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'Freedom of Conscience': American Journalist Jailed in Iran Shares Her Story at Moraine Valley

Journalist and author Roxana Saberi recounted her time in an Iranian prison during a visit to Moraine Valley.

One-hundred days in jail on trumped-up espionage charges have left Roxana Saberi “a little over sensitized” to injustice. That she says she recently pacified a mugger with the mere mention of it should surprise no one who is familiar with Evin Prison in Tehran.

“I learned a great deal about myself,” Saberi said Tuesday at , where her book, Between Two Worlds: My Life and Captivity in Iran, is being honored this semester. “I learned about how people in power sometimes want to hold on to that power so much that they’re willing to trample on the rights of other people.”

An American journalist of Iranian and Japanese descent, Saberi moved to Iran in 2003 to experience her father’s birthplace more intimately. Several years later, when theocrats revoked her press credentials, she said she saw an opportunity to write a book about Iran’s cosmopolitan milieu, which has been forced underground since the Islamic Revolution of 1979 and particularly since Mahmoud Ahmadinejad came to power.

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Saberi would eventually write a book, but the topic would change on Jan. 31, 2009, when she was arrested in her apartment by plain-clothed intelligence officers. Seclusion, blind-folded interrogations and threats of execution were too much for her, and in a moment of weakness she made a false confession to spying on behalf of the United States government.

But also too much to bear was the shame of walking free while her conscience stayed forever behind bars, she said. Emboldened by the strength of other female prisoners at Evin and by an outcry of support from the west, she recanted her confession and endured a two-week hunger strike. The Islamic court sentenced her to eight years, but later released her, with supervision, on appeal.

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“True freedom is the freedom of one’s conscience” said Saberi, who now advocates on her website for universal human rights.

Driving the point home, she showed the faces of imprisoned journalists, attorneys, Christians, filmmakers, Bahais—some of whom she had met in and out of Evin—with faces not unlike those in the crowd. Faces like that of Palos Heights resident Peg Bogacz, who described Saberi’s book as “captivating and frightening” for showing how paranoid and fearful Iranian authorities are of everyone around them.

Or like that of a Saint Xavier University professor who identified himself simply as “Ahmad” for fear, he said, of being interrogated or worse upon his next visit to his home country. He writes an English-speaking blog about human rights violations and came to meet Saberi dressed in green, the color of the democratic movement in Iran.

Ahmad said he was glad that Saberi’s example has brought human rights abuses, rather than war and nuclear armament, to the forefront of western news reports about Iran.

Today Saberi lives in New York, where she’s working to finish her original book about Iranian culture. Her website contains links to various petitions against the government’s abuse of power.

“Those of us who have the ability to speak out have a responsibility to do that for those who can’t speak out for themselves, whether they’re on the other side of the world or in our community,” she said.

Before she was released, authorities allegedly promised to find and kill her, making her death look like an accident, if she spoke of her experiences in prison.

With a smiling bravado that persisted through two presentations on separate days she said, “I try not to live in fear because that would be another victory for them.”

Updated at 5:30 p.m. to clarify the date of Saberi's arrest and hunger strike.

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