Don’t worry! Nothing ever happens here,Atefeh Nabavi’s letter from Evin Prison’s ‘Quarantine’ or “Methadone” ward

Friday 2 October 2009

Introduction by the Iran Human Rights Reporters Committee:

Atefeh Nabavi was arrested on 15 June 2009, three days after the disputed presidential elections in Iran, along with her cousin, Ziaoddin Babavi, the spokesman for the Council for Defending the Right to Education, and several of her friends. She was sent to Evin Prison’s Ward 209, where political prisoners are kept. Because she had worked with the Council for Defending the Right to Education, she was accused of ‘cooperating with the Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization’.

In spite of severe pressures, Atefeh has not accepted the charge and has dismissed it as unfounded. In 2005, Atefeh Nabavi was arrested and jailed in Evin prison’s Ward 209 for three weeks.

Since 26 September, Atefeh Nabavi has been kept in Evin’s ‘Quarantine Ward’, nicknamed as ‘Methadone Ward’, because its other inmates are there on drugs charges.

Four months after her arrest, Atefeh is still in prison without having been charged. Her Lawyer, Narsin Sotoudeh, says Atefeh’s case has been sent to the Revolutionary Court’s Branch 12, where the judge is on a three-week vacation.

The letter below was written by Atefeh Nabavi in Ward 209 and is being published by the Iran Human Rights Reporters’ Committee.

Don’t Worry! Nothing ever happens here

The first few days, there were still some spring drizzles. Now, it’s the autumn rain that generously pours the pleasant smell of earth through the netting above into the cell. If you position yourself well, a few drops of the rain that have fallen at angle to enter Ward 209 may caress your face.

Day 97! Don’t ever think that it is different from any other day. It’s just an excuse for writing. Otherwise, it is the same as the 30th Day, the 87th Day, or the 2nd Day. Here, days are not separated from each other, but are glued together to form a continuous stream of light and darkness.

Outside, days acquire an identity by the events to which you can refer. But here, nothing ever happens, other than the ‘indictment’ that has not been read to you; ‘lawyers’ that are nowhere to be seen; and ‘trials’ that are never held’. It is as if ‘we are standing outside time’.

Here, your motions are an amalgam of contradictions and you appear as a pendulum, swinging endlessly to connect the night to the day. What hurts most is the futility of it all. There is nothing to ‘confess’ to, so much so that you even begin to doubt your own ‘existence’. The problem is, they still insist on your continued, futile, presence here.

Here, you cry, you laugh, you eat, you sleep, and still wait in futility, while out there, a life is going on which should have taken you along; the university exam results that you have not received; the job interview that you have been able to have; and so on.

Morning has broken, but you shut your eyes so they will not see the ill-timed opening onto the sun; so that you can merge the eventless morning with the miracle of sleep.

The first days, you do dream of freedom for a while; the dream of the black nylon bag with your clothes in it, in the hand of a smiling prison warden; clothes with familiar smells. After a while, though, you are not freed even in your dreams. Even in your dreams, others come to prison to visit you. Your world is shaped by your cell, the corridor, and the toilet!!

The world outside is a dream too far away. A tomorrow from which you should wake up, especially now that your fellow inmates are being released one at a time and there are more blankets and softer bedding for you, and the wardens are kinder. Still, there is nothing to disturb the comfort of your day!!

But there is no escape. The body would like to wake up, even though the mind repels the idea. Your day begins and, as dull as a blunt knife, cuts through your muscles and veins. And when it is over, it is as if it never had been! Like a black well, where you keep rubbing the wall with your hands as you move ahead and open up the pupils of your eyes, without seeing anything. And you suddenly fall into another well, and the prison night arrives.

During the night, you carry a lighter weight. It is as if you put down the load you had been carrying all day long and the forgetfulness of sleep steals engulfs you.

By the way, nothing happened today either!! But, well, an hour has gone by.

Atefeh Nabavi-chashni

Evin Prison, Ward 209

October 2009