Ayatollah Khamenei Visits
the Family of Martyr Joseph Shahinian
Visit Date: 26/12/1985
The Photo of
Martyr Joseph Shahinian
Martyred in Husseinia Station, Khuzistan
Martyred on 16/9/1985
I am the brother-in-law of martyr Joseph Shahinian. I may say a few words about myself. Whole my life before the Revolution I was fighting the Shah’s brutal regime and before the Islamic Revolution, I was arrested and thrown into the infamous Qezl-Qala Prison where I met Mr. Khamenei who was also imprisoned there.
One memorable incident, during those years, was my encounter with Mr. Hoveida, the long-serving prime-minister of the Shah: there was some musical concert in Tehran and Hoveida attended it. I was there too and I asked one of the officials for talking to him for a few minutes and he said: what for? I said: I have heard that the prime-minister likes Armenians, I’m an Armenian and I want to thank him for it. The official was impressed and arranged that I meet him for a few minutes. When I was introduced to him I said: I, as a representative of the Armenian community, would like to advise you not to treat the Iranian people so badly. You must hear their voices. Your regime is a police state but you’ll never get anywhere by terror, torture and imprisonment. I am sure one day will come when you can’t save yourself even if you spend millions of dollars.
He listened to me because he always pretended that he was an intellectual who could listen to his opponents. Despite this, he said angrily: it’s a pity that you belong to a minority in Iran, if not so, I would have arrested and properly dealt with you! Then he ordered his guard: Kick this man out of the place!
Why did I, as an Armenian, oppose the Shah’s regime? There were many reasons. One was the importance of “independence and integrity” of my country which had nothing to do with one’s religion. The Shah was the absolute servant of the British and American governments. As you know, the father of this Shah was brought to power by the British and later his son, who had escaped because he feared the people, was brought back to power through an American Coup d’état; so he was absolutely indebted to them. He murdered and tortured a great number of our youth in order to protect foreign interests.
Let me tell you the rest of the story. Shortly after the victory of the Islamic Revolution, I found out that Mr. Hoveida, the Shah’s prime-minister, was detained in Evin Prison in Tehran, I went to the chief official of this Prison and asked him to let me see Mr. Hoveida for a few minutes. Then I went into his cell and asked him: Do you know me? Well, I am the same young Armenian who predicted your fate and you ordered your guards to kick me out! Now, as I told you that day, you won’t be able to save your skin.
Well, I was arrested and imprisoned eight times during the Shah’s regime and so I got to know most of the people, who fought against the Shah, in different prisons and one of those men was Mr. Khamenei whom I got to know in Qezel-Qala Prison. Although I am Armenian, I am more familiar with Persian poetry and literature and Mr. Khamenei who is well-versed in these fields did appreciate my knowledge of Persian literature, though at first he was really surprised.
One important characteristic of Mr. Khamenei was his agreeable behaviour and friendliness with all prisoners, whether leftist or rightist or belonging to different, political groups and he always tried to unite the prisoners despite their many differences.
Anyway when Joseph, my brother-in-law was martyred at one of the war-fronts, I was the first to be informed about his death. But I was told that he has been wounded and is in an Ahvaz hospital.
I was about to travel to Ahvaz when I was told that he had been taken to Tehran. I went to the address I was given and faced the dead body of Joseph in a morgue. It was very strange that he was martyred on 25th of the Persian month of Shahrivar because it was the exact date of my brother’s death and the day I got married to Joseph’s sister!
The Visit
One day my father-in-law contacted me and said: This evening we have some guests, I want you to come to our house. My parents-in-law understand Persian but cannot speak it properly. So when they have non-Armenian guests, they always ask me to be present as I know Persian better than Armenian! So I went there in the evening and a little later two or three people came to the house with flowers and boxes of cakes and they started looking around and I knew, because of my guerrilla activities, that they were making their security checks and so I was certain that an important official was to visit us. On the other hand, I had heard from my Armenian friends that the President, Mr. Khamenei, has already visited the families of some Armenian martyrs. So I told one of the men: is the President going to meet us? He jumped up from his chair wondering how I know. So I told him: don’t worry, we all remain seated here, will not telephone anybody and do nothing. We just wait for his Excellency to arrive.
Then I told my parents-in-law about it but they couldn’t believe it. My father-in-law was very sad when Mr. Khamenei’s right hand was injured in an explosion.
Anyway, when Mr. Khamenei arrived we sat around a table just as members of one family and chatted in the most intimate, warm ways. He looked at me as if he knew me but did not remember it, so I said: Sir, remember Qezl-Qala Prison? Some 20 years ago! I used to sit under a willow-tree in the prison yard in the afternoons and sometimes you came to me to ask the meaning of an English word. Yes, I am an Armenian called Nurik who sometimes called himself “Nurallah”!
Mr. Khamenei was delightfully surprised and warmly smiled and then he embraced me like one of his oldest friends.
Anyway, as I mentioned before, I played the role of an interpreter in this meeting and Mr. Khamenei said to my parents-in-law: you understand Persian, so you need some exercise to speak it!
When we sat down around the table, Mr. Khamenei first asked for some photos of the martyr and then he looked at them thoughtfully as if he saw something in his face that we could not. Then he asked Joseph’s mother to say something more about the martyr and the mother said: I was a maid-servant at a school and whenever I came home I saw that I had no work to do because Joseph had already done all the house-work; he even did our needle-work. He was friendly to all people and I don’t remember that he ever sulked with anyone. His brother Zherik is paralyzed in both legs and he did everything for Zherik. And the first time he went to the war-front, he got up very early in the morning and did not wake anyone up because he did not want me to feel uneasy when he was leaving.
Then Mr. Khamenei asked her: How were you informed about his martyrdom?
The mother explained: A few nights before his martyrdom, I had a dream, I saw someone trying hard to enter our house and when he noticed that he couldn’t do this, he took a long stick and smashed the light-bulb in front of our house. From that time I felt something would happen; and since his martyrdom, I truly feel there is no more light in our house.
Mr. Khamenei then prayed for the mother and asked God to lighten the heart of this martyr’s mother.
Then Joseph’s father said: He was one of the snipermen in the army; his shots never missed the targets. He was killed in a bombardment; otherwise, I think he would have survived in all battles. All his comrades and his commander who came to see us said that he often told them he would like to be martyred. And I myself once asked him: what is this you always say and he replied: I am Imam Khomeini’s soldier and will fight to the end.
I also told about his mourning ceremony and the great reception by the people, most of them Muslims, who wept and chanted: O Hussein, O Hussein, when carrying his body; it was an immense, heart-breaking mourning and I felt the earth was quaking under our feet.
Mr. Khamenei then asked Zherik about his illness, how it happened, and he described how it was that he had to sit in a wheel-chair and then he talked about his martyred brother: He was awfully kind; I loved playing football but I was not able. So he purchased a series of “small goal” football equipments and we played football at home while sitting. After his martyrdom, I often see him in my dreams. Last night I dreamed he was in a place full of trees and flowers and streams, very beautiful place, and he told me: don’t worry; I’ll take you with me to such a place.
Our so-called house the President came to was actually a poor-old basement flat which the father had rented. When he asked about the place, the President ordered the officials from the People’s Communication Dept in his Office to follow the matter and help father to find a small, pleasant place in the same district, and at the time of departure, Mr. Khamenei said good-bye to Zherik in the kindest manner.
Then he offered some gold coins to Joseph’s parents as keep-sakes.
Well, what I said is all I remember from that evening’s meeting. The following day, when friends and neighbours came to see us they, as usual, did not believe that the highest authority in Iran after Imam Khomeini had come to our humble apartment in a basement. After a few days, when the photos of the meeting were brought to us and we showed them to our friends, they had to believe it!
Well, thank God, the parents of the martyr are not in bad health. I remember that in later years, many reporters interviewed my parents-in-law and asked them about their martyred son. To sum up, I should say that Mr. Khamenei’s meeting that evening was a night to remember for a long time.
