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Freedom But at a Price

June 30, 2004
This is Gwent
Tom Whiteley

NEW LIFE: Iranian refugee Maryam pictured with her daughter and a friend

She loves her country - but Maryam was forced to flee Iran to save her life and the life of her daughter.

Tom Whiteley speaks to Maryam, now a refugee living in Newport, about escaping the country in which she feared she would be put to death, and her continuing longing for her homeland.

What would it take for you to leave your family, your friends and your home for an uncertain life in a foreign country hundreds of miles away?

Even after 24 years of life under a regime which denied women the right to be educated or walk the streets alone, it wasn't until one Middle Eastern mother's life was in danger that she fled her home country.

Maryam (not her real name) and her husband and daughter, who are legally classed as refugees, live in Newport after coming to Britain last year.

They fled their home country of Iran after more than two months in hiding. Their nightmare began in 1979, when the Islamic Revolution overthrew the Shah of Iran.

Maryam, now in her late thirties, says: "We were very young, only teenagers when it happened. We were a big middle-class family and a family who cared about education.

"After the Revolution, between 1979 and 1981 we had a very short and unstable atmosphere of freedom just for two years. This freedom was not given to us. This was what the people took for themselves."

But following the ascent of Ayatollah Khomeini to power, the new Islamic government began imposing fundamentalism on ordinary Iranians. And one of its first actions was to force women to wear the traditional headscarf, the hijab, at all times.

Maryam says: "The hijab they made us wear everywhere - in schools, universities and offices. It was not to be worn with family but as soon as a stranger comes. I believe in it as a moslem but it should not be compulsory for all people.

"It was a sign that there was more suppression on the way, for all the society but particularly for women.

"At the same time they smashed people, they harassed people and insulted people in the streets, especially those women who did not wear the hijab.

"Then men couldn't wear short-sleeved shirts. They had to cover their arms. Then they dismissed all women from the offices and brought in compulsory prayer in the offices.

"They started to suppress political parties. This meant that more suppression was on the way for us and we had a real feeling of fear. "People were killed in the streets and the jails. One of my friends was arrested - she was only 16 - just for speaking about her ideas. They didn't release her and after two years they executed her. That was after many, many tortures - putting out the cigarettes on her skin and so on."

In Maryam's youth Iran had been a prosperous country ruled by the Shah. But the Islamic Revolution soon affected every part of her life. She says: "Iran was more aggressive, more fundamental, more religious. They were very rude. If you were a woman out in public the Revolutionary Guards would come to you and ask who the man with you was and if it was your brother or husband. If you said `He's my cousin,' they would arrest both of you.

"They would ask you why you put on make-up and why you put on the clothes you were wearing. Indoors was the only place you were in freedom to speak and in freedom to write." In the 1980s, Maryam was arrested and imprisoned for distributing political leaflets.

She says: "I went to court and they sentenced me - they did it all in five minutes. The only evidence was one man who came along and said he'd seen me, and that was enough.

"Without any solicitor or lawyer or anyone to defend me, they sentenced me to four years in prison.

"We were in a room no bigger than an ordinary front room and there were 80 prisoners in that room. We couldn't sleep at the same time. We had to take turns. And every day they chose someone for execution and they would choose someone for whipping.

"In 1988, after my release, the Ayatollah ordered a massacre in all the prisons in Iran and they killed about 10,000 prisoners - mostly political prisoners.

"They would ask one question - if you agreed with them or not. If you said No you were shot. Most of our friends were executed in this year."

Maryam and her family were forced to flee when her husband argued with a man related to a member of the Revolutionary Guard. They were forced into hiding for two-and-a-half months before paying thousands of pounds to be smuggled out of Iran.

The family was officially declared refugees and will be eligible to apply for British citizenship in a year.

But while Maryam loves the freedom of Wales, she longs to return to the country and the family she has left.

She says: "I felt a very heavy thing on my heart which I cannot explain to anyone in Britain.

"The freedom we have here is good and I like that we have it, but it's how I can use this freedom to improve things and to tell my story to the world. "We are here alone. We can't have direct contact with our families and that is very difficult. My daughter says she is happy and sad. "In my dreams I am still in my country."

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