Escaping oppression in Iran

Amin Sharifi comes from Iran. I met him at the opening of the new premises for Nasc, Cork’s support centre for immigrants. The first thing that struck me about him was his approachability, then his confidence, in spite of his halting English. He has a direct gaze and clear intelligence. He told me he was a lawyer in Iran, and had been imprisoned for three months, for taking photographs at a student demonstration. We met later that week at the Quay Co-op organic restaurant for a coffee.

There are informal, volunteer police in Iran. They hit and torture people on the street. You didn’t know them in the street, because they wore no uniform. Sometimes it happened one time per month, sometimes two times per month. The Islamic authorities used glass wool, you know fibreglass. It’s very dangerous if you get it on your hands. Well, if ladies wore make up in the streets, these police on their motorbikes or sometimes walking, would come with fibreglass and push it against your lips or eyes, and hands, and for men if they wore short-sleeved t shirts, which was also forbidden, they would push this glass wool against the hands and arms. It cut your skin. It was easy to use. On lips, it especially painful. You would get many shallow cuts, burning and bleeding for days. It happened to me.

My parents loved each other. I was very happy for them. My sister also married a man she loves. But it is different in Iran. In Iran, we have different groups of people: people at university, with education; people without access to third level education. In university, the ladies and gentlemen are allowed to sit together, to study. But before that, in schools, the young people are separated. They have separate schools. They don’t see each other. So before university it is difficult to find a lady to marry. Or if you don’t go to university, you have no way to meet them. But it is possible to see your family, and to marry your cousin. She is the only woman you know!

There are two types of marriage in Iran. You can marry a cousin. It is common in towns and villages. In the rural areas, they also marry four or five wives. The maximum is four in formal in Islamic law. But informally, you can have more! Mohammad himself married a lot of ladies. It is Islamic culture. But in the capital city and other cities, you see a lot of people with just one wife. You can’t find people with two or more wives. The young people don’t want it. They don’t like Islamic law. Even the men are happy with one wife.

17 million people live in the capital city and in other cities. So a few, maybe one million, marry a member of the family. But the young generation don’t want to marry a family member.

Teenagers are teenagers. And they will find a way. There are places. If you go to the mountains, you can go every week there, to walk, and have a nice time. There are police there too, but if you go higher, they are too lazy to go there, and it is possible to speak to ladies there. When I was 16, 17 years old, I went with my friend to the mountains. I climbed to the top. There were no police there. We tried to get other ladies to go to the mountain. We had a very nice time there. We had a small tape, and we played forbidden music, to dance. Six or seven of us at any time were looking out for police. We were just typical teenagers.

If you got caught, they tortured you and put you in prison. If they caught you with a walkman, they broke the cassette and beat you with a truncheon, and kicked you with steel-capped boots until you fell down. People would even get killed. It happened sometimes. They took you to prison. And no one knew which prison. And if something happened to you, they said it was accident.

I was three months in prison. I took pictures of a student demonstration in 2003. They tortured me so badly, so brutally. They kicked me, and beat me, and when I fell on the ground, they kicked me in the head. I still get headaches, and lose my concentration. Every year, there is a student demonstration in front of Teheran University. And they arrest them, torture and kill a lot of the students every year. If I am right it is every year since1999. It is a demonstration against the Islamic regime.

I am 37 at the moment. I have been in Ireland one year.

Amin said he would prefer it if I didn’t record how he escaped from Iran, for fear of reprisals for others attempting to leave by the same method. Suffice it to say that he escaped successfully, then found himself in Ireland.

In Dublin airport, it was confusing. I didn’t find myself feeling safe. I didn’t know what would happen to me here. What sort of country is this. What sort of people. How are the police. I didn’t know anything. I read in newspaper about Northern Ireland, and in historical books, but not so much information about Ireland. And it was difficult to know what would happen to me here. I hoped only to be safe. That is what I thought about. You have some information in Turkey. If you get a positive answer, you get refugee status. The smugglers give you information, but you don’t know exactly what will happen. Sometimes you hear stories but it’s hard to analyse it. My only thought was I am free of Iran. They can’t find me. And my hope was, I am in a country that is not Islamic. They have no contract to give back the people who escape. In Turkey, they have this contract. If a person from Iran is found, the Turkish government have to give that person back. So I was very happy to be in Ireland. But I hadn’t any concentration, and my English was very bad. I didn’t speak English. From school I could write, but speaking was very difficult for me. I saw two lines, for EU passports and for other passports. I was confused. I was going from one queue to the other. The woman asked me, ‘what are you doing?’ She kept asking me. But I didn’t know where to go.

When I got outside, I wanted to cross the street, and looked that way, and nearly got knocked down, because the cars were going on the wrong side of the road! This happened to me two or three times!

Then I went to immigration. I had to ask a lot of people. I was afraid to ask police. I saw them, but I asked other people. The taxi driver told me. I went to the refugee application commissioner office. After I was there a few hours, me and other people also asking for asylum, they took us by bus to a hostel for asylum seekers.

It took more than three months before I got an interview at the application office. There was a different understanding, I must say, between me and translator. It was very hard. The interpreter couldn’t understand. You know, maybe they were a long time in Ireland. And they don’t know the new words. Or they didn’t have the English translation. I told him if there is any word you don’t understand, just ask me. Because every year the language changes.

I had one interview. And I was refused because of the interpreter. I understood the problem, but when I got my papers, I saw I had got a negative. The problem was they gave my background to a Pashto interpreter who couldn’t understand. And when he wants to speak to me, I can’t understand, except for some words. And he couldn’t understand the Pharsi language. Maybe a little. But everything on the document was illegible to me. And unfortunately, the interviewer didn’t ask me why all the documents were illegible to me. If she wanted to ask me the problem, then I could tell her. Please ask my interpreter, he can read it. Everything is legible for him. But she didn’t do that. It was a document to show my name, education, my work before coming here.

I can’t say the name of where I worked, but I worked as a lawyer. I can’t name the office. It was a government office. We are afraid.

So they refused my application, and I appealed. I told them that I would refuse the same interpreter, because he can’t understand all the details of my case. So fortunately my solicitor had another interpreter. He was very good. Amir. We speak the same type of language, the same level of speaking and understanding. From speaking you can understand from which city, which area, which sort of family the person comes from. It is only one language, but we have different dialects. So the second application was successful. I explained everything about my documents, and what went wrong in my first interview. So I got my refugee status, and I was very happy. I am studying now. I have to improve my English. Then after that I would like to work.

First I have to study more. I am living in a flat. I had to wait three months after receiving my refugee status before getting a letter giving me permission to find my own place. So now I can find work. I am free.

What cultural differences have you noticed here?

The most different thing, I think, is the fact that you have freedom here. If you want to write an article in the newspaper, for example about a bridge being built. And you are critical of the bridge being built. It is OK. Nothing will happen to you if you express your opinion in the paper. It is not the same in Iran.

For example, in Iran there was this magazine called Harat. Harat was a scientific magazine. And one day I saw a cartoon in that magazine. It was someone playing with the globe. Holding it in his hand. And they said the editor was making a political statement in a 100% scientific magazine, which is all about inventions and discoveries. So on the evening after this issue, this cartoon came out, they attacked the magazine offices, they put all computers, all documents, all photographic negatives, they put out of the window onto the street. They beat all the people working there, they arrested them. The problem was, the man in the cartoon was wearing a turban. The turban looked like Khomeini’s turban. And they said that the cartoon was trying to show the people that Khomeini is playing with earth. So, every time you have to expect that something will happen to you.

Iranian people are not afraid though. For example, it is forbidden to have a party in your house. If you drink alcohol, and they smell alcohol on your breath, you get 80 lashes on your body. But you still see young people having parties, with music, girls and boys with their friends. They invite each other and gather in houses to dance and to drink alcohol. They know if the police – the Gardaí – know they are doing this, and drinking alcohol, they will be arrested, beaten, put in prison. But I think if something is forbidden, people are more curious to do that, more enthusiastic!

What do you think of the people you’ve met in Ireland?

I’ve met all kinds of people. I haven’t had any bad experiences. Fortunately I’ve met very kind and good people. But one problem I’ve noticed is that time is not important for people. They organise meetings, but then don’t turn up. They organise well, but they don’t organise 100%. First it’s good, and then not. You also see an excess of organising. It is not necessary. Sometimes I see promise, but no follow through. For example I say I will call you after a few days and invite you somewhere. But if they say they will call, I can wait one month, two months. It’s happened with more than one person. Two, three. But for me, if I make an appointment, I have to be there. This sort of thing could improve things in Ireland.

They are respectful though. They respect your opinions, even if they don’t agree. In my country I couldn’t say, ‘I don’t believe in God.’ Whereas I know here, 95% of people believe in God, but at any moment I could say, ‘I don’t believe in God,’ and they will respect that. They won’t have a bad reaction. And that is good for me. We have to respect all ideas, all ideologies, all religions of other people. You can say you’re a Catholic, I can say I’m an atheist, someone else can say I believe in Islam, but it’s not a sin to have different ideas. It’s good in Ireland that they accept that.

Any other negatives about Ireland, apart from the relaxed attitude to time?

No, just this problem with time. I was in hospital, and it took more than six hours before I could see a doctor. I ran into a tree and hit my nose! I just didn’t see the tree! My nose was not broken, but I had a torn ligament. It was very painful! But at emergency it took more than six hours.

But for all the rest, I am happy. For me, freedom is the best thing about Ireland.

So do you feel at home here?

Yes, now I do. Because for me, home is where I feel safe.

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The 18th largest country in the world, Iran is about the size of the UK, France, Spain and Germany combined. It has a population of over seventy million people, and hosts the largest immigrant population in the world, about one million, mainly from Iraq and Afghanistan.

Iran borders Armenia, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan to the north, Afghanistan and Pakistan to the east, and Turkey and Iraq to the west. It also borders the Persian Gulf, an important oil-producing area, Gulf of Oman, and the Caspian Sea. Its geographically significant central location gives it proximity to Europe, Africa, South and Central Asia.

Iran occupies an important position in international energy security and world economy due to its large reserves of petroleum and natural gas. The country is also known for its independent stances in the global arena.

The Iranian Revolution, (also known as the Islamic Revolution) which began in January 1978 and ended in February 1979, transformed Iran from a monarchy to an Islamic republic under an 80-year old, previously exiled religious scholar, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, with overwhelming support by Iranian citizens. Iran’s relations with the United States became deeply antagonistic during the revolution.

Iraqi leader, Saddam Hussein decided to take advantage of what he perceived to be disorder in the wake of the Iranian Revolution and its unpopularity with Western governments. He had ambitions to position himself as the new strong man of the Middle East. His objective was to expand Iraq’s access to the Persian Gulf and to acquire more oil fields. On September 22 1980, his forces invaded Iran, precipitating the Iran-Iraq War. The attack took Iran completely by surprise, but by 1982 they had managed to push the Iraqi forces back into Iraq. The war continued for six more years, until 1988, when Khomeini, in his words, ‘drank the cup of poison’ and accepted a truce mediated by the United Nations.

Iraq used chemical weapons as part of its war strategy. Iranian casualties of the war were estimated to be between 500 000 and 1 000 000. Iraq was financially backed by Egypt, the Arab countries of the Persian Gulf, the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact states, the United States, France, the UK, Germany, Brazil and the People’s Republic of China (which also sold weapons to Iran.) All relevant international agencies unanimously confirmed that Iran never used chemical weapons during the war.

Twenty years on from Islamic Revolution, however, the human rights situation in Iran remains poor. The Government restricts the right of citizens to change their government, manipulates the electoral system and represses political dissidents. Systematic abuses include extrajudicial killings and summary executions; disappearances; widespread use of torture and other degrading treatment; harsh prison conditions; arbitrary arrest and detention; lack of due process; unfair trials; infringement on citizens' privacy; and restrictions on freedom of speech, press, assembly, association, religion, and movement. Religious minorities, in particular Baha'is, have come under increasing repression by conservative elements of the judiciary and security establishment. The Government restricts the work of human rights groups. Women face legal and social discrimination, and violence against women occurs.

Sources: Wikipedia.org and US State Department