On November 13, 2005, at 10 o’clock in the morning, my phone rang. It was my newspaper’s executive editor, Hossein Samavat, calling. He said he’d received some calls from the province of Yazd, one from the governor’s office, and another from the local branch of the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance. Another caller had run, shouted profanities over the phone, and hung up. I wasn’t quite awake. Our newspaper was printed at a decrepit printing house which did not have a folding machine. I used to go to the printer’s at 5 in the morning, when 2000 copies were printed. A colleague and I folded the copies by hand, so that they would be ready for distribution by 7. Sometimes Mr. Samavat himself joined us.

The governor’s office demanded that we remove all copies of the day’s newspaper from the newsstands. I said that was impossible. Mr. Samavat refused to say which story had offended the authorities. An hour later someone from the Guidance Ministry called and asked if I was the editor-in-chief of the newspaper Khatam-e Yazdi. When I said yes, he asked me why the copies of the newspaper had not been collected yet. I told him they must send us a written order.

“You have disgraced Yazd,” he told me. “You have said that an Afghan girl has been gang-raped.”

Then he started speaking rapidly about Yazd, how it had been a center of worship for centuries, how honorable its people were, and how I’d blown that all away with my newspaper.

It was now obvious which story was the problem. It had run with the headline, ‘The Tragic Fate of an Afghan Girl in Yazd’ and referenced a story from BBC Persian about a local gang-rape. Quoting the BBC was the first offense, and reporting the rape the second.

At 2 in the afternoon, I went to the Guidance Bureau. They came on strong. They believed that at the minimum the newspaper should be temporarily suspended. The director-general was a leftover from President Mohammad Khatami’s era, and his deputy for cultural affairs was a tolerant, flexible man. “Suspend it yourselves until things quiet down,” he advised.

I discussed this suggestion with the managing editor, and we both decided we would do no such thing.

“Then I can do nothing for you,” said the deputy. “Now it’s between you and the judiciary.”

That afternoon the office of the Director-General of Yazd’s Political and Social Affairs Bureau called. They had a similar suggestion. The clerics were unhappy; they said we had disgraced Yazd. We suggested publishing a short clarification.

 

The BBC Mercenary

We published the clarification, but it was of no use. Three days later a university professor called Mohammad-Reza Shayegh published an open letter to Yazd’s governor. He had great influence with the governorate, and copied the office of the Supreme Leader and the head of the Judiciary.

“The colonialist voice of the BBC, the voice of this country’s enemies, has been echoed by the newspaper Khatam-e Yazd,” argued the letter. It went on to accuse the newspaper of spreading lies and helping the enemy in achieving its goals – by using public funds, no less. The letter compared the report to the “promotion of prostitution,” which is punishable by 80 lashes. “I believe that the newspaper has committed severe offenses and the Judiciary’s Attorney-General must pursue the matter and enforce the law,” he wrote. “Without a doubt, those who were involved in publishing the story are either ignorant of religious principles and rules or are not committed to them. They are not qualified to write or publish in an Islamic society.”

The letter did its job. Some authority filed a complaint with the judiciary and we immediately faced a flurry of pressure. The Hezbollah Nation group distributed a hand-written statement saying that the newspaper belonged to the reformist Islamic Participation Front and accused the Ministry of Guidance of providing the newspaper with paper over and above its quota, to facilitate the publication of ‘such trash.’

Someone sent a meandering letter calling us “mercenaries of the enemy,” and promising that at the right time “the true and honest children of Yazd will shut up you domestic and foreign rubbish-mongers forever.”

I knew that the story of the Afghan girl was just a pretext to shut us down, but there was nothing we could do. The poor cultural deputy of the Guidance Ministry was in a tough spot and constantly had to provide explanations about our newspaper.

The other issue was my personal job situation. I was the office director for the previous governor of Yazd. I worked there in the mornings and at the newspaper in the afternoons. But the pressures grew and some of the accusations about the newspaper became directed at the ex-governor. He was forced to visit Yazd’s Friday Prayer Leader a few times to explain the situation. We decided that I should resign from the office and dedicate my time to the newspaper.

Leaving my job at the ex-governor’s office was a significant financial loss for me, but it was necessary to save the newspaper. The managing editor of the paper wanted to use a simple tactic. He said we must write about the glories of Yazd, its goodness and its religious history, to regain the provincial officials’ trust. He wanted us to publish the wills of Yazd’s war martyrs for a while and believed this would solve the problem. But I did not imagine it would. Later on he paid a friendly visit to the office of public relations for the Revolutionary Guards. But the man in charge told him that it was simply no use. “We know you,” he said.

We were summoned to court. Yazd’s Guidance Ministry told us that the complaint had been filed by Yazd’s prosecutor. We were entangled in this case until February 2006. They called the managing editor over many times to endless questions. The most important questions were “What are your relations with BBC Persian?” and “What are your relations with the Islamic Participation Front?” The story itself scarcely came up.

 

Do Not Copulate in the Afternoons

The pressures continued until late February. On March 2, 2006, I was browsing the news when I came across an item about the publication of a sex-education calendar in Qom. The provincial Ministry of Guidance had published the calendar, which on every page carried Islamic sex advice. For example, it said “marry a virgin with big buttocks so you will have many children,” or “do not copulate in the afternoons so that your child will not be born cross-eyed,” or “if you eat zucchini with lentils you can engage in intercourse more,” or “feed frankincense to a pregnant woman because if the child is a girl she will have a fair face, plump legs and will grow to have a happy marriage.”

I briefly mentioned the calendar in the blog I was writing at the time: “This rubbish was printed in the official calendar of Qom’s Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance with the financial backing of the government. But we, a private newspaper, published a story about the gang rape of a girl, and for the past three months we have had to go back and forth to the court.”

This ended up creating all sorts of trouble. The real problem was the word I’d used, ‘rubbish.’ The same day someone from the office of the Director-General of Yazd’s Ministry of Islamic Guidance called me and referred to the words of Jafar Sadegh, the sixth Shi’ite Imam and an important theologian of the faith, as ‘rubbish.’ I was not really aware that Imam Sadegh had said such things but they had the books to prove it.

I was summoned again, first to the Guidance Ministry and then to the provincial governor’s office. Our newspaper was in danger of going out of business because of financial difficulties and we had asked both of them for help. They told us that after the disgusting things we had done, we should have no expectations. The best thing to do, they told me, was to resign so that the newspaper would not be tainted by my actions.

A month later in April of 2006, the newspaper was closed, with a thousand adverse financial consequence and regrets. The new director-general of Yazd’s Guidance Ministry was Hojatoleslam Ajamain who had previously worked in finance for the office of Ayatollah Mohammad Taghi Mesbah Yazdi, the ultra-hardliner cleric. He had a sharp temper and even when he smiled, he would speak to you acidly. He was a devoted follower of Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi and was sent to Yazd to sweep away the remnants of the Islamic Participation Front and other reformists.

I paid him a visit after the newspaper was shut down. He told me that he was sorry. He had heard about the stories that we had published but he believed that such vigor could be put in the service of the revolution. He had a simple solution. If we left the Islamic Participation Front gang and joined Yazd’s Friday Prayer Leader Hojatoleslam Sadoughi Yazdi’s gang, he would back us firmly and his coalition would secure a good newspaper in Yazd province.

I did not pay much attention to what he was saying. I was preoccupied in those days with organizing the first province-wide Blogging Festival. I had tried to get Kavir-e Yazd Pishgaman Company to sponsor the event. Both Yazd’s Guidance Ministry and the Intelligence Ministry were pressuring the company not to sponsor us. My blogs became an added reason.

Amidst all this, I learned that Yazd’s Intelligence Ministry was the main plaintiff in the case against me. They had picked a few of my blogs, and charged my post about the sex-education calendar as an insult to the Shi’ite Imams. It was a charge that even some of my former supporters could not challenge. I had committed an offense against religion in a religious city. For at least a year I had to deal with this new headache. They summoned me time and again to answer questions. Eventually I had to post a bail of 50 million tomans, or around $17,000.

At the trial, the judge showed me a mountain of narratives from Imam Sadegh and other imams about sexual questions, and demanded, “You think all of these are rubbish?” I had to accept his word for it. For this one blog, he sentenced me to 91 days in prison.

I knew the judge, and through a friend, managed to arrange a meeting with him. He said his verdict had been light. “You are also named in the case about the stories published by Khatam-e Yazd, including the one about the Afghan girl. But for now we just tried this one because the managing editor has accepted responsibility for the other case.”

I asked where the other case stood and he answered that we had to await his decision. I appealed to Hojatoleslam Yahya Zadeh who at the time represented a town in Yazd province in the parliament. He had been on good terms with our newspaper and had delivered a speech at the Blogging Festival. I explained the situation, but when I mentioned Imam Sadegh he said there was nothing he could do.

I appealed the verdict. I had also been sentenced to lashes for insulting President Ahmadinejad in another blog, but because I was a journalist the court made this a cash fine.

My friend helped me again and found me a well-connected judiciary official. He told me that the news about the story of the Afghan girl was not good and recommended that I stop writing. Or at the very least, leave Yazd.

 

“We Are All That Afghan Girl”

The second time I met him, he was more serious. “Best if you leave Yazd,” he said. “Appeal the ruling but go and live in another town, especially now that there is no newspaper. Later I’ll change the verdict to a cash fine.”

It was not an unreasonable suggestion. I had intended to leave Yazd and his advice only speeded up my move. I went to Shiraz and a few months later, when I returned to Yazd, I went to the appeals court to talk to the same judiciary official. I described my life in Shiraz and told him that I wanted to go and work on the Persian Gulf Island of Kish. He approved and told me to go there and establish myself. “Then invite me and I will come there for a visit,” he said. He said that he would work to change the verdict and he did. The 91-day prison sentence was first reduced to less than 90 days and eventually to a cash fine.

On my last day in Yazd, I went to say goodbye to him. He was deeply distraught, and told me that recently he had stumbled across a secret court case. It involved the personal physician of the former Judiciary Chief Hashemi Shahroudi, who was deeply involved with land speculation and had grabbed a piece of land belonging to Yazd’s Friday Prayers Leader Hojatoleslam Sadoughi. The land was extremely valuable and the dispute was intense. The office of Yazd’s Judiciary had ordered the Land Registry Bureau to register the land in the name of Shahroudi’s physician, but the Friday Prayer Leader was threatening the head of the Land Registry Bureau with dire consequences if he proceeded. He did not know how the fight would end, but said, “We are all that Afghan girl. The rapes go much deeper than that. Go to Kish and have a good time.”

***

Journalism is a hazardous profession in Iran, and it can be even more dangerous when trying to report the truth about the government and Iran’s establishment figures. Censorship, Iranian Style is a collection of stories by 18 Iranian journalists, writers and cartoonists who have experienced censorship — under the Islamic government, as well as under the Shah’s regime prior to the 1979 Revolution. Their tales of being silenced, harassed and imprisoned provide a solid understanding of the everyday bravery and courage of Iranian journalists, and give a new perspective on the menacing and warped mentality of Iranian censor officials. 

 

More stories in this series:

“I could not document history”, by Hasan Sarbakhshian

When Stories Kill, by Niloufar Rostami

The Seven Obstacles to Publishing Books in Iran, by Ebrahim Nabavi

All Beards Are Sacred, by Touka Neyestani

The Working Journalist in an Atmosphere of Terror, by Isa Saharkhiz

The Midnight Watch, by Ehsan Mehrabi

Censorship, As Ordinary as Breathing, by Mana Nayestani

The Tragicomedy of Censorship in Iran, by Masoud Behnoud

Here Today, Gone Tomorrow

The Story of a Tea Server

Stories from Students’ Protests, by Siamak Ghaderi

My Husband Was a Tasty Morsel for the Regime, by Mehrangiz Kar