Captive in Iran (7 page)

“No,” I answered confidently. “Our apartment has never been used as a church.”

“Don’t you think you’re taking Islam away from our youth?”

“No. I don’t want to change anyone’s mind about their faith. I don’t want to take Islam away from anyone. I only want to give young people a chance to choose their own religion. Is there a problem with that?”

Mr. Rasti ignored my question and plowed ahead with even more of his own.

Marziyeh

While Maryam was being interviewed, I waited in another room, handcuffed and praying. One of my two guards approached me hesitantly.

“I know why you’re here,” he said. “I want to know why you became a Christian.”

I recognized him as the officer I’d seen on the day of our arrest, the one who had told me there must be a mistake and there was no problem with my car registration. Evidently, he knew nothing about the scheme to trick us into coming to the station. As I shared my testimony, the young man listened eagerly.

“I pray Islamic prayers every day,” he whispered. “I believe in the Lord and in Christ, but not the way you do.”

“This is something the Lord is trying to reveal to you,” I said. “If you ask Him, He will help you to understand.”

“Really?”

“Yes. Jesus says, ‘Seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.’
[2]
You need a heart that seeks truth, and the Lord will reveal the truth to you.”

The other guard came over to where we were sitting. “I heard everything you were talking about. If you will answer some of my questions, I will believe in Jesus. How is it possible that a human being could be the Son of God? How could a person be the Lord?”

I explained the Christian idea of God in the flesh to him, but he was skeptical and kept challenging me.

“Do you believe the Lord can do whatever He wants?” I asked.

“Yes, I believe that.”

“Then ask Him to explain it to you, since my words are inadequate. These are truths that only the Lord can reveal to people in their hearts. It isn’t a matter of arguing or reading a book. If you really want answers, pray to the Lord in your own language—it is not necessary to pray only in Arabic—and ask Him to show you the truth.”

The first guard was delighted with this advice, but his partner was still unconvinced. “If you sincerely want the truth and pray for it,” I said, “the Lord will show it to you. But if you just want to argue, you’re wasting my time and your own.”

At that moment Mr. Haghighat came into the room and the conversation abruptly stopped.

After more than two hours, another guard came to take me for my interview. Maryam and I passed each other on the stairs.

“It’s all right,” Maryam said reassuringly. “We’re not being tortured. Just tell the truth.”

That’s an odd thing to say
, I thought.
One of my problems in life is that I can’t lie even when I need to.

In Mr. Rasti’s office, he offered me a seat. “I’m so sorry to have to put you through this again,” he said apologetically. “It’s just that those are the rules.”

I could not believe my ears. What happened to the curt, disrespectful Mr. Rasti I had met before?

“We found pictures on your laptop that were taken in Korea,” Mr. Rasti began. “What is your relationship with the Korean church?”

“We were in Korea visiting a friend. While we were there, we went to a festival for women, organized by the church.”

“Did you visit other churches there?”

“It is common for Christians to visit various churches when they travel.”

“We know you operate a house church because we found these notes for a speech.”

“Those are my notes for a Bible study,” I replied. “You’ll see I write about disappointments and difficulties, and the challenge of trusting the Lord during hard times, but that faith is the key to success. Is any of that incorrect?”

Mr. Rasti ignored my query and continued a long series of questions about photos, names, and other information he had learned from going through my private things.

Fortunately, no one had discovered any more information about the trip Maryam and I had taken to South Korea, where Christianity is thriving. Through a series of friendships, we had been invited to a leadership conference there, where the other participants were pastors’ wives or other kinds of church leaders. We were just two Christian girls from Iran—it was a miracle we were there.

South Korea was clean and prosperous, and its Christians enthusiastic and compassionate. They showed their faith not only with words but with deeds as well. What a contrast it was to India, where we had gone to share the message of Christ with prostitutes and learn how to minister to them.
Fortunately, the Iranian authorities never found evidence of this work either. We were with a Christian ministry there that sometimes bought child prostitutes in order to rescue them. When we visited red-light districts where young prostitutes lived, we had to travel with bodyguards. It was a dangerous, filthy place. Many of the people had AIDS. Some prostitutes asked us to pray for them in church, which we were honored to do. We also spoke to a Christian congregation there and handed out Indian Bibles in the shops.

After my interrogation, I was reunited with Maryam and we compared notes on our sessions. We wondered why Mr. Rasti had behaved so differently toward us today than in the past. We were taken to a dirty, dark cell under the stairwell and left alone.

Later, a short, young, beautiful girl joined us. When we explained the charges against us, she asked us to pray for her. She had been married for six months. Whenever she refused to have sex with her husband, he tied her hands and feet and raped her. She escaped to her parents’ house and filed for divorce. But under Islamic law, only the husband can seek a divorce. Legally, she could not get a divorce without her husband’s consent. Still, she stayed with her parents and got a job.

One day, she accepted a ride to work with a male colleague. Her husband, who had been following her, alerted the
basiji
and had her arrested, claiming she was cheating on him with the man who gave her the ride. Even though the husband had no proof to support his charge, the word of a man officially carries twice the weight of a woman’s testimony in Islamic court. She would remain in prison until she agreed to go back to her abusive husband (if he would take her) or until he agreed to a divorce.

Another prisoner came in, a slim girl with short hair, whose name was Sharareh. She had been arrested for drinking and dancing with some boys at an amusement park. There were wounds on her body where the
basiji
had hit her. One of the
basiji
had held her head down in the car so passersby couldn’t see her through the window. Someone had also held her hands and feet. “Your body is so nice,” her captor had said. “Why do you force us to beat you? Why don’t you relax and let me sing you a little lullaby so you can fall asleep in my arms?” Though it was illegal for her
to flirt with boys, it was evidently all right for the
basiji
who arrested her to flirt with her—even as they were beating her.

MARYAM

It was nearly midnight by the time a guard named Mrs. Najimi came to take us back to Vozara. During the time when Marziyeh was being interrogated, I’d had a run-in with this guard. After my own interrogation, I had worried about Marziyeh and started praying for her out loud. Hearing the prayers, Mrs. Najimi had run into the room shouting, “Shut up! I don’t want to hear your voice anymore! If I hear you once more, I’ll come in here and strangle you!” Shocked and tired, with my resistance at a low ebb, I had dissolved in tears.

Now when Mrs. Najimi saw me, she said, “Maryam, are you all right?”

I assured her that I was fine.

“We’re going back to Vozara,” Mrs. Najimi continued, in a conciliatory tone, “but take your time, darling, and don’t worry.” Just as with Mr. Rasti, Mrs. Najimi’s attitude and treatment of us was completely different than before. She went through the motions of following the rules but treated us with compassion and courtesy. She handcuffed me to Marziyeh and took us to the car. As we rode, she asked, “Why did they arrest you?”

“For being Christians.”

“And what’s wrong with that, my darling?”

“You’ll have to ask Mr. Rasti.”

“Something really bad happened to me this afternoon,” she said haltingly. “I had an argument with my boss and he humiliated me. It left me crying the rest of the day.” She was silent for a minute, and then turned to me again. “My darling, please forgive me for the way I treated you. I was nasty to you today, but I didn’t mean it.” She asked both of us about our faith, and we answered her questions all the way to the detention center.

Time and again, I was discovering that even the employees of the Iranian regime—guards, soldiers, police officers, court officials—yearned for the truth of Christ in their hearts, but feared to ask about Him because of the harsh punishment awaiting those who seek the truth.

When we arrived at Vozara, we couldn’t be admitted because the guards had forgotten some papers. While the driver went back for them, Mrs. Najimi waited with us. She told us she lived in a poor area of the city and traveled hours each way to work every day. She didn’t like her job, but her father had cancer and it was the only way she could make money to take care of him. She asked us to pray for her and her father. “I hope you will soon be free and that you have great success in your lives,” she said, and gave me a big hug.

When the driver returned, we went down to our cell block, where everyone had waited up to learn what had happened to us: Masomeh, the martyr’s daughter; Sahar, with the short hair; Tannaz, the flirtatious young girl from Mashhad; and others, along with several new prisoners, including a Korean woman whose visa had expired. She didn’t speak Farsi, but she could speak a little English and a little Turkish, and so could we, so we were able to communicate. She was a Christian, and when she learned we were Christians, too, her face lit up with happiness. She asked to sleep in our cell, which was already crowded with other women, including Masomeh and Sahar, who all wanted to be near us like little frightened girls around their mothers. We made room for our new Korean friend and welcomed her in for the night.

MARYAM

The next two days, Thursday and Friday, the court was closed, which meant Vozara was crowded and busy because new inmates kept arriving and nobody left. The first new prisoner we saw was a young woman who was very well dressed and seemed afraid of everyone around her. Her first experience behind bars had been watching Leila—who was back from Evin after only a short stay—go through her morning routine, screaming for a cigarette. It’s little wonder the woman was frightened. When others approached her, she turned away and remained silent. Marziyeh and I introduced ourselves and answered the woman’s questions about why we were there.

“This is such a relief!” she exclaimed. “I never thought people like you would be in a detention center.”

She was a law student who earned her school expenses by giving skin and beauty treatments. After she leased space for a shop, her landlord made sexual advances toward her. When she refused him, he cashed her postdated deposit check ahead of the date they had agreed on. When the check was rejected by the bank, the landlord had her arrested. She was engaged to be
married, and was grateful that her fiancé and her family were supporting her and working for her release. Even so, she was embarrassed and frightened at what might happen next. We began to pray for her. By now, our prayers were a familiar sound to our fellow prisoners, but somehow this time was different. As we continued, the other inmates stopped talking—one by one—and started listening, until our voices alone echoed off the walls of the cell block. When we finished and said “Amen,” everybody else said “Amen” too.

The Vozara Detention Center had become a church.

Tannaz was the only prisoner who still shied away from us. She was the one who had told us that God would forgive promiscuous sex but would never forgive the worship of Jesus. I had seen her watching us as we prayed and talked with the others. Now, for the first time, she approached us. She was crying.

“What happened?” one of the prisoners demanded as the girl came closer. “Do you think their prayers aren’t so worthless after all?” Without a word, Tannaz sat down in front of us.

“Would you like us to pray for you?” we asked.

“Yes, please,” she said. “Pray that I would be freed soon and have a good life from now on.” We took her outstretched hands and prayed for her until dinnertime, when a guard arrived with the big dish and everyone waited patiently while Marziyeh served up the meal on little plates of bread.

I noticed the Korean woman crying in a corner and asked if I could help her. Struggling with the language barrier, she explained that she had a newborn child and her breasts were full of milk. Because she couldn’t nurse, they were very painful. The pain reminded her of how much she missed her child, and how hungry he must be by now. She also said she was still hungry. Marziyeh hadn’t eaten yet, so she gave the young mother her portion.

It’s hard to imagine a justice system worthy of the name that considers it essential to national security to separate a mother from her newborn baby over a visa problem. A regime that fears people like this is on very shaky ground.

Around midnight, I was awakened by the arrival of an attractive, athletic woman. The guards brought her to our cell so she wouldn’t be as
afraid. She had been skiing in the mountains with her boyfriend when the
basiji
stopped her and said her hair was not properly covered according to Islamic law. When the boyfriend confronted them for criticizing her, they were both arrested. She hit one of the
basiji
, who lodged a personal complaint against her on top of the other charge.

After daybreak, there were more comings and goings. Leila’s husband arrived to pick her up, leading to whoops of joy. I thought she would literally fly out the door. As she headed for her freedom, Marziyeh and I reminded her of the promises she’d made to visit a church.

A group of half a dozen or so women came in together, very provocatively dressed and wearing heavy makeup. They were madams, arrested on the street for soliciting customers for their girls. One was a very aggressive lesbian who was immediately attracted to Marziyeh, eyeing her as she walked up and down the hallway to get a little exercise.

“Oh sister! What a piece of meat!” she exclaimed to her friends. “Honey, I’m sleeping with
you
tonight.” When Marziyeh tried to ignore her, the woman made suggestive moves and did a little dance in front of her.

Fortunately for us, none of the madams ended up in our cell for the night, though I was awakened more than once by the sound of two of the women in the throes of lesbian passion. These were people who needed God desperately.

Sadly, most divorced or widowed women in Iran are destined for a horrible life. They have no legal rights, their families disown them, and the government gives them no encouragement or assistance. These women reminded me of our ministry to prostitutes in India, where the Hindu religion also enslaves women. One of our two home churches, a group we called Mary Magdalene, was for poor, divorced, or widowed women, who out of desperation had turned to prostitution to stay alive. Life was very difficult for them because many had young children and very few options for employment. Rather than offering assistance, the regime made the situation worse by forcing women to marry men they didn’t love, forcing them to stay in abusive relationships, and making it almost impossible to get a divorce. The government used the façade of religion as an excuse to treat women like toys or commodities, such as with an officially sanctioned temporary marriage, or
sigheh
, which might last only an hour.

On Saturday, it was off to court for most of the prisoners, as usual. The skier was released on bail. Sharareh and Tannaz left the cell block and never came back. Two of the madams were summoned and the rest stayed with us. As we got to know them a little, we learned that some were in the sex business because they enjoyed it, some were saving money so they could stop doing it one day, and others had stories all their own. The aggressive lesbian was a transsexual who had been born a boy and sold himself for sex to make enough money for a sex-change operation. Now a woman, she seemed very satisfied with her new life. Another of the group had been raped as a young teenager in a house where she worked as a maid. When she found out she could get paid for sex, she loved the work for a while, but then came to hate herself for what she was doing.

“But how else can I survive in this country?” she cried. “I’m so tired!” All we could do was pray for her.

After Masomeh and the transsexual returned from court, the two of them got into a loud argument. We still weren’t sure we had the whole story on Masomeh, the martyr’s daughter who had set up her boyfriend to be arrested and lashed by the
basiji
. She started talking with the transsexual about her relationship with her boyfriend, claiming that she loved him so much. After listening for a minute, the transsexual asked if the apartment where they were caught was at a certain address. Masomeh said that it was.

“Six months ago, your boyfriend was one of my customers!” the transsexual crowed. “We went to that apartment, and he paid me 100,000 tomans to have sex with him!” Masomeh had said earlier that she’d bought the boyfriend a car and other expensive gifts. Now the truth was about to come out. She turned absolutely white. “He told me everything he had, including his car, was his to begin with, not presents from you!” the transsexual continued. “You weren’t wealthy, and you weren’t being generous. He was the wealthy one, and you had him arrested so you could take everything from him!”

Normally brash and outspoken, Masomeh was struck dumb by this exposé of her past. “I have to go to the toilet,” she said, and left the room. Later, we learned she was having an affair with the judge in her case. He
knew she was guilty of defrauding her lover; but in exchange for her sexual favors, the judge forced her boyfriend to marry her, and then sent him to prison so that Masomeh could keep his property and she and the judge could continue their relationship. This is not an uncommon situation. A different judge had offered to release one of the madams on bail if she would give him her phone number.

Marziyeh

Cleaning the floors and toilets had become an everyday routine for us. The change in hygiene and the improvement in the way our meals were served, small as they were, made a big difference in the comfort of our temporary home. One day, I even convinced one of the guards to take a little money from me to buy some cake and juice for everyone. It was the only relief we had from bread and cheese in the morning and lentils and rice the rest of the day.

Every morning, we also cleaned the hall in front of the guards’ office. One day, a kind-looking middle-aged woman came to the cell block while we were cleaning and asked us why we were at Vozara.

“We’re in jail for our faith in Christ,” I explained.

She was the custodian, hired to clean the whole detention center. She admitted that, until that moment, she had never even been to our cell block. Perhaps tinged with guilt, she gave the floor a few halfhearted strokes with a broom and then said, “I hear you pray for everyone here. Could you pray for me?”

“Do you accept the way we pray?” Maryam asked.

“How do you pray?”

“We are Christians. We pray to Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior.”

“Okay, so you’re Christians,” she answered. “What difference does it make? I accept Jesus. Just pray for me.”

We promised we would.

Late that night, a young girl, very thin and addicted to crack, came in. She was injured or sick, and crying in terrible pain. Though it was after midnight, I went to her cell.

“Why are you here?” the girl asked. “Why aren’t you asleep?”

“Because I wanted to sit here with you,” I said. I took the girl’s head in my lap and stroked her hair. She was younger than my sister, Elena. I prayed silently until the girl fell asleep, and then sat with her a long time so as not to wake her.

Early the next morning, the girl sought me out and asked, “What kind of prayer did you pray for me last night?” I told her I had prayed for Jesus to heal her.

“I became so calm,” she said, “and my pain is much less.” Maryam and I told her that if she trusted Jesus and tried to change her ways, the Lord would always be willing to help her.

A woman in her forties arrived, whose husband was a pilot in the air force. They lived on a military base outside the city, and every aspect of their lives was monitored by the government: mobile phones, text messages, visitors—absolutely everything. The authorities knew more about them than they knew about themselves. Her elderly father had stomach trouble that he treated by drinking a little wine, even though alcohol is strictly forbidden by Islamic law. Because the family was under such close surveillance, it was impossible to buy wine without being seen, so they grew grapes and made their own. A neighbor saw the wine in a cabinet at their house and alerted the authorities. With the pilot and his family arrested by the
basiji
, the neighbor hoped to be promoted to the pilot’s position. The woman was worried about her husband and also about their two young children. After she heard our story, she asked us to pray for all of them.

When a guard came for Maryam and me the next morning, we assumed we were going back to the police station or to the Revolutionary Court. We walked outside in handcuffs, but instead of the usual police car or van waiting for us, there was a taxi, and beside it stood a man who introduced himself as Mr. Yazdani. We didn’t recognize him, but hoped that our sisters had sent him. Mr. Yazdani carried a dossier in his hand and seemed to know something about us and our case. “We’re going to see what we can do to get you released in time for New Year’s,” he said. That certainly sounded encouraging!

On the way to the Revolutionary Court, he asked us why we couldn’t accept Mohammed and Jesus both. “That’s what I do,” he explained matter-of-factly. “It’s a shame that girls like you have been caught in this type of situation.”

When we arrived at the courthouse, the driver told us the total fare. He insisted the police hadn’t paid him. Mr. Yazdani hadn’t planned to pay him, so I paid him.