What Will You Do With These “Confessions?”

This article is baseed on an assumption. But it is not an improbable one. It is about the possibility that Abdollah Momeni will be forced to make a televised “confession”. Actually it is about the possible “confessions” of all those students and activists who are currently held in ward 209 of Evin prison, including Haleh Esfandiary, Kian Tajbakhsh and many others.

Let’s go to the prison cell. These are cold, cement-walled cells. Cells with a single metal door, which can be opened or closed only by interrogator “brothers” leading to interrogation chambers. Cells that speak of the nightmares of their occupants.

The path from a home to the prison cell has not changed over the thousand years: it is marked with insults and humiliation, beatings, blows and strikes, insulting words, fallacious accusations, eyes covered with blindfolds, the shoving a person’s head below a car window level and over the car seat so you don’t see where they are taking you (but in reality to hide the person who is being carried in the car and in its manner) .. .

Then you arrive at the prison. And you don’t know where you are. What you hear are horrific sounds, meaningless orders, squeaky and rusty door sounds. And then the undressing. They want you naked to hurt your soul through your body. Then you are thrown into midair, and land in a cell.

Everybody takes exactly the same path. And this is where the story begins.

The interrogator, the “brother interrogator” and the “Haj Agha” who in the pre-revolutionary days was called “Doctor” then begin their task. The countless trips to the interrogation and torture chambers. Repeated questions. Repetitions, repetition and more repetitions.

Depriving a prisoner from sleep. Stealing the comfort of darkness from a prisoner through lights that never go off. The silence of the cells that never ends except for the sound of tape recorded wailing of other prisoners. The voice of a pleading woman. The cracking voice of a man who is broken. The voice of a child calling for help.

And then comes the long wait. Very long. During which there is no news, no communication. And then interrogations take place again. Sleep deprivations are imposed. The recorded wailings. Silence. And then the same recipe all over again.

Eventually the prisoner talks and writes: espionage, participation in the velvet revolution, connections to foreigners, sexual corruption, etc. Take a look at the confessions. Has anyone said anything other than these?

It does not end here. Then comes the “reflections” that forcefully take place in the cell. Through it, you emerge to “thank the brothers” who have given you the opportunity to “see” your “mistakes”.

So let’s return to our assumption. Let’s assume that these gentlemen have decided to wire cameras to the prison cells of Abdollah Momeni. The cell door opens. He sits and like all the others before him, says: espionage, velvet revolution, association with foreigners, etc. And then probably an appreciation for the rescuing act of the brothers.

He is not the first to go through this, just as he will not be the last. The question that comes is: What do you want to do with these recordings when no one believes in them? Even if everyone believes in them what about those who create these “confessionary films?” They know that the charges of publishing a student publication by four young students is a lie. What about them? They know well that Abdollah Momeni has not said anything other than promote freedom and the independence of his motherland. What about them?

Are you happy to strike a blow at your rivals? What about the nightly fears that you have? Do you realize that what your victims says is precisely what the whole nation is saying? You know that when you lose your triggers, perhaps only God will listen to your pleas.

If you don’t wish to listen to the cries of the people, at least listen to your inner voices and conscience. Listen to your own silence.

Now I prefer to talk to Abdollah Momeni and all others who are probably waiting for the silence to break, or take a nap which has been deprived to them. The residents of ward 209.

Abdollah, my fellow countryman!

We suffer with you and others like you. We too experience sleepless nights with you. We too go to interrogation chambers with you. We hear the same accusations that are thrown at you. We too experience the silence and the wait. We too believe that we have been long forgotten. We are turning into somebody else. Someone who does not resemble the person we know, we were.

Abdollah, history is full of people who built these prison cells. What these gentlemen are doing has been done in the past, and others will do in the future. They may do them in the name of religion or anything else. But as these prison cells exist, they also tell us something else. That the world has never been a safe place for those who built them, and shall continue to be so in the future. They have built these structures but you have seen the flimsiness of their foundations. They always remain nameless, confined to be called a “Doctor” or a “Haj Agha”. Whereas you have remained through a thousand names, and shall continue to live with us.