He survived hanging. But will his family?

One autumn afternoon, a family gathered in their home near the city of Bojnord in northeastern Iran to mourn the imminent death of one of one of their family members. The man, Alireza, was still alive, but he was only a few hours away from execution, scheduled to take place at dawn the next day. He was being hanged for drug offenses.

The next day, when a relative arrived at the mortuary to take the body away for burial, he was confronted with some shocking news: “The hanged man has come alive.” A worker at the mortuary who was preparing bodies for the families of the deceased had noticed a mist under the plastic tarp covering Alireza’s body.

When the news reached the family home, lamentations and wailing turned to silence, the silence of shock and disbelief. The family had been preparing for his funeral in a few hours’ time.

Alireza, 34-years-old and married, had hung from the gallows for 12 minutes. The doctor on the scene had examined him and confirmed his death. The doctor, the presiding judge and the prison officials had signed a certificate of death, after which he had been transferred to the mortuary to be turned over to his family for burial the next morning. Now, however, he was alive and breathing.

The family met him a few days later at the hospital. “I couldn’t step forward,” his brother told the Iranian newspaper Shargh. “He started crying when he saw us. First, of course, his wife and children approached his bed. Alireza opened his arms, embraced his children and wept. He was thanking God repeatedly. When it was my turn, we embraced and wept. I asked no questions; I was afraid to ask what had happened. He himself, however, volunteered that it had been very hard. He thanked God again and again.”

The doctors said that his physical condition was improving, but social networks were buzzing with speculations about a second hanging. A judge, Mohammad Erfan, told a newspaper that his death penalty, issued by the Revolutionary Court, was still valid. He added that in such cases, he would be put to death again after he recovered.

Under the 2003 penal code, Judge Erfan explained, the convicted person must be sound in body and in mind. “You cannot execute a person who is in a coma,” he said, giving one example. “In such cases, he must be treated and cured and when the forensic authority certifies that he is healthy, the sentence can be carried out.”

First in the Region; Second in the World

According to Amnesty International, Iran ranks first among countries in the Middle East when it comes to the number of executions carried out. After China, which has a population of 1.3 billion people, Iran is second in the world for numbers of executions. Its population is just under 77 million.

In 2012 alone, according to Ahmad Shaheed, the UN’s Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in Iran, the actual number of executions in the country was at least 484, which includes 200 deaths which have not been officially acknowledged.

Iranian officials claim that most of the executions have been for drug smuggling convictions, but the BBC has reported that, according to Hadi Ghaemi, executive director of the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran, “the point is that we never see any drug cartel boss or a big smuggler among those who are executed. They have executed people on drug charges for many years and still drug use and addiction has increased year after year. Executions are not the answer.”

Some time after the hanged man came “back to life”, the head of the Iranian judiciary suggested, during a session of high judiciary officials, that the sentence be commuted. “I believe that he should pardoned from the death sentence,” he said, “and be given a sentence one degree lower.”

Alireza was given the lesser sentence: life in prison. After his recovery, he was returned to prison. His wife, Goli Dezhalon, says he has been afflicted with amnesia and the nerves in one of his arms are damaged.

“Sometimes he even forgets to eat,” his wife told IranWire. “He forgets to take his prescribed medicine. He does not quite recognize us and we must introduce ourselves every time. It seems that the shock has made him worse than in the early days.”

After Goli Dezhalon’s interview with the newspaper Shargh, a philanthropist pledged to pay for the education the couple’s eldest son. He had left school in search of a job in order to help with family expenses, but now he was able to return to school.

The twin daughters of the condemned man are now seriously behind in their education, according to their mother. “I only want my children to get an education,” she says. “I dropped out of school and my husband is not very educated. We are the victims of insufficient schooling and I don’t want my children to become victims, too.”

In recent days she has been so distressed that she even refutes her husband’s drug smuggling charges, although judicial sources close to the case, including Alireza’s former attorney, confirm them. Nevertheless, his wife insists that their poor living conditions proves that Alireza was a simple laborer.

“When they said that he was to be executed,” she says, “I could not believe it at all. I had thought they wanted to intimidate him. When the news of his execution arrived, we wore black and had a mourning service for him. Think about it! It was a very strange event. Hours or days before a person dear to you dies, you know that his going to die, you wear black and you mourn. It was horrible.”

When Alireza was going to be hanged, one of her daughters cried constantly; nobody could calm her down. “My husband loved his family and his children. He was just a laborer and didn’t make much money, but we lived in heaven and were very happy. The children loved their father and I loved him too.”

Enormous Financial Constraints

To secure Alireza’s furlough for medical treatment, Goli Dezhalon needs a bond of about $120,000, but she cannot afford it. “I am a woman of good reputation,” she says, “but our financial situation is not good at all.” She added that she was able to live mainly thanks to subsidies and help from charities. She can’t afford a lawyer. “I cannot help my daughters to catch up with their education. I worry about my son’s education. I want my husband out of prison to personally help him and improve his physical and mental condition. He does not deserve to remain in prison.”

“My husband’s brothers are all laborers,” she says about her husband’s family, who live in Damavand, a small town near Tehran. “They all love me and say that I take care of my children like a lioness. But what can I expect from them? I know that if they had the means, they would have helped me.” Her own family lives in the same city as she does. They are laborers as well and lack financial resources.

She is sensitive to the way people have reacted to what she and the family has been through. She has stopped socializing and tries not to be seen in public too much in order to escape whispers and gossip. When asked about the behavior of classmates towards her daughters, she snickers. “Is it possible that would say nothing? Is it possible that they would pretend otherwise? They all call us the family of the hanged-man who lives.”

“My daughters are still interested in school, though. What happened has affected them deeply. Our financial situation is so bad that we all liv in one room and the children have no place to study.”

Maybe Goli Dezhalon contradicts herself because she has worried so much about what people say and think. She claims that her husband was an upright person who took the drugs from smugglers to deliver them to the police and save teenagers in the village from getting involved with drugs – even though his record shows that Alireza had previously committed a felony. That was why, according to his former lawyer, the Revolutionary Court did not agree to commute his death sentence. She then forgets about the claim of innocence and says that “he has been punished enough. He has been blessed that he survived. He was not meant to die. God has forgiven him and I hope that the authorities can do the same.”