Then They Came for Me
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| Author | Maziar Bahari |
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| Country | Canada |
| Language | English |
| Subject | Family Memoir, Imprisonment, Iran |
| Genre | Biography |
| Publisher | Random House |
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Publication date
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2011 |
| Pages | 384 |
| ISBN | |
Then They Came for Me: A Family's Story of Love, Captivity, and Survival is a memoir by Iranian Canadian journalist Maziar Bahari with Aimee Molloy, chronicling Bahari's family history, and his arrest and 118-day imprisonment following the controversial 2009 Iran presidential election. It was published by Random House in 2011.
Iranian-born but living in the West since college, Bahari is in Iran to cover the 2009 presidential election and staying with his elderly mother in Tehran. He witnesses the massive support, enthusiasm and optimism of the reformist presidential campaign; the outrage and protest of reformist voters after the election results shows their candidate(s) losing by an improbably large margin; and the often brutal crackdown of the regime against the protesters and sometimes innocent bystanders.
Bahari is anxious to get back to London to be with his pregnant fiancée, Paola (who tells him "Come home, Mazi. We need you"), but not worried about running afoul of the Islamic regime as (he thinks) he has all the necessary accreditations and has taken all the recommended precautions to avoid trouble. From his father he has heard harrowing tales of prison torture and misery under the Shah, and he has visited his sister in prison in the 1980s during the early years of the Ayatollah Khomeini regime. When he is arrested on June 21 at his mother's house, Bahari first believes it must be a mistake and he will soon be released.
Bahari is taken to Tehran’s notorious Evin Prison, given a small, bare cell which he leaves only for short exercise periods and much longer interrogation sessions. His arrester and regular interrogator (whom Bahari nicknames "Rosewater" for his fragrance of choice), is a large man who explodes into rage without warning, slapping and beating Bahari, sometimes aggravating his migraine headaches until it feels like his "head was going to explode." Using psychological or "white" torture, Rosewater threatens Bahari with the possibility of "every tactic necessary" to make him talk, including interrogation up to fifteen hours a day for four to six years. Bahari is told he will rot in prison (until the jailers "put your bones in a bag and throw it at your mother's doorstep!"), or is soon to be executed as an example to others (I will make sure you die before Ramadan, Mazi, ... but I will also make sure that I smash your handsome face first). Bahri is assured he was "forgotten" and serving time for people who are laughing at you.' ("There are campaigns for everyone in this prison – even the most unknown of the prisoners – but nothing for you" he laughed). When this turns out not to be the case and he is allowed to call his wife, Rosewater listens in and mocks Bahari's declarations of love to his wife.
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