Tag Iran
By the age of 25, I had a great job, my own import business which I was running on the side, my own apartment, a very good car, and a good group of friends. Life was treating me very well. But then all that changed. In 2009, our president was re-elected, but as most Iranians
In Iran, I had a job as a researcher in Aquatic Animal Health. But opportunities to grow and develop a profile in national and international levels for a female scientist were very limited, so it was always in the back of my mind to leave. Still, when I told my colleagues I was leaving for
The first time we tried to leave Iran was not a success. We paid people smugglers to take us to Turkey. They divided us into two groups and said they would be moving us three days apart. In the first group was my mum, 3 sisters, my uncle and a friend. In the second group
(3/3) In the distance, we could see an island, and then the port of a tiny village. The fisherman had already made a few phone calls along the way and when we got there, after one or two hours, hundreds of people had gathered. They put us in a big room, and police and immigration
(2/3) The next time, there were four big buses full of people, and we drove from Jakarta all the way to Surabaya, which is a 24 hour drive. When we arrived, I actually saw a boat for the first time. It was a scary looking boat, wooden and very old, and it was big –
(1/3) I was involved in the Iranian Green Movement or Persian Spring. We believed in freedom, and were protesting for weeks against what we believed was a rigged election. First, one of my friends got shot by the militia. Then, a few of my friends were arrested, and when you are arrested in Iran, you
In 2006, I fled from Iran to Syria. After I arrived, I was interviewed by the UNHCR and by Australian Immigration, and accepted as a genuine refugee, as were others like me, who were from the persecuted Arab Ahwaz minority group. But after they approved us, we heard nothing from the Australian embassy for at
In Iran, they call it a democracy but it’s more of a dictatorship, and one day, I started protesting about the government’s policies. I knew the risks, but I felt someone had to do it. Finally, it became too dangerous for us to stay in Iran, and we escaped to Indonesia with the help of
Bahá’ís are not allowed to study in Iran, so when I was 19, my brother and I left to study in India. Soon afterwards, the revolution took place in Iran, which meant that it became hard for people to travel in and out of the country. My father was so worried about being separated from
Our whole family was thrown out of Iraq by Saddam Hussein because of my father’s political activism, so I grew up in Iran. But we never felt like we belonged there, and we weren’t given Iranian citizenship, which meant we didn’t have many rights. So,10 years later, my parents decided to go to Syria to