Writers Under Siege

Voices of Freedom from Around the World

Lucy Popescu, Carole Seymour-Jones

• Publisher: NYU Press
• Year: 2007
• ISBN:
  9780814767573
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Literary Collections
• Index: Literature

The freedom to write is under threat today throughout the world, with more than 1,000 writers, journalists, and publishers known to be imprisoned or persecuted in more than 100 countries. Writers Under Siege bears witness to the power and danger of the pen, and to the powerful longing for the right to use it without fear. Collected here are fifty contributions by writers who have paid dearly for the privilege of writing. Some have been tortured; some have been killed. All understand the cost of speaking up and speaking out.

This book was prepared by PEN, which is both the world's oldest human rights organization and the oldest international literary organization. It commemorates PEN’s eighty-fifth anniversary and celebrates PEN’s work by giving voice to persecuted writers from around the globe. The contributors come from more than twenty countries, from Belarus to Zimbabwe. Many are well-known in the English-speaking world, including Orhan Pamuk, from Turkey, winner of the 2006 Nobel Prize for Literature; Harold Pinter, from England, winner of the 2005 Nobel Prize for Literature; Aung San Suu Kyi, from Burma, winner of the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize; and Anna Politkovskaya, from Russia, the noted journalist and author who was murdered in 2006, shortly after writing the piece that appears in this collection. Other contributors are less famous, perhaps, but their contributions are no less compelling. In prose and poetry, in fiction and non-fiction, they reveal the personal consequences of war, conflict, terrorism, and authoritarianism.

While the pieces collected here differ in their settings and their subjects, all are riveting. Grouped into four sections — Prison, Death, Asylum, and The Freedom to Write — they call our attention to the fundamental humanity we share and highlight the inhumanity we can so easily condone.

Contributors include: Chris Abani, Angel Cuadra Landrove, Asiye Guzel, Augusto Ernesto Llosa Giraldo, Mamadali Makhmudov, Orhan Pamuk, Harold Pinter, Anna Politkovskaya, Aung San Suu Kyi, Thich Tue Sy, Gai Tho, and Ken Saro-Wiwa.

Section One
PRISON

A prison sentence is the beginning of a journey for every writer who finds him- or herself behind bars for exercising the right to write. Wherever the country, whatever the jail, the intention is the same: to silence the uncensored voice. The prisoner’s journey may pass from despair to hope. Torture brings almost unimaginable suffering; illness, starvation, mental breakdown and acceptance are steps on the journey. The prisoner aches for that other sky, freedom. He may step out into the light, or the darkness of the grave. He may have to negotiate the pain of exile, the brutality of racism.

Reza Baraheni

Born in Tabriz, Iran, in 1935, Reza Baraheni is a poet and the author of several novels and short stories. He worked as professor of English at Tehran University and has also taught at universities in the USA and England. He was imprisoned during the time of the Shah in the 1970s and by the Islamic Republic of Iran in the early 1980s. He has served as PEN Canada’s president and currently lives in Toronto.

The following recounts one memorable night Baraheni spent in Iran’s notorious Evin Prison.

A minor mistake in Evin Prison

I was imprisoned for most of the autumn of 1981 and the first month of 1982. At first I was kept in the corridor of the Joint Committee, an old torture station from the Shah’s regime that had been reactivated by the Islamic Republic of Iran. There were many women in the cells of the ward where I was being kept. So, the men remained in the corridor, with blindfolds covering their eyes, sleeping there, eating prison rations, and waiting. I stayed in these conditions for twenty-two days. Then I was moved to solitary confinement on the upper floor, where the blindfold was removed for the first time. After a month, I was blindfolded and taken by car to Evin prison. Here is the story of one particular night there.

As usual, I sat in the interrogation room, facing the wall. It was late in the afternoon. My share of interrogation for the day had ended. I was waiting for them to blindfold me, take me out into the corridor, raise my arm onto the shoulder of someone ahead of me, and place someone else’s hand on my shoulder. Then they would lead our column downstairs into the big lobby of the courthouse, and out into a waiting minibus, to be driven up the hill to our cells.

It was already dark when they came. They were working very fast. The blindfold was on my eyes in a minute. I could feel someone else as well as the guard. The two of us were taken into the corridor and our hands placed on other prisoners’ shoulders. I didn’t know how many of us were there. From downstairs, I could hear the bullying voices of the guards, scattered but loud.

Through the small cleft where the blindfold pressed against my nose and cheek, I could see wheelchairs passing by with swollen, bloody feet hanging from them. I could hear whispering, sighs and painful breathing. We were ordered to move, but the bustle and jostle around us was too heavy to allow us to go down the stairs. I kept gripping hard on the shoulder of the man ahead of me and felt the firm grip of the man behind me, and going down was utterly laborious. This night seemed different from other nights. Finally we were downstairs. It felt as if there were a million people whirling around my blindfolded eyes. The hand on my shoulder shook hysterically, and my own hand on the shoulder of the man ahead of me was no longer under my control. We stood there, as if there were only the three of us, jam-packed with all these other people jeering at us. Now, every whisper, every scream, every smell and movement had a thousand meanings.

Suddenly I noticed the shaking hand on my shoulder was no longer there. There were only the two of us, connected to each other by my arm, disconnected from the rest of the world behind the thick wall of the blindfold. I could no longer hold my arm straight and grip the shoulder of the unknown man ahead of me. It dropped by volition of its natural inertia. I stood alone and blind in a hostile world.

Had the audience forgotten the man on the stage? Was this the last scene? Where was my stick? Was the blinded Oedipus leaving the stage in utter ignominy? I don’t know how long I stood there, but suddenly I heard the voice of authority: ‘Put your hand on the shoulder of the person ahead of you and walk!’ What a relief! What a moment of bliss! I would be in my cell in less than twenty minutes. At the end of the day’s grilling, I felt I had convinced my interrogator that I hadn’t done anything that would be considered treason. And now, in a few minutes, I could sum up in my mind the pros and cons of the situation and prepare myself for the next round of the interrogation. I raised my hand briskly and put it on the shoulder of the man ahead of me, and almost simultaneously felt the hand of the man behind me on my shoulder, and we set out, emerging into the open air.

The cold weather did not hurt at all. There must be stars up in the freezing sky, I thought. If only the blindfold were removed! We were ordered to walk, and walk we did, slowly and precariously, hunched up subhuman beings, each with the hope in mind of one day straightening his back and looking up at the sky with free, open eyes. But this was not normal! Where were the minibuses? We were walking on rough ground. There was silence, it was dark, and I sensed the dim streaks of something like flashlights, or meteorites, in the sky.

‘Where are they taking us?’

I feel a strange pressure on my shoulder from the hand of the man behind me. But I cannot stop talking: ‘Where! Where are they taking us?’

Others don’t speak. I hear the barking of a dog in the distance and the coughing of someone nearby. And then the man from behind me says, ‘Don’t you know?’

‘I’ve always been taken to my cell after interrogation. We never walked. They took us in the minibus.’

‘We were in court. We’re being taken to be shot.’

‘What!’

‘You mean you weren’t in the court with us?’

‘No! I wasn’t in any court.’

‘I must have put my hand on the shoulder of the wrong man in the confusion. You must have done the same. There were too many people there.’

I don’t know what to do. My whole mind is a vegetable. I try to call out to the guards. I have no voice. Cold sweat is running down all over me.

‘Have they marked the soles of your feet?’

‘What!’

‘Have they marked the soles of your feet?

‘No!’

‘They’ve marked the soles of our feet with a marker that we’re to be shot.’

‘I’ve no such things on the soles of my feet.’

‘What are you waiting for! Just shout and tell them.’

This time I shouted at the top of my voice: ‘Guard! Brother Passdar! There’s been a mistake! I wasn’t in court! Come and look at the soles of my feet!’

‘Shut up, you bastard infidel!’ It is the voice of the Passdar all right.

The man from behind says, ‘Keep screaming. Tell them to come and look at the soles of your feet.’

I scream. I don’t know what I am saying, but I know I am fighting for my life. My hand is still on the shoulder of the man walking ahead of me.

‘Take off your shoes and scream. Tell them about the soles.’ The man from behind me is the only one who speaks. He doesn’t think of himself at all. What kind of a human being is he?

‘Come and look at the soles of my feet!’ I scream, trying to take off my shoe, but it is impossible with my hand on someone’s shoulder and someone else’s hand on my shoulder. Anyway, how can I show the soles of my feet to anyone in the dark? ‘It’s impossible! It’s impossible!’ I whisper.

‘Do what you can to stay alive. We’ve lost our lives, perhaps for a reason. But why should you lose yours?’

I scream, thinking that it would be an honour to die beside this man.

‘You godless bastard! You think you can save your skin by screaming. I’ll show you when I shoot you myself in ten minutes!’

‘But come and look at the soles of my feet. See for yourself. I wasn’t in court. I was being interrogated by Hadji-Agha Hosseini the whole day. The interrogation isn’t finished yet! Why don’t you believe me?’

‘Don’t tire! Scream!’ the man whispers.

And I scream, no matter what. And the guard swears. And we reach the final destination.

We are all panting. There are many flashlights. There are many people, talking in whispers. Some of them must be the firing squad. Others are there too, perhaps as spectators, to see what would happen to them if they didn’t recant and betray their friends. They have to see the face of death to make up their mind.

‘Brother Passdar, please, come and take a look at the soles of my feet. You will see that I was not condemned to death.’

‘Shut up!’ A voice louder than anything before reverberates in the silence.

Someone says, ‘I want you to remove the blindfold before shooting me. I want to see the night of Tehran once more before I die.’

‘Shut up! That’s all.’

There are two men crying in the distance. One of them keeps saying, ‘God, is this the end of my life?’

Someone comes towards us and we are told to walk, and then we are separated. As soon as I am alone, I take off my shoes and stand barefoot, waiting. Someone asks: ‘Eight or nine?’

Someone answers: ‘Nine.’

‘Take off my blindfold!’ It is the voice of the man who wants to see the night of Tehran.

Someone says, ‘Remove his blindfold.’ I don’t speak any more. Barefoot, I wait.

Then I sense the hurried streaking of the flashlights. Perhaps it is not the fear of death that is so horrible. It is the waiting itself, for death. The flashlight moves closer, spreading its light on the ground. The man is taking off his shoes. Then someone tells him to put on his shoes. I hear him replace his shoes.

Then it is my turn. I tell the Passdar bending before me to examine the soles of my feet to see for himself that there has been a mistake. But he doesn’t let me go on. He calls out, ‘Hassan, come and take this man to the courthouse and have them mark the soles of his feet.’

I put my shoes back on. Someone grabs my hand and pulls me away. He keeps me blindfolded, and starts to run, making me run blindly downhill. He doesn’t ask questions, but I keep telling him that I am innocent, and I keep thinking that running like this might even result in an earlier death, before the one by firing squad.

Scribbling something on the sole of my foot equals death. How dangerous writing can be! The man pulling me over the craggy path doesn’t say anything. How long it takes to get there. I no longer say anything.

When we finally stop and enter the courthouse, my head goes dizzy and I am about to throw up. What is this? They are having soup. I remember having had soup once when we were delayed in the interrogation room. I also remember the jokes about the soup, said to have been made by the head chef of the Hilton Hotel, who had been arrested.

I begin to shout at the top of my voice that I hadn’t been to court and was innocent. Hassan calls out to someone else, asking him to come and mark my foot. The man comes over and the first thing he asks me for is my name. I hear him going through something like a file. ‘Hold him right here,’ he says and departs. A minute later, there is chaos in the lobby of the courthouse. They have ordered everyone to take off their shoes. Then I hear a clapping of hands. No, it is a slap on someone’s face. It feels as if someone is being beaten up. Ther...