Читать книгу The Tragedy of Islam - Imam Mohammad Tawhidi - Страница 16

Towards the end of 2012, I was presented with a lengthy English translation of Makarem’s Farsi exegesis of the Quran. I was told to review it and prepare it for publication. I skimmed through the entire work and realized that something wasn’t right. We had been scammed. Makarem’s office had paid a translator over $6000 USD when all he did was copy the Farsi text into Google Translate and forward the English translation from Google. Every page included characters such as “(?)” which indicates that Google Translate didn’t recognize or understand the Farsi word being used.

I was frustrated and demanded that the translator be brought in for questioning. After contacting him, we were told that he was visiting his home town in the USA, and that he would return in 20 days. When the dishonest translator returned to Qum, we called him in for a meeting and, lo and behold, it was a former friend of mine who had just been caught red handed, trying to scam his own Islamic authority whom he considers a “link between humanity and God.” I shall refer to him as Mr. HW.

I looked at Mr. HW and said, “Nice job, buddy!” and he was astonished to see that I was in such a place holding such a position! He came to the meeting thinking he could convince a few Iranians with broken English that the translation was perfect, but to his surprise I had been examining his translated document for the previous 20 days. In an awkward meeting for him, I pointed out a few of the flaws within his translation both to him and his employers. Wishing to stop me from continuing, he claimed that seven other people had translated it with him and that he was not responsible for the entire translation. We demanded that he return the $6000 USD to the office, or that he correct the entire document.Mr. HW was and still is a cleric with close ties to people who are related to the Iranian intelligence services. Before I knew it, and a few days later, I was picked up from the street by four police officers as I left Makarem’s office to go home.

I was thrown into a cell and, before the solider closed the door, I told him to not touch me. He opened the door and held me by my neck, then grabbed hold of my shirt and threw me against the wall, saying, “We made Montazari sit down. Who the hell are you?” Montazari was an opponent of the Islamic regime who was once the second in line to rule Iran after Khomeini. The guard then kicked me in my stomach with his right leg and slapped me very hard across my right eye with his left hand.

This time I was in a different intelligence headquarters, but the same interrogator came to interrogate me. It appeared to me that he was responsible for my case within the intelligence department. After having slept the night in the cell, I was told to wake up by the prison guard and prepare myself for breakfast. I was given a boiled potato. I peeled the skin off and ate the inside of the potato only, placing the potato skin on the crooked steel plate. The interrogator called me into the interrogation room at approximately 8 am. This time I sat on a chair and faced him while he sat on a couch, and no tea or water was offered. He began by asking me what I was doing in Makarem’s office, and I informed him that I was working in the English Department. Up until this stage, I never knew why I was detained, but when he asked me what my job was exactly, I knew that Mr. HW was behind it.

I told the interrogator that my job was to translate from Arabic to English. He said, “No, you also work on Farsi to English.” I denied this, and said that I only work on Arabic to English. Then he said, “You recently worked on a Farsi to English translation” – and this was when it clicked in my mind that Mr. HW had reported me to the intelligence services. I responded, “No, I never worked on this document or translated it. I was simply reviewing someone else’s translation.” He then began to show me documents containing screenshots of my Facebook posts, all containing Farsi translations in blue pen on the side of the paper. I was questioned about every Facebook post he could gather, and then asked why I even had a Facebook account, as Facebook is banned in Iran. My response was, “I saw that the grand Islamic authorities had Facebook accounts, therefore I thought it was legal to have one.” This answer was convenient at the time. The circumstances all began to add up and point at Mr. HW.

Mr. HW was a Facebook friend of mine, my Facebook account was private, and out of my 30 friends on Facebook he was the only one who was in Iran, knew Farsi and would be able to translate it in such a way. Also, the content I was being questioned about went against the conservative Islamic values of the Iranian regime which Mr. HW stood for. I wondered how all this happened so quickly after our meeting with Mr. HW, and how particular the interrogator was when questioning me in regard to the translation from Farsi to English. Mr. HW’s work was the first and only Farsi–English work I had laid a hand on in Makarem’s office. Therefore, I was now certain it was Mr. HW who sent the intelligence services to detain me.

After the interrogation, I was sent back to my cell, which contained only an iron bed with a torn and stained mattress, a toilet and a sink. I wasn’t given any lunch, and when dinner time arrived, I began to call through the cell for the guard to bring me food as I was hungry. The guard came and said, “No food for you.” I said, “Why?” He said, “Because you waste food.” I said, “What do you mean by waste food? I ate the entire potato.” He said, “No, you were supposed to eat the entire potato including its skin! This food is bought using the money of the Islamic government. This is the money of God which you are wasting.” I turned my back towards him and sat on the bed. After 21 hours had passed, I was released. In Qum, Mr. HW tried to avoid me in every way possible, as he didn’t think that I would be released so soon, or at all!

Mr. HW had fabricated a case against me of treason and plots against the Iranian regime, which could have constituted the offence of “rising against the government” – an offence punishable by death. Luckily in this case, the regime officials either forgot or did not realize that I was born in Iran, otherwise they could have granted me Iranian citizenship solely for the sake of imprisoning or hanging me. I was relieved that, due to my Australian citizenship, I was saved from such an ordeal. Years later, Mr. HW found himself unable to live in America because his Iranian wife was not able to gain residency in the US. Therefore, he relocated to Sydney, Australia.

After I had developed diplomatic and government relationships in Australia, I sent Mr. HW a message through another imam, informing him that I was going to inform the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation about Mr. HW and his close ties with the Iranian intelligence services, what he did to me, his close friendship with Hizbullah and his affiliation with Sheikh Mansour Leghaei. This sent an alarming message to Mr. HW as he never expected me to become the person I am today. He then sent me a message on Facebook requesting that I get in touch with him. I responded saying that I could only meet with him in person, but he never responded because he wasn’t prepared to do so. Until today, Mr. HW has not even apologized to me for what he did, and neither will I be able to ever forgive him for the torture I endured, especially when he knew that I was innocent.

The university exams were two weeks away, and I decided to continue my studies as well as my work at Ayatollah Makarem’s office. I extended my visa one more time, which gave me an extra year to live in Iran. I completed my exams, but the university refused to give me my certificates; they still lie in my student portfolio under the number 41145. Therefore, knowing that my visa was valid for another year, I decided to withdraw from the Al-Mustafa University. After all, it was merely an establishment set up to radicalize and jihadize Muslim men and groom them into being missionaries, and is not recognized as an educational institution by any reputable university outside of Iran. I saw it for what it really stood for and withdrew honorably. I demanded documents upon my withdrawal in order that none of the extremist supporters of the Iranian regime could accuse me in the future of being expelled by either Al-Mahdi Institute or Aalul-Bayt University, which were both administered by Al Mustafa International University.