 Let my friend go
Dariush Zahedi, a good soul and a brilliant
mind, is a prisoner in Iran
By Ramin
Tabib
October 27, 3003
The Iranian
In January 2003, I received a call from Dariush Zahedi,
my old classmate at University of Southern California. Dariush's
phone call was prompted by a blip I had written on Iranian.com.
He was happy to have found my name, and after several years, wanted
to catch up.
I first met Dariush, back in early 1990s when he was a few years
ahead of me and was finishing his doctorate in political science.
He was a genuinely nice man. He was reserved, quiet and brilliant.
He had a bookish way of speaking but always wore a smile that put
one at ease.
During that January phone call, I told him that I was planning
a trip to Iran. He was elated and said he was planning a trip to
Iran, too, and asked if we could meet in Iran. But, by April
when I was leaving Los Angeles for Tehran, Dariush was unexpectedly
held up in Northern California. He was testifying as an expert
in a hearing about the burial rites of Sufis and had to delay his
trip for a few weeks.
By May, when I returned from Iran, Dariush was still in the
US but was getting ready to leave. He asked me for contact names
and phone numbers: He was planning to study Iran for both business
opportunities and also for the prospect of returning there and
perhaps living there. I obliged and gave him phone numbers of family
members. In the weeks following his arrival in Iran, I received
a couple of emails from Dariush. In one he said all was going well
and in the other he congratulated me on the birth of my son.
Then all went silent.
I subsequently found out that Dariush had been arrested early
in the summer and was detained at the infamous Evin prison. He
was accused of being
a foreign spy and distributing funds among the opposition.
Now, three months later, he is still in confinement. His ordeal
has begun to receive the attention of the US media. Further, now,
Amnesty
International, as well, as his friends and colleagues in the US
have started an all-out effort to shed light on his situation and
seek his release.
His case ails me because I know the charges against him are bogus
and the case is a fabrication. He was merely caught in the wreckage
of two forces -- the reformist movement vs. the hardliners -- colliding.
It seems that human life is the bargaining tool of choice in this
political game, and Dariush is the helpless pawn paying the ultimate
price.
My fear, and I have nightmares about this, is that Dariush may
end up seriously hurt or even dead. The randomness of this event,
the knowledge that Dariush Zahedi is a good soul and a brilliant
mind being wasted, and the fact that he is paying the price of
simply being an Iranian citizen who was at the wrong place in an
inopportune time are all one large travesty.
I like to think that being an expatriate returning to Iran means
something more than being a cheap life to be toyed with, but that's
what it seems we are. If Dariush is hurt or if he dies, a huge
part of my love for my country will die with it... well, let
us not get into that.
I can't change the mind of Dariush's captors, but
let me through these lines plead with them: The man you are holding
deserves a better fate than languish in solitary confinement in
a country he always called home.
After I returned from Iran, I
remember telling him that after 20 years of absence as I exited
Mehrabad airport into Tehran morning I immediately felt an intense
sense of belonging. I wanted to see him on his return and ask
if he was suffused with the same sentiment. Now I fear that he
may
not see the freedom to publicly say another word again.
I plead with the Iranian government: Let my friend go, he is not
a foreign agent, he is just a man who on his return home was ambushed
and now deserves to be freed.
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Let my friend go