On the eve of her fourteenth year in prison; A letter from Maryam Akbari Monfared from Semnan Prison
1-January-2023
Category: Prisoners، Women
“On the eve of my fourteenth year in prison, what you are reading is not a story, it is a suffering totally soaked in blood which is being narrated from a small window of the experience of only one person out of 85 million people.
Although for me, with the experience of 13 years in prison, or as those in here say, “prisoner with a heavy sentence”, counting the days and months of detention from the very first days was and still is a reprehensible thing to do. But how can I forget that dark midnight? How can I forget the cruelty that happened to me and my family? Even though the ominous owl of cruelty has sat on the roof of our house since the 80s!
December 31, 2022, it’ll have been thirteen years since I was separated from my 4-year-old Sara and my two 12-year-old daughters on that winter midnight without having permission to say goodbye to my loved ones. They took me to Evin “for some explanations” with a ridiculous promise that “you will return to your children in the morning”. Thirteen years have passed since that day. From December 31, 2009, to December 31, 2022!
Thirteen years that I spent second by second in a breath-taking battle, 13 years that even counting it day by day (i.e., 4 thousand and 745 days) makes you tired, let alone spending all these 4 thousand and 745 days in the midst of an unequal battle!
This is not a 4,000-page story, it is the bare reality of life under the domination of the fascists who imposed it on us, and we decided not to surrender.
Although I wanted to be with my children with all my heart, is there a mother who doesn’t? But I do not regret. I am even more determined to continue my path. I have said this every time in every formal and informal interrogation session, and I am happy to repeat it! I have been separated from my children for 13 years, but I also saw what criminals do with my own eyes for 13 years and my resolve became stronger.
On this side of the bars, in the dark desert of torture and cruelty whatever is visible (even what is not visible), is despicable and brutal! Here is an unreleased documentary on the brutality imposed on women that you can’t bear to hear even one, let alone to live with hundreds of these tortured women and feel their pain with your heart.
For 13 years, I saw dozens of children and hundreds of teenagers and young women the same age as my daughters, I caressed them kindly and talked to them. And because of their loneliness and because they didn’t have a voice, I gritted my teeth in anger and roared to defend them against anyone who was with the oppressors!
I don’t even know what happened to my children in these 13 years! In these 13 years, they dealt with the turbulence of life so strongly that not even the smallest wave reached me! In all the storms they stood firm and they turned every visit into an explosion of energy for me!
If you ask me, then how did I survive in the darkness of torture and exhaustion of time? I say that it is the flame of faith in my heart that has kept me going.
Amid loneliness and with empty hands, this hot and burning flame is what the interrogators want to steal from the prisoners from the first moment of their arrest… so that their minds and their souls freeze and they surrender… However, with the Holy anger from the cruelty and tortures I have witnessed, I kept that flame burning! I laughed and spread the laugh so that I could stand up. Resistance is our beating heart!
I have faith in the path that my sister and my brothers died for, faith in the path that I stepped on, and faith in the clenched fists and firm steps of the youth who are now standing in the street lining with their lives in their hands against the agents of dictator.
Yes, faith in the innocence of my sister and my brothers, whom I never considered dead… they were and are the most alive ones for me. They held my hand in every moment in prison… and now I find them in the streets of Iran… I saw Alireza, who was executed in 1981, in the clenched fist of that young man in Nazi Abad. I saw Ruqiya, who was executed in the summer of 1988 in Evin prison, standing proudly in front of the line against the repressive guards. I hear the voice of Abdul Reza, who was executed in Gohardasht in the summer of 1988, in the continuous cry for freedom of his peers. I find Gholamreza, who was martyred under the torture in Evin prison in 1985, in every young man who is martyred under torture.
Yes, the criminal wanted to bury them anonymously, but now we see how the current brave and courageous generation continues the very same path of those young people who did not bow to Khomeini.
They thought that if they kill our loved ones, their rule will be eternal! What a false imagination! Our martyrs rose during the revolution in the middle of the burning flames on the streets…
The wind scattered their burnt ashes on the pavements of the streets, and brave men and women grew out of those ashes!
Brave girls and boys who dream of life in the sun and rain of tomorrow, those who pour their most rebellious anger on those responsible for 43 years of oppression and tyranny… While they fight, the darkness is afraid of them! And this increases my faith!
With every news I hear about the protests and uprising, flame of faith burns stronger and brighter in my heart and the hearts of those women whose only hope of salvation is to break the heavy metal doors of prisons.
To my daughters and sons who are risking their lives in the streets, to whom I am full of passion to be by their side, I say: “If you are arrested, don’t trust the interrogators, they are not like us! The enemy is always the enemy! Increase your faith in your path as much as possible, because in solitude your faith is your only help.
I say to the families of the prisoners: “Ignore the interrogators promises, don’t be scared by their threats, you can only save your children’s lives by repeating their names in public. Let people know about them! No interrogator wants your any good, don’t be silent, shout!”
To the grieving families, to every mother who sacrificed her loved one in this way, to all the brothers and sisters who lost a piece of their lives, I bow to their martyrs and say that I understand their sorrow and grief… I hold their hands from a distance, I stand by them shoulder to shoulder to seek justice stronger than ever.
It is about 13 years of non-stop battle, but in short: ” One day from here I will sing the hymn of victory like the sun from the summit of the mountain.”
Tomorrow is ours
Maryam Akbari Monfared – December 2022
The hellish prison of Semnan”