Listen to the interview here.

He’s the doctor who tried to rescue Neda Agha-Soltan, the young woman who was shot during the 2009 protests in Tehran and became an icon of the struggle for democracy there. YouTube: Death of Neda (warning: graphic content)

Arash talks to host Jonathan Groubert about living through four decades of tumult in Iran before finally hitting his breaking point.

The Gaze of the Gazelle is Arash Hejazi’s memoir of growing up and then fleeing Iran.

Listen to the interview here

Dear Dr Ahmed Shaheed,
Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran,

I am Arash Hejazi, an Iranian physician, writer, publisher and journalist, and the Doctor who tried to save the young girl shot to death by the Iranian Basij or the pro-government militia, orchestrated by the Revolutiosnary Guards of the Islamic Republic of Iran. I then spoke up about the circumstances of hear death to the international media and for that I have lost my publishing house in Iran, I have been prosecuted and persecuted, and I have had to go on exile, leaving my family and my life behind.

I read your Special Report with interest, and while I appreciate your efforts on producing an accurate image on the dyre situation of human rights in Iran, I would like to bring to your attention that what you have presented in your report, is just the tip of an immense iceberg of years of undermining human and basic rights of the citizens of Iran.

You didn’t mention,

• The brutal crackdown of the Iranian pro-government militia, the police, and the Revolutionary Guards on the peaceful rallys of millions of people who were simply asking for the recount of the ballots of the presidential elections in June 2009;
• The brutal murder of hundreds of unarmed civilans on the days that followed the elections. One of them which was documented, was the murder of Neda Agha-Soltan by a member of the Basij. Mothers of those murdered have tried so hard to get their voices heard, and even they have been persecuted and beaten by the Basij;
• That the judiciary system of Iran has done absolutely nothing to bring the murderers of these innocent people to justice. Instead, it has done everything in its power to intimidate and threaten withnesses of these crimes;
• The torturing and murder of several protesters after being arrested by the police. Even the government of Iran has admited the murder of three detainees under torture;
• Hundreds of students that have been banned from continuing their studies, simply because the have been part of the Green Movement.
• The legistlation of capital punishment for bloggers;
• The fact that a muslim cleric, called Kazemeini Brujerdi has been imprisoned and tortured for years now, simply because he expressed his opinion that religion should be separated from the State;
• The widespread and illegal censorsip on books and other media. I have explained the situation in my article ‘Censorship in Iran’;
• The execution of prisoners of consciouns in Iran;
• Mistreating political prisoners leading to unexplained deaths;
• Undermining the rights of the minority groups in Iran, such as the Kurdish people;
• Undermining the rights of the workers and their unions;
• Undermining the children rights;
• Undermining the rights of the guilds and trade unions;
• Persecution and prosecution of the human rights activists.

Dear Dr Shaheed, this is a unique oportunity that destiny has placed on your path to make a difference. It might not be repeated. For the sake of hundreds of thousands of lives that have been destroyed in Iran in the past 30 years, I beseach you to do whatever in your power to reflect the truth, the whole truth, and nothing by the truth.

Kind regards,

Arash Hejazi

We talk about the tyranny of the Shah of Iran and the even worse tyranny of the Mullah’s that followed. We talk about the politics of Iran today and its role in terrorism, violence and the instability of the Middle East. We talk about the conflict that the United States started using their dictator pal Saddam Hussein, and quickly forget the hardships that were wrought on the people of Iran and also Iraq. And we talk about the Middle East conflict as if it is just another story.

Yet what we don’t talk about are the lives that were destroyed and permanently altered, reshaped violently and the many deaths, most of the dead are names and faces we will never know or see.

Iran has been but a political square in a political debate. But it is a nation of enslaved people, enslaved under the pro-Western backed tyrant the Shah Reza Pahlavi and then by the Ayatollah Khomeini and then again by the little dictator President Ahmedinejad.

Arash Hejazi tells the story to the Western World that is so ignorant of the facts of the Middle East and the Persian Gulf and the Islamic World in a way that puts a human face on its cover. “The Gaze of the Gazelle” is a poignant retelling of all the history we have accepted as political rhetoric in a human form. The story of real people who were impacted by our policies and our political viciousness and our stereotyped rhetoric and racism in America.

The story begins from the eyes of a young boy and watches as the world around him collapses following the fall of the Shah and the Rise of the Mullah tyrants. Then there is the war with the US backed Iraq and Saddam Hussein and the destruction in brought on everyone in the country. He tells the story of how he watched the Revolution turn from a people’s movement to another vicious dictatorship, this time religious and twisted. And he recounts the day when he was only 17 and watched the Mullah’s soldiers pull aside a young Muslim woman who was also only 17 and shoot her in the head in front of a crowd of frightened observers.

He watched as his family life was destroyed and his friends and his father’s friends fled or vanished.

No one could speak but Arash managed to launch a publishing company and his struggle to get the true story out about the criminal behaviour of the leaders of Iran is a compelling story that every American should read. It was our tax dollars that paid for the bullets that fired into the brains of young women by the mullahs, that bought the scimitars that were used to cut off the heads of dissidents, and that funded the bombs that rained down on millions of innocent people.

We owe it to the Iranian people to at least try to learn the truth.

“The Gaze of the Gazelle” offers one window into the horrors of the history of Iran under tyrannical oppression over the years.

I couldn’t put this book down. It read swiftly and cleanly and with a comprehension that was utterly shocking to me. I urge everyone to read this memoir of a little boy who became a revolutionary for truth.
Read the full review here

[I first published this post in 30 December 2009, but unfortunately, nearly two years later, the world is just starting to realise the real danger of the regime occupying the maginificent land of Iran. I decided to publish it again without changing a word.]

[Read the text in Persian Here]

[Read the text in French Here]

Hundreds of newspapers have been shut down in Iran; international reporters have been banned; hundreds of Iranian journalists are in prison; internet has almost been shut down; the sophisticated filtering system has blocked the contact of the Iranian people with the world; the police is massacring people in the streets in broad daylight and then blames the violence on the people themselves; the government is giving out lies after lies; all the minority ethnic and religious groups are suffering from the official oppression; prisoners have been tortured, raped, murdered; the Basij militia shoots unarmed civilians in the streets; students have been expelled from the universities because of protesting against tyranny…

While you, people of the world, are celebrating the New Year by embracing your loved ones with joy, while you dance to the Christmas tunes, the young people in Iran are dancing to the macabre music of the bullets and embrace batons and teargas. While you are hugging each other and wishing a happy new year, mothers in Iran are forbidden to shed tears for their children who were brutally murdered by the police trucks running them over. The people of Iran are alone, they are broken, they are tired, but determined to go on.

Do you think this has nothing to do with you? Do you think that you only need to worry about your domestic affairs? Do you think that saying a few words of condemnation will redeem you from your global responsibility towards human rights? Is this the global citizenship you preach?

This is the most dangerous State in the world. Hesitate in acting and you will see how this government, rooted in lies, will destroy your own children. What do you expect? Do you think that a totalitarian regime that does not show mercy to its own children will have pity on your people? Do you think that this beast will stay calm and watch you? Wrong! Hesitate and see.

The people of Iran have spoken with their torn throat and through the last sparkle of life in Neda’s eyes; they have written their vows with their own blood on the pavements in the streets: They want to be global citizens, they resent terrorism, tyranny, lies, wars, nuclear weapons… and they have died the most brutal deaths for speaking out. Why are you watching silently? Do you think you are safe? Do you think that this cancer will be contained inside the borders or Iran? Do you think that the rotten claw of this grim reaper will not reach you? Wrong. Hesitate and see.

It is time to act. There are people drowning in Iran. Do not believe the lies of the Iranian government. This government that denies all these brutalities is the same that denies the Holocaust, that claims that there are no homosexuals in Iran, that Neda Agha Soltan was killed by CIA, MI6 and BBC, and there is freedom of press in Iran.

How to act? We do not want any violence. This government is falling. Just do not support the government. Do not recognise the current government of Iran. Do not negotiate with them – How can any negotiation with someone who tells nothing but lies and is willing to break any promise, be fruitful? Do not be deceived by their lies. Expel the Iranian ambassadors and diplomats. You will lose nothing and will gain everything by supporting the future of Iran. Hesitate, and you will be run over by the evil machines of this rotten government. Hesitate, and you will be weeping over the graves of your own children.

It is time to act. Hesitate, and when you regret your hesitation, it will be too late.

Arash Hejazi, 30 December 2009

For me, however, it was more personal. There was a young man in the video trying to save Neda. He was my friend, Arash.

When I met him for the very first time, I could never have imagined that this slim young man would get caught in the crossroad of history ten years later. Even if I had the power to look into the future and see that this passionate doctor-publisher-author was destined to be present in one of the most important documents of contemporary history, I couldn’t have imagined the way he would react to it. I couldn’t have imagined that he would have the courage to testify against an unspeakable crime, and be prepared to forsake everything to expose the truth.

I met Arash in Tehran in 2000 when I visited Iran. Arash was the Iranian publisher who, despite the fact that Iran has not signed up to any of the international copyright agreements, had made the decision to publish my work with my authorisation.

I was in a state of confusion when I met him. Finally I was in Iran, and while I had been looking forward to visiting Iran for some time, I had no idea what to expect. I didn’t know what the implications of my visit were going to be, or if Christina and I were in any kind of danger. However, I had made the decision to venture this visit; I already knew that I had thousands of readers there waiting for me and I was ecstatic at the thought of seeing the land of Rumi, Saadi, Hafiz and Omar Khayyam.

Read the rest of the article here

The Gaze of the Gazelle, Arash Hejazi's memoir on the story of Neda has been published in English, German and Italian

Source: Noori Passela, The National, Sep 16, 2011

Arash Hejazi is an Iranian writer, publisher, doctor and one of the few to witness Neda Agha-Soltan’s dying moments first-hand, when he captured it on a mobile-phone camera during the 2009 riots. It was his choice to upload the video, whichsparked an international media frenzy over the death of the bright-eyed young woman.

Forced to leave his country and live in exile due to his prominent role as an opponent of the Ahmedinejad regime, it is no surprise that Hejazi comes across as a weary narrator.

Along with Hejazi’s recollections of his youth and experiences in Iran’s publishing industry, The Gaze of the Gazelle is also an account of the nation’s history of uprisings – political, religious and cultural. From being prosecuted by hardline Islamists for his outspoken attitude at college to the difficulties he endures under Iran’s strict censorship regulations, Hejazi spares little in recounting the decline that finally culminated in the incident that put him in the global spotlight.

Hard-hitting and direct, this book provides valuable revelations about a struggle that receivedvery little coverage inside Iran.

Arash Hejazi is an Iranian writer, publisher, doctor and one of the few to witness Neda Agha-Soltan’s dying moments first-hand, when he captured it on a mobile-phone camera during the 2009 riots. It was his choice to upload the video, whichsparked an international media frenzy over the death of the bright-eyed young woman.

Forced to leave his country and live in exile due to his prominent role as an opponent of the Ahmedinejad regime, it is no surprise that Hejazi comes across as a weary narrator.

Along with Hejazi’s recollections of his youth and experiences in Iran’s publishing industry, The Gaze of the Gazelle is also an account of the nation’s history of uprisings – political, religious and cultural. From being prosecuted by hardline Islamists for his outspoken attitude at college to the difficulties he endures under Iran’s strict censorship regulations, Hejazi spares little in recounting the decline that finally culminated in the incident that put him in the global spotlight.

Hard-hitting and direct, this book provides valuable revelations about a struggle that receivedvery little coverage inside Iran.

Arash Hejazi witnessed the shooting of Iranian student Soltan in Tehran in 2009. What he did next would rock the regime – and change his life for ever

The house is part of a bland new estate on the western edge of Oxford. In its sparsely furnished living room, the floor littered with toys, a young boy is playing computer games. His mother is making coffee, but his father, though physically present, is mentally a thousand miles away from this mundane scene. He is on his laptop, watching camera-phone footage of an event that has changed his life for ever, and may eventually be seen as the beginning of the end of one of the world’s most pernicious regimes.

The jerky, 47-second clip shows an attractive young woman wearing jeans and sneakers beneath a long black coat. She is outside on a street, and being lowered gently to the ground by two men. One has grey hair tied back in a ponytail. The other is younger and wears a white shirt and jeans.

As she lies on her back, the woman’s brown eyes swivel sideways towards the camera. “Don’t be afraid, Neda. Don’t be afraid,” the older man implores her. Suddenly a stream of dark red blood spurts from her mouth and runs down the side of her face. Then a second stream of blood gushes from her nose, drowning an eye.

There is panic in the voices of those around her. “Stay, Neda. Stay with me!” the first man cries. “Open her mouth. Open her airways,” yells the man in the white shirt as he presses on a wound in her chest in a desperate attempt to save her. Seconds later it is all over. The woman is dead. An onlooker holds out his hands, palms open, in apparent despair and bewilderment.

The woman was, of course, Neda Agha Soltan, the 27-year-old Iranian student shot dead during one of the massive street protests that rocked Tehran following President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s blatantly rigged re-election in June 2009. The man with the ponytail was her music teacher, and the man in the white shirt is Arash Hejazi, 40, a doctor-turned-publisher who is now sitting in his rented house in Oxford watching the video clip.

This thoughtful, softly spoken Iranian has watched the footage 100 times before, and with good reason. He could so easily have left the scene, washed Soltan’s blood from his hands and kept silent. Instead he took a stand. He resolved to let the world know what the regime had done to Soltan, how evil had destroyed innocence. In a forthcoming book, The Gaze of the Gazelle, he reveals how he himself posted the video on the internet within an hour of her death. He recounts how, as the regime did its best to discredit the footage that had ricocheted around the planet and made Soltan a symbol of its barbarity, he fled to Britain and told the world how she had been shot by a government militiaman.

Read the rest of this article here

To someone who knows about the undercurrents of the Iranian society, this simple explanation shows how ignorant the Western media, and probably politicians, are in interpreting what’s really going on in the Middle East and the socio-politico-cultural differences in each country. I have seen more that one ‘political’ analysis or opinion pieces in the media that try in vain to compare the successful rebels or ‘revolutions’ in Egypt and Tunisia to Iran and Syria and Libya, while these comparisons cannot be more relevant than comparing the 1917 Revolution of Russia to the Independence wars of America.

First of all, what happened in Egypt and in Tunisia, could not be categorised as ‘revolution’, as what really happened was a successful process of removing a dictator from power, started by an uprising of the people, and then supported by the West. Had not the US forced Mubarak to leave his seat, it would be a much longer process for people to succeed on their own. The root of Mubarak’s power was the enormous support he received from the US. When the US stopped supporting him, it was just a matter of time when the army removed him from power and took full control over the country. Syria and Libya, on the other hand, received no support from the US and the source of their powers were either Oil, or their complex geopolitical arrangements in the region. This is why, after months of rebellion, uprising and civil wars, we can see no progress towards the fall of the dictators in these two countries, despite all the bloodshed and the courageous stand of the people. A real revolution is identified by a fundamental change in power and organizational structures that takes place in a relatively short period of time. It includes complete change from one constitution to another, or modification of an existing constitution, according to Aristotle. We still haven’t seen a change in constitution in Tunisia and in Egypt, only the removal of one person from power.

Iran is not comparable to any of these countries. For one thing, the system ruling in Iran is not a dictatorship (although it is turning into one); it’s a totalitarian regime ruling in Iran, a system, not a single person. I keep being asked by the journalists that the Iranian people can release a sigh of relief once Ahmadinejad finishes his term as the president in 2013. What they don’t know is that Ahmadinejad holds no real power. No single person does. In the Soviet Union it didn’t really matter if Stalin died. The system was designed in a way to be sustainable for the foreseeable future, and was presumably invincible. The presumption was not far from truth. Only someone from within that system could introduce change, a mission that Gorbachev took on. The people could not defeat the system. For the very same reason, in 2009, the Iranians decided that among the approved candidates for Presidency, Mir-Hussein Mousavi was the only person who had the strength, determination tools for introducing this gradual change into the regime. People united behind him for this very reason, despite their varied ideas about the future regime of Iran.

The people of Iran had already experienced the consequences of a full blown revolution. They have witnessed two successful revolutions: The Constitutional Revolution at 1907, and the Islamic Revolution at 1979. Both resulted in fundamental structural and organisational change as well as transition to new constitutions. However, the new regimes that replaced the previous regimes proved a ‘revolution’ to be a poor resolution for the abolishing tyranny. The 1907 revolution resulted in the reign of terror started by a dictator, Reza Shah (who came to power aided by the British), who abolished the new-born democracy in Iran for nearly 70 years. The 1979 revolution resulted in the establishment of the Islamic Republic of Iran, one of the cruelest and most suppressive totalitarian regimes the world has ever seen.

When the people of Iran who had united under the Green Movement to reclaim their votes were brutally suppressed and the international community did nothing concrete to support them, they realised that their hopes for gradual change had come to nought. Now they were facing another dilemma, if there were no hopes for the gradual opening within the context of the Islamic Republic, how could this system be replaced with a liberal-democratic regime in the most peaceful way?

Revolution wasn’t the answer, as it would incur unspeakable bloodshed: The regime has all the military power, the wealth, the bargaining tools with the world, and all the media outlets. On the other side, the only tool that the people have in their hands, peaceful demonstrations and civil disobedience, have proven to be ineffective in the short-term against an armed-to-the-teeth regime that follows no ethical or moral values and considers any disobedience and dissent as treason, punishable by death on the spot, torture, long-term imprisonment, and execution without fair trials. The international community hasn’t been supportive either. All the sanctions imposed on Iran has been fruitless in stopping Iran from pursuing its nuclear ambitions, and still, the Iranian oil is too precious to the western world to be sanctioned. The oil provides the regime with almost all of the budget it needs to suppress its own people and to sponsor terror around the world.

A few weeks ago, a prisoner attending her father’s funeral was beaten to death in front of peoples’ eyes; a week later, a political prisoner on hunger strike in protest to the crime, was beaten to death inside the prison. Right now, there are 12 Iranian political prisoners on hunger strike. The government of Iran is ready to go the full distance, as it feels that there are no consequences for what they do: ‘Let these 12 prisoners die too, who really cares in the world, or if they do care, what can they really do? They still want our oil, and as long as they do, they will work with us, no matter what.’

On the other hand, Ahmadinejad, once the favourite of Ayatollah Khamenei, the Supreme Leader of Iran, has now apparently fallen out of favour, after disobeying a few direct orders from the Leader. The Supreme Leader cannot even tolerate the empowerment of his own puppet president and let him run the country. The Parliament is now closing down on Ahmadinejad, and the direction of the events implies a rapid transition from a totalitarian regime to a dictatorship: Ayatollah Khamenei wants to hold all the power, something unprecedented in the past 32 years, when the power was balanced between a few who would do anything to support the regime despite their variety of opinion.

This is why the Iranian people have now decided to slow the movement down, and take it to a deeper layer. The social media are still their only way of communication, where you can see real polyphony among Iranians. The people in Egypt wanted Mubarak to go and were united under this single slogan. The people of Iran want a democratic, liberal, and economically dynamic society, and before fighting to achieve it, they are debating it, so when the right time comes, they all understand democracy and freedom in its truest sense. This reflects the maturity of a nation who does not act on impulses, but on intellect; a nation who is closely observing the events, and preparing itself. Let’s hope that everything will work out fine for the Egyptians and Tunisians, but when change comes to Iran, it will be real and intrinsic change, not a short-term facelift.

Sorry but I write with translator, my name is Romina, I am writing from Italy (ancona-marche). I read the book In the Eyes of the Gazelle (the Gaze of the Gazelle: Negli occhi della gazzella), it was so beautiful!
I tried to understand better what you meant, jihad, Basij, imams, mullahs, jinn, Shari’a, Tudeh and other terms … I have seen many pictures, women with hijab, your wonderful mountains, the lights of Tehran in the evening, the moon, the stars, Iran is really a beautiful world!
I found pictures of Neda when she died, and I have them saved on my PC, sometimes I look at those beautiful eyes that only the Iranian women have … Her smile is forever caught in the middle, then it’s your book, which hit my soul, I would like to thank you for the gift that you gave me, your story, your writing about your life, your emotions … I can never forget!
I thank you very much for what imprinted on my heart!
I’m talking to my friends about your work, I would like to share this excitement with them!
I hug you my friend!
with great affection
Romi

Thank you for making me appreciate my freedom…

Thank you Arash, I want to thank you for making me appreciate my freedom to be and do whatever I want and feel. Thank you for letting me know lot of things about your beautiful country. Thank you for letting me know about the story of your country, of its culture through the innocent but critic eyes of a little smart boy, of an adolescent and of a young man as you was and I am. Thank you for letting me knowing Neda, the Voice of freedom. Last but not least thank you for letting me cry, on a plane, reading the last page of your beautiful book “The Gaze of the Gazelle” just few hours ago, reading words of hope for the present.

Nothing personal just wanted you to know how much you impressed me with your words. Again thank you

Damiano

s

Anthony Thomas’s film tells Neda’s personal story and attempts to find out who this young woman was, how she became a powerful symbol to millions and what she was fighting for.

The film not only shows the plight of the Iranian citizens who peacefully fought to free their country from its current government regime, but also the ongoing struggle the women of Iran face every day in an attempt to live a life free from oppression.

The only way to get to the heart of the story was to work inside Iran, at a time when foreign film-makers are forbidden entry, and Iranians themselves risk arrest and long-term imprisonment if caught filming without official approval.

The film won the Foreign Press Association’s Best TV Feature/ Documentary Award and was among 2011′s Peabody Awards winners list.

Read More

Iranian activist dies in scuffle at her father’s funeral

Haleh Sahabi, daughter of veteran dissident Ezatollah Sahabi, reportedly clashed with security forces

guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 1 June 2011 11.18 BST

Dal suo rifugio a Londra parla ilmedico che cercò di salvare la studentessa-simbolo della rivolta iraniana. E che trovò il coraggio graziea Paolo Coelho

di Emanuela Zuccalà, Io Dona, 20 May 2011

UNA RAGAZZA A TERRA, il volto percorso da rivoli di sangue scuro. Due uomini tentanodi rianimarla. Uno urla: “Resta con me!”. Le grida della folla crescono tragiche e confuse. Era il 20 giugno 2009: a Teheran milioni di persone manifestavano contro i brogli elettorali, che avevano portato alla vittoria del presidente Mahmud Ahmadinejad sull’avversario riformista Mir-Hossein Mousavi. Neda Soltani, 26 anni, studentessa di Filosofia freddata da un miliziano, diventava il simbolo dei giovani iraniani affamati di libertà. La sua morte in diretta, ripresa da un telefonino, si diffondeva per il globo attraverso YouTube: un documento eccezionale, che rivelava senza filtri la brutalità del regime iraniano. A metterlo online era stato lo stesso uomo in camicia bianca che nel video cerca di salvare Neda. E che adesso siede di fronte a me in un appartamento di Londra.

Read  the Rest of the Interview Here

‘Read the rest of the article in PDF here: ‘You Don’t Deserve to Be Published: Censorship in Iran’

Censorship is as old as human intellect. It has been practised in almost every country at some level throughout history: from 399 BC, when Socrates was forced to drink poison, to the horrors of the Inquisition, and the oficial coining of the concept with the publication of Index Librorum Prohibitorum by the Roman Catholic Church; from the obligation of English publishers to register their books with the Stationers’ Company in the 16th century until the case of D. H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover; and the Nazi book-burning campaign and the absolute offfijicial control of the governments of the USSR, China, and Eastern European countries over published material.
It has always been a highly controversial issue as well, especially since Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) requested the member states of the UN to enforce freedom of speech in their countries. The concept of censorship has been defijined by various authors and organizations, but no agreed defijinition has yet been given; therefore the term covers a wide range of activities which sometimes overlap with other concepts, such as moderation, regulation, sensitivity, and intervention. However, for the purpose of this research, the term censorship only refers to restrictions imposed by an authority or authoritative body on a creative work, which impedes the availability of the original work to its potential audience prior to or after its publication, or forces the creator to modify or omit parts or all of the work against their free will. Therefore,
editorial intervention does not fijit the criteria, as it can be prevented by the free will of the author. The only exception is self-censorship which can be categorized under censorship by fear; one of the most powerful restrictive tools which may have the power to act as an authoritative body, inflicted by conditions outside the author’s control.
The importance of addressing censorship as an issue becomes more evident when considering that, despite the abolition of most of the traditional and historical tools for imposing restrictions on freedom of speech by the coming of information technology and the internet revolution, it is still being practised, and controls a wide range of the mind’s expressions, including books.
Therefore, it seems that raising awareness towards the consequences of censorship has never been more important since the Enlightenment, and the censorship practised in Iran today is a good example…

‘Read the rest of the article in PDF here: ‘You Don’t Deserve to Be Published: Censorship in Iran’

This article is being republished on the author’s official website according to the rights retained by the author for self-archiving. Republishing or reusing this article without prior consent from the Publisher is strictly forbidden.

The highlights of General Roozbahani’s interview with Aftabnews on Monday 09 May:

- The police will enter the war with West’s cultural invasion and moral corruption with all its might.

- We will strictly prohibit dog-walking after the legistlation is passed through the parliament. Dogs creat insecurity for the citizens and sometimes they bark!

- Not observing the Islamic Hijab (cover) is against the civil rights.

- The usage of satellite dishes has created problems for the country and is against the civil rights.

I am having a very sincere and straightforward interview with my shadow, or he is interviewing me; the excuse being the imminent release of my memoirs, the Gaze of the Gazelle. This is neither stunt or satire; but an attempt to organize my never-ending internal monologue and controversies. I’m trying to gain the courage to ask myself the questions I have always had in the back of my mind, but never dared to answer. No interviewer in the world could find out about these darkest corners of my mind and ask the relevant questions, so the task is up to me. Why made it public, I want witnesses, so I can’t deceive myself. This is going to be a very long interview, in my attempt to rediscover myself.

The background and the book
The Gaze of the Gazelle: The Story of a Generation
By Arash Hejazi
408 pages,  5 x 8
ISBN: 9781906497903
Seagull Books, April 2011

On 20 June 2009, during demonstrations to protest the fraudulent presidential election in Iran, a young girl called Neda was shot to death in the streets of Tehran. Within hours, the video footage of her death, fortuitously captured on a roving camera-phone, had circled the globe. Outside the country, the incident was a nine-day wonder; in Iran it changed the course of politics for a new generation.
It was also the moment of choice for the young doctor who had tried and failed to save her. Within days he had left Iran to tell the world the story the government was denying: Neda had died at the hands of the pro-government militia. After this, any chance of returning home was gone; Arash Hejazi, author and publisher himself became a target.

But as Paulo Coelho, author of The Alchemist, writes in the introduction to his friend’s book: ‘Arash’s story is not summarised in that moment; now he has to tell the story of that generation.’ The Gaze of the Gazelle is that story.

In a tale that mingles politics and the personal, mythology and history, he tries to answer the question ‘How did it come to this?’ His quest for an answer tells the story of the years since the Iranian Revolution brought Ayatollah Khomeini back from exile to drive the Shah from his peacock throne and set up the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Against the background of Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Iran and the prolonged and dirty war that followed, the author interweaves his own story and that of his family and friends with the machinations of mullahs and the manoeuvres of politicians who seek to control their lives. The joy of revolution turns to the sorrow of loss: of friends and family at the front and in the prisons of the regime, of hope in the future. And of the determination of a new generation to recover that hope in the name of Neda, who gave her life in pursuit of a freer and better world.

An interview with my shadow, or my shadow’s interview with me

29/03/2011

Q: You are only forty. Isn’t it too early to write your memoirs?
A: A phase in my life is over. Yes, it might be too early, or not. I’m one of those people who, unlike many others, wish they could live forever. I have never had a death wish. But on 25 June 2009, five days after Neda’s murdrer, when I finally spoke up about her death and how she was shot by an Iranian government’s militiaman, I realized that I may never be able to go back to Iran. That part of my life was over. I was an exile. Two things might happen to exiles: They might cling on to the past and never move on, never get engaged in their new society, and are trapped in a purgatory for the rest of their lives, or they are brave enough to move on, learn the new language, get used to the costumes and the nature of the new society, in which case their memories from their previous life will gradually fade away. They try to remember, but their minds betray them, as a mind cannot bear two lives. One has to be no more than snapshots, pictures on the wall, not a living thing. You are only allowed to live one life and you have to mummify the other one. You are not authorized to ‘live’ it. The first group of exiles choose their previous lives and become mummies themselves. The second group choose the new life and decide to live with the fact that their previous lives are gone.
But I couldn’t live in the purgatory, nor could I give up my past. A man without a past is a man without feet, and without feet, how can you walk towards your future? You can crawl, maybe, as the mind, this brutal sponsor of the journey, will not equip you with wheelchairs.
I wrote my memoirs, so I could always remember, and even if my memories started to fade, there would be people who would read my memoirs, and there could be a few, who would keep my memories, which are the memories of a generation, alive. Then I could move on. I could start living again, without the fear of losing the past. I could enjoy my surroundings, the new way of life, the new language, traditions, or the modernity.

Q: But REALLY? Is this the only reason you wrote them?
A: I was sad. I was extremely sad. I had to do something. I thought if I went through everything again, I might find something that would help me keep going on. I was lost. I had to go back to the beginning, to see where I could find my Ariadne’s thread again.

Q: And did you find it?
A: I definitely did.

Q: And what was it that helped you?
A: Rocky Balboa.

Q: Rocky, Silvester Stallone?
A: Yes.

Q: How?!
A: It was the first smuggled film I saw on the video-player we bought from the black market. I was 15, and I had lost my way then, too.

Q: And how did Rocky help you?
A: It might sound ridiculous. After reading tons of high-bro literature and pearls of wisdom, Rocky was the only one who really helped me. I watched and watched, I don’t know how many times. I became angry that Apollo won the match on points, although Rocky had fought so hard, until I discovered the truth. It wasn’t the winning itself that Rocky was after. Not being knocked out for one more round was his ambition. That was what I had to do. I had to make sure that I wasn’t going to be knocked out. What happened after wasn’t important.

Q: Ok, so you dug into your past on a self-rediscovery journey. But why do you think the world needed to know about your journey?
A: It wasn’t only my story. It was the story of my generation.

Q: And who made you the representative of your generation?
A: No one. But I had the means to tell the story. I could write, I could get it published. When the my current agent approached me, I was half way through the book, and then I thought, ok, the world had seen the videos, the news headlines, and photos coming out of Iran during the protests, they had been shocked by the eyes of Neda staring into the camera just before she died, but they never had the chance to really understand what was happening there. What was it that took those young men and women into the streets, ready to give up their lives. It wasn’t just because of the rigged election. There was a story behind those eyes, and I felt compelled to write about it, and I felt that I owed Neda to tell the story of our generation.

Q: And you thought you were the right person to do it?
A: Yes. I believe in myself. I love writing and no one can stop me from writing. After speaking up about Neda, the government of Iran seized my assets, shot down my publishing house in Iran, banned my books, prosecuted me, and tried to accuse me of treason. But they couldn’t stop me from speaking up. They couldn’t stop me from writing. And I had to make sure that I wasn’t going to be knocked out in this round. The rest was up to the publishers. If they liked my book, they would go for it. If not, at least I hadn’t been knocked out and I was ready for the next round.

ًQ: But tell me the real reason.
A: Why don’t you stop repeating the same question over and over again?! I told you the reason.

Q: Yes you did. But what’s the real reason for someone at forty, sitting down and writing about his past.
A: OK, I was bleeding. I was wounded. The bullet that pierced Neda’s chest took her life away, but ripped my life apart. She stared into my eyes and died. She couldn’t say anything. But it was as if she was telling me: ‘Do something!’ and I couldn’t do anything. Those eyes are following me wherever I go. Those eyes keep my heart bleeding. I lied when I said that memories fade away. Some don’t. A few years ago I saw the film Memento by Christopher Nolan. There, Guy Pearce has lost his short-term memory after a blow to his head, during an attack on himself and his wife, during which his wife is killed. The last thing he remembers is the look on her wife’s face, while life is slipping away from her body. From then on, his brain cannot keep short-term memories, so time does not pass from the horrible moment. The memory doesn’t fade away, so he can’t heal.
I couldn’t heal. The memory of those eyes did not leave me. They haunted me, asking me to ‘do something’. I spoke up about her, thinking that she will leave me. I talked to BBC, The Times and other media, when I realised that the Iranian government was trying to conceal her death and then blame it on foreign service. But she still didn’t leave me. I had to do something else, or else I would have bled to death myself. So I wrote, and when I wrote, I felt better, and the eyes became kinder, and the bleeding stopped whenever I resumed writing. She wanted me to tell her story, the story of the generation, she wanted me to tell how it came to that moment… I wrote, because I was in pain, and telling the story eased the pain.

30/03/2011

Q: What do you miss most about your homeland?

A lot of things. The desert for one thing. I miss the burning sun and the yellow sands, I miss watching the horizon and spotless blue sky, where I felt I was part of a magic. Where at nights you felt that you could reach the stars just by lifting your hand. An the mountain as well. There are not mountains in England. The view of the mountains reaching the heavens, with all the mystical and mythical lore surrounding the Mountains Alborz, I felt that I was a mythical hero myself. The mountain alborz is the home of the legend of Arash the Archer, the abode of Mithra, the Iranian God of light and promises, and wher the prophet-king Kay Khusro disappeared. Paradoxically, it is also where the embodiment of evil on Earth in Iranian myths, King Zahak, is chained, waiting for his time to be released and devour the world. I miss Alborz a lot.

There other things that I miss, the feeling that I belonged to a society. Here in exile, I am living with the society, but I don’t feel I belong to it. It is like watching a fascinating 3D movie, but no matter how hard you and the producers try to give you a real-life experience, you are not part of the cast or crew, you are a visitor. I miss the feeling of being one of the living cells in a society.

I miss the Iranian jokes as well, I must say. The darkest humour in the world.

Q: This is too cliche. Isn’t there an original thing you miss?

Well, that’s how I fee. the family and friends?

Q: You don’t need to be an exile to miss your family and friends.

I suppose you are right.  Let me see… To be fair, I was a successful author in Iran. I miss my readers, although they still write to me all the time. I miss the Tehran Book Fair, but the government destroyed  the spirit of it a couple of years before I was forced into exile. I think the most important think I miss, is the joy of living in Iran. It’s a fascinating country, and most importantly, you can never know what to expect from your tomorrow. It’s quite different here; everything is predicted, everything is planned for. In the West you live in a democracy, but are ruled by the norms of the society. In Iran you live under a tyranny, but you have all the freedom to push the boundries. You become much more courageous in Iran, and therefore you experience the true essence of human feelings: fear, joy, hope. I have yet to rediscover these feelings here in exile.

TO BE CONTINUED. CHECK THE SAME SPACE

The reports claim that live bullets were used to control the prisoners which led to 80-150 casualties.

All the communication between the prisoners and outside has been cut off.