The present text in Persian is an excerpt (chapter 6, volume 3), of the Memoirs the former political prisoner Iraj Mesdaghi, Neither life, nor Death (published in Stockholm). One of the most comprehensive works by a former prisoner, Iraj Mesdaghi's memoirs is a valuable testimony from a witness who spent 10 years in the Islamic Republic's jails. The author was arrested and imprisoned for being a sympathizer of the People's Mojahedin of Iran. His writing provides a fascinating and humane account of life in the Iranian prisons. "Last Days Before the Massacre", reports on the prison massacre of 1988, when prisoners where tried by a three-man committee and sentenced to death for their religious and political opinions.

The present text is an excerpt from Mehrangiz Kar's Memoirs. The author is an important Iranian women rights lawyer and activist. She has published numerous essays, books and articles in English and Farsi on the situation of women rights in Iran. She was arrested in 2000 after she attended a conference in Berlin, where she declared that without legal and constitutional reform, the reformist policy will fail. Ms. Kar was kept in solitary confinement for two months. An international campaign in her favor and the payment of a bail led to her release. In 2001, Mehrangiz Kar was allowed to leave the country to seek treatment in the United States, where she currently lives. The present excerpt deals with the status of lawyers and the rights of defense in the Islamic Republic judicial system. During the first decade of Iran's Islamic regime, the accused tried by the Islamic Revolutionary Tribunals were denied their right to counsel. In the 1990's, while under harsh criticism by international human rights organizations and the United Nations, Iranian authorities allowed the accused to hire a lawyer. Ms. Kar's narrative is a powerful testimony to the precarious status of lawyers and the vulnerability of the accused in Iran's judicial system.

This document is a chapter of "The Book of Prison: An Anthology of Prison life in the Islamic Republic of Iran". The author, Mohammad Reza Homayun, is a human rights advocate who lives in exile. As a young Marxist militant, he spent several years in prison. This piece is his recollection of the last night in the life of Sadeq Qotbzadeh, Ayatollah Khomeini's former aid and foreign minister, who was arrested in April 1982, and charged with plotting to kill Khomeini and executed a few months later.

The present text is a chapter of Shahrzad prison memoirs, And Here Girl Don't Die, published in Persian, in Paris, in 1998. In the introduction to the second edition of her memoirs the author writes :

"It is only now that I can at last rest with some comfort, now that I have finally managed to deliver the message of my fellow inmates to those willing to listen. This is not only the story of those women from many different places who had ended up together in Dastgerd prison in Esfahan; it also seeks to address my experiences in some other prisons in Esfahan, Shiraz and Tabriz between the years 1982 and 1989. While working on it, I was as if in constant dialogue with my fellow inmates. No matter where I was, my days were spent in conversation with these women and my nights in nightmares about those terrifying times. In putting down each word of every line, I had to struggle against the choking tears and the fear that my heart would give up bearing the pain...This testament is written in the memory of all the freedom loving men and women who by existing and dying in the dungeons of the regime defended liberty; it is dedicated to the memory of all the free souls whose resistance came to be imprinted on the very canvass of my being for a whole lifetime; to every one of those, whom I encountered perhaps in but a fleeting glance, say in the courtyard of this or that prison, in one or another cell or during the countless interrogations. They defined liberty against the backdrop of all the ugliness and cruelty of both heaven and earth."

Monireh Baradaran (M. Raha) spent 9 years in an Islamic Republic's jail as a political prisoner. She was arrested in the fall of 1981, and was tortured during her interrogation and sentenced to 3 years imprisonment. Three years later, she was tried once more and this time sentenced to 10 years. Monireh Baradaran spent 9 years in prison only for her Marxist conviction. She was released in September 1990, and left the country 6 months later. She now lives in Germany. Plain Truth (3 volumes), is Monireh Baradaran's first book. This remarkable work is both a testimony to what the author and her fellow detainees went through during these years, and a profound reflexion by a marxist militant who has become a fervent human rights advocate. Monireh Baradaran is currently working on a book on truth commissions. The text presented here is a chapter of volume 3 of "Plain Truth". It provides an account of the author's experience during the terrifying months of prison massacres in the summer of 1988. The English version, first posted by "Iran Bulletin," has been edited by ABF.

Nima parvaresh, a sympathizer of Peykar organization, a leftist group opposed to the Islamic Republic, was only 15 at the time of his arrest in the winter of 1983. He was kept in prison for seven years and released in the spring of 1990. Two years later, he left Iran for Europe where he lives now. The present text is a chapter of his memoirs, The Unequal Battle , in which he recounts the prison massacre of 1988, when Iranian authorities decided to eliminate all the political prisoners who refused to recant their opinions and ideals. Most of the detainees who were in prison during the 1988 mass executions have felt a strong urge to bear witness about the unspeakable. The present chapter was translated in English by Shahla Sarabi and edited by Larry Tallman.

A member of a marxist opposition group, Parvaneh Alizadeh was arrested in the late summer of 1981, she was relased less than a year later. Her prison memoirs were among the first accounts of what was going on in the Iranian prisons. The present text is a short excerpt of her book, Look, its real ,(first published in 1987). which relates her arrest. The English translation is from ABF. "This document," writes Ms. Alizadeh of her memoirs, "is a report of my observations while confined in the prisons of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and obviously, it is limited to the period of my imprisonment and to the cells that I have been confined in. I also know that I did not perfectly explain the facts relating to this short imprisonment. What you read is a small part of the reality of the events that occurred in the Islamic Republic's jails, and my main motive in writing this paper is to depict those events. I have made an effort to write nothing except what I have seen myself--explain only what I saw and how it occurred. This paper has many deficiencies, but surely nothing has been exaggerated or added to it." (the complete English version of Evin Prison will be available in the near future)

Hassan Darvish was arrested in the autumn of 1981, in his native city of Mashhad. He was detained for two years at the "komiteh Markazi" and "Vakil Abad" detention centers. Three chapters of his prison memoirs are available here in Persian. This is a valuable report on the conditions of detention in one of the important north-eastern cities of Iran between 1981 and 1983.

Golrokh Jahangiri was a leftist opponent of the Islamic regime of Iran. She was arrested in the winter of 1981 in the city of Lahijan and later transferred to the Rasht prison. After two months she was sent to a Tehran detention center. Golrokh escaped from prison six months later and went to Germany after two years. The present text in Persian is the story of her detention in the northern city of Rasht.