A LETTER FROMPRISON WRTITTEN BY HASHEM SHABBANI THE AHWAZI PRISONER
The Ahwazi cultural and intellectual activist, Hashem Shabani has revealed a humanitarian appeal from Karoon prison that is addressed to all human rights organizations and the amnesty international organization highlighting the fact that the whole accusations which flung out on him and his mates are fully fabricated by the Iranian intelligence service which is now playing with the lives of our best highly educated youths through accusing them with vague accusations to bring them to the gallows rope.
In his letter which is written in Arabic by his own handwriting, he describes the imposed charges on himself and his cellmates are really cruel and unfair. He starts his desperate appeal as follow:
To those whom concern about human rights
Dear sisters and brothers:
I would like to take up this opportunity to thank you on your continued humanitarian supports and efforts for being voiced out the suffocated voices of people and realizing the rightness and deterring the wrongness that dressed up with vision in which fascinates its viewers while its intentions would be nothing but diverting the image of reality and blurring the truth. I must thank you again for discovering the evil hands that are trying to raise beautiful words for years, the words that are turned to something like fateful poison for us now.
In my journey, I began to spills the ink of my humble pen on my papers to stand and struggle peacefully against the tyranny which seeks to impose slavery on the minds and thoughts of my people and tried to
colonize the minds of my people and destroys the ideas before destroying the country.
I have tried to remove all the obstacles that divide the street (the public eye) from the truth and make it to live in illusion that formulated by the tyrants to design a life according to their will.
When the tyrant’s hands spilled the inks of mine, a single word has been highlighted in my texts in which provokes the rage and hatred in those heart of men who continue to survive through spreading the darkness, the name of this highlighted word is “awareness”.
I did everything in my power to seek and detect the unknown to myself firstly and to the others. I had various cultural contributions at the level of Persian poetry with newspapers knows as Al -Noor,Al-Fajer and Assr-Karoon which mean the “light”, the dawn, and the evening of Karoon in English respectively. As I was studying at the state Chamran university in the branch of Arabic language and literature in the year of 2000, I have managed to publish a student newspaper under the name “Ndiaye-Besirat” which means call for vision in English and I was in charge of this newspaper and I attempted to explain and to clarify the dire condition that the society suffers from it as a whole and unveil a lot of barriers that stand as a bulwark against all forms of development in Iranian society in general and exclusively the Ahwazi Arabs community. As I was also the editor of the student Arabic newspaper’s Al-Besira which means vision in English and the official political head of forum of the reformer students in the faculty of art and law that made me to take up this opportunity to care more and more about the sufferings and the miseries that inflicted the Iranian people and most particularly the Ahwazi Arab people.
During the reformist policy of the president Khatami, the non-Persian nations have taken advantage of this opportunity to express their views via the Press and institutions .meanwhile a number of my friends have established the non-governmental intellectual and cultural “Al-Hiwar”institute which means dialogue in English. Since the sudden radical policy shift in Iran, the government imposed restrictions on the Al-Hiwar institute and later banned its cultural and civil activities that were acting in the framework of the current constitution of Iran and its political demand was implementing the article 15, and the article 19 of Iran constitution emphasizing on having equal basic rightsfor non-Persian nations including the Ahwazi Arab people for education in their mother language and having media and publications in their native language and demands for political and economic prosperity. But the whole reformist slogans of the government turned out to be nothing just an illusion and a mirage and contrary to our aspiration of at that time. In fact, the aim of these temporary reformist slogans was to recognize the identity of everyone who used to have such a basic and peaceful demands and aspirations. After 2005 that was the most radical policy shift in Iran there were different obstacles in front of me to keep on my peaceful civil and cultural activities that is why access to internet was my last resort to communicate with the virtual world. My web activities were confined in sharing my poems and texts (by my nickname Abu-Alla) that were reflecting the misery and the suffering of my Ahwazi people socially, culturally and economically.
I have also released two poetry collections under the names of (AtarafBelafogheh) and (IghahMazaribAldam) that means the rhythm gutters blood in English. I had a study on the massacre black Wednesday in which many people have been killed on the May, 1979 in Al-Mouhamerah city (knows as Khoramshahr in Persian) but the suitable time has not stood by my side to release this study.
Furthermore, I had intellectual and lingual study regarding the Ahwazi Arab community under the title “Thowrat Al-Mofredat Al-shathe” which means the revolution of anomalous words in English that remained incomplete after my arrest, in this study I have tried to shed some light on the methods that are used by Iranian authorities to bombard the minds and the thoughts of the Ahwazi Arab society through injecting and implanting the three following issues:
۱: the abnormal use of words 2: deploying malicious means by using of bilingual language for misleading, freezing and limiting the thought and putting barriers against the freedom of thought of the Ahwazi Arab community.
During that period I was a student of master degree in political science at Ahwaz university and I have met many Ahwazi figures via internet and I used to correspond them by different nicknames such as Abu-Alla and my friendship with them was very casual and not serious. I used to publish my texts and my poems under the title of “The Popular Resistance for liberation of Ahwaz and introduce myself as the spokesmen of this movement and it must be bear in mind that all these correspondences had done by my own and without coordination with anyone of my cellmates. By my web activities I have tried to reflect and convey the maximum degree of the heinous crimes that are committing against my Ahwazi Arab people especially the cruel death penalty and through my correspondences I have been defending and supporting the legitimate rights of every people in all over the world to have the right to life and to live and enjoy the freedom and the civil rights. Despite of all these sufferings and miseries I had not raise weapon to fight against the oppression that my Ahwazi people are going through it and I have not spilled the blood of any human being I have just spilled the inks of my humble pen to fight against the injustice and the oppression.
In February 11/2011 when I was at home and after my return of the Sheakh Ansari minor school (I am a teacher and I was teaching Arabic language in different minor school and high school) the Iranian intelligence services arrested me and after a long interrogation they accused me of the founder of the popular Resistance movement for liberation of Ahwaz and as I mentioned above I used this nicknames just to express my feeling toward the misery and the unspeakable oppression of my people and these nicknames have nothing to do with outside but the interrogators of mine refused my claims and let me to confess on myself under the severe and unbearable tortures physically and psychologically. Under the ongoing tortures I have lost my control on my real conscious and my mind engulfed with hallucination that made me to confess and accept the imposed charges that extracted of myself and the friends of mine by harsh tortures in the solitary confinement. After a long term in the solitary confinement the intelligence service transferred me to the Karoon prison. My first trial along with my friends was on May 21/2012 in the revolutionary court of Ahwaz in which I understood the reality and strongly rejected the charges of having link with organizations outside of the country and I said to the judge that the external organization that you are claiming about it ,is nobody just me Hashem Shabbani. In fact I confessed on myself due to the severe tortures and the intelligence security extracted the confessions from me and my friends according to their will. Finally after passing three sessions of my trial in court I have got aware of the fake scenario that fabricated by the intelligence service by extracting baseless confessions and using them against us. I have got shocked when I read the verified death penalty sentences that issued against me and four of my friends along with 20 years in exile for my friend Rahman Assakre.
I must assure you again that I and my friends have not involved in any military activity any more. All I have tried to do is to achieve peacefully what we were looking for, by peaceful and cultural activities for the interest of my oppressed people.
This is an urgent humanitarian appeal for all human rights organization to take an urgent action and very briefly our demand is to a fair re-trial in non- biased court for having a chance to defend and speak freely and without restriction. I am asking you to do everything in your authority for meeting our demands.
Best regard,
In the hope of better life and bright tomorrow
Written by Hashemshabani the Ahwazi prisoner
Translated by Rahim Hamid the ex-student of Hashem Shabani
