My World

Wednesday, October 18, 2006







Victims of tortures


I had a client yesterday. He was tortured so badly. I saw his pictures. The effect of whipping and lashes on his back, full of blood and wounds. I couldn’t watch them all. Only a few of them. It feels like they are still in front of me. After seeing him, I had other clients to see and I had to concentrate on my job. When I was coming home those pictures and the innocent looks of that man kept coming back into my mind. Obviously something was bothering me, but I did not know what it was. I came home, broke my fast, like any usual day I did some chores around the house and other usual business that I do everyday, and then I went to bed. I woke up in the middle of the night. I was short of breath and sweating. I was dreaming, and I remembered what I was dreaming about. I realized why those pictures have been haunting me all day long. I have a bad memory of torture. The story is that when I was young about 15 years old, and was living in a small city where most people knew each other, a young boy roughly the same age as me, had done something wrong and they wanted to whip him. It was few years after the revolution. The government decided to punish him in our school in front of us. Maybe they thought that would be a lesson for other youngsters to behave themselves. Or any other reason which I can’t think of now. I remember it vividly now that our head teacher called us all into the playground and asked us to make a big circle. We were not aware what was happening. Then the main entrance of the school opened and three officials came in with a young boy whose hands were tied from behind and was blindfolded. They lay him down and opened his eyes. He looked up a bit and saw us all. The shame on his face is something that I would never forget. One of the officials announced that the boy will be punched and his punishment is to be whipped 80 times. I could see and hear but I couldn’t believe that it was happening. One of them started whipping the poor boy. They asked us all to watch. Some of us were horrified. The other official was counting them, one, two, three,.. The boy yelled with each one. I closed my eyes. I couldn’t watch anymore. I heard four, five, six… I felt like someone had punched me in the stomach.. Seven, eight, nine. I opened my eyes and saw the boy in the floor and blood in his shirt. I felt sick and dizzy. Ten, eleven, twelve,.. I did not hear anymore, I had fainted. When I opened my eyes I was in head teacher’s office and she told me that I needed to be strong! Everyone gets what he or she deserves and I shouldn’t feel sorry for the boy. I was so scared to ask her about the boy and what happened to him. Was he still alive? I couldn’t wait to get out of her office. Everybody else had left the school and I told her that I was fine and I could go home by myself. I was feeling so weak and ill. I couldn’t eat for a few days and I had to stay in bed for a couple of days. The next time when I went back to school, I asked my friends about the boy and they said that his old mother took him to hospital as his father had passed away when he was very young. They told me that he was the breadwinner of the family and he had three young sisters and his old mother to look after.

Now that I am writing it I feel ill. It is like someone has punched me in the stomach again. What had he done to make anyone be able to punish him like that? Did anyone think while he was in hospital, who was going to look after the family? Even after he was discharged, was anyone going to give him a proper job? I hope that people grow to forget what he had done. He was too young to be punished like that.

All these came to my mind in the middle of the night and took away my sleep. I thought about these punishments and I couldn’t understand why should anyone be tortured physically or mentally?
I will just hope for a torture-free world.

1 Comments:

  • salam agh Saeed. age betonam va vagtam ejazeh bedeh sa'y mikonam. az inke be weblogam sar zadid mamnon.

    By Blogger My World, at 12:32 PM  

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