Former Iran prisoner speaks out

Newsweek journalist Maziar Bahari was wrongfully imprisoned amid the tumult of the 2009 Iran election. He comes to the Skirball Cultural Center on Friday with writer and scholar Reza Aslan to discuss the experience and his new book.

The story of Bahari’s arrest is a bizarre and troubling mix of farce and terror involving Comedy Central’s The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. One of the show’s “reporters,” comedian Jason Jones, pretended to be an American spy in a skit lampooning Iran. The sketch took aim at Iran for identifying Bahari and other law-abiding individuals as radical “threats” for espousing outlandish concepts like women’s rights.

According to Bahari, Jones and his producer also met with him in Tehran and he gave Jones a list of people they could talk to for their show.  Bahari believes he was being followed by Revolutionary Guards at the time.

A few days later, on June 21, 2009—the day before the bit first aired—Bahari was arrested without charges by Iranian intelligence officers. He was interrogated, tortured and detained in Tehran’s infamous Evin prison. Eventually, clips of his appearance on The Daily Show were presented to him as evidence that he had colluded with a spy, aka comedian Jones. Not even the audible audience laughter on the clips persuaded his captors that their “evidence” was bogus.

Finally, in October, 2009, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton appealed publicly on Bahari’s behalf and he was released—but not before he was made to sign an agreement to spy for Iran, he said. Bahari also said telephone threats were made to him and his family members, as Iran’s government attempted to control his actions from afar. Safe in London, he refused to spy for them and disclosed their coercive communications to international media outlets. He was then sentenced in absentia to 13 years, 6 months in jail and 74 lashes. None of this has silenced him or deterred his human rights activism.

Fast forward to this week and Bahari is back on The Daily Show—this time as a guest promoting his memoir. He said that humor helped him through the hard time in Evin, and he absolved host Stewart of any blame.

“I could be on Sesame Street and they would accuse Elmo of sedition,” he quipped.

You can watch the entire interview on the show’s website (Part I | Part II | Part III).

Bahari’s memoir, Then They Came for Me, describes his ordeal and the impact it had on his family, some of whom had been imprisoned previously in Iran for political reasons. His family inspired him to stay strong, and the efforts of his wife, Paola, helped take his story to the world.

On Friday, June 10, he will be at the Skirball Center at 8 p.m. for a discussion of his memoir, which will be followed by a book signing and a question-and-answer period. The event is free with the price of admission. Advance tickets are recommended and can be ordered online, where you can also find directions to the venue.

Posted 6/8/11