In November 2001, the news of the arrest of my husband Siamak Pourzand was reported by both hardline media and other publications, but the accounts diverged significantly. The newspapers Kayhan, Resalat and other hardline papers reported that Siamak had been arrested by a police unit called Amaken, which at the time was under the command of General Morteza Talaei. They quoted from interrogation documents which were supposed to have been confidential. They claimed, for example, that Siamak had received millions of dollars from the United States to distribute among reformist media.

It soon became clear that they wanted to use Siamak to destroy the reformists. But why him? In the so-called “reform period” under President Mohammad Khatami, Siamak had fallen in love with the new landscape of the press. He was no longer an active journalist but when he stepped out into the street he loved seeing newsstands stacked with newspapers and magazines. He was overjoyed and could not control his enthusiasm. When he saw the wide variety of publications at the newsstands or saw people lining up to buy the papers even before they arrived at the stands, he became overly excited.

Before his arrest, Siamak had given a number of interviews to Persian-language radio stations in Los Angeles. It is hard to believe, but each day he would give 400 tomans—not an inconsiderable sum in those days and his income was not that high—to a newspaper seller and to a young street vendor who owned a handcart, so that they would bring him a variety of newspapers. He would then lay out the pages of the newspapers across the floor to go over them—the same thing that the journalist Masoud Behnoud does today for BBC Persian using modern technology. With the help of this primitive “technology” he would offer a press review, analyzing the political situation in Iran on those radio stations so that Iranians abroad could stay informed. For example, if President Khatami said something that was reported by Kayhan with a positive headline but the reformist papers used a negative one, he would try to explain the differing takes on the same news item. The audiences loved this program because it gave them an intimate grasp of what was happening inside Iran.

As I mentioned, after Siamak was arrested, Kayhan, Resalat and other papers of their ilk published reports which referred to his interrogation. We knew that the authorities were torturing him in order to force him to confess. This was strange, not because Kayhan had not done such things in the past, but because under a reformist president the rule of law was meant to prevail. In other words, a person is supposed to be considered innocent until his guilt is proven. It would have been permissible if such things were published after a court issued a final verdict. But strangely these newspapers had access to evidence which they themselves acknowledged was confidential immediately after a person was arrested.

The attacks targeted Siamak, but me as well, and also the reformist publications in the field of cinema who considered Siamak their supporter. But the reformist publications proceeded with excessive caution. They emphasized the rule of law and declared that his arrest had been illegal. Still they tried to keep their distance from Siamak, although in the past he had helped them a great deal. But they were afraid of the other side and never took any risks for him.

My contacts with President Khatami’s Intelligence Ministry and the messages that I sent them provided us with no solution. First they said that a special commission within the ministry was studying the case and then they said Siamak was at fault. So gradually they withdrew their support for him. But it was a pattern which the reformist had always followed. When it became risky to back someone they gradually withdrew their support. One of these gentlemen even told BBC in an interview that “even though this person is a germ of corruption he must be treated according to the law.”

Support for Siamak continued to evaporate but somehow President Khatami tried to manage the repercussions of the case through General Morteza Talaei. In the end, nobody helped Siamak but they secured fatwas from religious authorities who declared that an individual’s confessions are only valid when pertaining to personal matters, and not when they relate to others. Through this religious interpretation, Khatami provided some cover for those who were implicated by Siamak’s confessions, but it did not help me. I was abroad, and what Kayhan, Resalat and others published about the case ended up being more targeted towards me.

My impression is that since Siamak knew I was not in Iran and did not have to worry about my safety, he had no misgivings about making confessions against me. But I had planned to return to Iran, and was no longer able to, after these events. I even hired a lawyer for Siamak from afar and he accepted. I sent the power of attorney to Iran through the Iranian Interests Office in Washington D.C., but it took him a month to present it to Judge Zafar-Ghandi. During that month they had intimidated Siamak thoroughly. “One night at 2 am, they kicked me awake and told me ‘write down what we are going to tell you and sign it,’” he later told me. “They wanted me to write a polite letter to the judge and tell him that I did not want the lawyer my wife had chosen and that I wanted the court to appoint a lawyer.” The fault lay with that reformist lawyer who was of course referred to me by reformist bigwigs.

The other problem was that there was a news vacuum about the case in Iran and we had to publish the information from outside the country, which gave Kayhan a chance to vilify us. This made everything more difficult, and for a long time, we did not even know where Siamak was detained. We still do not know where he was kept in the first year after his arrest except for the few early days when he was in the detention center of Amaken Police. After three months, when they allowed his sister to visit, authorities transferred him from somewhere to Evin Prison for the meeting.

Kayhan soon started an over 20-part series on the history of Siamak’s family. They started from the time of Reza Khan in the 1920s. Each part was not so bad by itself, but they colored the history peculiarly to present him as a counter-revolutionary figure. Iranians were not well-informed about the case, and the series was intended to brainwash readers against him. The reformists, intimidated by the other side, struggled to show they had no connections with Siamak.

In 2000, before my trip to America and Siamak’s arrest, I was arrested after participating in a conference at Berlin's Heinrich Böll Foundation entitled “Iran After the Elections.” I was charged with “activities against national security” and “propaganda against the regime.” During interrogations they asked me odd questions, for example “why did you marry Siamak Pourzand?” Not only were the questions silly but they turned the whole thing into a farce. For example, they said that Siamak had founded a “ciné club” but then interpreted this in the most ridiculous way. “Ciné,” pronounced in Persian, sounds the same as the Persian word for “breast.” They said women with nice breasts would go to Siamak, he would select the best ones and then make them available to men of the royal court.

I was sentenced to four years in prison, but after two months doctors diagnosed me with breast cancer. Under pressure from the European Union, the authorities temporarily released me to seek treatment in the United States. Immediately after my release, I took Siamak and our daughter Azadeh to the Swedish embassy to get them visas. They knew me there, and the consul himself even met us at the embassy and had the visas issued in fifteen minutes. We wanted to send Azadeh out of Iran as soon as possible, and of course I did not want Siamak to return to Iran. The two of them traveled to Sweden within days.

One night I called Siamak from Tehran, and mindless of the phone being tapped, told him, “Stay there because they have plans for you here.” My breast cancer had been reported by the media, and neither Siamak nor Azadeh could tolerate being away from me. I told Siamak to send back only Azadeh because she had been crying and missing me the whole time. I advised Siamak to stay in Sweden and ask for asylum, so that if I could manage to get out, I would have a place to go.

Siamak did not take my advice, or perhaps he did not believe me. After we spoke, he called some people at President Khatami’s office and told them, “Is this what I should expect after the services I have rendered you? Mehrangiz is telling me not to return to Iran or else I would be arrested.” They told him that I was mistaken. They even called me afterward and asked me why I had said such a thing. I answered because I was sure that was what was going to happen. The gentleman at the other end of the line gave me a funny answer. “I offer myself as collateral,” he said. “If they arrest Siamak I will take his place in prison.” I gave up because I could see that Siamak was more under their influence than mine. He believed they were really in power.

Siamak returned and he was arrested shortly after I left Iran. In prison they tried to humiliate him by telling him all the negative things they said the reformists were saying about him. This is how they make somebody feel utterly alone and helpless, so that the interrogations become their whole world. This often happens to detainees. Left alone for a few days, the detainee wishes for the interrogator to return, because his presence grows associated with the prospect that life might go on, and things might change for the better. They try every kind of pressure on political prisoners. For example, to break Siamak, they showed him every interview in which I had criticized the Islamic Republic.

In 2002, after the events of 9/11, I was one of four Muslim women who received the Democracy Award from the American National Endowment for Democracy (NED). The prize was simply a statuette and came with no money, but NED had succeeded in persuading the first lady, Barbara Bush, to give the awards. Kayhan made it a front-page story and since they could not get their hands on me they used it to pressure Siamak. The story claimed that I had received $100,000 “for services rendered against the Islamic Republic.” They showed it to him at an unusual hour.

Siamak later told me that they had nicknamed me “the international shrew.” Once when we managed to get him a mobile phone inside that dungeon, he told me they had given him hell for that award. When we talked on the phone it became clear that he was in terrible shape. When Azadeh told him, “Dad, I love you” he would say, “Don’t say such things to me. I have no idea what these things mean. I don’t believe that they exist.” Coming from a man who had been known for his pleasant conversation, it showed that he was being treated like an animal.

Our worst moments were when we talked on the phone. The sadness weighed so heavily that I would not have called, were it not for his sake and Azadeh’s. I thought it would do Siamak good because he would know that we were thinking of him in the world outside. And I thought that it would do Azadeh good to know that her father was alive, but the truth is that each conversation left us both devastated.

They turned Siamak into a creature which everyone feared to get close to. Whenever there is a factional fight in the Islamic Republic, the hardliners search for someone like him to use against the reformists. For them, he was a tasty morsel.

I was outside Iran and received messages from President Khatami saying that “we were not the ones who arrested Pourzand.” He said the same thing to me personally when he was visiting Harvard. I admire Mr. Khatami and still do. He had good intentions but his steel was not forged in the furnace that was our reality. He sent me many messages telling me not to return to Iran. When through an intermediary I sent a letter to Mr. Mehdi Karroubi, who was then the speaker of the parliament, asking him if I could return to Iran because of Siamak, he answered that I should stay in the U.S. and continue my treatment. Often the answers I received were opaque and evasive.

We had no one to turn to and Siamak had no immediate family member except his aging sister. Each time she visited him she left broken and sick and eventually died after a visit. We were suffering but we could do nothing except cause trouble for other people. It was so difficult to beg people. I even begged his colleagues to go and visit him. All we did was to beg people to save Siamak from feeling utterly alone. It was really devastating for me. After living a proud life, I found myself begging people to show my husband some kindness and attention.

The last time before he committed suicide we had a very bad conversation. Siamak could no longer relate to anyone. I had no idea that he was contemplating suicide, but he said things that I could not agree with. For example, he said “tell my nurse not to come here anymore.” When I asked why and how I was going to get news of him in America, he said, “I am causing trouble for him.” I told him that the nurse had accepted the responsibility voluntarily. He was a good lad and the authorities had interrogated him quite a few times.

We arranged with his lawyer to send us news but Siamak hated the lawyer and said that he was in cahoots with his tormentors at the court. So in the end I could not communicate with him. His world had changed and so had mine.

***

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

The Islamic Sex-Ed Calendar, by Reza Haghighatnejad

Here Today, Gone Tomorrow

The Story of a Tea Server

Stories from Students’ Protests, by Siamak Ghaderi