Then They Came for Me: A Family’s Story of Love, Captivity, and Survival

by Maziar Bahari

  Additionally, since the beginning of the revolution, the regime had also placed almost one million families—or about five million people—under the protection of the Imam Khomeini Relief Foundation. Through this charity, families receive around the equivalent of $50 per month. Targeting people’s economic fears and simultaneously offering short-term solutions, Ahmadinejad’s teams throughout the country had been stirring up fears that, if elected, Mousavi was going to make poor Iranians even poorer.

  Rasool, a young engineering student I met in the crowd, told me that Robat Karim was sharply divided between the educated and the uneducated. “The educated vote for Mousavi and the uneducated vote for Ahmadinejad. When you’re poor and ignorant, you can be easily manipulated.”

  For an engineering student, Rasool had an impressive knowledge of social problems in Iran. “According to the government’s own statistics, out of seventy million Iranians, ten million live in absolute poverty,” he said. “We have almost two and a half million drug addicts. Percentage-wise, that’s more than any other country in the world, and there are five million officially unemployed young men and women. This government doesn’t want people to know about what’s going on in the country. It wants to keep the people uninformed.”

  I wondered where Rasool had gotten his information. He took me to the rooftop of a three-story building and showed me satellite dishes sprouting like mushrooms from many roofs in Robat Karim. “There are an increasing number of satellite television and Internet users in the area,” he said. “They are the only way we can have correct and uncensored information in Iran.” Many sites, including The New York Times’ and CNN’s, are filtered in Iran, but Rasool’s family and friends—like so many Iranians—had found ways to buy satellite antennas on the black market and used filter busters to access the forbidden Internet sites. In the period before the election, BBC Persian television, broadcasting out of London, and Voice of America, from Washington, D.C., had become the main sources of information for many Iranians. “Most people with the Internet and satellite can learn about the lies of the government and they’ll vote for Mousavi,” Rasool told me. “But the ignorant will vote for Ahmadinejad.”

  · · ·

  Back on the street, the enthusiasm of the Mousavi supporters was intoxicating. I was so excited about the desire for change in Robat Karim that it was hard for me to pull myself away from the area. But I knew I had to visit Ahmadinejad’s campaign headquarters on the southern part of Vali Asr Avenue to gain a better understanding of the situation. Davood reluctantly agreed to take me there. It was after seven P.M. when we arrived. The sun had already set, but it was still hot.

  There is a clear class divide in Tehran. The rich live in the northern part of the city, in tall high-rises on wide streets. In the southern part of Tehran, the streets are crowded and narrower, the houses significantly more modest. The building that held Ahmadinejad’s campaign headquarters could have belonged to any factory worker or junior government employee. I had been here on reporting trips twice before, but the house was so nondescript that I had a difficult time finding it.

  There were dozens of shoes piled one on top of another in the entrance of the headquarters. In accordance with Islamic practices, I removed my shoes, then went inside to look for Alireza Asadi, a student leader with the campaign whom I had met a month earlier at a rally. Inside, the office was even more modest than its façade.

  The Ahmadinejad posters on the walls of the headquarters, proclaiming his humility and religious devotion, made me sick. Groups of young Ahmadinejad supporters were poring over maps and lists. Alireza took Davood and me to a corner, where we couldn’t hear what was being discussed.

  Alireza was an engineering student and a classmate of Ahmadinejad’s younger son, whose name is also Alireza. They were both part of the Islamic society of their university as well as members of the Basij, the volunteer arm of the Revolutionary Guards, which has a unit at every government office and school in Iran. The Basij’s mission is said to be defending the ideals of the revolution. This vaguely worded mission allows the Guards commanders to use the paramilitary group in any way they desire. That had included ransacking student dormitories, attacking opposition newspapers, and even staging assassination attempts against reformist politicians.

  At the rally, when I had asked Alireza why he’d joined the Basij, he’d looked at me as if the answer were obvious.

  “There’s nothing I’m more proud of than being Basiji,” he told me proudly. “The Basij is the backbone of this country.”

  One of the things that fascinated me most about Alireza was that he was so unlike the stereotypical Ahmadinejad supporter, who is typically poor, uneducated, and close-minded. The son of two physicians, Alireza had spent the early part of his life in England. But the devout Muslim family had decided to return to Iran when Alireza’s sister hit adolescence, finding British society inappropriate for bringing up a good Muslim teenage girl. “Most British girls are corrupt, as you know,” Alireza told me once, unaware that Paola, my fiancée, was British. “As soon as they can, they start whoring around,” he added with a cheeky smile.

  Even though he’d left England for Iran at the age of eight, Alireza talked about British society with the authority of a sociology professor at the London School of Economics, and as we sat across from each other on the faded orange wall-to-wall carpet of the campaign headquarters, he spoke with the same conviction about why Iranians should reelect Ahmadinejad. To him, it was very simple. According to the Iranian Constitution, he pointed out, the president has very limited power. The main power lies in the hands of the supreme leader, who has the final say in all major decisions in the country. Many who support the supreme leader don’t think of him merely as the political leader of the country, but also as the highest Shia religious leader, who can control all aspects of their lives.

  Shiism, or Shia Islam, is the second-largest denomination in the religion. The majority of Muslims are Sunnis. Shias are the majority in only four countries in the world: Iran, Iraq, Bahrain, and Lebanon.

  The division between Muslims started after the death of the Prophet Mohammad in A.D. 632, due to political differences. The Sunnis believed that one of the close allies of the Prophet was his rightful successor. The Shias believed that Ali, the Prophet Mohammad’s cousin and son-in-law, was the Prophet’s rightful successor.

  Ali is the first imam, or saint, of Shias. Sunnis call all their local religious leaders imams.

  Most Shias believe in the sanctity of twelve imams: Ali and his eleven direct descendants. The twelve imams are regarded by Shias as “the infallible,” those who never committed a sin. During their lifetime, the Shia imams interpreted the teachings of the Koran for their followers and were responsible for the welfare of their followers.

  Shias regard the twelfth and last imam, Imam Mahdi, as their Messiah. According to Shia history, Imam Mahdi went into hiding in the eighth century to escape persecution and will return to establish a peaceful and just Islamic society.

  During Imam Mahdi’s absence, Shias have a duty to follow a religious leader, called a marja, who interprets the teachings of the Koran for them.

  Marjas are chosen from the ranks of grand ayatollahs, high-ranking religious scholars, and each Shia Muslim is free to choose the marja of his or her choice.

  Most Shias in the world believe that the role of the marjas is limited to teaching about Islam and taking care of the weak and the needy. But in the 1960s, Khomeini took the concept of the marja a step further and divined his velayat-e faqih theory, about the leadership of the supreme jurisprudent. According to Khomeini, a supreme jurisprudent should not only teach his followers about Islam but should rule an Islamic government with absolute authority, ensuring that all affairs of the country are conducted in accordance with Islamic teachings. Given that this leader will be in charge of all the systems of checks and balances in the country, it is not difficult to see why Iran became a dictatorship soon after Ruhollah Khomeini came to power in
1979.

  Most Shia clerics in Iran and around the world never accepted Khomeini’s theory and believe in a separation of mosque and state. But by stirring Iranians’ nationalist sentiments, Khomeini gained popular support and led the Islamic Revolution, which established the first velayat-e faqih government and installed Khomeini himself as the first supreme leader.

  After Khomeini’s death in 1989, Ali Khamenei succeeded him as the valie faqih, the supreme jurisprudent, or supreme leader. His followers simply call him by his unofficial title: Agha, the master.

  That is what Alireza, the young Ahmadinejad supporter, liked to call him.

  “We are not a nation, we are the umma,” Alireza told me, using the Arabic term for the Islamic community. “As the umma, we have to obey the commands of Agha. The most important characteristic of Ahmadinejad is that he is devoted to Agha,” Alireza said. “Ahmadinejad is a man who has dedicated his life to Agha and the return of the imam.”

  I could see that Davood was getting uncomfortable as Alireza told us that our votes were not worth anything and that our destiny could be determined only by Agha. When it was time for us to leave, Davood avoided having to kiss Alireza, as would have been appropriate, and did not even shake his hand. “We’ll invite you to our celebration ceremony,” Alireza said before kissing me on both cheeks.

  “Mr. Maziar, I’m going to start the motorcycle,” Davood said, practically running toward the door.

  Davood was waiting for me outside of Ahmadinejad’s campaign office. “You are a very patient man, Mr. Maziar,” Davood told me as we drove north. “I could’ve killed that guy.”

  “He has a right to his opinion,” I said. “Anyway, Khamenei is the one who should be upset now. Just look at all these people. Do you think Ahmadinejad has any chance to win?” It was evening, and hundreds of young men and women in bright green shirts and scarves still lined the streets, singing patriotic songs.

  In the evening, more people gathered in the streets. I didn’t want to go home. I asked Davood to take me to his neighborhood, a working-class area called Poonak in west Tehran. There, the street was blocked off and hundreds of young people were holding a party. I called Paola from my cell phone and told her that as much as I missed her, I was very happy to be in Tehran at this moment.

  I knew Paola understood my exhilaration. When we’d met, at a lecture about the Middle East conflict in a London journalists’ club in March 2007, I was on my way to Iraq to produce two documentaries about the ethnic conflict in that country for Channel 4 and the BBC. At the time, a number of journalists had been kidnapped or murdered and it was a dangerous assignment. But Paola knew that I would be careful and shared my excitement about the trip.

  Now, pumped up by the excitement and emotion of that moment in Poonak, I told Paola, “I feel like I’m witnessing history. I can’t wait to show you everything I’ve been recording here.” I had been out for sixteen hours by then, but I didn’t notice my exhaustion. Like many Iranians, I, too, was intoxicated by the prospect of change; I, too, lent my voice to the chant heard throughout Poonak that night: “Ahmadinejad, bye-bye! Dictator, bye-bye!”

  Davood finally drove me home at around two A.M., and as I prepared for sleep, I knew that whatever the outcome of the election—a Mousavi victory, an Ahmadinejad resurgence, a second round of voting—something had changed in Iran over the course of this campaign. Iranians from unexpected quarters had started to express themselves, and the leaders of the Islamic Republic now faced the uncomfortable reality that the people were demanding to be listened to.

  As I tried to sleep, I envisioned an Iran free of men who think that to be true Muslims they need a master controlling every aspect of their lives. I knew that Mousavi was not a leader who would bring about a profound change to the country, but getting rid of Ahmadinejad, the man who had disgraced the country and imperiled its well-being for four years, was a start.

  Chapter Two

  I came out of the shower the next day to the sound of my mother panicking in the kitchen. “Mazi, Mazi!” she cried out. I ran out of the bathroom to see what the problem was and found her staring open-mouthed out the window. Outside, Davood sat idly on his motorbike, waiting for me. I had asked him to pick me up at ten A.M., and he was right on time.

  “Everyone knows that motorcycle drivers are just mad,” my mother said. “The only people crazier than them are their passengers.” Even though I had taken almost twenty trips to Iraq to report on the war, I don’t think I’d ever seen her as worried for me as she was at that moment.

  Losing her husband, elder son, and daughter in such a short period meant that my mother worried about me more than ever. As I got ready to go, Moloojoon followed me around the apartment, reminding me about the fatal accidents caused by motorcycles.

  I kissed her good-bye. “Don’t worry,” I said. “He’s just giving me a short ride to a friend’s office.” I knew she knew that I was lying, but we had an understanding. She trusted my judgment.

  I said hello to Davood and jumped onto the motorbike behind him. He had apparently done some research overnight.

  “I Googled you,” he said. “Aren’t you afraid of making all these films and writing all these reports about this government?”

  “Not really. I try to be careful and not to step on their tails,” I answered, using a Persian expression, as Davood headed the wrong way down a one-way street. “I’m frankly more worried that your driving will get me into trouble.”

  Davood didn’t laugh. “I noticed a couple of people waiting for us in a Peugeot when we went to see your friend in Robat Karim yesterday,” he said. “There was another car parked toward the end of your street today. They followed us, but I think we lost them. I wasn’t sure at first, so I didn’t mention it.”

  I thought he was just being paranoid. “Right, Davood. As if you need a reason to drive like this,” I said.

  “Don’t worry, Mr. Maziar. I’ll take care of you,” he assured me.

  Davood and I spent the morning visiting a few more Mousavi and Ahmadinejad campaign offices around the city, and when we were done, at around three o’clock in the afternoon, I paid him for the whole day and told him he could go home. As much as I liked and trusted Davood, I couldn’t take him to my next appointment.

  I was going to see Amir, a friend of mine who’d previously worked for the Ministry of Interior, which is in charge of elections in Iran. Now in his early sixties, Amir had joined Khomeini’s movement in 1963, when he was just sixteen years old. Over the course of the last fifty years, he had come to know some of the highest-ranking members of the Iranian government, and he understood the inner workings of the system as well as anyone in the country. The information Amir gave me over the years had hardly included state secrets, but despite the amazing morass of the Islamic system, he had a great ability to connect the dots and somehow make sense of the nonsensical behaviors of the regime.

  In addition to being one of my most trusted sources, Amir was also, despite our age difference, one of my best friends. His brother had worked for my father’s company in the shah’s time and had spoken often of my father. “My brother used to say that Mr. Bahari was the best boss he had ever had,” Amir said. “I had an immense respect for your father. He was not religious in a traditional sense, but his honesty and his big heart made him one of the most religious people I know.”

  To me, Amir represented moderation, and the idea that there were decent people in the system, people who were working to change it peacefully from within, gave me hope. Amir abhorred Ahmadinejad, whom he regarded as a misfit, a low-ranking former local governor and Revolutionary Guard who had somehow managed to become the president. But Amir ultimately blamed Khamenei for Ahmadinejad’s rise to power. “It’s amazing how people can be deceived by flattery,” Amir had said to me not long after Ahmadinejad was first elected. “The relationship between Mr. Khamenei and this man is like a landowner and a serf.”

  Amir had held an important position during the presidency of Ah
madinejad’s predecessor, Mohammad Khatami, a pro-reform president who believed in a more open and democratic interpretation of Islam. In 2005, when Ahmadinejad was elected president, he forced the resignation of many high-ranking government officials. Amir left the Ministry of Interior, but he had retained very good contacts inside Ahmadinejad’s government.

  Two weeks earlier, Amir had shown me a secret poll conducted by the Ministry of Intelligence—the country’s equivalent of the CIA and the FBI in one—in the capitals of all of Iran’s thirty-one provinces. The poll demonstrated that Mousavi was well ahead of Ahmadinejad and predicted that Mousavi would win the election with sixteen to eighteen million votes to Ahmadinejad’s six to eight million. Surveys are not usually accurate or reliable in Iran. People don’t trust the pollsters, and many Iranians are afraid that by expressing their opinion they can get into trouble. But because Ahmadinejad’s own intelligence officials had conducted the poll, I found it to be trustworthy and had written an article about it for Newsweek.

  Amir’s office was large and mostly unfurnished and, like the offices of most Iranian reformists, it had a temporary feel about it, as if he was prepared to leave at a moment’s notice. His desktop was empty, except for one yellow file and a few photographs, and the only decoration on the walls was a large framed poster of the Sheikh Lotfollah Mosque, a marvel of Persian architecture in the city of Isfahan. The dust on the frame showed that it had been there for a long time, and that it had been neglected. When I walked in that morning, I smelled the sweet scent of gaz, which may be one of the most delicious confections in the world (and one of the main causes of cavities in Iran). One of Amir’s relatives owned a pastry shop in Isfahan, and every now and then he sent Amir some gaz, which always put him in a good mood. But that day, the gaz didn’t seem to be having the desired effect. Amir was worried and agitated. He rested his head on his left hand and scratched his chin nervously as he talked to me.