I do not know what music Ehsan listened to. What he read or whether he liked sports. I do not know his favourite food or even his voice. I do not know his family, his friends; whether he was a happy person, impatient, a good listener. I have never spoken to him. I only knew about him for a couple of days.
I am left with his photo and the letter he sent from prison.
The people in the city of
What is left is this wave that has risen, to help and to save Ehsan. Now that he has been murdered, that wave is suspended, standing still for an instant, with nowhere to go, before it comes crashing down on his memory, his life, dousing all of us.
In 'easier' times the international outcry (and notably a complete silence in the mainstream media) and the sheer illegality of his sentence might have persuaded the authorities in
His sentence was initially ten years in jail, in exile, because of alleged propaganda activities against the regime. Then he was declared Moharebe, enmity of God. A cobweb of fairy-tale laws to trap anyone who reaches for freedom and justice in that incongruous world.
‘I never feared death’, Ehsan said in his last letter. How many can claim this about themselves and believe it, with death looking over one’s shoulder? He knew the fate that awaited him and even when he had the chance to ‘redeem’ himself by publicly renouncing his actions and beliefs in a forced confession he passed on it.
Less than 24 hours ago Ehsan was still alive but knowing that he would be killed within a matter of hours. His courage is what stays with me, his fight to the death. And those lunatic wardens are still running that barbaric world they have created; and their wicked ‘justice’ is still running its deadly course.
