Rosewater Film Released In The UK

Eight years ago, I asked the journalist and filmmaker Maziar Bahari to write a piece for Index on Censorship about his encounter with the intelligence services in Iran. It was one of the best pieces I ever published as editor. In a drily observed and darkly funny article, he described his surreal meetings in Iran with three different agents, who questioned Bahari as he researched a piece for Newsweek on the suppression of civil society in Iran. There is a politeness and even civility in the interrogations in a hotel room, with Bahari even detecting a certain reluctance in their commitment to their job as the agents (who go under the pseudonym “Mr Mohammadi”) to try to find out what he’s doing and whom he’s meeting.

"Mr Mohammadi is responsible for the security of Iran. That includes protecting the values of his government. It's a tough job. It's like    being in charge of Britney Spears's public image. The values change so often that the officials who put former colleagues on trial today are careful not to be incarcerated by the same people tomorrow (who may well have jailed them in the past). Mr Mohammadi's job is to keep the integrity of the regime intact and to stop those who plan to undermine the holy system of the Islamic Republic. But what does undermining mean? And what if it is the government that is doing the undermining (as it does constantly)? These questions seem to puzzle Mr Mohammadi. So he is more than a little paranoid and edgy these days. When he calls you for questioning, you don't know if he's going to charge you with something or seek your advice."

Two years later, Maziar Bahari was arrested while covering the elections in 2009. He was accused of being a spy and detained in Evin Prison. I remembered the article with a chill (“I don't know how Mr Mohammadi will react to my writing about these encounters,” Bahari had written. “Not too happily, I guess. He strongly advised me not to talk about them with anyone”) though well aware that in the midst of the regime’s crackdown on the protests, an article poking fun at its agents was likely to be the least of his troubles. Bahari’s ordeal is now the subject of Jon Stewart’s first film Rosewater, which previews at the Tricyle in a special screening for English PEN on April 19. Bahari had appeared in a skit on the Daily Show just before his arrest and Jon Stewart had taken a special interest in the case. His original plan had been to make the film in Persian and to cast Iranian actors, until Bahari asked him wryly if he actually wanted the film to have an audience.

They were frightening days. Much like the Arab Spring, the Green Movement in 2009 embodied a youthful and moving spirit of rebellion and freedom on the streets, which was brutally suppressed. Unlike most of the other Iranians who were thrown into prison, Bahari at least had the protection of some of the most powerful news organizations in the world, as well as being a Canadian citizen. I vividly remember evening campaign meetings at our mutual friend Malu Halasa’s flat with campaigners, journalists and anxious friends, as well as his pregnant partner Paola, who always appeared remarkably composed at a time of such stress. Newsweek, whom Bahari was working for in Iran, provided exceptional support – a model for any news organization acting for journalists in trouble. Every time I called the indefatigable Nisid Hajari at Newsweek he would be on his way to the UN or the State Department, pulling every string and contact possible to get Bahari out, which included raising his case with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad when he appeared at the UN in New York.

A turning point came when Newsweek’s Fareed Zakaria interviewed Hillary Clinton on CNN and she condemned his treatment. Bahari recalls in his book Then They Came For Me that when the guards came into his cell and addressed him as “Mr Hillary Clinton,” it was the first time he realized that there was a campaign for his release – “I’m not alone” he shouts to himself inwardly. His account of the beatings, torture and interrogations is underscored by the same irony and surrealism as the article he wrote for Index: the guards who deprive him of his basic rights but offer him hair gel; his interrogator, Rosewater, who answers the phone to his wife (“Hi, sweetheart, I can’t talk right now”) as he’s beating Bahari and is obsessed with New Jersey.

After his release, Bahari discovered that he had become a liability for the regime, thanks largely to Newsweek’s ceaseless raising of his case at every opportunity. They finally decided to let him go after Ahmadinejad’s visit to the UN in September. The case should be a lesson to every human rights campaigner and every news organization with journalists to protect: make noise, make trouble, get publicity, raise the case at the highest diplomatic and political levels, use your contacts to gain access to power, never give up. Maziar Bahari now campaigns for press freedom in Iran as well as making films http://en.iranwire.com/

The screening of Rosewater, 19 April, 3pm, will be followed by a Q & A with Maziar Bahari, in discussion with Lindsey Hilsum, Channel 4 News International Editor 

Maziar Bahari is a journalist and documentary maker, as well as the founder of IranWire and Journalism Is Not A Crime, a campaign that raises awareness of Iranian journalists who are unfairly arrested and imprisoned in Iran.

Jo Glanville is Director of English PEN, which runs a Writers at Risk program.

Related Articles: 

The Lessons of Rosewater for all Campaigners

What can be Done for Jailed Journalists Today?: Interview with Nisid Hajari

"Complete Footage of Basij Attack, 2009" by Maziar Bahari

Read Mr Mohammadi's Smile, Maziar Bahari's account of his bizarre meeting with Iranian intelligence agents.