If we want to understand what goes on beneath the surface of a society and what the social, political, and cultural realities of a society are, we can look at its prisons. Prisons are a reflection of the entire society. The behavior that is exhibited in prisons with an inmate deprived of freedom can also be seen on a larger scale in a society with a citizen or member of the community.

In a social contract – whether in a democracy or a dictatorship – we give up or delegate a portion of our power, rights, privileges, and freedoms to the ruler as an individual or powerful institution, in order to establish a just or unjust order in society. In prison, this concept is implemented on a larger scale.

In prison, a prisoner is deprived of their basic rights and placed in a position of weakness against the prison guard. Their freedoms, whether as a result of justice or injustice or tyranny, are taken away and the prison guard feels powerful over the prisoner. A prisoner who is deprived of their freedom is like a human who has been deprived of both hands to defend themselves, and the prison guard behaves towards the prisoner as a powerful ruler would towards a citizen or member of society.

Societies that have not been rid of violence, societies where human values are not ingrained, societies that have been deprived of education, societies where fair laws have not been manifested, whether at the level of rulers or at the level of its members, can exhibit unjust and unfair behavior.

Let’s look at the subject from a different perspective.

One of the conditional demands in the past hundred years has been the establishment of justice or the judicial system alongside freedom. Prison is one of the pillars of justice and the judiciary, and this concept is sometimes in conflict with freedom; because the very existence of prison means depriving some humans of their freedom. Therefore, even in a democratic, free and ideal government, prison is a place of conflict in the discussion of freedom. It is from this perspective that the discussion of justice and freedom becomes more important within the prison, because even in a free government, a prisoner is deprived of their freedoms and this deprivation can create a ground for oppression and injustice against them.

Prisons are a reflection of a country’s history, as they answer the question of which prisoners, with what fate, and in what conditions they became imprisoned. Unfortunately, our information about prisons mostly dates back to the modernization era of Iran and the government’s project during the reign of Reza Shah. The establishment of the judiciary system, thanks to the constitutional revolutionaries and, of course, Ali Akbar Davar, the founder of modern judiciary in Iran, doubled the necessity of forming prisons.

The first prison that we have heard of in contemporary history is the Shahrbani or Nezamiye prison, which was under the control of the Swedes before Reza Shah came to power. This prison consisted of two or three small rooms known as solitary confinement and several rooms and a basement for common prisoners. Unfortunately, there is not much information available about this prison.

Reza Shah’s rise to power – as many regions were out of the control of the government during the constitutional period – he made efforts to establish his rule throughout the country and in doing so, he suppressed rebellious leaders such as Sheikh Khaz’al, Mirza Kuchak Khan Jangali, and many other local rulers. This required a larger prison. Therefore, with the suggestion of General Dargahi, the head of the police, and the approval of Reza Shah, the process of building a larger prison began.

The location chosen for this purpose was the Qajar Palace (located between Zandaneh Square, Seydkhandan Bridge, Shariati Street, and the current Police Street), which had old, spacious, and abandoned buildings. This location was built in 1168 AH by a Russian architect named Nikolai Markov. (1) As a result, it was deemed suitable for establishing a prison and was opened by Reza Shah on 11 Azar 1308.

They say that General Dargahi, the proposer of building this prison, was also one of the first prisoners of this prison.

This prison during the reign of Reza Shah housed many political prisoners, including Seyed Jafar Pishahvari (a communist revolutionary and founder of the Democratic Party of Azerbaijan), Qavam al-Saltaneh (who served as prime minister five times during the Pahlavi and Qajar periods), Abdolhossein Teymourtash (the second-in-command during Reza Shah’s rule, who was responsible for many development ideas and initiatives), Farrokh Yazdi (a banned poet and editor of the newspaper “Tofan” who was arrested fifteen times and also served as a member of parliament), Bozorg Alavi, Alimardan Khan Bakhtiari, and Mohammad Arani.

Farokhi Yazdi, along with Abdul Hussein Timurtash, Sardar Assad, and Jafar Ghulikhani, were killed by the doctor Ahmad (Ahmad Ahmadi), a nurse and an experienced prison doctor, with the use of air injection. Doctor Ahmadi, along with the head of the prison, Mokhtar Vilounzane, and an artist, were tried in court and sentenced to execution for their involvement in these murders during the reign of Reza Shah.

Although Ahmad Kassrovi, the lawyer of Dr. Ahmad, claimed in court that Farrokh Yazdi was killed due to a heart attack and chronic malaria, he was recognized as a criminal and executed for numerous reasons, including the unknown location of Farrokh Yazdi’s burial. It is said that these political executions were carried out under the direct orders of Reza Shah.

Farokhi Yazdi has written the following poems in this prison:

Oh, you who said “until when will we be imprisoned”, we are imprisoned.

As long as there was freedom, we were imprisoned.

Our ship, oh God, was broken into pieces by the storm.

Despite the fact that we are afraid of the storm, we trust in God.

Poverty and misery were the fate of Iranians, because of us.

We are the guardians of the oil treasure and the Indian fortress.

During the reign of Mohammad Reza Shah, with the help of SAVAK, another type of political prisoners entered this prison. Some of these political prisoners were Seyyed Mahmoud Taleghani (known as Ayatollah Taleghani), Mehdi Khanani, Mohammad Taghi Shariatmadari, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, Mir Hossein Mousavi, Seyyed Ali Khamenei, Mortaza Motahhari, Mohammad Bagher Bahonar, Mohammad Javad Tondgouyan, Ahmad Ahmad, Marzieh Dabagh, and Ezat Shahi. Most of them later held political positions in the Islamic Republic government after the fall of the Pahlavi regime.

Mehdi Akhavan-Sales, Amir-Houshang Ebtahaj, Parvaneh Forouhar, Dariush Forouhar, Dariush Eqbali, Abdolali Bazargan, Mohammad Behrami, Habibollah Peyman, Mahmoud Dolatabadi, Sadegh Zibakalam, Faraj Sarkoohi, Gholamhossein Saadi, Ahmad Shamloo, Ali Shariati, Ehsan Tabari, Dr. Hossein Fatemi, Khosrow Golserkhi, Abbas Milani, Amir Abbas Hoveyda, and Shahpour Bakhtiar were among the famous political prisoners during that time.

It is said that on April 19, 1975, members of the Cheric organization.‌

The Iranian People’s Fedayeen, named Hassan Zia Zarifi, Ahmad Jalili Afshar, Mashouf Kalantari, Aziz Sarmadi, Mohammad Chopanzadeh, Abbas Surki, and Bijan Jazani, along with Mostafa Javankhoshdel and Kazem Zolanoori, two members of the Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization, were executed in the hills surrounding Evin Prison. This execution took place while these individuals were under a prison sentence.

During the Islamic Republic era, Iranian prisons experienced their darkest days and witnessed the execution of thousands of political prisoners who were imprisoned in these prisons. The execution of political and ideological prisoners in the summer of 1367, also known as the 67 massacre, was an event in which, under the orders of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic, thousands of political and ideological prisoners were secretly executed in the prisons of the Islamic Republic of Iran and buried in mass graves during the months of August and September 1367.

During the Islamic Republic, hundreds of political prisoners, mostly women, were raped before being executed (often with the justification that they would go to heaven). Many prisoners disappeared after their release and despite the end of their sentence, many remained in prison until they believed in the Islamic Republic.

Many of the political prisoners during the Islamic Republic were children; children who were sometimes arrested and subjected to various forms of torture at the age of thirteen or under the age of eighteen.

These days, we hear that they want to destroy Rajai Shahr prison. A prison that has housed many innocent people and prisoners of the courts; whether they were political or not. Prisons are a reflection of a country’s history, and by completely destroying a prison, we are destroying a country’s history. Hopefully, a part of this prison will be turned into a museum, like Qasr prison, so that the historical memory can look back at its past and learn from it.

If we want to understand what lies beneath the surface of a society and what its social, political, and cultural realities are, we can take a look at its prisons. Prisons are a reflection of the entire society.

Note:

1- Biography: Nikolai Markov (1882 – 1957), Hamshahri Online, 13 November 1391.