The following story was shared by a Langley City resident Shahamat Atefi and his sister during United Nations Human Rights program at Township of langley Civic Centre on Sunday, December 14, 2008. Recollecting their memories, they told how their father was killed (for his beliefs) in Iran in the early 1980s when he (Shahamat) was only a year old, and his sister was 8.
Shahamat’s Sister’s Experience of Her Father’s Martyrdom
I was an eight-year-old girl when they martyred my father. Maybe if I had been older, the experiences that I encountered would be more vivid in my mind, but you must understand that they were heart-breaking occurrences for an eight-year-old girl to undergo.
Our house was situated in a small village in Fereydan, Iran. My father, Bahman Atefi, was a young farmer, about 30 years old. I remember that he always woke up early and went to work. My mother always said that he never brought home his worries. He was a peaceful man, quiet, reverent and understanding. He seemed wise beyond his years. I remember my father as a very joyous man, who always came home from a hard day’s work in the fields filled with warm smiles and hugs. I looked forward to his return each day, because he was a very bright and luminous person. He always urged us to prayer around the dinner table, and he made those moments precious with his melodious voice. I loved those evenings, but we were living in troubled times. After the revolution, many Baha’is in our village were harassed, but my father never worried. He had an unwavering trust in a higher power. Often, people from the village tried to talk my father into leaving the village, as he was a Baha’i and Baha’is were the object of relentless persecution and scorn. The government was a fanatical government, and they planned and implemented genocide against the Baha’is.
One day, I woke up to the sound of crying. I entered the living room and I saw that my mother and my uncle’s wife were both crying. I was in shock, and my mother grabbed my hand and led me out of the living room. I asked, “What has happened?” She replied, “You were sleeping last night when two revolutionary guards entered our house and took your father and uncle to prison.” In that moment, in that childhood world, I felt everything stop and the world crumbled around me. My mother comforted me and said, “Don’t cry; nothing will happen; they’ll come back soon.” Days and weeks slowly passed, until one day my mother and my uncle’s wife took us to the prison to see my father and uncle. When we arrived at the prison, we had to wait a long time. The guards cursed us and belittled us. They taunted us and would not allow us to enter the prison to visit my father and uncle. My mother pleaded desperately to the guard, “At least let this young child see her father.” The guard looked at me indifferently and yelled, “She is NOT allowed.” I, becoming more anxious, started to cry and plead, but the soldier pushed me out of the way. My mother and I finally were allowed to see my father after much begging. When my mother met my father, she told him, “All the crops are rotting in the field; there is nobody to harvest them.” My father smiled a radiant and spiritual smile and replied, “The crops don’t matter. Take care of the children as best you can and raise them to the best of your abilities.” Before I could tell my father anything, our visit was over. Many months passed, with repeated attempts to visit my father being rejected.
One day, my mother sent my eighteen-year- old cousin to see if he could enter the jail, visit my father and bring us back word about he was doing. My cousin did not return until the next night. Later, he told us, “When I arrived at the jail, the guards took me and blindfolded me and then placed me in solitary confinement. In the middle of the night, I heard gunshots. The next morning, they let me out of solitary confinement and they told me to go to the village and tell the family to come and retrieve the dead bodies of five Baha’is that were shot in the night.” The guards had demanded that my father, uncle and three other Baha’is strip naked in the jail courtyard and run; they then shot them from behind. The guards used this excuse to say that they were forced to shoot because the men were running away. Interestingly, the death certificates left the reason for death as blank, because the Baha’is were killed in cold blood. When my cousin told my mother, she was in disbelief. She kept on saying, “They didn’t do anything, why should they be killed? They haven’t done anything wrong!” My mother and cousin went to the jail to retrieve the dead bodies, and it was true that my father and uncle were dead, killed in cold blood. My poor mother was left to fend for herself and four fatherless children in a country where women do not have equality and generally do not work outside the home. My father was 30 years old when he died. My siblings and I not only lost a father, my mother not only lost a husband, but the world lost a brave and stoic man that day.
I did not go to my father’s funeral service. I was so anxious and sick at heart that I could not. All I remember is slumping down outside my house, where my father had greeted me every day, and watching the village people pass me as I cried. They walked past a crying eight-year-old, in full knowledge of what had happened to her father, yet they walked past indifferent to my tears. My mother told me later that at the cemetery the guards came in a truck and threw all five bodies onto the ground. The bodies were in plastic garbage bags. The guards told all that were there that if anyone cried a single tear they would shoot them. The guards then dug a shallow grave and unceremoniously buried the bodies there. Years later, the government has built a road on the unmarked graves of my father, uncle and the three other Baha’is killed with them.
A week after my father’s martyrdom, one of the guards from the prison came to our house and demanded that my mother become Muslim. When she refused, she was told to either leave the village or face her husband’s fate. She packed up the few belongings she had, bundled up my two sisters and I and my one-year-old brother, Shahamat, and left for Isfahan, a major city in Iran.
