are cellmates because of the humming resulting from the delusion of some based on “complicity.” But as long as the source of the current in the cycle of their “fellow” references is the life of nature, these delusions will be fleeting.
Source: Radio Farda
