Captive in Iran (2 page)

Finally we pulled up to the police station in the Gisha neighborhood, a three-story brick building where people came and went all day for motor vehicle documents. As usual, the main entrance was busy. But instead of taking us in through the front door, the
basiji
ordered us out of the car and escorted us to a quiet back alley out of public view, with extra guards at the door. This was the entrance to Base Two, the facility for the security police who deal with crimes against the state.

Our incredible, frightening journey had started early that morning, March 5, 2009. As Maryam and I were getting ready to go our separate ways to run some errands, I received a mysterious phone call. A polite voice
on the line informed me of a problem with my car registration and asked me to go to the Gisha police station before two o’clock to sort it out. I quickly called the former owner of the car to see if he knew of any problem, but he didn’t answer his phone. Then I called an attorney friend to ask if I should be concerned.

“No,” my friend assured me. “These problems come up all the time. It’s nothing to worry about.”

Even so, I couldn’t help thinking about what had happened a few days earlier when I went to have my passport renewed. One of the forms had asked me to indicate my religion, and I had checked the box for “Christian.” When my turn came at the counter, the clerk was indignant.

“How is this possible?” he demanded. “You have an Islamic name. Your parents are Muslims. How can you be a Christian?”

“With the Lord, anything is possible,” I said. The clerk shot me a stern look but said nothing more.

I remembered that exchange as I went on my errands and visited my sister, Elena, before arriving at the police station at about 11:30. A guard at the door stopped me.

“What is your business here?” he asked.

“I received a call saying there might be a problem with my car registration,” I explained.

“You should not enter here dressed that way.”

I was modestly dressed, with my hair completely covered, as required in public, but I was not wearing the Islamic
chador
because I am not a Muslim.

“But I have covered myself,” I said.

“I’ve said what I have to say,” the guard replied. “The rest is up to you. But if you come in dressed that way, you will be ignored and no one will help you.”

In the interest of getting to the bottom of the documentation mystery, I went back to the apartment and changed, then returned to the police station. By then, the office was closed for lunch and for one of the daily calls to prayer required by Islamic law.

I explained to the guard that I had been told to be at the office no later than 2:00 p.m. The guard insisted the office was closed and that no one could
help me now. After several minutes of arguing, I finally convinced him to let me inside, where I explained to the clerk at the counter about the phone call.

“That’s impossible,” the clerk declared. “I don’t think we called you. You must be mistaken.” He handed me an address. “Try this office instead.”

At that moment, an overweight, middle-aged man in a police uniform walked by. “I am Mr. Haghighat,” he said pleasantly. (
Haghighat
is the Farsi word for “truth.” Police officials, judges, and other people in the Iranian government don’t use their real names. This man’s alias would soon prove ironic.) “I think I can help you,” he said. “Follow me.”

He led me down a hallway to a sparsely furnished room where a husky man with a big, square face covered with heavy black stubble sat waiting at a table. His dark, deep-set eyes seemed too small for his head, and his brow was deeply furrowed with a constant scowl.

To my surprise, the man smiled and said, “You’ve come to the right place. I am the one who called you this morning. My name is Mr. Rasti.” (
Rasti
is another Farsi word meaning “truth.”) “Please take a seat,” he said. Mr. Haghighat left the room and closed the door behind him, leaving me alone with Mr. Rasti.

“Show me your papers,” he said.

I handed over my identification card, driver’s license, and vehicle registration. After looking at them for a long moment, Mr. Rasti began asking questions, without looking up.

“Are you married or single?”

“Single.”

“Do you live alone or with your parents?”

“I live with a friend.”

He asked for my address and some other personal details. Then there was another pause.

“Are you a Christian?”

Aha! This was their purpose all along. The car had nothing to do with it. They’ve called me in because of my passport application.
“Yes, I have been a Christian for eleven years. Why do you ask me now?”

“Do you know the Bible?”

“Yes, of course. I am a Christian and I know the Bible. I have a Bible. Is there a problem with that?”

Mr. Rasti didn’t answer; instead, he asked if I had been at a certain restaurant on a specific date. It was a popular restaurant that served customers in traditional style, reclining on couches at tables placed on low platforms. The food and music were traditional as well. Young people packed the place, and plainclothes security police watched it constantly.

“I don’t remember,” I replied. “I can’t even remember what I ate yesterday. I think I know this restaurant, but I don’t know if I was there on that date or not.”

Mr. Rasti looked up at last, his eyes drilling into mine. “Our security guards saw you and your friend at that restaurant last month, giving away Bibles. They took down your license number, and now we have found you. Did you give Bibles to people in that restaurant?”

“I am a Christian,” I repeated, “and I believe in the Bible. If somebody asks me questions about the Bible, I answer them. If somebody asks me for a Bible, I will give them one. It could be that I gave someone a New Testament in that restaurant. Is there a problem with that?”

Mr. Rasti’s mood and expression changed completely. He sprang from his chair with a sour expression on his face and shouted, “I’ll tell you the problem with that! Guard! Get me two female officers in this room immediately!”

The sudden change of atmosphere was startling, and it frightened me for a moment. Then I remembered the promise I had made to the Lord long ago:
I will never deny You. I trust You to be with me always and overcome my fear.

Two women in
chador
s and long veils rushed into the room. “You are under arrest,” Mr. Rasti said as one of the women fastened handcuffs around my wrists. He left the room and returned with two other men, one young and lanky, the other a little older and fair skinned.

“We have orders to search your apartment,” Mr. Rasti declared. “You must go with these two while they conduct the search. What about your roommate—where is she now?”

“At the dentist,” I replied.

“At the dentist, or off somewhere handing out Bibles?” Mr. Rasti said with a smirk.

Still in handcuffs, I was hustled into a small white police car with the two young men and a young woman named Zahra, who beamed at me with a superior air. On our way to the apartment, I leaned over to Zahra
and whispered, “I am a Christian. You have shackled me for my faith and for no other reason. I am honored to serve Christ this way, and I want you to know I’m not upset with you for what you did.” Zahra’s smile quickly faded, and she didn’t look at me again for the rest of the trip.

MARYAM

Before going to the dentist, I had spent part of the morning shopping for the upcoming New Year’s celebration, braving crowds so dense I could scarcely walk through the streets, where shop windows were piled high with goods. Some of the items, such as painted eggs, were available only around the holidays.

As I made my way through the crowded streets, I thought,
Maybe after I’m done at the dentist I’ll buy a couple of traditional New Year’s goldfish—a red one for Marziyeh and a black one for myself.

I had overheard Marziyeh’s phone call about the car registration that morning and the call to her lawyer friend asking for advice. The story about the car had sounded suspicious, and I was worried. But I reminded myself,
Whatever God has planned for our lives to fulfill His purpose is what will happen. No person, no regime, has the power to change it.

After thirty minutes in the dentist’s chair, I made a follow-up appointment for a few days later. Still worried about Marziyeh and the mysterious call, I called her cell phone.

“I’m at home,” Marziyeh said, “but I’ll only be here long enough to change clothes so that the clerk at the police station will help me.”

“Wait till I get there,” I said. “Something isn’t right about this. Let’s talk it over and think about what to do.”

“You’re right that we have to be careful,” Marziyeh said, “but I want to get back to the police station and get that taken care of so I can do the rest of my errands. I’ll write the address down and leave it for you.” Little did I know that Marziyeh was walking into a trap and would return home under arrest. Our faith in God was about to be put to the test.

Only two days earlier, she and I had been talking to each other about Luke, who had become a follower of Jesus at a dangerous time and had
followed the apostle Paul faithfully until Paul’s martyrdom. Could we be that faithful, that strong? Yes, we could, we agreed. We would go anywhere for Christ—Saudi Arabia, Moscow, wherever the voice of the Lord was threatened the most.

But could we really? Would we truly go anywhere to follow Jesus and do His work? The commitment seemed easy enough when we were talking about it alone in our apartment. Now we were under arrest and in police custody, and the prospect was a far more serious matter. From the look on Marziyeh’s face, I could tell she felt the same way I did: trying to appear confident on the outside, but petrified with fright on the inside. My already queasy stomach had turned to knots and my mouth was suddenly as dry as the Dasht-e Lut desert, but an electric surge of adrenaline pulsed through my veins.

Fighting our rising panic, we knew we were weak and not brave. Even Peter, Jesus’ closest friend, had denied the Lord when facing danger. Would we deny Christ to save ourselves? If we failed as Peter had failed, how could we ever forgive ourselves? I prayed for the Lord to keep us strong. We could be brave and resist only in His strength, not our own. Without Christ we were nothing. With Him, we were covered in His strength and protection.

These thoughts comforted me as Marziyeh and I were escorted through the same crowded building where she had been by herself just a few hours earlier. The men who had searched our apartment led us up a flight of stairs to a small office with bare walls, a big desk with a window behind it, and four chairs. What appeared to be confiscated property was piled on the desk and all over the floor. We sat down and watched as they brought in everything they had taken from us and stacked it on the desk with all the rest.

“Sit still and don’t talk to each other,” a female guard ordered.

We did as we were told. Then we heard footsteps in the hallway.

Marziyeh

Mr. Rasti walked into the room. He glanced at us with his dark little eyes and began picking through the pile of our belongings on the desk. He held a New Testament up to the light and then rummaged through a stack of CDs. Suddenly he frowned. He looked up at the officer named Mohammadi.

“Have you collected all the evidence?” he asked sternly. Mohammadi and his partner shifted their weight and nodded.

“Didn’t they have a laptop?”

Mohammadi started, his eyes opening wide. Sheepishly he said, “I’m sorry. I thought we had it. We must have left it at their house.”

“Take one of the guilty girls and go back for it. Immediately.”

Here we had been in custody for only a few minutes, yet we were already “the guilty girls.” Still wearing handcuffs, and with her jaw throbbing now that the pain medication had worn off, Maryam went with Mohammadi and the young policewoman to retrieve the laptop.

I stayed in the room with a guard, handcuffed. I hadn’t had anything to eat or drink since morning and started shaking with weakness. I asked
for water, determined to show I was exhausted, not afraid. Mr. Rasti left the room briefly and then returned, settling behind the desk with a stern expression.

“You will tell me the truth from now on,” he snapped.

“I have always told the truth,” I answered sharply. “But you have not! You lied to me about the car this morning to bring me here. I told you I’ve been a Christian for eleven years. I’ve handed out New Testaments at the restaurant you mentioned. I could have denied everything, but I answered honestly. And now you order me to tell the truth
from now on
?” I could feel my voice rising.

“I was obliged to lie to you,” Mr. Rasti explained.

“You ransacked my apartment without a warrant,” I continued. “Without any authority whatsoever. Is that right? Is that the law?”

“We have a warrant,” Mr. Rasti insisted. “It’s right here.”

He thrust a piece of paper across the desk. In the quick moment I had to glance at it, I could see it was something completely unrelated to our case. Someone had scribbled a notation in the lower margin about searching our house, and added a signature and a stamp.

“That is not a legal warrant,” I said. “It’s nothing. It’s a fake.”

Taken aback by my resistance, Mr. Rasti took a moment to regain his composure. “In an urgent situation, we can get permission over the phone,” he said. “We don’t have time to type it!” Obviously upset, he jumped to his feet and left the room.

When Maryam and her guards returned with the laptop, we were taken to a small room off a beautiful little inner courtyard. They put us in chairs on opposite walls so we couldn’t talk to each other, and told us to wait.

Three young women guards started talking among themselves. “They have become Christians!” one of them said. “We discovered a bunch of Bibles and other Christian propaganda in their apartment. They’re in deep trouble. And because they’re still here, I probably won’t have time for my afternoon nap!”

“What made you become a Christian?” one of the women asked Maryam angrily. “Don’t you know that makes you
kafar
?” she added, using the Islamic word for “infidel.”

Another woman was reading aloud from the Koran. She looked up
from the page and said, “I want to know why you became a Christian. We believe in Jesus too.”

Though Maryam was obviously exhausted and no doubt hungry and still in pain, she briefly explained the Christian belief that Jesus is the Savior of humankind. “He was not just a prophet, as the Koran claims. He was God in the flesh, who accepted the sins of the world. He was crucified to pay the price we should have paid for our transgressions. Three days after His death, He rose from the dead and ascended to heaven to be with God the Father.”

The woman with the Koran said in a loud voice, “According to the Koran, you are
kafar
! Jesus was never crucified. He escaped beforehand. He came as a prophet, not a savior, and anyone who believes he is the son of God is
kafar
and will be sentenced to death! I feel very sorry for you.”

The female guards all started talking at once, laughing at our claims and the idea that we would sit in jail to uphold such ridiculous beliefs.

Another guard came to the door and called my name. “Come with me,” she ordered. I followed her upstairs and back into Mr. Rasti’s office.

“Have a seat,” Mr. Rasti said. I sat in front of his desk, still piled high with our New Testaments and CDs. The handcuffs hurt my wrists and I was very hungry by now, but I said a quick, silent prayer and was determined to stay calm.

“How long did you say you have been a Christian?” he began.

“Eleven years.”

“And how did you convert to your religion?”

“From the Spirit of Christ entering my heart, and from reading the Bible and other books.”

“Do you have a relationship with any churches in Iran?”

“No.”

“How many Christians do you know?”

The truth was, I knew of many other Christians. But if I admitted that to this man, he would demand their names and addresses. Their safety, freedom, families, and even their lives would suddenly be in danger—and Maryam and I would be completely unable to warn them. I would never lie about my faith in Christ, no matter what the cost. But I had to protect innocent people from whatever Maryam and I were about to undergo.

“None except for Maryam.”

“Where did you convert to Christianity?”

“In Turkey.” Again, this wasn’t exactly true. I had been baptized in Turkey seven years after becoming a Christian in Iran. But I knew that if I admitted to becoming a Christian in Iran, it would raise enough questions to get a lot more people in trouble. “Turkey is where Maryam and I met each other.”

“Did you go to church in Turkey?”

“I lived there for a year, and sometimes I went to church.”

“Why did you go to church?”

“To pray and to get in touch with other Iranians in Turkey.”

“How many people did you give Bibles to?”

“To my friends there who asked questions, and anybody I thought would like to know about my faith in Christ.”

“Have you given away Bibles when you travel?”

“I always carry some New Testaments with me, and if people ask, I will give them one.”

There were more questions: Why did I live in my own apartment and not with my parents? How much money did I make? How did we get Bibles into the country? Who were the people in the pictures on our laptop? Finally, Mr. Rasti shoved a stack of papers across the desk.

“Sign,” he ordered.

I didn’t have a chance to read them and was too tired to argue. After I signed, a guard took me back to the room where Maryam waited and took Maryam upstairs for her interrogation by Mr. Rasti.

MARYAM

After I was seated in Mr. Rasti’s office, he began with the same litany of questions I later learned he had asked Marziyeh.

“How long have you been a Christian?”

“Eleven years.”

“Are your parents also Christians?”

“No.”

“Why do you believe in Jesus? Does this mean you’re no longer a Muslim?”

“I believe in Jesus because His Spirit came into my heart,” I explained. “I know He is the Son of God, and He is my Savior.”

“Who invited you to become a Christian?”

“Nobody. I studied the Bible. Jesus Himself revealed His truth to me.”

“What Christians are you connected to, besides your roommate?”

“Nobody.”

“Who gave you all the Bibles and CDs and other religious material?”

“Nobody. They are my property. I personally brought them to Iran.”

“Did you speak to anyone about Jesus after you converted?”

“Yes. Family, friends, anyone who asked.”

“Did you give them Bibles or CDs?”

“Yes, if they asked.”

“According to Miss Marziyeh Amirizadeh, the two of you have been out today in your car distributing Bibles. Do you deny this?”

What a ridiculous trick.
This is a common interrogation method: tell a lie about what the other person said on the chance the suspect will admit something she wouldn’t otherwise, because she’s duped into thinking the authorities already know about it. Marziyeh and I knew each other too well and trusted each other too much for this trick to work.

“No, we weren’t handing out Bibles. I was at the dentist.”

“Your friend has confessed that the two of you went to various cities in northern Iran to distribute Bibles.”

“She said that?”

“Yes,” Mr. Rasti insisted, glowering. “I have it all written down right here.” He motioned to some papers in front of him.

“It didn’t happen,” I replied.

“Do you know it is illegal to speak about Jesus or give away Bibles?”

“No,” I said. “I didn’t know that talking about God could be an offense.”

“How many people have you talked to about Jesus since you converted to Christianity?”

Untold thousands
, I thought to myself. But I didn’t say it out loud.

“Maybe ten or twelve people a year, and I handed out about the same number of New Testaments.”

There were questions where I could avoid saying anything that would harm others, and not tell a lie. But this question could lead down a trail of more questions and tragedy for others, and I would not say anything that would put people in danger. Though neither of us would lie about our personal faith, we also would not betray our friends. Although I didn’t know it at the time, I had just made the same choice that Marziyeh had made during her interrogation.

“Why do you do this?” Mr. Rasti demanded harshly. “Why do you want to separate the youth from their faith and beliefs?”

“That has never been my objective,” I said. “I’ve never tried to separate anyone from their beliefs. If they have questions, I answer them. If they want to know more, I tell them, because I want them to know the truth about the Lord’s love and about Jesus, their Savior.”

“Don’t you believe in the prophet of Islam, the leadership of the imams, and the fact that Islam is the most complete religion?”

“No, I don’t. The Bible says that Jesus Christ is the first and last Savior of the human race. Jesus says, ‘No one comes to the Father except through me.’”
[1]

“You have been misled!” Mr. Rasti said, frowning. “There are no such words in the true Bible. Jesus has promised that the last prophet will come after him, and that prophet is Mohammed. You have been brainwashed by a distorted version of the Bible. You should read the correct version, which is for sale in bookshops all over Iran.”

“Mr. Rasti,” I said, “I did not come to believe in Jesus because of any book, other people’s opinions, recommendations of the church, or my own research. Jesus spoke to me in my heart. I experienced Him, felt Him, and my spirit touched Him and knows He is alive. Before I believed, before I ever set foot in a church, I heard His voice calling me and I answered.”

Mr. Rasti motioned to a stack of notes he had made during the interrogation, with the questions in red and answers in black. “Put your signature and fingerprint beside every answer,” he instructed.

“But I haven’t read any of them,” I replied.

Mr. Rasti drew himself up in a huff. “I would not risk destroying my life after death to write down lies on this paper! I assure you I’m an honest man.”

By now, it was after 11:00 p.m. I had been interrogated for more than two hours. I had been at the police station since late afternoon and was too exhausted and too sore from my dental appointment to argue. I did as instructed, then was taken back to the office where Marziyeh waited. We still weren’t allowed to speak, but we knew each other so well that we could communicate silently.

Are you okay?
Marziyeh asked with her eyes.

Yes
, I assured her.

It was nearly midnight when another guard came in and said, “You will remain in custody. I will take you to the detention center.”

Prisoners were not housed at the police station. We had to go across town in order to be locked up. We were ushered into a room to do the necessary paperwork. A bored and sleepy-looking soldier sat behind the counter.

“What is the charge against you?” he asked, reaching for a form.

“Christianity,” we said together.

“Advertising and promoting Christianity,” added our guard as she handcuffed us to each other.

For some reason, being cuffed together struck us as funny and we started laughing. Marziyeh raised up our hands and said, “We are proud of these handcuffs because we’re wearing them on account of our faith in Jesus Christ!”

“I have faith in Jesus too,” the soldier said, “but I would never try to convert someone else to my beliefs. You’re not in custody for believing in Jesus; you’re in custody for promoting Him to others.”

We got into another dirty little white car and were driven to the Vozara Detention Center. Inside, an officer asked our guard what we were charged with. “Advertising and promoting Christianity in Iran,” he answered.

The officer let out a chuckle. “Is there really any such charge as that?” Our guard said nothing. Another officer, rough looking and overweight, seemed to be in charge. After reading over our paperwork, he started asking the same questions we’d been answering all day: How long have you been Christians? Do you live alone? And on and on.