Kidnapped in Iran: First her mobile phone disappeared, then she disappeared

The voice

A young woman had to leave her homeland. The Revolutionary Guard threatened, abducted and beat them. But she continues to fight for the revolution.

Whenever Naghme talks about her homeland, her eyes fill with tears. Sometimes they are proud tears, but sometimes she catches her breath. Then her doe eyes turn red. But they never flow, the tears.

Naghme sits in a café in Istanbul and talks about her escape from the Iran. Despite her wet eyes, she smiles. The image section of the video call doesn’t reveal much about the place: a Mediterranean stone wall, nothing more. Voices can be heard in the background, which in their entirety blur into a background noise.

Tehran: A woman stands in front of a burning car tire during a demonstration.Image: AP / Uncredited

Naghme talks about how much she would have liked to have helped lead the Iranian revolution to success. “But I was so scared.” She pushes her dark curls away from her face. If that Life is at stake, decisions must be made.

Naghme deliberately chose a café in Istanbul to make calls. She didn’t want to speak in front of her roommates. Not everyone knows theirs Story. Some of her Iranian friends might become suspicious. Might get scared. “Because they might think I’m in trouble. Because they think my political problems could get them in trouble.”

Revolutionary Guard: Without legitimacy from courts or judges

Before the 30-year-old speaks of her arrest, she explains how arrests are made differently. Because: In Iran there are two different procedures. Will you from the police arrested, everything usually follows the law. Naghme is aware that a lot is going wrong here too, that there are fundamental problems. But at least it’s a law, she says.

People around the world have been demonstrating against the executions since the beginning of the revolution.Image: www.imago-images.de / ZUMA Wire

It’s different when the Revolutionary Guard comes. “She’s above the law,” says Naghme. “These people work directly for the government.” Without legitimation by courts or judges. Free in their decisions – and as brutal as they want. “If they come and get you, you won’t be arrested, you will be kidnapped”she explains.

Naghme did not take part in the protests. To this day, it supports the revolution in a different way – through information. She is a data specialist. Checks information on Twitter, exposes fake news. The fake news spread by the government.

Since the protests raged in the country, social media have been important channels. The media is state-run, the mullah regime restricts it Internet heavily and blocks most short message services. But the protesters find other ways.

In addition to spreading disinformation, the Islamic Republic has apparently spent a lot of money on cyber police to unsettle the protesters. Naghme and her group want to stop them from doing just that. “Information is so important in these times. The Islamic Republic knows exactly how to spread misinformation to destroy everything,” she says.

But at some point it started: “They called me every day, threatened me, hit me on the street, kidnapped me, threw me in the trunk of their van and beat me up.” Doing anything about it would have been pointless, says Naghme.

She laughs again.

In general, Naghme laughs a lot. Even if your eyes get wet. But that wasn’t always the case. The Iranian fled about three months ago. She was able to leave the country legally, and she has not yet been officially accused of any crime. Arrived in Turkey, Naghme cried a lot.

When she’s sad and scared, she thinks about them people on site. “I see my friends, I see others fighting for the revolution and that inspires me. I just left my country. Others have lost their lives.“In the end nothing happened to her.

Nothing, except a kidnapping – the details of which Naghme doesn’t want to discuss. At first she doesn’t say anything. They are intense seconds. painful seconds. But then she says, “I still remember what one of these guys said to me: ‘I can kill you right now without anyone noticing. I’ll kill you and yours Body will disappear – no one will know about it.'”

Women, life, freedom: that’s what people in Iran are fighting for.Image: LaPresse via ZUMA Press / Cecilia Fabiano

She was walking down a street. Then they came. The procedure – Naghme calls it a coincidence – is often the same: First the mobile phone is stolen – this happens all the time in Tehran. After that, people disappear. Naghme’s phone disappeared, too, and then she. She suspects that government supporters use cellphones to invent crimes. “They fake dialogue where you’re allegedly admitting to or planning a crime. They can have you executed for something like that.”

The same thing happened to a friend. She is in prison for allegedly murdering a member of the Revolutionary Guard in Shiraz. She knows for sure that her friend wasn’t even in Shiraz, says Naghme. “She was in Tehran.” Nevertheless, your friend faces the death penalty.

Her gaze widens again and Naghme swallows. Many of her friends are in acute mortal danger, she says. Many are in prison. She furrows her bushy eyebrows, her gaze hardening. “Most of the time, at some point, they call the family and say: your child is dead, come and get the body.”

Her family is also afraid.

Naghme thinks again before continuing. “Sometimes,” she says, “they ask me what I’ve done because they hope I’m not really in danger.” To this day she doesn’t know what she did, what she was threatened for – and what would have happened if she had stayed in Iran.

A year ago, Naghme still thought she had a settled life. Everything was in order. “I loved my job, I loved the city I lived in. And three months ago I found myself in a different country.” She lost her job, her money, her home.

Again and again, women in Iran take to the streets: for self-determination, permission to dance, their freedom.Image: AFP / Stefano Rellandini

She looks back on that time with a mixture of nostalgia and disagreement. She has worn a hijab since she was seven years old. “Of course you feel that it’s not right to be suppressed,” she says today. She showed her displeasure at every opportunity – but the consequences were severe.

“You knew it was wrong, but you can’t fight every day,” she explains. She was arrested several times for wearing her hijab “wrongly”. At the University she was told she had moral problems. A kind of university court threatened her several times with expulsion. training against rebellion. future versus freedom. “At some point you decide to do what they want you to do.”

She is thinking. Look to the right, then back to the camera. “This revolution…it kind of changed everything. It’s an honor to live in this time.”

Since she’s no longer forced to cover her hair, she says, Naghme perceives herself very differently. “I feel confident, I feel more beautiful. I think less about whether I’m good enough. I have found my style. I’m 30 years old and I’ve never had my own style.” She had very limited options and was forced her whole life to wear clothes she didn’t like.

With the assassination of Jina Mahsa Amini, the protests began, which quickly developed into a revolution.Image: www.imago-images.de / NurPhoto

“And I understood that the hijab is not just a law. It is a sign.” Who is oppressor, who is oppressed? who kills whom “It’s like the Islamic Republic proclaiming that it has the power to decide every second of your life.”

This is what Naghme first realized when she arrived in Turkey. “I felt the freedom.”