Captive in Iran (8 page)

Maryam and I waited in an outer room while Mr. Yazdani went in to talk to our judge, Mr. Sobhani. As we waited, we started talking, and eventually we were laughing. A young female guard came over to see what we were laughing about. We had simply gotten the giggles, and once we started, we couldn’t stop. The young guard started giggling, too, and was soon red-faced and laughing as hard as we were. Just then, the office door flew open and a stern-faced Judge Sobhani came stalking out.

“Are these girls your prisoners or your friends?” he barked at the guard. She quickly stopped laughing and scurried to a chair across the room. After the judge disappeared back into his office, the guard resumed her conversation with us. She was a university student and very interested in Christianity. She wished us good luck and said she would find a Bible to read.

The door opened again, and Mr. Yazdani came out looking very dejected. “Mr. Sobhani doesn’t want to see you today,” he said. There was no one else waiting to see the judge, but he had been offended by our laughter. He tended to be far more lenient with prisoners who flattered him and begged for mercy. Every time we had seen him, we had seemed confident and courteous. This aggravated him, and therefore he declined to see us.

It was nearly midnight by the time we returned to Vozara. A new prisoner lay on the floor in front of our cell, a teenager addicted to crystal meth and going through withdrawal. She was nearly comatose, unable to stand and seemingly unaware of what was happening. One of the guards was kicking her.

“Get up! Get up!” she yelled. “Get in your cell, you stupid trash!” The girl was completely helpless. The guard kicked her into our cell like a pile of old rags.

The next morning, I woke up with a terrible pain in my abdomen. Some kidney problems I’d had in the past were flaring up again, thanks to the stress, bad food, and cold floors. I called for the guard to unlock our door so I could go to the toilet, but my cries went unanswered. By the time the guards came to open the cells for the morning, I had wet myself. I feared I might be losing control altogether and hoped the problem would not be with me from now on. When the door was unlocked at last, I washed my clothes in the sink and wore my coat while they dried.

With the New Year’s holiday approaching, most of the prisoners were called and set free that morning, leaving only a few of the madams, the young addict from the night before, and Maryam and me. Though the girl still seemed dazed and uncomfortable, she was better than when she’d come in. When we asked how we could help her, she said only a few words before starting to cry. Her voice made a strange, weak, raspy sound. As we comforted her, she told us her story.

She was so addicted to meth that she ate some of it, which had damaged her windpipe and vocal cords. Her family had tried to help her, and she was able to give it up for a while, but recently relapsed. She walked through Tehran looking for a treatment center until a kind man picked her up, gave her some money, and dropped her off at a hospital. The hospital staff told her they weren’t a detoxification center and sent her away. Walking the streets again, she had asked some policemen for help. Instead, they beat her and drove her to Vozara.

“There’s no one on earth who can help me,” she said through her tears.

“The Lord will help you,” I assured her. “He will not answer your cry for help with kicks and punches.” Maryam and I told her a little about our lives and our Christian walk. “Trust God. Go to a church when you get out, and they will help you.”

The girl’s expression changed from despair to bright hope. “I will go to church, and I will never touch drugs again,” she said with confidence. I held her while she cried, gave her a little money, and wished the Lord’s blessing on her.

By the end of the day, every prisoner except the two of us had been
called to court, and all but one had been released on bail. The pilot’s wife was the last one to go, and she was sent to prison. We were left in the cell block completely alone.

We walked down the hall together, going into each cell and remembering the women we’d met there. By law, prisoners were to spend no more than three days at the Vozara Detention Center, yet we had now been there for two weeks. During that time, we had witnessed to dozens of women we never would have met if the authorities had followed the usual three-day rule. What a miracle it was that we’d been able to meet and encourage so many women. What man meant for evil, God used for His good and His glory. The people who arrested us thought we were suffering in misery. In fact, we had shared the gospel more openly behind bars than we had ever been able to do on the outside. Even two guards who had been especially rude to us apologized during that last day for the way they had acted, and they asked us to pray for them.

Now, as we entered each cell, we prayed for all the people who had been locked up there. We hoped they now had their freedom, that we had been faithful witnesses to them, and that they would continue to listen for the spirit of Christ moving in their hearts. Then we started thinking about the women who would be locked up there after we were gone. How could we reach out to them? There were damp places on the walls where little chunks of plaster had fallen off. Using these pieces of plaster as chalk, we wrote Bible verses and Christian messages all over the walls, and on the ceilings where prisoners could read them as they fell asleep. We prayed aloud and sang songs until late in the night. All alone in an underground prison cell, we shared a joyous celebration of faith.

The next day—March 18, 2009, in the West—was known as Esfand 28 in Iran, one of the last days of the year 1387. Maryam and I went back to the Revolutionary Court and waited outside the magistrate’s office while Mr. Yazdani went in to talk to Mr. Sobhani again. This time, the magistrate gave us an option for gaining our freedom, knowing it was impossible for us to carry it out. If we could come up with two hundred
million tomans ($100,000) per person by five o’clock that afternoon, he would release us on bail until our case went to trial. Otherwise we were to be transferred immediately to Evin Prison. Prisoners have to be offered bail before they can be transferred to Evin, so the court had to go through the motions, even though we couldn’t possibly arrange for that large of a payment on such short notice.

Our families owned property that they could pledge in order to get the money, but on the afternoon before one of the biggest holidays of the year, all the banks would be closed and our sisters could not collect the necessary documents. We knew we’d never get it back, even if we were acquitted. Christians typically forfeit all of their property in cases like ours.

Our two faithful sisters, Elena and Shirin, came to the detention center every day, in case we were taken somewhere. They followed us to court or to the police station to exchange a few words and slip us something to eat or drink while we walked from the car into the building. Today they were behind the police vehicle when our driver had a minor accident. While we waited in the van for the police to sort everything out, we had a solid hour to talk to them—by far the longest conversation we’d had since our arrest. One small luxury we enjoyed was trimming our fingernails for the first time in two weeks!

After being taken to the police station to get some forms, we were shocked to discover we were headed to Evin Prison. It was hard to believe that we were about to enter one of the world’s most notorious prisons, imprisoned only for our faith in God.

Elena and Shirin waited at the prison entrance to say good-bye and wish us well. We hugged and cried and promised to pray for each other. Then we walked through the tall, imposing entrance gate with “Evin Prison” written across the top, out of the spring sunshine and into another world.

MARYAM

The entrance to Evin Prison was on a hill. A few guards standing around kept people from stopping or gathering there. In contrast to the huge front gate, the door we passed through next was small. The first little room inside led to two reception areas, one for men and one for women. We went through the women’s entrance into a tiny office with broken-down furniture and a box of dirty, smelly
chador
s.

A chubby woman with glasses sat behind a small metal desk. “What’s your charge?” she asked.

“Christianity,” we answered.

Her brow furrowed in disbelief. “I’ve never heard of someone being brought to Evin for Christianity,” she said suspiciously. “You probably did something else. You were probably advertising and promoting your faith.”

“That’s correct,” I said. “We spoke to people about it.”

“I told you!” she said with a note of triumph. “Your charge is participating in political activities against the government.”

We said nothing. It seemed like every time someone mentioned our offense, they described it differently. We had not seen a written copy of
the allegations against us, nor had we been allowed to speak to an attorney. We later learned that the official charges were “acting against state security” and “taking part in illegal gatherings.” They couldn’t legally arrest us just for being Christians, according to Article 23 of the Iranian constitution: “The investigation of individuals’ beliefs is forbidden, and no one may be molested or taken to task simply for holding a certain belief.” News of this constitutional guarantee would have come as quite a shock to many of the country’s policemen and law enforcement organizations, not to mention its citizens.

We handed over all our possessions to the woman behind the desk. She searched us and ordered us each to put on one of the filthy
chador
s. Fortunately, we had gotten used to such horrible smells at Vozara that we could at least tolerate these. The woman led us past a beautiful green courtyard with flowers and trees that was evidently used by the staff as a break area; it looked more like a park than a prison. No doubt visitors were impressed by it. After waiting a few minutes in another office, we were fingerprinted by a man wearing black cotton gloves. It would be
haraam
—sinful—according to Islamic law, for him to touch the bare skin of a woman he didn’t know. (The long list of
haraam
offenses includes everything from murder and premarital sex to eating pork or getting a tattoo.) With our hands blackened by the ink, we had our photos taken again. Someone entered our names and information about our “crimes” into a computer, which spit out white identification cards for each of us. We were now officially prisoners of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

A guard led us out a back door into the main prison yard, which was huge and covered with so many red brick buildings it looked like a town. After a ten-minute walk, we arrived at the women’s prison block. Our guard rang a bell, gave our cards to the young woman who opened the door, and left. We were called one at a time into a small room, where we had to strip naked and submit to the indignity of a full body search. They ordered us to squat and stand three times. When Marziyeh challenged this instruction, they made her squat and stand six times. Though the women who searched us looked and acted like guards, they were actually prisoners. As we soon learned, the inmates did most of the work inside Evin, which made life easier for the guards and staff and gave certain prisoners the chance to earn special favors.

After we dressed, we were led up a long flight of stairs to an office outside the cell block, where women prisoners were coming and going. Some were leaving with their luggage for a New Year’s holiday parole with their families. Others were being released, hugging each other and saying good-bye. A clerk called our names and held up our two cards.

“What did you do?” she demanded.

“We are Christians and we promoted our faith, so we were arrested for activities against the regime.”

“Why did you do such things to yourselves?” she asked in a gruff voice.

Another guard led us to Ward 2. She opened a door and gestured through it to the hallway beyond.

“Ask for Mrs. Mahjoob,” the guard instructed as she locked the door behind us. “She’ll tell you what to do.”

Mrs. Mahjoob was well dressed, with small eyes and simple makeup. She was the prisoner in charge of Ward 2, keeping order among the inmates and acting as a point of contact between prisoners and prison staff. Ward 1 was for drug offenders. Ward 3 was for prisoners with mental problems—and as the newest and cleanest part of the women’s prison, was usually the only part shown to visiting inspectors or other outsiders. Ward 2 was for everyone else and was divided into two parts: women accused of murder or prostitution were downstairs; women charged with fraud or crimes against the state were upstairs.

“What have you been charged with?” Mrs. Mahjoob asked.

“Believing in Jesus,” I said.

“Come over to this room until I decide where to put you.”

There were six cells upstairs in Ward 2. Mrs. Mahjoob led us to a room that was already so crowded there was scarcely room to sit. It was about fifteen-by-twenty feet and jam-packed with eight triple-bunk beds. Women who didn’t have a bed slept on the floor. Under the lowest bunk in each set were three or four wicker baskets, one for each person in the room, the only personal storage space the prisoners had.

There was a loud rumble of conversation among so many women in such a tight space. Some were knitting. Others were talking or sleeping. One or two were climbing in or out of the upper bunks, which took some effort because there were no ladders. Still others were coming and going to
“the shop,” a tiny window down the hall where prisoners bought supplies, snacks, and little luxuries from the prison commissary. The commissary would be closed for the New Year’s holidays in a few hours, and women were rushing to stock up.

As newcomers, we were showered with questions about our lives and the charges against us. “You have become apostates,” one woman said harshly after we told her our charges. “This is very dangerous.”

Someone in the room yelled, “Look at them! They’re not crying. Newcomers always cry for an hour before they settle down.”

Another woman shouted back, “Political prisoners don’t cry, because we haven’t done anything wrong!”

“Don’t worry,” the woman who had mentioned crying said, “we’re all political prisoners in this room.” She introduced herself as Tahereh. She and eighteen others had been arrested on their way to visit their children in Iraq. The children (and likely their mothers, too) were members of the
mujahideen
, loosely organized opposition groups that were now fighting for ethnic autonomy in Iran. Their children lived in Ashraf City, a
mujahideen
refugee camp near Baghdad that had been under US control but had recently been handed over to the Iraqi government. The women had not seen their children for years and decided to travel to Iraq as a group. They were arrested at the airport and brought to prison.

While Tahereh was talking to us, one of her friends offered us cups of tea. It tasted wonderful! It was the first we’d had since our arrest. The
mujahideen
women were the most welcoming and generous of all the inmates we met that day.

“Perhaps you would like to have a shower,” Tahereh suggested diplomatically. “Come, I’ll show you.”

Perhaps we would! We hadn’t bathed or even brushed our teeth in fourteen days. Other women gave us shampoo, towels, and combs, and a woman named Sepideh led us to the bathroom, where several women were washing dishes in the sink. There were six showers, very dirty and matted with hair that stuck to our feet. The water was like ice. But for the first time in two weeks we felt relatively clean.

Mrs. Mahjoob was in our room when we got back. “You can stay here,” she informed us. “All the other rooms are too full.”

We found space to sit on the floor in front of a plastic shoe rack along one wall. Some of the women with lower bunks allowed their friends to sit on their beds; otherwise people found a spot wherever they could. The door at the entrance to Ward 2 was locked, but women could move freely among the six cells, the bathroom, and a small room with four telephones and the little window for commissary purchases. We would have liked to buy a few things, but we had no way to pay for them. When the guards took our money at check-in, they were supposed to give us commissary vouchers. We hadn’t received them yet, so we’d have to make do with whatever the prison gave us until the holidays were over, along with any help our fellow inmates might offer.

A loudspeaker crackled with the names of several prisoners, who jumped up to report to the office. Would they be released? Paroled? Taken to court? Executed? Every inmate both loved and dreaded hearing her name called—loved it because of the hope that she would be released from Evin Prison, dreaded it because the news could also be devastating. In this case, all the women called learned they were to be set free. They screamed and jumped with joy, accepting the congratulations of all the others. Then they gathered their few possessions and disappeared through the door.

A woman who sat next to me, knitting, stared at me for a moment. “Why have you converted to Christianity?” she demanded. “My mother is a Christian and my father is a Muslim. I follow both religions equally and am a member of a church. You’ve made a great mistake by leaving Islam.” When I started to tell my story, she looked down at her knitting, refusing to make eye contact. “You made a mistake,” was all she would say.

I overheard two women talking about Marziyeh and me.

“What is their crime?”

“Converting to Christianity.”

“That isn’t a crime! They must have done something else. Everybody who comes into this prison says, ‘I’ve done nothing wrong.’ If they’d done nothing wrong, they wouldn’t be here.”

This woman seemed extremely upset and angry, and I soon found out why. She was a widow who taught kindergarten to support her two children.
She had been behind bars for two years because her brother had written a bad check on her account to settle a debt. When the check bounced, she was arrested. He promised every day he would work to get her out, but instead he did nothing. She missed her two children and had thought she would be granted New Year’s parole to see them, but her request was denied. She hated her brother for destroying her life.

She started to cry. “I don’t even say Muslim prayers now! I’m angry with this God who does not command any justice. I do not believe in this God!” Her sobs grew louder as she spoke.

I asked if Marziyeh and I could pray for her. Her grim and angry expression softened into a broad smile. “Yes, of course,” she said gratefully. We prayed for her peace as the tears continued to flow. After we finished, she thanked us profusely.

I heard a clattering sound and someone shouting, “Dinnertime! Dinnertime!” A pot of food appeared as the women prepared to eat. In addition to Mrs. Mahjoob, who was in charge of all of Ward 2, each room had an inmate leader who assigned sleeping space, settled arguments, reported problems to the guards, and collected and served food for that room. Our room leader was Mrs. Pari, a plump, middle-aged woman with extremely heavy makeup, black hair, and an unusual accent. Her most noticeable feature was her heavy, black, painted eyebrows in the style of the Reza Shah era or Hollywood movies of the 1940s and ’50s.

“Finally, we have succeeded,” Mrs. Pari announced as she brought in the food. “We kept asking Mr. Sedaghat for eggs and potatoes, and here they are!” A cheer resounded off the concrete walls. Mr. Sedaghat was the prison warden. Perhaps in honor of the holidays, he had granted their request. Mrs. Pari looked at Marziyeh and me. “You brought luck to the ward,” she said. “We’ve waited months for this.”

The women had their own dishes, stored in the wicker hampers under the beds. By now, they all had plates in their hands and had lined up for this special treat. As Marziyeh and I tried to fold sheets of newspaper into makeshift plates, an elderly woman who had been watching us quietly ever since we arrived spoke up. “I have some extra plates in my basket. You’re welcome to them, and you can sit here in front of my bed to eat.”

Each woman received one egg and one potato. We received the smallest
potatoes in the pan. “You are newcomers and haven’t been deprived of good food as long as we have,” Mrs. Pari explained.
If only she knew!
But we took our portions without complaint.

The woman who gave us plates later told us that when she and her two sons sold a piece of land, there was a problem with the title. When another man claimed the property was legally his, this woman was charged with trying to sell something she didn’t own and sent to prison. She called us her daughters and asked us to call her “Mommy.” After dinner, she gave us the rundown on all the long-term residents of our room. She was part historian and part town gossip.

Marziyeh and I went for a walk along the corridor to get more familiar with our new surroundings, weaving our way through the crowd waiting for the telephones and on to a quieter part of the hall. “Hello,” a voice said. We turned around to see a woman in her early thirties with long hair that was prematurely gray. “My name is Silva Harotonian. Some friends told me there were two new Christians here. I’d like to get to know you. I’m a Christian too.”

Her honest, open approach made us suspicious. Was she a plant to extract information from us? Had the authorities sent her to get the names of our Christian friends? Ward 2 had surveillance cameras in the ceiling of every room, including the toilets. We were constantly monitored and thus wary of anyone who seemed unusually friendly. We said we were in prison for believing in Jesus Christ.

“I can’t believe that,” she replied. “How can they put somebody in prison because of their faith?”

Without going into too much detail, I said we were accused of activities against the regime. Sensing my hesitancy, Silva shared her story with us.