{"id":3274,"date":"2010-09-22T03:08:05","date_gmt":"2010-09-22T10:08:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cyrusfarivar.com\/blog\/?p=3274"},"modified":"2010-09-22T03:08:05","modified_gmt":"2010-09-22T10:08:05","slug":"hossein-derakhshans-mother-speaks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cyrusfarivar.com\/blog\/2010\/09\/22\/hossein-derakhshans-mother-speaks\/","title":{"rendered":"Hossein Derakhshan’s mother speaks"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/center><\/a><\/p>\n

Editor’s Note: This is a English translation of an interview originally done in Persian by Kamtarin<\/a>, published on September 21, 2010. I did not translate this interview myself, nor have I been in direct contact with Kamtarin nor Ozra Kiarashpour, Hossein’s mother, but my Derakhshan family source did confirm the authenticity of this interview and the accuracy of the translation.<\/p>\n

—BEGIN TRANSLATION—<\/p>\n

Salman, a writer with the website Kamtarin, conducted an interview with Ozra Kiarashpour, the mother of Hossein Derakhshan about her son\u2019s situation:<\/p>\n

Hello Ms. Derakhshan, thank you for agreeing to the interview with us.<\/b><\/p>\n

Hello, I really don\u2019t know what will help Hossein and what will harm him, and the only thing I can do is to pray for him. These days I am really bewildered and so is Hossein\u2019s poor dad.<\/p>\n

How is Hossein doing psychologically these days?<\/b><\/p>\n

He is extremely overwhelmed and listless. He seems really depressed. He is really tired of being in limbo, being in jail, and being alone for two years. He says he spends most of the day sleeping.<\/p>\n

He recently requested to at least be transferred to the general ward but instead they agreed to move him to a different and better room, and potted a rose plant for him.<\/p>\n

Are you able to visit Hossein?<\/b><\/p>\n

For over a year we\u2019ve had routine visitation with him once a week, but during the first eight months of his detention we had no visitation and didn\u2019t know where he was.<\/p>\n

How do the prison authorities behave during your visitation?<\/b><\/p>\n

It depends on who is there on any particular day but the majority of time they are respectful.<\/p>\n

There are still some who doubt that Hossein is in Prison and there were even some who were saying that Hossein is staying at a villa in Zafaraniya [a wealthy area of Tehran] where he is helping the government. Don\u2019t you think the reason for these rumors is linked to the fact that you haven\u2019t really dealt with the media?<\/p>\n

I pray that those people never have to endure the pain that we are going through. During the early months of Hossein\u2019s detention we were very confused, didn\u2019t know what was going on, and didn\u2019t know what we should do. On the one hand, Hossein had requested that we not speak to foreign media. And the domestic media wasn\u2019t interested in us. Even with all of this, Hossein\u2019s father and I wrote a letter to the Head of the Judiciary that was published in a number of places. <\/p>\n

And once the air cleared a bit, my daughter set up a blog to provide information about Hossein\u2019s situation. These two years have been very difficult for us. Hossein\u2019s father had several cardiac episodes. At the time when they told Hossein that his father had had a heart attack, he wasn\u2019t allowed to use the phone. My child cried so much and blamed himself so much, which was even more painful for Hossein\u2019s father and I. But we didn\u2019t even tell Hossein that his father was upset because half of what upset Hossein in prison has to do with us.<\/p>\n

You wrote a post for the blog that you said was called \u201cJustice for Hossein Derakhshan,\u201d are you familiar with blogging and with computers?<\/b><\/p>\n

Since my children are often traveling abroad, I have to use the Internet as a means of communication. Could it be possible that I know nothing about blogging? The truth is that Hossein used to talk our heads off about blogging. All that we are suffering unfortunately started with Hossein\u2019s blogging.<\/p>\n

Had Hossein come to Iran by invitation of the government?<\/b><\/p>\n

Hossein had had some conversations with Press TV about working in their Tehran office. Even during the days before his arrest, he would sometimes go to their office since we didn\u2019t have high speed internet at home. Before his return to Iran, the High Council of Iranian Affairs Abroad promised Hossein that his trip would be without problem. He had cleared his trip with this Council which is governmental and which is in contact with the Intelligence service. That\u2019s why even though Hossein knew that they would call him to be questioned, he did not expect to be arrested like this and hadn\u2019t told us what to do in case he was arrested. <\/p>\n

A representative from the Council told us that they pursued his case on behalf of the Council but that unfortunately they couldn\u2019t do anything further. Why are there such splits in the country\u2019s security apparatus?<\/p>\n

Is Hossein accused of espionage?<\/b><\/p>\n

Absolutely not, I don\u2019t know how these people who constantly accuse Hossein of these things can live with their own conscience. If Hossein is a spy and had a security project, then why hasn\u2019t the documentation for this turned up anywhere? And why wasn\u2019t espionage part of Hossein\u2019s charges?<\/p>\n

What do you think the Judge\u2019s ruling will be?<\/b><\/p>\n

We can\u2019t do anything about the judge\u2019s ruling except to pray since other than God no one knows what the future will bring. The prosecutor has asked for the severest sentence possible to punish Hossein and to make an example of him. As Hossein\u2019s mother, and not as someone whose family has sacrificed much for the sake of the Revolution, I want to ask why are they making an example of Hossein rather than making a role model of him? He is someone who repented and returned to serve his country and is ready to criticize his past thoughts and actions. Are you making an example to prove to people that repenting is useless? To show that supporting the ruling system will have this outcome? All these years, this family has been a steadfast supporter of this ruling system, and Hossein is one of us. It is not fair that you should punish him so severely for honestly conveying his life experiences over these years.<\/p>\n

If Hossein is freed, will he leave Iran?<\/b><\/p>\n

Hossein had grown really tired of living abroad and even now to make us feel better he says, I may have been in prison these past two years in Iran but before that I was in prison abroad.<\/p>\n

Thank you for the interview, we hope that Hossein\u2019s situation is resolved soon.<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Editor’s Note: This is a English translation of an interview originally done in Persian by Kamtarin, published on September 21, 2010. I did not translate this interview myself, nor have I been in direct contact with Kamtarin nor Ozra Kiarashpour, Hossein’s mother, but my Derakhshan family source did confirm the authenticity of this interview and the accuracy of the translation. —BEGIN TRANSLATION— Salman, a writer with the website Kamtarin, conducted an interview with Ozra Kiarashpour, the mother of Hossein Derakhshan…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"aside","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[84,96],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3274","post","type-post","status-publish","format-aside","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-hossein-derakhshan","category-iran","post_format-post-format-aside"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/cyrusfarivar.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/09\/29272694_f4e6882928_z.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4uks-QO","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cyrusfarivar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3274","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cyrusfarivar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cyrusfarivar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cyrusfarivar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cyrusfarivar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3274"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cyrusfarivar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3274\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cyrusfarivar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cyrusfarivar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3274"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cyrusfarivar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3274"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cyrusfarivar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3274"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}