Against Us: The New Face of America's Enemies in the Muslim World by Jim Sciutto

Author:Jim Sciutto [Sciutto, Jim]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
ISBN: 9780307449887
Publisher: Crown/Archetype
Published: 2008-09-09T04:00:00+00:00

FIVE

IRAN

DEAF TO AMERICA

WHEN I FIRST met Babak Zamanian, I wasn’t sure whether he was brave or reckless. He’s the student leader behind one of the boldest public protests Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad ever faced. When the president came to speak at Tehran Polytechnic University on December 20, 2006, several students jumped onto their seats to interrupt him, burning his photograph and shouting, “Death to the dictator.” They broke in several more times, chanting and throwing firecrackers. As he stopped and started his speech, Ahmadinejad was visibly unnerved. He shouted back, accusing the students of being “Americanized”—fighting words in Iran, even for dissidents. It was a courageous act of defiance, for sure, but I’d seen Iranians arrested just for showing up at a street demonstration. To organize this protest, cursing the firebrand Iranian president in public, Babak had to have a death wish.

That day, Babak told me he wanted to show the world that not all Iranians agree with Ahmadinejad’s belligerent rhetoric. I started my report from Tehran that night for ABC with images of the demonstration. It was news to hear a chant here that began “Death to…” but didn’t end with “U-S-A.” The protest gained wide coverage even in Iran, where the media rarely risks irritating the powers that be.

The government’s reaction was swift and severe. The campus was soon crawling with dozens of Basijis—members of the Basij paramilitary force established by Ayatollah Khomeini after the 1979 revolution, notorious for doling out beatings from the backs of motorcycles. They began showing up at every sort of student activity, from political organizations like Babak’s to science clubs. They harassed students and shut down independent newspapers.

“We showed him to be nothing more than a straw man,” Babak said, “so the little dictator showed his rage.”

When I met him a few days later, Babak was on crutches after Basijis had broken his foot at another anti-government rally. The third time we talked, he had been expelled from the university.

I asked him why he kept at it. He told me, “The risks are inevitable, but we’re determined to continue.” As spokesman for his student group, he was quick with the defiant catchphrase, but he also took me aside and made me promise to tell his story if something worse were to happen to him. I knew he was scared. A few months later he was in jail, in solitary confinement at Tehran’s notorious Evin prison, where Iran’s most forthright thinkers, journalists, and political leaders are sent to suffer and die. He would spend a horrific forty days there.

Over the next two years, Babak and I became friends and undercover pen pals. We kept in touch even when I was outside the country, through a tortuous series of cryptic e-mails and phone conversations. This was not melodrama but necessity. We knew the Iranian authorities were listening—and any political discussion could land Babak right back in prison. I lost any sense that he was in this for the thrill.

During numerous assignments there—from the presidential elections to the nuclear crisis—I have been encouraged by the young Iranians I have met.

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