|  Return
of Shahrzad
Part 13
By Eric J. Jerpe
May 6, 2004
iranian.com
"Not long after the Roman New Year, my mother
passed away. I attended her funeral overcome with emotion. I spent
a few more days in Isfahan, then bade farewell to relatives and
flew Iran Air to Tehran. I spent a portion of that night in a hotel.
I woke up early while it was still dark and took a taxi to the
airport for my flight to Istanbul.
"I sat in the lounge waiting to board the Turkish
Airways flight, looking forward to being able to change from traditional
garb to
modern dress. I did not imagine that my world was about to be
turned upside down, but, indeed, that is what happened when two
men came
up to me, showed me their police credentials, and told me I was
under arrest.
"'Me! What for?' I meekly responded.
"'For the crime of pornography,' one of them answered.
"I could not believe my ears. I thought of the belly-dancer
movie and the music videos I had appeared in, but all my recorded
performances
had been done outside Iran and presumably never shown inside
Iran. True, Annette Funicello's bikini beach movies of forty years
ago are considered pornographic in Iran, but how could they prosecute
me for something done in a place where no laws had been broken?
"I went quietly with my captors to the police station.
I was locked up in a cell and told to await trial. I requested
to be allowed
contact with my relatives in Isfahan, but the request was denied.
I spent what seemed to be an interminable length of time in solitary
confinement, unable to sleep, hoping and praying that the whole
matter would be cleared up and I would soon be released. "Eventually, the same two police officers who had
arrested me came and picked me up in my cell. They escorted me
outside to a car.
I was driven a short distance to the magistrate's building,
then escorted into the courtroom. There I faced a turbaned judge.
"The
prosecution pointed to a pile of VCR tapes and demanded that
I either acknowledge or deny involvement in the production
of said
tapes. Portions of a tape were run, and I discovered it to
be a recording the belly-dancing movie made in California. Scenes
depicting
me, both dancing alone and as part of the troupe, were shown
in glaring detail. At the end of the tape, a list of credits
was given,
and my name appeared, identifying me as one of the dancers.
The
prosecution then declared that I had blasphemously disgraced
my father, a prominent martyr for Islam, and therefore deserved
the
harshest of punishments.
"Clearly, I could not deny my involvement. But the
defense attorney was quick to point out that these pornographic
tapes were made
outside Iran, in a godless place where there was no law against
such decadence; also, there was no evidence of my involvement
in their being smuggled into Iran and sold on the black market.
The
prosecution countered by showing another tape, this one of a
recent MTV video made in Turkey. The tape revealed me performing
sexually
suggestive dances, and also gave my name in the credits. The
prosecution reiterated the evil I had done to the memory of my
martyred father.
The defense noted that such productions were not illegal in the
secular Republic of Turkey. The prosecution declared that the
tapes nonetheless violated Sunni morality and, while the Turkish
government
was strictly committed to separation of mosque and state, the
Turkish people were still bound by Sharia. The prosecution added
that I
was the only known link between this pornography and its appearance
in Iran.
"The judge closed the court session and ordered
me sent back to my cell. Before taking me there, the two arresting
officers took
me into an interrogation room and drilled me in the classic good
cop, bad cop technique.
"The good cop said they were not interested in incarcerating
a pawn like me, but that they were determined to break up an extensive
pornography ring peddling VCR's on the black market. If I
cooperated, and informed on the members of this pornography ring,
I could be released very soon. I replied by telling the truth:
I had no knowledge whatsoever about any pornography ring and
no
idea at all as to how the tapes had been smuggled into Iran.
The bad cop responded by calling me a 'filthy whore,' and
told me I was going to pay dearly for fomenting insurrection
within society.
"They returned me to my cell. I spent another full
day without sleep as I anxiously waited to learn my fate. The light
was always
on
and the cell was cut off from natural sunlight, so I felt the
torture of never knowing what time of day it was. I spent another
full
day without sleep as I anxiously waited to learn my fate.
"Finally, I was taken from my cell, driven to the
Magistrate's building, and brought once again into the courtroom.
I was forced
to stand before the clerical judge, who harshly lectured me on
how the spreading corruption was undermining the very fabric
of society. After delivering his tirade, he declared me guilty
of
the crime of pornography. I fell to my knees, but the arresting
officers forced me to stand up again.
"'You are hereby sentenced to a minimum
of one year in prison,' pronounced the judge, 'with your
sentence to be reviewed in one year.' "
"Devastated, I was taken back to my cell in a state
of shock. Alone,
I cried and cried until no more tears would come. Finally, I
fell asleep, for the first time in days.
"After some time, I was awakened by the arresting
officers. Covered in a chador, I was taken out to a car and driven
several kilometers
outside the city to a small airfield. The two officers turned
me over to another group of police, and I was forced into a small
airplane. Inside the plane were another half-dozen imprisoned
women,
like me all covered up in chadors. The plane took off.
"I had no idea where we were being sent but, looking
out the window, I could view the changing terrain and realized
we were heading
south. Hours later, the plane landed in a small, isolated airfield
somewhere in the desert.
"We disembarked from the plane and were driven to
our final destination, a formidable women's prison. Although most
of the guards
were men, the highest ranking prison official was a woman. Individually,
each of us was taken to this warden for a formal processing into
our place of confinement.
"The warden, a stone-faced middle-aged woman, was
the most mean-spirited witch I have ever met. She told me right
off the bat that if I
showed even the slightest bit of defiance or lack of cooperation
I would spend the rest of my life in these hellish surroundings.
At that moment, my greatest fear was that I would, in this place,
become as ugly as her in body and spirit.
"Upon completion of the processing, I was sent to
my cell. Exactly one year and one day ago, I began my sentence
for the crime of
pornography. I had striven to make the most of my youth; now,
I was sure that my youth would be squandered in the wasteland of
incarceration.
"I went through sheer hell inside the prison walls,
whether alone or in the company of other lost-soul women. In addition
to the
miserable conditions, I had a fear of being raped by brute-male
prison guards. Other women explained to me that, while there would
be no rape per se, the male guards did sometimes take advantage
of a woman's desperation to coerce her into granting sexual
favors; if she refused, they made life even more miserable for
her. But all the guards were subordinate to the witchy warden,
who wielded her power in such a way that the male guards had to
deal with her in order to obtain sex from any of the female prisoners.
Thus, the women's prison became a medieval Ottoman harem
of backstabbing intrigue between inmates, guards and the overseeing
warden.
"Occasionally, I was called into the warden's office. She
had studied my case carefully, and kept trying to pry out of me
information concerning the 'great smuggling ring' conspiracy.
Quite submissively, I kept repeating that I knew nothing about
how the 'pornographic' tapes had been smuggled into
Iran. At one point, I broke down and cried. Her reaction to my
tears was to say, 'Do you know what your crying does to me?
It makes me want to treat you worse.' Gradually, I was so
beaten down in spirit that I lost even the will to plead innocence;
I would tell that stone-faced woman whatever she wanted to hear
even if it meant lying.
"I became willing to prostitute myself, if by so
doing I could alleviate my suffering; but I had no guarantee that
such debasement
would
improve my situation at all. Gnawing away at my psyche was the
uncertainty as to whether or not I would be freed after one year.
Prison guards kept dropping hints that the only way I could gain
my freedom would be to submit to their carnal desires.
"At times, I wanted to die. But then, seven months
after I first entered this inferno, a new inmate arrived who reinstilled
in me
the will to live."
"Shahrzad of the Mountain of the Sacred Spring!"
interrupted Roxana. "What has happened to her?"
"Let her finish," enjoined Romeen.
"The Shahrzad you speak of is in good health
at present," informed Anaheita, adding, "but how long will she
remain so?" The
belly dancer who had spent a year in prison became noticeably
agitated. She raised her arms in supplication and petitioned the
Almighty:
"Eternal Being, please save her! Take my life in her place if
you must.". >>> To
be continued >>> Previois
parts
*
*
|
