Abuse of power

One of the most important encounters of our time in Iran has been the hardest one to blog about. I've changed the names of the two people involved and removed all of the possibly identifying detail which I'd originally intended to include. You'll understand why.

One afternoon, Aisling and I bumped into a father and his teenage daughter. Dad was carrying a bag of groceries. After exchanging the usual pleasantries, dad invited us to have lunch with them. "That'd be lovely," Aisling replied.

We walked on together, introducing ourselves. Dad's name is Firouz, his daughter Hengameh. Hengameh's English is good, Firouz's more rudimentary.

We arrived at their house and Firouz busied himself preparing first chay for everyone and later, lunch. As we sat around drinking chay, Firouz asked, "what's your opinion of the Iranian government?"

I tried to give a diplomatic reply, along the lines that in European media we read a very one-dimensional view of Iran, so part of the reason for our visit was to talk to ordinary Iranians to find out what the real story is. Firouz saw my reply for what it was, an attempt to side-step the question, chuckled, and then began slowly revealing his own opinion on Iranian politics and describing his experiences under the theocratic regime since the 1979 revolution.

Firouz was a young teacher at the time - in his early twenties - and was politically active. When the Islamic revolutionaries gained the upper hand, he was sacked from his job. Worse things happened, but I'm not going to mention those details - they could be used to identify the people concerned.

All of this was mediated through Hengameh, who's fourteen.

Firouz didn't volunteer the information that he'd been tortured. I'd asked. Hengameh didn't know what the English word 'torture' meant, so I said "Bastinado?"

"Hah!" exclaimed Firouz and looked at the floor, then his daughter. "Yes", said Hengameh.

Bastinado is an old punishment which has been used in Iran for hundreds of years. The victim is put on their back with their legs in the air strapped to a horizontal wooden pole. The soles of the victim's feet are then lashed with whips.

While Firouz is good-humoured and stoic, Hengameh is filled with a righteous rage about the impotence of ordinary Iranians to effect change in the country.

Throughout our conversation, the television was on, murmering away quietly in the background. A newscast showed Mullahs involved in the preparations for the religious festival which was happening at the time. "Look at them, they're animals!" Hengameh exclaimed. "They're not religious, they're violent and they only want power."

Firouz served up delicious fried freshwater fish, local flatbread, rice and yogurt with aubergine and garlic. As we ate I asked both Hengameh and Firouz if they expected to see an end to the theocratic regime in their lifetimes. Firouz shrugged and said it was impossible to predict. Hengameh seemed more fatalistic: "The ones in power will do anything to keep their power. They are not the Iranian people. They don't care about anybody."

"How many journalists are in prison in Ireland?" Firouz asked. "None," I replied emphatically. "In Iran, two hundred and fifty," he responded drily, watching me for my reaction. Yes, I was shocked. Back at home, I've checked that statistic; Reporters Without Borders write in their 2008 annual report on Iran that "...the country remained the Middle East’s biggest prison for journalists, with more than 50 journalists jailed in 2007." Irrespective of the accuracy of Firouz' statistic, the contrast with Ireland is revealing.

It was three o'clock in the afternoon when we all gathered up our things to leave. I was really shaken by what I'd heard - it's one thing to read about human rights abuses, another thing entirely to speak to someone who's been on the receiving end of that abuse.

In Iran, people are subjected to brutal and arbitrary injustices. There is no free press. Anyone who dares to speak out is silenced. How galling it must be when the brutal regime claims to take its word from God to justify its exercise of power.