Interview with a prison guard involved in executions
When the noose is prepared and doors leading to the prison
courtyard are closed, he realizes an execution will be carried out soon.
However, he has no idea he is the very person scheduled to carry out today’s
execution.
“Rasoul” is a simple private 3rd class soldier
assigned in the units protecting the Prisons Organization in Iran. There was
five months left to his duty period and one day his commander calls him over
and says, “You have to be the guard carrying out the execution today.”
“When my commander said these words, I was both very
stressed and agitated,” he told IranWire. “To tell you the truth, in the past I
had an awkward feeling of witnessing executions. In the prison where I served
there was always a noose ready and each day in the morning the doors to the
courtyard close, not open until the execution is carried out. When I saw the
noose I had become curious, to actually see an execution. However, the other
soldiers would not allow me, saying only when I personally carry out the
execution myself.”
The first time he stands alongside the gallows he see his
arms and legs shiver, even more than the man brought to be executed.
“My own legs weren’t able to take a step, but I was told to
take the prisoner to the noose and place it around his neck. His feet were
chained and he couldn’t walk very easily. Despite the fact that I was shaking
myself, I could literally feel how he was shivering. Something inside me said I
am losing my humanity, and I myself am being executed along with this man!!”
The man had received a death sentence for purchasing and
selling narcotics, and so-called social corruption.
“An execution is different from qisas, or retribution in kind. Qisas
has a personal aspect, while executions have a more public and governmental
aspect. In qisas the victim’s parents are present and they can pardon the
individual about to be executed. And if they don’t, they are the one’s pulling
the stool from under the man’s feet
after the noose is placed around his neck. However, in executions, there is no
forgiving at the scene of the execution. State authority responsible for the
execution, being soldiers or employees of the sentence office, have to pull the
stool from under the suspect’s feet.
Of course, in the prison where I was serving they continued to use a stool. However, I’ve heard that in large prisons
there is a lever that the guard simply pushes.”
After the indictment is
read out loud, Rasoul had to pull the stool from below the man’s feet.
“The moment the stool is thrown away the role of this particular guard is over
and he has to immediately leave the scene.”
Rasoul couldn’t sleep for
two nights, always having nightmares and never able to forgive himself.
“My conscience had
brought thoughts engulfing me, and I considered myself the element behind the
death of a human being, constantly blaming myself. I went to the prison
counsellor and told him everything to maybe find a solution. He said these are
people that have to die. These individuals that are executed, they have
actually killed themselves. You are not actually killing anyone. He then went
on with more religious this and that. Yet the fear in my soul hadn’t diminished
at all.”
Rasoul took part in such
scenes around 15 times, witnessing very strange moments through the process.
“One day when I took a
man to place the noose around his neck, I was so afraid that I suddenly began
wetting my pants.”
He once cried at the
scene of an execution, showing there was that glimmer of humanity left in him.
“A 19-year old boy was in
prison. He had gotten into a fight with a friend and due to the pressure he was
under he had committed unpremeditated murder. He was a very smart and polite
young man. He also had many ideas regarding various topics. The prison’s social
office tried hard to convince the victim’s family to pardon the young man, but
the family would not concede. On the day of the execution I took the young man
to the gallows. The family of the victim pulled the stool from under his feet
and he was left hanging there. I began crying on the spot. I couldn’t bear it
any longer.”
It has been two years now
that his duty term as a soldier has come to an end, yet he becomes bewildered
whenever those memories come back. His voice shakes when saying, “It has been
two years that I have been seeing a psychiatrist and also consuming pills
constantly to decrease the anxiety and fight off the nightmares. Please excuse
me if my voice trembles, I can’t help it.”
Rasoul has witnessed
executions carried out in prisons, but never in public executions.
“Guards taking part in
executions inside prisons don’t use any masks. However, they have to cover
their faces in public executions because in such scenes the family of the
suspects are also present and they may actually seek revenge if they see the
guards’ faces.”
Dark clothing and faces
covered with black masks, with only their two eyes revealed, are the looks of
the guards seen taking part in public executions. Images published of such
scenes sometimes make the headlines. Such as the scene of two very young men
being executed. Footage of the two stealing by force were captured by mobile phones.
One of the young men being executed found no other place of refuge but the
shoulder of the guard taking him for his execution. He placed his head there,
and began weeping. He was executed a few moments later.
One cannot deny the fact
that even those masked guards that carry out executions in public have moments
of conscience, similar to that of Rasoul. However, they suppress this inner
dispute.
Video footage of a man
asking to see his mother before being executed, and the guard he kicked and the
handcuffs he broke, was another scene that went “viral” and showed the horrors
of public hangings in Iran. These images forced officials involved in public
executions to realize the need to use “Nopo” guards in such scenes, an informed
source said.
But what are “Nopo”
guards? This will be the subject of my next report.
No comments:
Post a Comment