In the name of God, Whose everlasting blessing is upon all.
His Excellency, Mr. Jaafari Dolatabadi, esteemed Attorney General of Tehran.
With regard and respect,
I, Nargess Mohammadi, hereby submit my complaints and ask for a speedy investigation.
Last night around 8:30 someone rang our door bell. Through the intercom I asked the person to identity himself. The voice said “they” want to talk to my husband. I called my husband but it seemed he had left the apartment without me noticing, so I told the person that my husband is not available at present and hung up the intercom. I returned to my chores, to talk care of my four year old children and prepare them to go to sleep.
I was in the middle hallway with my kids when all of the sudden I found four or five men in civilian clothing right in front of me. I was so shocked that I could not move or utter any word. I’m ill and have to consume 18 different pills every day, and at the present time I am under the close supervision of a neurologist and pulmonary disease specialist. I have other illness, too, that I have to go through a surgery for. Under these circumstances, I almost fainted. To avoid falling on the ground I held the door nearby. However my hands were so numb that could not hold the door. I was so frightened that I could hardly keep my balance. Apparently, since I had not opened the door for them, they had broken the entrance door to the house and, without even saying the customary Iranian announcement of “Ya Allah,” very quietly walked up the staircase that directly enters our hallway. I barely managed to ask who they were and what they were doing in my house without my permission. It took me even a while to noticed that I was in the presence of a few male strangers with not only my hair exposed but dressed improperly too, since I was getting prepared to go to bed when they arrived. I just held my two small children, Ali and Kiana, tightly to my breast to prevent them from panicking while they keep asking me “are they some thieves?” It was only after I argued with them that they let me go to pick up a scarf to cover my hair.
With a huge effort, I dragged myself into my room and picked up a scarf from a draw and put it on right in front of them while they were staring at me. However, I could not put on my overcoat or change my dress. I had fallen on the ground. Taghi was truly not in the apartment. While I was busy with the children, he had gone to the basement to the boiler room to fix something about the heater.
Looking for Taghi, they broke the apartment door of our landlady, Haj Khanoom , and entered her home as well. She told me later on that she had been lying down on her bed when she noticed a few strangers standing near her bed,
They finally found Taghi in the basement in the boiler room and arrested him.
However, this arrest was quite unwarranted, the same as my own arrest in June, 1, 2010. They had no court order for his arrest, to enter our home, or to make a search. As much as I insisted that their actions were all illegal and that we have to report them to the police, they paid no attention and prevented us from using our telephone.
They stayed as late as 11:00 pm and turned everything upside down. I asked them to leave my mobile and my telephone book with me since I have all my physicians’ phone numbers in them, and indeed all of them were checked and investigated by police just six months ago when I was under their custody. They ignored my request and took whatever else they could from our house. Even Taghi asked them to give my phone book and my mobile back to me, but they did not. I lost my patience when one of those men said “We are like lions and swords.” I screamed back, “Since you have the authority and you have the power, take whatever you want. You can even take our clothes, too. I just call the God as my witness!” My children, Ali and Kiana were really terrified.
Esteemed Attorney General,
I do not know how to describe the pain and suffering that our family has gone through. When I was detained and imprisoned in June 1, 2010, I was quite healthy. But when I left Evin prison I was suffering from serious illnesses. I’ve been under treatment these past six months and I’ve still not recuperated well and I’m quite weak. Many times I have applied for my passport so I could go abroad to receive proper treatment, but I was denied that too. I have two 4 year old children. When I was arrested, my daughter had just undergone surgery and had been released from hospital the same night. She was moaning and crying constantly when the police were dragging me out . They took me downstairs three times, but each time she asked me to kiss her before leaving. I went upstairs three times and kissed her, but did not let her see my tears. However, God is my witness, my heart was bleeding. My daughter’s belly had been stitched from side to side; she badly needed my care and attention. She had a fever that night and I had not slept properly for almost ten consecutive nights while attending her in the hospital. Later on, in Evin, I wished I had not been a mother at all. Is a crime to be a mother in this country of ours? Alas for us!
Last night my children witnessed the revival of the same scene. The plain cloth police did not stint on verbal of abuse. They treated Taghi with a language inappropriate for an official. My children stared at them anxiously, dumfounded and stupefied. My son walked back and forth and repeated as if to himself, “Get out of my house and do not disturb my father.” It seems they had nightmares all night.
As for myself, due to the shocks I received, I had several nervous attacks and could not stand on my feet. I suffered two severe attacks. I wished I were dead and not witnessed last night’s scene.
Let me tell you honestly that last night when these strangers came upon me and stared at me with my improper attire, I felt I was not living in Iran. I felt my motherland was occupied and plundered. I felt I was a stranger in a strange land. I would like to ask you, you, who are in charge! I want you to answer me: Do the women of this country legitimately belong to the men of your regime? Does any respect for women still exist in this country? Don’t you think that your men are violating God’s law by entering my house at night, in the privacy of my dwelling, where I can appear with any attire improper for the public and stay looking at me, a women with no legal bond to them, a 37 years old and the mother of two children?
Is it right for your men to harm my children by scaring them when entering my house and turning everything upside down, and that twice in six months? How could I ever wipe out the effect of these arrests from my children’s memories? Heaven knows how their innocent world is tarnished by such cruelty and rage. Ali and Kiana constantly talked to those men and with their little hands pointed at the objects they were taking with them and said they are taking our belongings. “Mom, are they thieves? Don’t take our dad, sir! Dad, don’t go! Mom, I want my dad!”
After they took away my husband, Ali and Kiana lay on the ground and cried loudly and ask for their father. I had collapsed on the ground like a corpse and could only stare at my four year old daughter. I want to say that I’m a human being, a wife, and a mother and going through all this pain and suffering does not even fit into my imagination anymore.
Taghi Rahmani has spent fifteen years of his life in the Islamic Republic’s prisons for the crime of defending freedom of expression. I, too, have to return to court to be tried for the crime of defending human rights. And I have to leave my innocent children to the grace of God!
The plainclothesmen who took away my husband first claimed they were security forces. Then, they said they were from the Ministry of Intelligence. But, at 12:30 midnight, my examining magistrates from the Ministry of Information called me and told me that Taghi is not in their custody and indeed they were not the ones who took him away. Since then, I have been in fear and anxiety, not knowing who took my husband away, and why they took him at all, and what he was being charged with or why they treated us that way. Above all, thinking that one can easily break the door to my house and walk in without any legal warrant, has left me with no feeling but total insecurity.
I feel deeply humiliated. I fear for my children’s future, I am afraid of heartlessness of the security forces, the very ones who are supposed to safeguard my family’s safety and security, though they just have brought only pain and injustice into my life. Oh my God, I wish they were a little kind to us. Is it too much to ask? I seek God’s mercy and I write this letter to you while my children are sleeping and I’m in my way to the hospital. I plea for an investigation of my husband arrest, and my complaint about those who entered my home illegally, those strangers who arrested my husband without any court order, searched my house without any permit and violated our privacy, and inflicted so much pain on all of us, and therefore caused the recurrence of my sickness.
I plead with the Attorney General of the Islamic regime to investigate my complaint about the men who walked into my house without any alarm or warrant and have observed me with exposed hair and improper attire and stared at me after I had fallen to the ground. I’m a Muslim woman and I swear to God, if I forgive anyone for violating the law, or behaving unlawfully, I will never forgive the humiliation I went through in the privacy of my home.
I feel that death alone suits us!
I expect to receive a proper response from the respected official of the judiciary and I urgently wish to have an appointment to meet you.
Respectfully,
Nargess Mohammadi
10 February 2011