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“Hear my plea or deliver my death”

Posted in Irshaddering Thoughts on Oct 23, 2009

Jila Baniyaghoob (Courtesy: IWMF)

Every year, the International Women’s Media Foundation selects four journalists from around the world who exemplify moral courage — speaking truth to power in their own societies for a  greater good.  And every year, the foundation organizes a gala to celebrate these death-defying reporters.  Most of them are able to attend, and some of the biggest names in American media serve as the award presenters.

So it came as something of a shock, and a distinctly high honor, to have been asked to present a Courage in Journalism Award at this year’s gathering. But the woman to whom I’d be giving the statue — an Iranian dynamo named Jila Baniyaghoob — couldn’t leave her country.  Which meant that I was also asked to accept on her behalf.

Here’s how I paid tribute to Jila:

“Jila Baniyaghoob found her voice as a journalist in the late 1970s at the dawn of Iran’s fundamentalist revolution, when she published a short story in a major Tehran daily — a story about children living in poverty.  Jila was 11 years old.

In June 2006, when she was arrested and taken to Evin prison while covering a women’s rights protest, Jila was scolded by interrogators for story that she’d written as a pre-teen so many years before.  Clearly, the authorities had been watching her closely. They scrutinize her every move to this day.

But their surveillance has not stopped her from revealing details about the lives of the Iranian people.  Recently, for example, she wrote about Nasimah, an unmarried 20-year-old woman whom Jila met while waiting in a Tehran medical clinic. Under her black chador, Nasimah was trying to feed her infant son, who had no name thanks to the ‘shame’ of his birth. He was wrapped in old, thin, dirty clothes. Nearby, Nasimah’s male relatives shunned her as they waited for a paternity test to verify who the baby’s father was.

‘I realized by no one in her family was interested in buying clothes for the baby,’ Jila wrote. ‘To people living in the countryside, there is nothing more intolerable than for a girl have an illegitimate child.  Nobody was willing to tolerate this disgrace to their family.’

But Nasimah told Jila that she didn’t worry.  After all, her family had promised a judge that they wouldn’t harm her.

Later in the article, Jila reported what happened to Nasimah after she left the clinic. ‘When Nasimah’s brothers and cousins returned home from Tehran, they tried to hang Nasimah, but she escaped. Finally, they poured petrol and set her alight. The following day, Nasimah’s son was fatally poisoned. The only sound in my mind was Nasimah’s voice saying that her family would not harm her or the baby because they had promised the judge.’

When Jila heard that she had received the IWMF Courage in Journalism Award, she pledged to be here with us to accept it. That was before June. Before Iranians spilled into the streets to demonstrate against the election results. Before, that is, Jila was arrested — again — and sent back to Evin prison.

We don’t know what happened to Jila inside jail this time round.  But in 2007, she wrote movingly about being locked up for reporting on a women’s rights protest. Jila says that her she and her cellmates killed time by chanting songs composed to defy discrimination against women. They wrote lyrics, put them to music and sang them together. Don’t worry; I’ll spare you a performance. Let me simply recite the words:

Whoever is in love
Has no fear of death
Since love has no fear
Of fetters and prison

Authorities blindfolded her outside her cell. She underwent grueling interrogations. The foul water she ingested caused toxic shock. But always – always – Jila created excuses to extract joy, even from the jaws of solitary confinement.  She tells us that ‘for several hours I walked the cell’s width and length. Supposedly, it was exercise and what a pleasant exercise for solitary confinement!  I walked and said out loud all the poems I knew. When I forgot a part, I would stop moving and keep thinking until I remembered. As soon as I remembered, I would jump up and down with excitement and then start with new poems.’

She also memorized messages scrawled on prison walls by previous inmates, alternating between moods of darkness and moments of dawn. ‘Dear God,’ read one  message, ‘hear my plea for deliver my death.’ Then this message: ‘With a little patience, spring is near.’

Jila has been sprung from Evin.  But her husband, journalist Bahman Ahmadi Amoyee, remains behind its walls. She recently posted an open letter to him on her website. Jila tells him that she comes often to stand outside Evin, since the powers-that-be won’t let her inside. ‘By the walls of Evin, I feel that I breathe the same air that you breathe,’ Jila conveys, adding: ‘What a senseless comparison. The air in the hot cells of Evin prison has nothing in common with the fresh air of Evin’s hilltops.’

She closes her love letter to her husband this way: ‘Do you remember that you always used to remind me of the Asian motto: Let us turn our sorrow into strength? I promise to turn all the sorrows that we face into strength.’

Ladies and gentlemen, we are here today to witness that strength. And it is my profound privilege to accept this Courage in Journalism Award for Jila Baniyaghoob, with the hope, prayer and deep belief that one day soon, she’ll be able to accept our gratitude for her unrelenting pursuit of truth. May Allah bless her, her husband, and all those whose unheard voices find solace in Jila’s.”

If you’d like to send a message to Jila, contact me and I’ll share your thoughts with her through a confidential address used by the International Women’s Media Foundation. This is a unique opportunity to strengthen the resolve of someone who inspires many us, yet could do with inspiration from us, too.

And to learn more about moral courage — how you can exhibit it in your own community, and why you should — get to know the Moral Courage Project.