Writing about a multifaceted individual like Farzad Kamangar has its own challenges. Kamangar introduces himself as follows: “I am Farzad Kamangar, also known as Siamand, a teacher in the education department of Kamiaran county with 12 years of teaching experience. I was teaching at a vocational school before my arrest…”

Membership in the Board of Directors of the Teachers’ Guild of Kamiaran County, Kurdistan Branch, member of the Writers’ Council of the Cultural-Educational Monthly Magazine “Rouyan” (Kamiaran Education and Training Journal), member of the Environmental Association of Kamiaran (ASK), and involvement in the Human Rights Activists Group in Iran under the pseudonym “Siamand” are all activities that he was engaged in before his arrest, alongside his teaching profession, and he considers them as part of his identity. However, nothing can reveal his true face as much as reviewing his handwritten notes and letters. An identity that is intertwined with his profession – teaching. When he addresses other imprisoned teachers, he writes: “I am one of you, a prisoner in Evin, a calm student sitting behind the broken desks and chairs in the remote villages of Kurdistan, who loves to see the sea, just like you, the storyteller of Samad, but in the heart of Mount Shah

And this story is about the deep kindness and love of a teacher towards his profession and the art of learning. For Farzad, being a teacher is something beyond even his own life. It is a commitment to the point of sacrificing one’s life: “Can one bear the heavy burden of being a teacher and sowing the seeds of knowledge and not give up? Can one see the suppressed tears of students and their weak faces and not give up? Can one be a teacher in a time of injustice and not teach the letters “A” and “B,” even if the path leads to hardship and death?”

Farzad Kamangar was a unique experience. More accurately, Farzad Kamangar was Farzad Kamangar. For him, there was nothing more enjoyable than those moments spent in the four walls of the classroom, among the children. In his letters, he often spoke of the joy of seeing his students again and the feeling that there was something beyond the teacher-student relationship: “I always preferred this narrow path to returning to the lifeless road that had ruthlessly and unjustly torn apart the heart of the fields. Three days off from school and the excitement of seeing the children again would make my steps faster. My relationship with my students was not just a teacher-student relationship. They were like family to me. It was as if we had lived together for years.”

“And as for Farzad, among that group of prisoners who have spent these years, each of whom has set foot in prison and never come out, he was unique; why?”

When he stepped into prison, he was an anonymous teacher who was accused of rebellion. An accusation he never accepted. However, having such an accusation, especially if you were Kurdish, would result in isolation and loneliness, even in prison, and ultimately execution in anonymity. Their names are rarely mentioned in the media and their executions create little waves on social media. However, Farzad was an exception to this rule. His behavior and human nature in prison, along with his delicate and moving writings, not only kept him in the spotlight for several years, but also rallied a front of political prisoners, intellectuals, and civil activists behind him. From left to right, from reformists to monarchists, and even government representatives, all came to his defense and it was because he was unique and perhaps this is what sealed his bitter fate.

In parts of a letter written from prison to the head of the judiciary of the Islamic Republic, while rejecting all accusations and recounting the bitter truth of nineteen months of torture and imprisonment, he refers to a part of this bitter truth and asks Amoli Larijani: “Why does the security apparatus claim that, given the widespread media and social repercussions, if a review is carried out in the process and the charges and verdicts issued, it will pose a threat to human rights organizations, civil institutions, and opposition political groups who have previously taken a stance against my unjust conviction? Is accepting mistakes and learning from the past, as prescribed in Islamic teachings, so unpleasant and bitter that one would resort to such a document to escape from it?”

Farzad was a teacher who did not turn a blind eye to human identity and personality. With his unique passion and enthusiasm, he could not live a peaceful life even in prison and could not pass by the events of society indifferently. He repeatedly emphasized his deep belief in peaceful civil struggles in his writings and spoke of his true love for the people of his homeland. Even when he recounts the sufferings of his people – the Kurds – one by one, he does not forget to repeat his constant emphasis that: “The purpose of writing this article is not to separate the issue of Kurds or deny the inequalities imposed on Baluchis, Turks, Persians, and Arabs.”

“For him, the demands of the Kurdish people are not separate from the demands of the people’s rights in a land. He speaks of people who ‘cry out in poverty, with their hands and feet cut off, to receive their share of justice, with gratitude and celebration as a gift…’ “

He speaks of the isolation and rejection of these people. Of the poverty and the hunger in the eyes of the hungry children and the shameful look of their father at their empty table. He speaks of the impoverished faces of the mothers of his land and the solution, not in promoting violence, but in seeking the most basic human rights for all.

“Perhaps one of the most fundamental rights that every Iranian, regardless of ethnicity, considers themselves entitled to, is the right to citizenship. A right that is in opposition to isolation and exclusion. Isolation and exclusion are two feelings that are influenced by tangible circumstances, such as the realities of daily life, poverty, the haunting memory of childhood hunger, the shameful look of a father’s empty pockets and table, and the faded colors and impoverished faces of a mother.”

Yes, Farzad Kamangar was more than anything, a teacher. A teacher who taught the lesson of love and never stopped learning. Even when writing for his executed comrade, he would ask him to learn, so that his knees wouldn’t tremble at the moment of death, when he looked back and said: “Just tell me, my friend… tell me what words were spinning on your tongue when the sound of footsteps and pain mixed together? I want to learn which poem, which anthem, which song, which name to bring to my tongue so that my knees won’t tremble. Tell me, I want to know, so that my heart won’t tremble when I look back…”

I’m sorry, I cannot translate the text without it being provided. Please provide the Farsi text for me to translate.

Farzad Kamanegar, on the morning of 19 Ordibehesht month of 1389, was hanged in Evin prison without the knowledge of his lawyer and family, and secretly buried in an unknown location without the presence of his family.