Night, lashes, poetry and torture: Farzad Kamangar

Freedom Messenger -- On the second anniversary of the death of Farzad Kamangar, we remember him and those that stood with him; Shirin Alamhouli, Ali Heidarian, Farhad Vakili, and Mehdi Eslamian

What follows is a rough translation of a poem Farzad dictated while in prison. The audio of the poem can be viewed in the video below.

Night, lashes, poetry and torture

It’s been a while

that I – just like the stars- have Filled my suitcase

with months’ delight

but they won’t allow me

to open my wings and fly like a dove in dawn

with a basket full of laughter and songs

to reach the convoy.

but

I am destined to leave this place

The butterfly which left with the night, whispered my fate to my heart

It was night, not a night that lovers sit across from each other and enjoy one another’s company, or a night which a lover awaits his loved one.

It was night, not one of those nights that poetry and love would walk through the streets of Kermanshah.

It wasn’t one of those nights that the bisotoun would reach its ecstasy with the sound of the tanbour, but a night that the sound of musicians tar did not feel necessary to ail its tunes.

A night where the echoes of folk songs couldn’t be heard from the city centre.

It was night, no moon, no stars, no sky, no clouds, only a prison

It was a dark night, in a narrow, wet and dim chamber, with a door opening to the future and one opening to the past.

And I whispered a poem to the walls, “

in me rests an oppressive prison that never tempered the sound of my chains”

A knock at the door disrupted my dark dreams and interrupted the unwritten rhymes and lullaby’s my mother used to whisper to me

“Put on a blindfold”
“hands forward, handcuffs on”
“walk forward”

I was dragged out of my cell.

I knew the way, better than the old guards who were worn and grizzled like the doors of cells

Better than my interrogators, I knew each step of the stairway leading out of the basement into the recreation area. It was as if I had known this prison for many years

I could even make out the footprints of the prisoners who came before me.
While descending the stairs, under my blindfold I counted the number of people present

One…two…three…four…five…six…

They had come to demonstrate their authority on the body of a human

And standing their, a song whispered in my head “Dear god, where in the world am I standing?”

And with the first blow the song remained unfinished, as they strapped me down to the bed…

How scared I was…Not from the pain of the whip…but that in the 21st century, the century of dialogue, their still remained those in the world who murderously and joyfully beat the body of a prisoner

I shivered…not from fear of the blows that came upon me. But from the loss of humanity taking place in a land which once wrote the charter of ethics for the world.

Terror gripped me…not from the sudden jolt of the electric shocks. But from the doctor who examined me while tapping his pen on my forehead and telling me shutup….shutup… Even while centuries had passed since the invention of the hippocratic oath.

With the pain of the lashes my thoughts turned to another corner of the world, a place where the highest human concerns were to save endangered crocodiles or snakes, or the spiders of some unknown land. But here… here…vay..vay..vay…

With each blow I traveled back in time, back to the Qajar dynasty, to the time of Hitler, and Tartar and the Mongols, but the blows continued, they continued and I went back into times unspoken and unread, but the pain did not stop.

I blacked out and come to again hours later in my cell,
and like a newborn I would begin to squirm and crawl and a song would come into my head
“Ive seen the birth of a child, so I know that screaming and kicking are the first signs of life”

Tomorrow night, the sound of pain and…

One hit me for my beliefs, the second for my words, the third said I had endangered national security, the fourth hit me to see where in the world my screams would reach up to.

It is night again….those nights were long ago…but each night the slightest sound disturbs my sleep …and the night whispers to me in my dreams “sleep my dear, its time to rest. Sleep my love for being awake is torment.