You must be curious to know what that graffiti meant.
If you want, let me tell you the story...
These days I see so many videos of people in the United States calling their government fascist and dictatorship, shouting all kinds of slogans.
To be honest, it makes me laugh. Today something happened that I thought I should share with you.
Maybe then you’ll understand what real dictatorship feels like...
At 5 in the morning, like every day, I went out for my morning run. After the January killings of thousands of civilians in the streets of Iran, this is the only thing that can pull my mind away for a short time from dark, bloody thoughts.
I usually go to the park early cause there aren’t many people around, so I can feel the cool air. On the way back I sometimes buy bread from the bakery. I rode my bike to the park, left it in a corner, and started getting ready.
Before running I always do a few quick high-knee steps to warm up. While I was taking those long steps, a new piece of graffiti suddenly caught my eye.
It was written in a hurry, and someone had tried to scratch it out in a clumsy way. I just stood there, stunned.
I pulled out my phone and, without even thinking, took a photo of the wall — amazed at the courage of the person who dared to write it in this busy park.
Right at that moment I saw a police car coming toward me from a distance. I instantly knew something was wrong. I quickly changed direction and walked into the park.
The police car passed by without stopping. There’s no way that patrol car showed up at the exact second I took the photo by accident.
My heart was pounding. My Sherlock Holmes senses kicked in hard.
I’m sure the police had been waiting nearby to catch the “criminal” who wrote those words as fast as possible. The graffiti was still fresh — they hadn’t even had time to cover it properly yet. My heart was hammering in my chest as I hid among the trees. I quickly deleted the photo from my phone, though I knew I could recover it later from the recycle bin.
I put on my headphones and started running through the park like nothing had happened. The police didn’t follow me. They must have realized I was just a regular passerby who took a photo out of curiosity. I’m sure they quickly understood I wasn’t the brave person who risked the charge of “war against God” — a crime that can mean the death penalty — by writing those words in the middle of the night.
You must be curious what the graffiti said. It wasn’t anything terrifying. It simply says:
No to execution!
That’s all!
A sentence so simple… yet writing it on the walls of the city is a dangerous crime.
In a country where they hang people every single day — children and adults, it makes no difference — the feeling of being choked is completely understandable.
After the police finally left, I went back and took a few more photos while running. It felt good knowing that somewhere nearby there was still a free human being. My eyes filled with tears, and for the first time that morning, I could truly breathe again.
