Homa Hoodfar - Former Canadian-Iranian detainee HARDtalk

Welcome to HARDtalk.

I'm Stephen Sackur.

Reading the political mood inside Iran is notoriously difficult.

There are so many competing interests and pressures.

After last year's nuclear deal, it seemed the relatively moderate

President Rouhani was in the ascendancy.

But my guest today has reason to see things differently.

Homa Hardfar is a Canadian-Iranian academic recently released

after 112 days locked up in the notorious Evin Prison.

Why did a respected anthropologist

to become an enemy of the Iranian State?

Homa Hardfar, welcome to HARDtalk. Thank you.

You have had the most extraordinary experience

inside Iran recently.

Now, thank goodness,

you are out of Evin Prison, out of Iran.

How are you feeling?

You had a lot of health problems.

How you feeling?

Yes, I feel much better.

I mean, I'm still not really recovered, my health really got very

poor while I was there, but it is getting better every day.

And your spirits must be...?

My spirit is very high.

I told my colleagues I have never smiled so much in my life.

So, despite all the pain, I continue to smile.

Now I appreciate life and freedom in a completely different way.

We'll get back to that, what it has meant to you,

the experience and getting away from that experience.

But let's take this chronologically.

Why were you in Iran early this year?

I know you're Iranian, you have citizenship,

but you study and work in Canada.

What took you back to Iran?

I had gone to visit some school friends, who were supposed to come

with me, and we were supposed to be travelling a little bit in Iran,

especially in the Turkish area, which I had always wanted to go to,

but because I have no family there, I was hesitant to go.

So she encouraged me to go.

So she encouraged me to go.

A very political time in Iran, because they had

Parliamentary elections.

Yes.

Well, she said if you come with me, I'm going to visit my family,

and then there's also parliamentary elections,

then you can also observe.

Because I had never been in Iran during parliamentary elections.

I guess the point is the anthropologist in you felt

that there was an opportunity, not just to have a nice visit

to Iran, but to do some research work as well?

Well, I was going to do some research work, but my research work

for my project was archival work, so I did go to the parliament

library and got some documents, because, essentially,

when the Iranian Constitutional had happened...

But once once you are an anthropologist,

you are a researcher at all times.

You can never take the lenses off, being an anthropologist.

So any interaction you have with people is a form of anthropology.

I'm fascinated by that, but I wonder whether now that

you are here, having had the whole year of experience,

whether you would concede you were extraordinarily naive,

maybe complacent and naive, to think that you could go to Iran

during a politically tumultuous time, ask questions of people

on the street about how they are feeling about politics,

and to think that the authorities, giving your Canadian citizenship,

might not wonder what on earth he were doing.

No, I was not naive.

I had been going back and forth before.

The presidential elections are actually the most important

elections, but it is also the time people discuss...

But also, I didn't...

I had not intended to ask questions.

I didn't ask questions from people, I was just listening mostly,

and I was reading newspapers.

Because when you read, you walk in the street,

you see the posters, you read the various newspapers,

because each have their own perspectives.

It gives you a different take on the issue, although I could read

the newspapers sitting in Montreal.

The bottom line is you upset people.

One way or another, there were people inside the government

who decided that your presence in Iran was a problem.

How did the events unfold that saw you

ultimately locked up inside Evin Prison?

Because you weren't locked up immediately but by June,

I think of 2016, you were a prisoner.

During the elections, things were fine.

I was happy to be in Iran and I thought I had a sense

of what Parliament meant for women, because a lot

of the candidates are disqualified, like 65% of all the women who had

registered to be a candidate, and had met the qualifications

outlined on the conditions, were actually disqualified.

50% of men who had applied to be a candidate, including some who had

been MPs before, were disqualified.

So I had never thought Parliament's were that important in Iran,

anyway, because it is the appearance of democratic elections.

But not really a representative democracy as we know it.

I am going to come back to your take on Iranian politics and particularly

the role of women in Iran later.

But, for people who do not know your story, Evin Prison

is notorious around the world, is a pretty tough place to be.

You, if you don't mind me saying, are a woman who is not used to that

sort of condition, and yet, for all of your protestations

of innocence, by June, the Iranians were determined

to lock you up.

I they accused you of, "dabbling in feminism

and challenging them on security issues."

So my question is, how come you could not persuade them that

you were just an innocent anthropologist?

Well, that has got a lot to do with internal politics,

domestic politics of Iran.

The point is that interest of yours, in the way women are politically

represented in Muslim societies, worried them.

Yes.

I just want to know...

I suppose frankly what I want to know is when you were put

inside Evin and locked up sometimes in solitary confinement,

how desperate did you feel, how scared did you feel?

I didn't feel scared, because, of course, if you are Iranian

and you are involved in social science...

Social sciences are considered a criminal activity.

A lot of Iranian colleagues who would do research and then

publish their work, if it contradicts the state ideology,

then they are with going against the national security,

they are given five or six years, sometimes ten years in jail.

So you kind of always know that threat is there.

I was not feeling frightened, but I was feeling very disappointed,

because I had thought through my scholarship I had

been always fair.

I was one of the people who, "Yes, I'm a feminist,

yes, I am a secularist, yes I disagree absolutely

with compulsory hijab, which was one of their concerns,

but I have no hesitation to give, say, when something positive has

happened in Iran, to talk about it all right about it.

They interrogated you for many hours at a time.

I think at one point they said, "You may well leave here dead.

You might be here for 15 years."

Yes, at some point they told me...

Well, I got them engaged a lot of discussion.

I think sometimes I found that they were interested

in what I had to say, but then, when they were trying

to intimidate me...

Because that's part of the technique.

They tell you, you are going to get ten or 15 years.

And, at your age, by then you are dead and we will put

you in a casket and send you back to Canada.

And I said, well, as long as you don't bury me like that here.

But also, at my age, I am 65 years, I have lived the life I have chosen,

I have achieved many of my goals, and that's more than most people can

claim, therefore if the last ten years or five years of what ever

is left of my life I am spending in Evin Prison,

so be it.

I don't know whether you would use the word torture, but there are some

things about what they did to you that strike me

as psychologically something akin to that.

For example, I think they found the music that was played

at your husband's funeral, because he died not so long ago.

And they played that to you in an effort to sort

of break your spirit.

Well, not just about me, but I observed also with other women

who later were my cell-mates, that they were trying

to make them cry.

I guess this was one thing that they had not been able

to do to me.

Because I accepted my fate from the day they locked me in.

I said ten years.

15 years, five years.

Anyway, I access to that fate right away.

So what else could they intimidate me with?

So then they played the music,

saying, we wanted you to remember Canada.

And I asked them to stop.

I said, I always remember Canada and my family,

you don't need to play the music.

They said, "No, we want you to hear."

They continued, as I argued I did not want to.

And in the end, I got so frustrated, I told them, I guess this is part

of the Islamic human rights.

Because they continuously told me, we don't need international human

rights, we have Islamic human rights.

But once I said, "I guess this is part of Islamic human

rights," they stopped.

On another occasion they came and brought a picture of my mother

looking very sad, standing at my father's graveyard, in London.

They said, "Oh, we brought a picture from your family,

so it reminds you of them.

I said, "I do not need a picture, my family is in my mind,

I do not need pictures for it to remember them."

But they said, "Anyway, we have brought it."

I was behind a one-way mirror.

I could not see them, but they pushed the picture for me

and I saw what it was.

I mean, I knew what they were doing to me, but nonetheless

it was upsetting.

Did you try to record the nature of the conversations you had

with your interrogators?

After the third day, I was in the cell, blindfolded,

going downstairs in the basement for interrogation.

Then I actually did decide, while I am here,

I'm an anthropologist.

Observation is the main method of anthropologist,

that is what distinguishes us from sociologist.

It is not the fieldwork I would have chosen to do and I could not do it

anyway even if I wanted in this method.

So I started to make mental notes and then when I would come back

to the cell, because I could not sleep there and they refuse

to give me a sleeping pill,

but all I had was my toothbrush and the walls of the cell are marble

stone because they don't want prisoners to carve on it.

So I started to just write on the wall, just pretending

I was writing, just like writing on the board.

So I continued making notes every day.

I had headings and subheadings and I would come the next day,

a new thing would happen, I would think about it and maybe

revise my note and I continued...

So, in a way, you were trying to empower yourself by turning this

awful experience into a form of anthropological research?

I did...

I did turn it into...

But, yes, now when I think of it, yes, I did empower myself

in that way.

Basically they were using their power over me,

but I empowered myself by doing the same thing to them.

We know, and it comes back to this point I suppose about the context

in which you found yourself in prison, we know that quite

a number of dual nationals, Canadians, Americans,

and indeed British citizens, who also have Iranian citizenship

have been imprisoned on charges which many critics regard

as without merit.

Now, one of them, which is a case that has become very well-known

the UK is that of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe.

She's a young woman in her 30s with a child in Iran.

She'd been there visiting family.

She was arrested.

The child is now currently staying with the grandparents in Tehran.

You met her.

Yes, I spent one night with her in a cell.

I was in solitary confinement.

I guess there were people coming to inspect the prison

so they moved me from solitary to a room and two other

women were there.

I had heard of her name.

I knew that she was British- Iranian.

That night we were there, we chatted mostly about her daughter

and how she felt.

And the next day they moved her from that cell.

How was she?

She was, of course, very upset.

I know that she missed her daughter terribly.

And she was quite confused about why they have held her,

but they kept promising her they would let her go

and free her and they asked her to sign documents,

which I guess she had, but they had also told her not

to talk about this to other cell-mates, so she was a bit

hesitant to tell me the whole story.

But I met her also on the day that I went to court.

She had got initially ten years.

That was the day they took me to court with her.

We could see each other.

We said hi, but we were not allowed to talk to each other.

So she is now convicted.

Five years for spying.

We understand from her family that when you were released in September,

she, for a short time, believed that might be

a signal that she too might be on her way out,

now of course that hasn't happened.

Can you imagine what she must be feeling like right now?

Well, I know from other cell-mates that had met her, before my release,

that she has been very upset.

She cries a lot.

She has gone through, I think, maybe depression.

She really misses her daughter and she is worried because her home

and her husband are here.

For a country and state that claims the family is the most important

unit and they respect it and encourage people

to have children,

in fact, one thing they have against me is I did not

have a child of my own.

When they released me, I actually thought they were releasing Nazanin.

And on the tail of her freedom they are releasing me.

I was quite surprised when I finally got to the jet and saw

that she was not there.

You talk about your situation and as though you were a pawn

in a political game.

I want you to reflect on this.

There have been other prisoners in Iran, I am thinking

of one American journalist who ultimately was released.

It was clear, the US was quite open, there had been negotiations

and a sort of deal done that involved some financial transactions

as well between the Iranian and US governments.

When you were hot news in Canada and there was a campaign

of your colleagues and friends and supporters demanding...

Or a campaign on your behalf from the Canadian government,

the government said, we want her out, the Iranians must

release her, but we will not do any sort of deal to get her out.

What is your feeling now on whether there is any legitimate

grounds for negotiation and deal-making when it comes

to these situations?

That's a hard question.

I was not actually of much value to the Iranians

in terms of negotiation.

For one thing, I had accepted my fate, for the other thing,

I guess they would have loved for me to be an American

or British citizen.

I was...

Of two other nationalities, Irish and Canadian, which,

in terms of international politics of Iran, does not play a major role.

So that was one aspect.

But also I know that because we have an unelected body

of government, which is usually the president and the minister,

and non-elected bodies, which is the Supreme Leader and then

the judiciary and the Revolutionary Guard police, radio and television,

which are the monopoly of the state in Iran, and, of course, some very

huge charity organisations.

The Revolutionary Guard especially has been unhappy about the deal,

even though the Supreme Leader obviously had agreed,

because without his agreement, no deal would have been finalised.

But they are trying to embarrass their elected body.

Are you guessing, or do you know this?

Well, it is not only me.

In my case, there is but are Baquer Namazi and Siamak Namazi,

but who are dual national American Iranians.

Baquer Namazi is 80 years old and he has been a Unicef

employee and working in various countries in the Middle East.

There are many others, other dual nationals.

They keep them in terms of, especially say Nazanin,

if she was an ordinary prisoner, after her court case was finished,

she should have been transferred to prison,

not the detention centre, but she is locked away

in a detention centre.

She is in a special part of the Evin complex.

Let's get back to the big picture which you touched upon earlier

when you talk to about the way in which, over the years, you -

you believe - have always shown great respect to Iran and you have

not been one of its fiercest critics and you have tries

-- tried to place the role of women, for example, in a context in Iran.

You haven't just been out right critical of everything they do.

Do you now look at Iran and think, maybe I got it wrong,

maybe I was too soft on them, maybe I've misjudged how hard line

and how ideological the Iranian government is ready to be?

What has happened is that in more recent years,

the Revolutionary Guard and conservatives, especially

hardline conservatives, have lost ground, and they have lost

the legitimacy maybe they carried for decades,

they are now a bit desperate to hang onto power, to create fear.

I am wondering, in today's Iran, when you look at the role of women,

which is one of the specialisms of yours, do you see things

getting better or worse?

Well, it depends which class you talk.

A lot of the traditional women, who then because of their religious

beliefs, their family would not let them engage.

They go to the university and get jobs, or be independent.

They have had that much right.

But even they don't want the compulsory hijab.

The fact is whether they cover you by law, you take the veil off,

or you put the veil on, the choice is taken away from you.

Let's bring it back to the personal before we close.

You are an Iranian citizen, but now, of course, having had the experience

you've just had in Evin Prison, I would imagine it is pretty

unlikely you will be going back to Iran any time soon?

Well, I am not planning to go back.

Do you think you will ever go back to the home...

It is your native land.

Well, one never knows the future.

At the moment, I retired because I have a lot

of writing project to finish.

And now, of course, I'm going to write about my experience

and research in anthropology of interrogation,

which I call my research project in Evin.

I'm going to write about that.

I'm just interested in what is in your heart.

I think you said to somebody after you came out that

you felt so brokenhearted that your own country could have

behaved in this way.

I wonder, in a sense, why you were so surprised,

given everything that we know about Iran since the revolution.

Because I felt the question of women, and talking about that,

and working with the Constitution of Iran, which, thank God,

I knew more about the Constitution of Iran than my interrogators knew,

so I could defend myself.

It gives that right of people to dissent.

I mean, when I am in Iran, I put the scarf on, but I talk

about the fact that I oppose it.

It is the law, but I have the right to campaign to change the law.

They cannot take away this right from people.

I felt...

Because they continuously claimed when they interrogated me,

that they have to to defend the revolution, and I felt

all the way a revolution betrayed, because the revolution that happened

was not about...

The major demand was about democracy.

And, yes, independence, too, but it was not about some other

institution, institution to force their will on the rest

of the population.

The similarity of their approach to what it was at the end

of the Shah's time, which was, you know, claiming more opposition

and therefore claiming, commanding more resources

and putting more people in jail.

And becoming ever more authoritarian.

Therefore the alienation of the population from

the state increased.

It is happening again.

You say that now you see similarities between the end

of the Shah and the current state of the Islamic Republic.

In a word, are you optimistic about Iran's future, or not?

I am optimistic about Iran's future.

Not necessarily about Iran as a state, but if you walk

in the streets of Tehran and other major cities, as I hear

from my colleagues, that the citizens know their rights.

And once the citizens know their rights and the possibilities,

they are not going to just put up with a lot of oppression,

and that makes me optimistic.

But I am not sure where the state is heading.

We have to end there, but Homa Hardfar, it's great to see

you in the studio and thank you for being on HARDtalk.

Thank you for the invitation.