Captive in Iran

by Maryam Rostampour

  “Do you believe that God is the ultimate power?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “Then He can speak to anyone He chooses.”

  “Yes, but you are not worthy of this gift! God speaks only with His chosen prophets!”

  “The Lord determines who deserves this privilege, not you.”

  Mr. Haddad tried another tack. “You Christians do not have a religious law to separate good from evil. You can sin anytime you wish.”

  “Yes, Jesus has done away with Sharia laws, but He doesn’t allow us to sin whenever we like. He tells us that our salvation comes only through belief in Him. To believe in Jesus doesn’t mean disregarding rules and obligations. We are guided by the Spirit of the Lord.”

  Mr. Haddad shook his head. “I have no quarrel with your beliefs. But your file says you’ve been promoting Christianity and that a large number of Bibles and other religious literature was discovered at your house. You have been found as apostates and sentenced accordingly for promoting Christianity. Mr. Sobhani, the chief prosecutor, and Mr. Heydarifar, his assistant, both regard you as apostate. If I pass judgment contrary to their conclusion, they will sue me.”

  He waited for a reply, but Marziyeh and I said nothing. He waited some more. “Well, you can go think it over now and let me know when you want to see me again.”

  Just then, his telephone rang. He listened briefly, scanned the mountain of files on his desk, and then looked at us. “What should we do with all these people?” Another pause while he listened. “I can’t deal with it now!”

  As we stood to leave, we told him that we wanted Mr. Aghasi to be our lawyer and would sign whatever papers were necessary for him to represent us.

  “Oh yes,” Mr. Haddad said reluctantly. “Here they are. Come and sign them. But I don’t know why you bother, because he can’t do anything.”

  We signed the papers and left. As we opened the door, we saw Mr. Heydarifar waiting outside, desperate to know what took place in our meeting. We passed him without a word. Our guard was waiting to escort us back to our bus. We had no idea what would happen next, or when. At the moment, we were too tired to care. We returned exhausted to our cell, where everyone wanted to know what had happened. We gave them a quick version of the day’s events, fell into our beds, and were asleep in an instant.

  CHAPTER 20

  GOD AT WORK

  Marziyeh

  Only a few days after our appearance before Mr. Haddad, we heard our names on the loudspeaker again. Our lawyer, Mr. Aghasi, had been granted permission to see us! After about six months in prison, this would be our first meeting with any legal counsel—and we still had not seen the formal charges against us. A guard walked us about two hundred yards across the courtyard to a separate building where prisoners and their attorneys met.

  The building was a small, crowded place where guards and soldiers milled around and lawyers waited for their clients to arrive. There was a row of glass cubicles with a table and four chairs in each, and a window between the lawyers and the inmates. Armed soldiers walked back and forth between the cubicles. Our escort turned us over to the security officer, saying he would be back for us in half an hour. Our actual time with Mr. Aghasi was limited to fifteen minutes, and the conversation would be recorded.

  When our names were called, we stepped into one of the cubicles, where Mr. Aghasi was waiting. “Mr. Haddad finally allowed me to see you after playing games for a few days, but I’ve still not been given access to your files. Therefore, I have no idea about your background, the circumstances of your arrest, previous interrogations, or what stage your case is in. I’m told I will have them a couple of days before your trial so I can prepare my defense. So tell me exactly what happened. What about the interrogations? And what exactly are your religious beliefs?”

  Knowing our time with Mr. Aghasi was limited, we briefly recounted the story of our arrest, the search of our apartment, and the various places we had been held. We also told him about our Christian beliefs and our activities.

  “I need to know your current stance so I can defend you accordingly,” he said. “What have you decided now? Do you still insist on being Christian? Do you still want to defend your faith?”

  “Yes!” we both said without hesitation. “Otherwise we wouldn’t have spent six months in prison! If we were willing to compromise, we would have done it long ago. We certainly will never change our minds now. We will defend our faith.”

  Mr. Aghasi thought for a few moments and then said, “Mr. Haddad has given me a message. He told me that if you continue to repeat your position in the courtroom, a heavy punishment awaits you. The punishment for apostates and for promoting Christianity in this country is death. The only way to avoid this is to deny the charges and admit you made a mistake. Whenever you come to this decision, Mr. Haddad will be willing to meet with you again.”

  “If we wanted to change our minds,” I said, “we would have done that six months ago and not spent all those days in prison! We’ve been threatened with death. That’s no problem. We’re not afraid of death. What we’re afraid of is life without faith, life without our Savior, Jesus Christ.” I could feel my anger rising at the very thought that our lawyer would be suggesting this now.

  Mr. Aghasi went on, “In Islam, we have a loophole called taqiyya, the lie of convenience. If you are cornered in a dangerous situation, you can get out of it by telling a lie and still keep your own true belief. Do you have this in Christianity?”

  “No,” Maryam said. “There’s no such thing as taqiyya in Christianity. And even if there were, we wouldn’t use it to save ourselves. We will never renounce our belief, even for the sake of momentary convenience.”

  “Well, in this case, women stand a better chance of being acquitted than men,” he told us philosophically. “In Islam, women are given more leniency and more time to repent because according to Islamic law, a woman’s wisdom is half that of a man and there’s always the likelihood they will choose the wrong path. Since, according to Islam, men have a full-size brain, they are not given a second opportunity but must be executed right away.

  “I personally respect your religion and believe, myself, that choosing a religion is a personal matter. No one else should be allowed to interfere. However, according to our country’s laws, you are guilty of an offense, so we must do our best to get you out of this situation.”

  The armed guard outside our cubicle said we had five more minutes. In that brief time, Mr. Aghasi asked us about our prison conditions and the other prisoners in our ward. We then went to an office together to sign and stamp the forms to officially appoint him as our lawyer. And then our time was up.

  As Mr. Aghasi walked away, a young woman approached him. We had seen her talking to other lawyers and prisoners, and had caught her looking at us several times from across the room. She spoke briefly to Mr. Aghasi and then came over to us.

  “Is Mr. Aghasi your lawyer?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Could you tell me some more about your charges? Are you political prisoners? Or were you arrested in the street disturbances?”

  “We are being prosecuted because we are Christians.”

  “You are Marziyeh and Maryam! How long have you been in prison now? Have you had access to a lawyer from the beginning?”

  “We have been in prison six months, and this is the first time we’ve talked with a lawyer.”

  “I’m very happy to see you in person. I’m here today gathering the latest news on the cases of political prisoners. Have you heard that Mr. Heydarifar was dismissed from his job? It just happened this morning. We heard it when we were in Revolutionary Court.”

  Heydarifar was the prosecutor who had insisted we be executed. We asked what happened.

  “Heydarifar, Sobhani, and another man, Saeed Mortazavi, were implicated in the unlawful arrest and transfer of protestors. Some have said they were responsible for the torture and murder of prisoners at the Kahrizak Detention Center. We are very h
appy to hear this news.”

  This was surely God at work! The three people who were responsible for our court case, the three who had indicted us for apostasy and demanded we be executed, were now accused of torture and murder and would themselves be tried behind closed doors. This good news was tempered by the fact that replacing the three court officials would mean another delay in our case. All we could do was wait.

  The whole process was nothing but a show put on by the regime. These three were likely no more guilty than many others. But the regime had to blame somebody in order to take the spotlight off the illegal elections, the public unrest, and the worldwide outcry demanding our release. It was another renegade decision by the rulers, designed to stifle legitimate dissent and keep the powerful in power. This also was a stark reminder that prisoners are not the only ones who are captive in Iran. Everyone who lives under this repressive regime is—and will remain—a spiritual captive as long as these leaders maintain their iron grip.

  Along with our dear friend Shirin Alam Hooli, we set up a daily activity schedule to keep ourselves busy. We tried not to think about the slow progress in our case and what might happen next. We were still roused before daylight by the call to prayer. Then came the scratchy, raucous wake-up music at 6:30 for morning roll call, followed an hour later by breakfast, the one prison meal per day we could stomach. When many people were at the cultural center—where we weren’t allowed at first because we were unclean apostates and where we didn’t want to go later when Mrs. Rezaei insisted we be allowed to—we sat on our beds and knitted. We spent the next part of the day reading and memorizing poetry, and gathering around to read our favorites aloud and discuss them. Iranians love poetry of all kinds: romantic poetry, history, humor, protest, politics, anything. We enjoyed listening to each other read, and we often teased Shirin about her Kurdish accent, which was actually beautiful. In the afternoons, we walked in the prison yard for an hour. After that, we went back to the ward to read some of the official newspapers (we were getting them again), listen to the radio news, and hold political discussions with other women who were interested. Shirin had started to learn English, and we helped her with her lessons. Our English was not good, but it was enough to help her.

  Word spread through the ward that some political prisoners from Ward 209 were going to be transferred over to our hall. The first thing we thought of was whether or not dear Fereshteh would be coming. Maryam and I went to the store and bought some food and snacks to welcome the newcomers. Then we went downstairs where they would be brought in, and as the door opened, there stood Mahtab, Fereshteh, and Setare! We squealed with delight and hugged them tightly. There was a fourth girl, Arefeh, very shy and quiet, with a sad look on her face. We welcomed her, too, and I told her that just because we didn’t know each other yet, there was no reason we couldn’t celebrate her leaving the horrible environment of 209.

  Despite the fact that there were already thirty-five women crammed into Room 1, we convinced Mrs. Ghaderi, the woman in charge of our ward, to send all four of the newcomers to our room. We explained to our cellmates that we would like to have these friends with us and that the new arrivals should stay together rather than be split up as was usually done. We helped them move in quietly and take up as little space as possible. Maryam sat next to Fereshteh and held her hands. They could not believe they were together again.

  The news from 209 made it sound as if the place was worse than ever. With all the arrests after the election, there were four or five people in each tiny cell, where three had been a crowd. No more delicious kebabs or other decent food, but the same mediocre meals every day. Some of the new inmates there were prominent officials and politicians, now living under the same conditions as the people they once condemned.

  The flow of prisoners in the public wing had also picked up, and many women came and went in the ward. Maryam and I took on the task of greeting new prisoners, introducing them to other inmates and explaining the rules and traditions of the ward. This gave us an opportunity to spend some time with Arefeh, who had been arrested during a demonstration and held because her family members were mujahideen, even though she herself was not. She was curious about our faith, especially when she learned that we refused to renounce it in order to be freed. She told us we were “silly” and added, “I think it is sheer stupidity that you two can buy your freedom by renouncing your beliefs and just walk out of this terrible place. You could do that and still continue with your religion outside, instead of wasting your life in here.”

  I tried to put our feelings into words. “Our insistence on our faith is not out of stubbornness. You may not be able to understand, because you haven’t been through what we have. I have lived with God for many years, during some lonely and difficult times. He is the only support I have. He is my all. We are inseparable. My life has no value without Him. I love God so much that denying Him would be denying my own existence. How could I ever deny something that is in every cell of my body? I would rather spend the rest of my life in prison if that’s what it takes to stay close to Him. I would rather be killed than kill the spirit of Christ within me.

  “This is a struggle, a test of our beliefs and our strength. Holding on to our beliefs means rejecting injustice and inequality. Even if you think our beliefs are wrong, maybe you can see that we must not allow others to impose their beliefs on us. After all, what has landed you here in prison? Is it not your pursuit of justice and your protest against oppression? To have the right to think and speak as you choose?

  “This regime tells its people that the regime knows best and that we should all do as we’re told. Its message is, ‘Shut up, say nothing in protest, do what we say.’ You and I are struggling against the same oppression and censorship.”

  “I agree with everything you say,” Arefeh replied. “But if I were you, I’d still renounce my religion so I could get out of here and continue the struggle. You’re a lot more useful outside than in here. I don’t have that option, because they’re not going to make it so easy for me. But you do.”

  Her point of view was different from ours, and her struggle was a different kind—a struggle of politics and ethnicity, not of faith; a struggle of the world and not of the spirit.

  MARYAM

  My stomach trouble had grown worse than usual. The pain woke me up in the middle of the night and kept me awake for hours. One night, after dinner in Room 2 with Marjan and Shirin, I thought my stomach was going to explode.

  An hour after going to bed I started feeling nauseated. At first I thought it was my usual stomach trouble, but soon I was running down the hall to the toilet, where I vomited again and again. It was the tuna I had eaten for dinner, low-quality canned food from the prison store. Shirin and Marziyeh came to help me back to the cell, but I was so weak I could hardly stand. They put me in a bed close to the door in case I had to go back to the toilet. The vomiting continued throughout the night, and the pain got so bad that I thought I might pass out. Even after my stomach was empty, I kept heaving. Finally, completely exhausted, I sat on the floor in the hallway and Shirin covered me with a blanket. Someone called a guard and after a few minutes convinced her to take me to the clinic.

  Marziyeh wanted to go with me and argued with a guard while I leaned against the wall, barely able to stand. The guard made me put on a chador and carefully cover my hair. She was a lot more worried about my hair being covered than she was about getting me to a doctor. Marziyeh was forced to stay behind. The guard went down the stairs in the direction of the clinic—fifty steps in all. I followed slowly behind, afraid I would faint at every step.

  “Come on, hurry up!” the guard barked. “I can’t wait all night.”

  When we got downstairs, a guard told me to wait until he could coordinate with the doctor. I sat on the floor and closed my eyes. Every time I opened them, the room started moving.

  “Quit pretending to be sick,” the guard ordered. “There’s no need for all this. I don’t see you puking.”

&
nbsp; I was too weak to answer. As we started down the hall, I began to heave again. I grabbed a trash can from a doorway and threw up into it.

  “Okay,” the guard said, “I know you’re not feeling well. Just control yourself and hurry up.”

  When we reached the clinic, the doctor on duty gave me a quick glance and asked the guard what had happened. “Couldn’t you have waited until morning?” the doctor complained.

  The doctor put me on an IV, put a trash can beside the bed, and left. I threw up again. When the IV container was empty, a nurse took me into another room, larger and very cold. “If you need to get up, you can use that little toilet in the corner,” she said. “But be quiet, because the doctor and I are trying to sleep.”

  When the nurse came back later to change the IV, I was shivering with cold and asked for a blanket. The prison’s hilltop location made for chilly nights, even in the summer. For some reason, I had the fleeting realization that my once-cozy apartment was only about five minutes away.

  “We don’t have any spare blankets tonight,” the nurse answered brusquely. “They’re all at the laundry.” Then she added, “Why did you do something wrong and end up here anyway?” I said nothing.

  The next morning, my hand was swollen and sore where the IV needle had been inserted. The IV drip had stopped; the fluid was completely gone. About ten o’clock, a nurse opened the door and was startled to see me in the bed. “Who are you? What are you doing here?” she demanded.

  “Please take this needle out of my hand and let me go back to my ward,” I said. “My hand is completely numb, and I’m completely frozen.”

  Shirin Alam Hooli and Marziyeh were waiting for me in the ward. They had stayed awake all night in case I needed them and there was any way they could help. Faithful friends are a great blessing any time. But in a place like Evin Prison, they mean even more because the prisoners have so little else to encourage them. There is nothing we wouldn’t do for each other.