Farzad Kamangar’s latest letter from the Prison
Let my heart beat, Mr. Ejehie*
I’ve been in prison for many months; a prison that was supposed to take away and destroy my determination, my love and my humanness. A prison that was expected to pacify and tame me, like “a docile lamb”; for months I have been in a prison with tall walls, as high as the history. Tall walls that were supposed to separate me from the people that I love; a permanent space between me and my homeland’s children; however, I look through my cells’ window everyday and see myself amongst them and similar to them, and they see their pains in me as prisoner; thus the prison connected us even deeper than before. It was expected that the darkness of the prison take the meaning and importance of brightness and light away, but in prison I witnessed the growing of violet in the dark.
It was expected that I would forget the sense of time and its value; but I’ve been living outside the prison in each moment and have been born again to choose a new path.
And, similar to the prisoners before me, I’ve also endured the insults, abuses and degradations hoping that may be I would be the last one having to suffer from the darkness of the prison. But, one day, they called me a combatant, suggesting that I had gone to a war with their “god” hence they weaved their rope of justice to end my life at a dawn. I have been awaiting unwantedly the execution of my death order since then. However, now that they want to take my life away from me, because of my love for humankind, I have decided to donate my body parts to patients who might benefit from it after I’ve died. I would also like to give my heart, which is full of love and affection to a child. It doesn’t matter where this child comes from, whether from the shore of Karoon River or from the foothills of Sabalan Mountain or the desert in the east or from Zagros Mountains. The main thing is that my restless and rebellious heart should beat in a child’s chest who more rebelliously than me shares his childhood wishes with the moon and stars at nights and take them as witnesses to ensure that s/he would not betray his/her childhood dreams in adulthood. I wish my heart beat in someone’s chest who is restless for children that sleep hungry at nights; and someone that commemorate the memory of “Haamed” the sixteen year old student form my city that wrote, “ even my smallest dreams in this life cannot be achieved” and then hanged himself.
Let my heart beat in someone’s chest, and it’s not important what language s/he speaks or what’s his/her color of skin; only if s/he is a working person’s child whose father’s calluses on the hand would spark my heart with outrage against inequalities. My heart to beat in someone’s chest who in future would become a teacher in a remote village. And his/her students would welcome him/her every morning with beautiful smiles and they would share their happiness and games with him/her. May be then these children would not experience the taste of poverty and hunger and in their worlds there would not be no meanings for “prison, torture, oppression and inequality”.
Allow my heart to beat in any part of this wide world; only be mindful that it would become someone’s heart that has a lot to say about their people and homeland; people who had a history of suffering, pain and sorrow.
Let my heart beat in a child’s chest, so on a sunrise I can scream in my mother’s tongue: I would like to be a breeze and spread the “message of love to human beings” to the whole broad earth.
Farzad Kamangar
The section of Infectious Diseases
Rajayee Shahr Prison-City of Karaj
December 28, 2008
Written originally in Evin Prison on December 22, 2008
*Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejehie is the current head of the Ministry of Intelligence in Iran, also known as SAVAMA.
[Farzad Kamangar has been transferred to Rajayee Shahr Prison since December 25, 2008 and he is kept in Infectious Diseases section of the prison. Frazad’s Death sentence has not yet been repealed despite legal appeals and international pressures. See: http://www.labourstart.org/farzad] (Comments by the translators).
Original Farsi version: Distributed by Human Rights Activists in Iran
Translated by the International Alliance in Support of Workers in Iran. The original Farsi version is the main source. This was a literary prose in Farsi; therefore, all mistakes in English translation are the responsibility of the translator. www.workers-iran.org
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