Robbed in Iran and imprisoned for over 100 days for suspected espionage, this is the true story of one woman's shocking ordeal in the country she called home.The morning of 30 December 2006 began routinely for Haleh Esfandiari. The Iranian-American academic was due to return home to the United States after visiting her ailing mother in Tehran. She got into a taxi to the airport, and was driven by the driver who she always used when in Iran. Fifteen minutes later, Haleh was robbed at knife point by three men, who threatened to kill her. Her baggage, two passports and identification cards were all stolen.Without her documentation, Haleh was unable to leave Iran. What appeared to be an ordinary theft was almost certainly a stage-managed robbery by agents of Iran's Intelligence Ministry, conducted to keep Haleh in the country. This was the beginning of her eight-month Iranian saga – starting with endless hours of interrogation, intimidation and threat, and ending with her release from prison after over 100 days in solitary confinement.Revealing, gripping and, at times, alarming, Haleh Esfandiari's ordeal acts as a microcosm of Iran's difficulties in dealing with the outside world and the modernity that the country only half-embraces.
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Haleh Esfandiari. My Prison, My Home
My Prison, My Home. Haleh Esfandiari
Table of Contents
1. THE “ROBBERY”
LIKE A REFUGEE
GETTING A NEW PASSPORT
THE PASSPORT OFFICE
A BLEAK NEW YEAR’S EVE
2. AN IRANIAN CHILDHOOD
MY GRANDPARENTS
EUROPE
TEHRAN
ABADAN
3. A CAREER INTERRUPTED
HOME, AGAIN
AN UNREPENTANT FEMINIST
REVOLUTION
AMERICA
4. THE INTERROGATION
MR. JA’FARI
“CONSPIRACIES”
“SMOOTH AND HORRIBLE”
“YOU CAN’T FOOL ME”
THE RAID
5. “THINGS WILL GET WORSE”
AT THE INTELLIGENCE MINISTRY
EMPTYING ME OF INFORMATION
A THEATER OF THE ABSURD
COPING
HIZBOLLYWOOD
HAJJ AGHA
A TAXI DRIVER’S TALE
NO GROUNDS FOR COMPLAINT
6. THE LULL
TAMING THE REVOLUTIONARY TURMOIL
RETURN OF THE NATIVE
A DEATH IN THE FAMILY
BEHESHT-E ZAHRA
MOTHER AT THE CEMETERY
WAITING
AHMADINEJAD’S TEHRAN
GETTING A LAWYER—AND A PASSPORT
IRAN AND AMERICA
A “QUID WITHOUT THE ‘QUO’”: BUSH I
LOST OPPORTUNITIES: CLINTON AND KHATAMI
THE BARREN YEARS: BUSH II
7. THE ARREST
BLINDLY INTO EVIN
THE REVOLUTIONARY COURT
THE MAGISTRATE AS SUPERMAN
THE RISE OF THE INTELLIGENCE MINISTRY
THE KHATAMI PRESIDENCY
“WE KNOW HOW TO HANDLE YOU”
IN THE HANDS OF HAJJ AGHA
THE KAYHAN EPISODE
A COMPELLING BUT MAD LOGIC
“HOW DO YOU KNOW OBAMA?”
8. EVIN PRISON
PRISON DAYS
THE GUARDS
PRISON CUISINE
THE DOCTORS
CALLING MOTHER
A WALKING CORPSE
THE “INTERVIEW”
IN THE NAME OF DEMOCRACY
NEWS OF THE OUTSIDE WORLD
A SURPRISE VISIT
9. THE RELEASE
THE LETTER
THE DELAY
“YOU MUST BE JOKING”
PARADISE REGAINED
THE TSUNAMI
AN INTERNATIONAL CIVIL SOCIETY
10. FREEDOM
MEETING WITH MY LAWYERS
ON THE STREETS
JA’FARI’S FRANTIC PHONE CALL
ONE LAST INTERVIEW
A PRESENT FROM “THE BOYS”
FAREWELL TO MUTTI
EPILOGUE
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
ALSO BY HALEH ESFANDIARI
Copyright
About the Publisher
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One Woman’s Story of Captivity in Iran
—JOSEPH BRODSKY, “A PART OF SPEECH”
.....
Farhad arrived with his son, Kami. Only twenty-five, Kami was as gentle and soft-spoken as his father, but he was tall and well built, towering over everyone else. His height alone will intimidate everyone, I thought optimistically.
Our first stop, once Modarress joined us, was the neighborhood police station. At eight in the morning, the station was crowded and noisy. Men and women were there reporting burglaries, family disputes, and thefts of cell phones. Police officers walked in with men who had been arrested in a drug bust. A mother was desperately looking for her son, who had disappeared two days earlier. We made our rounds, from desk to desk, clerk to clerk. I had to repeat over and over the details of the robbery, fill out forms, secure signatures and official stamps. Farhad, having heard my story half a dozen times, was anxious to move along. Modarress, who usually took the lead when I needed to get things done in Tehran, uncharacteristically stayed in the background, restlessly shifting from foot to foot. We needed the signature of the police chief, but he was on a hajj, or pilgrimage, to Mecca, and his deputy had not yet come in. More waiting. The deputy finally arrived, read the report, remarked nonchalantly that “such things happen,” signed the papers, and sent us to the revolutionary magistrate’s court on my mother’s street to have the police report certified.
