Pedestrian

This week will mark the 11th year since Dariush and Parvaneh Fourhar were murdered in their home. Stabbed to death, more than a dozen times each.

Followed by the writer Mohammad Moktari, and after him, writer and translator Mohammad Jafar Pouyandeh.

Dariush Forhuar was the head of the Hezb-e Mellat-e Iran (National Party of Iran) and was minister of labor in the Bazargan government. He remained a distinct example of a dissident who had never been willing to leave Iran.

I so wish he had.

He and his wife, Parvaneh, were murdered in their home in a case that was never solved, although it is believed that the Ministry of the Interior was involved.

For my generation, these deaths were the first ‘wake up call.’

I was only a toddler during the executions of 88. When I was old enough to begin gathering my memories of Iran, things had simmered down. The system was hard, authoritarian and brutal and you felt it everyday – but it was always borderline bearable. You always found a way to work around it. You never had to “feel” its walls cramp up on you in the school yard or at the movies with your friends.

This was a frightening first.

I remember the reactions at school. We were all dumbstruck. Geez, this is a really screwed up sytem, but our politicians don’t kill dissidents!

Oh yes they do.

Once the allegations of the state’s involvement in the deaths were at their height, the leader came on TV and said that these individuals “were nothing of value” to the system for the system to want to “eliminate them.”

Those words and his face as he spoke them, I will never forget.

Later on, a man by the name of Saeed Emami, who was deputy of the interior minister under Ali Fallhian, was charged with organizing the murders.

In prison, it was reported that he had committed suicide by “consuming a strong chemical depilatory” – vajebi as we call it. It turned into one of the biggest jokes ever. The most wanted man in Iran killed himself while shaving his unmentionables. I can’t even keep count of all the jokes and email forwards I got after that.

And just like that, another tragedy of human life was banalized and went straight to hell. Just like the “culprit” responsible for the 99 attacks on student dormitories was charged for “stealing a plastic shaver.”

The only thing that was different back then was the newspapers that were still able to print. I remember buying loads everyday and pouring over those stories, drinking tea with my mom and crying my eyes out.

11 years later, and not much has changed.

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The website of their daughter, Parastou Foruhar.

It is also the 55th anniversary of the execution of Dr. Fatemi reminding us of how long and how old this struggle really is. Muhammad Sahimi does a wonderful job of covering it for Tehran Bureau.

[h/t Kelli]