Shirin Elem Holi the Kurdish female political prisoner who has been sentenced to death wrote a letter to the public. In the letter she is explaining the prison condition and the reasons for her arrest. The following is a part of her letter:
It’s been three years that I have been imprisoned, three years of agony and pain behind the walls of Ewin Prison. For the first two years of my imprisonments I did not have hearing, not lawyers and my charge was suspended; they held me arbitrarily incommunicado without trail. Within the two years when my charge was suspended I had a really hard time under the ill-treatment of the Revolutionary Guards.
I’m still wondering as to why I have been imprisoned or why should I be executed? If the answer is due to my identity as a Kurd, thus I would say that I have been born as a Kurd and due to my Kurdish being I have been subjected to pain, agony and isolation!
My language is Kurdish and I have been communicating with friends and family with this language and I have also grown up with it; this language has been a bridge between me and my surroundings. Nonetheless I’m not allowed to use my own language for communication. They don’t allow me to speak with my mother tongue; they don’t let me to write with my native language.
I’m ordered to refuse my Kurdish being and deny the fact that I’m a Kurd; but I’d say if I do such a thing I will be denying myself!
Honourable Judges, dear interrogators!!
While you were interrogating me I was not able to speak your language. I learned Persians within the last two years of my detention in Ewin Prison. I learned Persian language from my fellow detainees. But you had interrogated me by your language that I could not understand a word of what you were saying. I had no clue what was going on in day of the trail and I could not speak to defend my self; I did not understand your language!
All the tortures that I have been subjected to are being the nightmare for me. I am now living with daily torments and suffering that no one can put up with. The heavy blows that I received on my head while you tortured me have fatally damaged my head. Some days I feel a horrendous pain in my body, the pain in my head raises to the point that I don’t know what is going on in my surroundings and I go unconscious for few hours. Due to the seriousness of the pain my nose start to bleed and after going through all these I come back to my natural state.
Another gift that the persecutors granted me is that my eyes sight has been significantly damaged and it constantly deteriorates. I had applied for glasses yet they have not provided me with. While I was arrested there was not a single gray strand in my hair, but now after three years of imprisonments each day I see new gray parts in my hair.
I’m well aware that you did not only commit such acts against me and my family but you have tortured all the Kurdish activists among those, Zeyneb Celalayan and Runak Sefazade. The waiting eyes of the Kurdish mothers have been shedding tears. They are terrified with what will be happening. With each phone call they might be informed about the death sentences given to their sons and daughters.
In 02/05/2010 after a long time they called me to cell, number 2009, they reinstated their groundless accusation against me. They asked me to cooperate with them and in turn they would withdraw my death sentence. I have not clues what such kind of cooperation means to them because there is nothing more than I have not already said. And then they asked me to repeat whatever they said but I refused to do so. The interrogator said that they wanted to release me last year but they did not because according to them my family did not collaborate with them.
The interrogators themselves confirmed that I’m only a hostage in their hand and until they do not achieve their ends they will either execute me or never would they release me.