Testimony of Maryam Jalili, Christian Citizen: From Life and Evin Prison Detention to Migration to America
Maryam Jalili, a Christian citizen, testified about her life, imprisonment in Evin Prison, and migration to America in an interview.
Maryam, born in 1343, in an interview with the organization “Article 18” and confirmed on 17 Mordad 1403 by her, testified about her life and the time she was imprisoned in Evin Prison. Her testimony concerns the suffering she endured before believing in Jesus Christ and the conditions she faced in prison, during which she spoke with many people, including Bahai individuals, lawyers, and political prisoners who were her cellmates, about Jesus Christ and her faith.
The aforementioned interview, prepared by the organization “Article 18,” is presented below:
“I am Maryam, born in 1343 in the city of Nishapur. My name is Maryam and I was born in 1343 in the city of Nishapur. I had four sisters and two brothers. My father was a military officer and for this reason was very strict in raising his children. Our home was like a military barracks. I wanted to get away from the home environment, so I decided to marry the first suitor. At the age of 13, I married one of my mother’s relatives, and my first son was born when I was 15 years old. When I was seventeen, my son suddenly developed meningitis, and this disease led to his death. This incident was very painful for me. I could not understand why my son was born and died. Many questions occupied my mind. In privacy, I asked God: ‘You knew my son would die, so why did you give him to us at all if you were going to take him?’ A few years later, at the age of 21, I had another child and gave birth to my second son.
When I was 38 years old, my sister Farzaneh, who was 26 at the time and had a three-year-old daughter named Hasti, along with her husband and daughter, were returning from a recreational trip to the city of Nishapur to attend a wedding ceremony of my brother and sister, which was held on one night. Near Nishapur, they had a terrible accident that resulted in the death of my sister.
Farzaneh’s death was the second fatal blow for me. In the mortuary, with cries and tears, I asked God: ‘Why did Farzaneh die at this age? What will happen to her three-year-old daughter?’ For a long time, I had many questions about God’s justice and wisdom in my mind, and because I had no answers to them, they tormented me. I was very confused and restless. I participated in many Islamic gatherings and sessions, but I found no comfort.
I read the book “Four Works of Florence Scovel Shinn” and found the references it made to the Bible interesting. One of my relatives was studying English literature at the university. I realized that some of their lessons included studying the Bible in English. I became curious and on the fifth day of Ramadan 1383, I asked him questions about Christianity and the Bible. He read this passage from the Gospel to me: “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” (Matthew 11:28) When I heard this verse, my heart found peace. It was as if I had found what I had been searching for for years.
I went from Nishapur to the Protestant Jama’at-e Rabbani Church in Tehran and bought a Persian Bible from the church bookstore. I read the Bible with great enthusiasm and found answers to questions that had occupied my mind for years. I visited the Protestant Jama’at-e Rabbani church bookstore in Tehran several more times and obtained more Bibles and other Christian books. Along with my daughter-in-law Najmeh, we studied the Bible together for 8 months simultaneously.
My father was a member of the board of trustees of the mosque and the charitable foundation of the city. My mother was a woman who regularly made pilgrimage trips and held mourning gatherings in her home. In the midst of this, I too became a Christian. Gradually, I spoke about Christianity with my mother, sisters, brothers, my son, and my daughter-in-law, and in total, 19 members of our family became Christian.
One of my relatives had become Christian before us. He had been arrested by the Ministry of Intelligence a year before speaking with us about Christianity. Although the Ministry of Intelligence had him under surveillance, he came to our house with caution to teach us more about Christian beliefs. We held home church worship services on Fridays.
I had a women’s clothing store and usually worked outside the house from morning to evening. However, I had decided to stay home for a few days for personal prayer and fasting. During those days, we had also put our house up for sale. One morning, around 10 or 11 a.m., the doorbell rang. I answered the intercom. My son said from behind the door: “Mom, they’ve come!” I thought a real estate agent had arrived. I said casually: “Let me get dressed.” My son said again with anxiety: “Mom, I’m telling you they’ve come! They’ve come to take you.” With the opening of the door, five men in civilian clothes entered the house. There was no female officer with them. When they entered, I only then realized they were Ministry of Intelligence agents.
I did not have the knowledge and information to confront security agents, so I did not know I should ask them for a warrant to search the house or for my arrest. They did not show any warrant and searched the entire house for two hours. They even searched the rice bucket and all the freezer drawers. I was amazed by the nature of their search. I had placed a series of Islamic books that I no longer read in the basement of the house. When the agents saw the books, they became very angry and said: “Why did you put these books here? By doing this, you have disrespected Islam’s sacred things.”
After completely searching the house, they asked me to call my husband on the house phone and ask him to come home. After he arrived, they handcuffed both of us and took us with them. They put very tight plastic handcuffs on me. They took me inside the car and asked me to lower my head, and I did not know where they were taking us.
Upon arrival at the detention center, they took me to a solitary cell. The cell was very small and resembled a cage, but the walls between the cells did not reach the ceiling. For this reason, I first heard the voice of my daughter-in-law Najmeh and then the voice of Elaheh singing a worship hymn, and a guard angrily ordered her to be silent. In this way, I learned about the arrest of my other Christian friends.
Around midnight, they took me to the office of the deputy prosecutor, who was a war veteran of the Iran-Iraq War. He said to me: “I know your family and I know what background you come from. I just want to know what happened—you abandoned Islam and became Christian?” While I was crying and talking about God’s love, I told him: “These tears are not from weakness or because I want you to release me. But when I speak about God, my tears flow involuntarily.” In response, he said: “I understand.” I emphasized to him: “My faith is from the heart and even if you put pressure on me, you cannot take my faith away from me. If I die, I will go to my God.” He treated me with great politeness and respect in this meeting.
At one o’clock in the morning, they sent us by van to Vakil-Abad Prison in Mashhad. When we entered the van, I also saw Mojtaba, Elaheh’s brother, who had been arrested. Later, I learned that the Ministry of Intelligence’s operation was in five stages. First, they arrested my daughter-in-law from her father’s house, then went to Mojtaba’s house and arrested him along with his sister Elaheh. Then they came to our house. In total, the agents arrested five people at four different locations.
I had a fearful personality, but God gave me the strength to endure in those circumstances. I had taken a loan from the bank to start the shop. I did not know how long I would be detained and was mostly worried about my obligations and checks. But when I was in the cell, I would pray and sing.
The night before my arrest, my son and daughter-in-law were guests in our house. The interrogator repeated all the conversations we had with each other, and I realized that our conversations in the house had been wiretapped. They asked many questions, for example: “Who gave you the gospel and spoke to you about Christianity for the first time? Are you in contact with foreign countries?” I told them honestly that no one had given me the gospel. I was seeking God; I had not been deceived. God forbid that I would ask God for guidance on my prayer mat and He would deceive me.
The interrogators insisted that “you are a Christian Zionist evangelist. You receive money from the Israeli government and America.” They made many baseless accusations against me. They accused me with such certainty that after my release, I found out that even my brother had believed their accusations against me, that I had received money from the American government because I had spoken about Christianity with people. I did not even know the meaning of evangelism and said that I had not preached to anyone. The interrogator replied: “You spoke about Christianity with your family!” I then realized that they considered this action to be preaching.
I had heard from Christians who had experienced arrest that the Ministry of Intelligence forced Christians to repent and return to Islam before release. I asked God not to put me in this trial, and fortunately, they did not ask me for such a thing. After eight days of interrogation at the Ministry of Intelligence detention center in Mashhad, they asked me for a business license as collateral, and one of my relatives provided this collateral for me.
After my release, we felt terror at home. We were in complete silence because we were afraid our conversations would be bugged. We naively assumed that only our house was under control, and we held church meetings at my sister’s house and sometimes I stayed overnight at her house. Ministry of Intelligence agents contacted my brothers and said: “Tell your sister to leave this city, or we will arrest her again.”
I prayed about this and asked God for guidance, and ultimately went to Isfahan with the father of my children. I thought Nishapur was close to Mashhad and a religious city, but Isfahan, due to the residence of many Armenians, is a city of freedom of thought. After just a few months, my house became a place for holding home church meetings. Among us were old believers living in the city and new believers joining us. In our meetings, we would pray for and with each other and read the Bible.
One day, a woman who had cancer came to our house to attend a meeting. We prayed for her healing in the meeting. Excited that someone had prayed for her, she returned home and happily told her husband, who was a member of the intelligence section of the Isfahan governorate: “Today a person named Maryam prayed for me in her house.” Two or three days later, someone from the intelligence section of the governorate contacted me and said: “You must introduce yourself to the intelligence section of the governorate.”
I was frightened, so I fled from Isfahan to Shiraz and then to Ahvaz. In Ahvaz, I visited Priest Farhad Sabk-Ruh. I also lived in Kermanshah for a while and finally went to Tehran.
In Tehran, I attended meetings at the Protestant Jama’at-e Rabbani church, at the intersection of Taleghani and Quds streets. There I met a Christian named Mitra. Mitra was single and older than me in age. At Mitra’s house, I met a woman from the church named “Zaghgoosh,” one of the teachers of the Protestant Jama’at-e Rabbani church. “Sister Zaghgoosh” taught us Christian theology at her home.
Mitra and I filled our backpacks with Gospels and prayed in parks and streets. We talked to some people about Christianity and gave them Bible books as gifts. Since the church was an open building and meetings were officially held for Persian speakers, we were not afraid.
Christmas 1388 coincided with Ashura and Tasu’a. We decided to celebrate the birth of Christ two days later than the official Christmas date to not disrespect Muslims’ mourning ceremonies. Thus, on Tuesday, December 8, we held a Christmas celebration at the house of a church member named “Farzan” in Pakdasht. A few people from Tehran and a few from Pakdasht gathered together, and our group was about 12 people in total.
Farzan wanted to play the organ and I wanted to read a chapter from the Book of Psalms. Around 5 p.m., the doorbell suddenly rang. Farzan went to open the door, and when he returned, he had loosened his tie and crumpled it in his hands. He said: “They’ve come!” We asked: “What? Who?” He wanted to say “agents,” but at that moment, about 30 agents rushed into the house. Two of the agents were women and the rest were men. One of the agents who treated us roughly carried a gun and a walkie-talkie.
The female agents stood in the corner fully veiled and did nothing. One agent was filming everyone with a camera. Another agent was taking pictures and videos of me with his personal cell phone. I knew this was not legal, so I objected and said: “You have no right to film us with your personal phones.” My objection was futile and he continued his work with very indecent looks. After filming, they told the women: “Come on, put on your headscarves!” They wanted to create evidence through filming our not wearing hijab in a Christian gathering, as grounds for our participation in what they considered an illegal gathering against us.
The agents searched Farzan’s house and confiscated many items, including cell phones and Bibles of all present. Mitra’s mother was about 80 years old. One of the agents asked her: “What is your religion?” She courageously said: “I am a Christian.” The agents’ reaction was a mixture of anger and surprise, but they did not arrest her. However, they arrested the rest of us, who were 9 women and 3 men.
Farzan’s house was at the end of a dead-end alley. The agents handcuffed us and put everyone in a van. The neighbors looked on in wonder. They thought we must have committed a serious crime that agents came in such large numbers with many cars to arrest us.
They first took us to a secret detention center, then Mitra and I were separately taken to our homes in Tehran by two agents in a car. Two agents searched my entire house and confiscated a large number of Bibles, Christian books, and CDs and took them. Two other agents also went with Mitra to her house by car and searched her entire house. From Mitra’s house, they also confiscated her personal Bible and Christian books along with a picture frame of Jesus Christ, family albums, and even her brother’s computer hard drive, then took us back to Pakdasht.
The agents took all 12 of us to an unfinished brick building, the entrance to which was strange and frightening. Violence flashed in the faces of the agents and they constantly threatened us. One agent called out the names of the detainees one by one. My main interrogator “Tehrani” was one of the interrogators of the Ministry of Intelligence of Tehran. He asked me: “Why did you believe in Christ and change your religion?” I explained to him, and it did not take long for him to realize that he could not convince me or force me to return to Islam.
That night, they took us to Pakdasht Police Station. Staying at that police station was the harshest days of detention. Police forces worked there during the day and at night, a number of soldiers would stand guard. This place was in no way a suitable place for female prisoners. I think the police at Pakdasht Police Station were also surprised by our arrival. For this reason, the day after we arrived at that place, a female officer came to organize the room in which we were being held. Overall, the space was not suitable for holding humans.
We women were taken to a very small room. The upper part of the room wall had a window with broken glass, and the cold winter air entered the room. The floor was tile and there was no carpet spread out. For this reason, the floor was very cold and we used a blanket as a mat. There was no heating equipment in the room. They gave us a small blanket and we nine were forced to stick to each other to stay warm with one blanket. The space of the room was so small that we had to sleep side by side.
The room had no lamp and from 4 p.m. when it got dark until the next day’s dawn, we were in complete darkness. We were allowed to go to the restroom twice a day. The restroom was at the end of a hallway that led to our cell. I imagine that restroom had not been used for years. It had a very unpleasant smell, and the water tap, which appeared to be broken, was constantly open with water running from it.
They did not give us food or water; they said if you want water, you must buy it yourself. Most of the young people did not have money. I had a small amount of money in my jacket pocket and we would buy water with it. However, hunger did not bother us because when we entered the police station, we decided to fast. Even if they gave us food, we would not eat it and would keep our fast. They intended to torture and harass us by keeping us in this place and under such conditions.
About three days later, we were taken to Pakdasht Court. The judge spoke to me as the leader of the detainees and asked me some questions, and I answered. At the end, he said: “I do not see any crime or accusation in you.” He pointed to thick books on his desk and said: “I am a man of law. You can ask whatever you want from these books! I can talk to you about them, but I cannot speak about what you said regarding Christianity and your beliefs. However, based on what you have said, I can understand that you have not committed a crime. But you must justify the Ministry of Intelligence agents of Tehran, otherwise from the perspective of Pakdasht court, you have not committed a crime.” He tried to release us and even argued with Ministry of Intelligence agents that “if the crime has occurred within this jurisdiction, you do not have the authority to enter this case, because this is not your security jurisdiction.” But his efforts were unsuccessful.
Women who were younger were frightened and cried. One of them was “Marjan,” who was an employee of Pakdasht City Council. She was single and was afraid that her father and brother would find out about her becoming Christian and her arrest. Pakdasht is a small city and she was afraid of losing honor and notoriety. A day after her arrest, her father and brother were allowed to visit her. Her brother slapped her, and we could hear the sounds of his slaps. Another of the women was married and had two children. In addition to being afraid of losing her honor and notoriety due to arrest, she was also worried about her children. To strengthen each other, during that time we would pray together and sing. One day an interrogator said to me: “We arrested you so you would stop these activities, but I am told that you sing songs here too?” Thinking there was a misunderstanding, I replied to him: “We were singing worship hymns about God. If you want, I can sing them so you can hear them.” He also said in a reproaching tone: “No! That’s not necessary.”
They regularly put us in an old, dirty, worn-out minibus and took us from Pakdasht Police Station to the court building on Mo’allim street to see the prosecutor. They wanted the investigator to issue an indictment for us and then they could transfer us from Pakdasht Police Station to Evin Prison. This was completely illegal, and the investigator at the Tehran court was not willing to issue an order to transfer us from Pakdasht Police Station to Evin Prison.
The interrogator, who went by the alias “Tehrani,” came with us. He knew we were fasting. One day on the way back from Tehran to Pakdasht Police Station, he ordered pizza but no one was willing to eat it. Tehrani became angry and told me: “You are leading them.” I said: “Who am I to lead them? They are fasting by their own choice.”
Finally, the judge “Mashalah Ahmadzadeh” issued an order for our transfer. But before the transfer, the chief judge of Pakdasht court requested that the Ministry of Intelligence agents release us temporarily on his guarantee for one day. In this way, we were temporarily released. We had not bathed for six days and our entire bodies smelled bad. When we got home, we bathed first. The next day, Mitra and I went to the house of Elaheh’s father, who was a lawyer. But at that moment, the chief judge of Pakdasht court called and said: “Intelligence agents have come looking for you. Hurry up and turn yourselves in.” In this way, after six days of detention at Pakdasht Police Station, we were transferred to Evin Prison.
We returned to Pakdasht and introduced ourselves to the court building. From there, we were taken by bus to Tehran and inside the Evin Prison compound. It was night; men and women were separated. We were taken to a room for fingerprinting. The staff there were awakened to conduct our fingerprinting. Tags were hung around our necks and photos of us were taken, then we were taken to a small cell. At that time, due to protests following the 1388 presidential election, many protesting prisoners were detained in Evin Prison, and there was no empty space there.
Interrogations began. I am not a very talkative person, but the interrogation hours were very long in total. One of my interrogations lasted from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m., and my cellmates were worried about me. Once an interrogator said with displeasure: “This won’t work, Ms. Jalili. I tell you what I know, and then you are forced to confess to the same. So, whatever I ask, you must provide complete information.” In Evin Prison, from the voice of my interrogator, I realized he was the same interrogator, Tehrani. Once when he wanted to confide, he said: “We are the nameless soldiers of Imam Zaman. My chest is full of pain. I went to the front and am a war-injured veteran.”
When the interrogation was over, I had to be taken back to my cell blindfolded. So, the interrogator gave me a rolled piece of paper. I had to hold one end and he held the other end. So without holding my hand, he guided me out of the room. Previously, when I was in Vakil-Abad Prison in Mashhad, even a female officer would not hold my hand. I had to hold her chador because she believed I was impure and the moisture from my hands would make her impure.
Each time one of us returned from interrogation, we would ask her about the interrogator’s questions and the answers she had given so that our statements would be consistent. But the interrogators tried to turn us against each other. Creating division is one of the tortuous methods of interrogators. An interrogator had falsely told two of our detained friends: “Poor things! Maryam made anyone Christian for money, and you had financial interests in it.” They had believed this lie.
In the interrogation room, I had to sit on a chair facing the wall, blindfolded and handcuffed. Once I felt the presence of three or four agents behind me in the interrogation room. I was wearing a coat and a chador over my coat. The interrogator shouted “Fix your headscarf! Cover your hair.” I objected: “The chador covers my scarf. How can I bring the chador forward when you’ve handcuffed me?”
They had printed copies from photos from Mitra’s album that they had confiscated from her house. The interrogator showed me the photos and arrogantly said: “You must explain in detail about each person in the photos—who they are, what moral characteristics they have, and what they do.” I told the interrogator: “We saw each other once a week in meetings and do not have much knowledge of them.”
The interrogator said: “Look at the acoustic insulation of the room from under your blindfold and see that part of it is broken. This is where the accused’s head is placed when interrogation because they did not cooperate. If you don’t cooperate either, the same thing will happen to you.” The interrogator angrily told the others in the interrogation room: “If we had properly interrogated her when she was first arrested in Mashhad, she would not be here now.” The interrogator shouted and said: “This place is called Evin; there is no God here. If you don’t cooperate, we know what to do with you.”
The interrogator made many baseless accusations against us. He didn’t even seem to need documents and evidence. He said “You are unruly and have unhealthy sexual relationships with each other” or “You are in contact with foreign countries.” It seemed they were trying to add pages to our file in any way possible to make our file thicker. Another accusation that the interrogator raised was “You held an illegal gathering.” I thought naively that the problem was not having official permission, so I asked: “So if we had gotten permission, you wouldn’t have arrested us?” The interrogator did not answer and just lowered his gaze.
The interrogator frequently used threats. He said: “I’ll put a noose around your neck and pull the chair out from under you myself!” At that time, my son intended to go to Canada to continue his studies. The interrogator even used him to threaten me and said: “We will not allow your son to leave this country.”
One day, the same rough interrogator gave me a paper to write a complete explanation about the names written on the paper or, as it were, to “write a statement.” He who had said “there is no God in Evin” began praying behind me in the interrogation room. I wrote my answers very briefly. During prayer, he glanced at my interrogation paper from behind, and when he saw my brief answers, he struck a thick stack of papers hard on my head and said: “What have you written! You must write it the way I want!”
When we were brought before the judge, I criticized the interrogator’s way of treating me and another person from our group who had been slapped, and said: “Interrogators have no right to disrespect us. We did not commit a sin that we deserve such treatment. An interrogator can voice his objection verbally. Why should he hit me on the head with a stack of papers in his hand, or allow himself to slap the face of one of my sisters.” Again, no one responded to my complaint.
The interrogator did not refrain from cursing and insulting us. One day when I was in interrogation room 209, I heard the interrogator addressing Mitra with very ugly and obscene language. Mitra was in the adjacent room and I could hear the sound of her protest. At that moment I prayed and said: “God, I really don’t want these insults and ugly curses to be directed at me and my ears to hear them.” Fortunately, they did not speak to me with such disrespect.
Another technique of the interrogator was attempting to bribe me. In one of the interrogation sessions, he asked me to spy for them. He explicitly said: “Do you want to get out of prison? It has a condition! You must go to the Protestant Jama’at-e Rabbani church and see who comes and goes and spy on them for us.” I said: “I am not that kind of person at all. I don’t want to do this work and I don’t have the ability to do it anyway. You have many officers and you pay them too; tell them to do this work.”
Some time later, with some other friends, we again decided to fast. During this period, I was taken to the prison office one day. The interrogator said: “Why did you go on a hunger strike? You became the leader of the group, you incite others, and you are forcing everyone to riot.” I said: “I did not go on a hunger strike. I am fasting and I intend to drink only water and tea for 40 days.” After some time, I was taken to the prison office again. The interrogator said: “You went on a hunger strike.” I explained again that I was fasting. This is when he asked me to explain Christian fasting. When he heard that we can drink tea during fasting, he brought me tea and put two pieces of sugar in it to make sure we were not protesting.
Once the interrogator asked: “What do you expect from us?” I said: “Please don’t make Iran another Evin for us. Now that you’ve realized I’m just a simple Christian, please allow us to worship and pray and go to church.” He said: “No! In fact, you should promise me that you will not go to church and will not be in contact with your Christian friends.” In response to him, I said: “I will go to church and I will be in contact with my friends, unless they don’t want to be in contact with me.” He did not answer, and it was as if they could smell the fear. If they realized that you were steadfast in your belief and not afraid, they would back down, but if you were afraid, they would make more noise and threats.
Tehrani asked: “Which church do you want to go to?” I said: “Protestant Jama’at-e Rabbani Church and Nilo Church.” In response, he said: “My heart aches for you! You have truly been misled and taken the wrong path!” I said: “Brother, don’t you say I’ve been misled? Well, pray for me, and I pray for you too, but one day in heaven we will see what each of our places is.”
I asked him to return my notebook and books, but he said: “We want to read your writings so we can get to know your thoughts.” It was clear that they were trying to understand the morale of prisoners and torture them based on their understanding of them. The interrogators had realized that I love solitude and privacy, and the opposite is true for Mitra, who does not like loneliness. For this reason, they took Mitra to solitary confinement and me to a general ward.
The general ward had two floors. The first floor held those with unhealthy sexual relationships or brothel involvement. The second floor held prisoners with financial crimes or those accused of murder. I was on the second floor and in our room were three female inmates serving sentences for murder. A week before my temporary release, Mitra was also taken to the first floor ward. But one of their other tortures was that they did not allow us to be together.
We thought that like the detention period at Pakdasht Police Station, we would be released after a short time. For this reason, we did not bring extra clothes with us. When I went to bathe, I would wash my winter coat and it was difficult to get the water out. Inside the ward, they had made clotheslines between beds with nylon string to hang our clothes on to dry. We were forced to sleep in that damp space. The room had an unpleasant smell. The ward leader was kind and gave me a set of clothes to wear while mine were drying.
During the entire detention, they only allowed me to contact my mother once, and that too in the last days. Most prisoners had to beg, ask, and plead for furlough. Even about getting help from a lawyer, the interrogator would threaten and say: “If you go to a human rights lawyer, your file situation will get worse.”
The bail for each of us was set at 100 million tomans. Mitra’s mother put the deed to her house as collateral for me. We were arrested on 8 Dey and were temporarily released on bail on 27 Esfand 1388. After my release, only Mitra and I remained in contact. Other Christians in our home church were afraid to be in contact with us. During this time, my separation from the father of my children also took place.
The legal proceedings took a very long time. Finally, we were called to Branch 15 of the Islamic Revolutionary Court, which also took several sessions. In court, only Mitra, Farzan, and I were there, and the others had been released. Judge Ahmadzadeh raised many accusations against us. One of our accusations was “undermining national security.” Mitra, who is from Kermanshah, with a sweet Kermanshah accent, told the judge: “Your Honor, I am very sorry that our belief in Christ has undermined your security. Is the security of the country such that the belief of Mitra and Maryam undermines the country’s security?” The judge ignored this and left the innuendo unanswered.
Another accusation against us was “promoting Christianity” or, for example, for Mitra, “having a picture of Jesus Christ” on the wall of her house! I even laughed when I heard these accusations and said: “Is having a picture of Christ a crime?” The judge said: “Everything we take from you Christians is considered evidence of your crime.” In a sentence that was finally issued on 15 Dey 1389 and later served to us, regarding our accusation, it was written: “Discovery of illegal books without ISBN numbers related to the promotion and propagation of Christianity along with video CDs and related films and the installation of cross signs and posters attributed to Jesus Christ on the walls of the house.”
Although we had, in order to respect our Muslim compatriots, held the Christmas celebration with a delay, the judge wrote in the verdict: “The accused two days after Ashura, along with the main members and Muslims attracted to the deviant sect of Christianity, were arrested while holding celebrations and celebrations and teaching the Bible based on the instructions of discipleship pamphlets with inappropriate hijab status in a mixed gathering.” It was clear that their main problem was “promoting Christianity.” The other words and phrases were more to justify their opposition to our work in spreading the Gospel message. For example, all our accusations that were raised in the court session, they categorized under one accusatory heading, and in the court’s judgment, it was written “action against national security through the formation of an illegal group and launching a group to deceive the Muslim community and promote Christianity.” While elsewhere in the same judgment, the official and registered church “Jama’at-e Rabbani,” where we had participated, was described as “one of the main centers of propaganda and preaching of the distorted Christian sect.”
Some time later, we were summoned to court to serve the sentence. We went to the judge’s secretary’s office. The secretary gave us the sentence to read and sign. Based on Article 610 of the Islamic Penal Code, the judge had given each of us 5 years in prison for “assembly and conspiracy” against the security of the system. I asked the secretary to give us a copy of the sentence. He allowed me to make a copy from the sentence and said you have twenty days to appeal the sentence.
We went to the house of Elaheh’s father, a retired lawyer and Mitra’s friend. But when he learned of our accusations, he became frightened and said: “I will not get involved in these troubles and I was not even willing to give us legal advice.”
Mitra, Farzan, and I went to the office of a middle-aged lawyer on Dolat Street in Tehran. The legal fee he requested for representing us was very high. When he saw our surprise, he said: “I don’t want this amount just for myself. I have to give bribes to many people, including the judge, to convince them to change the sentence.” With surprise, we asked: “How do you want to change the judge’s decision?” He pointed to a tree in the street and said: “Even if you worship that tree, the government will not bother you. Only don’t talk to anyone about your faith. I am friends with the judge of your case. I’ll go to his office and whisper in his ear that these people didn’t understand what they were doing; you forgive and pardon them.” We said: “Well, if we’re supposed to say we made a mistake, why should we pay you? We could have done this ourselves. We are not sorry at all and we will not abandon our faith.”
Finally, a lawyer named Mr. Shafiei advised us to write the text of an objection defense. When the lawyer saw the handwritten copy of the sentence that the court secretary had given us, he was surprised. Because in most security cases, documents are not given to the accused. He told us that you can go to various government offices and register your complaint. He also wrote a letter of about one and a half pages to the head of the judiciary, Sadegh Larijani.
In Ordibehesht 1390, the court of cassation held a session in absentia in Branch 36 of the court of cassation of Tehran province. The judge was “Seyyed Ahmad Zargar” and the legal advisor was “Hasan Babai.” The judge rejected our appeal but reduced the prison term by half. In this way, the 5-year sentence was reduced to two and a half years.
Mitra and I decided to go to Evin Prison to serve the two and a half year sentence. Farzan was called separately to serve the sentence. My biggest concern was having a Bible in prison. During that three-month detention period, all our belongings were taken from us, and I was very homesick for my Bible. With the suggestion of Pastor Robert Asarian, one of the leaders of the Protestant Jama’at-e Rabbani church, I brought my Bible with me and put it in my handbag. I also had a small handbag. In my bag, I had clothes, a towel, a sheet, and other necessary items. At the entrance inspection of Evin and the inspection of the administrative hall, only my bag was searched, but my handbag was not searched. I entered the women’s ward. One of the female guards whose shift it was was in her office. She opened my handbag and saw the Bible. She flipped through the book and asked: “What is this?” I said: “Bible!” She made a sign with her eyes at me and then said: “Take it, take it! But whenever I tell you, bring it for me.” Apparently, she did not want her colleague to be aware of this.
During those two and a half years, whenever this female guard’s shift was on duty, my name would be paged. She wanted me to secretly bring my Bible to her office. She would ask her questions about the Bible’s content and I would answer her as much as I could. At the request of that woman, I would secretly place the Bible on a bench in the courtyard. She would pick up the book, read it, and put it back on the bench for me to pick it up. She was very eager to read the Bible and learn more about Christianity. The behavior of the other female officers toward me was also friendly; one of them even asked me to pray for her so she could buy a house.
Besides me and Mitra, another Christian prisoner named “Shahla Rahmati” was also in prison. I spoke about Christianity with many prisoners. With prisoners who were members or supporters of the Mujahedin-e Khalq, Bahais, and others. My cohabitation with Bahais gave me a lot of familiarity with the Bahai religion. “Mahvash Shahryar-Thabit,” one of the Bahai prisoners, wrote a poem in my honor on the occasion of my birthday and gave it to me as a gift. Sometimes I had conversations and discussions with “Faran Hoseini,” a Bahai psychologist, and “Nasrin Sotoudeh.” We read the Bible and talked about it.
After some time when prisoners got some knowledge of me and Mitra, their relationship with us became respectful. For example, in the month of Ramadan, a person named “Kabri,” who was a ward leader, asked me to distribute the iftar (breaking of fast). I knew that according to the traditional view of Islam, anyone who leaves Islam becomes an infidel and is considered impure. I spoke with the ward leader to see if “Mom,” who was one of our cellmates and a believing Muslim middle-aged woman, was willing for me to distribute the food. She spoke with “Mom” and the answer was: “What kind of talk is this! Of course, she can.” Therefore, they agreed that I would distribute the iftar.
“Faezeh Hashemi Rafsanjani,” who was also a member of parliament at one point, was in prison to serve a sentence. During that period, we became somewhat close to each other. I also spoke with her about my Christian faith. Sometimes she had a request or request for prayer, she would come to the side of my bed and say: “Maryam, our God seems to be asleep; thank your God! You tell your Heavenly Father; your Father hears you.” Her requests for prayer were more in the areas of political and social issues.
Through one of the prisoners whose husband was in the men’s ward, I learned that my brother in faith “Farshid Fathi” was in prison. I corresponded secretly with Farshid. During the visits of this female prisoner to her husband, the papers were exchanged between me and Farshid by placing them in socks or shoes. After some time, Farshid brought me a series of Christian books. I gave the books to some trusted prisoners to read. One of them was a young girl in my cell who, after reading the Christian book “Mastering Your Mind, Healing Your Tongue,” wrote large parts of it on paper and taped it to the wall next to her bed. But the duration of keeping the books was not permanent, and I had to return the books to Farshid.
Prisoners were allowed to visit their family once a week. But because my family was not in Tehran, my mother could only visit me once a month. My mother, who was over 60 years old and suffered from chronic knee pain, had to sit on a train for about 12 hours to visit me in Tehran. She would visit me for an hour and return to Nishapur. For this reason, she visited me once every seven months.
Once during a visit, she said: “They arrested Najmeh, your daughter-in-law.” I was very sad about this. Because Najmeh had been arrested with me once before in Nishapur detention. Mitra and I prayed about different topics together and had time for worshiping God together. When Mitra heard the news of Najmeh’s arrest, she prayed with me. Together we prayed for her so that God would protect her faith and she would not be forced to write a repentance statement and sign it.
While Najmeh was in prison, the interrogators greatly humiliated and threatened my son Mostafa. They told him: “You are so dishonorable that you allow your wife to become Christian. You had no dignity to stop your wife.” Mostafa was alone and endured great mental and emotional pressure during that time. My, his father, and now his wife Najmeh were all in prison.
My mother, in one of the visits, told the prison director, Mr. Lawasani: “My other daughter has a wedding. Allow Maryam to come and participate in her sister Farank’s wedding.” Lawasani had also agreed and told my mother that you make a request and we will approve it. My mother told me about this with joy. I told my mother: “They will probably ask for a heavy deposit.” At my mother’s insistence, I wrote the request. One day, Lawasani came to the women’s ward and I went to an office where he was. There were also female officers named Barnji and Khaki in the office. I said: “I had written a request for furlough. My sister’s wedding is near. Will you agree with my request?” He said: “Yes, I’m aware. I will agree with your request on the condition that you be our spy in the women’s ward and bring us information!” I said: “You have cameras and eavesdropping in the ward. You have so many employees in the prison too. What do you want me to do?” He said: “You must do this work.” I replied: “Thank you, I will not do this work.” And then I left the office disappointed.
The prisoners had a series of legitimate demands. I do not have higher education and my essay writing is not good. I prayed and thought a lot and finally wrote a four-page letter to the prosecutor’s office. I ended the letter by writing this phrase: “Is there an ear to listen?” One day my name was paged and I went to the prison office. The prosecutor of Evin, Mr. Dowlatabad, had read my letter and came to the prison. He told me: “You had written that there is an ear ready to listen? I want to tell you that yes, there is an ear ready to listen.” I spoke to him about an Iraqi woman named “Bisma.” Bisma was the manager of one of the large hotels in Baghdad. An Iranian diplomat proposes marriage to her, she comes to Iran. They accuse her of espionage and do not allow her to contact her four older sons in Baghdad. I mentioned her problem, and when I went back to the ward, I found that Bisma was allowed to contact her children.
On the 27th of Shahrivar 1392, about four days before my and Mitra’s release date, at 12 midnight they came to our cell, turned on the light, and said: “Get up, pack your things, you are released.” Mitra and I had not packed our things yet and were not ready. Mitra said with displeasure: “It won’t work this way; you arrest us whenever you want and release us whenever you want. Come on the date set for our release and release us.” The female officer pleaded with us to get ready and leave the prison. She warned: “If you don’t leave, the guard will come and beat you and take you out by force.” At 2:30 a.m., with a soldier, we left the prison. They dropped us off in a taxi in front of Mitra’s house. Fortunately, Mitra had the key and we entered the house. The next morning, when her mother woke up, she was very happy to see us.
For a long time after my release, I was sad and troubled, and the faces of prisoners were in front of my eyes. The quality of prison food was very poor. Of course, during those two and a half years, I was mostly fasting and did not feel hungry. But prisoners sometimes longed for good and varied quality food. Every time I passed by a restaurant or sandwich shop, I remembered their wishes and cried.
Mitra is an athlete and after Faezeh’s release, was in contact with her and they prepared together for volleyball competitions. Faezeh, during the 6 months she was in prison, paid a lot of attention to other prisoners. She provided a few days of rest in a villa for prisoners she knew after their release. Once she also invited me and Mitra. She is a kind-hearted and compassionate woman; my friendship with Faezeh continues to this day.
After my release, the Ministry of Intelligence agents in Nishapur continuously contacted me and said: “You are under surveillance; if you want to do any activity again, we will arrest you again.” I could not go to church and had no permission for any Christian activities. The judicial officer or interrogator in prison would tell me: “Ms. Jalili, you have been arrested twice so far. There is no third time. Suddenly you are walking down the street and a piece of rebar hits your head! Or suddenly a motorcycle hits you.” I still remember all his threats and recall them. I was constantly afraid of passing by buildings under construction because I was afraid they would deliberately throw a piece of rebar on my head.
A few months after my release, someone contacted me and said: “Congratulations on your release from prison. If you want to resume your previous activities, I am the officer responsible for your case.” With this person’s contact, I saw myself in prison. The Tehran file had been closed, but the Nishapur file had not been closed. I think due to some considerations, they did not want the file to go to court.
When I was in prison, Bahai prisoners asked many questions about Christianity. I tried to convey all the information I had from the Bible and my experience with God. But I felt I had little knowledge of the Bible and a desire to study Christian theology. On the occasion of my birthday, Mitra gave me a tablet as a gift. Through Skype, I contacted an experienced Christian teacher and spoke with him about my situation and my desire to study Christian theology. He advised me to leave the country to pursue this goal because the conditions for this were not available in Iran.
I never intended to leave Iran. But I was forced to leave Iran to escape the strict control of Ministry of Intelligence agents and also due to the lack of opportunity to go to church and study Christian theology. In this way, in 1392, I took a train to Turkey.
I became acquainted with a church in the city of Kayseri and its pastor and went to this city. I had legal residence and a visa for three months, and then I applied for asylum. Throughout this entire period, whether in prison or even after that, I had the friendship and support of Mitra. Mitra was a unique and extraordinary friend and sister that God had given me. We have many differences in personality, but in the true sense we are friends with each other.
I thought that during the time I was in prison, no one was thinking of me and no one was praying for me. But when I was in Turkey, through the leader of my church in Kayseri, I learned that the team of Article 18 organization had been active for me and Mitra and was praying. Hearing this made me very happy.
After a few years of being a refugee, I finally moved to America in Shahrivar 1397 and settled in this country. I try to stay in contact with my Christian friends in Iran. They share their problems and difficulties with me; we pray together, and with the help of connections I have in Iran, I send Bibles to my friends.”
Maryam’s testimony as a Christian citizen is one of the most excellent and unique testimonies that many other Christian citizens also have, showing how, when imprisoned in government prisons, God has been with them and miraculously found their freedom from prison and have remained faithful to their service and faith without fear.
