Two weeks ago reports appeared in some Iranian media that prisoners in Ward 350 of the notorious Evin Prison in Tehran were beaten up by the guards and special forces during a prison inspection. Officials initially denied the violence but subsequently had to admit to the excesses in the penitentiary. Some prisoners were said to have been transferred to solitary confinement. But another aspect of the brutality that emerged later was that a number of those prisoners who had been sent to solitary cells had had their heads shaven.
In Rajaishahr prison (also known as Gohardasht) about 30 miles from Tehran, some ten prisoners have shaved their heads in protest to the guards’ violence in Evin and in solidarity with the victimized prisoners there. But there have also been news reports that some young men and women political activists outside prisons too have shaved their heads in solidarity with the prisoners and posted photos of themselves on Facebook. The reports have reignited hopes that the civil movement in Iran is alive and active.
Among the ten individuals with shaven heads in Rajaishahr are Reza Entesari, Hamidreza Borhani, Jaafar (Shahin) Eghdami, Saeed Razavi Faghih, Mehdi Mahmoudian, Saeed Madani, Farshi Yadollahi, Misagh Yazdannejad and Mostafa Nili.
I first spoke with Mehdi Mahmoudian and asked what was his purpose in shaving his head to which he responded without hesitation, “My response to someone who tries to humiliate me has always been to defend myself by taking away his instrument of humiliation. So when the judiciary uses such tactics as shaving the head of a prisoner to humiliate a person, one must take that tactic away from him. I am really telling them that this will not humiliate us.”
I ask, “But you are not in Evin” and he replies, “I did not do this in solidarity with them and my major goal was to take away this tool from the hands of the judiciary. I remember that in 2009 some interrogators tried to use some personal issues of a prisoner to pressure them to extract fake statements of confession by exaggerating private issues. So I would defy this by not only presenting them with such issues but even making up some so they would not try to control me.” I asked how his wife and daughter would react to his shaven head. Mehdi looks up, as if imagining the meeting scene and says, “I have heard that my daughter said that she was proud of me for showing solidarity with my friends. I think this way I can tell her that I am willing to pay a cost for my beliefs. This will show her that I am serious about my ideals.”
Reza Entesari is a dervish from Gonabad who has been transferred to Rajaishahr from Evin recently with an eight-year prison sentence. “Look, we must respond to what is going on and make an impact. My dervish teachings tell me that I must always be in solidarity with others. Shaving heads among dervishes has a long history. Leading dervishes always shaved their heads to show that they are different. In 2009 a dervish was detained and his head shaved by authorities and the response of other members of the community was to shave their heads too. Hardliners become angry when they such solidarity among people.” He continued, “I hope this will turn into a larger protest. At one time I had hoped that the ministry of intelligence with its larger look at events would not succumb to such practices by small agencies such as prisons but unfortunately they seem to have been influenced by them now.”
Mostafa Nili is a former member of Iran’s Green Movement who was transferred to Rajaishahr prison last year. When I asked him why he had shaved his head, he too is quick to respond. “I had stayed for a long time at Evin’s Ward 350 and so have strong feelings for the kids there. I thought that I would have probably been among those kids whose heads were shaved by prison guards if I had been there. We must take action to neutralize the effect of this tool used by the guards. There are of course other actions that have been taken in protest around the world and filling prisons with prisoners during the Apartheid period in South Africa is one. I think such actions make the other side fear its own next moves. When I heard people outside prisons also shave their heads, it made me feel good that people have not forgotten the prisoners. This is very heartwarming. I believe accomplishing the goals of the Green Movement will bring costs to those who get engaged for them.
Hamidreza Borhani is another political prisoner who is new. When I walked to him he was writing something. He had seen me going around asking questions so when I approached him he gave me a note in which he had written his views. “The movement will never humiliate any lifestyle, even if it disagrees with it. The other side on the other hand humiliates lifestyles that are different from its own. The new protest movements have succeeded in slowing down the suppressive plans and actions of the regime. Shaving the head of a prisoner is normally a punitive action. The guards try to humiliate a person through this. Because shaving one’s head is not an illegal act, members of the new civil movements can use this to show their protest and broadcast their message to others.”
The next prison I go to ask is Jaafar (Shahin) Eghdami. He was a surprising case for me because I had heard him say earlier that he had wanted to keep long hair in prison. His response to my question as to why he did it is, “In addition to being a humiliating act, what prison agents did when I heard that the mother of martyr Mostafa Karimbeigi – who had been killed during the 2009 protests – had herself protested the forced head shaving in Evin, I immediately shaved my head. I think the social protest movement must use such tactics because the costs are low while the possibility of others joining in is very high. Political-social activists should organize such events too and stand by their goals. We must show that what we are asking is morally superior to them, as Burmese protest personality Aung San Suu Kyi has said. Iran’s civil movement can show through such acts that its resistance continues.” When I asked him how his family would react seeing his shaven head, he said, “I had done this once before when I was in Ward 209 of Evin, so I am not worried because they have seen me like that before.”
Saeed Razavi Faghih is the last person I asked about his reason for shaving his head. “My main reason was to show solidarity with my Ward 350 friends who have been attacked and violated. This is a symbolic act to show solidarity. This will of course neither reduce the suffering of those prisoners but it will not impose a great pain on us either. But the move is important for our solidarity.” On the solidarity expressed by people outside the prison, he said that even such an act did not have an abstract meaning, it will have a positive social effect. “I believe that many religious and non-religious ideologies have survived because of feelings of solidarity among its members and followers. Group dances and rituals of various minority groups are examples of such unifying actions,” he said. When I asked him what would he expect if he were one of the prisoners in Ward 350 whose head was forcefully shaved, he replied, “The least would be solidarity by others. If one cannot do that, at least they should not remain indifferent because an important human trait is to feel sympathy and empathy for others, including animals and nature.”
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