Saeed Massouri, poltical prisoner from Gohardasht on the execution of 5 poltical prisoners

Saeed Massouri, 45,is a political prisoner currently on death row. Originally from Khorramabad, in Iran’s western province of Lorestan, he is currently incarcerated at Gohardasht Prison in Karaj, west of the Iranian capital

"You can’t frighten us with decapitation"

In the midst
of the country’s serious turmoil, I learnt of the execution of my late-found
friends and acquaintances from prison with whom we spent years in the jail cells
of Ward 209 [at Evin Prison].

Perhaps they [the regime] think that by
executing them, they have managed to frighten us and our people. But shame on us
if instead of being more motivated [to continue the struggle against the
regime], the execution of our friends and countrymen and compatriots were to
frighten us. Indeed, what is to be done at a time when people have no other fate
but imprisonment, torture and execution simply for being human; and when this is
the price to pay for the slightest attempt to be free and have humanity? Where
do those who remain silent in the face of such crimes draw the line between
being human or not?

Hitler ended up murdering and wounding hundreds of
thousands of people before those who should have known better finally came to
realize that he was not worthy of respect and that negotiating with him was
futile. Should such a cost be incurred once again?

At any rate, for my
own part, I want to be clear on the degree of fear that these executions really
instilled in me: I declare that after the hanging of these five, I am more than
ready to be the sixth one to kiss the hangman's noose.

Long live their
memory and that of all those whose blood runs through the veins of history.

“The frenzy of the flame subsides only as ashes
Such is what needs
to be done to live honourably”

Saeed Massouri
Gohardasht Prison
12 May 2010

Saeed Massouri, a medical student who studied in Sweden and Romania, was arrested in Iran in January 2001 and sentenced to death on the charge of being affiliated with People's Mojahedin (PMOI/MEK). On several occasions he was kept in solitary confinement for months at a time in Ward 209 of the notorious Evin Prison as well as in Gohardasht Prison in Karaj.